‘Are you surprised to see me, Matteo?’

‘Not really.’ He shrugged, as if facing her again was the easiest thing in the world—as if he hadn’t spent the best part of the night locked in sensual dreams with her. ‘I heard at dinner last night from Sophie that you worked here …’ That would account for dreaming of her, Matteo decided, and then he remembered why they could never be.

She preferred her work to him.

‘Are your clientele richer here, Bella?’

‘They are.’ Bella smiled. ‘I wonder if even you could afford me now.’

‘Oh, but I’m sure that I could,’ Matteo said. ‘Given that I’m looking to buy this hotel. In a few months time I may well be your boss …’

‘Never!’ Bella spat.

‘Why are you suddenly so cross?’ Matteo asked, his voice a low husk, his face far too close to hers, so close that he could feel her soft rapid breaths on his cheek. ‘From what I remember we parted on very friendly terms.’

Playboys of Sicily

Taming Italy’s most notorious men!

You won’t want to miss this sizzlingly dramatic new duet from USA TODAY bestselling author Carol Marinelli—available only from Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance!

Tycoon Luka might agree to be ex-flame Sophie’s fake fiancé … but at what cost?

Sicilian’s Shock Proposal Available July 2015

Bella hasn’t seen millionaire Matteo since that night. He’s as irresistible as ever, but will he still want her after he discovers her secret?

His Sicilian Cinderella Available August 2015

His Sicilian

Cinderella

Carol Marinelli

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAROL MARINELLI is a Taurus, with Taurus rising, yet she still thinks she’s a secret Gemini. Originally from England, she now lives in Australia and is a single mother of three. Apart from her children, writing romance and the friendships forged along the way are her passion. She chooses to believe in a happy-ever-after for all, and strives for that in her writing.

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Introduction

Playboys of Sicily

Title Page

About the Author

Contents

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

‘YOU’LL COME WITH ME?’ Matteo checked. ‘You’ll meet me and Luka at the airport this morning?’

He couldn’t quite meet Bella’s eyes—not just because there was a bruise on her cheek that his hand had made, more that last night had left him feeling more open and exposed than Matteo was used to.

And yet, for the most part, there was no sense of regret.

Bella looked up at the man who had had her heart since she was sixteen. On her first day as a chambermaid at Brezza Oceana she had started her shift feeling awkward in her uniform and missing her friends from school, but at least her closest friend Sophie had started working there that day too.

Bella and Sophie had walked along a corridor, only to see a few of Malvolio’s men coming towards them, including Matteo Santini and his half-brother Dino.

The young women had stepped back to let the group pass but even as they’d done so Bella had braced herself for what was to come.

Sophie was out of bounds. She had been promised to Luka and they would get engaged soon. Even though he lived in England, Luka was Malvolio’s son and so they didn’t say anything to her.

The lewd comments were instead all aimed at Bella, because they knew she was Maria Gatti’s daughter and were aware of her mother’s occupation.

Bella was more than used to it.

‘Hey!’ Matteo said sharply, and for a moment Bella thought he was speaking to her but then he turned to the group, his brother included, and there was anger in his rich, deep voice. ‘Déjala en paz.’

He told them to leave her alone and when Dino argued Matteo said it even more firmly. In fact, when Dino persisted, Matteo shoved him against the wall and, still holding his brother there, he briefly turned to Bella.

‘Via via...’

He had told her, not unkindly, to go away and leave them. It was the only time he had really spoken to her, but even before then he’d had a little bit of her heart—if her mother had money for Malvolio, it was Matteo she would ring to come and collect it, rather than Dino.

‘At least Matteo only takes the money,’ her mother would say.

Yes, little by little, over the years, Matteo had collected pieces of Bella’s heart and now finally he had taken it all.

Last night Matteo had made her his lover and he had been her first.

Yes, the night had started out in the cruellest of circumstances, but they had been circumstances that had been forced upon them.

The coastal town in Sicily’s wild, wild west was ruled by Malvolio.

The game was called fear and the people were his pawns.

He owned the hotel and most of the businesses and was a cruel landlord to most of the town. Despite the idyllic surroundings, there was crime and corruption at every turn and it was also a dangerous world if you did not play by Malvolio’s rules.

Yet somehow, together, they had made last night beautiful and now, this morning, Matteo had asked her to leave Bordo Del Cielo with him.

‘I’ll do my best to be there,’ Bella said.

‘We only have this one chance,’ Matteo warned. ‘If you stay, then no one can ever know that I offered for you to join me. If they know that I...’ Matteo hesitated, because with Bella he used words he was not used to hearing, let alone saying. ‘If Malvolio gets so much as a hint that I care about you then you will be in serious trouble.’

‘I’ve said that I will do my best.’

Bella watched as he knotted his tie. Matteo always dressed well, far better than the rest—his suits were made in Milan and his shoes were handmade. Last night she had found out the reason why Matteo always looked more expensive than the others.

Last night he had told her things that could possibly have them both killed.

