In spite of everything, he hadn’t been able to contemplate sending her to prison.
Not that he was about to let her realize that she’d always had control over every irrational cell in his body.
He gave her one of the explanations he’d placated himself with. “I didn’t see any benefit to myself or to my business in doing so.” At her widening stare, he huffed. “I’m not just a mad scientist, not anymore. And then, scientists are among the most ruthless pragmatists around. Since the incidents six years ago, I’ve learned it always pays to have some dirt on everyone, to use when needed. Now the time has come for that nugget to deliver its full potential.”
“And you think you can coerce me into marrying you, even temporarily, using their crimes?”
“Yes. It would make you the perfect temporary wife. You’re the only woman who wouldn’t be tempted to ask for more at the end of the contract’s terms, or risk any kind of scandal.”
Another silence detonated in the wake of his final taunt.
With eyes brimming, she sat up and tossed her head, making her shimmering hair shift to one side with an audible hiss.
He struggled not to swoop down on her, harness her by those luxurious tresses, ravage those lush lips, crush that voluptuousness under his weight and take her, make her writhe her pleasure beneath him, pour all of his inside her.
She exacerbated his condition with the lash of her challenge. “What if I told you I don’t care what you do with said ‘nugget’? If they did the things this file says they did, then they deserve to be locked up to pay for their crimes, and learn a lesson nothing else could teach them.”
Elation at her defiance and disgust at the whole situation mingled in an explosive mix, almost making him light-headed. “They may deserve it, but you still won’t let them get locked up for a day, let alone years, if you can at all help it.”
All anger and rebellion went out of her, dejection crashing in its place. Her shoulders slumped and her eyes dimmed.
He attempted to look unaffected by her apparent upheaval and defeat.
Apparent
being the operative word. In reality she must be rubbing her hands at the unexpected windfall and what she could negotiate out of it.
He exhaled. “It’s a beneficial arrangement all around. Though your father and brother deserve to be punished, their punishment wouldn’t serve any purpose. I…will compensate those they’ve embezzled from and defrauded.” He’d nearly slipped and told her that he’d
already
compensated their victims, each in a way that made up for their losses, without connecting his actions to those, or to her family. “You will be spared the disgrace and heartache of having them imprisoned. My king and Castaldini will have me where they need me. And I will have the temporary image cleansing necessary for the job.”
Her gaze froze on his face for a fraught moment until his heart started to thunder in his chest. And that was before a couple of tears arrowed down her flushed, trembling cheeks.
She wiped them away, as if pissed off with herself for letting him witness her weakness. Her turmoil seemed so real he felt it reverberating in his bones. But it couldn’t be real. It had to be another act. But how could it be so convincing?
He should stop wondering. As far as his senses were concerned, her every breath and word and look were genuine. So he’d better stop pitting their verdict against that of his mind before they tore him down the middle in their tug-of-war.
She finally whispered, “How temporary is temporary?”
He exhaled heavily. “A year.”
Her face convulsed as if at a stab of pain.
After swallowing with evident difficulty, she asked, “What would be the…job description?”
So she’d moved from rejection to defiance to setting terms. And somehow, though he was holding all the cards, it felt like she was the one setting the pace of this confrontation, steering its direction. No wonder. She’d been the best negotiator he’d ever had on his team, the most ordered, effective executive. He
had
loved her for her mind and abilities as much as everything else. He’d respected them, believed in them. Relied on them. Her loss had damaged every pillar in his world.
Pushing aside the bitterness that kept derailing him, he said, “I will be Castaldini’s representative to the United Nations. It’s one of the most exalted positions in the kingdom, and it is closely monitored and rated by Castaldinians before the rest of the world. My wife will need to share all of my public appearances, act as the proper consort in all the functions I attend, the gracious hostess in the ones I give, and the adoring bride in everything else.”
Her incredulity rose with his every word. “And you think I am qualified for those roles? Why don’t you just get someone from Castaldini, a minor princess or something, who’d jump at the chance for a temporary place in the spotlight, and who’s been trained from birth in royal and diplomatic pretense? I’m sure no woman will cling or cause scandals when you want to cast her aside. You cast me aside without as much as a wrinkle in your suit.”
No. Just a chasm in my heart.
