Page 56 of The Tycoon’s Affair: Tempted By Desire

CHAPTER ELEVEN

W HEN S ERENA KNOCKED on Luca’s office door about an hour later she felt composed, dressed in plain trousers and a silk shirt. Hair tied back. It had been a mere two weeks since she’d come here for the first time, but she was a different person.

Damn him .

His assistant opened the door and ushered her in, and it took a second after the girl had left for Serena to realise that there was another man in the room. He was standing on the other side of Luca’s desk, and Luca stood up now from his high-backed chair.

‘Serena—come in.’

Her heart lurched. So formal. For a crazy moment Serena wondered if the other man was a solicitor, so that Luca could get out of the contract?

When she came closer, though, she saw a resemblance between the two men, even though this man had tawny eyes and dark blond messy hair.

They were almost identical in size and build.

The stranger was as arrestingly gorgeous as Luca, but in a more traditional way—in spite of the scar she could see running from his temple to his jaw.

He oozed danger, even though he looked as if he might have stepped from the pages of Italian Vogue in an immaculate dark suit.

She sensed a subtle tension in the air, and had just realised herself who he was when Luca said, ‘This is my brother—Max Fonseca Roselli.’

She came forward and took the hand offered to her, suffering none of the physical reaction Luca caused within her with only a look.

Even so, she saw the unmistakably appreciative gleam in his unusual golden-green eyes and could well imagine that he must leave a trail of bleeding hearts wherever he went.

He had that same indomitable arrogance that Luca wore so well.

‘Nice to meet you.’

His hand squeezed hers. ‘You too.’

Serena pulled away, getting hot, sensing Luca’s intense focus on them and Max’s desire to needle his brother. When she looked at Luca, though, he gave nothing away and she cursed herself. Of course he wouldn’t be proprietorial or jealous.

Luca indicated for them to sit down and said heavily, ‘Max has some news for you...and me. I thought I owed it to you to let him tell you face to face.’

Now Serena was nervous, and she looked from him to Max and back. ‘What is it?’

Luca explained. ‘I asked Max to look into what happened at the club that night—to do some digging.’

Before she could properly assimilate that information, Max drawled in a deep voice, ‘My brother knows I have some...less than legitimate connections.’

Serena looked at him and her heart went out to both of them for what they’d been through as children. The way their parents had all but rolled the dice to decide their fate.

Huskily she admitted, ‘I... Luca told me what happened.’

Max’s eyes flared and he shot his brother a scowl.

Luca said warningly, ‘This isn’t about us .’

For a second Serena could have laughed. They might not be identical, but right then she could see how similar they were—and they probably didn’t even know it themselves.

Max looked back to her. ‘I did some digging and discovered who did plant the drugs on Luca that night. He was a small-time dealer and in the crush he spotted you together. He knew that if he could plant the drugs on you or Luca no one would ever dispute that you had been involved.’

Shame lanced Serena to be reminded that everyone knew of her exploits and how tarnished her reputation was, even as her heart beat fast and she wondered why Luca had asked his brother to do this.

Max continued. ‘He’s actually in jail at the moment on another charge, and he’s been bragging to anyone who will listen about how he set you and Luca up—it would appear that he couldn’t bear to keep such a coup to himself.

He’s been charged with the offence and hasn’t a leg to stand on because he’s confessed to so many witnesses. ’

For a moment the relief was so enormous that Serena felt dizzy, even though she was sitting down. She looked at Luca, whose face was stern. ‘You can clear your name.’

He nodded, but he didn’t look happy about it. He looked grim.

Max stood up, rising with athletic grace. ‘My flight leaves in a couple of hours. I have to go.’

Serena stood up too. ‘Thank you so much. This means...a lot.’

Max inclined his head before sending an enigmatic look to his brother. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

Luca nodded. They didn’t embrace or shake hands before Max left, striding out with that same confident grace as his brother.

When he was gone, Serena sank down onto the chair, her head in a spin. She looked at Luca, barely taking in that he looked a little pale, his face all lean lines. ‘How...? Why did you ask him to do this?’

He sighed heavily. ‘Because I owed it to you to find out the truth. After all, you’ve been nothing but honest with me.

The fact is that I think I suspected you were innocent in the jungle.

This just proves that you were as much a victim as I was.

