Di Sione's Virgin Mistress
Sharon Kendrick
“I have the tiara you want and you have to pay for it.”Dante Di Sione could forgive the beautiful blonde he kissed in the airport lounge for accidentally taking the suitcase with his grandfather’s precious tiara in it. But then she has the nerve to blackmail him into accompanying her to her sister’s wedding!So when news of their supposed engagement breaks, Dante takes his revenge and ensures that Willow play the part of his loving wife-to-be to the full. Only he has no idea that Willow has faked all that bold confidence… and is a virgin!
“I have the tiara you want and you have to pay for it.”
Dante Di Sione could forgive the beautiful blonde he kissed in the airport lounge for accidentally taking the suitcase with his grandfather’s precious tiara in it. But then she has the nerve to blackmail him into accompanying her to her sister’s wedding!
So when news of their supposed engagement breaks, Dante takes his revenge and ensures that Willow plays the part of his loving wife-to-be to the full. Only, he has no idea that Willow has faked all that bold confidence...and is a virgin!
Book 5 of The Billionaire’s Legacy
Dante smiled, but it was a smile edged with impatience—and a danger that even Willow could recognise was sexual.
‘That depends on you and what you want.’
‘What I want?’ she said faintly.
‘Forgive me if I’m mistaken, but I thought that you were as frustrated by your sister’s interruption as I was. I was under the distinct impression that our fake relationship was about to get real, and in a very satisfying way. It would certainly be more convincing if we were properly intimate instead of just pretending to be. So, are we going to play games with each other? Or are we going to give in to what we both clearly want?’
The Billionaire’s Legacy (#ulink_b4047236-ac71-5127-acb5-2aa72e0531e2)
A search for truth and the promise of passion!
For nearly sixty years Italian billionaire Giovanni Di Sione has kept a shocking secret. Now, nearing the end of his days, he wants his grandchildren to know their true heritage.
He sends them each on a journey to find his ‘Lost Mistresses’—a collection of love tokens and the only remaining evidence of his lost identity, his lost history…his lost love.
With each item collected the Di Sione siblings take one step closer to the truth…and embark on a passionate journey that none could have expected!
Find out what happens in
The Billionaire’s Legacy
Di Sione’s Innocent Conquest by Carol Marinelli
The Di Sione Secret Baby by Maya Blake
To Blackmail a Di Sione by Rachael Thomas
The Return of the Di Sione Wife by Caitlin Crews
Di Sione’s Virgin Mistress by Sharon Kendrick
A Di Sione for the Greek’s Pleasure by Kate Hewitt
A Deal for the Di Sione Ring by Jennifer Hayward
The Last Di Sione Claims His Prize by Maisey Yates
Collect all 8 volumes!
Di Sione’s Virgin Mistress
Sharon Kendrick
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition by describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring often stubborn but always to die for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life...
Books by Sharon Kendrick
Mills & Boon Modern Romance
The Ruthless Greek’s Return
Christmas in Da Conti’s Bed
The Greek’s Marriage Bargain
A Scandal, a Secret, a Baby
The Sheikh’s Undoing
Monarch of the Sands
Too Proud to Be Bought
The Bond of Billionaires
Claimed for Makarov’s Baby
The Sheikh’s Christmas Conquest
One Night With Consequences
Crowned for the Prince’s Heir
Carrying the Greek’s Heir
At His Service
The Housekeeper’s Awakening
Desert Men of Qurhah
Defiant in the Desert
Shamed in the Sands
Seduced by the Sultan
Wedlocked!
The Billionaire’s Defiant Acquisition
Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk (http://millsandboon.co.uk) for more titles.
For Sarah-Jane Volkers, who will know exactly why this book is dedicated to her when she reads it!
And to the brilliant Rafael Vinoly, whose words painted such a perfect vignette of Long Island life...
Contents
Cover (#u6674abad-3b59-52ae-9e22-901b6450e956)
Back Cover Text (#u71ac39c4-b855-5ffd-87de-e7fc588b5ca6)
Introduction (#ud04cb5fb-5a25-575e-b12b-34313c8ea7a0)
The Billionaire’s Legacy (#ulink_602d4774-bf70-5091-b398-bbcc125f00d9)
Title Page (#ucc48de92-7cb7-5642-a1a9-9e89761650ec)
About the Author (#ue1c2bd75-dd7d-5e9a-b923-cd53f1129359)
Dedication (#ud21a349b-b674-55c5-bac1-22a159aa1174)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_1a282ea1-affb-5fb6-82ce-3b008cbc01f2)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_33b47323-f51f-561a-9799-d351588b6134)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_9b047cc3-cfaf-5179-aec0-58157202020a)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_f3575dda-0073-5237-b750-12236b7f5974)
DANTE DI SIONE FELT the adrenaline pumping through his body as he walked into the tiny airport terminal. His heart was pounding and his forehead was beaded with sweat. He felt like he’d been running. Or just rolled away from a woman after a bout of particularly energetic sex. Even though it was a long time since he could even remember having sex. He frowned. How long?
His mind raced back over the past few weeks spent chasing across continents and flitting in and out of different time zones. He’d visited a dizzying array of countries, been presented with a whole shoal of red herrings and wandered up against several dead ends before arriving here, in the Caribbean. All in pursuit of a priceless piece of jewellery which his grandfather wanted for reasons he’d declined to share. Dante felt the tight clench of his heart. A dying man’s wish.
Yet wasn’t the truth that he had been tantalised by the task he’d been given and which he had taken on as a favour to someone who had given him so much? That his usually jaded appetite had been sharpened by a taste of the unusual. Truth was, he was dreading going back to his high-octane world of big business and the slightly decadent glamour of his adopted Parisian home. He had enjoyed the unpredictability of the chase and the sense that he was stepping outside his highly privileged comfort zone.
His hand tightened around the handle of his bag which contained the precious tiara. All he needed to do now was to hang on to this and never let it go—at least, not until he had placed it at his grandfather’s sickbed so that the old man could do what he wanted with it.
His mouth felt dry. He could use a drink, and...something else. Something to distract him from the fact that the adrenaline was beginning to trickle from his system, leaving him with that flat, empty feeling which he’d spent his whole life trying to avoid.
He looked around. The small terminal was filled with the usual suspects which this kind of upmarket Caribbean destination inevitably attracted. As well as the overtanned and ostentatiously wealthy, there seemed to have been some photo shoot taking place, because the place was full of models. He saw several giraffe-tall young women turn in his direction, their endless legs displayed in tiny denim shorts and their battered straw hats tilted at an angle so all you could see were their cute noses and full lips as they pouted at him. But he wasn’t in the mood for anyone as predictable as a model. Maybe he’d just do a little work instead. Get on to René at his office in Paris and discover what had been going on in his busy and thriving company while he’d been away.
