“So, how would we do this, then? I mean, how could you watch over me, go after whoever this is, do whatever you need to do, without people knowing?”

Falco had considered that during the six-hour flight from New York. There were lots of ways to move into someone’s life to provide protection and search out information without raising questions. The idea was to assume a role other people would accept. He could pass himself off as her driver. Her assistant. Her personal trainer.

Okay. Personal trainer it would be…

“Mr. Orsini?”

“Falco,” he said, looking down into her eyes. He saw the rise and fall of her breasts, remembered the soft, lush feel of her against him, and he knew damned well he wasn’t going to pretend to be her trainer after all.

“Simple,” he said calmly. “We’ll make people think I’m your lover.”

She stared at him. Then she gave a little laugh.

“That’s crazy,” she said. “No one will believe—”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice low and rough. “Yeah, they will.”

Falco reached out, gathered Elle in his arms, and kissed her.

Falco: The Dark Guardian

by

Sandra Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author

SANDRA MARTON wrote her first novel while she was still in primary school. Her doting parents told her she’d be a writer some day, and Sandra believed them. In secondary school and college she wrote dark poetry nobody but her boyfriend understood—though, looking back, she suspects he was just being kind. As a wife and mother she wrote murky short stories in what little spare time she could manage, but not even her boyfriend-turned-husband could pretend to understand those. Sandra tried her hand at other things, among them teaching and serving on the Board of Education in her home town, but the dream of becoming a writer was always in her heart.

At last Sandra realised she wanted to write books about what all women hope to find: love with that one special man, love that’s rich with fire and passion, love that lasts for ever. She wrote a novel, her very first, and sold it to Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance. Since then she’s written more than sixty books, all of them featuring sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life heroes. A four-time RITA® award finalist, she’s also received five RT Book Reviews awards, and has been honoured with RT Book Reviews’s Career Achievement Award for Series Romance. Sandra lives with her very own sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life hero in a sun-filled house on a quiet country lane in the north-eastern United States.

The patriarch of the powerful Sicilian dynasty, Cesare Orsini, has fallen ill, and he wants atonement before he dies.

One by one he sends for his sons—he has a mission for each to help him clear his conscience.

His sons are proud and determined, but they will do their duty—the tasks they undertake will change their lives for ever! They are…

THE ORSINI BROTHERS

Darkly handsome—proud and arrogant The perfect Sicilian husbands!

by

Sandra Marton

RAFFAELE: TAMING HIS TEMPESTUOUS VIRGIN

October 2009

DANTE: CLAIMING HIS SECRET LOVE-CHILD

December 2009

FALCO: THE DARK GUARDIAN

August 2010

Coming soon:

Nicolo’s story!

Chapter One

THERE were those who said that Falco Orsini was too rich, too good-looking, too arrogant for his own good.

Falco would have agreed that he was rich, that he was probably arrogant, and if you judged his looks by the seemingly endless stream of beautiful women who moved in and out of his bed, well, he’d have had to admit that perhaps he had something going for him that women liked.

There were also those who called him heartless. He would not have agreed with that.

He was not heartless. He was honest. Why let a competitor buy an elite investment bank if he could scoop it up instead? Why let a competitor get the edge in a business deal if he could get it first? Why go on pretending interest in a woman when he no longer felt any?

It wasn’t as if he was a man who ever made promises he had no intention of keeping.

Honest, not heartless. And in the prime of life.

Falco was, like his three brothers, tall. Six foot three. Hard of face, hard of body. Buff, women said. That was true but it had nothing to do with vanity. He was fit the way a man must be when he knows keeping himself that way could mean the difference between life and death.

Not that he lived that kind of existence anymore.

Not often, at any rate.

Not that he talked about.

At thirty-two, Falco had already led what many would consider an interesting life.

At eighteen, he’d grabbed his backpack and thumbed his way around the world. At nineteen, he’d joined the army. At twenty, he became a Special Forces warrior. Someplace along the way, he picked up a bunch of disparate university credits, a skill at high-stakes gambling and, eventually, a passion for high-stakes investing.

He lived by his own rules. He always had. The opinions of others didn’t concern him. He believed in honor, duty and integrity. Men who’d served with him, men who dealt with him, didn’t always like him—he was too removed, some said—but they respected him almost as much as women coveted him.

Or hated him.

It didn’t matter.

Family was everything.

He loved his brothers the same way they loved him, with a ferocity that made the four of them as formidable in everything as they were in business. He would have given his life for his sisters, who would happily have returned the favor. He adored his mother, who worshipped all her sons as perhaps only Italian mothers can.

His father…

Who gave a damn about him?

Falco, like his brothers, had written off Cesare Orsini years ago. As far as his wife and daughters were concerned, Cesare owned a carting company, a construction firm and some of New York City’s priciest real estate.

His sons knew the truth.

Their father was the head of something he referred to only as La Famigilia.

He was, in other words, the same as the thugs who had originated in Sicily in the last half of the nineteenth century. Nothing could change that, not the Brioni suits, not the enormous mansion in what had once been Manhattan’s Little Italy and was now Greenwich Village. But, for their mother’s sake, there were times Falco and his brothers put that aside and pretended the Orsinis were just another big, happy Sicilian-American family.

Today, for instance. On this bright, late autumn afternoon, Dante had taken a wife.

Falco still had trouble getting his head around that.

First Rafe. Now Dante. Two brothers with wives. And, Dante, it turned out, wasn’t just a husband, he was also a father.

Nicolo and Falco had spent the day smiling, kissing their new sisters-in-law and grinning at Dante and Rafe. They’d done their best not to feel like jerks cooing at their infant nephew—not that it was difficult because the kid was clearly the world’s cutest, most intelligent baby. They’d danced with their sisters and shut their ears to Anna’s and Isabella’s not-so-subtle hints that they had friends who’d make them perfect wives.

By late afternoon, they were more than ready to slip away and toast their bachelorhood with a few well-earned cold beers at a place the four brothers owned. Not their investment firm. This place was called, simply enough, The Bar.

Cesare headed them off before they could get to the door. He wanted to talk to them, he said.

Not again, Falco had thought wearily. One look at Nick’s face and he knew his brother was thinking the same thing. For months now, the Don had been giving his “after I’m dead” speech. The combination to his safe. The names of his attorney and his accountant. The location of important papers. Stuff none of the brothers cared about; none of them wanted a penny of their father’s money.

Falco’s initial instinct was to ignore Cesare and keep walking.

Instead, he and Nick looked at each other. Maybe the long day had put them in a mellow mood. Maybe it was the champagne. What the hell, Nick’s expression said, and Falco replied with a sigh that clearly said, Yeah, why not.

Their father had insisted on talking to them separately. Felipe, Cesare’s capo, jerked his head, indicating Falco should go first.

