Her Exquisite Surrender: Surrendering All But Her Heart / Innocent in the Ivory Tower / Full Surrender. Lucy Ellis
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chin came up and her eyes flashed again. ‘Oh, really?’
Angelo drew in a breath and released it forcefully as he went back behind his desk. He gripped the back of his chair as he faced her. ‘Why must you search for nefarious motives in everything I do or say?’
She gave a little scoffing laugh. ‘Pardon me for being a little suspicious, but you’re surely not going to tell me you still care about me after all this time?’
Angelo’s fingers dug deeper into the leather of his chair until his knuckles whitened. He didn’t love her. He refused to love her. She had betrayed him. He was not going to forgive and forget that in a hurry. But he would have her. That was different. That had nothing to do with emotions.
He deliberately relaxed his grasp and sat down. ‘We have unfinished business,’ he said. ‘I knew that the minute you walked in that door yesterday.’
‘You’re imagining things,’ she said.
He put up one brow. ‘Am I?’
She held his gaze for a beat, before she lowered it to focus on the glass paperweight on his desk. ‘How long do you think this marriage will last?’ she asked.
‘It can last as long as we want it to,’ Angelo said.
Her gaze met his again. ‘Don’t you mean as long as you want it to?’ she asked.
He gave a little up and down movement of his right shoulder. ‘You ended things the last time,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it fair that I be the one to do so this time around?’
Her mouth tightened. ‘I ended things because it was time to move on,’ she said. ‘We were fighting all the time. It wasn’t a love match. It was a battlefield.’
‘Oh, come on,’ Angelo said. ‘What are you talking about, Natalie? All couples fight. It’s part and parcel of being in a relationship. There are always little power struggles. It’s what makes life interesting.’
‘That might have been the way you were brought up, but it certainly wasn’t the way I was,’ she said.
He studied her expression again, noting all the little nuances of her face: the way she chewed at the inside of her mouth but tried to hide it, the way her eyes flickered away from his but then kept tracking back, as if they were being pulled by a magnetic force, and the way her finely boned jaw tightened when she was feeling cornered.
‘How were you brought up to resolve conflict?’ he asked.
She reached for her bag and got to her feet. ‘Look, I have a train to catch,’ she said. ‘I have a hundred and one things to see to.’
‘Why didn’t you drive down from Edinburgh?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t suddenly developed a fear of driving too, have you?’
Her eyes hardened resentfully. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I like travelling by train. I can read or sketch or listen to music. I find driving requires too much concentration—especially in a city as crowded as London. Besides, it’s better for the environment. I want to reduce my carbon footprint.’
Angelo rose to his feet and joined her at the door, placing his hand on the doorknob to stop her escaping. ‘I’ll need you to sign some papers in the next day or two.’
Her chin came up. The hard glitter was back in her gaze. ‘A prenuptial agreement?’
He glanced at her mouth. He ached to feel it move under the pressure of his. He could feel the surge of his blood filling him with urgent, ferocious need.
‘Yes,’ he said, meeting her gaze again. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
‘No,’ she said, eyeballing him right back. ‘I’ll have one of my own drawn up. I’m not letting you take away everything I’ve worked so hard for.’
He smiled and tapped her gently on the end of her nose. ‘Touché,’ he said.
She blinked at him, looking flustered and disorientated. ‘I—I have to go,’ she said, and made a grab for the doorknob.
Angelo captured her hand within his. Her small, delicate fingers were dwarfed by the thickness and length and strength of his. He watched her eyes widen as he slowly brought her hand up to his mouth. He stopped before making contact with his lips, just a hair’s breadth from touching. He watched as her throat rose and fell. He felt the jerky little gust of her cinnamon-scented breath. He saw her glance at his mouth, saw too the quick nervous dart of her tongue as she swept it out over her lips.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said, dropping her hand and opening the door for her. ‘Ciao.’
She brushed past him in the doorway and without a single word of farewell she left.
‘CONGRATULATIONS,’ said Linda, Natalie’s assistant, the following morning when she arrived at work.
‘Pardon?’
Linda held up a newspaper. ‘Talk about keeping your cards close to your chest,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.’
‘I’m …’ Natalie took the paper and quickly scanned it. There was a short paragraph about Angelo and her and their upcoming nuptials. Angelo was quoted as saying he was thrilled they were back together and how much he was looking forward to being married next week.
‘Is it true or is it a prank?’ Linda asked.
Natalie put the paper down on the counter. ‘It’s true,’ she said, chewing at her bottom lip.
‘Pardon me if I’m overstepping the mark here, but you don’t look too happy about it,’ Linda said.
Natalie forced a smile to her face. ‘Sorry, it’s just been such a pain … er … keeping it quiet until now,’ she said, improvising as she went. ‘We didn’t want anyone to speculate about us getting back together until we were sure it was what we both wanted.’
‘Gosh, how romantic!’ Linda said. ‘A secret relationship.’
‘Not so secret now,’ Natalie said a little ruefully as her stomach tied itself in knots. How was she going to cope with the constant press attention? They would swarm about her like bees. Angelo was used to being chased by the paparazzi. He was used to cameras flashing in his face and articles being written that were neither true nor false but somewhere in between.
She liked her privacy. She guarded it fiercely. Now she would be thrust into the public arena not for her designs and her talent but for whom she was sleeping with.
Her stomach gave another little shuffle. Not that she would be actually sleeping with Angelo. She was determined not to give in to that particular temptation. Her body might still have some sort of programmed response to him, but that didn’t mean she had to give in to it.
She could be strong.
She would be strong.
And determined.
He wouldn’t find her so easy to seduce this time around. She had been young and relatively inexperienced five years ago. She was older and wiser now. She hadn’t fallen in love with him before and she wasn’t about to fall in love with him now. He would be glad to call an end to their marriage before a month or two. She couldn’t see him tolerating her intransigence for very long. He was used to getting his own way. He wanted a submissive, I’ll-do-anything-to-please-you wife.
There wasn’t a bone in Natalie’s body that would bend to any man’s will, and certainly not to Angelo Bellandini’s.
‘These came for you while you were at the lawyer’s,’ Linda said when Natalie came back to the studio a couple of hours later.
Natalie