Читать книгу Ruthless Revenge: Priceless Proposal - Emily McKay, Margaret Way - Страница 14
ОглавлениеCLIO LOOKED AROUND the ancient structure of the Parthenon and felt a measure of peace she hadn’t felt in a long time.
Christian’s wedding last night had been the most beautiful ceremony she had seen in a while.
Deciding to walk the short distance from the luxury hotel to view the ancient ruins up close was the best decision she had made.
The lunch on the terrace this afternoon with Rocco and Olivia, Zayed, Christian and his new bride Alessandra, and Stefan, had begun so well. She had felt like she was among friends.
Olivia had asked so many questions about when the four men and she had been at Columbia together over a decade ago, and Clio had regaled them with stories, glad to fill the brooding silence with chatter.
Until the discussion had turned to Clio’s own life.
What had Clio been up to all these years? Was Clio involved with anyone?
They had all been only polite questions from people who were interested in her life. But what did she have to tell them?
Turning around, she clicked a couple more pictures with her digital camera, marveled anew.
Her raised hand stilled as she saw the tall, wide frame of Stefan coming close. June sun shone behind him, leaving his defined face in shadows. His paper-thin white cotton shirt was buffeted against his broad frame, tapering against his waist. Even though he couldn’t see her, Clio dragged her gaze away from following down. She didn’t need to see his powerful thighs encased in jeans.
The whipcord tightness of his muscles, the tensile strength of his legs, the wide swathe of his shoulders and the way they narrowed down her world to him, she had noticed far too much of him already on their flight to Athens. The sheer luxury and scale of his private jet, which she’d learned was the closest thing to a home for him, had rendered her mute. But it was the man himself who had occupied her mind all through the flight.
All the while she had been packing for the trip, all through the limo ride to the private airstrip where he had been waiting, it had been easy to tell herself that she would see this through.
She still wanted to. Because what Jackson had done had poisoned her so much that she couldn’t look at her own reflection in the mirror without wanting to shatter it into a million shards.
It was the man she had gone to, to accomplish her revenge who continually disconcerted her.
Stefan had been nothing but courteous and concerned on the flight, if a bit preoccupied. And yet every time their gazes met or they accidentally touched, the moment arched and stretched, a latent energy pulsed until one of them looked away, or stepped back.
It was the last thing Clio wanted to face.
He came to a halt about a foot from her, watching her.
Feeling compelled to break the intense silence, she waved her hands around. “I can’t believe Christian obtained private and uncurtailed access to the Parthenon, of all places. Even I’m impressed by this show of power and status. Does Alessandra mean so much to him, then?”
For once, she was glad that there was no wistful note in her tone. Only open curiosity.
Stefan shrugged, a cold light in his eyes. It was like there was frost all around them even as the sun cast long shadows. “If Alessandra was the kind to be impressed by this, it would make sense. For all the success he has achieved, Christian has a chip on his shoulder about where he started in life.
“He doesn’t realize yet that Alessandra is one of those rare women who care nothing about his wealth or status.”
Clio blinked. It was her casual comment that a woman would be impressed by the power that clung to the Columbia Four that had made him look so coldly forbidding.
Did he still think of Serena, the woman who had so blithely broken his heart? Did he think all women were like her, that Clio was like her?
Of course he did, Clio realized. And she had only confirmed his view by going to him for help, by suggesting that she wanted to use that very power and status as her shield.
She couldn’t begin to care about Stefan’s opinion. Not when it was decided already, not when her self-esteem was in such tatters.
“Is he in love with her, do you think?” she said, turning her mind away from what lay ahead.
“I would have said no. But I have changed my opinion about Rocco and Olivia, so who knows?” He tucked his hands into his pockets and took a few more steps. “I didn’t realize running away was a habit of yours.”
The bland smile falling from her face, Clio looked up. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You did it that night at the Empire State Building instead of confronting that jerk. You did it today.”
