Giaco shrugged. “That is entirely possible.”
“In any case, it has nothing to do with me,” she continued. “You’re completely unbelievable as a romantic lead. No one who has ever heard of you—and sadly, everyone has heard of you, against their will—would ever believe that you would date only one person, much less propose to her. And it absolutely beggars belief that you would ever marry.”
“A stinging indictment indeed,” he murmured. Then lifted a shoulder. “But you forget that the camera loves me. It will show the world precisely what I wish it to, never you fear.”
“But I do fear,” Ivy said. “I don’t believe it’s possible.”
“Well,” he replied, with a theatrical sort of sigh. “If you insist, I’ll be happy to give a demonstration.”
She only stared back at him, and he sighed again. So put upon. So beleaguered, as he lounged about half-undressed in the company of a beautiful woman that he was going to marry, and likely soon.
Giaco lifted a hand and beckoned her to him with two fingers. “Come on, then. Come here, little saint. Let’s see if I can make you believe that your virtue has redeemed me.”
Chapter Three
THE WILDEST PARTwas that Ivy actually wanted to do it. Or if she didn’twantit, necessarily, there was something inside her that was urging her on. A kind oftuggingshe’d never felt before in her life. Like there was a band ofneedwrapped tight around the very center of her, pulling her toward him.
She didn’t understand it at all.
Logically, it made no sense. She knew exactly who Giaco was, for her sins. She knew what he did. How he did it, even. She’d spent years witnessing the chaos and carnage he left in his wake every time he visited his family, usually in the form of Umberto’s temper tantrums after his departure that the old man doled out indiscriminately and with a certain relish, to Ivy’s mind. And in case she’d been predisposed to think that was a family issue, the unavoidable tabloid coverage of Giaco made it more than clear that such upheaval was his raison d’être wherever he happened to find himself.
Ivy’d had something of a run-in with him five years ago in the run-up to her mother’s funeral, those hazy, heavy days while the arrangements were being made by the very people who hadn’t cared about Alana while she’d been alive. Ivy had been…raw. And she’d stumbled across Giaco in one of the castle galleries, flirting outrageously with a woman Ivy hadn’t recognized. Maybe she’d been one of the mourners who had been there less because they cared at all about Ivy’s mother and more because they thought Alana’s death meant they were in with a chance with Umberto.
Ivy had been all of twenty years old, more sheltered than she would have admitted at the time, and yet had still been perfectly aware that had she come a few moments later, that woman would likely have been kneeling between Giaco’s legs as he lounged back on one of the viewing benches.
She had already been hovering there, knees bent, as if in mid-kneel.
Giaco had looked over lazily. He’d seen Ivy standing there and had only shrugged. Clearly not caring if she stayed or went.
She had, obviously, turned right around and gotten out of there.
Yet for some reason, it had taken her longer than it should have to forget about that moment. She supposed the trauma of her mother’s actual funeral hadn’t helped, because what she remembered now were all the times she’d had flashes of that expression on his face afterward. For far too long after she’d escaped this place and made her way back to London.
Happily, it had gone away. And she really didn’t know why she was remembering it again now.
Or why she could feel something deep within her kindle into an odd little flame as she stood there, as if she too felt that same voraciousneedshe’d watched in another woman years ago. To kneel before him. To place herself between those carelessly outspread legs. To gaze up at him, tilt her face toward him, and—
Good God, she thought. The man was like a drug. The sort that came with dire warnings and distressing media campaigns.
And now he wanted to make her believe thathervirtue had redeemedhim?
“I will be doing absolutely nothing of the kind,” Ivy told him, and she was aware that she sounded more prim and proper than she’d ever felt a day in her life. But for some reason it seemed like a defense. Yet he only gazed back at her, too much dark jade and that curve to his impossible mouth. She huffed out a breath. “I don’t need to prove anything to you. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I think it makes sense that my reactions to you should be organic. After all, if this ridiculous performance is to be believed, it would make sense that you would have to do more convincing than me. No sane, reasonable woman, virtuous or not, would ever wish to be seen in your presence. Much less imagine that she coulddateand thenmarryyou.”
It was so absurd that she laughed.
But Giaco only inclined his head as if she’d complimented him. “It is true that I am a movable feast, indeed. Hemingway would be so proud.”
Ivy did not want to think too much about how or whythisman of all men was making literary references. It was one more thing that made no sense. “You still haven’t told me how this is all going to work,” she said instead, briskly. “Do you just wave a magic wand? And lo, fawning members of the press appear before you?”
He looked amused, and not in that sharp, painful way he often did. “More or less. Sometimes I simply step outside.”
“You should text them, then.” It sounded like she was giving him orders, and she could tell he wasn’t used to that in the way his dark brows rose. Ivy decided to take that as a sign she was on the right path. “Once you sort it out, you can tell me where to meet you and what sort of date it is so I can turn myself out appropriately, and we’ll get this moving.”
“Stop,” he murmured. “This is so scandalous. You’re making me blush.”
Ivy realized that she could continue to stand there, fighting her own body’s bizarre response to him, or she could act as if this was all settled. Because it should have been settled. She chose the latter, so she nodded at him and then started for the door.
“Now, now, little saint,” Giaco said, sounding…decadent and lush, somehow. “Don’t be in such a rush. We have so many things left to discuss.”
