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Her senses leaping, she felt the little blue vein beneath his thumb start to thrum with the blood that was pumping through her, and with sinking dismay knew that he could feel it too.
‘I’m not afraid of you,’ she murmured, the way her breath shivered through her from this devastating contact with him giving the lie to her trembling statement.
He smiled without warmth. ‘Good.’ His eyes were glittering like midnight pools in moonlight, so mesmerising that as he pulled her towards him she felt like a heap of pulsing jelly and could only clutch at the fabric of his other sleeve to stave off the feeling of tumbling down and down into their dangerous depths.
In a voice that was shaking as much as she was, she challenged, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
His lips moved in a parody of a smile. ‘I always believe in putting my theories into practice,’ he said, his long ebony lashes coming down as those disturbing eyes dropped to the fullness of her trembling mouth, and before she could find her voice to demand what those theories were his face went out of focus and that mocking mouth was suddenly claiming hers.
He was still leaning against the table and, caught between his legs, she felt her senses start to reel from the warmth of his powerful thighs, from the movement of muscle beneath the quality cloth of his jacket, and from the hard insistence of his deepening kiss.
She had to stop this! Some smothered sense of reason tried to warn her that all he was doing was trying to humiliate her, make her pay for what she had just said to him, trying to cut her down to size.
As his arms tightened around her, though, her body paid no heed to the warning, letting her down as every galvanised cell leaped in recognition of his masculinity.
Her mouth widening beneath his, she gave a defeated little sound, the hands that had come up to grasp his shoulders now moving of their own volition to plunder the dark, damp hair at the nape of his neck.
Pulled closer against his hard, lean length, Riva gasped from the magnitude of her crazy response to him, sensations multiplying like locusts at the irrational thrill of this man’s lips and hands that had once turned her into a woman with their skill and their expertise, this man who had been her first lover—and her last!
Rigid with a sexual tension she couldn’t believe she was feeling, she heard a small voice inside her surface, to remind her of just how and why he had scarred her for any other man with his mind-blowing seduction before the cruel and devastating realisation that he had only been using her.
With a bitter little sob she wrenched herself away from him, and through gritted teeth managed to grind out, ‘You conceited oaf!’
Though he had allowed her some merciful space, his hands were still gripping her shoulders. ‘Deny it all you like,’ he said, his strong features flushed, his breathing laboured. ‘But we both know that your body is in conflict with that scheming little brain of yours, don’t we? I might have exposed you and your mother for what you were, but there’s much more to your venomous feeling for me than that, isn’t there, Riva? You don’t like me, cara, because of how I made you feel, because I reduced you to a whimpering mass of sensuality just begging me to take her, which didn’t quite fit in with your plans to bring me to my knees and have me as putty in your greedy little hands.’
Which was what he had to keep reminding himself of, Damiano thought savagely, thrusting her away from him because—mamma mia!—it had only taken one kiss to convince him of how much he still wanted her. Even now the ache in his loins was so acute that it hurt.
‘Believe that if you want to,’ Riva retorted in a small, shaky voice, all the fight gone out of her after the shocking way she had responded to him—a man she hated, and with just cause!
Trembling from her response, and unsteadied by the way he had so brutally released her, she clutched at the table behind her, breathing deeply to try and regain some composure, staring at the broad span of his impeccably clad back.
It was no good reminding him of how his interference in her mother’s affairs had indirectly caused the woman’s death. She didn’t even dare to goad him with that now.
He was angry—really angry—but there was something else, Riva realised. Something that had made him swing away from her, as though he couldn’t bear to look at her. As though he were weary of the constant battle he was fighting with her. Or was it some sort of battle with himself?
Pulling herself up to her full height, which didn’t seem to make a scrap of difference against his dominating six feet plus, surprisingly she found herself saying, ‘If you’ve finished humiliating me, I’ve mapped out a few ideas on the computer that you might like to see.’
He was shrugging out of his jacket, tossing it down on a chair, and Riva averted her eyes from his hard, tanned torso—visible through the fine shirt—as he came and stooped over the table, pressing keys on her laptop, using the mouse himself.
