Roark froze, looking down at her, shock rippling over his handsome face. “How is it possible you’re a virgin?”

Lia was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Every man desired her. She’d been married for ten years. How could she be a virgin?

But there was no mistaking the physical signs. Lia was innocent. Or at least she had been.

Until Roark had possessed her.

A surge went through his blood. As he looked at her, lying on the fallen rose petals, he felt a strange breathless rush. The intensity of the feeling reminded him of skydiving. The adrenaline that ripped through him was the same now.

Lia was dangerous.

More dangerous than he’d ever realized.

But, dangerous or not, he could not let her go….

Jennie Lucas grew up dreaming about faraway lands. At fifteen, hungry for experience beyond the borders of her small Idaho city, she went to a Connecticut boarding school on scholarship. She took her first solo trip to Europe at sixteen, then put off college and travelled around the US, supporting herself with jobs as diverse as gas station cashier and newspaper advertising assistant.

At twenty-two she met the man who would be her husband. After their marriage, she graduated from Kent State with a degree in English. Seven years after she started writing, she got the magical call from London that turned her into a published author.

Since then life has been hectic, with a new writing career and a sexy husband and two babies under two, but she’s having a wonderful (albeit sleepless) time. She loves immersing herself in dramatic, glamorous, passionate stories. Maybe she can’t physically travel to Morocco or Spain right now, but for a few hours a day, while her children are sleeping, she can be there in her books.

Jennie loves to hear from her readers. You can visit her website at www.jennielucas.com, or drop her a note at jennie@jennielucas.com

THE INNOCENT’S
DARK SEDUCTION

BY

JENNIE LUCAS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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THE INNOCENT’S DARK SEDUCTION

To the Watermill girls—

Rachael, Carol, Becks, Susan, Francesca,

Rachel, Kerstin, and most of all Sharon Kendrick—

in memory of that fabulous week we hatched story

plots, drank wine and ate chocolate during the

creative writing workshop in Posara, Italy.

You guys rock.

CHAPTER ONE

SPARKLING white lights twinkled beneath the soaring, frescoed ceilings of the grand ballroom of the Cavanaugh Hotel. All the glitterati of New York were sipping champagne, gorgeous in tuxedos and elaborate gowns for the Black and White Ball, hosted by the illustrious—and mysterious—Countess Lia Villani.

“This isn’t going to be as easy as you think,” Roark’s old friend whispered as they moved through the crowd. “You don’t know what she’s like. She’s beautiful. Willful.”

“Beautiful or willful, she’s just a woman,” Roark Navarre replied, raking back his black hair with a jet-lagged yawn. “She’ll give me what I want.”

Casually Roark straightened the platinum cuff links of his tuxedo as he looked around the packed ballroom. His own grandfather had once tried to force him to live in this wealthy, stuffy, gold-plated cage. He still couldn’t believe he was back in the city. Roark had spent the past fifteen years building massive land projects overseas, most recently in Asia, and he’d never thought he would come back.

But this was the largest piece of land in Manhattan to come on the market in a generation. The five skyscrapers Roark planned to build would be his legacy.

So he’d been furious when he heard Count Villani had beaten him to it. Fortunate for Roark the canny Italian aristocrat had died two weeks ago. He allowed himself a grim smile. It was lucky indeed that Roark was now dealing with the count’s young widow instead. Though she still seemed determined to follow her husband’s last wishes and spend most of his enormous fortune to create a public park in New York, the young gold digger would soon change her mind.

She would succumb to Roark’s desires. Just like every woman.

“She’s probably not even here,” Nathan tried again. “Since the count died…”

“Of course she’s here,” Roark said. “She wouldn’t miss her own charity ball.”

But hearing the awed whispers of the countess’s name around them, Roark wondered for the first time if she might be some small challenge. If he might actually have to make an effort to get her to accede to his demands.

An intriguing thought.

“There are rumors,” Nathan whispered as he followed Roark through the crowds, “that the old count died in her bed of too much pleasure. His heart couldn’t take it.”

Roark gave a derisive laugh. “Pleasure has nothing to do with it. The man was sick for months. My heart will be fine. Believe me.”

“You haven’t met her. You don’t know. Christ.” Nathan Carter wiped his forehead. His old friend from Alaska was vice president in charge of Navarre Ltd.’ s North American holdings. He was normally cool and confident. It shocked Roark to see him look so nervous now. “She’s hosting this benefit to raise money for the park. Why do you think she’ll sell the land to you?”

“Because I know her type,” Roark ground out. “She sold her body to marry the count, didn’t she? He might have wanted to leave the world with one magnificent charitable act to make up for years of ruthless business deals, but now he’s dead she’ll want to cash in. She might appear like some kind of do-gooder, but I know a gold digger when I see…”

His voice trailed off as he focused on a woman entering the ballroom. He sucked in his breath as he watched her descend the sweeping stairs.

Lustrous black hair curled over pale, bare shoulders. Her eyes were hazel green, the color of a shaded forest, fringed with black lashes. She wore a white gown that displayed the hourglass shape of her curvaceous body to perfection, sleeveless and tight over her breasts, the skirts widening out into a mermaid shape below her knees. She had the face of an angel, but with a bite: blood-red lips stood out starkly, rich and full and delectable, luring a man’s kiss.

Strangely shaken, Roark breathed, “Who is that?”

Nathan glanced behind him and gave a sardonic smile. “That, my friend, is the merry widow.”

“The widow…” Roark looked back at her. The woman was the most beautiful he’d ever seen. Curvy, saintly, wicked. She was a cross between Rita Hayworth and Angelina Jolie. For the first time in Roark’s life, he fully understood the ramifications of the word bombshell.

