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A Scandal, a Secret, a Baby
Sharon Kendrik


One sinful night…Dante D’Arezzo is the last person famous songwriter Justina Perry wants to see at her best friend’s wedding. The wickedly sexy Italian is ruthless to the core. He broke her heart once; she won’t surrender to his insatiable desire again. But what Dante wants… One very big scandal!Justina’s pregnancy hits the front page and Dante knows he’s the father. He’ll make her pay for trying to keep his child from him. His Miss Independent is about to become completely dependent…on him! This Italian will claim his heir and – if he wants her – a wife!‘Sharon Kendrick has created a book for true romantics.’ – Genie, PA, Birmingham







One sinful night…

Dante D’Arezzo is the last person famous songwriter Justina Perry wants to see at her best friend’s wedding. The wickedly sexy Italian is ruthless to the core. He broke her heart once; she won’t surrender to his insatiable desire again. But what Dante wants…

One very big scandal!

Justina’s pregnancy hits the front page and Dante knows he’s the father. He’ll make her pay for trying to keep his child from him. His Miss Independent is about to become completely dependent…on him!

This Italian will claim his heir and—if he wants her—a wife!


Intently Dante stared at her, and he could feel the powerful beat of his heart. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

Justina nodded as a wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm her, but she held it back. Don’t act coy or ashamed or intimidated, she urged herself. Just deal with the facts. “Is that a roundabout way of asking whether you’re the father?”

“Am I?”

For a moment she hesitated, tempted to tell him that no, he wasn’t. But then she thought of the child she carried. The baby who was currently kicking beneath her fluttering heart as if it was trying out for a fetal football team. Could she willfully deny her child the knowledge of its father, just because that father didn’t love her?

“Yes,” she breathed—and then she said it again, so that there could be no going back.

“Yes, you are the father, Dante.”


Dear Reader (#ufae33ed9-f8f3-5cbb-9429-0db1cd429e30),

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia to escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100


story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx


Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.


SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…


A Scandal, A Secret, A Baby

Sharon Kendrick






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-472-00173-3

A SCANDAL, A SECRET, A BABY

© 2013 Sharon Kendrick

Published in Great Britain 2013

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Version: 2018-07-18


To Ruth Nehrebecka, who is a great inspiration (as well as being enviably blonde and effortlessly stylish!)


Contents

Cover (#u7d0c4bb9-0cd2-5743-aa09-9124849a2fb1)

Back Cover Text (#udac0bd7d-2f70-55d3-bd46-72c67c536582)

Introduction (#u015431c2-2a07-5206-a5a8-45011a868c65)

Dear Reader (#u1196e2ef-db6a-5979-8c93-f9dbc75ac13f)

About the Author (#u4b145d01-45bd-5da5-be96-ec0f2fd4e1d0)

Title Page (#u89b7af16-3347-5c89-9f20-d04f84fb768d)

Dedication (#u9ca2532f-5ff3-5406-ab28-799a8b92742c)

CHAPTER ONE (#u6c6ec10b-e872-5322-ac3c-a3c4bf621269)

CHAPTER TWO (#u64bae428-7973-5ff5-884a-b4d0108adb93)

CHAPTER THREE (#u23d042f9-6dc7-58c3-aea4-f09a1abb9b5e)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#u2162c1e8-829a-56cb-aa0d-4120635b54d7)


CHAPTER ONE (#ufae33ed9-f8f3-5cbb-9429-0db1cd429e30)

DANTE D’AREZZO KNEW the exact moment his ex-fiancée walked into the cathedral. He heard the silence which fell and the whisper which followed.

‘Look, there’s Justina Perry.’

And the murmured response. ‘Oh, wow!’

Dante could feel the punch of his heart as people turned their heads to look at her, to see if she’d changed. They wanted to know if she had any new lines on her face—or whether those lines had been ironed out by surgery. They wanted to know if she was heavier. Or lighter. They wanted to know every damned thing about her, because once she had been famous and fame made people think they owned you.

Dante knew that. He knew that only too damned well. Hadn’t he watched from the sidelines long enough to learn about the darker aspects of fame? The way it corrupted and corroded and spread into normal life like some sort of toxic acid?

His powerful body tight with tension, he watched her sinuous progress down the wide aisle of Norwich Cathedral, where the wedding of her ex-bandmate was shortly to take place. Her dark hair had been coiled into an elaborate confection at the back of her head and she was wearing an oriental-looking gown of pale satin, lavishly embroidered with dragons and flowers. At first glance the dress seemed disappointingly demure—until she moved forward on a pair of towering heels and a thigh-high split revealed the tantalising flash of one long, bare leg.

