Читать онлайн книгу «Temporarily His Princess» автора Olivia Gates

Temporarily His Princess
Olivia Gates
When his King says Prince Vincenzo D’Agostino must marry, the confirmed bachelor knows only one woman will do: Glory Monaghan, the lover who betrayed him six years ago.By forcing her hand, he’ll appease his ruler – and get the woman he can’t forget out of his system forever…



“When I take you to my bed this time, it will be far better than ever before.”
“I will never sign an agreement to that!”
“And I’d never ask you to. This has nothing to do with the marriage deal. I’m only letting you know I want you in my bed. And you will come. Because you want to. Because you want me.”
Her pupils fluctuated, her cheeks flushed. Proof positive of his claims.
Still she scoffed. “You really have to see someone for that head of yours, before it snaps off your neck under its own weight.”
He buried his face in her neck, inhaled her, absorbing her shudder into his. “I don’t want you in my bed. I need you there. I’ve craved you there for six long years.”

About the Author
OLIVIA GATES has always pursued creative passions such as singing and handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing career—writing.
She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonists’ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.
When she’s not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com.

Temporarily His Princess
Olivia Gates




www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To everyone at Harlequin, RWA, RT Book Reviews, NINC and CataRomance who helped me realize a dream and get to a much better place. No thanks are enough.

Prologue
Six years ago
Vincenzo froze as he heard someone fumbling open the door.
She was here.
Every muscle turned to rock, every nerve fired like a high-voltage cable. Then the door slammed with an urgent thud and frantic footsteps followed, each jarring his equilibrium with the force of an earthquake.
There’d been no alert from his guards. No doorbell had announced her arrival. She was the only one he’d ever given unlimited access and keys to his penthouse.
But he’d given her more than access to his personal space—he’d given her dominion over his priorities and passions. She’d been the only woman he’d fully trusted, believed in. Loved.
And it had all been a lie.
The spear embedded in his gut twisted. Rage. Mostly at himself.
Even after he’d gotten proof of her betrayal, he’d clung to the belief that it would be explained away. She’d had him that deeply in her power.
That alone should have alerted him something was seriously wrong. It wasn’t in his nature to trust. He’d never let anyone come that close or become anywhere near that vital. As a prince of Castaldini, he’d always been suspicious of people’s intentions. After he’d become the rising-star researcher in the cutthroat field of energy alternatives, he’d believed any hope of a genuine relationship was over.
Until her. Until Glory.
From the first glance, he’d reeled at the attraction that had kept intensifying. From the first conversation, he’d sunk into a well of affinity, the deepest he’d ever known. It had been magical, how they’d hungered, connected. She’d aroused his every emotion, appeased his every need—physical, intellectual and spiritual.
But he’d just been a means to an end. An end she’d achieved.
After the first firestorm of agony had almost wrecked him, logic had doused it with its sobering ice. Seeking retribution would have only compounded the damage. He’d decided to let pain consume him, rather than give her more than what she’d already snatched from him. He’d walked away without a word.
Not that she’d let him walk away.
Her nonstop messages had morphed from worried to frantic. With each one, his heart had almost exploded, first with the need to soothe her, then with fury at falling for her act yet again. Then had come that last message. A heart-stopping simulation of a woman going out of her mind fearing for her loved one’s safety.
The pain had been so acute it had seared him with clarity.
He’d realized there could only be one reason behind her desperate persistence. Her plan must not be concluded yet. Even if she thought his avoidance meant he suspected her, she seemed to be willing to risk anything to get close to him again, to pull the strings of his addiction to her for the opportunity to finish what she started.
So he’d let her find out he’d returned. He’d known she’d zoom right over to corner him.
But though he’d planned this face-off, he wasn’t ready. Not for the sight of her, or for what he had to do.
Mannaggia! He shouldn’t have given her the chance to invade his life again for any reason. He just wasn’t ready….
“Vincenzo!”
A pale creature, who barely resembled the vibrant one who’d captured him body and heart, burst into his bedroom.
She stumbled to a halt, eyes turbid and swollen with what so convincingly looked like incessant weeping, and stood facing him across the bedroom where they’d shared unimaginable pleasures for the past six months.
Before another synapse could fire, she exploded across the room. Before he could draw another breath, her arms were around him, clinging like a woman would to a life raft.
And he knew. He’d missed it all, every nuance of her. He’d yearn for her, the woman he’d loved but who didn’t exist, until the end of his days.
His mind unraveled with the need to crush her back, breathe her in so he could breathe again. He struggled not to bury his aching hands in her hair, not to drag her face to his and take of her breath. His lips went numb, needing to feel hers, just one last time….
As if sensing his impending capitulation, she surged up, pulled his head down and stormed his face in kisses.
Temptation tightened around his throat like a noose. His hands moved without volition.
They stopped before they closed around her, his body going rigid as if guarding against a blow as what she’d been reiterating in that tremulous, strangled voice sank into his fogged awareness.
“My love, my love.”
Barely suppressing a roar, he clamped her arms before she sucked him dry of will and coherence.
She reluctantly let him separate them, raised the face that had embodied his desires and hopes. Her heavenly eyes were drowning in those masterfully feigned emotions.
“Oh, darling, you’re all right.” She hugged him again, seamlessly changing from overwrought relief to agitated curiosity. “I went insane when you answered none of my calls. I thought something … terrible must have happened.”
So that was her strategy. To play innocent to the last.
“Nothing happened.”
Was that his voice? That inhuman rasp?
Pretending not to notice the ice that encased him, dread entered the eyes that hid her soullessness behind that facade of guilelessness. “Did you have another breach? Did your security isolate you this time until they could identify the leak?”
Was she that audacious? Or did she believe she was too ingenious to be exposed? If she were still secure in his obliviousness, she wouldn’t conceive of any other reason he’d stay away while his security team investigated how his research results kept being leaked in spite of their measures.
Good. He preferred to play it that way. It gave him the perfect opportunity to play the misdirection card.
“There haven’t been any breaches.” He pretended a calm that had to be his greatest acting effort. “Ever.”
Momentary relief was chased away with deepening confusion. “But you told me …” She stopped, at a loss for real this time.