Maybe there was something to the rumors that the old count died in her bed of too much pleasure.

Roark stared at her, stunned. He’d had many women in his life. He’d seduced them easily across every continent. But at this moment it was as if he’d never seen a woman before.

Woman?

He swallowed. Countess Lia Villani was a goddess.

It had been too long since he’d felt like this. Too long since he’d been so intrigued—or aroused. He’d crashed the countess’s party to convince her to sell him the land. The sudden thought came to him: if she was receptive to his proposal to sell him the land for a huge amount of money, perhaps she would be equally receptive to the suggestion that she share his bed to seal the bargain?

But he wasn’t the only man who wanted her. Not by a long shot.

Roark watched as a white-haired man in a sleek tuxedo hurried up the sweeping steps to her side. Others, not quite so bold, stood watching her from a distance. Already the wolves were circling.

And it wasn’t just her beauty that drew every eye in the room, the longing, wistful gazes of every man, the envy of every woman’s annoyed glare. She had power in the dignity of her bearing, in the cool glance she gave her new suitor. In the teeth she flashed in a smile that didn’t meet her eyes.

Wolves circling?

She was a she-wolf herself. This countess wasn’t some weak simpering virgin or clinging, cloying debutante. She was powerful. She wielded her beauty and will like a force of nature.

And Roark suddenly wanted her with an intensity that shocked him.

With one glance the woman set fire to his blood. As she moved down the stairs, her curvaceous body swaying with each step, he could already imagine her arching naked in his bed. Gasping out his name with those pouty red lips as he plundered her full breasts and made her tremble and writhe beneath his touch.

This woman that every other man wanted, Roark would take.

Along with the property, of course.

“I am so sorry for your loss, Countess,” Andrew Oppenheimer said earnestly, bending over to kiss her hand.

“Thank you.” Numbly, Countess Lia Villani stared down at the older man. She wished herself back at Villa Villani, mourning quietly in her husband’s overgrown rose garden, enshrouded by medieval stone walls. But she’d no choice but to attend the benefit she and Giovanni had spent the past six months planning. He would have wanted her to be here. The park would be his legacy, as well as her family’s. It would be twenty-six acres of trees and grass and playgrounds, in eternal remembrance of the people she’d loved.

They were all dead now. First her father, then her sister, then her mother. Now her husband. And in spite of the warm summer night outside, Lia’s heart felt as cold and unbeating as if she’d been lowered into the frozen ground with her family long ago.

“We’ll find some way to cheer you up, I hope.” Andrew stood back from her, still holding her hand gently.

Lia forced herself to form her mouth in the semblance of a smile. She knew he was just trying to be kind. He was one of the park trust’s biggest donors. The day after Giovanni had died, he’d written her a check for fifty thousand dollars.

Strange how, in the past two weeks, so many men had suddenly decided to write large checks for the benefit of the park.

Andrew held on to her hand, not allowing her to easily pull away. “Allow me to get you some champagne.”

“Thank you, but no.” She looked away. “I appreciate your kindness, but I really must greet my other guests.”

The ballroom was packed with people; everyone had come. Lia could hardly believe that the Olivia Hawthorne Park in the Far West Side was going to become a reality. The twenty-six acres of railyards and broken-down warehouses would be transformed into a place of beauty, right across the street from where her sister had died. In the future, other kids staying at St. Ann’s Hospital would look out their windows and see a playground and acres of green grass. They’d hear the wind through the trees and the laughter of playing children. They’d feel hope.

What was Lia’s own grief and pain compared to that?

She pulled her hand out of his clasp. “I must go.”

“Won’t you allow me to escort you?” he asked.

“No, I really—”

“Let me stay by your side tonight, Countess. Let me support you in your grief. I know it must be hard on you to be here. Do me the honor of allowing me to escort you, and I will double my donation to the park. Triple it—”

“She said no,” a man’s deep voice said. “She doesn’t want you.”

Lia looked up with an intake of breath. A tall, broad-shouldered man stood at the base of the stairs. He had dark hair, tanned skin and a hard, muscular shape beneath his perfectly cut tuxedo. And even as he spoke to Andrew, he looked only at her.

He had a gleam in his dark, expressive eyes that made her feel strangely hot all over.

Warmth. Something she hadn’t felt in weeks, in spite of the June weather.

And this was different. No man’s gaze had ever burned her like this.

“Do I know you?” she whispered.

He gave her a lazy, smug smile. “Not yet.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Andrew interrupted coldly, “but the countess is with me—”

“Could you go and get me some champagne, please, Andrew?” she said, turning to him with a bright smile. “Would you mind?”

“No, of course I’d be delighted, Countess.” He gave the stranger a dark look. “But what about him?”

“Please, Andrew.” She placed her hand on his slender wrist. “I’m very thirsty.”

“Of course,” Andrew said with dignity, and went down the stairs toward the waiters carrying flutes of champagne.

With a deep breath, Lia clenched her hands into fists and turned back to the intruder.

“You have exactly one minute to talk before I call security,” she said, walking down the stairs toward him, facing him head-on. “I know the guest list. And I don’t know you.”

But when she stood next to him on the marble floor, she realized how powerfully built the dark stranger truly was. At five-seven, she was hardly petite, but he had at least seven inches and seventy pounds over her.

And even more powerful than his body was the way the man looked at her. His gaze never moved from hers. She found herself unable to look away from the intensity of his dark eyes.