An unwanted wave of desire swept over him, quickly followed by a powerful surge of anger. So she still liked to show herself off like some kind of cheap puttana, did she? Did she still enjoy the sensation of other men watching her and wanting her—fantasising about that sinner’s body coupled with the soulful face of a dark angel?

But his anger was not enough to diminish the exquisite ache in his body, and he watched as she took her place in one of the front rows, turning to smile at the person next to her as she sank down onto the pew. The embroidered satin stretched over her delicious bottom and all Dante could think about was how long it had been. Five long years since he’d seen her. More than enough time for him to have become immune to her feline appeal. So why was his heart thundering as he watched her staring up at the altar? Why was the hardening at his groin so pronounced that he was having to cover it up with his hymn sheet?

He tried to think about something else as the marriage service began—but it wasn’t easy. Not when this wedding seemed even longer than weddings usually were—probably because the groom just happened to be a duke. Dante always played the part expected of him, and usually he would have been an exemplary and attentive guest. But today, his attention was focussed elsewhere and all the way through the service his thoughts kept straying back to Justina.

Justina writhing beneath him on a snow-white bed.

Justina with her ebony hair and magnolia skin and those amazing amber eyes.

He remembered the sweet tightness of her body. Those tiny little nipples which had been made to fit so perfectly inside a man’s mouth. Briefly he shook his head, for those thoughts disturbed him. He wanted to forget that for the first and only time in his life he’d made a mistake. His broken engagement was the only failure in a life which had been charted with resounding success. He was a proud man of noble Tuscan heritage. His ancestors had been scholars, soldiers and diplomats—an aristocratic line which had always been land-rich but cash-poor. But then Dante had become head of the family’s business interests and had taken them soaring into the stratosphere.

These days the D’Arezzo family owned property over most of the globe, in addition to their vast vineyards in the beautiful countryside outside Florence. Dante had everything a man could possibly want, and yet inside his heart was empty.

There were bells ringing now—a triumphant peal of them heralding the end of the ceremony. And then came the somewhat unbelievable sight of Roxy Carmichael—all misty in white silk and pearls—clinging on to the arm of her new husband, the Duke. Dante shook his head in slight disbelief. Who would ever have thought it? The last time he’d seen Roxy she had been dancing around on a giant stage wearing little more than a sequinned pelmet which had been masquerading as a skirt.

That was what they’d all used to wear when she, Justina and Lexi had made up the Lollipops—the biggest girl-band on the planet. When for a while he had been little more than a member of their extensive posse.

The congregation had begun to file out behind the bride and groom and Dante found himself watching. Wanting to see Justina’s reaction when she saw him sitting there. Did she ever regret the choices she’d made? The ones which had led to his rejection of her? Did she ever lie in bed thinking and fretting about what could have been hers?

Last night he had given in to a temptation he’d long resisted, and a quick search on his computer had told him that Justina remained unmarried, with no children—something which had given him pause for thought. She must be nearly thirty now, he realised. Wasn’t she worried that these days women were advised to have children sooner, rather than later? A cruel smile curved the edges of his lips. No, of course she wasn’t. What appeal would a child have to someone like her? Her career was everything to her. Everything.

His gaze flicked over her pale skin as she came towards him and for one suspended moment he saw her footsteps falter when their gazes met and locked. He looked into her amber eyes, which looked golden against the sudden snowy pallor of her skin. Saw them widen in disbelief and then saw a flash of something in their depths which he couldn’t have defined even if he could be bothered to try. What Justina Perry thought or felt was of no interest to him. Not any more. But he wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t enjoyed the sudden swallowing movement he observed rippling down over that swanlike neck of hers.

She was right beside him now. Close enough for him to catch a drift of her perfume, which made him think of jasmine and honey. And then she was gone, and he was aware of a pretty blonde in the row in front of him, who was turning round to give him a very bright smile indeed.

But the smile Dante returned was perfunctory. He hadn’t come here today to find a woman. Though he hadn’t really stopped to ask himself why he’d accepted an invitation he’d never been expecting to receive. Was it to lay a ghost to rest? To convince himself that he now felt nothing for the only woman who had ever managed to penetrate the stony exterior of his hard Tuscan heart?

He walked out into the crisp brightness of the day, where he could smell the powerful scent of the flowers which were arching around the vast doors of the cathedral. He looked across the courtyard to where Justina stood, surrounded by people clamouring for her attention—but she wasn’t listening to them. Her attention was fixed on the door, as if she’d been waiting for him to appear, and as her eyes found their target in him he felt the thrill of something he could never have described—not even in his native tongue.

He began to walk towards her, only vaguely aware of the women who turned to watch his progress—women watching him was something which had happened throughout his charmed life. He saw Justina’s teeth dig into the pink cushion of her bottom lip, and as he remembered just what those beautiful lips were capable of a stab of lust threatened to overwhelm him.

