About the Author

CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978 and has now written over one hundred and eighty books for Mills & Boon. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Tall, Dark Collection

Tall, Dark & Handsome
The Infamous Italian’s Secret Baby
Pregnant by the Millionaire
Liam’s Secret Son
Tall, Dark & Notorious
The Duke’s Cinderella Bride
The Rake’s Wicked Proposal
Tall, Dark & Gorgeous
To Marry McKenzie
To Marry McCloud
To Marry McAllister
Tall, Dark & Irresistible
The Rogue’s Disgraced Lady
Lady Arabella’s Scandalous Marriage
Tall, Dark & Rich
His Christmas Virgin
Married by Christmas
A Yuletide Seduction
Tall, Dark & Scandalous
Jordan St Claire: Dark and Dangerous
The Reluctant Duke
Taming the Last St Claire
Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Tall, Dark & Handsome

The Infamous Italian’s Secret Baby

PROLOGUE

‘THE party is outside by the pool.’

Bella froze in the doorway, searching the shadows of the unlit room she had entered by mistake, a study or den if the book-lined walls and desk were any indication. Her hand tightened about the door-handle as she finally saw the outline of the large, imposing figure seated behind that desk.

The man was totally unmoving, and yet his very stillness was an implied danger, an echo of the challenge in his tone. By the light from the hallway behind her, Bella was just able to make out the fall of long dark hair that grew onto a pair of wide shoulders, those shoulders and a powerful chest encased in a dark top of some kind.

She swallowed hard before speaking. ‘I was looking for the bathroom…’

‘As you can see, this is not it,’ he responded, his amused voice slightly accented. As he spoke some of the tension left his upper torso and he relaxed back in the high-backed chair, head tilted slightly sideways as the glitter of his gaze moved slowly over Bella standing silhouetted in the doorway. ‘Or perhaps you cannot see…’

Bella barely had time to realise that the husky voice sounded vaguely familiar before there was the click of a switch and a light illuminated the desk in a soft warm glow. And the man seated behind it. Bella recognised him instantly.

Gabriel Danti!

Bella felt her heart plummet in her chest as she looked at the wickedly handsome man in front of her. His thick dark hair and chocolate-brown eyes were almost black in their intensity. His olive-skinned face boasted a perfectly straight aristocratic nose, high cheekbones, a mouth that was full and sensual, and a square, arrogant chin, softened only by the slight cleft in its centre.

It was the face that thousands, no, millions of women all over the world sighed over. Daydreamed over. Drooled over!

Italian by birth, Gabriel Danti was, at the age of twenty-eight, the defending champion of the Formula One racing car championship currently in its fifth month. This man was the darling of the rich and the famous on both sides of the Atlantic—and, as if that weren’t enough, he was also the only son and heir of Cristo Danti, head of the Danti business and wine empire, with vineyards in both Italy and America.

Even while she registered all those things about him Bella was also aware of the fact that this house in the Surrey countryside was Gabriel Danti’s English home, and that he was actually the host of the noisy party taking place outside by the pool. So what was he doing sitting up here alone in the dark?

She moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘I’m terribly sorry for disturbing you. I really was looking for the bathroom.’ She gave a small self-conscious grimace. How awful that the first and probably only time she had the opportunity to speak to Gabriel Danti it was because she needed to find the bathroom!

Gabriel made a lazy study of the tiny, dark-haired woman who stood in the doorway of his study. A young woman totally unlike the tall, leggy blondes that he usually escorted—and totally unlike the traitorous Janine, he acknowledged grimly to himself.

She had very long, straight hair, as black as ebony and falling soft and silky about her shoulders. A dark fringe of that same silky softness lay on her forehead, and her small, heart-shaped face was pale and smooth as alabaster—and totally dominated by a pair of the most unusual violet-coloured eyes Gabriel had ever seen. Her gently pouting lips were unknowingly sensuous and inviting.

His gaze dropped lower, to the soft woollen top she wore, which was the same violet colour of her eyes. The top two buttons were undone to reveal surprisingly full breasts—completely naked breasts beneath the thinness of her sweater, if Gabriel wasn’t mistaken, which made her slender waist look even more so in comparison. Her narrow hips and legs were clearly defined in figure-hugging jeans.

That long, leisurely glance told Gabriel that he didn’t know her.

But he wanted to!

Bella took an involuntary step back as Gabriel Danti stood up from behind the desk, revealing that the top he wore was in fact a black silk shirt that rippled as he stood before resettling softly against the muscled hardness of his shoulders and chest. The sleeves were turned back to just below his elbows, revealing muscled forearms lightly dusted with dark hair.

At least a foot taller than her own five feet two inches, Gabriel Danti at once dominated the space around him. And she, Bella realised in some alarm as she found herself rooted to the spot, was totally unable to move as the tall Italian sauntered across the room in long feline strides to stand mere inches in front of her. The raucous noise of the party outside instantly became muted as all Bella could see or hear was him.

She had been wrong, Bella mused as she found herself in a daze, unable to look away from the dark beauty of his face. Gabriel Danti wasn’t handsome. He was stunningly gorgeous.

Bella could feel the heat radiating from his body, could smell his tangy aftershave, the male scent of him that invaded and claimed the senses, filling her with a warm lethargy, a need to move closer to all that heady maleness.

A need Bella was unable to resist as she felt herself swaying towards him. She made an effort at the last moment not to do so, lifting a hand to stop herself from curving her body along the length of his. Instead she found the palm of her hand against the black silk of his shirt, her fingers curling against the warm hardness of the chest beneath as she felt the hot, heady thrum of his heart against her fingertips.

What was happening to her?

She never reacted to men like this. At least, she never had before…

She had to—

Bella froze, every part of her immobilised as Gabriel Danti raised one of his long elegant hands that so capably handled the wheel of a racing car travelling at unimaginable speeds, and cupped her chin, the soft pad of his thumb caressing lightly across her bottom lip. The tingling warmth that ensued travelled down her throat and spine to pool hotly between her thighs.

Dark brown eyes held her own captive. ‘You have the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen.’ His voice was low, husky, as if he were aware that anything else would break the spell that surrounded them.

‘So do you,’ Bella breathed, her chest rising and falling sharply with the effort it took to breathe at all.

His throaty laugh was a soft rumble beneath her fingertips before it faded; the darkness of his gaze suddenly became intense, searching. ‘Did you come here with someone?’

Bella blinked, trying to think through the slow insidiousness of his seduction. ‘I—I’m here with a group of friends, Mr Danti.’ She gave a self-conscious shake of her head as his eyes compelled her answer. ‘Sean is the nephew of one of your mechanics.’

It didn’t surprise Gabriel that this beautiful young woman knew who he was. Even if she hadn’t recognised him from the photographs of him that appeared almost daily in the newspapers at the moment, the fact that this was his house and he had been sitting in the study where several framed photographs of him winning races also adorned the walls would have given him away.

‘Sean is your boyfriend?’ There was a slight edge to his voice that hadn’t been there seconds earlier.

‘Heavens, no!’ she denied with a smile, her long hair falling forward across her breasts as she shook her head. ‘We’re just at university together. I hope you don’t mind that Sean brought some friends with him, Mr Danti?’ She was frowning now, her eyes almost purple. ‘His uncle said—’

‘I do not mind,’ Gabriel cut in reassuringly. ‘And please call me Gabriel.’

A slight flush darkened her cheeks. ‘And I’m Bella,’ she invited huskily.

‘Bella?’

‘Isabella.’ She grimaced. ‘But everyone just calls me Bella.’

Gabriel wasn’t sure he wanted to be grouped with ‘everyone’ where this fascinating woman was concerned. He raised one dark brow. ‘You are Italian?’

‘No,’ she laughed softly, her teeth small and white against the fullness of her lips. ‘My mother allowed my father, who’s a doctor, to choose my own and my younger sister’s names, so he named us after two of his favourite models and actresses: Isabella and Claudia. When my brother was born six years ago my mother had the choice of names. She chose Liam. After the actor. A tall Irishman, with what my mother describes as “very sexy blue eyes”—’

‘I know him,’ Gabriel admitted.

‘You know of him or you know him?’ Bella was aware that she was talking too much. About things that could be of absolutely no interest to a man like Gabriel Danti. It was nerves, that was what it was. That and the fact that she couldn’t think straight with Gabriel’s fingers still curled possessively around the softness of her chin!

The Italian smiled. ‘I know him. I cannot confirm the sexiness of his blue eyes, of course, but—’

‘You’re mocking me now,’ Bella reproved self-con-sciously.

‘Only a little,’ Gabriel murmured, his gaze once more intense on hers. ‘You said you are at university?’

‘Was,’ Bella corrected ruefully. ‘I left last month.’

Telling Gabriel that Bella was probably aged twenty-one or twenty-two to his twenty-eight. ‘What subject did you study?’

‘Art and History,’ she supplied.

‘With a view to teaching, perhaps?’

‘I’m really not sure yet. I’m hoping something that involves both subjects.’ She shrugged slender shoulders, the movement giving Gabriel, with his superior height, a delicious glimpse of the fullness of her breasts.

Gabriel could never remember being so instantly attracted to a woman before. So attracted that he was sure her appraisal of him earlier had raised his body temperature by several degrees, at the same time making him totally aware of every muscle and sinew of his own body as well as hers. Rousing a need, a hunger, inside him that demanded the slender curves of Bella’s body be placed against his much harder ones. Intimately. Preferably with no clothing between them.