He slipped on his jacket. His suit was dark grey, almost black, and his thick cotton shirt was relatively uncrumpled for he had carefully hung up most of his clothes last night during his slow, teasing strip.

‘I love the fabric...’ Bella ran her fingers over his jacket then slipped her hand inside to feel the cool silk lining. She was a skilled seamstress and had an eye for design, not that she got to practise it here. ‘I could make that,’ Bella said.

‘I have the best tailor come from Milan once a year,’ Matteo said, and then he chose not to argue because her nimble fingers had moved from examining his jacket and were exploring the tiny pleats beneath his leather belt and his want for her had become unrelenting because he was rising again. ‘You probably could.’

‘Come back to bed,’ Bella said.

‘No. There is no time.’

She watched as he ran a hand through his jet hair and it fell into perfect shape. Soon those eyes would be behind expensive dark glasses. That was how she knew him best but in the last few hours Bella had seen the real beauty in those dark grey eyes as they had made love to her.

The suits, the clothes, the designer stubble were all an image that Matteo had created merely to survive.

This morning he was asking her to join him and his close friend Luka for a new kind of life in London.

Bella knew that Luka would have asked Sophie to come with him.

Sophie, though, had told Bella that she and Luka were over and that she was making her way to Rome tonight. She had begged Bella to join her but Bella had said no, that she could not leave her mother.

Maria, even if she was only thirty-four, was frail and sick, though she did her best not to let it show.

Matteo had said to Bella that if it was what it took to get Bella to leave then she could bring her mother along.

He would take care of them both.

Bella sat in a rumpled bed, wearing nothing but a smile on a morning when other hearts were breaking.

‘The plane leaves at nine...’ Matteo said, and he sat down on the bed and picked up a long strand of Bella’s hair and tucked it behind her ear. ‘Please be there.’ Now he looked into Bella’s vivid green eyes. They were clear, they were bright and he knew, if she stayed here in Bordo Del Cielo, very soon they would be faded and vacant.

‘If you don’t get away this morning, Malvolio will have you working in the bar tonight and I shan’t be there to...’

Save you.

He didn’t say the words out loud but they hung unsaid in the air between them.

‘If you stay,’ Matteo continued, ‘then as of tonight you’ll be working and I’m telling you now, Bella—I don’t want to date a working girl, I don’t want there to have been anyone else.’

‘Double standards, Matteo...’ Bella pointed out, given how they had arrived at this point.

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘That is how I feel. Bella, I want to make a completely new start. I am done with this way of living. Tomorrow Malvolio wants me to start to avenge all the people who spoke against him during the trial...’

Bella shivered.

Malvolio, Luka and Sophie’s father Paulo had been in prison for the past six months awaiting trial—a lot had been said against Malvolio. The people had believed that there was enough against him that he would surely be put away for life.

Instead, he was back and taking charge again.

‘I have to get out because I don’t want to do the things he has planned for me,’ Matteo reiterated. ‘Kill once and you’ll always be a killer. It’s not who I want to be. I want an honest life and I am going to make something of myself. I’ll have enough trouble explaining my own past, I don’t want yours bringing me down.’

Harsh words perhaps but for Matteo they were honest ones.

He was offering her an out and he still did not know if she would take it so he made it very clear this was her one chance to be with him.

‘Once a whore and you’ll always...’

‘I get it,’ Bella said.

‘Good,’ he continued. ‘And, for the record, I don’t have double standards—I’ve never paid for sex. Last night was never about money.’ He said it even as he emptied his wallet for her. He took out every note that he had and this morning he had plenty. He laid the wad of cash beside her on the bed. ‘I’m giving you money to get out, not for last night. If your mother refuses to come you can give her this cash to help tide her over.’

Bella could still scarcely believe what he was offering. She was eighteen but Matteo Santini had long been her dream. Now he sat on the bed where they had made love and offered her a new life.

Was it foolish to dream that her life really would be with him? That what they had found in this room could survive the outside world?

It felt far from foolish. Now, as the clock nudged six, life felt terribly simple and as he took her naked, warm body in his arms, the future looked deliciously clear.

‘I’ll take care of you,’ Matteo said, and his kiss promised her that he would.

The wool of his suit, the sharp scent of his cologne both wrapped around her and she was lost to his mouth.

It was a slow, lingering kiss that confirmed how they were both feeling because, had time not been against them, Matteo would have shed his clothes and joined her in the bed that had provided their haven last night.

Instead, he drew her in closer to him. Her body was pliant, lazily relaxed and soft, and he smiled down when he stopped kissing her, though he didn’t release her from his firm embrace. ‘Don’t you dare go to sleep when I’m gone.’

‘I shan’t.’ Bella smiled. ‘Don’t go just yet. Surely there is a little more time.’

She was nervous of Matteo leaving. Worried that once he stepped outside the door he might change his mind.

‘I have to,’ he said.

‘What will Luka say?’ Bella asked. ‘He will surely try and talk you out of bringing us along.’

