by Julia James
A car door slammed behind her. She pulled back her mass of unruly hair and twisted it up, tying it with a band, putting on a battered baseball hat. Then she got out of the car, easing cramped muscles. The late summer air held the slightest of chills and she pulled on her voluminous dark sweatshirt. Then, taking her small backpack, making sure she had her phone and that it was on silent, she made her way to the two men who had just emerged from the other car.
Dante D’Aquanni drove his car to an abrupt stop on the gravel outside his villa. The feeling of relief was enormous. He vaulted out and ran up the few stone steps, his housekeeper coming out to meet him. They exchanged a few words and he strode through the open door and into the immense, palatial villa. Home. His favourite place in the world.
He recalled Alessandra’s pleas to bring her back with him for the night. How she’d whispered what she’d thought were erotic promises into his ear on the steps of the hotel, but which had made any possible lingering desire disappear completely.
He poured himself a drink and took it to the back terrace where the view of the still, dark lake acted like a balm. Alessandra Macchi was indisputably one of the most beautiful women in Italy. And she had made no secret of the fact that she desired Dante. His mouth tightened. Desired his wealth. That much was clear. When he’d arrived at Lake Como a few days ago, he’d gone for a quiet drink, a catch up with some locals, and Alessandra had appeared with some flimsy story of taking a break too … She’d proved a force to be reckoned with. His defences must have been down, or something, as he’d found himself going to her hotel this evening to take her for dinner and then had allowed her to seduce him. He rubbed a weary hand across his brow.
What was wrong with him? He didn’t normally regret anything he did, as each and every decision was made with full weighing up of pros and cons. Alessandra was exactly the type of woman he normally went for. Beautiful. Polished. Experienced. Not into commitment or, at least, he thought cynically, she professed not to be. So why had this whole evening been so wholly unspectacular? So … mechanical, unsatisfactory.
And when she’d wanted to come back here … He had to repress a shudder again at the thought. She hadn’t been happy to be left on the steps of the hotel but he could be ruthless when necessary and knew women like her. She’d survive.
Congratulating himself on his escape, he downed the rest of the liquid and strode back through the villa. He could hear raised voices and see his housekeeper at the door. She looked as if she was struggling with something—someone—trying to get in.
Every instinct jumped to high alert. His whole body tensed—something that hadn’t happened in a long time. It immediately brought back the memory of the constant dangers of living on the streets in Naples. Which was crazy. That was another world, a distant memory, another life. He was protected from that life now.
Alicia was trying to calm things down but the reporter and photographer that she’d brought with her were being aggressive. She was out of her depth, she was no con artist. The poor housekeeper was looking terrified as she tried to shut the door in their faces. Alicia had no Italian vocabulary to reassure her, to explain that all they wanted was to see Dante D’Aquanni. And she knew it would only be a matter of time before the guard at the gate found them.
Even though they had been able to get through the hole in the wall that she had found earlier and clamber through prickly bushes and trees, Alicia didn’t doubt for a second that security here was state of the art. The photographer made a lunge for the door again and knocked Alicia’s head, her hat sailed off and at that moment the door swung back and everyone stopped moving.
Dante D’Aquanni stood there, resplendent and devastating. Dark, dark eyes expertly assessing and taking in the small, bedraggled group. He issued a few curt words and the housekeeper disappeared behind him. He came out and shut the door.
Words were locked in Alicia’s throat. Like last week, she felt overwhelmed, ineffectual. Impotent. Would he recognize her?
He looked calm, yet Alicia could feel the barely leashed energy emanating from him in hypnotic waves. He folded his arms with an insouciance that said he’d summed them all up and found no threat. His gaze came to rest on her. And her heart stopped. She gulped.
The reporter’s voice came from behind her. ‘Signore D’Aquanni, do you know this woman?’
The first initial beat of danger that had surged through Dante was gone. He knew the local paparazzi. They were rabble. What he did feel now was anger that they were contaminating his property, and the reason they were here had to be this woman. His gaze slid up and down and a prickling sensation caught the back of his neck. An image crashed into his head.
Last week. At his offices in London. This woman had been there. She had emerged from behind a column, right in his path. He’d almost knocked her over, she was so tiny. The impression he’d formulated last week was the same as now and surprised him with its strength; he hadn’t realized that he’d even taken that much notice. His eyes ran up and down her form. Not an ounce of femininity. Her scraped back hair was like the rest of her—of indeterminate colour, texture and shape.
Yet, to his surprise, even as he formulated that thought, he noticed big, wide-spaced brown eyes, ringed with long lashes that looked at him like a startled fawn. No threat.
‘Yes,’ he drawled with a measure of surprise, ‘I believe I do.’
So he did recognize her.
Did he remember what she’d said? Alicia shook herself free of the overpowering intimidation that threatened to keep her silent. This was her moment, her chance. Even if he threw them all out and they didn’t get pictures, the reporter would have a story and Dante would be forced into the limelight to at least acknowledge it on some level. He would be forced to think of Melanie then. She thought of her sister. She thought of the way he’d dismissed her last week and his lover so recently. She opened her mouth but before she could say a word, the reporter jostled forward roughly. ‘Your little friend here tells us that she has a juicy story about you.’
