by Annie West
* * *
‘I don’t remember specifying fancy dress.’ His provocative drawl slid across her flesh like ice. Alissa clenched her jaw and continued up the stairs, ignoring him.
She felt sick to her stomach about the wedding. The last thing she needed was sarcasm.
For two pins she’d...what? Run away?
She didn’t have that luxury. The knowledge weighed her down, like shackles on a condemned prisoner. She drew a sustaining breath then wished she hadn’t as the bodice, a size too small, constricted her lungs.
‘Hello, Dario. As charming as ever, I see.’
He was too big, too daunting, too...unsettling. Tension squirmed in her stomach and her pulse tripped as she caught the scent of lemon and warm male flesh.
Her body conspired against her, responding to his overt masculinity with an excitement that appalled her. She lifted her skirts and hurried up the last of the stairs.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ He stepped in front of her so she had no alternative but to meet his steely gaze. Glacial ice couldn’t be colder than the look he gave her.
‘This?’ She tilted her chin.
‘The masquerade costume.’ He spoke through barely parted lips and she had the satisfaction of knowing that no matter how terrible she felt wearing Donna’s precious bridal dress, her bridegroom hated it more. Good. Let that be some small compensation for the distress he’d caused.
‘Haven’t you seen a bride before?’ she taunted.
‘But you’re not a bride in the usual sense.’
For that she was thankful. The idea of a real marriage, of intimacy with Dario, was too devastating.
‘What do you care?’ She moved sideways but he blocked her, filling her vision, dominating her senses.
‘Why do you insist on this charade?’ he snarled.
Alissa slipped a hand under the veil and rubbed her temple where a tension headache throbbed.
‘As I’m moving to Italy I had to explain to people I was getting married. There was no need when I’d planned to stay in Melbourne.’ He said nothing, just stood, waiting. ‘My sister is sentimental. She married recently. She believes in romantic love with all the trimmings.’
‘So you lied about this marriage? To your sister?’ There was condemnation in the deep timbre of his voice.
Alissa shrugged. ‘It was easier to let her believe I’d been swept off my feet. When we divorce it will seem a case of marry in haste and repent at leisure.’ She wouldn’t add to Donna’s worries by revealing the true reason for the wedding. She’d be racked with guilt, knowing Alissa had married for her sake, and Dario Parisi of all men.
‘That doesn’t explain the costume.’
‘Donna wanted to be here but I persuaded her not to.’ Even her loving sister had seen it made more sense to save to see a specialist in the USA than cross the country for a wedding. ‘She asked me to wear her dress. You know, something borrowed...’ Her words petered out under his critical stare. ‘I promised her I’d wear it. OK?’
‘And you keep your promises?’
Did he have to sound so sceptical? It was a good thing she didn’t care about his opinion. This was just a business deal. A charade to satisfy the terms of a will.
Yet, wearing her borrowed finery, dwarfed by his ultra-masculine presence, Alissa felt a thread of something unexpected weave through her. A tremor of awareness. Dario was still the sexiest man she’d laid eyes on.
Pity he was an arrogant jerk.
‘If you’ve finished finding fault, can we go in? We don’t want to miss our appointment.’
Silently he took her arm and escorted her inside, a parody of the solicitous lover.
After that everything was a blur. Nothing seemed real, not the weight of the dress, or the way her hand fitted snugly in his. When he produced a ring, a glittering proclamation of wealth and status, she wasn’t even surprised that it fitted perfectly.
Only as the celebrant said, ‘You may now kiss the bride,’ did the comfortable illusion of unreality splinter.
Dario turned her round, his hands heavily proprietorial at her waist, and heat radiated through her. She read triumph in his eyes. Satisfaction.
That was when it hit her full force. She’d just married a man who could make her life hell.
Panic clawed at Alissa. She fought for oxygen, her breathing hampered by the too-tight bodice. Blood rushed so loud in her ears she heard nothing else.
Deft hands drew the veil up. Without its protection his scrutiny was razor sharp, his smile knowing. It was the satisfied look of a rapacious marauder, not a dispassionate businessman. And it confirmed what she’d feared.
