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It was the absolute truth. Marco had no intention of becoming some woman’s meal ticket for eighteen years, and he was totally scrupulous in his sexual practices for both the sake of his health and his checkbook. But that didn’t mean that some of his mistresses hadn’t tried to find a way around the precautions. He’d caught one woman with an open box of condoms and a needle, and he’d watched as she’d put a tiny puncture in each plastic packet before putting them neatly back into the box.
Then there had been the woman who’d tried to pass another man’s baby off as his. Never mind that she’d been eight weeks along and he’d only known her for two.
He was well familiar with the female mind and how it worked. Financial security and wealth was the highest goal for the vast majority of the fairer sex. His own mother had prized it above everything, even her two children.
“Well, you won’t be practicing any sort of sex with me,” she said, twin spots of color high on her cheekbones.
Her prim exterior amused him—especially knowing what he did about her. She made for a very intriguing challenge.
“What exactly are your other terms and conditions?” she said tartly, as if reading the tenor of his thoughts.
“Simple. I’m only agreeing to this for the benefit of my company. I need to be sure that I’ll be gaining much more than I would lose by forfeiting Chapman Electronics. That means I need you on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”
Elaine didn’t like the sound of that, although the odd fluttering in her stomach seemed to indicate otherwise. “What am I on call for?”
“Business functions, personal dinners. Whatever I might need my wife for.”
“What about my job…my life?”
“I thought the company was the most important thing in your life.”
Desire burned in her chest. Desire to prove herself to her father, to everyone. “It is.”
“Then that means for the next twelve months I’m your number one priority. I’m in negotiations right now with James Preston. He’s selling one of his resort properties in Hawaii, but he doesn’t want to turn it over to someone who might turn his nice family vacation spot into some debauched spring break hangout.”
“Which is why you need a wife,” she said, feeling triumphant.
The corners of his sexy mouth twitched with humor. “It’s why a wife will be useful to me, yes.”
“So I’m supposed to be evidence of your transformation from playboy to doting husband?”
“Something like that.”
Oddly, she felt a little indignant for Marco. His personal life had nothing to do with what a good businessman he was. Apparently not even men were exempt from the archaic viewpoints of others. Not that she condoned the way Marco treated women, but it was still separate from how he ran his business.
“So it seems like we need each other,” she said.
“It isn’t a necessity for me. I want the resort just as I want to experience a profit increase, but you’re the only one who really needs this arrangement. Don’t forget that.”
“You mean I should remember that when you pull me out of work in the middle of the day and drag me off to some art gala at which you expect me to play trophy wife?”
A slow grin spread across his face. Her heart beat a little bit faster. “Something like that.”
* * *
“What is this?” Elaine slapped the thick stack of documents onto Marco’s pristine walnut desk.
He didn’t look up from his computer screen. “The prenuptial agreement that my lawyer drafted. Or was that not made clear by the heading?”
“Oh, that was made perfectly clear. It’s this.” She picked the papers back up and rifled through them before setting them down again. “This is what I’m talking about!”
He flicked the offending lines a glance. “The infidelity clause?”
“Is that its official title?” She’d never been so angry in her entire life—and that included the day she’d confronted Daniel the Rat about the salacious rumors he’d spread about her. “If I have an affair I lose the company, yet there are absolutely no limitations imposed on you! It’s a blatant, unrepentant double standard!”
His dark eyes collided with hers; the heat of his gaze warmed her whole body. Rage was coursing through her veins, nearly blinding her with a red mist, and still he was making her body tingle with anticipation for something she didn’t even have a name for.
“If that’s how you see it.” He shrugged in a classically Latin manner. “I see it as protecting my…” he looked her over her in a way that made her squirm “…assets.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to disguise her stinging nipples. “I’m not your asset! We are supposed to be a team!”
He stood and rounded the desk, the sheer height and breadth of him as awe inspiring as it was intimidating. “No, Ms. Chapman, we are not a team. Do I need to remind you, yet again, that I’m the dominant party here? That means that you will do as I say.” He picked the prenuptial agreement up from his desk. “You will remain out of other men’s beds for the duration of our marriage. If you need sex, you get it from me. If there’s even a hint or rumor of impropriety on your part the company stays with the De Luca Corporation.”
