A Marriage Fit For A Sinner

‘Then his annihilation will come sooner rather than later.’

* * *

Half an hour later, Eva struggled to swallow a mouthful of buttered toast and quickly chased it down with a sip of tea before she choked.

A few minutes ago, a brooding Romeo had entered with the butler who’d delivered a stack of broadsheets. The other man had conversed in Italian with a freshly showered and even more visually devastating Zaccheo.

Zaccheo’s smile after the short exchange had incited her first panic-induced emotion. He’d said nothing after Romeo left. Instead he’d devoured a hearty plate of scrambled eggs, grilled mushrooms and smoked pancetta served on Italian bread with unsettling gusto.

But as the silence spread thick and cloying across the room she finally set her cup down and glanced to where he stood now at the end of the cherrywood dining table, his hands braced on his hips, an inscrutable expression on his face.

Again, Eva was struck by the change in him. Even now he was dressed more formally in dark grey trousers and a navy shirt with the sleeves rolled up, her eyes were drawn to the gladiator-like ruggedness of his physique.

‘Eva.’ Her name was a deep command. One she desperately wanted to ignore. It held a quiet triumph she didn’t want to acknowledge. The implications were more than she could stomach. She wasn’t one for burying her head in the sand, but if her father had done what Zaccheo had demanded, then—

‘Eva,’ he repeated. Sharper. Controlled but demanding.

Heart hammering, she glanced at him. ‘What?’

He stared back without blinking, his body deathly still. ‘Come here.’

Refusing to show how rattled she was, she stood, teetered on the heels she’d had no choice but to wear again, and strode towards him.

He tracked her with chilling precision, his eyes dropping to her hips for a charged second before he looked back up. Eva hated her body for reacting to that look, even as her breasts tingled and a blaze lit between her thighs.

Silently she cursed herself. She had no business reacting to that look, or to any man on any plane of emotion whatsoever. She had proof that path only ended in eviscerating heartache.

She stopped a few feet from him, made sure to place a dining chair between them. But the solid wood couldn’t stop her senses from reacting to his scent, or her nipples from furling into tight, needy buds when her gaze fell on the golden gleam of his throat revealed by the gap in his shirt. Quickly crossing her arms, she looked down at the newspapers.

That they’d made headlines was unmistakeable. Bold black letters and exclamation marks proclaimed Zaccheo’s antics. And as for that picture of them locked together...

‘I can’t believe you landed a helicopter in the middle of a fireworks display,’ she threw out, simply because it was easier than acknowledging the other words written on the page binding her to Zaccheo, insinuating they were something they would never be.

He looked from her face to the front-page picture showing him landing his helicopter during a particularly violent explosion. ‘Were you concerned for me?’ he mocked.

‘Of course not. You obviously don’t care about your own safety so why should I?’

A simmering silence followed, then he stalked closer. ‘I hope you intend to act a little more concerned towards my well-being once we’re married.’

Any intention of avoiding looking at him fled her mind. ‘Married? Don’t you think you’ve taken this far enough?’ she snapped.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You wanted to humiliate my father. Congratulations, you’ve made headlines in every single newspaper. Don’t you think it’s time to drop this?’

His eyes turned into pools of ice. ‘You think this is some sort of game?’ he enquired silkily.

‘What else can it be? If you really had the evidence you claim to have, why haven’t you handed it over to the police?’

‘You believe I’m bluffing?’ His voice was a sharp blade slicing through the air.

‘I believe you feel aggrieved.’

‘Really? And what else did you believe?’

Eva refused to quail beneath the look that threatened to cut her into pieces. ‘It’s clear you want to make some sort of statement about how you were treated by my father. You’ve done that now. Let it go.’

‘So your father did all this—’ he indicated the papers ‘—just to stop me throwing a childish tantrum? And what about you? Did you throw yourself at my feet to buy your family time to see how long my bluff would last?’

She flung her arms out in exasperation. ‘Come on, Zaccheo—’

They both stilled at her use of his name. Eva had no time to recover from the unwitting slip. Merciless fingers speared into her hair, much as they had last night, holding her captive as his thumb tilted her chin.

‘How far are you willing to go to get me to be reasonable? Or perhaps I should guess? After all, just last night you’d dropped to an all-time low of whoring yourself to a drunken boy in order to save your family.’ The thick condemnation feathered across her skin.

Rage flared in her belly, gave her the strength to remain upright. He stood close. Far too close. She stepped back, but only managed to wedge herself between the table and Zaccheo’s towering body. ‘As opposed to what? Whoring myself to a middle-aged criminal?’

He leaned down, crowding her further against the polished wood. ‘You know exactly how old I am. In fact, I recall precisely where we both were when the clock struck midnight on my thirtieth birthday. Or perhaps you need me to refresh your memory?’ His smooth, faintly accented voice trailed amused contempt.

‘Don’t bother—’

‘I’ll do it anyway, it’s no hardship,’ he offered, as if her sharp denial hadn’t been uttered. ‘We were newly engaged, and you were on your knees in front of my penthouse window, uncaring that anyone with a pair of decent binoculars would see us. All you cared about was getting your busy, greedy little hands on my belt, eager to rid me of my trousers so you could wish me a happy birthday in a way most men fantasise about.’

Her skin flushed with a wave of heat so strong, she feared spontaneous combustion. ‘That wasn’t my idea.’

One brow quirked. ‘Was it not?’

‘No, you dared me to do it.’

His mouth twitched. ‘Are you saying I forced you?’

Those clever fingers were drifting along her scalp, lazily caressing, lulling her into showing her vulnerability.

Eva sucked in a deep breath. ‘I’m saying I don’t want to talk about the past. I prefer to stick to the present.’

She didn’t want to remember how gullible she’d been back then, how stupidly eager to please, how excited she’d been that this god of a man, who could have any woman he wanted with a lazy crook of his finger, had pursued her, chosen her.

Even after learning the hard way that men in positions of power would do anything to stay in that power, that her two previous relationships had only been a means to an end for the men involved, she’d still allowed herself to believe Zaccheo wanted her for herself. Finding out that he was no better, that he only wanted her to secure a business deal, had delivered a blow she’d spent the better part of a year burying in a deep hole.

At first his demands had been subtle: a business dinner here, a charity event there—occasions she’d been proud and honoured to accompany him on. Until that fateful night when she’d overheard a handful of words that had had the power to sting like nothing else.

She’s the means to an end. Nothing more...

The conversation that had followed remained seared into her brain. Zaccheo, impatiently shutting her down, then brazenly admitting he’d said those words. That he’d used her.

Most especially, she recalled the savage pain in knowing she had got him so wrong, had almost given herself to a man who held such careless regard for her, and only cared about her pedigree.

And yet his shock when she’d returned his ring had made her wonder whether she’d done the right thing.