He had reached her now, and the people surrounding her grew quiet as faces were turned towards him in open curiosity. He guessed that the novelty of his dark Italian looks was enough to arouse interest in this most English of settings. And maybe his face looked as forbidding as he intended it to look, because they quickly moved away, so that the two of them were left alone.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘Look who’s here.’

Justina stared up at him, her heart pounding in a way it hadn’t done in a long, long time. She could feel her senses firing into life as if someone had just set light to them. She could feel the prickle of her breasts and the instant pooling of liquid heat and she was praying that the cheating bastard wouldn’t guess. She didn’t want to desire him. She wanted to present a cool and unruffled exterior. But it wasn’t easy. Not when his face was just inches away from hers—a face more beautiful and yet more elementally savage than any other she’d ever seen. His dark eyes were boring into her and his powerful body was imprinting itself into her consciousness. She felt weak. As if someone had just drained away all her blood and replaced it with water.

Well, you’re stronger than that, she told herself. You aren’t going to show any sign of weakness. Because this is Dante D’Arezzo. The man who confuses love with control. Who dumped you because you wouldn’t behave like his own personal puppet. Who cold-bloodedly took another woman to his bed and...and....

She saw a bed with rumpled sheets. A mass of ruffled blond hair and a high, pert bottom. And Dante, his eyes closed, a smile of ecstasy on his cheating lips as the naked woman administered to his every need.

The vivid images of his betrayal were like jagged pieces of glass at the edges of her mind and Justina only just managed to blunt them—just as she’d spent the last five years blunting them. She mustn’t think of that. She couldn’t afford to. She had to focus on what was important—and the only thing she could think of right then was making him go away and leave her alone.

She kept her expression unwelcoming, her voice a cool drawl. ‘Thanks for ruining what could have been a perfectly good day,’ she said. ‘Who invited you?’

Dante hadn’t been expecting such open hostility, and for some reason that he wasn’t quite able to work out this pleased him. Was it because the prospect of a fight with her was almost as tantalising as the thought of spreading her over the bonnet of that nearby car and riding her until he came?

He took a stealthy step closer. ‘Who do you think invited me? The bride, of course. Or did you imagine that I gatecrashed?’

Justina couldn’t suppress a faint shiver as his powerful form cast a shadow over her like a dark omen. As if Dante had ever had to gatecrash anything in his life!

‘Really?’ she questioned, wishing that she could stop reacting to him like this.

She felt as if her body had suddenly started thawing after spending years in some arctic waste. As if she would die if she didn’t touch him again, or feel those hard lips pressing down on hers. She found herself remembering the way he’d used to put his head between her legs and lick her there, and she shivered with shameful longing. How did he do that? How could he still make her want him when she hated him so much?

‘I didn’t even think you were still in touch with Roxy.’

‘I wasn’t. We lost contact a long while ago—about the time when you and I split.’ His dark eyes mocked her. ‘But presumably she was feeling generously disposed towards the world when she found herself a duke to marry, and so she decided to track me down.’

Justina knew exactly why Roxy had done it. A man like Dante would be a luminary on any guest list; his grandness and stature would be a boost to any hostess’s street-cred. And, of course, his outstanding good looks would guarantee that all the single female guests would be purring with contentment. But why the hell hadn’t Roxy bothered to warn her about it beforehand? Had her ex-bandmate guessed that she wouldn’t have come within a hundred miles of the church if she’d known he was going to be here?

Yet surely she should be immune to him by now? She hadn’t seen him for nearly five years. She was older and supposedly a whole lot wiser—wise enough for his undeniable sex appeal to leave her cold. So why wasn’t that happening? Why were her breasts tingling as his arrogant gaze skated over her, that molten aching at her thighs making her feel embarrassingly self-conscious?

With a feigned composure she stared at him—praying for an objectivity she’d never been able to apply to this Tuscan aristocrat. He was wearing a suit, like every other man there—apart from the few guests in uniform —but something about the way he wore it instantly marked him out as someone special. The exquisite cut of the charcoal cloth hugged his powerful frame, emphasising the narrow jut of his hips and the definition of his long legs. Yet despite his highly sophisticated exterior, with Dante D’Arezzo all you were aware of was the primitive man beneath. He was the sort of man who saw what he wanted and went out and took it. Who made women cry with pleasure. And with pain, she reminded herself. With terrible and lasting pain.

‘Maybe Roxy was short on numbers and that was the reason for your out-of-the-blue invitation,’ she said as she glanced up at the cathedral with a flippant shrug. ‘It’s a pretty big church to fill. And I expect a token Tuscan aristocrat is on every bride’s wish list.’

He smiled, as if her insult meant nothing to him—as if he guessed that it was all for show. ‘It’s been a long time, Justina,’ he said softly.

