by Andie Brock
‘Anyway...’ she gave him a forced smile ‘...that’s enough talk about sad things for one night. What I’d really like to do is dance.’ She looked at him boldly. ‘With you, I mean.’
Vieri shook his head. ‘We’re not going back in there.’
‘Who said anything about going inside?’ Removing his jacket, she held it at arm’s length. ‘We can dance here, under the stars.’ The jacket was dropped theatrically to the ground.
‘Harper...’
‘Come on, it will be fun.’
Suddenly she was advancing towards him, holding out her arms invitingly. Too invitingly. The scarlet dress glowed in the dim light, the sheer fabric of the bodice pulling tight around the swell of her breasts as she closed the gap between them, positioning herself in front of him like a defiant temptress. It was a lethal combination and suddenly Vieri understood why red meant danger. A danger that increased tenfold as she slid her arms around his neck.
He managed to resist for all of two seconds. But then suddenly his arms were around her waist, and he was drawing her into his body, her bare flesh tantalisingly cold beneath his hot hands. They began to sway, Harper’s softly sensual body leaning into his as their feet moved beneath them to the barely audible strains of music coming from inside.
Vieri closed his eyes, just for a moment. This felt good. Too good. He was already guilty of using Harper; he could not let himself take advantage of her any further. But as his hands strayed lightly over the ruched fabric of that firm little behind it was so hard to hold back. His body was already defying him, reacting wildly to the feel of her luscious body against his, the scent of her hair, the small but erotic movement as she swayed in his arms. As the tightening in his groin intensified, with supreme effort Vieri forced himself to stop.
‘That’s enough.’ His words were harsher than he had intended, and he saw Harper’s eyes widen as he roughly moved to hold her at arm’s length. He meant to apologise but before he had the chance Harper had launched into an attack.
‘Okay, fine, I get the message.’ Smoothing down the fabric over her hips, she turned to glare at him. ‘Heaven forbid that we should actually start to enjoy ourselves.’
‘I think you have enjoyed yourself quite enough for one evening.’
‘And you haven’t, I suppose? Apart from when you took the time to glare at me, of course.’
‘I’m surprised you noticed. You seemed to be far too busy throwing yourself at every available man.’
‘Perhaps if you had paid me a bit more attention I wouldn’t have needed to throw myself at anyone.’ She drew in a sharp breath that pushed her breasts seductively upwards. ‘You were the one who said we needed to put on a convincing performance and yet within minutes of arriving you were swanning off with your gaggle of female admirers.’
‘I was merely engaging in the normal rules of social etiquette.’
‘Well perhaps you should have spent more time engaging with the person you are actually engaged to.’
‘I would have done, if I could have got a look in.’
‘You didn’t even try, Vieri.’
They glared at each other, childish hostility shimmering between them.
‘So that’s what all that unbecoming behaviour was about.’ Keeping his tone low, Vieri gestured towards the party inside. ‘You were trying to make me jealous.’
‘Ha!’ Harper gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you and your mountainous ego but my unbecoming behaviour was simply me having a good time. Enjoying the company of some civilised men.’
‘Civilised be damned.’ Vieri’s voice boomed around the courtyard. ‘I saw the way Hans looked at you and there was nothing civilised about that.’
‘Excuse me, you’re the one who just accused me of trying to make you jealous.’ Harper leapt on his words. ‘But it’s clear that you don’t need any help in that department. You are more than capable of turning all green-eyed monster without any help from me.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘And while we are on the subject, what was all that chest beating in front of Hans? All that, “Back off, Langenberg.”’ She mimicked Vieri’s voice, piling on a heavy Sicilian accent to perfectly capture his ill humour.
Vieri felt the blood fire through his veins. ‘That’s enough.’ Harper was in danger of seriously overstepping the line. ‘I’m taking you home.’
‘And supposing I don’t want to go. Supposing I want to stay and have some more fun.’