You deserve to have your life back, Serena.

And you deserve to have the slate cleared too.

My lawyers and my PR team will make sure this is in all the papers. ’

Serena felt an almost overwhelming surge of emotion to think that Luca was going out of his way to clear her name too. Perhaps now people wouldn’t always associate her with feckless debauchery.

Treacherously, this made her hope for too much, even when The End was written into every tense line of Luca’s body. Clearly he just wanted to move on now.

It made her want to push him away again, for making her feel too much. For making her fall in love. Damn him .

‘And if Max hadn’t found the culprit so easily? Would you have believed me anyway?’

Luca stood up and paced behind his desk, his white shirt pulled across his chest, trousers hugging slim hips. Just like that, heat flared in Serena’s solar plexus.

He stopped and looked at her. ‘Yes.’

Serena cursed herself for pushing him. She hated herself for the doubt, for thinking that he was lying. And then she had to concede that Luca didn’t lie. He was too moral. Too damn good.

She stood up again, her legs wobbly. ‘Well, thank you for finding out.’

Luca looked at her for a long moment, and then he said, ‘Serena—’

She put up her hand, because she couldn’t bear for him to say it. ‘Wait. I have something I need to tell you first.’

His mouth closed and he folded his arms across his chest. Serena knew she couldn’t be anything else other than completely honest. She had been through too much soul-searching to ever want to hide away from pain again.

She might never see him again. The urge to tell him how she felt was rising like an unstoppable wave.

‘I’ve fallen in love with you, Luca.’

He looked at her, and as she watched, the colour leached from his face. She broke apart inside, but was determined not to show it.

‘I know it’s the last thing you want to hear. We were only ever about...’ she stalled ‘...not that ...and I know it’s over.’

She gestured with a hand to where Max had been sitting.

‘After this...we owe each other nothing. And I’m sorry again that your association with me made things bad for you.’

Luca unfolded his arms and slashed a hand in the air, looking angry. ‘You don’t have to apologise—if I hadn’t been so caught up in blaming you, I would have ensured a proper investigation was carried out years ago. You had to suffer the stigma of those accusations too.’

Serena smiled bitterly. ‘I was used to it, though. I had no reputation to defend.’

‘No—your father took care of that.’

Responsibility weighed heavily on her shoulders. ‘I have to go home... I have to tell people about my father—see that he’s brought to justice finally.’

‘If there’s anything you need help with, please let me know.’

Her heart twisted. So polite. So courteous.

A million miles from their first meeting in this office.

And even though she knew her own family would be there to back her up, she felt an awful quiver of vulnerability—because, really, the only person she wanted by her side the day she faced her father again was Luca.

But that scenario was not to be part of her future.

She hitched up her chin and tried to block out the fact that she’d told Luca she loved him and had received no similar declaration in return.

That fantasy belonged deep where she harboured dreams of the kind of fulfilment and happiness she saw her sister experiencing with her family.

But at least she could take one good thing with her.

‘Are you still going to give me a job?’

‘Of course—wherever you want,’ Luca said quickly, making another piece of Serena’s heart shatter. He was obviously that eager to see her go.

‘I’d like to go back to Athens today.’

Luca said tightly, ‘Laura will arrange it for you.’

‘Thank you.’

So clipped, so polite.

Before anger could rise at Luca’s non-reaction to her baring her soul to him, she turned to leave.

She was at the door before she heard a broken-sounding, ‘Serena...’

Heart thumping, hope spiralling, Serena turned around. Luca looked tortured.

But he said only two words. ‘I’m sorry.’

Her heart sank like a stone. She knew he didn’t love her, but she marvelled that the human spirit was such an irrepressibly optimistic thing even in the face of certain disappointment.

She forced a smile. ‘Don’t be. You’ve given me the gift of discovering how strong I am.’

You’ve given me the gift of discovering how strong I am.

Luca was stuck in a state of paralysis for so long after Serena left that he had to blink and focus to realise that Laura was in his office and speaking to him, looking worried.

‘Senhor Fonseca? Are you all right?’

And as if he’d been holding something at bay, it ripped through him then, stunning and painful in its intensity, like warmth seeping into frozen limbs. Burning.

‘No,’ he issued curtly, going over to his drinks cabinet and helping himself to a shot of whisky.