by Abby Green
The brooding Italian’s returned...
To finally make her his!
Two years after their last heartbreaking meeting, Ciro Sant’Angelo bursts back into Lara Templeton’s life with a demand. His former fiancée will fulfill her promise and become his wife! Ciro is not the man Lara remembers—a devastating experience has left him scarred and completely ruthless. Yet their intense fire has never died, and his caress awakens innocent Lara to unimaginable pleasures. Could their convenient marriage be their redemption?
Discover this intense tale of romance and redemption
Now Lara had to face Ciro. The veil had been lifted back and over her head. She had nothing to shield her from that dark, penetrating gaze.
Before, she’d imagined this moment so many times...had longed for it. Had longed to feel a part of something again. A unit. A unit of love.
And now this was a parody of that longing. A farce. Suddenly Lara felt like pulling away from Ciro, who had her two hands in his. As if sensing her wish to bolt, he tightened his grip on her and tugged her toward him.
“You may kiss the bride...”
One word resounded in Lara’s head. No! If Ciro touched her now, when she was feeling so raw... But it was too late. He’d pulled her close, as close as her voluminous skirts would allow, and his hands were around her face. Holding her as tenderly as if she really meant something to him. When it was all for show. But past and present were blurring.
Irish author Abby Green ended a very glamorous career in film and TV—which really consisted of a lot of standing in the rain outside actors’ trailers—to pursue her love of romance. After she’d bombarded Harlequin with manuscripts they kindly accepted one, and an author was born. She lives in Dublin, Ireland, and loves any excuse for distraction. Visit abby-green.com or email [email protected].
Books by Abby Green
Harlequin Presents
The Virgin’s Debt to Pay
Conveniently Wed!
Claiming His Wedding Night Consequence
One Night With Consequences
An Heir to Make a Marriage
An Heir Fit for a King
An Innocent, A Seduction, A Secret
Wedlocked!
Claimed for the De Carillo Twins
Brides for Billionaires
Married for the Tycoon’s Empire
Rulers of the Desert
A Diamond for the Sheikh’s Mistress
A Christmas Bride for the King
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
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Abby Green
Awakened by the Scarred Italian
This is for Sharon Kendrick, whose advice I should have taken about two months before I did. I got there in the end! Thanks, Sharon!
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM A PASSIONATE NIGHT WITH THE GREEK BY KIM LAWRENCE
CHAPTER ONE
LARA TEMPLETON WAS glad of the delicate black lace obscuring her vision and hiding her dry eyes from the sly looks of the crowd around the open grave. They might well suspect that she wasn’t grieving the death of her husband, the not so Honourable Henry Winterborne, but she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of confirming it for themselves. So she kept herself hidden. Dressed in sober black from head to toe, as befitting a widow.
A grieving widow who had been left nothing by her husband. Who had, in fact, been little more than an indentured slave for the last three months. A detail this crowd of jackals would no doubt crow over if it ever became public knowledge.
Her husband had had good reason to leave her with nothing. She wouldn’t have wanted his money anyway. It wasn’t why she’d married him, no matter what people believed. And he hadn’t left her anything because she hadn’t given him what he wanted. Herself. It was her fault he’d ended up injured and in a wheelchair for the duration of their marriage.
No, it wasn’t your fault. If he hadn’t tried to—
Lara’s churning thoughts skittered to a halt when she realised that people were looking at her expectantly. The back of her neck prickled.
The priest gave a discreet cough and said, sotto voce, ‘If you’d like to throw some soil on the coffin now, Mrs Winterborne...’
Lara flinched inwardly at the reference to her married name. The marriage had been a farce, and she’d only agreed to it because she’d been blackmailed into it by her uncle. She saw a trowel on the ground near the edge of the grave and, even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, because she felt like a hypocrite, she bent down and scooped up some earth before letting it fall onto the coffin. It made a hollow-sounding thunk.
For a moment she had the nonsensical notion that her husband might reach out from the grave and pull her in with him, and she almost stumbled forward into the empty space.
There was a gasp from the crowd and the priest caught her arm to steady her.
Unbelievable, thought the man standing nonchalantly against a tree nearby with his arms crossed over a broad chest. He fixed his gaze on the widow, but she didn’t look his way once. She was too busy acting the part—practically throwing herself into the grave.
His mouth firmed, its sensual lines drawing into one hard flat one. He had to hand it to her. She played the part well, dressed in a black form-fitting dress that clung to her willowy graceful frame. Her distinctive blonde hair was tied back in a low bun and a small circular hat sat on her head with a gauzy veil obscuring her face. Oh, he had no doubt she was genuinely grieving...but not for her husband. For the fortune she hadn’t been left.
