Kitabı oku: «One Night in... Milan: The Italian's Future Bride / The Italian's Chosen Wife / The Italian's Captive Virgin»

Notorious, fabulously rich,

dark and brooding …

Spending a night with these sensual Italian

tycoons is life changing!

One night in

MILAN

Three wonderful, passionate and

intense bestselling novels

One night in

MILAN

The Italian’s Future Bride

MICHELLE REID

The Italian’s Chosen Wife

KATE HEWITT

The Italian’s Captive Virgin

INDIA GRAY

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Italian’s Future Bride

MICHELLE REID

About the Author

MICHELLE REID grew up on the southern edges of Manchester, the youngest in a family of five lively children. Now she lives in the beautiful county of Cheshire, with her busy executive husband and two grown-up daughters. She loves reading, the ballet, and playing tennis when she gets the chance. She hates cooking, cleaning, and despises ironing! Sleep she can do without and produces some of her best written work during the early hours of the morning.

Don’t miss Michelle Reid’s exciting new novel, After Their Vows, out in April from Mills & Boon^® Modern^™.

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS like playing Russian roulette with your sex life: place a loaded invitation in the barrel, then shoot and see if you scored a hit.

Everyone was doing it, Raffaelle Villani observed cynically—the young and nubile, complete with breast implants and carefully straightened and dyed blonde hair. They circled the room eyeing up likely victims, picked the richest man they could find, then primed him and fired their lucky shot.

Or unlucky, depending from which side of the fence you viewed it.

Some you win, some you lose, he mused as one eager player tried the deal on him only to be rewarded with the sight of his back.

Contempt twisting his lean golden features, he beat a retreat to the furthest corner of the room where the bar was situated. Discarding his untouched glass of champagne, he ordered a glass of full-blooded red wine to take its place.

Functions like this were the pits and he would not have come but for his stepsister twisting his arm. He owed Daniella a favour for pulling him out of a tricky situation recently with a woman who had been about to become his latest lover—until Daniella had whispered in his ear that the woman was married with a small son.

It turned out that she had even lied to him about her name. Discovering that she was actually the ex-catwalk model Elise Castle, now married to the heavyweight Greek Leo Savakis, had not made Raffaelle feel good about himself.

Married women were not his bag. Married women with small children were an even bigger turn-off. As were neat little liars who pretended to be someone they were not. Elise Castle ticked the boxes in all three categories and the hardest part of it all had been accepting how thoroughly he had been duped by a pair of innocent blue eyes and a set of good breasts that had been her own.

Or maybe not, Raffaelle then contended. Perhaps the breasts and the blue eyes had been just more lies the beautiful Elise had fed to him. Fortunately he had not managed to get close enough to find out.

But he still owed it to Daniella that he’d managed to get out of a potentially scandal-spinning tangle before it had exploded in his face.

He was into gun metaphors, he noticed. What a great way to spend a Saturday night.

Where was Daniella—?

Straightening his six-foot-four-inch frame up from its bored languid slouch against the bar, Raffaelle began scanning the sea of bodies milling about in front of him for a glimpse of the sylphlike figure belonging to his beautiful stepsister.

He found her almost instantly. Her glossy mane of black hair and the red dress she was wearing made her virtually impossible to miss. She was standing with some smooth-looking guy over by a wall on the other side of the room, and it came as a shock to Raffaelle to see that she was playing the game like all the rest!

She was pouting, her pose distinctly saucy, her breasts pushed up almost against the guy’s chest while he looked down at her with one of those lazy I’m-interested-smiles on his handsome face.

Were Daniella’s breasts her own—?

The question hit Raffaelle’s brain and made him curse softly because he didn’t care what Daniella’s breasts were made of. She was not and never had been his type. And anyway, as his stepsister, she was and always had been off limits.

She was also getting married in two months, to one of his closest friends. But there she stood, coming on to another man!

Annoyance launched him away from the bar with the grim intention of going over there and hauling her away before one of the other kind of circling vultures here—the press—noticed her and ruined the foolish creature’s life.

‘Mr Villani?’ a husky female voice spoke to him. ‘I’m really sorry to bother you but … ‘

Raffaelle spun on his heel to find himself staring down at yet another nubile young thing with the requisite blonde hair and good breasts. His expression turned to ice as he looked down at her, though the way she was looking up at him through tense, apprehensive, big blue eyes almost made him think twice about turning his back.

More so when the pink tip of her tongue arrived to nervously calm the little tremor he could see happening with her lips.

Nice lips, he noticed. Full, very pink, very lush lips.

‘Do you think I could h-have a word with you?’ she requested nervously. ‘It’s really important,’ she added quickly. ‘I need to ask you a big favour … ‘

A favour? Well, that was a novel approach. Raffaelle felt the corner of his mouth give a twitch—and thereby did the worst thing he could have done, by allowing a chink of interest to stop him from walking away.

Her silky hair hung dead straight to her slender shoulders and she possessed the most amazing pearly-white skin. He sent his eyes skimming down her front to her cleavage where two firm, plump very white breasts balanced precariously inside the tiny bodice of the short and skimpy pale turquoise silk thing he supposed he should call a dress. She wasn’t tall by his standards, but she had a pair of legs on her that did not need the four inch heels she was wearing to extend their fabulous length.

Cosmetically enhanced or not, this one was probably the most appealing package in the room tonight, he accepted as he lifted his eyes back to the pair of pink lips to watch them tremble some more as she waited for his response.

When he still did not give one, she took a step closer, her too-blue eyes lighting up with appeal. ‘You see I have this—problem …’

She was going to touch him. His stupid hesitation had given her encouragement to believe that he was interested.

Raffaelle stiffened, each well toned muscle in his long lean framework abruptly tightening up.

‘No,’ he iced out.

Then turned on his heel and strode off.

Cold, rude, arrogant swine, Rachel mentally tossed after him in stinging frustration. Did the too-tall, dark and disgustingly handsome devil think he was so special that he didn’t need to be polite to a woman?

Well, you’re not my type, Mr Villani, she told the long length of his retreating figure. Especially if his type was the kind of women doing the rounds here tonight.

Rachel’s blue eyes turned bitter as she flicked them round the gathered assembly of the famously rich and beautiful—in that order, money being the biggest attraction here tonight. It was a trade fair for the beautiful people to ply their wares in front of London’s wealthiest, though it hid under the more respectable title of a Charity Fundraising Event.

She should not have come here. If Elise hadn’t convinced her it was the only way to get close to a man like Raffaelle Villani, she would not have been seen dead at a do like this.

‘He likes them blonde and slinky,’ Elise had said. ‘Notoriously can’t keep his hands off. You only have to read down the list of his last fifteen girlfriends to know the man has no control when he’s faced with blonde hair and a great pair of legs.’

Well, not in my case, Rachel thought heavily as she gave a grim tug at the hem of the dress Elise had made her wear. ‘You have to look the part,’ her half-sister had insisted. ‘When you pay the extortionate price for tickets like these it means you have to look as if you can afford to throw good money away.’

The silly price of the tickets was one thing, but a five figure sum dress only earned its price tag if it looked good on the wearer.

Rachel felt as if she looked like a very cheap tart.

‘Hello, beautiful …’ The unremarkable hit line arrived as a hand squeezed around her waist at the same time and a pair of lips arrived at one of the straps which held up the dress. ‘Having trouble with the dress? Can I help?’

His teeth nipped at the shoulder strap. Rachel heaved in a thick breath of disgust. ‘Take your hands and your teeth off me,’ she iced out, then broke free and walked off without giving the guy a single glance.

She’d taken about five steps before she realised she’d inadvertently walked in the same direction as Raffaelle Villani.

And there he was.

She stopped dead.

He was in the process of disentangling a lovely young thing wearing red from the possessive clutches of another man. The vision in red turned to pout a protest at him, then flung her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth.

So much for him preferring them blonde, Rachel thought cynically. The creature he’d just claimed and was now kissing was hot-lipped, glossy and black-haired.

Oh, God, she thought helplessly, what was she going to do if she did not manage to pull this off?

‘You’re drunk,’ Raffaelle informed Daniella.

‘Tiddly,’ his half-English stepsister insisted with a smile gauged to melt his irritation away.

It did not succeed. ‘Admit to being drunk, cara,’ he advised as he grabbed both of her hands and dragged them down from around his neck. ‘It is the only excuse Gino will accept for what you have just been doing.’

‘I haven’t been doing anything—!’ Eyes the colour of warm dark chocolate opened wide and tried their best to look innocent.

‘You were hitting on that guy,’ Raffaelle accused her.

‘We were flirting, that’s all! And what do you think you’re doing, Raffaelle?’ she protested when he took hold of her hand and turned towards the exit.

‘Taking you home,’ he clipped out. ‘I don’t know why I let you talk me into bringing you here in the first place.’

‘For some fun?’ Daniella offered up.

‘I don’t do this kind of fun.’

‘That’s your big problem, Raffaelle,’ she informed him as he trailed her behind him. ‘You don’t do anything these days other than work yourself into the ground.’