‘I shan’t be telling Luka until you are right by my side, Bella. This is my choice, it has little to do with him. If he says no, screw him, we forget London and just go to Rome. I’m leaving here so that I don’t have to answer to anyone...’ He looked so deeply into her eyes then and his words, though slow and measured, were also urgent. ‘If your mother says no, that she cannot leave, then at least you have given her a choice. You need to get out now.’

Bella’s response was her kiss. She loved him unshaven against her skin and how, as they sealed their agreement with their mouths, he pressed her back onto the pillow. Bella’s fingers knotted in his damp hair and she tried to match the stroke of his tongue, but it had shifted from tender to the delicious threat of possession.

He simply could not get enough of the night they had made beautiful.

He swallowed her sighs as his hand burrowed into the sheet and moved between her legs and then his mouth moved to her ear.

‘I owe you one for this morning,’ Matteo whispered, because this morning she had made magic on him with her mouth. He then got back to kissing her so deeply, so thoroughly that she could not now think of his pleasure as his fingers slid inside her.

She was hot and swollen from last night and his fingers were the reverse of a balm for instead of soothing they made her ache all over again. A delicious ache, though, for she knew, from last night, how it would end. She knew now that the pressure he was building within her would have her collapse into a void somehow lined in velvet any minute now.

He loved how she whimpered, how her hand moved to his as his fingers grew rougher, yet they did not move to halt him, Bella simply wanted to feel the skill beneath her own palm.

‘I want you again,’ Bella begged as he worked her slick sex while, with his free hand, he lifted one slender leg and pushed her thigh open so that she was more available to his hand.

‘No time...’ Matteo was struggling to catch his breath. His intention had been to leave Bella hungry enough to follow him and also he wanted the scent of her on his fingers.

He had never intended to be so close to coming himself.

None more so than when she removed her hand from his and found his straining shaft and reached for his zipper, but he paused her in his own way—he slipped another finger in and stretched her swollen intimate flesh and in doing so made sure that the imminent pleasure was simply all Bella’s.

Her thighs came together, entrapping his hand but not halting it. Her neck arched and he chased her mouth as it lifted and, capturing her open lips, he suckled her tongue. He felt her tiny quivers down below and yet he stroked longer and harder till she tightened around him over and over. He nearly came to the sensation as he remembered taking her last night and the feel of those same beats of pleasure around him.

His fingers slipped out of her and he slipped a hand under her calf, straightening her leg so that it collapsed, loose limbed, to the bed and he watched her eyes slowly open and a lazy, sated smile spread over her lips.

She had him.

Even if he had just taken her, somehow with that smile she had him and for a second, just for a second, because mistrust came as second nature to him, Matteo wondered if he was being played.

He trusted no one.

He never had.

Even his friendship with Luka was a guarded one and so he warned her.

‘Don’t let me down, Bella.’

‘I shan’t.’

‘So I’ll see you soon?’ Matteo checked, yet she hesitated for a moment before she gave him a small nod.

‘Don’t ruin this, Bella,’ Matteo warned. ‘No second chances. You leave with me this morning or you leave here for good...’ He tapped his head and Bella knew that if she didn’t follow him Matteo was telling her she would be dismissed from his mind.

Tough talk, Bella thought, but she knew him better.

Matteo might have been promoted to Malvolio’s right-hand man but she knew for sure now that beneath that cool exterior beat a beautiful warm heart.

No matter what others thought of him.

They had made love all night yet he was harder and more wanting as he left the room than when he had entered.

Bella lay there as the door closed and how she would have loved to rest, to fall asleep in sheets that held the scent of them, to wake up slowly later and to recall in vivid detail the bliss of last night...

Soon she would do just that, Bella told herself.

The memories of last night, though, for now she must put away. Tuck them into the pages of her heart and turn the key.

She would take them out and examine them later.

There was no time for that now.

And so, instead, Bella showered quickly and pulled on the tarty black dress that she had worn last night.

It smelt of the cheap perfume that Matteo had loathed so.

The lacy stockings and suspenders she had also worn Bella stuffed in her bag.

And, knowing how things must appear, she did what would surely be expected of her—Bella emptied the bar fridge of the tiny bottles of liquor and took the nuts and treats. She picked up the money that Matteo had left on the bed and peeled off a couple of notes and put them in her bag, some she stuffed in her bra and the rest...

Bella pulled the rubber stoppers off her ridiculously high sandals and rolled the rest of the cash into two tight tubes and squeezed them into her heels, then she replaced the stoppers and strapped on her sandals.

She allowed herself one last glance around the room before she closed the door—oh, she had been terrified on entering it. Her cheek had been smarting from his slap, there had been angry tears falling from her eyes but now she stood smiling as she saw the chairs they had pushed back so they could dance together and make up for all the nights they had not had.

Her first night of work had been a pleasure rather than the hell she had anticipated.

Bella took the elevator down and her nostrils tightened as she walked into the bar. It was filled with the stale scent of last night’s celebrations that had been held to mark Malvolio’s release from prison and his not-guilty verdict.