She tried to fight the hot tide of embarrassment that washed through her. What was it about this man that rattled her so? “And what about you? You’re still free to do whatever you want?”
He nodded, his jaw fixed. “With whoever I want, as I recall.”
“That is the most disgusting double standard I have ever heard! You didn’t mention this a few days ago when we were discussing ‘terms and conditions’.”
“I’m simply covering every possible eventuality. I can’t afford to have my wife seen with other men. In a real marriage it would never happen. No woman runs around on me. And I don’t share.”
“Then neither do I. Enjoy the next twelve months of celibacy.”
“And you think you can resist me?”
She laughed. “No question.”
He hauled her to him, pressing her breasts against the muscled wall of his chest. “I don’t believe that.” His lips crashed down on hers, his tongue pushing past her lips and tangling with hers.
She couldn’t resist. She didn’t want to. She just wanted this moment, this heady, sensual moment, so far removed from her normal life.
He lowered his hands to her bottom and pulled her tightly against his body, pressing his erection against her belly. She gasped and moved against him, enjoying the electrifying sensations pulsing through her, exulting in the fact that he was as turned on as she was. That she had been the one to turn him on.
Her breasts ached for his touch, their shameless peaks announcing to him just how aroused she was. A pulse throbbed hard between her thighs. She wanted him. She wanted him to show her everything she’d never even cared to learn about. Everything she’d always steadfastly ignored about herself and about men.
She moved her hands over the muscles on his back, then around to his chest. He was so firm. So hot. So perfect. Just what a man should feel like. She wanted to feel his body without layers of clothing between them. She wanted… .
She pulled away from him and jumped back as if she’d been burned. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Her lips felt tight and swollen, her breathing was ragged, and she knew some of her hair had escaped the confines of her bun.
“There isn’t anything to be sorry about. We’re going to be married in two weeks’ time. We might as well sleep together. It would add to the convenience.”
It was the last part that kept her from saying yes. Without that scathing reminder that it would mean nothing to him she might have agreed. But there was no way she could view sex as casually as he did. She didn’t have the experience or the sophistication to treat it as a recreational activity. Combined with the fact that she simply didn’t have the time to devote to discovering her sexuality.
“I can’t do that. I don’t…I don’t see sex as a convenience.” She took a breath, trying to conjure up that steely businesswoman she knew lived inside her somewhere. “What I mean is, I don’t sleep around.”
Marco stared at her flushed face, her red lips, her eyes still dark from passion. She wanted him, even if she couldn’t admit it yet. Or perhaps she was holding out until she felt it was most advantageous for her to give in. “That’s fine. But the clause stays in. If you want sex, you get it from your husband.”
She swallowed hard, trying to keep her face neutral. “I don’t think I’ll be wanting any in the near future.”
He shrugged. “It’s up to you. I don’t have to coerce women into my bed.”
That was the absolute truth. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had turned him down—if there had ever been a time. He didn’t like it now. He liked it even less that his body seemed to have some sort of fixation on a woman who wasn’t fixated on him. It must be the novelty of it. It was unusual for him to have to pursue a woman. They came to him—frequently and easily. If he didn’t end up in bed with Elaine it would be easy enough to find someone else, seeing as there was nothing forbidding him from doing exactly that.
But the idea of Elaine being with another man while she was wearing his ring had made him see red. He had told the truth when he’d said he didn’t share. And in his mind marriage, even one of convenience, made her his. Old-fashioned and unenlightened, yes, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.
“You have an appointment with a bridal gown designer tomorrow at nine.”
“I have work,” she said sharply.
“I don’t care. The wedding takes priority right now.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Is this how it’s going to be, then? For the next twelve months you’re going to treat me like your personal doll?”
Marco shrugged. He seemed entirely unaffected by the kiss, and with her heartbeat still going erratically it irritated her.
