by Penny Jordan
But one taste of her lush, pink, trembling mouth, and he had been knocked in the gut. All of the fantasies he had spun around her as a raging twenty-year-old became intoxicating reality.
Prowling the carpeted interior of his suite, he stared at the video coverage of the kiss that was already being aired on every site that fed on his life, his mood slowly spiraling out of his control.
Just as his libido did by the memories of her warm mouth, the scent of her skin, of the way she had shuddered and moaned when he tangled his tongue with hers.
Watching their kiss shouldn’t have been the most erotic experience he had ever had. Exhaling a pent-up breath, he acknowledged it was.
Christian and Alessandra’s wedding and reception had gone on without an ugly visit from the media, thanks to his diversionary tactics. But there was a betrayed look in Clio’s eyes that pierced him when she met his gaze now.
Like he had crossed an imaginary boundary between them.
And the fact that he could think of nothing but baring her completely to him, of removing the fear and self-doubt that had flashed in her eyes and replacing it with liquid lust, proved her right.
It had been a long time since a kiss had turned him inside out with need.
A long time since anything had touched him.
But he would have preferred if it had been anyone but her.
The short clip was already up on most celebrity gossip websites and spreading like a virus. The rabid speculation had begun.
His features had been distinctive. So the media knew it was him.
What they hadn’t figured out yet was her identity. And they were going crazy trying to figure out who the new woman in his life was, angling to find out who else was on the guest list at Christian’s wedding.
The press had dubbed her Bianco’s Redhead, a name he was sure the redhead in question was going to dislike, if not despise.
He grabbed the remote just as Rocco, wearing the blackest scowl Stefan had ever seen, entered the suite without knocking.
His gaze turned to the plasma screen on the far wall seconds before Stefan turned it off. The silence grew heavy, almost stifling, as Rocco, his oldest friend, studied him.
“Whatever you want to say, don’t,” Stefan snarled, his hackles rising at his friend’s continued silence.
“All four of us have treated the world and the women in it as our playground for years, true,” Rocco said, cutting straight to the point, “but I always thought there was still a bit of honor left in all of us. First Christian with Lessie, and now you and Clio… Dio, didn’t you find anyone else to play with other than our oldest friend, Stefan?”
Stefan had had every intention of telling his friends the utter truth. But now, his friend’s well-meaning interference locked the words in his throat. Even as the short clip was sweeping the internet like wildfire for all the world to see, to actually dissect their kiss with Rocco, to reveal Clio’s confidence and their deal, felt too private.
Too intimate to be shared.
Which in itself should have rung all his internal alarms like a damn gong.
He ran the heel of his palm against his jaw, striving for a casual tone. One kiss and it was like Mount Etna had erupted.
“I’m not playing with her.”
“No? In a decade, I have not seen you make one meaningful connection with another person, much less a woman. And you always had a thing for her. Damn it, you cannot play with and then discard Clio like you—”
“Enough, Rocco,” he said through gritted teeth.
Leashing his temper by the skin of his teeth, because no way did he want to betray how much that kiss had affected him, Stefan smiled at Rocco. “Just because you have settled into marital bliss with Olivia doesn’t mean you can expect us all to change colors already, fratello. Clio…she is safe from me.”
Grinning, Rocco clapped him on the back. And once again, Stefan wondered at how well love and Olivia suited Rocco.
He had never seen his friend so happy and at peace.
“You know I had to—”
“Not needed, Rocco,” Stefan said.
Rocco looked at him as if he wanted to say something more. Instead, he embraced Stefan and bid him goodbye.
Pouring himself a drink, Stefan went to the balcony.
Olivia and Clio were seated at the outdoor café on the ground floor.
Instantly Stefan shifted to see Clio better. She wasn’t laughing like Olivia but a smile curved her mouth. And something loosened in his chest.
He was glad she was smiling again. She had lost that awful pallor, that stricken, lost look she had had when she had come to his suite.
As if she could sense his eyes on her, she looked up.
Across the distance, their gazes held. Stefan raised his glass and she did the same with a nod.
The elegant set of her shoulders, the long fiery locks, the high cheekbones—everything about her drew his attention.
With a ruthless will, he pulled his gaze away from her and went back into his suite.
He couldn’t touch her again, couldn’t risk any complications. Women and sex were uncomplicated for him. It was the only way he had put himself together, the only way he had moved forward after Serena’s betrayal.
Clio, whatever state she was in, deserved a hell of lot more. He had nothing to give her except memories of what she had been, except to be her pretend strength to face a man he abhorred.
The only reason he had agreed to this was because he needed justice to be served for Marco. He needed her help to see through Jackson’s destruction.
Switching his phone on, he made a call to his PR guy and to his head of security, instructing him to leak her name as the woman in the clip.
The sooner they accomplished what they had come together for, the sooner Clio would be out of his life, untouched and unscathed.
