Bargain Bride, Billionaire Groom Page 9

  He stood up and handed her poles to her. “These things here? They are your poles.”

  “Yes, thank you for those. I am not a complete moron.” She snatched them up, swished forward on her skis to place some much-needed distance between them—and launched herself down the slope without meaning to. “Ohh, da-a-amn!”

  Jio raced after her, giving himself a lead downhill before banking into a turn. Then they were face to face, and she couldn’t believe her eyes—the devil was skiing backward!

  “Get me off this hill, Jio!” Cold air chilled her features and reminded her she was headed downhill without brakes.

  “Stay calm. Don’t worry. You’re not going very fast.”

  “Fifty miles an hour isn’t fast to you!” she cried, managing to stand upright as she slid downhill. Her experience on a surfboard was coming in handy at the moment.

  “Look at me, not at the ground, Golden.”

  Her gaze jerked to his.

  “Nice and easy…no sudden moves. Bend your knees a little…good girl. Now make a wedge with your skis by bringing the front tips of your skis to meet.”

  “A fat wedge? Or a skinny wedge?”

  “For God’s sake, Golden. Spread your legs! That’s it. Now bring the tips of your skis together, in the shape of a pie.”

  As she angled the skis in the manner he instructed, her skis shored up some snow and slowed her down. Jio moved aside, then skied alongside her as she dragged to a pitiful stop.

  She thumped his chest. “I could have crashed into someone!”

  “Who?” Jio retorted. Irritated, he jammed his poles into the snow and looked around. “You were about to take yourself out! So much for giving you the skier’s code of responsibility. Lesson number one: Always stay in control!”

  “Thanks for not letting me wreck,” she sniffled, embarrassed now.

  “No problem. I wasn’t spending my vacation playing nursemaid to your broken leg.” A thoughtful smile spread across his face. “On second thought, having you confined to my bed might not be the worst thing that has ever happened to me.”

  She blushed and fiddled with the poles she managed to hold on to during her free flight down the hill.

  “I would never let anything happen to you, darling.” He tipped her chin up with his finger and the promise in his eyes chased away her tension. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, but I will have some ugly words to say about my ski instructor!”

  His eyes lit up with a sly flame. “Don’t worry. He guarantees satisfaction.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Please just let me crawl into a hole and die!”

  Golden stumbled past the threshold and collapsed onto the pillowed bench in the entry hall. Jio strolled in behind her, holding Lily. He gazed down at her with a smug grin on his lips.

  “Momma berry tired,” Lily said gravely.

  Golden plastered a smile on her face, the only piece of her that didn’t feel like jellyfish parts after ski lessons that included traversing up and down scenic slopes with her crazy, over-bearing, Olympic skill-leveled instructor. “Yes, she is.”

  Lily wriggled in Jio’s arms. “Down, Poppa.”

  Jio put her down and eased the straps of her tiny backpack off her shoulders so that she might enjoy its contents—a coloring book and a box of crayons.

  Golden then helped Lily out of her ski suit. Dressed in purple thermal undies, Lily then trotted off with her loot over to the coffee table in the next room.

  Jio helped Golden out of her jacket before removing his. After hanging everything up inside the closet, he pushed the sliding doors shut, folded his arms across his chest and propped one big shoulder up against the wall.

  “Do you need some pain killer, darling?” he asked, studying her with twinkly blue eyes.

  She groaned. Sprawled out on the bench, she gazed up him. “You tortured me today.”

  “And you enjoyed every minute.” Scooping her startled self up into his arms, he strode across the lower floor, stopping to check on Lily who was haphazardly scribbling in her coloring book.

  Then he carried Golden up the split log stairs to the loft room. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and wondered what her chances were of getting a foot rub out of him.

  He was right. She’d enjoyed—loved—every minute with him. Some of the best moments had been when they’d shared the chairlift. He’d slung his arm around her shoulders as they drifted over snow-covered slopes and evergreen spires.

