It was easier to close her eyes again and pretend he just wasn’t there, she decided. A stupid idea when the man was lying right here beside her on a bed they had been sharing for weeks now, she mocked her own idiocy.
And to further mock the whole thing, his hand came up to brush a feather-light finger across the arch of her eyelashes where they lay flickering against her cheeks. ‘I will cherish and adore you all of your life,’ he promised huskily.
‘Last week you were still plotting my ruin,’ she replied.
He touched his lips to her stubborn mouth. ‘I loved you even when I was plotting your ruin. Does that not count for anything?’ he asked, moving on to nibble at one of her earlobes.
She had to move her shoulder in an effort to dislodge him—or start quivering. ‘Is this the Sicilian way of being diplomatic?’ she asked. ‘If so, I have to tell you it doesn’t work very well.’
He just laughed softly in his throat, which brought on the quiver anyway. ‘I loved you even when I knew you were lying through your lovely white teeth to me,’ he pointed out. ‘Like the cool-headed denial you gave about not knowing the combination to Edward’s safe, for instance…’
Her eyes flicked open. ‘How do you know that I knew it?’ she demanded.
His eyes were taunting, like his voice when he said, ‘Because I listened in to the message Edward had left you on your voice-mail.’
‘Is that why you asked me for the combination?’ she gasped. ‘Just to see what I would say?’
He nodded. ‘It is also the reason why you have been working from here ever since,’ he added. ‘When you wouldn’t give up the combination I decided I had to get you away from the safe. So I set up this place.’ He glanced around them. ‘So quickly you won’t believe how much trouble I took.’
‘But why?’ she cried. ‘Why should my father’s private papers be so important to you?’
‘Ah,’ he drawled. ‘But you are thinking like a daughter instead of a mistress,’ he pointed out. ‘I saw whatever was in that safe as your—payment let’s say, for services rendered. And I enjoyed very much making sure you couldn’t get your sticky hands on that payment.’
‘Money, you mean,’ she realised angrily. ‘How cynical a mind do you actually have, Giancarlo?’
‘Worse than you think,’ he freely admitted. ‘I had the safe opened by a locksmith the day after you came here to work. I found nothing inside it but Edward’s private stock portfolio. And since I put that together for him, I presumed that whatever it was he didn’t want me to see had already been taken—by his lovely accomplice—along with a genuine Fabergé watch, for instance.’
‘You believed I’d actually stolen my great-grandmother’s watch?’ Natalia just stared at him, stunned by the depths his mind had her wallowing! ‘Edward kept details of my birth in there,’ she explained because she could see no reason not to now. ‘I managed to get them out before you arrived in the next morning.’ She now felt rather pleased with herself for doing that. ‘Though I did so because Edward was so sure you had the safe combination somewhere—not because I expected you to resort to using a locksmith to get into it!’
‘Machiavellian, that’s me.’ He smiled. ‘You know I had mislaid the piece of paper he had written the combination on, so I had to resort to other methods.’
‘Nothing is too low for you, is it?’ she breathed.
‘Will you still marry me knowing that?’
‘I never said I was ever going to marry you,’ she pointed out.
His answer was to swoop on her mouth. It just wasn’t fair, Natalia complained helplessly. He was applying unfair tactics and she couldn’t resist him and the fact that he knew that only made it all the more unfair!
‘You said no sex,’ she mumbled against his mouth.
‘This is not sex,’ he denied, moving his lips to her cheek then back to let them hover a hair’s breadth away from hers again. ‘It is showing my adoration for the woman who belongs to me.’
And to give his claim substance he began gently rotating the hand he had lying against her abdomen. Silk began to move sensually against her skin, the heat from his hand making it all the more pleasurable. She liked it, and didn’t want to like it. And worst of all, his eyes were so dark and warm and incredibly tender that she felt herself starting to sink into them.
‘Marry me,’ he urged with husky softness. ‘Let me be your husband, your lover and your devoted soul mate.’
‘You’re just hedging your bets in case I am pregnant,’ she derided, but she made sure her lips made fleeting contact with his as she spoke. ‘Come tomorrow when you find I am not, you’ll be straining at the leash to escape.’
‘Our child is growing in here,’ he murmured softly. ‘Just think of it. Or think of all the passionate nights we will have trying to put the seed there if it has not made it already.’ And to punctuate his point his hand began to slowly ruche up her dress. She gasped in response; he rewarded the revealing little sound with another kiss.
‘So, marry me,’ he repeated.
‘I can’t marry you,’ she breathed. ‘I know you’re only offering it because you feel some misguided need to redress an error.’
‘Or because you don’t love me…?’ he softly suggested.
‘Oh,’ she choked, and brought up her fingers to place them against his mouth. ‘Stop it,’ she pleaded.