‘How was it?’ Gina asked, referring to her night with Matteo, and Bella simply didn’t know how to answer such a question so she said nothing. ‘I hope he paid you well...’ Gina said. ‘Given that he kept you all night.’

‘I thought this one was on Malvolio.’ Bella shrugged and went to walk off but Gina halted her.

‘Are you trying to say that Matteo didn’t give you a tip?’ Gina frowned, clearly disbelieving Bella, and she held out her hand.

‘I thought that we would get to keep the tips.’

‘Half is for Malvolio and the rest we divide amongst us.’ Gina snapped her fingers and Bella opened her bag and handed over the money that she had earlier separated from the pile.

‘And?’ Gina said.

Bella took out a few of the tiny bottles of liquor that she had taken. ‘There,’ Bella said, and again went to walk off but was abruptly halted. Her long black hair was caught and yanked by Gina and Bella found herself face against the wall.

‘Don’t bullshit me,’ Gina said, and her hands searched Bella’s breasts, easily locating the wad of cash that she had stuffed into her bra.

She took out the cash and then let go of Bella’s hair and Bella turned around.

‘Don’t ever try to get one up on me again, Gatti. I know tricks that you haven’t even thought of yet.’

How Bella hated the world she had almost entered.

‘Here,’ Gina said, as if nothing had just happened, and she peeled off a paltry number of notes and handed them to Bella. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’

No, you won’t, Bella thought, but she nodded.

She walked home when she wanted to run but she forced herself to walk as if she had plenty of time on her side.

Out of the Brezza Oceana hotel Bella took the path that ran alongside the beach. Some fishermen were bringing in the morning’s catch and she drew some lewd comments and whistles from them.

She ignored them.

Further along Bella walked, past a small wooded area and a path that led to a small cove. Oh, she would have loved to have gone down to the water to visit it one last time—to take the tiny secret path that only the locals knew about and drink in the view she loved before she left Bordo Del Cielo for good.

But there was no time to linger and, anyway, Bella thought, there would be no Sophie there to chat with.

Her best friend had left last night and Malvolio was back and nothing now could ever be the same. Bella knew, if she really wanted to get away, she must not draw attention to herself.

No one must guess that she and her mother would be fleeing today.

So instead of heading down the secret path she turned and took the hilly street towards home. A group of tourists was standing on the corner, clearly the worse for last night, and their responses to Bella were pretty much the same as the locals had been.

She did not blush.

Never had Bella admired her mother more—Maria had always walked with her head held high and now, on this early morning, Bella did the same.

She carried on up the hill, her ankle giving way on the high heels several times, yet she gave a smug smile to herself when she thought of the money in them.

Yes, Gina might know a few tricks but Bella’s mother had taught her daughter so many more.

She actually laughed as she walked up the garden path, recalling her mother coming home some mornings and emptying out her shoes!

Her mother’s heart had just about broken last night as Bella had dressed for work. Now Bella pictured her face when she told her mother that Matteo had offered them both a way out of Bordo Del Cielo.

They were leaving today.

Her head was spinning with possibilities as she stepped into the house but then, in one second, it all changed.

Like stepping off a merry-go-round, everything slowed down and, stifling a scream, Bella took in the chaos. Their house was always neat but now the hall table was overturned and the vase of flowers from their garden lay strewn on the floor. And there, in the middle, lay Maria.

‘Ma!’

Bella dropped to the floor and cradled her mother. Blood was pouring out of a head wound and for a terrible moment Bella thought this must be Malvolio’s work. Briefly she wondered if somehow he had found out that she had made plans to leave...

‘I fell...’ Maria slurred.

‘Were you drinking again?’ Bella asked, because her mother had been so ill lately but she had promised that she had stopped all that.

‘No.’

It took a moment to register that her mother was only able to move one arm and when Bella saw that one side of her face was weak it dawned on Bella that at just thirty-four years of age her beautiful mother had suffered a stroke.

‘I’ll call for the doctor,’ Bella said.

As they waited, Bella ran and got a blanket from her mother’s bedroom and made her as comfortable as she could.

The doctor arrived and then he called for an ambulance. It was five minutes after nine as the ambulance blasted its way through the town and then took the road that ran the opposite way from the airport.

Bella knew that she would never get there now.

She held her mother’s hand as she held in her tears.

Her chance to escape had gone. She thought of Matteo at the airport, waiting for them to arrive.

* * *

He was.

Matteo stood with Luka, scanning the small airport, just waiting for the sliding doors to open and for Bella to appear.

‘We should go through,’ Luka said.

‘Soon,’ Matteo responded.

‘They’re boarding.’

‘I just have to make a call...’ Matteo had Maria’s number because he would call her before he came to collect any money for Malvolio. He waited and there was a small beat of hope as it rung out.

They must be on their way, Matteo thought, but after another twenty minutes all hope had gone.

‘Final call,’ Luka said.

When he could wait no more Matteo boarded.

‘Have you ever flown?’ Luka asked, frowning because his friend had always been so worldly, so completely ahead of everyone’s games, but it had just dawned on Luka he had never seem him out of Bordo Del Cielo and also he could feel Matteo’s tension.

