Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 1 of 2(185)

Her voice turned bitter.

‘He got it covered up, of course, and no one ever accused him of her death. That’s when it started. By the time I was twelve my father and his doctor were feeding my medication habit. They said I had ADHD—that I was difficult to control. Wilful. That it was for my own good. Then my father started saying things like bi-polar. He was constantly perpetuating a myth of mental uncertainty around me—even to my sister, who always believed that I tried to take my own life.’

‘Did you?’ Luca’s voice was sharp.

Serena shook her head. ‘No. But even though I denied it my sister was programmed by then to believe in my instability just like everyone else. My father even made a pretence of not allowing me to take drugs for the condition—while he was maintaining a steady supply to me through the doctor on his payroll.’

Luca shook his head. ‘But why didn’t you leave when you could?’

Serena pushed down the guilt. She had to start forgiving herself.

‘I couldn’t see a way out. By the time I was sixteen I was living the script my father had written for me years before.’

She reeled off the headlines of the time.

‘I was a wild child. Impossible to tame. Out of control. And I was addicted to prescription drugs... Siena was innocent. The good girl. Even now Siena still retains an innocence I never had. My father played us off against each other. If Siena stepped out of line I got the punishment...never her. She was being groomed as the perfect heiress. I was being groomed as the car crash happening in slow motion.’

Luca’s hands had tightened over hers and it was only then that Serena realised how icy she’d gone.

‘Why haven’t you ever gone to the police about your mother’s death?’

Shame pricked Serena. ‘Who would have believed disgraceful, unstable Serena DePiero? It felt hopeless. I felt hopeless. And in a way I had begun to doubt myself too...had it really happened? Maybe I was dreaming it up? Maybe I was just some vacuous socialite hooked on meds?’

Luca was shaking his head and Serena instantly went colder. She’d been a fool to divulge so much. She pulled her hands back.

‘You don’t believe me.’

Luca’s gaze narrowed and his mouth thinned. ‘Oh, I believe you, all right. It just about makes sense. And I met your father—he was a cold bastard.’ He shook his head. ‘He turned you into an addict, Serena.’

Something fragile and treacherous unfurled inside Serena. Acceptance.

She said huskily, ‘I’m sorry about before. I didn’t want to tell you everything.’

‘So what changed?’

Serena felt as if she was being backed into a corner again, but this time she fought the urge to escape or to push him away. ‘You deserved to know the truth, and I was being less than honest.’

‘Less than honest about what?’

He was going to make her say it.

Serena was captivated by Luca’s gaze. Time seemed to have slowed to a throbbing heartbeat between them. In the same moment she was aware of a giddy rush through her body—a sense of weightlessness. She’d told someone her innermost secrets and the world hadn’t crashed around her.

Serena’s belly swooped and she took a leap into the void. ‘I didn’t want to spend the rest of the night alone. It was just an excuse.’

Luca looked at her and something in his eyes darkened. Desire. He cupped her face in his hands and slanted his mouth over hers in a kiss so light that it broke Serena apart more than the most passionate kisses they’d exchanged.

When he pulled back she kept him close and whispered shakily, ‘Will you stay, Luca?’

She suddenly needed him desperately—needed a way to feel rooted when she might float off altogether and lose touch with the earth.

Luca kissed her mouth again and said throatily, ‘Yes.’

He stood and pulled Serena up with him, and then he bent and scooped her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. Her arms moved around his neck but she couldn’t resist trailing her fingers along his jaw, and then reaching up to press a kiss against the pulse she could see beating under his bronzed skin.

His chest swelled against her breasts and her whole body pulsed with heat and awareness.

He put her down gently by the rumpled bed, where the scent of their bodies lingered in the air, sultry... Even though they’d already made love Serena was trembling as if they hadn’t even touched for the first time.

They came together in a kiss of mutual combustion.

There was no time for Serena to worry about her body letting her down again because she was too feverish for Luca—hands spreading out over his bare chest, nails grazing his nipples, causing him to curse softly. Her hands moved to his trousers, and she unzipped them, freeing his erection. She took him in her hand, relishing the steely strength.