Page 29 of Cruelest Contract (Storm’s Eye Ranch)

JULIAN

C ecilia enters my bedroom with caution, almost tiptoeing. Her scent is sweet and summery. Her feet are bare and for a change she wears pants; stretchy black leggings that show off the curve of her hips.

The sweater she wears is the same one she wore in the photograph taken by the detective my father hired to check into her.

I’ve stared at that photo often while checking out the shape of her body and thinking how nice it would be to tear those little sweater buttons off and push my face between her tits.

I’m thinking that now, especially after she stood at her window on the verge of treating me to a spontaneous striptease. Just when I’m sure I’ve got this girl figured out, she surprises the hell out of me.

Won’t hear me complaining.

But the last of my willpower is just about gone. A few minutes ago I stopped myself from ripping off her bedroom door, stripping her naked and doing whatever I please to her sexy body. I held back, just barely, refusing to stray from my plan to let her come to me, like I knew she would.

And now she has.

“So this is your room,” she says and then grimaces like she’d rather retrieve those very obvious words. Nervous, she crosses and uncrosses her arms.

“This is my room.” I lean my hip against the desk and watch her.

Cecilia stays by the wall and crosses her arms again. She never did refasten those top buttons. She appears to be collecting her courage while surveying the contents of my bedroom.

There’s not much to see here. The décor has remained the same since I was a teenager. I keep it neat and simple and have no use for clutter. Typically, I retreat to this room to shower and sleep and that’s all.

“Is my brother really safe?” Cecilia blurts.

The flash of anguish that crosses her face makes me forget all about being smug for a moment.

“Gabriel is fine,” I assure her. “The misunderstanding has already been resolved and it will stay that way. No matter what you decide, he’s free to leave his San Diego hideout anytime he wants.”

“Oh.” Her mouth puckers into a cute frown. “I mean, that’s good news. Thank you. I’m truly grateful.”

Clearly, Gabe Grimaldi still hasn’t bothered to update his sister. He’s content to let her solve his problems and then leaves her in limbo. I knew he was an asshole.

But at least the tension in Cecilia’s shoulders disappears now that she knows the hit on her twin has been cancelled.

She scans the room again. “That’s the ranch brand,” she says, pointing to the metal shape hanging on the wall above my bed. “It looks like the sign by the entrance, only smaller.”

“This one hung by the front gate when my grandfather was alive.”

She continues her inspection and squints at my dresser. “Is that a picture of your mother?”

“Yes. My Uncle Sal gave me a bunch of old family photos when I visited him in New York last year.” I swipe the framed photo off the dresser and pass it to Cecilia.

In the photo, my mother had just turned twenty and she’s standing behind the counter of her father’s pizzeria. She had no idea that a few months later she’d meet Cassio Tempesta and marry him after a very short whirlwind romance.

Cecilia handles the photo with care and stares at my mother’s young face. “She had such a beautiful smile,” she says softly.

“She did,” I agree, very accustomed to the abrupt pang of a bottomless loss.

I watch while Cecilia gently, almost reverently, returns the photo to my dresser and reclaims her spot against the wall. She does her best to quit running her eyes over my chest.

“I must have caught you in the middle of getting dressed,” she says.

She’s eyeing my shorts. Pretending like she’s not tracing the shape of my cock.

“Nope. I was just about to jump into a hot shower. I stood out in the rain for too long.”

I hold her gaze, daring her to acknowledge what she did while she watched me at the window.

“I can come back,” she says and reaches for the doorknob. “We’ll do this later.”

I beat her to the door and flatten my palm on the wood, holding it shut. “No. We’re doing this now.”

She huffs and turns away, pauses to look at my neatly made bed, and then whirls around to face me, meeting my stare without blinking. I’ve seen these flashes of stubbornness in her eyes a few times and I can’t wait to hear what she says next.

“All right, Julian,” she says in a very clear, professional voice. “We’ll do this now. I’d like to have a very blunt conversation about your intentions.”

This is going to be fun.

“In that case, Cecilia, I’ll very bluntly tell you that I want you to be my wife.”

Her mouth falls open. She quickly shuts it. “I still don’t understand why.”

“Obvious reasons. You’re gorgeous and you’re intelligent and I’m extremely attracted to you. Our families have a longstanding connection. Plus, I don’t have time to date and I’m not interested in defending the life I lead.”