“I did...no such thing.”
“Olivia said you looked like you were having an anxiety attack. She was concerned for you, just as I was.” There was almost a fond note in his tone for Rocco’s wife. “Why did you leave?”
“There seems to be a lot of friction between Christian and Rocco.”
“Rocco will need time to forgive Christian for tangling with his little sister. But the fact that he is here shows how much Alessandra means to him.”
“I felt like I was intruding.”
“Zayed and I were right there.”
“You are a part of each other’s lives. Rocco and Christian need your support to get through this rough patch. I’m little more than a stranger.”
“No. You and I know very well that you were actually a good buffer back there. Those stories you had of the four of us from Columbia made everyone laugh. Everyone took a collective breath.”
He reached her and tugged her hand into his. Instant charge crackled around them.
“You said the female students at Columbia used to be supremely envious of you and at the same time sugared you up so that they could get a tidbit about one of us. What did you call yourself?”
She had felt his gaze on her like a physical caress all through the lunch. Now it disconcerted her to know that he remembered every word she had said. The intensity of his attention kept her wondering what about her interested him so. “The Gateway to the Columbia Four.”
He smiled at that and warmth filled his gaze. “Rocco has been like a mad bull all this time but even he cracked a smile there. Then you were gone. I thought you had bolted.”
“And where would I go? By bringing me here aboard your private jet, you made sure I had nowhere to go except with you. You even had them unpack my stuff and take my passport. Do not manipulate me, Stefan.”
Ice coated his words. “I was doing it for your own good.”
Clio couldn’t back down. If she didn’t take a stand now, she never would. Their relationship or the facade of it, was a temporary one. But still, she wanted to set the right tone for it.
Never again would she let her sense of identity be lost in a man.
“Don’t presume to know it better than me.”
“But isn’t that what love-struck fiancés do, bella? Cater to your every need and whim? Cosset you in luxuries and act possessive? Know what’s good for you better than yourself?”
Clio flinched, the ease with which he used her history to make his point cruelly efficient.
The hardness didn’t budge from his expression. “We’re supposed to be falling in love even now. You think the world will buy that Stefan Bianco let his almost-intended fly economy on a commercial airline?”
“Maybe the world will think that Stefan Bianco finally met a woman who doesn’t fall at his feet?” she retorted, lifting her chin.
He smiled and ran a finger over her chin, a thoughtful expression on his face.
“How come you have no trouble putting me in place, bella?” Moving closer, he laid his hands on her bare shoulders and turned her toward the terrace. “Do you know how you looked from the terrace, Clio?”
Not trusting that she could find her voice, Clio shook her head. Even with the sun shining above them, the heat of his body behind her was like a caress.
She should move away, she knew. Stop him from continuing, at least. Cut this line of conversation before it began.
There was no space for personal observations or shared experiences between them. There was nothing but a common, twisted goal. But something in the honeyed tone of his voice locked the words in her throat.
His finger landed on her chin and tilted it up, facing away from the sun.
“Shall I tell you?”
He was taunting her. He knew that she was standing on the precipice of retreating. He was daring her, even as he was certain of her cowardice.
She had read that the Parthenon had served as a church, a mosque, even a munitions depot during the Turkish occupation of Greece.
Yet there it stood today, majestic, beautiful, a monument to one of the greatest civilizations of the world.
And she, she was afraid of hearing one man’s opinion of her. Was afraid of even facing the truth that was in his eyes.
Everything about her life was in ruins just like the Parthenon. But she decided to take the chance. Just for that moment, she would choose to be unafraid. She would pretend she had become the woman she wanted to be when she had set out for Columbia University.
She would pretend that when a man like Stefan Bianco looked at her, there was not resigned concern or eviscerating censure at what she had done to her life. But admiration and respect... The way he had looked at her once.
The base of his palm was hard and unyielding against her lower back. Her skin burned with every ridge and line leaving an imprint on her skin.
