Total pages in book: 163
Estimated words: 148612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 743(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148612 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 743(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
“You didn’t mention Dario. He’s always a plus to have around,” Valentino pointed out. “Did you make your pro and con lists? You always make out lists, Emmanuelle. Surely, there were some pros.”
“You’re a great kisser. And the sex is off the charts. I thought about making you my number one sex companion. Just spend nights with you and then head home. We could be like the Hollywood glam couples who never get married but go everywhere together and look gorgeous. You are gorgeous. That was on the plus side. Dario was not. Your bodyguards weren’t on the plus side, either. I have enough of those of my own.”
“I don’t want you to want me for sex, Emme, but I’ll take that if that’s all I’ve got on the plus side.”
“You do annoy the crap out of my mother. That was up right at the top.” She laughed softly and then tipped her face up to brush kisses along his jaw because she detested the note of hurt in his voice. “No one is sweeter to me than you when you want to be. No one. No one listens to me or knows me better than you in spite of the fact that I complain that you don’t listen. I know you do.”
His arms tightened around her, holding her to him. “I’m still hearing that ‘but’ in your voice, Princess. You’ve got to tell me what’s really holding you back. Why you didn’t come to me. Why you would rather contemplate an arranged marriage than be with me. Don’t give me bullshit this time, Emmanuelle. Fucking be honest so we can work this out.”
She detested looking so childish in front of him. He was always so strong and confident, and she was back to being that silly teenage girl. She wasn’t. She was Emmanuelle Ferraro. Everywhere she went, she had confidence in herself—or so it looked. She was wealthy, beautiful, poised—she had that act down to perfection, but who could keep it up night and day?
“Emmanuelle.” Valentino caught her chin and turned her face up to his, forcing her eyes to meet his. “Baby, talk to me. This is me.”
“That makes it worse, not better.” She wished she could take back the admission as soon as it escaped. He was too intelligent. He knew her too well, and there was nowhere to hide from him. His dark green gaze moved over her face, seeing too much. She tried to veil her expression with her lashes, but she knew it was far too late when his features darkened and he swore softly.
“Talk to me, Emme.”
That was an order. Pure Valentino Saldi, head of the Saldi family. He sounded just as scary as Stefano, if not more so. She was used to obeying that tone. There was comfort in hearing that particular tone, weird as that sounded.
She shook her head, and she looked away from his eyes. “I don’t want to be with you when I know I love you so much more than you love me, Val. I hate that you can control me through the way I feel about you. I do everything wrong. Living with me, you’re going to see that. Because you don’t have the same crazy feelings I do for you, it’s going to matter down the line. All my shortcomings are going to annoy you until you won’t be able to stand looking at me, even being in the same room with me. That shadow won’t deter you from having affairs. Nothing will. In the long run, I’ll never be good enough.”
She blurted out her worst fears. The truth of Emmanuelle Ferraro. She’d never been good enough. It had never mattered that she’d had a perfect scorecard in every subject. There had been fault found with some performance. Her language skills weren’t perfect, even though her instructors had deemed them so. Her accents weren’t right. Her instructors were just babying her as usual. Her mother had gone so far as accusing her of sleeping with them in order to maintain her good grades.
Training in hand-to-hand skills and weapons, she never was good enough, no matter how many extra hours she put in. No matter how often Stefano and the others praised her and told her she was every bit as good as they were, her mother sneered and told her they were just making her feel good, that she lagged behind their skills by miles.
As a woman, she was too heavy and needed to diet, her hair wasn’t glossy enough, her skin needed to glow more. Her eyes were too big, her mouth too generous. Her lips too puffy. She sounded like a neighing horse when she laughed. Men rarely stayed faithful to the women they loved, let alone women who failed them. And if they weren’t good in the bedroom?