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Odessa had dreaded her father turning it into another gaudy showpiece after her mother had died, but for whatever reason Elio Santella had left it intact. It had become Odessa’s favourite room in the house...the place she felt closest to her mother.
Was that why Ares had brought her here? Did he remember?
The way he turned his back on the bookshelves and view, facing her with narrowed eyes and arms folded, said that he probably didn’t.
‘Thank you for your time.’ She paused, cleared her throat. Would he agree to her outrageous proposal? ‘I...’
‘Spit it out, Odessa. I don’t have all day.’
Irritation bit into her, sending her chin up before she could stop herself. ‘I need your help,’ she blurted.
For the longest time he eyed her, his focus unblinking. ‘Let’s bypass your assumption that you have the right to ask anything of me and skip to the part where you believe I would want to help you in any way.’
Her heart juddered at his acid tone. The last remaining ounce of her pride screamed at her to walk away, hold her head high and fight the fate barrelling down on her another way.
But the way he’d dealt with Vincenzo just now shoved aside her pride and bolstered her hope. ‘Look, I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need... Besides, you...’ Owe me, she’d been about to say. But she bit her tongue against revisiting that part of her past, and what she’d done to ensure his safety.
‘I what?’ he demanded, eyebrows raised and with no ounce of give in his features.
She shook her head, dismissing the unsavoury consequences she’d had to bear for simply associating with her father’s chauffeur’s son. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
She couldn’t think about the past now. Not when her future was so bleak—
‘You have thirty seconds. Then I walk out,’ he warned in a soft, dangerous murmur.
She believed him. After all, hadn’t he done that once before, this man who was a world removed from the younger version she’d known.
Or was he...?
Hadn’t he possessed this overwhelming presence even back then, only caged it better?
Now the full force of it was bearing down on her, Odessa was at once wary of and drawn to it—like a hapless moth dancing towards a destroying flame.
She watched, mesmerised despite herself, as his folded arms slowly dropped. His large, masculine hands drew attention to his lean hips, the dangerously evocative image he made simply by...being.
Silence ticked away, and she watched that eyebrow slowly arch, as if he was surprised by her audacity in letting her chance whittle away.
Go big or go home.
Except this home was one she was desperate to escape.
At what felt like the last second, Odessa took a deep breath and took the boldest leap. ‘Before my father’s funeral is over Vincenzo Bartorelli will announce our engagement.’ Acid flooded her mouth at the very thought. ‘I would rather dive naked into Mount Etna than marry him. So I’d...I’d like you to say that I’m marrying you instead. And in return...’
Dio, was she really doing this?
‘And in return I’ll give you whatever you want.’
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS ONLY because he kept such a rigid control over his emotions that Ares didn’t burst out laughing. Even then, an abstract part of him barked raucous laughter in his head, while another part grew intensely furious. Not with her. Or perhaps a little with her... Because, Thee mou, hadn’t she dragged confounding emotions out of him from the very first time he’d laid eyes on her?
‘I’d rather dive naked into Mount Etna...’
That snatched glimpse of melodrama was one of many reminders he’d tried to forget about her. That it had triggered a different sort of amusement made him stiffen.
He wasn’t here to traipse down memory lane. Or be reminded of everything he’d hoped for during those foolish years of his youth.
He’d once dreamed he’d be the one offering a life-changing proposal. All these years later, and with the benefit of hindsight, he knew he’d had a lucky escape. Yet his chest continued to tighten as he looked at her now, this insanely beautiful woman who had only grown maddeningly more alluring in the years since he’d last seen her.