Bella gave a slightly nervous laugh as she saw the way the Italian’s eyes had suddenly darkened. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll just go and find the bathroom—’

‘The bathroom is the room next to this on the right,’ Gabriel interrupted, his fingers firming against her chin. ‘While you are gone, I suggest I find a bottle of champagne and some glasses and then we can find somewhere more comfortable in which to continue this conversation, hmm?’

What conversation? Bella wondered, slightly bemused. She was pretty sure that Gabriel Danti didn’t want to hear more about her degree in art and history or her family! ‘Shouldn’t you be returning to your guests?’ She frowned.

His laugh was slightly wicked. ‘Does it sound as if they are missing me?’

Well…no, the party outside sounded noisier and more out of control than ever. Which was some feat considering several of the guests had already thrown off their clothes and jumped into the pool naked before Bella had left to go in search of the bathroom. Which had hastened her need to go in search of the bathroom, if she was honest; the party looked in danger of disintegrating in a way Bella wasn’t at all comfortable with.

It had sounded like a fun thing to do when Sean Davies had invited several of his fellow ex-students to the party being given at the Surrey home of Gabriel Danti. A chance to mix with the rich and the famous.

The fact that most of those ‘rich and famous’ were behaving in a way Bella would never have imagined if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes had come as something of a shock to her. It wasn’t that she was a prude, it was just a little disconcerting to have a man she had last seen reading the evening news, a respected middle-aged man, jumping stark naked into Gabriel Danti’s swimming pool. Admittedly it was a warm summer’s evening, but even so!

‘Come, Bella.’ Gabriel removed his hand from her chin only to place it about her waist, his arm warm and spine-tingling as it rested against the slenderness of her back. ‘Do you have any preference in champagne?’

‘Preference?’ she echoed. Champagne was champagne, wasn’t it?

‘White or pink?’ he elaborated.

‘Er—pink will be fine.’ As a student, the only preference Bella had when it came to wines was that it not cost a lot of money! ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather just rejoin your guests?’ Bella hesitated in the hallway, rather confused that this gorgeous man, a man any of his female guests would scratch another woman’s eyes out in order to spend time alone with, appeared to want to spend that time with her…

‘I am very sure, Bella.’ Gabriel turned her in the curve of his arm so that she now faced him, his hands resting lightly against her waist. ‘But perhaps you would rather return to your friends…?’

Bella swallowed hard as Gabriel made no effort to hide the hot sensuality burning in his eyes. ‘No, I—’ She stopped as she realised her voice was several octaves higher than normal. She cleared her throat before trying again. ‘No, I think I would enjoy drinking champagne with you more.’

Those dark eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he raised his hands to cup either side of her face before slowly lowering his head to take possession of her mouth. Sipping, tasting, his tongue was a warm sweep against her lips as he tacitly asked her permission to enter. Then he claimed her mouth, groaning low in his throat as Bella gave in to temptation, parting her lips and inviting his tongue to surge inside.

His mouth was hot against hers now, Bella feeling slightly dizzy from the warm rush of desire that instantly claimed her. Her breasts were firm and aching and she moved instinctively to rub that ache against the hardness of Gabriel’s chest, that friction affording her some relief even as she felt more desire pooling between her thighs.

Oh, how she wanted this man. Wanted him as she had never known it was possible to want any man, the hot demand of his kiss, the hardness of his thighs against hers, telling her that he returned that need.

Gabriel had never tasted anything as sweet as the response of Bella’s mouth beneath his. Never felt anything so lush, so perfect, as his hands moved down over her hips and then down to clasp her bottom as he pulled her into him, his arousal now nestled demandingly against the flatness of her stomach.

Gabriel dragged his mouth from Bella’s to cast a searching look down at her. Those beautiful violet-coloured eyes were so darkly purple it was almost impossible to distinguish the black of her pupils. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen from their kisses, and she looked more erotically enticing than ever. Her breasts were firm against his chest, and Gabriel was able to feel the hardness of her nipples through the soft silk of his shirt.

‘Go. Before I lose all sense and make love to you out here in the hallway!’ He grasped the tops of her arms tightly and turned her in the direction of the bathroom she had been seeking. ‘I will return in two minutes with the champagne and glasses.’

Bella was completely dazed and disorientated as she entered the bathroom and closed the door behind her before leaning weakly back against it.

She was twenty-one years of age, had dated dozens of boys in the last five or six years, but never before had she known anyone or anything as lethal—as potent—as Gabriel’s kisses!

Bella straightened to look at herself in the mirror on the door of the bathroom cabinet over the sink. Her cheeks glowed with the warmth of her arousal. Her mouth—oh, dear, her lips were swollen and slightly parted as if in invitation! Her eyes were deep pools of liquid violet, the pupils enlarged. As for her breasts…Well, if she had any sense she would leave now! If she had any will power at all, she would make herself leave now.

Even as she told herself these things Bella knew she wasn’t going anywhere but back into Gabriel Danti’s arms…

‘Nice?’

‘Mmm.’

‘Would you like more?’

‘Please.’

‘Come a little closer, then. Now hold out your hand.’

Bella lifted the hand holding her glass to allow Gabriel to pour her more champagne as she sat on the sofa beside him, at the same time noting that he hadn’t touched any of the bubbly wine in his own glass since placing it on the coffee table in front of them. The two of them were seated in a sitting-room at the front of the house on the first floor, well away from the noisy party downstairs.

‘You aren’t drinking,’ she pointed out in an effort to cover up the slight shaking of her hand as she once again raised her glass to her lips and took a sip of the delicious pink champagne.

He shook his head, his arm along the back of the sofa as he sat very close beside her, that hand playing with the silken strands of her hair. ‘I’m going to the track for a practice session tomorrow, and I never drink if I am going to drive the next day.’

Bella’s eyes widened. ‘You shouldn’t have bothered opening a bottle of champagne just for me.’

‘It is not just for you,’ Gabriel assured her, dipping his finger into her champagne glass before running his finger lightly behind Bella’s ear and along her jaw. ‘I said I do not drink champagne before driving, Bella, not that I do not intend enjoying its taste,’ he murmured softly, his breath warm against her ear lobe as his lips moved to follow the trail of champagne left by his finger, his tongue rasping against her already sensitised skin.

The combination of Bella and champagne was more intoxicating to Gabriel’s senses than drinking a whole bottle of the expensive wine could ever have been, her skin so smooth to the touch, its sweet taste driving the heat through Gabriel’s already roused body until he throbbed with the need to touch her more intimately. All of her.

He held her gaze as he deliberately dipped his finger back into the champagne before leaving a moist trail from her chin, down the delicate curve of her throat, to the exposed swell of the fullness of her breasts, his lips instantly following that heady trail.

Bella squirmed pleasurably as the warmth of his mouth lingered on her breasts. ‘Gabriel—’

‘Let me, Bella,’ he pressed huskily. ‘Let me bathe you in champagne. All of you. So that I might drink from your body.’ His hand moved to cup her cheek as his thumb moved across her parted lips once more. ‘Will you allow me to do that, Bella?’

Bella had accepted exactly where this was going the moment she had agreed to accompany Gabriel up the stairs to what had turned out to be the private sitting-room that adjoined his bedroom. Although thankfully the bedroom door had remained closed, otherwise she might have panicked long before now.

Not that she was panicking. Quivering with delicious anticipation more described her present state of mind! Just the thought of Gabriel dribbling champagne over her totally naked body, before slowly licking away each drop with the rasp of his arousing tongue, was enough to heat every inch of her to a tingling awareness that suddenly made the few clothes Bella was wearing feel tight and restrictive.

‘As long as I can reciprocate.’ She dipped her own finger into the champagne before running that finger over the firm sensuality of Gabriel’s slightly parted lips. ‘May I?’ She paused expectantly with her mouth only centimetres away from his, violet eyes looking deeply into dark brown.

‘Please do,’ he encouraged.

What Bella lacked in experience she hoped she made up for in her delight at being given the freedom to explore the sculptured perfection of Gabriel’s mouth in the same way he had hers. She heard his ragged intake of breath as she gently sucked his top lip into her mouth and her tongue slowly licked the heady champagne from that softness. His hand moved up to entangle his fingers into her hair as she gave the same treatment to his bottom lip, knowing as those fingers tightened in her hair that these caresses were arousing Gabriel as deeply as they were her.

Gabriel’s body hardened more with each heated sweep of Bella’s tongue against his lips, the throb of his thighs becoming an urgent demand. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he was going to make it as far as the bedroom before stripping Bella’s clothes from her deliciously responsive body and surging hotly, satisfyingly inside her!

He moved back abruptly, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw as he stood up to hold out his hand to her. ‘Come with me, Bella,’ he invited as she looked up at him uncertainly.

Gabriel continued to hold that gaze as Bella placed her hand in his and rose gracefully to her feet, her breasts quickly rising and falling beneath the thin wool of her sweater.

She was like a small, wild thing, Gabriel acknowledged with growing wonder. So tiny. So delicate. So absolutely, potently desirable.

Gabriel felt his stomach muscles tighten with the force of that desire, continuing to keep a firm hold of her delicate fingers as he picked up the chilled bottle of champagne with his other hand, neither of them speaking as they went into his bedroom.

‘Please don’t…’ Bella protested shyly as Gabriel would have turned on the bedside light.

