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Tohim.
He had distinguished himselfby not merely wanting the best, as so many did, but having it. Always. He chose the women who graced his arm no less carefully than he chosethe cars he drove. Both were picked for their fine lines and stellar performance. And the deep, rich envy they caused in anyone who looked at them.
Annika was...not in his usual categories.
So, yes, he might have understood, on some level, why Bennett Schuyler had felt he had no choice but this. How else was the old man planning to see his daughter cared for?But Ranieri was not at all certain that he could lower his standardslike this. No matter what was at stake.
Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face,he warned himself.
He knew full well that excessive pride had been tripping up members of his family for generations. Then again,his preferred way to deal with theruinous Furlanpride was to create a life that supportedwhatever level of pride he brought to bear. His father had been stymied by the fact that while he talked a big game and could play the part, at the end of the day,he had no head for business. His grandfather, too, had been known far and wide as a too-proud man in all the worst ways—to his own detriment.Ranieri had inherited all of that.
But he had also built himself an empire.
It was not arrogance to think himself one of the most powerful men alive. It was a fact.
Ranieri preferred facts.
And now, at last, there was no other possible rival for his position.Now that Bennett Schuyler hadactually died, the Schuyler Corporation was Ranieri’s at last.
The penalties would be paltry to a man of his means, but still. He didn’t have it in him to let it go.
Especially not because of this gray area that he’d been mired in for the past few years. Given the appearance of control but no actual control over the one remaining Schuyler family member who couldchallenge him, if she wished.
If, that was, she also underwent a majorsea change he thought was unlikely and became the sort of serous person who could impress shareholders. Serious people did not appear at will-readings without managing to brush their hair.
He eyed Annika now. “There is only one possible reason anyone would ever believe the two of us together,” he told her. When she gazed back at him blankly—insultingly blankly, in fact—he found his mouth curving. Because he knew she wouldn’t like what he was about to say and he could admit he took a certain pleasure in that. “Passion.”
“I beg your...What?”
He was not preciselyinsultedthat she looked so horrified.Still, it was a further indignity.Ranieri would have to add it to the ever-growing pile.
“Sex is the only thing on this earth that would convince a man to overlook his scruples, his own long-held preferences, his reputation, and his position.”He sighed, perhaps a bit more dramatically than necessary. “Though it is still quite a stretch in this case, I grant you.”
“Sex,”she repeated, as if he’d said a terrible curse word. “I can only assume that you are kidding.”
“It explains all of this chaos,” he said, warming to the subject. “Why else all this haste and hurry? If we are to be married within the month, it will cause all kinds of comment. I will let it be known that having waited respectfully these last five years in the fervent hope that your father might rouse himself from his coma,now that he is dead we can wait no longer.” Ranieri was already planning out how he would launch this unlikely relationship on the world.Trying to imagine the angles, the explanations, and even the possible advantages. “It’snot anelegant solution,perhaps,butI feel it will work.It gets the job done, in any case.”
She stared at himinthatparticular wayonly she had.Or only she dared.Ranieri was used to vast femaleawe bordering on worship.He was fully awareof his effect on women.
But Annika had always been different. Always and everherself.She had always looked at himas if he had just crawled out from underneath the nearest rock, and she alone could see the dirt and mud still clinging to him.It made him want to look down to see if he could see it on himself, when he knew better.
He was a Furlan. He could trace his family back to ninth-century Venice. That he recognized any American as possessing any sort of pedigree was an indulgence of the highest order.
In these recent years, when he’d had more exposure to her than before, her insolence had been worse.Or he’d been more aware of it, perhaps.It wasn’t just that she looked as if she saw that mud on him. She was also notably suspicious. She alwaysfrowned at him as if she alone could see the terrible truth about him.
Until he was tempted to wonder what, in fact, that truth was. If maybe she knew something he didn’t.When that was doubtful in the extreme.
Ranieri was not used to being uncomfortable.He did not appreciatethat Annika alone could make him feel that way.
It was safe to say he did not appreciate Annika Schuyler at all.
But if he needed to marry her to secure, at last, what he knewhe fully deserved, well. He was prepared to do that.
Even if it meant contorting himself to appear as if he mightactuallyhavefound himself besotted with this creature.No matter how bizarre and out of character that seemed.
He had moved with his usual swiftnessinto an acceptance of what needed to happen. It only distantly occurred to him that she had not agreed to his plan.
“I just don’t think that anyone will believethat or anything like that,” she said now,looking at him as if he’d lapsed off into incoherence. Or as if she’d actually succeeded in providing him with that handy head injury. She looked as if she couldn’t imagine any other reason he would even suggest suchan absurdplan.“On any level.”
