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  Her breasts ached in anticipation of his touch, and desire simmered inside her. She couldn’t believe her body could respond with such abandon when she knew Franco was using her. She’d been used before. But she wasn’t a lonely seventeen-year-old trying to fit in at her third high school anymore. She wouldn’t expect love or forever this time, so she wouldn’t be hurt.

  “Hey guys, where’d you go?” Candace’s voice called out from somewhere in the house.

  Franco slowly lifted his head, his lips clinging to Stacy’s for several heartbeats. His passion-darkened gaze speared hers. “Tonight we begin.”

  She couldn’t find her voice, but she managed a stiff nod.

  Dear God, what had she done?

  She’d agreed to trade sex for security. She couldn’t help feeling she’d sold her soul to the devil, and she hoped she didn’t live to regret it.

  Anticipation made Franco edgy. He hated it. He was, after all, a man of thirty-eight and not a boy of eighteen. His hormones did not seem to know the difference tonight.

  Impatience urged him to take Stacy directly to his bedroom, to strip away her modest black dress and cover her ivory skin with his hands and mouth, but her pale, anxious expression cooled his ardor. Standing in his foyer, she looked torn between running back into the night and fulfilling her end of the bargain no matter how unpleasant.

  Where was the passionate but reserved woman he’d left at the hotel mere hours ago? The one who’d kissed him with such fervor this morning that only her friend’s untimely interruption had prevented him from consummating their agreement against his bedroom door? He wanted that passionate woman back. And he would have her. Stacy would be warm and pliant in his arms and his bed before the night ended. And he would win. The woman. And the contest with his father.

  He pitched his keys onto the credenza, halted behind her and curved his hands over her shoulders. She startled. “May I take your wrap?”

  “Oh, um, yes, sure.” She darted a quick, nervous glance at him and tension tightened inside him as an unacceptable thought pierced his conscience.

  “Stacy, are you a virgin?” He’d had lovers, dozens of them, but no virgins. Experienced women understood that all he wanted was the transitory pleasure of their bodies. An innocent might expect more.

  Color rushed to her cheeks and she ducked her chin. “No. But I…this…is new to me. I don’t know where to begin.”

  His clenched muscles loosened. Nerves he could handle. Regrets and crying, he could not. He had intended to satisfy his hunger for Stacy first tonight and then his less demanding appetite for dinner afterward, but perhaps he would alter his strategy. Dinner first. Pleasure later. Anticipation would only heighten the senses. “Leave that to me.”

  Franco stroked the lace down her arms, caught her elbows and pulled her back against his front. Her bottom nudged his thighs. The urge to thrust his growing arousal against her gnawed at him, but he would coax Stacy until she was breathless and eager for his possession, as she had been earlier. He nuzzled through her silky hair and sipped from the warm, fragrant juncture of her neck and shoulder. She shivered.

  Bien, the responsive woman still lurked beneath her pale and tense exterior. He encircled her with his arms and spread his palms over the slight curve of her abdomen. “I will ensure your pleasure tonight, mon gardénia.”

  A little hic of breath lifted her breasts, and though he wanted to cup her soft flesh in his hands and stroke his thumbs over the tips pushing against the fabric of her dress, he could wait. But not long.

  “We will dine on the terrace.” He released her and led her through the living room, draping her wrap over the back of a chair as they passed. On the patio he seated her, lit the candles he’d placed in the center of the table and then poured the cabernet franc. After removing the lid covering the crudités and setting it aside, he sat and lifted his glass. “À nous et aux plaisirs de la nuit.”

  She made a choked sound. “I’m sorry?”

  “To us and the pleasures of the night,” he translated.

  “That’s what I thought you said,” she muttered into the bowl of her glass and took a healthy sip of wine.

  He removed a small box from his suit pocket and placed it on the table in front of her. He had planned to give her this after savoring her delicious body, but why wait? Stacy needed coaxing, and in his experience jewelry always made women more amenable. “For you.”

  The line formed between her eyebrows. “You don’t have to buy presents for me.”

  He would make sure she wore it when she met his father. He shrugged. “Open it.”

  She set aside her wine, hesitantly opened the box and stared. Seconds later she snapped the lid closed and shoved the box toward him. “I can’t accept that.”

  He stilled. “You don’t like diamonds?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “You have a diamond bracelet?”

  “No.” She closed her eyes, swallowed and then met his gaze. “Franco, we already have a deal. Can we just stick to it?”

  He masked his surprise and puzzlement. He had never had a woman refuse his gifts before—especially not expensive jewelry. “Perhaps I wish to see you wearing the diamonds. And nothing else.”

  “Oh.” Her cheeks flushed. “Oh,” she repeated and fiddled with the stem of her glass for a moment before looking at him through her thick lashes. It was a worried glance rather than a flirtatious one. “Diamonds do it for you, huh?”

  He reared back. “No, diamonds do not do it for me. I merely wished to give you a gift.”

  “And I’m telling you that you don’t have to.”

  What game was she playing? He examined her face, her guileless eyes. Was her innocence an act? It had to be. Otherwise she never would have accepted his offer. He rose. “I will return momentarily with dinner.”

  In the kitchen he mechanically plated the smoked mozzarella with sundried tomatoes and peppercorns in a puddle of olive oil while mulling over Stacy’s refusal. She had to have an ulterior motive. He retrieved the filet barole from the warming oven, divided it onto dishes and poured the cognac and mushroom sauce over it.

  Was she after a bigger prize? Perhaps a diamond ring instead of a bracelet? If so, she would not get one from him. He would never marry again. His one and only failed marriage had taught him that women were selfish creatures. Nothing mattered except their wants. Nothing.

  Not even life.

  His throat tightened at the memory of the babe his wife had carelessly discarded without his knowledge or consent. Had there not been complications with the abortion, causing the doctors to hospitalize Lisette and call Franco to Paris, he would never have known her “shopping trip” was a lie or that she had conceived his child—a child she did not want. And then there were his father’s costly divorces. Stacy was no different from any other greedy woman. She had revealed her true nature by accepting his terms. He set his jaw.

  Non. He did not trust women. He enjoyed them briefly and then he moved on. But he was a generous lover both in bed and out. Stacy would have no complaints.

  Stacy was not at the table when he carried the tray outside. He scanned the dimly lit terrace and found her in the shadows by the railing overlooking the garden below. Or perhaps she studied the whirlpool. His arousal stirred in anticipation.

  After placing the meal on the table he joined her. “Dinner waits.”

  She turned slightly. A gentle breeze lifted tendrils of hair. “I’m sorry, Franco. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings by refusing the bracelet. I just don’t think we should try to make this into something it’s not.”

  Again she surprised and perplexed him. “What would that be?”

  “A relationship.”

  His thoughts exactly, but hearing her voice them disturbed him in an inexplicable way. “We are going to be lovers, Stacy. We will have a relationship, albeit a temporary one. And if I choose to buy things for you then I do so because it pleases me, not because I expect more from you than our original agre