Si, that was a genuine reaction at last. For he had told her—every detail of the incidents and the upheavals he’d suffered as his life’s work was being systematically stolen. And she’d pretended such anguish at his losses, at her helplessness to help him.
“Nothing I told you was true. I let decoy results get leaked. I had great pleasure imagining the spies’ reactions when they realized that, not to mention imagining their punishment for delivering useless info. No one knows where or what my real results are. They’re safe until I’m ready to disclose them.”
Every word was a lie. But he hoped she’d relay those lies to her recruiters, hopefully making them discard it without testing it and finding out it was the real deal.
That chameleon hid her shock, seamlessly performing uncertainty with hurt hovering at its edges. “That’s fantastic … but … why didn’t you tell me that? You thought you were being monitored? Even … here?” She hugged herself, as if to ward off invasive eyes. “But a simple note would have saved me endless anguish, and I would have acted my part for the spies.”
He gritted his teeth. “Everyone got the version I needed them to believe, so my opponents would believe it along with them. Only my most trusted people got the truth.”
She stilled. As if afraid to let his words sink in. “And I’m not among those?”
Searing relief scalded through him, that she’d finally given him the opening to vent some antipathy. “How could you be? You were supposed to be a brief liaison, but you were too clingy and I had no time for the hassle of terminating things with you. Not before I found an as-convenient replacement, anyway.”
If he could believe anything from her anymore, he would have thought his words had stabbed her through the heart.
“R-replacement …?”
His lips twisted. “With my schedule, I can only afford sexual partners who jump at my commands. That’s why you were so convenient, being so … compliant. But such accommodating lovers are hard to come by. I let one go when I find another. As I have.”
Hurt blossomed in her eyes like ink through turquoise waters. “It wasn’t like that between us …”
“What did you think it was? Some grand love affair? Whatever gave you that impression?”
Her lips shook, her voice now a choking tremolo. “You did … You said you loved me….”
“I loved your … performance. You did learn to please me exceptionally well. But even such a … malleable sex partner only … keeps up my interest for a short while.”
“Was that all I am … was … to you? A sex partner?”
His heart quivered with the effort to superimpose the truth over her overwhelming act. “No. You’re right. A partner indicates a somewhat significant liaison. Ours certainly wasn’t that. Don’t tell me that wasn’t clear from day one.”
He could have sworn his words hacked her like a dull blade. If he didn’t have proof of her perfidy, the agony she simulated would have torn down his defenses. Its perfection only numbed him now, turning his heart to stone.
He wanted her to rant and rave and shed fake tears, giving him the pretext to tear harder into her. She only stared at him, tears a precarious ripple in her eclipsed eyes.
Then she whispered, “If—if this is a joke, please, stop …”
“Whoa. Did you actually believe you were more to me than a convenient lay?”
She jerked as if he’d backhanded her. His trembling hold on restraint slipped another notch. He had to get this over with before he started to rant, exposing the truth.
“I should have known you wouldn’t take the abundant hints. From the way you believed my every word it was clear you lack any astuteness. You sure didn’t become my executive projects manager through merit. But you’re starting to anger me, acting as if I owe you anything. I already paid for your time and services with far more than either was worth.”
Her tears finally overflowed.
They streaked her hectic cheeks in pale tracks, melting the last of his sanity, making him snarl, “Next time a man walks away, let him. If you’d rather not hear the truth about how worthless you were to him….”
“Stop … please …” Her hands rose, as if to block blows. “I know what I felt from you … it was real and intense. If—if you no longer feel this way, just leave me my memories….”
“Is that obliviousness or just obnoxiousness? Seems you’ve forgotten who I am, and don’t know the caliber of women I’m used to. But it’s not too late to give you a reality check. Your replacement is arriving in minutes. Care to hang around and get a sobering, humbling look at her?”
Her disbelief finally disintegrated and resignation seeped in to fill the vacuum it left behind.
She was giving up the act. At last. It was over.
He turned away, feeling like he’d just kicked down the last pillar in his world.
But she wouldn’t let it be over, her tear-soaked words lodging in his back like knives. “I … loved you, Vincenzo. I believed in you … thought you an exceptional human being. Turns out you’re just a sleazy user. And no one will ever know, since you’re also a flawless liar. I wish I’d never seen you … hope one of my ‘replacements’ pays you back … for what you’ve done to me.”
When his last nerve snapped, he rounded on her. “You want to get ugly, you got it. Get out or I won’t only make you wish you’d never seen me, but that you’d never been born.”
His threat had no effect on her; her eyes remained dead. Then, as if fearing she’d fall apart, she turned and exited the room.
He waited until a muted thud told him she’d left. Then he allowed the pain to overwhelm him.

One
The present
Vincenzo Arsenio D’Agostino stared at his king and reached the only logical conclusion.
The man had lost his mind.
He must have buckled under the pressure of ruling Castaldini while steering his multibillion-dollar business empire. And being the most adoring and attentive husband and father who walked the planet. No man could possibly weather all that with his mental faculties intact.
That must be the explanation for what he’d just said.
Ferruccio Selvaggio-D’Agostino—the bastard king, as his opponents called him, relishing it being a literal slur, since Ferruccio was an illegitimate D’Agostino—twisted his lips. “Do pick your jaw off the floor, Vincenzo. And no, I’m not insane. Get. A. Wife. ASAP.”
Dio. He’d said it again.
This time Vincenzo found himself echoing it. “Get a wife.”
Ferruccio nodded. “ASAP.”
“Stop saying that.”
Mockery gleamed in Ferruccio’s steel eyes. “You’ve got only yourself to blame for the rush. I’ve needed you on this job for years, but every time I bring you up to the council they go apoplectic. Even Leandro and Durante wince when your name is mentioned. That playboy image you’ve been diligently cultivating is now so notorious, even gossip columns are beginning to play it down. And that image won’t cut it in the leagues I need you to play in now.”
“That image never hurt you. Just look where you are today. The king of one of the most conservative kingdoms in the world, with the purest woman on earth as your queen.”
