Her hearing sharpened until every heartbeat was amplified to thunder in her ears. But she didn’t hear approaching footsteps. There was only the distant drone of the waves and the tranquility of the internal courtyard in which she stood. It was at least two thousand square feet, paved in lava stones, lit with the impending sunset’s red-gold beams, which filtered from arched and round windows inset in the walls just below its domed ceiling.
He wasn’t coming. Not yet, at least. He must be letting her stew. She exhaled, moved. Might as well take a look around.
She strolled to the end of the courtyard, opened doors, her surprise rising as she found an olive press and wine-processing rooms. She wouldn’t have thought he’d go to the trouble of making his own oil and wines.
Mulling over this discovery, she headed to the other side of the courtyard where a corridor of arched columns ended in five stone steps. These led down to an arrangement of expansive sitting rooms with a unique take on Roman décor, in a combination of stucco and stone walls, and strewn with luxurious couches and low tables.
She wondered if he entertained a lot, if one of his many unspecified-destination invitations had been to come join him here. She wondered how she would have reacted to this place if she’d come here ignorant of the truth of his intentions, breathless with anticipation, ready to be swept away by the spell of his domain, to sink into its sensory decadence.
Shaking her head at the pointlessness of her musings, at the stupidity of letting them depress her with what ifs, she crossed into an amazing dining room with a round bronze table and a circular stone platform for chairs, with pillow seating.
This section had a medieval feel, with wall torches and large white cushions abounding in every corner. The floors were layered in old Sicilian pottery tiles, the designs flowing into variations as she progressed through the rest of the ground floor. Huge stone fireplaces sprouted in strategic spots, though subtle evidence of state-of-the-art electric heating was also present.
But what really amazed her was some of the most ingeniously placed and painted trompe-l’oeil she’d ever seen in the walls and ceilings. The murals’ optical illusions were almost indistinguishable from the three-dimensional imagery they depicted in depth and realism. They felt like portals into alternate realities.
She stopped in front of one, a tableau of a pigeon on a fer forgé windowsill, the glass behind it reflecting it and a distant sea and sky. It looked so real she almost thought the glass was there, did reflect that vista, that she could pet the gleaming feathers of the bird, that it would take flight if she tried.
Ferruccio must have spent untold millions here, from acquiring the land, to equipping it with a private airport and silk-smooth roads, to building that incredible edifice that must be maintained year-round so he’d find it in perfect condition whenever he hopped over, maybe a few days each season.
It was clear to her why he brought her here, and why he hadn’t appeared yet. He was flaunting his wealth and power, giving her time for every detail to sink in, make its mark.
He’d picked the last woman on earth to be awed by affluence.
She lived in a palace, and she’d come to associate the grandeur that had surrounded her since birth with the anxiety and despair that had tainted her turbulent childhood. In fact, she’d been almost relieved that the opulence had long faded, with her father barely maintaining the parts of the palace that were national monuments. She sure wasn’t about to swoon over pretentious extravagance.
But she grudgingly had to hand it to Ferruccio. This place wasn’t pretentious. Or extravagant. It was a masterpiece of architecture and attention to detail but every article and line of design spoke of taste and discernment, everything so simple and unobtrusive it amalgamated into a retreat that promised enjoyment and ease to both mind and body.
Suddenly, ever fiber of her mind and body seemed to become a compass needle, obeying the magnetism that mushroomed at her back. She spun around.
And there he was. The man who’d ruled her every thought since the night she’d laid eyes on him, who’d manipulated her reactions and emotions with the slightest tug here, nudge there, just because he could.
He was standing at the mezzanine level gallery that overlooked the courtyard she’d wandered back to, looking down on her like a Roman deity would on a supplicant coming to beg his mercy.
She thought he’d stand there until she begged for real, for him to just come down and get this over with. Then, without a word, his eyes maintaining their lock on hers, he started moving toward the stone stairs. He descended soundlessly, effortlessly, his long legs turning the movement of taking each wide step into a performance of predatory grace.
Then he was striding toward her, his every step like an expanding shock wave, rattling her bones with reaction.
Was it possible that he had become more vigorous, more virile, that every time she saw him she’d find new things to marvel at, that his effect on her would keep intensifying? She’d thought him magnificent in the formal outfits she always saw him in. But in faded jeans and a partially unbuttoned denim shirt, he was…unfair.
She looked up at him, praying that her inner turmoil wouldn’t be translated into an outward manifestation that he could read and exploit.
He stopped a breath away, took the rest of her breath away as his gaze sliced through her like a steel blade. Then his lips spread in the first smile he’d ever trained on her.
“Principessa Clarissa,” he murmured, low and lethal, “It’s such a delight to see your…situation has finally allowed you to…be with me.”
Chapter Two
He remembered. What she’d said that first night.
Of course he did. And he was throwing it back in her face.
She bet the injury to his pride had been the prod that had kept him issuing those invitations, intent on breaking her resistance so that he could avenge what he must have considered a colossal insult—so that he’d keep his perfect score.
And he’d kept it. He’d made her bow to his will. She should have known he would. He’d gotten where he had by being inexorable.
She’d known that, yet thought there’d be no way he could prevail in this. She couldn’t have imagined the developments that had led her here.
But even without them, she now believed he would have won eventually. Hadn’t she studied his methods at length, both on her own and where they were taught in business school—to demonstrate the ultimate model of long-term, unrelenting, undetectable planning?