Пенни Джордан: THE ITALIAN DUKE’S WIFE

as a dumped reject.

"In twelve months" time you could go back with a

million pounds in your bank account," she heard

Lorenzo saying, as though he had read her mind.

It was so tempting to give in and agree. And she

resented him for putting her in a position where she

was tempted. What had she promised herself about

never being manipulated by a man again? Gritting her

teeth, Jodie pushed herself back from the edge of giving

in.

"If you really want a wife," she told him crossly,

"then why Don’t try finding one without using your

money? Someone who wants to marry you because

she loves you, and believes that in you she has found

a man who loves her back, a man she can respect and

trust, and…" She saw the way he was looking at her

and shook her head. "Oh, what’s the use? Men like

you and John are all the same. He only values the

kind of woman he can show off, the kind of woman

who makes other men envy him, and you only want

the kind of woman you can buy so that you can control

her and your relationship with her. Well, I am not

that kind of woman. And, no, I will not marry you."

As she turned away from him Lorenzo could feel

the anger surging through him. She was refusing him?

This…this too-thin nobody of a tourist — a woman

who had been rejected publicly by the man who had

promised to marry her? didn’t she realise just what

he was offering her or how fortunate she was?

Marriage to him would transform her instantly from

an unwanted dab of a woman into the wife of someone

wealthy enough to buy her ex-fiance. a hundred

thousand times over. She would instantly be raised to

a social height most women could only dream of, she

would be courted by the famous and the rich, and, if

she was intelligent enough to capitalise on what he

would be giving her when their marriage was over,

she could find herself a new husband. Any amount of

men would be only too willing to marry the woman

who had been selected by a man like him. All she

had to do in order to totally transform her life was

agree to be his wife.

And yet, instead of recognising her good fortune,

she was actually daring to take it upon herself to lecture

him! Well, she was no loss to him. She wouldn’t

have lasted a day, not even twelve hours once

Caterina had got her claws into her, and he was a fool

to have wasted his time on her in the first place. He

could drive down to the coast and find a dozen

women within one hour who would jump at the opportunity

she had turned down.

"Fine," he snapped, turning his back on Jodie as he

strode back towards the Ferrari.

He was leaving her here? He couldn’t — he

wouldn’t! Jodie’s eyes widened in mute shock as she

watched him walk away from her.

"No, wait!" she called out, as she stumbled anxiously

after him, gasping at the pain in her weak leg,

her anger giving way to a fear that was only slightly

alleviated when he eventually stopped and turned

round. "I need to get in touch with the car hire firm

and let them know what’s happened."

"They won’t be very happy about the fact that you

have damaged their vehicle. I hope you have brought

plenty of money with you," Lorenzo warned her

coldly.

"I’m insured," Jodie protested, but a cold, hard knot

of anxiety gripped her stomach as she remembered

her cousin warning her about the problems she would

face if she were to be involved in an accident.

"I doubt that will benefit you, especially when I

inform the authorities that you were driving on a private

road, and in doing so that you endangered not

just your own life but mine as well. You are going to

need a very good solicitor, and that will be very expensive."

"But that’s not true!" she protested. "You weren’t

even here when…"

Her voice trailed away as she saw the look in

his eyes.

"You’re trying to frighten me and — and blackmail

me!" she accused him.

He shrugged and continued to walk back to his car.

She watched helplessly as he opened the door, whilst

her emotions raged in impotent fury. He was the most

hateful, horrible man she had ever met — arrogant, selfish,

and the very last kind of man she would have

wanted to marry for any kind of reason. But a logical,

practical voice inside her head was pointing out that

it was late at night and she was miles from anywhere

down a private road, wholly dependent on the goodwill

of the man now about to leave her here.

He had started the engine and was pulling out to

drive past her. Panic filled her. She started to run towards

the car, gasping at the pain in her weak leg as

she flung herself at the driver’s door and banged on

it.

Expressionlessly, Lorenzo opened the window.

"All right, I’ll do it," she told him recklessly. "I’ll

marry you."

He was staring at her so impassively that she wondered

if he had changed his mind. Her heart started

hammering uncomfortably fast, making her feel

slightly sick.

"You’re agreeing to marry me?"

Jodie nodded her head, and then exhaled shakily in

relief as he pushed open the passenger door of the car

and said brusquely, "Give me your keys and wait here

whilst I get your things."

It was a warm night, but anxiety and exhaustion

were making her shiver slightly, so that her fingers

trembled against the impersonal hand he had stretched

out for her car keys. A prickle of unwanted sensation

raced up her arm, causing her to recoil from her physical

contact from him. He had long, elegant hands,

with lean, strong fingers — unlike John, who had had

somewhat plump hands with short fingers. The

knowledge that the stroke of those hands against a

woman"s body would deliver a dangerous level of

sensual pleasure pierced the thin skin of her defences,

making her emotional recoil from it even more intense

than her physical recoil from his touch.

Lorenzo frowned as he got out of the Ferrari and

strode over to Jodie’s hire car, unlocking the boot.

Her recoil from him had the hallmark of a kind of

sexual inexperience he had imagined no longer existed.

In fact, the last time he had seen a grown

woman recoil like that from a man"s casual touch had

been the last time he had visited his grandmother,

when he had sat with her watching one of the old

fashioned black and white films she’d loved so much.

He lived in a world peopled by the sophisticated, the

blase., the experienced, the rich and the aristocratic: a

world driven by cynicism and greed, by self-interest

and envy. Power did not go hand in hand with goodness,

as he had every reason to know. Jodie Oliver

wouldn’t survive a month in that world.

He shrugged away his thoughts. Her survival was

not his concern. He had other matters, another kind

of survival, to worry about, and she was merely the

instrument by which he would achieve that. Had he

genuinely wanted to marry her… His frown deepened.

What kind of thought was that? He had no desire

to marry anyone, much less a thin, wan-faced

young woman who had "broken heart" written all over

her.

He glanced down at the small case he had removed

from the boot of the car, and then went to check the

interior of the car itself.

"How long did you say you intended to stay away

from your home for?" he asked Jodie wryly as he