Pursued by the Desert Prince(34)

Met him as in met him and dated him?'

Alice didn't respond other than to purse her mouth. Meghan blushed and  bit her lower lip. Sorry. I shouldn't have asked that. I know you  insist on absolute confidentiality with celebrity clients. It's just  he's so handsome and you never seem to date anyone and I wondered if it  was because-'

Can you get my treatment room ready for my next client?' Alice said. I have some urgent paperwork to see to.'

Alice blew out a breath once Meghan scuttled away. For seven years she  had told herself she'd made the right decision. She had chosen her  career over commitment. Freedom over having a family. She had stood firm  on her decision, not once wavering on it. Now, within her grasp was a  way to finally achieve the success and financial security she had thus  far only dreamt about.

Six months of marriage.

In name only.

She glanced at his business card. It seemed to taunt her with its presence.

Do it. Do it. Do it.

Alice snatched it up and tore it into as many pieces as she could and  tossed them in the bin. It was kind of weird how they floated down just  like a handful of confetti.

She hoped to God it wasn't an omen.



Cristiano would have had a stiff drink if he'd been a drinking man, but  the death of his parents and his older brother to a drunk driver when he  was eleven made him wary of using alcohol other than in strict  moderation. Seeing Alice Piper again was like having his guts slashed  wide open. And stomped on. The mere sight of her reopened the wound of  his bitterness until he wondered how he had stood there without showing  it.         

     



 

He'd felt it, though. God in heaven, how he'd felt it. The blood rush.  The pulse race. The adrenalin surge. The kick and punch of lust.

He had stood there and drunk in her features like a dehydrated man  standing in front of a long cool glass of water. Her indifferent poise,  her cornflower-blue gaze that could freeze mercury, the way she looked  down her aristocratic nose at him as if he had crept in from a primeval  swamp with his knuckles dragging. Her body was as lissom and gorgeous as  ever-perhaps even more so. Her unusual silver-blonde hair with her  naturally dark eyebrows and the creamy, ageless perfection of her skin  gave her a striking appearance that never failed to snatch his breath.

Her rejection of him stung and burned and churned even after all this  time. He had thought what they'd had was for ever. A once in a lifetime  love. Their passionate affair had been unlike anything he'd experienced  before. He'd wanted to build a future with her. A family. He'd believed  it to be like the love his parents had had for each other. Like the love  his grandparents had before his grandfather died. The death of his  grandfather a couple of months before he met Alice had made him acutely  aware of how important family was. It had been all he had thought  about-having a family to replace the one he had lost so young. He'd felt  ready. More than ready. He'd been twenty-seven and well established in  the hotel business he had inherited from his parents. He was ready for  the next phase of his life.

But Alice hadn't loved him. She had never said the words but he'd fooled  himself into thinking she'd been showing it instead. How gullible he  had been. How stupid to be so naively romantic when all she'd wanted was  a quick fling with a foreigner to boast about with her friends.

What had his nonna been thinking? She had only met Alice a couple of  times. Why bequeath her a share in a property worth millions and with  such odd conditions attached? Six months of marriage? What sort of  nonsense was this?

He hoped to God it wasn't some sneaky matchmaking ploy from the grave.  His grandmother knew he had changed his mind about settling down. He had  laughed off the suggestion every time she asked him when he was going  to provide her with a great-grandchild. Nonna had expressed her  disapproval of his playboy lifestyle on numerous occasions but he had  always dismissed her concerns because no one was going to tell him how  to run his life.

No one.

His grandmother had been disappointed when his relationship with Alice  broke down. Terribly disappointed. But he had refused to talk about it.  He'd had enough trouble managing his own disappointment without having  to handle his grandmother's. Over the years she had stopped mentioning  Alice's name knowing it would get zero response from him. Why then had  she done this? Forced him back into Alice's life when it was the last  thing he wanted?

The way the will was written meant if he didn't convince Alice to marry  him then he would lose valuable shares in the family company to a cousin  he had no time for. He wasn't going to hand over those shares only to  have his cousin Rocco sell them to another party when he ran a little  low on cash after playing the tables in a casino. Cristiano would rather  marry his worst enemy before seeing that day dawn. He blamed himself  for not telling his grandmother of Rocco's disturbing spending habits of  late. But he hadn't wanted to burden her in the last months of her  terminal illness.

Now it was too late.

The will had been written and now he had to convince Alice Piper to marry him.

Not that Alice was an enemy in the true sense of the word. She was a  mistake he had made. A failure he wasn't particularly fond of being  reminded about. He had wiped her from his memory. Every time a thought  of her would enter his mind he would ruthlessly erase it like someone  cleaning a whiteboard. He had lived his life since as if she had never  been a part of it. As if he had never had such amazing sex with her it  had made his body tingle for hours afterwards. As if he had never kissed  that sensually supple mouth. As if he had never felt that mouth around  him while she blew the top of his head off.

Cristiano wasn't going to let Alice think he was anything but delighted  with the way his grandmother had orchestrated things. It suited him to  let Alice think he was eager to put that ring on her finger and tie her  to him for six months. Besides, maybe avoidance wasn't the way to handle  the lingering sting of her rejection. Maybe some immersion therapy  would finally end his torment.

Alice might have given him that haughty look and said no as if it were  her last word on it, but this time he wasn't taking no for an answer.