And then his gaze was drawn to a woman sitting on her own. The only pale person in a sea of tanned bodies. Her hair was blond and she looked as fragile as spun sugar—with one of those pashmina things wrapped around her narrow shoulders which seemed to swamp her. She looked clean. He narrowed his eyes. Like she’d spent most of her life underwater and had just been brought up to the surface. She was sitting at the bar with an untouched glass of pink champagne in front of her, and as their eyes met, she picked up her glass, flustered, and began to stare at it as if it contained the secret to the universe—though he noticed she didn’t drink any.
Was it that which made him start walking towards her, bewitched by a sudden demonstration of shyness which was so rare in the world he inhabited? With a few sure strides he reached her and put his bag down on the floor, right next to a remarkably similar brown leather carry-on. But then she lifted her head and all he could think about was the fragile beauty of her features.
‘Hi,’ he said.
‘Hi,’ she said in a very English accent as she blinked up at him through thick lashes.
‘Have we met before?’ he questioned.
She looked startled. Like someone who had been caught in an unexpected spotlight. She dug her teeth into her lower lip and worried them across the smooth rosy surface.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said, then shook her head so that the strands of fair hair shimmered over her narrow shoulders like a silky cascade of water. ‘No, we haven’t. I would have remembered.’
He leaned on the bar, and smiled. ‘But you were staring at me as if you knew me.’
Willow didn’t answer—not straight away—her head was too full of confusion and embarrassment combined with a powerful tug of attraction which she wasn’t quite sure how to handle. Yes, of course she had been staring at him because—quite honestly—who wouldn’t?
Beneath the pashmina, she felt the shiver of goose bumps as she met his mocking gaze, acknowledging that he was probably the most perfect man she’d ever seen—and she worked in an industry which dealt almost exclusively with perfect men. Dressed with the carelessness only the truly wealthy could carry off, he looked as if he’d only just fallen out of bed—though probably not his own. Faded jeans clung to unbelievably muscular thighs, and although his silk shirt was slightly creased, he still managed to convey a sense of power and privilege. His eyes were bright blue, his black hair was tousled and the gleam of his golden olive skin hinted at a Mediterranean lineage. Yet behind the brooding good looks she could detect a definite touch of steel—a dangerous edge which only added to his allure.
And Willow was usually left cold by good-looking men, something she put down to a certain shyness around them. Years of being ill, followed by a spell in an all-girls school, had meant that she’d grown up in an exclusively female environment and the only men she’d ever really met had been doctors. She’d been cocooned in her own little world where she’d felt safe—and safety had been a big deal to her.
So what was it about this man with the intense blue eyes which had made her heart start slamming against her ribcage, as if it was fighting to get out of her chest?
He was still looking at her questioningly and she tried to imagine what her sisters would say in similar circumstances. They certainly wouldn’t be struck dumb like this. They’d probably shrug their gym-honed shoulders and make some smart comment, and hold out their half-empty glasses for a refill.
Willow twisted the stem of the champagne glass in between her finger and thumb. So act like they do. Pretend that gorgeous-looking men talk to you every day of the week.
‘I imagine you must be used to people staring at you,’ she said truthfully, taking her first sip of champagne and then another, and feeling it rush straight to her head.
‘True.’ He gave a flicker of a smile as he slid onto the bar stool beside her. ‘What are you drinking?’
‘No, honestly.’ She shook her head, because surely the champagne must be responsible for the sudden warmth which was making her cheeks grow hot. ‘I mustn’t have too much. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘I was going to ask if it was any good.’
‘Oh. Yes. Of course. Right. Silly of me. It’s...’ Feeling even more flustered, Willow stared at the fizzing bubbles and drank a little more, even though suddenly it tasted like medicine on her tongue. ‘It’s the best champagne I’ve ever had.’
‘And you often drink champagne on your own at airports, do you?’ he drawled.
She shook her head. ‘No. Actually, I’m celebrating the end of a job.’
Dante nodded, knowing this was his cue to ask her about her job, but the last thing he wanted was to have to listen to a résumé of her career. Instead, he asked the bartender for a beer, then leaned against the bar and began to study her.
He started with her hair—the kind of hair he’d like to see spread over his groin—because although he wouldn’t kick a brunette or a redhead out of bed in a hurry, he was drawn to blondes like an ant to the honeypot. But up close he could see anomalies in her appearance which made her looks more interesting than beautiful. He noted the almost-translucent pallor of her skin which was stretched over the highest cheekbones he’d ever seen. Her eyes were grey—the soft, misty grey of an English winter sky. Grey like woodsmoke. And although her lips were plump, that was the only bit of her which was—because she was thin. Too thin. Her slim thighs were covered in jeans onto which tiny peacocks had been embroidered, but that was as much as he could see because the damned pashmina was wrapped around her like an oversize tablecloth.
He wondered what had drawn him towards her when there were other more beautiful women in the terminal who would have welcomed his company, rather than looking as if a tiger had suddenly taken the seat beside her. Was it the sense that she didn’t really fit in here? That she appeared to be something of an outsider? And hadn’t he always been one of those himself? The man on the outside who was always looking in.
Maybe he just wanted something to distract him from the thought of returning to the States with the tiara, and the realisation that there was still so much which had been left undone or unsaid in his troubled family. Dante felt as if his grandfather’s illness had brought him to a sudden crossroads in his life and suddenly he couldn’t imagine the world without the man who had always loved him, no matter what.
And in the meantime, this jumpy-looking blonde was making him have all kinds of carnal thoughts, even though she still had that wary look on her face. He smiled, because usually he let women do all the running, which meant that he could walk away with a relatively clear conscience when he ended the affair. Women who chased men had an inbuilt confidence which usually appealed to him and yet suddenly the novelty of someone who was all tongue-tied and flustered was really too delicious to resist.
‘So what are you doing here?’ he questioned, taking a sip of his beer. ‘Apart from the obvious answer of waiting for a flight.’
Willow stared down at her fingernails and wondered how her sisters would have answered this. Her three clever, beautiful sisters who had never known a moment of doubt in their charmed lives. Who would each have doubtless murmured something clever or suggestive and had this gorgeous stranger tipping back his dark head and laughing in appreciation at their wit. They certainly wouldn’t have been sitting there, tying themselves up in knots, wondering why he had come over here in the first place. Why was it only within the defining boundaries of the work situation that she was able to engage with a member of the opposite sex without wishing that the floor would open up and swallow her?
