Her Exquisite Surrender: Surrendering All But Her Heart / Innocent in the Ivory Tower / Full Surrender

Natalie’s eyes came back to his. ‘The truth about you hating me and wanting revenge?’ she asked with an arch look.

His dark brown eyes gleamed. ‘I could hardly tell my parents I hate you, now, could I?’

‘What did you tell them?’

His eyes kept on holding hers. ‘I told them I had never stopped loving you,’ he said.

She moistened her lips. ‘And they … believed you?’

‘They seemed to,’ he said. ‘Although the real test will be when they see us together. My mother, in particular, is a hard person to fool. You’ll have to be on your toes with her.’

Natalie felt her insides quake at the thought of interacting with his parents and other members of his family. How would she do it? How would she play the role of a happy bride without revealing the truth of how things were between them? How long before someone guessed? How long before it was splashed all over the newspapers?

‘Why do we have to get married?’ she asked. ‘Why couldn’t we just have an … an affair?’

Those unfathomable brown eyes measured hers. ‘Is that what you want?’ he asked. ‘An affair?’

She ran her tongue over her lips again. ‘No more than I want to marry you. I was just making a point,’ she said. ‘It seems a bit over the top to go to all the trouble of getting married when ultimately we know it’s going to end in divorce.’

‘You seem very sure it will end in divorce,’ he said.

Natalie’s heart fluttered like fast moving wings against her breastbone. ‘You can’t want to be tied to me indefinitely?’

His eyes moved over her leisurely. ‘Who knows? You might like being married to me,’ he said. ‘There will be numerous benefits to wearing my ring and bearing my name.’

She sat up like a puppet suddenly jerked backwards. ‘I don’t want your name,’ she said. ‘I’m perfectly happy with my own.’

A steely glint came into his eyes. ‘You will take my name,’ he said. ‘And you will be proud of it.’

She glowered at him, her whole body trembling with anger. ‘I will not change my name.’

Angelo’s eyes warred with hers. ‘You will do what I tell you to do,’ he said, his voice low but no less forceful.

Natalie stood up so abruptly her chair knocked against the one behind it. Every eye turned to look at her but she was beyond caring. She tossed her napkin down on the table and scooped her purse up with the other.

‘Find yourself another wife,’ she said, and stormed out.

A camera went off in her face as soon as she stepped outside the restaurant.

‘Miss Armitage?’ A journalist pushed a microphone close. ‘Can we have an exclusive on your current relationship with Angelo Bellandini?’

Natalie tried to avoid the reporter, but another member of the paparazzi cut her off as she tried to escape.

‘We notice you’re not wearing an engagement ring,’ he said. ‘Does that mean the wedding’s off?’

‘I …’

Angelo’s arm came around her protectively and he gently led her away from the throng. ‘Please give my fiancée some space,’ he said.

‘Mr Bellandini, do you have a comment to make on your engagement to Miss Armitage?’ the first journalist asked.

Angelo’s arm tightened around her waist a fraction. ‘The wedding is going ahead as planned,’ he said. ‘I have an engagement ring already picked out for Natalie. I am giving it to her tonight when we get home. Now, please leave us to celebrate our engagement in privacy.’

Natalie was ushered to Angelo’s car without further intrusion from the press. She sat back in her seat, her fingers white-knuckled around her purse.

‘Don’t ever do that again,’ Angelo said as he fired the engine.

She threw him a cutting glance. ‘I am not going to be ordered around by you.’

His hands gripped the steering wheel as tightly as she was clutching her purse. His knuckles looked as if they were going to burst through the skin.

‘I will not tolerate you flouncing out on me like a spoilt child,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Do you have no sense of propriety? You do realise that little scene will be all over the papers tomorrow? What were you thinking?’

Natalie gave her head a toss. ‘I’m not going to be bullied into changing my name.’

‘Fine,’ he said. ‘It’s obviously a sore point with you. I’m prepared to compromise. I should’ve realised how important it was to you. It’s your trademark.’ He paused for a beat. ‘I’m sorry.’

She slowly loosened her grip on her purse. ‘Are the press always that intrusive?’ she asked.

He let out a breath in a sigh. ‘I hardly notice it any more,’ he said. ‘But, yes, they are. It won’t last for ever. They’ll lose interest once we’re married.’

Natalie frowned as she looked at him. ‘I hope people don’t think I’m marrying you for your money.’

His lips lifted in the slightest of smiles. ‘No, cara, they’ll think it’s my body you are after.’

She turned away to stare at the passing scenery, her lower body flickering with a pulse she had thought long ago quelled. ‘I’m not going to sleep with you, Angelo,’ she said.

‘Are you saying that to convince me or yourself?’ he asked.

Natalie couldn’t have answered either way, so she changed the subject. ‘Have you really got an engagement ring?’ she asked.

‘I have.’

‘Do you not think I might have liked to choose it for myself?’

He threw her an exasperated look. ‘In my family it’s traditional for the man to choose the engagement ring,’ he said.

She toyed with the catch on her purse for a moment or two. ‘It’s not the same one you bought five years ago, is it?’ she asked.

‘No,’ he said.

She sneaked a glance at him but his expression was inscrutable. ‘Did you give it to someone else?’ she asked. ‘As a present or something?’

He brought the car to a standstill outside her house before he answered. ‘I donated it to a charity for their silent auction,’ he said. ‘There’s some lucky girl out there now wearing a ring that cost more than most people’s houses.’

Natalie chewed at the inside of her mouth. ‘I never asked you to spend that amount of money on me.’

His swung his gaze to hers. ‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ he said. ‘But then it wasn’t money you wanted from me, was it?’