‘My choice.’

‘To be a grouch.’

A nerve ticked at the corner of his mouth because she was right: he was becoming grouch—a bitter and cynical grouch.

‘All because one woman managed to con you into believing she was pure sweetness and light …’

As you try to do, you mean?’

‘I am all sweetness and light!’ Daniella insisted. ‘And that wasn’t very nice,’ she complained. ‘Nor do I lie or cheat.’

‘Tell that to Gino not to me,’ Raffaelle countered. ‘If he had seen the way you were preparing to wrap yourself around that guy, he would call the wedding off.’

‘But Gino isn’t here because he prefers to be halfway across the world playing the hot shot tycoon.’

‘However, the press is here—’

Raffaelle stopped walking as a sudden thought hit him. He swung round to pierce her with a hard stare.

‘Is that what this is about?’ he demanded. ‘Did you drag me out to this thing—which is nothing more than an overpriced knocking shop,’ he said with contempt, ‘so that you would be caught on camera playing the vamp with some other guy just to punish Gino, knowing that I would be on hand to haul you out of trouble before you got yourself in too deep?’

‘I hate him,’ Daniella announced. ‘I might even decide not to marry him. I’m supposed to be the love of his life yet I haven’t set eyes on him in two wh-whole weeks!’

The small break in her voice did it. Raffaelle heard the fight with tears and released a sigh. ‘Come here, you idiot.’ He pulled her into his arms. ‘You know Gino worships the ground you walk upon but he is busy trying to free himself up for that long glorious honeymoon he has planned for you both.’

‘He even sounds like he would rather be doing something else when he rings me,’ she sniffed into his shirt front. ‘I’m not a doormat. I refuse to let him wipe his feet on me!’

Raffaelle shifted his stance.

‘You’re laughing at me!’ Daniella choked out.

‘No, I am not.’

What he was actually doing was staring over Daniella’s glossy dark head into the cynical blue eyes of the blonde who had approached him a few minutes ago. She was now standing about ten feet away being buffeted by the milling crowd but not noticing because she was too busy looking at him as if he was a snake.

A sting injected itself down the front of his body. The confusing signals she was giving off dressed—or undressed—like she was, while glaring at him like that, were setting his senses on edge.

Who the hell was she, anyway? Why had he not hung around long enough to find out?

Did he want to know?

His eyes cooled and hardened. No, he didn’t, he answered his own question. Expensive tarts in expensive dresses were ten-a-Euro to buy in this room. He did not need to buy his women. And this one was more the type for the guy who was approaching her from behind right now and eyeing her up and down as if she was his next tasty snack.

And tasty said it, he found himself reluctantly admitting as he ran a glance down her front until he reached the place where those two fabulous legs came together.

Was the hair at her crotch the same pale gold colour as the hair on her head?

He shifted again, was vaguely aware of Daniella talking into his shirt but didn’t hear what she said. That damn inconvenient thing called sexual curiosity was trying to take him over, heating him up like a pot coming to the boil.

The blonde stiffened, tugging his gaze back to her face to clash with the shocked look in her eyes. He realised then that she knew what he had been thinking, her pearly-white skin suffused with heat.

Feeling the spark too, cara? his glinting eyes mocked her. Well hard damn luck because I am not buying.

The approaching man had reached her—a tall fair haired good-looking guy who stepped right in behind her and ran his fingers up her bare arms to her shoulders, then bent to murmur something in her ear.

She quivered—Raffaelle saw it happen. As she slowly blinked her eyes and turned her head sideways so she was no longer looking at him, he watched her sumptuous pink mouth tilt into a smile.

She turns on for any man, he observed grimly.

‘Hi,’ Rachel said, still stinging at the way Raffaelle Villani had just looked at her as if she was a sex object put on show to be bought.

‘Hi to you too,’ Mark returned. ‘No luck with the appeal approach?’

‘Look at him,’ she sighed, glancing back at Mr Villani who was now in the process of curving the clinging dark-haired woman beneath the crook of his arm.

What was he, six-three—six four? Rachel found herself giving him a thorough once-over. He had a great pair of shoulders inside the black dinner suit he was wearing, and a mean pair of long powerful legs. His bright white dress shirt gave the honey-gold tones of his skin at his throat a warm, tight, healthy glow that annoyingly made the tip of her tongue grow moist.

He was supposed to be a fantastic athlete, so Elise had said. Watching him as he began guiding the dark-haired woman through the doors which led to the hotel foyer, Rachel could see why. He moved with loose-limbed grace, languid and supple but firm. If you stripped him down to a pair of running shorts she would be prepared to bet you wouldn’t see a single ripple of unwanted flesh.

Marital status: single. Age: thirty three. Loves snow-skiing and water-skiing. Owns his own sexy powerboat which he races at the weekend when he has the time. Owns homes in London, Paris, Monaco and, of course, his native Milan. Plus a huge private skiing lodge inside the very prestigious Gigante Park, where he likes to his spend part of his winters refining his no doubt amazing skills on the ski slopes. Inherited his wealth from his heavyweight banking family, then went on to triple that fortune with shrewd investments which pushed him and the Villani name right to the top of the rich list.

He was, in other words, a tall, dark, very good looking, very rich Italian male with a sinful amount of sex appeal and all the conceit and arrogance that came with such an impressive pedigree.

It was no wonder he’d cut her out without giving her a chance to explain herself. A man like him was just too darn precious about his own status as the most eligible catch on the block to think of questioning if a woman might want to approach him for any reason other than to latch on to his great body and his lovely money.

Well, Mr Villani, Rachel told his elegant back. Self-obsessed millionaires are ten-a-penny these days. You only have to look around this room to see that.

But men of honour were a very rare breed indeed.

‘I thought Elise said he was only into blondes,’ she said to Mark. ‘But you can’t put a hair between him and that black-haired female, so what chance did I have of getting in there?’

‘You idiot,’ Mark said. ‘Don’t you know who the brunette is? That’s his flighty stepsister, Daniella Leeson of Leeson Hotels fame. She’s about to marry his best friend and that other hotel heavy, Gino Rossi—Don’t you ever read any of the stuff I print?’

Rachel gave a slow shake of her head, still watching Raffaelle Villani as he paused in the foyer, framed like a masterpiece between the two open doors. He was helping his stepsister on with her coat now—all care and attention.

Gorgeous face in profile, honesty forced her to admit. With fantastic high cheekbones and black eyelashes so luxurious she could see even from this far away, how they hovered like sexy dark shadows just above those golden cheeks.

When he’d done with the coat he turned his stepsister round and lifted her chin with a gentle finger, then smiled as he murmured something to make her smile back at him.

So he possessed killer charm too, when he wanted to unleash it, Rachel saw, and did not like the stinging flutter she felt suddenly attack the lining of her lower stomach.

Was this the side of him he’d used on Elise to make the silly fool risk her marriage for him? The way Elise told it, he had done all the chasing while she’d tried to keep him at arm’s length.

No chance, Rachel denounced. There was no way any woman could hold this man at arm’s length if he did not want to be held there. It was no wonder that poor Elise had dropped like a shot duck into his hands.

‘I’ve ruined everything,’ she murmured dully. ‘Look, they’re leaving.’

‘The hell you have,’ Mark said brusquely. ‘We can’t let Elise down after all of this planning. I can still rescue this.’

Grabbing one of her hands, he began pulling her towards the foyer.

‘The trouble with you, Rachel, is you insisted on trying the wrong tack on him then blew it. This time you do it the way we planned it, okay? So listen,’ instructed the man who got his highs hunting down and catching the rich and famous at their worst. ‘I’m going to grab the lovely Daniella’s attention. All you have to do is to move in on him the moment I move in on her. I can give you ten seconds at most, so don’t hang around and, for God’s sake, don’t let yourself think! This will be our last chance.’

Their last chance …

They’d reached the foyer by now and Mark’s instructions were playing across her tense chest muscles like sharp hammering throbs. Raffaelle Villani and his stepsister were already turning towards the main exit doors.

‘Hey—Miss Leeson!’ Mark called out. ‘Where’s your future husband tonight?’

Daniella Leeson paused, then turned on the delicate heels of her shoes, saw Mark with a camera already up at his face and switched on a false smile.

‘He’s …’

‘Get going,’ Mark muttered sideways at Rachel.

As if in a dream Rachel let Mark’s urgency take her over. Her legs felt like jelly as she moved in. Raffaelle Villani was only just turning to watch his stepsister pose for the hated paparazzi so he didn’t see Rachel coming at him from one side. Stepping right in front of him and without daring to think, she threw her arms up and clasped his face between her fingers, then stretched up on tiptoe and crushed her mouth against his.

She didn’t know which of them was the more shocked as heat hit her body like mega-watt high voltage. His grunt of surprise vibrated against her lips. Lights flashed, her skin burned, her fingertips tingled where they pressed against his warm satin tight skin.

Seconds. It took too many seconds for his brain to relay to Raffaelle what was happening and by then her mouth was fusing hot against his. His hands leapt up—it was automatic to close them around a small waist with the intention of pushing her away.

