Читать книгу The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize - Maisey Yates - Страница 12

CHAPTER FOUR

“WHAT IS THIS?”

Gabriella came out of the bedroom positioned toward the back of his private jet. She was wearing her glasses, as instructed, her dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. She was also newly dressed in the outfit he had gone to great lengths to procure for her before his plane had departed this morning for Isolo D’Oro. Well, one of the palace servants had gone to great lengths to procure it. He had taken a rather leisurely breakfast during which he had checked his stocks and made sure that things were running smoothly back at his office in Manhattan.

“Your costume, Gabby,” he said.

Had she been an owl he was certain that at the moment her feathers would have been ruffled. “It isn’t very flattering.”

“Well, neither was the sweatshirt you were wearing when we met yesterday. But that did not seem to stop you from wearing it.”

“I was having a day at home. I had been sitting in the library reading.”

“Naturally.”

She frowned. “What does that mean?”

“You look like the type. That’s all.”

She shifted slightly, her frown deepening. “Yes, I suppose so. But I’m not entirely lacking in vanity. This...” She indicated the black dress pants, tapered closely to her skin—much more closely than he had anticipated—and the white blouse she was wearing, complete with a large pin that should have looked more at home on her grandmother than on her, but managed to look quite stylish. “This is not the kind of thing I’m used to wearing in public.”

She didn’t look like a princess—that much was true. But the outfit was not actually unflattering. The outfit was very nearly fashionable, albeit in a much lower-rent way than she was no doubt used to looking.

“What exactly is the problem with it?”

“The pants are very tight.”

“Their most redeeming feature in my opinion.”

He was rewarded with another of her blushes. “I do not like to draw attention to my body.”

“Believe me when I tell you this, Gabriella. You do not have to do anything to draw attention to your body. The very fact that it exists does draw attention to it.” He found it was true even as he spoke the words. He had not readily noticed her charms upon his arrival at the estate yesterday, but she was certainly not lacking in them. Her figure was not what was considered attractive these days. There was no careful definition of muscles earned through long hours in a gym. No gap between her thighs.

She was lush. Soft. Average-size breasts that were remarkable if only because breasts always were, a slender waist and generously rounded hips. Hips that were currently being flaunted by the pants she was complaining about.

“Oh. Well. That is... Was that a compliment?”

“Yes. It was a good compliment.”

“Sorry. I’m not used to receiving compliments from men.”

He found that hard to believe. She was a princess. Moreover, she wasn’t unattractive. Usually one or the other was enough. “Do you ever leave the estate?”

“In truth, not that often.”

“That must be your problem. Otherwise, I imagine you would be inundated with compliments. Sincere and otherwise.”

“Why is that?”

“Because. You have quite a few things men would find desirable.”

“Money.”

“That is certainly one of the things. Though right now you could easily pass for a personal assistant. Which is exactly what we are going for.” He took a seat in one of the plush armchairs and picked up the mug of coffee he had poured himself earlier.

“What are the other things?”

“Your body. And its various charms. I thought I made that clear.”

She frowned. He expected her to...well, to get angry. Or shrink up against the wall like all bookish virgins should do. Instead, she walked through the plane and took the seat opposite from him, crossing her legs at the ankles and folding her hands in her lap. “You’re very blunt.”

“Yes. I find it frightens people. Which I very much enjoy.”

“I’m not certain if I’m blunt in quite the same way you are. But I do tend to say whatever pops into my mind. Often it’s about something unrelated to the situation. That also seems to frighten people. Men specifically.”

“The reason you don’t receive many compliments?”

“My mother always told me to keep conversation to the topic of the weather. But we live on an island. Unless a hurricane or tsunami is threatening, the weather isn’t all that interesting.”

“That’s the point. A great many men prefer their women to be dull on the inside and shiny on the outside.”

“You among them?”

He chuckled. “Oh, I am chief among them.”

She tilted her head to the side, a rather bemused and curious expression on her face. “Why is that?”

“Why is what, cara mia?”

“Why do so many men prefer their women to be quite the opposite of what one should prefer in a person?”

“Because. Those sorts of men, myself included, don’t want women for sparkling conversation. They want them for one thing, and one thing only.”

She sighed, a rather heavy, irritated sound. “I imagine you mean sex.”

