His Million-Dollar Marriage Proposal by Jennifer Hayward

Author:Jennifer Hayward
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2018-09-12T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

“SANTO CIELO.”

Pia shaded her eyes from the bright sunlight slanting through the roof of San Siro stadium as the referee added two minutes to the Americas versus Western Europe game, the teams locked two-two in the tense, bitter rivalry being played in front of eighty thousand screaming fans. “I can’t bear to watch,” her Italian friend groaned. “Valentino is going to be impossibile if this ends in a tie.”

Chiara, thankful for the one and only ally she had, kept her thoughts to herself. She knew how important this game was to Lazzero. Had witnessed how dedicated he was to the REACH charity he supported in Harlem that kept kids off the street and on the court, the cause he was playing for this week. More layers to the man she had so inaccurately assessed at the beginning of all of this.

Who, along with his penchant to care deeply for the things that mattered to him, had a seemingly inexhaustible appetite for social connection if it contributed to the bottom line. The foreign correspondents’ dinner on Saturday, cocktails at the British embassy on Sunday, a dinner meeting with the largest clothing retailer in the world last night at a posh Italian restaurant where they’d consumed wine expensive enough to eat up her entire monthly budget.

Plenty of opportunity for Lazzero to put his hands on her in those supposedly solicitous touches that sent far too much electricity through her body and plenty of opportunity for her to like it far more than she should.

She sank her teeth into her lip as Lazzero took the ball on the sidelines. It had been all business all the time. Which was exactly as it should have been. What she’d signed up for. What she’d asked for. Why then, did she feel so barefoot? Because the way she felt when she was with Lazzero made her feel alive in a way she hadn’t for a very, very long time? Because feeling something felt good?

Her palms damp, her heart pounding, she watched as Lazzero yelled instructions to his teammates, then threw the ball in. Off the Americas team went, roaring down the field. Three neat passes, the final one from Lazzero to Lucca, and the ball was in the net.

The crowd surged to its feet with a mighty roar, Chiara along with it. One last fruitless drive by the Western Europe team and the clock ran out, signaling victory for the Americas. Lazzero, looking utterly nonplussed by his assist in the winning goal, turned and trotted off the field where he and Lucca were enveloped in a melee of congratulations.

Pia groaned. “There goes my chance for romance tonight. You, on the other hand,” she said, tugging on Chiara’s arm, “must go down to the field. It’s La Coppa Estiva tradition to give the winning players a kiss. The television cameras love it.”

Oh, no. Chiara dug her heels in. She was not doing that. But as the other wives and girlfriends filed onto the field, she realized she had no choice.

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