Ruthless Revenge: Priceless Proposal: The Sicilian's Surprise Wife / Secret Heiress, Secret Baby / Guardian to the Heiress

That was the only relationship, the one good thing Serena hadn’t destroyed in his life, an anchor that had held him steady when he had been sinking.

“You think I’m capable of falling in love, Zayed?”

“No, I do not. I don’t think you or I will have the fortune that has been bestowed on Rocco and Christian, nor do we want it. But do not destroy the good that has somehow found its way into your life.”

With Zayed’s advice ringing in his ears, Stefan tugged his new bride toward him. Every muscle in his body tensed when she came into his arms pliantly, wrapped her arms around his neck.

Her small breasts rubbed against his chest, one toned thigh pressing flush against his muscular one. She smelled decadent, her skin soft like the sheerest silk. His pulse thudded heavily in his blood, the delicate crook of her neck and shoulders beckoning for a taste.

Wrapping his fingers around her nape, Stefan tugged her head back and looked into her eyes and received another shock.

“You...need to lighten up, my dear husband,” she whispered against his cheek, dragging her mouth over his stubble, toward his jaw. “We’re supposed to be madly in love, remember?”

Her touch was possessive, reckless, and it made him want it everywhere, made him forget right and wrong.

Clasping her cheeks, he pushed her chin up to meet his eyes.

His new wife was utterly sloshed.

Something akin to a burn began in his chest as he looked into her eyes, the blacks dilated against the glittering green. Tucking loose tendrils of her hair beneath her ear, Stefan picked her up to rising cheers and comments from the guests.

* * *

Clio had never imagined that she would be drunk on her wedding night. She had never thought she would feel like a half terrified, half hopeful Victorian virgin that the pirate would carry aboard his ship and ravish.

In the past couple of years when Jackson had evaded all talk of their wedding with such skilled precision, she hadn’t imagined she would ever have a wedding, much less a wedding night.

So with everything that had gone sideways in her life, the fact that she was drunk was the least disconcerting thing about the night.

Not that she had planned it that way.

She had signed the agreement as he wanted her to. She had smiled and gushed like a woman in love so much that her jaw had begun to hurt. She had tried not to flinch and betray the trembling need she felt when he touched his soft, hot mouth to hers.

Not once during the day had she behaved in a wifely manner whatsoever.

So she had no idea what it was that had turned Stefan more and more distant and forbidding. Unless, it was the very sight of her wearing his ring.

With him radiating an icy scorn from every pore at her side wherever she turned or whoever she looked at all evening, she had drunk her first glass of champagne without getting any food first.

Of course, she had devoured her cake—which sadly was the high point of her wedding day, but by then she had already had a buzz. Which made it all too easy to reach for the second one.

It had made her unafraid, as she had been a long time ago.

Unafraid, uncaring and free.

And because she had loved being that old Clio again, even if it was the alcohol, she had drunk two more glasses. Even the thought of a head-splitting migraine that was sure to arrive first thing tomorrow hadn’t stopped her.

She had thoroughly enjoyed dancing with Rocco and Christian, and Zayed flirting with her. He had done it out of pity because her very real husband couldn’t even fake a smile, much less pretend to be besotted. Still, she had enjoyed it.

The most disturbing thing about the night, however, was the solid hard muscular chest that she was cradled against with utmost care right now. The scent of his aftershave—lime—teased her nostrils.

But she didn’t want to be held like that, she didn’t want him to suffer her company as if he was cursed to do it.

Just then, the elevator rocked.

Giving up any effort at a pretense, Clio sighed and clutched him tighter.

Then she felt it more than heard it—the choked-up, almost suppressed laugh that had his chest rumbling beneath her arms. Cracking her eyes open, Clio dared a look at him.

He was laughing.

The beast who had glared at her all evening, who had looked at her as if she was the most untrustworthy woman on the entire planet, no the universe, who had driven her to drink when she generally couldn’t stand alcohol, was laughing.

Granted, to see that sensuous, cutting-grooves-in-his-cheeks smile was almost worth any price.