The man’s mouth curved up into a cruel smile. That was the least Lara Winterborne, née Templeton, deserved.
The back of Lara’s neck prickled again. But this time it prickled with heat. Awareness. Something she hadn’t felt in a long time. She looked up, shaking off the strange sensation, relieved to see that people were moving away from the grave, talking in low tones. It was over.
A movement in the distance caught her eye and she saw the tall figure of a man, broad and powerful, walking away towards the cars. He wore a cap and what looked like a uniform. Just one of the drivers.
But something about his height and those broad shoulders snagged her attention...the way he walked with loose-limbed athleticism. More than her attention. For a fleeting moment she felt dizzy because he reminded her of... No. She shut down the thought immediately. It couldn’t be him.
Snippets of nearby whispered conversation distracted Lara from the stranger, and as much as she tried to tune it out some words couldn’t be unheard.
‘Is it really true? She gets nothing?’
‘Never should have married her...’
‘She was only trying to save her reputation after almost marrying one of the world’s most notorious playboys...’
That last comment cut far too close to her painful memories, but Lara had become adept at disregarding snide comments over the past two years. Contrary to what these people believed, she couldn’t be more relieved that she’d been left with not a cent of Winterborne’s fortune.
The grief she did feel was for something else entirely. Something that had been snatched away from her before it had ever had a chance to live and breathe. Someone. Someone she’d loved more than she’d ever thought it possible to love another human being. He’d been hurt and tortured because of her. He’d almost died. She’d had no choice but to do what she had to save him further pain and possibly worse.
Swallowing back the constriction in her throat, Lara finally turned away from the grave and started to walk towards where just a couple of cars remained. She wasn’t paying for any of this. She couldn’t afford it. As soon as she returned to the exclusive apartment she’d shared with her husband there would be staff waiting with her bags to escort her off the premises. Her husband had wanted to maintain the façade as far as the graveside. But now all bets were off. She was on her own.
She clamped down on the churning panic in her gut. She would deal with what to do and where to go when she had to.
That’s in approximately half an hour, Lara!
She ignored the inner voice.
One of the funeral directors was standing by the back door of her car, holding it open. She saw the shadowy figure of the driver in the front seat. Once again she felt that prickle of recognition but she told herself she was being silly, superstitious. She was only thinking of him now because she was finally free of the burden that had been thrust upon her. But she couldn’t allow her thoughts to go there.
She murmured her thanks as she sat into the back of the luxurious car. It was the last bit of decadence she’d experience for some time. Not that she cared. A long time ago, when she’d lost her parents and her older brother in a tragic accident, she’d learnt the hard way that nothing external mattered once you’d lost the people you loved most.
But clearly it hadn’t been enough of a lesson to protect her from falling in love with—
The car started moving and Lara welcomed the distraction.
Not thinking of him now.
No matter how much a random stranger had reminded her of him.
Unable to stop her curiosity, though, she looked at the only part of the driver’s face she could see in the rear-view mirror. It was half hidden by aviator-style sunglasses, but she could see a strong aquiline nose and firm top lip. A hard, defined jaw.
Her heart started to beat faster, even though rationally she knew it couldn’t possibly be—
At that moment he seemed to sense her regard from the back and she saw his arm move before the privacy window slid up. Cutting her off.
For some reason Lara felt as if he’d put the window up as a rebuke. Ridiculous. He was just a driver! He’d probably assumed she wanted some privacy...
Still, the disquieting niggle wouldn’t go away.
It got worse when she realised that while they were headed in the right direction, back to the Kensington apartment she’d shared with her husband, they weren’t getting closer. They were veering off the main high street onto another street nearby, populated by tall, exclusive townhouses.
Lara had walked down this street nearly every day for two years, and had relished every second she wasn’t in the oppressively claustrophobic apartment with her husband. But it wasn’t her street. The driver must be mistaken.
As the car drew to a stop outside one of the houses Lara leant forward and tapped the window. For a moment nothing happened. She tapped again, and suddenly it slid down with a mechanical buzz.
The driver was still facing forward, his left hand on the wheel. For some reason Lara felt nervous. Yet she was on a familiar street with people passing by the car.
‘Excuse me, we’re not in the right place. I’m just around the corner, on Marley Street.’
Lara saw the man’s jaw clench, and then he said, ‘On the contrary, cara. We’re in exactly the right place.’
That voice. His voice.
Lara’s breath stopped in her throat and in the same moment the man took off the cap and removed his sunglasses and turned around to face her.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, stupefied. In shock. Time ceased to exist as a linear thing.
His words from two years ago were still etched into her mind. ‘You will regret this for the rest of your life, Lara. You belong to me.’
And here he was to crow over her humiliation.
Ciro Sant’Angelo.
