He stared at her for a moment in the firelight.
“Let me show you.”
Turning, he picked up the silver hairbrush from the tray. He took her unresisting hand and led her back to the bed.
No, she tried to say, but her lips wouldn’t form the word.
He set her down on the edge of the enormous bed, sitting behind her. With his long, thick fingers, he pulled her dark hair out of the chignon. Slowly he used the brush, softly stroking her hair.
She shivered. Across the room, she could see their reflection in the vanity mirror. What would that mirror reveal if she followed her desire? If she pushed him back against the bed and kissed him hard on the mouth? What would their reflection show if she pressed the softness of her body against his strength, and told him what he somehow already knew—that she was his?
In the intimate portrait of the mirror, she could see the firelight glowing on her skin, on the silver brush, on the sharp lines of his cheekbone and jaw. They looked like any newly married couple on their honeymoon. Protected from the winter’s cold, their bedroom was a candle in the dark, bursting with warmth and light.
She clasped her hands together tightly, staring down at the white knuckles of her fingers. The gentle pleasure of the brush stroking her hair was intolerable. She wanted him so badly that she could hardly bear the sweet agony of remaining still.
She had to stop this. Now.
“Stop.”
Instantly the brush stilled.
She closed her eyes. Telling herself it would just be for a moment, she leaned back against his chest. Putting the brush aside, he wrapped his arms around her. For one exquisite moment, she allowed herself to feel safe and warm, encircled by his protective embrace.
Not protective, she realized.
Deadly. Poisonous.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
He turned her against him on the bed. His face was darkly handsome, and when he spoke, his voice was as commanding and deep as a medieval king’s. “You deserve to feel alive again, cara.” He ran his hand down the valley between her breasts to rest on her belly. “To feel like the desirable woman you are.”
He lowered his head to kiss her cheek. The crook of her neck. Raising her chin, he lowered his lips to her own.
Lucy didn’t want to resist. She couldn’t fight both him and herself…
She had to!
Give herself to a playboy who was incapable of love?
Give herself to a vengeful brute who planned to divorce her before her grandfather was cold in his grave?
“No,” she cried, wrenching away. “I—can’t!”
He looked into her face. Flickers of firelight gleamed in his expressive eyes.
Slowly he gave her a single nod.
“Bene, cara. One night. I give it to you as a gift. One night to grieve what you’ve lost.” He turned to face the other side of the bed. “Tomorrow, we start anew. In Rome.”
“Rome?” Her teeth chattered with relief. “What’s in Rome?”
“Your revenge,” he said. “Against Alexander Wentworth.”
CHAPTER TEN
HEART in her throat, Lucy turned to Maximo as he slid in next to her in the backseat of the silver Maserati Quattroporte the next morning.
“I can’t make Alexander sign this.” She shook the legal documents that would terminate his parental rights forever, then stuffed them angrily into her sleek alligator satchel. “I’m telling you right now. Once I show him Chloe’s picture, he’ll come to his senses and demand to be her father.”