Thrusting her hands under the collar of his dress shirt, Clio tucked his chin up until he was staring into her eyes. “What the hell are you laughing about?”

“You, bella,” he replied.

“What about me?”

“A Victorian virgin aboard a pirate ship that was about to be ravished?”

Heat swarmed her face. God, she had said that out loud?

“I’m drunk,” she drawled, loving the thump-thump of his heart beneath her ears. He was so solid and warm around her that perversely, she felt safe around him. “Anything I say tonight should be disregarded,” she retorted. “And I’m no Victorian virgin that needs to be ravished or for that matter saved.”

“Seeing that I’m not the saving-hero kind, that’s good.” The elevator doors swished open. And he stepped out. “It’s almost scary how perfect we are for each other.”

“‘College Sweethearts Who Found Their Way to Each Other After So Many Years’?” she said, quoting the headlines about them. “‘Destiny Brings Old Lovers Together Again!’ ‘True Love Conquers All.’ I wouldn’t have wanted a better tagline for Jackson to look at every time he turned his head.”

Instantly, the smile slid off his mouth as if she had poisoned the very air around them. There was such a bright ire in his gaze that Clio wondered for a second if he would let her fall to the floor.

But, of course, he didn’t.

Stefan would never cause her harm, she knew that. Just as he would never trust her any more than a strange woman he picked up in a club or a party or wherever he picked up women from.

She had thought she had accepted it, but it was beginning to matter more than it should. Even if she had fallen on her face these past few years, didn’t he know what kind of a person she was?

He crossed the cavernous lounge and carried her into one of the bedrooms at the back.

He slowly brought her to her feet. Miscalculating the buzz in her head, she swayed and he caught her.

His arms came around her from behind to steady her.

Her body operating on its own, Clio sagged against him. But his arms were like iron vises around her waist, holding her still, stopping her from leaning back.

A devil inside goading her, Clio clutched his forearms and pushed back.

But he didn’t loosen them.

“Stay still, Clio,” he said in a harsh whisper that had goose bumps rolling over the exposed skin at her neck.

Furious and confused and so many things that she didn’t have a name for, Clio pushed again. Her legs tangled with his and she fell back against him.

A shudder racked through her.

He was a cocoon of heat and hard muscle behind her. His fingers, splayed on her hips, burned through the flimsy silk of her dress.

Molten heat drenched her inside out, turning her blood into drugged honey.

He engulfed her every sense and she had never felt more like sinking.

“Do not tease a fire in me that you’re in no way equipped to handle, bella,” he whispered, before he licked the rim of her ear. “I’m not particularly fond of celibacy, especially now that I have every right in front of God and law over the one woman I’ve wanted so desperately for so long.”

Shock waves jolted through her, spreading heat and need to the tip of every finger and toe.

His thighs were concrete columns behind hers, his midriff a steel wall. And his erection grazed her left buttock.

It was enough to jerk Clio out of the buzz.

Mouth dry, Clio jerked to the front. Or at least tried to. With one arm locking her snug against him, the other climbed up her belly, up her breasts and clasped her jaw.

Long fingers traced her lips, and she forgot how to breathe.

Stop it, please, she wanted to say but the words were consumed by the raw need coursing through her.

The blunt tip of his finger traced the cushion of her mouth. “Open that luscious mouth, Clio.” She did and he pushed his finger inside.

Closing her mouth around it, Clio sucked it while her tongue laved it. Wet heat rushed between her thighs.

He cursed again, louder, harsher, and his arousal grew against the valley between her buttocks. Left her too tight inside her own skin.

She gasped as his teeth dug into the flesh at her shoulder. Pain and pleasure fused together as he licked the tender spot, his breaths coming on top of each other in a harsh rhythm.

And still, he didn’t let her move. Didn’t give her anything more than he decided.

He cupped her breast, and heated wetness drenched her sex. Throwing her head back, Clio pushed into his touch.

