She shook her head. ‘Alej, let it go. It’s not going to happen. Why would it?’
‘Why, for sex and for money, of course,’ he continued softly. ‘Those are the main reasons why women marry rich and eligible men, aren’t they? We’re just being a little more open about it than most.’
‘And what about...’ she hesitated before plucking up enough courage to ask it ‘...what about love?’
‘What about it? I think it’s overrated.’ He saw something die in her eyes and felt a warm rush of pleasure. ‘Overused,’ he continued, with harsh emphasis. ‘And even if you feel it for a while—it’s soon over.’
‘But there are other kinds of love,’ she objected. ‘The kind which endures. What about the love a mother has for her child?’
Alej felt his skin grow cold. ‘You think your mother was such a shining example of maternal love, do you, Emily?’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not naïve enough to think that, no. But maybe your mother—’
‘Let’s just change the subject, shall we?’ he interrupted. ‘I thought we were talking about my marriage to you.’
‘We were. And I’ve made my feelings on the subject clear.’
He got out of bed and he could see suspicion vying with desire as he walked over to the window seat and pulled her to her feet. And as soon as she was in his arms, all that instant chemistry was back. The moment they touched—even though he was naked and she was fully dressed—he became fired up with lust.
‘Would you like me to change your mind for you?’
‘That’s not...fair,’ she mumbled unconvincingly as he began to stroke his finger over her neck beneath the thick fall of unbrushed hair.
‘I think you would,’ he murmured. ‘That’s the feeling I’m getting, loud and clear.’
‘We’re...we’re standing right in front of the window.’
‘It’s reflective from the outside,’ he growled. ‘Nobody can see in.’
He silenced any further words with his mouth, finding her lips with an urgent kind of hunger, achingly aware of the low groan which seemed to come from deep inside him. She kissed with a passion which made him silently curse and wonder how she could make him feel this way. Like it was the first time all over again. As if he’d never had sex with anyone else. His groin grew rock-hard and he closed his heart to further analysis. It was what it was. Why knock it before he had fully exploited it?
His hands on her hips, he backed her towards the nearest wall and wondered if this might bring her to her senses. If she’d tell him to get his hands off her and announce she was going to break her contract, because they couldn’t keep having indiscriminate sex like this, as boss and employee. And didn’t part of him want that? Wouldn’t he have respected her more if she’d done that—shown some fire and spirit and strength—if she’d morphed back into the pure virgin he’d once known and respected? But she didn’t. She did what every woman who ever came near him did. Flung her arms around his neck and positioned herself with an effortless tilt of her pelvis, so that the removal of her trousers became almost seamless.
Her panties slid to the floor and she bucked as he touched her. He wanted to explode as he moved his hand away from her wet heat to fetch another condom, but the action wasn’t made any easier by the frantic way Emily was circling her hips. With a swift, delaying kiss he pushed her away and walked over to find what he was looking for, tearing open the foil as he reached her again. Bending his head to her peaking nipple, he slid one hand between her thighs. He wanted to instruct her to put the rubber on for him, but already he seemed so close to coming that he suspected her trembling fingers might end it all too quickly and the risk of that was something he wouldn’t tolerate.
It seemed to take for ever, but at last he was able to push deep inside her and the loud groan he heard reverberating around the high-ceilinged room was all his. He rocked into her—over and over—and it was hard and fast and elemental. He heard her choked sob as she began to come but his own orgasm was upon him almost immediately. Swamped by the pulsing tide of pleasure and fatigued by the lethargy which instantly swept over him, he slumped against her, his breath fanning her neck. Long seconds passed—or it might have been minutes—until he had the strength to lift his head to study her. To brush away her ruffled hair as he bent his lips to her ear.
‘So. Are you going to marry me, Emily?’
Emily told herself to say no. To protect herself from his powerful allure and from her own weakness and susceptibility to him. But no words came. Only a stupid rush of pleasure at the thought of being his wife. Something painful twisted deep inside her, because she realised that she had walked straight into a trap of her own making. She’d proposed a marriage of convenience because she’d thought it could help advance his political aspirations and, now that the chips were down, she couldn’t bear the thought of some other woman wearing his ring.
So could she risk marrying him, despite the fact that once she’d loved him and she suspected that a lot of that love was still there? Because if she agreed to become his bride it was imperative she keep that fact secret, or she would be at a tactical disadvantage. Far better to focus on the material advantages of becoming Señora Sabato and allow Alej to think she was motivated by nothing more threatening than avarice.
‘I guess it’s too good an offer to turn down,’ she said, injecting her voice with a deliberate note of greed.
As if on cue, a cold light flared in his green eyes. ‘Of course it is.’
‘How much are you offering me?’ she continued, forcing herself to play the game. ‘How much do you think I’m worth?’
‘The two things are not necessarily the same.’ A hard light came into his eyes as, slowly, he told her just how much he was prepared to pay.
Emily swallowed, the game momentarily forgotten. ‘Gosh,’ she said faintly. ‘I guess only an idiot would refuse that kind of money.’
‘Or someone with principles, perhaps—which have clearly bypassed you along the way,’ he responded cuttingly. ‘What kind of a wedding do you want, Emily?’
The kind where the groom is looking at me with love, not with a mixture of scorn and lust. The kind which is destined to last for ever.
But Emily pushed the hopeless thoughts away and shrugged, determined not to communicate the sudden hopeless ache in her heart. ‘If we’re going to go through with a meaningless ceremony, we might as well do it in style,’ she said briskly. ‘I mean, I think a church service would be a step too far, but there’s no reason why we can’t go the whole hog with a white dress and flowers and all the attendant razzmatazz. That’s the kind of story which the press love—and this is all about publicity, isn’t it? And in the meantime...’ She cleared her throat. ‘We really ought to have an engagement ring to add credibility.’