A camera flashed.

He pulled his mouth free, found himself staring down at the same blonde who’d approached earlier. ‘Madre de Dio. What do you think you are doing?’ he raked out.

The flash hit him again. She was staring up at him, all big blue apologetic eyes and smudged pink lipstick and her fingers had shifted from his face to the back of his neck.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered breathlessly. ‘But you left me with no other choice.’

She began to pull away. The camera was still flashing. Instead of aiding her withdrawal, Raffaelle tightened his grip on her waist and made her stay exactly where she was.

He was blindingly, blisteringly furious. ‘No choice about what?’ he bit down at her.

She wriggled against him in an effort to free herself. What happened next made her breath catch and he knew why it did. She was plastered against him like a second layer of skin and the extra physical pressure had brought their lower bodies into contact.

‘Dio,’ he cursed again.

‘Oh, God,’ Rachel echoed. ‘Y-you—you’re …’

‘I don’t need you to tell me what I already know!’ he raked out. ‘I just need an explanation as to what the hell you think you are trying to pull off with this!’

‘I …’

‘Okay kiddo, let’s go.’

Let’s go …Raffaelle lifted his eyes to the photographer, wondered why he hadn’t noticed the camera dangling round his neck before. Then answered his own question with a twist of his mouth. He had been too busy looking at her to notice him in any detail.

‘Some set-up,’ he gritted.

‘Please let me go now.’ She tugged at his iron grip on her waist.

‘Not even if you decide to faint,’ he incised, sparks flying from his eyes as he watched Daniella turn towards them and her eyes give a startled blink.

Indeed, he agreed with her surprised expression. The photographer was already shooting out of the door.

‘You,’ he raked at his attacker, ‘are coming with me to explain yourself.’

Without giving her a chance to protest, he reached up to yank her claws out of his neck, then let go of one hand and used the other to begin hauling her towards the exit.

‘Raffaelle—!’ A bewildered Daniella called his name as she hurried after them.

Outside a cool breeze hit his angry face.

Just angry—? He was bloody blindingly livid. His instincts must be dulling for him to get caught out like this.

‘Please …’ the blonde pleaded.

‘Be silent,’ he snapped out and his hand tightened its grip on her wrist. He felt her wince; he didn’t care. Dino, his chauffeur, drew his limo up at the kerb and climbed out of the car.

Raffaelle strode towards it with his captive almost tripping up behind him on her flimsy sparkling spindle-heeled shoes. ‘Grab a cab and take Miss Leeson home,’ he instructed his driver.

‘But—Raffaelle—?’ his stepsister wailed in protest.

He ignored her. He ignored everyone, including the blonde who was still desperately trying to get free. Opening the front passenger door to the limo, he tried to propel her inside.

She dug her heels in. ‘I’m not—’

He picked her up and bodily put her into the car. When she tried to get out again, her mouth opening wide with the intention of screaming for help, he bent swiftly and smothered the sound with his mouth.

He didn’t take pleasure from hard angry kisses, he told himself, particularly when he’d just been hit on by a woman who deserved a slap not a kiss. However the kiss gave him a hell of a lot more satisfaction, especially when her muffled scream rolled around his mouth and sent his tongue chasing it.

She quivered. She tasted of champagne and pink lipstick.

By the time he yanked his mouth away again she’d sunk into trembling shock.

‘Now, listen to me,’ he incised as he locked the seat belt around her. ‘I don’t know how much your partner in crime was paying you to pull off that stunt, but in case you did not notice, he was not the only sleaze-gathering scum working the room back there. The pack has scented a story and is about to descend on us.’

On that hard warning he straightened, slammed the car door shut, then strode round to the other side while Rachel twisted her head to stare dazedly at the press pack gathering at the main hotel doors. By the time she’d absorbed all of that, Raffaelle Villani had folded himself into the driver’s seat next to her—a lean, dark, hard-muscled male with aggression bouncing off him.

His chauffeur had left the engine running. He snaked out a hand and threw the car into drive. They took off with a jerk just as the press pack tumbled over each other with their cameras flashing. Rachel watched as the whole debacle played out like a comic strip. Even his stepsister had her part to play. She was standing by the kerb staring after them while the chauffeur was politely trying to urge her into the back of a black cab.

Mark was nowhere.

Thanks, Mark, Rachel thought helplessly, visualising her darling half-brother rushing off to file his scoop without giving a second thought to what he had left her to face!

Rachel flicked a scared glance at the man sitting beside her, then shivered. If murder had a look to it then he was wearing it.

‘Please stop the car so I can get out,’ she begged and didn’t even care that she was begging.

He didn’t answer. Lips clamped together, he sent the car shooting out into the main stream of traffic. Several car horns blared in protest at his pushy arrogance. He ignored those too.

‘Look, I know you’re angry,’ she allowed shakily. ‘And I know that you have every right to be, but—’

‘Grazie.’

‘This is kidnap!’

‘So sue me,’ he gritted. ‘That could be fun.’

Fun—? Rachel trembled and shivered as she sat tensely beside him. None of this had been fun from the moment she’d allowed Elise and Mark to talk her into it. One minute she’d been perfectly content, hiding away in Devon nursing her broken heart, the next minute she’d found herself staying up here in London with her half-sister and being embroiled in her complicated love-life!

‘It w-wasn’t what you think—’

‘You don’t know what I’m thinking.’

‘I am not being paid to—’

‘Hit on me?’ he offered when those very same words dried in her throat. ‘It is a relief to know I still have some natural pulling power then.’

He had loads of natural pulling power. That was his problem.

‘Are you always this obnoxious when you’ve been caught off your guard?’ she flared up on the back of pure agitation. ‘So I hit on you—what’s new there to a man like you? From what I hear, half the women in Europe have done it at some point in your blessed life—and not all of them because of your sex appeal!’

He sent her a glinting look. ‘Did I hear a hint of scorn in your tone then?’

‘Yes!’ she flicked out. ‘Men like you stroll through life as if you own it. You do what you want when you want to do it. You pick your women on looks alone and don’t give a care whether they have feelings you could actually wound!’

Something sharp hit his voice. ‘I wounded—you?’

‘You mean you don’t know?’ The sarcasm was out before she could stop it.

They’d stopped at a set of traffic lights and he turned in his seat. Instantly the sheer size and power of the man flooded over Rachel like a simmering hot shower. She could feel his eyes skimming her face and her body as he checked her out while flipping through his huge data bank of women, trying to pinpoint who she was. Any second now and he was going to make a connection he could have made hours ago if he’d been more observant.

Rachel felt the stinging temptation to lie, if only to really confuse him, but—‘No,’ she said finally.

Someone just like you did that to me, she added inside her head. Then she flicked him a hard resentful glance, heaved in a breath and saved him the bother of further taxing his no doubt phenomenal brain power.

‘Elise Castle,’ she breathed out.

CHAPTER TWO

THE name had its desired effect, Rachel noticed bitterly, as a long thick silence stretched between them and he didn’t say or do a single thing.

She held her breath again while she waited for him to recover and begin spitting out a barrage of angry questions—but still nothing came.

In the end she took the initiative and broke the silence. ‘The name means nothing to you?’ she gibed.

Other vehicle headlights swished past the car windows, lighting their faces momentarily. Illuminated, she saw only the cold steel of his eyes as they fixed hers like lashing daggers and he kept his silence. In the darkness her gaze dropped for some reason to the single line straightness of his mouth.

A mouth that already felt disconcertingly familiar. She could still taste it. Her tongue even made a passing swipe at her lips in response to the thought.

Headlights lit up the car’s interior again, dragging her attention back to his eyes. They’d narrowed and were watching her like a hawk waiting to pin its next victim. Rachel’s breathing fell into small jerky fits. Her heart was pounding. He was frighteningly exciting to look at, all well cared for male with just the right balance between sensational good looks and raw masculinity.

Her mouth had to part to aid her quick breathing. He dropped his gaze and the result was a tingling quiver across her lips that sent the tip of her tongue nervously chasing it. Sexual awareness was suddenly alive and cluttering the atmosphere. Rachel felt her breasts grow heavy, their tips pushing out with a terrible knowing sting. He flicked those eyes back to hers again and he knew—he knew!

Then the traffic lights decided to change, demanding that he set them moving. She watched as if mesmerised as his dark head shifted back into profile, watched his long-fingered hands as he flipped the car into a slick right turn. More seconds ticked by and her chest felt as if it was burning beneath the pressure she was placing on it by barely breathing at all now.

‘The name means plenty to me,’ he finally answered. ‘And you are not Elise.’

No, Rachel knew she wasn’t Elise. She was her younger, less pretty, more sensible half-sister.

More sensible—when? She then scoffed at that. Sensible women did not get themselves into situations like this. Sensible women steered clear of the complicated love lives of others—and especially of frighteningly sexy men like him!

Sensible women did not fall in love with handsome Italians with a rich repertoire of words of love and a killer seduction technique—yet she had done it.

