SHE was being ridiculous?
"You want me to be your wife?" Jodie repeated
slowly. "I’m sorry, but—"
"You Don’t want to marry — ever. Yes, I know,"
Lorenzo interrupted dismissively. "But this would not
be an ordinary marriage. I need a wife, and I need
one within the next few weeks. I have as little real
desire for a wife as you have for a husband — although
for different reasons. Therefore it seems to me that
you and I could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement.
I get the wife I need, and you, after we
have been married for twelve months, get a divorce
and…shall we say one million pounds?"
Jodie blinked and shook her head, not sure that she
had actually heard him correctly.
"You want me to agree to marry you and stay with
you for twelve months?"
"You will be well reimbursed for your time — and
it is only your time and your status as my wife that I
shall require. Your presence in my bed will not be
part of the arrangement."
"You’re crazy," Jodie told him flatly. "I Don’t know
anything about you, and I—"
"You know that I am prepared to pay you a million
pounds to be my wife. As for the rest…" He gave an
arrogant shrug of his powerful shoulders, and told her,
briefly and dismissively, "There will be time later for
me to explain to you everything you need to know."
By rights she ought to be scared to death, Jodie
decided. But, despite the fact that she was obviously
in the presence of a madman, for some reason the
main emotion that filled her was not fear but bemusement.
Bemusement and a certain sense that fate
had listened in to her secret thoughts and decided to
take a hand in her life. Here was the opportunity—
the man — her pride had ached for…
Was she mad? She surely couldn’t be thinking of
accepting his ridiculous proposition?
"If you want a wife that badly, surely there must
be someone—"
"Many someones," Lorenzo stopped her sardonically.
"Unfortunately they would all want what I do
not want to give — it is amazing how easily your sex
claims undying love when money and social position
are involved."
"You mean you would be targeted by fortune-
hunters?" Jodie guessed shrewdly. It was obvious, after
all — not just from his car and his clothes, but more
betrayingly from his manner — that he was wealthy.
"Is that why you want to marry me, because a fake
marriage will keep them at bay?"
"Not exactly."
"Then why?"
"It’s a condition of my late grandmother’s will that
I either marry within a certain time of her death or I
forfeit…something that means a great deal to me."
Jodie’s forehead crinkled into a small frown.
"But why on earth would she do that? I mean, either
she wanted you to inherit whatever it is or she
didn’t."
"The situation is more complex than that, and involves…
other issues. Let us just say that my grandmother
was persuaded to do something that she
thought was in my best interests by someone who was
following their own agenda."
Jodie waited for him to continue, but instead he
reached for her hand. "Give me your car keys and—"
She gave a small, determined shake of her head.
"No." If she wasn’t already totally off men for life,
this man and his unbelievable arrogance would surely
be enough to put her off them, she decided angrily.
But at the same time an insidiously tempting possibility
had begun to form inside her head. What if
she were to agree, on condition that Lorenzo escorted
her to John and Louise’s wedding? With the whole
village invited, two extra guests wouldn’t cause any
problems…and, yes, she admitted it, there was a part
of her that was sore enough and woman enough to
want to be there, showing the world and the newly
married couple that not only did she not care about
their betrayal, but that she had a new partner of her
own. wasn’t there a saying, "Living well is the best
revenge"? And how much better could a discarded
and unwanted fiance.e live than by showing off her
new, better-looking and far more eligible man? A
man, moreover, who desperately wanted to marry her!
She was wrenched out of this mental triumphant
return to the scene of her humiliation by Lorenzo’s
arrogantly disbelieving voice. "No?"
It was ridiculous that she could even contemplate
doing something so shallow, and it showed the effect
that just a few minutes in the company of a man like
Lorenzo was having on her. She was not going to let
herself listen to the urgings of her pride. Leaving it
and her conscience to wage war on one another with
an undignified exchange of inner accusations, she
tried to do the sensible thing, and told Lorenzo firmly,
"Even someone as…as arrogant and used to getting
what they want as you seem to be must see that what
You’re suggesting just isn’t—"
"A million isn’t enough? Is that what You’re trying
to say?"
Her face burned. "The money has nothing to do
with it." The cynical look he gave her at that made
her burst out angrily, "I can’t be bought. Not by John,
and certainly not by you."
"John?"
He hadn’t pounced so much as leapt on her small
betrayal, and now he was looking at her as she imagined
a large sleek cat might look at a mouse it was
enjoying tormenting.
But she was not a mouse, and she wasn’t going to
be either bullied or tormented by any man ever again.
She lifted her head and told him coolly, "My exfiance.
