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‘Forget it,’ Raffaele advised carelessly, fighting to suppress the sexual arousal she induced, willing away the desire pushing against his zipper, yes, the thought of her on her knees half-naked, yes, that really pressed every one of his sexual triggers and filled him with lust. ‘But, as it looks like we’re going to have a confrontational relationship, it makes sense to start working on that problem now.’
‘Now?’Still a little dazed from dealing with him, simply being trapped in his energising, maddening radius, Maya looked up at him, her face feeling as flushed as though she had a fever.
‘Yes, now. Time you started adapting to me and I start adapting to you because we’re going to have to live together, potentially for months,’ Raffaele pointed out levelly. ‘We’ll go and get you some clothes and we’ll go out tonight.’
‘Get me clothes?’ she echoed in bewilderment.
‘I hate that rag of a suit. I’ll pick clothing for you and we’ll go out,’ Raffaele repeated, shooting her an assessing appraisal. ‘This is your new life, Maya.Showme that you can handle it.’
Maya swallowed hard and just nodded, wondering what was wrong with her brain because it seemed to have gone to sleep. He wanted proof that she could act normally and fit into his world and she couldn’t blame him for that. Was buying women clothes something he was used to doing?
Half an hour later, she was in a beauty salon, having her hair done and her nails painted, and her face made up. It was like a television makeover except with Raffaele in charge, his opinions sought, rather than hers. And she let him do it, reminding herself of what he would do for her family. He would take the nightmare of debt away. Surely it was a small enough sacrifice in return for her to surrender her independence and her strong will? But she’d never done the feminine stuff before, had never really cared what she wore or how she looked as long as she was decently covered.
Two hours later still, she was standing on a dais in a designer salon, clad in garments she wouldn’t have been caught dead in and congratulating herself on her self-discipline in not fighting him. It disconcerted her, though, that Raffaele could be so determined to transform her at what she imagined to be enormous expense into the kind of woman he obviously preferred.
‘That’ll do,’ he eventually conceded, beautiful wilful mouth still down-turning even after about the twentieth outfit that had been tried on for his perusal.
Raffaele didn’t know why he was still so dissatisfied with Maya’s appearance. Logically, she looked beautiful, hair like a pale shimmering veil loose to her waist, face enhanced with subtle cosmetics, glorious legs exposed in a brocade skirt that was the sort of thing he had seen other women wear. The leather and lace corset top exposed her delicate shoulders and slender arms, her pale, smooth, flawless skin exercising the most weird allure for him—he wanted to see his own hands on that skin with a hunger that was beginning to seriously annoy him because it wasn’t cool. But she still didn’t lookrightand why would she, he asked himself sarcastically, when he had never in his life before taken it upon himself to choose clothing for a woman?
And why had he done it? The power trip? He couldn’t deny the appeal of that aspect. She brought out a bone-deep dominant urge he hadn’t known he even possessed. But one look at her had also warned him thatshedidn’t have a clue how to dress and surely he could not do worse with that challenge than she already had? In fact, he didn’t think she had the slightest interest in what she put on her body because not once...and he had been watching carefully...had she demonstrated even a spark of pleasure at the vast choice of clothing now open to her. And he had watched her grimace at her make-up–enhanced features in the mirror, seemingly indifferent to how beautiful she looked. Didn’t she have any normal female traits? Where was her vanity? Her drive to look her best? To impress? Even if it was only to impress other women?
Well, shestillwasn’t looking to impress him, he acknowledged grimly. Shopping, while being a pastime guaranteed to thrill most women, with Maya was like taking a robot out. She behaved as if she had resolved to do whatever it took to satisfy him while remaining determined not to take the smallest ounce of personal enjoyment out of the experience. Her vital spark was missing and it annoyed him. Ithugelyannoyed him. He might have told her that they needed to work on their confrontational vibe but, in truth, he enjoyed that vibe. No woman had ever come back at him as Maya did, refusing to please, refusing to accept her place, refusing to flatter his ego.