She had to close her eyes as an image of Alonso suddenly appeared in front of her. Tall, dark, beautiful Alonso, who had been so warm and attentive and flatteringly possessive when they had been out together, and so excitingly intense and passionate when naked with her in bed. They’d spent six glorious weeks living together in his apartment overlooking Naples. He’d vowed he loved her. ‘I love you—ti’amo mia bella cara …’ he’d murmured to her in his rich, dark, accented voice and she’d known without a doubt that she loved him.

Rachel shivered.

It was only when the time had come for her to return to England and he’d said, ‘We had a wonderful time, hmm, amore? It is a shame it now has to end,’ that she’d understood what a stupid, gullible, naïve fool she had been.

‘I said you are not Elise,’ this other Italian with the rich, dark accent prompted.

Rachel opened her eyes and let the real world back in. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But very few people will be able to tell that from behind …’

A bell of understanding suddenly clanged loud in Raffaelle’s head. Next to come was an action replay of the way this woman had thrown herself on him, followed by several camera flashes. Like a wild beast sniffing danger in the atmosphere, he picked up the scent of a deliberately constructed scandal involving him and the very married Elise.

But it was a scandal he believed he had already diverted. As far as he was aware, the lovely Elise had seen the error of her ways after his last spiked conversation with her on the telephone before he’d broken all contact with her and made his quick exit from London back to Milan. The grapevine, via Daniella, said she had not been seen on the social circuit since.

So what was this devious creature up to? Why had she gone to so much trouble to make out for the camera that she was Elise?

‘Explain,’ he commanded.

Not this side of midnight, Rachel thought tensely and clamped her lips together. Having come this far, she was not about to scupper everything by getting Mark’s story pulled before going to print.

She’d already revealed more than she should have done.

‘Look …’ she heaved out instead. ‘You’re not an idiot, Mr Villani. You must know you’re asking for trouble taking me against my will like this—so just stop the car and let me out now.’

‘Not a chance in hell,’ he refused.

And the way he turned his head to slide his eyes up her legs had Rachel tugging jerkily at the short skirt of her dress. She knew that look. It was as old as the human race. She’d let him see her attraction to him; now he was looking over the goods on offer.

‘If you honestly think—!’

‘Changing your mind about the hit, cara?’ he taunted. ‘Wondering if you might have bitten off more than you can chew with me? Well, let me confirm that you have done.’ His voice hardened. ‘You made the hit. I bought it. Now you are going to play it my way.’

‘You’re crazy,’ she whispered.

Maybe he was, Raffaelle conceded. But no woman—no woman—played games with him and got away with it!

‘I’m getting out of this car—’ Rachel reached for the door handle. The automatic lock gave a clunk as it fell into place at the same time that he increased their speed.

True—true unfettered fear began to scream in her head as it finally began to sink in what a stupid, crazy, dangerous situation she had managed to get herself into here. What did she know about Raffaelle Villani, other than the details fed to her by Mark and Elise? How did she know he wasn’t some kind of mega-rich sex maniac prowling Europe unhindered because his money could buy his victims’ silence.

Just as he said, he had bought her …

Her skin began to creep, her fingers closing tightly around her small clutch bag so they felt the reassurance of her cellphone.

How much time did she need to call the police before he reacted?

She dared a quick glance at him, heart hammering, fingers tensely toying with the clasp on her bag. He didn’t look like a lunatic, just a very angry man—which he had every right to be, she was forced to admit.

‘Your partner in crime did not hang around to protect you,’ he taunted grimly next.

He had to mean Mark. ‘You don’t—’

‘Unless he is in one of the cars following behind us, that is …’

Cars—? Rachel twisted around to peer through the rear window.

‘There are three back there I can pick out as belonging to the paparazzi,’ she was told. ‘And there are most likely more of them following not far behind them.’

Twisting forward again, she stared at him. ‘But why should they want to follow us?’

‘You are not that naïve,’ he derided the question, flicking his eyes from the rear-view mirror and back to the road ahead. ‘Or you would not have chosen Raffaelle Villani to pull your life-wrecking stunt.’

Life wrecking—? ‘N-no.’ Rachel gave an urgent shake of her head. ‘You don’t understand. This was not—’

‘Not that it matters,’ he interrupted. ‘We are here now.’

As in where—? Even as Rachel thought the question, one of those shiny new apartment blocks that flanked the river loomed up close. With a spin of the wheel he sent the car sweeping on to its forecourt. He stopped it hard on its brakes and was already out of the car and striding around it to open her door.

Rachel didn’t move. She was trembling like mad and her heart was thundering. She didn’t look at him either, but just stared starkly ahead.

‘Do you get out yourself or do I have to lift you?’ he demanded.

Since she’d already learnt the hard way that he was perfectly willing to do the latter, swallowing tensely, Rachel took the more dignified choice, unfastened her seat belt and slid out of the car.

It was an odd sensation to find herself standing close to him. Nor did that sensation make any sense because she’d stood this close once already tonight and thrown herself right against him a second time, yet he hadn’t felt this tall or as powerfully built or as dangerous as he did right now.

She shivered, panicked and was about to make a run for it when car doors started slamming. The paparazzi had arrived right behind them and were already piling out of their cars.

Raffaelle bit out a curse, then he was wrapping her beneath the hook of a powerful arm.

Cameras flashed. ‘Look this way, Elise—!’ one of them called out to her.

But she was already being ushered through a pair of doors.

‘Keep them out,’ Raffaelle instructed the security man manning the foyer.

Before Rachel knew what was happening, he’d marched her into a lift and the doors were closing the two of them inside.

It had happened so fast—all of it—everything! And she’d never felt so afraid in her entire life. Her head was whirling and her legs had gone hollow. The panic had not subsided and it sent the heels of her shoes screeching shrilly beneath her as she spun round, then she lifted an arm and hit out at him with her bag.

He fielded the blow like a man swatting a fly away. ‘Calm down,’ he gritted.

But Rachel didn’t want to calm down. Hair flying about her slender neck as she struggled with him, ‘Let me go—let me go!’ she choked out.

Then she threw back her head and opened her mouth to scream.

Only it didn’t arrive. Nothing happened. The scream remained just a thick lump pulsing in the base of her throat. And he didn’t attempt to smother it like he had done outside the hotel but just stood there looking down at her while she stared up at him.

It was crazy—the whole evening had been crazy, but this was the craziest part because it felt as if they’d both suddenly been frozen in time.

The panic receded. She forgot to breathe. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t breathing either and he was frowning as if he too couldn’t understand what was going on.

Gorgeous frown, she found herself thinking. Gorgeous black silk-hooded eyes. In fact he was, she saw as if for the first time, altogether totally breathtaking to look at. His facial bone structure was striking—the high forehead and good cheekbones, the long narrow nose and perfectly symmetrical chin.

And his eyes weren’t really grey, but an unusual mixture of green flecked with silver. His skin was amazing, a tightly wrapped casing of honey-gold her fingers remembered with a tense little twitch. The satin-black eyebrows, those luxuriously long eyelashes that were hovering just above the cheekbones, and the mouth …

Don’t look at his mouth, she told herself tautly, but she didn’t just look, she stared at it. Slender, smooth, slightly parted. The tip of her tongue snaked out to wipe away the now familiar tingle she felt take over her own lips.

He breathed. The warmth of his breath brushed her face, scented with the heady fruits of a rich dark wine. She tried a tense swallow, looked back into his eyes and saw what was coming. He was going to kiss her. Not to stop her screaming or even in anger, but because—

Oh, God, she wanted him to!

He muttered something in Italian. She released the strangest-sounding groan. In the next second he’d captured her mouth and they were kissing—really kissing. Not stolen, fought-for, punishing or smothering kisses, but like two greedy, hungry lovers with a swift, hot, urgent necessity.

Their tongues flickered and slid in a wild, erotic dance of hungry heat. Without caring she was doing it, Rachel lifted her arms up over Raffaelle’s shoulders and arched closer until she could feel every inch of him pressing against her, from his hard-packed chest to powerful thighs.

He was so pumped up and solid, his hands moving on a restless journey over the silk dress covering her slender body to the bare flesh of her shoulders, then back down to her small waist again. She became aware that she was purring like a well stroked kitten. He breathed something harsh, then picked her up with his hands and started walking without breaking the kiss.

Her hands were in his hair now, raking his scalp and scrunching its smooth style, the swollen globes of her breasts nudging at him high on his chest.

This should not be happening. This should not be happening! a shrill voice screamed inside her head.

The panic returned; Rachel yanked her head back at the same moment that he did the same thing.

Like two people who did not know what the hell was happening to them, they stared at each other again, her eyes wide dark pools of shocked horror and confusion, his blackened by stunned disbelief. Her mouth was burning, her lips still parted and pulsing and swollen as she panted for breath.

He put her down so abruptly she almost toppled off the thin heels of her shoes, her fingers trailing around his shirt collar then down the front of his jacket where they clung, because they had to, to his black satin lapels.

Anger burned now. A thick, dark, intense anger that pulsed from every hard inch of him as he used a key to open a door. Rachel had not noticed that they’d left the lift, never mind crossed another foyer to reach the door!