Turning toward him, she met his gaze, fighting the urge to pull away and to run far. “Tell me how I looked, Stefan.”
The green of his eyes widened just a bit. That she had surprised him, she clutched it to her like a reward for her bravery.
“With that cream dress only covering one shoulder, your hair flying behind you, the sun turning your skin golden, you looked like the goddess Athena herself. For a few seconds, you had me stunned. And it has been a while since I let myself believe in any kind of myth.”
Bitter laughter spilled from Clio’s mouth and got lost in the vastness around her. “Goddess Athena was supposed to have been fierce and brave. I’m nothing like her, Stefan.” Turning away from him, she sighed. “You were right. I ran away from the terrace because I couldn’t breathe there.”
“Why?”
“Let it go, Stefan.”
“No.”
“Haven’t you seen enough? Won’t you leave me with even a facade to hide behind?”
“No, I won’t. Better me than the whole world, bella, than the corrupt man you left behind. Jackson won’t meekly accept our engagement. There’s only going to be more—”
“Light on me, yeah? I know.”
How pathetic was she that for a minute she’d thought he insisted because he cared. How easily she fell into her own trap of wanting to matter...
She was nothing but a means to an end for Stefan. Just as she had been to Jackson. Only with Stefan, there were no lies, no deception.
“I saw Olivia Fitzgerald, the supermodel. I saw Alessandra Mondelli, world-famous photographer. Every woman who was in there was someone who had made a life for herself in the world, someone who carved a niche for what she exceled in. Then I caught my reflection in the jug. Who’d think a jug could do so much for you, right?”
And both women, while beautiful and successful, had men who respected them and loved them.
“Here I was sitting among some of the most accomplished women on the planet and what did I have to show for a decade of slogging, for a lifetime of walking away from a safe life...
“Nothing.
“I couldn’t stay another minute and puncture the happiness of so many people. I couldn’t forgive myself if I did that.
“Do you still see the goddess Athena, Stefan?”
His fingers tightened on her bare arms, his face fierce as he looked down at her. “You walked away from him. By your own words, you crawled out from the lowest point of your life and came to me. And you had enough guts to use what you saw in my face that night to your own advantage.
“I know what it takes to move ahead from that moment in which your heart shatters and there’s nothing but a hole in your chest.
“All you need to do now is stay the course and carve your life the way you want. And until you can wage your own battle, I’ll do it for you.”
His words were whispers that reverberated around them in the open space.
Clio nodded slowly.
For all the ruthlessness that had become second skin to him, Stefan was much kinder than a mirror. When she looked in his eyes, her own reflection held promise. Touched by a brave past that she had almost forgotten, it held hope.
He was using her and she was using him. It was the perfect relationship for two people who had been burned by love, who had had their hearts shattered and trodden upon.
A man who would love her unconditionally—she didn’t even know what that meant anymore. Maybe she had never deserved it.
But she so much wanted that day when she wouldn’t run away in shame, when she wouldn’t feel this cavernous emptiness inside at another woman’s success.
The day when she wasn’t an utter failure in life.
She sketched a bow in front of him, letting hope fill her entire body.
“Then I’m ready for training, Master.”
A matching smile curved his mouth and he returned her bow and then stepped back into an elaborate pose that had economic movements and slices through the air that were perfectly synchronous. “Let us begin, Clio.”
Shaking her head, Clio laughed. For anyone watching them from the hotel, they would look comical.
“If you tell me you’re like a black belt in karate or some such thing, I’ll have to knock your teeth in, Bianco. I can only take so much of your all-rounded macho perfection before I start choking on it.”
Grooves bracketed his serious mouth as he burst into laughter. With his hair falling onto his forehead, his stunning features bathed in sunlight, he looked like one of those warriors that could have conquered the Parthenon.
“All-rounded macho perfection?” he said, color bleeding into those sculpted cheeks.