CHAPTER SIX
THEY WERE JUST an hour away from landing in a private airstrip in New York. Finally, Clio gathered enough nerve to switch on her tablet and opened a search engine.
More than once, her fingers slipped on the smooth surface. Tension turned her shoulders into stiff rods as she finally typed Stefan’s name.
Because he would be at the center of all this, he was the one whose coattails she would be riding through the storm they were unleashing.
Her heart hammered in her throat as the video file played again and she saw Stefan’s body enveloping her protectively even as they were lost in each other.
It spoke to the man she had known once.
Closing the video file, she scrolled down and froze at the title.
Bianco’s Redhead Is None Other than Clio Norwood, New York Financier Jackson Smith’s Fiancée of Three Years.
There was no end to the questions posed, to the number of links to other articles. No end to how the media talked about it as though it was a win on Stefan’s part that he had landed her. As though she was a prize and not a woman with feelings and emotions.
How did Stefan Bianco steal Clio Norwood from under the nose of Jackson Smith?
How long has the affair been going on? Is it serious?
Which Man Will Clio Norwood Choose in the End? one headline read, giving Clio at least the illusion of power over her own choices.
Even having been prepared for it, anger, disbelief and frustration and so many more emotions ran through Clio.
Bianco’s Redhead… God!
Clio laughed so hard that her jaw hurt, her eyes pooled. She took the tissue that Stefan patiently extended and wiped her face.
There was a relief in realizing she had seen the worst, and lived to tell it.
Stefan gazed at her with a stunned expression in his eyes. “Clio, why you are smiling?”
Clio pointed to the tablet and shrugged
. “Bianco’s Blonde has so much more zing, don’t you think?” She fingered her hair and pulled it forward. “Maybe I will dye it.”
Leaning forward in a movement that jammed the breath in her throat, he caught the thick strands between his fingers, a reverent expression in his gaze. Instant tension wove around them, thick and charged.
“No, bella,” he said, his words a rough command that would brook no argument.
Wrapping the silky locks around two of his fingers, he turned them around and around, tugging her forward.
There was a feral quality to his gaze as it turned to her, a possessiveness that drenched her in heat. “Do not dare to change a strand of it, Clio. Whatever transformation you think you need, I forbid you to ruin something so glorious.”
The sight of his hair-roughened wrists handling her hair sent a tremor through her. As did the inherent command in his tone. There was nothing about him that didn’t cause Clio to lose her breath, that didn’t make her feel as though she would combust if he didn’t touch her.
But if he did, if she let him explore this heat between them, as every tingling inch of her wanted to, there would be nothing left.
And his eviscerating brand of friendship was the only precious thing left to her.
“We can’t keep doing this, Stefan,” she said, her words hoarse and uneven, completely opposite to how she wanted to sound. “I…can’t think straight when you touch me and I need everything I have to deal with Jackson.”
The magnitude of her admission hung in the air around them but she would rather face the attraction between them than pretend it wasn’t always there.
Slowly, he unwound his fingers around her hair. Disappointment and fury wreathed his features until inch by inch, he pushed them out of his face. “How do you suggest we pretend to be engaged without touching each other, Clio? If you’re weak enough to call the thing off because you can’t—”
“I don’t think it’s weak to acknowledge a weakness.” She held his gaze steadily. “To pretend in front of the world and even our friends, it’s one thing. But I don’t want anything else to muddy our relationship.”
“It worked perfectly for us this time, but it won’t happen again, sì.”
Rubbing a hand over her tummy, Clio nodded jerkily.
When he met her gaze again, it was impassive, in control. And Clio almost bought it. But now that she had tasted the heat of his kiss, saw him smile and argue with Rocco, she knew it was only a hardened facade.
Stefan still felt as passionately as he had done a decade ago. Only now, all that firestorm of emotion and passion was buried under a coldly ruthless will.
And it twisted her gut that that well of passion, all that love he had to give, would never see the light of day again.
His ready acceptance suddenly threw her even though it was what she wanted. What she needed.
“Anything else, Clio?”
“I won’t be made a fool of again, Stefan. Not even in a pretend relationship.”
“I do not understand.”
Heat crept up her neck and she pointed to the tablet, images of him with other women accompanied with captions like predatory playboy in capital letters.
Stefan changed girlfriends like she did her clothes. And their kiss, it had made her feel more alive than she had in years.
Two different facts and both she needed to accept without giving it more weight.
“You are never without a woman.”
Something devilish gleamed in his gaze. “You still have me lost, bella. Say it in words I can understand, Clio. You forget that English is not my language.”
She was not a prude. But thinking of Stefan and sex in the same sentence sent a burst of heat through her belly that she didn’t even begin to know how to handle.
He knew how uncomfortable she was talking about this and yet he was goading her.
“What are you going to do for sex, Bianco?” she said, gritting her jaw, daring him to laugh at her now.
He did it anyway, but it was an indulgent smile that cut grooves through his cheeks. Her fingers itched to trace them, to feel the stubble on his cheek.