Manoeuvring them both inside, he kicked the door shut with a foot before peeling her off his front. She staggered dizzily. He walked away down a spacious hallway, then disappeared through another door.

She wanted to faint. She wished she could faint. She wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Every inch of her body was still alive and buzzing with excitement and a shrill ringing was filling her head.

The ringing stopped abruptly and she blinked. Then she heard his voice ripping out words in sharp Italian and realised the sound had been coming from a phone. She caught Elise’s name and reality came tumbling over her like a giant snowball, dousing every bit of heat.

It took real willpower to make her trembling legs walk her down that hallway. But she needed to know what he was saying and to whom he was saying it.

The door was flung wide open on its hinges and she stilled in the opening, staring starkly across a spacious living room with wall-to-wall glass on one side and an expanse of warm wood covering the floor softened by a big creamy-coloured rug. Everything in here was clean-lined and modern. He was standing beside one of several black leather sofas that were carefully placed about the room.

His back was to her. He had a land line telephone clamped to his ear and his hair was still mussed. Her fingers tingled to remind her who had done the mussing. As she continued to stand there, he lifted up a set of long fingers and mussed it up some more.

‘Daniella—’ he snapped out, then stopped and sighed.

Whatever his stepsister said to him then made his voice alter, the snap going out of it and low, dark, soothing Italian arriving in its place, aimed to apologise and reassure.

Me too, please, Rachel wanted to beg. Reassure me too that this is all just a big nightmare.

But it wasn’t and her heart was still beating too fast. The low dark flow of his voice seemed to resonate directly from deep inside his chest before reaching the rolling caress of his tongue.

Oh, God. She put a set of trembling fingers up to cover her eyes. Did all Italian men have deep, sexy voices, or was it just that she had been unlucky enough to meet the only two that could do this to her?

Then an impatient ‘Daniella,’ arrived again. ‘Take my advice and call Gino. Take your bad temper out on him, for I am in no mood to hear this.’

He had switched to English. Rachel dropped her hand in time to watch his shoulders give a tight shrug.

‘If Elise upstaged you then count your blessings that she was more interesting to the cameras than you and your behaviour were five minutes before!’

Elise …Rachel tensed as a sudden thought hit her. If Raffaelle’s stepsister had been fooled tonight into believing she was Elise, then maybe, between them, she and Mark had managed to pull this off!

Rafaelle’s voice returned to smooth Italian. Rachel listened intently for the sound of Elise’s name being spoken again but it did not happen. A few seconds later he was finishing the call.

Raffaelle put the phone down, then flexed his wide shoulders. He could feel her standing somewhere behind him but he did not want to turn around and find out where.

He did not want to look at her.

He did not know what the hell she was doing to him!

With an impatient yank he undid his bow tie, shifted his stance to angle his body towards the drinks cabinet, then plucked with hard fingers at the top button of his dress shirt as he strode across the room. His jacket came next. He lost it to the back of a sofa. The silence screamed across the gap separating them as he flipped open the cabinet doors and reached for the brandy bottle.

‘Drink—?’ he offered.

‘No thank you,’ she huskily declined.

Husky did it. He felt that low sensual voice reach right down inside him and give a hard tug on his loins.

‘Keeping a clear head?’ he mocked tightly.

‘Yes,’ she breathed.

Pouring a brandy for himself, he turned with the glass in his hand. She was standing in the doorway in her turquoise dress, with her arms held tensely to her sides. Her hands were gripping the black beaded bag she had tried to hit him with in the lift and her blue eyes were telling him that she was scared.

Some might say that she had asked for everything that was happening to her but Raffaelle was reluctantly prepared to admit that he had been behaving little better than a thug.

He took a sip of his drink, grimly aware that what had broken free in the lift was still busy inside him. He wanted her. He did not know why he wanted her. He’d been tempted by sirens far more adept at their craft than she was without feeling the slightest inclination to give in.

Yet he did—want to give in. In fact the want was now a low-down burning ache in his gut.

She wasn’t even what he would call beautiful. Not in the classic Elise-sleek-catwalk-fashion-sense, that was. There again, neither had Elise been catwalk-sleek by the time he’d met her. And this woman’s face did not possess the same striking bone structure that Elise had been endowed with. The eyes were the same blue but the nose was different—and the mouth.

The mouth …

Lifting the glass to his lips, Raffaelle half hid his eyes as he studied the mouth, wiped clear of pink lipstick now and still softly swollen from their kiss in the lift. Elise’s mouth was a wide classic bow shape whereas this mouth was shaped more evocatively like a heart and was frankly lush. And Elise was taller, though he would hazard a guess the lost inches would not show on a photograph as this one had stretched up and plastered herself against his front.

The dress was expensive—you didn’t live most of your life around fashion conscious females without being able to pick out haute couture when you saw it. But it did not fit her. It was too tight in places, like across those two white breasts that were in danger of falling out of it, and it hugged the rounded shape of her slender hips like a second skin.

‘Turn round,’ he instructed.

She tensed in objection.

‘I am looking for your likeness to Elise,’ he informed her levelly. ‘So humour me and turn around … ‘

She did. Raffaelle grimaced because he would have been prepared to swear that right now she would rather spit in his face than comply with anything he wanted her to do. The passionate kiss in the lift coming hard on the back of the way she’d looked at him in the car had made her so uptight and defensive he could almost taste her hostility towards him even as she stood there with her back to him.

And that was just another thing about her. Elise might have been a damn good liar but she had not possessed a single spark of passion or spirit. She’d been quiet and surprisingly shy for someone who had earned her living sashaying along catwalks and posing for glossy magazines.

But that was thinking with hindsight, because he had not known who Elise really was at the time. And he was looking in the wrong place if he expected to find the very married ex-model’s nature in a woman who was definitely not her.

The back view did it, though. The back view with the straight hair and the narrow shoulders and tight backside told him exactly why this woman believed she could get away with pretending to be Elise from that angle.

‘Had enough?’ She spun back to face him so she could fix him with an icy stare.

It made him want to grimace, because if she was allowing herself to believe that such an expression was going to hold him back she was sadly mistaken. Despite the frost, she’d switched him on and now, he discovered, he was not feeling inclined to switch himself off again.

In fact he was beginning to enjoy the sexual sting that was passing between them.

The way he was standing there with his glass in his hand and his eyes half hidden, he reminded Rachel of a long, lean jungle cat lazily planning the moment when it would pounce.

Still dangerous, in other words.

The loss of his jacket wasn’t helping. The bright white of his shirt only made his shoulders look wider and his torso longer and tougher, and the way his loosened bow tie lay in two strips of black either side of his open shirt collar kept on drawing her eyes to the triangle of golden skin at his throat.

Rachel’s throat went dry. Oh, please, she begged, will someone get me out of here—?

Because looking at him was recharging the sexual buzz. She could feel it moving through her blood in a slow and sluggishly threatening burn, scary yet exciting—like a war she was having to fight on two fronts.

‘Don’t you think it is time that you told me your name?’

Rachel tensed, her eyes flicking into focus on his face. Then a strained little laugh broke in her throat because it hadn’t occurred to her that he didn’t know who she was.

‘Rachel,’ she pushed out. ‘Rachel Carmichael.’

Something about him suddenly altered. For some unknown reason she felt as if the air circulating around him had gone as tense as a cracked whip. And the eyes—the eyes were not merely hooded now, they’d narrowed into sharp eyelash-framed slits.

‘Well, hello, Rachel Carmichael,’ he drawled in a very slow, lazy tone that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. ‘Now this has just become very interesting … ‘

‘Why has it?’ she asked warily.

‘Why don’t you come and sit down so we can talk about it?’

She had the impression that the jungle cat in him had just sharpened its teeth. Taut as a bow string and balanced right on the balls of her feet now, Rachel wondered if this would be a good time to try to make a run for it.

But the idea lasted for only a moment. He had not brought her up here to his apartment to let her get away before she had given him an explanation as to why she’d set him up tonight.

Making herself walk across the room took courage, especially when he watched her all the way as if she was performing some special provocative act designed purposely to keep his attention engaged.

Oh, God, did he have to look so sleekly at ease and so gorgeously interested?

Beginning to feel disturbingly hollow from the neck down, if she did not count the sparking sting making itself felt, Rachel picked one of the black sofas at random and sat down right on its edge.

The skirt to her dress immediately rode upwards to reveal more slender thigh than was decent with a peek of her stocking lace tops. Unclipping her fingers from the death grip they had on her bag she gave a tug at the dress’s hem, only to notice to her horror that its bodice wasn’t doing much to keep her modesty covered, either.

And still he stood there watching her every single move, deliberately, she suspected, building on the sexual tension that was fizzing in the air. Her heart was pounding. She refused to look up. She wanted to swallow but would not allow herself the luxury of trying to shift the anxious lump lodged in her throat.

Then he moved and she jerked up her head, unable to stop the wary response, only to feel almost dizzy with embarrassment when she saw how he was looking at her.

