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“Are you flirting with me?” My voice is thick with arousal.
“Maybe.”
“Seducing me?”
Her tantalizing smile makes my pulse throb. A gentle breeze from the open window flutters her hair. Her scent’s making me wild.
I lean in closer and draw her to me with my hand on her lower back. Our breath mingles. So close, I can see the tiniest dots of freckles along her nose. I want to kiss each one of them. I’m jealous of the sun’s rays that brought those freckles to her face, the rays that touched her skin before I did. I’m jealous of anything and anyone that knew her first.
My hand’s curled around the back of her neck. I imagine she’s mine, that I own her, her every breath belongs to me, her body christened by me and me alone. I imagine we don’t have a marriage of convenience but something… deeper. Compelling. Passionate.
I’ve never wanted someone or something more in my entire life. I grasp the back of her head and pull her to me, then slide my hands along the side of her face to frame it. Her lips are slightly parted, her breath shallow and eager. Her hands come to rest on my forearms. I lick her lower lip, and she moans. I’ve never wanted to kiss a woman so badly in my life.
My forehead touches hers. I’m panting like I’ve just run a race. I can hear the sound of her swallowing, the slow drag of her tongue along her lips.
“Romeo,” she whispers.
I nod, incapable of speaking. She’s got me captivated.
“Let’s say we… we marry.”
I blink at a sudden vision of Vittoria dressed in white, my band around her finger while we take our vows. I’m not a romantic man, but goddamn if I don’t want that. I nod again.
“What if we… what if something happens? How long do we stay married? Do people in your family…”
I don’t let her finish. My fingers tighten in her hair so I have her full attention. I hold her gaze. “Forever, Vittoria. There is no divorce in my family. We marry for life until death do us part.”
We’re in this room surrounded by antiques that stand the test of time. My family may not marry for love, but my family does not believe in divorce.
She frowns and shakes her head. “I can’t do it, Romeo,” she finally says. “I can’t allow myself to be married to someone I don’t know.”
I want to shake her again. I want to punish her again. I want to slam her onto this bed and make her mine irrevocably.
“Why not?” I speak through gritted teeth, keeping myself calm with great effort.
She only shakes her head and looks away. “Let’s go back to our conversation. Please ask the question you were going to. You need to know.”
She’ll wait, then. She doesn’t want to talk of this.
“Fine. Tell me. Where did your money go?”
She nods, drawing in a breath then releasing it slowly. She’s prepared to answer. “I was with a man who swindled me.”
“Excuse me?” It’s hard for me to understand what she’s saying. With a man who swindled her?
“I thought I was in love,” she says simply, frankly. I like that she doesn’t cloak her words in hidden promises and flowers. “I fell in love with a man named Ashton Bryant. At least, I thought I did. We were going to get married.” She breaks eye contact and looks over my shoulder. I’ve learned to read body language. She’s in pain over the memory. I’ll kill him.
He touched her. He hurt her. I’ll fucking end him.
“No, we had no ring and no date, and I suppose that should’ve been an indicator, huh?” She sighs. “But we… well, he just put it off, you know?”
“No. I don’t know. Sounds like a fucking douche.”
I watch as her face softens and her eyes dance like rays of moonbeams. “You wouldn’t, would you? You want to marry a woman you just met to secure your crown, don’t you? The concept of pretending to be in love or putting off a marriage is foreign to you, isn’t it?”
I nod. “Of course.”
A corner of her lips quirks up, revealing a dimple. I stare, mesmerized, and she continues to talk. She’s got the tiniest little freckle at the corner of her mouth.
“He wouldn’t marry me. I should’ve known it was a warning sign. A red flag, I guess.” She sighs and swallows. It pains her to talk of it.
He’ll suffer before he dies. Slowly.
“One day I woke up, and everything was gone. And I mean… everything. The car. My purse. My credit cards. The cash in my wallet. He even took some of the gifts he bought me. Jewelry…”
“Son of a bitch,” I curse. “What a fuckin’ cowardly thing to do.”
“Ohhh, yeah. The guy hadn’t even paid the rent as he said he would.”