“It’s true you don’t know me. Yet.” He moved closer, looking down at her with an arrogant masculine smile. “But I’ve come to give you what you desire.”

“Oh?” Struggling to control the force of heat spreading through her body, Lia raised her chin. “And just what do you think I desire?”

“Money, Countess.”

“I have money.”

“You’re spending most of your dead husband’s fortune on this foolish charitable endeavor.” He gave her a sardonic smile. “A shame to waste money after you worked so hard to get your hands on it.”

He was insulting her at her own party! Calling her a gold digger! And the fact that it was partially true…

She fought back tears at the slight to Giovanni’s memory then looked at the stranger with every ounce of haughtiness she possessed. “You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

“Soon I’ll know everything.” Reaching forward, he gently ran a finger along the edge of her jawline and whispered, “Soon I’ll have you in my bed.”

Men had said such ridiculous things to her before, but this time she couldn’t scorn the arrogance of his words. Not when the brief touch of his fingertip against her skin caused a riot of sensation to sear her whole body.

“I’m not for sale,” she whispered.

He lifted her chin. “You’ll be mine, Countess. You’ll want me, as I want you.”

She’d heard about sexual attraction, but thought she’d lost her chance to experience it. Thought herself too cold, too grief stricken, too…numb.

Feeling his hand on her was like a burst of hot sunlight, causing warmth and light to sparkle prisms of diamonds across her frozen body. Warmth unfurled in her. Melted her.

Against her will, she moved closer.

“Want you? That’s ridiculous,” she said hoarsely, her heart pounding. “I don’t even know you.”

“You will.”

He took her hand in his own, and she felt the strange warmth racing up her fingertips and her arm. To her breasts and the core of her body.

She’d been so cold for so long. Outside, the streets of New York were sweltering in the first real heat wave of the summer. Back at her adopted home in Tuscany, the high mountains were warm and lush and green. But for Lia time had stopped in January, when she’d first learned of Giovanni’s illness. Since then, in her heart, the ice and snow had only risen higher and higher, burying her in its cold waves.

Now she felt the dark stranger’s heat almost painfully. Desire struck her with the sharpness of its heat, and blood rushed through her with a sudden burning intensity and throbbing pain, as frozen limbs came back to life.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

He pulled her slowly into his arms and looked down at her, his face inches from her own.

“I’m the man who’s taking you home with me tonight.”

CHAPTER TWO

HAVING his larger hand wrapped around her own caused a seismic boom to spread shock waves through Lia’s body. As he pulled her into his arms, she felt his hands touch her back above her gown. Felt the brush of his sleek tuxedo against her bare skin, felt the hardness of his body against her own.

Her breath suddenly came in short, quick little gasps. She looked up at him, bewildered by her overwhelming sensation and need. Her lips parted, and…and…

And she wanted to go with him. Anywhere.

“Here’s your champagne, Countess.” Andrew’s sudden return broke the spell. Scowling at the dark stranger, he barged between them and gently placed a Baccarat flute into her hand.

Across the room Lia suddenly saw the other board members of the park trust trying to get her attention. Saw discreet little waves, donors heading her way. Realized that three hundred people were watching her, waiting to talk to her.

She could hardly believe she’d actually considered running off with a stranger to heaven knows where, and doing heaven knows what.

Clearly grief had taken a toll on her sanity!

“Excuse me.” She pulled away from the stranger, desperate to escape the intoxicating force of him. She raised her chin. “I must greet my guests. My invited guests,” she added pointedly.

“Don’t worry.” The sardonic heat in the man’s dark eyes caused a flush to spread down her body. “I’m here as the guest of someone you did invite.”

Meaning he was here with another woman? At the same moment he’d very nearly convinced Lia to leave with him? She tightened her hands into fists. “Your date won’t be pleased to see you here with me.”

He gave her a lazy, predatory smile. “I’m not here with a date. And I’ll be leaving with you.”

“You’re wrong about that,” she flashed defiantly.

“Countess?” Andrew Oppenheimer’s lip curled into a snarl as he glared at the other man. “May I escort you away from this…person?”

“Thank you.” Putting her hand on Andrew’s arm, Lia allowed him to steer her toward the many well-heeled, elegantly dressed socialites and stockbrokers.

But as Lia sipped Dom Perignon and pretended to smile and enjoy their chatter—recognizing every park trust donor, knowing every person, their income and their place in society—she couldn’t block out her awareness of the dark stranger. No matter where he was in the enormous hotel ballroom, she always felt his presence. Without looking around, she felt his gaze on her and knew exactly where he was.

Filled with a strange, humming tension, she felt her reason start to melt like an icicle dripping water in the sun.

She’d always heard that desire could be bewildering and destructive. That passion could destroy a woman’s sanity and cause her to make ridiculous choices that made no sense. But she’d never understood it.

Until now.

Her marriage had been one of friendship, not passion. At eighteen, she’d married a family friend she respected, a man who’d been kind to her. She’d never once been tempted to betray him with another.

At twenty-eight, Lia was still a virgin. And at this point in her life, she’d assumed she would stay a virgin till she died.

In some ways, it had been a blessing not to feel anything. After losing everyone she’d ever cared about, all she’d wanted was to remain numb for the rest of her life.

But now…

She felt the tall, dark stranger every instant. As she made her opening speech on the dais, thanking her donors and guests with a champagne toast while tuxedoed men hovered around her like sharks, all she could feel was the stranger’s hot glance throbbing through her veins.

Making her feel alive against her will.

He was handsome, but not with the dignified elegance that Andrew and the other New York blue bloods had. He didn’t have the milk-fed look of someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth. No.