Falco gave a moment’s thought to grabbing the capo by his skinny neck, hoisting him to his toes and telling him what a slimy bastard he was to have spent his life as the Don’s guard dog, but the family celebration was still going strong in the conservatory at the rear of the house.

So he smiled instead, the kind of smile a man like the capo would surely understand, moved past him and entered Cesare’s study. Felipe shut the door behind him…

And Falco found himself in an endurance contest.

His father, seated at his desk, the heavy drapes behind him drawn so that the big room with its oversized furniture seemed even more gloomy than usual, looked up, nodded, waved a manicured hand toward a chair—a gesture Falco ignored—and went back to leafing through the contents of a manila folder.

According to the antique mahogany clock that hung on a wall, all but lost among photos of politicians, old-country ancestors and age-yellowed religious paintings, four minutes ticked away.

Falco stood perfectly still, feet slightly apart, arms folded, dark eyes locked on the clock. The minute hand ticked to yet another marker, the hour hand made its barely perceptible jump. Falco unfolded his arms, turned his back on his father and went to the door.

“Where are you going?”

Falco didn’t bother turning around. “Ciao, Father. As always, it’s been a pleasure.”

The chair creaked. Falco knew the Don was pushing back from his desk.

“We have not yet had our talk.”

“Our talk? You were the one who requested this meeting.” Falco swung toward his father. “If you have something to say, say it—but I assure you, I recall your touching words the last time I saw you. Perhaps you don’t remember my response so let me remind you of it. I don’t give a damn about your safe, your documents, your business interests—”

“Then you are a fool,” the Don said mildly. “Those things are worth a fortune.”

A cool smile lifted the corners of Falco’s mouth. “So am I, in case you hadn’t noticed.” His smile vanished. “Even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t touch anything of yours. You should know that by now.”

“Such drama, my son.”

“Questa verità, Father. Such truth, you mean.”

Cesare sighed. “All right. You’ve made your speech.”

“And you’ve made yours. Goodbye, Father. I’ll tell Nicolo to—”

“What were you doing in Athens last month?”

Falco stood absolutely still. “What?”

“It’s a simple question. You were in Athens. Why?”

The look Falco gave the older man would have made anyone else take a hurried step back.

“What in hell kind of question is that?”

Cesare shrugged. “A simple one. I asked you—”

“I know what you asked.” Falco’s eyes narrowed. “Did you have me followed?”

“Nothing so devious.” Cesare moved his chair forward and reached for an elaborately carved wooden box. “Pure Havanas,” he said, opening the box to reveal a dozen fat cigars. “They cost the earth. Have one.”

“Explain yourself,” Falco said sharply, without a glance at the box. “How do you know where I was?”

Another shrug. “I have friends everywhere. Surely you know that by now.”

“Then you also know that I was in Athens on business for Orsini Brothers Investments.” Falco smiled again, even more coldly. “Perhaps you’ve heard of us, Father. A privately held company started without any help from you.”

Cesare bit the tip off the cigar he’d chosen, turned his head and spat the piece into a wastebasket.

“Even in these bad economic times, we’ve made our investors wealthy. And we’ve done it honestly, a concept you couldn’t possibly understand.”

“You added a private bank to your stable when you were in Athens,” Cesare said. “Nicely done.”

“Your compliments mean nothing to me.”

“But banking was not all you did there,” the Don said softly. He looked up; his eyes met Falco’s. “My sources tell me that during that same few days, a child—a boy of twelve—held for ransom by insurgents in the northern mountains of Turkey, was somehow miraculously returned to his fam—”

Falco was around the desk in a heartbeat. His hand closed on his father’s shirt; he yanked him roughly to his feet.

“What is this?” he snarled.

“Take your hands off me!”

“Not until I get answers. No one followed me. No one. I don’t know where you got all this crap but—”

“I was not foolish enough to think anyone could follow you and live to talk about it. Let go of my shirt and perhaps I’ll give you an answer.”

Falco could feel his heart racing. He knew damned well no one had followed him; he was far too good to let that happen. And, yes, though he would never admit it, there had been more to his trip to Greece than the acquisition of a bank. There were times his old skills came in handy but he kept that part of his life private.

Falco glared at his father. And silently cursed himself for being a fool.

He had not let Cesare get to him in years. Fifteen years, to be exact, on a night one of his father’s henchmen had caught him sneaking back into the heavily guarded house at two in the morning.

The Don had been furious, not at where his seventeen-year-old-son might have been, not at how he’d defeated the alarm system, but at how he’d gotten by the silent men who kept watch from the shadows outside the front door and deep within the walled garden.

Falco had refused to explain. He’d done more than that. He’d smirked as only a badass teenage boy could.

Cesare had backhanded him, hard, across the face.

It was the first time his father had hit him, which was, when he’d had time to think about it, a surprise. Not the blow; the surprise was that it had not happened before. There’d always been a hint of violence in the air between father and son; it had grown stronger when Falco reached adolescence.

That night, it had finally erupted.

Falco had stood still under the first blow. The second rocked him back on his heels. The third bloodied his mouth, and when Cesare raised his hand again, Falco grabbed his wrist and twisted the Don’s arm high behind his back. Cesare was strong, but at seventeen, Falco was already stronger.

He was also fueled by years of hatred.

“Touch me again,” he’d said in a whisper, “and I swear, I’ll kill you.”

His father’s expression had undergone a subtle change. Not fear. Not anger. Something else. Something swift and furtive that should not have been in the eyes of a powerful man who’d just lost a battle, physically as well as figuratively.

Falco’s face was badly bruised the next day. His mother questioned it, as did his sisters. He said he’d fallen in the shower. The lie worked but Nicolo, Raffaele and Dante had not been so easy to fool.

“Must have been a pretty awkward tumble,” Rafe had said, “to blacken your eye as well as give you a swollen lip.”

Yeah, Falco had said calmly, it was.

He never told anyone the truth. Had the beating been too humiliating to talk about? Was it his shock at the intensity of the quicksilver flash of rage that had almost overcome him?

Eventually, he understood.

Power had changed hands that night. It had gone from Cesare to him…and then back to Cesare. What he’d seen in his father’s eyes had been the knowledge that despite Falco’s vicious threat, he, Cesare, had actually won the battle because Falco had let emotion overtake him. He had lost control of his emotions and somehow, he had no idea how or why, that loss of control gave the other person power.

And now, here he was, fifteen long years later, losing control all over again.

Carefully, he unfisted his hand, let go of Cesare’s starched white shirt. Cesare fell back into his chair, his jowly face red with anger.

“If you were not my son…”

“I’m not your son in any way that matters. It takes more than sperm to make a man a father.”

A muscle knotted in the Don’s jaw. “Are you now a philosopher? Trust me, Falco, in many ways, you are more my son than your brothers.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that what you so self-righteously claim to hate in me is what is also inside you. The lure of absolute power. The need to control.” Cesare’s eyes narrowed. “The willingness to shed blood when you know it must be shed.”