  There was something exciting and romantic about hovering in a chairlift together. No one else shared the lift with them as they glided overhead. More than once, when he wasn’t pointing out areas of interest, she felt his breath billow softly against her neck.

  If she wanted to, all she had to do was turn her head to meet his mouth…

  “I want you to take a nap while I take care of some business. I’ll make arrangements for our dinner here tonight.” He plopped her down gently on the bed. “Unless you’d prefer to eat out?”

  She studied the flames snapping in the fireplace and looked up at him, appreciating how he stopped taking charge long enough to let her choose. “I’d love it if we can stay in, and right now a nap sounds perfect, but I’ve got to keep an eye on Lily.”

  “I’ll bring her upstairs and ask her to take a nap with you,” he suggested.

  Golden smiled at him. “She’d probably listen to you, too. Why do you work so much, Jio?” She gathered up the pillows and sank herself into their goose-down welcome. “I thought you came here to relax.”

  He sat on the bed next to her. “Work is second nature, I guess. Your work in the orchards isn’t an eight-to-five job. Is it?”

  She shook her head. “It’s my life. I grew up on the plantation. Mom and I tended the vegetable and herb plots and chicken coops. Then we sold our produce at our roadside stand, or at the farmers markets. I love the land, so it doesn’t always feel like work—although it is hard work because we harvest year round. We also employ more workers to cultivate the soil by hand, rather than use fuel-driven machinery.” She winced. “But, unlike you, I don’t have thousands of employees that depend on my business for their livelihood.”

  “Are you okay?”

  She frowned down at her left leg and sat forward slightly. “I must really be out of shape. I ache all over. Oh…oww. It’s my leg.”

  Jio reached out a hand. “May I?”

  She nodded. He slipped his hand up the leg opening of her ski bib and squeezed the fleshy curve of her calf.

  “Eeee! That hurts a little.”

  “Your pass down the mountain might have stressed this area.” He kneaded her leg with a gentle touch. Pleasure flared throughout her body and mingled with the aches and pains of the day. “You should remove your suit.”

  “Mmm, too much work.”

  “Let me help,” he murmured, and tugged her zipper straight down the side of her overalls.

  “Jio, no!”

  After unsnapping the front straps, he simply scooped her out. Thank goodness she had on pink cotton thermal underwear, top and bottom, the brute.

  He nestled her against the stack of pillows once more, and she didn’t utter a peep when he kept rubbing her calf. Take charge he might be, but damn…his hand felt good!

  “Jiovanni?” His name drifted from her lips on a shaky note. “Thank you for today.”

  “Are you glad you came?”

  “Oh, yes. Very much,” she said, and leaned up from the pillows to press a thank-you kiss on his face. Big. Mistake. Instead of her lips landing on the slope of his cheek, a deliberate shift of his face brought her mouth to his mouth.

  As the curve of his lips fastened over hers, his fingers wrapped around her throat in a tender embrace, and the warmth of his hand and his thirsty mouth enjoying the taste of hers filled her body with delicate tremors.

  Falling under his spell, her fingers swept up to span his jaw, his cheekbones. She savored the winter-cool feel of his skin, and the flicker of his tongue
and the pressure of his hot mouth riding hers let her know…her senses were under siege.

  Golden, stop! Stop this before it’s too late, her mind cautioned. As it turned out, she didn’t need to put the brakes on anything. Jio suddenly wrenched his lips away from hers.

  “Call Marcus,” he instructed sharply as he rifled through his pockets.

  Catching her breath, she stared into his overbright eyes and shook her head, her mind reeling at the direction her body was happy to go. No way would she make it easy this time. At least, not for him.

  Jio dragged her hands from his face and pressed her palms around his cellular phone. “Call him,” he commanded. “Tell him it’s over so that you and I can begin.”

  Fighting her need to clamp her mouth to his, she said, “No. Oh no. I need more from you this time, Jiovanni.”

  “You will not get anywhere with me until you end it with him.”

  Her lower lip quivered. If he only knew! “Jio, you know what I want. You know what I am wanting for my daughter—and for me.”

