Fighting the first urge to let her be, because there was something in her tone, in the look in her eyes that prickled his skin, he clasped her face. “I told a guard I was looking for a woman with hair the color of fire, and eyes like emeralds and skin like the softest rose. Told him that she was the most poised, the most breathtaking woman dressed in a gold dress that floated with every step she took and that she looked like a queen.”
Shaking her head, Clio laughed. “Flattery will get you nowhere with me, Bianco.” She was laughing and yet it had a forced quality to it. “And it’s Nadia that’s the Sheikha among us. I’m the pauper, remember.”
“The guard reminded me of that, the part about Nadia at least. But said he could also understand why I would come to that erroneous conclusion. And then pointed me toward you.”
As they reached one of the tents that were erected away from the celebration, she dug her heels in.
“Come on, bella. I want to show you something.” He sounded eager, like a schoolboy, yet he couldn’t control it.
It had been so long since he had looked forward to anything so much, so long since he had wanted something in life beyond another business deal.
“I have already seen it, Bianco. And as much as I agree that it’s spectacular, I don’t think a tent amidst a crowd of festive and raucous Gazbiyans is the place or the time to get it on.”
Laughter poured out of him, shaking his chest, loosening every muscle. When she argued further, he lifted her and brought her into the tent.
When Stefan finally put her down, Clio looked around the soaring, tented structure with her eyes wide.
The interior walls were decorated with lush Persian rugs and priceless silks. Low-slung divans with a number of pillows in vibrant colors with golden tassels sat on three sides. On the fourth was a four-poster bed with a sheer veil resting around it.
* * *
An image of Stefan and her on the bed instantly flashed in front of her eyes, an insistent pull of desire between her legs. And yet something in her also recoiled at it.
She had laughed about it outside, but inside she was trembling with anger and a powerlessness that she loathed.
Only realizing how silent he was being, she turned around and found Stefan’s gaze on her. The molten desire instantly heated her skin.
When he pulled her into his arms, excitement flared, her body automatically craving more. When he buried his mouth in the crook at her neck, at the spot that drove her crazy, snuggled into her behind so tightly that his arousal pressed into her, branding her, she pushed back into his touch, needing more.
Yet, another warring emotion emerged, polluting the want. God, she had tried so hard to not ask anything of him. To hold herself aloof, to not define their relationship in any way.
Self-disgust roiled through her and she pushed away from his touch.
His head recoiled, hurt flashing in his gaze. “Clio, is something wrong?”
“No. Yes. I hate what you’re doing to me. I hate what I’m letting you do. I hate that I can’t say no when you touch me.”
His mouth tight, he rolled his shoulders. “You’re doing just fine now, bella.”
“I can’t become that shadow of myself again, Stefan. You either want this thing between us, or you don’t.”
“That’s all I have been thinking about these past weeks, Clio.”
A sheaf of papers materialized in his hand, and Clio’s heart sank to her gut.
It was a contract, she knew without looking at it. Another piece of paper that would define her exit from his life.
And just the thought of walking out of his life, the thought of not sharing that suite with him, the thought of not laughing with him and not loving him again sent her into a spiral of pain so acute that she shivered all over.
Oh, God, how she had fallen in love? Where was this unbearable avalanche of emotion coming from?
How was it even possible that she still possessed this much capacity to feel? What did it say about her that after everything she had been through with Jackson, she had so easily surrendered her heart to a man even more ruthless?
How was she to survive now?
She sank to one of the divans, her legs refusing to hold her up, a hollow emerging in her chest.
When Stefan joined her on the divan, she flinched. “Just spell it out for me, Stefan,” she managed somehow.
“Look at me, bella.”
“No.” She clutched her eyes closed, desperate to keep herself together. From the beginning, he had seen her at her lowest, her weakest. Now, she couldn’t bear to betray herself, couldn’t bear to have him look at her with pity.
Couldn’t bear for him to know how irrevocably lost her heart was.
When his fingers landed on her chin, she swatted him away. “Tell me where you want me to sign, Stefan.”
But he didn’t let her leave. Locking her arms, he knelt on the rug before her. “Look at me, Clio. It’s not what you think.”
Shock pinging across every inch of her, Clio looked down at him. His face was so gorgeous that it hurt to look at him. His gaze touched her with such naked, honest desire that her heart ached.
It hurt to look at him, to touch him, to feel his heart and to know that he would never be hers.
“What do you mean?”
“I want us to start fresh, bella. I want to try this marriage for real.”
Her heart thudded so fast that it was a wonder she didn’t have a heart attack. Throat aching, she forced the words to form. “What’s the catch? What are those documents?” she said, so terrified of the answer, and yet so hopeful that he would say there wasn’t one.
That all he needed was her acceptance.
That all they needed was time with each other.
Her hope would cripple her if not kill her.
And Stefan crushed it under his Italian loafer when he said, “You get five hundred million dollars when you sign it.”
“Five hundred million dollars? I don’t understand.”
“No matter what happens in the future, I want you to have security. I want you to—”
“So you don’t expect us to last, then?”