“Damn you, old man!” Falco leaned over the desk and brought his angry face within inches of the older man’s. “I am nothing like you, do you hear? Nothing! If I were, God, if I were…”

He shuddered, drew back, stood straight. What was he doing, letting his father draw him deeper into this quagmire?

“Is this what you wanted to talk about? To tell me you’ve come up with absolution for yourself by pretending your genes are my destiny? Well, it won’t work. I am not you. And this so-called discussion is at an—”

Cesare took something from the folder on his desk and pushed it toward Falco. It appeared to be a glossy page, an advertisement, torn from a magazine.

“Do you know this woman?”

Falco barely spared the picture a glance.

“I know a lot of women,” he said coldly. “Surely your spies have told you that.”

“Indulge me. Look at her.”

What the hell did it matter? Falco picked up the photo. It was an ad for something expensive. Perfume, jewelry, clothing—it was hard to tell.

The focus of the page, though, was clear enough.

It was the woman.

She was seated crossways in an armchair, one long leg on the floor, the other draped over the chair’s arm, a shoe with the kind of heel that should have been declared lethal dangling from her toes. She wore lace. Scarlet lace. A teddy. A chemise. He had no idea which it was, only that it showed almost as much cleavage as leg.

A spectacular body. An equally spectacular face. Oval. Delicate. The essence of femininity. High cheekbones, eyes as amber as a cat’s, lashes long and thick, the same ebony color as her long, straight hair.

She was smiling at the camera. At the viewer.

At him.

It was, he understood, a deliberate illusion. A damned effective one. Her smile, the tilt of her head, even her posture, dared a man to want her. To be foolish enough to think he could have her. It was a smile that offered as much sexual pleasure as a man could want in a lifetime.

Something hot and dangerous rolled through Falco’s belly.

“Well? Do you recognize her?”

He looked up. Cesare’s eyes locked on his. Falco tossed the photo on the desk.

“I told you I didn’t. Okay? Are we done here?”

“Her name is Elle. Elle Bissette. She was a model. Now she is an actress.”

“Good for her.”

Cesare took something else from the folder. Another ad? He held it toward Falco, but Falco didn’t move.

“What is this? You expect me to spend the next hour playing Name the Celebrity?”

“Per favore, Falco. I ask you, please. Look at the photo.”

Falco’s eyebrows rose. Please? In Italian and in English. He had never heard his father use those words or anything close to them. What the hell, he thought, and reached for the photo.

Bile rose in his throat.

It was the same ad but someone had used a red pen to X out her eyes. To trace a crude line of stitches across her lips.

To draw a heavy line across her throat and dab red dots from her throat to her breasts. To circle her breasts in the same bright, vicious crimson.

“Miss Bissette received it in the mail.”

“What did the cops say?”

“Nothing. She refuses to contact them.”

“She’s a fool,” Falco said bluntly, “if she won’t go to the authorities.”

“The parents of the Turkish boy went to you, not the authorities. They feared seeking official help.”

“This is America.”

“Fear is fear, Falco, no matter where one lives. She is afraid or perhaps she does not trust the police. Whatever the reason, she refuses to contact them.” Cesare paused. “Miss Bissette is making a film in Hollywood. The producer is, shall we say, an old friend.”

“Ah. I get it now. Your pal’s worried about his investment.”

“It concerns him, yes. And he needs my help.”

“Send him some of your blood money.”

“Not my financial help. He needs my help to safeguard Miss Bissette.”

“I’m sure your goons will love L.A.”

Cesare chuckled. “Can you see my men in Beverly Hills?”

Falco almost laughed. He had to admit, the idea was amusing—and, suddenly, it all came together. The talk of what had happened in Turkey, this conversation about Elle Bissette…

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

Falco nodded. “I know some guys who do bodyguard work for celebrities. I’ll call around, put you in touch—”

“I am already in touch,” Cesare said gently. “With you.”

“Me?” This time, Falco did laugh. “I’m an investor, Father, not a bodyguard.”

“You did not say that to the people you helped in Turkey.”

“That was different. They turned to me and I did what I had to do.”

“As I am turning to you, mio figlio, and asking that you do what must be done.”

Falco’s face hardened. “You want some names and phone numbers, fine. Otherwise, I’m out of here.”

Cesare didn’t answer. Falco snorted, turned on his heel, headed for the door again, changed his mind and decided to exit through the French doors hidden by the heavy drapes. The mood he was in, the last thing he wanted was to risk running in to his mother or his sisters.

“Wait.” His father hurried after him. “Take the folder. Everything you need is in it.”

Falco grabbed the folder. It was easier than arguing.

By the time he’d taxied to his mid-sixties town house, he’d come up with the names of four men who could do this job and do it well. Once home, he poured a brandy, took the folder and his cell phone and headed outside to his walled garden. It was close to sunset; the air was chill but he liked it out here, with the noise of Manhattan shut away.

There was nothing of much use in the folder. Stuff about the movie; a letter from the producer to Cesare.

And the pictures. The one with her in lace. The markedup duplicate. And another that his father had not shown him, a photo of Bissette standing on a beach, looking over her shoulder at the camera. No lace. No stiletto heels. She was dressed in a T-shirt and shorts.

Falco put the three pictures on the top of a glass table and looked from one to the other.

The one of her sexy and mysterious was a turn-on if you liked that kind of thing. He didn’t. Yeah, he liked crimson and lace and stiletto heels well enough; was there a man who didn’t? But the pose was blatantly phony. The smile was false. The woman looking at the camera had no substance. She might have been looking at a million guys instead of him.

The mutilated picture made his gut knot. It was an outright threat, crude but effective.

The third photo was the one that caught him. It was unselfconscious. Unposed. A simple shot of a beautiful woman walking on a beach, needing no artifice to make her look beautiful.

But there was more to it than that.

She’d sensed someone was watching her. He’d been the watcher often enough in what he thought of as his former life to know how subjects looked when they suspected the unwelcome presence of an observer. He could see it in her eyes. In the angle of her jaw. In the way she held her hair back from her face. Wariness. Fear. Distress.

And more.

Determination. Defiance. An attitude that, despite everything, said, Hey, pal, don’t screw with me.

“Goddammit,” Falco growled.

Then he grabbed his cell phone and arranged for a chartered plane to fly him to the West Coast first thing in the morning.

Chapter Two

ELLE HAD spent most of the morning in bed with a stranger.

The stranger was tall and good-looking and maybe he was a good kisser. She didn’t really know.

The thing was, she didn’t like kissing. She knew less about it than, she figured, 98 percent of the female population of the United States over the age of sixteen, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to make kissing seem fantastic, especially with a guy who looked like this.

Kissing, the same as walking and talking, laughing and crying and all the other things an actress did, was part of the job. She had to remember that. This was a movie. Kissing the man in whose arms she lay was, yes, part of the job.

