The Princes' Brides. Sandra Marton

Damian said, “our old friend bought himself a club. Downtown. The club of the minute, he says.”

      “Meaning, crowded. Noisy. Lots of music, lots of booze, lots of spectacular-looking women out for a good time…”

      “Sounds terrible,” Damian said solemnly.

      Nicolo smiled as he draped his towel around his shoulders. “Yeah, I know. But I have an important meeting Monday morning.”

      “Well, so do I.”

      “Very important.”

      Damian looked at him. “So?”

      “So,” Nicolo said, after a moment, “I’m hoping to finalize a deal. With James Black.”

      “Whoa. That is important. So, tonight we celebrate in advance, at Lucas’s place.”

      “Well, I want to stay focused. Get to bed at a decent hour tonight and tomorrow night. No liquor. No distractions—”

      “Thee Mou! Don’t tell me! No sex?”

      Nicolo shrugged. “No sex.”

      “Sex is not a distraction. It’s exercise. Good for the heart.”

      “It’s bad for the concentration.”

      “That’s BS.”

      “We believed it when we played soccer, remember? And we won.”

      “We won,” Damian said dryly, “because the competition was lousy.”

      “I’m serious.”

      “So am I. Giving up sex is against the laws of nature.”

      “Idiot,” Nicolo said fondly. The men walked to the free weights area and made their selections. “It’s just a matter of discipline.”

      “Unless, of course, there was such an instant attraction you couldn’t walk away.” Damian grunted as he lifted a pair of twenty-pound weights. “And how often is that about to happen?”

      “Never,” Nicolo answered—and, unbidden, the image of the blonde with the hot eyes and the cold attitude flashed before his eyes.

      He had been reaching for the twenty-pound weights, too. Instead he lifted a pair of heavier ones and worked with them until his mind was a pain-filled blank.

      Farther downtown, in a part of Manhattan that was either about to be discovered or still a slum, depending on a buyer’s point of view, Aimee Stafford Coleridge Black slammed her apartment door behind her, tossed her black suede coat at a chair and kicked off her matching boots.

      The coat slid off the chair. The boots bounced off the wall. Aimee didn’t give a damn.

      Amazing, how a day that began so filled with promise could end so badly.

      Aimee marched into the kitchen, filled the kettle with water, put it on to boil and changed her mind. The last thing she needed was a caffeine buzz.

      She was buzzing enough without it, thanks to her grandfather.

      Why had he summoned her to his office, if not to make the announcement she’d been anticipating?

      “I shall retire next May,” he’d told her almost a year ago, “when I reach ninety, at which time I shall place Stafford-Coleridge-Black in the charge of the person who will guide it through its next fifty years. A person who will, of course, carry on the Stafford-Coleridge-Black lineage.”

      Lineage. As important to James as breathing but that was fine because she, Aimee, was the only person with both the necessary lineage and the proper education to assume command.

      She had a bachelor’s degree in finance. A master’s degree in business. She’d spent her summers since high school interning at SCB.

      She knew more about the bank than anyone, maybe even including Grandfather, who still believed in a world devoid of computers and e-mail.

      Aimee marched into the bedroom and methodically stripped off the gray wool suit and white silk blouse she’d deemed appropriate for the meeting with Grandfather this afternoon. She’d wanted to look businesslike, even though she knew damned well you could do as much business in jeans as you could in Armani.

      She’d even worked up a little speech of assurance about how she wouldn’t change a thing, though she’d mentally crossed her fingers because there were things that definitely needed changing.

      She’d presented herself at his office precisely at four. James was a stickler for promptness. She’d kissed his papery cheek, sat down as directed, folded her hands…

      And listened as he told her he had not yet reached a decision as to who would replace him.

      Be calm, she’d told herself. And she had been, or at least she’d managed to seem calm as she asked him what decision there was to make.

      “You already said it would be me, Grandfather.”

      “I said it would be someone capable,” James said briskly. “Someone of my lineage.”

      “Well—”

      The look on his face had frozen her with horror. “You don’t mean…Bradley?”

      Bradley. Her cousin. Or her something. Who understood the complexities of second cousins twice removed, or whatever the hell he was? Bradley had been wimping around the bank for years, interning the same as she had, except he’d never done a day’s work, never done anything except try to grope her in the stockroom.

      “Not Bradley,” she’d finally breathed.

      “Bradley has a degree in economics.”

      Yes. From a college that probably also gave degrees in basket-weaving.

      “He’s well-spoken.”

      He was, once he had three or four straight vodkas in him.

      “And,” her grandfather had said, saving the best for last, “he is a man.”

      A man. Meaning, nature’s royalty. A prince, whereas she was a lesser creature because she was female.

      Grandfather had risen to his feet, indicating that she was no longer welcome in the royal presence.

      “Be here Monday morning, Aimee. Ten o’clock sharp. I’ll announce my decision then.”

      Dismissed, just like that.

      Sent out the door, down the wheezing old elevator, into the street where she’d walked blindly, no idea where in hell she was or where she was going, which was why she hadn’t seen the man and he’d almost knocked her down.

      That despicable, horrible man who’d insisted it was she who’d walked into him. Who’d accused her of not being a woman when, damn him, it was the very fact that she was a woman that was going to deny her the one thing she wanted in life.

      What a fool she’d been. What an idiot. She’d turned down two wonderful job offers because she’d believed—she’d been stupid enough to believe—

      She’d been anguishing over that when the man charged into her.

      As if she were invisible, which she undoubtedly was because she was female. Oh, the arrogance of men. Of him. The way he’d clasped her shoulders and looked down at her from the lofty heights of his lofty maleness.

      “Easy,” he’d said, and smiled, and that—the smile, the slight foreign huskiness to the word, the broad shoulders, the ink-black hair, the midnight-blue eyes and the face that was the male equivalent of what had launched a thousand ships, that was supposed to make up for his rudeness?

      Aimee had told him what she thought of him.

      Men didn’t like honesty. She’d learned that a long time ago. And this one, this—this bad-mannered stranger, had decided she needed a lesson, that she needed