Because she had the terrible suspicion that the only enchantment around here was him.
“I was just wondering how many lives could have been made better for the price of this ring,” she blurted out, because she had to say something and his golden gaze was scalding her. She could feel it there between her legs, where she was already too soft and too hot.
“You are known to be one of the foremost champions of sustainability,” he replied, his tone deeply sardonic. She bristled, but he didn’t wait for her to shoot something back at him. “That is, naturally, why I didn’t buy you a new ring. I thought you would appreciate that it is an heirloom. I thought that was your stock-in-trade?”
He didn’t wait for her to respond to that, either. He nodded off to the side and staff appeared at once to present them with coats to ward off the brooding autumn night outside.
It took her the whole way down in the elevator, fuming, to remind herself that she only had a few days left before the wedding. There had to be a way to get him to break this off before it got that far. She hoped that tonight’s gala would provide her with the perfect opportunity to nudge him in that direction.
Annika didn’t necessarily enjoy making a fool out of herself. But since she managed to do it all the time without meaning to, why not do it on purpose? She daydreamed about simply...having her life back. Endless, easy days in the museum. Retreating into her apartment. The odd meal out with friends without the assault of flashing cameras everywhere she turned.
It sounded lovely, that life she’d lost.
Out in front of his building, Ranieri helped her into the car, then climbed in after her. And then there they sat, cocooned together in the warm, plush darkness.
She could feel her pulse take her over, as if she was about to have a heart attack. Annika thought that sounded like a lovely reprieve, given what was actually happening to her.
“It was never my intention to remain faithful to a bride I did not choose for myself and, indeed, never would have chosen at all,” Ranieri announced.
Almost conversationally.
And it was the oddest thing. Annika had given absolutely no thought to fidelity in this relationship at all. Mostly because she didn’t accept that they were in a relationship, that kiss notwithstanding. And as much as she might have thought, in a gauzy sort of fashion, that should she ever find herself married she would require an appropriate level of faithfulness...she still couldn’t quite believe she was going to have to marry this man.
Is the problem that youhave tomarry him?a voice inside her asked, too knowingly.Or that there is no small part of you that thinks, just maybe, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world?
She shoved that thought away, feeling betrayed. By herself.
All of that raced through her head in the wake of his statement.
Followed by a searing burst of outrage that he had thought about all of those things himself and had decided that he would stray.
She couldn’t make sense of it.
“Thank you so much for informing me,” she murmured. Stiffly.
“I’m out of the habit of engaging sexually with women of your...” He turned his head and she was speared, suddenly, by all that gold.
“Education?” she supplied. A bit crisply. “Self-confidence? Disinterest in you?”
“But now I think perhaps that was unduly hasty.”
And once again, she found her throat had gone bone-dry.
“I would be perfectly happy if you would remain faithless,” she told him, even though something in her turned over in dismay as the words came out of her mouth. “That you pride yourself on being the master of all things yet would find it impossible to keep your wedding vows seems emblematic of you as a person, Ranieri. I wouldn’t want that ruined.”
His mouth curved slightly, acknowledging the jab. “I always keep my promises,” he told her. “I would have made it clear to you what I was and was not promising. I would not have snuck around, though any dalliances would never have been something you would need to confront during the course of our union. But the truth is, Annika, I think perhaps that you can meet my needs after all.”
“Yourneeds,” she repeated.
But she could hardly hear herself speak. Her pulse was a mad roar in her head. And a danger everywhere else.
And as if he knew it, Ranieri smiled, that little crook in the corner of his mouth. And then, making her pulse go wild inside her, he reached over and took her chin between his thumb and two fingers.
All he did was tilt her head toward him. But it felt to her like a clamp of impossible heat, not merely localized to her chin, but taking over the rest of her.
She couldn’t understand it.
But understanding did not appear to be required, not when he was holding her like that, so that the two of them were practically huddled together there in the back seat.