Ferruccio shrugged amusedly at his summation. “I was only known as the ‘Savage Ironman’ in reference to my name and business reputation, and my reported … hazard to women was beyond wildly exaggerated. I had no time for women as I clawed my way up from the gutter to the top, then I was in love with Clarissa for six years before she became mine. But your notoriety as one of the world’s premier womanizers won’t do when you’re Castaldini’s emissary to the United Nations. You’ve got to clean up your act and spray on some respectability to clear away the stench of the scandals that hang around you.”
Vincenzo scowled up at him. “If it’s depriving you of sleep, I’ll tone things down. But I certainly won’t ‘get a wife’ to appease some political fossils, aka your council. And I won’t join your, Leandro’s and Durante’s trio of henpecked husbands. You’re all just jealous you can’t have my lifestyle.”
Ferruccio gave him that look. The one that made Vincenzo feel hollow inside, made him feel like putting his fist through his king’s too-well-arranged face. It was the pitying glance of a man who knew bone-deep contentment and found nothing more pathetic than Vincenzo’s said lifestyle.
“When you’re representing Castaldini, Vincenzo, I want the media only to cover your achievements on behalf of the kingdom, not your conquests’ surgical enhancements or tell-alls after you exchange them for different models. I don’t want the sensitive diplomatic and economic agendas you’ll be negotiating to be overshadowed or even derailed by the media circus your lifestyle generates. A wife will show the world that you’ve changed your ways and will keep the news on the relevant work you’ll be doing.”
Vincenzo shook his head in disbelief. “Dio! When did you become such a stick in the mud, Ferruccio?”
“If you mean when did I become an advocate for marriage and family life, where have you been the last four years? I’m the living, breathing ad for both. And it’s time I did you the favor of shoving you onto that path.”
“What path? The one to happily ever after? Don’t you know that’s a mirage most men pursue to no avail? Don’t you realize you’ve beaten impossible odds in finding Clarissa? That not a man in a million will find a fraction of the perfection you share with her?”
Ferruccio pursed his lips. “I don’t know about those odds, Vincenzo. Durante found Gabrielle. Leandro found Phoebe.”
“Only two more flukes. You all had such terrible things happen during your childhoods and youths, unbelievably good stuff has been happening later in life in compensation. Having lived a blessed life early on, I seem to be destined to have nothing good from now on, to even out the cosmic balance. I will never find anything like the love you all have.”
“You’re doing everything in your power not to find love, or to let it find you—”
Vincenzo interrupted him. “I’ve only accepted my fate. Love is not in the cards for me.”
“And that’s exactly why I want you to get a wife,” Ferruccio interrupted back. “I don’t want you to spend your life without the warmth and intimacy, the allegiance and certainty only a good marriage can bring.”
“Thanks for the sentiment. But I can’t have any of that.”
“Because you haven’t found love? Love is a plus, but not a must. Just look at your parents’ example. They started out suitable in theory and turned out right for each other in practice. Pick someone cerebrally and once she’s your wife, the qualities that logically appealed to you will weave a bond between you that will strengthen the longer you are together.”
“Isn’t that an inverted way of doing things? You loved Clarissa first.”
“I thought I did, with everything in me. But what I felt for her was a fraction of what I feel for her now. Going by my example, if you start out barely liking your wife, after a year of marriage you’ll be ready to die for her.”
“Why don’t you just acknowledge that you’re the luckiest bastard alive, Ferruccio? You may be my king and I may have sworn allegiance to you, but it’s not good for your health to keep shoving your happiness in my face when I already told you there’s no chance I’ll find anything like it.”
“I, too, once believed I had no chance at happiness, either, that emotionally, spiritually, I’d remain vacant, with the one woman I wanted forever out of reach while I was incapable of settling for another.”
Was Ferruccio just counterarguing with his own example? Or was he putting two and two together and realizing why Vincenzo was so adamant that he’d never find love?
Suddenly, bitterness and dejection ambushed him as if they’d never subsided.
Ferruccio went on, “But you’re pushing forty …”
“I’m thirty-eight!”
“…and you’ve been alone since your parents died two decades ago …”
“I’m not alone. I have friends.”
“Whom you don’t have time for and who don’t have time for you.” Ferruccio raised his hand, aborting Vincenzo’s interjection. “Make a new family, Vincenzo. It’s the best thing you can do for yourself, and incidentally, for the kingdom.”
“Next you’ll dictate the wife I should ‘get.’”
“If you don’t decide on one on your own, ASAP, I will.”
Vincenzo snorted. “Is that crown you’ve been wearing for the last four years too tight? Or is your head getting bigger? Or is it the mind-scrambling domestic bliss?”
Ferruccio just smiled that inexorable smile of his.
Knowing the kind of laserlike determination Ferruccio had, Vincenzo knew there was no refusing him.
Might as well give in. To an extent he found acceptable.
He sighed. “If I take the position …”
“If implies this is a negotiation, Vincenzo. It isn’t.”
“… it will be only for a year …”
“It will be until I say.”
“A year. This isn’t up for negotiation, either. There will be no more ‘scandals’ in the rags, so this wife thing …”
Ferruccio gave him his signature discussion-ending smile. “Is also nonnegotiable. ‘Get a wife’ wasn’t a suggestion or a request. It’s a royal decree.”
Ferruccio had eventually buckled. On Vincenzo’s one-year proviso. Provided that Vincenzo chose and trained his replacement to his satisfaction.
He hadn’t budged on the “get a wife” stipulation. He’d even made it official. Vincenzo still couldn’t believe what he was looking at. A royal edict ruling that Vincenzo must choose a suitable woman and marry her within two months.
This deserved an official letter from his own corporation telling Ferruccio not to hold his regal breath.
There was no way he’d choose a “suitable woman.” Not in two months or two decades. There was no suitable woman for him. Like Ferruccio, he’d been a one-woman man. Unlike him, he’d blown his one shot on an illusion. After six years of being unable to muster the least interest in any other woman he was resigned to his condition.
Though he knew resigned wasn’t the word for it. Not when every time her memory sank its inky tentacles into his mind, his muscles felt as if they’d snap.
He braced himself until this latest attack passed….
A realization went off in his head like a solar flare.
All these years … he’d been going about it all wrong!