‘Trust me, Harper, you don’t get the choice. The fun is over.’ Striding over to pick up his jacket from the ground, Vieri pointedly gave it a shake before looping his finger through the label and tossing it over his shoulder. ‘We are leaving. Now!’
CHAPTER SIX
‘HERE, DRINK THIS.’ Vieri slid the cup of espresso coffee across the table towards her.
‘For the last time, I am not drunk.’ Harper angrily folded her arms across her chest, glaring at Vieri, who was seated on the sofa opposite her.
It was true. Maybe she had had one too many glasses of champagne at the ball—why else would she have been stupid enough to ask Vieri to dance with her? But the way he had rebuffed her, his surly silence in the car on the way back to the apartment and now his patronising refusal to believe anything she said had sobered her up nicely, thank you very much.
She probably should have gone straight to her room. That had been her intention as she had simmered beside him in the warm, purring darkness of the car. Even when they were back at the apartment, Vieri noisily making coffee, she had intended to show her defiance by sweeping past him and marching to her room, firmly closing the door behind her. But halfway there she had realised that that was actually more cowardly than agreeing to sit down and have a cup of coffee with him. That fleeing to her bedroom would send out the message that she was upset by what had happened between them. Which of course she was.
Asking him to dance had been a stupid idea; she should never have done it. But his display of possessiveness in front of Hans, and then the way he had asked about her family, the surprising tenderness in his expression, had emboldened her, made her drop her guard. Only for him to throw her foolishness back in her face by rebuffing her, shoving her away as if she was nothing, no one.
She lifted her cup to her lips, sullenly eyeing her adversary over the rim. He had pulled loose the bow tie so that it lay flat against the crisp white of his shirt, which had the top buttons undone, the sleeves rolled up to reveal dark-skinned forearms. He looked as stunningly drop-dead gorgeous as ever but there was something about him, a sharpness that stiffened his posture, tempering his usual languid style.
Perhaps he was afraid she was going to leap on him. Forget her place once again and demand that he take her to bed, make love to her. That thought did very disturbing things to her insides and she hastily swallowed a mouthful of hot coffee to try and drown them. Vieri Romano need have no fear of that. She had learned her lesson. From now on she intended to show him just how much she didn’t care.
She watched as he refilled his cup. ‘Well, in that case there are a couple of things I would like to discuss with you.’
‘Go on.’ With studied indifference, Harper arranged the scarlet folds of her dress.
‘First, I thought you would like to know that your sister has turned up.’
‘Leah?’ Leaping to her feet, all pretence of coolness gone, Harper flew to his side, perching herself down on the sofa next to him. ‘Oh, thank God.’ She searched his face for information. ‘Is she okay?’
‘As far as I know.’
‘Oh, thank God.’ She repeated the words on a long exhalation of breath. ‘Where is she? How did you find her?’
‘She was tracked down to a casino in Atlantic City. She has been collected from those premises.’
‘Collected from those premises?’ Immediately alarm surged through her. It was always the same with Leah; she evoked this hugely protective instinct in Harper, as if she had been put on this earth solely to
save her twin sister. Which in a way she had.
A sickly child, Leah had been diagnosed with kidney failure shortly after their mother’s death, compounding the family’s distress. They were told she would need a kidney transplant and Harper was found to be the perfect match but legally they still had to wait four long years until the girls were old enough before the transplant could go ahead. But finally it had happened and Harper was able to give her sister the precious gift of a healthy life. But it did mean that she still worried obsessively over Leah, probably far more than she should.
‘So what does that mean?’ She cross-examined Vieri. ‘You had your security guys go and pick her up?’
‘Correct.’
Harper remembered the two brutes who had grabbed her in Spectrum nightclub, the way they had manhandled her when they had thought she was Leah. And they had been obeying Vieri’s orders. Were they the same goons who had been sent to ‘collect’ Leah?
