by Olivia Gates
Silence crashed in the wake of her ragged words.
Then he drawled, deep and dark, “A year is a long time.”
Her pent-up breath rushed out. “Tell me about it. I just want to start serving my sentence with as little resistance as possible, so it will pass with as little damage as possible.”
This time his gaze seemed to drill into her, as if to plumb the depths of her thoughts and emotions.
And she felt that he could read and sense everything she was thinking and feeling. Which was another new thing.
In the past, she’d always felt this…disconnection, except in the throes of passion. He’d been the classic absent-minded scientist, with his research occupying his fundamental being, only his superficial components engaged in everything else. Now it felt as if his whole being was tuned in to her. And that only deepened her confusion. What was he after?
Just as she tried to activate a two-way frequency to read him, he turned away, laying the prenup on her cabinet before turning back to her in utmost grace and tranquility.
“I’ll wait while you put on something suitable for this momentous occasion. Any more stalling and I’ll do it myself. I probably should since it’s for my pleasure. I can also undress you first, for our pleasure. I remember in vivid detail how you used to enjoy both activities.”
The avid look in his eyes said he’d carry out his silky threat at the slightest resistance. She couldn’t risk it, since she might end up begging him not to stop at undressing her.
Exasperated with both of them in equal measure, her glare told him what would give her utmost pleasure now. Giving his perfect nose some crooked character.
Mumbling abuse, she stormed to her room, with his laughter at her back, sending her temperature into the danger zone.
Half an hour later, when loitering drove her to screaming pitch, she exited her room. She found him prowling her living area like a caged panther.
He stopped in midstep, taking in her new outfit. Or her old one. The cream skirt suit with a satin turquoise blouse was…adequate. Even with stilettos and a purse coordinating with her blouse, it was nowhere near glamorous. But it was the only outfit she’d kept from her corporate days. Her wardrobe now consisted of a minimum of utilitarian clothes. Otherwise she would have never picked this suit. It was what she’d worn to her job interview with him. What she’d gone out with him in when he’d insisted on not wasting time changing. Fate was conspiring for her to take part in his déjà vu scenario.
She couldn’t tell if he remembered the suit, since that devouring look he’d had since they’d met again remained unchanged.
Before he could say anything, she preempted him. “In case you find this lacking, too, tough. This is my one and only ‘momentous occasion’ outfit. You’re welcome to check.”
“It is a ‘momentous occasion’ outfit indeed. If only for being…nostalgic of one.” So he remembered. Figured. He had a computer-like mind. Their time together must be archived in one of his extensive memory banks. “But we must do something about your wardrobe deficiencies. Your incomparable body must be clothed in only the finest creations. The masters of the fashion world will fall over each other for the chance to have your unique beauty grace theirs.”
She just had to snort. “Uh…have you been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder yet? Incomparable body? Unique beauty? What do you call the persona that thinks that?”
He started eliminating the distance between them, intent radiating from him. “If I never told you how I find you breathtaking down to your pores, I need to be punished. Which you are welcome to do. In my defense, I was busy showing you.”
“Yeah, before you showed me the door, and told me how interchangeable you found me with any female who wasn’t too hideous but meek and willing enough.”
“I lied.”
His gaze was direct, his words clear, cutting.
Disorientation rolled over her. “You—you did?”
His nod was terse, unequivocal. “Through my teeth.”
“Why?”
His lids squeezed, before he opened them, his gaze opaque. “I don’t want to go into the reasons. But nothing I said had any basis in truth. Let’s leave it at that.”
“And to hell with what I want. But then, you’re getting what you want no matter what I desire or what it costs me. Why do I keep expecting anything different? I must be insane.”
He seemed to hold back something impulsive. An elaboration on his cryptic declarations?
But she needed something. Anything. If what he’d said to her, the words that had torn into her psyche like shrapnel all those years ago, had all been lies, why had he said them? To push her away? Had she been clinging so hard that he’d panicked…?
No. She wasn’t rationalizing that son of a bitch’s mistreatment. There was no excuse for what he’d done to her. And now he was doing worse. Reeling her closer even as he pushed her away. Confounding her then leaving her hanging. Depriving her of the stability of hating him, the certainty of why she did.
His eyes were blank as he took her coat from her spastic grip, disregarding her bitterness. “We’ll have dinner first.”
She sullenly let him help her on with her coat, moving away as his arms started to tighten around her. “You’re not worried about putting cutlery in my reach?”
His gaze melted with an indulgence that hurt and confused her more than anything else. “I’ll take my chances.”
“You really expect me to eat after…all this?”
“I’ll postpone serving dinner until you’re very hungry. By then, I also hope your appetite for food will overpower that of poking me in the eye with a fork.”
With a look that said fat chance, she preceded him out of her condo.
She ignored him as he tried to hand her into the front passenger seat of a gemlike burgundy Jaguar he had parked in her building’s garage. He gave up acting the gallant suitor and walked around to take the wheel.