Fighting what he felt with every breath had been the worst thing he could have done. After he’d realized none of it was going away, he should have done the opposite. He should have let it run its course, until it was purged from his system.
But it didn’t matter that he hadn’t done that before. Now was the perfect time to do it. And to let all those still-seething emotions work to his advantage for once.
A smile tugged at his lips, fueled by what he hadn’t felt in six years, what he’d thought he’d never feel again. Excitement. Anticipation. Drive. Challenge.
All he needed now were some updates on Glory to use in this acquisition. He already had enough to make it a hostile takeover, but more leverage wouldn’t hurt.
Wouldn’t hurt him.
Now, her—that was a totally different story.
Glory Monaghan stared dazedly at her laptop screen.
She couldn’t be seeing this. An email from him.
She drew a shaky hand across numb lips, shock reverberating in her every nerve.
Slow down. Think. It must be an old one….
No. This was new. She’d deleted his old emails. Though she had only two months ago. And by accident, too.
Yep, for six years, those emails had migrated from one computer to another with all of her vital data. She hadn’t clicked a mouse to scrub her life clean of his degrading echoes. She hadn’t gotten rid of one shred of him. Not his scribbled notes, voice messages or anything he’d given her or left at her place.
It hadn’t been as pathetic as it sounded. It had been therapeutic. Educational. To analyze the mementos and the events associated with each, to familiarize herself further with the workings of the mind of a unique son of a bitch.
The lessons gained from such in-depth scrutiny had been invaluable. No one had ever come close to fooling her again. No one had come close again, period. No one had surprised her, let alone shocked her, since.
Leave it to that royal bastard to be the one to do it.
She resisted the urge to blink in hope that his email would disappear. She did squeeze her eyes, but opened them to find it still staring back at her. His unread message, somehow bolder and blacker than the other unread ones. As if taunting her.
The subject line read An Offer You Can’t Refuse.
Incredulity swept inside her like a tornado.
But wait! Why was she thinking it was an actual email from Vincenzo? Some spammer with some lewd scam must have hacked into his account. Yeah. That was it. With a subject line like that, this had to be the only explanation.
Still … it was strange that Vincenzo hadn’t deleted her from his list of contacts.
Whatever. This email belonged in the trash.
But before she emptied it, her hand froze on the button, an internal voice warning, Do that and go nuts wondering what that email was really all about.
Okay. She had to concede that point. Knowing herself, she wouldn’t be able to function today if she didn’t know for sure.
But what if she opened it, only to find some nasty surprise? In the name of her quest for peace of mind, she should delete the damn thing.
God. That bastard was reaching through time and space, tugging at her like a marionette. Just an email with an inflammatory subject line had her spiraling down a vortex of agitation as if she’d never exited it.
Maybe she never had. Maybe she’d only been bottling it up, pretending to be back to normal. Maybe she did need some blow to jolt her out of her simulated animation. Maybe if this was an email from him, it would trigger some true resolution so she’d bury his memory once and for all.
She clicked open the email.
Her gaze flew to the bottom. There was a signature. His. This was from him.
All the beats her heart had been holding back spilled out in a jumbled outpour. And that was before she read the two sentences that comprised the message.
I can send your family to prison for life, but I’m willing to negotiate. Be at my penthouse at 5:00 p.m., or I’ll turn the evidence I have in to the authorities.
At ten to five, Glory was on her way up to Vincenzo’s penthouse, déjà vu settling on her like a suffocating cloak.
Her dry-as-sand eyes panned around the elevator she’d once taken almost every day for six months. The memories felt like they belonged to someone else’s life.
Which wasn’t too far-fetched. She’d been someone else then. After a lifetime of devoting her every waking hour to excelling in her studies, she’d reached the ripe age of twenty-three with zero social skills and the emotional maturity of someone a decade younger. She’d been aware of that, but hadn’t had time to work on anything but her intellectual growth. She’d been determined she wouldn’t have the life her family had, one of precarious gambles and failed opportunity hunting. She’d wanted a life of stability.
She’d worked to that end since she’d been a teenager, forgoing the time dump others called a social life. And she’d believed she’d been achieving her goal, graduating at the top of her class and obtaining a master’s degree with the highest honors. Everyone had projected she’d rise to the top of her field.
But though she’d been confident her outstanding qualifications and recommendations would afford her a high-paying and prestigious job, she’d applied for a position in D’Agostino Developments not really expecting to get it. Not after she’d heard such stories about the man at the helm of the meteorically rising enterprise. In his corporation, Vincenzo D’Agostino had grueling standards. He interviewed and vetted even the mailroom staff. Then he had vetted her.
She still remembered every second of that fateful meeting that had changed her life.
His scrutiny had been denuding, his focus scorching, his questions rapid-fire and deconstructing. His influence had rocked her to her core, making her feel like a swooning moron as she’d sluggishly answered his brusque questions. But after only ten minutes, he’d risen, shaken her hand and given her a much more strategic position than she’d dared hope for, working at the highest level, directly with him.
She’d exited his office reeling at the shock of it all. She hadn’t known it was possible for a human being to be so beautiful, so overpowering. She hadn’t known a man could have her hot and wet just looking at her across a desk. She hadn’t even been interested in a man before, so the intensity of her desire after one meeting had had her in a free fall of confusion.
But while she’d gotten a job she’d thought impossible, she’d thought the real impossibility would be him. Even if he hadn’t had an absolute rule against mixing work and pleasure, she couldn’t imagine he’d be interested in someone like her. Cerebrally, she knew she was pretty, but a man like him had stunning and sophisticated women swarming all over him, and she’d certainly been neither. Something he’d confirmed when he kicked her out of his life.
She’d been determined to stifle her fantasies so she wouldn’t compromise her fantastic position. At least she had until he’d called an hour later, inviting her out to dinner.
Silencing her misgivings about his change of M.O. and its probable negative effects on her career, she stumbled over herself saying yes. She’d thrown discretion to the wind and hurtled full force into his arms, allowing her existence to revolve around him on every level, personal and professional.
Yeah, she’d hurtled all the way off the cliff of his cruelty and exploitation. And she could only blame herself. No law, natural or human-made, protected fools from their folly.
