was clear to her why he brought her here, and why he hadn’t appeared yet. He was flaunting his wealth and power, giving her time for every detail to sink in, make its mark.
He’d picked the last woman on earth to be awed by affluence.
She lived in a palace, and she’d come to associate the grandeur that had surrounded her since birth with the anxiety and despair that had tainted her turbulent childhood. In fact, she’d been almost relieved that the opulence had long faded, with her father barely maintaining the parts of the palace that were national monuments. She sure wasn’t about to swoon over pretentious extravagance.
But she grudgingly had to hand it to Ferruccio. This place wasn’t pretentious. Or extravagant. It was a masterpiece of architecture and attention to detail but every article and line of design spoke of taste and discernment, everything so simple and unobtrusive it amalgamated into a retreat that promised enjoyment and ease to both mind and body.
Suddenly, ever fiber of her mind and body seemed to become a compass needle, obeying the magnetism that mushroomed at her back. She spun around.
And there he was. The man who’d ruled her every thought since the night she’d laid eyes on him, who’d manipulated her reactions and emotions with the slightest tug here, nudge there, just because he could.
He was standing at the mezzanine level gallery that overlooked the courtyard she’d wandered back to, looking down on her like a Roman deity would on a supplicant coming to beg his mercy.
She thought he’d stand there until she begged for real, for him to just come down and get this over with. Then, without a word, his eyes maintaining their lock on hers, he started moving toward the stone stairs. He descended soundlessly, effortlessly, his long legs turning the movement of taking each wide step into a performance of predatory grace.
Then he was striding toward her, his every step like an expanding shock wave, rattling her bones with reaction.
Was it possible that he had become more vigorous, more virile, that every time she saw him she’d find new things to marvel at, that his effect on her would keep intensifying? She’d thought him magnificent in the formal outfits she always saw him in. But in faded jeans and a partially unbuttoned denim shirt, he was…unfair.
She looked up at him, praying that her inner turmoil wouldn’t be translated into an outward manifestation that he could read and exploit.
He stopped a breath away, took the rest of her breath away as his gaze sliced through her like a steel blade. Then his lips spread in the first smile he’d ever trained on her.
“Principessa Clarissa,” he murmured, low and lethal, “It’s such a delight to see your…situation has finally allowed you to…be with me.”
Chapter Two
He remembered. What she’d said that first night.
Of course he did. And he was throwing it back in her face.
She bet the injury to his pride had been the prod that had kept him issuing those invitations, intent on breaking her resistance so that he could avenge what he must have considered a colossal insult—so that he’d keep his perfect score.
And he’d kept it. He’d made her bow to his will. She should have known he would. He’d gotten where he had by being inexorable.
She’d known that, yet thought there’d be no way he could prevail in this. She couldn’t have imagined the developments that had led her here.
But even without them, she now believed he would have won eventually. Hadn’t she studied his methods at length, both on her own and where they were taught in business school—to demonstrate the ultimate model of long-term, unrelenting, undetectable planning?
Even if she’d been dead wrong about her safety from his octopoid reach, she’d been spot on about another thing: He was gloating. And there was not a thing she could do about it.
Not only that, but she had to be on her best behavior, answer with something unrelated, divert the dialogue away from personal hostilities. In short, she couldn’t rise to his bait.
Then she opened her mouth. “What can I say? Life takes such…regrettable twists and turns. And downward spirals.”
She almost groaned out loud. What was she saying? And in that long-suffering, condescending tone, too? He’d take it as provocation. And he’d be right. It was.
Sure enough, his lips tugged wider, the cool smile heating, the assessing, dispassionate eyes sparking. “Indeed. But I don’t know about regrettable. I’m quite the fan of roller coasters.”
She should keep her mouth shut, hope he’d take the conversation to safer areas. Even if he didn’t and kept poking at her, she should nod and agree. Let him have his victory, let him rub her nose in it, shove its bitterness down her throat. She’d bet that was the “negotiations” he wanted to conduct—an extended session of having her here on his “terms,” in a position where she couldn’t say no or walk away. She should let him have his fill, get it over with.
Then she opened her mouth, and it seemed someone willful and inflammatory had hijacked her voice, which taunted in its husky tones, “You would be. It has taken a twisting, turning spiral upward with you. Apparently with no drop in sight.”
His lips twitched as he pretended to suppress his mockery. “I should hope not. Can you imagine a fall from such heights?”
Dio, he was giving her more rope. She duly took it and secured it around her neck. Then she kicked the bucket. “Oh, how I can.”
His mouth lost the fight with the sobriety he’d been forcing on it and spread wide, almost blinding her with a flash of white teeth and brutal charisma. “I see you’ve given it some serious thought. Seems you enjoyed the detailed visualization of such an event.”
She gave up trying to rein in her responses, gave in, admitted her acrimony. “Enjoyment would be a mild term if such an event came to pass. It would be—how did you put it—such a delight.”
She heard the fervent venom in her voice, knew he’d heard it, too. Everything stilled as he stared at her, probably unable to believe that anyone dared talk to him that way, princess or not.
Then suddenly, he threw his head back and guffawed.
It was her turn to stare, feeling as if one move now would snap the last tatters of tension holding her up.
She’d never seen him laugh. She hadn’t known he was capable of such a human indulgence. She should have known he’d do it like he did everything else. Overridingly.
The sight and sound of his unbearably male amusement hit her between her eyes and forked a downward path through her heart and gut to lodge in her loins. The semiarousal that burned inside her just because he existed roared higher. Along with the blaze of her anger.
He was goading her into even more catastrophic antagonism, into giving him enough incriminating evidence to report back to her father and the Council that their newest addition was a disgrace to the body of power she represented and should be banned from public service forever.
And she didn’t give a damn. Not anymore. He’d won.