‘Olivia was right,’ he said, after studying her ideas for a few breath-catching moments—because he was much too close, the sight and scent and sound of him invading her senses, and because she wanted his approval of her professional capabilities even if he despised every last bone in her body. ‘You’re very good.’
Such praise from him in the past would have made her glow with pleasure. All she felt now, though, was relieved acceptance and a strange, inexplicable regret.
‘I like to think I’m a better judge of shapes and designs than I am of people,’ she stated pointedly, glancing surreptitiously at her wristwatch when she thought he wasn’t looking.
‘Are you in some particular hurry to leave?’ He was using the scroll wheel, and hadn’t even looked up from the screen. But then that shrewd brain of his wouldn’t miss a thing, Riva decided, resenting him, resenting his cleverness, his sharp wits, his cold and calculating mind.
Nervously, she swallowed. ‘I have an appointment.’
‘An appointment?’ He glanced up at her now, his dark eyes raking over her face. ‘An appointment?’ he repeated, straightening up. ‘Or a hot date?’
She wouldn’t tell him that she didn’t date—not seriously, anyhow—any more than she would tell him that she’d been burned so badly by him during that summer in Italy that she had never allowed herself to get that close to any man since. But if he wanted to think that there was some man in her life who might mean something to her, then let him think it! she thought acridly. Perhaps that way, at least, she would be safe from him—and from herself!
‘Damiano …’ The sudden notion that she might need any protection from herself where he was concerned was as abominable as it was startling. Had she wanted him to kiss her? Surely not! Because if that was the case then she was no better than a Judas, even entertaining such ideas about him. How could she dismiss the way her mother had suffered—and at his hands? Forget her lack of will? The drinking? Her depressions?
He hadn’t even responded to that last supplication. He was still contemplating the rough paper sketches she had made, no doubt mentally adding ideas of his own.
‘Damiano …’ It came out sounding much more desperate now. It was absolutely vital that she got away on time.
Casually he reached around her to drop the sketches down on the table, so close that the tangible warmth of his body made her drag in her breath.
‘Who is this special person who makes you plead?’ That familiar mocking smile was back, but there was curiosity too in those interrogative eyes.
‘I’m not pleading.’ Damn! Was that what he thought he could do to her? ‘I just have to get away on time.’
He leaned back against the table and folded his arms, giving her all his attention now.
‘This is no appointment, I think. Definitely a special date. Well, don’t worry, cara mia. If he’s worth his salt, he’ll wait.’
Trying not to appear too alarmed, Riva shook her head. So much for letting him think there was another man in her life! ‘I made a promise. I have to keep it.’
He picked up her mobile phone, which was lying close by. ‘Then call him,’ he invited, holding it out to her.
Trying to keep her anxiety in check, Riva snatched it from him. ‘I don’t need to,’ she uttered, hating him provoking her like this. ‘I just need to be on time!’
‘So much devotion!’ He was like a cat playing with a mouse, relishing every second of her discomfiture. ‘He must be pretty special.’
Angrily, she snapped, ‘He is!’ then wished she hadn’t, when those luxurious brown eyes narrowed to speculative slits and that hardening male mouth seemed to turn to stone.
‘Does he know that another man only has to touch you to make you forget just how special he is.’ His tone derided, and his cruel reminder of what had transpired a few moments ago made Riva’s pale cheeks flame.
‘If you’re talking about your assault on me just now, I was taken totally off-guard, that was all.’
‘Really?’ Mockery gave a cruel curve to his lips again. ‘In that case I’d be interested to witness how you’d react if I. prepared you, carissima.’
The deliberate hesitation, plus the endearment, were heavy with meaning, and she was reminded—as he’d intended her to be—of just how expertly he had ‘prepared’ her before.
That riveting sexual tension made her too slow to respond, and she stiffened as he spoke again in a voice now stripped of anything but professionalism.
‘Is this what I am to expect? Your darting off at a moment’s notice every time we have a meeting?’
‘Of course not,’ she uttered defensively, breathing again. ‘It wouldn’t have seemed like a moment’s notice if you’d been here so I could let you know earlier that I had to get away sharply tonight.’
