drew his gaze. The scent of her perfume drenched his pores.
Dio, the woman smelled absolutely divine.
He moved his free hand over his own cheek, and then over hers. She was so silky soft that his mind instantly wandered to other areas. “Corner me into marriage first, then slap me second...no woman has even come close to what you have achieved today, tesoro.”
She pushed at him again with her hands, not that he budged at her attack. “Don’t you dare call me that, whatever the hell it means.”
“Then do not push me into retaliating the only way I know, bella.”
The more she struggled against him, the more aroused he became. He gave himself over to the moment and enjoyed the novelty of his own reaction.
Most of the women he had dated the past few years had been simpering, talking him up, catering to his every need before he even knew it. Until one face blended into another, until he was nothing but a carefully constructed projection of himself in their eyes, until there was nothing but emptiness inside him...
No one knew who he was, no woman was herself with him...
That Clio wouldn’t hesitate to be herself with him was an aphrodisiac unlike anything. It morphed his physical hunger for her into something else...
“I always wondered about that even temper of yours, bella. That first year at Columbia I would spend hours wondering if you ever lost it and how you would look if you did,” he drawled, and tugged at her hair.
Her gorgeous hair tumbled down to her shoulders like amber fire. Still holding her with one hand, he twisted the hair around his fingers. Wondered for the millionth time how she would look wearing nothing.
“I’ve never in my life even hurt a fly,” she muttered, but it came out husky and uneven.
An atavistic satisfaction filled him. She was just as turned on as he was, struggling with her want even as she despised him for doubting her.
“That makes me feel extra special.”
“That’s because you’re an utter bastard.”
“Now you’re learning, Clio.”
He buried his face in her hair and breathed deeply.
There was a freedom that she understood him now. That she had finally learned he was not the friend she remembered with such fondness. That the man he was now could distrust her motives and yet still want her with a feral need that knew no reason.
That she realized he was not doing this for her but because of his desperate need to bring down Jackson.
She would not trust him now, would not expect anything from him and there was a relief in it.
Suddenly, she sagged against him, as if the fight depleted out of her. And he relaxed his arms around her.
“Why are you doing this?” she finally said in such a small voice that it shook him more than her slap had.
“Because it’s impossible for me to trust your motive, unbearable for me to give a woman place in my life, even temporarily. Isn’t that clear enough, bella? The fact that I’m even contemplating doing this is because I need that proof, Clio. But make sure you don’t up the price any more.
“If you accept, we’ll be married next week. Here at the Chatsfield, just as you want. We will show Jackson and New York a wedding they won’t forget soon. You’ll be the most beautiful bride New York has ever seen.”
A shiver racked Clio and instantly his hold on her tightened, his body a deceptively warm fortress around her.
“I will sign wherever you want me to, I will follow every condition of yours. I have...lost so much already, I... You’ll have your revenge,” she said bitterly. “There’s definitely something fishy with Jackson’s numbers.”
“Good,” he replied, stepping away from her.
He had shown her his true self and yet, it felt as if he was the one who had been burned.
* * *
“Good night, Stefan,” Clio whispered, her throat aching, her gut churning in panic.
What had she done? Oh, God, what had she done? How could she have not seen what her enraged, impulsive declaration would turn him into?
Without casting another glance at him, she walked away, her head held high.
* * *
For the first time in a decade, Stefan felt the landscape of his life slip from his fingers and all because of a woman. Again.
The only way he knew to protect Clio and himself from this was to set rules, to remove her from his mind, to wipe and forget the taste of her from his thoughts and definitely decouple her from his lust.
To set expectations that neither of them could falter over. Crushing the overwhelming urge to kiss the hurt away from her mouth, he walked into his office and turned on the huge plasma screens mounted over the far wall.
Walking into the closet, he stripped and dressed in his workout shorts. Cranked up the rowing machine he’d had specially installed in his study and went to work on it.
He was not only seething against the course he had set tonight, but he had sexual frustration added to the mix.
Just the cranking of the machine and the burn of his thigh and arm muscles went a long way toward calming him down.
The news would already be spreading, he knew.
The fact that he—the quintessential third bachelor among the Columbia Four—was finally getting married, and in just a week, so soon after Rocco’s and Christian’s fairy-tale weddings, would unleash a storm he couldn’t contain.
A picture of him and Clio entering the Chatsfield tonight, immediately followed by a shot of them from a decade ago, lounging on the steps of University Hall at Columbia with wide smiles on their faces, flashed on the screen.
Not everyone trusts a corporation with a predatory playboy at its helm, he had heard his board bemoan more than once when he had questioned why they hadn’t made a particular deal.
An evening of being an affianced man—and to Clio—had already changed the business world’s perception of him. And stealing Clio from Jackson, as the media was calling it, meant that the focus stayed on his business and him.
It worked for his business and his brand to have a wife, and Clio at that, who was sophisticated and levelheaded and, more important, had no expectations of him. Even if she had, he had made sure he had destroyed them tonight.
It worked every which way he looked at it except for his heart.
Hearing the phrase “Reunited College Sweethearts” stuck in his craw. He was the last man who should have a fairy-tale love story come true line attached to his name. He was the last man Clio should have come to for help, he acknowledged now with bitter resignation.
Because,