A four-poster bed! A genuine antique if Bella wasn’t mistaken, as were the drapes of deep gold brocade that could be pulled around the four sides of the bed.

What did it matter whether or not the bed and drapes were genuinely old? It was still a bed. A bed Bella had no doubts she would shortly be sharing—very shortly, if the heat of his gaze was any indication!—with Gabriel Danti.

This was madness. Sheer, utter, delicious madness!

‘I want to be able to look at you as I make love to you, Bella,’ Gabriel said, once again standing very close to her, but not touching her, the warmth of his body alone acting on Bella’s senses like a drug. ‘Will you allow me to do that?’ he encouraged throatily. ‘I will undress first if you would be more comfortable with that…?’

God knew Bella wanted to look at him in all his naked glory! ‘Please do,’ she begged breathlessly.

He reached out to turn on the bedside lamp, to bathe the room in a muted golden glow before he reached up and began to unfasten the buttons down the front of his black shirt.

Bella found her gaze fixed on the movements of those long, elegantly slender hands as they slowly slipped each button from its fastening, the silk falling back to reveal the muscled hardness of Gabriel’s chest covered in another dusting of dark hair. Dark hair that thickened as it reached his navel before disappearing below the waistband of his black tailored trousers.

It was instinct, pure compulsion that caused Bella to reach out and touch his chest, to feel the tautness of his flesh beneath her fingertips as it stretched tightly across those muscles. His skin felt hot and fevered, those muscles tightening as Bella’s hands moved up to slide the shirt from his shoulders before she dropped the garment to the carpeted floor.

Gabriel was as beautiful as the angel he was named for. Achingly, temptingly gorgeous as his eyes burned hotly in the chiselled beauty of his face.

Bella wanted to see more. Wanted to see all of him!

Her hands trembled slightly as she unfastened his trousers to slide the zip down slowly, her fingers skimming lightly across Gabriel’s arousal beneath black underpants, causing him to draw in a sharp breath.

His hand moved down to clasp hers against him. ‘Feel how badly I want you, Bella,’he grated fiercely. ‘Feel it!’

She looked up at him, their gazes fusing hotly, Bella never more sure of anything in her life as she slowly, deliberately, peeled away Gabriel’s last item of clothing to release his pulsing erection.

He was long and thick, incredibly hard, that hardness moving against her hand as Bella reached out to touch him.

Gabriel felt his control slipping, groaning softly, lids closing, his jaw clenching, as his pleasure centred totally on the caress of Bella’s fingers against his arousal. Selfishly he wanted those caresses to continue to their pleasurable conclusion. But more than that he wanted to see Bella, to touch her with the same intimacy as she was now touching him.

His gaze held hers as he stepped back slightly before reaching out to grasp the bottom of her thin sweater and draw it slowly up over her breasts and then her head before adding it to the pile of clothes on the carpet. Gabriel’s breath caught in his throat as he gazed at the firm thrust of her breasts, the nipples a deep, dusky rose, and a waist so small and slender Gabriel felt sure he would be able to span it with his hands.

He slowly bent his head to kiss those uptilting breasts, able to see and feel Bella’s response as his tongue moved moistly across one nipple before he drew it deeply into his mouth.

Bella was lost. Totally, utterly lost as her hands moved up to clasp Gabriel’s head to her, her fingers tangling in the heavy thickness of his hair as the pleasure created by his lips and tongue washed over her in dark, sensuous waves, pooling achingly between her thighs. An ache that Gabriel helped to assuage as his hand moved to cup her there, pressing lightly, Bella gasping weakly as he unerringly found the centre of her arousal.

She had no idea which one of them removed her jeans and panties, any more than she could remember how they came to be lying on the bed, bodies pressed close together, legs entwined as they kissed hotly, fiercely, feverishly.

Bella stopped breathing altogether as Gabriel’s hand parted her thighs before his thumb began to touch, to stroke, the hardened nub that nestled there. Her senses became saturated with the intensity of her arousal, her hips rising off the bed to meet the thrust of Gabriel’s fingers as they moved deeply, rhythmically inside her and Bella exploded with spasm after spasm of unimagined pleasure, her head moving from side to side on the pillow, her fingers curled into the sheets beneath her as that pleasure seemed never ending.

It didn’t end as Gabriel moved above her, his gaze holding hers as he slowly, inch by inch, entered her still quivering body until he claimed her completely. He began to move inside her, his thrusts slow and measured, and then increasing in depth, Gabriel groaning low in his throat as he surged fiercely inside her. Bella met the fierceness of his thrusts as she—amazingly, incredibly!—felt her own release building for a second time in as many minutes.

Her eyes widened, deeply purple, as that release grew, the pleasure so achingly deep now it was almost painful in its intensity as Gabriel deliberately slowed the strokes of his erection inside her, holding her on the edge of that plateau, refusing to release her as he watched her pleasure.

‘Please!’ Bella gasped restlessly as her body burned and ached for that release. ‘Oh, God, please!’

He continued to watch her even as he moved up onto his arms, his thrusts deepening, becoming harder, quicker, his cheeks flushed with his own pleasure, eyes glittering like onyx as Bella’s second release took him over that edge with her.

Gabriel closed his eyes at the force of his release, surging, pumping, hot and fierce, his hips continuing to move against Bella’s long after he had completely spilled himself as he remained hard inside her and the quivering pleasure still washed over and through him.

Finally, when he could take no more, when he felt as if he would die if the intensity of it didn’t stop, Gabriel collapsed weakly onto Bella’s breasts, turning only to pull the bedclothes over them both as they fell into a deep, exhausted sleep, their bodies still joined.

‘It’s time to wake up, Bella.’

Bella was already awake, had woken up several minutes ago in fact, and was trying to come to terms with who she was here with.

Gabriel Danti…

Just thinking of his name conjured up images of the night that had just passed. Of waking up in the early hours of the morning to find Gabriel once more hard inside her, his gaze silently questioning as he looked down at her. A question Bella had silently answered by the slow, languorous thrust of her thighs as her mouth became fused with his.

If anything, the second time they had made love had been even more intense than the first—and Bella hadn’t believed that anything could possibly match their first time together!

But, having woken up alone in the four-poster bed a few minutes ago, the sound of the shower running in the adjoining bathroom telling her where Gabriel was, instead of the happy euphoria Bella should have been feeling after such a night of pure pleasure, she had instead been filled with a sense of trepidation.

Last night she had made love with Gabriel Danti. Number one driver of the Formula One racing championship. Playboy son and heir of the Danti business and wine empire.

Whereas she was the eldest daughter of an English country doctor, hopefully with a forthcoming degree in art and history.

Not only that, but Bella knew she was far from the tall, leggy blonde models or actresses that Gabriel usually escorted to the glitzy parties and film premieres he seemed to attend on a regular basis. The glossy magazines were constantly showing photographs of him with those women, most recently the model Janine Childe.

So she and Gabriel had absolutely nothing in common!

Out of the bedroom, that was…

In the cold light of dawn Bella blushed to the roots of her tangled hair as she relived each and every one of their intimate caresses of the night before.

Of course, she should have thought of all the reasons she shouldn’t be here with Gabriel before she went to bed with him. She probably would have done so if she hadn’t been quite so mesmerised by all that brooding Latin charm. If she hadn’t been held in thrall by the hard beauty of Gabriel’s face and body…

‘Bella…?’ Gabriel prompted again as he moved to sit on the side of the bed. ‘Wake up, cara, so that I can say goodbye properly.’

Goodbye?

Bella’s lids flew open wide as she turned her head to look at Gabriel sitting on the bed beside her. She was grateful that she had the sheet draped over her to hide her nakedness when she saw that Gabriel was fully dressed in a black polo shirt that emphasised the width of his shoulders and chest, and faded jeans that rested low down on his hips, his hair still wet from the shower he had just taken.

Gabriel’s smile was quizzical as he looked down at Bella, once again fascinated by how beautiful she was. How tiny and curvaceous. How responsive…

He felt his body stir, his thighs hardening, as he recalled just how responsive Bella had been the previous evening and once again during the night. How his own response had been deepened, intensified, to match hers.

He reached out to smooth the fringe of dark hair from her brow, his gaze holding hers as he bent to kiss her, slowly, his expression regretful when he finally raised his head. ‘I really do have to go now, Bella, or I am going to be late getting to Silverstone,’ he murmured huskily. ‘But I will call you later, okay?’

‘Okay,’ she whispered.

Gabriel stood up reluctantly, as aware of the minutes ticking by as he was of Bella’s nakedness beneath the sheet, and knowing he had to remove himself from the temptation she represented. ‘My housekeeper will call a taxi for you when you are ready to leave.’ He spoke abruptly as he fought the urge he had to say to hell with the practice session and remain here in bed with Bella instead. ‘As I cannot drive you home myself I have left you some money on the dressing-table to pay for the taxi,’ he added lightly, remembering that Bella had only recently ceased being a student.

She frowned slightly. ‘That won’t be necessary.’

‘Bella…?’ Gabriel lowered his own brows darkly as he could read none of her thoughts in those violet-coloured eyes.

‘It’s fine, Gabriel.’ Bella forced a lightness to her tone that was completely contradicted by the heaviness that had settled in her chest at the suddenness of Gabriel’s departure.

‘I will call you later, Bella,’he repeated firmly. Gabriel bent once again to kiss her on the lips before turning to leave, pausing at the door to turn and add, ‘Take your time showering—there is no hurry for you to leave.’

