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“An excellent plan,” her father had said, assuming that she meant to impress their foreign guest.
Alessia’s motives had been far less admirable.
In terms of power and wealth, Nicolo Orsini was the modern version of Cosimo de’ Medici, but with one enormous difference.
Cosimo had been a man of refinement and honor.
Nicolo was not.
And if her motives for bringing him here took her down to his level, so be it.
She had no choice but to deal with him. She did have a choice as to the way in which she did it, and impressing him was not on her agenda.
What she wanted was to remind him of where he existed on the social scale, that he no more belonged in this beautiful city, this jewel of a palace, than a junkyard dog belonged in a roomful of poodles.
In other words, she wanted him to be ill at ease.
Yes, she admitted, glancing at him as the big car glided to a stop before the palazzo, it was petty. She’d permitted herself a moment of guilt but only a moment because of the satisfaction it promised. Nicolo Orsini might have a polished look to him, he might speak passable Italian, even if it was tainted by the rough dialect of Sicily. He might have all the manners, all the money in the world, but he was not a gentleman.
He wasn’t even an honest businessman.
He was a bandit all gussied up in fancy clothes, and she’d known that before she ever set eyes on him. Now that she had, now that she’d seen, firsthand, how he took what he wanted, how he…he thought nothing of forcing himself on a woman who clearly wanted nothing to do with him…
He had kissed her.
Her cheeks flushed.
And…and if she had seemed to let it happen, even to participate, it was only because she was—she was—
Dio, what was she?
Why had she permitted a man like this to put his mouth on hers? Why had she spent part of the night imagining how that mouth, that hot, firm mouth would feel on her breasts?
“Principessa?”
Alessia blinked. The chauffeur stood at rigid attention beside the open passenger door of the Bentley.
She took a deep breath. “Oh. Sì, Guillermo. Grazie.”
The man dipped his head, a gesture she despised but this was no time to remind him of it, not when Nicolo had moved across the seat, not when she could feel the heated pressure of his thigh against hers.
She stepped quickly from the car; he followed after her.
“We will be ready to return to the villa in two hours,” she told the chauffeur, who did that damned lowering-of-the-head thing again. “And do not do that,” she said irritably. She heard Nicolo snort and she swung toward him. “Do you see something amusing?”
“Not amusing,” he said lazily. “Perplexing. The man is treating you as you wish to be treated. And you fault him for it?”
“I have not asked him to bow to me!”
“You don’t have to. Every breath you take makes it clear that you are part of the aristocracy.”
She felt her face turn pink. “You know nothing about me, signore, and yet you feel free to judge me?”
The faint smile on his lips faded. “There’s an American expression, Alessia. ‘Right back at you.’ If you don’t know what it means, I’ll be happy to explain.”
Dio, the impertinence of the man. Alessia swallowed her irritation and marched through the tall golden gates that guarded the palace.
“Wow.”