“If that’s the way you want to look at it. Or you could simply view this as your newest job opportunity.”
“You know, you have a real talent for making me sound like a call girl.”
“And you have a real talent for wasting my time. If you want to see me, next time make an appointment.”
She drew up to her full height, but was careful not to get too close to him again. Desire and anger were still struggling for pride of place inside her. “I am your fiancée.”
“No. This is a business deal, as you’re so fond of pointing out, which makes you one of my business partners. Which means you make an appointment like they all do.”
She leaned all her weight onto one leg, pushed out her hip and settled her hand on it, in her best indignant pose. “And do you kiss all of your business partners the same way you did me?”
“If any of them looked like you, I might. As it is, I’ve never been tempted to try.”
It was difficult to decide whether to embrace anger at his sheer male arrogance, or enjoy the sneaky glow of feminine pleasure she got from his underhanded compliment. In the end, it was the anger that won out. “I see. So you decided that because I’m a woman you can just kiss me whenever you like?”
He moved toward her, his dark eyes blazing with fury and something more compelling. “No. I kissed you because I wanted to. And you wanted me to.”
“Your ego is impressive.” She took a step back. “I didn’t want you to kiss me. As you mentioned, this is a business deal, and I never mix business with my personal life.” At least she was certain she wouldn’t if she had a personal life.
The mockery in his smile told her he didn’t believe her for a moment. “I know that this is all an affront to your feminist sensibilities, but for the purposes of this deal I’m your boss. You will do as I say. You will sign the prenup, and you will meet with the wedding coordinator tomorrow morning to choose your wedding dress.”
Everything in her raged out of control. Her hormones were still on red alert from the kiss, and her temper had just about reached its breaking point. She sucked in a calming breath. This was where years of training kicked in. Where she played the game. This was business. You fought the battles you could win, not the ones you were destined to lose.
“And will you be attending this bridal gown extravaganza?”
“Absolutely not. It’s bad luck for the groom to see the gown before the wedding.”
“I would imagine that it’s bad luck for the marriage to have a predetermined end date,” she returned crisply.
He acknowledged her comment with a slight smile, then turned, walked back to his desk and settled behind it. Apparently she was dismissed.
She turned to go.
“Elaine?”
She stopped at the sound of that sweet, honey-coated voice saying her name, sending waves of sensation through her body. Well, wasn’t she one to dramatize?
“I hope you don’t have plans tonight.”
She turned and arched her eyebrow. “Would it matter if I did?”
“Certainly. I would feel bad for asking you to break them.”
“You most certainly would not.”
The left corner of his mouth lifted into a half-smile. “You’re right. I wouldn’t at all. I have a dinner party that I’m expected to attend tonight and I need a date.”
“Did you misplace your little black book?”
He gave her a pained look. “I don’t have a black book.” He picked up his gleaming cellphone and waved it. “That would be old-fashioned.”
She felt her lips thinning into an unattractive line. “You’re straight out of the Dark Ages. A BlackBerry isn’t going to fix that.”
“Nice to know you hold me in such high regard, cara. Did you drive here?”
She eyed him warily. “No. I took a cab.”
“Perfect. You can ride with me.”
“And if I have plans?”
“Cancel them. As per our agreement,” he said.
“As per your demands.”
“If you like.” He seemed completely unconcerned by her anger, which only fanned the flame. “But I can hardly show up at this dinner without my new, highly publicized fiancée.”
“Just tell them your fiancée has a life, and doesn’t just hang on your arm professionally twenty-four hours a day.”
“Oh, they know you don’t do that. I’m sure they think you spend at least twelve hours wrapped around me in bed.”
She flushed, her vocal cords failing her. The images that were pinging through her brain were graphic, and much more intriguing than she’d like to admit.
She had done so well, burying any interest in the opposite sex beneath piles of ambition. Then she’d walked into Marco De Luca’s office and her long-ignored hormones had sprung to life and hadn’t left her alone since.
“In any case, I need you to play your part. This is business, remember?” He said the last part with a mocking edge to his voice.
“I won’t forget.”
* * *
