Her ruby red lips pinched, her displeasure at his indifference showing on her face.
“The current Mrs. Maddox didn’t read the prenup, did she?” Isabella purred, the question ringing all the alarm bells in his mind.
What the fuck did Isabella know?
Only his lawyer, his wife, and his close family knew about the prenup, and even then no one talked about it.
“What does my wife have to do with you, Isabella?” he asked, his tone clipped, edging on dangerous, but that only seemed to excite her.
Her lips curled, her eyes dancing with malice, she replied, “You’re going to divorce Kendra, you’re going to marry me, I am going to give you the baby she couldn’t, and you will treat me like the queen I was born to be—I will rule this city by your side with my father’s support and the Tempesta name at your back.”
Rage, bright and violent, tore through him. He shot to his feet, rounding the desk in a blink, and had Isabella’s throat in his hands faster than he could think.
Her eyes wide, her face pale, her growled down at her, “You had better keep my wife’s name out of your mouth, bitch.”
Color quickly flooded her cheeks as she clawed at his hands.
“Let me go, Gideon—you heard Daddy; you have to do what I say, or you’ll have the Tempesta Familia to deal with.”
Gideon didn’t loosen his grip an iota as he chuckled darkly, the sound like the Void had opened in his soul.
“You think you can threaten me?”
Her claws dung into the sleeve of his suit coat, her nails barely cutting through the thick, well-made fabric.
She choked out, “You had one job, Gideon, and you failed—that means you owe my father?—”
He spat, “I don’t owe your father shit, and even if I did, what makes either of you think I’d divorce my wife and marry you?”
She was turning whiter by the second, and because he didn’t have the patience nor the desire to endure a murder trial, he released her, pushing her away from him before he changed his mind and snapped her neck.
She coughed, holding her throat as she stared at him, belligerence and—fuck—desire in her blazing blue eyes.
This woman was twisted as hell.
When she could draw a full breath, she supplied, “The prenup.”
Gideon narrowed his eyes at her. “What does that have to do with you?” And how did you even learn about it? That was a question he’d have to ask Logan once he kicked the Mancini bitch out of his building.
“It’s been almost three years, Gideon, and she hasn’t given you a child. That means you can divorce her, she gets nothing, and then you and I can join forces—I would be a much betterpartner for you,mi amore,” she said, her voice an attempt at sultry that only left him annoyed.
Fighting the urge to sigh at her like she was a clueless puppy, he replied, “That clause only works if I choose to divorce her, Isabella?—”
“And you will, because she never should have been your wife in the first place,” Isabella snapped. “I was always the better choice, but you never even looked at me—why? I’m beautiful, my body is perfection, I’m rich, and I’m fertile. What the hell did you ever see in the fat, ugly, barren, nobody?”
And that question had been the catalyst, the trigger on a loaded gun pointed straight at his head.
The mess Isabella had left in her wake once he’d finally had security drag her from his office was the mess he’d carried home to his wife that night.
The mess he was still no closer to cleaning up days later.
Chapter Nine
From on his bedside table, beside the framed picture of him and Kendra on their honeymoon in Paris, her staring up at him adoringly from in front of the Eiffel Tower, his phone rang.
It was the ringtone for the front desk in the building’s lobby.
He answered it, his tone flat, “What is it?”