‘Five years.’ Her smile was fixed. ‘Time flies when you’re having fun—something which was certainly in short supply when I was engaged to you.’

But he didn’t appear to be listening. His gaze was drifting slowly over her body as if he still had the right to look at her that way. As if she was his possession and he owned her.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said.

She felt her heart miss a beat, unsure if it was caused by disappointment or anger—because wasn’t that just typical of Dante? For him to take something she felt proud of and make it sound like something bad. She’d worked very hard for this body. Dragged herself out of bed on the most inhospitable of mornings to pound the pavements, come rain or shine. When she was travelling, she was a frequent visitor to hotel gyms—padding the anonymous carpeted corridors at unsociable hours while she listened to music from her earphones. And hadn’t her strict regime rescued her from the essential loneliness of those solitary hotel stays?

She never ate carbs after 5:00 p.m., and she rarely drank alcohol. She was disciplined about her lifestyle because it was harder to stay fit the older you got. And physical fitness helped her to cope. It kept her fresh and alert in an industry where youth was everything—an industry which she’d seen claim the lives of those who couldn’t cope with its impossibly high demands. And she had sacrificed too much for her to career to do anything to ever jeopardise it.

‘Well, isn’t that fortunate? Since losing weight was what I was aiming for,’ she responded, her gaze flicking over his charcoal-grey suit, which was doing nothing to disguise the hard musculature beneath. ‘You might try working out a little yourself some time, Dante. Try for the leaner look—it’s very fashionable, you know.’

‘I don’t think so. I get all the exercise I need without the narcissistic need to spend hours down at the gym.’ He leaned forward by a fraction, noting the automatic dilatation of her eyes as he did so, and suddenly he wanted her. Wanted her so badly that he could have pulled her into his arms and crushed those cushioned lips beneath the hungry clamour of his own. His eyes glinted. ‘My body is hard in all the places it needs to be hard.’

Justina felt her face grow hot, as unsettled by his sudden closeness as by the unashamedly sexual boast, and she took a step back. ‘You’re disgusting.’

‘You think so? You used to like my particular brand of disgusting, as I recall.’

‘That was a long time ago. Fortunately I’ve grown up since then. My tastes have matured and I’m no longer attracted to the Neanderthal type.’

‘Then you really must have changed. I’ve never known a woman who was so turned on by a man being masterful in bed.’

His silky taunt whispered towards her and brought back memories Justina thought she’d buried for ever. Memories of Dante kissing her. Dante pushing his hardness deep into her warm, wet heat. Dante doing that to another woman. She wanted to scream. To lash out at him and ask why he’d done it—why? But she would not give in to the pointlessness of resurrecting the past. The past was over. Her life was now and her future didn’t involve him.

And she needed to get away from him.

Directing her gaze to an imaginary spot behind his head, she forced her mouth into a smile of recognition, as if she’d just seen someone she knew, so that by the time she allowed herself to look into those dark eyes again she had composed herself enough to adopt a convincing air of indifference.

‘You really mustn’t let me monopolise you any longer, Dante. I’m sure there are lots of people who are longing to speak to you. In fact there’s a young lady over there who seems eager to catch your eye. I’m sure you’ll still be quick enough off the mark to have her in your bed before the day is out.’

And then she began to walk away, half afraid that he might try to stop her. But he did no such thing. She saw the brief narrowing of his eyes as she turned on her towering heels and walked across the cathedral square, and she was aware of the burn of his gaze as she allowed herself to be swallowed up in a group of guests. Her hands were trembling and her heart was racing and for a moment she contemplated leaving the wedding right then. Nothing was stopping her. She could hurry back to the hotel she’d booked into, pack up her stuff and head back to London. She could run away from her ex-fiancé and all the painful memories that seeing him again evoked.

But Justina knew she couldn’t do that. She and Roxy had only recently been reunited, and she couldn’t let her old friend down on such an important day. Averting her face from a paparazzi camera which seemed to have sprung from out of nowhere, she gave a ragged sigh. She was just going to have to behave like a grown-up and deal with it. She would go to the wedding reception and avoid Dante. How hard could it be? She was good at avoiding people—and she doubted that he’d be on his own for long.

She made her way towards the line of red double-decker buses which had been hired to take all the guests to the reception and found a seat, smiling politely at the man who immediately slid in next to her and started to introduce himself. But it was difficult to concentrate on what he was saying, even though he was doing his level best to flirt and was wearing a whole row of bright medals on his military uniform. He was probably some kind of dashing war hero, she thought gloomily, as well as being handsome in that blond and square-jawed sort of way.

