Temporarily His Princess - By Olivia Gates Page 0,24

clothed in only the finest creations. The masters of the fashion world will fall over each other for the chance to have your unique beauty grace theirs.”

She just had to snort. “Uh…have you been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder yet? Incomparable body? Unique beauty? What do you call the persona that thinks that?”

He started eliminating the distance between them, intent radiating from him. “If I never told you how I find you breathtaking down to your pores, I need to be punished. Which you are welcome to do. In my defense, I was busy showing you.”

“Yeah, before you showed me the door, and told me how interchangeable you found me with any female who wasn’t too hideous but meek and willing enough.”

“I lied.”

His gaze was direct, his words clear, cutting.

Disorientation rolled over her. “You—you did?”

His nod was terse, unequivocal. “Through my teeth.”

“Why?”

His lids squeezed, before he opened them, his gaze opaque. “I don’t want to go into the reasons. But nothing I said had any basis in truth. Let’s leave it at that.”

“And to hell with what I want. But then, you’re getting what you want no matter what I desire or what it costs me. Why do I keep expecting anything different? I must be insane.”

He seemed to hold back something impulsive. An elaboration on his cryptic declarations?

But she needed something. Anything. If what he’d said to her, the words that had torn into her psyche like shrapnel all those years ago, had all been lies, why had he said them? To push her away? Had she been clinging so hard that he’d panicked…?

No. She wasn’t rationalizing that son of a bitch’s mistreatment. There was no excuse for what he’d done to her. And now he was doing worse. Reeling her closer even as he pushed her away. Confounding her then leaving her hanging. Depriving her of the stability of hating him, the certainty of why she did.

His eyes were blank as he took her coat from her spastic grip, disregarding her bitterness. “We’ll have dinner first.”

She sullenly let him help her on with her coat, moving away as his arms started to tighten around her. “You’re not worried about putting cutlery in my reach?”

His gaze melted with an indulgence that hurt and confused her more than anything else. “I’ll take my chances.”

“You really expect me to eat after…all this?”

“I’ll postpone serving dinner until you’re very hungry. By then, I also hope your appetite for food will overpower that of poking me in the eye with a fork.”

With a look that said fat chance, she preceded him out of her condo.

She ignored him as he tried to hand her into the front passenger seat of a gemlike burgundy Jaguar he had parked in her building’s garage. He gave up acting the gallant suitor and walked around to take the wheel.

So. No driver, no guards. He wasn’t making their liaison public yet. Because he hadn’t expected her to sign the prenup, hadn’t considered it a done deal? No doubt he’d planned to coerce her some more during this “momentous occasion” until she did. She wondered what recalculation was going on inside that inscrutable mind now that she’d made further manipulation unnecessary.

During the drive, she sat barely breathing or moving so his scent and presence wouldn’t scramble her senses even more. Then observations finally seeped into her hazy mind.

They were leaving the city.

When she was certain this was no roundabout way to any restaurant or jeweler, she forced herself to turn to him.

“Where are we going?”

Still presenting her with the perfection of his profile, he smiled. “To the airport.”

Five

“The airport?”

At her croak, Vincenzo’s smile widened. “We’re going to have dinner on the jet. We’ll fly to where the most exclusive collection of jewelry on the planet awaits you, so you can pick your ring, and anything else that catches your fancy.”

He was so pleased with himself for stunning her again.

She was more than stunned. She was working on a stroke.

“And it didn’t occur to you to ask if I’d agree to this harebrained scheme of yours?”

His lips twitched at her venom. “A man going out of his way to surprise his fiancée doesn’t tell her in advance of the details of his efforts.”

Her jaw muscles hurt at his mention of fiancée. “Do save your ‘efforts’ for when you have a real fiancée.”

“But you already said I can’t have a real one for all the money and power in the world.”

“Who knows? Lots of women have self-destructive tendencies. And I didn’t say