But there’d been one thing she’d learned from that ordeal. Vincenzo didn’t joke. Ever. He was as serious as the plague.
In her eyes, it had been the one thing missing from his character back then. Of course, her eyes had been so filled with the plethora of his godlike attributes, she’d given the deficiency nothing but a passing regret. But that fact forced one belief on her. His email had been no prank.
She’d reached that conclusion minutes after she’d read it. After the first shock had passed, she’d gone through the range of extreme reactions until only rage remained.
A ping yanked her out of her murderous musings.
Forcing stiff legs to move, she stepped out into the hall leading to that royal slimeball’s floor-spanning penthouse.
Nothing had changed. Which was weird. She’d thought he would have remodeled the whole building to suit the changing trends and his inflating status and wealth.
He’d once told her this opulent edifice in the heart of New York was nothing compared to his family home in Castaldini. He’d pretended he couldn’t wait to take her there. His desire to take her there, and the prospect of visiting his home, had kept her in a state of constant anticipation and excitement.
But she hadn’t been able to imagine anything more lavish than this place. His whole world had made her feel what Alice must have felt when she’d fallen into Wonderland. It had alerted her to how radically different they were, how it made no sense that they’d come together. But she’d ignored reason.
Until he’d thrown her out of his life like so much garbage.
Another wave of fury crashed over her as she stopped at his door.
He must be watching her through the security camera. He always had, barely letting her enter before sweeping her away on the rapids of his eagerness. Or so she’d thought.
She glared up at where the camera was hidden. She still had the key. Another memento she hadn’t thrown away. He probably hadn’t changed the lock. Why should he have? With enough guards to stop an army, she wouldn’t have gotten here without his permission.
He probably expected her to ring the bell. Yeah, right. He might have dragged her here, but she was damned if he’d leave her waiting until he deigned to open the door.
She stabbed the key in, imagining the lock was his eye.
Her breath still hitched as the door clicked open, then again as she stepped inside.
He stood facing her at the end of the expansive sitting area, in front of the screen where he’d once displayed their videotaped sessions of sexual delirium as he’d drowned her in more.
Her heart clamored out of control as his steel-hued eyes struck her with a million volts of sexiness and charisma across the distance.
He’d once been the epitome of male beauty. Now he’d become impossibly more, his influence enhanced, his assets augmented.
Dressed in all black, he seemed taller than his six foot five, his shoulders even wider, his waist and hips sparser in comparison to a torso and thighs that had bulked up with muscle. His face was hewn to sharper planes and angles, his skin a darker, silkier copper, intensifying the luminescence of his eyes. The discreet silver brushing his luxurious raven hair at the temples added the last touch of allure.
But she wasn’t only checking off his upgrades against what 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 not conceit. That’s a fact. You being a case in point. You accepted me on no terms whatsoever. And clung so hard, I ended up needing to pull your tentacles out of my flesh with more 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 stricken look entered her eyes, as if she was just now realizing he must have suspected her, too. Of course, she was still under the impression that nothing of value had been stolen. When everything had been.
It had been so sensitive, even with all his security, he’d documented his results in bits and pieces that only he could put together. But they’d still been accessed and reconstructed and appeared in the hands of his rivals. Then he’d been given proof that the breach had originated from Glory.
But he’d insisted it must have been someone who had total access to Glory. Only her family had that. Needing to settle this without her knowledge, only thinking of her heartache if she found out, he’d confronted them. They’d broken under his threats, begged his leniency. He’d already decided to show them that, for Glory, but he’d said he’d only consider it if they gave him the details of their plan, their recruiters and any accomplices. If they didn’t, he’d show no mercy. And they’d given him proof that it had been Glory. She’d been their only hope of getting to him.
And how she’d gotten to him.
She’d played him like a virtuoso. It hadn’t even occurred to him to guard himself against her like he did with everyone else.
But a lengthy, highly publicized court case would have harmed more than helped him. Worse, it would have kept her in his life. So he’d groped for the lesser mutilation of cutting her off from his life abruptly, so the sordid mess wouldn’t get any bigger.
Then something totally unexpected had happened. Also because of her.
As he’d struggled to put her out of his mind, he’d restarted his work from scratch, soon becoming thankful he had. What he’d thought was a breakthrough had actually been fundamentally flawed. If he hadn’t lost the whole thing, he would have cost his sponsors untold billions of wasted development financing. But the real catastrophe would have been if the magnitude of confidence in his research had minimized testing before its applications hit the market. Lives could have been lost.
So her betrayal had been a blessing in disguise, forcing him to correct his mistakes and devise a safe, more cost-effective and streamlined method. After that, he’d been catapulted to the top of his field. Not that he was about to thank Glory for the betrayal that had led to all that.
Glory’s choking words brought him out of the darkness of the past. “But they had nothing to do with your leaked research. And according to you, there was no leaked research.”
“Not for lack of trying on the culprits’ part. That I placed false results for them to steal doesn’t exonerate them from the crime of industrial espionage and patent theft.”
Her sluggish nod conceded that point. “But if you didn’t pursue them then, they must have checked out. So why did you keep them under a microscope all this time?”
So she was still playing the innocence card. Fine. He’d play it her way. He had a more important goal now than exhuming past corpses. He’d get closure in a different way, which wouldn’t involve exposing the truth. If she still believed she’d failed in her mission, he’d let her keep thinking that.
His lips twisted on ever-present bitterness. “What can I say? I follow my gut. And it told me they were shifty, and to keep an eye on them. Since I could easily afford to, I did. And because I was already following their every move, I found out each instance when they stepped out of line, even when others couldn’t. I also learned their methods, so I could anticipate them. They didn’t stand a chance.”
A long moment of silence passed, filled with the world of hurt and disillusion roiling in her eyes.
Then she rasped, “Why haven’t you reported them?”
Because they’re your family.
There. He’d finally admitted it to himself.
Something that felt like a boulder sitting on his chest suddenly lifted. He felt as if he could breathe fully again, after years of only snatching in enough air to survive.
So this was how it felt to be free of self-deceptions.
