took a deep breath. Damn Zach, he had a way of getting beneath her skin and irritating her so much that she simply reacted without thinking. It wasn’t like her to draw attention to herself, or to argue, but she couldn’t help it with him.
Still, she should not have let him get to her like that. But he’d suggested she’d purposely set out to trap him into marriage, and it made her furious. What kind of God’s gift to women did he think he was anyway? It was ludicrous. And she planned to tell him so just as soon as they were alone and she could give him a proper piece of her mind.
Lia stood and smoothed her dress. She studied herself in the mirror and was pleased with what she saw. Oh, she was still too plump—and too tall—but she cleaned up quite nicely when she was able to wear designer dresses someone had picked out specifically for her shape and coloring.
When she left the ladies’ room, Zach was standing across from the door, leaning against the wall in a sexy slouch that made her heart kick up. He really was spectacular. Tall, broad and intensely handsome. The kind of man that, yes, would have women falling all over him.
“You’ve been gone awhile,” he said.
Lia tilted her chin up. “Yes. I needed to get my temper under control.”
Zach laughed. She didn’t like the way the sound slid beneath her skin. Curled around her heart. Warmed her from the inside out.
“I wasn’t aware you had a temper, Lia.”
“Of course I do. And you know just how to aggravate it.” She’d never really realized precisely how furious another person could make her until she’d met Zach. He had an ability to make her feel things she’d never quite felt before—and to say things she would have never said to another person. Usually, she hid her emotions down deep.
Except with him. With him, she couldn’t help but say what she was feeling.
It was that or burst.
She crossed the hall and stood right in front of him, nearly toe to toe. She was tall in her heels, five-eleven, but she still had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “You might think you are some sort of priceless gift to womankind, Zach Scott, but I’ll have you know that I would much prefer to be back home and for none of this to have happened.”
It wasn’t quite true, but she wasn’t going to tell him that. She wasn’t sorry for the two nights they’d spent together. She wasn’t even sorry about her baby. She was sorry for the way it had happened, and for the man it had happened with. Why couldn’t she have chosen a good Sicilian man for her night of rebellion? A single, sexy Sicilian who had no hang-ups about women and their motives.
Even as she thought it, she knew she didn’t really want that, either.
“For your information,” she continued, “I did not set out to ‘trap’ you. That is the most arrogant, conceited, unbelievable thing you have said yet. No one forced you to do what you did in Palermo. No one forced you to take that risk.”
His expression was dark. “No, you’re right about that. No one forced me. It was a mistake, and I was stupid enough to make it.” His eyes slid over her, came to rest on her face again. “Everything about those two days was a mistake.”
Lia tried not to let that hurt her, but she didn’t quite succeed. It stung her in places she’d thought she’d locked away long ago. “Well, now that we have that out of the way, I think it must be time for the dessert course.”
She turned her back on him and started down the hall, back toward the dinner. Tears pricked her eyes. Angry tears, she told herself.
Zach’s hand on her elbow brought her up short. She whirled around and jerked out of his grip.
He was a dark, brooding presence. “Look, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” He shoved a hand through his hair, blew out a breath.
Lia glared at him steadily. “I did not trap you, Zach. I’d like you to admit that.”
His expression remained dark. “Fine. You didn’t trap me.”
“And what about not believing I was telling the truth? Are you going to admit you were wrong about that, too?”
His eyes gleamed. “No.”
She stiffened. “Of all the rude, arrogant—”
“What reason did I have to believe you?” he said heatedly. “We’re strangers, Lia, regardless of what happened in Palermo.”
She swallowed against the knot of anger and pain clogging her throat. But she knew what he said was true. Would she have believed a story like hers if she were Zach? Considering his previous experience of women, perhaps not.
“I will concede that point,” she said coolly, though her heart beat hot at the admission. “But I don’t like it.”
He reached for her hand, slipped it into his. Her entire body went on red alert just from that simple touch. She wanted more of him, more of what they’d had in Palermo. And yet she knew that was the last thing she should want. The very last. They had an arrangement in name only, to protect their families, until such time as they could go their separate ways and not cause a scandal.
She had to remember he didn’t truly want this child. Or her.
She tried to pull her hand away, but he held it tight.
“Darling, we’re returning to the event,” he chided her. “We have to look happy together if they are to believe our whirlwind romance.”
“I’m not very good at pretending,” she said stiffly.
He tugged her closer. “Then I will have to give you a reason to smile,” he said, slipping his hand around to the small of her back and pressing her against him. He pulled the hand he’d trapped up to his chest, pressed her palm against the smooth fabric of his tuxedo.
“There is nothing you can do to make me smile, Zach,” she said, though her heart beat harder and faster as the look in his eyes changed. Heat flared in their dark depths and her body responded by softening, melting. She held herself rigid, unwilling to give in to the feelings swirling inside her. Feelings that wanted her to tilt her head back and offer her lips up for him to claim. “I want you to let me go.”
His eyes were hooded as they dropped to her mouth, and a shot of adrenaline pulsed into her veins.
“I will,” he murmured. “But not quite yet.”
ZACH WAS ON the edge of control. Not in a way that made him sweat as helpless panic rose in his throat and threatened to squeeze the life from him. But he had a need to dominate. A need to take this infuriating woman to his bed and not let her out of it for several hours.
Not until she sighed her pleasure into his ear. Not until she gasped out his name the way she had in Palermo. Sweet, innocent Lia. He wanted to taste her again. Wanted to know if she was as sweet as he remembered. As intoxicating.
She stood very still in his grasp. He didn’t hold her tight. She could have broken free with a single tug. Oh, not when he’d first gripped her hand. Definitely not then. At that moment, he’d been intending to saunter back into the gathering with his woman at his side, looking happy and enraptured for the world to see.
He knew how this game was played. He could have a fast romance and marriage, but first he had to be seen with Lia. And they needed to appear as if they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. So far, they’d looked as if they might prefer to touch anyone else rather than each other.
He had to change that perception, especially since there were at least three reporters circulating at this party tonight. Tomorrow, on the society pages of the local papers, they’d mention his date. By tomorrow evening, they’d know everything about Lia Corretti.
And