she lied, inspecting her nails. ‘I’ve lost count too. Ages ago.’
The silence pulsed for a beat or two.
She looked up to find him watching her with a brooding expression. ‘Is there anything else?’ she asked. ‘Any more tedious little rules I have to abide by?’
‘NO,’ he said, snatching up his jacket and shrugging himself into it. ‘That will be all for now. Just leave the press to me. I will handle the questions.’
Jade uncrossed her legs and got to her feet. ‘Yes, Master,’ she said and flicked the fine chain strap of her evening purse over her shoulder as she walked with swaying hips over to the door.
‘Careful, Jade,’ he warned. ‘One step out of line and the deal’s off. And don’t think I wouldn’t do it.’
Jade refused to let him see how unnerved she was by his threat. He might be calling her bluff but how could she know for sure? Of course she needed the money much more than he did. He had plenty of his own while she had nothing. But a year was going to change all that. She would finally be independent of her father. She would no longer need anyone’s largesse to survive. She schooled her features into meekness. ‘I will be a good girl, Nic, you just watch me.’
CHAPTER THREE
THEY had barely stepped outside the hotel on the Grand Canal when the paparazzi swarmed upon them. A journalist pushed a microphone towards Nic and asked, ‘Signor Sabbatini, the news of your engagement and impending marriage to Ms Sommerville has taken everyone by surprise. You must have been conducting a very secret liaison. Do you have any comment to make about your romance? ‘
Nic smiled charmingly but Jade could tell he was grinding his teeth behind it. ‘Ms Sommerville and I have been family friends for years. We finally decided to become more than friends. We are very much looking forward to our wedding next month. Now, if you’ll allow us to celebrate our engagement in private, please move on.’
One of the older journalists pushed forward a microphone in Jade’s direction before Nic could do anything to block it. ‘Ms Sommerville, you were involved some months ago with Richard McCormack, the husband of one of your best friends. Do you think the news of your engagement to Nic Sabbatini will finally repair your relationship with Julianne McCormack?’
Jade felt the subtle tightening of Nic’s fingers around hers. ‘I have no comment to make on any issue to do with my private life, apart from being very happy about my engagement to Nic. It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I am so—’
‘Excuse us.’ Nic took command and led her through the crowd of tourists who had gathered.
‘I thought I told you to leave the questions to me,’ he said in an undertone as they weaved through the knot of people.
‘Everyone will think it strange if I don’t say something,’ Jade argued. ‘This is a momentous occasion, after all.’
He gave her a quelling look before heading for a restaurant on one of the canals.
They were led to a table in a lavishly appointed private room. Crystal chandeliers twinkled from the ceiling, plush velvet covered the chairs and hung from the windows in thick curtains in a rich shade of scarlet. There were Venetian masks on the wall, each one a work of art. The atmosphere was one of intimacy and privacy, and again Jade wondered how many women Nic had entertained here, wining and dining them before taking them back to his penthouse apartment to pleasure them. Strangely, she felt a jagged spike of jealousy poke at her and she shifted in her chair. Why would she be jealous? There would always be other women with Nic. It was the way he was made. He was not cut out for commitment and continuity in his love life. He was a playboy with a PhD in seductive charm. He could have anyone he wanted. He had had anyone he wanted.
The menus were placed in front of them and within minutes a bottle of champagne arrived in a silver ice bucket. Jade looked at it with wariness. She had already had one more glass than usual. Being with Nic had the same effect as alcohol. It had made her head spin to see him dressed in nothing but his black underwear back there at the hotel. She had set out to be as brazen as she could—getting dressed in front of him to show him she was just as the press reported her—but it was completely different when he had done the same to her. She had tried not to look at his carved to perfection body. She had seen plenty of male bodies on the beach or at the gym, and some of them had been downright gorgeous. But something about Nic’s always made her heart race and her senses tingle in a way they never did with anyone else. It made her feel deeply unsettled. She was the one who played the cat and mouse game with men, not the other way around. She didn’t like the thought of Nic having that much power over her, in fact any power over her.
The attentive waiter filled both of their glasses before moving away to leave them in privacy.
Nic picked up his glass and raised it to hers. ‘Let’s drink to our first year of marriage.’
Jade gave him an ironic glance. ‘Don’t you mean the only year of our marriage? Don’t the terms of the will state we have to be married by the first of next month and stay married for exactly a year?’
He drank from his glass before he answered. ‘Yes, but what if we enjoy being married to each other? What if it turns out to be more convenient than we first thought? We could make it last as long as we like.’
Jade sat back in her seat as if he had pushed her backwards with one of his strong hands against her chest. ‘You can’t mean that!’ she gasped.
He gave her one of his white-toothed smiles. ‘Only teasing,’ he said, his hazel eyes twinkling. ‘Once the year is up next May, we can both take the money and run.’
Jade worked hard at squashing her sense of pique. She knew his motive for marrying her was only to get the money he felt entitled to; after all, she was doing it for the very same reason. She could hardly blame him for going ahead with his grandfather’s stipulations. His two older brothers had had no such conditions placed upon them, but then Giorgio and Luca were both happily married with children. Giorgio and Maya had separated for a time, but had reconciled just before the old man’s death. It had been Salvatore’s desire to see all of his three grandsons settled before he died, but when he became ill so suddenly he had obviously decided to take matters into his own hands and make sure Nic bowed to pressure to settle down instead of playing the field for too much longer. Why Salvatore had chosen her as Nic’s bride was a mystery. He could not have been unaware of the enmity between them. For the last decade they had snarled and sniped at each other when they had to be together at Sabbatini or Sommerville functions.
Jade knew a lot about the history of the Sabbatinis, having been a part of their circle for so many years. Her Australian-born father had befriended Salvatore when he was just starting out as an accountant and, with his Italian friend’s help, his small accounting firm had become one of the most prestigious in Europe.
Like Nic and his brothers, Jade had grown up brushing shoulders with the rich and famous. Celebrities were not idols from afar; they were friends and acquaintances who regularly attended the same parties and social gatherings.
Jade’s mother, Harriet, had been a London socialite herself until her untimely death from an overdose when Jade was five. Whether it had been suicide, a cry for help or an accident was something Jade and her brother Jonathan had never been told. There had always been speculation regarding Jade’s parents’ marriage. Throughout their childhood, it had been a case of don’t-mention-your-mother-in-your-father’s-presence by all the nannies and au pairs that had come and gone. Whether it would upset their father because of unresolved grief or anger was another mystery that had never been solved.
Jade looked at the menu and chewed her bottom lip in concentration. She hated eating out; it was something she usually avoided, but not for the reasons everyone assumed. It had been splashed all over the papers enough times—how she had been admitted to a special clinic when she was fifteen and then again at eighteen when she had skirted with death as her weight had dropped to a dangerously low