‘Never,’ Matteo answered, then sat silent beside his friend as the plane taxied down the runway and lifted into the sky.

Matteo wasn’t nervous about flying, or leaving Bordo Del Cielo.

It was stay and become what, till now, he had avoided—a killer.

Or leave everything behind.

He chose the latter.

CHAPTER ONE

Five years later

BELLA GATTI.

Matteo did not want to hear her name, yet tonight it had peppered the conversation.

Neither did he want to remember a love that had made him a fool.

And so he sat through his closest friend and business partner’s small engagement party, which was being held at Luka’s luxurious Rome penthouse, avoiding, as best he could, any references to an extremely chequered past.

Matteo and his girlfriend of three months, which was a bit of a record for him, had flown in from London for the occasion. Knowing that Luka and Sophie’s engagement was an extravagant farce, Matteo just wanted the night to be over and done.

Sophie Durante had turned up at Luka’s London office just a few days ago and demanded that, on her father Paulo’s release from prison, Luka uphold their long-abandoned engagement for the little time that her father had left.

Had Luka sought advice from Matteo they would not be sitting here now.

He had not and so they were.

Paulo kept speaking about Sicily, or rather the beautiful west and the people he had known there. Matteo, doing his level best not let his mind return there, had kept guiding the conversation back towards his true passion.

Work.

No, his passion wasn’t Shandy, the woman who sat beside him, even though she would prefer that it was.

Honest work was his passion.

Matteo’s reputation in the business world was his most prized possession. He had clawed his way back from less than nothing. He had made something of himself after a violent, criminal past and nothing and no one would ever reduce him or drag him back to the ways of old.

‘So when do you go to Dubai?’ Luka asked.

‘Sunday,’ Matteo answered. ‘Unless you’ll be needing the plane.’

Luka understood the slight taunt behind Matteo’s words—Matteo was convinced that Sophie wanted more than an engagement ring on her finger.

He didn’t believe Sophie’s sob story for a moment.

Matteo didn’t believe in anyone.

‘Sunday?’ Shandy checked. ‘But I thought you said that you didn’t have a firm date yet.’

‘I only just found out.’ Matteo’s jaw gritted. Shandy had got it into her head that she would be joining him on this business trip. If they wanted to share a room then a ring on her finger might well be required and he could feel her squirm in expectation. No doubt she was thinking that this sudden trip to Rome might have a deeper meaning.

‘Where are you staying?’ Paulo asked.

‘Fiscella,’ Matteo answered, referring to the luxurious hotel he had booked into.

‘It’s very romantic,’ Shandy said, but Matteo quickly crushed that.

‘Luka and I are thinking of buying it,’ he explained to Paulo. ‘It is a nice old hotel but it needs a lot of refurbishment. I want to check out a few things for myself.’

‘Doesn’t Bella work there?’ Paulo asked Sophie, and Matteo took a belt of his drink.

Bella.

The sound of her name had his throat tighten, so much so that he had to think, he actually had to tell himself to relax, in order to swallow the sickly limoncello down.

He loathed the taste, it reminded him too much of home and that was a place he had spent the last five years doing his level best to forget.

He did not want to think about his past and certainly Matteo did not want to hear what Bella Gatti was up to.

He’d already been told.

A couple of months after leaving, his half-brother Dino had told him that Bella was a regular at the bar.

He had told him a few other things that had had the bile rising in Matteo’s chest and burning the back of his throat, but he had kept his voice impassive when he’d spoken with Dino.

If his half-brother got even a hint that Matteo cared then Bella would be punished for his leaving, just for the pleasure of Matteo being told.

He swallowed down the liquor as Sophie answered Paulo’s question.

‘She does,’ Sophie said, and despite his best intentions not to delve further Matteo found himself asking Sophie a question.

‘Doing what?’

‘She’s a chambermaid.’ Paulo answered for his daughter. ‘Isn’t she, Sophie?’

‘Well, I guess it gives her access to a richer clientele.’ Matteo’s response was surly and, taking Shandy’s hand, he led her to the floor to dance.

He didn’t want to dance.

He just wanted to get away from the conversation.

Rome glittered beneath them. He could feel the pulse from the street below and the guarded Matteo suddenly wanted to escape the shackles and to shed his skin. He wanted to take a moped and explore the ancient, beautiful city. He wanted to ride high up and stare down at the ancient buildings and ruins, to drink cheap wine and be younger than his thirty years—only he wanted to do all of this with Bella.

Oh, he was dancing with the wrong woman tonight.

And every night since... He halted his thought process, for he never went back in his mind.

He just could not escape the truth today—for five years, long before Shandy, every night he had danced with the wrong woman and now, though his integrity at work was never in doubt, his reputation with women preceded him.

No, he could not escape the memories of them.

Matteo recalled Bella’s deep, slightly husky voice as she had told him about her favourite place in the world—a jewel deep in Bordo Del Cielo that he had never bothered to explore—the ancient baths that the Moors had built. She had told him how she would take herself off there at times and pretend that she had lived long ago, how she imagined the carved-out stone filled with spring waters and the sex and debauchery that must have gone on there.