‘You look good,’ he told her almost fiercely.
Maya stepped daintily off the dais in the flamboyantly high heels he had insisted on. ‘Well, you can tell what sort of women you’re used to,’ she commented half under her breath.
‘Educate me,’ Raffaele urged.
‘Isn’t it obvious? A skirt too short and tight to sit down in comfortably? Shoes I have to totter in? A top that bares far too much flesh?’
‘You’re not endowed enough in that sector to be showing too much flesh,’ Raffaele riposted.
Maya hitched a naked little shoulder. ‘So sorry if I am a disappointment in any department,’ she murmured with a tiny poisonous smile.
‘Sadly for you,’ Raffaele retorted deadpan, resting a big bronzed hand possessively on a slim shoulder, ‘you areexactlywhat I like most.’
‘Cheap looking,’ Maya said, tossing him a mutinous glance.
And disturbingly, Raffaele laughed with rich appreciation and resisted the urge to ask the designer hovering for an opinion because she wasn’t likely to diss her own designs. He did not go for cheap-looking women...did he? Certainly, nobody could have accused him of going for unadventurous types, he conceded. Possibly he had always instinctively sought out the wilder, freer women, least likely to seek anything other than a bout of exciting sex from him.
No, Maya didn’t fit the mould, but if he toned himself down a little and she relaxed a little, they could meet somewhere in the middle, couldn’t they?Madonna mia...Thunderstruck at the sudden realisation that he was toying with the idea of changing his behaviour topleasea woman, Raffaele froze in fleeting consternation. No, that was the wrong reading of the situation, he reasoned speedily. He might never have been in a relationship before, but he was required to make that effort with Maya to attain his ultimate goal. He was engaged in an act of persuasion aimed at coaxing Maya into accepting the necessary status quo.Sì, that sounded much more like him...calculating and logical.
He took her to a private members’ club for dinner. She walked like a queen through the public dining room into the private room he had engaged. A momentary hush fell on their entry. Every eye was on her as diners greeted him with nods and waves, but she looked at no one, little chin held high, clear green eyes blank. He had seen models on catwalks with more expression. It foiled him: he couldn’t tell what she was thinking, and why was that annoying too?
Her slender neck looked bare: she needed jewellery. He recalled his mother’s vast cache of jewels stowed in a bank vault since her death and he thought, why not let Maya wear them? They were unlikely to be worn again in his lifetime because he didn’t ever see himself taking a wife for real. Maya wouldn’t be able to keep the jewellery, of course. He would get that written into the pre-nup already being drawn up for them. He stabbed a button on his phone, speaking to his Italian lawyer as they were ushered to their table.
Maya collapsed down with relief into a chair, flexing her crushed toes in the new shoes, wondering if she dared to slip them off, would she ever get them on again to walk out? Going out with Raffaele was an educational experience, she mused dizzily. People dropped everything to attend to his needs. He had walked into a beauty salon with a busy waiting area and she had been led straight to a stylist. In the same manner, the designer had abandoned someone else to deal with her needs exclusively.
Raffaele was richer than rich, and businesspeople knew it and fawned on him, granting his every demand without protest or delay. No doubt he paid in spades for that kind of service but being in the presence of the power that extreme wealth gave him over others was shocking in its own way, and had taught Maya why he hadn’t expected her to argue with anything. He was much more accustomed to those slavishly eager to please, ready to roll over and perform obediently at his first request.
‘How do you know so much about me and my family?’ Maya enquired over the first course.
‘Aldo gave me a file,’ Raffaele admitted. ‘That’s how he does business. He still has a bee in his bonnet about the fact that his grandson, my father, gave your parents the money to set up home in the UK.’
‘And itwasgiven, not loaned, according to my parents,’ Maya cut in curtly.
‘But it was Aldo’s cash,’ Raffaele retorted with finality. ‘My father cut ties with his family soon afterwards when he married my mother instead of yours as Aldo had decreed.’
