The Italian's Deal for I Do(40)
That night in Navigli hadn’t been an aberration. It had been a foregone conclusion.
He ran his hands down her back, sought out any remaining tension with the sweep of his fingers, kneaded a knot free with a press of his thumbs.
A discreet cough came from behind them. They whirled around in unison to find Alessandra had joined them on the terrace, an amused look plastered across her face. “Sorry, you two, but we need to get started.”
Olivia nodded jerkily, wiping her palm across her mouth. Alessandra went back inside.
“I can’t believe I just did that,” Olivia said, staring at the lipstick on her palm. “Which point were you trying to prove this time, Rocco? That you are irresistible now that the spoiled-goods sign has been lifted from me?”
Anger at himself, at her, welled up inside of him. “Actually, Liv,” he muttered, “I was trying to comfort you. To be there for you. Like it or not, we are in this together.”
Color bled into her cheeks. “A team? I seem to remember you proclaiming me a purchased asset.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “I might have been a bit overbearing. We are marrying now. It would be nice if we can be there for each other. Call a truce to this war of ours.”
She shook her head. “Forgive me if it’s not so easy for me to process your one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turns.”
The bustling movements of the crew moving around inside captured his attention. “They need you in there,” he advised roughly. “Go channel how much you hate me. You’ll do just fine.”
She studied him warily for a moment, then walked back inside. He stayed at the railing. What was wrong with him? He had to stay away from her. But something about Olivia, something about who she was inside, how vulnerable she was, seemed to waltz right past his defenses every time.
And wasn’t that insane? He felt like finding a mirror and double-checking this was still him. Because wasn’t it enough to know Tatum Fitzgerald had torn his steadfast, larger-than-life grandfather in two? Did he even have to question what allowing himself to feel emotion for Olivia would do to him?
He had told himself not to cross the line. Not to let himself feel. Yet he had just crossed so far over the line he couldn’t pretend not to be emotionally involved anymore.
He swore and pushed away from the railing. That absolutely, positively could not happen. Not when Renzo Rialto and the board wanted to eat him alive, and that was the only place his focus should be.
He strode back inside, avoiding the controlled chaos on the set as he headed toward the elevators. He was shutting this thing with Olivia down. Finding another strategy, because this one obviously wasn’t working.
* * *
Olivia watched Rocco disappear into the elevator, her equilibrium smashed to pieces. She had no idea what had just happened. Was Rocco just as confused about his feelings for her as she was of hers for him, or was he just using her again? She was tempted to think he really did care, that what she’d sensed that night in New York was real. But that was dangerous thinking for a woman about to marry him for show. For a woman he was clearly using to regain control of his company.
As for him suddenly asserting they were a team in this? She shook her head as she sank down in the makeup chair. That would be a foolish, foolish thing to believe.
But as she walked back onto the set after her makeup had been repaired, she couldn’t help but remember what Rocco had said. She had once been phenomenal at this. At creating an illusion. It was all in her head. She just had to bear down and do it.
She would never have admitted it, but when Alessandra tried again with that pose of her leaning against a fence with her baby finger in her mouth, the heat from Rocco’s kiss filled her head. And she wondered what would happen if she were ever stupid enough to let him take her to bed.
Complete and total annihilation.
When Alessandra finally put her camera down and announced them finished, Olivia gave her an apprehensive look. “Did you get everything you needed?”
Alessandra quirked a finger at her. “These five shots are worth the day.”
They were, of course, the photos of her leaning against the fence, her finger dangling innocently from her mouth, Rocco’s stamp written all over her. The look on her face stole the breath from her throat.
“Exactly,” Alessandra said with satisfaction. “You look utterly, delectably, madly in love.”
CHAPTER NINE
NEW YORK DURING Fashion Week was a frenetic exercise in seeing and being seen. Anyone who was anyone in the fashion world descended on the city like a swarm of locusts ready to make their mark. Press coverage was massive, celebrity sightings in an already star-encrusted city even more frequent and thousand-dollar bottles of Cristal ran like water in the dozens of warm-up parties held across the metropolis.