This was personal.
Before she could protest his lips covered her mouth.
Instinctively she lifted her hands and pushed with all her might against the hard-muscled wall of his chest. It was warm, weighty, alive with the throb of his heart and as immovable as the building in which they stood.
His hands at her waist were deceptively loose. When she backed away they tightened possessively, holding her still. No mistaking that encircling grip for anything more tender than an imprisoning grasp.
His mouth touched hers. More than touched, it caressed, blazing a trail of molten heat across her lips. His kiss was slow, deliberate and provocative. Masterful. His lips were soft but insistent. Surprisingly seductive. He tasted of rich, honeyed darkness, of mystery. The musky male scent of heat and spice clouded her bemused brain.
Alissa’s eyes widened as she registered pleasure at his skilful caress. A tiny spark of feminine appreciation. A rippling tide of awareness that heated her blood.
Ruthlessly she crushed it, ignoring too the sizzle of unexpected pleasure as his hands all but spanned her waist, making her feel dainty, feminine and delicate.
Desperately she focused on pushing him away. Yet her efforts had no effect. He swamped her senses till she was aware of nothing but his hot, heady presence and the current of desire threatening to drag her under. A slow-turning twist of unfamiliar tension coiled deep inside her.
Eventually he lifted his head and she stared, dumbfounded, at the man who was her husband. She hadn’t expected him to kiss her. More, she couldn’t believe his kiss had been so...disturbing. How could she have responded to a man she didn’t want?
Dark grey eyes surveyed her as thoroughly as she scrutinised him. His gaze was unrevealing but for a shadow of expression that flickered for an instant.
A firm hand grasped her sagging jaw. ‘Time enough to stare later, moglie mia.’ His whisper was sardonic.
Moglie mia. My wife. Alissa’s heart plunged in free fall as she absorbed the horrifying finality of those words. There was no going back.
He steered her to a desk so she could sign the marriage certificate. Absurdly she was grateful for his support. Her legs felt like cotton wool, her mind was muzzy with shock.
Why had he kissed her?
Because he can. It’s a power thing.
Yet, watching his tight-lipped profile as he signed his name in a slashing script, Alissa could no longer read satisfaction on his face. He looked grimmer than ever.
Perhaps he didn’t like kissing her. She tried to take comfort in the thought. But her brain was stuck in shocked awareness of how devastating his kiss had been.
It must never happen again.
* * *
Dario watched the witnesses sign the vital paper that finally secured his ownership of the family estate.
That bound him to Alissa Scott. Alissa Parisi now.
His wife. Distaste filled him. She sat motionless, bedecked in showy white satin and a froth of gauzy veil. Who did she think she fooled with that virginal outfit? She was no innocent.
Was the gown an obscure joke or had she been serious about dressing to please her sister? The notion didn’t sit well with what he knew of this woman.
Grasping, immoral, unrepentant. She’d tried so hard to deny him ownership of his home. She must have imbibed the Mangano hatred of Pa
risi blood with her mother’s milk.
Yet he’d made her his wife.
The Parisi name shouldn’t be sullied in such a way.
He ignored the turbulent heat that fired his bloodstream whenever their gazes met. The way his eyes strayed to her face. Her neat nose, bluer-than-blue eyes, her perfect mouth, the fragility of her slender neck.
He was merely taking her measure. It was anger he felt, not desire. He remembered the feel of her flagrantly enticing body, his hands encircling her tiny waist. The taste of her, rich and sweet. The tattoo of need that throbbed in his blood as he inhaled her skin’s perfume. The pulse of need he couldn’t suppress.
Triumph had tempted him to respond to the lure of her petal-soft lips. They’d fascinated him from the first. Now he knew they were lush, delicious, dangerously enticing.
The kiss had been an error.
It must never happen again.
CHAPTER FOUR
THEY EMERGED FROM the building into bright sunlight. Brilliant blue sky mocked Alissa’s foreboding.
‘Mr Parisi! Dario Parisi!’