Narrowing her eyes, Clio stepped toward him. “Let me look at you,” she mumbled, laughter bubbling up inside her. He shielded his face with his forearm and she pulled it down.
“Oh. My. God. You’re blushing.” She lifted her camera and clicked close-ups of him and he tried to grab it from her. Pushing back at his chest with one hand, which was like an impenetrable wall, she clicked some more.
She swung the camera away from him, still laughing. “There’s my fortune. Women of the world are going to be crazy for it. A shot of arrogant Sicilian Stefan Bianco doing something as mundane and human as blushing.”
A vein flickered in his temple, his mouth tight with laughter. “Stop it, bella.”
“Oh, come on. Like you don’t know your own appeal. Why do you think that model went nuts over you dumping her?”
“The regular gifts she was ordering for herself from Tiffany’s? The champagne and caviar and the trips to Paris and London and Hong Kong aboard my private jet? The modeling contracts she was getting offered by networking through me?”
The camera dangling from her raised hand, Clio went still.
He had become so cynical, she remembered Christian saying a few years after they had left Columbia. But to see that hardness become such an intrinsic part of him that he filtered everything in the world through that, it was such a sharp contrast to the man she had known.
Did he think there was nothing about him, the true him, that would appeal to a genuine woman? Or had he made it true by burying everything that had been so intrinsically good about him?
“You don’t believe that of all of them, do you, Stefan?”
“Of course not. Let’s not forget my masculine prowess,” he added with a wink that in no way belied the cold truth in his eyes.
Clio rolled her eyes and swatted his forearm, hiding the shiver that went through her.
“I’ll reduce my awesomeness into little doses for you, sì?” His English favored a stronger accent just then. “I know that you’re going all...fluttery inside—” he moved his hand in front of himself, encompassing his lean frame “—at the thought of having me all to yourself.”
More laughter spilled from her mouth as forgotten memories of him making a play for her at Columbia during that first year rushed forth. His attentions were almost a knee-jerk response to any moderately attractive woman.
Oh, she had had so much fun cutting him down to size every time he had tried it during that first year. Had missed the chance to put him down after he had fallen in love with Serena, though.
“Okay, that’s it, Bianco. You need to be pegged down a bit.”
His hands on his hips, his lush lower lip jutting out, he stared her down. “And you’re the woman for it, Norwood?”
Tingles swept through her at his open challenge, mocking as it was. “Of course I am. If not for me cutting you down to size, you would have grown a second head back when we were at uni.”
He grinned. “I do have a second head—”
Blushing and laughing, Clio clapped her hand over his mouth. Sharp teeth dug into the heel of her palm and she squealed.
Her tummy felt tight and achy, and tears ran down her face as he chased her and she ran, both of them hurling long forgotten challenges at each other.
How long had it been since she had laughed like this?
He had just caught her when they heard the whir of rotor blades.
The sound fractured the moment so effectively that she flinched. Instantly, Stefan pulled her behind him. Shocked at how low the chopper was flying and the long-range camera directed toward the terrace, Clio clutched Stefan’s shirt and hid her face in his muscled back.
A pithy curse fell from his mouth.
“Is this all so that they can have a story on Alessandra?” she asked, remembering the scandal that had haunted Rocco’s sister.
“Yes. But they won’t get anything on her as long as I have something to say about it.”
Her heart raced as the muscles of his back tensed under her fingers. “How? Even you can’t sprout wings and block the chopper.”
His arm shot out and pulled her forward. Tripping against her own feet, she fell onto Stefan. And jerked at the sudden male heat that surrounded her. His arm around her waist was like a muscular rope she couldn’t pry off her.
Warmth crawled up all over her body, the scent of him swirling around her, binding her to him.
“No, I can’t sprout wings, bella.” Slumberous heat came alive in his gaze. “But I have a beautiful woman next to me and I can give the hounds a juicier piece of meat first. By the time they’re through with us, Christian will have his own security armed and Alessandra protected from the worst of it.”