It had sat heavily on his conscience, that he’d known of her family’s habitual crimes and not done anything about it. He’d tried to rationalize why he hadn’t, but it had boiled down to this: after all she’d done to him, he still hadn’t been able to bring himself to damage her to that extent. He had been unable to cause her the loss of her family, as shoddy as they were. But even more, he couldn’t have risked that they might have implicated her.
In spite of everything, he hadn’t been able to contemplate sending her to prison.
Not that he was about to let her realize that she’d always had control over every irrational cell in his body.
He gave her one of the explanations he’d placated himself with. “I didn’t see any benefit to myself or to my business in doing so.” At her widening stare, he huffed. “I’m not just a mad scientist, not anymore. And then, scientists are among the most ruthless pragmatists around. Since the incidents six years ago, I’ve learned it always pays to have some dirt on everyone, to use when needed. Now the time has come for that nugget to deliver its full potential.”
“And you think you can coerce me into marrying you, even temporarily, using their crimes?”
“Yes. It would make you the perfect temporary wife. You’re the only woman who wouldn’t be tempted to ask for more at the end of the contract’s terms, or risk any kind of scandal.”
Another silence detonated in the wake of his final taunt.
With eyes brimming, she sat up and tossed her head, making her shimmering hair shift to one side with an audible hiss.
He struggled not to swoop down on her, harness her by those luxurious tresses, ravage those lush lips, crush that voluptuousness under his weight and take her, make her writhe her pleasure beneath him, pour all of his inside her.
She exacerbated his condition with the lash of her challenge. “What if I told you I don’t care what you do with said ‘nugget’? If they did the things this file says they did, then they deserve to be locked up to pay for their crimes, and learn a lesson nothing else could teach them.”
Elation at her defiance and disgust at the whole situation mingled in an explosive mix, almost making him lightheaded. “They may deserve it, but you still won’t let them get locked up for a day, let alone years, if you can at all help it.”
All anger and rebellion went out of her, dejection crashing in its place. Her shoulders slumped and her eyes dimmed.
He attempted to look unaffected by her apparent upheaval and defeat. Apparent being the operative word. In reality she must be rubbing her hands at the unexpected windfall and what she could negotiate out of it.
He exhaled. “It’s a beneficial arrangement all around. Though your father and brother deserve to be punished, their punishment wouldn’t serve any purpose. I … will compensate those they’ve embezzled from and defrauded.” He’d nearly slipped and told her that he’d already compensated their victims, each in a way that made up for their losses, without connecting his actions to those, or to her family. “You will be spared the disgrace and heartache of having them imprisoned. My king and Castaldini will have me where they need me. And I will have the temporary image cleansing necessary for the job.”
Her gaze froze on his face for a fraught moment until his heart started to thunder in his chest. And that was before a couple of tears arrowed down her flushed, trembling cheeks.
She wiped them away, as if pissed off with herself for letting him witness her weakness. Her turmoil seemed so real he felt it reverberating in his bones. But it couldn’t be real. It had to be another act. But how could it be so convincing?
He should stop wondering. As far as his senses were concerned, her every breath and word and look were genuine. So he’d better stop pitting their verdict against that of his mind before they tore him down the middle in their tug-of-war.
She finally whispered, “How temporary is temporary?”
He exhaled heavily. “A year.”
Her face convulsed as if at a stab of pain.
After swallowing with evident difficulty, she asked, “What would be the … job description?”
So she’d moved from rejection to defiance to setting terms. And somehow, though he was holding all the cards, it felt like she was the one setting the pace of this confrontation, steering its direction. No wonder. She’d been the best negotiator he’d ever had on his team, the most ordered, effective executive. He had loved her for her mind and abilities as much as everything else. He’d respected them, believed in them. Relied on them. Her loss had damaged every pillar in his world.
Pushing aside the bitterness that kept derailing him, he said, “I will be Castaldini’s representative to the United Nations. It’s one of the most exalted positions in the kingdom, and it is closely monitored and rated by Castaldinians before the rest of the world. My wife will need to share all of my public appearances, act as the proper consort in all the functions I attend, the gracious hostess in the ones I give, and the adoring bride in everything else.”
Her incredulity rose with his every word. “And you think I am qualified for those roles? Why don’t you just get someone from Castaldini, a minor princess or something, who’d jump at the chance for a temporary place in the spotlight, and who’s been trained from birth in royal and diplomatic pretense? I’m sure no woman will cling or cause scandals when you want to cast her aside. You cast me aside without as much as a wrinkle in your suit.”
No. Just a chasm in my heart. “I want no one else. And yes, you are qualified and then some. You’re an unequaled expert in all aspects of the executive life with its due process and formalities. You’re also quite the chameleon, and you blend perfectly in any situation or setting.” Her eyes widened at that, as if she’d never heard anything more ridiculous in her life. Before she could voice her derision, he went on. “The jump to court and diplomatic etiquette and ‘pretense’ should be a breeze. I will tutor you in what you’ll say and how you’ll behave with dignitaries and the press. I’ll leave the other areas of your education to Alonzo, my valet. And with your unusual beauty, and your … assets—” his gaze made an explicit sweep of said assets before returning to her once again chagrined eyes “—once Alonzo gets his hands on you, the tabloids will have nothing to talk about but your style and latest outfits. Your current occupation as a humanitarian crusader will also capture the imagination of the world, and add to my image as a clean-energy pioneer. We’ll be the perfect fairy-tale couple.”
What he’d once thought they could be for real.
His summation seemed to have as brutal an effect on her as it had on him. She looked as if regret that this could never be real crushed her, too.
Suppressing the urge to put his fist through the nearest wall, he gritted out, “I am also offering a substantial financial incentive to sweeten the deal. That’s part of the offer I’ve already said you can’t refuse.”
She kept staring at him with what looked like disappointment pulsing in the depths of her eyes. She didn’t ask how much. Still acting as if money meant nothing to her.
“Ten million dollars,” he said, suppressing a sneer of disillusion. “Net of deductions or taxes. Two up front, the rest on completion of the contract term.”
He bent, picked up the other dossier on the coffee table and came to stand over her where she sat limply on the couch. “That’s the prenuptial agreement you’ll sign.”
When she didn’t take the volume, he placed it on her lap.
