Alice gave him another speaking look. ‘I was getting to that when you rudely barged into my office.’
His eyes nailed hers. Hard eyes. Eyes that could melt a month’s supply of salon wax with a single glare. ‘Let me summarise it for you. You stand to inherit a half share of my grandmother’s villa in Stresa in Italy if you agree to be my wife and live with me for a minimum of six months. You will also receive a lump sum on the announcement of our engagement, which is to last no longer than one month.’
Shock hit Alice like a blow to the chest. His...wife?
She fumbled for the document, the sound of the pages rustling overly loud in the silence.
Engaged to him for a month? Married for six?
She cast her gaze over the words again, her breath coming in such short spark bursts it felt as if she were having an asthma attack. Her heart was beating so heavily it felt as if someone were punching it from behind. She hadn’t seen any mention of marriage in her quick appraisal earlier. She’d barely had time to read any of it before he had gatecrashed into her day. Why hadn’t she put on her make-up before work? Why hadn’t she worn her brand-new uniform instead of this one with the eyebrow-tint stain on the right breast? Why hadn’t she done her own eyebrows, for God’s sake?
But there it was in black and white.
Alice was to co-inherit Volante Marchetti’s summer retreat on the shores of Lake Maggiore if, and only if, she married and stayed married to Cristiano for six months. Six months? Six seconds would be too long. And there was the other clause. They must be engaged for no more than a month before the wedding. What sort of weird time frame was that? It shamed her that Cristiano saw the pages of the document shaking before she put it back down on the desk. But at least he couldn’t see the tumult going on inside her stomach.
His wife?
Live with him?
She had been to his grandmother’s villa one memorable weekend with Cristiano. Memorable because it was the first time he’d told her he loved her. Apart from her mother, no one had ever said that to her before. She hadn’t said the words back because she hadn’t trusted her feelings. But then, she had always been a step behind him in their relationship. She’d thought they were having a fling while she was on a brief working holiday in Europe. He’d decided it was a relationship. She’d thought it was temporary because she’d planned to go back to England and set up her own beauty spa, but he had wanted it to be permanent.
Permanent as in marriage and kids.
For as long as she could remember Alice had been against marriage—or at least for herself. After witnessing her mother go through three of them with exactly the same result: misery, subjugation, humiliation and financial ruin. She had told Cristiano a little about her background, not much, but more than she had told anyone, which made her all the more annoyed he had still gone ahead and asked her to marry him. In a crowded public place to boot, which had added a whole other layer of pressure she resented him for.
His arrogance made her furiously angry. Had he really thought she would fall upon him with a grateful squeal of Yes! just because he was super-rich and said he loved her and wanted to spend the rest of his life with her? How long would that love have lasted? They’d had a passionate if a little volatile relationship. How could she be sure his desire/love for her wouldn’t burn out as fast as it had been ignited?
If he had truly loved her he would have accepted her no as final and settled for a less formal arrangement. People lived together for years and years without needing the formality of marriage. Why be so damn nineteen-fifties about it? A marriage certificate didn’t make a relationship any more secure. In fact, it could do the very opposite, forcing women into a subservient role once kids came along from which they could never escape.
But Cristiano at heart was a traditionalist. For all of his modern male sophistication, deep down he wanted a wife and family to come home to while he built his empire. So he had given her an ultimatum. Tried to control her. Tried to manipulate her into doing what he wanted.
Marriage or nothing.
Alice had called his bluff and ended their relationship then and there, and flown back to England, never expecting to hear from him again. Well, maybe that wasn’t quite true. She had expected to hear from him with a big apology and ‘let’s try again’ but it hadn’t happened. Showed how much he’d ‘loved’ her. Not enough to fight for her. Not enough to compromise.
Not that she had offered to compromise, but still.
Alice brought her gaze back up to his glittering one. ‘You’re surely not going to go through with this...are you?’
A smile that wasn’t quite a smile courted with the edges of his mouth. ‘But of course. It is what Nonna wanted. Who am I to disregard her last wishes?’
Alice frowned so hard she could have frightened off fifty units of Botox. ‘What happens if I don’t agree?’
‘To me?’ He gave a careless shrug. ‘Nothing other than a few shares in the company which will pass to a relative if I don’t comply with the terms of the will.’
Alice wondered how important those shares were to him. Was his easy-come, easy-go shrug disguising deeper, far more urgent motivations? Enough to marry someone he now hated? What about the villa? It was his grandmother’s home, the place where he had spent much of his childhood being raised by his grandparents. Wouldn’t he want to contest such an outrageous will? Surely he wouldn’t want to share it with anyone, much less her? Why would he agree to such unusual conditions? She sent her tongue out over lips so dry it felt as if she were licking talcum powder. ‘So...why would you want to marry someone who clearly doesn’t want to marry you?’
His dark as night gaze gleamed, making the floor of Alice’s belly shudder. ‘You know why.’
Alice arched one of her brows, trying to ignore the pulsing heat his words evoked deep in her feminine core. ‘Revenge, Cristiano? I thought you were a civilised man.’
‘I am prepared to be reasonable.’
Alice affected a laugh. That was not a word she readily associated with him. He saw the world in black and white. He didn’t know the meaning of the word compromise. What he wanted he got and woe betide anyone who got in his way. Not that she could talk. Compromise wasn’t her favourite word in the dictionary, either. ‘Reasonable in what way?’
He held her look with one she couldn’t read. ‘The marriage won’t be consummated.’
Not...? Alice hoped she wasn’t showing any sign of the numb shock she was feeling. Not just shock. Hurt. Humiliation. Their affair had been so wildly passionate. She had never had a lover before or since who made her feel the things he had made her feel. She had all but given up dating because of it. His touch was indelibly branded on her body. No one else’s touch made her flesh sing—the opposite, in fact. Her flesh crawled when someone else touched her. The last time she slept with a date, well over a year ago, she came home and showered for an hour.