she’d known … too intimately. She was reacting to him in the same way, with the same intensity she had when she’d been younger, inexperienced and oblivious of his reality.
Weird, this disconnect between mental aversion and physical affinity.
She could barely breathe, and that was before he spoke, his voice deeper, strumming hidden places inside her with each inflection, with that trace accent, those rolling r’s.
“Before you say anything, yes, I do have evidence that would send your father and brother to prison from fifteen to life. But you must already be certain of that. That’s why you’re here.”
Her momentary incapacitation cracked.
She moved steadily toward him, roiling rage fueling each step. “I know you’re capable of anything. That’s why I’m here.”
His eyes smoldered as they documented her state. “I’ll dispense with the preliminaries then and get to the point of my summons.”
She stopped feet away, scoffing, “Summons? Wow. Your ‘princehood’ has gone to your head, hasn’t it? But then, you must have always been this pompous and loathsome, and I was the one who was too blind to notice.”
Those sculpted lips that had once driven her to insanity twisted. “I don’t have time now for your scorned-woman barbs, Glory. But once my objective is fulfilled, I might accommodate your need to vent. It will be … amusing.”
Bringing herself under control, she matched his coolness. “I’m sure it will be. Sharks do relish blood. And that, along with anything I say to you or about you, isn’t a barb. Just a fact. So let’s stop wasting calories and get to the point of your ‘summons.’ What will it take so you won’t destroy my family? If you want me to steal some top secret info from your rivals, I no longer work in your field, as I’m sure you know.”
An imperious eyebrow rose. “Would you have, if you were?”
Her answer was unhesitating. “No.”
Something streaked in his eyes, something that looked like … pain? What made it even more confusing was that it was tinged with … humor? Humor? Vincenzo? And now of all times?
“Not even to save your beloved family?”
She wanted to growl that they were no such thing.
Oh, sure, she loved them. But they drove her up the wall being so irresponsible. They were why she was now at this royal scumbag’s mercy. He must have acquired some debts of theirs. And if he could send them to prison using those, they must be huge.
“No,” she said, more forcefully this time. “I was just analyzing the only thing you might think I have to offer in return for your generous amnesty.”
“That’s not the only thing you have to offer.”
For heart-scrambled moments it felt as if he meant …
No. No way. He’d told her in mutilating detail what an exchangeable “lay” she’d been. He’d discarded her and moved on to a thousand others. And he was known to never return to an already pollinated flower. He wouldn’t go to these lengths, or any, to have her in his bed again.
Her glare grew harder. “I can offer you a much deserved skull fracture. Apart from that, I can’t think of a thing.”
This time, the humor filling his eyes and lips was unmistakable, shaking her more than anything else had.
“I’ll pass on the kind cranial-reconstruction offer. But there is another alteration you can offer me that I vitally need.” His lips quirked as if at a private joke. “ASAP.”
“Will you stop wasting my time and just spit it out? What the hell do you ‘need’?”
Unfazed by her fury, he calmly said, “A wife.”
Two
“A wife?”
Glory heard herself echoing what Vincenzo had said.
But he couldn’t have said that.
He only nodded, confirming that she’d parroted him correctly.
Dazed, she shook her head. “How can I offer you a wife?” A suspicion hit her between the eyes. “You’re interested in someone I know?”
That lazy humor heated his eyes again. “Yes. Someone you know very well.”
Nausea twisted her stomach as every woman she knew flashed through her mind. Many were beautiful and sophisticated enough to qualify for Vincenzo’s demanding standards. Amelia, her best friend, in particular. But she was newly engaged. Was that why Vincenzo had her here, because he wanted her help to break up her friend’s relationship so he’d …?
He interrupted the apoplectic fit in progress. “According to my king, I need an emergency reputation upgrade that only a wife can provide.”
Her mind burned rubber calibrating the new info. “Your sexual exploits are giving Castaldini a bad name? That must be why King Ferruccio had to intervene. Did he issue you a royal decree to cease and desist?”
He gave a tranquil nod of that leonine head of his. “What amounted to that, si. That’s why I’m ‘getting a wife.’”
“Who knew? Even the untouchable Vincenzo D’Agostino has someone he bows down to. It must have stung bad, standing before another man, even if he is your lord and liege, being chastised like a kid and told what to do, huh? How does it feel to be forced to end your stellar career as a womanizer?”
One of those formidable shoulders jerked nonchalantly. “I’m ending nothing. I’m only getting a wife temporarily.”
So he wasn’t even pretending he’d change his ways. At least no one could accuse him of hiding what he was. No one but her. He’d hidden his nature and intentions ingeniously for the duration of their … liaison—what he’d made her believe had been a love affair to rival those of literature and legend.
She exhaled her rising frustration. “Of course she’d have to be temporary. All the power and money in the world, which you do have, wouldn’t get you a woman permanently.”
His uncharacteristic amusement singed her again. “You’re saying women wouldn’t fall over themselves to marry me?”
“Oh, I bet there’d be queues across the globe panting at the prospect. What I’m saying is any woman would end up paying whatever price to get rid of you once she got to know the real you. There’s no way a woman would want you for life.”
“Isn’t it lucky then that I don’t want one for anywhere near that long? I just need a woman who’ll follow every rule of my temporary arrangement to the letter. But my problem isn’t in finding the woman who’ll accept my terms. It would be difficult to find one who won’t.”
“You’re that conceited, you think all women would be so desperate for you, they’d accept you on any terms, no matter how short-lived and degrading?”
“That’s
