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