She tilted her chin defiantly. He’d offered her a lifeline; she was going to reach for it with both hands. As for the charade of a marriage, so what? She could play the part of a doting, lovestruck wife if it meant she was out of danger.
“It’s what my price is. Take it or leave it.”
“Oh, I’ll take it,cara,”he murmured, walking across the hotel room towards her, stopping just a few feet away.
She could have wept with gladness. It didn’t occur to her then that she was jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire, she was just so glad to be able to officially sever her connection with the money lenders she’d relied on at her lowest ebb.
“Let’s discuss terms,” he said, now standing so close that she was finding it hard to think over the buzzing in her brain. Theconstant hum of awareness that seemed to fog her whenever he was nearby.
“Terms,” she repeated, providing evidence to both of them of how far gone she was.
“In order for this to work, you’ll need to relocate to Italy. Will that be a problem?”
“Italy,” she parroted.
“I live in Italy. At least, nominally.”
She didn’t understand what he meant, but she nodded anyway.
“Can you relocate there?” his tone was thickened by impatience. She realised she hadn’t answered.
She thought about her life back in their tiny town. The apartment they’d been renting, the loneliness of life. The thought of going home and facing her grief, life without her father, a dead end job. There was also the promise of escape. Escape from risk, from the loan sharks who had turned very sinister. She jerked her head quickly. “I can move, yes.”
Something shifted in his gaze; a hint of speculation that made her feel as though he was suffering from the very opposite of her brain-dead state. Her quick agreement was obviously strange. Most people had something to tether them to a physical place. A family, friends, work, even a darned cat, but for Ally, she was truly without anchor.
“Bene.”Despite the feeling she was well and truly outmatched, warmth flooded her at his quick praise, the way the Italian word ran through her like lava. “My home is large; you will have your own space. However, there will be occasions when we travel, for example, to my grandfather’s. To preserve the illusion of our marriage, we will need to share a room.”
Heat went from her veins to her face. “Oh.”
“This is not a proposition. Sharing a room does not mean sharing a bed, and even if that were to happen, I give you my word, sex is not going to be an issue between us.”
She nodded a little weakly. “I see.”
Ally had been a late bloomer. While her late teens and early twenties had somehow turned her into a curvaceous, blonde bombshell, as a teen, she’d been a Tomboy with no fashion sense and even less interest in boys. Then her dad had gotten sick, and she’d lost any vague notion of exploring that side of herself. She’d been asked out, she’d even gone on dates here and there, to make her dad happy. But she’d never felt a rush of longing take over her body, she’d never looked at a man and felt like she’d die if she didn’t have him.
What an irony it was that she should feel that now—and for a man who clearly didn’t have even a hint of temptation where she was concerned.
It should have been reassuring, but it really wasn’t.
“How…long do you think we’ll need to do this for?”
He hesitated. She hadn’t known him long, but already she understood that doubt was uncharacteristic for this man. “I suspect a year will do it.”
“A year,” she repeated, trying to get her head around that.
“My grandfather is a conniving bastard. He’ll drag this out, just to be sure, rather than hand over control easily.”
“Control of what? What exactly do you need from this marriage?”
His jaw shifted, tension emanating from him. “The family company. This marriage is a prerequisite for control. And while he says he’s thrilled, I know him. He’s testing me. He won’t buy this ruse easily; we’ll have our work cut out for us.”
A shiver ran down her spine at the image he conjured of this unknown grandfather. But pieces were finally starting to slot together in her brain. Memories that had been submergedby alcohol. She blinked up at him, trying to get those same memories to focus properly. “Remind me of your name.”
His name! She didn’t even know hisfirst name.And yet, she did know it. The celebrant had said it, and so had this man, when first they’d met. It had been a name she’d recognised. He was famous, somehow. Or at least, in the papers.
She pulled her hair over her shoulder, finally realising that she really had run away from one conundrum and potentially found herself right in the middle of another.
“You don’t remember?”
