Aimee stopped the rush of words. Why bare her soul? She was going to marry Nicolo Barbieri. That was enough.
“He’s old,” she continued, her voice low. “And growing frail. I don’t want to look back after he’s gone and know I denied him the only things he ever asked of me, the bank in your hands, and—” color rose in her cheeks “—and your child.”
Nicolo said nothing. After a few seconds, Aimee cleared her throat. “So, I’ll marry you.”
“But?” His smile was thin. “Don’t look so surprised, cara. One would have to be deaf not to have heard that unspoken word.”
“This marriage—it will be in name only. A legal convenience that will end on my grandfather’s death.”
Aimee waited, trying to read Nicolo’s expression, but it told her nothing.
“No sex,” he finally said, his voice silken.
She nodded. “None.”
“And tell me, cara. What am I to do when I want sex?”
The seemingly subservient woman of the last few moments disappeared. Aimee’s eyes flashed with her old defiance.
“You’ll do whatever you must but you’ll be discreet about it.”
Nicolo burst out laughing. She felt her hands ball. How she wanted to slap that laugh from his face!
“Let me be sure I understand this. I marry you. I give you my name. My title. And at some point in the future, we divorce and I end up with alimony payments and child support. In return for all this, you will not complain when I keep a mistress. Is that right?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he swept her into his arms and drew her against him.
“Here is how it will be,” he growled. “You will be my wife. You will be available to me whenever I wish. Night. Day. Anywhere, anytime. If I also want a mistress, I will have one.”
“I won’t marry you under those conditions!”
“Si. You will. And if there is a divorce, it will be because I have wearied of you.” She tried to wrench free; his hold on her tightened. “And before you say, ‘no, Nicolo, I won’t marry you under those conditions,’ consider this.” He leaned toward her, eyes glittering. “I can take this child from you the day it’s born. Do not shake your head! I am Prince Nicolo Antonius Barbieri. No court would deny me the right to my own flesh and blood. Is that clear?”
“You no good, evil, vicious bastard,” she hissed, “you son of a—”
Nicolo captured her mouth with his, kissed her again and again until she trembled in his arms.
Then he picked up the small suitcase near her feet and jerked his head toward the door.
CHAPTER NINE
SOME WOMEN dreamed about their weddings.
Would the day be sunny? What kind of gown? Would it be sweet and romantic, like something Scarlett would have worn in Gone with the Wind, or would it be sexy and sophisticated? And then there was all the rest. The setting. The attendants. The guests. The flowers.
Aimee was glad she’d never wasted time on such silly dreams, otherwise—otherwise what was happening now might make her weep. A high-ceilinged room in a tired municipal building. A judge who’d seemed surprised to see them until his secretary whispered something in his ear. A pair of witnesses plucked from the clerical staff.
And Nicolo, her stern-faced groom, standing beside her.
Oh, yes. It was a damned good thing she’d been too busy studying to think about weddings.
Marriage had only been a distant possibility. Friends had married; Aimee had smiled and said all the right things but mostly she’d thought, Not me, not yet, maybe not ever.
She had things to do, a life to live, and if she ever did marry, it would be someone the exact opposite of her grandfather.
Yet today she was marrying a man who made her grandfather look like a saint, a stranger taking her as his wife as if they’d been sent back to a time when men and women married for reasons of—
“Miss?”
—for reasons of title and expediency that had nothing to do with love or romance or—
“Miss?”
Aimee blinked. The judge smiled in apology.
“Your name again, miss? I’m terribly sorry but—”
“No,” Aimee replied, “that’s all right, Your Honor. I understand.”
She did. She understood it all. The impersonal setting, the equally impersonal words. Why would he remember her name?
The only surprise came when it was time for Nicolo to put a ring on her finger.
The cold stranger who’d made it clear this would be a marriage on his terms, who’d undoubtedly browbeaten some poor soul at City Hall into issuing a marriage license in less than twenty-four hours, had neglected to buy a wedding ring.
Admitting his error made him blush. It was lovely to see, she thought with dour satisfaction.
“I don’t need a ring,” she said coolly. Coolly enough so even the two bored witnesses looked at her.
“My wife needs a ring,” Nicolo said grimly, tugging one she’d never before noticed from his finger. “We will use this,” he said, his accent thick enough to trip over.
The ring was obviously old, its slightly raised crest almost worn away, and it was so big that Aimee had to clench her fist to keep it from falling off.
That was fine.
Clenching her fist helped keep her from screaming, “Stop!”
But there was no going back. In the dark hours of the night, agreeing to this marriage had seemed the only thing she could do. For her grandfather and, yes, for her baby. Her unborn child was entitled to be free of the stain of illegitimacy.
The arrangement could work, she’d told herself as she sat by the window, staring blindly out at the neighboring brick tenement that was her entire view. Her child would get his father’s name. Nicolo would get the bank. She would get the satisfaction of giving her grandfather the one thing not even his vast fortune could buy.