She mulls this over. “Hypothetically, what kind of marriage would we have?”

“A genuine one. There are far worse reasons to get married than the ones I’ve just listed. And you should know that while I’m often away on business, Storm’s Eye Ranch will always be home. Our home.”

That word makes an obvious impression on her. HOME.

But then her brows pinch together and she throws up her hands. “Look, I can’t imagine sitting here and doing nothing while you’re off running your kingdom. I have an accounting degree and I like working.”

“I thought of that. Between all of our operations we have plenty of accounting needs. We can set up an office for you and you will be included in the family business.”

She can’t conceal her surprise. She didn’t expect me to agree with her on that point.

Of course I agree. I appreciate that she’s smart and wants to be useful with her time.

“And you’ll always work for your family,” she says. “You’ll never leave the…” She stops short of uttering the word, like it’s a curse she doesn’t know if she should use.

“Mafia,” I finish. “You can say it out loud around here. And no, there’s no way to leave what runs through my blood, just as it runs through yours.”

She exhales and her shoulders sag. “That’s a fact I’ve tried to escape for a long time.”

“And how did that work out? Changing your name. Occasionally dating tedious losers. Sitting in a soulless grey cubicle from eight to five, choking down a gummy microwave lunch in the break room and then breathing traffic fumes while you inch through freeway gridlock with a hundred thousand other hopeless office bots, all while knowing you get to repeat the same exact cycle tomorrow.”

“Damn.” She slumps against the wall and blows out a breath of frustration. “When you put it that way, commuter life sounds pitiful.”

“You deserve so much better, Cecilia. Let me give it to you. Like I said, I can’t be chased away by anyone. Once you’re mine, that status becomes permanent.”

She cocks her head, appraising me more sharply. “Tell me something.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

“This entire trip was sort of a charade, wasn’t it? I was never supposed to pick from among the four of you. You knew what my choice would be before my plane landed. Otherwise you wouldn’t have invited me. This wasn’t an offer. It was an audition.”

“And you’ve been nothing but perfect. I needed to see proof that you could adjust to life here. You’re correct to seek answers about what you can expect from me.”

“And what is that?”

“A marriage vow is irrevocable. As my wife, you’ll get my protection, my loyalty and my dick. I think you’ve got more intelligence than to consider this a fairy tale. Am I wrong?”

“No.” A wrinkle of deep thought cuts into her forehead. “You’re not wrong. I like you very much, Julian. But I’m not in love with you.”

“Smart girl. We’ll be good together, Cecilia.”

She primly clears her throat. “And you’ll expect us to sleep in the same bed from the beginning, right?”

I bust up laughing because I can’t help it but I try to smother the laughter when her mouth flattens in an angry line.

“Are you done?” she sniffs.

“I thought we were being straightforward,” I say.

“I think that question was as straightforward as it gets.”

“Cecilia, I’ve been dying to fuck you since you stepped off the plane. I know you feel the same way.”

Her eyebrows arch. “Your level of arrogance is a little tough to take.”

“Honesty isn’t arrogance. Admit it.”

One of this girl’s best qualities is that she’s not immune to common sense. Rather than buckling under conflicting emotions she carefully weighs her options.

She’s weighing those options right now.

The flush beneath her neck and the journey her eyes take across my chest before straying lower tells a story that requires no words.

I’ll wait her out.

The gears in her head are still turning. If she needs some persuasion, I’m ready to get more physical and I’m hard enough to break the seam of my shorts.

Everything I’ve said to Cecilia is true. This marriage proposal is absolutely practical. We’re a good match and we’ll both get what we want. But I never would have given the matter a second thought if I didn’t want to screw the daylights out of her from the second I laid eyes on her photo.

She raises her chin and the willful spark briefly returns. “I’m not interested in sharing,” she says. “And I never will be. Fidelity is nonnegotiable.”

“Then we’re on the same page. While we’re both living you’ll be the only woman in my bed and I’ll be the only man who touches you. I promise.”

She nods and nibbles at her lip again, suddenly shy. “Do you want children? Because I do. Maybe not right away but I do want them.”

“Of course. Anytime you’re ready we’ll start a family of our own.”

Family. Another word that holds immense power over her.

Cecilia’s eyes grow wistful and the lingering stubborn spark fades. Her own family was viciously torn to shreds and she never recovered.

I can’t replace all that she’s lost. But I can offer her a new beginning.