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There were entirely too many sophisticated, not-a-hair-out-of-place type women who circled her like sharks at these things. All of them seemed to take her engagement to Ranieri personally. Especially because he’d made no secret of the fact that they intended to wed at the end of the month. Within two weeks, now. She assumed that was why all of them tried, in various ways, to mean girl her whenever they saw her.
No one, in or out of a tabloid, could believe that Ranieri Furlan was marryingher.
Most people suspected she was pregnant.
But being assumed pregnant usually meant that people had accepted the notion that she and Ranieri had something between them. That they’d actually had sex. There were a lot of others who couldn’t quite get there.
Tonight, for example, Annika had been caught against her will in a tedious conversation with three debutantes she wished she could pretend she didn’t know. But she did. They’d all gone to private school together. One was on her fifth engagement. Another was on her second husband, having rid herself of the first when he was stripped of his royal title—though she let it be known that she was already in the market for her third. The other debutante—really more of a socialite, since they weren’t eighteen any longer—spent more time in the tabloids than some actual Hollywood celebrities. And what they’d wanted to talk about was how much they’d desperately wanted to be her friend all these years.
Lies, of course. Which she’d known even before the much-engaged one felt the need to make a few pointed comments about the rock on Annika’s hand.
I’ve always preferred a classic style myself, she’d said, though the look in her face was one of pure envy.But I suppose that if I’d managed to land Ranieri Furlan, I’d also want evidence of my triumph to beam out into outer space.
What Annika wished she could have said was that she didn’t particularlywantto be engaged to Ranieri in the first place, and certainly didn’t view it as a triumph. What she’d done was hold out her left hand and gaze down at the enormous stone as if she’d never seen it before, then had glanced at the “classic” stone on the other woman’s hand.
Which, she realized only after she’d done it, might possibly have been seen as some kind of...flex.
The reality was that Annika was no good at these games. She didn’t like playing them. Especially because Ranieri had gone and told anyone who would listen that their engagement so soon after her father’s death was all about passion.
He actually kept saying that, repeatedly.Passion.
She’d heard him talking about it some more tonight, though she had attempted to give him a wide berth as she’d headed out of the main loft space.At a certain point, passion can no longer be denied, she’d heard him say.Mea culpa.
The man was terrifyingly focused. It wasn’t enough that he’d taken it upon himself toMy Fair Ladyher. It wasn’t enough that he’d followed that up by hiring her a personal stylist that she didn’t want, so that now she had to contend with being followed around by the steel-eyed Marissa, who was always trying todo thingswith eye pencils andfoundation, whatever that was.
I will have your things moved into my loft in Tribeca, he had told her that first day, after she’d spent entirely too long being measured and then forced to try on clothes and prance about in them. At least she hadn’t had to do it in front of him, and then he hadn’t even looked up from whatever it was he was doing on his laptop when he’d collected her. She shouldn’t have cared.Tomorrow, I think.
I have a much better idea, she had retorted, feeling stung. And maybe something like overwhelmed, though she had chosen not to ask herself why, exactly, that was.Why don’t you move into my apartment, which has the added benefit of numerous floors we can put between us?
His golden gaze had swept over her and left her feeling... Not shaken, not really. It was more a quivering, deep inside.I think not. That would not give off the right impression at all. You will move in with me.
She had, because she knew as well as he did that any refusal to cooperate with him could be leveraged against her. And with everything around her changing so rapidly, and so against her will, she couldn’t lose Schuyler House.
It was the only thing she had left.
Which was why she’d reacted the way she did to Ranieri’s nightly round of ultimatums tonight.
The wedding will take place a week from Sunday, he had informed her on the way to tonight’s fundraiser. Looking as bored as ever.I have already had your dress made.
Of course you have.She had stared out the window, toying with the ring on her hand and making it flash against passing cabs like a beacon. Possibly a cry for help.No need to consult me. I’m only the bride.
He had ignored that the way he ignored most of the things she said. Sometimes she thought that if he had his way, she would stay tucked away in the guest room in his loft where he’d installed her. It had exposed brick and a sumptuous bathtub, a killer view, and every night she went to sleep and dreamed of him.
It was not ideal.
But then, none of this was.
I’m thinking we should just run down to City Hall and be done with it, she’d told him earlier.No muss, no fuss.
And, bonus, it wouldn’t feel like a real wedding.
Absolutely not, he had replied. He’d looked up then, that gaze of his far too steady.We will get married here in New York City. Where both of us are known so well. We will not get married at City Hall. I’m thinking your beloved Schuyler House will do.
She’d sat bolt upright.No. That’s out of the question.
It is not a request,Annika, he had replied in that dark, stirring way of his.For one thing, there are very few appropriate venues on such short notice. For another, it is no secret that it is a place you love. What else could possibly lend this enterprise the patina of truth?
Truth does not have a patina, she had tossed back at him, surprised at the rush of red-hot temper inside her. Surprised, but not enough to tamp it down or hide it.Truth is truth, no patina required. Why am I unsurprised that you don’t know that?