He offered me money, too, but he was offering
it out of guilt, because he didn’t want to marry me,
not as a bribe because he did. He wanted me to be
the one to break off our engagement, so that no one
could accuse him of dumping me. Obviously you both
share the same male mindset. Like you, he thought
that he could buy what he wanted, regardless of what
I might be feeling." Despite her attempt to appear unaffected
by what she was revealing, a mixture of sadness
and cynicism shadowed her eyes. Her mouth
twisted slightly as she added, "In a way, I suppose he
did me a favour. Knowing that he thought so little of
me that he would buy his way out of our relationship
made me realise that I was better off without him."
"But, despite that, you still want him."
The unemotional statement made her heart thud
nauseatingly inside her chest.
"No!" she said quickly. "I do not ""still want him""."
"So why have you run away, if it is not because
you are afraid of what you still feel for him?"
"I have not run away! I’m having a holiday, and
when I go back…" The small involuntary movement
that caused her shoulders to droop as she contemplated
returning home was more telling that she realised.
When she went back — what? She had no job to
go back to. Not now. And no home — she had, after
all, sold her cottage, and even if she had not done so
she doubted that she would have wanted to live there,
with all its memories of her false happiness. But she
could go back with her head held high and on the arm
of a man she could truthfully say was going to become
her husband, she reminded herself.
And then what? He had already told her the marriage
was only to last twelve months.
Then she would shrug her shoulders and say, as so
many others did, that it hadn’t worked out. There was
far less shame in that than there was in being labelled
as a dumped reject.
"In twelve months" time you could go back with a
million pounds in your bank account," she heard
Lorenzo saying, as though he had read her mind.
It was so tempting to give in and agree. And she
resented him for putting her in a position where she
was tempted. What had she promised herself about
never being manipulated by a man again? Gritting her
teeth, Jodie pushed herself back from the edge of giving
in.
"If you really want a wife," she told him crossly,
"then why Don’t try finding one without using your
money? Someone who wants to marry you because
she loves you, and believes that in you she has found
a man who loves her back, a man she can respect and
trust, and…" She saw the way he was looking at her
and shook her head. "Oh, what’s the use? Men like
you and John are all the same. He only values the
kind of woman he can show off, the kind of woman
who makes other men envy him, and you only want
the kind of woman you can buy so that you can control
her and your relationship with her. Well, I am not
that kind of woman. And, no, I will not marry you."
As she turned away from him Lorenzo could feel
the anger surging through him. She was refusing him?
This…this too-thin nobody of a tourist — a woman
who had been rejected publicly by the man who had
promised to marry her? didn’t she realise just what
he was offering her or how fortunate she was?
Marriage to him would transform her instantly from
an unwanted dab of a woman into the wife of someone
wealthy enough to buy her ex-fiance. a hundred
thousand times over. She would instantly be raised to
a social height most women could only dream of, she
would be courted by the famous and the rich, and, if
she was intelligent enough to capitalise on what he
would be giving her when their marriage was over,
she could find herself a new husband. Any amount of
men would be only too willing to marry the woman
who had been selected by a man like him. All she
had to do in order to totally transform her life was
agree to be his wife.
And yet, instead of recognising her good fortune,
she was actually daring to take it upon herself to lecture
him! Well, she was no loss to him. She wouldn’t
have lasted a day, not even twelve hours once
Caterina had got her claws into her, and he was a fool
to have wasted his time on her in the first place. He
could drive down to the coast and find a dozen
women within one hour who would jump at the opportunity
she had turned down.
"Fine," he snapped, turning his back on Jodie as he
strode back towards the Ferrari.
He was leaving her here? He couldn’t — he
wouldn’t! Jodie’s eyes widened in mute shock as she
watched him walk away from her.
"No, wait!" she called out, as she stumbled anxiously
after him, gasping at the pain in her weak leg,
her anger giving way to a fear that was only slightly
alleviated when he eventually stopped and turned
round. "I need to get in touch with the car hire firm
and let them know what’s happened."
"They won’t be very happy about the fact that you
have damaged their vehicle. I hope you have brought
plenty of money with you," Lorenzo warned her
coldly.
"I’m insured," Jodie protested, but a cold, hard knot
of anxiety gripped her stomach as she remembered
her cousin warning her about the problems she would
face if she were to be involved in an accident.
"I doubt that will benefit you, especially when I
inform the authorities that you were driving on a private
road, and in doing so that you endangered not
just your own life but mine as well. You are going to
need a very good solicitor, and that will be very expensive."
"But that’s not true!" she protested. "You weren’t
even here when…"
Her voice trailed away as she saw the look in
his eyes.
"You’re trying to frighten me and — and blackmail
me!" she accused him.
He shrugged and continued to walk back to his car.
