His Virgin Acquisition. Maisey YatesЧитать онлайн книгу.
proved myself. I saved the company. My family’s company. And still he’d rather let your corporation absorb what he built up from nothing than give it to me. All because I’m a woman. Do you see why I feel the way I do?”
“If everything goes according to plan, you should be getting exactly what you’re entitled to.” Truth be told, Marco wasn’t the most modern guy. He was of the opinion that in general women should stay home and take care of their kids. But he could understand why she wanted to claim what was rightfully hers. It was a feeling he understood very well.
“Well, Miss Chapman.” He took her hand and pulled her from her sitting position. “I believe you and I have a date.”
“I’ll just pop in and change. You can wait in the living room.” Almost as soon as Elaine closed the front door to her apartment someone knocked on it. She opened it to a woman with spiky pink hair and a man whose eyebrows were more immaculately groomed than her own. “Can I help you?”
“I’m not sure how to say this tactfully, so I won’t bother. You need some help if you’re going to look believable as my fiancée,” Marco said from behind her.
Elaine stared blankly at him, the realization of what his statement meant slowly dawning. “You’re giving me a makeover?”
“I’m not; they are.” He gestured to the two people still standing at the threshold.
Her ears were burning. A makeover! “I’m not your dress-up doll, De Luca. You can’t just mandate things like this!”
He sighed in exasperation. Why was he exasperated? She was pretty sure she ought to have the market on exasperation cornered at that moment.
“Why bother to fight me on this? You need it—trust me—and I’m going to get my way, so you might as well sit your cute little butt down.”
She gave an indignant squeak and stood facing him with her mouth open.
“What? No snappy comeback?” he mocked. “I think I should notify the press.”
She could not remember ever being so angry before. He was taking control from her bit by bit, and there was nothing that threw her off more than losing control.
She gave him a look that would have cowed most men. Leave it to her to get engaged to the one man who didn’t seem to find her the least bit intimidating. “The measure of a woman is not her looks.”
“Very nice sentiment. It’s also patently untrue.”
“It is not!” Great. Now he had reduced her to petty playground tactics.
“It most certainly is. And the same is true for a man. If you dress the part you’ll be more likely to get the part. If I showed up at a board meeting in swimming trunks I wouldn’t be taken seriously, and your feeble, stereotyped sense of style is hardly going to earn you any respect.”
Neither had dressing feminine, but she certainly wasn’t going to get into that with him. “Be that as it may,” she said crisply, “I’m not here to play trophy wife.”
He continued to smile for the benefit of the stylists, who were busy pretending to ignore the fight. She wasn’t fooled by the grin frozen on his face. It had hardened, and his jaw shifted, the muscles in his shoulders bunched tight. “You’re here to be whatever I ask you to be. And if I ask you to be my trophy then that’s what you’ll be. We do both want this marriage, don’t we…cara mia?” The threat was implicit.
Icy fingers wrapped around her heart. She couldn’t lose this deal. She had worked too hard. And she certainly wasn’t going to lose it over something as trivial as a hairtrim and a little lipgloss.
She sat in the chair that was moved for her, keeping her face carefully neutral.
The petite hairdresser talked animatedly while she worked, waving her scissors every now and then to emphasize her point. She put a row of foils on the top of Elaine’s hair, turning it a lighter, less brassy shade, and cut six inches off the length, bringing it up so that it just skimmed her collarbone, and added long layers to give it body and movement.
The man, Giorgio, was there for make-up and, Elaine wasn’t terribly surprised to hear, eyebrow waxing. Her face was scrubbed and peeled and waxed and finally painted.
Giorgio stepped back and examined her like an artist looking at his masterpiece.
“I’m brilliant,” he said as he handed her a mirror.
She barely recognized the woman looking back at her. She had fun, modern hair that looked full and healthy. Her face glowed, probably from the gold powder that Giorgio had brushed all over it, and her eyes looked larger and brighter with the expertly applied eyeshadow and her newly shaped brows. She hated so much to admit that it was an improvement. But it was.
Marco took her by the hand and pulled her up out of the chair, and dropped a light kiss on the tips of her fingers. Her legs wobbled.
“You look beautiful.”
A new knock on her door broke the moment, and Elaine wrenched her hand from his. “I assume you know who that is too?”
He nodded, and walked to the door and opened it, taking a garment bag and tipping whoever it was that had made the delivery. “Your dress for dinner.”
He placed the hanger in her hand, and she stared at it. He was changing everything about her, from her hair to her wardrobe, in order to make her look like his type. Either that or he was just trying to drive her insane.
She opened her mouth to offer up a sour comment, but the frosty look in his deep chocolate eyes stopped her cold. This was her end of the bargain—the part she had to keep in order to get what she wanted. She swallowed the comeback and went to her room, making her footsteps heavier than necessary, and unzipped the garment bag, revealing a filmy golden-brown dress with beaded spaghetti straps.
It fit her perfectly. Too perfectly. The gown clung to her curves like a second skin, showcasing her small waist and full bust, and revealing a little too much cleavage for her comfort.
Marco hadn’t even asked her size. He’d guessed. If there was a more potent reminder of just how much of a womanizer he was, she couldn’t think of it. And what was even worse was that she had a sneaking suspicion that the boiling feeling she got in her tummy when she thought about him with other women just might be jealousy. Which was a completely futile road to walk down. Men like Marco De Luca could have, and did have, any woman they wanted. And women like her were not exactly the women that men like him wanted.
She exited her bedroom, fighting the desperate urge to cover up her exposed figure. There had been a time when she might have liked the dress, might have felt beautiful. Not anymore. Now she just felt exposed. And the heated look Marco was giving her did not help. He evaluated her slowly, his chocolate eyes slowly caressing her curves. Heat flared in the depths of his eyes and it made her insides tighten. It felt as though someone had reached inside her and stolen the air from her lungs.
“Almost perfect,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a slender velvet case. “I went back to Tiffany’s today.” He opened the case and revealed the most beautiful necklace she’d ever seen.
The chain was made up of gossamer strands of white gold gathered together by delicate round-cut diamonds. The center pendant was a showcase of delicate craftsmanship, with intricate winding vines of platinum, and a large, perfectly cut emerald at the center.
He moved behind her and swept her hair to the side, his warm fingertips brushing her nape, sending a shimmer of sparks through her. “You’re a beautiful woman, Elaine. Truly beautiful.” She sucked in a breath when the cold jewelry touched her skin, the pendant settling between her breasts. “Your power is in your beauty. You should use it. Not hide it.”
Heat curled through her. Pleasure, she realized. She liked having him say she was beautiful. She liked feeling beautiful. And she wasn’t sure how she