The efforts to meet someone and engage in something with the hope of it being forever had become increasingly tedious, because his whole life so far had been about the temporary. The reset to permanence was an uncomfortable one. It didn’t feel right, like wearing a poorly-made suit.
In a frustrated moment, after a failed lunch date with yet another beautiful woman who didn’tfit, he’d returned to the office, glimpsed Simone and spat out the almost careless but perhaps his most insightful words he ever said.
Why can’t I find someone like you?
She’d cocked her head at him, just like she’d done tonight, fixed him with her assessing gaze and then given the fateful reply.
Maybe you can.
What had started out as something entirely fanciful, sparked an idea that sunk its teeth into him and wouldn’t let go. That in a world of people who wanted things he wouldn’t give, here was a woman who only sought what he could.
In the beginning his negotiations were cautious because he valued Simone more as his executive assistant than anything else. His right hand in so many ways. Yet she’d been clear, harbouring no secret desires for love. She wanted her job, and money she couldn’t raise even with her generous wage, to help her sister Holly.
Some tweaks to their pre-nuptial agreement and it was done. No need for any more dinners or painful ‘getting-to-know-you’ sessions, since both of them knew enough about the other to make the arrangement work.
And what they didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt them.
‘You propositioned me, so you clearly believed you were worth it.’
The corner of her lips tilted in an enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile. Had Da Vinci ever sought to discover what was going through his subject’s mind as he immortalised one of the most famous smiles in history? Because for Leo, what was going through his wife’s mind had begun to intrigue him in ways he hadn’t thought possible.
‘You accepted, so you clearly understood I was.’
It was an enticing exchange. Their banter, such as it was when Simone was only his assistant, had always been professional. Now, with this woman in his arms, there was a whisper of something more. Yet she still regarded him with her wintry grey eyes, impassive and confounding.
‘Once the seed was sown, Simone, I never had any doubt.’
A truth, in his carefully crafted life of lies.
The music began to slow, then stop. From the perfectly timed running sheet, Leo knew this was the end of the evening. He let Simone go and she moved away from him, stepping to his side. For a brief and unscripted moment he wanted to tell the band to start up again, so they could have one last dance, where he could hold her and they could continue this push and pull, and then he might find out what she truly thought of him. However, that would ruin the theatre of the evening, so he restrained himself as his guests clapped and they moved to what should have been the perfect send off. Except it wasn’t perfect, when all he wished for was the impossible.
To have Simone in his arms again.
CHAPTER TWO
Simone leaned againstthe rich wooden wall of the lift taking them both to the suite Leo had booked for their wedding night, to save on getting stuck in traffic. Really, it had seemed unnecessary when they could have simply returned to his townhouse. Her stomach swooped uncomfortably. This unsettling feeling didn’t have anything to do with spending their first night living together. That couldn’t be it at all.
As Leo’s executive assistant, she’d spent two years in his proximity. They’d travelled together in his jet. She’d worked long nights and stayed in his brownstone, though admittedly in a suite designed exclusively for guests. She even kept spare clothes there, just in case. Being this close to him had never affected her before.
It had to be due to the speed with which the lift moved towards the top floor of the hotel. Nothing else.
Simone shook off the strange sensation, glancing at Leo’s imposing profile as he stared ahead of him, seemingly lost in thought. A few bits of coloured confetti clung to his coal-dark hair and were sprinkled on the shoulders of his impeccable tuxedo made specially for their wedding. Sheknewhe owned four other tuxedos already, so he could simply have taken one from his closet and been done. Why bother with the cost of another?
But that wasn’t Leo Zanetti and never would be. He liked the excess of it. The admiring comments when he was seen in something new, even if it was a suit. No doubt the magazine that would write the article about their ‘whirlwind romance’ and show pictures of their wedding to the world, had already been given details of their wedding attire. Especially when Leo could make or break a tailor with a raised eyebrow when someone asked him about the fit of a suit. Or create a whole design trend just by saying he liked something.
It was so…frivolous. Like her own life had been before she’d smashed the mould made for her by her parents. Still, even with all of that, the night had caught her by surprise. Setting aside the breathless members of society gushing over the wedding, something about it had seemed unusually weighty. Their vows, all traditional. Promises made to one another, even if they were meaningless and only made to be broken.
It all sat heavily on her chest, pressing down on her. Making it hard to breathe…
Probably just a hangover from the realisation that the moment represented a final nail in the coffin of her childhood dreams. Of finding her prince, falling in love and marrying. Some things were clearly ingrained in her, even though life had taught Simone years ago that love wasn’t to be trusted. She’d decided then to rely on herself and no one else.
The lift eased to a stop and Leo turned to her, theirgazes clashing. His eyes a shade of blue so vibrant and shocking it always caught her by surprise. Like a jump-scare, except with a frisson not entirely unpleasant, the way those eyes of his pierced her very soul.
You look beautiful.
Her breath caught. The memory of those words still slipping seductively through her.
Simone knew she wasn’t beautiful in any traditional sense. Her mother had told her that, often enough. That she had aninteresting face.Eyes a touch too narrow, mouth a little too wide. Blessed with good hair, though, to her mother’s relief. She’d spent her teens and early twenties trying to live up to the impossible expectations set for her by her family in her comportment and the way she’d dressed. Wearing couture and designer brands like others wore off the rack. It had all been so meaningless. Her true thoughts on anything had been irrelevant. All that was important was meeting her parents’ exacting standards. Saving herself for marriage and marrying well, which meant marrying someone her parents chose for her.