She watched helplessly as he opened the door, whilst
her emotions raged in impotent fury. He was the most
hateful, horrible man she had ever met — arrogant, selfish,
and the very last kind of man she would have
wanted to marry for any kind of reason. But a logical,
practical voice inside her head was pointing out that
it was late at night and she was miles from anywhere
down a private road, wholly dependent on the goodwill
of the man now about to leave her here.
He had started the engine and was pulling out to
drive past her. Panic filled her. She started to run towards
the car, gasping at the pain in her weak leg as
she flung herself at the driver’s door and banged on
it.
Expressionlessly, Lorenzo opened the window.
"All right, I’ll do it," she told him recklessly. "I’ll
marry you."
He was staring at her so impassively that she wondered
if he had changed his mind. Her heart started
hammering uncomfortably fast, making her feel
slightly sick.
"You’re agreeing to marry me?"
Jodie nodded her head, and then exhaled shakily in
relief as he pushed open the passenger door of the car
and said brusquely, "Give me your keys and wait here
whilst I get your things."
It was a warm night, but anxiety and exhaustion
were making her shiver slightly, so that her fingers
trembled against the impersonal hand he had stretched
out for her car keys. A prickle of unwanted sensation
raced up her arm, causing her to recoil from her physical
contact from him. He had long, elegant hands,
with lean, strong fingers — unlike John, who had had
somewhat plump hands with short fingers. The
knowledge that the stroke of those hands against a
woman"s body would deliver a dangerous level of
sensual pleasure pierced the thin skin of her defences,
making her emotional recoil from it even more intense
than her physical recoil from his touch.
Lorenzo frowned as he got out of the Ferrari and
strode over to Jodie’s hire car, unlocking the boot.
Her recoil from him had the hallmark of a kind of
sexual inexperience he had imagined no longer existed.
In fact, the last time he had seen a grown
woman recoil like that from a man"s casual touch had
been the last time he had visited his grandmother,
when he had sat with her watching one of the old
fashioned black and white films she’d loved so much.
He lived in a world peopled by the sophisticated, the
blase., the experienced, the rich and the aristocratic: a
world driven by cynicism and greed, by self-interest
and envy. Power did not go hand in hand with goodness,
as he had every reason to know. Jodie Oliver
wouldn’t survive a month in that world.
He shrugged away his thoughts. Her survival was
not his concern. He had other matters, another kind
of survival, to worry about, and she was merely the
instrument by which he would achieve that. Had he
genuinely wanted to marry her… His frown deepened.
What kind of thought was that? He had no desire
to marry anyone, much less a thin, wan-faced
young woman who had "broken heart" written all over
her.
He glanced down at the small case he had removed
from the boot of the car, and then went to check the
interior of the car itself.
"How long did you say you intended to stay away
from your home for?" he asked Jodie wryly as he
carried her things back to the Ferrari.
Jodie flushed at the implication she could hear in
his voice. "I have enough with me for my needs," she
told him defensively, adding with angry dignity, "And
there are such things as laundries, you know." She
wasn’t going to tell him that she had chosen her small
trolley case specifically because it was light enough
for her to lift, and that the last thing she had felt like
when she was packing had been bringing with her all
the pretty things she had bought for her honeymoon.
She felt the increase in weight of the car as Lorenzo
got back into the driver’s seat. There was a disconcerting
intimacy about being in a machine like this
one with a man who was so very much a man.
The scent of expensive leather reminded her poignantly
of an afternoon she had spent with John,
when he had gone to buy a new car and taken her
with him. They had visited showroom after showroom
as he admiringly inspected their top-of-the-range vehicles.
But none of them, no matter how expensive,
had come anywhere near being as luxurious as this
car, she thought now, her senses suddenly picking up
on the cool, subtle woody scent of male cologne
mixed with the very sensual smell of living, breathing
male flesh.
By the time she had finished absorbing the messages
with which her senses were bombarding her,
Lorenzo had reversed the Ferrari and turned it round.
"Where are we going?" she demanded uncertainly.
"To the Castillo."
The Castillo. It sounded impossibly grand. But five
minutes later, when she saw its steep escarpments rising
sharply up out of the rock face, she decided that
it was more barbaric than grand — like something left
over from another less civilised age. An age where
might was more valued than right; an age where a
man could take what he wanted simply because he
chose to do so. An age surely well suited to the man
seated next to her, she decided a little sourly.
They drove into the Castillo through a narrow
arched entrance, so evocative of the Middle Ages that
Jodie had to blink to dismiss her mental images of
chainmailed men at arms and heralds announcing
their arrival.
The empty courtyard was lit by the flames from
large metal sconces that threw moving shadows
against the imposing stone walls with their watching
narrow slit windows.
"What an extraordinary place," Jodie heard herself
saying apprehensively.
