He was a man used to surrender, and he would accept nothing less from the woman he’d married.
* * *
Apparently, whatever reprieve she’d been offered over the last two weeks was finally over. Foolish of her to hope he’d disappear after the fashion show without seeking her out.
He stood on the balcony, looking down upon her, his gray gaze perusing her with such an intense possessiveness that she felt owned.
How dare he beckon her with a finger, as if she were his puppet!
And yet, here she was, answering his summons. Their encounters in Bali had hinted at a depth of emotion that she didn’t see in most men.
Greta had really lost it with Alex, calling her a naive, besotted fool for not realizing his true nature. But she’d been so sure about him. If there was one thing she’d had exposure to from the ripe age of sixteen, it was men.
She’d been hit on, propositioned, come on to, even harassed, by everyone from a lowly lighting manager to a megarich designer, to a CEO of a multinational corporation.
Most men were either intimidated by the idea of all that she was and tried to overcompensate for it in various ways. Others—usually rich investment types—thought that all it took to impress her was a bigger fortune than hers and a bigger ego.
But Vincenzo hadn’t fallen into either camp. He had been different from that very first moment.
There had been something very down-to-earth about him, an awareness of his place in the world and the power he could wield. Respect that he offered her immediately for the basic reason that she was another human being, a sense of reserve that she’d been itching to topple from the first time he’d walked her to her villa and then walked away without presuming anything.
She hadn’t been wrong about the fact that here was a man who felt deeply about things. Who had more emotional bandwidth than anyone she’d ever been involved with.
Only all that emotion had been deliberately channeled, for years and years, in a bitter quest for revenge, to destroy the people she loved most. And she meant to sway him from that path…
No wonder Leo had thought she was in over her head. Massimo had simply smiled, winked and asked her to load herself up with dynamite for she was trying to move a mountain.
She took the final step and immediately regretted leaving the safety of the crowd behind. The space beyond him was expansive but cut away from the prying eyes of others. Too much privacy. Too many secluded corners with dark leather couches that could swallow up a newly married couple who hadn’t touched each other in months.
“You’re not my lord and master,” she said tartly. Drumming up her defenses.
“And yet here you are.”
“I didn’t think this was the time to engage in that particular battle.”
“Ah…so you do know your limits.”
“What limits?”
“You know you’ve pushed me far enough already, si?” he asked huskily, stepping from the shadows into the light. “Do you want to sit?”
“No, I don’t. I wouldn’t like to sit.” She lowered her voice, realizing he’d moved even closer. The lemony scent of him swept through her, evoking a piercing shaft of need. “I like standing. In fact, I haven’t done enough of it today. I—”
“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, Alessandra,” he said, his baritone voice going all deep and low and smoky, just the way it did when he was aroused. When he wrapped those skillful hands around her. When he moved inside of her.
But there was something else too.
Pulling in a deep breath, she finally let herself look at him. The dark leather jacket he’d worn to the show had been discarded. His gunmetal gray dress shirt was unbuttoned and uncuffed, giving her a glimpse of the chest hair that had the most incredible effect when rubbed against her own naked skin…
A lazy smile split his mouth, crinkling at the edges of his eyes, shooting straight through to her heart. The damned man was laughing at her.
“You look quite flushed, cara mia. Maybe a cold drink will help.”
She did feel overheated, even the soft lace of her dress feeling far too tight. She clenched her hands around the cool metal of the balcony. “I’m fine. Stop being so…”
So irresistible. So knee-meltingly gorgeous. So blatantly masculine.
“So what?”
“So…solicitous. As if—” She shook her head far too forcefully, and her hair tumbled down from the loose knot she’d put it in, the brown clip clinking against the cool marble floor. Swearing, she bent down, but he got there first. “Thanks,” she said, extending her hand, but he pulled away.
“Leave it like that.”
“I don’t want to—” she pulled the heavy weight away from her neck “—and it’s too—”
“The entire world gets to see you strut down the catwalk in a bikini that’s been designed to fire up every red-blooded man’s fantasies, bella, and that’s fine with me.” His gaze took in the thrust of her breasts as she held up the swathe of her hair, the pulse hammering away at her throat, the swipe of her tongue against her trembling lower lip. His eyes met hers with a naked hunger that was a balm to her wounded ego. “But do not deny me my fantasies, Alessandra.
“All I’ve wanted for the past two weeks is to see you sprawled on my bed, that hair spread out on my pillow, but clearly that’s not going to happen anytime soon, no? This is the least you can do to keep your poor husband going. Even as you thrust a knife into my back, Princess.”
The feral possessiveness of his voice was like a thunderbolt filling her veins with an electric sizzle. “A knife into your back?” she said, her words breathy, distracted.
“You have been a bad girl, bella. Helping out the defenseless Brunetti men.”
The edge to his words made Alex frown. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He tilted his head, considering her thoughtfully. “You’re going