‘Well, I hope they didn’t hurt her. I’m telling you now, Vieri, if one of your bully-boy thugs has harmed so much as a hair on my sister’s head...’
Vieri let out a low scoff. ‘Forgive me if I don’t appear too terrified.’
‘I mean it. If any harm has come to Leah you will have me to answer to.’ His sarcasm only served to fire her temper more. ‘You can forget about this whole charade with your godfather. I will go right round there and tell him everything.’
‘Really?’ Vieri leant back into the sofa. ‘And will this everything include how your precious sister wilfully cheated me out of thirty thousand dollars?’
Harper paused, searching for a firmer footing. ‘If necessary, yes. Alfonso will understand. He is a good man. Maybe he deserves to know the truth.’
‘And maybe you should think very carefully before you continue this conversation. I am not going to be held to ransom over this, Harper. You knew the score when you agreed to take on your sister’s debt. Either you continue with our arrangement or you pack your bags and get the hell out of here. The choice is yours.’ Dark blue eyes flashed at her. ‘But rest assured, if that happens, the debt will still have to be paid.’
Harper glared at him, the blood pounding in her ears, fear and anger and frustration coursing through her body.
‘Is that a threat?’
‘Take it any way you want.’
‘And what do you think Alfonso would make of that? The fact that you are prepared to hound two young women for a sum of money that is nothing more than a pittance to you.’
‘You leave my godfather out of this.’ Danger tinged Vieri’s voice.
‘Maybe he needs to know just what a bully and a thug you really are.’
‘Chiedo scusa, I beg your pardon?’ With a flash of anger, Vieri leant in, so close that she could feel his hot breath on her cheeks. ‘What did you just call me?’
Harper swallowed hard. Perhaps she had gone too far. But stubborn pride refused to let her back down. She was too worried about Leah, and about what might happen to her if she did try and pull out of this hateful deception. She was trapped and, worse than that, trapped by a man who did the most terrible things to her. Who right now, despite everything, was firing her senses, making her body throb with need.
But if she was trapped she would fight, no matter how useless it might be, like a fox caught in one of her father’s snares. Because the alternative was to give in, surrender to this man, and she would never do that.
‘You heard,’ she obstinately fired back.
‘Indeed I did.’ His voice was terrifyingly soft.
Grimly Harper hung onto her defiance. ‘You don’t intimidate me, Vieri.’
‘No?’ His gaze deliberately burned into hers, the small space between them humming with threat. ‘You call me a bully and a thug and yet you are not intimidated by me. Doesn’t that make you rather stupid?’
‘Oh, you would love that, wouldn’t you?’ Still she pushed. ‘For me to be scared of you.’
‘On the contrary.’ Reaching forward, he brushed his fingers along her jawline, before curling his hand possessively under her chin. ‘What I would love would be for you to honour the clearly laid-out terms of our agreement and start behaving like my fiancée.’
‘But...’ His finger pressed against her lip to silence her.
‘What I would really love would be for you to start showing me some respect.’
Harper swallowed against her closing throat. The heat of his fingers was setting her face alight, hammering her heart wildly in her chest. In theory she only had to turn her head to release his grip but somehow she couldn’t do it. His punishing gaze was holding her captive and it was as much as she could do to drag in a ragged breath.
‘I will start showing you some respect when I think you have earned it.’ Somehow she managed to choke out some words.
‘Is that right?’ With a cold laugh Vieri moved his body fractionally closer. ‘So tell me, just for argument’s sake, what exactly do I have to do to earn your respect? Obviously letting you step in for your thief of a sister hasn’t done the trick, despite the fact that I could so easily have gone to the police and got her into serious trouble. And then there’s the time and effort I have put into finding her, not to mention giving her money and putting her on a plane back to Scotland. Clearly that is not enough.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Harper croaked. ‘What did you just say?’
