Her eyes fell on the prenup he’d left on her entrance cabinet what felt like ages ago, and something turned in her head, clicked.
Her eyes jerked up, slamming into their reflection in the mirror above as that missing piece crashed into place.
Her family.
God, how hadn’t it occurred to her before? This had to be the explanation. He’d said her father and Daniel had been perpetrating crimes for a long time. What if it had been as far back as six years, and he’d discovered it when he’d been investigating them during his espionage crisis?
Then another idea whacked her like an uppercut.
Even if he’d found it out of the question to be involved with someone with a family of criminals, there had been no reason to be vicious with her over her family’s crimes. That meant one thing. He’d thought she’d been involved in those crimes. Or worse, he’d thought she’d embezzle or defraud him, too, and had thought to preempt her, cut her off before she had the chance.
Gasping as suspicions solidified into conviction, she staggered to the nearest horizontal surface, sitting heavily.
Then another realization pushed aside the debris of shame and anguish.
He’d believed her an accomplice to her family, a danger to him, and he’d simply walked away. He’d turned vicious only when she’d cornered him. That meant one thing—he had felt something for her. Something strong enough that it stopped him from prosecuting her even when he’d thought she deserved it.
Following that same rationalization, the way he was with her now, even with his new evidence of her family’s crimes, meant that he believed she couldn’t be party to those. As for what she’d been seeing in his eyes, the way he said amore mio, this could mean…
In the next moment her trembling hope was shot down like a bird before it could spread its wings.
Even if he didn’t think she was involved in illegal activities now, he would never think her worth more than a fleeting place in his life. And who could blame him?
She couldn’t.
Her aching eyes panned around her condo. She’d come here to empty it, to end its lease. Vincenzo had asked her to do so a couple of weeks ago. She’d felt alarmed at what that implied and had groped for a reason to dismiss his request, arguing she needed a place to entertain family and friends away from their own private quarters. But he’d already thought of that, producing a lease to another condo, far more lavish, and a minute’s walk from his building. It looked as if he was thinking of her all the time, going out of his way to provide her with anything that would make her life easier, fuller.
But she couldn’t count on anything from him, or with him. She wouldn’t do this to herself again. She had to live with the expectation that this would end, and after last week, it appeared that the end would be sooner rather than later. She had to be ready to fade back into her own life once he pulled away completely. But to do that, she had to make sure she had a life to fade back to.
She rose, headed back to the suitcases she’d packed, opened them and started putting everything back in its place.
An hour later, on her way out, she stopped by the entrance cabinet. After a long moment of staring at the prenup, she picked it up.
*
Vincenzo whistled an upbeat tune as he exited the shower.
He caught his eyes in the steamed-up mirror and grinned widely at himself. He felt like whistling all the time now. Or singing. He’d been struggling not to do either in all those stuffy meetings and negotiations he’d been attending. He’d had the most important one so far today, what he’d been working toward since he’d gone back to New York with Glory after their honeymoon six weeks ago.
The memory of their honeymoon cascaded through him again. He’d extended it for a week and had representatives of a dozen countries scrambling to readjust their schedules. When they’d complained, he’d told them they instead had to thank his bride for putting their agendas ahead of her rights and consenting to cut short her honeymoon for them. He’d seen to it that each and every one had thanked her, in all the functions to which she’d accompanied him.
A thrill of pride spread through him. She’d been beyond magnificent. A consort of a caliber he couldn’t have dreamed of. Though she’d gone back to her own hectic schedule, she always made time for him. She aided, guided and supported him with her counsel, honored, soothed and delighted him with her company. Every moment with her, in and out of bed, had been better than anything he’d dared plan or hope for.
He’d never known happiness like this existed.
Just as he thought that, a frown invaded his elation.
He hadn’t been able to have her with him for over two weeks now. With back-to-back meetings and unending follow-up work, he’d had to leave her behind, cancel dates and generally have no time for her. He hadn’t even come home for the past three days.
He was paying the price for taking too much time with her during the first weeks of their marriage. Work had accumulated until it had become unmanageable, and resolving the mess had been like digging in the sea, with new chores only pouring over the unfinished ones. He’d needed to clean out his agenda then start fresh using the system Glory had set up for him.
So, for the past two weeks, he’d worked flat out to get this phase, the groundwork his whole mission was built on, out of the way once and for all.
Though it had been agonizing being without her, at least he’d succeeded in fixing the problem he’d caused by being too greedy for her. He was now out of the bottleneck and the first phase of his mission here had been concluded.
And before he entered the next phase, he had a prolonged vacation with Glory planned. A second honeymoon. He intended to have another one every month.
Grinning to himself again, luxuriating in the anticipation, he entered the office he hadn’t used for weeks.
He saw it the moment he stepped inside and recognized it for what it was at once.
The prenup agreement.
Was his mind playing tricks on him? He’d left it in Glory’s condo over two months ago.
A surge of trepidation came over him as he neared it, approaching it as if it was a live grenade. A quick, compulsive check ended any doubt. That was the copy he’d given her.
Why was it on his desk, as if Glory was loath to hand it to him face-to-face? If she was, why put it there at all? After all this time? All this intimacy?
What was she trying to tell him?
Was she reinforcing his original conditions, telling him this was still how she viewed their marriage? As a temporary hostile takeover? But that had stopped being true almost from the start. He’d told her he’d changed his mind after hours of being with her again. She hadn’t changed her mind after weeks of being with him? But she’d agreed to marry him of her free will, then proceeded to blow his mind with passion and pleasure ever since. He’d thought she’d been showing him that she’d forgotten how this had started, that she’d been demonstrating with actions how she now viewed their relationship, that she wanted it to continue. He sat down, staring at the offensive volume as if it was his worst mistake come back to haunt him. Which it was.