Alissa faltered as strident voices called out.
‘Hell!’ Beside her, Dario gave vent to a stream of vitriolic Italian under his breath. Bewildered, Alissa saw a mob of photographers crowding close.
Dario turned, his shoulder blocking them from her vision. She read the sizzle of fury in his expression.
‘That’s why you wore the dress? Playing to the media?’ His tone could cut solid ice. ‘Enjoy it while you can, Signora Parisi. Your day in the limelight will be short.’
‘Mr Parisi!’ A shout cut across Alissa’s denial. ‘Have you got a statement about your secret marriage to an Aussie girl?’ Cameras thrust close, their lenses threatening dark voids, the sound of shutter clicks aggressive.
‘No comment,’ Dario said brusquely, keeping her clamped against him as he shouldered his way down the stairs. His arm looped round her in an embrace like the bite of an unyielding iron chain.
‘After you.’ His clipped tone matched his tight hold.
Alissa stared at the limousine. At the door held open by a familiar chauffeur. The same tough-looking character who’d followed her this past month.
‘No, thank you. I have my own car.’ Her ancient red hatchback was a block away.
‘Nevertheless,’ he paused on the word, his emphasis on the sibilant vaguely sinister, ‘we’ll travel together.’
Short of an embarrassing public tussle, she had no choice but to let him sweep her into the limo.
Alissa sat stiffly as he bent to tuck in the train of her dress, apparently oblivious to the clustering Press. She caught again the fresh scent of his skin, so warmly enticing. So unlike the rigid precision of the man himself. His black hair was combed severely, not a lock out of place. His collar whiter than white, the cut of his suit perfection, his visage as grimly beautiful as a stone god.
There was nothing soft about him.
As his eyes lifted under level black brows to meet hers, she was stabbed again by the chill of his disapproval. His distaste. And more. Hatred?
Alissa shrank back, heart fluttering. He had what he wanted, the promise of the old castello. He couldn’t want a more personal form of retribution.
His silence as they sped off did nothing to dispel her unease. Tension built with each wordless kilometre.
‘I didn’t call the Press,’ she finally blurted.
‘Spare me your protestations of innocence.’ He waved a disparaging hand. ‘I have no interest in them.’
‘Even if they’re the truth?’ Indignation sizzled at his presumption of her guilt.
His gaze bored into her, like sharpened steel against her soft flesh. ‘I accept you are many things, but don’t tax my credulity by pretending innocent is one of them.’
Hot denials trembled on her lips but she bit them back. Instinct told her he was as obstinate as he was self-satisfied. No amount of arguing would persuade him.
Alissa’s pulse tripped at the flicker of awareness she read in his hooded eyes. A shimmer of heat flared in the pit of her belly. Despite his formidable control he had the look of a man well-versed in carnal pleasures. That sensuous mouth. Those hands...
Incendiary heat spread under her skin, over her breasts, her throat, to her cheeks.
She couldn’t believe she had such thoughts about Dario. It should be easy to hate him for his brutal, domineering tactics, for his overweening pride, for the way he enjoyed her discomfort. Even for the pain he’d unwittingly caused with his first offer of marriage. Alissa had paid a high price for turning him down, enduring the worst ever of her grandfather’s beatings.
But, to her horror, it wasn’t hatred that stirred as she met his dark gaze. It was something far more primitive. Far more dangerous. Far more...feminine.
If ever Dario guessed, he’d make her life hell.
* * *
The setting sun turned the Mediterranean to liquid silk, indigo and pink shot with orange and shafts of gold.
It was beautiful, the exquisite colours, the rugged coastal outcrops, the ancient towns and villages. Yet a chill of trepidation lanced Alissa and she shifted uneasily on the limousine’s leather seat.
Sicily. The island that had bred the manipulative, vicious man she’d had to call grandfather. The one place she’d never wanted to visit. The place that had also produced God’s gift to himself, Dario Parisi.
Despite the first-class luxury of their flight and the doting attention of staff, Alissa had barely slept. She felt crumpled and stale. Worse, she couldn’t shake her anxiety about Donna.