Realizing too late what he intended, Clio pushed away from his chest. “No, Stefan. There has to be another way.”
But he was as solid and impenetrable as the walls of the Parthenon. He clasped her face with his palms, and tilted it up toward him.
“Look at me, bella. Pretend like you can’t get enough of me.”
She didn’t have to pretend. The errant thought stole through her, inciting a panic. She didn’t have to pretend that she was already flailing, falling into the haze he cast over her senses with ease.
She struggled again and their legs tangled, the tensile, hard muscles of his thighs rubbing against hers.
The sound of his jagged exhale settled over her skin, while the whir of the rotor blades of the chopper above felt like a death knell.
Her breath left Clio in a dizzying whoosh, every inch of her thrumming and pulsing. “Wait...I...”
Words melted away from Clio’s lips as the pad of his thumb moved over her chin, traced the curve of her lower lip. “It’s just one kiss, bella. If you flinch every time I lay a finger on you, no one’s going to buy it, Clio. Least of all Jackson.”
Her breath hitched like a balloon inside her, crushing her chest with a weight she couldn’t bear... The last thing she wanted was a kiss and that, too, from the man who could so easily shred the small part of her that was still intact.
But the reminder didn’t work quite as well as it should have.
Because when he dipped his head and touched her lips, Clio felt her own walls tremble and quake, her skin burn with need and fire, felt the shudder that racked his wide, solid frame.
His lips were rough and soft, his jaw bristly against her skin, and his thick eyelashes not hiding his shocked expression for once.
“Cristo, bella,” he whispered, touching his forehead to hers.
His nose rubbed against hers, a strange intimacy growing around them.
“Stefan,” she begged, desperate to flee, but yearning to feel that rough mouth against hers again. Desperate to be touched again, desperate to feel his muscles tense. “Don’t do this.”
His fingers crawled over her nape and into her hair, his gaze almost angry. “I can’t stop, Clio. Not now.”
He slanted his mouth over hers and dragged it across.
Fiery need burst across the seam of her lips and Clio shuddered all over.
With a curse that resounded in the air, Stefan tightened his grip until her scalp prickled. Buried his nose in the crook of her neck and breathed.
“You smell like sunshine and oranges, bella. Dio, you taste like...”
Clio didn’t know what else he said. All the fight left her as he found her mouth again and devoured it with little bites and nips. Stroked and tasted her lips as if she was a feast to be savored.
Kissed her as if there was nothing else he wanted to do, as if nothing but her total surrender would do.
And Clio surrendered. To him and even more, to the desire inside her, both freeing and binding.
Their bodies fused to each other as they crossed a line they shouldn’t have.
A kiss they could never undo because it already engulfed them.
* * *
A day later, Clio and he were due to leave for New York in a couple of hours and the chasm of need that the kiss had ripped open felt just as raw to Stefan.
He had only meant the kiss as an evasion.
But one taste of her lush, pink, trembling mouth, and he had been knocked in the gut. All of the fantasies he had spun around her as a raging twenty-year-old became intoxicating reality.
Prowling the carpeted interior of his suite, he stared at the video coverage of the kiss that was already being aired on every site that fed on his life, his mood slowly spiraling out of his control.
Just as his libido did by the memories of her warm mouth, the scent of her skin, of the way she had shuddered and moaned when he tangled his tongue with hers.
Watching their kiss shouldn’t have been the most erotic experience he had ever had. Exhaling a pent-up breath, he acknowledged it was.
Christian and Alessandra’s wedding and reception had gone on without an ugly visit from the media, thanks to his diversionary tactics. But there was a betrayed look in Clio’s eyes that pierced him when she met his gaze now.
Like he had crossed an imaginary boundary between them.
And the fact that he could think of nothing but baring her completely to him, of removing the fear and self-doubt that had flashed in her eyes and replacing it with liquid lust, proved her right.
