“You heard me,” he said. “And you’re lucky I’m not demanding the five years that you were gone.”
She blinked.
“You will stay here for one month. You will share my bed like a good wife.”
“You are not going to blackmail me into sex.”
“Of course not. But we will sleep in the same bed. And when we do have sex again, Teresa, it will be your idea,” he said, giving her a knowing smile. “You remember how good it was between us...”
Oh, she really did.
“So blackmail won’t be necessary.”
He was probably right, God help her.
“As I was saying,” Rico continued, “at the end of that month, your brother returns my property and I let you go—with a real divorce this time. More,” he added when she opened her mouth to speak, “I’ll give you the evidence I hold against the Coretti family. You can destroy it yourself.”
Wow. Her brain had a lot to sift through: everything he’d said, the cold way he’d said it and the right way to react. Her thoughts tumbled over each other in a crash of confusion until she was finally able to concentrate on the single word that stood out from the rest.
“Destroy?” she asked. “You’d turn it all over to me?”
“I will,” he assured her, then lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “And I don’t lie.”
She frowned at the little slap, but instead of arguing the point, she turned her mind to what he’d promised. If she could destroy any evidence on her family, the Corettis would be safe again. But as her father had said, no one before Rico had ever managed to catch them in the act. How could she be sure that Rico had what he said he did?
“How do I know you have anything for us to worry about?”
“As you told your father not long ago, I don’t bluff.” He pushed away from the railing. “I have enough on them to make any law enforcement agency do a dance of joy as they close a cell door on your father and brothers.”
A knot tightened in the pit of her stomach. Rico was a man who said what he meant and always meant what he said. If he promised retribution, then it would be delivered with a vengeance. If he said he could lock her family away, the cell door was as good as shut.
Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed by a cold fist. Looking into his eyes only made the chill she felt go deeper. Though he stood no more than three feet from her, the distance separating them could just as easily have been measured in light-years. “This is about revenge, then?”
“Absolutely.” He smiled, but it was an empty echo of the smile she remembered. The smile that still haunted her dreams. “Did you expect me to declare my love? To have spent the last five years pining away for the woman who stole from me and vanished?”
“Pining away?” she repeated with a short laugh. “Please. I’ve seen the pictures of you in the magazines. Actresses. Models. Socialites. You didn’t look like you were crying on their shoulders, either.”
One corner of his mouth quirked. “Jealous?”
Desperately. “Hardly.”
His gaze narrowed on her. “A thief from a family of thieves. Why should I believe you?”
“I didn’t steal from you,” she argued, beginning to feel a flutter of outrage building inside.
“Your family did, which makes you as guilty as they.”
Okay, she had to give him that. She was a Coretti, after all, despite the fact that she’d never taken part in one of their jobs. “So it’s revenge on my entire family that you’re after?”
“No, Teresa,” he said, moving closer, lifting one hand to cup her cheek. The tender touch was muted by the hard glint in his eyes. “From your family, I want only my property. From you...I want only the pleasure we’ll find together during the next month.”
Everything inside her rippled and pulsed. Just those few words were enough to build a fire in her blood. How was it fair that he had been with countless women over the last five years while she had lived like a nun? How was it fair that he could whisper the word pleasure and have her ready to fall into bed with him?
“And if I’m not interested in sex with you?” she asked, with a mental hah! “Would you force me?”
His blue eyes flashed a warning. “You think I would—could do that?”
“No,” she murmured, shaking her head for emphasis. “I don’t.”
He nodded. “Good.”
“But,” she said quickly, “apparently you’re not above blackmailing me into your bed.”
“You’re my wife. You belong in bed with me. And as I’ve told you, I don’t have to blackmail you into sex. Soon, you’ll be begging me to take you,” Rico told her with a smile. “And I will be happy to acquiesce. Think of it. You spend the month with me and I don’t see your family locked away.”
“I don’t remember you being so hard...” Her words trailed off as she shook her head sadly.
* * *
“A lot has changed in the last five years,” he told her.
Her eyes were golden-brown and dreamy, just as he remembered them. Her scent was the same, too, faintly floral with a hint of summer nights. His hands itched to hold her and he told himself he was just eager to get started on the revenge for which he’d waited so long.
But it was more than that and he knew it.
The memory of this one woman had tormented him enough that no other woman had ever come close to erasing Teresa from his mind. It was time now to exorcise that memory so he could move the hell on.
“Do you agree to my terms?” He asked the question because he wanted to hear her say yes. He wasn’t the kind of man to take a woman against her will—and it pissed him off that she could even suggest it to him. But he wasn’t above making sure the woman he desired didn’t have much choice, either. At least in Teresa’s case.
She was the only woman who had stayed with him, thoughts of her eating away at him day and night. And it wasn’t just her betrayal that made her so unforgettable. No, it was more than that, though the fact that she’d lied to him and used him gnawed at Rico constantly.
She was the woman who had made him feel more than he ever had. Hell, he’d married her when he had been sure that he’d never want to be with one woman for the rest of his life. With Teresa, though, he hadn’t second-guessed anything. He’d listened to his heart and thought her a gift. He’d married her because he hadn’t been able to imagine his life without her. He’d let down his guard around her and had ended up paying for that.
After she had vanished, he’d figured out that she hadn’t been a gift, but a curse. Now he was going to get past the old anger and sense of betrayal. He was going to use her to pave
