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‘How dare you?’ They weren’t rags to her. Maybe nothing in her wardrobe cost more than fifty dollars, maybe they weren’t weighed down in designer labels, but they were hardly rags. She bundled up her outrage and fired it straight back. ‘Anyway, those clothes you had delivered...’
‘What about them?’
She allowed herself a smile. ‘I sent them back.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard me. I sent them back. I didn’t ask for them, I didn’t want them, so I told Aldo to send them back.’
Luca stormed to the door. ‘Aldo!’ he yelled, his booming voice echoing around the palazzo, before turning around and striding across the room, eating up the length of it in long powerful strides, wheeling around when he reached the end. ‘I can’t believe you would do such a stupid thing.’
‘And I can’t believe you would order clothes for me like I was some kind of doll you want to dress up and play with!’
He stopped right in front of her. ‘You will be seen on my arm. You will look the part.’
‘As your strumpet, you mean. As your whore!’
‘I didn’t see you complaining last night when you agreed to this deal. You seemed quite willing to spread your legs for me then.’
The crack of her palm against his cheek filled the room, the resultant sting on her hand a mere shadow of what he must be feeling.
He rubbed his face, his cheek blooming dark beneath his hand. ‘You seem to have an unfortunate habit of slapping me, Valentina.’
‘What a coincidence. You seem to have an unfortunate habit of provoking me.’
‘By calling a spade a spade? Or by buying you clothes and insisting you wear them? Most women would not object. Most women would be delighted.’
‘I’m not most women and I am not your whore. And I agreed to share your bed, yes. But that doesn’t mean I’m happy to be paraded on your arm like some kind of possession.’
‘Did you expect to stay one month chained to my bed? While I must admit the idea appeals on some primitive level, given I have your agreement to this arrangement, it seems such drastic measures will not be necessary.’
‘What a shame,’ she snapped. ‘I imagine someone like you would get a real kick out of that.’
‘I don’t know,’ he countered. ‘Why would I restrict you to my bed when you have already shown such willingness for spontaneity?’
Aldo coughed at the door, signalling his presence, and two heads swivelled simultaneously. Tina wanted to curl up and die while Luca might just as well have been talking about the weather for all the embarrassment he showed. ‘Prego,’ said Luca. ‘I’m looking for the clothes that were sent, Aldo. The ones Valentina says she had sent back.’
‘They are downstairs in the studio. I thought, under the circumstances, it might be wise to wait.’
Tina forgot her embarrassment. ‘What? I told you to send them back. You told me you’d take care of it.’
He bowed his head. ‘Scusi. If that is all?’
‘No,’ Tina said, ‘that’s not all—’
‘What Aldo is saying—’ Luca interrupted ‘—is that I am master of this house. You are a guest and an honoured one, but you would do well to understand that I make the decisions here. Not you.’
He turned to his valet. ‘Grazie, Aldo. Perhaps you might be so good as to select a few outfits for our guest to choose from. It seems designer fashion is not one of her strong points. She may need your assistance.’
‘I don’t want to go out.’
‘Find her something sexy, Aldo,’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Cocktail length would be perfect. High heels. Choose something that shows off her figure. I want every man in that restaurant to be salivating for her and every woman to be hating them for it.’
Aldo bowed and turned, a man on a mission, clearly unsurprised by his master’s bizarre request and equally clearly expecting her to follow meekly along now that they had both been given their orders.
She stood her ground. ‘And meanwhile,’ she said, ‘while all these people are busy either drooling or planning to murder their partners, what will you be doing?’
His smile returned, and a flare of something hot and dangerous in his dark eyes sent a bolt of heated anticipation coursing straight through her. ‘I’ll be imagining bringing you back here and tearing whatever it is you’re wearing right off you until you are lying naked and spreadeagle on my bed.’
