Temporarily His Princess

Until he’d thrown her out of his life like so much garbage.

Another wave of fury crashed over her as she stopped at his door.

He must be watching her through the security camera. He always had, barely letting her enter before sweeping her away on the rapids of his eagerness. Or so she’d thought.

She glared up at where the camera was hidden. She still had the key. Another memento she hadn’t thrown away. He probably hadn’t changed the lock. Why should he have? With enough guards to stop an army, she wouldn’t have gotten here without his permission.

He probably expected her to ring the bell. Yeah, right. He might have dragged her here, but she was damned if he’d leave her waiting until he deigned to open the door.

She stabbed the key in, imagining the lock was his eye.

Her breath still hitched as the door clicked open, then again as she stepped inside.

He stood facing her at the end of the expansive sitting area, in front of the screen where he’d once displayed their videotaped sessions of sexual delirium as he’d drowned her in more.

Her heart clamored out of control as his steel-hued eyes struck her with a million volts of sexiness and charisma across the distance.

He’d once been the epitome of male beauty. Now he’d become impossibly more, his influence enhanced, his assets augmented.

Dressed in all black, he seemed taller than his six foot five, his shoulders even wider, his waist and hips sparser in comparison to a torso and thighs that had bulked up with muscle. His face was hewn to sharper planes and angles, his skin a darker, silkier copper, intensifying the luminescence of his eyes. The discreet silver brushing his luxurious raven hair at the temples added the last touch of allure.

But she wasn’t only checking off his upgrades against what she’d known … too intimately. She was reacting to him in the same way, with the same intensity she had when she’d been younger, inexperienced and oblivious of his reality.

Weird, this disconnect between mental aversion and physical affinity.

She could barely breathe, and that was before he spoke, his voice deeper, strumming hidden places inside her with each inflection, with that trace accent, those rolling r’s.

“Before you say anything, yes, I do have evidence that would send your father and brother to prison from fifteen to life. But you must already be certain of that. That’s why you’re here.”

Her momentary incapacitation cracked.

She moved steadily toward him, roiling rage fueling each step. “I know you’re capable of anything. That’s why I’m here.”

His eyes smoldered as they documented her state. “I’ll dispense with the preliminaries then and get to the point of my summons.”

She stopped feet away, scoffing, “Summons? Wow. Your ‘princehood’ has gone to your head, hasn’t it? But then, you must have always been this pompous and loathsome, and I was the one who was too blind to notice.”

Those sculpted lips that had once driven her to insanity twisted. “I don’t have time now for your scorned-woman barbs, Glory. But once my objective is fulfilled, I might accommodate your need to vent. It will be … amusing.”

Bringing herself under control, she matched his coolness. “I’m sure it will be. Sharks do relish blood. And that, along with anything I say to you or about you, isn’t a barb. Just a fact. So let’s stop wasting calories and get to the point of your ‘summons.’ What will it take so you won’t destroy my family? If you want me to steal some top secret info from your rivals, I no longer work in your field, as I’m sure you know.”

An imperious eyebrow rose. “Would you have, if you were?”

Her answer was unhesitating. “No.”

Something streaked in his eyes, something that looked like … pain? What made it even more confusing was that it was tinged with … humor? Humor? Vincenzo? And now of all times?

“Not even to save your beloved family?”

She wanted to growl that they were no such thing.

Oh, sure, she loved them. But they drove her up the wall being so irresponsible. They were why she was now at this royal scumbag’s mercy. He must have acquired some debts of theirs. And if he could send them to prison using those, they must be huge.

“No,” she said, more forcefully this time. “I was just analyzing the only thing you might think I have to offer in return for your generous amnesty.”

“That’s not the only thing you have to offer.”

For heart-scrambled moments it felt as if he meant …

No. No way. He’d told her in mutilating detail what an exchangeable “lay” she’d been. He’d discarded her and moved on to a thousand others. And he was known to never return to an already pollinated flower. He wouldn’t go to these lengths, or any, to have her in his bed again.

Her glare grew harder. “I can offer you a much deserved skull fracture. Apart from that, I can’t think of a thing.”

This time, the humor filling his eyes and lips was unmistakable, shaking her more than anything else had.

“I’ll pass on the kind cranial-reconstruction offer. But there is another alteration you can offer me that I vitally need.” His lips quirked as if at a private joke. “ASAP.”

“Will you stop wasting my time and just spit it out? What the hell do you ‘need’?”

Unfazed by her fury, he calmly said, “A wife.”

Two

“A wife?”

Glory heard herself echoing what Vincenzo had said.

But he couldn’t have said that.

He only nodded, confirming that she’d parroted him correctly.

Dazed, she shook her head. “How can I offer you a wife?” A suspicion hit her between the eyes. “You’re interested in someone I know?”

That lazy humor heated his eyes again. “Yes. Someone you know very well.”

Nausea twisted her stomach as every woman she knew flashed through her mind. Many were beautiful and sophisticated enough to qualify for Vincenzo’s demanding standards. Amelia, her best friend, in particular. But she was newly engaged. Was that why Vincenzo had her here, because he wanted her help to break up her friend’s relationship so he’d …?

He interrupted the apoplectic fit in progress. “According to my king, I need an emergency reputation upgrade that only a wife can provide.”

Her mind burned rubber calibrating the new info. “Your sexual exploits are giving Castaldini a bad name? That must be why King Ferruccio had to intervene. Did he issue you a royal decree to cease and desist?”

He gave a tranquil nod of that leonine head of his. “What amounted to that, si. That’s why I’m ‘getting a wife.’”

“Who knew? Even the untouchable Vincenzo D’Agostino has someone he bows down to. It must have stung bad, standing before another man, even if he is your lord and liege, being chastised like a kid and told what to do, huh? How does it feel to be forced to end your stellar career as a womanizer?”

One of those formidable shoulders jerked nonchalantly. “I’m ending nothing. I’m only getting a wife temporarily.”

So he wasn’t even pretending he’d change his ways. At least no one could accuse him of hiding what he was. No one but her. He’d hidden his nature and intentions ingeniously for the duration of their … liaison—what he’d made her believe had been a love affair to rival those of literature and legend.