by Olivia Gates
But she wasn’t only checking off his upgrades against what she’d known…too intimately. She was reacting to him in the same way, with the same intensity she had when she’d been younger, inexperienced and oblivious of his reality.
Weird, this disconnect between mental aversion and physical affinity.
She could barely breathe, and that was before he spoke, his voice deeper, strumming hidden places inside her with each inflection, with that trace accent, those rolling r’s…
“Before you say anything, yes, I do have evidence that would send your father and brother to prison from fifteen to life. But you must already be certain of that. That’s why you’re here.”
Her momentary incapacitation cracked.
She moved steadily toward him, roiling rage fueling each step. “I know you’re capable of anything. That’s why I’m here.”
His eyes smoldered as they documented her state. “I’ll dispense with the preliminaries then and get to the point of my summons.”
She stopped feet away, scoffing, “Summons? Wow. Your ‘princehood’ has gone to your head, hasn’t it? But then, you must have always been this pompous and loathsome, and I was the one who was too blind to notice.”
Those sculpted lips that had once driven her to insanity twisted. “I don’t have time now for your scorned-woman barbs, Glory. But once my objective is fulfilled, I might accommodate your need to vent. It will be…amusing.”
Bringing herself under control, she matched his coolness. “I’m sure it will be. Sharks do relish blood. And that, along with anything I say to you or about you, isn’t a barb. Just a fact. So let’s stop wasting calories and get to the point of your ‘summons.’ What will it take so you won’t destroy my family? If you want me to steal some top secret info from your rivals, I no longer work in your field, as I’m sure you know.”
An imperious eyebrow rose. “Would you have, if you were?”
Her answer was unhesitating. “No.”
Something streaked in his eyes, something that looked like…pain? What made it even more confusing was that it was tinged with…humor? Humor? Vincenzo? And now of all times?
“Not even to save your beloved family?”
She wanted to growl that they were no such thing.
Oh, sure, she loved them. But they drove her up the wall being so irresponsible. They were why she was now at this royal scumbag’s mercy. He must have acquired some debts of theirs. And if he could send them to prison using those, they must be huge.
“No,” she said, more forcefully this time. “I was just analyzing the only thing you might think I have to offer in return for your generous amnesty.”
“That’s not the only thing you have to offer.”
For heart-scrambled moments it felt as if he meant…
No. No way. He’d told her in mutilating detail what an exchangeable “lay” she’d been. He’d discarded her and moved on to a thousand others. And he was known to never return to an already pollinated flower. He wouldn’t go to these lengths, or any, to have her in his bed again.
Her glare grew harder. “I can offer you a much deserved skull fracture. Apart from that, I can’t think of a thing.”
This time, the humor filling his eyes and lips was unmistakable, shaking her more than anything else had.
“I’ll pass on the kind cranial-reconstruction offer. But there is another alteration you can offer me that I vitally need.” His lips quirked as if at a private joke. “ASAP.”
“Will you stop wasting my time and just spit it out? What the hell do you ‘need’?”
Unfazed by her fury, he calmly said, “A wife.”
Two
“A wife?”
Glory heard herself echoing what Vincenzo had said.
But he couldn’t have said that.
He only nodded, confirming that she’d parroted him correctly.
Dazed, she shook her head. “How can I offer you a wife?” A suspicion hit her between the eyes. “You’re interested in someone I know?”
That lazy humor heated his eyes again. “Yes. Someone you know very well.”
Nausea twisted her stomach as every woman she knew flashed through her mind. Many were beautiful and sophisticated enough to qualify for Vincenzo’s demanding standards. Amelia, her best friend, in particular. But she was newly engaged. Was that why Vincenzo had her here, because he wanted her help to break up her friend’s relationship so he’d…?
He interrupted the apoplectic fit in progress. “According to my king, I need an emergency reputation upgrade that only a wife can provide.”
Her mind burned rubber calibrating the new info. “Your sexual exploits are giving Castaldini a bad name? That must be why King Ferruccio had to intervene. Did he issue you a royal decree to cease and desist?”
He gave a tranquil nod of that leonine head of his. “What amounted to that, si. That’s why I’m ‘getting a wife.’”
“Who knew? Even the untouchable Vincenzo D’Agostino has someone he bows down to. It must have stung bad, standing before another man, even if he is your lord and liege, being chastised like a kid and told what to do, huh? How does it feel to be forced to end your stellar career as a womanizer?”
One of those formidable shoulders jerked nonchalantly. “I’m ending nothing. I’m only getting a wife temporarily.”
So he wasn’t even pretending he’d change his ways. At least no one could accuse him of hiding what he was. No one but her. He’d hidden his nature and intentions ingeniously for the duration of their…liaison—what he’d made her believe had been a love affair to rival those of literature and legend.
She exhaled her rising frustration. “Of course she’d have to be temporary. All the power and money in the world, which you do have, wouldn’t get you a woman permanently.”
His uncharacteristic amusement singed her again. “You’re saying women wouldn’t fall over themselves to marry me?”