She didn’t like leaving while her sister was ill. Yes, Donna was married now, but a lifetime’s habit wasn’t easily ignored. Alissa had been responsible for her since they were kids. She’d looked out for her, protected her.
She bit her lip, remembering how badly she’d failed her little sister when it really mattered.
Now Donna had David, a man who’d do anything for his bride. They’d be happy together. Donna deserved a chance at happiness after the childhood she’d endured. If only they could get the money for her treatment. Such severe liver damage was beyond the skills of the local medicos. Her only hope of survival lay in a radical new treatment overseas. Expensive treatment. They’d tried everything they could to raise the cash. Unsuccessfully.
Which brought Alissa to Dario Parisi. Her husband.
Through the long journey he’d been at ease amidst the extravagant luxury that, though she fought not to show it, unsettled Alissa. A man with that sort of money could get away with almost anything.
He’d slept soundly, as if he didn’t have a thing on his conscience. He’d eaten heartily and been brusquely courteous in a way that reinforced his disapproval. Clearly he considered her undeserving of his exalted company!
He was an arrogant, macho dinosaur who considered his word law. His casual acceptance of lavish attention, his impatience at delay bespoke a man of enormous power and ego. Despite his handsome façade he was dangerous. She’d read about his cutthroat business tactics and how he crushed all before him. His reputation with women was no better. His progress was littered with beautiful, disappointed ex-lovers.
Dario sat back, surveying the landscape through narrowed, proprietary eyes as if he owned it all. For all she knew he might! The flight from Rome by luxury private jet was more proof of his stupendous wealth.
‘How much further?’ They were the first words either had spoken since they’d landed in Sicily.
Alissa could have kicked herself when she saw his mouth twist in a smirk of triumph. Had he hoped she’d snap under his silence?
If that was the worst he could do, he was in for a shock. She’d weathered far worse treatment, meted out by an expert.
When he spoke his voice was like smoky honey. Goose flesh rose across her arms and awareness sizzled. He’d probably spent years perfecting that deep tone. It was guaranteed to get under any woman’s skin.
‘What?’ he purred. ‘Aren�
��t you enjoying the view? Most visitors are in raptures over their first sight of Sicily.’
Alissa met his scrutiny for only a moment before turning away. ‘Most of them are willing visitors, looking forward to a holiday in the sun.’
‘And you’re unwilling?’ He paused so long she fought the urge to look at him over her hunched shoulder. She was strung out, at the end of her physical and mental reserves. She didn’t have the energy for a full-on altercation.
‘No one forced you, Alissa. You came of your own free will.’ The way he said her name, lingering over the sibilants, drawing out the vowels, made it almost a caress.
He was playing with her, enjoying her discomfort.
‘That doesn’t deserve an answer.’ Dario Parisi and her grandfather had manipulated her into a position where the notion of free will was a joke.
Her husband relished the knowledge. He probably got his kicks out of bullying people who couldn’t stand up to him. Or, in her case, besting the woman who’d spurned his offer of marriage not once but twice. No doubt his pride had smarted at the rejection. She’d bet he wasn’t used to women denying him what he wanted.
From the corner of her eye she saw a blur of movement. Strong fingers cupped her chin. He didn’t use enough force to hurt her, yet she had no option but to turn. His long frame crowded her into the corner of the back seat.
Her heart thumped an uneven tattoo as she inhaled the scent of ripe lemon and fresh man, a warm, earthy tang that made her nostrils flare and her pulse patter.
Heat flushed her body and she leaned back, trying to avoid contact. He shifted his hand, sliding his fingers down her throat, where she was most vulnerable, then round to cup her neck and hold her still. His thumb stroked the sensitive skin below her ear and blood roared, blocking out the hum of the car engine.
‘Are you trying to make me feel sorry for you?’ His dulcet tone was incredulous. ‘Do you really think I should have any compunction about how I treat the woman who plotted to deny me my birthright?’ He leaned close enough for his breath to feather her mouth.