Just once, she wanted to feel his touch all over. Just once, she wanted to let it be about pleasure and only pleasure. The hardened nipple rasped hungrily against his palm, an answering pull between her thighs.

Mouth buried in her neck, he licked her skin, and Clio moved restlessly. The slide of her garter against her thighs, the rub of her own skin was torturous, her sex aching and throbbing.

With his fingers under her chin, he tipped her face up. Caught by the reflection in the oval, floor-length mirror, Clio flushed. Her eyes were droopy, her mouth trembling.

And he...he could have been cast from marble for all the expression in his eyes.

“Have you had enough, bella?”

Something in that mocking tone of his lit a fire in Clio. It was a fantasy to believe that he could feel anything for her—hurt or pain or desire—without allowing himself to do so, a fantasy to think she could affect him in a way he couldn’t control.

A fantasy she was becoming more and more invested in, a fantasy that would break her if she didn’t kill it now.

That fear sliced through the haze of desire and alcohol. “Have you had enough, Stefan?” she said, meeting his gaze in the mirror. She had no idea how she strung the words together, no idea how her brain even cooperated when she was aching everywhere. “Have you proved to yourself that you can have me panting in heat within a few seconds, that I’m the same as every other woman on the planet in this, too? Isn’t that the game we are playing, dear husband?”

He turned her around, and still there was not a glimmer of emotion in his face.

Clio would have taken anything, even fury at this point. She wanted to crack that hardened shell he wore like armor; she wanted to shatter it and wound him. And it was the most dangerous thought she had had in her life.

“Why did you drink tonight when you never do, bella?”

“Because you’re a mistrusting, cynical asshole who hates the very sight of me and who thinks I’m a manipulative bitch out for your millions.”

“I never said that.”

Clio didn’t know why she was so angry, only that it was unbearable that he wasn’t even moved. “Your look all evening did it for you. After that first drink, I found it was easy to not give a damn about you and your glaring and your low opinion.”

“Or it could be because you know what’s been building between us this past week and you’re terrified to face it and you wanted an easy out.

“Whatever happened tonight, come morning, you could say, I was out of it.”

He dissected her emotions, her decisions so easily that she felt raw, out of control, bereft of words.

He undid the golden cuff links and pushed his sleeves back, arrogant confidence dripping from every pore. “Is the buzz evaporating yet, cara?”

Clio pushed him, something hot and achy clamping her throat. “I’ve had enough of you and your—”

“No, you haven’t,” he said grabbing her again. This time, she was facing him and there was nowhere to hide. “Stop hiding, Clio. Unless you stop and face it, there’ll always be another situation to run from.”

“I’m not—”

“You left England when you found out that your father had arranged every day of the rest of your life from what you’ll study to who you’ll marry. It was an incredibly brave thing to do but it was still running away.

“For all these years, you hid even when you knew Jackson was cheating you—you let him do it. Tonight, you drank because you don’t know what to do with me.”

He placed his hand over one breast and a gasp fell from her mouth. He covered her mouth with his and sparks cindered at her mouth spreading far and wide, making her hungry and desperate for more. “What you’re doing to me, standing here like this, with desire lacing your gaze... Do you have any idea how torturous this is for me?”

And he gave her what she wanted.

He stroked and bit, nipped and laved at her mouth while she clung to him, her body, her will, her mind, all his.

“You drank because you didn’t want to be responsible for this, Clio,” he whispered against her swollen mouth.

Slowly, he pushed her back, creating distance between their bodies.

“For all the names the media calls me, I will not seduce you tonight and shoulder responsibility for it tomorrow while you call it a drunken mistake.”

Disappointment cooled her body as neatly as if he had dumped the champagne bucket full of ice over her head. “No?”

“No. When I take a woman to bed, it’s not out of pity or shame or joy or anger. It’s pure lust, bella.”

“So you won’t finish what you’ve started, then?”

“Not unless you speak the words.” In an intimate gesture that set fire to her skin, he tugged the delicate neckline with rough fingers. It gave in with a tear and a rasp—thousands of dollars and ripped now. The upper swell of her breast bared to his slumberous gaze. He bent his arrogant head and pressed a hot kiss to the flesh. Nipped it with his teeth.

