fake nail at him. “Your daddy"ll roll over in his grave. He"d have disowned you in a second.” She snapped her fingers.
“Ground rules, Delora. If I hear one more prejudicial remark from you, I"ll have Austen gag you and tie you to a chair. According to Daddy"s will you have to be present, not vocal. I"m marrying Miss Bellamy as soon as the exam"s complete and witnessed. You leave immediately, and I get to never see you again after today.”
“Where"s the executor"s lawyer?” Suresh asked. He held a cell phone to his ear.
“Geoff says three lawyers present, three doctors present, according to the will.”
A choked gasp caught his attention, and Harry"s fisted his hands when he saw Martine"s face. She schooled her features quickly, but that delicious complexion had paled, and though she stared unblinking at some spot on the far wall, he read the bleak acceptance in her rigid posture.
“Suresh, handle things out here. I need to speak with my fiancée.”
Harry stomped past Austen, who shook his head and said, his voice low, “I didn"t have time to go through everything with her.”
Freaking disastrous.
His compulsive procrastination had just bit him in the ass. If he"d placed the ad sooner, had started the search earlier, hadn"t waited till he"d almost turned thirty-two… Harry dragged both hands through his hair and halted in front of Martine. He"d been so certain he could prove the will a fake.
“We have a few things to discuss, Miss Bellamy.” He waved a hand at the bedroom door. “If you"ll step inside…”
The muscles in her slender neck worked, but she showed no other sign of nervousness, poignant features impassive, fathomless eyes unreadable. She swallowed again, and he had the urge to stroke her throat, soothe away the events that had to follow their conversation.
Until that moment he hadn"t realized how humiliating the procedure would be for this woman who seemed poised for flight. He tried to imagine having three people penetrate him with fingers in front of six witnesses, including one hostile woman and one redneck twit. A wave of nausea curled through his gut.
Martine"s sweetheart chin tilted, her bottom lip plumped, and she gave him an almost imperceptible nod before preceding him out of the room. Gaze glued to her hips swaying against the thin cotton of her long white dress, he traced the outline of her waist-cut thong and bit his tongue as his prick found zipper teeth with unerring accuracy.
Halting just inside the bedroom, Harry kept his focus fixed on her back, adjusted his cock, and then slammed the door shut.
“Exactly what did Austen go over with you?”
She stood about three feet in front of him, hands in tight little fists, and looked at something above his right shoulder. Spiky onyx lashes, so long he could almost 12
Jianne Carlo
count them, fluttered like a wounded dove"s wings, their shaky motion blaring a painful vulnerability.
“You need to marry a virgin and consummate the marriage. It is to be a business transaction. I give you my innocence, and you pay me a hundred thousand euros when we divorce.”
Captivated by her lyrical, soft voice, Harry didn"t register the number t first.
He frowned and blurted, “A hundred thousand? The deal"s for a million euros.”
“I do not need a million. Monsieur Stanford has agreed to the change.”
Those remarkable eyes held hints of amber, and her mouth took on a mutinous slant. Harry said the first thing that came to mind. “Why would you refuse more money?”
“If I am to whore myself out, I would set the price, Monsieur. I take what I need, no more.” Her nostrils flared, and she lifted her chin as if daring him to take issue with her statement. He frowned.
English wasn"t her first language, he guessed from her careful enunciation of each word. Again the image of the woman by the couch in Grasse flashed into his brain. For three weeks, every woman he"d screwed—and there"d been several different females—had had