No question that women everywhere would change places with her in a heartbeat. Fans, other actresses…Chad Scott was world-famous. He was box office gold. And, for this scene, at least, he was all hers.

Elle knew how lucky she was. She hated herself for not being able to get into character this morning. Love scenes were always tough but today…

Today, things were not going well at all.

It wasn’t her co-star’s fault. She’d worried he might be all walking, talking ego, but Chad had turned out to be a nice guy.

He’d shaken her hand when they were introduced days ago, apologized for arriving after everyone else. She knew he hadn’t had to do that. They’d spent five minutes in small talk. Then they’d run their lines. Finally, they’d shot their first scene, which was actually a middle scene in the film. Movie scenes were rarely shot sequentially.

Today, they were shooting their first love scene. It was, she knew, pivotal to the story.

The set was simple, just a seemingly haphazard sprawl of blankets spread over the sand near a big Joshua cactus. She was wearing a strapless slip; the camera would only catch her head, her arms and her bare shoulders, suggesting that she was naked. Chad was shirtless and wearing jeans. They were surrounded by a mile of electrical cable, reflectors and boom mikes, and the million and one people it took to film even the simplest scene. Antonio Farinelli, as hot a director as existed, had told the two of them he hoped to do the scene in one take.

So far, there’d been four.

A sudden gust of wind had ruined the first shot but the three others…Her fault, every one. She’d twice blown her lines; the third time she’d looked over Chad’s shoulder instead of into his eyes.

Farinelli sounded angrier each time he yelled, “Cut.”

Elle sat up, waiting while the director spoke with the lighting guy. Her co-star sat up, too, and stretched. Chad had been really good about all the delays. He’d obviously sensed she was having a problem and he’d made little jokes at his own expense. She knew they were meant to put her at ease. Heck, he said, I’m pretty sure I shaved this morning. And don’t feel bad, kid, my wife once told me the ceiling needed paint at a moment just like this.

Everyone who heard him laughed because he was not just a hot property, he was a hot guy. Elle laughed, too. At least, she did her best to fake it. She was an actress. Illusion was everything.

In real life, she could never have lain in a man’s arms and gazed into his eyes as he brought his mouth to hers, but then, reality was a bitch.

And reality was the phone call that had awakened her at three o’clock that morning.

“Darling girl,” the low male voice had whispered, “did you get the picture? Did you get my note?” A low, terrible laugh. “You’re waiting for me, aren’t you, sugar?”

Her heart had slammed into her throat. She’d thrown the telephone on the floor as if it were a scorpion that had crept in under the motel room door. Then she’d run to the bathroom and vomited.

Now, all she could hear was that voice in her head. All she could see was that mutilated ad from the magazine, the note nobody knew about. Bad enough Farinelli knew about the ad. If only he hadn’t walked into her on-set trailer just as she’d opened the innocent-looking white envelope she’d found propped against the mirror of her makeup table.

“Elle,” Farinelli had said briskly, “about tomorrow’s schedule…”

But she wasn’t listening. The blood had drained from her head. She’d been as close to fainting as she’d ever been in her life.

“Elle?” Farinelli had said, and he’d plucked the envelope and what she’d taken out of it from her hand.

“Madre di Dio,” he’d said, his words harsh with fury. “Where did this come from?”

She had no idea. Once she got her breath back, she told him that. A crazy person must have sent it. She’d had nasty little notes before, especially after the Bon Soir lingerie ads, but this marked-up photo…

Still, anything was possible. Her face was out there. In those two-year-old ads and now in stuff the publicity people for Dangerous Games had started planting. It was nothing, she and Farinelli finally agreed, but if she received any more things like this, she was to tell him and they’d go to the police.

Elle had agreed. She’d told herself the photo was a oneshot. Whoever had sent it would surely not contact her again.

Wrong. A few days later, a note arrived in her mail. Its message was horrible. Filthy. Graphic. And it was signed. The signature stunned her but it had to be a hoax. She told herself she would not let it upset her. She was an actress, she could pull it off.

Evidently, she was not as good an actress as she thought.

Farinelli had taken to asking her if she was okay and though she always said yes, certainly, she was fine, she knew he didn’t believe it. He’d proved it two days ago when he stopped by her trailer during a break. Was she ill? No, she assured him. Was she upset about her part? No, no, she loved her part. Farinelli had nodded. Then he could only assume that the photo he had seen was still upsetting her because she was most assuredly not herself.

Elle had tried telling him he was wrong. He silenced her with an imperious wave of one chubby hand. He had given the situation much thought. The photo had been of her but it had been meant for him. She had been in, what, two, three films? She was almost unknown. He, however, was famous. He was taking a big chance, starring her in Dangerous Games. Obviously, someone understood that and wished to ruin his film.

But, by God, he would not permit it. He had millions of his own money tied up in this project and he was not going to let someone destroy him. He was going to contact the police and let them deal with the problem.

Elle couldn’t let that happen. The police would poke and pry, ask endless questions, snoop into her past and find that the story of her life that she’d invented had nothing to do with reality.

So she’d resorted to high drama. She pleaded. She wept. She became a diva. A risky gambit but she had not come as far as she had by playing things safe. No guts, no glory. Trite and clichéd, maybe, but true. Besides, really, what did she have to lose? A police investigation would destroy the burgeoning career she had worked so hard for. She was twentyseven, a little long in the tooth to go back to modeling…

More to the point, she could not face her ugly, ugly past all over again.

In the end, Farinelli had thrown up his hands. “Basta,” he’d said. “Enough! No police.”

A disaster avoided. She’d forced herself to forget the ad, the note, to keep focused on the movie. And then that phone call at three this morning…

“Okay, people” Farinelli said. “Let’s try it again.”

Elle lay back. Chad leaned over her, waiting for the camera to roll. She felt his breath on her face…

“Hey,” her co-star said softly. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, with no conviction at all.

Chad sat up and looked at Farinelli. “Tony? How ’bout we break for lunch?”

The director sighed. “Why not? Okay, people. Lunch. Half an hour.”

Chad stood up, held out his hand and helped Elle to her feet. One of Farinelli’s gofers rushed over and held out an oversized white terrycloth robe. Elle snugged into it and Chad squeezed her shoulder.

“Sun’s a killer, kid,” he said softly. “Some shade, some water and you’ll be fine.”

Her smile was real this time. He truly was a nice man, a rare species as far as she was concerned.

“Thank you,” she said, and she knotted the belt of the robe, slid into the rubber thongs the gofer dropped at her feet and made her way quickly to the half-dozen Airstream trailers clustered like Conestoga wagons awaiting an Indian attack a couple of hundred yards away.

Chad Scott was right, she thought as she went up the two steps to the door of her trailer. Cool air, cool water, some time alone and she’d be fine.

“Absolutely fine,” she said as the door swung shut…

A man was standing against the wall just beyond the closed door. Tall. Dark-haired. Wraparound sunglasses. Her brain took quick inventory…and then her heart leaped like a startled cat and she opened her mouth to scream.

