A Reputation For Revenge(16)

His lips parted. “You’ve never been on a date?”

She shook her head. “I did have a sort of boyfriend once,” she added hastily. “In high school. We met in chemistry class. He was...nice.”

“Nice,” he snorted. “With your rose-colored glasses, he probably had a mohawk, a spiked dog collar and a propensity for stealing,” he muttered.

“That’s not fair,” she protested. “After all, I think you’re nice. And you’re not a thief.”

Looking uncomfortable, Kasimir cleared his throat. “Go on.”

“We went out a few times for ice cream. Studied together at the library. Then he asked me to prom. I was so excited. Bree helped me fix up a thrift-shop dress, and I felt like Cinderella.” She stopped.

“What happened?” he asked, watching her.

She looked away. “He never showed up,” she whispered. “He took another girl instead, a girl he’d just met.” She lifted her gaze in a trembling smile. “But she put out. And I...didn’t.”

A low growl came from the back of Kasimir’s throat.

Clutching the bouquet of white flowers, Josie stared down at the pattern of the polished marble floor. “I just think kissing someone should be special. That you should only share yourself with someone you love.” She shuffled her pink flip-flops, echoing the sound across the high-ceilinged foyer. “I expect you think it’s stupid and old-fashioned.”

“No.” Kasimir’s voice was low. “I used to think the same.”#p#分页标题#e#

Her jaw dropped as she looked up. “What?”

He gave a humorless smile. “Funny story for you. I was a virgin until I was twenty-two.”

“You?” Josie breathed. The fact that he’d told her something so intimate caused a shock wave through her. “The international playboy?”

He snorted. “Everyone has a first experience. Mine was Nina. She worked at a PR firm in Moscow, and we hired her to help our new business. She was far older than me—thirty. We dated for a few months. After I lost my half of Xendzov Mining, I went back to Russia to see her. I was floundering. I had some half-baked idea that I’d ask her to marry me.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Instead, I found her in bed with a fat, elderly banker.”

Josie gasped aloud.

He looked away. “I thought I was in love with her.” He gave her a crooked smile. “Virgins usually think that, their first time. But Nina just thought of me as a client. To her, sex was ‘networking.’ And when I no longer was a potentially lucrative PR account, she no longer had reason to see me.”

“Oh,” Josie whispered. Her brown eyes were luminous with unshed tears. “I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “She did me a favor. Taught me an important lesson.”

She swallowed, looking up at him. “But just because one woman hurt you, that’s no reason to give up on love forever.”

His lips twisted sardonically. “You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me standing outside her apartment in the snow and ice, with an idiotic expression on my face.”

“But—”

“You’ll be my only wife, Josie. Because you’re temporary. And this sham marriage will be over in weeks.” Giving her a smile that didn’t meet his eyes, Kasimir held out his arm. “Come, my beautiful bride,” he said softly. “Our wedding awaits.”

* * *

An hour later, Kasimir and Josie exchanged wedding rings, speaking their vows in a simple ceremony in the office of a justice of the peace in downtown Honolulu. Kasimir couldn’t look away from the radiant beauty of his bride.

Or believe that he’d told her so much about his past. He’d told her about his first experience with love. He’d told her he’d been a virgin at twenty-two. What the hell had possessed him?

He didn’t care if she looked at him with her weepy eyes and vulnerable smile. He’d never try to comfort her again with a little piece of his soul.

From now on, he’d keep his damned mouth shut.

“And do you, Josephine Louise Dalton, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, as long as you both shall live?”

Josie turned to look at Kasimir, her soft brown eyes glowing as she whispered, “I do.”

Kasimir’s gaze traced downward, from her beautiful face to her slender neck, to those amazingly sexy curves in the tight, clinging white sheath.

And he’d keep his hands off her. His forehead burst out in a hot sweat as he repeated the rule to himself again.