harshness than I’ve ever had to employ before or since.”
She stared at him, shriveling with remembered shame and again wondered … why all this malice? This fluency of abuse? When all she’d ever done was lose her mind over him….
He went on, his eyes cold. “But any woman, once she’s carrying my name, might use my need to keep up appearances, the reason that drove me to marriage in the first place, to milk the situation for more. I need someone who can’t even think it.”
“Just hire a … mercenary then,” she hissed. “One practiced enough to pretend to stand you, for a fixed time and price.”
“A … mercenary is exactly what I’m after. But one who’s not overtly … experienced. I need someone who’s maintained an outwardly pristine reputation. I am trying to polish mine, after all, and it wouldn’t do to put a chipped jewel in my already tarnished crown.”
“Even an actual immaculate gem would fail to improve your gaudiness. But you should have called ahead. I certainly don’t know anyone, well or not, who fits the category of … mercenary, let alone one so … experienced she simulates a spotless past. I don’t even know someone reckless or desperate enough to accept you on any terms, for any length of time.”
“You do know someone who fits all those criteria. You.”
Vincenzo watched Glory as his last word drained every bit of blood and expression from her face. The face that had haunted him for six years. It was still the same, yet so different.
The last plumpness had vanished, exposing a bone structure that was a masterpiece of exquisiteness. It brought her every feature into stark focus, in a display of harmony and gorgeousness. Her complexion, due to her new outdoorsy lifestyle, was tanned a perfect honey, only shades lighter than her magnificent waterfall of tawny hair. Her skin gleamed with health, stretching taut over those elegant bones. Her eyebrows were denser, their arch defined and decisive, her nose more refined, more authoritative and her jaw cleaner, stronger.
But it was still those summer skies she had for eyes that struck him to his core. And those flushed lips. They looked fuller, as if they’d absorbed what had been chiseled off her cheeks. They were more sensuous even in their current severity. Just looking at them made every part of him they’d once worshipped and owned tense, tingle, clamor for their touch. Everything about her had him fighting to ease an arousal that had hardened to steel. And that was before his appraisal traveled down to her body.
That body that had held the code to his libido.
It was painfully clear it still did, now more than ever. But while her face had been chiseled, her body had filled out, the enhanced curves making her the epitome of toned femininity, a woman just hitting the stride of her allure and vigor. Her newly physical lifestyle really agreed with her.
Her navy pantsuit was designed to obscure her assets, but he had X-ray vision where she was concerned. And he couldn’t wait until he confirmed his estimates with an unhindered visual and hands-on examination.
For now, he just wondered how those eyes of hers didn’t display any tinge of the cunning the woman who’d once set him up should have. They only transmitted the indomitable edge of a warrior used to fighting adversaries who surpassed her in power a hundredfold. As she knew he did.
Or, at least they had until he’d said “You.”
Her eyes now displayed nothing but absolute shock. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she hadn’t even considered that he’d been talking about her.
But of course she had. She was just in a class of her own when it came to spontaneous acting.
She blinked, as if coming out of a trance, shock giving way to fury so icy it burned him. “I don’t care how big a debt my father and brother have. I’ll pay it off.”
He didn’t see that coming. “You think what I have on them is a debt? You really think I’d have leverage so lame it could be nullified with money?”
“Quit posturing, you loathsome jerk. What do you have on them?”
He paused, testing, even tasting, his reaction to her insult. It felt like exhilaration, tasted tart and zesty. He immediately wanted more.
Dio. If he was hankering for more of her slurs, he must be queasier than he thought with all the deference he got in his official and professional roles. Not that he could imagine himself reveling in anybody else’s verbal abuse.
His lips tugged as he contemplated his newfound desire to be bashed by her, knowing it would inflame her more. Which was just what he was after. “Oh, just a few crimes.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’d go as far as framing them to get me to do your bidding?”
“I’m just exposing them. And only a fraction of their crimes at that. To save posturing on your end, read this.” He bent, swiped a dossier off the coffee table between them and held it out to her. “Verify my evidence any way you like. I have more if you want. But that would be overkill. This is quite enough to see both in prison for embezzlement and fraud for maybe the rest of your father’s life, and most of what’s left of your brother’s.”
Her hand rose as if without volition, receiving the dossier. With one more dazed look, she relinquished his gaze, turned unsteadily and sank down onto the couch where he’d once taken her. He’d made love to her in every corner of this place. At least, he’d been making love. Love, or anything genuine, hadn’t been involved on her end.
He watched her as she leafed through the pages with unsteady hands, that amazing speed-reading ability engaged, letting memories sweep through him at last.
How he’d loved her. Now he needed to exorcise her.
It felt as if hours had passed before she raised her gaze back to his, her eyes reddened, her lips trembling. What an incredible simulation of disbelief and devastation.
When she talked, her voice was thick and hoarse, as if she were barely holding back tears. “How long have you had … that?”
“That particular accumulation of damning evidence? Over a year. I have much older files retracing the rest of their crimes, in case you’re interested.”
“There was more?”
Anyone looking at her would swear this was the shock of her life, that she’d never suspected the men in her family could possibly be involved in criminal activities.
He huffed his disgust at the whole situation, and everyone involved in it. “They’re both extremely good, I’ll give them that. That’s why no one else has caught them at it yet.”
“Why have you?”
She was asking all the right questions. If he answered them all truthfully, they’d paint her the real picture of what had happened in the past. Which wouldn’t be a bad idea. He was sick and tired of the pretense.
So he told her. “I’ve been keeping them under close scrutiny since the attempts to steal my research.”
Her eyes rounded in renewed shock. “You suspected them?”
“I suspected everyone with access to me, direct or indirect.”
A
