LITMIR.BIZ

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before he found a woman to give them to.

      He flipped the box closed after a long moment and held it tight. His life was changing in ways he hadn’t expected. Ways he wasn’t quite sure how to cope with. He resented the changes, but he would deal with them the way he dealt with everything else in his life these days.

      By hiding his feelings beneath a mountain of duty and honor.

      She was learning, or trying to. Lia stood beside Zach at a posh gathering being held in the National Gallery of Art. It was past closing time, and the museum was only open for this exclusive party.

      She’d chosen a gown in a rich cream color, and swept her dark hair off her shoulders and pinned it up. She’d applied her makeup carefully, slid into her heels—not too high because she was already self-conscious about her height—and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. Her jewelry had consisted of her simple diamonds, until she’d arrived downstairs and found Zach waiting for her in the foyer of the big house.

      His gaze had flicked over her appreciatively, and she’d felt warmth spread through her limbs. She liked the way he looked at her. And she wasn’t happy about that. After the way he’d behaved since she’d arrived, she didn’t want to like anything about him. She kept telling herself that the man she’d spent two days with was gone—except she couldn’t quite convince herself when he looked at her the way he had earlier.

      “Wear these,” he’d said, flipping open a box that held a ruby-and-diamond necklace and matching earrings. It was ornate, but somehow simple, too. An impressive feat for an expensive necklace.

      “I shouldn’t,” she said. “I’m too clumsy—”

      “Nonsense.” His tone had been firm. “You’re a beautiful woman, Lia. And you are about to be my wife.”

      He’d taken the necklace from the box and clasped it on her once he’d removed her small pendant. Then he placed her necklace carefully in the box he’d taken the larger necklace from. She was grateful for that, considering it was the only jewelry she had that had belonged to her mother. It might be small and unimpressive, but Zach didn’t treat it that way, and that touched her even though she did not want it to. He held out his hand for her earrings, which she handed over, and then she put the diamonds and rubies on.

      When she was finished, he gave a satisfactory smile. “Excellent. You look lovely.”

      They’d climbed into the Mercedes, and the chauffeur—Raoul—had driven them here, where Zach had been greeted like the political royalty he was. Now, they were sipping cocktails and waiting for the dinner to begin.

      She didn’t miss that women slanted their gazes toward her. Some were appraising while others were downright hostile. Zach kept her at his side. Periodically, he would drape an arm around her, or slide his hand into the small of her back to guide her through the crowd. His touches made her jumpy yet she found herself craving them.

      Soon they were seated at a large round table toward the front of the gathering. Lia wasn’t intimidated by the array of cutlery and plates before her. She might not be any good at the socializing part of this, but she’d been brought up by Teresa Corretti, the most elegant woman in all of Sicily. Lia knew which fork to use, and which bread plate was hers. She also knew how to sit through a multicourse meal and how to pace herself so that she wasn’t too full before the last course arrived.

      But tonight she was finding it hard to concentrate on her food. She was still tired from the trip, and the stress of everything was starting to overwhelm her. She’d left Sicily on impulse, and now she was here with Zach, and he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was.

      He was an automaton, an aristocrat, a man who did what he had to do because he cared about things like social standing and reputation. While it wasn’t a foreign concept to her, coming from the Corretti family, it wasn’t what she’d thought she was fleeing toward when leaving Sicily.

      She could hardly reconcile the man he was here—dressed in a bespoke tuxedo and sporting an expensive watch—with the stiff military man who’d thrown a medal at her feet. The two did not seem to go together, and it confused her.

      “You aren’t eating.”

      His breath ghosted over her ear and a shiver of something slid down her backbone. She turned her head, discovered that he was frowning down at her, his dark eyes intense.

      “I’m tired,” she said. “My schedule is all messed up. In a couple of hours, I would be waking up and having breakfast, were I still home.”

      “You need to eat something. For your health.”

      She knew what he meant. And why he didn’t say it. “I’ve eaten the soup and some of the bread.”

      “Beef is good for you. There’s iron in there.”

      “I’ve had a bite of it.”

      “Eat more, Lia.”

      “I can’t eat just because you order me to,” she snapped quietly.

      Zach glanced at someone across the table and smiled. Then he lifted his hand and slid it along her jaw, turning her head as he did so. To anyone else, the gesture looked loving and attentive. But she knew what it really was. He was attempting to keep her in line.

      His eyes held hers. She couldn’t look away. His mouth was only inches away, and she found herself wanting to stretch toward him, wanting to tilt her face up and press her lips to his.

      His gaze dropped to her mouth, and one corner of his beautiful, sensual lips lifted. “Yes, precisely,” he murmured. She felt her face flood with heat. “And I am not ordering you to eat, Lia. I’m concerned about your health.”

      She dropped her gaze from his. “Grazie. But I will not let my health suffer, I assure you.”

      “Excellent,” he said. “Because you are mine now, and I take care of what is mine.”

      A shiver slid through her. And a flash of anger. “Are you certain about that? What if the test results aren’t what you want them to be?”

      His eyes sparkled with humor that she sensed was at her expense. “I’ve already had the result. And it is precisely what you said it was.”

      Lia wanted to jerk herself out of his grip, but she knew this was not the place to show a bit of temper. “You could not have told me this earlier?”

      He shrugged. “Why? You already knew the answer.”

      “Perhaps I would like an apology. You did suggest I was lying, as well as exceedingly promiscuous.”

      “My mistake.”

      “You consider that an apology?”

      “I do. You must realize, sugar, that you aren’t the first to try and trap me this way. You’re just the first to succeed.”

      Lia shoved her chair back, uncaring how it looked to the other guests at their table. The murmur of conversation ceased and all eyes were on her. She swallowed and stood, hoping the trembling didn’t show.

      “If you will excuse me, ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “I believe I must freshen up.”

      Then she turned and marched away without waiting for a response. She was certain the fashionable ladies were appalled with her. The gentlemen probably shrugged it off as foreign eccentricity. Nevertheless, she didn’t quite care what they thought. She wasn’t about to sit there and let Zach talk to her like that.

      She found the ladies’ room and went inside to perch on one of the settees and calm down. She refreshed her lipstick in the mirror and smoothed a few stray hairs into place. As she gazed at her reflection, it hit her how unusual her reaction just now had been. She’d sat through enough humiliating Corretti functions in her life to know how to be invisible for the duration.

      She also knew how to be a lady whenever any attention happened to turn on her, and she knew that marching away in a huff was not a part of the training

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