It would all be very civilized…and how could she have been stupid enough to believe that? If only she’d kept her mouth shut. Telling Nicolo she’d marry him but she wouldn’t sleep with him had been like waving a bone at a caged and hungry wolf.
It only made him want what he couldn’t have.
She shouldn’t have said anything. After all, he couldn’t force her to sleep with him. Nicolo Barbieri was a tyrant, but he wasn’t a savage.
Was he?
God oh God, what was she doing?
What had she been thinking?
Aimee swung toward Nicolo, oblivious to the judge, the witnesses, the ceremony.
“Nicolo,” she said urgently, “wait…”
“…husband and wife,” the judge said, and offered an election-year smile. “Congratulations, Prince Barbieri. Oh, and Princess Barbieri, of course. Sir, you may kiss your bride.”
Nicolo looked at her. His eyes told her he knew exactly what she’d been about to say; the proof came when he bent his head and put his mouth to her ear.
To the onlookers, it probably looked as if he was whispering something tender but it was hardly that.
“Too late, cara,” he murmured, the words a steel fist in a velvet glove.
Then he shook the judge’s hand, thanked the witnesses and drew Aimee’s arm through his.
“Time for the newlyweds to be alone,” he said, with a little smile.
The judge and the witnesses laughed politely.
Aimee trembled.
He’d told the taxi driver to wait by circling the block; the cab appeared just as they came down the courthouse steps.
Nicolo opened the door, motioned Aimee inside and climbed in next to her.
“Kennedy,” he said. “The General Aviation facility.”
Aimee stared at him as the cab pulled into midmorning traffic. “What?”
“The airport. The area where corporate jets are—”
“I know what Kennedy is,” she said impatiently. “But why are we going there?”
Nicolo raised a dark eyebrow. “Where did you think we would go, cara?” His smile w
as silken. “Are you in such a rush to be alone with me that you hoped we’d go to my hotel?”
No way was she going to let him draw her into that kind of conversation! Aimee folded her hands in her lap.
“I asked you a question. Do you think you could give me a straight answer?”
His smile faded. “We’re going home.”
Home? She stared at him blankly. They hadn’t discussed where they’d live but then, they hadn’t discussed much of anything.
“Did you think we would live in New York?”
That was precisely what she’d thought.
“My home is in Italy,” he said brusquely. “In Rome. My house is there, my corporate headquarters…Don’t look so stricken, cara. New York isn’t the center of the world.”
It was the center of her world. Didn’t he see that?
“But—but—”
“If you’re concerned about not packing enough clothes, you can shop tomorrow.”
Did he think this was about clothes? She would have laughed, except laughter was too close to tears.
“I’m not concerned about that.”
“If it’s because we haven’t told your grandfather, don’t be. I’ll call him from the plane.”
“Nicolo.” Aimee swallowed dryly. She had to find the right way to say this without sounding as if she was begging. “I’ve lived here all my life.”
“And I,” he said coolly, “have lived in Rome.”
“Yes, I know that, but—”
“You are my wife.”
His voice had turned hard; even the cabbie, sensing something, reached back and closed the privacy partition.
“But surely—”
“If you wish, I will consider the purchase of a flat in New York.” Why tell her he’d decided on that when he first became interested in buying SCB? “But my primary residence—our primary residence—will be Roma.”
“But—but—”
“Stop sounding like a motorboat,” Nicolo said impatiently. “You are my wife. You will behave as such, and you cannot do that from a distance of thirty-five hundred miles.”
Aimee felt the blood drain from her head. “Nicolo. Please—”
“This discussion is at an end.”
Nicolo folded his arms and turned his face to the window.
“What discussion?” Aimee said bitterly. “You don’t discuss things, you make pronouncements.”
He gave her one final, unyielding look. “Get used to it,” he said.
After that, there was silence.
Hell.
Nicolo glowered as he stared blindly out the window.
He was certainly doing his best to prove Aimee right and be just what she had called him. A no-good bastard. A son of a bitch. He was sure she’d have used other names, far more colorful ones, if only she’d known them.
But what did she expect?
First she told him how much she hated him. Then she told him she’d marry him. Then she said he was never to touch her.
He was the one with a title but his wife had been a princess long before she’d met him. A Park Avenue princess, accustomed to giving orders and getting her own way.
And he had married her.
He must have been out of his mind! How in hell had he let it happen?
He’d come to his senses last night, realized he didn’t have to marry this woman. He didn’t need her grandfather’s bank. He hadn’t needed a child, either, but since one was on the way, he’d finally figured out that he could do the right thing for it without marrying its mother….
It.
Not much of a way to think about one’s bambino but then, he didn’t know the sex. Damn it, he didn’t even know if it was his child.
What in hell had happened to him, to make him do something so impetuous as marrying Aimee? Just because she said the baby was his….
Why believe her? Anything was possible with a woman who screwed like a bunny and wouldn’t even exchange names.
Except, he knew he was the father. Knew it in his bones, and to hell with how ridiculous that sounded. He knew it, that was all, and because he hadn’t been fast enough on his feet this morning, now he was stuck with the consequences.