So why could she never be attracted to someone like him—the sort of man she knew she should be attracted to? The dependable type who might easily adore her if only she’d give them half a chance. Wasn’t it a mark of her own emotional failure that nobody had ever come close to making her feel the way that Dante had done? And wasn’t that the main reason why she was still single as thirty loomed on the horizon—with no stable relationship and the chances of having a baby receding with every year that passed?

She remembered the magazine interview she’d given only last week, when the persistent journalist had managed to make her confront that uncomfortable fact. That if she waited too long she might never have a baby of her own. Feeling cornered, Justina had said that of course she wanted a baby. And then had added jokily that first she would need to find someone to be her baby’s father!

The double-decker bus lumbered through the narrow Norfolk lanes before turning in to the grand gates which led to the Duke’s estate. A long, gravelled drive swept up to the groom’s ancestral home and as the bus halted outside, Justina felt the breath catch in her throat as she glanced up at the perfectly proportioned golden building which Roxy had told her so much about.

Surrounded by green parkland, Valeo Hall was guarded by two snarling bronze lions which stood on top of two plinths. The pillars lining the steps up to the massive oak door were garlanded with the same fragrant white flowers which had decorated the cathedral, and Justina breathed in their sweet scent as she stepped down onto the forecourt. Lucky Roxy, she found herself thinking. A new husband and a new life. A whole new future just sitting waiting for them. Surely she wouldn’t have been human if she hadn’t felt a moment of wistful envy at that moment?

Standing in line, waiting to congratulate the newlyweds, she gave the handsome Duke a quick hug and seconds later was enveloped in a cloud of tulle and white lace as his bride stepped forward to embrace her tightly.

‘Oh, Jus.’ Roxy beamed. ‘I’m so glad you could come! Did you enjoy the service?’

‘It was gorgeous. You look gorgeous—the loveliest bride I’ve ever seen. But you didn’t tell me that Dante was going to be here,’ Justina whispered.

‘Should I have done?’ Roxy smiled in a conspiratorial way which made her look about nineteen again. ‘I know you aren’t together now, but I thought I’d invite him anyway—because for a while, Dante was a big part of my life. You don’t mind, do you?’

Justina gave a wry smile. What could she say? That seeing him again had been like revisiting an unbearably dark and painful place? She looked at Roxy’s luminous face and reminded herself that this was about more than her own hurt pride and wounded heart. This was Roxy’s day—and surely she could suffer seeing Dante one more time for her sake?

‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Always good to get a blast from the past.’

Touching her fingertips to her diamond tiara as if checking it was still there, Roxy frowned. ‘So there’s nothing going on between you any more?’

‘You’re kidding?’ Justina’s denial was vehement and heartfelt. ‘Dante and I are history.’

She moved aside to make way for the next guest and took a glass of champagne from a passing waitress. Raising the glass to her lips, she drank more quickly than normal—but the quick hit of fizzy wine made rebellion begin to simmer inside her as she walked towards the reception. Why should she allow herself to be intimidated by Dante D’Arezzo when she was strong enough to stand up to him? She was an independent woman, wasn’t she? Not some little mouse. If she ran into him at the reception—and that was a big if, since she intended to stay as far away from him as possible—then she would stonewall him, just as she’d managed to do outside the church today.

She looked around. Guests were beginning to file into the vast banqueting hall which had been laid with individual tables. The golden and white room was hung with chandeliers, blazing splintering light over the heirloom crystal and silver. Here there were more pillars, all woven with ivy and spring flowers, and Justina had the sense of having walked into an enchanted glade where anything could happen.

She found her name on the seating plan, pleased to discover that she was sandwiched between a brigadier-general—which meant that he would probably be about eighty—and a Lord Aston, who she’d never heard of. But her main source of pleasure came from the fact that she was nowhere near Dante. At least Roxy had been diplomatic enough to seat them on opposite sides of the room.

She made her way across the shiny floor of the banqueting hall towards her table, but her extra-high heels and her cheongsam dress meant that all her attention was focussed on making the journey without mishap. She wasn’t really paying attention to the other guests who were taking their places, and it wasn’t until an olive hand reached over to pull out her chair that some internal warning system began to sound.

Justina froze with a terrible sense of inevitability as she looked down into the brilliant dark gaze of the man she had once thought would be her husband.


CHAPTER TWO (#ufae33ed9-f8f3-5cbb-9429-0db1cd429e30)

HER HEART RACING with fury and an unwanted kind of excitement, Justina stared into Dante’s dark face—wishing she could wipe that supercilious smile from his lips. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she said viciously, and an

emerald-decked redhead sitting opposite jerked up her head in surprise.

‘Do keep your voice down, Justina,’ he said. ‘This is an aristocratic wedding where name-calling will almost certainly not be tolerated.’