Need knotted at her nipples, making them achy and tight. Her sex pulsed, wet and aching.

Clio had never known such liquid desire, as if her skin and sinew was all filled with want. Want for him. Want for the one man she shouldn’t want.

Want for the man who had given her everything, but really nothing.

“Tell me that you want me to tear that dress off of you completely, bella.” Anger colored his words. “Tell me to run my hands and mouth over every inch of your skin, tell me to sink into your heat until it is all either of us can feel.” Contempt punctured the heat in his words. “Tell me to give us both the relief that we’re both so desperately craving.

“Tell me and your every wish will be my command, bella.”

Utter resignation reverberated in the way he held her loosely against him, in the way he sighed against her willing flesh. And it was that resignation, that shuddering exhale as if he was giving in to the inevitable even as he hated it, that cleared the haze from Clio’s head.

Had she known that this moment was coming? Was this the only way she could think of having him, when she could absolve herself of all responsibility? Was this how she had let Jackson walk all over her?

Would she always let life happen to her, rather than take charge of it?

Shame cooled her skin, leaving her shaking. Tugging the torn lace of her dress upward, she stumbled back. Her breathing out of sync, she tried to collect her aroused senses together.

She wanted to be held and kissed and touched by him so much that it was a cavernous chasm inside her.

But not like this.

No. This was not fair to either of them.

She looked up and met his glittering gaze, every inch of her vibrating with need. “When I look back at this night a decade later, I want to remember something else other than your self-disgust that you want me and my desperate attempt to escape it, as you put it so well.”

“Clio—”

“Yes you do, Stefan. You hate that you want me when it isn’t your will, don’t you?” She blinked, striving for strength. “I want to have one thing that will make me proud about today. I want you to leave. Thank you for saving me from myself once again.”

The flesh over the angular bones of his face, already so lean and spare, tightened even further, until he was all jutting angles and brooding arrogance. He went still, inch by inch, ridding himself of that glittering want and desire, ridding himself of any emotion.

That growing stillness in him, that willpower in action—it was the most disconcerting thing she had ever seen.

“As you wish,” he said with one lingering look before he turned and left.

She could almost believe that her words had pierced him. Almost.

Roughly tugging at the bodice of a dress that could have probably fed a starving family for a few months, Clio sank to the bed and covered her face.

As caustic as his analysis of her life had been, Stefan had stopped them from making an irrevocable mistake.

She should be glad for it. All she needed was to convince herself of it.

* * *

Standing under the ice-cold shower spray, Stefan shivered. His teeth chattered in his mouth, his skin grew goose bumps. If he looked down, he would probably see that his balls had forever turned blue.

But even the possibility of permanent damage to his manhood couldn’t erase the picture of his wife from his mind.

He had never seen a more beautiful woman. Her vulnerability shone in her eyes, her desire too pure and real to be anything but temptation, her struggle to be better than herself a wonder for him to watch.

Neither could he curb the small flicker of warmth in his chest.

Was this what Clio would do for him?

Punish him, torture him and yet push him toward being a better man than he had been this past decade?

That he had resisted her, that he hadn’t given in to his need and taken what she had so freely offered, that he had protected her, even from himself, he would count as a win; he would count it as a little bit of honor still left in him.

CHAPTER NINE

WHEN CLIO OPENED her eyes the next morning, there was a hammer and a pointy needle inside her skull, and someone had pulled the silky curtains aside to let in reams of sunlight to punish her with.

Or at least, that’s how it felt.

Clutching her head, she turned to her side and groaned. Tears prickled behind her eyes at the dull, pounding ache through the top of her head.

Her mouth was dry, and her throat parched. She tried opening her eyes again and was about to sit up when a strong arm pulled her up with infinite gentleness.

A whimper erupted from her throat as a blend of lime and aftershave and masculine musk teased her nostrils. It was like a slap to her senses, at once decadent and eviscerating...

Just like the man was.