But the man was fast. He was on her, turning the locking bolt, one hand over her mouth before the scream erupted. He gripped her by the shoulder with his free hand, spun her around and hauled her back against him.

She could feel every hard inch of his leanly muscled body.

“Screaming isn’t going to help,” he said sharply.

A waste of time.

Falco could damned near feel the scream struggling to burst from her lips.

To say this wasn’t exactly the reception he’d expected was an understatement. He’d spoken with the director, Farinelli, on his cell from the plane. He’d told him when he’d be arriving, more or less, and the director had said that was fine, it gave him lots of time to brief the Bissette woman and that it would be best if he, Falco, met with her in private because she’d probably want his presence on the set kept quiet, so—

“Hey!”

She had kicked him. Useless, as kicks went, because she was kicking backward and wearing ugly rubber beach thongs, but it told him what he needed to know about whether or not she’d calmed down.

Okay. He’d try again.

“Ms. Bissette. I’m sorry if I startled you but—”

She grunted. Struggled. Her backside dug into his groin. It was a small, rounded backside and under different circumstances, he’d have enjoyed the feel of it—but not when the backside might as well have belonged to a wildcat.

“Dammit,” Falco said. He swung her toward him, one hand still clasping her shoulder, the other still clamped over her mouth. “Pay attention, okay? I. Am. Not. Going. To. Hurt. You.”

Mistake.

She slugged him. Two quick blows, one to the chest, one to the jaw. He was damned if he knew what to do with her now. He had only two hands and she was already keeping both of them occupied.

“Okay,” he said grimly. “You want to play rough? That’s fine.”

He shoved her, hard. She stumbled back against the door and he went with her, pinned her there with his body. Her hands were trapped against his chest; her legs blocked by his. She was tall but he was a lot taller; her head was tilted back so that she was staring up at him with eyes even more tawny than they’d seemed in the defaced magazine ad.

Eyes filled with terror. And with what he’d seen in the candid photo that had brought him out here.

Defiance.

Okay. Instead of saying to hell with this and walking out the door, he’d try and get through to her one last time.

“Ms. Bissette. My name is Falco Orsini.”

Nothing. Still the hot blend of fear and defiance shining in those eyes.

“I’m here to help you.”

Fear, defiance and now disbelief.

“Trust me, lady. This isn’t my idea of a good time, either. I’m here as a favor. And if you don’t calm down and talk to me, I’m gonna walk straight out that door and leave you to handle this thing on your own.”

She blinked and he saw confusion sweep across her face. Yeah, but she couldn’t be any more confused than he was, unless—unless—

Oh, hell.

“Didn’t Farinelli tell you I was coming?”

Another blink. A delicate vertical furrow appeared between her dark eyebrows.

“He said he would. He said you’d want to keep this private and that I should wait for you here, in your trailer.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

It sounded more like “wmf” because his hand was over her lips but there was no mistaking her surprise. Everything was starting to come together. She, a woman who’d been sent a picture defaced by a madman, walks into her trailer and finds a stranger waiting for her…

Merda! That fool, Antonio Farinelli, had never told her he was coming.

“Okay,” Falco said, “here’s the deal. Somebody sent you a picture.” She began to struggle again. He shook his head. “Just listen. You got a picture. A bad one. Your boss wanted to call the cops. You refused. Am I right?”

He could see he was. So far, so good.

“So your boss contacted someone I—someone I know, and that someone contacted me. I agreed to talk to you, check things out, see if there were a way to deal with this so it all goes away quietly. No muss, no fuss. Yes?”

She exhaled sharply. He felt the warmth of her breath flow over his hand, just as he could feel a fraction of the tension ease from her body. Her eyes were still locked to his, bright and distrustful, but now, at least, curious.

“My name,” Falco said, “is Falco Orsini. I, ah, I sometimes do what you might call security consulting. That’s why I’m here. I know about the picture, I know that you’re worried about it, I know you don’t want the authorities involved. I’m here to discuss the situation and offer some advice. That’s the only reason I’m here—and the only reason I scared you is because your boss was too stupid to tell you about me.” He tried for what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “I’m going to take my hand off your mouth. And maybe we can have that talk. Does that work for you?”

She blinked. Nodded. Now she was wary—but she was ready to listen.

He took his hand from her mouth.

She didn’t scream.

Instead, the tip of her tongue came out and slid lightly over her bottom lip. Falco watched its progress. His gaze fell lower, to the rise of her breasts in the vee of her bulky terrycloth robe. He knew what she had under it; he’d watched the scene Farinelli had been filming at a safe distance before he’d slipped into the trailer. What she had on was a slip. Plain. Unadorned. Not like what she’d worn in that ad.

This slip was plain. Sexless.

Not that she was.

She was gorgeous. That hair. Those eyes. That mouth. Still, even with theatrical makeup on, there was another quality to her that he had not seen in the ad. A kind of innocence.

Which was, of course, ridiculous.

She was an actress. She played to the camera. To men. She could be whatever a particular part called for. Maybe she’d decided this part called for wide-eyed and innocent. Not that he gave a damn. He was only interested in her problem, and every problem had a solution.

“Antonio shouldn’t have hired you,” she said.

“He didn’t.”

“But you said—”

“I’m doing someone a favor.”

“Whatever you’re doing, I don’t want you here.”

Her voice was husky. Shaken.

“Listen,” Falco said, “if you want to sit down—”

“I can handle this myself.”

“The hell you can,” he said bluntly.

Her chin rose. “You don’t know what I can and can’t do.”

“I saw that picture. You can’t handle that. No woman can. And there’ll be more.”

Her gaze sharpened. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her answer, her body language, gave her away. Falco took off his sunglasses.

“There’s been more already,” he said grimly. “Hasn’t there?”

“No,” she said, but far too quickly.

She turned her head away; he reached out, cupped her chin, gave her no choice but to meet his eyes.

“What was it? Another picture? A letter? A phone call?”

No answer, which was answer enough. Her mouth trembled; Falco fought back the illogical desire to take her in his arms and comfort her. It was an uncharacteristic reaction for him in this kind of situation and he didn’t like it.

“Have you ever seen a cat play with a mouse?” he said. “He’ll keep things going until he tires of the game.”

Elle shuddered. “You mean, until he does the things he drew on the picture.”

“Yes,” he said bluntly.

She nodded. And said, in a low voice, “And you think you can stop him?”

Falco’s lips curved in what nobody would ever call a smile. “I know I can.”

She stared up at him. “You can keep him from—from doing anything to me?”

“Yes.”

“A man of few words,” she said, with a little laugh. “How can you be so sure?”

“It’s what I do. What I used to do,” he said evenly. “I can find him and keep him from hurting you.”

Elle stared at this stranger with eyes so dark they resembled obsidian. Why should she believe him? The answer was agonizingly simple.

Because, otherwise, she might not have a life.