In his midthirties, muscular and rough, he had the look of a hardened warrior. Ruthless, even cruel.

A shiver went through her. A liquid yearning in her veins that she fought with all her might, telling herself it was the result of exhaustion. Illusion. The trick of too much champagne, too many tears and not enough sleep.

But when the guests all sat down to their assigned seats for dinner, she looked again, and realized the stranger had disappeared. All the intense emotion that had been singing through her veins like crescendoing music abruptly ended.

She told herself that she was glad. He’d made her feel strange and uneven and half-drunk.

But where was he?

Why had he gone?

Dinner ended, and a new dread distracted her. The emcee, a prominent local land developer, went to the dais with his gavel.

“Now, the fun part of the night,” he said with a grin. “The auction you’ve all been waiting for. The first item up for bid…”

He started the fund-raiser with a 1960s crocodile Hermès bag that had once been owned by Princess Grace herself. Lia listened to society mavens placing enthusiastic bids around her. The increasingly astronomical bids should have delighted Lia. Every penny donated tonight would go to the park trust, for playground equipment and landscaping costs.

But as she heard the items get auctioned off one by one, she felt only a trickle of building fear.

“It’s a perfect idea,” Giovanni had said with a weak laugh when the party planner had first suggested it. Even from his sickbed, he’d placed his trembling hand over Lia’s. “No one will be able to resist you, my dear. You must do it.”

And even though Lia had hated the idea, she’d eventually agreed. Because Giovanni had asked her.

She’d never thought his illness would take a sudden turn for the worse. She hadn’t expected that she would be here to face this all alone.

One by one the auction items sold. The dress-circle box at the Vienna Opera Ball. The month-long stay at a Hamptons beach estate. The vintage 1966 Shelby Cobra 427 in pristine condition.

And every punch of the gavel caused the tension to heighten inside her. Getting closer and closer to the final item for sale…

After the twenty-carat Cartier diamond earrings were sold for $90,000, Lia heard the crack of the gavel. It was like the final blow of a guillotine.

“Now,” the emcee said gleefully, “we come to our last item up for bid. A very special item indeed.”

A spotlight fell on Lia where she stood alone on the marble ballroom floor. A titter rose from the guests, who’d all heard whispers of this open secret. She felt the eager eyes of the men, the envious glares of the women. And she longed more than anything to be back in her cloistered Italian rose garden, far from all this.

Oh, Giovanni, she thought. What have you left me to?

“One man will win the opening dance tonight with our own charming hostess, Countess Villani. The bidding starts at $10,000—”

He’d barely gotten the words out before men started shouting out their bids.

“Ten thousand,” Andrew began.

“I’ll pay twenty,” a pompous old man thundered.

“Twenty-five,” cried a teenage boy, barely out of boarding school.

“Forty thousand dollars for a dance with the countess!” shouted a fortysomething Wall Street tycoon.

The bidding continued upward in slow increments, and Lia felt her cheeks burn and burn. But the more humiliated she felt, the straighter she stood. This was to earn money for her sister’s park, the only thing she had left in her life that she believed in, and, damn it, she would smile big and dance with the highest bidder, no matter who the man was. She would laugh at his jokes and be charming even if it killed her—

“A million dollars,” a deep voice cut in.

A shocked hush fell over the crowd.

Lia turned with a gasp. The dark stranger!

His eyes burned her.

No, she thought desperately. She’d just barely recovered from being in his arms. She couldn’t be close to him like that again, not when touching him burned through her, body and soul!

The emcee squinted to see who’d made such an outlandish bid. When he saw the man, he gulped. “Okay! That’s the bid to beat! A million dollars! A million, going once…”

Lia cast around a wide, desperate glance at all the men who’d so eagerly been fighting over her the moment before. Wouldn’t any of them meet the offer?

But the men looked crestfallen. Andrew Oppenheimer just clenched his jaw, looking coldly furious. But the last bid before the stranger’s had been a hundred thousand dollars. A hundred thousand to a million was too big a leap, even for the multimillionaires around her.

“A million going twice…”

She gave a pleading smile at the very richest—and very oldest—men. But they glumly shook their heads. Either the price was too high, or…was it possible they were afraid of challenging the stranger?

Who was this man? She’d never seen him before tonight. How was it possible that a man this wealthy could crash her party in New York, and she’d have no idea who he was?

“Sold! The first dance with the countess, for a million dollars. Sir, you may collect your prize.”

The dark eyes of the stranger held her own as he crossed the ballroom. The other men who’d bid for Lia fell silent, fell back, as he passed. Far taller and more broad-shouldered than the others, he wore his dark power like a shadow against his body.

But Lia wouldn’t allow any man to bully her. Whatever she felt on the inside, she wouldn’t show her weakness. He obviously thought she was a gold digger. He thought he could buy her.

You’ll be mine, Countess. You’ll want me as I want you.

She would soon disabuse him of that notion. She lifted her chin as he approached.

“Do not think that you own me,” she said scornfully. “You’ve bought a three-minute dance, nothing more—”

For answer, he swept her up in his strong arms. The force of his touch was so intense and troubling that her sentence ended in a gasp. He looked down at her as he led her onto the dance floor.

“I have you now.” His sensual mouth curved into a smile. “This is just the start.”

CHAPTER THREE

THE orchestra started playing, and a singer in a black sequined dress started singing the classic song of romantic yearning, “At Last.”