So. No driver, no guards. He wasn’t making their liaison public yet. Because he hadn’t expected her to sign the prenup, hadn’t considered it a done deal? No doubt he’d planned to coerce her some more during this “momentous occasion” until she did. She wondered what recalculation was going on inside that inscrutable mind now that she’d made further manipulation unnecessary.
During the drive, she sat barely breathing or moving so his scent and presence wouldn’t scramble her senses even more. Then observations finally seeped into her hazy mind.
They were leaving the city.
When she was certain this was no roundabout way to any restaurant or jeweler, she forced herself to turn to him.
“Where are we going?”
Still presenting her with the perfection of his profile, he smiled. “To the airport.”
Five
“The airport?”
At her croak, Vincenzo’s smile widened. “We’re going to have dinner on the jet. We’ll fly to where the most exclusive collection of jewelry on the planet awaits you, so you can pick your ring, and anything else that catches your fancy.”
He was so pleased with himself for stunning her again.
She was more than stunned. She was working on a stroke.
“And it didn’t occur to you to ask if I’d agree to this harebrained scheme of yours?”
His lips twitched at her venom. “A man going out of his way to surprise his fiancée doesn’t tell her in advance of the details of his efforts.”
Her jaw muscles hurt at his mention of fiancée. “Do save your ‘efforts’ for when you have a real fiancée.”
“But you already said I can’t have a real one for all the money and power in the world.”
“Who knows? Lots of women have self-destructive tendencies. And I didn’t say you couldn’t get one, I said you wouldn’t keep her.”
His eyes twinkled with mischief before he turned onto a route she’d never seen into the airport, and she’d been here countless times. “Well, you’re real enough for me. And for as long as I keep you
, I get to go all-out to surprise you.”
She harrumphed. “Save your energy. And save me from a stroke. I hate surprises. I haven’t met one that wasn’t nasty. Certainly never any from you.”
He sighed. “I assure you, this trip is anything but.”
“I don’t care what it will be like. It’s the concept I can’t stand.” She exhaled exasperatedly. “And to think I once thought you were part bulldozer.”
He slowed down as he took a turn, his eyebrows rising in amused query. “You changed your mind?”
“Yes. You’re the pure breed.”
And he did something that almost made her head explode.
He threw his head back and let out a hearty guffaw.
When she felt he’d scrambled her nervous system forever, he turned to her, chuckles still reverberating deep in his endless chest, his smile wider than she’d ever seen it.
“Watch it with the laughter, Vincenzo,” she mumbled, hating it that he affected her to extremes no matter what he was doing. “Doing something so unnatural to you can be dangerous. You’ll dislocate a brain lobe or something.”
His laugh boomed again. “Dio, I can get used to this.”
“Your highness hasn’t been exposed to sarcasm before? Figures, with all the syrupy ass-kissing you have everywhere you turn. Since you’ve been exposed to it from birth, you must have always had social juvenile diabetes.”
“I was wrong. I’m already too used to getting lashed with your delightful tongue. I hope you won’t ever hold it.”
“I think it’s a physical impossibility with you around.”
He chuckled again, this time doing something even more distressing. He reached out for her hand and brought it to his lips.
His lips. Those lips that had enslaved her with their possession, that had taught her passion and the pleasure her body was capable of experiencing. The moment they touched the back of her hand, her heart almost ruptured.
She snatched her hand back as if from open fire, agitation searing her insides. “I don’t know what you’re playing at…”
“I already told you my game plan.” His eyes turned serious as he brought the car to a stop and turned to her. “But I’ve also come to a new decision. I no longer care how this started…”
“I do.”
“…I only care that when I’m with you I feel…great. I haven’t felt like that in… I don’t even remember if I ever felt like that. You invigorate me. Your every word and look thrills me, and I don’t intend to keep holding back and not show it. If you tickle my humor, and you do, constantly, I’ll laugh. And I want you to do the same. Forget how we got to be here…”
“Because you blackmailed me.”
“…and just make the best of it. If you enjoy my company…”
“I’m not a fan of Stockholm syndrome, thank you.”
“…just allow yourself the enjoyment, don’t stifle it and don’t keep telling yourself why you should hold it back.”
“Easy for you to say and do. You’re not the one being threatened with your family’s imprisonment and taken hostage for a year. And being kidnapped right now.”
His eyes grew coaxing. “You are my partner in an endeavor I’m undertaking to serve my kingdom.” The word partner, the term he’d once said would never apply to her, scratched like a talon against her heart. “You will help me bridge its distance from the world to benefit its people and the coming generations. And you’re the fiancée I’m taking on a surprise trip. I will do everything in my power so you will enjoy it.”
The wish that all that could be true overwhelmed her, closing her throat. “That’s the facade hiding the ugly truth.”
“It is the truth, if you don’t dwell on the negative aspects.”
“Negative aspects? Now, that’s an innovative euphemism for extortion.”
He didn’t segue into a rejoinder this time. His gaze lengthened, grew distant, as if he was looking inward.
Seeming to come back to her, he exhaled. “Would you marry me if I took your family out of the equation?”
It was her turn to stare. “You mean I can say no and you wouldn’t report them?”
