Sleeping With The Enemy. Annie West
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all too real, too fast. She swallowed hard. She didn’t know what she was doing. She wasn’t ready for any of this—and neither was he. They were like two people turned loose in a vast forest without a compass or a map. They were stumbling, fumbling and getting more and more lost.
And hurting each other in the process.
She knew what she wanted, what she wished she could do. It was impossible, but she said it anyway.
“I’d like to go back to that night in Venice and make a different choice,” she whispered. For both their sakes.
He looked up, his eyes sharp, hard. “Clearly, that isn’t going to happen. I suggest you find a way to be happy now.”
If only she could.
Tina chose a gown. In the end, she’d been unable to send the seamstress or the dresses away. The one she picked was a gorgeous creation, a strapless gown that hugged her torso and then fell in a lush fall of voluminous fabric from her hips. The dress was unadorned, which was part of the reason it had appealed to her. The beauty of it was its simplicity.
She chose to wear her hair up, though she left it curly, and tucked in a few sprigs of tiny white daisies. The wedding was to take place in the hotel, so there was no need to worry about piling herself and the fabric into a car.
No, all she had to do was go downstairs at the appointed time and arrive at the small chapel the hotel had set up for the purpose. She’d chosen to walk down the aisle by herself, since Renzo was not here to give her away. She refused to allow one of Nico’s security detail to do it though he had suggested it. When she’d declined, he’d shrugged.
Now she gathered the small bouquet of flowers the hotel had provided her while the woman who’d helped her dress sniffled.
“You look so lovely, miss,” she said. “He will be so proud when he sees you.”
Tina managed a smile. She didn’t think Nico would be anything other than relieved to get this over with, but she didn’t say so. “Thank you, Lisbeth.”
Lisbeth dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “It’s so romantic, isn’t it? Your man flying all those gowns in to surprise you. I could have melted on the spot.”
Tina’s fingers shook as she twisted a curl that had fallen over her brow. Her stomach dived into the floor. He’d flown the gowns in special, and she’d reacted so furiously over it. She felt childish and hollow inside as she remembered him with his head in his hands.
It made her remember the younger him, oddly enough. He’d been different then. More human. She could picture him at their kitchen table, laughing with Renzo and her mother while she sat very quietly and tried not to blush or stammer or let her adoration of him show whenever she looked at him.
He was a harder man now. He wasn’t vulnerable in the least, and yet he’d shown that single moment of emotional vulnerability. As if the weight of the things pressing down on him had, for a moment, been too much to bear.
She’d wanted to go to him and put her arms around him. She’d wanted to ask him to share his burdens with her, but she had known he would not. Now she was ashamed of herself. She’d been so focused on her own feelings that she’d failed to consider his.
He’d insisted they marry for the baby, but it couldn’t be what he’d planned to do with his life. A family was such a life-changing decision; to have it forced upon you was not what anyone would wish for. It wasn’t just about her feelings. It was about his, as well.
Tina left the suite and took the elevator down to the main level, Lisbeth making the trip with her in order to guide her to the right place. Nico was waiting for her outside the chapel. Tina nearly stumbled to a halt, but managed to keep walking anyway. It was just a superstition that it was bad luck for him to see her before the wedding—though how could it get any worse than a wedding neither of them truly wanted?
He was dark and forbidding in his tuxedo as he stood near the entrance. He looked so serious that her heart notched up. His gaze raked her, those stormy eyes smoldering with heat when he met hers again.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“There is one last thing we must do before we wed,” he told her. He led her into a small adjoining room with a desk and chairs. The two men she’d seen with him this morning were there. With a jolt, she recognized them for what they were.
Lawyers.
If the serious expressions on their faces didn’t give it away, then the briefcases and neat pile of papers would have. Nico handed her a pen as one of the lawyers pushed the papers toward her, which were conveniently flipped back for her signature.
And she’d actually felt a glimmering of sympathy for him earlier? Tina turned to look at him, anger kindling in her belly.
“Certain things must be spelled out before we marry, Tina,” he said before she could speak.
“I am aware of that,” she said tightly as she settled into a chair and jerked the papers from beneath the lawyer’s fingers. A prenuptial agreement wasn’t unusual or even unexpected. But there was something about the cold-blooded efficiency with which he’d orchestrated this entire marriage thus far that had her on edge.
Yes, he’d gone to a lot of trouble to get the gowns. And she’d actually felt badly that she’d been mad over what she’d considered to be his high-handedness—but now she was angry again. Angry because he’d waited until the last moment, when she was dressed and ready for the ceremony, to spring this on her.
No doubt because he expected her to sign without question. Because he thought she was empty-headed and in need of someone to tell her what to do. Maybe he expected her to simply do as she was told, which made him no better than Renzo in that respect.
She glanced up at him, the agreement in her hands, and hoped she looked coolly controlled. “You may want to sit down,” she said. “This might take a while.”
His lips twitched. She wasn’t certain if it was annoyance or humor that caused it. Regardless, it only made her more determined.
“It is a fair agreement,” he said. “You get quite a generous settlement should we divorce, and maintenance for life.”
Tina flipped to the pages where the financial portion was spelled out. “Very generous,” she said after she’d scanned the numbers. “And yet you’ve made a mistake.” She tapped the pen against the page.
One of the lawyers cleared his throat, and Tina sliced her gaze in his direction. The look she gave him must have been quelling because he subsided without speaking.
“I believe that Pietro wanted to say there is no mistake,” Nico said. She thought he sounded vaguely amused, but she was too irritated to be sure.
“Well, there is. You are forgetting that this sum—” she tapped the pen on the page again “—must be adjusted for inflation. A divorce in a year is quite a different animal than a divorce in twenty.”
“So it is,” Nico replied.
“You’ve also failed to take into account any money I may bring into the marriage.”
“I don’t want Renzo’s money.” His voice was harder this time.
Tina fixed him with an even stare. “I’m not talking about Renzo’s money. I’m talking about mine.”
One eyebrow lifted. “I wasn’t aware you had any.”
“I do, in fact,” she told him evenly. “I’ve made investments of my own.”
“I’m not interested in your petty investments,” he snapped, and anger seared into her. Petty investments, indeed. She wasn’t about to tell him what she’d accumulated, unless it became a point in the contract. Her wealth came nowhere close to his, or Renzo’s, but she’d earned it herself through the strength of her skills—and she wasn’t going to give him control over it.
“Great.