Listening to the passionate lyrics of love long awaited and finally found, Lia’s heart hurt in her chest. The handsome stranger spun her out on the dance floor, causing her white mermaid skirt to flare out as she moved. The sensation of his fingers intertwined with her own held her more firmly than chains on her wrists. The electricity of his touch was a hot current that she couldn’t escape, even if she’d wanted to.

He pulled her closer against his body. She felt his muscles move beneath his crisp, elegant tuxedo as his body swayed against hers, leading her in the rhythm. She lost all sense of time amidst the sensuality of his body against hers. He smoothly controlled her movements, and his mastery over her caused a tension of longing to build inside her.

Raising one hand to gently move her dark hair off her shoulders, he leaned down to speak in her ear. She felt the whisper of his breath against her neck, causing prickles to spread up and down her body. The flicker of his lips, the tease of his tongue against her sensitive earlobe, ricocheted down her nerve endings.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Countess.”

She exhaled only when he moved back from her.

“Thank you,” she managed. She raised her chin, desperately trying to hide the feelings he was creating in her. “And thank you for your million-dollar donation to the park. Children all over the city will be—”

“I don’t give a damn about them,” he said, cutting her off. His dark eyes sizzled through hers. “I did it for you.”

“For me?” she whispered, feeling her whole body go off-kilter again, growing dizzy as he moved her across the dance floor.

“A million dollars is nothing.” He gave a sudden searching look. “I would pay far more than that to get what I want.”

“And what do you want?”

“Right now?” He pulled her close, holding her hand entwined with his larger one against his chest. “You, Lia.”

Lia.

No man had called her by her first name like that. Acquaintances called her Countess. Giovanni had called her by her full name, Amelia.

Hearing her dance partner’s lips caress her name as his hands caressed her body caused a shiver to scatter her soul.

But the heat in his dark eyes was steady. Controlled. As if the overwhelming desire that was ripping her self-control to shreds was nothing more than of passing interest to him. A momentary pleasure in his life that was full of pleasures—like a single sip of champagne, hardly to be noticed in the endless crystal flutes.

But it was new to Lia. It made her knees weak. Made her dizzy, filling her with longing and fear.

He held her tightly, swaying in time to the scorching passion of the song. Lia was dimly aware of all New York society watching them. She could feel the stares, hear the first whispers at the impropriety of this dance. Holding her as he was, without even a sliver of space between them, he held her like a lover.

As if no one in the world mattered to him but her.

She knew she should push him away. She was, after all, a new widow. Allowing him to hold her like this not only disgraced Giovanni’s memory, it caused injury to her reputation. And yet his powerful control over her senses caused her body to betray her mind’s commands.

She tried to put some distance between them.

She could not.

She didn’t even know this man, but something about the way he held her made Lia feel she’d been waiting for this moment all her life.

He spoke in a low voice for her ears only. “I knew it from the moment I saw you.”

“What?” she whispered.

“What it would feel like to touch you.”

She trembled. Did he know what he made her feel? Did he have any idea how he affected her?

She forced herself to toss her head, to act as if nothing were wrong. “I feel nothing.”

“You’re lying.” He ran his hand down her glossy black hair, stroking the bare skin of her shoulders.

The tremble deepened, making her knees shake. She had to get ahold of herself. Before the situation was too far out of her control. Before she was utterly lost! “This is just a dance, nothing more.”

He stopped suddenly on the dance floor. “Prove your words.”

All the bravado left her when she saw the intent in his eyes. Here, on the dance floor, he meant to kiss her—staking his claim of possession for the entire world to see.

“No,” she gasped.

Ruthlessly he lowered his lips to hers.

His kiss was demanding and hungry. It seared her to the core. His lips moved against her own, suffusing her with his heat. Against her will, she fell against him, surrendering to the sweet languorous stroke of his tongue.

She wanted him. Wanted this.

She wanted it like a drowning woman wanted air.

As she felt him move against her, his strong hands moving against the soft skin of her naked back, a low moan escaped her. His power and warmth enveloped her as his sensual lips seduced her, allowing her to hold nothing back.

How long had she been drowning?

How long had she been all but dead?

Her breaths came in little shallow gasps as his kiss deepened. She heard the shocked hiss and jealous mutters of the crowds around them. “Crikey,” one man muttered, “I would have paid a million for that.”

But as Lia tried to pull away, he only held her more forcefully, plundering her lips until she again sagged in his arms. She forgot her name. Forgot everything but her desire to give anything—anything at all—to keep his heat and fire hard against her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him close against her body as she kissed him back with the ravenous hunger of fresh new life—

Then he released her, and her body instantly fell back into the icy breath of winter.

Opening her eyes, she looked into the face of the man who’d so cruelly brought her to life only to discard her. She expected to see smug, masculine arrogance. After all, he’d amply proven his point.

Instead he looked shocked. Almost as dazed as she felt. He gave his head a slight shake, as if clearing the fog from his mind.

Then his expression again became arrogant and ruthless. Leaving Lia to wonder if she’d just imagined a momentary bewilderment to match her own.

She touched her still-throbbing lips in shock. Oh, my God, what was wrong with her? With Giovanni not two weeks in his grave!

With the commanding force of the handsome stranger’s kiss, he’d made her forget everything—her grief, her pain, her emptiness—and surrender herself completely. It was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. And even at this moment she wanted more of him. Thirsted for him like a woman abandoned in the desert…

She took another short breath, gasping for air, for sanity and control.

Putting her hands on her head in despair, Lia backed away from him. “What have you done?” she whispered.

His dark gaze sharpened on her own. His eyes were hot enough to melt glass, skewering her heart. Burning her.

“The dance isn’t done.” The deep fiber of his voice commanded her, compelling her to return to his arms.