Perhaps this man, this Falco Orsini, really could help her.

“If I agreed to let you get involved,” she said slowly, “you won’t—you won’t contact the police?”

“No.”

“Because, uh, because the publicity,” she said, scrambling for a reason he’d accept, “because the publicity—”

“I told you. I’ll handle this alone. No cops.”

“What would you do, if I hired you?”

“You can’t hire me. Remember what I said? I’m here as a favor. As for what I’ll do…Leave that to me.”

“The thing is…I wouldn’t want anyone to know I had a-a bodyguard. There’d be talk. And questions. And questions are the last thing I want.”

“I already figured that.”

“So, how would we do this, then? I mean, how could you watch over me, go after whoever this is, do whatever you need to do without people knowing?”

Falco had considered that dilemma during the six-hour flight from New York. There were lots of ways to move into someone’s life to provide protection and search out information without raising questions. The idea was to assume a role other people would accept. He could pass himself off as her driver. Her assistant. Her personal trainer.

Personal trainer was pretty much what he’d decided on. Hollywood was filled with actors and actresses who worked on their bodies 24/7. He was fit; he’d look the part. And it would give him access to her no matter where she went.

Okay. Personal trainer it would be…

“Mr. Orsini?”

“Falco,” he said, looking down into her eyes. He saw the rise and fall of her breasts, remembered the soft, lush feel of her against him, and he knew he wasn’t going to pretend to be her trainer after all.

“Simple,” he said calmly. “We’ll make people think I’m your lover.”

She stared at him. Then she gave a little laugh.

“That’s crazy,” she said. “No one will believe—”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice low and rough, “yeah, they will.

Falco reached out, gathered Elle in his arms and kissed her.

Chapter Three

THE FEEL of her mouth under his was incredible.

Warm. Silken. And soft. Wonderfully soft.

Not that he cared about that.

He was kissing her only to wipe that smug little smile from her face. To show her, in no uncertain terms, that they sure as hell could play the part of lovers, fool anybody who saw them.

Did she think she was the only one who could stick to a script?

Or did she think a bodyguard was too far out of her class to seem a convincing lover for a woman like her?

She was fighting him. Trying to twist free of his arms, to drag her lips from his. To hell with that. That who-do-you-think-you-are attitude of hers deserved a blunt response. She was wrong and he wasn’t going to let her go until she knew it.

“No,” she gasped against his mouth, but she might as well have saved her breath. Falco speared his fingers into her hair, tilted her face to his and kept on kissing her.

So what if she tasted of honey and cream? If she felt warm and soft against him? Those things were meaningless. This was about nothing else than teaching her that she couldn’t laugh at Falco Orsini and get away with it.

He nipped lightly at her bottom lip. Touched the tip of his tongue to the seam of her mouth. With heart-stopping suddenness, she stopped fighting, stopped struggling.

She leaned into him, sighed and parted her lips. His tongue plunged deep.

The taste of her made his mind blur.

And his body react.

In an instant, he came fully erect, not just aroused but hard as stone, so hard it was painful. Desire pulsed hot and urgent in his blood. He slid his hands to her shoulders, cupped them, lifted her to her toes, drew her so close he could feel the race of her heart against his.

This was what he had wanted since he’d seen her in that first, unaltered ad. The eyes and mouth that promised passion, the made-for-sex body—

The knife that pressed against his belly caught him fully unaware.

Falco went absolutely still.

Where she’d gotten the knife was irrelevant. The feel of it wasn’t. With instincts and sharp reflexes honed by his time in Special Forces, he locked one hand around her forearm and grabbed her wrist with the other, bending it back until the knife clattered to the floor. He kicked it into a corner, saw that it wasn’t a knife at all but the slim plastic handle of a hairbrush. Not that it mattered.

It was the intent that counted.

“Let go of me!”

Her hands clawed for his face. He grunted, shoved her back against the unyielding door, used his weight to keep her in place. The only way she could hurt him was if she managed to throw him off and that was about as likely as the trailer sprouting wings. He had at least seven inches in height on her and probably eighty, ninety pounds of muscle.

“Stop it,” he snarled.

That only made her fight harder. Falco tightened his grasp on her wrists, brought her hands to her sides and pinned them to the door.

“I said, stop it! You want me to hurt you, I will.”

She made a choked sound but it wasn’t of rage, it was of terror. Her face, bright with color a moment ago, blanched. Those enormous topaz eyes turned glassy.

He’d flown out here to protect this woman. Instead, he was scaring her half to death. Kissing her had been a straight and simple matter of ego and he wasn’t into BS like that. He was who he was; he didn’t need anybody’s applause to do whatever job he set out to do, certainly not a client’s. He’d let his pride, whatever you wanted to call it, get in the way.

And he didn’t like it, not one bit.

“Listen to me.”

She wouldn’t. She was lost in her own world, fearing the worst.

“Ms. Bissette,” he said sharply. “Elle. Pay attention. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Her eyes met his.

Hell. He’d seen a dog look at him like this once, years back when he was just a kid. He’d found the animal wandering an alley not far from the Orsini mansion in Greenwich Village. Its ribs had showed; there were marks he hadn’t wanted to identify on its back. Come on, boy, he’d said, holding out his hand, but the creature had looked at him through eyes that said it damned well knew his soft voice didn’t mean a thing.

He’d won the dog’s trust by squatting down, holding out his arms, showing his hands were empty. What was the human equivalent of that kind of message?

Falco cleared his throat.

“Okay. Here’s what happens next. I’ll let go of you and step back. You stay where you are. No hands, no fists, no weapons. And we’ll talk. That’s it. We’ll just talk.”

He gave it a couple of seconds. Then he did what he’d told her he’d do. Another couple of seconds went by. She didn’t move. Neither did he. That was some kind of success, wasn’t it? A little color had returned to her face. Another plus. Finally, she took a deep breath.

“I want you to leave.”

Her voice was low but steady. Her eyes had lost that terrified glitter. Good. Maybe now they really could talk.

“Look, Ms. Bissette—”

“I said—”

“I heard you. But we need to discuss this.”

“We have nothing to discuss.”

She was back. He could see it in the way she held herself, in the lift of her chin, the steadiness of her gaze.

“Actually, we do. I’m sorry if I frightened you but—”

“Frightened me?” Her eyes narrowed. “You disgusted me!”

“Excuse me?”

“Putting your hands on me. Your mouth on me.” Her chin went up another notch. “Men like you are…you’re despicable!”

Falco felt a muscle jump in his cheek. He’d been called similar names, a long time back, though they’d been names that were far more basic. It happened when you were a kid and your old man was Cesare Orsini.

He’d learned to respond to such remarks with his fists.

Not this time, obviously. This time, he flashed a cold smile.

“Trust me, Ms. Bissette. The feeling is mutual. I’m not into women who look into a camera as if they want to screw the guy behind it. I was simply making a point.”

