CHAPTER SIX
THERE WAS NO doubt at all that the man on the video screen was Dominik’s brother. It was obvious from the shape of his jaw to the gray of his eyes. His hair was shorter, and every detail about him proclaimed his wealth and high opinion of himself. The watch he wore that he wasn’t even bothering to try to flash. The cut of his suit. The way he sat as if the mere presence of his posterior made wherever he rested it a throne.
This was the first blood relative Dominik had ever met, assuming a screen counted as a meeting. This...aristocrat.
He couldn’t think of a creature more diametrically opposed to him. He, who had suffered and fought for every scrap he’d ever had, and a man who looked as if he’d never blinked without the full support of a trained staff.
They stared at each other for what seemed like another lifetime or two.
Dominik stood in Lauren’s office, which was sprawling and modern and furnished in such a way to make certain everyone who entered it knew that she was very important in her own right—and even more so, presumably, as the gatekeeper to the even more massive and dramatically appointed office beyond.
Matteo Combe’s office, Dominik did not have to be told.
His only brother, so far as he knew. The man who had received all the benefit of the blood they shared, while Dominik had been accorded all the shame.
Matteo Combe, the man whose bidding Lauren did without question.
Dominik decided he disliked the man on the screen before him. Intensely.
“I would have known you anywhere,” Matteo said after they’d eyed each other a good long while.
It would have pained Dominik to admit that he would have known Matteo, too—it was the eyes they shared, first and foremost, and a certain similarity in the way they held themselves—so he chose not to admit it.
“Brother,” Dominik replied instead, practically drawling out the word. Making it something closer to an insult. “What a pleasure to almost meet you.”
And when Lauren showed him out of the office shortly after that tender reunion, Dominik took a seat in the waiting area that was done up like the nicest and most expensive doctor’s office he’d ever seen, and reflected on how little he’d thought about this part. The actually having family, suddenly, part.
Because all he’d thought about since she’d walked into his clearing was Lauren.
When he’d searched for his parents, he’d quickly discovered that the young man who’d had the temerity to impregnate an heiress so far above his own station had died in an offshore oil rig accident when he was barely twenty. An oil rig he’d gone to work on because he couldn’t remain in Europe, pursuing his studies, after his relationship with Alexandrina had been discovered.
And when Dominik had found all the Combes and San Giacomos with precious little effort—which, of course, meant they could have done the same—he’d had wanted nothing to do with them. Because he wanted nothing from them—look what they’d done to the boy who’d fathered him. They had gotten rid of both of them, in one way or another, and Dominik had risen from the trash heap where they’d discarded him despite that abandonment. His mother’s new boy and girl, who had been pampered and coddled and cooed over all this time in his stead, were nothing to him. What was the point of meeting with them to discuss Alexandrina’s sins?
He’d been perfectly content to excel on his own terms, without any connection to the great families who could have helped him out of the gutter, but hadn’t. Likely because they’d been the ones to put him there.
But it hadn’t occurred to him to prepare himself to look into another man’s face and see...his own.
It was disconcerting, to put it mildly.
That they had different fathers was evident, but there was no getting around the fact that he and Matteo Combe shared blood. Dominik scowled at the notion, because it sat heavily. Too heavily.
And then he transferred that scowl back to the screen inside Lauren’s office, where Matteo was still larger than life and Lauren stood before him, arguing.
He didn’t have to be able to hear a word she said to know she was arguing. He knew some of her secrets now. He knew the different shapes she made with that mouth of hers and the crease between her brows that broadcast her irritation. He certainly knew what she looked like when she was agitated.
And he found he didn’t much care for the notion that whatever she called it or didn’t call it, she had a thing for her boss.
Her boss. His brother.
“Is he one of the ones you’ve experimented with?” he asked her when she came out of the office, the screen finally blank behind her.
She was frowning even more fiercely than before, which he really shouldn’t have found entertaining, especially when he hadn’t had the pleasure of causing it. He lounged back in his seat as if it had been crafted specifically for him and regarded her steadily until she blinked. In what looked like incomprehension.
“I already declined to dignify that question with a response.”
“Because dignity is the foremost concern here. With your boss.” He refused to call the man Mr. Combe the way she did. And calling him by his Christian name seemed to suggest that they had more of a personal relationship—or any personal relationship, for that matter—than Dominik was comfortable having with anyone who shared his blood. “I want to know if he was one of your kissing experiments.”
Lauren maintained her blank expression for a moment.
But then, to his eternal delight, she went pink and he couldn’t seem to keep from wondering about all the other, more exciting ways he could make her flush like that.
“Certainly not.” Her voice was frigid, but he’d tasted her. He knew the ice she tried to hide behind was a lie. “I told you, I admire him. I enjoy the work we do together. I have never kissed—”
She cut herself off, then pulled herself up straight. It only made Dominik wonder what she might have said if she hadn’t stopped herself. “You and I have far more serious things to talk about than kissing experiments, Mr. James.”