‘I will have that drink now,’ she burst out, desperate for him to turn away so she could pull up the bodice of her dress without him watching.

One of those sleek black eyebrows arched in quizzing mockery at her abrupt change of mind about the drink. He knew what she was trying to do. It was scored into his eyes and his body language.

‘What would you like?’ he asked politely.

‘I don’t know—anything,’ she shook out.

He turned his back. Rachel feathered out a tense breath and hurriedly rearranged herself. In all her life she had never felt so out of sorts and out of place as she was feeling right now, sitting on this sofa, wearing this dress, with that man standing only a few feet away.

She was nobody’s luxury appendage—never had been. She’d always left that kind of thing to the more beautiful and capable Elise. Playing the role given to her tonight had been tough on her pride, from the moment she’d donned the whole image. And the only man she’d ever thrown herself at in her whole life before tonight had been Alonso, and, she recalled with a grimace, he’d been more or less crawling all over her by then anyway.

And Alonso hadn’t been rich. He’d just been a very junior car salesman with good lines in smart suits and a tiny apartment. He drove flashy cars but he didn’t own them, and he’d earned less money than she had earned picking fruit on a farm just outside Naples.

A glass appeared in front of her. Glancing up, she unclipped one of her hands from her bag and took it with a mumbled, ‘Thanks,’ then sat staring at it wondering what the heck was in it?

‘Splash of vodka topped up with tonic,’ he provided the answer. ‘And it is not spiked with something lethal, if that is what the frown is about.’

‘I wasn’t—’

‘Then you should,’ he intruded curtly. ‘You don’t know me, Rachel Carmichael. I might go in for drug-enhanced love-ins. How old are you, by the way?’

Rachel blinked. ‘Twenty-three. Why, what has my age got to do with anything?’

‘Just curious.’ He sat down right next to her sending her spine arching into a defensive stretch.

Raffaelle saw it happen and smiled. The air circulating around them was alive with an ever increasing sting of awareness. He could feel it. He knew that she could feel it. What he could not figure out was why it was there and what he was going to do about it.

Liar, the dry part of his brain fed back.

‘Okay …’ Relaxing into the sofa, he stretched out his long legs. ‘Now, start talking.’

Talking … Sending her tongue round her dry lips, Rachel looked down at the bag she was still clutching in one hand and made a small shift of her wrist so she could see the time on her watch.

It was just coming up to midnight. How long did Mark need to do his thing with his digital camera, write his accompanying piece, then file it with the newspaper via the Internet?

She looked at her bag with the comforting feel of her cellphone inside it, and wondered if she dared take it out and ring him to check?

Great idea, she then thought heavily. As if Raffaelle Villani was going to let her contact anyone until he had his explanation.

‘Sit back and relax,’ he invited.

What she did was stiffen up all the more. ‘I’m perfectly relaxed as I am, thank you.’

‘No, you are not. There is tension—here …’ A finger arrived in the naked taut hollow between her shoulders, sending her spine into another muscle splitting arch as if she’d been stung by an electric shock.

The sensation flung her, gasping to her feet. ‘That wasn’t—necessary,’ she protested.

‘You think not?’

‘No.’ Taking a few shaky steps away from him, she put the glass to her mouth and sipped while he watched her through half hidden eyes and a knowing smile on his lips.

‘We share chemistry, cara.’

Rachel laughed thickly. ‘That of kidnapper and victim.’

‘And who do you believe is the victim here—?’

Just like that, with one smooth question, he brought the whole madness which had made up this evening tumbling down to where it really belonged.

For which of them was the real victim? Certainly not her, she had to admit. He had every right to be angry. She had no right to be anything at all.

On the short sigh that quivered as it left her, Rachel finally took responsibility for her own misdemeanours. It was no use trying to pretend she was innocent when she wasn’t. Or to wish Raffaelle Villani a million miles away because he’d ruined all their plans when he had stopped her from getting away back there at the hotel.

He was right about the chemistry too. Just turning to look at his long, lean, relaxed sprawl, giving off all kinds of innate sexual messages, sent her insides into an instant tight spiral spin.

Then—okay, she told herself grimly, let’s keep this strictly to business, then maybe the—other—stuff will die a natural death.

On that stern piece of good common sense, she lifted her chin, pushed her eyes upwards to fix them on his face, then she steadied her breathing and plunged right in.

‘As I just told you, my name is Rachel Carmichael,’ she reminded him. ‘Elise is my half-sister. W-we had different fathers, hence the different surnames … ‘

CHAPTER THREE

HE DID not move. He remained relaxed. His eyes told her absolutely nothing and his mouth held on to its smooth flat line.

So why did Rachel get the unnerving impression that he had already worked most of that out?

‘Elise has been out of the modelling scene for over five years now since—since she married Leo Savakis—’

‘And gave him a son.’

Rachel could only nod, pressing her lips together as she did so, because she knew without him adding that dry comment, how badly all of this reflected on Elise.

‘Leo is an …awesome guy,’ she continued. ‘He is the very hands-on head of the Savakis shipping empire as well as being a respected international lawyer, expert in British, Greek and American corporate law—’

‘Skip the CV. I know about Leo Savakis,’ he coolly cut in.

Of course he would know about Leo. Most people who moved in high business circles would have heard about her brother-in-law’s remarkable career.

‘He’s a very busy man.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ drawled this high mover—in the business world at least.

‘S-sometimes Elise feels—neglected.’

‘Ah,’ he sighed. ‘So I am to get the sob story before you lurch into the ugly part.’

‘Don’t mock what you have never suffered, Mr Villani!’ Rachel flared up in her sister’s defence. ‘When you’ve gone from being the face on every glossy magazine to a stay-at-home wife and mother with no identity to call your own, then you might begin to understand!’

He didn’t even bother to respond to that heated outburst. ‘So she feels—neglected …’ he prompted instead.

‘And lonely.’ Once again Rachel steadied her breathing. ‘When Leo works abroad he prefers Elise to stay put in London or on his island in Greece. He says it’s all to do with security,’ she explained. ‘He’s made enemies in his line of work and … ‘

‘Naturally feels the need to protect his wife and his son.’

‘Wouldn’t you?’ Rachel flashed.

He raised a black satin eyebrow. ‘Are you working in defence of Mr Savakis here or his poor neglected wife?’

‘Both,’ Rachel declared loyally. ‘I like Leo …’

But she wouldn’t want him as a husband, she added silently. He was too overwhelmingly unreadable and dauntingly self-controlled. He adored Elise though, she was certain of it. It was just that …

‘He’s been virtually living in Chicago for the last twelve months, working on a high-profile case that only allows him back home for the occasional flying visit.’

‘Hence poor Elise feeling lonely and neglected—’

‘If you don’t stop being nasty about her, I’m going to leave!’

He shifted his shoulders against the black leather, then moved his legs, bending them out of their lazy sprawl so he could rest one ankle on the other knee. Rachel’s eyes were drawn to the lean bowl between his hipbones where the expensive black fabric of his trousers sat easily against—

Oh, please, someone help me! she thought despairingly and wanted to run away again.

He moved a hand next, lifting it up so he could stroke a long finger across the flat line of his lips. Above the stroking finger, his grey-green eyes feathered a ponderous look over her in a way that further fanned the sexual charge.

Did all Italian men have an ability to seduce just by using body language, or was it just her misfortune that they affected her like this?

Disturbed by the whole hectic physical war going on here, Rachel put some distance between them by walking across the room to stand staring out of one of the huge plate glass windows. London—the River Thames, Westminster and Tower Bridge—lay spanned out before her in a familiar night scene.

Behind her his silent study pin-pricked her spine.

He had not even bothered to challenge her threat to leave. It was as if he knew she was becoming more and more trapped here by the sexual pull and he was enjoying feeding it.

One of the friends she’d made during her stay in Naples had once claimed that Italian men could seduce you and make you feel wonderful about falling in love with them without so much as considering falling in love themselves. It was the Italian way. Apparently you were supposed to feel blessed that they’d bothered to notice you at all.

Because they were conceited and arrogant by nature, so confident in their prowess as mighty lovers, that the sugGesùon that they might not assuage your every sexual fantasy never entered their minds or their beds. Such an uncrushable self-belief was seductive in itself. Rachel had fallen for it with Alonso. Now here she was, feeling the pull again and with a much more dangerous beast than Alonso ever had been.

It was time to put it to death, she told herself.

Turning from the window, she looked back at him. ‘Leo knows about your affair with Elise,’ she announced.

And saw death happen to sexual promise as he flicked those eyes into sharp focus on her face.

‘He was sent photographs of the two of you together in a restaurant here in London, then later being very intimate on a dance floor,’ she pushed on.

His tight curse brought him to his feet.

‘Elise got upset—’

‘Naturally,’ he gritted.

Rachel bit down hard on her lower lip. ‘She denied everything, which was a bit stupid when Leo was standing there with the photographic evidence,’ she allowed. ‘F-fortunately the photos were dark and very grainy and she insisted that the blonde in them could be anyone.’

‘She lied, in other words.’