“You made it. You’re contemptible.”

Falco gave an exaggerated sigh. “Disgusting, despicable, contemptible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve heard it all before.”

Elle Bissette folded her arms. “I’ll bet you have.”

“You said we couldn’t fool anybody if we pretended we were lovers. I figured I could save us ten minutes of talk by showing you that you were wrong.”

“Well, you didn’t. And I wasn’t. I’m an actress but playing at being your lover would take more talent that even I possess.”

Her insults almost made him laugh. From poor little victim to haughty aristocrat in the blink of an eye. Damned right, she was an actress.

But he was willing to bet that her terror a little while ago had not been an act.

“Look,” he said in as conciliatory a tone as he could manage, “why don’t we start over? We’ll go somewhere, have a cup of coffee, you’ll fill me in on why you need a bodyguard—”

“I do not need a bodyguard. Are you deaf? I want you out of here, right now.”

She pointed an elegant hand at the door and tossed her head. Her hair, a mane of jet black, flew around her face. He’d bet she’d practiced the gesture in front of a mirror until it looked just right.

“Get out or I’ll scream so loud it’ll bring half the world running.”

Enough, Falco thought grimly. He took a step forward and clasped her elbows.

“That’s fine,” he said coldly. “Go right ahead. Scream your head off.”

“You think I won’t? I will! And five minutes after that, you’ll be in jail.”

“You left out a step. The part where the cops show up.” He tightened his hold on her and hauled her to her toes, his head lowered so their faces were inches apart. “They’ll want to have a nice, long chat with you, baby. Are you up for that?”

She stared at him. The color drained from her face and she became still.

“What’s the matter, Ms. Bissette? Don’t you like that idea?” She didn’t answer and he flashed a smile as cold as a New York winter. “Maybe, if we’re really lucky, the paparazzi will come by along with the cops. Then you can talk to the whole world.”

Whatever fight was left in her was gone. She went limp under his hands, her head drooped forward and all at once he thought, to hell with this! He had not flown 3,000 miles to play games. She found him disgusting? Her prerogative. She had a reason to keep the cops away? Her prerogative again. She was not his problem, none of this was. How he’d let himself be drawn into the mess was beyond him but no way was he going to get drawn in any deeper.

The lady had said “no,” and “no” it was.

“Relax,” he said, his tone flat as he let go of her and stepped back. “You don’t need to scream to get rid of me. Just move away from the door and I’m out of here.”

She didn’t move. He rolled his eyes, shouldered past her and reached for the knob.

“Wait a minute.”

Falco looked over his shoulder. Elle Bissette swallowed; he saw the muscles move in her throat. Which color were here eyes? Amber or topaz? The thought was so completely inappropriate, it made him angry.

“What now?” he growled.

“Mr. Orsini.” She hesitated. “This is your—your line of work? You’re a bodyguard?”

He smiled thinly. “I am any number of things, Ms. Bissette, but it’s a little late to ask for my CV.”

“The thing is…I didn’t ask for a bodyguard.”

“Here’s a news flash, baby. I didn’t ask for the job.”

“But you said someone sent you.”

“I said someone I know told me you had a problem and asked me to check it out.” His mouth twisted. “And here I am.”

“Look, it’s not my fault you agreed to do a favor for a friend and—”

“He isn’t a friend and I don’t do favors for anybody.” Falco heaved out a breath. Why get into any of that? How he’d come to be here didn’t matter, especially since he was about to leave. “It’s a long story and it doesn’t change the facts. I came here because I was under the impression you needed help.” Another thin smile. “I was wrong.”

“You were wrong,” she said quickly. “You can see for yourself, I’m just fine.”

He thought of the terror that had shone in her eyes a little while ago. Well, maybe it was true. Maybe she was fine. Maybe all that fear had been strictly of him.

“Really, I’m fine. I’m just wondering why you…why someone would have thought otherwise.”

Falco dug his hands into the pockets of his flannel trousers. “You posed for a magazine ad,” he said. “A provocative one.”

Her chin rose again. He’d seen pro boxers with the same habit. It wasn’t a good one, not if you didn’t want to end up in trouble.

“It was a lingerie ad, Mr. Orsini, not an ad for—for Hershey’s chocolate.”

He grinned. “No argument there, Ms. Bissette.” His grin faded. “Fifty thousand lovesick idiots went out and bought their girlfriends whatever it is you were wearing in that ad, then wondered why it didn’t look on them the way it looked on you.”

She stiffened. He could almost see the gears working. She was trying to figure out if what he’d said was a compliment or an insult.

“For your information,” she said coldly, “statistics show that women are the target audience for lingerie ads.”

“Great. So fifty thousand broads went out and bought that outfit, put it on, looked in the mirror and wondered what the hell had gone wrong.”

For a fraction of a second, she looked as if she wanted to laugh. Then that chin rose again.

“Is there a point to this, Mr. Orsini?”

“Damned right. All those people looked at an ad and saw an ad.” His voice became chill. “One sicko saw something else and decided to—what’s today’s favorite psychobabble term? He decided to ‘share’ what he saw with you.”

A flush rose in her cheeks. “You’ve seen what that—that person sent me.”

Falco nodded. “Yes.”

He expected a rant. Indignation, that Farinelli had sent the thing to someone. Instead, she shuddered.

“It was—it was horrible,” she whispered.

A fraction of his anger dissipated. She looked tired and vulnerable; she was frightened even though she was determined to claim she wasn’t, but she wasn’t going to do anything to protect herself. It made no sense.

“It was worse than horrible.” He waited a beat. “Why won’t you go to the cops?”

“You said it yourself. It was just the work of some—some crazy.”

“Crazies can be dangerous,” Falco said. “He should be found.”

She stared at him, her eyes suddenly filled with that same despair he’d seen in the photo of her on the beach.

“That would mean publicity.”

“Publicity’s better than turning up dead.”

His blunt statement was deliberate. He’d hoped to shock her into telling him the real reason she didn’t want to go to the police—he’d have bet a thousand bucks there wasn’t an actor or actress on the planet who didn’t want publicity, good or bad—but he could see that wasn’t going to happen.

“It’s just a prank,” she said, very calmly. “Stuff like that happens. I mean, this is Hollywood.”

“Has he contacted you again?”

“You already asked me that. I told you, he hasn’t.”

She’d lied again. So what? So what if there was more to this than she was letting on? Fifteen minutes from now, he’d be on a plane heading back to New York.

“Just that one thing?” he heard himself ask. “Nothing else?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?” A smile as false as the one she wore in that lingerie ad curved her lips. “Look, I’m not worried. Really. There’s security on the set. I have an alarm system in my house.” Another smile. A toss of the head. Forget despair. What he saw in those topaz eyes now was dismissal. “At any rate, thank you for coming to see me.”

Falco shrugged. “No problem.”

She held out her hand. It was a queen’s gesture. She was discharging him, her subject.