This close, he was even more spectacular, with a raw and restless energy which fizzed off him like electricity. But it was his eyes which were truly remarkable. She’d never seen eyes like them. Bluer than the Caribbean sky outside. Bluer even than the wings of those tiny butterflies which used to flutter past on those long-ago summer evenings when she’d been allowed to lie outside. A bright blue, but a hard blue—sharp and clear and focused. They were sweeping over her now, their cerulean glint visible through their forest of dark lashes as he waited for her answer.
She supposed she should tell him about her first solo shoot as a stylist for one of the UK’s biggest fashion magazines, and that the job had been a runaway success. But although she was trying very hard to feel happy about that, she couldn’t seem to shake off the dread of what was waiting for her back in England. Another wedding. Another celebration of love and romance which she would be attending on her own. Going back to the house which had been both refuge and prison during her growing-up years. Back to her well-meaning sisters and overprotective parents. Back to the stark truth that her real life was nowhere near as glamorous as her working life.
So make it glamorous.
She’d never seen this man before and she was unlikely to see him again. But couldn’t she—for once in her life—play the part which had always been denied to her? Couldn’t she pretend to be passionate and powerful and desirable? She’d worked in the fashion industry for three years now and had watched professional models morph into someone else once the camera was turned on them. She’d seen them become coquettish or slutty or flirtatious with an ease which was breathtaking. Couldn’t she pretend that this man was the camera? Couldn’t she become the person she’d always secretly dreamed of being, instead of dull Willow Hamilton, who had never been allowed to do anything and as a consequence had never really learned how to live like other women her age?
She circled the rim of the champagne glass with her forefinger, the unfamiliar gesture implying—she hoped—that she was a sensual and tactile person.
‘I’ve been working on a fashion shoot,’ she said.
‘Oh.’ There was a pause. ‘Are you a model?’
Willow wondered if she was imagining the brief sense of disappointment which had deepened his transatlantic accent. Didn’t he like models? Because if that was the case, he really was an unusual man. She curved her lips into a smile and discovered that it was easier than she’d thought.
‘Do I look like a model?’
He raised his dark eyebrows. ‘I’m not sure you really want me to answer that question.’
Willow stopped stroking the glass. ‘Oh?’
His blue eyes glinted. ‘Well, if I say no, you’ll pout and say, Why not? And if I say yes, you’ll still pout, and then you’ll sigh and say in a weary but very affected voice, Is it that obvious?’
Willow laughed—and wasn’t it a damning indictment of her social life that she should find herself shocked by the sound? As if she wasn’t the kind of person who should be giggling with a handsome stranger at some far-flung spot of the globe. And suddenly she felt a heady rush of freedom. And excitement. She looked into the mocking spark of his eyes and decided that she could play this game after all. ‘Thank you for answering me so honestly,’ she said gravely. ‘Because now I know I don’t need to say anything at all.’
His gaze became speculative. ‘And why’s that?’
She shrugged. ‘If women are so unoriginal that you can predict every word they’re going say, then you can have this conversation all by yourself, can’t you? You certainly don’t need me to join in!’
He leaned forward and slanted her a smile in response and Willow felt a sense of giddy triumph.
‘And that would be my loss, I think,’ he said softly, his hard blue eyes capturing hers. ‘What’s your name?’
‘It’s Willow. Willow Hamilton.’
‘And is that your real name?’
She gave him an innocent look. ‘You mean Hamilton?’
He smiled. ‘I mean Willow.’
She nodded. ‘It is—though I know it sounds like something which has been made up. But it’s a bit of a tradition in our family. My sisters and I are all named after something in nature.’
‘You mean like a mountain?’
She laughed—again—and shook her head. ‘A bit more conventional than that. They’re called Flora, Clover and Poppy. And they’re all very beautiful,’ she added, aware of the sudden defensiveness in her tone.
His gaze grew even more speculative. ‘Now you expect me to say, But you’re very beautiful, too.’ His voice dipped. ‘And you respond by...’
‘And I told you,’ interrupted Willow boldly, her heart now pounding so hard against her ribcage that she was having difficulty breathing, ‘that if you’re so astute, you really ought to be having this conversation with yourself.’
‘Indeed I could.’ His eyes glittered. ‘But we both know there are plenty of things you can do on your own which are far more fun to do with someone else. Wouldn’t you agree, Willow?’
Willow might not have been the most experienced person on the block where men were concerned and had never had what you’d call a real boyfriend. But although she’d been cosseted and protected, she hadn’t spent her life in total seclusion. She now worked in an industry where people were almost embarrassingly frank about sex and she knew exactly what he meant. To her horror she felt a blush beginning. It started at the base of her neck and rose to slowly flood her cheeks with hot colour. And all she could think about was that when she was little and blushed like this, her sisters used to call her the Scarlet Pimpernel.
She reached for her glass, but the clamp of his hand over hers stopped her. Actually, it did more than stop her—it made her skin suddenly feel as if it had developed a million new nerve endings she hadn’t realised existed. It made her glance down at his olive fingers which contrasted against the paleness of her own hand and to think how perfect their entwined flesh appeared. Dizzily, she lifted her gaze to his.
‘Don’t,’ he said softly. ‘A woman blushing is a rare and delightful sight and men like it. So don’t hide it and don’t be ashamed. And—just for the record—if you drink more alcohol to try to hide your embarrassment, you’re only going to make it worse.’
‘So you’re an expert on blushing as well as being an authority on female conversation?’ she said, aware that his hand was still lying on top of hers and that it was making her long for the kind of things she knew she was never going to get. But she made no attempt to move her own from underneath and wondered if he’d noticed.
‘I’m an expert on a lot of things.’
‘But not modesty, I suspect?’
‘No,’ he conceded. ‘Modesty isn’t my strong point.’
The silence which fell between them was broken by the sound of screaming on the other side of the terminal and Willow glanced across to see a child bashing his little fists against his mother’s thighs. But the mother was completely ignoring him as she chatted on her cell phone and the little boy’s hysteria grew and grew. Just talk to him, thought Willow fiercely, wondering why some people even bothered having children. Why they treated the gift of birth so lightly.
But then she noticed that Blue Eyes was glancing at his watch and suddenly she realised she was missing her opportunity to prolong this conversation for as long as possible. Because wouldn’t it be great to go home with the feeling of having broken out of her perpetual shyness for once? To be able to answer the inevitable question, So, any men in your life these days, Willow? with something other than a bright, false smile while she tried to make light of her essentially lonely life, before changing the subject.
So ask him his name. Stop being so tongue-tied and awkward.
‘What’s your name?’ asked Willow, almost as if it was an afterthought—but she forced herself to pull her hand away from his. To break that delicious contact before he did.