“I’m giving you today to read through this. You’re free to seek legal counsel, of course, but there’s nothing in it to impact you whatsoever, if you abide by the letter of the terms. I will expect your acceptance tomorrow.”
Without looking up from the dossier in her lap, she said, “Take it or take it, huh?”
“That about sums it up.”
The gaze fixed on his filled with fury, frustration and … vulnerability.
Dio. Just a look from her and his whole being surged with need. To devour her, to possess her. To protect her.
Seemed his weakness where she was concerned was incurable.
And to think he’d hoped he’d realize that everything he’d felt for her was an exaggeration, that seeing her again would only make him wonder at how he’d once thought himself attracted to her. He’d hoped it would purge the memories that circulated in his system like a nondegradable mind-altering drug.
Instead, he’d found that what he remembered of her effect on him had been diluted by time. Either that or her effect had multiplied tenfold. He’d been aroused since he’d laid eyes on her again, was now in agony.
His only consolation was that she wanted him, too.
Si, of this he had no doubt. Not even she could have faked her body’s responses. Their memory had controlled his fantasies all these years. Every manifestation of her desire, the scent of it, the taste of its honey on his tongue, the feel of its liquid silk on his fingers and manhood, the rush of her pleasure at the peaks that had rocked her beneath him, squeezed her around him and wrung him of explosive releases.
What would it feel like having her again with all their baggage, maturity and changes?
No need to wonder. For he’d made up his mind.
He would have her again.
Might as well make his intentions clear up front.
He caught her arm as she heaved up. Jolts arced from every fingertip pressing into firm flesh.
At her indignant glare, he bent and whispered in her ear, “When I take you to my bed this time, it will be far better than ever before.”
Her flesh buzzed in his hand, her breath becoming choppy, her pupils dilating. Her scent rose to perfume the air, to fill his lungs with the evidence of her arousal.
Still, she said, “I will never sign to that.”
“And I’d never ask you to. This has nothing to do with the deal. You have full freedom on this front. I’m only letting you know I want you in my bed. And you will come. Because you want to. Because you want me.”
Her pupils fluctuated, her cheeks flushed. Proof positive of his claims.
She still scoffed, even if in a voice that had deepened to the timbre that used to arouse him out of his mind, as it did now. “You really have to see someone for that head of yours, before it snaps off your neck under its own weight.”
He tugged on her arm, brought her slamming against him. A groan escaped him at the glorious feel of her against him from breast to knee. A moan of stimulation issued from her before she could stifle it.
The bouquet that had been tantalizing him since she’d walked in—her unique brand of femininity, that of sunshine-soaked days and pleasure-drenched nights—deluged his lungs. He had to get more, leave no breath unmingled with it.
He buried his face in her neck, inhaled her, absorbing her shudder into his. “I don’t want you in my bed. I need you there. I’ve craved you there for six long years.”
The body that had gone limp at contact with his stiffened, pushing away only enough to look confusedly up at him.
Feeling he’d said too much, he let her go before he swept her up and carried her to bed here and now.
Her face was a canvas of every turbulent emotion there was, so intense he felt almost dizzy at their onslaught.
And he found himself adding, “Passion was the one real thing we shared. You were the best I’ve ever had. I only ended it with you because you—” he barely caught back an accusation “—seemed to expect more than was on offer.” He injected his voice with nonchalance. “But now you know what is on offer. You have every choice in becoming my lover, but none in being my princess.”
Her gaze dropped to the dossier in her hand, which regulated their temporary relationship’s boundaries and how it would end with a cold precision he was already starting to question.
Then she raised her eyes, the azure now dull and distant. “Only for a year.”
Or longer. As long as we both want, he almost blurted out.
Catching back the impetuousness with all he had, he nodded. “Only for a year.”

Three
“How long?”
Glory winced at her best friend’s shrill stupefaction.
She was already regretting telling Amelia anything. But Glory had felt her head and heart might explode if she didn’t tell someone. And it couldn’t have been her mother. Glenda Monaghan would have a breakdown if she knew what her husband and son had been up to. Or what they were in danger of if Glory didn’t go through with Vincenzo’s “deal.” The “take it or I send your family up the river for life” deal.
Glory smirked at her best friend’s flabbergasted expression. “Don’t you think you’re going about this in reverse? You keep asking me a question right after I answer it.”
Amelia rolled her long-lashed golden eyes. “Excuse me, Ms. Monaghan. We’ll see how you’ll fare when I come to you saying I was once on mouth-to-mouth-and-way-more terms with a prince of freaking Castaldini, who happens to be the foremost scientist and businessman in the clean-energy field, and that he now wants to marry me.”
“Only for a year,” Glory added, her heart twisting again.
Amelia threw her hands, palms up, at her. “There. You’ve said it again. So don’t get prissy with me while I’m in shock. I mean … Vincenzo D’Agostino? Whoa!”
Glory emptied her lungs on a dejected sigh. “Yeah.”
Amelia sagged down on the couch beside her. “Man. I’m trying to compose this picture of you with Prince Vastly Devastating himself, and I’m failing miserably.”
Glory’s exhalation was laced with mockery this time. “Thanks, Amie, so kind of you.”
“It’s not that I don’t think you’re on his level!” Amelia exclaimed. “Any man on any level would be lucky to have you look his way. But you haven’t been making any XY chromosome carriers lucky since the Ice Age. You’ve been such a cold fish….” She winced then smiled sheepishly. “You know how you are with men. You radiate this ‘do not approach or else’ vibe. It’s impossible to imagine you in the throes of passion with any man. But now I’m realizing your standards are just much higher than us mere mortal women. It’s either someone of Vincenzo’s caliber or nothing. Or—” realization seemed to hit Amelia, making her eyes drain of lightheartedness, then fill with wariness “—is it because it’s Vincenzo or nothing? Is he the one who spoiled you for other men?”
Glory stared at her. She’d never thought of it this way.
After the brutal way Vincenzo had ended their affair, she’d been devastated, emotionally and psychologically. For the next year, she hadn’t thought beyond stopping being miserable. After that, she’d poured all of her time and energy into changing her direction in life.