It had been a long time since a kiss had turned him inside out with need.
A long time since anything had touched him.
But he would have preferred if it had been anyone but her.
The short clip was already up on most celebrity gossip websites and spreading like a virus. The rabid speculation had begun.
His features had been distinctive. So the media knew it was him.
What they hadn’t figured out yet was her identity. And they were going crazy trying to figure out who the new woman in his life was, angling to find out who else was on the guest list at Christian’s wedding.
The press had dubbed her Bianco’s Redhead, a name he was sure the redhead in question was going to dislike, if not despise.
He grabbed the remote just as Rocco, wearing the blackest scowl Stefan had ever seen, entered the suite without knocking.
His gaze turned to the plasma screen on the far wall seconds before Stefan turned it off. The silence grew heavy, almost stifling, as Rocco, his oldest friend, studied him.
“Whatever you want to say, don’t,” Stefan snarled, his hackles rising at his friend’s continued silence.
“All four of us have treated the world and the women in it as our playground for years, true,” Rocco said, cutting straight to the point, “but I always thought there was still a bit of honor left in all of us. First Christian with Lessie, and now you and Clio... Dio, didn’t you find anyone else to play with other than our oldest friend, Stefan?”
Stefan had had every intention of telling his friends the utter truth. But now, his friend’s well-meaning interference locked the words in his throat. Even as the short clip was sweeping the internet like wildfire for all the world to see, to actually dissect their kiss with Rocco, to reveal Clio’s confidence and their deal, felt too private.
Too intimate to be shared.
Which in itself should have rung all his internal alarms like a damn gong.
He ran the heel of his palm against his jaw, striving for a casual tone. One kiss and it was like Mount Etna had erupted.
“I’m not playing with her.”
“No? In a decade, I have not seen you make one meaningful connection with another person, much less a woman. And you always had a thing for her. Damn it, you cannot play with and then discard Clio like you—”
“Enough, Rocco,” he said through gritted teeth.
Leashing his temper by the skin of his teeth, because no way did he want to betray how much that kiss had affected him, Stefan smiled at Rocco. “Just because you have settled into marital bliss with Olivia doesn’t mean you can expect us all to change colors already, fratello. Clio...she is safe from me.”
Grinning, Rocco clapped him on the back. And once again, Stefan wondered at how well love and Olivia suited Rocco.
He had never seen his friend so happy and at peace.
“You know I had to—”
“Not needed, Rocco,” Stefan said.
Rocco looked at him as if he wanted to say something more. Instead, he embraced Stefan and bid him goodbye.
Pouring himself a drink, Stefan went to the balcony.
Olivia and Clio were seated at the outdoor café on the ground floor.
Instantly Stefan shifted to see Clio better. She wasn’t laughing like Olivia but a smile curved her mouth. And something loosened in his chest.
He was glad she was smiling again. She had lost that awful pallor, that stricken, lost look she had had when she had come to his suite.
As if she could sense his eyes on her, she looked up.
Across the distance, their gazes held. Stefan raised his glass and she did the same with a nod.
The elegant set of her shoulders, the long fiery locks, the high cheekbones—everything about her drew his attention.
With a ruthless will, he pulled his gaze away from her and went back into his suite.
He couldn’t touch her again, couldn’t risk any complications. Women and sex were uncomplicated for him. It was the only way he had put himself together, the only way he had moved forward after Serena’s betrayal.
Clio, whatever state she was in, deserved a hell of lot more. He had nothing to give her except memories of what she had been, except to be her pretend strength to face a man he abhorred.
The only reason he had agreed to this was because he needed justice to be served for Marco. He needed her help to see through Jackson’s destruction.
Switching his phone on, he made a call to his PR guy and to his head of security, instructing him to leak her name as the woman in the clip.
The sooner they accomplished what they had come together for, the sooner Clio would be out of his life, untouched and unscathed.
