Harlequin Presents July 2016, Box Set 2 of 2 by Miranda Lee

Author:Miranda Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488006258
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

NOT “WILL YOU marry me, Luca?”

Not “I think it makes sense for me to marry you now even though I’ve hated you for a decade and chose your brother over you just a few months ago.”

Not “I need you to save my stepfather from sure financial ruin, so, please, oh, please, won’t you make me your wife?”

No, Sophia Rossi proposed marriage as she did everything else.

Like a charging bull and with the confidence that she could bend, twist or generally command him into doing her bidding. Probably with an adoring smile on his face, and the marble digging into his knees if she could manage it.

Dio, where did the woman’s strength come from?

Luca Conti swallowed his astonishment. Her loyalty in considering this for her family’s sake, when he knew how much she hated him—and with good reason—was admirable. He ignored the thudding slam of his heart against his rib cage—she was a weakness and a regret he’d never quite forgotten—and gave free rein to the riding emotion.

Amusement. Sheer hilarity.

It burst out of him like an engulfing wave of the ocean, like a rising crescendo of music, punching the air out of his throat with its force. There was a knot in his gut. Hand shaking, he wiped his wet cheeks.

What merciful God had granted him this wonderful moment?

For reasons all too Freudian, Luca hated his birthday. Loathed, despised with the hatred of a thousand exploding supernovas. But his self-loathing, as brightly as it flared from time to time, to his brother Leandro’s eternal gratitude, had never overtaken his respect for life.

Over the years he had become better at handling his birthday. There was even a memorable threesome sprinkled through a couple of them. But not one of those miserable thirty birthdays had presented him with a gift like this one.

Just months ago Sophia had chosen Leandro over him to marry.

To see the one woman he had given up years ago—granted, after thoroughly breaking her heart—as his brother’s wife every day would have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. In other words, destination Hell on a direct flight.

He would have had to let the engagement go forward. The wedding itself, probably not.

He’d have seduced her, for sure. He’d have had to do it before the wedding, he remembered telling himself in a drunken haze. Luckily, his—now—sister-in-law Alex had shown up, turned Leandro’s life inside out and spun Luca away from that necessary but destructive course.

And here Sophia was now...proposing marriage to him this time. The woman had balls. He loved her for that if nothing else. “I believe this is the best birthday present I’ve ever received, bella. How the mighty fall. Wait till I—”

He heard the outraged snarl before a filthy word fell from her stiff-lined mouth, and it was like a violin had joined the piano in his head. “If you tell anyone, I’ll cut off—”

He burst out laughing again.

“Go to hell,” she whispered, her petite frame radiating fury. Most of it self-directed, he knew, for Sophia hated betraying any emotion that made her weak.

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