It had taken Vincenzo’s kicking her out of his life, and out of her job, to make her realize the fatal flaw in her unwavering quest for security and stability. She’d known then that there could be neither, emotional or financial. If the man she’d thought to be her soul mate could destroy both with a few words, she wouldn’t count on anything again. She’d decided to give her heart and skills to the world and hope they’d do it more good than they’d done her.
The more she’d achieved, the more in demand she’d been. For the past five years, she’d been constantly on the go, living out of a suitcase, setting up and streamlining multiple humanitarian operations across the globe. If she’d wanted intimacies, they would have had to be passing encounters. And those just weren’t for her.
But now, after Amelia’s questions, she had to pause and wonder. Had one of the major attractions of that whole lifestyle been the legitimate and continuous way of escaping intimacies?
Glory loved her job, couldn’t ask for anything more fulfilling on a personal or professional level. But it had given her no respite, no time or energy for self-reflection or reassessment. Had she unconsciously sought that flat-out pace to make herself too unavailable? Too consumed to even sense anything missing? So she didn’t have to face that she’d always be a one-man woman? That for her, it was Vincenzo or nothing?
Amelia must have read the answer in Glory’s silent stare, for she, too, exhaled. “Did he break your heart?”
“No. He … smashed it.”
Amelia frowned, expression darkening. “Okay, now I hate the guy. I saw him a few times on TV, and I don’t know how I didn’t peg him for a slimeball! I thought he sounded like a pretty decent guy, no airs, and even with his reputation, I remember wondering how he demolished the stereotype of the royal playboy. I thought being a scientist saved him from being a narcissistic monster. But I stand corrected.”
The ridiculous urge to defend him overpowered Glory. “He isn’t … wasn’t like that. He’s—he’s just … I don’t know.” She shook her head in confusion. “It’s like he’s two—no, three people. The man I fell in love with was like you describe him—honorable, sincere and grounded in his public life, focused, driven and brilliant in his working one, and sensitive, caring and passionate in person. Then there was the man who ended things with me, cold and callous, even vicious. And finally there’s the man I met today. Relentless and dominating, yet nothing like the man who took everything seriously, or the man who relished humiliating me.”
“Humiliating you?” The edge to Amelia’s rising fury was a blade against Glory’s inflamed nerves. “And now he’s asking you to marry him to fix his reputation? And don’t say ‘only for a year’ again or I may have to break something. I can’t believe I was excited at first! Tell him to take his short-term-lease-marriage offer and go to hell.”
Glory had always thought Amelia as magnificent as a golden lioness. She now looked like one defending her cub. Her reaction warmed Glory even through the ice of her despondency. “You mean you wouldn’t have told me to tell him that anyway?”
“No, I wouldn’t have. I mean, you’re not in the market for a regular marriage anyway, then comes Prince Very Delicious offering you a year in a fairy tale with a ten million dollar cash bonus. If he wasn’t a scumbag who seems to have crippled you emotionally for life, I would have thought it a super deal for you. Now what I want to know is how dare he approach you of all people with his offer?”
Glory hadn’t shared Vincenzo’s reason for picking her. As the one “convenient”—not to mention compromised—enough for his needs. Again. She exhaled and escaped answering.
Amelia harrumphed. “But it doesn’t matter what he’s thinking. If he bothers you after you say no, I’ll have my Jack have a word with his teeth.”
Imagining Jack, a bear of a man and a bruiser, pitted against the equally powerful but refined great feline Vincenzo suddenly brought a giggle bursting out of her.
Pulling back from the edge of hysteria, Glory’s laughter died on a heavy sigh. “I’m not looking for an intervention here, Amie. I only wanted to … share. I—” she barely swallowed back have to “—already decided to say yes.”
Amelia gaped at her. Glory hadn’t told her of Vincenzo’s ultimatum, either. If she did, Jack and his whole rugby team would be after Vincenzo. Then Vincenzo would gather all those hulking wonders he had for cousins and it would probably lead to a war between the U.S. and Castaldini….
She suppressed the mania bubbling inside her, and focused on overriding Amelia’s vehement objections. “It’ll only be for a year, Amie. And just think what I can do for all the causes I’m involved in with ten million dollars.”
Amelia snorted. “Not much. That would barely supply a few clean-water stations. If you’re foolish enough to put yourself within range of the man who hurt and humiliated you, I’d ask for a hundred million. He can afford it, and he’s the one who needs to scrape a mile-deep of dirt from his image with your shining one. At least you’d be risking annihilation for a good enough cause.”
Glory smiled weakly at the firebrand she had for a best friend. She’d met Amelia five years ago while working with Doctors Without Borders. They’d hit it off immediately—two women who’d worked all their lives to become professionals, then discovered, each through her own ordeal, that they needed a cause, not a career. As a corporate and international law expert, Amelia had made it possible for Glory to accomplish things she’d thought impossible. Amelia always insisted Glory’s business and economic know-how were more valuable than law—in a world where money was a constant when everything else was mercurial.
“I wanted you to take a look at this….” She reached for the hardcover prenuptial agreement as if reaching for a bomb. She dropped it in Amelia’s lap as if it scalded her and attempted a wink. “That’s mainly why I told you. To get your legal opinion on this little gem.”
Amelia stared at the heavy volume in her lap with the gilded inscription proclaiming its nature. “I’d say this is a huge one. And from the looks and weight of it, I’m not sure gem is the right word for it, either. Okay, let’s see what Prince Very Disturbing has to offer.”
Unable to sit beside her as she read Vincenzo’s terms, Glory got up and went to the kitchen.
While she searched for something to do, she tried telling herself that, considering the situation, the prenuptial shouldn’t disturb her. She’d never seen one, and she had no knowledge of marriage laws. Maybe this language was standard within every marriage where one party outranks the other in position and wealth a thousandfold.
She wasn’t poor, but financial ease had ceased to be a goal to her. She’d settled for having no debts, and a few inexpensive needs. But in comparison to Vincenzo with his Midas touch, she guessed she would rank as destitute. Maybe he had to consider his investors when he dealt with anything that could affect him financially. Maybe even his board of directors had a say in his financial decisions, and in today’s world, marriage was one.

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