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lips. She eyes me suspiciously, but I push it past the seam of her lips anyway. Her eyes spark with
irritation, but she slowly chews, swallows, wipes a drip of juice from her lips with the tip of a finger.
I can barely hold back my groan, and press another grape to her mouth. This time, though, she
catches my hand before I can press the fruit to her lips, plucking the grape from my fingers.
 You were saying? She prompts me. I think she means to be chastising, but the faint pink flush
that has spread across her cheeks tells me that she s no more immune to me than I am to her.
 I have a story to tell you. I lean back in the chair while I tell her the highlights of the meeting
that I had this afternoon. I skip over a lot of details, partly because I don t think she ll care, and
mostly because it s just not in my nature to be forthcoming.
She seems faintly puzzled as she listens.  Why are you telling me this?
She s not stupid; after the meeting I did some digging into her life. But most of the woman I know
would already be batting their eyelashes at me and making a play for the coveted position as my wife.
This girl, though she either truly cannot comprehend a situation like what I ve described to her,
or she is going to make me say the words.
Make me ask her to marry me.
The question freezes on my lips, and I feel anything but casual. I am not used to needing people...
but I need this girl to say yes to me more than I need my next breath.
I don t know how to ask. I only know how to manipulate, to push, to take.
 You have student loans that you cannot afford to pay. And you do not have even enough money to
get back to the States.
Her fingers clench in the sheet, and I try not to think about the way that the slate colored satin
looks against that smooth skin.
I expect her to ream me out for checking up on her, but instead her hand reaches for the bandage
covering her wound. Though I don t think she intended it, I get the message as surely as if she stabbed
me with it like that blade sliced through her.
I can t afford to go home because I took a knife for you.
Guilt is not an emotion that I am accustomed to, and I don t quite know what to do with the heavy
weight of it. I know that I should bite back my words, should find someone else for what I am about to
ask of her.
But I don t want to. For reasons that I can t explain, I want her, and so I tell myself that I am doing
her a favor.
 You need money. My voice is casual, but I feel anything but.  I need a wife. Immediately.
 Oh my God. A choked kind of cry issues from her throat, and I wonder if maybe she really
hadn t understood what I was getting at.  You re not seriously 
 I m asking you to be my wife for thirty days, in exchange for five hundred thousand dollars. I
snap. I don t like having to ask, and I set the amount low, sure that she will ask for more.
 Five hundred thousand dollars? Are you insane? The girl s mouth works, and I can t help but
imagine it doing other things.
Not the time, Matteo.
 It s not a large amount of money. What the hell am I saying? I m just asking her to gouge me. But
she s looking at me like she can t imagine that there s that much money in the world.
Probably I shouldn t tell her that Emilia can spend that much in one shopping spree in Milan.
Riley s cheeks are flushed, and that long, lovely body is tense. She s going to say no, and my mind
is reeling with possibilities about how I can make her say yes.
But instead of yelling, as I find American women are wont to do, she asks a simple question that
gives me hope.
 What s the catch?
She is tempted. And for some strange reason I am disappointed, even though I am a step closer to
what I want.
But for some reason, this woman seemed... different. Not like the ones who are obsessed with my
money.
Shoving that feeling down, I try to focus in the way I do at the office.
She is an acquisition, Matteo. Nothing more.
I think about trying to sugarcoat the next words, but the intelligence that I see in those eyes tells
me that she won t swallow anything but the truth.
 I am expected to be faithful to my wife for the term of the contract. Her eyes widen, just a bit,
and I find myself wanting to bend over, to sink my teeth into her full lower lip.  And so I would
expect you to be my wife in all meanings of the word.
Her cheeks flush. Honestly, I m not sure what to expect from this girl wide eyed protestations of
innocence or the calculation that I am accustomed to from women. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]