  “I can give you other things, Golden. You know I hold you in high esteem.”

  “So high you left my bed in the middle of the night?”

  “I wouldn’t leave it now,” he shot back. His cheeks flooded with heat. “Make the call.”

  She curled her toes, except toe-curling didn’t make the hot spot between her thighs go away. “No. No! I can’t do it, Jio. No affairs for me. I’m not going to have a lover.”

  “And I’m not going to have a wife. At least, not a real one,” he added wryly.

  “Of course not. That would make your lifestyle way too complicated.” Golden turned away, grabbed a nearby pillow, tucked it close to her and gave him a birds-eye view of her back.

  “You don’t trust women, do you?” she whispered. “It’s the woman from your past. The one who turned you off to commitment, and-and love.”

  “What the hell—did Enzo tell you this? What else did he say?”

  “I’m sure there was much he didn’t share with me, Jio. But I know that of the two of you, you took the brunt of your uncle’s rages and his abuse when your mother…left.”

  Enzo, wanting to mitigate her unease around his brother, had told her about his brother and their life growing up together—of working as young boys in their uncle’s vineyards. Of the beatings from their uncle, a mean, perverse drunk who’d unwillingly fostered them—after their mother abandoned them.

  “Shit.”

  “He also said that there were two women in your life you might have loved once, but came to hate. One of them being your mother.”

  She’d left them for a rich man who didn’t want the baggage of her offspring, fathered by different men. Neither man had anything to do with his son.

  Their mother since restored ties to Jio after Enzo’s death, but Golden couldn’t warm up to the beautiful, cordial older woman who’d come to Maui for Enzo’s funeral.

  Strangely, Enzo didn’t speak of the other woman Jio loved once upon a time, either. But he did stress how much Jio enjoyed the rewards of his wealth and hard work. That when it came to women, he reaped the benefit of his good looks and was not the type to give those pleasures up easily.

  “If Enzo were alive right now,” Jio gritted, “I’d wring his neck.”

  “Maybe your mother did what she had to do for survival. Did you ever think of that?”

  “A mother doesn’t go and abandon her children to her piece of shit brother! What about their survival, hmm? Did you know that Enzo and I never even knew our fathers? We might share the same last name, but I’m not even sure my mother knew who our fathers were. She was mistress to a lot of men—” he broke off to mutter an eff-bomb.

  They might have inherited their uncle’s estates after he died, but she doubted it made up for their suffering and neglect. The bitterness in Jio’s voice made her sad to imagine the mental and physical price both boys paid.

  “Why the hell am I having this conversation with you, anyway?”

  Golden shifted and gazed thoughtfully up at him from her hill of pillows. “Because I want you to know…I’m not like your parents, or your crazy perverted uncle. I’m sorry you never got to be a kid, Jio.”

  He sighed. “The past is the past. I wish…I wish I got to grow old with my brother, you know?”

  “Oh, I do. I do!”

  “So, back to us. Back to…” he spread out both hands, “this. I want to do what’s right for you—by you. What do you want from me? Why did you come here after the way I left you?”

  She took a deep breath. “Jio, what kind of a woman did you take me for? That I could let you kiss me, let your fingers play with me, and own me? Did you think I could go on and plan a life with Marcus like nothing ever happened? What kind of a man thinks like that?”

  He grimaced. “A man like me. All the more reason for you to demand a better man.”

  “What if—silly me—I happen to want you?”

  He glowered at her. “You can’t have both me and Marcus.”

  “But if I can choose, then I choose you. You want me as well. Admit it. It’s our second night here, and you can’t keep your hands off me.”

  “That makes two of us,” he slammed right back at her. “And did you think leaving you that night—or leaving you last night—was easy for me? Did you?”

  “But you did.”

  He closed his eyes, and looked shattered.

  She moved—aching muscles be damned—and cupped his hard features between her hands. “You were so mean to leave me in Maui,” she said, and planted her lips on his.

  Jio groaned against her mouth and the sound vibrated deep into her core. His teeth tugged at and his lips sucked at her lower lip while his hands rubbed her shoulders, and made her body quiver all over.

