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shock, what is your opinion on the content of the letters?”

      “What?” She raised startled eyes to his and found herself impaled in a gaze at once penetrating and inscrutable.

      “Your opinion,” he repeated, a sudden hint of steel threading his words. “Surely, Signora Mallory, you haven’t forgotten the real reason you’re here?”

      “Hardly. I just haven’t given the matter…much thought.”

      “Then I suggest you do so. Enough time has passed since my wife wrote of her last wishes. I do not propose to delay honoring them any longer than I have to.”

      “Well, I do not propose to be bullied, Mr. Orsini, not by you or anyone else. Since you’re so anxious for an answer, though, let me be blunt. I can’t see myself ever agreeing to Lindsay’s request.”

      “Her friendship meant so little to you, then?”

      “Save the emotional blackmail for someone else,” she shot back. “It’s not going to work with me.”

      His smoky-gray eyes darkened. With suppressed anger? Sorrow? Frustration? She couldn’t tell. His expression gave away nothing. “Emotion does not play a role in this situation. It is a business proposition, pure and simple, devised solely for the benefit of your child and mine. The most convenient way to implement it is for you and me to join forces in marriage.”

      “Something I find totally unacceptable. In case you’re not aware, marriages of convenience went out of fashion in this country a long time ago. Should I ever decide to marry again, which is doubtful, it will be to someone of my own choosing.”

      “It seems to me, Signora Mallory, that you’re in no position to be so particular. By your own admission, you do not own your own home, which leaves you at the mercy of a landlord, you’re overworked and your son spends a great deal of time being cared for by someone other than yourself.”

      “At least I have my independence.”

      “For which both you and your boy pay a very high price.” He regarded her silently a moment, then in a seductively cajoling tone, went on, “I admire your spirit, cara mia, but why are you so set on continuing with your present lifestyle, when I can offer you so much more?”

      “For a start, because I don’t like having charity forced down my throat.” And calling me cara mia isn’t going to change that.

      “Is that how you see this? Do you not understand that, in our situation, the favors work both ways—that my daughter stands to gain as much from the arrangement as your son?”

      Absently Corinne touched a fingertip to the velvet-soft petals of the nearest rose. They reminded her of Matthew’s skin when he was a baby. Before he’d turned into a tyrant.

      …Raffaello will do his best to keep me alive in her heart, but having you to turn to would be the next best thing to having me, Lindsay had written, or words to that effect. I’m entrusting you with my daughter’s life, Corinne….

      Seeming to think she was actually considering his proposal, Raffaello Orsini asked, “Are you afraid I’m going to demand my husbandly rights in the bedroom?”

      “I don’t know. Are you?” Corinne blurted out rashly, too irked by the faint hint of derision in his question to consider how he might interpret her reply.

      “Would you like me to?”

      She opened her mouth to issue a flat denial, then snapped it closed as an image swam unbidden into her mind, shockingly detailed, shockingly erotic, of how Raffaello Orsini’s naked body might look. Her inner response—the jolt of awareness that rocked her body, the sudden flush of heat streaming through her blood—appalled her.

      She’d moved through the preceding four years like an automaton, directing all her energies to providing a safe, stable and loving home for her son. As breadwinner, the one responsible for everything from rent to medical insurance to paying off debts incurred by her late husband, she’d had no choice but to put her own needs aside. To be assaulted now by this sudden aberration—for how else could she describe it?—was ridiculous, but also an untimely reminder that she was still a woman whose sexuality might have been relegated to the back burner, but whose flame, it seemed, had not been entirely extinguished.

      “Don’t feel you have to make up your mind on that point at this very moment,” Orsini suggested smoothly. “The welfare of two children is the main issue here, not sexual intercourse between you and me. I shall not press you to consummate the marriage against your will, but you’re an attractive woman and as a hot-blooded Sicilian, I would not spurn your overtures, should you feel inclined to make any.”

      Hot-blooded Sicilian, maybe, she thought, staggered by his arrogance, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I come begging for sexual favors from you. “There’s not the slightest chance of that ever happening, for the simple reason that I have no intention at all of agreeing to your proposition. It’s a lousy idea.”

      “Why? What’s wrong with two adults uniting to create a semblance of normal family life for their children? Don’t you think they deserve it?”

      “They deserve the best that we can give them—and that is not by having their respective parents marry for all the wrong reasons.”

      “That would be true only if we were deluding ourselves into believing our hearts are engaged, signora, which they most certainly are not. Rather, we’re approaching this from a cerebral angle. And that, in my opinion, vastly increases our chances of making the union work.”

      “Cerebral?” She almost choked on her after-dinner coffee. “Is that how you’d define it?”

      “How else? After all, it’s not as if either of us is looking for love in a second marriage, both of us having lost our true soul mates, the first time around. We harbor no romantic illusions. We’re simply entering into a binding contract to improve our children’s lives.”

      Unnerved as much by his logic as his unremitting gaze, she left the table and went to stand at the window. “You omit to mention the extent to which I would benefit financially from such an arrangement.”

      “I hardly consider it important enough to merit attention.”

      “It is to me.”

      “Why? Because you feel you’re being bought?”

      “Among other things, yes.”

      “That’s ridiculous.”

      She shrugged. “Finally we agree on something. In fact, the whole idea’s preposterous. People don’t get married for such reasons.”

      “Why do they get married?”

      Beleaguered by his relentless inquisition, she floundered for a reply and came up with exactly the wrong one. “Well, as you already made clear. For love.”

      Yet in the end, at least for her, life had rubbed off all the magic, and what she’d believed was love had turned out to be lust. Infatuation. Make-believe. An illusion. The only good thing to come out of her marriage had been Matthew, and if Joe had lived, she knew with certainty that they’d have ended up in divorce court.

      From across the room, Raffaello Orsini’s hypnotic voice drifted into the silence, weaving irresistible word pictures. “You would be marrying for love this time, too. For love of your son. Think about him, cara mia. Hear his laughter as he runs and plays with a companion, in acres of gardens. Imagine him building sand castles on a safe, secluded beach, or learning to swim in warm, crystal clear waters. See yourself living in a spacious villa, with no monetary cares and all the time in the world to devote to your child. Then tell me, if you dare, that our joining forces is such a bad idea.”

      He was offering Matthew more than she could ever hope to provide, and although pride urged her not to be swayed by what was, in effect, a blatant bribe, as a mother she had to ask herself if she

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