Pursued by the Desert Prince(33)

Alice frowned so hard she could have frightened off fifty units of Botox. What happens if I don't agree?'

To me?' He gave a careless shrug. Nothing other than a few shares in  the company which will pass to a relative if I don't comply with the  terms of the will.'

Alice wondered how important those shares were to him. Was his  easy-come, easy-go shrug disguising deeper, far more urgent motivations?  Enough to marry someone he now hated? What about the villa? It was his  grandmother's home, the place where he had spent much of his childhood  being raised by his grandparents. Wouldn't he want to contest such an  outrageous will? Surely he wouldn't want to share it with anyone, much  less her? Why would he agree to such unusual conditions? She sent her  tongue out over lips so dry it felt as if she were licking talcum  powder. So...why would you want to marry someone who clearly doesn't  want to marry you?'

His dark as night gaze gleamed, making the floor of Alice's belly shudder. You know why.'

Alice arched one of her brows, trying to ignore the pulsing heat his  words evoked deep in her feminine core. Revenge, Cristiano? I thought  you were a civilised man.'

I am prepared to be reasonable.'

Alice affected a laugh. That was not a word she readily associated with  him. He saw the world in black and white. He didn't know the meaning of  the word compromise. What he wanted he got and woe betide anyone who got  in his way. Not that she could talk. Compromise wasn't her favourite  word in the dictionary, either. Reasonable in what way?'         

     



 

He held her look with one she couldn't read. The marriage won't be consummated.'

Not...? Alice hoped she wasn't showing any sign of the numb shock she  was feeling. Not just shock. Hurt. Humiliation. Their affair had been so  wildly passionate. She had never had a lover before or since who made  her feel the things he had made her feel. She had all but given up  dating because of it. His touch was indelibly branded on her body. No  one else's touch made her flesh sing-the opposite, in fact. Her flesh  crawled when someone else touched her. The last time she slept with a  date, well over a year ago, she came home and showered for an hour.

You speak as if this...this preposterous marriage is a fait accompli,'  she said. I said it seven years ago and I'll say it again now. I am not  going to marry you.'

Six months is not a long time. At the end of it you get joint ownership  of a luxury villa to do with as you please. You can sell your half or  keep it. The choice is yours.'

The choice wasn't hers. How could it be? She was being forced into a  marriage with a man who no longer loved her-if he ever had. What he had  wanted to do back then was control her. It was what he wanted to do now.  What better way to punish her for having the gall to say no to him than  to chain her to him in a loveless union     ?

Alice wouldn't do it. No. No. No.

She wouldn't subject herself to the humiliation of being his trophy wife  while he continued to sleep with whomever he liked. He knew...he knew  how much she'd hated seeing her mother cheated on by each of her  husbands. It had been one of the things that had impressed her about  him. He believed in monogamy-or so he'd said.

But what about your business plan?

Alice had somehow become the go-to girl for wedding make-up. The girl  who had sworn against marriage was preparing brides all over London for  theirs. Go figure. Her appointment diary was booked out for months ahead  for the wedding season. It was becoming the biggest source of her  income, especially high-profile weddings. She had plans to buy another  salon-a larger place so she could extend her business because her  Chelsea salon was getting too small to handle the burgeoning wedding  market.

It had been a dream of hers for months. Years, actually. The only thing  holding her back was the thought of taking on a load of property debt.  Debt was something that terrified her. The mere thought of it kept her  awake at night. She remembered too well how it had felt as a child to  have not enough money for food, for clothes, for electricity when her  mother had been between relationships.

She knew she could always rent another property like this one in  Chelsea, but that left her at the mercy of landlords, something she had  seen too many times during her childhood. Rents could be put up and  buildings suddenly sold. The business she had worked so hard to  establish would be jeopardised if she didn't own the property herself.

You could sell the villa after six months and be debt-free for the rest of your life.

