Sandra Marton - The Orsini Brides - The Ice Prince / The Real Rio D'Aquila

The history of the landed gentry, she thought coldly. She knew a lot about that history. She’d made a point of studying it when she’d first realized her father’s true profession, hoping against hope that understanding the old Sicilian antagonisms would help her understand him.

What she’d ended up understanding was that the world could be a brutally unfair place, but the world of her father was more than brutal.

Right now, though, what she was seeing firsthand went a long way toward validating her opinion of princes who thought they could take whatever they wanted from mere mortals, and get away with it.

“Well?”

She looked up. The prince, gold pen poised, was watching her much as the wolves carved into his desk had surely watched the creatures they hunted. He looked intent. Determined. Coldly analytical, and certain of how the chase would end.

Not so fast, big boy, she thought, and she took a long breath.

“Well, what?”

“You’re pushing your luck,” Draco said softly.

“And you’re making foolish assumptions if you think you can buy your way out of this.” Anna jerked her chin toward the checkbook. “You can put that thing away.”

Draco said nothing for a long minute. A muscle knotted and unknotted in his jaw. Then he dropped the pen and checkbook back into the drawer and slammed it shut with enough force to send the sound bouncing around the room.

“Let’s get down to basics,” he snapped. “If you don’t want money, what do you want?”

“You know what I want. The land, of course.”

“That’s impossible. The land is mine. I have the deed to it. No court in Sicily will—”

“Perhaps not.”

“Then, how—”

Anna gave him her best look of wide-eyed innocence.

“Roman Aristocrat Steals Land from Helpless Grandmother,” she said sweetly, and batted her lashes. “Maybe they can work the words puppies and kittens into that headline, too.”

“You left something out. Sicilian Citizen Protects Land from Theft by American Hoodlum. ” Draco flashed a smug smile. “Or don’t you like that wording?”

“You’re no more Sicilian than I am!”

“My ancestors settled in Sicily five hundred years ago.”

“You mean they invaded it five hundred years ago. The Orsinis were already there.”

“I asked you a question. What do you want?”

“And I answered it. I want the land. If you think my client will run from a newspaper calling him a gangster …” Anna showed her teeth in a brilliant smile. “Trust me, Valenti. It won’t be the first time.”

“Do not address me that way,” Draco said, hating himself for sounding ridiculous, hating the woman for pushing him to it. “As for headlines …” He shrugged. “They come and go.”

She smiled. It was the kind of smile that made him want to shoot to his feet and toss her out of his office …

Or take her in his arms and remind her of just how easily he could change her cold contempt to hot desire.

“The thing is, oh powerful prince, we love that kind of stuff in the States. We give it all our attention. Page Six of the Post. People. US. The Star. All those juicy tabloids, the even juicier internet blogs. The cable news channels.”

“You’re pushing your luck again,” he said in a soft voice.

She knew she was, but it was too late to back down now.

“Even the real newspapers—the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post —will love this.” Anna leaned closer. “See, one of the few things I had time to do was look you up on Google. I know you’re not just a prince, stealing money from the peasants—”

“A gangster’s legal mouthpiece calling me a thief?” Draco leaned back in his chair, folded his arms over his chest and laughed.

“You also control a huge financial empire.”

His laughter ended. A look of cold determination took its place as he rose to his feet

“If you have a point, get to it.”

“Oh, I do,” Anna said. She paused for effect, as if this were a grungy New York City courtroom instead of an elegant office. “How do you think a company like yours would stand up to such a scandal in today’s financial climate?”

His face darkened.

“How dare you threaten me? Who the hell are you?”

Anna dug into her pocket, took out a small leather case and extracted a business card. Nonchalantly she plucked a pen from his desk, scribbled the name of her hotel on the back, then flipped the card at him. He caught it, read the black engraving and looked at her through narrowed eyes.

“Anna Orsini,” he said softly. “Well, well, well.”

“That’s me,” Anna said cheerfully. “Anna Orsini. Cesare’s daughter.” Her voice became cold and flat. “In other words, a full-blooded member of the Orsini famiglia. I urge you to keep that in mind.”

It seemed the right line, the closing line, especially when your enemy looked as if he might spring across the desk and throttle you …

Especially when your own heart was banging so hard you were afraid it might leap from your chest.

Anna pivoted on her heel, picked up her briefcase and walked out.

DRACO watched Anna Orsini march to the door.

Head up, shoulders back, spine straight, her long-legged stride on those amazing stilettos clearly sending a to-hell-with-you message.

Almost.

The shoes changed her walk, ever so slightly. Balancing on them made her hips sway, changing what she surely meant to be a brisk march into something feminine and damned near feline.

Golden-haired seductress. Cold-blooded consigliere. Which was the real Anna Orsini?

For a dangerous couple of seconds Draco came close to demanding the answer.

He would go after her, swing her toward him, look down into those blue eyes and say, Hell, woman, how dare you threaten me! Are you fool enough to think I can be brought to heel by you and your hoodlum father?

Or he’d say nothing at all.

He’d pull her into his arms, lower his head to hers and kiss her hard and deep until she forgot about being her father’s mouthpiece and became the woman he’d known on the plane, the one who’d come within a heartbeat of giving herself up to him.

Instead, he stood his ground. He didn’t even breathe until she slammed the door hard enough to make it rattle.

He had to move carefully. No rash decisions. No letting the emotions within him overtake logic.

Draco went to his desk and sat in the massive chair behind it.

No question, he had a problem. Anna’s threat had teeth.

Teeth?

Hell, it had fangs, fangs that could sink into his throat and destroy him. There were some businesses that sought publicity, that thrived on it.

Not Valenti Investments.

Even being mentioned in the same breath as a crook like Cesare Orsini could mean the end of everything he had worked for. Not just money, although the amount he might lose, for himself and for his clients, was staggering.

But there was more at stake than money. If Anna forced a public confrontation, Draco would lose that which mattered most to him.

The honor of his name. The respect it once again carried.

A muscle jumped in his cheek.

To think he’d almost had sex with her. With Cesare Orsini’s consigliere.

Cristo, he wanted to laugh!

Not that this was a laughing matter, Draco thought grimly as he took the gangster’s letters from his briefcase and stacked them on the desk in front of him. Nothing about the situation was even remotely amusing.

If only he’d known who she was last night, he’d never have let things go so far.