Temporarily His Princess

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.