Justina could have shaken him. Or punched against that solid wall of a chest. Or...something. Something which involved stamping her foot like a child and demanding that he be removed from her proximity as quickly as possible. As it was, she could do little except sit down in the chair which he was now pulling out for her. Because he was right. This was the wedding of one of her oldest friends and she could hardly cause a scene by demanding that she be moved to a different seat, could she?

He had risen to his feet and was helping her into her chair, his fingers briefly brushing over her shoulders before he slid into the vacant chair beside her.

She turned to look at him, careful to keep her voice low even though she could feel her nerve ends screaming in response to that unexpected touch of his hands. ‘I’m surprised you even know the meaning of the word “tolerate”,’ she said. ‘How did you manage to get here before me when I was on the first bus?’

‘I drove.’

Justina nodded. He’d driven. Of course he had. Could she really imagine him obediently trooping onto the transport provided like everybody else? He was the ultimate control freak, and whatever happened it always had to be on his terms.

She sucked in a deep breath. ‘What I don’t understand is why you happen to be sitting here?’

‘For exactly the same reason as you, I imagine. Waiting for the wedding breakfast to begin, and with it the opportunity to toast the bride and groom and wish them many happy years of wedded bliss.’

‘Please don’t wilfully misunderstand me, Dante. That’s not what I meant and you know it.’ Reluctantly Justina’s eyes focussed on the hard planes of his face, which were softened only by the sensual curves of his lips. She saw the faint shadow at his jaw which always appeared, no matter how often he shaved.

Why did he have to be so damned sexy? she thought. And why was her traitorous body reacting so hungrily to him as she breathed in his warm and earthy scent?

‘I looked at the table plan and your name was nowhere near mine. I was just celebrating my good fortune at such a sympathetic placement and now I find you next to me. So how did that happen, Dante?’

‘Simple. I changed the names,’ he said unrepentantly.

Justina glared at him. How could she have forgotten his high-handedness? That way he had of just blazing in and taking whatever it was he wanted as if the world was just one giant boardroom? ‘You can’t turn up at a posh society wedding and start rearranging the seating!’

‘I just did.’ He sat back in his seat and glittered her a lazy smile. ‘And since no one else has a problem with it I suggest you go with the flow and enjoy yourself.’

‘Enjoy myself? With you beside me? That’s a joke, right?’ She bent to put her bag on the floor, mainly in an attempt to disguise the sudden tremble of her fingers. ‘If I wanted to spend the afternoon in the company of a snake I’d head for the nearest pit.’

Dante saw the mutinous look on her face as she lifted her head again and for a moment he almost smiled. How could he have forgotten her outrageous defiance—the only woman in the world who had not deferred to his wishes? Who had been determined to get her voice heard and insisted that her career was just as important as his.

For a while he had enjoyed their delicious battle of wills, with the subsequent make-up sessions which had been all about red-hot passion. Until he’d been forced to realise that she meant what she said. That her objections had not been some sustained sexual tease and that she had no intention of compromising her lifestyle after their marriage. She was a singer and a performer, she’d told him, and she’d been given opportunities which came along all too rarely. She’d told him she couldn’t—no—she wouldn’t turn them down. She’d also smilingly had the nerve to tell him to stop being such a dinosaur and to respect how important her career was. But behind her smile had been the definite glint of steel, and that had unsettled him. He remembered being furious and then—surprisingly—hurt. Until he’d forced himself to be grateful for his lucky escape. Because her attitude did not bode well for a long-term relationship with someone like him.

His thoughts cleared and he found himself looking into clear amber eyes which were framed so exquisitely by her dark lashes. He waited until their wine had been poured and then let his gaze linger on her bare left hand.

‘So. No wedding band. I note that you have not been as fortunate as your bandmate in the matrimonial stakes,’ he observed.

Pausing midmouthful of wine, Justina almost choked with indignation. ‘The matrimonial stakes! It’s not some kind of horse race!’

‘No?’ He shrugged. ‘But it is a race, all the same. Most women like to be in a permanent relationship by the time they’re your age because they are thinking about the inevitable ticking of their biological clock. What are you now, Justina? Thirty-one? Thirty-two?’

‘I’m not even thirty!’ she gritted out, and it wasn’t until she saw the answering gleam in his eyes that she realised she had fallen into some horrible sort of trap.

She’d ended up sounding defensive about her age, just because she was about to leave her twenties behind without a wedding ring on her finger. Dante had managed to do what Dante always did so well—he’d made her feel bad about herself.

So don’t let him! She slanted him an adversarial look. ‘I think these days you’ll find an emerging breed of women who don’t need the mark of a man’s possession to define themselves.’

‘I see your rather aggressively feminist stance hasn’t softened with time.’

‘Feeling threatened, are you?’

