LITMIR.BIZ

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me, when I sensed your answering desire. And now that I’ve felt how incendiary that desire is, and how it sets me on fire, if I wanted you to the factor of a thousand before, I now want you to that of a million. But even if it did get out of control, this explosive episode proved one thing. When I take you, Clarissa, it will be because you’re begging me to.”

      She glared at him, hating him more for being so right about the magnitude of her desire. She had to vanquish it if she wanted to survive. “I wonder what level your arrogance can reach before you overdose on it. That would be a well-deserved end, not to mention an effective and fair solution to this mess. And before you gloat some more about how much I want you, that doesn’t mean I’ll act on it. I want to eat chocolate fudge day and night, but you won’t see me giving in to the temptation any time in this life.”

      “But bingeing on me won’t make you fat and sick. Giving in to the temptation of falling into my arms and bed will provide rigorous workouts that will keep you in perfect shape and health, and the calorie-free pleasure I’ll saturate you with will make you realize you’ve been starving, make you wonder how you’ve lived so long with such deprivation.”

      She felt as if the whole world had become a tiny room, with its walls closing in on her. He was just too much, too powerful. Unstoppable. And when he turned coaxing, seductive, he was devastating. She couldn’t resist him. And she had to.

      There was only one way she could think of to stop him. Make him angry.

      “Why don’t you just drop the act? You only want me because I’m the king’s daughter. That has always been my attraction, hasn’t it? You’ve acquired everything else—God only knows how—but now the world has gone so crazy, you can become Castaldini’s future king—and you still want to acquire me as the most suitable accessory to your impending royal status.”

      Ferruccio felt his heart turn to stone inside his chest.

      He’d long believed she looked down on him because of the circumstances of his birth.

      But not only had she now intimated that she believed he’d attained his wealth and power through criminal methods and that she still cringed at the idea of giving in to the desire that seethed like a bound beast between them, not only had she just confirmed his worst suspicions why, but she’d revealed that the situation was worse than he’d thought.

      She thought he’d been pursuing her to acquire her lineage by association, still wanted it even now, to paint himself with her legitimacy. She didn’t just think him a lowborn bastard but a sleazy social climber.

      And she called him arrogant.

      If he thought he’d enjoy punishing her for her arrogance before, he would now outright relish it. In every way imaginable.

      He looked at her. Silky hair billowed around her shoulders like a caramel gold shroud of mystery in the night breeze. That body he’d almost lost his mind over was tense. He felt it emitting that tractor beam of attraction that had always drawn him inexorably. He’d always thought it had been the real her inside the body that had so attracted him. But no matter what he’d felt during the past few hours—that his belief had been more than validated—he’d been wrong.

      Yet, he could still feel that body reverberating with the unassuaged need he’d sent storming through her. That he relished. If not as much as he did seeing that face of pure temptation pinched with worry. She must be wondering if she’d just made an irreversible mistake by baring her true opinion of him so blatantly.

      She had no idea how right she was.

      “As interesting as your opinions of my intentions are…” he gave her a smile that had had grown men sweating “…this…meeting is over, Clarissa. Now run along and go throw yourself in your father’s loving arms and sob to him over your ordeal at the hands of the conceited, cruel man he threw you to like a human sacrifice. Let him soothe you and tell you exactly why you have to come back to me and beg me to take you.”

      Chapter Four

      Clarissa went back to her father.

      She was delivered back to him, more precisely. Just as Ferruccio had had her picked up like a package, he’d had her dropped back like one. His men had been implacable about carrying out his orders to the letter. He’d said to take her back to the king, and no matter how much she frothed with rage, they took her back to his very door. She’d barely managed to stop them from taking her to his bedside and have him sign a receipt for her.

      She entered her father’s apartments, shaking with chagrin, with the ever-expanding shock waves from every second she’d spent with Ferruccio, desperately hoping that everything he had told her had not been because he’d been certain of every word he’d said and of his damned hundred percent success rate.

      She closed the door behind her, leaned on it and closed her eyes.

      Finally. Some alone time. She needed to inject some semblance of calm and control into her thoughts, and hopefully in her expression and words, before entering her father’s bedroom.

      “Rissa, mia cara figlia, where have you been all night?”

      She almost jumped out of her skin. Her father, who was so rarely out of bed these days, materialized at the passageway by the door she’d entered through.

      Her frayed nerves snapped. “As if you don’t know.”

      Pain stabbed dead center in her chest at her father’s grimace of hurt surprise. She cursed Ferruccio with a new fervor. She’d never dreamed the day would come when she’d snap at her father like that. What made it even worse was that what once would have been a mere blink and tightening of lips had become a grotesque, one-sided distortion with the aftereffect of his stroke.

      Her heart broke all over again at seeing the evidence of her once all-powerful father’s incapacitation. For her to be the reason behind even a moment of his pain was unbearable.

      Her heart thudded as she watched him drag his weakened leg, leaning heavily on his walking stick as he limped to the first chair in his reception area and collapsed heavily onto it.

      He sat for a moment, not meeting her eyes, recovering from the few steps’ effort, his breathing erratic. Then he finally rasped, “I knew only that you were meeting with Ferruccio earlier today.”

      “The meeting took longer than expected.” She struggled not to let anger and bitterness taint her tone. She shouldn’t let Ferruccio’s words poison her against her father. She needed to hear how things stood from him before she made up her mind who to blame. “Do you know why he asked for me to be the one to negotiate with him?”

      Her father exhaled. “If you’ve learned anything about Ferruccio, Rissa, you must know he never declares his reasons to anyone. But I had theories.”

      She tensed. “And those were?”

      “He’s…interested in you. He always has been.”

      All tension drained out of her as if with a punch to the gut. “And yet you sent me to him.”

      “Why are you so angry, Rissa?” Alarm suddenly entered her father’s steel-blue eyes. “Did he…upset you?”

      “That would be the understatement of the year.”

      Alarm was swept aside on a tide of fury. For a moment, Clarissa could see once again the formidable man and king who’d ruled for forty years, who’d made Castaldini a piece of heaven on earth for almost thirty of those. “What did he do? Tell me.”

      As if she would. She waved it away. “What’s important here is that you knew he wasn’t interested in my professional acumen. Why did you send me to him when you knew he had a personal agenda?”

      “Why would you be so against that?” Typical. He never answered questions, always volleyed one back. “I never understood why you were so…reticent with him. I thought it might be a good time to settle this. He’ll become my crown prince and your future king. And

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