“I want no one else. And yes, you are qualified and then some. You’re an unequaled expert in all aspects of the executive life with its due process and formalities. You’re also quite the chameleon, and you blend perfectly in any situation or setting.” Her eyes widened at that, as if she’d never heard anything more ridiculous in her life. Before she could voice her derision, he went on. “The jump to court and diplomatic etiquette and ‘pretense’ should be a breeze. I will tutor you in what you’ll say and how you’ll behave with dignitaries and the press. I’ll leave the other areas of your education to Alonzo, my valet. And with your unusual beauty, and your…assets—” his gaze made an explicit sweep of said assets before returning to her once again chagrined eyes “—once Alonzo gets his hands on you, the tabloids will have nothing to talk about but your style and latest outfits. Your current occupation as a humanitarian crusader will also capture the imagination of the world, and add to my image as a clean-energy pioneer. We’ll be the perfect fairy-tale couple.”
What he’d once thought they could be for real.
His summation seemed to have as brutal an effect on her as it had on him. She looked as if regret that this could never be real crushed her, too.
Suppressing the urge to put his fist through the nearest wall, he gritted out, “I am also offering a substantial financial incentive to sweeten the deal. That’s part of the offer I’ve already said you can’t refuse.”
She kept staring at him with what looked like disappointment pulsing in the depths of her eyes. She didn’t ask how much. Still acting as if money meant nothing to her.
“Ten million dollars,” he said, suppressing a sneer of disillusion. “Net of deductions or taxes. Two up front, the rest on completion of the contract term.”
He bent, picked up the other dossier on the coffee table and came to stand over her where she sat limply on the couch. “That’s the prenuptial agreement you’ll sign.”
When she didn’t take the volume, he placed it on her lap.
“I’m giving you today to read through this. You’re free to seek legal counsel, of course, but there’s nothing in it to impact you whatsoever, if you abide by the letter of the terms. I will expect your acceptance tomorrow.”
Without looking up from the dossier in her lap, she said, “Take it or take it, huh?”
“That about sums it up.”
The gaze fixed on his filled with fury, frustration and…vulnerability.
Dio.
Just a look from her and his whole being surged with need. To devour her, to possess her. To protect her.
Seemed his weakness where she was concerned was incurable.
And to think he’d hoped he’d realize that everything he’d felt for her was an exaggeration, that seeing her again would only make him wonder at how he’d once thought himself attracted to her. He’d hoped it would purge the memories that circulated in his system like a nondegradable mind-altering drug.
Instead, he’d found that what he remembered of her effect on him had been diluted by time. Either that or her effect had multiplied tenfold. He’d been aroused since he’d laid eyes on her again, was now in agony.
His only consolation was that she wanted him, too.
Si,
of this he had no doubt. Not even she could have faked her body’s responses. Their memory had controlled his fantasies all these years. Every manifestation of her desire, the scent of it, the taste of its honey on his tongue, the feel of its liquid silk on his fingers and manhood, the rush of her pleasure at the peaks that had rocked her beneath him, squeezed her around him and wrung him of explosive releases.
What would it feel like having her again with all their baggage, maturity and changes?
No need to wonder. For he’d made up his mind.
He
would
have her again.
Might as well make his intentions clear up front.
He caught her arm as she heaved up. Jolts arced from every fingertip pressing into firm flesh.
At her indignant glare, he bent and whispered in her ear, “When I take you to my bed this time, it will be far better than ever before.”
Her flesh buzzed in his hand, her breath becoming choppy, her pupils dilating. Her scent rose to perfume the air, to fill his lungs with the evidence of her arousal.
Still, she said, “I will never sign to that.”
“And I’d never ask you to. This has nothing to do with the deal. You have full freedom on this front. I’m only letting you know I want you in my bed. And you will come. Because you want to. Because you want me.”
Her pupils fluctuated, her cheeks flushed. Proof positive of his claims.
She still scoffed, even if in a voice that had deepened to the timbre that used to arouse him out of his mind, as it did now. “You really have to see someone for that head of yours, before it snaps off your neck under its own weight.”
He tugged on her arm, brought her slamming against him. A groan escaped him at the glorious feel of her against him from breast to knee. A moan of stimulation issued from her before she could stifle it.
The bouquet that had been tantalizing him since she’d walked in—her unique brand of femininity, that of sunshine-soaked days and pleasure-drenched nights—deluged his lungs. He had to get more, leave no breath unmingled with it.
He buried his face in her neck, inhaled her, absorbing her shudder into his. “I don’t want you in my bed. I
need
you there. I’ve craved you there for six long years.”
The body that had gone limp at contact with his stiffened, pushing away only enough to look confusedly up at him.
