Page 3 of Seduced by Her Fake Husband (The Martinelli Wedding #2)

Chapter Two

L uisa brushed her teeth at the double sink, unable to stop herself from staring at the second toothbrush.

In the home they shared in Florence, she had her own bathroom.

It was the same set-up in those of Gennaro’s other homes she’d stayed at when accompanying him on his work travels these last two years.

Their separate, private spaces were clearly demarcated.

The one time they’d shared a bathroom had been on their short honeymoon.

She’d spent those four days terrified he would breach the agreed boundaries and decide to share her bed too.

She wouldn’t have been able to stop him if he’d been set on having her; he was twice her size and built of solid muscle.

She’d been so hyper-alert in those early days that she’d barely slept a wink.

It had taken weeks to realise he’d no interest in breaching the agreed boundaries and that she could sleep easy.

Gennaro held all the power in their marriage, but he’d never abused it, not in that way.

Maybe it would have been different if he’d desired her, but the only emotion she’d ever elicited from him had been irritation.

He’d needed a temporary wife; her parents had needed the money, and that’s all there was to it.

If he held any residual affection for the girl who’d been a part of his family for so many years and whose heart he’d once touched with a random act of thoughtful kindness, he hid it well.

Had he shared a bathroom with another woman before, even for one night?

She couldn’t imagine it. Gennaro was a solitary creature.

His socialising was, for the most part, business-related.

If he’d sought other women to fulfil his sexual needs since their wedding, he’d been discreet about it, and Luisa quickly pulled her thoughts away from wondering about his sex life because to think about it always made her feel a squidgy kind of sickness.

Teeth clean, she dressed quickly, pulling on the skinny black trousers and red corset-style top she’d taken into the bathroom with her, and tugged up the zip of the top as far as she could get it to go.

She looked at her reflection from all angles and rued that she’d become accustomed to having female staff available in Gennaro’s home to help her deal with little things like zips.

Thankfully, her parents and sister had arrived and would be meeting them for dinner.

She would get Marisa to pull the zip up properly.

She stepped back into an empty suite. Gennaro was on the balcony, his back to her, looking out at the seascape. She slid the glass door open enough to say, “The bathroom’s free.”

He nodded acknowledgement but didn’t turn to face her. It was a snub she’d been on the receiving end of so many times in their two years together that she really should have become immune to it, not sit at the dressing table and open her makeup bag imagining herself throwing a vase at him.

He slipped back into the suite and into the bathroom without a word.

Alone, Luisa stared at her reflection and took a deep breath.

It was time to put on her war paint, just as she’d done for every function they’d attended together.

Except she’d always applied her war paint in the privacy of her own room and without the sound of the shower running telling her that Gennaro must be standing beneath it. Must be naked...

Another deep breath and a tight squeeze of her eyes to drive the image out, and she got to work.

Her moisturiser already on, she primed her face and then applied a thin layer of light foundation.

She’d just finished applying dark brown eyeshadow to her eyelids when the bathroom door opened.

From the mirror’s reflection, she saw Gennaro head to the dressing area with nothing but a towel hung around his snake waist.

Her breaths suddenly feeling heavier and the beats of her heart weightier, Luisa put the makeup brush away and reached for her black eyeliner.

When she put it to her eye, she found her hand was trembling and had to concentrate hard not to stab herself with it.

Right eye done, she was about to do her left eye when he stepped into the mirror’s reflection again, right at the edge of it, and opened his wardrobe.

The muscles of his back rippled. A beat later, the muscles of her heart rippled too. God, his body …

Luisa had never forgotten that game of water polo or how the glowering Gennaro had filled the goal he’d been defending.

She’d squealed with delight on Dante’s shoulders but it had been Gennaro’s glowering gorgeous face her eyes had been constantly drawn to.

But only his face. She’d been only eight or nine, too young to notice a man’s body.

He might as well have been invisible from the neck down for all she remembered.

In all their many months of marriage, the closest to naked Luisa had seen Gennaro was when he wore polo shirts.