‘Believe me, Justina—I’m feeling something a lot more basic than threatened.’

His mocking gaze had flickered to his groin and Justina felt her cheeks grow hot with a mixture of anger and desire. Viciously, she jabbed her fork into an unsuspecting spear of asparagus, though she couldn’t quite bring herself to eat it. What was the matter with her? He was insulting her, and even if he did underpin the insults with a deliberate sensuality why the hell was she responding like this?

She put her fork back down. Perhaps that was what absence did? It hadn’t made her heart grow any fonder, but it had certainly awoken a sexual appetite which she had thought gone for ever. And Dante was the last person she wanted to make her feel this way. As if she’d been wandering around, starved of all comfort and pleasure, until he had suddenly reappeared, symbolising everything she’d been missing in one dark and very dangerous package.

‘Did you go to all the trouble of rearranging your seat just so that you could spend the entire meal being objectionable?’ she questioned.

‘Oh, come on, Justina. You know exactly why I did it. Surely you can appreciate that I am a little curious about you—especially considering that we were once planning to be man and wife?’

‘You mean until you decided that you’d have sex with that...that...’ She wanted to spit out the word tart or whore—but that might give him the erroneous impression that she still cared. Picking up her wine glass, she knocked back a large mouthful. ‘Woman,’ she finished acidly.

‘Will you stop rewriting history?’ he demanded. ‘You know damned well that we’d already broken up by then.’

She opened her mouth to object, and then shut it again—because what was the point? He arrogantly refused to see that he’d done anything wrong and nothing she said was going to change his mind. So let it go. Stop reacting to him, because that’s what he wants you to do.

Yet it felt like hell to be this close to him. Trying like mad to pretend that she felt nothing when inside her heart was beating so loudly she was surprised that someone hadn’t told her to turn the volume down.

She played around with the food some more, before forcing herself to look into his face. ‘Okay. Let’s do it your way and get the niceties over with. What are you doing these days? Still living in Rome, I suppose?’

‘Not any more. These days I have an apartment in New York.’

‘Oh?’

‘You sound surprised.’

‘Not really. Surprise would imply a degree of interest, which I simply don’t have.’ She pushed her plate away and—forgetting her no-carbs rule—started nibbling on a piece of bread instead. ‘It’s just that you used to act as though paradise was a place in Italy, sandwiched in between Umbria and Emilia Romagna.’

‘My love of my homeland has not diminished, Justina,’ he said silkily. ‘And I go home whenever I can—though that is becoming increasingly less these days.’

‘Business is doing well?’ She made the question sound as if it was a bore to have to ask it.

He attempted a modest shrug, but she reflected with a growing feeling of frustration that modesty was one of the few things he didn’t do well.

‘Business is doing excellently. We’ve expanded our interests in North America and I love the vibrancy of New York. Okay, it isn’t Tuscany—but you can’t have everything.’

Justina ate some more bread—as if that could help fill the emotional hole which Dante had exposed with his words. She didn’t want to think about Tuscany—or the palazzo where the D’Arezzo family had lived for centuries. She had been blown away by the dramatic beauty of the region and the country itself, but her visit there hadn’t been a success. Actually, that was a complete understatement. Dante’s aristocratic family had disapproved of his English pop-star fiancée—especially as her visit had coincided with the release of a promotional video. The one where she’d been dancing energetically while not wearing a bra. Even she had been appalled by how raunchy the finished product had appeared to be—but it wouldn’t have seemed very credible for her to come out and say so at the time.

She had been deemed an unsuitable girlfriend for one of the D’Arezzo men, as well as being a potentially bad influence on his younger sister, and their trip had been cut abruptly short. At the time Justina had accepted what had seemed a rather harsh verdict because she’d had no choice other than to accept it. But it had been yet another nail in the coffin of their relationship.

‘Can’t have everything?’ she echoed sarcastically. ‘But I thought you were the man who always believed he could. Who made “having it all” into an art form!’

‘Oh, how brittle you sound, Justina,’ he murmured. ‘I do hope that your attitude isn’t motivated by envy or avarice. Career taken a nose-dive, has it?’

She was tempted to tell him to go to hell, but some remnant of pride stopped her. Let him know that you’ve carved a respectable life for yourself, she thought. That the sacrifices she’d made had been worth it. She was independent and proud of it. And she was never going to be like her mother.

‘On the contrary, I’m living in London and still writing songs,’ she said. ‘But for other people now.’

‘And you’re successful?’

‘Oh, I do okay.’ Justina kept her smile tight. She could have told him about her recent chart-topping song, or the invitation to write the score for an upcoming musical, but he wouldn’t be impressed. Dante didn’t approve of ambition unless it came from a man. ‘It keeps me in shoes.’