Feeling he’d said too much, he let her go before he swept her up and carried her to bed here and now.
Her face was a canvas of every turbulent emotion there was, so intense he felt almost dizzy at their onslaught.
And he found himself adding, “Passion was the one real thing we shared. You were the best I’ve ever had. I only ended it with you because you—” he barely caught back an accusation “—seemed to expect more than was on offer.” He injected his voice with nonchalance. “But now you know what is on offer. You have every choice in becoming my lover, but none in being my princess.”
Her gaze dropped to the dossier in her hand, which regulated their temporary relationship’s boundaries and how it would end with a cold precision he was already starting to question.
Then she raised her eyes, the azure now dull and distant. “Only for a year.”
Or longer. As long as we both want,
he almost blurted out.
Catching back the impetuousness with all he had, he nodded. “Only for a year.”
Three
“H
ow long?”
Glory winced at her best friend’s shrill stupefaction.
She was already regretting telling Amelia anything. But Glory had felt her head and heart might explode if she didn’t tell someone. And it couldn’t have been her mother. Glenda Monaghan would have a breakdown if she knew what her husband and son had been up to. Or what they were in danger of if Glory didn’t go through with Vincenzo’s “deal.” The “take it or I send your family up the river for life” deal.
Glory smirked at her best friend’s flabbergasted expression. “Don’t you think you’re going about this in reverse? You keep asking me a question right after I answer it.”
Amelia rolled her long-lashed golden eyes. “Ex
cuse
me, Ms. Monaghan. We’ll see how you’ll fare when I come to you saying
I
was once on mouth-to-mouth-and-way-more terms with a prince of freaking Castaldini, who happens to be the foremost scientist and businessman in the clean-energy field, and that he now wants to marry me.”
“Only for a year,” Glory added, her heart twisting again.
Amelia threw her hands, palms up, at her. “There. You’ve said it again. So don’t get prissy with me while I’m in shock. I mean…Vincenzo D’Agostino? Whoa!”
Glory emptied her lungs on a dejected sigh. “Yeah.”
Amelia sagged down on the couch beside her. “Man. I’m trying to compose this picture of you with Prince Vastly Devastating himself, and I’m failing miserably.”
Glory’s exhalation was laced with mockery this time. “Thanks, Amie, so kind of you.”
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re on his level!” Amelia exclaimed. “Any man on any level would be lucky to have you look his way. But you haven’t been making any XY chromosome carriers lucky since the Ice Age. You’ve been such a cold fish….” She winced then smiled sheepishly. “You
know
how you are with men. You radiate this ‘do not approach or else’ vibe. It’s impossible to imagine you in the throes of passion with any man. But now I’m realizing your standards are just much higher than us mere mortal women. It’s either someone of Vincenzo’s caliber or nothing. Or—” realization seemed to hit Amelia, making her eyes drain of lightheartedness, then fill with wariness “—is it because it’s Vincenzo or nothing? Is he the one who spoiled you for other men?”
Glory stared at her. She’d never thought of it this way.
After the brutal way Vincenzo had ended their affair, she’d been devastated, emotionally and psychologically. For the next year, she hadn’t thought beyond stopping being miserable. After that, she’d poured all of her time and energy into changing her direction in life.
It had taken Vincenzo’s kicking her out of his life, and out of her job, to make her realize the fatal flaw in her unwavering quest for security and stability. She’d known then that there could be neither, emotional or financial. If the man she’d thought to be her soul mate could destroy both with a few words, she wouldn’t count on anything again. She’d decided to give her heart and skills to the world and hope they’d do it more good than they’d done her.
The more she’d achieved, the more in demand she’d been. For the past five years, she’d been constantly on the go, living out of a suitcase, setting up and streamlining multiple humanitarian operations across the globe. If she’d wanted intimacies, they would have had to be passing encounters. And those just weren’t for her.
But now, after Amelia’s questions, she had to pause and wonder. Had one of the major attractions of that whole lifestyle been the legitimate and continuous way of escaping intimacies?
Glory loved her job, couldn’t ask for anything more fulfilling on a personal or professional level. But it
had
given her no respite, no time or energy for self-reflection or reassessment. Had she unconsciously sought that flat-out pace to make herself too unavailable? Too consumed to even sense anything missing? So she didn’t have to face that she’d always be a one-man woman? That for her, it
was
Vincenzo or nothing?