‘Dante.’
‘Just Dante?’ she questioned when he didn’t elaborate further.
‘Di Sione,’ he added, and Willow wondered if she’d imagined the faint note of reluctance as he told her.
Dante took a sip of his beer and waited. The world was small, yes—but it was also fractured. There were whole groups of people who lived parallel existences to him and it was possible that this well-spoken young Englishwoman who blushed like a maiden aunt wouldn’t have heard of his notorious family. She’d probably never slept with his twin brother or bumped into any of his other screwed-up siblings along the way. His heart grew cold as he thought about his twin, but he pushed the feeling away with a ruthlessness which came easily to him. And still he waited, in case the soft grey eyes of his companion suddenly widened in recognition. But they didn’t. She was just looking at him in a way which made him want to lean over and kiss her.
‘I’m trying to imagine what you’re expecting my response to be,’ she said, a smile nudging the edges of her lips. ‘So I’m not going to do the obvious thing of asking if your name is Italian when clearly it is. I’m just going to remark on what a lovely name it is. And it is. Di Sione. It makes me think of blue seas and terracotta roofs and those dark cypress trees which don’t seem to grow anywhere else in the world except in Italy,’ she said, her grey eyes filling with mischief. ‘There. Is that a satisfactory response—or was it predictable?’
There was a heartbeat of a pause before Dante answered. She was so unexpected, he thought. Like finding a shaded space in the middle of a sizzling courtyard. Like running cool water over your hot and dirty hands and seeing all the grime trickle away. ‘No, not especially predictable,’ he said. ‘But not satisfactory either.’
He leaned forward and as he did he could smell the tang of salt on her skin and wondered if she’d been swimming earlier that morning. He wondered what her body looked like beneath that all-enveloping shawl. What that blond hair would look like if it fell down over her bare skin. ‘The only satisfactory response I can think of right now is that I think you should lean forward and part your lips so that I can kiss you.’
Willow stared at him—shocked—as she felt the whisper of something unfamiliar sliding over her skin. Something which beckoned her with a tantalising finger. And before she had time to consider the wisdom of her action, she did exactly as he suggested. She extended her neck by a fraction and slowly parted her lips so that he could lean in to kiss her. She felt the brush of his mouth against hers as the tip of his tongue edged its way over her lips.
Was it the champagne she’d drunk, or just some bone-deep yearning which made her open her mouth a little wider? Or just the feeling of someone who’d been locked away from normal stuff for so long that she wanted to break free. She wanted to toss aside convention and not be treated like some delicate flower, as she had been all her life. She didn’t want to be Willow Hamilton right then. She wanted the famous fairy godmother to blast into the Caribbean airport in a cloud of glitter and to wave her wand and transform her, just as Willow had been transforming models for the past week.
She wanted her hair to stream like buttery silk down her back and for her skin to be instantly tanned, shown to advantage by some feminine yet sexy little dress whose apparent simplicity would be confounded by its astronomical price tag. She wanted her feet to be crammed into sky-high stilettos which still wouldn’t be enough to allow her to see eye to eye with this spectacular man, if they were both standing. But she didn’t want to be standing—and she didn’t want to be sitting on a bar stool either. She wanted to be lying on a big bed wearing very sexy underwear and for those olive fingers to be touching her flesh again—only this time in far more intimate spots as he slowly unclothed her.
All those thoughts rushed through her mind in just the time it took for her own tongue to flicker against his and Willow’s eyes suddenly snapped open—less in horror at the public spectacle she was making of herself with a man she’d only just met than with the realisation of what was echoing over the loudspeaker. It took a full five seconds before her befuddled brain could take in what the robotic voice was actually saying, and when it did, her heart sank.
‘That’s me. They’re calling my flight,’ she said breathlessly, reluctantly drawing her mouth away from his, still hypnotised by the blazing blue of his eyes. With an effort she got off the stool, registering the momentary weakness of her knees as she automatically patted her shoulder bag to check her passport and purse. She screwed up her face, trying to act like what had happened was no big deal. Trying to pretend that her breasts weren’t tingling beneath her pashmina and that she kissed total strangers in airports every day of the week. Trying not to hope that he’d spring to his feet and tell her he didn’t want her to go. But he didn’t.
‘Oh, heck,’ she croaked. ‘It’s the last call. I can’t believe I didn’t hear it.’
‘I think we both know very well why you didn’t hear it,’ he drawled.
But although his eyes glinted, Willow sensed that already he was mentally taking his leave of her and she told herself it was better this way. He was just a gorgeous man she’d flirted with at the airport—and there was no reason why she couldn’t do this kind of thing in the future, if she wanted to. It could be the springboard to a new and exciting life if she let it. That is, if she walked away now with her dignity and dreams intact. Better that than the inevitable alternative. The fumbled exchange of business cards and the insincere promises to call. Her waiting anxiously by the phone when she got back to England. Making excuses for why he hadn’t rung but unable—for several weeks at least—to acknowledge the reason he hadn’t. The reason she’d known all along—that he was way out of her league and had just been playing games with her.
Still flustered, she bent down to grab her carry-on and straightened up to drink in his stunning features and hard blue eyes one last time. She tried her best to keep her voice steady. To not give him any sense of the regret which was already sitting on the horizon, waiting to greet her. ‘Goodbye, Dante. It was lovely meeting you. Not a very original thing to say, I know—but it’s true. Safe journey—wherever you’re going. I’d better dash.’
She nearly extended her hand to shake his before realising how stupid that would look and she turned away before she could make even more of a fool of herself. She ended up running for the plane but told herself that was a good thing, because it distracted her from her teeming thoughts. Her heart was pounding as she strapped herself into her seat, but she was determined not to allow her mind to start meandering down all those pointless what if paths. She knew that in life you had to concentrate on what you had, and not what you really wanted.
So every time she thought about those sensual features and amazing eyes, she forced herself to concentrate on the family wedding which was getting closer and the horrible bridesmaid dress she was being made to wear.
She read the in-flight magazines and slept soundly for most of the journey back to England, and it wasn’t until she touched down at Heathrow and reached into the overhead locker that she realised the carry-on bag she’d placed in the overhead locker wasn’t actually her bag at all. Yes, it was brown, and yes, it was made of leather—but there all similarities ended. Her hands began to tremble. Because this was of the softest leather imaginable and there were three glowing gold initials discreetly embossed against the expensive skin. She stared at it with a growing sense of disbelief as she matched the initials in her head to the only name they could stand for, and her heart began to pound with a mixture of excitement and fear.
D.D.S.
