âWhen I take you to my bed this time, it will be far better than ever before.â
âI will never sign an agreement to that!â
âAnd Iâd never ask you to. This has nothing to do with the marriage deal. Iâm only letting you know I want you in my bed. And you will come. Because you want to. Because you want me.â
Her pupils fluctuated, her cheeks flushed. Proof positive of his claims.
Still she scoffed. âYou really have to see someone for that head of yours, before it snaps off your neck under its own weight.â
He buried his face in her neck, inhaled her, absorbing her shudder into his. âI donât want you in my bed. I need you there. Iâve craved you there for six long years.â
OLIVIA GATES has always pursued creative passions such as singing and handicrafts. She still does, but only one of her passions grew gratifying enough, consuming enough, to become an ongoing careerâwriting.
She is most fulfilled when she is creating worlds and conflicts for her characters, then exploring and untangling them bit by bit, sharing her protagonistsâ every heart-wrenching heartache and hope, their every heart-pounding doubt and trial, until she leads them to an indisputably earned and gloriously satisfying happy ending.
When sheâs not writing, she is a doctor, a wife to her own alpha male and a mother to one brilliant girl and one demanding Angora cat. Visit Olivia at www.oliviagates.com.
Six years ago
Vincenzo froze as he heard someone fumbling open the door.
She was here.
Every muscle turned to rock, every nerve fired like a high-voltage cable. Then the door slammed with an urgent thud and frantic footsteps followed, each jarring his equilibrium with the force of an earthquake.
Thereâd been no alert from his guards. No doorbell had announced her arrival. She was the only one heâd ever given unlimited access and keys to his penthouse.
But heâd given her more than access to his personal spaceâheâd given her dominion over his priorities and passions. Sheâd been the only woman heâd fully trusted, believed in. Loved.
And it had all been a lie.
The spear embedded in his gut twisted. Rage. Mostly at himself.
Even after heâd gotten proof of her betrayal, heâd clung to the belief that it would be explained away. Sheâd had him that deeply in her power.
That alone should have alerted him something was seriously wrong. It wasnât in his nature to trust. Heâd never let anyone come that close or become anywhere near that vital. As a prince of Castaldini, heâd always been suspicious of peopleâs intentions. After heâd become the rising-star researcher in the cutthroat field of energy alternatives, heâd believed any hope of a genuine relationship was over.
Until her. Until Glory.
From the first glance, heâd reeled at the attraction that had kept intensifying. From the first conversation, heâd sunk into a well of affinity, the deepest heâd ever known. It had been magical, how theyâd hungered, connected. Sheâd aroused his every emotion, appeased his every needâphysical, intellectual and spiritual.
But heâd just been a means to an end. An end sheâd achieved.
After the first firestorm of agony had almost wrecked him, logic had doused it with its sobering ice. Seeking retribution would have only compounded the damage. Heâd decided to let pain consume him, rather than give her more than what sheâd already snatched from him. Heâd walked away without a word.
Not that sheâd let him walk away.
Her nonstop messages had morphed from worried to frantic. With each one, his heart had almost exploded, first with the need to soothe her, then with fury at falling for her act yet again. Then had come that last message. A heart-stopping simulation of a woman going out of her mind fearing for her loved oneâs safety.
The pain had been so acute it had seared him with clarity.
Heâd realized there could only be one reason behind her desperate persistence. Her plan must not be concluded yet. Even if she thought his avoidance meant he suspected her, she seemed to be willing to risk anything to get close to him again, to pull the strings of his addiction to her for the opportunity to finish what she started.
So heâd let her find out heâd returned. Heâd known sheâd zoom right over to corner him.
But though heâd planned this face-off, he wasnât ready. Not for the sight of her, or for what he had to do.
Mannaggia! He shouldnât have given her the chance to invade his life again for any reason. He just wasnât readyâ¦.
âVincenzo!â
A pale creature, who barely resembled the vibrant one whoâd captured him body and heart, burst into his bedroom.
She stumbled to a halt, eyes turbid and swollen with what so convincingly looked like incessant weeping, and stood facing him across the bedroom where theyâd shared unimaginable pleasures for the past six months.