‘Finish what you were going to say.’
‘Why? There’s no point, is there?’ Her shimmering blue eyes caught his, scanning them, hunting them for answers. ‘You’ve already made your decision.’
‘My first decision, yes,’ he agreed. ‘I want no part of any marriage.’ Was she imagining the slight hesitation to his voice? Yes. Of course she was. Men like Luca Giovanardi didn’t hesitate about anything.
‘Then I’ll go,’ she whispered, accepting her fate, numb to the future that lay before her.
‘Not before you have explained some more,’ he insisted, with a firmness to his tone that made it almost impossible to argue.
But Olivia was used to being dictated to, and had learned how to harden herself to another’s commands. ‘Is there any point if you’ve made up your mind?’
‘We won’t know unless you try.’
Hope beat wings inside her chest, but she refused to let it carry her away. He was offering her a chance, but it was very slim. She searched for words yet her brain refused to cooperate. She groaned, turning back to the river.
‘Start with this,’ he suggested, the gentleness of his voice making her stomach churn. She hadn’t expected anything like that, from him. ‘How exactly did you imagine this marriage would work?’
It was something—a way in. But was he simply trying to make her understand how stupid the whole idea had been? She sucked in a deep breath and forced her nerves to slow down.
‘Well.’ She spoke slowly. ‘I thought a businesslike agreement would be best for the both of us.’
His brows shot up. ‘A businesslike marriage? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?’
‘Not for people like you and me?’
‘And what exactly are we like, bella?’
‘Please, don’t call me that. My name is Olivia.’
He nodded, brushing aside her request.
‘Both fundamentally opposed to marriage.’ She returned to her original train of thought. ‘You don’t want a wife, and I don’t want a husband. Therefore, we can dictate the terms of our marriage, making sure they suit us completely.’
‘And what terms would you suggest?’
Something like danger prickled along her skin. Desires she had no business feeling, let alone voicing, spliced her in half. She did everything she could to ignore them. After all, desire was at the root of her mother’s downfall. Love. Allowing herself to be swept up in a man’s promises, a man’s charisma, blinding her to reality, had led to Olivia’s mother’s life of misery—Olivia never intended to be so foolish.
‘That’s the beauty of what I’m offering,’ she said quietly, trying to pick up the threads of the speech she’d prepared on the flight over. ‘This would be a marriage in name only. I’d live in England, you’d live in Italy, and when a suitable amount of time had passed, we would quietly, simply file for divorce. After our wedding day, we’d never have to see one another again.’
He studied her in a way that sent little barbs running through her body. His eyes seemed to see everything, to perceive everything, so years of practice hiding her emotion no longer seemed to serve her. She struggled to maintain a mask of composure in the face of his obvious interest.
‘I can see you’ve thought this through, but you’ve miscalculated. The promise of your name is not enough to induce me into marriage, with you, or anyone.’
She swept her eyes shut, failure inevitable now. ‘I see.’
‘You said that if you don’t inherit, your portion of the family fortune goes to a cousin. Do you know this person?’
She shuddered involuntarily. ‘Yes.’
‘Is he the kind of person who would act in self-interest, to secure this inheritance?’
She bit into her lower lip. ‘He would only stand to inherit if you and I don’t get married.’
‘Or...’ he let the word hang between them ‘...if he challenged the validity of our marriage.’
She blinked up at him. ‘But—could he do that?’
‘It is my experience that people are capable of all sorts of things, when large sums of money are involved.’