“Oh, I bet there’d be queues across the globe panting at the prospect. What I’m saying is any woman would end up paying whatever price to get rid of you once she got to know the real you. There’s no way a woman would want you for life.”
“Isn’t it lucky then that I don’t want one for anywhere near that long? I just need a woman who’ll follow every rule of my temporary arrangement to the letter. But my problem isn’t in finding the woman who’ll accept my terms. It would be difficult to find one who won’t.”
“You’re that conceited, you think all women would be so desperate for you, they’d accept you on any terms, no matter how short-lived and degrading?”
“That’s not conceit. That’s a fact. You being a case in point. You accepted me on no terms whatsoever. And clung so hard, I ended up needing to pull your tentacles out of my flesh with more harshness than I’ve ever had to employ before or since.”
She stared at him, shriveling with remembered shame and again wondered…why all this malice? This fluency of abuse? When all she’d ever done was lose her mind over him….
He went on, his eyes cold. “But any woman, once she’s carrying my name, might use my need to keep up appearances, the reason that drove me to marriage in the first place, to milk the situation for more. I need someone who can’t even think it.”
“Just hire a…mercenary then,” she hissed. “One practiced enough to pretend to stand you, for a fixed time and price.”
“A…mercenary is exactly what I’m after. But one who’s not overtly…experienced. I need someone who’s maintained an outwardly pristine reputation. I am trying to polish mine, after all, and it wouldn’t do to put a chipped jewel in my already tarnished crown.”
“Even an actual immaculate gem would fail to improve your gaudiness. But you should have called ahead. I certainly don’t know anyone, well or not, who fits the category of…mercenary, let alone one so…experienced she simulates a spotless past. I don’t even know someone reckless or desperate enough to accept you on any terms, for any length of time.”
“You do kno
w someone who fits all those criteria. You.”
*
Vincenzo watched Glory as his last word drained every bit of blood and expression from her face. The face that had haunted him for six years. It was still the same, yet so different.
The last plumpness had vanished, exposing a bone structure that was a masterpiece of exquisiteness. It brought her every feature into stark focus, in a display of harmony and gorgeousness. Her complexion, due to her new outdoorsy lifestyle, was tanned a perfect honey, only shades lighter than her magnificent waterfall of tawny hair. Her skin gleamed with health, stretching taut over those elegant bones. Her eyebrows were denser, their arch defined and decisive, her nose more refined, more authoritative and her jaw cleaner, stronger.
But it was still those summer skies she had for eyes that struck him to his core. And those flushed lips. They looked fuller, as if they’d absorbed what had been chiseled off her cheeks. They were more sensuous even in their current severity. Just looking at them made every part of him they’d once worshipped and owned tense, tingle, clamor for their touch. Everything about her had him fighting to ease an arousal that had hardened to steel. And that was before his appraisal traveled down to her body.
That body that had held the code to his libido.
It was painfully clear it still did, now more than ever. But while her face had been chiseled, her body had filled out, the enhanced curves making her the epitome of toned femininity, a woman just hitting the stride of her allure and vigor. Her newly physical lifestyle really agreed with her.
Her navy pantsuit was designed to obscure her assets, but he had X-ray vision where she was concerned. And he couldn’t wait until he confirmed his estimates with an unhindered visual and hands-on examination.
For now, he just wondered how those eyes of hers didn’t display any tinge of the cunning the woman who’d once set him up should have. They only transmitted the indomitable edge of a warrior used to fighting adversaries who surpassed her in power a hundredfold. As she knew he did.
Or, at least they had until he’d said “You.”
Her eyes now displayed nothing but absolute shock. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she hadn’t even considered that he’d been talking about her.
But of course she had. She was just in a class of her own when it came to spontaneous acting.
She blinked, as if coming out of a trance, shock giving way to fury so icy it burned him. “I don’t care how big a debt my father and brother have. I’ll pay it off.”
He didn’t see that coming. “You think what I have on them is a debt? You really think I’d have leverage so lame it could be nullified with money?”
“Quit posturing, you loathsome jerk. What do you have on them?”
He paused, testing, even tasting, his reaction to her insult. It felt like exhilaration, tasted tart and zesty. He immediately wanted more.
Dio. If he was hankering for more of her slurs, he must be queasier than he thought with all the deference he got in his official and professional roles. Not that he could imagine himself reveling in anybody else’s verbal abuse.
His lips tugged as he contemplated his newfound desire to be bashed by her, knowing it would inflame her more. Which was just what he was after. “Oh, just a few crimes.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’d go as far as framing them to get me to do your bidding?”
“I’m just exposing them. And only a fraction of their crimes at that. To save posturing on your end, read this.” He bent, swiped a dossier off the coffee table between them and held it out to her. “Verify my evidence any way you like. I have more if you want. But that would be overkill. This is quite enough to see both in prison for embezzlement and fraud for maybe the rest of your father’s life, and most of what’s left of your brother’s.”
