The Temporary Mrs. Marchetti

‘It’s yours, Alice. You can do what you want with it when we’re through.’ He released a short breath. ‘I’m sorry. I should have consulted you on what you’d like. I didn’t think. The old one was so...so inappropriate. I’m annoyed I didn’t see that before. It didn’t suit your hand at all.’

Alice shifted her lips from side to side. This was a new thing—Cristiano admitting to getting something wrong. ‘Just your luck to pick someone so independent she can’t even let a guy choose a ring for her.’

‘It wasn’t just the ring I got wrong, though, was it?’

Alice couldn’t hold the sudden intensity of his gaze. She looked at the new ring instead and angled her hand so the light caught the facets of the diamond. ‘Thing is, my mother has three rings, all of them ghastly. She pretended to love them when her partners gave them to her. I always wondered why she did that.’ She glanced at him again. ‘Surely if you’re going to marry someone and agree to spend the rest of your life with them you’d be honest with them from the get-go?’

His mouth lifted in a rueful smile. ‘That was another quality my grandmother liked in you. Honesty. You didn’t filter your opinions. You spoke your mind and to hell with anyone who didn’t agree with you.’

Alice couldn’t help a tiny cringe at how outspoken she had been back then. She had been very much ‘my way or the highway’ in her thinking. She’d held strong opinions on issues that, in hindsight, she had not researched well enough to warrant holding such strident views. How many people must she have offended, or even hurt, by expressing such unqualified and oftentimes ignorant opinions? Back then she had considered the notion of compromise or backing down as a weakness, a flaw. But now...now she wondered if being able to give and take, and listen rather than speak, was a more mature and balanced way to approach life.

‘I’m surprised your grandmother even remembered me. You and I were only together six weeks. There must’ve been a lot of women in your life since. I don’t suppose she’s left each of them—?’

‘No. Just you.’

Alice wanted to ask if he had fallen in love with any of them but knew it would make him think she was jealous. Which to her great annoyance she was. It didn’t seem fair that he’d moved on with his life so quickly when she had supposedly been his soul mate. What if she had changed her mind in the weeks after their breakup? Too bad, because he’d already partnered up with someone else.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Cristiano said. ‘You’re thinking I didn’t take long to replace you, yes?’

Alice hadn’t realised her expression was so transparent. Or maybe he really could read her mind. Scary thought. ‘You made no secret of your love-life. It was splashed over every gossip magazine.’

His gaze was unwavering. ‘And that bothered you?’

Alice frowned. ‘Why wouldn’t it bother me? You bought me a frightfully expensive ring and told me I was the only woman in the world for you, and yet within a week or two of me ending our relationship, you’re off with someone else.’

‘Did you change your mind?’

‘No, of course not.’ Alice knew she had answered too quickly by the way one of his brows rose in an arc. ‘I was just annoyed you hadn’t...’

‘Hadn’t what?’

She let out a gusty little breath. ‘Missed me.’

He stepped closer and placed his hands on the tops of her shoulders. ‘You think I didn’t miss you?’

Alice couldn’t shift her gaze from his mouth. It was drawn there by a desire she could not override with self-discipline or common sense. The warmth of his hands was burning through her clothes, setting her skin on fire. Making her aware of his male body standing close—so close she could sense the stirring of his blood in tune with her own. She placed her hands flat against his chest, touching him, feeling the heat and strength of him.

Wanting him.

The deep thud-pitty-thud of his heart beneath her palm reverberated through her body, sounding an erotic echo deep in the centre of her being. She curled her fingers into the fabric of his shirt, not caring that it caused it to crumple and the tiny buttons to strain against the buttonholes. She closed the hair’s breadth distance between their bodies, an electric frisson coursing through her at the intimate contact.

What did it matter if she was the one to cave in first? It was what she wanted. What they both wanted. She had missed touching him.

Being held.

Being wanted.

Alice stepped up on tiptoe and pressed a barely touching kiss to the side of his mouth, her lips tingling from the contact with his newly shaven skin. Cristiano’s minty fresh breath mingled with hers but he didn’t take over the kiss. Was he trying to prove how strong he was compared to her? That he could resist her even if she couldn’t resist him? She smiled to herself. She knew just how to get him to weaken. She sent the tip of her tongue out and licked the surface of his bottom lip. A cat-like lick to remind him of how clever she was with her tongue. How she had made him collapse at the knees when she got to work on him.

His hands went from her shoulders to her hips, tugging her so close she could feel the hardened, pulsing ridge of him against her belly. ‘Haven’t you heard that sa

ying about playing with fire?’

Alice shamelessly stoked the fire by rubbing her pelvis in a circular motion against his. ‘You want me.’

‘I didn’t say I didn’t.’

‘But you said our marriage won’t be—’