‘I said that Leah is on her way back to Scotland. For your information that is what my “bully-boy thugs” have been doing. On my instructions and at my expense they have been putting your precious sister on a plane back to her homeland.’ He twisted the hand that still held her chin to look at the watch on his wrist. ‘She should be landing in Glasgow in a couple of hours.’
‘Oh.’
‘Yes, oh.’
There was a heavy pause, the air between them thickening as suddenly the swirling hostility began to morph into something much more slick and dark and dangerous. Harper could only watch, her breath caught in her throat, as Vieri let go of her chin and slid his hand around the nape of her neck, drawing her closer to him until their lips were only fractionally apart. And then they were touching.
Harper closed her eyes against the white-hot bolt of sensation that stormed through her, flooding her core. Immediately the kiss took on a life of its own, hot and damp and deeply sensual, leaving Harper no power to resist. Her lips willingly parted to allow Vieri’s sweet assault, her own body responding with blind need as she pressed herself against him to feel more of his silken mouth and the raw, sexual promise beneath.
Slowly Vieri’s fingers stroked upwards from the base of her neck and Harper shuddered with pleasure. Threading his fingers through her hair now, he dislodged the hairpins until her hair cascaded over her shoulders in a tumble of soft curls. Then, pulling away from her mouth, he stared at her. Harper blinked back, her heart thundering like fury. She would defy anyone to be immune to those eyes. She had no defences against their drugging power.
Gathering up a thick swathe of her hair, he twisted it so that he could hold it in his grip, tugging so that it pulled lightly against her scalp, in a blatant display of seduction and control. And then his mouth was on hers again, gloriously hot and wonderfully soft, yet firm too, like a wicked promise covered in satin.
Harper moved her arms around his neck, her fingers threading through his hair, pushing up through the thick dark waves, her nails digging into his scalp, almost to the point of pain. And Vieri responded in kind, possessively tightening his hold on her hair so that the kiss deepened, their bodies closing together. Pinpricks of pain tingled across her scalp, heightening the wild sensation of pleasure as Vieri’s free arm snaked round her waist, then up over her bare back, the flat of his palm pressing firmly between her shoulder blades.
Their mouths parted for a second, just long enough for Harper to take a gasp of breath and then he was claiming her again, pushing her back against the sofa and leaning forward to cover her body with his own.
‘You
drive me crazy, d’you know that?’ Vieri’s low voice growled hot in her ear. ‘You and this damned dress have been taunting me all evening.’
‘We have?’
‘Yes, you have.’ His growl deepened. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t know. Ever since I walked into your room and saw you standing there admiring yourself I have been thinking of ways to get you out of it.’
Propping himself up on one arm, he stared down at her face before lowering his head so that his hair brushed tantalisingly across the bare skin of her chest. Harper closed her eyes as the damp heat of his mouth started to trace the swell of her breasts, his lips dragging against the skin and leaving a rash of goosebumps in their wake.
‘Well...’ she sighed over his head ‘...that was never my intention.’
‘No?’ Vieri murmured against her. ‘Well, you could have fooled me.’ Raising his head, he moved his hand to the strap of her dress, sliding it slowly, seductively over her shoulder. Harper arched against his touch, her heart hammering wildly against her ribcage. ‘You had every man at that ball lusting after you, Ms McDonald, as I’m sure you well know. I suspect you knew exactly what you were doing when you chose this dress.’
‘Ah, but that’s just it.’ Her words stuttered in her throat as Vieri continued his assault, lathing his tongue into the valley between her breasts. ‘I didn’t choose it.’
‘No?’ Moving his hand to cup one swollen breast, Vieri squeezed it gently in his palm. ‘Then who did? I feel I should thank them.’ He altered his position so that he settled his groin against hers, the shockingly hard evidence of his arousal shooting arrows of lust through Harper.
‘It was someone I met by chance in the boutique.’ She croaked the words.
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yes. She knows you, as a matter of fact. She said you wouldn’t like the dress I had originally chosen.’
