are travelling alone and looking for someone to replace
him in your bed? The coastal resorts are the
best hunting ground for that. Not the mountains."
Jodie drew in her breath in outraged fury. "How
dare you say that? I am most certainly not looking
for anyone, let alone someone to replace him. In fact,
that is the last thing I want to do," she found herself
adding. "I shall never let another man into my life to
hurt me. Never. From now on I intend to live by
myself and for myself." Bold words, but she meant
every single one of them!
Lorenzo frowned as he heard in her voice the passionate
intensity of her determination.
"You still want him so much?"
"No!" Jodie told him fiercely, without stopping to
wonder why he was asking such a personal thing. "I
Don’t want him at all — not now."
"So why are you here — running away?"
"I am not running away! I just Don’t want to be
there to see him marry someone else," she added defensively
when she saw the way he was looking at
her. "Especially when she’s all the things I’m not.
Exciting, glamorous, sexy…" Jodie lifted her hand to
her face to rub away the tears that had suddenly filled
her eyes. She had no idea why she was telling this
stranger all of this, admitting to him things she had
not even admitted to herself before.
"It is the man who determines whether or not a
woman is "sexy", as you put it," Lorenzo decreed
dismissively, as caught up in this strangely intimate
exchange as Jodie. "A skilled lover has it in his power
to create a full flowering of even the most tightly
closed bud."
A shock of tingling awareness quivered through her
belly as Jodie absorbed the meaning of his astoundingly
arrogant statement.
"Not that many young women are tightly closed
buds in this day and age," Lorenzo added sardonically,
as he watched the colour come and go in the
pale face that was so shadowed with tiredness.
"Modern women have claimed the right to their
own sexuality," Jodie responded fiercely. "They do
not—"
"It does not sound to me as though you have been
very effective in claiming yours," Lorenzo told her
derisively. "In fact, if I were to make an assessment
of it, I would guess that your experience is extremely
limited — otherwise you would not have lost your man
to another woman."
His sheer arrogant machismo both astounded and
infuriated her. But she was forced to admit that non
existent would have been a more accurate estimation
of her sexual expertise. Painfully she released the
pent-up breath his words had caused her to hold, in
shaky relief that he had not added to her existing humiliation
by somehow recognising that she was still
a virgin. Not by choice, though. All those months in
hospital, after the car crash in which her parents had
been killed and she had been so badly injured that at
one point it had been feared she would not survive,
had stolen a large chunk out of her life.
"Which, presumably, is why you are confusing
physical lust with love — a word, an emotion, your sex
has laid claim to and downvalued to the extent that
is now worthless," Lorenzo continued harshly.
"My sex?" Jodie took up the challenge immediately,
the gold-hued warmth of her eyes heating to an indignant
dark amber.
"Yes, your sex! Do you deny that women have now
become as much serial adulterers as they once
claimed only men could be? That their reasons for
marriage are based on their own selfish and shallow
emotions and needs — needs which in their eyes come
before the needs of anyone else, even the children
they bear?"
The bitterness she could hear in his voice momentarily
shocked Jodie into silence. But she rallied
quickly to defend her sex, pointing out, "If that is your
consistent experience of women, then maybe you are
the common factor — and the one to blame."
"I? So you believe that if a child is abandoned by
its mother, it is the child who is at fault? A novel
mindset — which only underlines what I have just
been saying!"
"No, that is not what I meant—" Jodie began.
But it was too late. He was ignoring her words to
demand autocratically, "What is your name?"
"Jodie. Jodie Oliver. What is your name?" she
asked equally firmly, not to be outdone.
For the first time since he had stopped his car she
sensed a momentary hesitation in him before he said
coolly, "Lorenzo."
"The Magnificent?" Jodie quipped, and then went
bright red as he looked at her.
Il Magnifico. That had always been Gino’s teasing
way of addressing him, claiming that it was no wonder
he had been so successful when he carried the
same name as one of Florence’s most famous Medici
rulers.
"You know the history of the Medici?" he shot at
Jodie.
"Some of it," she said neutrally, suddenly not wanting
any more argument with a stranger. She was beginning
to feel very tired and weak. "Look, I need to
get in touch with the car hire firm and tell them about
the car, but my mobile isn’t working. Could you possibly…?"