CHAPTER ONE

Five years later…

‘AS PARTIES go this one is pretty amazi—I don’t believe it!’ Claudia gasped incredulously.

‘What don’t you believe?’Bella prompted indulgently, her sister having exclaimed over one wonder or another since the family’s arrival in San Francisco two days ago.

Although Bella had to admit that the view of the San Francisco evening skyline from this private function room at the top of one of its most prestigious hotels was pretty spectacular. She could even see the Golden Gate Bridge lit up in all its splendour.

‘Wow! I mean—wow!’ Claudia wasn’t looking out of the window but across the crowded room where the private party, to introduce the two families of their cousin Brian and his American fiancée Dahlia Fabrizzi, was taking place on the eve of their wedding. ‘But it can’t really be him, can it?’ she queried as she frowned. ‘Of course Aunt Gloria has been dropping huge hints the last few days about Dahlia’s mother being well connected, but, still, I can’t believe—’

‘Claudia, will you for goodness’ sake stop waffling into your champagne and just—?’ Bella broke off abruptly as she turned to see who was holding her sister so enrapt, and instantly recognised the ‘him’ Claudia had to be referring to.

Bella hadn’t seen him for five years. Five years! And yet she had no trouble whatsoever in recognising Gabriel Danti!

No! Claudia was right; it couldn’t possibly be him, Bella assured herself. Not here, of all places. It had to be an illusion.

Or perhaps just a waking nightmare!

‘It is him!’Claudia exclaimed excitedly as she clutched Bella’s arm. ‘It’s Gabriel Danti, Bella! Can you believe it?’

No, Bella couldn’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it!

Maybe it wasn’t him, just someone who looked a lot like him?

The height was the same, but the dark hair was much shorter than Bella remembered. The eyes, although dark, were cold and aloof despite the smile that curved those chiselled lips as he was introduced to several other guests. The cleft in the chin was also the same, but this man had a scar running from beneath his left eye to his jaw to mar the harsh, sculptured beauty of his face.

Bella remembered that Gabriel Danti had been photographed sporting a long scar down the left side of his face when he was discharged from hospital three months after the horrendous crash that had put an end to his own racing career and killed two of his fellow drivers.

Months after his accident, Gabriel Danti had returned to Italy on the family owned jet, had been photographed as he left the hospital, and then again as he entered the plane, but had rarely been seen in public since. His racing career over, he had turned his concentration on the Danti wineries and seemingly retired from the playboy lifestyle he had once so enjoyed.

‘Do you remember those posters of him I had stuck all over my bedroom walls when I was younger?’ Claudia laughed.

Of course Bella remembered those posters—they had given her the shivers for months following that night Bella had spent with him, her relief immense once Claudia took them down and replaced them with posters of one of the bad-boy actors of Hollywood.

‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?’ Claudia sighed dreamily.

‘Lovely,’ Bella answered insincerely, watching the man standing across the crowded room now talking to her uncle Simon.

He was several inches taller than her uncle, and had to bend slightly in order to hear the older man’s conversation. He looked dark and mesmerising, his body lithe and obviously fit in the black evening suit and snowy white shirt with a black bow tie.

Could it really be Gabriel?

From the way his mere presence had ensnared the attention of all the female guests at the party Bella could well believe it was him. She just didn’t want it to be!

‘His hair’s shorter, of course—Oh, look, he favours his left leg…’ Claudia sympathised as their cousin Brian moved with the man to introduce him to several members of his own family who had made the trip over for the wedding tomorrow.

‘His legs were badly crushed in the accident five years ago, remember,’ Bella murmured with a frown.

‘You would have thought that all the Danti millions could have fixed that,’ her sister mused. ‘You know, Bella,’ she added slowly, ‘he reminds me of someone…’

‘Probably Gabriel Danti!’ Bella said sharply as she finally came out of the dazed stupor that had held her firmly in its grip, linking her arm with her sister’s in order to turn Claudia in the direction of the bar. ‘Let’s go and get some more champagne.’

‘Aren’t you in the least intrigued to know if it is him?’ Claudia looked at her teasingly. She was of a similar height to Bella, but her hair was a short, wispy cap of ebony, the blue of her figure-hugging knee-length gown a perfect match in colour for her eyes.

‘Not in the least,’ Bella dismissed firmly, deliberately going to the farthest end of the bar away from the crowd of people where the man who looked like Gabriel Danti was now the centre of attention, several other people having drifted over to join the group, obviously as intrigued as Claudia.

Claudia gave a husky chuckle of affection as they stood at the bar waiting for their champagne glasses to be refilled. ‘My big sister, the man hater!’

Bella raised dark brows. ‘I don’t hate all men—just those that have gone through puberty!’

‘Exactly.’ Claudia grinned, her face arrestingly pretty rather than classically beautiful. ‘I wonder if I should go over and say hello to Brian and see if he can introduce me to—No, wait a minute…’ Her attention noticeably sharpened as she looked over Bella’s shoulder. ‘I do believe our darling cousin is bringing him over to meet us!’ Her face brightened excitedly.

No!

Bella couldn’t believe this was happening!

She didn’t even want to look at a man who resembled Gabriel Danti, let alone be introduced to him—

‘And last, but not least, I would like you to meet the two most beautiful women I know after Dahlia,’ Brian said affectionately behind her. ‘Bella, Claudi, can I introduce you to Dahlia’s cousin, Gabriel Danti? Gabriel, my cousins, Claudia and Isabella Scott.’

It truly was Gabriel Danti!

Bella couldn’t breathe. Her mind had gone completely blank. Her knees had turned to jelly. In fact no part of her seemed to be functioning properly.

Luckily for her Claudia had eagerly grasped on to the introduction, and was even now enthusing to Gabriel how much she had enjoyed watching him during his career in Formula One racing, giving Bella a little time to catch her breath as she heard the familiar husky accented tones as he murmured a polite but dismissive response.

Perhaps Gabriel wouldn’t remember her? Bella thought frantically.

Of course he wouldn’t remember her!

Why should he remember the student of art and history called Bella who had once shared his bed for the night?

From his lack of a phone call, she could only assume he had forgotten her instantly!

‘Bella…?’ Brian prompted lightly as she still kept her back firmly turned towards both him and his guest.

Bella drew in a deep, steadying breath, knowing that she had no choice but to turn and face the man she so longed to forget, as he had her.

Gabriel’s expression was blandly polite as Isabella Scott turned to face him. ‘Miss Scott,’ he greeted evenly as he briefly took the cool slenderness of her hand in his before releasing it. ‘Or may I call you Isabella?’

‘I—’

‘Everyone calls her Bella,’ Claudia put in helpfully.

‘May I?’ The icy darkness of Gabriel’s gaze easily held Bella captive.

Violet-coloured eyes were surrounded by thick dark lashes the same colour as that wild cascade of hair down the slender length of her spine…

Bella blinked before abruptly breaking the intensity of Gabriel’s gaze to focus on something across the room. ‘Bella is fine,’ she answered him evenly.

Isabella Scott looked self-assured and incredibly beautiful in an off-the-shoulder gown of the exact colour of her eyes, and, if Gabriel was not mistaken, her small, pointed chin was slightly raised in challenge as her gaze returned questioningly to meet the intensity of his…

‘More guests to greet,’ Brian Kingston murmured apologetically as he glanced across the room. ‘Excuse me, won’t you, Gabriel? I’m sure Bella and Claudi will be only too pleased to keep you entertained.’ He shot a teasing glance at the younger of the two cousins before turning and making his way back across the crowded room to his fiancée’s side.

Gabriel’s gaze was hooded as he continued to look steadily at Bella. ‘Will you?’

An irritated frown appeared between her eyes. ‘Will I what?’ she prompted sharply.

‘Be pleased to keep me entertained?’ he drawled with cool mockery.

Purple lights flashed in the depths of her eyes. ‘Do you need entertaining, Mr Danti?’

‘In truth, I doubt I will be staying long enough for that to be necessary,’ he conceded.

Gabriel hadn’t intended attending this party at all this evening, but at the last moment his father had asked him to represent the Danti side of the family, as he didn’t feel well enough to attend the party of his niece this evening as well as her wedding tomorrow. Gabriel had reluctantly agreed to come in his place, his intention to only stay long enough to satisfy the proprieties.

At least, it had been…

Gabriel Danti wasn’t staying long, Bella triumphed with inward relief. ‘I’m sure Claudia and I can manage a few minutes’ polite conversation, Mr Danti.’

Gabriel Danti gave a mocking inclination of his head before turning his attention to Claudia. ‘Are you enjoying your visit to San Francisco, Claudia?’

Bella allowed her breath to leave her lungs in a soft, shaky sigh as she at last felt herself released from the intensity of Gabriel’s dark, compelling gaze, and she took those few moments of respite to study him more closely.

The man she had met five years ago had possessed the broodingly magnetic good looks of his heavenly namesake. Along with a lazy self-confidence and charm that was utterly captivating, and a warm sensuality in those chocolate-brown eyes that undressed a woman at a glance.

Or, in Bella’s experience, made a woman want to undress for him at a glance!

The man talking oh-so-politely to Claudia still possessed those broodingly magnetic good looks—the livid scar down the left side of his face only added a dangerous edge to that attraction!—but his eyes were no longer that warm and sensual colour of melted chocolate but were instead a flat, unemotional brown, and the lazy charm and self-confidence had been replaced with a cold and arrogant aloofness.