"The Castillo is a relic left over from a time when
men built fortresses rather than homes. I warn you, it
is every bit as inhospitable inside as it is out."
"You live here?" She couldn’t keep the dismay out
of her voice.
"I Don’t, but my grandmother did."
"So where…?" Jodie began, and then stopped uncertainly
as she saw the way his mouth was compressing.
It was obvious that he did not like her asking
so many questions. He had opened the door of
the car and she wrinkled her nose as she caught the
pungent smell of something burning. "Something’s on
fire," she told him.
Lorenzo shook his head. "It is merely the mixture
of wood and pitch that is used in the sconces. After
a while you will grow so accustomed to it that you
won’t even notice it," he added in a matter-of-fact
voice.
After a while? Did that mean that she was to live
here? Without electricity?
As though he had read her mind, Lorenzo informed
her, "My grandmother preferred the old-fashioned
way of life. Fortunately I was able to persuade her to
have a generator installed to provide electricity inside
the Castillo."
When one thought of an Italian castle one thought
of something out of a fairy tale, but this place was
nothing like that. Bleak and brooding, it made her
shudder just to look up at the granite walls.
"Come…"
Sitting in the Ferrari had caused her weak leg to
stiffen and seize up. Jodie could feel her face burning
as Lorenzo waited impatiently for her to get out of
her seat whilst he held the door open for her. The
agonising pain that shot through her leg as she finally
managed to do so made her bite down hard on her
bottom lip to stop herself from betraying what she
was feeling. John had hated anything that drew attention
to her infirmity, insisting that she always wore
jeans or trousers to hide the thinness of her leg with
its tell-tale scars.
"If you wear trousers no one is going to know that
there’s anything wrong with you," he had told her
more than once. Jodie could feel her throat closing
with painful tears. She had wanted so desperately to
hear him say to her that he didn’t care what she wore,
because he loved her so very much that every part of
her was equally precious to him. But, of course, men
were not like that. Louise had said as much when she
had explained to Jodie just why John preferred her.
"The trouble is, sweetie, that men Don’t like all that
disfigurement stuff. It makes them feel uncomfortable.
Plus, they want a woman they can show off—
not one they’ve got to apologise for."
"You mean some men Don’t," Jodie had corrected
her, with as much dignity as she could muster.
"Most men," Louise had insisted, before adding
bluntly, "After all, how many men besides John have
actually wanted so much as a date with you, Jodie?
Think about it. And let’s not forget," she had added,
pressing home her advantage, "any man is bound to
worry about what he’s going to have to face in the
future, with a wife who’s got health problems, from
a financial point of view alone."
"I haven’t got health problems," Jodie had objected.
"The hospital has given me a complete all-clear—"
"Because they can’t do any more for you. You told
me that yourself. Your leg is never going to be as it
was, is it? You get tired if you have to walk any
distance now — imagine how awful it would be for
poor John if in, say, ten years you needed to be in a
wheelchair. How would he cope? With the business
booming the way it is, John needs a wife who is a
social asset to him, not one who is going to be a
handicap. You really mustn’t be so selfish, Jodie.
John and I are trying to make this as easy for you as
we can."
It was the "John and I" that had done it, igniting
Jodie’s temper so that she had exploded and told her
one-time friend in no uncertain terms exactly what
she thought of both her and of John, ending up with,
"And, personally, the last kind of man I would want
to commit to is one so shallow that all he sees is what
lies on the surface. To be honest with you, Louise,
you’ve done me a big favour. If it hadn’t been for
you I might have gone ahead and married John with
out knowing how weak and unreliable he is. You obviously
aren’t as fussy in that regard as I am." She
had finished pointedly, "But I should be careful, if I
were you. After all, you won’t be young and glamorous
for ever, will you? And, since you’ve said yourself
that looks are so immensely important to John,
You’re going to have to live with the knowledge that
ultimately he may dump you for someone younger
and prettier."
She had been shaking from head to foot as she
walked away from Louise. And when John had turned
up on her doorstep less than an hour later, accusing
her of upsetting Louise, she hadn’t known whether to
laugh or to cry. In the end she had laughed. Somehow
it had seemed the better option.
It was then she had gone out and bought herself
the shortest denim miniskirt she could find. The accident
had not been her parents" fault, and she had
fought long and hard to be able to overcome her own
injuries. From now on, she had decided, she was going
to wear her scars with pride, and no man was
ever, ever again going to tell her to cover up her legs
because of them.
For ease of travelling, though, right now she was
wearing a pair of jeans — an old, faded pair of jeans
that made her look totally out of place next to
Lorenzo in his beautifully tailored suit, she thought,
as he propelled her across the courtyard and into a
cavernous baronial hall, his hand resting firmly on the
middle of her back.