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But it wasn’t only this part of his public persona that repelled her. It was how she perceived all of him. And how she perceived herself in comparison.
Like no other woman he’d met, she was actually put off by his wealth and power. To
her he was a taker, like her father, someone immersed in his own needs and greeds, who cared nothing about the devastation he left behind.
Then came the part concerning herself.
If she didn’t value herself, as was evident from that letter, it stood to reason that she was unable to understand his interest in her. So she’d assigned him the most unsavory motive she could think of. That he was toying with her for his cruel entertainment.
What irony, that she suspected his manipulation when he’d already relinquished it.
He could just hear his brothers saying this turnabout only served him right, in punishment for his initial plan to use her. Not that they hadn’t done the same in their day. At least Rafael and Numair. They had both initiated their relationships with the women who’d become their wives with self-serving motives.
Not that he wanted to end up with a wife. He just wanted to experience and satisfy those unprecedented urges this spitfire provoked in him. And he would pursue her to the ends of the earth till he did.
He probed those new motivations more deeply. Was he feeling this way only because she defied him and pulverized his plans and expectations?
The internal interrogation ended before it started.
No. That was what had lured him in initially. But he’d stayed and kept going deeper because of her. She was a conundrum. A genius in her field, she was also so insightful she’d sensed things about him that no one had before. And she kept none of her insights to herself. Yet with all her brilliance, she was socially awkward, had reclusive tendencies. But what had him at the mercy of this unknown and unstoppable compulsion was that inside that steel shell of resolve and resistance, he felt such vulnerable, untried softness.
It was that that made him want to eat her up.
But his need to break down the insulating walls she’d erected around herself, what she kept raising higher around him, was more than desire. More than his dominance demanding she bow to him like everyone did. It actually...dismayed him, what she thought of him. Because it was unnervingly accurate. She saw him more clearly than anyone, even Ivan.
He was suddenly no longer feeling self-satisfied being who he was. Now he actually felt the urge to change, so he could improve her opinion of him.
If anything had ever disturbed him, it was that thought.
Could he be getting soft and stupid like his brothers? Behind the suave front he’d meticulously created, he’d always been the one with steel-enforced nerves and diamond-coated insides. Not even this unpredictable fireball could change that...could she?
Of course she couldn’t.
And when he got her to succumb—and he definitely would—not only would he remain unchanged, it would still serve his original cause. There’d at least be that, once his desire for her dissipated.
But then, he couldn’t even imagine it doing so. From the aroused condition he remained in just thinking of her, it seemed his need for her wouldn’t fade easily or soon.
Which suited him. He had all the time in the world.
He would savor her capture and her devouring, slowly, thoroughly, as he’d never done anything in his life.
* * *
Lili woke up very late. It had been another restless night filled with outlandish, feverish dreams starring Antonio Balducci.
She’d woken up with a hammering heart and a cramping core. She’d felt so needy that she’d barely refrained from relieving the throbbing between her legs in the shower.
Getting out in record time before she succumbed to temptation and ended up feeling only worse, she eyed the pajamas she’d decided to spend the day in, shrugged listlessly and headed to the kitchen in her bathrobe instead. She needed sugar. Lots of it. She’d bought giant triple chocolate chip muffins last night. Two for breakfast sounded about right. It wouldn’t compensate for the loss of her job and security, but it would make her feel better nonetheless. Hopefully.
Flopping on the couch in front of the TV, she decided she’d binge-watch every single episode of every sitcom she liked. If that meant she’d sit there with only kitchen and bathroom breaks for the next month, so be it.
By the fourth episode of her favorite show, she found herself actually watching and not replaying her confrontations with Antonio in a never-ending loop. Soon she was chuckling, then laughing, then reciting the lines that had become engraved in pop culture. She was singing a jingle alongside one of her favorite characters at the top of her lungs when the bell rang.
Her raucousness came to a halt as her eyes darted to the wall clock. At 1:00 p.m. on a Wednesday, the few neighbors in her gated community who ever came knocking knew she’d be at work.
It had to be one of them checking out the inexplicable noises. Or the mailman leaving something she’d forgotten she’d ordered online, as usual.
Coming to this conclusion, she turned the volume down, subdued her hair and tightened the belt of the two-sizes-too-big bathrobe. Failing to locate her slippers, she pattered barefoot to the door.
