The Italian Duke's Wife. PENNY JORDAN

he was asking such a personal thing. ‘I don’t want him at all—not now.’

      ‘So why are you here—running away?’

      ‘I am not running away! I just don’t want to be there to see him marry someone else,’ she added defensively when she saw the way he was looking at her. ‘Especially when she’s all the things I’m not. Exciting, glamorous, sexy…’ Jodie lifted her hand to her face to rub away the tears that had suddenly filled her eyes. She had no idea why she was telling this stranger all of this, admitting to him things she had not even admitted to herself before.

      ‘It is the man who determines whether or not a woman is “sexy”, as you put it,’ Lorenzo decreed dismissively, as caught up in this strangely intimate exchange as Jodie. ‘A skilled lover has it in his power to create a full flowering of even the most tightly closed bud.’

      A shock of tingling awareness quivered through her belly as Jodie absorbed the meaning of his astoundingly arrogant statement.

      ‘Not that many young women are tightly closed buds in this day and age,’ Lorenzo added sardonically, as he watched the colour come and go in the pale face that was so shadowed with tiredness.

      ‘Modern women have claimed the right to their own sexuality,’ Jodie responded fiercely. ‘They do not—’

      ‘It does not sound to me as though you have been very effective in claiming yours,’ Lorenzo told her derisively. ‘In fact, if I were to make an assessment of it, I would guess that your experience is extremely limited—otherwise you would not have lost your man to another woman.’

      His sheer arrogant machismo both astounded and infuriated her. But she was forced to admit that nonexistent would have been a more accurate estimation of her sexual expertise. Painfully she released the pent-up breath his words had caused her to hold, in shaky relief that he had not added to her existing humiliation by somehow recognising that she was still a virgin. Not by choice, though. All those months in hospital, after the car crash in which her parents had been killed and she had been so badly injured that at one point it had been feared she would not survive, had stolen a large chunk out of her life.

      ‘Which, presumably, is why you are confusing physical lust with love—a word, an emotion, your sex has laid claim to and downvalued to the extent that is now worthless,’ Lorenzo continued harshly.

      ‘My sex?’ Jodie took up the challenge immediately, the gold-hued warmth of her eyes heating to an indignant dark amber.

      ‘Yes, your sex! Do you deny that women have now become as much serial adulterers as they once claimed only men could be? That their reasons for marriage are based on their own selfish and shallow emotions and needs—needs which in their eyes come before the needs of anyone else, even the children they bear?’

      The bitterness she could hear in his voice momentarily shocked Jodie into silence. But she rallied quickly to defend her sex, pointing out, ‘If that is your consistent experience of women, then maybe you are the common factor—and the one to blame.’

      ‘I? So you believe that if a child is abandoned by its mother, it is the child who is at fault? A novel mindset—which only underlines what I have just been saying!’

      ‘No, that is not what I meant—’ Jodie began.

      But it was too late. He was ignoring her words to demand autocratically, ‘What is your name?’

      ‘Jodie. Jodie Oliver. What is your name?’ she asked equally firmly, not to be outdone.

      For the first time since he had stopped his car she sensed a momentary hesitation in him before he said coolly, ‘Lorenzo.’

      ‘The Magnificent?’ Jodie quipped, and then went bright red as he looked at her.

      Il Magnifico. That had always been Gino’s teasing way of addressing him, claiming that it was no wonder he had been so successful when he carried the same name as one of Florence’s most famous Medici rulers.

      ‘You know the history of the Medici?’ he shot at Jodie.

      ‘Some of it,’ she said neutrally, suddenly not wanting any more argument with a stranger. She was beginning to feel very tired and weak. ‘Look, I need to get in touch with the car hire firm and tell them about the car, but my mobile isn’t working. Could you possibly…?’ He must surely be going back through the village she had driven through—there was nowhere else to go. If he would take her there she might be able to find a room for the night and telephone the car rental people.

      ‘Could I possibly what?’ Lorenzo demanded. ‘Help you? Certainly.’ She had just started to sag with relief when he added softly, ‘Provided that you agree to help me.’

      Instantly warning signals flashed their messages inside her head, causing her to tense.

      ‘Help you?’ she repeated cautiously.

      ‘Yes. I need a wife.’

      He was mad. Completely and utterly insane. She was stuck on a deserted road with a madman.

      ‘You…want me to help you find a wife?’ she managed to ask, as though it were the most natural request in the world.

      Lorenzo’s mouth compressed, and he gave her a look of cold derision. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. No, I do not want you to help me find a wife. I want you to become my wife,’ he told her coolly.

      CHAPTER THREE

      SHE was being ridiculous?

      ‘You want me to be your wife?’ Jodie repeated slowly. ‘I’m sorry, but—’

      ‘You don’t want to marry—ever. Yes, I know,’ Lorenzo interrupted dismissively. ‘But this would not be an ordinary marriage. I need a wife, and I need one within the next few weeks. I have as little real desire for a wife as you have for a husband—although for different reasons. Therefore it seems to me that you and I could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. I get the wife I need, and you, after we have been married for twelve months, get a divorce and…shall we say one million pounds?’

      Jodie blinked and shook her head, not sure that she had actually heard him correctly.

      ‘You want me to agree to marry you and stay with you for twelve months?’

      ‘You will be well reimbursed for your time—and it is only your time and your status as my wife that I shall require. Your presence in my bed will not be part of the arrangement.’

      ‘You’re crazy,’ Jodie told him flatly. ‘I don’t know anything about you, and I—’

      ‘You know that I am prepared to pay you a million pounds to be my wife. As for the rest…’ He gave an arrogant shrug of his powerful shoulders, and told her, briefly and dismissively, ‘There will be time later for me to explain to you everything you need to know.’

      By rights she ought to be scared to death, Jodie decided. But, despite the fact that she was obviously in the presence of a madman, for some reason the main emotion that filled her was not fear but bemusement. Bemusement and a certain sense that fate had listened in to her secret thoughts and decided to take a hand in her life. Here was the opportunity—the man—her pride had ached for…

      Was she mad? She surely couldn’t be thinking of accepting his ridiculous proposition?

      ‘If you want a wife that badly, surely there must be someone—’

      ‘Many someones,’ Lorenzo stopped her sardonically. ‘Unfortunately they would all want what I do not want to give—it is amazing how easily your sex claims undying love when money and social position are involved.’

      ‘You mean you would be targeted by fortune-hunters?’ Jodie guessed shrewdly. It was obvious, after all—not just from his car and his clothes, but more betrayingly from his manner—that he was wealthy. ‘Is that why you want to marry me, because a fake marriage will keep them at bay?’

      ‘Not