“I have always found kissing very serious business indeed. Would you like me to demonstrate?”
That pink flush deepened and he wanted to know where it went. If it changed as it lowered to her breasts, and what color her nipples were. If it made it to her hips, her thighs. And all that sweetness in between. He wanted to peel off that soft silk blouse she wore and conduct his own experiments, at length.
And the fact that thinking about Lauren Clarke’s naked body was far preferable to him than considering the fact he’d met his brother, more or less, did not escape him. Dominik rarely hid from himself.
But he had no need, and less desire, to tear himself open and seek out the lonely orphan inside.
“Mr. Combe thinks it best that we head to Combe Manor. It is the estate in Yorkshire where his father’s family rose to prominence. He understands you are not a Combe. But he thinks it would cause more comment to bring you directly to any of the San Giacomo holdings in Italy at this point.”
Dominik understood that at this point was the most important part of Lauren’s little speech. That and the way she delivered it, still standing in her own doorway too stiffly, her voice a little too close to nervous. He studied her and watched her grow even more agitated—and then try to hide it.
It was the fact that she wanted to hide her reactions from him that made him happiest of all, he thought.
“I don’t know who you think is paying such close attention to me,” Dominik said after a moment. “No one has noticed that I bear more than a passing resemblance to a member of the San Giacomo family in my entire lifetime so far. I cannot imagine that will change all of a sudden.”
“It will change in an instant should you be found in a San Giacomo residence, looking as you do, as the very ghost of San Giacomos past.”
He inclined his head. Slightly. “I am very g
ood at living my life away from prying eyes, little red. You may have noticed.”
“Those days are over now.” She stood even straighter, and he had the distinct impression she was working herself up to say something else. “You may not feel any sense of urgency, but I can tell you that the clock is ticking. It’s only a matter of time before Alexandrina’s will is leaked, because these things are always leaked. Once it is, the paparazzi will tear apart the earth to find you. We need to be prepared for when that happens.”
“I feel more than prepared already. In the sense of not caring.”
“There are a number of things it would make more sense for us to do now, before the world gets its teeth into you.”
“How kinky,” he murmured, just to please himself.
And better still, to make her caramel eyes flash with that temper he suspected was the most honest thing about her.
“First, we must make your exterior match the San Giacomo blood that runs in your veins.”
He found his mouth curving. “Are you suggesting a makeover? Have I strayed into a fairy tale, after all?”
“I certainly wouldn’t call it that. A bit of tailoring and a new wardrobe, that’s all. Perhaps a lesson or two in minor comportment issues that might arise. And a haircut, definitely.”
Dominik’s grin was sharp and hot. “Why, Lauren. Be still my heart. Am I the Cinderella in this scenario? I believe that makes you my Princess Charming.”
“There’s no such thing as a Princess Charming.” She sniffed. “And anyway, I believe my role here is really as more of a Fairy Godmother.”
“I do not recall Cinderella and her Fairy Godmother ever being attached at the lips,” he said silkily. “But perhaps your fairy tales are more exciting than mine ever were.”
“I hate fairy tales,” she threw at him. “They’re strange little stories designed to make children meek and biddable and responsible for the things that happen to them when they’re not. And also, we need to get married.”
That sat there between them, loud and not a little mad.
Dominik’s gaze was fused to hers and, sure enough, that flush was deepening. Darkening.
“I beg your pardon.” He lingered over each word, almost as if he really was begging. Not that he had any experience with such things. And there was so much to focus on, but he had to choose. “All this urban commotion must be getting to me.” He made a show of looking all around the empty office, then, because he had never been without a flair for the dramatic when it suited him—and this woman brought it out in him in spades. “Did you just ask me to marry you?”
“I’m not asking you, personally. I’m telling you that Mr. Combe thinks it’s the best course of action. First, it will stop the inevitable flood of fortune hunters who will come out of the woodwork once they know you exist before they think to start. Second, it will instantly make you seem more approachable and civilized, because the world thinks married men are less dangerous, somehow, than unattached ones. Third, and most important, it needn’t be real in any sense but the boring legalities. And we will divorce as soon as the furor settles.”
Dominik only gazed back at her, still and watchful.
“Come now, Lauren. A man likes a little romance, not a bullet-pointed list. The very least you could do is bend a knee and mouth a sweet nothing or two.”
“I’m not proposing to you!” Her veneer slipped at that, and her face reddened. “Mr. Combe thinks—”
“Will I be marrying my own brother?” He lay his hand over his heart in mock astonishment. “What sort of family is this?”
He thought her head might explode. He watched her hands curl into fists at her sides as if that alone could keep her together.
“You agreed to do whatever was asked of you,” she reminded him, fiercely. “Don’t tell me that you’re the one who’s going to break our deal. Now. After—”
After kissing him repeatedly, he knew she meant to say, but she stopped herself.