“Stay away from me!” Turning too quickly in a jerky, uneven movement, she nearly slipped on the hem of her white satin gown in her desperation to flee. Cheeks aflame, she ran through the crowded ballroom, leaving behind the winter fairyland of black lattice trees and twinkling white lights.

She raced past the shocked guests, past her horrified society friends, past everyone who tried to grab her, who tried to ask questions or offer back-handed sympathy.

She had to escape. Had to get away from the dark stranger and all the unwilling tumult of scandalous desires he caused within her.

Glancing back, she saw him in grim pursuit.

And she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think. Kicking off her four-inch stiletto heels, she just ran. Ran down the hallway of the hotel, ran until her whole body burned, as she hadn’t done since her school days when she’d competed fiercely on the track team.

And yet still he gained on her! How was it possible?

Because she wasn’t the lithe, fit girl she’d been ten years ago, she realized. Years of inactivity in Italy, of long days sitting by Giovanni’s bedside, and nights of crying alone in her bed with a broken heart, were finally catching up with her.

And so was the stranger.

Panting, she dashed into the hotel lobby. Wealthy tourists in polo shirts and chic little summer dresses stared at her with their mouths agape as she stumbled across the marble floor and pushed violently out through the revolving door into the summery violet of dusk.

The doorman cried out when she nearly knocked him over. “Hey!”

“I’m sorry!” she cried back at him, but she didn’t stop. She couldn’t. Not with the man so close behind her.

In the distance she could see a subway entrance. She ran for it with all her might.

She was fast. But he was faster. She heard the heavy echo of his footsteps on the sidewalk behind her. She weaved through a crowd of tourists browsing the shop windows along Fifth Avenue. She saw a taxi pull in front of Tiffany’s, right behind a dog walker surrounded by dogs of all sizes.

She leaped over the man’s tangled leashes like a hurdle. She heard the rip of her white satin gown as she landed on the other side. Panting, she flung herself into the taxi over the back of the exiting passenger.

Behind her, she heard the stranger curse aloud, caught up in leashes, dogs, and tourists loaded with shopping bags.

“Go!” she shouted at the taxi driver.

“Where, lady?”

“Anywhere!” Looking back through the window at the approaching stranger, she gasped and held up the hundred-dollar bill she always tucked in her bra. “There’s someone following me—get me out of here!”

The taxi driver glanced in the rearview mirror, saw the hundred-dollar bill and the panicked expression on her face, then stomped on the gas pedal. The car roared away, its tires scattering water from the nearby gutter as they ducked into the evening traffic.

Turning around to look out the back window, Lia saw the diminishing figure of the dark stranger behind her. Wet with water, he stared after her in repressed fury, his mouth a grim line.

She’d escaped him. She nearly cried with relief.

Then she caught her breath and realized she’d just fled her own party. What had she been so afraid of? What?

His fire.

Her body shook with suppressed longing as she sank her head against her hands…and really cried.

CHAPTER FOUR

ROARK returned to the ballroom empty-handed, furious and soaking wet. He took a towel from a beverage cart and grimly wiped the grimy water from his neck and the shirt and lapels of his tuxedo.

She’d gotten away.

How was it possible?

He scowled in fury. He’d never had any woman turn him down before for anything. He’d never had any woman even pretend to resist.

Lia Villani had not only resisted him, she’d outrun him.

Crumpling the wet towel angrily, he tossed it on the empty tray of a passing waiter. Clenching his jaw, he looked across the ballroom.

He saw Nathan on the crowded dance floor, swaying with a plump-cheeked girl with honey-blond hair.

Roark ground his teeth. He’d been chasing the fleet-footed countess all over Midtown, nearly breaking his neck and getting soaked in the process, while Nathan was flirting on the dance floor?

His old friend must have felt his glower across the ballroom, because he turned and saw his boss. At the expression on Roark’s face, he excused himself from his pretty blond dance partner, kissing her hand after walking her off the dance floor with visible reluctance.

When Nathan was close enough to see Roark’s wet hair and tuxedo, his jaw dropped. “What happened to you?”

He ground his jaw. “It doesn’t matter.”

“That was quite the show you put on with the countess,” Nathan said brightly. “I hardly know which scandalized everyone more—the million dollar bid, your make-out session on the dance floor, or the way you both ran out of here like you were in some kind of race. I didn’t expect you to return so quickly. She must have agreed to sell you the property in record time.”

“I didn’t ask her,” Roark snapped.

Nathan’s jaw fell open. “You paid a million dollars to get her alone on the dance floor, and you didn’t even ask her?”

“I will.” He furiously pulled off his wet tuxedo jacket, tucking it over his arm. “I promise you.”

“Roark, we’re running out of time. Once the deed is signed over to the city—”

“I know,” Roark said. He opened his phone and dialed. “Lander. Countess Villani left the Cavanaugh Hotel in a yellow cab five minutes ago. Medallion number 5G31. Find her.”

He snapped the phone shut. He could feel the elite families of New York edging closer to him. Most of them looked at him with bewilderment and awe.

Who was he? their glances seemed to say. Who was this stranger who would bid a million dollars for a dance…and then ruthlessly kiss the woman that every other man wanted?

He tightened his jaw. He was a man who would soon build seventy-story skyscrapers on the Far West Side. A man who would start a new business district in Manhattan, second only to Wall Street and Midtown.

“I know you.”

Roark turned to see the white-haired blue blood who’d brought Lia her champagne. He had to be in his sixties, but powerful and hearty still. “I know you,” he repeated, furrowing his brow. “You’re Charles Kane’s grandson.”