As far as Bella was aware, Gabriel had never married—although, in all honesty, Bella hadn’t particularly gone out of her way to learn anything about his life in the five years since they had parted so abruptly.

What would have been the point? The two of them had shared nothing more than a night of unimaginable and unrepeatable passion.

‘Would you care for a drink?’

Bella raised startled eyes to Gabriel’s, frowning slightly as she saw the glass he held out to her. Champagne. It would have to be champagne, wouldn’t it?

‘Thank you,’ she accepted stiltedly.

Gabriel watched beneath hooded lids as Bella’s cheeks warmed with colour as she took the fluted glass from him with a deftness that prevented her fingers from coming into contact with his.

His mouth twisted derisively as he asked, ‘Is this your first visit to San Francisco, too, Bella?’

‘Yes.’

‘You like the city?’

‘Very much.’

‘Have you done much sightseeing since your arrival?’

‘Some, yes.’

Gabriel’s gaze narrowed at the economy of her replies. ‘Perhaps—’

‘Excuse me for interrupting, Gabriel,’ his cousin Dahlia, tomorrow’s bride, cut in lightly as she joined them, ‘but my brother Benito is anxious to become reacquainted with Claudia,’ she added indulgently.

‘Really?’ The younger of the two Scott sisters glanced across the room to where Benito stood watching her intently.

Bella felt herself begin to tremble as she was overwhelmed with an impending sense of doom. If Claudia left then Bella would be completely alone with—

‘You don’t mind, do you, Bella?’ Claudia’s eyes were glowing with excitement. She had confided in Bella earlier today, after being introduced to Benito the previous evening, that she definitely wanted to get to know Dahlia’s older brother better.

Obviously the attraction was reciprocated—which didn’t help Bella in the least when she had no inclination whatsoever to be left alone with Gabriel Danti!

‘I assure you, Claudia, your sister will be perfectly safe with me,’ Gabriel replied with dry mockery before Bella had a chance to say anything.

Bella shot him a glance beneath her long lashes. She still had absolutely no idea whether or not Gabriel remembered her from their night together five years ago—and she didn’t want to know, either.

She remembered him, and that was bad enough!

But before she could add anything to his reply Claudia gave her arm a grateful squeeze. ‘Thanks, Bella,’she whispered before moving away to accompany Dahlia over to where the dark and handsome Benito stood waiting.

The sudden silence the two women left in their wake seemed deafening to Bella.

The room was full of people, at least a hundred or so of the guests invited to the wedding tomorrow, all of them chatting or laughing as they either renewed old acquaintances or met new ones. And yet as far as Bella was concerned she and Gabriel could have been alone on an island in the Arctic—the air between them was certainly frigidly cold enough for them to be on one!

‘There is a more—private sitting area next to this one in which we might talk,’ Gabriel bit out abruptly.

Bella raised apprehensive eyes, knowing that wariness was justified as Gabriel looked down his nose at her with a glacial brown gaze, his mouth—the mouth she had once found so sensually mesmerising!—flattened to a thin, uncompromising line above that cleft chin.

She moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘I’m perfectly happy where I am, thank you, Mr Danti.’

His eyes became even more icy as he reached out and curled his fingers compellingly about the top of her arm. ‘It was a statement of intent, Bella, not a question,’ he assured her grimly as he began to walk towards the exit, Bella firmly anchored to his side, the stiffness of his left leg barely noticeable.

‘But—’

‘Do you really want to have this conversation here, in front of Dahlia and Brian’s other guests?’ he asked harshly as he came to a halt halfway across the crowded room to look down at her through narrowed lids.

Bella swallowed hard as she saw the unmistakeably angry glitter in that dark gaze. ‘I have absolutely no idea what conversation you’re referring to—’

‘Oh, I think that you do, Bella,’he retorted menacingly.

Bella thought that she did, too!

She only wished that she didn’t. But Gabriel’s behaviour since Claudia and Dahlia’s departure all pointed to the fact that he did remember her from five years ago, after all…

CHAPTER TWO

‘I REALLY have no idea what the two of us could possibly have to talk about, Mr Danti,’ Bella told him stiltedly as he sat perfectly relaxed in the armchair across from hers in the quiet of the otherwise deserted small reception-room just down the hallway from where the family party was being held.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed on the paleness of her face as she sat stiffly upright in her own chair. ‘Considering our—past acquaintance, shall we say?—I believe refraining from addressing me as “Mr Danti” in that superior tone would be a good way to begin.’

She raised her brows in what she hoped was a querying manner. ‘Our past acquaintance…?’

Gabriel’s mouth thinned. ‘Do not play games with me, Bella!’

She shot him another glance before looking sharply away again. ‘I wasn’t sure you had remembered we’d met before…’

‘Oh, I remember,’ he growled.

She swallowed hard before speaking. ‘As do I—Gabriel,’ she conceded tightly.

He gave a humourless smile. ‘You had absolutely no idea I would be here tonight, did you?’

Those eyes flashed deeply purple at his mocking tone. ‘Why should I have done? Dahlia’s name is Fabrizzi.’

‘Her mother, my aunt Teresa, is my father’s younger sister,’ Gabriel supplied evenly.

Bella’s mouth twisted. ‘How sweet that you flew all the way from Italy to attend your cousin’s wedding!’

Gabriel’s mouth thinned at her obvious mockery. ‘I no longer live in Italy, Bella.’

She looked startled. ‘You don’t?’

Gabriel shook his head. ‘I spend most of my time at the Danti vineyards about an hour’s drive away from here, but I also have a house right here in San Francisco.’

Bella could easily guess exactly where in San Francisco that house was!

She and the rest of her family had gone for a tour of the city earlier today, and part of that tour had been through an area known as Pacific Heights, where the houses were grand and gracious—and worth millions of dollars!

‘Do you like living in America?’ she asked curiously.

Gabriel shrugged. ‘It has its—advantages.’

Bella just bet that it did! She also couldn’t help wondering if Gabriel’s move to America didn’t have something to do with the fact that Janine Childe, the woman Gabriel had once been in love with—perhaps was still in love with?—now lived in California, too…

‘Have you now finished with the polite exchange of information?’ Gabriel asked.

Bella forced her gaze to remain level on his. ‘What do you want from me, Gabriel?’

What did he want from her? That was an interesting question, Gabriel acknowledged grimly. Until he had arrived at the party earlier, and seen Bella across the room as she chatted with the young woman he now knew to be her sister, Gabriel would have liked to believe he had cast Bella from his mind after that single night together. But having recognised her instantly, he knew he could no longer claim that to be the case…

If anything, Isabella Scott was even more strikingly lovely than she had been five years ago, maturity having added self-assurance to a beauty that had already been breathtaking. Her violet eyes were still as stunning as ever, her hair was still long and the colour of ebony, but styled now in heavy layers so that it swung silkily against her cheeks and her throat, before cascading wildly down the length of her back. And the close fit of her violet gown revealed that her waist was still delicately slender beneath the full thrust of those perfect breasts…

What did he want from her?

He wanted not to have noticed any of those things!

His mouth set in a grim, uncompromising line. ‘What do you have to give, Bella?’

Her gaze was searching as she eyed him warily, and Gabriel knew that Bella would see that he, at least, was visibly much changed from their last meeting.

The darkness of his hair was styled several inches shorter than it had once been, but the scar that ran the length of his left cheek—a constant reminder, when Gabriel looked in the mirror to shave each morning, of the guilt he carried inside—was a much more visible reminder of how much he had changed in the last five years.

Was Bella repulsed, as Gabriel was himself, by the livid ugliness of that scar?

‘What do I have to give to you, in particular?’ Bella repeated incredulously. ‘Absolutely nothing!’ she scornfully answered her own question.

Gabriel’s hand moved instinctively to the jagged wound that marred his cheek. ‘That, at least, has not changed,’ he rasped coldly.

Bella eyed him frowningly. Why was he looking at her so contemptuously? He was the one who had seduced her only because the woman he had really wanted—the beautiful supermodel, Janine Childe—had told him their relationship was over, and that she was involved with one his fellow Formula One drivers.

That Formula One driver had been Paulo Descari. Killed in the crash that had occurred only hours after Gabriel had left Bella in his bed.

Janine Childe had tearfully claimed at the time that Gabriel had deliberately caused the accident out of jealousy, because of Paulo Descari’s relationship with her.

While not convinced Gabriel would have deliberately caused that crash, five years later Bella still cringed whenever she thought that being on the rebound had been Gabriel’s only reason for spending the night with her.

So how dared Gabriel now look at her with such contempt?

‘I’ve changed, Gabriel,’ she told him pointedly.

‘For the better?’

Bella frowned. ‘What the—’

‘Did you ever marry, Bella?’ Gabriel cut icily across her protest, his mouth twisting derisively as his dark gaze moved over the bareness of her left hand. ‘I see not. Perhaps that is as well,’ he added insultingly.

Bella took an outraged breath. ‘Perhaps it’s as well that you have never married either!’ She came back in just as cutting a tone.

He gave a humourless smile. ‘Perhaps.’

‘I don’t think the two of us sitting here exchanging insults is in the least harmonious to Brian and Dahlia’s wedding tomorrow, do you?’ she challenged.

Bella’s heart sank every time she thought of attending that wedding.

