The Italian Proposal: His Virgin Acquisition / Her Little White Lie

It was the absolute truth. Marco had no intention of becoming some woman’s meal ticket for eighteen years, and he was totally scrupulous in his sexual practices for both the sake of his health and his checkbook. But that didn’t mean that some of his mistresses hadn’t tried to find a way around the precautions. He’d caught one woman with an open box of condoms and a needle, and he’d watched as she’d put a tiny puncture in each plastic packet before putting them neatly back into the box.

Then there had been the woman who’d tried to pass another man’s baby off as his. Never mind that she’d been eight weeks along and he’d only known her for two.

He was well familiar with the female mind and how it worked. Financial security and wealth was the highest goal for the vast majority of the fairer sex. His own mother had prized it above everything, even her two children.

“Well, you won’t be practicing any sort of sex with me,” she said, twin spots of color high on her cheekbones.

Her prim exterior amused him—especially knowing what he did about her. She made for a very intriguing challenge.

“What exactly are your other terms and conditions?” she said tartly, as if reading the tenor of his thoughts.

“Simple. I’m only agreeing to this for the benefit of my company. I need to be sure that I’ll be gaining much more than I would lose by forfeiting Chapman Electronics. That means I need you on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.”

Elaine didn’t like the sound of that, although the odd fluttering in her stomach seemed to indicate otherwise. “What am I on call for?”

“Business functions, personal dinners. Whatever I might need my wife for.”

“What about my job…my life?”

“I thought the company was the most important thing in your life.”

Desire burned in her chest. Desire to prove herself to her father, to everyone. “It is.”

“Then that means for the next twelve months I’m your number one priority. I’m in negotiations right now with James Preston. He’s selling one of his resort properties in Hawaii, but he doesn’t want to turn it over to someone who might turn his nice family vacation spot into some debauched spring break hangout.”

“Which is why you need a wife,” she said, feeling triumphant.

The corners of his sexy mouth twitched with humor. “It’s why a wife will be useful to me, yes.”

“So I’m supposed to be evidence of your transformation from playboy to doting husband?”

“Something like that.”

Oddly, she felt a little indignant for Marco. His personal life had nothing to do with what a good businessman he was. Apparently not even men were exempt from the archaic viewpoints of others. Not that she condoned the way Marco treated women, but it was still separate from how he ran his business.

“So it seems like we need each other,” she said.

“It isn’t a necessity for me. I want the resort just as I want to experience a profit increase, but you’re the only one who really needs this arrangement. Don’t forget that.”

“You mean I should remember that when you pull me out of work in the middle of the day and drag me off to some art gala at which you expect me to play trophy wife?”

A slow grin spread across his face. Her heart beat a little bit faster. “Something like that.”

* * *

“What is this?” Elaine slapped the thick stack of documents onto Marco’s pristine walnut desk.

He didn’t look up from his computer screen. “The prenuptial agreement that my lawyer drafted. Or was that not made clear by the heading?”

“Oh, that was made perfectly clear. It’s this.” She picked the papers back up and rifled through them before setting them down again. “This is what I’m talking about!”

He flicked the offending lines a glance. “The infidelity clause?”

“Is that its official title?” She’d never been so angry in her entire life—and that included the day she’d confronted Daniel the Rat about the salacious rumors he’d spread about her. “If I have an affair I lose the company, yet there are absolutely no limitations imposed on you! It’s a blatant, unrepentant double standard!”

His dark eyes collided with hers; the heat of his gaze warmed her whole body. Rage was coursing through her veins, nearly blinding her with a red mist, and still he was making her body tingle with anticipation for something she didn’t even have a name for.

“If that’s how you see it.” He shrugged in a classically Latin manner. “I see it as protecting my…” he looked her over her in a way that made her squirm “…assets.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to disguise her stinging nipples. “I’m not your asset! We are supposed to be a team!”

He stood and rounded the desk, the sheer height and breadth of him as awe inspiring as it was intimidating. “No, Ms. Chapman, we are not a team. Do I need to remind you, yet again, that I’m the dominant party here? That means that you will do as I say.” He picked the prenuptial agreement up from his desk. “You will remain out of other men’s beds for the duration of our marriage. If you need sex, you get it from me. If there’s even a hint or rumor of impropriety on your part the company stays with the De Luca Corporation.”

She tried to fight the hot tide of embarrassment that washed through her. What was it about this man that rattled her so? “And what about you? You’re still free to do whatever you want?”

He nodded, his jaw fixed. “With whoever I want, as I recall.”

“That is the most disgusting double standard I have ever heard! You didn’t mention this a few days ago when we were discussing ‘terms and conditions’.”

“I’m simply covering every possible eventuality. I can’t afford to have my wife seen with other men. In a real marriage it would never happen. No woman runs around on me. And I don’t share.”

“Then neither do I. Enjoy the next twelve months of celibacy.”

“And you think you can resist me?”

She laughed. “No question.”

He hauled her to him, pressing her breasts against the muscled wall of his chest. “I don’t believe that.” His lips crashed down on hers, his tongue pushing past her lips and tangling with hers.

She couldn’t resist. She didn’t want to. She just wanted this moment, this heady, sensual moment, so far removed from her normal life.

He lowered his hands to her bottom and pulled her tightly against his body, pressing his erection against her belly. She gasped and moved against him, enjoying the electrifying sensations pulsing through her, exulting in the fact that he was as turned on as she was. That she had been the one to turn him on.

Her breasts ached for his touch, their shameless peaks announcing to him just how aroused she was. A pulse throbbed hard between her thighs. She wanted him. She wanted him to show her everything she’d never even cared to learn about. Everything she’d always steadfastly ignored about herself and about men.

She moved her hands over the muscles on his back, then around to his chest. He was so firm. So hot. So perfect. Just what a man should feel like. She wanted to feel his body without layers of clothing between them. She wanted… .

She pulled away from him and jumped back as if she’d been burned. “I’m sorry,” she said.

Her lips felt tight and swollen, her breathing was ragged, and she knew some of her hair had escaped the confines of her bun.

“There isn’t anything to be sorry about. We’re going to be married in two weeks’ time. We might as well sleep together. It would add to the convenience.”

It was the last part that kept her from saying yes. Without that scathing reminder that it would mean nothing to him she might have agreed. But there was no way she could view sex as casually as he did. She didn’t have the experience or the sophistication to treat it as a recreational activity. Combined with the fact that she simply didn’t have the time to devote to discovering her sexuality.

“I can’t do that. I don’t…I don’t see sex as a convenience.” She took a breath, trying to conjure up that steely businesswoman she knew lived inside her somewhere. “What I mean is, I don’t sleep around.”

Marco stared at her flushed face, her red lips, her eyes still dark from passion. She wanted him, even if she couldn’t admit it yet. Or perhaps she was holding out until she felt it was most advantageous for her to give in. “That’s fine. But the clause stays in. If you want sex, you get it from your husband.”