The more he stared back at her without saying a word, the more agitated she became. And the more he enjoyed himself, though perhaps that made him a worse man than even he’d imagined. And he’d spent a great quantity of time facing his less savory attributes head-on, thanks in part to the ministrations of the nuns who had taught him shame and how best to hate himself for existing. The army had taken care of the rest.
These days Dominik was merrily conversant on all his weaknesses, but Lauren made him...something else again.
But that was one more thing he didn’t want to focus on.
“What would be the point of a marriage that wasn’t real?” he asked idly. “The public will need to have reason to believe it’s real for it to be worth bothering, no?”
The truth was that Dominik had never thought much about marriage one way or the other. Traditional family relationships weren’t something he had ever seen modeled in the orphanage or on the streets in Spain. He had no particular feelings about the state of marriage in any personal sense, except that he found it a mystifying custom, this strange notion that two people should share their lives. Worse, themselves.
And odder still, call it love—of all things—while they did it.
What Dominik knew of love was what the nuns had doled out in such a miserly way, always shot through with disappointment, too many novenas and demands for better behavior. Love was indistinguishable from its unpleasant consequences and character assassinations, and Dominik had been much happier when he’d left all that mess and failure behind him.
He had grown used to thinking of himself as a solitary being, alone by choice rather than circumstance. He liked his own company. He was content to avoid others. And he enjoyed the peace and quiet that conducting his affairs to his own specifications, with no outside opinion and according to his own wishes and whims, afforded him. He was answerable to no one and chained to nothing.
The very notion of marrying anyone, for any reason, should have appalled him.
But it didn’t.
Not while he gazed at this woman before him—
That pricked at him, certainly. But not enough to stop. Or leave, the way he should have already.
He told himself it was because this was a game, that was all. An amusement. What did he care about the San Giacomo reputation or public opinion? He didn’t.
But he did like the way Lauren Clarke tasted when she melted against him. And it appeared he liked toying with her in between those meltings, too.
“What we’re talking about is a publicity stunt, nothing more,” she told him, frowning all the while. “You understand what that means, don’t you? There’s nothing real about it. It’s entirely temporary. And when it ends, we will go our separate ways and pretend it never happened.”
“You look distressed, little red,” he murmured, because all she seemed to do as she stood there before him was grow redder and stiffer, and far more nervous, if the way she wrung her hands together was any indication.
He didn’t think she had the slightest idea what she was doing. Which was fair enough, as neither did he. Evidently. Since he was still sitting here, lounging about in the sort of stuffy corporate office he’d sworn off when he’d sold his company, as if he was obedient. When he was not. Actually subjecting himself to this charade.
Participating in it wholeheartedly, in point of fact, or he never would have invited her into his cabin. Much less left it in her company—then flown off to rainy, miserable England.
“I wouldn’t call myself distressed.” But her voice told him otherwise. “I don’t generally find business concerns distressing. Occasionally challenging, certainly.”
“And yet I am somehow unconvinced.” He studied the way she stood. The way she bit at her lower lip. Those hands that telegraphed the feelings she claimed not to have. “Could it be that your Mr. Combe, that paragon of virtue and all that is wise and true in an employer by your re
ckoning, has finally pushed you too far?”
“Of course not.” She seemed to notice what she was doing with her hands then, because she dropped them back to her sides. Then she drew herself up in that way she did, lifted her chin and met his gaze. With squared shoulders and full-on challenge in her caramel-colored eyes—which, really, he shouldn’t have found quite as entertaining as he did. What was it about this woman? Why did he find her so difficult to resist? He, who had made a life out of resisting everything? “Perhaps you’ve already forgotten, but you promised that you would do whatever was asked of you.”
He stopped trying to control his grin. “I recall my promises perfectly, thank you. I am shocked and appalled that you think so little of the institution of marriage that you would suggest wedding me in some kind of cold-blooded attempt to fool the general populace, all of whom you appear to imagine will be hanging on our every move.”
He shook his head at her as if disappointed unto his very soul at what she had revealed here, and had the distinct pleasure of watching her grit her teeth.
“I find it difficult to believe that you care one way or the other,” she said after a moment. “About fooling anyone for any reason. And, for that matter, about marriage.”
“I don’t.” He tilted his head to one side. “But I suspect you do.”
He thought he’d scored a hit. She stiffened further, then relaxed again in the next instant as if determined not to let him see it. And then her cheeks flamed with that telltale color, which assured him that yes, she cared.
But a better question was, why did he?
“I don’t have any feelings about marriage at all,” she declared in ringing tones he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe. “It was never something I aspired to, personally, but I’m not opposed to it. I rarely think about it at all, to be honest. Are you telling me that you lie awake at night, consumed with fantasies about your own wedding, Mr. James?”
“Naturally,” he replied. And would have to examine, at some point, why he enjoyed pretending to be someone completely other than who he was where this woman was concerned. Purely for the pleasure of getting under her skin. He smiled blandly. “Who among us has not dreamed of swanning down an expensive aisle, festooned in tulle and lace, for the entertainment of vague acquaintances?”
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