Something flickered inside him.

Had that softening of her mouth under his, that barely perceptible sigh, really all been an act? Had she been diverting him so he wouldn’t expect that phony knife at his belly? Or had it been real? That sudden, sexy little sound she’d made. The way she’d parted her lips beneath his.

One step forward. One tug on those slender fingers extended toward him. Then she’d be in his arms, her breasts soft against his hard chest, her thighs against his, her lips his for the taking. And he would take them, he’d kiss her again and again, taking each kiss deeper than the last until she moaned and rose to him, whispered her need and her hunger against his mouth…

Dammit, was he insane?

She didn’t go for men like him. Hey, that was fine. He didn’t go for women like her. And he sure as hell wasn’t turned on by women who flaunted their sexuality, who all but invited a faceless sea of men to get off on thinking what it would be like to take her to bed.

Falco ignored her outstretched hand.

“Goodbye, Ms. Bissette,” he said, and he opened the door of the trailer and stepped briskly into the heat of the desert.

The afternoon’s shoot began badly and went downhill from there.

It made the morning’s attempts look good.

Everybody was unhappy.

The heat was awful; they’d been breaking early because of it but Farinelli announced that they were going to get this scene filmed or, per Dio, nobody was leaving!

Elle just could not get the scene right. Not her fault, she kept telling herself. The encounter with Falco Orsini had shaken her. She’d done her best to be polite to him at the end but it hadn’t been easy. Finding him in her trailer, a stranger so tall, so powerful that he’d seemed to fill the space…

And the way he’d kissed her, as if he could make her want to kiss him back.

Some women might; even she knew that. Not her, though. She hated the whole sex thing. It was like a bad joke, a woman hired for her sex appeal in an ad, but it wasn’t a joke, it was the terrible truth. A man’s wet mouth, his rough hands…

Falco Orsini’s mouth had not been wet. It had been warm and hard and possessive but not wet. And his hands…hard, yes. Strong. But he hadn’t touched her roughly…

Elle gave herself a mental shake.

So what? The point was, he’d had no right to kiss her even though he’d done it in response to her telling him she and he could never pretend they were lovers. Besides, it didn’t matter. He would not be her bodyguard. Nobody would. Nobody would poke and pry and ask questions she had no intention of answering…

“…listening to me, Elle?”

She blinked. Antonio was standing close to her while everyone waited. “This is a love scene. A very important one. You must convey passion. Desire. Hunger. And you must do it with your eyes, your hands, your face. There is no kissing in this scene, sì? There is only teasing. Of your character, of Chad’s character, of the audience.” He took her arm, looked up at her, his expression determined. “You can do this. Relax. Forget the cameras, the crew. Forget everything but whatever brought that look to your face in the advertisement you did for Bon Soir.”

Elle almost laughed. She’d had small movie roles before but that ad had gotten her this big part. What if people knew that “that look” had been the lucky result of an unlucky sinus infection? A heady combination of aspirin, decongestant and nasal-and-throat spray had miraculously translated to glittering eyes, slumberous lids and parted lips.

Better not to mention that, of course.

“One last try,” Farinelli said softly. “I want you to imagine yourself in the arms of a man whose passion overcomes your most basic inhibitions, a man who stirs you as no other ever could. Imagine a flesh-and-blood lover, bella, one you have known and never forgotten. Put Chad out of your mind.”

Chad rolled his eyes. “Damn, Antonio. You really know how to hurt a guy.”

The joke was deliberate. A tension reliever, and it worked. Everybody laughed. Elle managed a smile. Farinelli patted her hand, stepped away, then raised his hand like the Pope about to give a benediction.

“And, action!”

Elle lay back in her co-star’s arms. Her heart was racing with nerves. What had she been thinking, letting her agent convince her to take this part? What Antonio wanted of her was impossible. She couldn’t do it, couldn’t look into a man’s eyes and want him not even when it was make-believe.

Having a man’s hands on her. His wet mouth on her mouth. God, oh, God…

“Look at me,” Chad’s character said. It was a line of dialogue he’d repeated endless times today. Elle looked up, just as she had done endless times today…

And saw not his movie-star handsome face, but the beautiful, proud, masculine face of Falco Orsini.

Obsidian eyes. Thin, aristocratic nose. Chiseled jaw and a hard, firm mouth—a mouth that she could still remember for its warmth, its hunger, its possessiveness.

An ache swept through her body, heat burned from her breasts to low in her belly…

“And, cut!”

Elle blinked. She stared at the man looking down at her. Chad, her co-star, who flashed a toothy grin.

“Elle, mia bella!” Antonio Farinelli hurried toward her. She heard a smattering of applause, a couple of whistles as he held out his hands and helped her to her feet. “Brava, Elle. That was perfetto!” He brought his fingers to his lips and kissed them. “The screen will sizzle!”

Chad rose beside her and winked. “I don’t know who you were thinkin’ about, honey, but he is sure one lucky guy.”

A quarter of a mile away, half-concealed by a Joshua tree, Falco Orsini slammed a pair of high-powered binoculars into a leather case and tossed it into the front seat of his rented SUV.

What a hell of a performance! Elle Bissette and a cameraman. Elle Bissette and an actor. And when this movie hit the theaters, Elle Bissette and a couple of million faceless men.

She was hot for every guy in the world.

Except him.

No that he gave a damn.

What got to him was that he’d flown 3,000 miles and she’d sent him packing. Her choice, but he couldn’t stop thinking about that look in her eyes in the beach photo and again in the trailer, a look that spelled FEAR in capital letters.

Something was happening and no way was he leaving until he knew what it was. Falco got into the SUV and settled in to wait.

Chapter Four

AN HOUR passed before he saw her. She was heading for the cars parked near the set. He’d figured her for something bright and expensive. He was right about the bright part, but expensive? He smiled. The lady drove a red Beetle.

He’d been wrong about her destination, too. He’d figured her for a rented house in Palm Springs or maybe a glitzy hotel but she headed northwest. To L.A.? It was a fairly long drive but this was Friday. She was probably heading home for the weekend.

Following her wasn’t a problem. There was plenty of traffic, plus she turned out to be a conservative driver, staying in the right-hand lane and doing a steady 65 miles per hour.

He settled in a few of cars behind her.

After a while, her right turn signal light blinked on. She took an exit ramp that led to the kind of interchange he was pretty sure existed only in California, a swirl of interlocking roads that looked as if somebody had dumped a pot of pasta and called the resultant mess a highway system.

Freeway. That was what they called them here. He remembered that when the Bissette woman took a freeway headed north.

Still no problem but where was she going?

Another thirty minutes went by before her turn signal came on again. This time, the exit led into a town so small he’d have missed it had he blinked. Following her wasn’t so simple now, especially after she hung a couple of lefts and ended up on a two-lane country blacktop.

Traffic was sparse. A couple of cars, a truck carrying a load of vegetables, that was about all.

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