Dante Di Sione.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_48146c53-51eb-5134-a5ab-d0d3d37c06d6)
DANTE’S PLANE WAS halfway over northern Spain when he made the grim discovery which sent his already bad mood shooting into the stratosphere. He’d spent much of the journey with an erection he couldn’t get rid of—snapping at the stewardesses who were fussing and flirting around him in such an outrageous way that he wondered whether they’d picked up on the fact that he was sexually excited, and some hormonal instinct was making them hit on him even more than usual.
But he wasn’t interested in those women in too-tight uniforms with dollar signs flashing in their eyes when they looked at him. He kept thinking about the understated Englishwoman and wondered why he hadn’t insisted she miss her flight, so that he could have taken her on board his plane and made love to her. Most women couldn’t resist sex on a private jet, and there was no reason she would be any different.
His mouth dried as he remembered the way she had jumped up from the bar stool like a scalded cat and run off to catch her flight as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him. Had that ever happened to him before? He thought not.
She hadn’t even asked for his business card!
Pushing her stubbornly persistent image from his mind, he decided to check on his grandfather’s precious tiara, reaching for his bag and wondering why the old man wanted the valuable and mysterious piece of jewellery so much. Because time was fast running out for him? Dante felt the sudden painful twist of his heart as he tried to imagine a future without Giovanni, but he couldn’t get his head around it. It was almost impossible to envisage a life without the once strong but still powerful figure who had stepped in to look after him and his siblings after fate had dealt them all the cruellest of blows.
Distracted by the turbulent nature of his thoughts, he tugged at the zip of the bag and frowned. He couldn’t remember it being so full because he liked to travel light. He tugged again and the zip slid open. But instead of a small leather case surrounded by boxer shorts, an unread novel and some photos of a Spanish castle he really needed to look at for a client before his next meeting—it was stuffed full of what looked suspiciously like...
Dante’s brows knitted together in disbelief.
Swimwear?
He looked at the bag more closely and saw that instead of softest brown leather embossed with his initials, this carry-on was older and more battered and had clearly seen better days.
Disbelievingly, he began to burrow through the bikinis and swimsuits, throwing them aside with a growing sense of urgency, but instantly he knew he was just going through the motions and that his search was going to be fruitless. His heart gave a leap in his chest as a series of disastrous possibilities occurred to him. How ironic it would be if he’d flown halfway across the globe to purchase a piece of jewellery which had cost a king’s ransom, only to find that he’d been hoodwinked by the man who had sold it to him.
But no. He remembered packing the tiara himself, and although he was no gem expert, Dante had bought enough trinkets as pay-offs for women over the years to know when something was genuine. And the tiara had been genuine—of that he’d been certain. A complex and intricate weaving of diamonds and emeralds which had dazzled even him—a man usually far too cynical to be dazzled.
So where the hell was it now?
And suddenly Dante realised what must have happened. Willow—what the hell had been her surname?—must have picked up his bag by mistake. The blonde he’d been so busy flirting with at the airport, that he’d completely forgotten that he was carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of precious stones in his hand luggage. He’d been distracted by her misty eyes. He’d read in them a strange kind of longing and he’d fed her fantasy—and his own—by kissing her. It had been one of those instant-chemistry moments, when the combustion of sexual attraction had been impossible to ignore, until the last call for her flight had sounded over the loudspeaker and broken the spell. She’d jumped up and grabbed her bag. Only she hadn’t, had she? She’d grabbed his bag!
He drummed his fingers on the armrest as he considered his options. Should he ask his pilot to divert the plane to London? He thought about his meeting with the Italian billionaire scheduled for later that evening and knew it would be both insulting and damaging to cancel it.
He scowled as he rang for a stewardess, one of whom almost fell over herself in her eagerness to reach him first.
‘What can I get for you, sir?’ she questioned, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she looked at the haphazard collection of swimwear piled in the centre of the table.
Dante quickly shoved all the bikinis back into the bag, but as he did so, his finger hooked on to a particularly tiny pair of bottoms. He felt his body grow hard as he felt the soft silk of the gusset and thought about Willow wearing it. His voice grew husky. ‘I want you to get hold of my assistant and ask him to track down a woman for me.’
The stewardess did her best to conceal it, but the look of disappointment on her face was almost comical.
‘Certainly, sir,’ she said gamely. ‘And the woman is?’
‘Her name is Willow Hamilton,’ Dante ground out. ‘I need her number and her address. And I need that information by the time this plane lands.’
* * *
There were four missed calls on her phone by the time Willow left the Tube station in central London, blinking as she emerged into the bright July sunshine. She stepped into the shadow of a doorway and looked at the screen. All from the same unknown number and whoever it was hadn’t bothered to leave a voicemail. But she knew who the caller must be. The sexy stranger. The man she’d kissed. The blue-eyed man whose carry-on she had picked up by mistake.
She felt the race of her heart. She would go home first and then she would ring him. She wasn’t going to have a complicated conversation on a busy pavement on a hot day when she was tired and jet-lagged.
She had already made a tentative foray inside, but the bag contained no contact number, just some photos of an amazing Spanish castle, a book which had won a big literary prize last year and—rather distractingly—several pairs of silk boxer shorts which were wrapped around a leather box. She’d found her fingertips sliding over the slippery black material of the shorts and had imagined them clinging to Dante Di Sione’s flesh and that’s when her cheeks had started doing that Scarlet Pimpernel thing again, and she’d hastily stuffed them back before anyone on the Heathrow Express started wondering why she was ogling a pair of men’s underpants.
She let herself into her apartment, which felt blessedly cool and quiet after the heat of the busy London day. She rented the basement from a friend of her father’s—a diplomat in some far-flung region whose return visits to the UK were brief and infrequent. Unfortunately one of the conditions of Willow being there was that she wasn’t allowed to change the decor, which meant she was stuck with lots of very masculine colour. The walls were painted bottle-green and dark red and there was lots of heavy-looking furniture dotted around the place. But it was affordable, close to work and—more importantly—it got her away from the cloying grip of her family.
She picked up some mail from the mat and went straight over to the computer where she tapped in Dante Di Sione’s name, reeling a little to discover that her search had yielded over two hundred thousand entries.
She squinted at the screen, her heart beginning to pound as she stared into an image which showed his haunting blue eyes to perfection. It seemed he was some sort of mega entrepreneur, heading up a company which catered exclusively for the super-rich. She looked at the company’s website.
We don’t believe in the word impossible.
Whatever it is you want—we can deliver.
Quite a big promise to make, she thought as she stared dreamily at photos of a circus tent set up in somebody’s huge garden, and some flower-decked gondolas which had been provided to celebrate a tenth wedding anniversary party in Venice.
