Chapter Three
THE WILDEST PART was that Ivy actually wanted to do it.
Or if she didn’t want it, necessarily, there was something inside her that was urging her on.
A kind of tugging she’d never felt before in her life.
Like there was a band of need wrapped 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 voracious need she’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 that her virtue had redeemed him?
“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 could date and then marry you. ”
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 why this man 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.”
“I’m happy to have a discussion.” She stopped walking and looked back over her shoulder at him.
“All you seem to want to do is muddle around in all your innuendo. It’s boring.
If we’re not going to have a practical conversation about the way this is going to work, I don’t see the point of it.
You can go ahead and email me your thoughts, or whatever schedule you come up with, hopefully without all the smirking and the sighing and this endless performance you like to put on. ”
She didn’t really mean to say that the way that she did, so forcefully. But she wasn’t sorry she’d done it that way when she saw his reaction. Oh, it was small. Almost unnoticeable. But something about that perfect face of his changed. Just for a moment.
But Ivy saw it.
Unless she was very much mistaken, she had landed a significant blow.
The trouble was, she just couldn’t imagine how.
“I had no idea you were so stern and dominating,” he murmured in that idle, yet richly tenored way of his.
“How delicious.” He crooked a finger at her, watching her intently.
When Ivy made no move toward him, he sighed a little—yet not with the histrionics from before, so she supposed she ought to have been grateful for small mercies.
He patted the sofa seat beside him, and she felt…
less grateful. “We’re about to become famous lovers, Ivy.
The very least we ought to do is exchange mobile numbers.
Not to mention that email address I’ll need to contact you as you have demanded.
I do so enjoy obedience, as I mentioned. ”
“When it benefits you,” she replied, parroting what he’d told her.
His dark eyes gleamed. “Indeed.”
She felt as if she was something small and fluttery, caught in a trap. Or possibly between his hands.
And the thought of that, of being held between his palms, didn’t actually do anything to steady her breathing. Much less sort out whatever was going on with her heartbeat.
All she could see when she looked at him was danger.
But if they were really going to do what Umberto wanted them to do, Ivy didn’t see that she had any choice when it came to dealing with him. And since she didn’t have a choice, it made sense to treat him the way she intended to go on.
Meaning she couldn’t let him set the tone. She couldn’t let him control everything.
She really couldn’t let him think that she was intimidated by him. She was fully aware that he wanted her to be. That he expected her to be.
Maybe he remembered her scuttling off from that gallery, too.
Ivy made herself walk back across the room and sit down next to him on that couch, even though every iota of self-preservation she had within her was telling her to run in the opposite direction. Like the little mouse he made her feel like she was.
She might feel like one, Ivy counseled herself, but he didn’t need to know that.
It was just an unfortunate fact of life that even sitting on a separate sofa cushion from the man was too close.
She could smell him. And it was an outrageously pleasant scent.
She told herself it must be some kind of aftershave, though if so, she had never smelled anything like it.
He just smelled…good. The way sunshine would smell if it had a scent.
It made her think of the few blissful holidays she’d taken in her time, her face tipped up to the sun, all of that heat and ease—
Somehow, she schooled her expression to something impassive and gazed back at him, ordering herself to stop with all the sunshine.
Giaco watched her closely, and Ivy wondered how it was that he’d convinced the entire world that he was nothing but a pageant of indolence. When she could see that he was studying her intently, like he was taking the pieces of her and examining them.
Almost like some kind of bird of prey. As if he could see every single thought that scrolled across her mind. In flashing neon lights.
This took significantly more attention to detail than a professional playboy like Giaco Tavian had ever been imagined to possess. It was also the last thing she wanted.
He shifted in his seat, his outstretched arm curling in so he could prop up his head with his own hand. As if the mere act of talking with her was exhausting. Ivy had never beheld such a lazy creature in all her life—except that, too, didn’t make any sense.