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His dark eyes challenged her. “Do you?”
She glared at him, then sighed. “No. Not really. But I have better things to think about and better ways to spend money.”
“I thought so. That all changes now. You’ll need an entirely new wardrobe as my wife.”
“Why?” she said suspiciously. “What do you expect me to do?”
Theo’s lips curved. “Be at my side at parties, charity balls, dinners with presidents and royalty.” Ticking off the items with his fingers, he tilted his head thoughtfully. “Be the hostess of my homes around the world.”
Worse and worse. Emmie had always told herself that her plain appearance didn’t matter, not as long as she was clean and tidy and competent. Her boss was the important one, not her. But that was when she’d been his secretary. As his wife...
She shuddered. There was no way she could compete with socialites and debutantes!
Theo stroked his chin, watching her as he continued. “You’ll be a leader of society,” he mused. “A noted tastemaker.”
She stiffened at the wicked gleam in his eye.
“In that case,” she responded tartly, “the style next season will be whatever’s on final clearance at Goodwill.”
He snorted, then came closer. Reaching out, Theo smoothed back a long tendril of her hair.
“Give your new life a chance,” he said softly. His dark eyes fell to her mouth. “It might be fun.”
Oh, no. She wasn’t going to letthathappen, ever again. The kiss he’d given her at the altar still consumed her. Just his touch on the sidewalk, when he’d caught her in his arms to keep her from falling, had reverberated through her body. Nervously, she turned away.
“I’ll be just a minute,” she said again and fled down the hall to her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
The tiny bedroom, barely bigger than a closet, still had the travel posters of France and Greece she’d put on the walls as a teenager, long before her mother got sick. Old novels still lined the single shelf on the wall, beside a few beloved stuffed animals from her childhood. Her grandmother’s homemade quilt covered her twin bed.
Emmie bit her lip. There was no way she’d let Theo see this—the bedroom of a teenager, a decade old, still frozen in time. Turning away, she grabbed an old duffel from beneath her bed and packed a few precious things, photo books, her stuffed bunny from childhood, tiny onesies she’d already bought for her coming baby. After a moment of thought, she decided to leave the secretarial pantsuits behind. He was right. There was no way Mrs. Theo Katrakis could dress like that. She tossed in some underwear and socks, a few stretchy T-shirts and maternity shorts and some shoes. That was it.
Taking off her wedding dress and kicking off her three-inch white pumps, she exhaled, relieved to leave the hot, constricting clothing behind. She spread her mother’s gown carefully on her quilt. She’d have to arrange for it to be dry cleaned and packed away.
She pulled a loose cotton sundress over her ungainly body and stuck her feet into flip-flops. Going to the small shared bathroom, Emmie washed the makeup off her face and pulled all the bobby pins out of the bun, letting her hair fall in soft waves over her shoulders.
She felt like she was free, like she could breathe again.
As long as she didn’t think about the man she was about to marry. And what he’d say when he heard about her three conditions of marriage:
First, that they’d live in New York.
Second, that he’d help her family with anything they needed.
And third, that they’d never sleep together again. Ever.
Theo’s eyes widened as Emmie returned to the cramped living room of her family’s second-floor apartment.
That hideous wedding dress and veil were gone. Emmie now wore a simple sleeveless white cotton sundress and flip-flops. Her face was bare of makeup, her dark blond hair long over her shoulders. His gaze unwillingly lingered on the way it brushed over her collarbones and soft skin.
“Forget it,” he said abruptly into his phone. “We’ll find our own way. Just pick up the Ducati.”
“Who was that?” she asked as he hung up. She was struggling with the handles of a duffel bag that looked fifty years old. Coming around the sofa, he plucked it from her hands.
“Bernard,” he answered. “He says there’s some politician at the UN choking traffic. He’s stuck in congestion by the Midtown Tunnel.”
She tilted her head, smiling, and he thought how pretty she was when her violet-blue eyes glowed like that. “So how are you thinking we’ll get to Manhattan? Taxi? Rideshare?”
“Sit in the sticky back seat of some stranger?” He shuddered. Setting down the duffel, he typed a search on his phone.
