he’d gone to a lot of trouble to get the gowns. And she’d actually felt badly that she’d been mad over what she’d considered to be his high-handedness—but now she was angry again. Angry because he’d waited until the last moment, when she was dressed and ready for the ceremony, to spring this on her.
No doubt because he expected her to sign without question. Because he thought she was empty-headed and in need of someone to tell her what to do. Maybe he expected her to simply do as she was told, which made him no better than Renzo in that respect.
She glanced up at him, the agreement in her hands, and hoped she looked coolly controlled. “You may want to sit down,” she said. “This might take a while.”
His lips twitched. She wasn’t certain if it was annoyance or humor that caused it. Regardless, it only made her more determined.
“It is a fair agreement,” he said. “You get quite a generous settlement should we divorce, and maintenance for life.”
Tina flipped to the pages where the financial portion was spelled out. “Very generous,” she said after she’d scanned the numbers. “And yet you’ve made a mistake.” She tapped the pen against the page.
One of the lawyers cleared his throat, and Tina sliced her gaze in his direction. The look she gave him must have been quelling because he subsided without speaking.
“I believe that Pietro wanted to say there is no mistake,” Nico said. She thought he sounded vaguely amused, but she was too irritated to be sure.
“Well, there is. You are forgetting that this sum—” she tapped the pen on the page again “—must be adjusted for inflation. A divorce in a year is quite a different animal than a divorce in twenty.”
“So it is,” Nico replied.
“You’ve also failed to take into account any money I may bring into the marriage.”
“I don’t want Renzo’s money.” His voice was harder this time.
Tina fixed him with an even stare. “I’m not talking about Renzo’s money. I’m talking about mine.”
One eyebrow lifted. “I wasn’t aware you had any.”
“I do, in fact,” she told him evenly. “I’ve made investments of my own.”
“I’m not interested in your petty investments,” he snapped, and anger seared into her. Petty investments, indeed. She wasn’t about to tell him what she’d accumulated, unless it became a point in the contract. Her wealth came nowhere close to his, or Renzo’s, but she’d earned it herself through the strength of her skills—and she wasn’t going to give him control over it.
“Great. Then you won’t mind adding a clause that states that fact.” How typically arrogant of him to assume that she brought nothing to the marriage other than what Renzo had given her.
Nico’s eyes burned hot as he took the pen from her and bent over the papers. He crossed out the figure that was written there and substantially increased it. And then he flipped to the end and added a clause about any money she brought into the marriage.
The first lawyer took the page and read it, then handed it back with a nod.
“Satisfied?” Nico asked as he shoved the document toward her again.
“I’ll let you know once I’ve read the whole thing.”
It took over twenty minutes, but she finished reading and attached her signature in bold strokes. She’d worked hard on that signature, ever since Frau Decker had told her she wrote like a mouse that expected to be eaten by the cat at any minute.
“Grazie, cara,” Nico said, taking her hand in his and helping her from the chair. A frisson of excitement rolled through her at his slight touch. How very annoying in light of what had just happened.
He lifted her hand to his mouth, as if he knew how she reacted to him, and pressed his lips lightly to her skin. A tingle shot down her spine. “Now, let us get married.”
Tina forced a smile. “Yes, let’s.”
She might be a mouse, and Nico might be the big cat waiting to pounce on her—but she fully intended to choke him on the way down.
They returned to Italy as soon as the ceremony was over. Nico thought about staying in Gibraltar for the night, but he had urgent business to attend to and no time for dallying.
He could hardly credit that he was a married man now. It wasn’t something he’d expected to do anytime soon, if ever. Not even to preserve the title within his direct line. It would have gone to a cousin, so it would not have been lost to the family, and that would have been good enough for him.
But now he was married, and to the most unlikely woman of all. Tina sat across from him as the jet winged its way back to Italy. She was still in her gown because he’d insisted on leaving immediately. He’d expected her to change on the plane, but she had not made a move to do so. She simply sat and read her eReader, as if flying in a wedding gown was the most ordinary thing imaginable.
She looked, he had to admit, incredible. Her riot of hair was contained in an elegant loose twist, though several strands had come free to frame her face, with its pert nose and long lashes that made her eyes look as if they were closed when they were merely downcast and concentrating on her book.
Her shoulders were bare, and her breasts rose into lush, golden mounds that threatened to spill over the stiff bodice. He remembered kissing her this afternoon, when she’d burst into the office in that ridiculously small bikini, and his body grew hard.
It had taken everything he’d had not to untie her bikini bottoms and thrust into her right there up against the door. He’d been about to do just that when the noise had reminded him they were not truly alone.
Nico shifted in his seat, unable to concentrate on the spreadsheets before him. He closed the computer with a snap, and Tina glanced up. Need jolted through him as their eyes clashed and held. He could feel the tension in the air, the electric snap of sexual promise that flowed between them like water gushing over a fall.
It would be so good when he stripped her naked again. So, so good.
“Why did you not change into something more comfortable?” he asked her.
She shrugged a pretty shoulder. “You can be forgiven for not knowing it, I suppose, but wedding gowns require a bit of help to get into and out of.”
He didn’t think his body could get any harder. Apparently, he was wrong.
“I’ll help,” he said. Growled, really.
Her violet eyes were wide. And blazing, he realized. As if she, too, were doing everything she could to not think about sex and failing miserably.
“I’m not sure you wouldn’t tear the fabric,” she murmured.
“I might,” he said, his blood beating hot and fierce in his veins. Urging him to take her.
“I’d rather you didn’t. If we have a daughter, I might like to give this dress to her someday.”
A
