She glared at him. “I was willing then. Not anymore.”
“But I can see you if I close my eyes.” He closed his eyes, leaning against the wall. A wicked smile dancing around his lips. “The mole on the curve of your right buttock. The mark you have on your knee from skinning it. The silky folds of—”
She pressed her palm to his mouth and whispered, “Stop, please.”
Unholy humor glinted in his silver eyes. “That’s not all. I have the sounds you make, the way you thrust your hips up when I’m deep inside you, I have them all in my head.” He tapped his temple, his nostrils flaring. “They’re the first things I recall in the morning when I wake up with—”
She drew her hand back, burned. But even beneath the sensual web around them, it was the humor in his eyes that threw her. “You’re shameless.”
His eyes followed a drop of water from her neck to the tight cinch of her towel. A devilish smile glinted around his mouth. “You know how I get in the morning, ne? You left me with no recourse.” He pulled up her left hand and frowned. “Where are your rings?”
“In my bag.”
With purposeful movements, he looked through her bag. Stalking back to her, he pushed the rings on her finger. Another sleek box appeared from somewhere.
Her heart thundered as he pulled out a simple gold chain with a diamond pendant.
The pendant was a thumbnail sized V in delicately twisted platinum and gold with tiny diamonds lining up the branches. She had seen it at a jewelry store once—on one rare occasion when they’d been out shopping together to buy a gift for her niece Izzie. Buying it with her credit card—against Kairos’s dictate that she stop spending Leandro’s money—would have been easy.
But already...something had changed in her back then.
Clothes and shoes and jewelry had begun to lose their allure. Because none of those, she had realized, made a difference in how her reserved husband saw her.
And yet he’d noticed her watching it.
She met his eyes over the fragile chain dangling in his fingers. “I... I have a lot of funky jewelry to dress the part. I can’t stand the thought of fake gifts.”
“I bought it for you. We might as well use it.” With one hand, he pushed the swathe of her hair aside, then his hands were gentle around her neck. His warm breath feathered over her face, his arms a languorous weight over her shoulders. “Throw it away after we’re done with this for all I care.”
The pendant was cold against her bare skin. Tina licked her lips, warmth pooling in her chest. “When?”
His fingers lingered over the nape of her neck, straightening the chain, but still her heart went thud against her ribcage. “When what?”
“When did you buy it?”
“When you were waiting outside, in the car. I meant to give it to you on—” he laughed, and yet beneath the mockery Tina sensed self-deprecation, even anger “—the ten-month anniversary of our wedding. I feel like a fool even saying that.”
“Then why did you buy it?” Her tummy rolled at his proximity, at the revelation. “You called me a sentimental little fool when I bought you gifts on that date. A child who celebrates every little thing.”
“Maybe you finally wore me down. But then you left two days after that shopping trip, so maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t change too much for you, ne?” he said, looking away.
This time, there was no doubt that he was angry, even bitter that she had left him. That she had given up on their marriage. She must have changed him a little if he had truly thought of giving her a gift on that date. Maybe just a little.
But still, he hadn’t acted on that anger. He had simply written her off, like a bad asset. He had only come for her when he decided he needed her. She had to remember that.
“The clothes, the shoes, everything will stay.” He walked away, a faint tension radiating from him. “I want the classy, stylish Valentina. The adoring, loving wife.”
“I can’t force the last part.”
“Pretend then. For months, you did just that anyway. Do you need anything else?”
“Underwear. Bras, to be exact,” she said the first thing that came to her lips while her mind whirled. Had he cared about her just a little? Had he bought her the necklace to make her happy?
Did his humiliating proposal that she could persuade him to try again hold a hint of what he wanted?
“The ones I have are plain cotton and will show—”
“Things I’d rather not have anyone but me see in those slinky dresses,” he finished for her, possessiveness ringing in his tone. He frowned and looked at the reams of new bras. “I had my PA order those from the boutique you spend a fortune in.”
She sighed—she really did like how big those push-up bras made her breasts look. No, what she liked was that they had made her feel like he would like her more. But no more of her crazy shenanigans. “Those don’t...fit anymore.”
His gaze moved to her chest like a laser beam. The wicked devil! “I can’t tell from under that towel.”
She picked up a pen and notepad and wrote down her size.
“No underwire, no padding, no lifting. All you’re going to get is my tiny boobs as nature made them,” she muttered to herself.
He laughed, half choking on it. She jerked her head up, realizing too late he’d been standing far too close. He stared at her as if she had grown two horns. “What?”
She pasted a fake smile to her lips. “My sanity returned nine months ago. I can’t wait for the next three months to be over.”
He scowled. Didn’t even bother to hide it.
“Fortunately, I know you well enough not to trust a word out of your lovely mouth,” said the blasted man.
If a shiver claimed her spine, she didn’t let it show on her face.
A few more months in my bed...
A rich man’s trophy wife...
Kairos would never see her as anything else.
She’d seen how he behaved with her sister-in-law Sophia, one of his oldest friends. A woman he’d proposed to before he’d decided on Tina herself.
Sophia was the smartest woman Tina knew. And she commanded Kairos’s respect. Even Leandro’s wife Alexis had Kairos’s regard.
Both women, so different, and yet they had one thing in common that she did not have.
They were successful in their own right—strong, independent women who were more than enough to take on her powerful brothers Leandro and Luca.
That was what Tina wanted to be. That was what she wanted to see in his eyes when he looked at her.
If he was going to tease and torment her for three months, then she would earn his respect, his regard. She was Valentina Conti Constantinou and she would have her own form of revenge by succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.
She would rub his face in what he was giving up. And only then, only when she had brought him to his knees, would Valentina walk away. Even her Machiavellian grandfather Antonio, who’d only ever accepted her under pressure from Leandro, couldn’t deny that she was any less of a scheming Conti now.
She turned around and faced Kairos. “I have been thinking of our deal since last night.” Steady, flat, her voice cooperated. “I have a few conditions.”
His nostrils flared. “You don’t get to negotiate.”
That