Wearing The De Angelis Ring

He tilted his head and noted the mutinous, challenging stare she returned.

‘And I didn’t think that I would be sitting here gazing at my devoted and adoring husband-to-be!’ Alexa retorted, because there was no reason for her to pretend that this was anything but a fiasco.

Besides, the man was so good-looking that he might just be arrogant enough to think that she actually wanted to be in this position.

She felt she should rid him of any such assumption from the start.

‘So I’m assuming...’ he rose fluidly from the chair to refill her glass with more champagne before topping his up with more of the whisky he had been drinking ‘...that we’re both singing from the same song sheet?’

‘What did you expect?’ Alexa threw at him, mouth downturned.

‘I could either answer that question truthfully or else ignore it altogether. Which would you rather?’

Alexa shrugged and tore her eyes away from his long, muscular frame. ‘We might just as well lay our cards on the table,’ she said.

‘In which case,’ Theo drawled, ‘I should tell you I had reached the conclusion that you might be a little desperate...considering Carlo is prepared to throw you in as part of his financial negotiations with my father...’

Slow, furious colour crawled into her cheeks.

‘You are the most arrogant man I think I have ever met in my entire life!’ Alexa said through gritted teeth.

She gauged the level of satisfaction she would get from flinging her glass at him, but decided that the only way to handle this disaster would be not to let him get to her.

She wasn’t going to lose her cool. She never lost her cool. It was what made her so good at what she did. She worked in the offices of a group of pro bono lawyers and daily dealt with people in need of practical and emotional help. Three evenings a week she volunteered at a women’s shelter. She was calm personified!

‘Since we’re about to be joined in happily married bliss, I suggest you take that on board and don’t think of implementing any changes.’

Theo was perversely enjoying himself, and he put that down to the sort of man he was. The sort who could deal with whatever was thrown at him, however unexpected.

‘And in return,’ he continued, in the same lazy dark drawl that made her toes curl, ‘I won’t try and turn you into someone charming and well behaved...’

Alexa glared and bit down hard on the riposte stinging her lips. She had no idea how she was going to survive twelve hours with this man, never mind twelve months.

‘I’ve spoken to my father,’ she gritted, ‘and he has agreed that we only have to carry out this crazy charade for twelve months. After that we can part company and you can return to your life of— You can return to your life and I can get back to mine.’

Theo wondered what she had been about to say but let it go. He, in actual fact, had secured a far better deal—because his twelve months also included a substantial acquisition of Caldini company shares and a seat on the board. It would tie in very nicely with his current diversion into telecommunications.

After the initial shock of the catastrophe that had been presented to him, he had very quickly reached the perfectly correct conclusion that marrying his daughter off was only one benefit for Carlo Caldini in helping his father.

The other was glaringly obvious.

Carlo Caldini ran a juggernaut of a family business but there was no male family member to whom he could leave his legacy—and, like many traditional Italians, he wanted his business to remain in the family. By marrying his daughter to Theo he netted one of the most wildly respected and formidable businessmen on the globe.

And for Theo, Alexa Caldini came with a considerable dowry.

‘So no doubt we should be discussing the mechanics,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that to the outside world we must be a loved-up pair about to embark on the greatest adventure of our lives. I will not have a whiff of scandal surrounding this, because under no circumstances is my father to be subjected to any manner of rumour about a convenient match concocted to save his company.’ His green eyes had cooled. ‘Are we one hundred per cent clear on this?’

‘Or else what?’

‘That’s a road I would seriously advise you not to go down.’

His voice was icy cold, with deadly intent, and Alexa shivered. Theo De Angelis had not reached the dizzy heights by being kind and avuncular. He’d probably never helped a little old lady cross a road in his entire life. She wondered how he would react to her world when they were man and wife...

‘When we’re in public,’ he purred silkily, ‘you will withdraw your claws. You can keep them for when we’re alone together.’

‘You might find that you don’t like being scratched.’ Alexa tilted her chin mutinously and he smiled—a slow, curling smile that did all sorts of weird and unexpected things to her body.

‘And you might discover that I’m very good when it comes to subduing wild cats.’

Suddenly confused, and feeling horribly out of her depth, Alexa blinked and gulped down the remainder of her champagne.

She might talk the talk, but how good would she be at walking the walk?

She had virtually no experience when it came to the opposite sex. She had been sent off to England to an all girls’ boarding school and from there to university, where she had buried herself in books, determined to get her law degree.

Of course there had been a couple of boyfriends, but neither had excited her and she had always been determined to hold out for the Right One—never to sell herself short. They had both cleared off as soon as they’d realised that she wasn’t going to hop into bed with them.

Now, as her bright blue eyes tangled with his cool, unreadable green ones, she knew that this was a predator, born to lead and accustomed to obedience.

Obedience she would give him—but only within the parameters that suited them both. If he didn’t want anyone getting wind of the real reason for their union she, in turn, did not want to embarrass her parents, whom she dearly loved.

He wanted her to put up a public front and she would—but the second they closed the door behind them there would be no more game-playing.

And suddenly a thought rippled through her that made her breathing quicken.

When the front door closed...what happened next?

It was something that she would have to broach, and she licked her lips nervously because the mere thought of this big, domineering man touching her sent her whole nervous system into instant meltdown.

He surely wouldn’t expect them to sleep together! Not when this was a farce—a marriage of convenience...a union in which there would be no love lost!

Her breathing steadied.

Panic over.

He might be arrogant and ruthless, but he wasn’t an idiot—and besides, she knew the sort of women he dated because she had seen pictures in some of the trashy magazines she had flicked through while she was getting her hair done.

Tall, blonde women who wore the minimum of clothing and whose full-time occupation appeared to be personal grooming.

‘You said that we need to discuss the mechanics of this...this arrangement...?’

‘Shall we do that over dinner—?’

‘Why? We might as well hash it out now.’