She scrolled down. There was quite a lot of stuff about his family. Lots of siblings. Snap, she thought. And there was money. Lots of that. A big estate somewhere in America. Property in Manhattan. Although according to this, Dante Di Sione lived in Paris—which might explain why his accent was an intriguing mix of transatlantic and Mediterranean. And yet some of the detail about his life was vague—though she couldn’t quite put her finger on why. She hadn’t realised precisely what she’d been looking for until the word single flashed up on the screen and a feeling of satisfaction washed over her.
She sat back and stared out at the pavement, where from this basement-level window she could see the bottom halves of people’s legs as they walked by. A pair of stilettos tapped into view, followed by some bare feet in a pair of flip-flops. Was she really imagining that she was in with a chance with a sexy billionaire like Dante Di Sione, just because he’d briefly kissed her in a foreign airport terminal? Surely she couldn’t be that naive?
She was startled from her daydream by the sound of her mobile phone and her heart started beating out a primitive tattoo as she saw it was the same number as before. She picked it up with fingers which were shaking so much that she almost declined the call instead of accepting it.
Stay calm, she told herself. This is the new you. The person who kisses strangers at airports and is about to start embracing life, instead of letting it pass her by.
‘Hello?’
‘Is that you, Willow?’
Her heart raced and her skin felt clammy. On the phone, his transatlantic/Mediterranean twang sounded even more sexy, if such a thing was possible. ‘Yes,’ she said, a little breathlessly. ‘It’s me.’
‘You’ve got my bag,’ he clipped out.
‘I know.’
The tone of his voice seemed to change. ‘So how the hell did that happen?’
‘How do you think it happened?’ Stung into defence by the note of irritation in his voice, Willow gripped the phone tightly. ‘I picked it up by mistake...obviously.’
There was a split-second pause. ‘So it wasn’t deliberate?’
‘Deliberate?’ Willow frowned. ‘Are you serious? Do you think I’m some sort of thief who hangs around airports targeting rich men?’
There was another pause and this time when he spoke the irritation had completely vanished and his voice sounded almost unnaturally composed. ‘Have you opened it?’
A little uncomfortably, Willow rubbed her espadrille toe over the ancient Persian rug beneath the desk. ‘Obviously I had to open it, to see if there was any address or phone number inside.’
His voice sounded strained now. ‘And you found, what?’
Years of sparring with her sisters made Willow’s response automatic. ‘Don’t you even remember what you were carrying in your own bag?’
‘You found, what?’ he repeated dangerously.
‘A book. Some glossy photos of a Spanish castle. And some underpants,’ she added on a mumble.
‘But nothing else?’
‘There’s a leather case. But it’s locked.’
At the other end of the phone, Dante stared at the imposing iron structure of the Eiffel Tower and breathed out a slow sigh of relief. Of course it was locked—and he doubted she would have had time to get someone to force it open for her even if she’d had the inclination, which he suspected she didn’t. There had been something almost otherworldly about her...and she seemed the kind of woman who wouldn’t be interested in possessions—even if the possession in question happened to be a stunning diadem, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He could feel the strain bunching up the muscles in his shoulders and he moved them slowly to release some of the tension, realising just how lucky he’d been. Or rather, how lucky she had been. Because he’d been travelling on a private jet with all the protection which came with owning your own plane, but Willow had not. He tried to imagine what could have happened if she’d been stopped going through customs, with an undeclared item like that in her possession.
Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead and for a moment he cursed this mission he’d been sent on—but it was too late to question its legitimacy now. He needed to retrieve the tiara as soon as possible and to get it to the old man, so that he could forget all about it.
‘I need that bag back,’ he said steadily.
‘I’m sure you do.’
‘And you probably want your swimwear.’ He thought about the way his finger had trailed over the gusset of that tiny scarlet bikini bottom and was rewarded with another violent jerk of lust as he thought about her blond hair and grey eyes and the faint taste of champagne on her lips. ‘So why don’t I send someone round to swap bags?’
There was a pause. ‘But you don’t know where I live,’ she said, and then, before he had a chance to reply, she started talking in the thoughtful tone of someone who had just missed a glaringly obvious fact. ‘Come to think of it—how come you’re ringing me? I didn’t give you my phone number.’
Dante thought quickly. Was she naive enough not to realise that someone like him could find out pretty much anything he wanted? He injected a reassuring note into his voice. ‘I had someone who works for me track you down,’ he said smoothly. ‘I was worried that you’d want your bag back.’
‘Actually, you seem to be the one who’s worried, Mr Di Sione.’
Her accurate tease stopped him in his tracks and Dante scowled, curling his free hand into a tight fist before slowly releasing his fingers, one by one. This wasn’t going as he had intended. ‘Am I missing something here?’ he questioned coolly. ‘Are you playing games with me, Willow, or are you prepared to do a bag-swap so that we can just forget all about it and move on?’
In the muted light of the basement apartment, Willow turned to catch a glimpse of her shadowed features in an antique oval mirror and was suddenly filled with a determination she hadn’t felt for a long time. Not since she’d battled illness and defied all the doctors’ gloomy expectations. Not since she’d fought to get herself a job, despite her family’s reluctance to let her start living an independent life in London. She thought about her sister Clover’s wedding, which was due to take place in a few days’ time, when she would be kitted out in the hideous pale peach satin which had been chosen for the bridesmaids and which managed to make her look completely washed out and colourless.
But it wasn’t just that which was bothering her. Her vanity could easily take a knock because she’d never really had the energy or the inclination to make her looks the main focus of her attention. It was all the questions which would inevitably come her way and which would get worse as the day progressed.
So when are we going to see you walking down the aisle, Willow?
And, of course, the old favourite: Still no boyfriend, Willow?
And because she would have been warned to be on her best behaviour, Willow would have to bite back the obvious logic that you couldn’t have one without the other, and that since she’d never had a proper boyfriend, it was unlikely that she would be heading down the aisle any time soon.
Unless...
She stared at her computer screen, which was dominated by the rugged features of Dante Di Sione. And although he might have been toying with her—because perhaps kissing random women turned him on—he had managed to make it feel convincing. As if he’d really wanted to kiss her. And that was all she needed, wasn’t it? A creditable performance from a man who would be perfectly capable of delivering one. Dante Di Sione didn’t have to be her real boyfriend—he just had to look as if he was.
‘Don’t I get a reward for keeping your bag safe?’ she questioned sweetly.
‘I’ll buy you a big bunch of flowers.’
‘Flowers make me sneeze.’
‘Chocolates, then.’
‘I’m allergic to cocoa.’
‘Stop playing games with me, Willow,’ he snapped. ‘And tell me what it is you’re angling for.’