Bella had played with his mind then and somehow she played with it even now.

‘I love Sophie’s dress...’

Matteo did not blink as Shandy pulled him out of introspection. Instead, he frowned at the intrusion as Shandy did what she did best—spent money in her head.

‘I want something similar,’ she explained. ‘I asked Sophie who made it. Gatti. She’s an emerging designer, apparently. I want to wear her before everyone else is. Tomorrow I want to see her studio...’

Studio?

Matteo’s teeth ground down.

More like a boudoir.

‘Let’s go.’

‘It’s too early,’ Shandy protested. ‘Anyway, I’m enjoying myself. You never said that it was Paulo Durante’s daughter that Luka was getting engaged to. I never thought we would be dining with such a high-profile criminal tonight. It’s exciting...’ Shandy said, and then dropped her voice. ‘A turn-on.’

‘Then you didn’t live through it,’ Matteo hissed, and dropped his arms. ‘We’re leaving now.’

He chose not to tell Shandy that Paulo was no big fish—the old man had been Malvolio’s puppet.

Malvolio had been the leader and had seen to it that Paulo had taken the fall for him.

And the reason they were here tonight was that Malvolio was Luka’s father.

Luka felt that he had a debt to pay and Sophie had called it in.

‘Thanks for this,’ Luka said, as he saw Matteo out. Shandy had gone to top up her make-up and the two men stood, uncomfortable with small talk.

Neither liked that their past was catching up with them.

They had made strong, good lives in London.

It felt strange to be back in Italy. Even Rome felt too close to Bordo Del Cielo tonight.

‘Will you let me know when the wedding is?’ Matteo’s voice was thick with sarcasm.

‘There will be no wedding,’ Luka said. ‘I just agreed to an engagement. You can surely see for yourself how sick he is. It’s a matter of days till all this is done and I can get back on with my life.’

‘Why are you going through with it?’ Matteo said. ‘You owe her nothing.’

‘I owe Paulo this,’ Luka corrected.

‘You owe that old fool nothing,’ Matteo insisted. Bile was churning and his venomous words were aimed at himself, because he had been but a day away from being Malvolio’s second man. ‘Sophie is just like Bella, both are up to no good. I’m telling you that she lies,’ Matteo said. ‘She’s not doing well, like she told you she was. That dress is not designer...’

‘Please.’ Luka shrugged. ‘I’m not like you, I don’t care for fashion and labels. You always were a dark, mistrusting bastard.’

‘A good-looking bastard, though,’ Shandy said as she returned. Matteo pulled on his jacket and checked his reflection in the mirror, and Luka gave a dry laugh.

‘Yes, Matteo, you look good,’ Luka said, and it was his turn to be sarcastic now.

Matteo and Shandy headed out to the street.

‘I like that you dress well,’ Shandy said, but her words simply irked.

Yes, he always had dressed better than the rest. His suits were the most expensive, his hair superbly cut, his stubble pure designer.

Bella Gatti knew why, though, for he had confided in her.

Never again.

His driver was waiting and opening the door but Matteo stood there in the street rather than getting in. ‘I think it might be good to walk...’

‘To walk?’ Shandy shuddered at the thought. ‘In these heels?’

‘No, I would like a walk alone,’ Matteo said. ‘It’s been a long time since I’ve been back in Italy.’

‘Well, it doesn’t suit you,’ Shandy said, because he had been at his brooding best since the plane had touched down. ‘Matteo, come to bed...’ Her mouth moved in to persuade him but he dodged his head back.

‘I’ll be in later.’

No apology, no excuses, he just walked off into the night.

And he did what he wanted.

Matteo bought a bottle of wine, and though the grapes were not from Bordo Del Cielo, they were from the west. He hired a moped and drove up, ever up, and then he parked it atop Capitoline Hill and stared down at the illuminated view and there, unlit, the lone horseman. But, though ancient and beautiful, it was the wrong view he gazed upon and, of course, there wasn’t Bella by his side.

He let himself remember, not all of it, not even a lot—but something more intimate than the sex they had shared, he recalled the woman.

Black hair, green eyes and a smile that was so unexpected.

Sophie was all Sicilian fire, whereas Bella was the chameleon, the actress, the survivor who had once made his black heart smile.

Not now, Matteo thought, taking a drink from the bottle, but cheap wine didn’t work either.

Nothing deadened the ache.

She was here in this town, he knew it now.

Was she sleeping?

Or did she lie awake tonight, knowing that he was near and burning for him as he did for her?

What did it matter? he thought, tossing the bottle into a bin and heading back to the hotel.

They could never be now.

‘Where have you been?’ Shandy asked sleepily, as he came into the bedroom of the luxurious suite, flicking on the sidelight as he crept in after three.

‘Walking,’ Matteo said. ‘Go back to sleep.’

‘I ordered champagne,’ she said. ‘I thought you had brought me here to...’

