“It was a long time ago.”
His tone was like ice. Obviously the subject was closed.
And Lucy suddenly felt desperately sorry for him—this man that only minutes before she’d thought an ogre.
She impulsively snatched the silver hairbrush from the tray. “You always know everything, don’t you?” She held it up with a forced laugh, trying to lighten his mood. “I lost my favorite hairbrush last week. How did you know I needed this?”
He paused, then looked at her in the mirror.
“You didn’t lose your hairbrush,” he said. “My men took it.”
She turned to gape at him. “What?”
His strong, tall form was silhouetted in front of the fading light. “I needed your hair to run a DNA test in Rome. I ordered my men to break into your apartment.”
A ripple of cold ricocheted through her body, sending ice down her spine.
“You—broke into my apartment? You stole my hairbrush?”
He pushed her toward the bed. “Sit down.”
“I spent an hour looking for that hairbrush!” Although that wasn’t the point. Trembling with rage, feeling completely violated, she cried, “You sent some seedy bodyguard into my home?”
“Sit down!”
He didn’t even raise his voice, but her knees weakened of their own accord. She fell onto the bed, despising the power he had over her. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“You shouldn’t have done it.” Her shoulders shook. “You never should have done it.”
“I had to know,” he said quietly. “Your grandfather had petitioned to have you declared legally dead.” He gave a brief, grim smile. “On the first of January, the shares from your trust fund would have reverted to his control.”
“So it’s true? I really have a grandfather?” she whispered, dazed. “Do I have cousins? Siblings?”
He stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry. Just your grandfather, and he does not deserve to be called your family.”
She looked up at him in shock.
“He’s the one, isn’t he? The old man whose death you’re waiting for?”
He looked away from her.
“Oh my God, what could he possibly have done?” Then she knew, and sucked in her breath. “He’s the one who ruined your family?”
“I do not wish to speak of it.”
“But he’s my grandfather!”
“He’s a stranger to you.”
“He’s my blood!”
“You will stay away from him, Lucia.” His voice was sharp as steel, cutting through her with the brutality of a sword. “Speak with him once—just once—and our contract will be void.”
Meaning no marriage. No thirty million dollars. And now that she’d had a taste of the fairy tale, both for herself and for Chloe, she found it hard to imagine giving it up.
“You will obey me in this. Nonnegotiable.” His eyes narrowed. “Do I have your word?”
She swallowed, then took a deep breath. He waited.