Dante stiffened inside. He could see the woman’s mouth open to speak, the spark of rage in her eyes and in a flash he also remembered the words she’d hurled at him last week. His head had been full of the upcoming negotiations, which was how she’d caught him slightly off guard.
‘You’re the father of my sister’s baby and if you think you can walk away without accepting responsibility then you’ve another think coming.’
It had been such a preposterous accusation that he’d barely acknowledged her or her words. He didn’t even have to think about it; he hadn’t been seeing anyone in England and knew exactly who his recent lovers had been and not one of them would be remotely related to her. He was a billionaire; his lovers were carefully chosen and he was always, without fail, supremely careful to avoid such a scenario. Many women had attempted to trap him, lure him, and this woman was no different. He didn’t have the time to try and figure out where she’d come from, if she was an employee.
Assimilating all this information in a split second, he also realized quickly that she evidently meant business as she’d followed him all the way to Lake Como. And, more importantly, he instantly assessed the damage she could do with her foolish audacity.
He had to stop her.
Alicia seized the opportunity she’d come so far for with both hands. ‘This man,’ she started bravely, but her voice sounded husky with the remnants of her cold. A dog suddenly barked halting her words. Her head whipped around. A security man held the dog back with a straining leash. She couldn’t let this stop her. She faced back to Dante D’Aquanni. Desperation fuelling her movements, she squared her small defiant chin.
‘This man …’ It came out stronger this time and the dog mercifully stopped barking. The two men who’d followed her here looked at her eagerly, sensing a huge story in the offing. In that instant she regretted not having told them her story before now, she’d judged that the shock value would be greater, have more impact this way. She only hope
d and prayed she could get it out.
‘This man is responsible for—’
Before her lips could utter another word, they were smothered and stopped under a cruel, hard mouth. The world went dark and disorientation took over. Shock rendered Alicia stiff under the onslaught. It was comprehensive. Dante D’Aquanni crowded her, wrapped those strong arms around her, pulling her off her feet and into his chest. Her senses were so overloaded that she had trouble disentangling the strands of sensation.
There was his smell … musky and hot. There was the feel of his chest … hard, taut, unyielding. There was his firm mouth … touching, exploring. Suddenly she didn’t feel stiff any more; she was melting, unable to stop the flood of heat to every part of her. His tongue was a silky, heated invasion that he pushed past shocked opening lips that belonged to someone else, not to her. Because, right now, she didn’t inhabit her own body any more; it was someone else. Someone who had gone temporarily mad.
Dante lifted his head and it felt heavy. The clear, concise reasons for doing what he’d just done were unavailable to him now as he looked down into a grimy face, streaked with blood where she’d been struck by branches from the trees surrounding his property. Huge, liquid brown eyes stared up at him, lashes tangled and even more luxuriant up close. Lush lips were plump and pink. Quivering. Her whole body trembled in his arms; her hands were curled into his chest. Where had this nymph come from? Had the whole world gone mad in just an hour?
The security guard shouted something and Dante felt the return of sanity. He realized that he was holding this woman off the ground, into his chest and, as he lowered her back down with an abruptness that bordered on dropping her, he had to acknowledge the fact that he was aroused to a point that had most definitely eluded him earlier.
He knew that as much as he wanted to fling this stranger down his steps to join the paparazzi, something more compelling was stopping him. He also couldn’t figure out his instinctive reaction to shut her up in any way possible, or why kissing her had been the only option.
The security guard surged forward and caught the two men by the scruffs of their necks, holding them easily. The reporter shouted out, ‘Mr D’Aquanni, you were spotted with Alessandra Macchi earlier. What does this mean? Aren’t you going to tell me who your new girlfriend is? It won’t take long to find out …’
A curt, No Comment hovered on his lips but for some reason Dante didn’t say it. He was certain of one thing. He couldn’t let this woman go now because she was a loose cannon. Her determination to confront him told him he would be foolish to dismiss her so quickly this time. He had to get to the bottom of the preposterous allegations she had made—was making—and he welcomed the clarity that reminded him that at all costs he had to avoid any unwelcome press attention in the run up to the vital business negotiations next week. What the hell was wrong with him? Acting so out of character made him very nervous. He focused his mind again with effort.
He knew that his security guard would confiscate the camera, delete the digital images which had surely been taken, but, with technology being what it was, he knew he couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t have obtained an image of that kiss another way.
He had just kissed her in front of these men, they didn’t need an image. This all flashed through his head in a nanosecond.
‘Wait.’ Dante’s voice cracked out. The security man halted.
Alicia was taking all this in but she felt disembodied. His kiss—if you could even call it that—had seared its way into her blood, into her brain, and had lobotomized her ability to speak or function. All she could do was watch helplessly as Dante pulled her tight into his side.
He smiled urbanely, dangerously. ‘I’m afraid that it’s really quite banal. You’ve been used as a pawn in a lovers’ spat. It’s true I was out with Alessandra earlier. She, I’m afraid, was my attempt to make this woman jealous.’ He looked down at Alicia and lifted her hand. It was held in a death grip; she could feel the blood stopping. But to their small audience it must have looked like a tender gesture when he brushed his mouth across her scratched knuckles.