She always had to keep herself in check to stop herself staring at his muscular arms. Just as her eyes had always been drawn to his face as a child, marriage had found them drawn to his arms and the fine dark hair covering them, and to his neck on the days he didn’t bother to shave it.

Resisting this had been a constant battle.

It was worse the times he undid the top buttons of his shirt and she was given a glimpse of the dark hair that covered his chest. Seeing it always made her feel sick, although it was like no other sickness she’d suffered from.

This sickness was low in her abdomen, and it was hot, like her insides were melting, and pulsed in ripples that collided with the knots in her stomach.

She’d finally finished lining her left eye when he turned to open a drawer in his dresser, and she caught a near full frontal view of him.

She sucked in a breath, the last breath she was able to make as suddenly she found her throat had closed too tightly to let in air and her heart had become a roar in her ears.

Gennaro was raw, unadulterated, masculine perfection. Every inch of him, from the smoothness of his olive skin to the hair that covered his chest but then faded into a straight line down the middle of his washboard stomach until it reached his navel.

If he was bothered by her presence, he didn’t show it, dressing as if he was quite alone, unaware the angle of her mirror meant she could see everything.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t tear her stare away, not when Gennaro dropped his towel to slide snug, black boxer shorts up his long, muscular calves and thighs and over his tight buttocks, and especially not when she caught a glimpse of an impressively large manhood.

The Lord alone knew how she didn’t blind herself with her mascara wand.

While Luisa somehow managed to apply a second layer of mascara and then sweep bronzer over her cheeks and paint her lips red, Gennaro continued to dress as if unaware of her presence, shrugging his arms into a black shirt that he fastened deftly and tucked into black jeans.

Onto the bed he sat to put his feet… feet she was certain were twice the size of her own…

into a pair of polished black boots. Standing back up, he went again into his wardrobe and selected a black leather jacket.

Only then did his stare meet hers through the mirror’s reflection.

“I’m going to have a scotch before we go down and join everyone,” he said evenly. “Can I get you anything?”

Praying the heat she could feel scorching her skin… had he been aware of her watching him all along...? was only internal and not blazing on her face, she managed a short nod and had to clear her throat to say, “A white wine please.” Make it a bucket, she almost added.

Even with him now at the far end of the suite, she struggled to refill her lungs with much-needed air.

Her thoughts were scrambled, so scrambled that she abandoned her plan to tie her hair into an elegant knot and left it loose.

After spraying on perfume, she slipped into a pair of black, strappy heels and then summoned her courage to join him at the bar in the living area.

Gennaro didn’t need the telltale click of Luisa’s heels crossing the tiled floor to know she was nearing him. Hers was a presence he’d been attuned to from the start.

Downing his scotch, he poured himself another and pushed the glass of wine further down the bar so she didn’t need to get too close to reach it.

Taking another drink, he held the liquid in his mouth and breathed deeply through his nose before swallowing. He could still feel the electricity in his skin from when he’d sensed her watching him dress.

He should have followed her lead and dressed in the bathroom, but he’d been determined to prove that their current living arrangements meant absolutely nothing to him, that Luisa’s presence meant nothing to him. That sheer willpower alone could make the next six nights tolerable.

The woman he’d married, who rarely drank more than a glass of wine over the whole of an evening, picked up her glass and drank the contents like it was water. “Ready?” she asked, putting the empty glass on the bar.

“Sure.” With the scent of her sultry perfume filling his nostrils, he downed the last of his scotch and was about to sling his jacket over his shoulder when she reached down to pick up the black handbag she’d dropped on the floor, and her glossy hair slid over her bare shoulder.

The zip of her strapless top wasn’t fully done up.

Leave it , he told himself firmly. No one will see. Luisa’s hair would cover it.

“Your zip is undone.” The words spilt out before he could stop them.

Startled doe eyes locked onto his.

He forced a tight smile. “I can’t have my wife dining with a half-zipped top. Turn around.”

She held his gaze a long moment before rigidly turning her back to him.