“No one saw me. I blended in with the paint. I did get a chance to listen to the speeches, though. Touching as they were.”
She stared at him, horrified. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to see you clearly have Byron roped and tied, as my rancher friend, Bartlett, would say. Fully enamored with your considerable charms...ready to let you run the show. Is it everything you ever dreamed of, Angie?”
Her blood heated, mixing with the panic fizzling her veins. “I never wanted to run the show. I wanted equal billing in our relationship—something you, in your arrogance and chauvinism, refused to give me.”
“And our good friend Byron does?”
“Yes.”
“What about in bed?” His eyes glittered with deliberate intent. “Does he satisfy that insatiable appetite of yours? Does he make you scream when you wrap those long legs of yours around him and beg? Because he doesn’t look man enough to me, cara, to deliver it the way I know you like it. Not even close.”
Lust slammed into her hot and hard. An image of Lorenzo’s beautiful, muscular body imprinted itself on her brain, filling her, pushing her to the limits of her pleasure, his voice a hot whisper at her ear, demanding she tell him if it was good, not satisfied until she’d begged to let him know it was, until she’d screamed, because yes, he had made her scream.
Blood rushed to her cheeks, her stomach contracting in a heated pull. She’d been so desperate for his love, for his affection, she’d taken whatever crumb he’d been willing to throw at her. In the end it had been all they’d had.
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. Lied. “I have no complaints in that area, either.”
His eyes hardened, a dark glimmer stealing across their ebony depths. “Too bad it just isn’t going to work out.”
A frisson of apprehension swept through her. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, you see, there’s been a...hiccup in the paperwork for our divorce.”
“We are divorced.”
“So I thought. The firm handling the paperwork failed to file the correct papers with the state. The error was brought to my attention yesterday after I asked them to review the document.”
Her knees went weak. “What are you saying?”
“We’re still married, Angie.”
The floor gave way beneath her feet. She grasped the railing, wrapping her fingers around cool metal to steady herself. Blinked as she tried to work through the fog enveloping her brain. Married? She and Lorenzo were still married?
She swallowed past a paper-dry throat. “I’m marrying Byron in three weeks...in St. Bart’s. We’re eloping.”
His stare was bold, aggressive, like the predator he was. “Unless you plan on committing bigamy that would be impossible.”
She struggled to get her brain in working order. “You need to do something. Fix this. It’s your firm’s fault. They should fix it.”
An indolent shrug. “There’s only so much they can do. These things move at a snail’s pace. It could take months to push it through.”
“But you know people. You have influence in all the right places...you could make it happen.”
“Perhaps.”
Her blood ran cold at the hard, unforgiving lines of his face. “But you don’t plan to use it.”
“No. It would be an unnecessary calling in of favors.”
Unnecessary? A red mist descended over her vision. “I am getting married in three weeks. It’s all planned. How is that unnecessary?” She shook her head, pinned her gaze on his. “Are you still angry with me? Is that it? You want to punish me for walking out on you? For God’s sake, Lorenzo, you knew our marriage was doomed. You knew it was never going to work. Let me move on.”
He stepped closer, six foot three inches of far too intense male vibrating just centimeters from her. His expression, when he looked down at her, was full of leashed aggression. “Our marriage was not doomed. Our marriage failed because you were too young and selfish to realize that marriages take work. Effort, Angelina. Instead you put all your energy into rebelling against what I asked of you. Into ignoring what I needed.”
She lifted her chin. “You wanted a perfect society wife without a mind, a purpose of her own. You should have hired a beautiful robot to fill the role. It would have been the perfect match for you.”
His eyes flashed. “Don’t be sarcastic, cara, it doesn’t suit you. I liked your mind, you’re well aware of that. I offered you all sorts of chances to get involved in the charitable efforts Ricci supports, but you didn’t have any interest in them, no matter how challenging.” He pointed his glass at her. “As for being my society wife, you knew what you were getting into when you married me. What the reality of my life was.”
Had she really? Twenty-two, pregnant and wildly infatuated with her husband, she’d had no idea she’d been exchanging one lonely existence for another. That instead of finding the love she’d craved, she’d be giving up the very independence she’d been searching for, the dreams she’d had of being a jewelry designer. That she’d be following in her mother’s footsteps in falling for a man who had no capacity to love—the one mistake she’d sworn never to make.
She lifted her chin, chest tight. “I thought you, of all people, would understand my need to pursue my passion. My need to be something.”
“I did understand it. You had a fledgling online business. I helped you nurture it. What wasn’t going to work was to play start-up with a boutique that would take up the lion’s share of your time. Our life was too busy.”
“Your life was. It was never about my life. Yours was more important.”
“That’s not true.”
“It damn well is.” Champagne sloshed the sides of her glass as she jabbed it in his direction. “All you wanted was for me to stay in line, to look the part...to warm your bed. And even then, I was a possession to be enjoyed and discarded according to your whims.”
His jaw hardened. “Our intimate relationship was the one thing about us that didn’t need fixing, cara mia. Don’t sully it with your sharp tongue.”
“Didn’t it?” Her mouth twisted. “You never truly let me in—not in bed or out of it. Emotional intimacy was simply not on the table with you.”
A glimmer of something she couldn’t read passed through those dark eyes. “You are right,” he agreed in a clipped tone, “that I, too, bear responsibility for the breakdown of our marriage. We both bear responsibility for it. Which is why we’re going to fix it together.”
Her jaw dropped. “Wh-what?”
“Franco cannot produce an heir. That responsibility falls to me now. Since we are still married, it leaves me with only one option.”
Oh,
