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He didn’t let himself think of his father’s roar of laughter or his mother’s soft hands, lost forever. He never permitted himself any stray thoughts about his younger sister, Magdalena, a bright and gleaming little girl snatched away so easily and so unfairly.
He didn’t have the slightest idea why the usual barbed comments from yet another stranger should lodge in him tonight like a mortal blow, as if the fact this woman had surprised him meant she could slip beneath his defenses, too. No one could do that. Not if he didn’t let them.
And he was well aware that even if he’d wanted someone close to him, to that tarnished thing inside of him he called his soul, he couldn’t allow it to happen. He couldn’t let anyone close to him or they’d be rendered so much more collateral damage. One more weapon the general would find a way to use against Cairo and then destroy.
Why was Brittany Hollis making him consider such things?
He studied her. Her coppery hair was caught up in a complicated twist, catching the light as she moved. Her neck was long and elegant, and made him long for a taste of her. More than a taste. Her skin looked as if it was dusted a fainter gold than the dress she wore, which on any other woman might have been a trick of cosmetics, but on this one, he thought, was actuallyher. She was far prettier than her photographs and infinitely more captivating than her coarse appearances on that stupid show. She was all impossibly long legs, those lovely curves shimmering beneath the expert cling of the gown and that enticing intelligence simmering there in her dark eyes.
That same thing scratched at him, the way it had in Paris when Ricardo had given him her picture, and he knew better than to let it. This was already a mess. A problem, and he had enough of those already. He needed a clear path and a solution, or what was the point of this game? He might as well hand himself over to the general for the execution that had already been meted out to the rest of his bloodline and call it a day.
Some part of him—a part that grew larger all the time—wished he’d done just that, years ago. Some part of him wished he’d been in that car with the rest of his family when it had been run off the road. Some part of him wished he’d never lived long enough to make these choices.
But that was nothing but craven self-pity. The least of his sins, but a sin nonetheless.
“You are very pretty,” he told her now. Sternly.
“I would thank you, but somehow I doubt it was a compliment.”
“It is surprising. I expected you to be attractive, of course, in the way all women of your particular profession are.” He waved a hand.
She smiled, managing to convey an icy disdain that would do a royal proud. “My profession?”
Cairo shrugged. “Dancer. Television personality. Expensive trophy wife, ever open to the appropriate upgrades. Whatever you call yourself.”
Her smile took on that edge that fascinated him, but she didn’t look away.
“I do like an upgrade.” She fingered the rim of her glass and he remembered the feel of her skin under his hand, hot and soft at once. Touching her had been a serious miscalculation, he was aware. One that pounded in him still, kicking up dark yearnings and desperate longings he knew he needed to ignore. “Are you going to tell me why I’m here?”
“No insulting version of my title this time? I’m wounded.”
“I find my creativity wanes along with my interest.” She leaned forward and set her glass down on the table before her with a decisiveclick.“Monte Carlo is wasted on me, I’m afraid, as I’m not much of a gambler.” Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “I prefer the comfort of a sure thing. And I loathe being bored.”
“Is this what boredom looks like on you? My mistake. I rather thought you looked a bit...flushed.”
“I find myself ever so slightly nauseated.” He knew she was lying. The glitter in her bright eyes told him so, if he’d had the slightest doubt. “I can’t think why.”
He thrust his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “Perhaps you dislike penthouses with extraordinary views.” He smiled. “The coast or me. Take your pick. Both views, and I say this with no false modesty at all, are stunning.”
“Maybe I dislike spoiled rich men who waste my time and think far too highly of their overexposed charms.” The edge to her smile and that glittering thing in her gaze grew harder. Hotter. “I’ve seen it all in the pages of every tabloid magazine every week for the last twenty years. It’s about as thrilling as oatmeal.”
“I must have misheard you. I thought you compared me to a revoltingly warm and cloying breakfast cereal.”
“The similarities are striking.”
“A man with less confidence than I have—and no access to a mirror—might find that hurtful, Ms. Hollis.”
“I feel certain you find whatever you need in all the reflective surfaces available to you.” She eyed him. “I suppose that almost qualifies as a skill. But while that confirms my opinion of your conceit, it doesn’t tell me what I’m doing here.”
Cairo hadn’t decided precisely how he would do this. Somewhere in his murky, battered soul he’d imagined this might prove a rare opportunity to be honest. Or as near enough to honest as he was capable of being, anyway. He’d imagined that might make purchasing a wife to ward off a revolution a little less seedy and sad, no matter his reasons. A little self-deprecating humor and a few hard truths, he’d imagined, and the whole thing would be easily sorted.
But he hadn’t expected to want her this badly.
“I have a proposition for you,” he forced himself to say, before he made the unfortunate decision to simply seduce her instead and see what happened. He already knew what would happen—didn’t he?—and the pleasures of the moment couldn’t outweigh the realities of the future bearing down on him. He knew that.
He couldn’t believe he was even considering it.
“I’d say I’m flattered,” Brittany was saying coolly, “but I’m not. I’m not interested in being any man’s mistress. And not to put too fine a point on it, but your charms are a bit...” She raised her brows. “Overused.”