Amelia must have read the answer in Glory’s silent stare, for she, too, exhaled. “Did he break your heart?”
“No. He…smashed it.”
Amelia frowned, expression darkening. “Okay, now I hate the guy. I saw him a few times on TV, and I don’t know how I didn’t peg him for a slimeball! I thought he sounded like a pretty decent guy, no airs, and even with his reputation, I remember wondering how he demolished the stereotype of the royal playboy. I thought being a scientist saved him from being a narcissistic monster. But I stand corrected.”
The ridiculous urge to defend him overpowered Glory. “He isn’t…wasn’t like that. He’s—he’s just… I don’t know.” She shook her head in confusion. “It’s like he’s two—no, three people. The man I fell in love with was like you describe him—honorable, sincere and grounded in his public life, focused, driven and brilliant in his working one, and sensitive, caring and passionate in person. Then there was the man who ended things with me, cold and callous, even vicious. And finally there’s the man I met today. Relentless and dominating, yet nothing like the man who took everything seriously, or the man who relished humiliating me.”
“Humiliating you?” The edge to Amelia’s rising fury was a blade against Glory’s inflamed nerves. “And now he’s asking you to marry him to fix his reputation? And don’t say ‘only for a year’ again or I may have to break something. I can’t believe I was excited at first! Tell him to take his short-term-lease-marriage offer and go to hell.”
Glory had always thought Amelia as magnificent as a golden lioness. She now looked like one defending her cub. Her reaction warmed Glory even through the ice of her despondency. “You mean you wouldn’t have told me to tell him that anyway?”
“No, I wouldn’t have. I mean, you’re not in the market for a regular marriage anyway, then comes Prince Very Delicious offering you a year in a fairy tale with a ten million dollar cash bonus. If he wasn’t a scumbag who seems to have crippled you emotionally for life, I would have thought it a super deal for you. Now what I want to know is how
dare
he approach you of all people with his offer?”
Glory hadn’t shared Vincenzo’s reason for picking her. As the one “convenient”—not to mention compromised—enough for his needs. Again. She exhaled and escaped answering.
Amelia harrumphed. “But it doesn’t matter what he’s thinking. If he bothers you after you say no, I’ll have my Jack have a word with his teeth.”
Imagining Jack, a bear of a man and a bruiser, pitted against the equally powerful but refined great feline Vincenzo suddenly brought a giggle bursting out of her.
Pulling back from the edge of hysteria, Glory’s laughter died on a heavy sigh. “I’m not looking for an intervention here, Amie. I only wanted to…share. I—” she barely swallowed back
have to
“—already decided to say yes.”
Amelia gaped at her. Glory hadn’t told her of Vincenzo’s ultimatum, either. If she did, Jack and his whole rugby team would be after Vincenzo. Then Vincenzo would gather all those hulking wonders he had for cousins and it would probably lead to a war between the U.S. and Castaldini….
She suppressed the mania bubbling inside her, and focused on overriding Amelia’s vehement objections. “It’ll only be for a year, Amie. And just think what I can do for all the causes I’m involved in with ten million dollars.”
Amelia snorted. “Not much. That would barely supply a few clean-water stations. If you’re foolish enough to put yourself within range of the man who hurt and humiliated you, I’d ask for a
hundred
million. He can afford it, and he’s the one who needs to scrape a mile-deep of dirt from his image with your shining one. At least you’d be risking annihilation for a good enough cause.”
Glory smiled weakly at the firebrand she had for a best friend. She’d met Amelia five years ago while working with Doctors Without Borders. They’d hit it off immediately—two women who’d worked all their lives to become professionals, then discovered, each through her own ordeal, that they needed a cause, not a career. As a corporate and international law expert, Amelia had made it possible for Glory to accomplish things she’d thought impossible. Amelia always insisted Glory’s business and economic know-how were more valuable than law—in a world where money was a constant when everything else was mercurial.
“I wanted you to take a look at this….” She reached for the hardcover prenuptial agreement as if reaching for a bomb. She dropped it in Amelia’s lap as if it scalded her and attempted a wink. “That’s mainly why I told you. To get your legal opinion on this little gem.”
Amelia stared at the heavy volume in her lap with the gilded inscription proclaiming its nature. “I’d say this is a huge one. And from the looks and weight of it, I’m not sure
gem
is the right word for it, either. Okay, let’s see what Prince Very Disturbing has to offer.”
Unable to sit beside her as she read Vincenzo’s terms, Glory got up and went to the kitchen.