Yes, there was an air of expectation from Shandy. The sheikh Matteo was meeting with had told him he was looking forward to meeting his partner. The shareholders too were braying for the wild Matteo Santini to tame his ways.

And though he had told her from the start that nothing would ever become of them, Matteo had stuck at things with Shandy for longer than he did usually, though the final hurdle was proving too daunting.

Yes, Matteo knew it was time to grow up and settle down.

And he would, Matteo told himself as he undressed.

Just not yet.

He looked at the hotel suite with more than vague interest, given that Hotel Fiscella was a potential purchase that he and Luka were considering making. And so he noticed not just that the room was immaculate but that the turn-down service had been discreet. The curtains were drawn and there were chocolates and a flower by the bed that had presumably been on his pillow and there was a pleasing scent in the air.

He glanced at the note by the bed that informed him that the weather tomorrow would be stormy and hot and that if there was anything further required not to hesitate to call the desk, and it was signed...

Bella.

It could not be her, Matteo mused. Yes, while he had found out that she was a chambermaid at this very hotel Bella was still a very common name.

Was it her scent that lingered?

Was it her hands that had smoothed back the sheets and plumped the pillows? Matteo thought as he climbed into bed.

‘When?’ Shandy asked as he lay there. ‘Your friend just got engaged...’

Matteo said nothing.

‘I want a commitment, Matteo,’ she pushed.

Now he turned his head on the pillow and spoke to the face next to his.

‘Then you’re with the wrong man.’

Had she slapped him, had Shandy risen from the bed and got dressed and got out, he might have admired her.

But there she lay, clinging on with her gel nails to the image of them that the paparazzi had created and to the man she’d hoped he would one day be.

Matteo Santini, the bad boy made good.

No, he hadn’t made good, not yet.

Tonight, he was right not to ask Shandy to marry him for had he known where Bella lived, had he had Bella’s number then, Matteo knew he would have been paying a late-night visit to the whore he was hard for now.

He turned to flick off the bedside light and looked again at the signed card and he ached for Bella in a way he never had for anybody else.

Matteo fell asleep trying not to think about a woman from the past.

And then the dreams started.

On many occasions over the years Bella had attempted to frequent Matteo Santini’s dreams.

His subconscious kept perpetual guard, though.

So controlled was Matteo that even in sleep he did his level best to chase all thoughts of her away.

But even guards had to sleep at times and so, on occasion, Bella slipped through the net and would dance all night through his mind.

Some of his dreams were high-end fantasy—masquerade balls where the two of them would make love, familiar and yet unknown to each other, while others consisted of seamy situations where he watched from a distance as Bella struggled while he was held back and unable to intervene. But then there were the dreams that consisted only of memories and those were the ones that Matteo preferred.

Tonight he slept through all three.

Perhaps it was because her name had been brought up in conversation at dinner.

Or was it the knowledge that she was working in Rome as a chambermaid in the same hotel where he slept tonight?

Whatever the reason the dreams had started, they were different tonight.

The circus had come to Bordo Del Cielo. It was a strange dream, a new one, for there had been no circus that ever visited there.

And this was no circus like others for it was not animals and clowns that performed in his dreams; instead there were different beasts—the people he had grown up amongst.

There was his younger half-brother Dino, who had revealed Matteo’s plans to Malvolio the first time Matteo had tried to escape.

There was his cruel stepfather, who loathed his mother’s attention anywhere other than on him or Dino.

Matteo looked around and there was Luka dressed in an orange prison suit that he didn’t belong in. He saw Sophie being paraded around the ring and she was wearing only Luka’s shirt, just as she had been on the night of Malvolio, Paulo and Luka’s arrests.

Luka and Sophie had been in bed at the time Luka’s home had been raided and she had been hauled out in front of the townsfolk. It had been clear to all what had taken place between the young couple.

There was Talia, a woman Matteo had once helped, and she waved to him but he did not return it. No one must ever know the truth as to how he had saved her family so he ignored her.

He didn’t care for any of them.

Nothing and no one moved him—there was no mean streak to Matteo, he’d long ago learnt to simply not care.

So why did he stand, his expression impassive, as his eyes scanned the crowd for her?

For Bella.

He looked up and there she was, walking on a tightrope as the town cheered her on. Her glossy, raven hair trailed down her bare back. The small silver costume did not fully cover her and he could see, as could the crowd, that her small pert breasts had been oiled and glittered and were on show.

She looked terrified yet she pushed out a smile as Malvolio, the ringmaster, urged her on.

And then, to the glee of everyone, she lifted her leg and stretched it out and exposed her nakedness there as Malvolio pushed her to perform, to somersault for the braying audience.

There was no net.

She had no choice.

He watched as Bella gracefully somersaulted and then, steadying herself, she turned and dodged the swing of the trapeze and the people on it, reaching down to swoop and claim her. It was to no avail, though, for there, high up, out of Matteo’s reach, were others and she had no choice but to perform for them.

Then he saw Dino climbing a ladder.

‘Saltare!’ Matteo called, but his plea for Bella to jump was drowned out by the cheering crowd.