‘Wouldn’t you have done in her place?’

His dark head went back. ‘If I was so miserable in my marriage that I needed to look elsewhere for—company, I would be man enough to say so before the event!’

‘Well, good for you, Mr Villani,’ Rachel commended. ‘It must be really great to be so sure of yourself that you know what you would do in any given situation! Well, Elise lied,’ she stressed. ‘And, right off the top of her head, she suggested that the woman in the photos could even be me. Leo wasn’t impressed—I don’t normally look or dress like this, you see—’

He flicked her a cynical look. Another liar in the family, then.’

‘Yes,’ Rachel sighed, seeing no use in denying it. ‘I had been staying with Elise in London for a while to—to keep her company while Leo was away. She was so low and depressed I encouraged her to go out with an old f-friend from her modelling days and—and enjoy life a bit instead of moping around the house waiting for …’ She stopped, shutting the rest of that away where it belonged.

By his expression she knew he knew what she meant.

‘Anyway,’ she went on after a moment. ‘She took me up on the offer and really started to cheer up and be her old self! But I had no idea she was out there enjoying herself with another man … ‘

‘Oh, call it as it is, cara, we had the hots for each other.’

‘You don’t need to be so crude about it!’ she said heatedly.

‘What happened next?’ He was striding across the room towards the brandy bottle to replenish his empty glass and there was nothing languid in his movements now.

‘Elise told Leo that I had been seeing someone while I was staying with her …’

‘A someone who just happened to be me—?’ Brandy splashed into the glass.

Rachel watched it and mentally crossed her fingers and hoped he had the steady head for it. ‘She was fighting for her marriage.’

He swallowed the drink. ‘So did Savakis call you up to demand confirmation and you lied to him for your sister’s sake?’

‘Leo didn’t do anything.’ Ignoring his sarcasm, she kept strictly to the point. ‘Instead he chose to let the subject drop.’

‘Generous man,’ he drawled. ‘Or a sadly besotted one.’

The idea of Leo being either generous or besotted was so alien to Rachel that she had to stop and think about it and still couldn’t get either scenario to fit the Leo she knew.

‘Things have been—strained between the two of them ever since, and now …’ Rachel gathered herself in before she revealed the next bit. ‘Elise has just found out that she’s pregnant.’

Raffaelle responded to this with an abrupt stiffening of his long body. The glass clenched between his fingers, he turned a narrowed look on her face.

‘Do go on,’ he invited softly.

Rachel wished she didn’t have to go on but she knew that she did. ‘W-with the timing and—everything, there’s a big chance that Leo might not believe the baby is his.’

‘You mean he does not know about it yet?’

‘Not yet,’ Rachel murmured.

‘And is it his baby?’

‘Yes!’ she cried out. ‘Unless you are wondering if it might be your baby?’ she then could not resist hitting back.

‘I know it isn’t.’ His mouth was as hard now as his eyes were like ice.

Rachel shivered. ‘It’s Leo’s baby,’ she repeated firmly. ‘Conceived during one of his flying visits home. He’d only been there one night when he was telling Elise over the breakfast table that he was flying back to Chicago the next day. S-so she rebelled at his arrogant assumption that he could just fly in and—’ The rest was cut off and smothered. But once again she knew that he knew what she was getting at. ‘So Elise decided to punish him by telling him she had started her period and so was off limits … ‘

Because, as Elise had said, if Leo thought he could fly in just to ease his libido, then he could go back to Chicago and to libido hell!

‘Dio,’ Raffaelle muttered. ‘The sly machinations of a selfish woman never cease to impress me.’

‘Nor am I impressed by the casual attitude of a man on the hunt for sex!’

‘Was that remark aimed at me?’ he demanded.

‘Does it fit?’ Rachel lanced back. ‘Did you or did you not hit on my sister because you fancied your chances in her bed?’

Guilty as charged. His teeth came together. ‘I did not know that she was married,’ he declared stiffly.

‘And that’s your excuse?’ Rachel denounced. ‘Why didn’t you know she was married?’ she demanded. ‘She was a famous exmodel, for goodness’ sake! Her face used to be seen everywhere. Her marriage made the front pages of every glossy there is!’

‘Does she look like the famous model any more?’ he hit back. ‘You know she does not! She carries more weight now and her face has altered. And she did not exactly go out of her way to tell me who she was!’

‘What did she do then—pretend to be Catwoman, complete with rubber mask?’

Rachel saw him make a grab at his temper. ‘She used a different name,’ he said.

A different name—? That was one small detail Elise had left out of her account of her reckless rebellion against Leo.

‘What name—?’ She frowned at him.

He looked at her, then dared to laugh, though it wasn’t a very pleasant-sounding laugh. ‘Does—Rachel Carmichael mean much to you?’

Rachel suddenly needed to sit down again. Walking on trembling legs to the nearest sofa, she sank into its soft black leather and put the glass to her equally trembling mouth.

‘I see you recognise the name,’ he drawled hatefully.

‘Shut up!’ she whipped back; she was trying to think.

The devious witch, the calculating madam! She’d gone out there on the town stuffed full of rebellion, using her name as a cover-up, while insisting that Leo’s precious security guards remained at the house to guard her son!

‘No wonder Mark dragged me back here,’ she mumbled.

‘Who the hell is Mark?’ Raffaelle Villani rapped out.

‘My half-brother—the one with the camera,’ she enlightened.

‘You mean you are related to one of the paparazzi?’

Rachel shifted uncomfortably. ‘Mark and Elise are twins.’

He didn’t bother to say anything to that, but just stood there glaring into space. The atmosphere was pretty much too thick to breathe now and Rachel was wishing she was wearing armour plating because she had a horrible feeling she was going to need it soon.

‘From where?’ he demanded suddenly.

Looking up at him, she just blinked.

‘You said that your brother dragged you back,’ he enlightened her. ‘From where—?’

‘Oh—Devon,’ Rachel responded. ‘I work there on the family farm—organic,’ she added for no reason she could think of.

His raking scan of her was downright incredulous. ‘You … are a farmer?’

Her chin shot up. ‘What’s the matter with that, Mr Villani?’ she challenged. ‘Does it bruise your precious ego to know you’re about to be intimately linked to a poor farming girl instead of some rich chick with a three-hundred-year-old pedigree—?’

Silence clattered—no, it thundered down as both of them realised at the same time what it was she had just said.

‘“Intimately linked—?”’ he fed into that rumbling thunder.

Rachel bit down hard on her bottom lip to stop it from quivering. The thickened air in the room began to curdle—or was it the vodka she wasn’t used to drinking that was beginning to make her feel slightly sick?

‘Explain that,’ he raked out.

‘I w-will in a minute,’ she whispered. ‘I just need to—get my head together to …’ say what still had not been said.

Abandoning what was left of the glass of vodka and her bag to the floor at her feet, she made herself stand up again, preferring to meet what was about to come back at her from an upright position with her hands free rather than have him loom over her like a threatening thunderclap.

Why did he have to be so intimidatingly tall and big?

She found herself sending him a plea for understanding with her eyes as she lurched back into speech. ‘Elise provided this d-dress and the invitation to the charity thing tonight,’ she explained. ‘Then she was packed off to Chicago with her son this afternoon f-for a surprise visit to Leo, while Mark and I … ‘

‘Set up the sting on me?’

Pressing her lips together, she nodded, deciding not to object to the latest label he’d hung on them because it was the truth, and there was still more to come.

‘Tomorrow morning you and I will appear together in a Sunday tabloid—’

‘Saying what—?’ he bit out.

Oh, God, she groaned silently. ‘S-something like—Raffaelle Villani goes public with his latest w-woman …’

Having to really bite down hard on her bottom lip now, Rachel searched the hard angles of his face for a small sign that he wasn’t into murder—but she didn’t see it.

‘It was important to convince Leo that the woman in the photographs he has in his possession and the one who will appear in tomorrow’s paper are the same person and cannot be Elise if she is in Chicago with him!’

And that was the bottom line.

Suddenly he was a tall dark stranger standing there. A man so cold and so very still it was as if he had pulled on the same awesome cloak of implacability that Leo always wore.

The silence gnawed. So did the heightened tension which began sapping the defences that had kept Rachel going through all of this.

‘It should have ended there,’ she pushed into the taut atmosphere. ‘If you had behaved as predicted and let me get away from you, I would have disappeared back to Devon and tomorrow’s tabloid spread would have become Monday’s bin liner—over and forgotten about—and my sister’s marriage would have been safe!’

It was the way it worked, Mark had said. Raffaelle Villani would have no case to deny. He might bluster and demand a retraction from the paper but that would be all he could do. Elise’s name would not be mentioned by Mark and other than Leo receiving hard evidence that his wife was not the woman in the grainy photographs with Raffaelle Villani, everything else would just—go away.

But this man had not reacted as predicted. He’d grabbed and held on to her. And the pap-pack had caught their scent. Now she was stuck here in his apartment with the pack no doubt waiting outside ready to pounce on her the moment that she tried to leave.

And where was her darling quick thinking half-brother? Putting his twin’s needs first, as he always did.