He was momentarily surprised by her directness. Not that directness shocked him in any manner; it was simply that this kind of directness coming from her was shocking.

“Yes,” he said, not seeing why he shouldn’t be equally direct in return.

“Predictable. I suppose that’s why my mother is able to skip through life behaving so simply. She’s a prime example of what you’re talking about. Someone who is all sparkle and shine. My father no longer even possesses any shine. But I imagine in his case it’s the promise of money and an eventual payoff that bring women into his bed.”

“That sounds quite familiar to me.”

She studied him, a confused expression crossing her face. “But—and I’m speaking in a continued metaphor—you seem to be quite shiny.”

He laughed. No one had ever characterized him as shiny before. “I wasn’t thinking of myself. It’s true, I have my own set of charms that bring females into my bed. Money. Looks, so they tell me. But in this case I was thinking of my parents.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. It sounds very much like they would have been friends with yours.”

“Do your parents enjoy drugs, wild affairs and questionable fashion sense?”

He laughed, but this time the sound was bitter. “They liked nothing more. In fact, they loved it so much it killed them.”

She seemed to shrink in her seat, the regret on her face pronounced. “Oh. I’m sorry. I should not have made light of it. Not without knowing your background.”

He picked up his clear mug of coffee and turned it until the light coming from outside the plane window caught hold of the amber liquid, setting it ablaze. “One must make light of these things. Otherwise, it’s all darkness, isn’t it?”

“Some things are only dark, I fear.”

He shrugged, taking another drink. “They don’t have to be.”

“How did your parents die?”

The question struck him. She genuinely didn’t know. But then, it stood to reason. She’d had no idea who he was when they had first met. Rare was the person who didn’t know his entire family history before introducing themselves to him. She was an odd creature. And her cleverness was still off-putting. But he found small pieces of her to be a breath of fresh air he hadn’t realized he’d been craving.

“They died in a car accident,” he said. “They were having one of their legendary fights. Fueled by alcohol, drugs and a sexual affair. Basically, all of their favorite things combined into one great fiery ball of doom.”

“Oh. That’s awful.”

“Yes. I suppose it is. But I was very young. And not much a part of their lives.” He did his best to keep the memories of that night from crowding in. Snowy. The roads filled with ice. His parents shrieking obscenities. And a small boy standing out in the cold, looking lost and lonely. “I find them a tragedy. A cautionary tale. I might be a bit jaded, but I’m not a total libertine. I suppose I have their tragedy to thank for that.”

She nodded, as though she completely understood what he was talking about. He had no doubt she had little experience of libertines outside the pages of a book.

“If it weren’t for my parents,” she said, her words coming slowly, “who knows how I would be? It is their example that has kept me so firmly planted in the estate in Aceena. It’s their example that has caused me to crave a quieter existence.”

That surprised him. It seemed she did understand. At least a little bit better than he had guessed she might. A little bit better than most.

All of his siblings had started life with the same parents he had, and yet he had been the only one affected in quite this way.

His twin brothers were hellions. They were playboys who lived their lives entirely as they saw fit. At least, they had been before their respective true loves had come into their lives.

But always, they had lived with much more passion than Alex ever had. Even now that they had settled down, they continued to live with more passion and emotion than Alex would ever consider.

“Everything makes much more sense if you see life as a business,” he said, speaking the thought before he had decided he would.

“Do you think so?”

He nodded. “Yes. Business is sensible. Everyone is in it to make money. That’s the bottom line. Because of that, everyone’s motives are transparent from the beginning. They’re going to serve themselves. Sometimes favors are traded. Contracts are drawn up, terms are met.”

“A bit more clear-cut than people,” she said.

“I’ve always found it slightly strange that divorce is much easier than breaking a business contract. If people took marriage as seriously as they took business deals, the world would be a different place.” He leaned back in his chair. “Of course, you could go about metaphorically hopping into bed with other partners after taking on exclusive deals with another. But you would quickly lose your credibility, and your business with it. It wouldn’t serve your bottom line. Personal relationships are much more murky. There is no common bottom line. I find that disturbing.”

“I see what you’re saying,” she said. “I hadn’t thought about it that way. But then, I suppose it’s because I don’t have a head for business.”