All night he dreamt in vivid detail, though his body barely moved in the bed.

Matteo was more than used to nightmares but these were of a very sexual kind.

‘Saltere, Bella...’ he urged, but still she did not hear him. Her hair was shiny with sweat, her tiny costume was torn and her feet were bleeding despite the chalk. She was exhausted, Matteo knew, and yet still Malvolio pushed her and still the crowd demanded more.

Now, at the birth of dawn, just before Matteo’s alarm was due to go off, finally she heard him and looked down to where he held out his arms.

‘Ti prenderò quando cadi,’ Matteo shouted to her.

I will catch you when you fall.

There was just the briefest hesitation from Bella when she saw him there in the crowd, but then he ran to stand beneath her and she gave a smile of relief and recognition. Then she let herself go and fell into his waiting arms.

And catch her he did.

Her body was warm and familiar; finally she was back in his arms. Though breathless from exertion she had breath enough left for their kiss and as their mouths met they crashed through the filthy circus floor and landed, deep in kisses, on a bed that was soft and clean.

Now, just before morning invaded, he got to live his favourite dream—and it was one of pure memory.

Matteo lay there, recalling that night of no sleeping. Slow dancing around the hotel room as they’d re-created a night that had never taken place—the Natalia street party where, at sixteen, she had told him that she waited for him, while, unbeknown to her, Matteo had been running to escape Bordo Del Cielo and the hellish existence he had been forced further into.

Bella had been eighteen when their lips had first met, and despite the rough start it had been a night of romance and intense arousal, a night where he had given in to her pleas and had taken her innocence.

It had been a night like no other.

He did not want to think about the money that had changed hands in the morning, neither did he want to think of Bella when he had first seen her that night. She had been wearing thick make-up, her small bust jacked up, and she had been doused in cheap scent as she’d stood behind the bar, with men leering at her.

No, he preferred what had gone on behind closed doors.

Making slow tender love, drowning in deep kisses, and he recalled the sob as he had made her his lover. The bruise on her cheek that he had made, now forgiven, because that night she had understood why.

It had been him or Malvolio.

Hard, he lay there and gave in to a favourite memory—their night had been all but over and he had showered and gone to dress, but instead of doing so he had returned to the bed and he had lain beside her. Matteo had been deep in thought because he’d been considering asking Bella to join him when he made his escape.

And then he had felt her. First the softness of her hair and the warmth of her cheek moving down his stomach, kissing him all the way down.

Matteo sank into the dream or the memory of her mouth as he felt the soft warm nuzzle of lips and then the wetness of tongue tentatively swirling around his engorged head.

Was there any better way to be woken? Matteo thought, letting out a low moan as she skilfully took him deeper into her mouth and he slid past her throat.

He started to thrust to the pleasant sensations and his hand moved down to her hair but then reality invaded. For if he was being woken then he must be asleep and there hadn’t been a moment of sleeping with Bella.

And neither had Bella’s lips been skilful; instead, they had been curious and nervous at first. They had been too light, too rough, too slow but, oh, so blissful.

He started to surface from his dream.

He attempted an ascent while his body told him to linger a moment, to just give in and enjoy, except the memory was gone and it was the wrong lips on his straining shaft and he wanted them off him.

He pulled at the hair to halt, aware that something was wrong, but as he did so a slew of something wet and cold doused the heat between his legs and there was a shout of shock and horror from Shandy as she knelt up and shook off the sheet. Her blonde hair was drenched and suddenly Matteo was wide awake and sitting bolt upright.

‘Mi scusi...’ A maid was sobbing for forgiveness, explaining that she had tripped over the ice bucket stand beside the bed, as Matteo flicked on the side light.

‘Imbeccile,’ Shandy shouted, as the maid picked up the now empty ice bucket that she had knocked over the copulating pair.

‘Go easy, Shandy,’ Matteo said, but there was no chance of that. Shandy would cry over spilt water.

‘Jobless imbecile.’ Shandy continued her rant in furious Italian and she also upgraded Matteo’s relationship with her. ‘Because I’m getting you fired. How dare you come in without knocking, how dare you interrupt my fiancé and I—?’

‘It was an accident,’ the maid was pleading as she tried to rectify the chaos—the tray she had brought in and its contents lay strewn not just over the floor but on a wall. Thick black coffee was seeping into the carpet, pastries and ham were sliding down the bedside table but the main chaos came from Shandy. She had jumped out of bed, was pulling on a robe and heading through to the lounge, screaming at the maid to have it cleaned up by the time she was back and warning her over and over that she was about to be fired.

Matteo stood, wrapped in a sheet, as Shandy picked up the phone in the lounge and demanded that the maid’s head be served on a silver platter, then she flounced off to the shower, leaving Matteo to deal with the rest.

‘Mi scusi,’ the maid said again. She was kneeling on the floor, trying to sort out the things, but Matteo was far from impressed with her attempts to apologise. He didn’t believe she was sorry for a moment, though his words were not sharp when he addressed her, more wearied.

‘Get up, Bella.’

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