Willow stared at the piercing blue eyes on the computer screen. His thick black hair looked as if he had been running his fingers through it and she remembered how it had felt to have his lips brushing over hers. It was now or never. It was all about seizing the moment and doing something you wouldn’t normally do. Because what was the point of sitting back and moaning about your fate as if it was set in stone, instead of trying to hammer out something new for yourself?
And here was a chance staring her straight in the face.
She drew in a deep breath. ‘What I want won’t cost you anything but your time. I’m being a bridesmaid at my sister’s wedding next weekend and I’m fed up with people asking me why I don’t have a boyfriend. All you have to do is pretend to be that man. For one day only, you will be my fictitious but very convincing boyfriend, Mr Di Sione. Do you think you could manage that?’
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_b7f76240-2528-5b91-88b3-b1774351854b)
HE SHOULD HAVE told her no. Should have told her that he hated weddings. Because marriage stood for everything he despised and distrusted. Lies and deception and manipulation.
Dante straightened the silver-grey tie which complemented his formal charcoal suit and stared at his reflection in the hotel mirror.
So why hadn’t he said no? Why had he agreed to accompany Willow Hamilton to her sister’s wedding, where she was being a bridesmaid? It was true that she had his grandfather’s tiara in her possession and she had been demonstrating a not-very-subtle form of blackmail to get him to be her plus one. But Dante was not a man who could be manipulated—and certainly not by a woman. If he’d really wanted that tiara back he would have gone straight round to her apartment and taken it—either by reason or seduction or quiet threat—because he nearly always got what he wanted.
So why hadn’t he?
He gave his tie one final tug and watched as his reflected face gave a grim kind of smile.
Because he wanted her? Because she’d interested and intrigued him and awoken in him a sexual hunger he’d been neglecting these past weeks?
The reflected smile intensified.
Well, why not?
He picked up his car keys and went outside to the front of the hotel, where the valet was opening the door of the car he’d hired for the weekend. It was an outrageously fast car—a completely over-the-top machine which would inevitably attract the attention of both men and women. And while it wouldn’t have been Dante’s first choice, if Willow wanted him to play the part of a very rich and super-keen lover, then it followed that he ought to drive something which looked like everyone’s idea of a phallic substitute.
He drove through the streets of central London and tooted the horn as he drew up outside Willow’s basement apartment. She appeared almost immediately and he watched her walk towards him, narrowing his eyes with instinctive appraisal—because she looked... He swallowed. She looked incredible. Gone was the big pashmina which had shielded her from the airport’s overzealous air conditioning and hidden most of her body. In its place was a pale dress which skimmed the tiniest waist he’d ever seen, its flouncy skirt swirling provocatively around her narrow knees. Her blond hair was plaited and Dante felt his mouth dry. As she grew closer he could see that the collar of her dress was embroidered with tiny daisies, and it made her look as if she’d been picked fresh from a meadow that morning. She looked ethereal and fragile and he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from her.
He shook his head slightly as once again he acknowledged her fey beauty and the realisation that she didn’t seem quite part of this world. Certainly not his world. And then he noticed that she was carrying nothing but a small suitcase.
‘Where’s my carry-on?’ he demanded as he got out of the car to take the case from her.
There was a pause as she met his gaze. ‘It will be returned to you after the deal is done.’
‘After the deal is done?’ he echoed softly.
‘When the wedding is over.’
He raised his eyebrows at her mockingly, but made no attempt to conceal the sudden flicker of irritation in his voice. ‘And if I insist on taking it now? What then?’
He saw a momentary hesitation cross her fragile features, as if she had suddenly realised just who it was she was dealing with. But bravado won the day and she shot him an almost defiant look which made him want to pin her over the bonnet of the car and kiss her senseless.
‘You’re not in a position to insist, Dante,’ she said, sliding inside with a graceful movement which made him wish she could do it again, in slow motion. ‘I have something you want and you have to pay for it.’
He switched on the engine and wondered if she was aware that she had something else he wanted, and that by the end of the day he would have taken it... ‘So where are we going?’ he said.
‘My family home. It’s in Sussex. I’ll direct you.’
‘Women are notoriously bad at directions, Willow—we both know that. So why don’t you just give me the postcode and I can program it into the satnav?’
She turned to look at him, a frown creasing her brow. ‘Are you for real, or did you just complete a crash course in being patronising? I think I can just about find my way to my family home without needing a robot to guide me.’
‘Just don’t fall asleep,’ he warned.
‘I’ll do my best. But you’re not exactly an aid to relaxation, are you?’ Settling back in her seat, she gave him a clear list of instructions, then waited until he had negotiated his way out of London towards the south, before she asked, ‘So what’s in the bag which makes you want it so much?’
‘Boxer shorts.’ He shot her a look. ‘But you already know that.’
Willow didn’t react, even though the mention of his boxer shorts was threatening her with embarrassment, which she suspected was his intention. Because this was the new Willow, wasn’t it? The woman who had decided to take control of her own destiny instead of having it decided by other people. The woman who was going to live dangerously. She studied his rugged profile as he stared at the road ahead. ‘A few items of underwear wouldn’t usually be enough to get a man like you to take a complete stranger to a family wedding and pretend to be her boyfriend.’
‘Let’s get a couple of things straight, shall we, Willow? Firstly, I have no intention of discussing the contents of that bag with you,’ he said as he powered the car into the fast lane. ‘And secondly, I intend to play your lover—not your damned boyfriend—unless your looks are deceiving and you happen to be fifteen.’
‘I’m twenty-six,’ she said stiffly.
‘You look much younger.’
‘That’s what everyone says.’
There was a pause. ‘Is that a roundabout way of telling me I’m unoriginal?’
She shrugged. ‘Well, you know what they say...if the cap fits...’
A reluctant smile curved the edges of his lips. ‘You need to tell me something about yourself before we get there,’ he said. ‘If you’re hoping to convince people we’re an item.’
Willow stared out of the car window as they drove through the sun-dappled lanes, and as more and more trees appeared, she thought about how much she loved the English countryside. The hedgerows were thick with greenery and in the fields she could see yellow and white ox-eye daisies and the purple of snake’s head fritillary. And suddenly she found herself wishing that this was all for real and that Dante Di Sione was here because he wanted to be, not because she was holding him to ransom over some mystery package.
She wondered how much to tell him. She didn’t want him getting scared. She didn’t want him to start treating her as if she was made of glass. She was worried he’d suddenly start being kind to her if he learned the truth, and she couldn’t stand that. He was rude and arrogant and judgemental, but she rather liked that. He wasn’t bending over backwards to please her—or running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, which was the usual effect she had on people once they knew her history.
His words interrupted her silent reverie.