“My name,” Roark stared at him coldly, “is Navarre.”

“Ah, yes,” he mused, “I remember your mother. She had that regrettable elopement. A trucker, wasn’t it? Your grandfather could never forgive—”

“My father was a good man,” Roark said. “He worked hard every day of his life and didn’t judge anyone by the money they made or the school they attended. My grandfather hated him for that.”

“But you should have been at his funeral. He was your grandfather—”

“He never wanted to be.” Folding his arms, Roark turned away from the man dismissively.

The emcee of the auction hurried forward to get his attention. Roark recognized Richard Brooks, a Brooklyn land developer who’d once worked for a Navarre subsidiary.

“Thank you so much for your bid, Mr. Navarre,” the emcee gushed. “The Olivia Hawthorne Park Foundation thanks you for your generous donation.”

Just what Roark needed—a reminder that he’d just pledged a million dollars toward the very project he was trying to destroy! His lip curled into a snarl. “My pleasure.”

“Will you be in New York for long, Mr. Navarre?”

“No,” he said sharply, and before the man could ask him any more questions, he pulled a checkbook from his tuxedo coat pocket and swiftly wrote a check for a million dollars. He held out the check, not allowing a single bit of emotion to appear on his face.

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Navarre,” the man said, bowing as he backed away. “Thank you very much.”

Roark nodded, his face cold. He hated these little obsequious toadies. Fearing him. Wanting his money, attention or time. He glanced at all the women staring at him with frank longing and admiration. Women were the worst of all.

Except for Lia Villani. She hadn’t tried to lure him.

She’d run away.

Faster and more determined than Roark, she’d managed to get away from him in spite of his best efforts.

Why had she run?

Just because he’d kissed her?

That kiss. He’d seen how it had affected her—damn close to the way it had affected him. It had shaken him to the core. It shook him still.

He hadn’t intended to kiss her. He’d meant to convince her to sell him the property before he seduced her. But something in her defiance, in the way she’d resisted him as they danced, had taunted him. Something in the way she’d tossed her long, lustrous black hair. In the way she’d licked those full red lips, moving her curvaceous body to the music, had maddened his blood.

She’d defied him. And he’d responded.

It was just a kiss, nothing more. He’d kissed many women in his life.

But he’d never felt anything like that.

So? He argued with himself. Even if it was desire stronger than any he’d known, the ending would still be the same. He would take her to his bed, satiate his lust and swiftly forget her. Just like always.

And yet…

He scowled.

Somehow Lia Villani’s beauty and seductive power had made him forget the most important thing on earth—business. He’d never forgotten it before. Certainly not for a woman. And because of that mistake, he might now lose the most important deal of his life.

Nathan had been right all along. Roark had been underestimating the countess. She was far more powerful than he’d ever imagined.

But instead of being furious, Roark was suddenly intoxicated by the thought of the hunt. The takedown.

He would take her property.

Then he would take her.

His body hurt with need for her. He couldn’t forget how she’d trembled in his arms when he kissed her. Couldn’t forget the softness of her breasts against his chest, the curve of her hip against his groin. Couldn’t forget the shape of her. The taste of her.

He had to have her. He wanted her so badly that it made his body shake.

His cell phone rang. He snapped it open.

“Lander,” he said, “give me the good news.”

Lia slammed the door of her silver Aston-Martin Vanquish convertible with a weary thump. Every muscle in her body ached. It had been a long twelve hours. She’d stopped at her town house in New York just long enough to get her passport and change into a knit dress and a cashmere shawl. She’d taken the first flight out of JFK Airport, connecting first in Paris then in Rome, before she’d reached Pisa. Even flying first class, the trip had been exhausting and long.

Maybe because she’d spent the whole time crying. Looking over her shoulder, half expecting the man to pursue her.

But he hadn’t. She was still alone.

So why didn’t that make her feel happier?

Looking up at the medieval castle on the edge of the forested mountain, she took a deep breath. But she was home. The medieval Italian castle, carefully refurbished over fifty years and turned into a luxurious villa, had been Giovanni’s favorite retreat. Over the past ten years, it had become Lia’s home, as well.

“Salve, Contessa,” her housekeeper cried from the doorway. Tears shone in her eyes as she added in accented English, “Welcome home.”

Welcome home. Walking through the front door of the Villa Villani, Lia waited for the feelings of solace and comfort to rush over her as always.

But nothing happened. Just emptiness. Loneliness.

A fresh wave of grief washed over her as she set down her bag. “Grazie, Felicita.”

Lia walked slowly through the empty rooms. The valuable antique furniture blended with the more-modern pieces. Every room had been scrubbed clean. Every window was wide-open, letting in the bright sunshine and fresh morning air of the Italian mountains. And yet she felt cold. She might have been enveloped in a snowdrift…or a shroud.

The memory of the stranger’s kiss ripped through her, and she touched her lips, still remembering how his touch had seared her last night. How his warmth had burned her with a deep fire. And she felt a sudden sharp pang of regret.

She’d been a coward to run away from him. From her feelings. From life…

But she would never see him again. She didn’t even know the man’s name. She’d made her choice. The safe, respectable choice. And now she would live with it.

She barely felt the hot water against her skin as she took a shower. She dried off with a towel and put on a simple white smock dress. She brushed her hair. She washed her teeth. And she felt dead inside.

The loneliness of the big castle, where so many generations had lived and died before she was born, echoed inside her. As she went into her bedroom, she glanced down at Giovanni’s diamond wedding ring on her finger.

