A Facade to Shatter
Page 17
Please read on for a sneak peek at the next book in
SICILY’S CORRETTI DYNASTY,
A Scandal in the Headlines by Caitlin Crews,
which features in
The Correttis: Scandals
available in August 2013.
A SCANDAL IN THE HEADLINES
Caitlin Crews
She understood that she would have to live with this. That this was a defining moment. That her life would be divided into before and after this scorching hot dance, and that she would never again be the person she’d believed she was before this stranger pulled her against him. But his eyes were locked to hers, filled with wonder and fire, and she didn’t pull away. She didn’t even try—and she understood she’d have to live with that, too.
And then he made it all so much worse.
‘You cannot marry him,’ he said, those dark green eyes so fierce, his face so hard.
It took her longer than it should have to clear her head, to hear him. To hear an insult no engaged woman should tolerate. It was that part that penetrated, finally. That made her fully comprehend the depths of her betrayal.
‘Who are you?’ she demanded. But she still let him hold her in his arms, like she was something precious to him. Or like she wished she was. ‘What makes you think you can say something like that to me?’
‘I am Alessandro Coretti,’ he bit out. She stiffened and his voice dropped to an urgent, insistent growl. ‘And you know why I can say that. You feel this, too.’
‘Coretti …’ she breathed, the reality of what she was doing, the scope of her treachery, like concrete blocks falling through her one after the next.
He saw it, reading her too easily. His dark eyes flashed.
‘You cannot marry him,’ he said again, some kind of desperation beneath the autocratic demand in his voice. As if he knew her. As if he had the right. ‘He’ll ruin you.’
Elena would never know what might have happened then, had she not jerked her gaze away from Alessandro’s in confusion—and seen Niccolo there at the side of the dance floor, glaring at the two of them with murder in his black eyes.
Elena was amazed that it was possible to hate herself so much, so fully. And that the shame didn’t kill her where she stood.
‘How dare you?’ she hissed at Alessandro, all her horror at her own appalling actions in her voice. ‘I know who you are. I know what you are.’
© Harlequin Books S.A. 2013
Special thanks and acknowledgement are given to Caitlin Crewes for her contribution to Sicily’s Corretti Dynasty series
All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.
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First published in Great Britain 2013
Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited,
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
THE CORRETTIS: SECRETS
© Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l. 2013
A Façade to Shatter © Harlequin Books S.A. 2013
Special thanks and acknowledgement are given to Lynn Raye Harris for her contribution to Sicily’s Corretti Dynasty series
eISBN: 978-1-472-01565-5