She had been looking forward for weeks to this trip to San Francisco. But meeting Gabriel again, knowing he was going to be at the wedding tomorrow, too, now made it an ordeal Bella didn’t even want to attempt to get through.

But she had no idea how to get out of it, either…

Gabriel watched the emotions as they flickered across Bella’s beautiful and expressive face, taking a guess at the reason for her look of trepidation. ‘Your parents and brother are here for the wedding also?’

‘Yes,’ she confirmed quietly.

He gave a ruthless smile. ‘And they, like your sister just now, have no idea that the two of us have ever met before.’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘No,’ she sighed.

Gabriel gave a mocking inclination of his head. ‘And you would prefer that it remain that way?’

Bella sent him a narrow-eyed glance. ‘Yes!’

‘They would not understand our having spent the night together five years ago?’

‘I don’t understand it, so why should they!’ Bella exclaimed. ‘That night was totally out of character for me. Totally,’ she added vehemently as she remembered just how eager, how gullible she had been.

Gabriel almost felt a hint of sympathy for Bella as he noticed that her hands were trembling slightly as she wrapped her fingers about her fluted glass sitting on the table in front of her. Almost. The fact it was champagne that bubbled inside the glass, the same wine that Gabriel had once dribbled all over this woman’s body, before slowly licking it from the sensuous softness of her skin, precluded him feeling in the least sorry for Bella’s obvious discomfort with this unexpected encounter.

He shrugged unsympathetically. ‘I am sure that we all have things in our past that we wish had not happened.’

Bella wondered briefly if he could possibly be talking about that horrific car crash and Janine Childe’s accusations, but then she saw the hard glitter in Gabriel’s eyes as he looked at her, and the contemptuous curl of his top lip, and Bella realised he had been referring to her, that she was something he wished had not happened in his life, either.

She swallowed before speaking. ‘Then we’re both agreed that it would be better for everyone if we both just forgot our—past acquaintance?’ She deliberately used his own description of that night five years ago.

The grimness of his smile lacked any genuine humour. ‘If only it were that simple, Bella…’

If only.

But it wasn’t. Bella, more than anyone, knew that it wasn’t.

Much as she hated meeting Gabriel again like this, let alone having to sit through this insulting conversation, she also thanked God that this initial meeting had taken place this evening. It could have been so much more disastrous if it had happened at the wedding tomorrow instead…

She straightened, pushing her wine glass away from her so that she didn’t risk knocking it over. ‘Let’s make it that simple, Gabriel,’ she offered. ‘We’ll both just agree to stay well away from each other for the rest of my stay in San Francisco.’ Which was only three more days, thank goodness; her father hadn’t been able to take any longer than a week away from his medical practice.

Gabriel’s gaze narrowed as he took in the smooth creaminess of Bella’s skin as she flicked her hair back over her shoulders. Deliberately drawing attention to the full swell of her breasts above the fitted purple gown? Somehow, going on their previous conversation, Gabriel didn’t think so.

‘One dance together, Bella, and then perhaps I will consider your suggestion,’ he murmured huskily.

Her eyes widened. ‘One dance?’

‘They have begun dancing at the party now that all of the guests have arrived,’ he pointed out dryly, the earlier soft strains of background music having given way to louder dance music.

Bella looked confused. ‘You want to dance with me?’

‘Why not?’ Gabriel wanted to know.

Her cheeks were very pale. ‘Because—well, because—Can you dance? I mean—’

‘You mean considering I am so obviously disadvantaged?’ Gabriel rasped harshly, his expression grim as he acknowledged that she had obviously noticed that, as well as the scar on his face, he also favoured his left leg when he walked.

Not that the disability was anywhere near as bad as it had been five years ago. Gabriel had spent several months in a wheelchair after the accident, several more painful months after that learning to walk again. That he now had the scar and a slight limp as the only visible sign of the car crash, even if unsightly, was a miracle.

Bella gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘You’re about as disadvantaged as a stalking tiger!’

‘I am pleased that you realise that,’ he growled—and had the satisfaction of seeing the heated colour that instantly flooded her cheeks. ‘I am definitely able to dance, Bella. As long as the music is slow,’ he added challengingly.

Slow…! Bella inwardly groaned. What Gabriel really meant by that was he could dance to the sort of music where a man held the woman closely in his arms…Her mouth firmed. ‘I was actually thinking of excusing myself and going to bed—’

‘Was that an invitation for me to join you?’ he smoothly inserted.

‘No, it most certainly was not!’She flushed slightly as she almost screeched her indignation with the suggestion. Definitely an overreaction to that sort of temptation…

He shrugged. ‘Then I believe I will return to the party once you have left and ask that Brian introduce me to your parents.’

Bella glared across the table at him. ‘You rat! You absolute, unmitigated—’

‘I will tolerate the name calling once, Bella.’ Gabriel’s tone was steely. ‘But only once,’ he warned coldly. ‘It is your choice.’Then his tone softened almost to pleasantness as he relaxed back in his chair to once again look across at her with mocking eyes. ‘Consent to one dance with me or I will ask to meet your parents.’

‘Why?’ she groaned protestingly. ‘Why do you even want to dance with me?’

‘Curiosity, perhaps…?’

‘Curiosity about what?’She voiced her bewilderment.

His gaze roamed over her slowly, from the darkness of her hair, across her face, and then lower, to the swell of her breasts.

Bella could barely breathe as she suffered that slow perusal, rising abruptly to her feet when she could no longer bear the deliberate insult of that gaze. ‘One dance, Gabriel,’she said, abruptly giving in. ‘After which, I would prefer it if you didn’t so much as speak to me again!’

He smiled before rising more leisurely to his feet. ‘I will let you know how I feel about that after we have danced together.’

Bella shrugged off the hold Gabriel would have taken of her arm, instead walking several feet away from him as they returned down the hallway to the function room where the party was being held.

She was nevertheless aware of everything about him, from the mocking gleam in those dark eyes, the smile of satisfaction that curved those sculptured lips and that sexy cleft in the centre of his arrogant chin, to the lithe grace of his body as he easily compensated for the injury he had sustained in the crash five years ago.

According to the newspaper reports at the time, Gabriel’s injuries had been horrific. Both legs and his pelvis crushed. Burns over much of his torso. Numerous cuts on his body, the worst of them that terrible gash to his left cheek. But as far as Bella was concerned, those scars only added to the air of danger Gabriel had already possessed in such abundance!

‘Perfect,’ Gabriel murmured with satisfaction when a slow ballad began to play as they entered the crowded function room. The lights had been dimmed and several couples were already dancing in the space that had been cleared in the centre of the room, including Claudia Scott and his cousin Benito. ‘A pity there is not a song about a lady in purple,’ Gabriel mocked, taking hold of Bella’s hand as they stepped onto the dance floor.

‘I would prefer it if we danced formally,’ she told Gabriel stiffly as he deliberately placed his arms about her waist to draw her against him, her hands crushed against his chest.

‘Did no one ever tell you that life is full of disappointments?’ he murmured, a hand against her spine continuing to hold her body moulded against his as they began to move slowly in time to the music.

She pulled back slightly, her eyes glittering with anger. ‘Oh, yes,’ she snapped scathingly. ‘Someone taught me that only too well!’

Gabriel raised dark brows. ‘Then it will not surprise you to know that I prefer that we continue to dance exactly as we are.’

Bella was past being surprised by anything that happened this evening!

In fact, she was too busy fighting her complete awareness of the hardness of Gabriel’s body pressed so close to her own, his cheek resting lightly against her hair, the warmth of his hand against her spine, his other hand enveloping one of her own as he held it against his chest, to be able to concentrate on anything else.

Much as she wished it weren’t so, Bella was aware of everything about Gabriel as they danced. His heat. His smell. The warmth of his breath against her temple. The sensuality of his body against hers as he moved them both to the slow beat of the music.

And Bella was also supremely aware of her own response to all of those things, her breathing soft and uneven, her skin sensitised, her breasts swelling, the nipples hardening, and a deep hot ache pooling between her thighs.

This was torture. Absolute torture.

Nor was her discomfort helped by the fact that Claudia had spotted the two of them dancing so closely together, her encouraging nods and smiles showing Bella that one member of her family, at least, was totally fooled by Gabriel’s marked interest in her.

Bella pulled slightly away from him, releasing her hand from his as she deliberately put several inches between them. ‘I think we’ve danced quite long enough, don’t you?’ she said stiffly, her gaze fixed on the third button of his white evening shirt.

Gabriel’s mouth tightened, his gaze becoming glacial as he inwardly acknowledged that he had definitely danced with Isabella Scott ‘quite long enough’. Long enough for him to confirm that his body still responded to the voluptuousness of Bella’s breasts and the warmth of her thighs pressed against his. Which was all he had wanted to know…

‘Perhaps you are right,’ he said and immediately stepped away from her in the middle of the dance floor.

Bella looked uncomfortable at his abrupt withdrawal, and she glanced about them self-consciously as several of the other people dancing gave them curious glances. ‘You’re deliberately trying to embarrass me,’ she muttered irritably before she turned and walked off the dance floor, her cheeks warm with colour.

‘You expressed a wish that we stop dancing.’ Gabriel followed at a more leisurely pace.

‘Go away, Gabriel. Just go away,’she repeated wearily.

Gabriel looked down at her searchingly, the glitter in those purple eyes no longer looking as if it was caused by anger. ‘Are you crying, Bella?’