  “You’re always leaving me,” she accused, pulling away from his mouth.

  “I didn’t want to,” he growled. “I swear I didn’t. And yes, I want you. Insanely so!” He planted a heavy smooch on her lips to prove it. “I’ve wanted you like crazy,” he nipped at her chin, “since we kissed on the beach. I thought I could seduce you,” he nibbled on her lower lip once more, “because I knew that you wanted me, too.”

  Then he lifted his head and stared into her eyes. “But I don’t want a real-life wife, and that’s the only kind of wife you know how to be. All I can offer you is this bed. I won’t be the kind of husband you deserve. I can’t give you what you deserve.”

  She groaned, frustrated. “I’m not asking for declarations of love. But I can’t do shortcuts, either. I won’t just do sex. I also can’t have men in and out of my life. Not with a kid to think about.”

  “Then where was this leading just now?” He frowned at her, his stare razor-sharp. “You’re here with me, and planned to screw around on Marcus?”

  Sighing, she pulled his hands from her body and scooted from him to the edge of the bed with her lips on fire from his kisses. “Jio, if I don’t belong to anyone, then how can I be unfaithful to anyone?”

  That sounded better than—I have no future with Marcus because I want you. “But maybe…maybe I haven’t looked at all of my options.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Maybe you’re right. Maybe marriage isn’t the answer. Maybe I can do what you do. Enjoy what’s out there while I’m still young. Why tie myself down to one individual?”

  “Stop it!” He grabbed her shoulders and dragged her up against him. “Don’t even think about it, Golden.”

  She wriggled out of his arms. “Or else what?”

  His cheeks burned with a red tide of fury. He snatched her wrists up and clenched them tightly in his fists. He was helplessly drawn to her. If he only knew how sexy it made him look.

  “Yup. Nothing. I thought so.” Tears surged in her eyes, but she blinked them away. This wasn’t the time to weaken. Jio had a huge advantage over her, and she didn’t fly all the way out here to give in to him without taking something back in return. “I-I need to check on
Lily. We should probably get going now.”

  He released her. The flow of blood tingled through her hands. “If that’s what you want, then I won’t stop you. But do you really want to go?”

  She gulped back the tremor that threatened to steal across her words. “If I stay, I’ll give in to you, and that would make our marriage real and-and complicate things for you. A lot.”

  He closed his eyes. “I still don’t want you to leave me.”

  The break in his voice stabbed at her will. “Then make me an offer I can’t refuse, and make it quick because I have needs of my own, damn it!”

  His eyes flew open. “Good God! What has gotten into you?”

  “Lust. Passion. Desire. Need. I’m more than a mother, Jio—I’m a woman. And I swear to God, if I can’t get satisfaction from you? Then I’ll get it from someone else. The truth is I came here to move forward, even if it means leaving you behind!”

  Surprise and awe rolled across his face.

  Her cheeks hotted up with color. She’d shocked herself, too, but the truth was the truth. “Marry me, Jio. Make it real.”

  Pleaaase, her mind pleaded, even as her body yearned to hear the words that would give her the promise of knowing he’d finally be in her bed! She’d no longer have wonderful, wicked dirty dreams of him. Or feel guilty over her fantasies of sinking her open thighs over his hard hips, of wanting to feel the slam of his heated lips on hers and the touch of his hands on her skin—his fingers playing inside her.

  His gaze probed her face. Anxious and aroused, she licked her lips. A flare of lust burned in his eyes. Oh, help!

  “What are your terms?” he growled, ever the negotiator.

  “You’d have to be faithful to me,” she spelled out for him. “No cheating! If you’ve had other women before today, I don’t care because you and I weren’t lovers. But if you want me, then they are history.”

  He scowled. “Keep it coming, Golden. Sounds irresistible so far.”

  “I’ll divorce you if you ever cheat on me. Got that?”

  “Splendid. What else?”

  “What’s your favorite color?”

  He stared at her, baffled. “Pink. What else?”