She’d just kissed another man wearing her dead husband’s ring. Shame ricocheted through her soul like a bullet.

Tears threatened her as she briefly closed her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispered aloud, as if Giovanni were still alive and in the same room to hear her. “I never should have let it happen.”

She looked back down at the diamonds sparkling on her finger. She didn’t deserve to wear it, she thought with despair. Slowly she pulled the ring off her finger.

Going into Giovanni’s old bedroom down the hall from hers, she opened the safe behind the painting of Giovanni’s beloved first wife. Lia tucked the ring inside the safe and closed the door.

After locking the safe, she stared at the pretty woman in the painting. The first contessa was laughing, sitting on a swing and kicking her feet. Giovanni had loved Magdalena so much. It was why he hadn’t minded marrying Lia. He’d said he already knew he would never love again. He’d loved a woman once, and he would love her forever.

That kind of love was something Lia had never experienced—and never would. She took a deep breath. She felt cold, so cold.

Would she ever feel warm again?

“I’m sorry,” she whispered one last time. “I didn’t mean to forget you.” And she went outside into the sunlight of the rose garden.

The riotous multitude of roses in red, pink and yellow filled the space, surrounded by ancient stone walls that were seven feet high. This had been Giovanni’s favorite place. He’d grown the roses himself. He’d spent hours carefully taming and tending the garden.

But the garden had been neglected for months. The flowers were now overgrown and half-wild. The blooms now reached up into the warm blue sky, some as tall as the stone walls that had been built from the ancient Roman foundations.

She leaned forward to smell one of the enormous yellow roses. Yellow for memory. No wonder it had the strongest scent. She missed Giovanni’s warmth, his kindness. She felt so guilty that she’d forgotten him, even for a moment. For the length of a kiss…

She closed her eyes, breathing in the fragrance, listening to the wind in the trees above, feeling the warmth of the Tuscan sun on her skin.

“Hello, Lia,” a voice said quietly.

She whirled around.

It was him.

His dark eyes gleamed as he stared at her through the wrought-iron gate. Pushing it open, he slowly entered the garden. His black shirt and black jeans stood out starkly against the profusion of colorful half-wild roses. There was a predatory grace in his body as he approached her like a stalking lion. She felt the intensity of his gaze from her fingers to her toes.

Somehow, he was even more handsome here than he’d been in New York. The man was as wild and savage as the forest around them. As unrestrained in his masculine beauty as the sharp-thorned roses.

And they were alone.

He stood between her and the garden door.

This time there would be no taxi. No escape.

She instinctively folded her arms over her chest, trying to stop herself from trembling as she backed away. “How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t difficult.”

“I didn’t invite you here!”

“No?” he said coolly. He reached for her, twining a black tendril of her hair around his finger as his dark eyes caressed her face. “Are you sure?”

She couldn’t breathe. Birds sang beyond the medieval stone walls once built to keep invading marauders out. The same walls that now kept her in.

“Please leave me,” she whispered, shaking with desire for him. For his warmth. For his touch. For the way he made her feel alive again and young and a woman. She licked her dry lips. “I want you to go.”

“No,” he said. “You don’t.”

And, lifting her chin, he kissed her.

His lips were so hard and soft and sweet, she could hear the buzz of honeybees in the medieval garden, their secret world hidden behind the crumbling stone walls. The fragrance of overgrown half-wild roses drenched her senses. And she felt dizzy. She was lost, lost in him. And she didn’t want it to ever end.

He pushed her back against a wall that was warm with sunlight and thick with twisting vines of wisteria. He kissed her again, more forcefully. Teasing her. Taking. Demanding. Seducing…

Giovanni’s chaste peck on her forehead at their wedding hadn’t prepared her for this. All night on the lonely plane ride across the Atlantic, she’d tried to convince herself that her passionate reaction to the dark stranger’s kiss had been a moment of madness, a one-off that could never be repeated. But the pleasure was even greater than before, the sweet agony only increasing with the hard tension of her longing. All her grief and loneliness and pain fell away. There was only the hot demand of his mouth, the pleasurable caress of his hands.

What he wanted he took.

She tried to resist. She really did. But it was like trying to push away Christmas or happiness or joy. Like trying to push away life itself.

Though she knew she shouldn’t, she wanted him.

She returned his kisses hesitantly, then with a hunger that matched his own. She trembled at the brazen force of her own desire as he encouraged her every tremulous touch, murmuring appreciation at her slightest attempt at a caress.

She felt him pull off her little white shift dress, then her bra. She gasped as her naked breasts were bathed in the warm glow of sun.

With a groan, he lowered his mouth to suckle her nipple, and she cried out. Cupping her other breast in his hand, he licked and stroked her flesh. Caressing her hips, he pulled down her panties, dropping them to the grass.

And she couldn’t stop shaking.

“Lia,” he said hoarsely. “Ah, Lia. What you do to me…”

He picked her up in his strong arms. She stared up at his handsome face, at the intensity in his deep dark eyes.

She suddenly knew this fire could consume them both.

He gently laid her down on the soft grass. Covering her body with his own, he moved slowly against her. She moaned, wanting something, not even sure what she wanted but wanting it now. Unzipping his pants, he spread her naked thighs apart with his own. She felt his hard shaft demanding entrance, and she quivered beneath him, tense and yearning.

He lowered his head to kiss her, his lips and tongue intertwining passionately with her own.

And he filled her with a single deep thrust.

Pain stabbed through her, making her gasp.

He froze, looking down at her, shock rippling over his handsome face.

“How is it possible? You’re a virgin?”

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