‘Very well,’ he conceded at last. ‘As long as you realise in future that while you’re doing this job your first loyalty is to me.’
Like hell! Riva thought, closing down her laptop before grabbing her bag and her papers and racing away.
CHAPTER THREE
THE clock on her dashboard was showing ten past five as she swung out of the cobbled courtyard and along the leafy lane towards the dual carriageway.
‘How could it have happened?’ she demanded fiercely of anyone who might be listening. How could she—after not seeing the detestable Damiano D’Amico for nearly five years—suddenly be working for him? And not just working for him—at his beck and call!
The snarl of her car’s engine reflected her mood as she pulled out into the rush-hour traffic, and despite all the concentration needed to keep her mind on the road the past suddenly rushed upon her like a submerging tide.
Born when her mother was barely eighteen, Riva knew everything about deprivation and financial hardship. Her father she could only remember as a shadowy figure, flitting in and out of their lives, absent more than he was around. By the time she was old enough to know him he was already in prison, and that, and then his early death shortly afterwards, had plunged Riva and her mother into inescapable poverty.
Young, artistic and pretty, Chelsea had had no end of possible suitors who might have taken her and her daughter on. Strong-willed and free-spirited, though—a champion of causes—Chelsea Singleman had been determined to ‘go it alone'.
Scarred and disillusioned after her experience with
Riva’s father, her mother had always warned her of the dangers in succumbing to sexual desire. When Riva had met Damiano D’Amico, therefore, she had been ill-equipped to match his hard sophistication—which was why it had been so easy for him to turn her lack of experience to his own ends, she thought, hating him with a passion she couldn’t believe she could feel for anyone. But with just cause, she assured herself, feeling emotion surfacing as hot tears in her eyes at the way she was allowing him to use and manipulate her—unavoidably—now.
She couldn’t forget the impact he had made upon her the first time she had seen him standing there in the drawing room of Marcello’s villa—the dark excitement of his features, the blazing charm of his smile, the breath-catching power of his smouldering sexuality. Nor could she forget the way he had looked at her with a fire in his eyes that had touched the secret places of her young, untutored body. But there had been suspicion too—that she’d been too inexperienced to recognise—as he’d looked from her to her mother and then back at Riva again, with a hard, concealed intent behind that lazy urbane charm which she had foolishly mistaken for mutual attraction.
His exciting masculinity had blinded her to everything—even the truth—because he had come to vet his uncle’s new fiancée under the pretext of merely celebrating Marcello D’Amico’s betrothal.
A picture flashed through Riva’s mind of the gentle silver-haired man who had captured Chelsea Singleman’s heart and who, for the first time in Riva’s life, it had seemed, had made her struggling parent perfectly happy. He’d been nearly twice her mother’s age, and yet Riva had had no problem with that. Her mother had been head over heels in love with Marcello, and he with her, and Riva had been happy for them both without a thought for how wealthy he was. She’d been only aware and pleased that all the struggles Chelsea had endured throughout her life, her loneliness and her sometimes inevitable depressions, were finally going to be things of the past.
After a celebratory lunch, tipsy with champagne, they had giggled like schoolgirls while strolling arm in arm through Marcello’s spectacular gardens, on one of those sultry, halcyon days before the storm broke.
‘I’ve seen the way he’s been looking at you,’ Chelsea had commented when their conversation had turned, as it always had, to the disturbing subject of Damiano. ‘I’ve seen, all right—and all I can say is that he’s trouble, Riva. And I don’t mean trouble like your father was. I mean the type most women imagine they want and then wind up regretting with a passion—especially when he tosses them aside for the next easy conquest, as I’m sure a lot of women must have found to their cost.’
As if her mother’s words alone had conjured him up, he had appeared on the hot flagstones in front of them.
‘Well … Damiano … Or should I call you Nephew?’
His smile for Chelsea Singleman didn’t actually touch his eyes, and he seemed to be assessing the mere ten years or so between their ages.