He must surely be going back through the
village she had driven through — there was nowhere
else to go. If he would take her there she might be
able to find a room for the night and telephone the
car rental people.
"Could I possibly what?" Lorenzo demanded. "Help
you? Certainly." She had just started to sag with relief
when he added softly, "Provided that you agree to
help me."
Instantly warning signals flashed their messages inside
her head, causing her to tense.
"Help you?" she repeated cautiously.
"Yes. I need a wife."
He was mad. Completely and utterly insane. She
was stuck on a deserted road with a madman.
"You…want me to help you find a wife?" she managed
to ask, as though it were the most natural request
in the world.
Lorenzo’s mouth compressed, and he gave her a
look of cold derision. "Don’t be ridiculous. No, I do
not want you to help me find a wife. I want you to
become my wife," he told her coolly.
CHAPTER THREE
SHE was being ridiculous?
"You want me to be your wife?" Jodie repeated
slowly. "I’m sorry, but—"
"You Don’t want to marry — ever. Yes, I know,"
Lorenzo interrupted dismissively. "But this would not
be an ordinary marriage. I need a wife, and I need
one within the next few weeks. I have as little real
desire for a wife as you have for a husband — although
for different reasons. Therefore it seems to me that
you and I could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.
&
nbsp; I get the wife I need, and you, after we
have been married for twelve months, get a divorce
and…shall we say one million pounds?"
Jodie blinked and shook her head, not sure that she
had actually heard him correctly.
"You want me to agree to marry you and stay with
you for twelve months?"
"You will be well reimbursed for your time — and
it is only your time and your status as my wife that I
shall require. Your presence in my bed will not be
part of the arrangement."
"You’re crazy," Jodie told him flatly. "I Don’t know
anything about you, and I—"
"You know that I am prepared to pay you a million
pounds to be my wife. As for the rest…" He gave an
arrogant shrug of his powerful shoulders, and told her,
briefly and dismissively, "There will be time later for
me to explain to you everything you need to know."
By rights she ought to be scared to death, Jodie
decided. But, despite the fact that she was obviously
in the presence of a madman, for some reason the
main emotion that filled her was not fear but bemusement.
Bemusement and a certain sense that fate
had listened in to her secret thoughts and decided to
take a hand in her life. Here was the opportunity—
the man — her pride had ached for…
Was she mad? She surely couldn’t be thinking of
accepting his ridiculous proposition?
"If you want a wife that badly, surely there must
be someone—"
"Many someones," Lorenzo stopped her sardonically.
"Unfortunately they would all want what I do
not want to give — it is amazing how easily your sex
claims undying love when money and social position
are involved."
"You mean you would be targeted by fortune-
hunters?" Jodie guessed shrewdly. It was obvious, after
all — not just from his car and his clothes, but more
betrayingly from his manner — that he was wealthy.
"Is that why you want to marry me, because a fake
marriage will keep them at bay?"
"Not exactly."
"Then why?"
"It’s a condition of my late grandmother’s will that
I either marry within a certain time of her death or I
forfeit…something that means a great deal to me."
Jodie’s forehead crinkled into a small frown.
"But why on earth would she do that? I mean, either
she wanted you to inherit whatever it is or she
didn’t."
"The situation is more complex than that, and involves…
other issues. Let us just say that my grandmother
was persuaded to do something that she
thought was in my best interests by someone who was
following their own agenda."
Jodie waited for him to continue, but instead he
reached for her hand. "Give me your car keys and—"
She gave a small, determined shake of her head.
"No." If she wasn’t already totally off men for life,
this man and his unbelievable arrogance would surely
be enough to put her off them, she decided angrily.
But at the same time an insidiously tempting possibility
had begun to form inside her head. What if
she were to agree, on condition that Lorenzo escorted
her to John and Louise’s wedding? With the whole
village invited, two extra guests wouldn’t cause any
problems…and, yes, she admitted it, there was a part
of her that was sore enough and woman enough to
want to be there, showing the world and the newly
married couple that not only did she not care about
their betrayal, but that she had a new partner of her
own. wasn’t there a saying, "Living well is the best
revenge"? And how much better could a discarded
and unwanted fiance.e live than by showing off her
new, better-looking and far more eligible man? A
man, moreover, who desperately wanted to marry her!