“Yes.”
He looked and sounded serious. Yeah. Sure.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Understandable. I don’t believe myself, either.” His headshake was self-deprecation itself. “But I do mean it.”
“Is this a ploy to put me at ease? So I’ll stop giving you a much deserved, not to mention much needed, hard time? So I’ll stop resisting and ‘come to your bed’?”
“Yes. No. Definitely.” At her frown, he elaborated. “Yes, I want to put you at ease, though it’s not a ploy. No, I don’t want you to stop bashing me on the head. With the way I’m relishing it, I’m realizing how much I do need it. And I’m definitely anticipating you in my bed….” His arm snaked around her, pulled her into his heat and hardness, enervating her with the delight of his feel and scent. “I’m willing to do whatever it takes to have you racing me there as you used to.”
Her head fell back as she stared at him, sounding as faint as she felt. “Even if it means not using your winning hand?”
“I already said it had nothing to do with our intimacies.”
“How can I be sure you won’t hurt my family if I say no?”
“How were you sure I wouldn’t after you said yes? I guess you’ll have to trust me.”
“I don’t.” She’d trusted him before. Look where it had gotten her.
“We’re even, then.”
What? What did that mean?
Before she could voice her puzzlement, he pressed her harder, cupped her face, and her questions combusted at the feel of the warm, powerful flesh cradling hers. “Don’t say anything now. Let’s forget everything and go with the flow. Let me give us tonight.”
Tonight. The word reverberated between them, sweeping through her, uprooting the tethers of her resolve and aversion. His lips were half a breath away, filling her lungs with his intoxication.
She hated that she yearned for his taste and urgency and dominance, but she did. How she did. The need screwed tighter, squeezing her vitals, strangling them. Everything that would assuage the craving gnawing her hollow was a tug away, on his lapel, his hair. Then he would give her everything she needed.
But she couldn’t do it. Literally. She couldn’t move a muscle. And he was giving her the choice of the first move. He wouldn’t take that out of her hands, too. When that was where she needed him to leave her no choice.
Leave it to him to do the opposite of what she wanted.
Annoyance spurted, infusing her limpness with tension.
With a look acknowledging that he wouldn’t get a cease-fire that easily, and with a last annihilating stroke across her stinging lips, he pulled back.
In moments he’d stepped down from the car and come around to her door. She almost clung to him for support as he handed her down. The coolness of twilight after the warmth of the vehicle sprouted goose bumps all over her, adding to her imbalance.
Then every concern evaporated as she gaped. Up.
They were beneath a massive jetliner that looked like a giant alien bird of prey. This was his jet?
The next moment left no doubt as he took her elbow and led her to the Air Force One–style stairs that led from the tarmac to the inside of the jet.
Once inside, her jaw dropped further. She’d been on private jets before, though never his. Another proof of how marginal she’d been to him, when he’d been the center of her universe. But any other jets she’d seen paled in comparison.
She turned sarcastic eyes up to him. “It’s clear you believe in going the extra hundred million in pursuit of luxury.”
He smiled down at her. “I wouldn’t say I go that far.”
She looked pointedly around. “I’d say you go beyond.”
His smile remained unrepentant. “I travel a lot, with staff. I have meetings on board. I need space and convenience.”
&nb
sp; “Tell me about your need for those.” She waited until she got a “so we won’t stop dredging up the past, eh?” look, then added more derision. “And you must have yet another castle in the sky to accommodate both ‘needs,’ huh?”
“My family’s being the first one on terra firma?”
“And the third being the futuristic headquarters in New York. Next, I’ll find out you have a space station and a couple of pyramids. Hang on…”
She got out her phone.
He gave her a playful tug, plastering her to his side. “What are you doing now?”
Squeezing her legs tighter against the new rush of heat, she cocked her head up at him. “Just estimating how many thousands of children this sickeningly blatant status symbol could feed, clothe and educate for years.”
He tipped his head back and his laughter boomed, sending her heartbeats scattering all over the jet’s lush carpeting.
“Dio, will I ever come close to guessing what you’ll say next?” He still chuckled as he led her through a meeting area, where staff hovered in the background, to the spiral staircase leading to the upper deck. “So you consider this jet too pretentious? A waste of money better spent on worthy causes?”
“Any personal ‘item’ with a price tag the length of a phone number ranges from ludicrously to criminally wasteful.”
“Even if it’s a utility that I use to make millions of dollars more, money I do use to benefit humanity at large?”
“By advancing science, protecting the environment and creating jobs? Yeah. You forget how I started my working life. I’ve heard all the arguments. And seen all the tax write-offs.”
“But you started your working life with me, so you know I’m not in this to make money or to flaunt my power or status.”
“Do I? Solid experience has taught me that I know nothing about the real you.”
He didn’t answer that as he walked her across an ultrachic foyer and through a door that he opened via a fingerprint-recognition module. It whirred shut as he let her lead him into what had to be the ultimate in airborne private quarters.
The sheer opulence hit her with more evidence of the world he existed in. The world he now maintained she could choose to enter, or not.