Her hand rose as if without volition, receiving the dossier. With one more dazed look, she relinquished his gaze, turned unsteadily and sank down onto the couch where he’d once taken her. He’d made love to her in every corner of this place. At least, he’d been making love. Love, or anything genuine, hadn’t been involved on her end.
He watched her as she leafed through the pages with unsteady hands, that amazing speed-reading ability engaged, letting memories sweep through him at last.
How he’d loved her. Now he needed to exorcise her.
It felt as if hours had passed before she raised her gaze back to his, her eyes reddened, her lips trembling. What an incredible simulation of disbelief and devastation.
When she talked, her voice was thick and hoarse, as if she were barely holding back tears. “How long have you had…that?”
“That particular accumulation of damning evidence? Over a year. I have much older files retracing the rest of their crimes, in case you’re interested.”
“There was more?”
Anyone looking at her would swear this was the shock of her life, that she’d never suspected the men in her family could possibly be involved in criminal activities.
He huffed his disgust at the whole situation, and everyone involved in it. “They’re both extremely good, I’ll give them that. That’s why no one else has caught them at it yet.”
“Why have you?”
She was asking all the right questions. If he answered them all truthfully, they’d paint her the real picture of what had happened in the past. Which wouldn’t be a bad idea. He was sick and tired of the pretense.
So he told her. “I’ve been keeping them under close scrutiny since the attempts to steal my research.”
Her eyes rounded in renewed shock. “You suspected them?”
“I suspected everyone with access to me, direct or indirect.”
A stricken look entered her eyes, as if she was just now realizing he must have suspected her, too. Of course, she was still under the impression that nothing of value had been stolen. When everything had been.
It had been so sensitive, even with all his security, he’d documented his results in bits and pieces that only he could put together. But they’d still been accessed and reconstructed and appeared in the hands of his rivals. Then he’d been given proof that the breach had originated from Glory.
But he’d insisted it must have been someone who had total access to Glory. Only her family had that. Needing to settle this without her knowledge, only thinking of her heartache if she found out, he’d confronted them. They’d broken under his threats, begged his leniency. He’d already decided to show them that, for Glory, but he’d said he’d only consider it if they gave him the details of their plan, their recruiters and any accomplices. If they didn’t, he’d show no mercy. And they’d given him proof that it had been Glory. She’d been their only hope of getting to him.
And how she’d gotten to him.
She’d played him like a virtuoso. It hadn’t even occurred to him to guard himself against her like he did with everyone else.
But a lengthy, highly publicized court case would have harmed more than helped him. Worse, it would have kept her in his life. So he’d groped for the lesser mutilation of cutting her off from his life abruptly, so the sordid mess wouldn’t get any bigger.
Then something totally unexpected had happened. Also because of her.
As he’d struggled to put her out of his mind, he’d restarted his work from scratch, soon becoming thankful he had. What he’d thought was a breakthrough had actually been fundamentally flawed. If he hadn’t lost the whole thing, he would have cost his sponsors untold billions of wasted development financing. But the real catastrophe would have been if the magnitude of confidence in his research had minimized testing before its applications hit the market. Lives could have been lost.
So her betrayal had been a blessing in disguise, forcing him to correct his mistakes and devise a safe, more cost-effective and streamlined method. After that, he’d been catapulted to the top of his field. Not that he was about to thank Glory for the betrayal that had led to all that.
Glory’s choking words brought him out of
the darkness of the past. “But they had nothing to do with your leaked research. And according to you, there was no leaked research.”
“Not for lack of trying on the culprits’ part. That I placed false results for them to steal doesn’t exonerate them from the crime of industrial espionage and patent theft.”
Her sluggish nod conceded that point. “But if you didn’t pursue them then, they must have checked out. So why did you keep them under a microscope all this time?”
So she was still playing the innocence card. Fine. He’d play it her way. He had a more important goal now than exhuming past corpses. He’d get closure in a different way, which wouldn’t involve exposing the truth. If she still believed she’d failed in her mission, he’d let her keep thinking that.
His lips twisted on ever-present bitterness. “What can I say? I follow my gut. And it told me they were shifty, and to keep an eye on them. Since I could easily afford to, I did. And because I was already following their every move, I found out each instance when they stepped out of line, even when others couldn’t. I also learned their methods, so I could anticipate them. They didn’t stand a chance.”
A long moment of silence passed, filled with the world of hurt and disillusion roiling in her eyes.
Then she rasped, “Why haven’t you reported them?”
Because they’re your family.
There. He’d finally admitted it to himself.
Something that felt like a boulder sitting on his chest suddenly lifted. He felt as if he could breathe fully again, after years of only snatching in enough air to survive.
So this was how it felt to be free of self-deceptions.
It had sat heavily on his conscience, that he’d known of her family’s habitual crimes and not done anything about it. He’d tried to rationalize why he hadn’t, but it had boiled down to this: after all she’d done to him, he still hadn’t been able to bring himself to damage her to that extent. He had been unable to cause her the loss of her family, as shoddy as they were. But even more, he couldn’t have risked that they might have implicated her.