‘A little premature, I think.’ With that almost detached air—just one of the many things about him that excited Riva—he dismissed the familiar way in which her mother had addressed him. ‘I believe Marcello’s looking for you. I think he feels he has been deserted.’
Even the mention of her fiancé's name had made Chelsea’s eyes light up.
Keen to get back to him, she turned a little too quickly and almost lost her footing on a crack between the stones. Riva’s arm shot out to steady her.
Chelsea had giggled, Riva remembered, obviously self-conscious about making a fool of herself in front of a man of such formidable poise and self-possession. ‘Come on then, Riva,’ she’d encouraged, eager to get away. ‘Let’s get back.’
‘Not you, signorina.’
His soft command had been startling, causing excitement to leap wildly in Riva. But more startling had been the dark, warm hand that had suddenly entrapped hers—because that was how it had felt. Like a trap, Riva thought bitterly, wishing she had followed her instincts and fled from the reckless danger she had sensed, which Chelsea had warned her about. But she had been too flattered and too attracted to him, as well as far too inexperienced and swept off her feet, to care.
‘I think your mother has had a little too much champagne,’ he’d commented, turning from the figure of the older woman tripping back to the villa with her blonde hair billowing out behind her, like her loose white cotton sundress, and Riva had sensed an edge of disapproval in his tone.
‘No, she hasn’t. She’s just happy.’ Instantly she flew to Chelsea’s defence. ‘And if she has, then why not? She’s celebrating her forthcoming marriage, after all.’ She didn’t know why she suddenly needed to feel protective of her mother. ‘Don’t you approve of anyone being happy?’ she challenged him, and then with a sidelong glance at him from under mahogany lashes she tagged on, far more coquettishly than she had intended, ‘Don’t you like being happy, Damiano?’
She felt the burn of his gaze move over her face and touch the gentle swell of her breasts, just visible above the multi-print gypsy-style blouse she was wearing with a long plain calico skirt, and she felt their tender tips drawing into tight buds.
‘Sì. I like being happy,’ he breathed, the downward sweep of those thick black lashes unable to conceal the heated desire in his eyes that promised her that what would make him happy would be to tug loose the strings securing her tantalising blouse and show her pleasure such as she had never known. ‘And you, Riva? What do you suppose I should call you if your mother marries my uncle? Cousin?’ The intimate way in which he enunciated the word, with those visual images already in her mind of him, stroking and arousing her with those long hands, and that voice that was designed for loving a woman, sent molten heat coursing through her veins.
‘What do you mean “if"? It’s “when", surely?’ She exhaled, her cheeks tinged with colour from the feelings he aroused, which were a wild concoction of sexual excitement, indignation and inexplicable unease.
He smiled that lazy smile, the type that made her feel she was drowning in those incredible ebony eyes. Then he was pulling her gently towards him, allowing his lips to brush hers in a feather-light kiss that sent her rocketing senses into overdrive, before he breathed—humouring her, she realised now—in that dark, seductive and oh, so caressing voice, ‘Sì. When.’
That had been the first of many such blissful times when they were alone together, though she’d never fully lost her nervousness with him, amazed as she’d been that such a frighteningly attractive man could be interested in her.
He’d wanted to know everything about her. Where she came from, who she was, what made her tick. No one had ever made her feel so special—or so aware of herself as a woman. But knowing that he would reject her out of hand if he knew the truth, unable to bear it, she had woven a fanciful and glamorous picture around herself, mixing fact and fiction in a story she’d dearly wanted to believe, unaware of how dangerous he was, oblivious to the sensual and deadly trap he had been laying for her.
When he had made a point of extending his visit to the villa, idiotically she’d convinced herself that it was because of her.
‘Be careful, Riva,’ Chelsea, aware of her excitement, had warned her daughter again.
They’d been in Riva’s suite, experimenting with make-up, because Marcello was taking Chelsea out to dinner. She’d looked young and modern and sensational, Riva remembered with a swift sharp shaft of pain. Because Chelsea had borrowed a dress from her that her mother adored.
‘I know he’s handsome and mature and far more exciting than any of the boys you’ve brought home, but he’s too experienced for someone of your age. I know we might not look so different, but I’ve been around a bit longer than you have, and I don’t want to see my baby getting hurt.’