She stiffened in his hold but he didn’t relent.

Of all the unholy, damnedest things in the world, why did Stefan have to be up before her on the first morning of their ill-conceived marriage? Why couldn’t she have started it by setting an unaffected tone, one that she wanted?

“Buon giorno, cara.”

The honeyed words boomeranged against her skull as if he had shouted them.

Another moan escaped her and a smile curved that sinful mouth.

Thick wet hair fell onto his forehead. His freshly shaved jaw glinted, and he smelled clean and nice and as sinful as the red-velvet cake she had devoured last night.

Bastardo, she mouthed the word that she had heard Alessandra use.

His gorgeous green eyes glittered with humor, his smile so beautiful that her chest hurt.

“Go away,” she said, hiding her face in the pillow, superaware of her messy hair, parched mouth and her old Columbia T-shirt that constituted her nightwear.

“Take this,” he said, opening his palm to a white pill—her migraine medication—and a glass of water in the other hand.

Too far gone with the ache in her head to even offer a token protest, Clio grabbed the glass and ingested the pill. She lay back down gingerly, any sudden movement piercing her head.

His handsome face filling her vision, Stefan straightened the cotton duvet around her and tucked it to her chin. Tapped her nose with his finger, and pushed her hair back from her temples. “Sleep, cara,” he whispered.

Sleep and exhaustion hit her in waves and Clio decided the concern she had heard in his voice had to be a side effect of her medication.

* * *

The next morning, Stefan awoke in his bed with the smell of coffee teasing him awake. It took him a few seconds to figure out why he had a feeling that he had missed something. He looked at the alarm clock on the nightstand, which said eight in the morning. The red digits burned his brain.

He hadn’t checked on Clio in a few hours.

Pushing back the covers, he leaped from the bed and walked through the corridor to her bedroom.

He came to a halt as he found it empty with the bed neatly made up.

The scent of gardenias clung to the air and before he knew it, his lungs were filled with it. Running a hand through his hair, he leaned against the entrance, a wisp of something keeping him in the room.

A hairbrush lay on the dresser opposite the bed, and a pair of jeans and a silk top neatly folded on the bed.

A strange quiver gripped his abdomen to see the bed empty of her tall, athletic form after seeing her there all day yesterday. She had refused to even eat anything, only asking for water again and again. Silently bearing it as if it were her punishment. Looking at him with eyes wide with shock as he checked on her every couple of hours.

Why are you checking on me? she had asked once, her eyes drugged with sleep.

Did she think him so heartless that she was shocked at such a small act of concern? Had he given her a reason to think differently? Why did he care?

Irritated at how scattered his thoughts were, he walked back to the kitchen, following the smell of coffee.

He came to an abrupt halt at the unusual scene in front of him.

Clio stood at the counter, her back to him, unpacking breakfast, he assumed, from the mouthwatering smell.

She was dressed in dark blue jeans that hugged her long legs from ankles to her trim waist and a sleeveless white silk shirt that showed off her tanned arms.

Her hair fell straight to her waist, a river of ambers and reds, glinting where sunlight struck it.

He watched in rising fascination as she slid the lid off one plastic box, grabbed a fork and popped a piece into her mouth.

Pancakes and maple syrup, mouthwatering bacon and coffee—his favorite meal from back when they had been at university. They had all teased him because he would eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Her face turned toward the French doors, she closed her eyes and let out a long moan as she chewed. A drop of syrup stuck to the side of her mouth and she licked it off with another satisfied little groan. Color suffused her cheeks as she repeated the ritual.

Bemused and turned on, Stefan watched as the pleasure she wrought from the little ritual rendered him stupefied.

The next time she picked up another piece with her fork, it took everything he possessed to not join her and direct her fork to his mouth. Or not to taste the syrup on her lips.

“The suite comes with a butler on call twenty-four hours, Clio,” he said, pushing off the wall and walking into the kitchen. “You don’t have to arrange our meals, bella.”

Her fork clanged on the counter, the tinkering sound of it filling the silence.