While she searched for something to do, she tried telling herself that, considering the situation, the prenuptial shouldn’t disturb her. She’d never seen one, and she had no knowledge of marriage laws. Maybe this language was standard within every marriage where one party outranks the other in position and wealth a thousandfold.
She wasn’t poor, but financial ease had ceased to be a goal to her. She’d settled for having no debts, and a few inexpensive needs. But in comparison to Vincenzo with his Midas touch, she guessed she would rank as destitute. Maybe he had to consider his investors when he dealt with anything that could affect him financially. Maybe even his board of directors had a say in his financial decisions, and in today’s world, marriage was one.
But did he have to go that far with the prenup, as if he was safeguarding himself from a hardened criminal? Or was it she who didn’t know what was too far?
She’d made apple pie from scratch and baked it by the time Amelia entered the kitchen with the volume tucked beneath her arm, and a thundercloud hanging over her head.
Amelia slammed the prenup on the island with a huff of disgust. “The only thing he left out was the number of cutlery pieces that have to be accounted for before he gives you the ‘latter portion of the monetary settlement at termination of contract term’!”
Glory’s heart kicked her ribs. “It’s that bad, huh?”
“Worse. This guy is making provisions for provisions, as if he’s dealing with a repeat offender known for ‘stealing kohl from the eye,’ like I heard they say in Castaldini.”
Just what Glory had been thinking.
Now that Amelia had confirmed her suspicion, her confusion deepened. Why all this? So a man in his position had much to lose, but
he
was forcing her to serve a sentence in lieu of her family. Could he really think she’d want to prolong it, or try to bribe him or cause any trouble at its end?
But those extensive precautions said that he did. Why? Because of her family’s history? Didn’t he already know she had nothing to do with her father’s and brother’s actions and choices? With his surveillance and investigations, he must know she’d had very little to do with them in the past years. She maintained close relations with her mother, who had nothing to do with her husband’s and son’s transgressions and stupidities. Or was Vincenzo just this paranoid with everyone?
He had been very cautious with people in general. She’d thought she’d been the exception, that he’d been totally open and trusting with her. Yeah, sure. Just like she’d thought he’d felt anything for her.
It had all been a lie. A mirage. This was the reality. That he’d never bothered to know anything about her. No, worse, that he thought the worst of her.
Amelia’s harrumph brought Glory out of her musings. “You wanted my opinion? Based on a prenup like that, and the rest of this man’s pattern of behavior? Go for a
billion
dollars, Glory. Up front. And right after the wedding, go for his balls.”
*
After Amelia had given her verdict on Vincenzo’s offer and Vincenzo himself, she’d insisted on going over the “submission contract.” She’d spent the rest of the night dissecting it, and writing down in lawyer-speak what Glory would ask for instead. It was past two in the morning by the time Amelia left, and not of her own accord. Glory had to pretend to fall asleep on the couch to convince her she couldn’t take anymore.
Not that she’d wanted to sleep. In fact, she’d known sleep would be an impossibility tonight. Maybe every night from now on. As long as Vincenzo was back in her life.
Her sleeping patterns had already been irrevocably changed since she’d first met him. First, with nights of longing, then ones interspersed with repeated lovemaking, then memories and miseries. She’d only had a measure of her old sleeping soundness restored when she’d maintained a schedule that knocked her out for the five or six hours she allotted for rest.
Right now she felt she was back in the bed of thorns of post-Vincenzo devastation. Even worse. Now she was caught in his maelstrom again, in a far more ambiguous relationship than ever before; she felt she was lying on burning coals.
But apart from the shock of her family’s crimes and Vincenzo’s outrageous “offer,” what really shook her were those last minutes at his penthouse.
Everything inside her had surged so fiercely in response, it had incapacitated her. Outraged her. That after all the heartache and humiliation, he only had to touch her, to tell her he wanted her, that she’d been the best he’d ever had, to have her body come to life, proclaiming him its master…
A classic ringtone sundered the stillness of the night.
Jerking up in bed, her heart thundered, unformed dreads deluging her. Her mother. She’d been fragile since her last round of cancer treatments months ago. Something had happened….
She fumbled for the phone, almost dropping it when she hit the button to answer. A deep-as-night voice poured into her brain.
“Are you awake?”
Gulping down aborted fright, anger flooded in to replace it, dripping into her voice. “It figures. You had to be one of those unfeeling, self-absorbed people who wake up others to ask if they’re awake.”