‘I’m not your baby any more, Chelsea,’ Riva had reminded her gently. ‘If you haven’t noticed, I’ve grown up.’
‘I know.’ Standing behind her at the dressing table mirror, Chelsea had bent and kissed the top of her head. ‘And dangerously dynamic creatures like Damiano D’Amico have noticed it too—and that’s what worries me.’
Oh, Mum! Riva mourned now—now it was too late. If only I’d listened to you!
‘Don’t worry. I can handle him,’ she remembered telling her anxious mother.
What a misconception! What a joke!
She’d been so far out of her depth she hadn’t realised that her feet weren’t even touching the bottom any more, that she was playing with a hard, masculine sensuality that was more dangerous than a lethal current. Unaware that there was no safety net to catch her—nothing to stop her from drowning beneath her own stupidity. Because, desperate to keep him from guessing how inexperienced she was, she had woven an illusion of sophistication around herself that had fooled even a man as worldly as Damiano D’Amico.
‘You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?’ he had groaned that night in his private rooms, when things had got so out of hand between them, when her hands had stolen inside his shirt and slipped it off his shoulders so that she could see him, touch him, feel the satin of his pulsing flesh that clothed the exciting strength of his body. The night she had allowed him to lead her into the bedroom, realising that unless she admitted the truth there would be no turning back.
Scared by what her boldness had instigated as she’d allowed her hands and lips free rein over his muscular, hair-feathered chest, she’d been even more afraid of his turning away from her in disgust if she told him the truth, perhaps ridiculing her innocence and her lack of sophistication. There was no way she could have suffered the humiliation of that. It would have been too demoralising and degrading, as well as agonizing, to have him reject her. And so, aroused to fever-pitch by his lips and those skilled and oh, so capable hands on her body, when he’d asked her if she was on the pill, she had murmured tremulously that she was.
He had known almost at once, of course, that she had lied, but things had gone too far, and the fire that had raged between them had been too hot and consuming even for his disciplined will.
As pain had made her cry out, she’d heard his groan of rejection, swiftly followed by one of defeat as he lost control.
It had been an experience she could never have imagined. Rivers of sensation had tumbled through every electrified cell in her body, making her cry out again, but this time in ecstasy from the earth-shattering strength of her climax.
He’d waited until she’d slumped back against the pillows, gasping and spent, before rolling away from her with the swiftness of the mistral that blew down from the mountains in winter, and to Riva it had seemed just as chillingly.
‘What the devil was all that about?’
Riva recoiled from the white-hot emotion running through his burning question.
‘You lied to me! Why the hell did you think you could get away with lying to me?’
He was angry. She couldn’t understand how he could be so angry. Not if he loved her! He should have been pleased, flattered …
‘I—I didn’t think you’d mind.’ Reduced by the experience of a lifetime and then his frightening anger, she let slip the charade of sophistication that had resulted in her winding up in bed with him.
‘You didn’t think I’d mind!’ On his feet now, he swung away from the bed, slapping his forehead as he did so. ‘My dear, reckless girl. Mamma mia! Did you even think?’
Shamed by his unexpected reaction, and by how irresponsible he thought her, she covered her small breasts with the sheet and asked candidly, ‘Why is my virginity so anathema to you?’ And, in view of how gladly she had sacrificed it for him, she murmured, ‘Shouldn’t you be glad?’
‘No, I darn well shouldn’t! What did you imagine I would say? “Grazie, signorina? That was very generous of you"?’
‘Stop it!’ She couldn’t bear it! Not his mood, nor his angry words, let alone the meaning behind them. He was reducing what they had just done to nothing. No—worse than that—to something sordid, making her feel no better than a whore.
‘And what if I’ve made you pregnant? Had you thought of that?’
Yes, she had, she remembered thinking, but only fleetingly, caught up in too many other emotions—desire, passion, embarrassment, the fear of rejection.
‘Do you really think I will have any sympathy with you if you come crying to me in a few weeks saying you’re going to have my baby?’