“Was that so hard?”
“No.” She returned his smile, feeling as if they were on equal footing again. “You haven’t answered me, though.”
“I will not take up a woman on the side while all this is going on, sì? You have my word, bella. And I’m sure a few months of deprivation won’t kill me. If I do get desperate, I have two very capable hands,” he said, holding them up, his expression deadpan.
Blushing at how quickly her mind supplied an image of him, naked, Clio threw her purse at him. “Too much information, Bianco.”
He waggled his brows at her and, shaking her head at that lewd expression, she laughed.
“You have such a beautiful laugh, Clio. You should do it more.”
Struck speechless by his abrupt observation, Clio nodded.
“We’ll be landing in an hour,” he said, tilting his head toward the New York skyline emerging through the clouds and visible through the windows. “Have you started looking at Jackson’s documents? Do you require help?”
“No, I can do it myself,” Clio replied, just hearing Jackson’s name making her feel dirty from the inside. “I have downloaded and printed every document pertaining to his finances and his hedge fund company. There isn’t a single number or transaction that I don’t have a hard copy of. But I haven’t seen anything yet, Stefan. Are you sure—”
“He’s dirty? Yes. I’ll bet my entire fortune on that.”
Leaning back against the seat, he propped one ankle over the other knee. Clasped his hands behind his head, causing his white dress shirt to stretch tight against that wide chest. “Keep looking, bella.”
“It’s fascinating. For example, did you know that when—”
“So you still have a thing for numbers,” he drawled softly.
“And you’re still the only man in the world that can make that sound dirty.”
“Now that you have me locked in with no relief in sight, I have to find my pleasure where I can,” he said with a twinkle in his eye.
Clio looked away from him, feeling the heat of his gaze like a caress, praying that she didn’t fall apart before she had a chance to be whole again.
Because this time there would not even be pieces of her heart and self-respect left.
Leaning forward, he tugged her left hand into his. She barely managed a gasp as the diamond ring slid in smooth and cold against her skin.
Her heart slammed against her rib cage. Instant refusal rose to her lips. But she held it off as she caught Stefan’s expression.
Distaste, and something else, something she didn’t even want to know, glimmered in his eyes.
Was he remembering Serena just as she was thinking of Jackson?
That day in the flat, she had removed the heavy, over-the-top diamond that Jackson had bought for her. Had finally felt free after so long.
Eyeing the ring, she willed herself to calm down. This was only a pretense, something she was walking into with her head screwed on right.
At least it was something that was close to her own taste—the most beautifully cut diamond, in a princess setting.
Her gaze flew to Stefan, who watched her with an intensity that arrested her thought process.
“Stefan, thank you…for everything. I—”
“Not required, bella. Do not, even for a moment, believe I’m doing you a favor or that there’s anything personal to all this. You have your side of the bargain and I have mine to keep up.”
While she grappled with his ruthless warning, he leaned forward and unbuckled her belt. “We will see Jackson tonight at a party, Clio. I made sure he can’t get to you before the evening. But obviously he will be foaming at the m
outh to see you and to challenge me. He will make a scene, bella, and if I’m right about Jackson, it’s going to get dirty.
“Do you have what it takes to face him, Clio?”
“And if I don’t want to?”
“Then I will drag you with me anyway. Jackson needs to be stopped and I won’t get an opportunity like this again.”
The utter ruthlessness with which he said it stunned Clio. Every time she thought she knew him, he surprised her again. Once again, she wondered why Stefan despised Jackson so much.
But with a self-preservation instinct she should have had long before this, she didn’t prod him. For some reason, understanding what drove Stefan was a territory she didn’t want to go into. So she reassured him of her own intentions. “I’ll never want him back in my life, Stefan. This week has helped me see more than just Jackson’s betrayal.
“I’ll need you to stand by me tonight, but yes, I’m ready to take Jackson on.”
For once, there were no doubts in his gaze as it swept over her face searchingly. And Clio measured her progress in that green gaze, felt a small flicker of hope for herself.
“You have me, bella. For as long as you want.”
The moment Stefan helped her out of the limo onto the private estate in the Hamptons where the night’s party was, Clio heard the exponential rise in the intensity of the charged atmosphere.
Flashes of cameras and microphones were thrust in their faces from behind ropes. Their names seemed like a chant on a hundred lips.
Jackson had always been a media favorite, too.
Handsome, hardworking, successful—the perfect poster boy for America’s success stories. Or at least that was the image he had liked to project.
But the crowd that the security team was trying to corral tonight was like nothing Jackson had ever warranted.
Clutching the ring on her finger like a lifeline, Clio fisted and unfisted her hands as security guards ushered them inside the mansion through the throng.
“Mr. Bianco, are you seeing Ms. Norwood now?”
“Ms. Norwood, is it true you and Mr. Bianco were college sweethearts at Columbia?”
“Have you left Jackson Smith for Mr. Bianco? Or is it his bigger and better status and wealth that lured you in?”