The fact that she’d said to him that day, ‘I will regret nothing,’ was not a memory she relished. She’d regretted it every second since that day. But she’d been desperate, and she’d had no choice. He’d been brutalised and almost killed. And all because she’d had the temerity to meet him and fall in love, going against the very exacting plans her uncle had orchestrated on her behalf, unbeknownst to her.
If she was honest with herself, she’d dreamed of this moment. That Ciro would come for her. But the reality was almost too much to take in. She wasn’t prepared. She would never be prepared for a man like Ciro Sant’Angelo. She hadn’t been two years ago and she wasn’t now.
Panic surged. She blindly reached for the door handle but it wouldn’t open. She tried the other one. Locked. Breathless, she looked back at him and said, ‘Open the doors, Ciro, this is crazy.’
But nothing happened. He responded with a sardonic twist of his mouth. ‘Should I be flattered that you remember me, Lara?’
She might have laughed at that moment if she hadn’t been so stunned. Ciro Sant’Angelo was not a man easily forgotten by anyone. Tall, broad and leanly muscular, he oozed charisma and authority. Add to that the stunning symmetry of a face dominated by deep-set dark eyes and a mouth sculpted for sin. A hard jaw and slightly hawkish profile cancelled out any prettiness.
He would have been perfection personified if it wasn’t for the jagged white ridge of skin that ran from under his right eye to his jaw. She could only look at it now with sick horror as the knowledge sank into her gut: she was responsible for that brutal scar.
He angled the right side of his face towards her, a hard light in his eyes. ‘Does it disgust you?’
She shook her head slowly. It didn’t detract from his beauty, it added a savage element. Dangerous.
‘Ciro...’ Lara said faintly now, as the truth finally sank in, deep in her gut. This wasn’t a dream or a mirage...or a nightmare. She shook her head. ‘What are you doing here? What do you want?’
I want what’s mine.
The words beat through Ciro Sant’Angelo’s body like a Klaxon. His blood was up, boiling over.
Lara Templeton—Winterborne—was here. Within touching distance. After two long years. Years in which he’d tried and failed to excise her treacherous, beautiful face from his mind.
A face he needed to see now more than he needed to acknowledge her question. ‘Take your hat off.’
Her bright blue eyes flashed behind the veil. He could see the slope of her cheek down to that delicate jaw and the mouth that had made him want to sin as soon as he’d laid eyes on it. Full and ripe. A sensual reminder that beneath her elegant and coolly blonde exterior she was all fire.
Her lips compressed for a second and then she lifted a trembling hand—another nice dramatic touch—and pulled off the hat and veil.
And even though Ciro had steeled himself to face her once again she took his breath away. She hadn’t changed in two years. She was still a classic beauty. Finely etched eyebrows framing huge blue eyes ringed with long dark lashes... High cheekbones and a straight nose... And that mouth... Like a crushed rosebud. Promising decadence even as her eyes sent a message of innocence and naivety.
He’d fallen for it. Badl
y. Almost fatally.
‘Not here,’ he said curtly, angry with himself for letting Lara get to him on a level that he’d hoped to have under control. ‘We’ll talk inside.’
Inside where? Lara was about to ask, but Ciro was already out of the car and striding towards an intimidating townhouse. Her door was opened by a uniformed man—presumably the real driver?—and Lara didn’t have much choice but to step out of the back of the car.
As she did, she noticed two or three intimidating-looking men in suits with earpieces. Security. Of course. Ciro had always been cavalier about his safety before, but she could imagine that after the kidnapping he’d changed.
The kidnapping.
A cold shiver went down her spine. Ciro Sant’Angelo had been kidnapped and brutally assaulted two years ago. Lara had been kidnapped with him, but she’d been released within hours. Dumped at the side of a road outside Florence. It had been the singularly most terrifying thing they’d ever experienced and she’d been the reason it had happened.
For a moment Lara hesitated at the bottom of the steps leading up to a porch and an open front door. She could see black and white tiles in the circular hallway. A grand-looking interior.
‘Mr Sant’Angelo is waiting.’
One of the suited men was extending his arm towards the house. He looked civil enough, but she imagined it was a very superficial civility.
She went up the steps and through the door. A sleek-looking middle-aged woman approached her with a polite smile. ‘Miss Templeton, welcome. Please let me take your things. Mr Sant’Angelo is waiting for you in the lounge.’
Numbly, Lara handed over her hat and bag, barely even noticing the use of her maiden name. She wore a light cape-style coat over her shift dress and she left it on, even though it was warm. She followed the woman, not liking the sensation that she was walking into the lion’s den.
The sensation was only heightened when she saw the tall figure of Ciro, his back to her as he helped himself to a drink from a tray on the far side of the room.
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