Alice allowed the thought a little traction. The business she had  sacrificed so much for was her baby, her mission, her purpose in life.  Seeing it grow and develop over the last few years had been enormously  satisfying. She had built it up from just a handful of clients to now  one of the busiest salons in the area. She had celebrities and minor  royalty on her books. People came to her because of the standards of  excellence she maintained. To achieve her dream of setting up a luxury  wedding spa would finally prove she had made it.

Failing wasn't an option.

Not after using her career as the excuse for not wanting to marry  Cristiano. The career she put before everything else. Relationships.  Holidays. Fun. Even friendships. All of it had been sacrificed for work.

But she couldn't marry Cristiano to solve that problem for it would throw her in the middle of an even bigger one.

Alice rose from her chair with her spine steeled with resolve. I've  made my choice. Now, if you've finished catching up on old times, I have  a business to run.'

His eyes continued to tether hers as if he were waiting for her cool  composure to crack. Are you involved with someone? Is that why you're  saying no?'

Was he still so arrogant? Yes. Arrogance was hardwired into his DNA. A  man in his privileged position had no concept of why a woman wouldn't  want to thrust her hand out for him to put a ring on it. He had it all:  the money, the looks, the luxury lifestyle, the fast cars and exotic  holiday destinations. Alice wished she had a lover to fling in his face.  She considered inventing one but knew it wouldn't take him long to call  her out on her lie. He wouldn't have to hunt around too far to find her  social life was practically non-existent. Her work was her social life.         

     



 

I know you find it hard to believe you're irresistible because of your  wealth and other...erm...assets, but I am not going to prostitute myself  for the sake of an inheritance I neither asked for nor need.'

His expression gave nothing away. I meant what I said, Alice. It will be a marriage in name only.'

No one said her name quite the way he did. His Italian accent gave it a  completely different emphasis. Aleece. The sound of it was like an  erotic caress. It made the base of her spine shiver as if he had touched  her with a brush of his warm male hand. Thinking of his hands made her  want to look at them.

Don't. Don't. Don't.

But in spite of her rational brain's pleas, she looked. Those  broad-spanned hands had travelled over every inch of her flesh. Those  long tanned fingers had coaxed her into her first proper orgasm. They  had discovered all of her erogenous zones, tortured them with such  intense pleasure it had shaken her to the core of her being. She could  feel the echo of it even now, as if just being in the same room as him,  breathing the same air as him, made her body recognise him as her only  pleasure giver.

Alice dragged her gaze upwards and collided with his. He knew. Damn it,  he knew how much sensual power he had over her. She could see it in the  knowing glint in his pitch-black eyes. She felt it when he sent his gaze  over her body as if he too were remembering what it had felt like to  hold her in his arms as she splintered into a thousand pieces of  shivering, quivering ecstasy.

He lifted a hand to his jacket pocket and took out a business card and  placed it on the desk next to the copy of his grandmother's will. My  contact details should you change your mind. I'll be in London for the  next week while I sort out some business affairs.'

Alice wilfully ignored the card. I'm not going to change my mind, Cristiano.'

I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

A cynical smile lifted one side of his mouth. We'll see.'

We'll see?

What did he mean, We'll see'? Alice didn't get the chance to ask him  for he turned and left her office, leaving her with the lingering  fragrance of his aftershave, the lemon and lime with a base note of  leather that made her nostrils tingle...not to mention the rest of her  body.

Meghan was bug-eyed when she came back. Oh, my God! You didn't tell me  you knew Cristiano Marchetti. I didn't recognise him at first. He's much  more gorgeous in the flesh than he is in photographs in the press. I  nearly fainted when he walked past me just then and smiled at me. What  did he want? Is he going to come here for treatments? Please let me do  him. Can I do him? Please, please, please?'

Alice wasn't going to explain her past relationship with her employee  even if Meghan was turning out to be one of the best she'd ever had. And  as for Meghan doing him', if anyone was going to do him' it was going  to be her. She would like nothing better than to get a pot of hot wax  and strip that supercilious smile off his too-handsome face. He's not a  client. I met him a few years ago. He just dropped in to say hi.'