Now Rachel hadn’t a clue as to where it was all going to go from here except—

It was time to beg, she recognised starkly. Time to appeal to one very cold and angry Raffaelle Villani for his understanding and co-operation, when deep down she knew they deserved neither.

She moved towards him. ‘Mr Villani,’ she murmured huskily, ‘please, just think about it. I was actually doing you a favour too tonight because if Leo—’

‘What the hell is—this?’

Rachel hadn’t realised she’d lifted a hand out towards him in appeal until his long fingers were suddenly clamped around her wrist.

‘W-what—?’ she said jerkily.

Grim mouth flattening, he lifted up her hand until her fingers dangled in front of her confused face. She had to blink twice to focus on the diamond-encrusted sapphire ring twinkling back at her.

‘Oh,’ she said and swallowed. She’d forgotten all about the ring.

‘You are betrothed—?’ he enquired with blistering thinness.

‘N-no.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘It—it’s nothing; the ring is a f-fake, just w-window-dressing.’

‘Window-dressing,’ he repeated.

‘Part of the look …’ She was beginning to squirm inside again. ‘Leo needed to see it if he was going to … ‘

‘Believe you were not his wife?’

She nodded, then swallowed again. ‘Elise’s engagement ring is a big single yellow diamond. Th-this one is so glaringly different that it …’

Her voice trailed away, the hiss of his breath making it do so because she knew he had caught on.

‘So, let me see if I have this clear,’ he said grimly. ‘You dressed yourself up to look like your half-sister—from behind, then you threw yourself at my neck, kissing me as if I am your …?’

He wanted her to say it. Her heart began thumping. He was going to make her confess the final full duplicity.

‘L-lover,’ she breathed.

‘Betrothedlover?’ His voice was getting softer by the second.

Rachel licked her lips and nodded.

‘And I was not supposed to issue an instant denial about this?’

‘Th-there’s a letter going to be h-hand-delivered here to you tomorrow along with the relevant newspaper,’ she told him shakily. ‘The letter will explain everything we have talked about and point out to you that to expose the photograph as a lie will leave you open to questions about wh-whose baby it is Elise is carrying.’

‘Madre de Dio,’ he breathed. ‘You are truly devious.’

He was right and she was, but—‘This is serious, Mr Villani!’ she cried out. ‘You don’t know Leo! He’s one hell of a strict Greek! He’s also an absolute killer expert on law! If he decides that his wife has been cheating on him with you and could be having your baby … for all your wealth and power, he will drag you to the courtroom and through the gutters along with Elise!’

He threw her hand away. ‘I never touched her—!’ he bit out angrily.

‘Even this very trusting sister can’t believe that!’

Her denunciation bounced off the walls and the sheets of plate glass while the air sizzled with his undiluted rage.

‘One kiss, Mr Villani,’ Rachel stressed urgently. ‘One small kiss stolen from the wife of Leo Savakis and he will never forgive her, and you will find yourself stuck with the worst kind of enemy there is!’

He just turned and walked off, striding across the expanse of wood flooring and out through the door.

Rachel followed, quivering, shaken to the roots because it was only now, when faced with what this all meant to him, that she was beginning to realise how none of them had given much thought to how unfairly they were treating him in all of this.

She hurried after him. ‘I’m so sorry …’

The husky quaver of her apology fell on stony ground. It had been such a useless thing to say anyway, so she didn’t blame him for the filthy comment he threw back at her, as one of his arms flew out with an angry hand attached to it, which hit open another door to allow him to keep walking without altering his angry stride.

Rachel found herself coming to a trembling halt in yet another doorway. This one opened on to a shiny black and white kitchen and he was standing by a huge black mirror fronted fridge. One of the doors was swinging open, but by the way he was just staring Rachel received the pained impression that he didn’t know what it was he was staring into.

‘Please believe me when I say I did try to explain it all to you earlier—at the charity thing!’ she tried again—frantically. ‘I insisted to Mark that we should at least attempt to get your understanding and cooperation but …’ she sucked in a breath ‘ …you wouldn’t give me the chance to speak and then the whole thing j-just ran out of control!’

He slammed the fridge door shut and turned to face her. If her trembling legs would have let her, Rachel knew she would be running by now.

But—look at him, she told herself helplessly as he began striding towards her. He was so gloriously magnificent in his anger, his face muscles stretched tight across his amazing bone structure and his torso pumped up like a warrior about to begin a slaying-fest.

He reached for her.

She quivered. ‘Y-you—’

He shut her up with his hard hot mouth to mouth that totally blacked out her brain. When he let her up for air again she was dizzy and disorientated, in no fit state to find herself being dragged by the hand down the hallway then out of the door to the lift.

His free hand stabbed the call button. Bright balls of panic spun in her head. He was going to throw her out. He was going to hand her to the wolves out there and—

‘Please don’t do this,’ she begged him on the very—very edge of tears now.

He pulled her into the lift. They rode down with him standing there in front of her, with her wrist still his prisoner and the rest of her pinned against the lift wall by the steely glitter in his eyes.

‘Think about it,’ she begged unsteadily. ‘You don’t want to—’

He swooped and cut the words off the ruthless way, with another open mouthed onslaught that lost her the will to even stand.

But she had to stand. She had to follow where he pulled as they left the lift and crossed the foyer with a curious security guard looking on. Then a hard hand pushed open the main doors and Rachel lost the next few seconds beneath the glare of flashing flickering lights and the pandemonium of questions that burst out.

His arm was around her shoulders now, hugging her to him and keeping her upright.

‘Smile,’ he hissed and she smiled like an alien.

Then the words came, those low, smooth accented tones dryly confirming that no, as they could see, she was not Elise. She was in fact Elise’s beautiful half-sister, Rachel Carmichael.

Then he let drop the big one, by calmly inviting their congratulations because they had just become engaged to be married.

The fake ring was displayed on her finger for the pack to snap to their greedy hearts’ content.

How long had they known each other? Where had they met?

He answered all the questions with the relaxed humour of one who had all the answers, since he was merely duplicating facts from his short affair with Elise.

Breathing took on a shallow necessity aimed to maintain the fragile beat of her heart. The rest was a haze, a fog of nothing in which she must have performed well because no one suggested she was about to pass out or, worse, that she looked more like a horrified prisoner being hauled to the gallows than a happily betrothed future bride.

‘Now you have what you came for would it be possible that you can do us a favour and leave us in peace?’

So lightly requested, so full of lazy charm. The pack laughed. He turned her within the iron grip of his arm. Silence hit with a deafening force as the doors closed with them back inside.

‘Congratulations, Mr Villani, Miss Carmichael,’ the eavesdropping security guard said with a grin.

If the man holding her clamped to his side said anything in response then Rachel didn’t hear it. She was too busy trying to decide if she was dizzy with relief because he hadn’t thrown her out there to face the paparazzi alone, or if she was dizzy with fear over what was still to come.

They travelled back up in the lift. She was in shock. She had been totally incapacitated by a man locked into his own agenda. An agenda that involved him seizing control of a situation they—she had taken away from him.

His apartment door closed behind them. Rachel shivered. And still the ordeal did not end there. The arm propelled her down the hall and in through another door. It closed with a quiet deathly click and only then did she manage to find the strength to break free.

She had moved three shaky steps before it hit her that this was a bedroom. A very male bedroom with very masculine items scattered around it and a very large bed standing out like a threat, with its very dark plum-coloured linen upon which it was too easy to imprint the solid frame of a dark-haired honey-skinned man.

She turned. He was still by the door and watching her. Not one small gram of anger had softened from his face. Her skin gave a fizz of alarm-cum-excitement because, even in anger, the way he was looking at her was stripping her bare to her quivering skin.

‘Why—?’ she breathed.

‘You wanted my co-operation and you have had it,’ he answered. ‘Now I want what I want, and you, Miss Carmichael, are about to pay your dues.’

He started closing the gap between them.

‘No.’ Rachel shook her head and began backing away. ‘I won’t let you do this.’

‘Oh come on, mi amore,’ he taunted coldly. ‘We are betrothed to be married. You wear my ring on your finger and my impeccably mannered family is going to try not to be shocked that my bride is wearing farmers’ boots to her wedding and straw to decorate her hair.’

‘Very funny,’ she muttered, looking about her for an escape.

‘They will tread daintily between organic lettuce and—’

‘Will you just stop this!’ His words might taunt but the rest was now getting scary. ‘Look,’ she said quickly. ‘I know you are angry—and I know that you have every right to be.’

‘Grazie.’

‘Oh, God,’ she choked as his hands closed around her waist and the shock of feeling them there again lit up her skin. ‘I’m sorry about everything, okay?’

His dark head began to lower. Rachel tried to arch away.

‘Your heart is racing.’

‘Because you’re frightening me!’

‘Or exciting you.’

No, frightening—-frightening me! Rachel repeated—though only inside her head where a strange tumbling darkness was gathering, closing around her like a cold mist that began to take her legs from beneath her and brought forth a string of soft tight curses as she began to go limp.