She was wrenched out of this mental triumphant
return to the scene of her humiliation by Lorenzo’s
arrogantly disbelieving voice. "No?"
It was ridiculous that she could even contemplate
doing something so shallow, and it showed the effect
that just a few minutes in the company of a man like
Lorenzo was having on her. She was not going to let
herself listen to the urgings of her pride. Leaving it
and her conscience to wage war on one another with
an undignified exchange of inner accusations, she
tried to do the sensible thing, and told Lorenzo firmly,
"Even someone as…as arrogant and used to getting
what they want as you seem to be must see that what
You’re suggesting just isn’t—"
"A million isn’t enough? Is that what You’re trying
to say?"
Her face burned. "The money has nothing to do
with it." The cynical look he gave her at that made
her burst out angrily, "I can’t be bought. Not by John,
and certainly not by you."
"John?"
He hadn’t pounced so much as leapt on her small
betrayal, and now he was looking at her as she imagined
a large sleek cat might look at a mouse it was
enjoying tormenting.
But she was not a mouse, and she wasn’t going to
be either bullied or tormented by any man ever again.
She lifted her head and told him coolly, "My exfiance.
He offered me money, too, but he was offering
it out of guilt, because he didn’t want to marry me,
not as a bribe because he did. He wanted me to be
the one to break off our engagement, so that no one
could accuse him of dumping me. Obviously you both
share the same male mindset. Like you, he thought
that he could buy what he wanted, regardless of what
I might be feeling." Despite her attempt to appear unaffected
by what she was revealing, a mixture of sadness
and cynicism shadowed her eyes. Her mouth
twisted slightly as she added, "In a way, I suppose he
did me a favour. Knowing that he thought so little of
me that he would buy his way out of our relationship
made me realise that I was better off without him."
"But, despite that, you still want him."
The unemotional statement made her heart thud
nauseatingly inside her chest.
"No!" she said quickly. "I do not ""still want him""."
"So why have you run away, if it is not because
you are afraid of what you still feel for him?"
"I have not run away! I’m having a holiday, and
when I go back…" The small involuntary movement
that caused her shoulders to droop as she contemplated
returning home was more telling that she realised.
When she went back — what? She had no job to
go back to. Not now. And no home — she had, after
all, sold her cottage, and even if she had not done so
she doubted that she would have wanted to live there,
with all its memories of her false happiness. But she
could go back with her head held high and on the arm
of a man she could truthfully say was going to become
her husband, she reminde
d herself.
And then what? He had already told her the marriage
was only to last twelve months.
Then she would shrug her shoulders and say, as so
many others did, that it hadn’t worked out. There was
far less shame in that than there was in being labelled
as a dumped reject.
"In twelve months" time you could go back with a
million pounds in your bank account," she heard
Lorenzo saying, as though he had read her mind.
It was so tempting to give in and agree. And she
resented him for putting her in a position where she
was tempted. What had she promised herself about
never being manipulated by a man again? Gritting her
teeth, Jodie pushed herself back from the edge of giving
in.
"If you really want a wife," she told him crossly,
"then why Don’t try finding one without using your
money? Someone who wants to marry you because
she loves you, and believes that in you she has found
a man who loves her back, a man she can respect and
trust, and…" She saw the way he was looking at her
and shook her head. "Oh, what’s the use? Men like
you and John are all the same. He only values the
kind of woman he can show off, the kind of woman
who makes other men envy him, and you only want
the kind of woman you can buy so that you can control
her and your relationship with her. Well, I am not
that kind of woman. And, no, I will not marry you."
As she turned away from him Lorenzo could feel
the anger surging through him. She was refusing him?
This…this too-thin nobody of a tourist — a woman
who had been rejected publicly by the man who had
promised to marry her? didn’t she realise just what
he was offering her or how fortunate she was?
Marriage to him would transform her instantly from
an unwanted dab of a woman into the wife of someone
wealthy enough to buy her ex-fiance. a hundred
thousand times over. She would instantly be raised to
a social height most women could only dream of, she
would be courted by the famous and the rich, and, if
she was intelligent enough to capitalise on what he
would be giving her when their marriage was over,
she could find herself a new husband. Any amount of
men would be only too willing to marry the woman
who had been selected by a man like him. All she
had to do in order to totally transform her life was
agree to be his wife.
THE ITALIAN DUKE’S WIFE Page 3