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‘Relationships end. I still don’t see the problem.’
Her eyes sparked. ‘That’s because you’re only thinking about yourself as usual. Not me. Have you ever been dumped, Mr Zaccarelli?’
‘Rio.’
‘Rio—’ Using his name brought a flush to her cheeks. ‘Has anyone ever told you they don’t want to be with you any more?’
‘No, of—’ He caught himself and shrugged. ‘No.’
‘You were going to say of course not, weren’t you?’ She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘You are so monumentally arrogant and sure of yourself, but that explains why you can’t understand my problem. You don’t know what it’s like to be rejected.’
‘Given that this isn’t a real relationship,’ Rio said tightly, ‘it wouldn’t be a real rejection.’
‘But if you’re going to be as convincing as you say you are, then everyone is going to think it is! Six weeks ago my fiancé, a man I’d known since I was a child, called off our wedding—’ She wrapped her arms around herself as if she were suddenly cold. ‘Forgive me if I’m not rushing forward to embrace another public battering of my ego. It was bad enough the first time, having everyone feeling sorry for me. I couldn’t even walk down the street without ten people saying they understood how hideously humiliated I must feel—this would be a thousand times worse. Only this time it wouldn’t be just the village; it would be the whole world.’
‘How would that be worse?’ Genuinely baffled, struggling to understand, Rio stared at her. ‘Why would you care what a bunch of strangers think?’
‘I just would! I don’t want loads of people I don’t know discussing the fact that you dumped me. “Well, it’s hardly surprising, is it?”’ she parroted. ‘“I mean, what would a guy like him see in a girl like her?”’
‘You’d rather they thought you’d had a sleazy one-night stand with me?’
She gulped. ‘No. I’d rather they weren’t talking about me at all. But I especially don’t want them speculating on why I always get dumped.’
Aware that the clock was ticking and that they needed to get on with this if it was going to have any chance of working, Rio rubbed his hand over the back of his neck and applied his mind to a solution. ‘I’ll put out an announcement telling everyone you’re a wonderful woman and that I have huge respect for you.’
She cringed. ‘That would make people feel even more sorry for me.’
‘I’ll say that we will always be friends.?
?
‘Which is basically like saying our relationship fizzled because you don’t find me attractive.’
Trying to conceal his mounting exasperation, Rio inhaled deeply and offered up the only other solution that presented itself. ‘If it’s the dumping part that really worries you, then you can dump me.’
She stared at him. ‘Sorry?’
‘I’ll allow you to dump me,’ he said tightly. ‘Problem solved.’
‘That wouldn’t work.’
‘Now what? Why wouldn’t it work?’
‘Because you’re rich and handsome. No one would believe it. Why would anyone in my position dump a man like you?’
‘That’s easy. I’m a total bastard,’ Rio said immediately, relieved to be able to deal with that obstacle so simply. ‘No one who knows me will have any trouble believing you kicked me out.’ His confession drew a tiny smile from her.
‘You’re that bad?’
Transfixed by that smile, Rio couldn’t look away from her mouth. ‘I’m terrible. I’m dominating, I like everything my own way—basically I’m horribly selfish, inwardly focused, I set myself a punishing schedule and frequently work an eighteen-hour day, which usually means that all I want to do when I’m with a woman is have sex.’ And he wanted to have sex with her, right here, right now. It exasperated him to realise that, even in this most delicate of situations, he could barely keep his hands off her.
‘You manage to fit sex into your punishing working day?’ Her voice was faint. ‘When?’
‘Whenever I feel like it—’ He was intrigued by the colour in her cheeks. ‘So that’s settled then. I’ll do something awful—’
‘You mean you’ll behave the way you usually behave.’
‘Something like that.’ He acknowledged the barely veiled insult with a dismissive shrug. ‘You’ll dump me and, just to make sure it looks completely authentic, I’ll go round looking moody for a few weeks.’
