Fury jerked her back from her sensuous stupor, infusing her backbone and voice with steel as she glared up at him. “You would have saved yourself the trip if you’d read my messages.”
His hand moved, making her tense all over. His lips tugged as he touched her hair, smoothing it away from her cheek until she almost snatched his hand and pressed it against her flesh.
Then he made the feeling worse, bending to flay her with his breath and words. “Oh, I read them. And chose to ignore them.”
“Your loss.” She almost gasped. “Their contents stand, whether you sanction them or not. I’m not going anywhere with you. Just give me whatever ring you have.”
He withdrew to pour a devouring look down on her. “I would have gotten one if you’d said yes early this morning.”
“Fine. When you get one, send it with one of your lackeys. And email instructions when you require I start advertising your image-cleansing campaign and wearing your ‘brand.’”
His gaze melted her on its way down her body, taking in her casual powder-blue top and faded jeans, appreciation coloring the hunger there. “I see you believe you won’t go out with me as you’re not dressed for the occasion.”
“There is no occasion, so I’m dressed in what suits a night at home. Alone.”
This time, when his hand moved, it made contact with her flesh. A gossamer sweep with the back of his fingers down her almost combusting cheek. “You need to know that there are column A matters that are not open for negotiation. And then there are column B ones, where we either negotiate, or you can have whatever you like. Picking your ring is smack dab in column A.”
Struggling so she wouldn’t sink her teeth in his hand before dragging it to her aching breasts, she said, “Wow. You can even make a supposedly gallant gesture coercion.”
“And reneging on our agreement is passive aggression.”
“What agreement? You mean my stunned silence at your audacity in making an appointment without asking if I’m free?”
His pout was the essence of dismissal. “You’re on vacation. I checked.”
“I have a life outside of work. A personal life.”
His self-satisfied grin made her palm itch for a stinging connection with his chiseled cheek. “Not anymore. At least, none that doesn’t involve me. Do get done with this tantrum so I can take you to pick your ring.”
“It’s you who’s throwing a tantrum by insisting I pick it. Far from casting doubt on your impeccable taste when I asked to pick it, I was just trying to make a point, which I now see is pointless. I don’t have any choice and pretending to have one in worthless stuff is just that—worthless. I’ve admitted it and moved on. So you don’t have to prove your largesse by letting me grab a bigger rock, which is clearly what you think this is about.”
All teasing evaporated from his eyes. “That didn’t even cross my mind. I only want your taste not mine to dictate everything that will be intimate and personal to you.”
“Wow. How considerate of you,” she scoffed. “We both know you don’t give a fig’s peel about my opinion. And what intimate and personal things? This ring, and anything else you provide me with, is just a prop. What do I care what you deck me in? It’s my role’s costume and I’m returning everything at the end of this charade. And speaking of returning stuff, just so you’re not worried I might ‘lose’ anything, or that you’ll have to pay a steep premium on insuring it, just get me imitations. No one will dream anything you give me isn’t genuine. And it would befit the fakeness of the whole setup.”
The darkness on his face suddenly lifted. His eyes and lips resumed their provocation. “I must have been speaking Italian when I said this is nonnegotiable. Must be why we’re having this breakdown in communications.”
“Since I speak decent Italian—” she ignored his rising eyebrows; she wasn’t telling him how and why she did “—it wouldn’t have mattered which language you used. No is still my answer. It’s the same in both languages.”
His contemplation was now smoky, sensuous. “No is unacceptable. Are you prodding me into…persuading you?”
Knowing what kind of persuasion he’d expose her to, she slipped past the barrier of his bulk and temptation, staggered to her foyer’s decorative storage cabinet and picked up the prenup. Her hands trembled as she turned and extended it to him.
He took it only when she thrust it against his chest, didn’t even look at it, instead staring at her in that incapacitating way of his, his eyes like twin cloudy skies.
“I signed.” Her voice was too breathless for her liking.
“I gave it to you to read. Signing would have been in duplicates, with both our legal counsels present.”
She shrugged, confused at the note of disapproval—or was it disappointment?—in his voice. “Send me your copy to sign.”
His gaze grew ponderous, probing. “Does that mean you didn’t find it excessive?”
She huffed bitterly. “You know your Terms of Submission leave excessive in another galaxy. You only stop short of making provisions that I turn over the tan I acquire during my time in Castaldini.”
“Then why did you sign? Why didn’t you ask for changes?”
“You said it was nonnegotiable.”
“I thought you’d have your attorney look at it, who’d tell you there’s nothing in the world that isn’t negotiable. I expected an alphabetized list of deletions and adjustments.”
“I don’t want any. I don’t want anything from you. I never did. If you thought I’d haggle over your paranoid terms out of indignation or challenge or whatever, then you know nothing about me. But I already know that. You didn’t consider me worth knowing, and I don’t expect you to start treating me with any consideration now, when I’m just your smokescreen. So no, I don’t care how far you go to protect yourself. This is what I want, too. It makes sure I’m out of your life, with no lingering ties whatsoever, the second the year is up.”
Silence crashed in the wake of her ragged words.
Then he drawled, deep and dark, “A year is a long time.”
Her pent-up breath rushed out. “Tell me about it. I just want to start serving my sentence with as little resistance as possible, so it will pass with as little damage as possible.”
This time his gaze seemed to drill into her, as if to plumb the depths of her thoughts and emotions.