‘Of course I’m not crying,’ she snapped, her chin once again rising in challenge as she now met his gaze defiantly. ‘It would take more than the misfortune of having met you again to make me cry!’ she said scathingly. ‘Now, if you will excuse me? I really would like to go to my room.’

He raised dark brows. ‘You are staying here at the hotel?’ It was a possibility that hadn’t occurred to him.

Her eyes narrowed. ‘And so what if I am?’

‘I was just curious, Bella,’ he pointed out.

‘Are you?’ She gave a mocking smile. ‘I don’t remember you being curious enough five years ago to be interested in anyone but yourself.’

Gabriel’s mouth thinned warningly. ‘Are you accusing me of having been a selfish lover?’He sounded outraged.

‘No, of course not!’ Bella’s cheeks blazed with colour. ‘This is a ridiculous conversation!’ she added resentfully. ‘It’s time I was leaving. I won’t say it’s been a pleasure meeting you again, Gabriel—because we both know that isn’t true!’ she added before turning and walking away, her head held high.

Gabriel watched Bella as she crossed the room to make her excuses to his aunt and uncle before leaving, her hair long and gloriously silky down the length of her spine, the movements of her hips provocative beneath the purple gown, her legs appearing slender and shapely above the high heels of her purple sandals.

No, Gabriel agreed, it had certainly not been a pleasure to meet Isabella Scott again.

But it had been something…

Bella forced herself to move slowly, calmly, as she made her excuses to her hosts, Teresa and Pablo Fabrizzi, before leaving the function room to walk down the hallway to the lift, refusing to give Gabriel Danti the satisfaction of seeing her hurrying down that hallway in order to escape being the focus of his intense gaze.

She breathed easier once inside the lift, leaning weakly against one of the mirrored walls as she pressed the button to descend to the sixth floor where her room was situated.

Could anything worse than Gabriel Danti being related to her cousin’s fiancée possibly have happened?

Bella couldn’t think of anything.

Nor had she yet been able to think of a way to avoid being at the wedding tomorrow. But she would have to come up with something. She had to.

‘You’re back early,’Angela, Dahlia’s younger sister, greeted warmly as Bella let herself into the sitting-room of the suite she was sharing with her siblings.

Bella put her evening bag down on the table just inside the door. ‘I have a bit of a headache,’ she dismissed.

‘That’s a pity.’ Angela stood up, as tall and lithely beautiful as her older sister.

‘I also thought that you’ve been babysitting long enough this evening and perhaps you might like to go up and join in the party for a while?’ Bella added warmly, Angela having very kindly offered to take the half a dozen younger members of the English contingent of the wedding party out to a pizza restaurant for the evening, before bringing them back to the hotel and ensuring they all settled down in bed for the night.

‘If you’re sure you don’t mind?’ Angela smiled.

‘Not at all,’ Bella assured her. ‘The dancing has only just started,’ she added encouragingly.

‘Take something for that headache, hmm?’ Angela encouraged lightly before letting herself out of the suite.

Bella heaved a shaky sigh, taking several minutes to calm herself before going into the adjoining bedroom where her young brother lay in bed, the bedside lamp still on as he read a book. ‘Everything okay, Liam?’ she enquired softly as she paused beside him.

Her twelve-year-old brother grinned up at her. ‘Fast asleep, as you can see.’

Bella turned, her expression softening as she looked down at the occupant of the second bed.

Her four-year-old son, Toby.

His curls were dark against the pillow, lashes of the same warm chocolate resting on his baby cheeks, his lips slightly parted as he breathed deeply, an endearing dimple in the centre of his chin.

A dimple that Bella knew would one day become a firm cleft.

Just like the one in his father’s chin.

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU do not feel a woman’s usual need to cry at weddings?’

Bella’s back stiffened at the softly taunting sound of Gabriel’s voice directly behind her as she stood with all the other wedding guests outside the church, watching the bride and groom as they posed for numerous photographs.

Hard as Bella had tried to find a reason for Toby and herself not to attend the wedding today, including a headache for herself and possible signs of a fever for Toby, ultimately she had had no choice but to concede defeat when her father had declared them both fit and well. Other than throwing herself down a flight of stairs, Bella knew she had lost that particular battle! The most she had been able to hope for was that Gabriel Danti would heed her advice from last night and just stay away from her.

The fact that he was standing behind her now showed that he hadn’t!

Bella had seen him when she and the rest of her family arrived for the wedding an hour or so ago, seated in a pew further down the church. Sitting next to him was a silver-haired man whose height and facial likeness to Gabriel indicated that this was probably his father, the aristocratic Cristo Danti.

Her heart had given a jolt as she watched the two Italians unobserved before glancing down at the small boy fidgeting on the pew beside her, instantly recognising how like his father and grandfather Toby was.

As Claudia had also innocently noted the previous evening when she remarked that Gabriel reminded her of someone…!

Thank goodness Toby had disappeared with his adored uncle Liam once the service was over, and was even now playing beneath an oak tree further down the churchyard, with the group of children who had gone out for pizza the evening before.

A fact Bella took note of before she slowly turned to face Gabriel, her response to how handsome he looked in a tailored dark suit and snowy white shirt hidden behind a deliberately neutral expression as she rather wickedly responded to his comment about women usually crying at weddings. ‘I’d only cry in sympathy, I’m afraid!’

Gabriel gave an appreciative smile as his hooded gaze swept admiringly over her in the knee-length dress that fitted smoothly over the curves of her slender body, a silk flower pinned behind her left ear and holding back the long length of her dark hair.

She looked cool and beautiful—and utterly self-con-tained.

It was an assurance that Gabriel perversely wanted to shatter. ‘Perhaps that is because no man has so far asked you to become his bride?’ he taunted.

Delicate colour warmed her cheeks at the intended insult. ‘What on earth makes you assume that, Gabriel?’ she retorted. ‘Maybe I’ve simply chosen not to marry because I’m only too aware of how fickle a man’s interest can be?’ she added sweetly.

Gabriel’s mouth thinned at her riposte. ‘Perhaps you have been—meeting the wrong men…?’

‘Perhaps I have.’ Her gaze was openly challenging now as it met his.

Enjoyable as it was, this constant bickering with Bella would not do, Gabriel recognised ruefully. It was his cousin’s wedding day, an entirely inappropriate time for open dissent between two of her guests.

Bella had obviously come to the same conclusion. ‘If you’ll excuse me, Gabriel? I have to rejoin my family—’ She looked up at Gabriel with sharp enquiry as the fingers he had placed about her arm prevented her from leaving.

A nerve pulsed in his jaw as he looked down at her. ‘We need to talk, Bella.’

‘We talked yesterday evening, Gabriel—for all the good it did either of us!’ she exclaimed.

‘Exactly,’ he agreed. ‘We cannot possibly continue this estrangement between us, when our two families are now united—’

Bella’s unamused laugh cut him off. ‘My cousin is now married to your cousin—that hardly makes our families united!’ she pointed out impatiently. ‘In fact, I can’t think of another occasion when the two of us will ever have to meet again!’

It was what Bella fervently hoped, at least. At the moment she would just think herself lucky if she could get through the rest of today without this whole situation blowing up in her face.

It really was unfortunate that her father happened to be a doctor, and as such perfectly able to dismiss the illnesses Bella had imagined earlier for both herself and Toby. Although, her previously mythical headache was rapidly becoming a reality during this latest conversation with Gabriel!

How could it be otherwise when she still had absolutely no idea how she was going to prevent Toby and Gabriel from coming face to face at some time during the wedding reception? If that should happen Bella had no idea what Gabriel’s reaction would be…After his rejection of her, there was no way she was going to risk Toby being rejected, too, and Gabriel’s menacing looks did nothing to calm her fears.

She glanced past Gabriel now as she easily recognised the sound of her young son’s giggle, knowing the reason for his joyful laughter as she saw that Liam was tickling him.

Toby was a happy child, totally secure in the adoration of his mother and his indulgent grandparents, as well as his doting aunt and uncle. And Bella wished for him to remain that way.

The last three days had shown her how close the members of the Danti family were, how much they valued and loved their children. She literally quailed at the thought of what Gabriel might do if he were to ever realise that Toby was the result of their single night together five years ago, and how much of his young son’s life he’d already missed out on…

‘I really do have to go, Gabriel.’ Her gaze avoided meeting his now as she stepped away from him to release herself from his hold on her arm.

Gabriel watched Bella with frowning intensity as she walked away from him, that frown turning to a scowl as he heard the softness of her laughter as she was surrounded by the group of laughing children, some of them the offspring of his own cousins, the likeness to Bella of the tallest of the group making him easily recognisable as her brother Liam.

How strange it was that the people she had talked of so affectionately five years ago—her parents, her sister Claudia and her brother Liam—should now be a reality to him.

‘A friend of yours…?’

Gabriel’s smile stayed in place as he turned to face his father, revealing none of his inner concern as he saw the unhealthy grey pallor to the older man’s face. ‘I doubt Bella would think so,’ he answered wryly.

‘Bella?’ Cristo raised silver brows before he glanced across to where Bella was now walking down the pathway chatting with her brother and another of the children.

‘Isabella Scott. I met her yesterday evening at Dahlia’s party,’ Gabriel enlarged.

Again, he could have added. But didn’t, knowing that to do so would only arouse his father’s insatiable curiosity.