‘We could start with you explaining why you need an escort like me in the first place,’ he said. ‘You’re a pretty woman. Surely there must be other men who could have been your date? Men who know you better than I do and could have carried off a far more convincing performance.’
She shrugged, staring at the toenails which were peeping through her open-toed sandals—toenails which had been painted a hideous shade of peach to match the equally hideous bridesmaid dresses, because Clover had said that she wanted her sisters to look like ‘a team.’
‘Maybe I wanted to take someone who nobody else knew,’ she said.
‘True,’ he agreed. ‘Or you could—and I know this is controversial—you could always have chosen to attend the wedding on your own. Don’t they say that weddings are notoriously fertile places for meeting someone new? You might have got lucky. Or are you one of those women who believes she isn’t a complete person unless she has a man in tow?’
Willow couldn’t believe what he’d just said. Had she really thought his rudeness was charming? Well, scrub that. She found herself wishing she’d asked around at the magazine to see if anyone there could have been her guest. But most of the men she worked with were gay—and the place was a hotbed of gossip. It wouldn’t have done her image much good if she’d had to trawl around for a suitable escort, because the biggest sin you could commit in the fashion industry was to admit to being lonely.
She sneaked a glance at Dante. Whatever his shortcomings in the charm department he was certainly a very suitable escort—in every sense of the word. The formality of his pristine two-piece looked just as good against his glowing olive skin as the faded denim jeans had done. Perhaps even more so. The made-to-measure suit hugged his powerful body and emphasised its muscularity to perfection—making her shockingly aware of his broad shoulders and powerful thighs. The slightly too long black hair appeared more tamed than it had done the other day and suddenly she found herself longing to run her fingers through it and to muss it up.
She felt a rush of something molten tugging at the pit of her belly—something which was making her wriggle her bottom restlessly against the seat. Did she imagine the quick sideways glance he gave her, or the infuriatingly smug smile which followed—as if he was perfectly aware of the sudden aching deep inside her which was making it difficult for her to think straight.
She licked her lips. ‘I’m not really like my sisters,’ she began. ‘You remember I’m one of four?’
‘I remember.’
‘They’ve always had millions of boyfriends, and I haven’t.’
‘Why not?’
He shot the question at her and Willow wondered if now was the time for the big reveal. To tell him how ill she’d been as a child. To tell him that there had been times when nobody had been sure if she would make it. Or to mention that there were residual aspects of that illness which made her a bad long-term choice as a girlfriend.
But suddenly her attention was distracted by the powerful interplay of muscles as he tensed one taut thigh in order to change gear and her mouth dried with longing. No, she was not going to tell him. Why peddle stories of her various woes and make herself look like an inevitable victim in his eyes? Today she was going to be a different Willow. The kind of Willow she’d always wanted to be. She was going to embrace the way he was making her feel, and the way he was making her feel was...sexy.
Carelessly, she wriggled her shoulders. ‘I’ve been too wrapped up in my career. The fashion world can be very demanding—and competitive. I’ve been working at the magazine since I left uni, and they work you very hard. The swimwear shoot I was doing in the Caribbean was my first big break and everyone is very pleased with it. I guess that means I’ll have more time to spend on my social life from now on. Take the next turning on the right. We’re nearly there. Look. Only seven more miles.’ She pointed at a signpost. ‘So you’d better tell me a bit about you.’
Dante slowed the car down as he turned into a narrow lane and thought how differently he might have answered this question a few years back. The first thing he would have said was that he was a twin, because being a twin had felt like a fundamental part of his existence—like they were two parts of the same person. But not any more. He and Dario hadn’t spoken in years. Six years, to be precise—after an episode when anger and resentment had exploded into misunderstanding and turned into a cold and unforgiving rift. He’d discovered that it was easier to act like his brother no longer existed, rather than acknowledge the fact that they no longer communicated. And that it hurt. It hurt like hell.
‘But surely you must have looked me up on the internet,’ he murmured.
She quickly turned her head to look at him, and for the first time, she seemed uncertain. ‘Well, yes. I did.’
‘And didn’t that tell you everything you wanted to know?’
‘Not really. Bits of it were very vague.’
‘I pay people a lot of money to keep my profile vague.’
‘Why?’
‘To avoid the kind of questions you seem intent on asking.’
‘It’s just down that long drive. The entrance is just past that big tree on the right.’ She leaned forward to point her finger, before settling back against the leather car seat. ‘It said you had lots of siblings, and there was something about you having a twin brother and I was wondering what it was like to have a twin. If the two of you are psychic, like people say twins can be. And...’
‘And what?’ he shot out as her words trailed off.
She shrugged. ‘There wasn’t much information about your parents,’ she said quietly.
Dante’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel as he drew up outside a huge old house, whose beauty was slightly diminished by shabby paintwork and a general sense of tiredness. Bad enough that Willow Hamilton should have made breezy assumptions about his estranged twin, but worse that she had touched on the one fact which had ruthlessly been eliminated from his history. Didn’t she realise that there was a good reason why there was scant mention of his parents in his personal profile?
He felt a slow anger begin to build inside him, and if it hadn’t been for the damned tiara, he would have dropped her off there and then, and driven away so fast that you wouldn’t have seen him for smoke. Because personal questions about his family were forbidden; it was one of the ground rules he laid down at the beginning of any date.
But this wasn’t a normal date, was it? It was a means to an end. He stared down at her bare knees and felt a whisper of desire. And perhaps it was time he started taking advantage of some of the very obvious compensations available to drive these unwanted irritations from his head.
‘I doubt whether knowing about my parentage or siblings is going to be particularly relevant in the circumstances,’ he said coolly. ‘Of far greater importance is finding out what turns each other on. Because, as lovers, we need to send out the vibe that we’ve had more than a little...intimacy. And in order to convey that to some degree of satisfaction, then I really need to explore you a little more, Willow.’
And before Willow could properly appreciate what was happening, he had undone their seat belts and was pulling her into his arms, as if it was something he had done countless times before. His cold blue eyes swept over her like a searchlight but there was something in their depths which disturbed her. Something which sent foreboding whispering over her spine. Was it the realisation that this man was way too complicated for her to handle and she shouldn’t even try? Instinctively, she tried to pull away but he was having none of it, because he gave a silky laugh as he lowered his head to kiss her.
Willow sucked in a disbelieving breath as their lips met, because this wasn’t like that lazy kiss at the airport. This was a completely different animal—an unashamed display of potent sensuality. This was Dante Di Sione being outrageously macho and showing her exactly who was in charge. It was a stamp and an unmistakable sexual boast and something told Willow that this emotionless kiss meant nothing to him.
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