‘And it worked.’
The reporter’s mouth was a round O of shock—presumably, Alicia thought for one clear second, that someone like her had the power to turn his head at all. She would have reacted the same way.
Dante D’Aquanni could have been Oscar nominated, the way he looked away from Alicia with extreme reluctance, but with what she could see very clearly was extreme loathing. His eyes were dark and hard.
The reporter shouted out, ‘Where has she come from?’
‘Come now, a man has to keep some things secret. Do you not think after all these years that I’d have a few evasive tricks up my sleeve? And do you really think that we could have made anything of this relationship if you’d known that I was seeing someone new, someone serious?’
Alicia was so stunned that she couldn’t even begin to see how she could possibly get out of this mess.
Dante hated the woman at his side with a vengeance for bringing this intrusion into his life. How dare she? He was caught between a rock and a hard place. The reporter had his story anyway and if Dante called the police in it would fan the flames of a news item that didn’t even exist!
He smiled again and it was cold. ‘Needless to say, this will be the last time you invade my privacy and if I catch you even attempting to trespass again, you will pay the price.’ Dante tightened his hold on Alicia, making her gasp painfully. ‘You’re lucky that love is making me magnanimous.’
And with that the reporter and his companion were summarily marched down the driveway. Alicia’s legs were very wobbly and she had a taste of just how stupid she’d been in thinking for a second that it had been easy to get in. She’d just been very, very lucky.
CHAPTER TWO
ALICIA FELT ANYTHING but lucky now, though, as her head swirled with everything that had just happened and Dante D’Aquanni dropped his hands as though she were infectious. ‘Get inside. Now.’
Alicia opened her mouth. He made a move and she flinched. She didn’t know this man, didn’t know his capacity or otherwise for violence and, right now, he looked murderous. ‘Not a word, lady. Inside. Now.’
Alicia walked into the villa on cotton wool legs. She saw a chair and went and sat down, seriously afraid that she might fall. ‘Get up. Did I say you could sit down?’ Alicia looked up, her face leached of all colour. ‘Please.
I—’
Dante strode forward and pulled her out of the chair. Two hands on her arms, holding her like a rag doll. And she felt like a rag doll.
‘How dare you? How dare you invade my private space, bring those miscreants onto my property, a photographer for heaven’s sake—’
Alicia looked up into the harsh features—no less handsome now because of his anger. Even more mesmerizing because of it. From some reserve she called up her own anger, which had been in woefully short supply for the past few minutes. He might have turned the tables but she was still here. He hadn’t turfed her out on the road.
‘I dare, Mr D’Aquanni, because someone I love very much is lying in a hospital bed and she needs help. Help that I can’t give her. As much as it kills me to come here and have to deal with someone as amoral as you, I have no choice.’ Bitterness laced her words. ‘Believe me, it’s not my idea of fun scrabbling around thorn bushes in the dark. I did try to talk to you last week, if you recall, but you wouldn’t listen.’
He delivered a scathing glance up and down. ‘I don’t have time to waste, listening to someone shrieking such unfounded accusations.’
Alicia remembered the panic that had galvanized her actions, the fear that had been barely in check when she’d seen him. She’d had to stop him somehow and, as much as she might have wanted to be civil, she hadn’t been allowed. She strove for calm now.
‘I tried to make an appointment to see you in your office but it would have been easier to get an audience with the Pope.’
He snorted inelega
ntly and in the next second moved so fast that Alicia was caught totally by surprise.
He had slipped her bag from her shoulders and upended it on to the floor in seconds. After a moment of shock she stepped forward. ‘How dare you—’
But he held her back easily with one hand and the feel of that hand against her belly made her jump back like a scalded cat.
She watched as he flicked through the contents of her bag. Her wallet had a shockingly small amount of money. The printout of her one way ticket to Milan—she hadn’t been able to get a return as the world and its wife were there that weekend for a football game. Her phone. A credit card.
Dante threw the paltry things back into her holdall and stood easily, towering over her as he inspected her driver’s licence. He quirked a brow and looked at her.
‘Alicia Parker …’
She nodded jerkily. Surely the name would register with him? It didn’t seem to. He advanced dangerously and she moved back, feeling more and more light-headed.
‘So, what exactly are you up to, coming here with a one-way ticket? Were you hoping your little trip would be so successful that you’d score a lift back on my private jet … or score me? Is that your plan? To seduce me and really get pregnant so your bizarre claims are founded on truth?’
Alicia’s mouth opened but, before she could say a word, he was continuing, his words falling and stinging her flesh.
‘If that was what you’d planned, then you’re doing a woeful job. I don’t go for dramatics and unkempt shrieking fishwives are not my type.’
Alicia stopped moving. She glared up at him, adrenalin surging through her quivering five foot two frame. Her voice shook with emotion.
‘Melanie. Melanie Parker is her name. Does that even ring a bell with you? Or do you categorize your lovers by their social standing, in which case I’d imagine Melanie came somewhere near the bottom of the heap—’
‘What did you say?’ he asked sharply, stopping in his tracks.