Cristo was the patriarch of the Danti family, and, at sixty-five and ill in health, he had begun to make definite murmurings about Gabriel marrying and producing children to continue the dynasty that Gabriel’s great-grandfather had begun with the vineyards in Italy a hundred years ago, and which each succeeding generation had added to. It was Gabriel’s own grandfather who had instigated the planting of the vineyards in America seventy years ago.

Gabriel had taken over the running of the California vineyards four years ago, after his father suffered a minor heart attack. But, at the age of thirty-three, unhappily for his father, Gabriel as yet felt no inclination to marry and produce the heirs necessary to continue that dynasty.

As a consequence, Cristo tended to look at every woman Gabriel so much as spoke to as a possible mother to his grandchildren.

How Bella Scott would have laughed if she had known Cristo had briefly considered her for that role!

Bella began to breathe a little easier once the wedding breakfast and speeches were over, and the guests began to wander through to the adjoining room where the evening’s dancing was to begin and the socialising to continue. Giving her an ideal opportunity, she hoped, in which to excuse herself and Toby.

Her luck in keeping Toby well away from Gabriel had held during the reception, with Gabriel and his father seated at a dining-table on the furthest side of the room from where Bella sat with her own family.

Dahlia’s family being Italian, there were a lot of children present, and the happy couple had chosen to seat all the children at four tables separate from their parents, both allowing the children the freedom to be themselves, and the parents to eat their meal in peace and enjoy socialising with the other adults. This arrangement had also made it impossible to know which children belonged to which parents.

Or, in Bella’s case, which parent…

Taking a quick mental note of Gabriel’s presence on the other side of the reception room, Bella made her excuses to her own family before slowly making her way towards the door where Dahlia and Brian stood greeting the last of their evening guests, her intention to collect Toby from where he was running riot with the other children, before making—hopefully!—an unnoticed exit.

‘You are leaving so soon, Bella?’

She had counted her chickens far too early, Bella acknowledged with a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, looking up to see Gabriel Danti’s challenging expression as he blocked her progress to the door. ‘I have a headache,’ she excused tightly.

He raised a mocking eyebrow. ‘Weddings really do not agree with you, do they?’

‘It’s only the prospect of ever having to attend one of my own that I’m allergic to,’ she assured him dryly.

Gabriel gave an appreciative smile. He had watched narrow-eyed as Bella made slow but determined progress down the room as she took her leave of several of the other guests, easily guessing that it was her intention to leave early.

It amused him to challenge that departure. ‘I trust my own presence has not added to your—discomfort?’

‘Not at all.’ Those violet-coloured eyes gazed steadily into his. ‘My headache is probably a delayed reaction to jet lag.’

‘Of course,’ Gabriel drawled. ‘My father expressed a wish earlier to be introduced to you,’ he added not quite truthfully.

No doubt his father would enjoy the introduction, and would draw his own—erroneous—conclusions about it, but he certainly hadn’t asked for it.

‘Your father?’Bella looked startled by the suggestion. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Gabriel—I mean—what would be the point?’ she concluded, obviously flustered.

Gabriel studied her beneath hooded lids. ‘Politeness, perhaps?’ he suggested blandly. ‘He is, after all, now the uncle-in-law of your cousin.’

Bella didn’t look convinced by that argument. ‘As I told you earlier, it’s doubtful that any of us will ever meet up again after today.’

He raised dark brows. ‘Not even at the christening of Dahlia and Brian’s first child?’

Bella hadn’t thought of that! This situation really was getting extremely complicated. So much so that she wasn’t sure how much longer Gabriel would remain in ignorance of the fact that she had a small son—or, more crucially, that he had one, too!

Nevertheless, she didn’t feel able to make that explanation right now, so…‘That’s probably years away,’ she dismissed sharply. ‘Who knows what any of us will be doing then?’

Personally, Bella was thinking of emigrating to Tasmania!

She tried again. ‘I really do have to go, Gabriel—’

‘Perhaps, as you obviously do not feel inclined to meet my father this evening, you and your family might like to visit the Danti vineyards tomorrow?’

Bella froze, a frown on her brow as she turned to look up at Gabriel with uncertain eyes. ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked.

‘I merely asked if you and your family would care to come to the Danti vineyards tomorrow,’ he reiterated.

‘You didn’t “merely ask” anything, Gabriel, and you know it,’ she argued. ‘Just as you know that you are the very last man I wish to spend any more time with!’ She was trying not to breathe hard, hoping to conceal the worst of her agitation from him.

‘The very last man?’ he repeated softly, eyes narrowed suspiciously. ‘Why is that, Bella? What did I do to merit such a distinction? Or perhaps it is my scars that you now find so repulsive?’ he added harshly.

‘I’m insulted that you believe me to be so shallow,’ Bella snapped to hide the fact that she had made yet another mistake where this man was concerned.

Yet when had she ever done anything else…?

Toby hadn’t been a mistake!

Bella had been stunned five years ago, and not a little frightened, when she’d realised she was pregnant. But that shock and fear had quickly given way to the wonder of the new life growing inside her. Her parents’ support, as well as that of Claudia and Liam, had also helped. Especially in the early months when Bella had wondered what she was going to do, how she was going to cope, and especially how she would be able to earn a living once she had a small baby to care for.

Again her parents had been wonderful, insisting that Bella remain living at home with them during her pregnancy, and for some time after Toby was born, by which time Bella had been earning enough money to be able to support them both.

Her parents’ attitude to her pregnancy was doubly admirable when Bella considered that they had done all of that without her ever telling them, or their insisting, on knowing the name of her baby’s father…

But how long would they remain in ignorance of his identity if Gabriel went ahead with his intention of inviting her family to the Danti vineyards tomorrow?

She looked at Gabriel searchingly, easily noting his similarity to Toby: the darkness of his hair, the same facial structure, those dark eyes, the cleft in his chin. But was Bella only seeing those similarities because she knew of Toby’s paternity? Would her parents, her siblings, see them, too?

Claudia had already seen Gabriel’s likeness to ‘someone’, so Bella obviously couldn’t risk it!

‘Okay, Gabriel, I’ll stay long enough for you to introduce me to your father,’ she capitulated suddenly, before turning and preceding him across the room to where Cristo Danti sat in conversation with his sister.

Bella hadn’t completely answered his question about being put off by his scar, Gabriel noted with a scowl as he closely followed her to make sure she didn’t manage to slip away. But there had been no doubting the vehemence of her claim that he was the very last man she wished to spend any more time with.

Interestingly, Gabriel had once felt exactly the same way about Bella…

His father broke off his conversation and stood up at their approach, Gabriel frowning slightly as he noted the increased pallor in his father’s face. The long flight from Italy earlier in the week, and attending Dahlia’s wedding today, had obviously taken more of a toll on his father’s health than was wise.

Gabriel would suggest that the two of them leave, too, once the introductions were over. ‘Papa, may I present Isabella Scott? Bella, my father, Cristo Danti.’

Bella’s breath caught in her throat as she looked up into that stern, aristocratic face that was so much like Gabriel’s. So much like Toby’s, too…

‘Mr Danti,’ she greeted with a coolness she was far from feeling, only her cheeks echoing her inner warmth as the older man took her hand in his before raising it gallantly to his lips.

‘You are well named, Miss Scott,’ Cristo Danti murmured appreciatively as he slowly released her hand.

Bella gave an awkward smile. ‘Thank you.’

‘You are enjoying your stay in San Francisco?’

‘Very much, thank you.’

He nodded. ‘I have always liked San Francisco.’

‘It’s certainly an interesting city,’ Bella came back non-committally, very aware of Gabriel’s broodingly silent presence beside her.

No doubt he was enjoying her discomfort in this stilted conversation with his father. Just as he had enjoyed being able to force this introduction on her in the first place by the veiled threat of inviting her family to the Danti vineyards when she so obviously didn’t want his company at all.

‘It was a beautiful wedding,’ Cristo Danti continued lightly.

‘Bella does not enjoy weddings.’ Gabriel spoke for the first time. Dryly. Dark brows raised mockingly as Bella shot him a frowning glance.

Bella gave him another quelling glance before answering the older man. ‘Dahlia is a lovely bride.’

‘Yes, she is.’ Cristo Danti’s expression was slightly quizzical now as he glanced at his son and then back to Bella. ‘Are you remaining in San Francisco long, Miss Scott?’

‘Just another couple of days. And please call me Bella,’ she invited.

The older man nodded. ‘Perhaps before you leave you might care to—’

‘Mummy, Nanny and Grandad said we’re leaving now!’ Toby complained irritably as he suddenly appeared at her side, the excitement of the last week, and his late night yesterday evening, obviously making him tired and slightly querulous.

Bella froze at the first sound of her son’s voice, like a nocturnal animal caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

This couldn’t be happening! Not here. Not now!

Bella couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak.

This was worse than anything she could ever have imagined. Worse than any of the nightmares that had plagued her dreams since she had met Gabriel again yesterday evening.

‘Mummy?’ Gabriel echoed beside her with soft incredulity.

Bella forced herself to move as she slowly turned to look at him, the colour draining from her cheeks as she saw the way he was staring down so intently at Toby.

But it was Cristo Danti, the man standing at Bella’s other side, who broke their frozen tableau as, his breath rasping in his throat, he slowly, but graciously, began to collapse, his eyes remaining wide and disbelieving on Toby as he did so.

As he stared at the little boy who was unmistakeably his grandson…

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