He glanced at Aimee, sitting stiff and silent in the corner of the taxi, as far from him as she could get.
I feel the same way about you, he wanted to tell her. I’m no happier about what we just did than you are. I don’t want to look at you, talk to you, touch you…
A lie.
He wanted to touch her, all right. Take her in his arms and kiss her until her lips were warm and softly swollen. Tear that demure-looking sundress off her body, bare her breasts to his eyes and mouth.
Bare her belly to his caress.
Her belly. Her womb. His child.
His child. That was why he’d married her. Of course it was. Why else would a man tie himself to a beautiful, hardheaded, ill-tempered woman he didn’t know?
Nicolo glanced at Aimee again.
Why else, indeed?
He had phoned his pilot before the ceremony; when they reached the airport, the plane stood ready for departure.
He took Aimee’s hand as they stepped out of the terminal. She didn’t fight him. He almost wished she would. That might be better than letting her hand lie limply in his.
The pilot was already on board. The copilot and the cabin attendant were waiting on the tarmac, both of them smiling.
Nicolo had told them of his marriage.
“Congratulazioni, Principe, Principessa,” the attendant said.
“Best of luck to you both,” the copilot chimed in.
“Thank you,” Nicolo replied.
Aimee said nothing.
Nicolo gritted his teeth. When they were alone in the cabin, he swung her toward him.
“I expect you to treat my people with courtesy!”
“What would you know of courtesy?” she said.
Their eyes met, hers daring him to ask her what she meant, but he knew better.
“Take a seat,” he growled.
“Aren’t you going to tell me what seat?”
Nicolo gritted his teeth again. At this rate, he would be toothless in a week.
“Do not test me, cara. I don’t like it.”
She smiled brightly, then sank into the first seat on the portside.
“Put the seat-back up.”
She did.
“Close your safety belt.”
She closed it.
“Damn it to hell, are you a robot?”
Aimee widened her eyes. “Isn’t that what you want?”
He cursed, bent down and caught her chin in his hand. “I told you not to test me,” he said with controlled rage in his voice. “Stop it now, or you will regret what happens next.”
She jerked away from him. “I regret everything that’s happened already. Why should I fear what happens next?”
Nicolo glared at her. He wanted to slap her. To kiss her. To throw her over his shoulder and carry her to the small bedroom in the rear of the cabin….
Was this what having a wife reduced a man to?
He looked at the seat next to hers. “I already do,” he said coldly, and walked to the last seat on the starboard side and buckled himself in.
Moments later, they were skyborne.
Once they’d reached cruising altitude, Nicolo used the plane’s satellite phone to call James Black.
At first, the old man didn’t believe him.
“Married? Impossible,” he scoffed. “There are laws. No one can get married so quickly.”
“Aimee and I are married,” Nicolo said coldly. And then, because he couldn’t contain the words, “I expected you to be delighted by the information, signore. After all, it was part of your plan.”
“An excellent plan, Your Highness, as I’m sure you now agree.”
“There is more.”
“Of course. The papers, transferring ownership of the bank to you. I’ll start the procedure tomorrow.”
Nicolo ran a hand through his hair. Amazing. He’d just told Black his granddaughter was married and all the old man could think about was his damnable bank.
“As I said, Signore Black, there is more.”
“More?”
Suddenly Nicolo didn’t want Black to know about Aimee’s pregnancy. The baby was a private matter, not another thing over which the old man could gloat. Let him think the acquisition of the bank was the reason for the marriage.
“Mi dispiace, signore. A, um, a detail I just thought of but we can let the lawyers handle it.”
“Then, I’ll get my people to work immediately. Where shall they send the documents? To your attorney? Your office? It shouldn’t take more than a week. Two, at the most. Are you at the hotel you were at before?”
“I have left the city, Signore Black. I—that is, we—are en route to my home in Rome.”
“Excellent. I’ll give instructions to forward the documents to you there. Goodbye, Your Highness.”
Click. End of conversation. Nicolo was holding a dead phone.
Black hadn’t inquired after Aimee. He hadn’t asked to speak to her.
Nicolo put the phone aside. As far as her grandfather was concerned, Aimee was a gambit in an intricate business maneuver.
At least the old man would not be able to use her anymore.
He looked at the front of the plane. At Aimee, at his wife, who sat so rigidly in her seat. What was she thinking? In less than two days, her world had turned upside down.
Her grandfather had all but told her that her only value was as a lure. She’d learned she was pregnant. She had been coerced into marriage.
And yet, she remained proud. Strong. Defiant.
Nicolo imagined going to her. Taking her in his arms. Telling her that everything would be all right, that she could trust him to take care of her, that he—that he—
That he what?
He had used her, too. He’d wanted the bank and now he had it.
Nicolo put back his seat, shut his eyes and did his damnedest not to think.
An hour out of New York, the attendant, a pleasant young woman who’d been with him for several years, appeared with a bottle of Dom Pérignon and a pair of flutes.
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