‘Very expensive shoes, by the look of them.’ He lowered his gaze to study her skyscraper heels before lifting his head to let his eyes drift lazily over her face. And it was still the most beautiful face he had ever seen. Her pink lips were pressed together as if she was trying to decide what to do with them and Dante felt a rush of pure and potent lust. It hit his skin like the buffeting of a powerful wave. It turned the blood in his veins into a heated flow as he imagined kissing her again.

And in that moment he knew that he was going to have her one last time. That this fever wouldn’t go away unless he did. He realised then that his desire for her was like a disease which had lain dormant all these years and the sight of her had suddenly reactivated it all over again.

He felt the heavy aching at his groin as he leaned forward a little. ‘And what about men?’ he questioned softly.

‘Men?’

His gaze was steady; his voice was not quite. ‘Nobody in your life you like enough to bring him along today as your “plus one”?’

Justina met the blaze of his eyes, determined he wouldn’t discover the truth. Because wouldn’t he laugh—or, even worse, act smug—if he knew that her time with him had ruined her for other men? That she’d been unable to trust another man enough to get close to—even if she’d found anyone else attractive enough to want to try.

So why not play games with him? Why not pretend that she loved men just as they loved her? Surely pride demanded something along those lines? For Dante was traditional and old-fashioned enough to see her still-single status as some kind of failure.

She took another sip of wine. ‘Oh, I do all right with men,’ she said, and the sudden darkening of his face gave her a brief thrill of pleasure. Because if that was jealousy then it was only a fraction of what she’d felt when she’d walked into his hotel suite that day and seen that naked woman writhing all over him. Fighting back a sudden feeling of nausea, she raised her eyebrows, as if daring him to continue his interrogation.

‘But nobody permanent?’ he persisted.

‘Nope.’ She made it sound like a conscious choice instead of an unwanted situation into which she had been cast. She hadn’t realised that love would be so difficult to find second time around. She hadn’t realised that she would look at other men, compare them to the arrogant Tuscan—and be left completely cold. ‘I don’t do permanence. And now, if you don’t mind, Dante, I think we’ve exhausted pretty much everything we need to say to each other.’

Very deliberately, she turned her back on him and started talking to the Brigadier, who was sitting on her other side—although it took her a moment before she had composed herself enough to concentrate. But the old soldier was a lucky choice of companion. He knew lots about the groom’s ancestral home, and once he got going there was no stopping him. Acting like balm on her ruffled senses, he made for unexpectedly engaging company—especially to someone like Justina, who’d had such an erratic education.

Her mother’s louche and nomadic lifestyle had meant that Justina had changed schools as often as most people changed their wardrobes. By the age of seventeen she’d had a wealth of experience, but not much in the way of formal teaching—unless you counted her mother’s weekly master classes in gold-digging. But from an early age she’d learnt the art of asking the right questions, and the Brigadier was able to answer them all to her satisfaction. He told her all about the battles which had been fought around the beautiful Norfolk estate, and described in detail all the house’s treasures—including the rare Titian painting in the picture gallery.

If only she could have blocked out the occasional drift of Dante’s accent as she heard him entertaining his side of the table throughout the meal. The redhead wearing emeralds had a particularly piercing laugh, and Justina had to stop herself from wincing every time she heard it. If only she could have blotted out her aching awareness of his presence, too. She could almost feel the heat from his body and detect the raw, masculine scent which was so uniquely his.

Someone began banging a spoon against the side of a glass, and as the bride’s father stood up to make his speech Dante leaned over to speak in her ear.

‘You turned your back on me, Justina—and nobody ever does that.’

‘Shh. I know you love talking about yourself but you really must be quiet. The speeches are about to begin.’ She caught the brief look of frustration on his face, before sitting back in her seat and fixing her eyes on the top table.

The bride’s father began to speak. his crumpled linen suit and long hair making him stand out from the rest of the guests. He told a few inappropriate anecdotes which should have had the aristocratic relatives groaning—but it was such a happy occasion that people just started giggling in response. Justina looked around at all the laughing faces and a terrible emptiness started to gnaw away at her. Suddenly it felt as if everyone was sitting within the warm circle of a fire while she was alone on the outskirts, in the dark and cold. The outsider who had no real sense of belonging. And hadn’t it always been that way?

She sat through the rest of the speeches and laughed in all the right places, but after the ceremonial cutting of the cake she picked up her satin clutch-bag and looked around. Dante was busy talking to the redhead and she doubted whether the Brigadier would miss her too much. She’d make as if she was going to the washroom and leave without anybody noticing. She’d have the early night she needed and sleep away her jet-lag—and tomorrow she would wake up and start forgetting about Dante all over again.

She managed to slip from the room without comment, but had got no further than the pillared entrance hall when her search to locate her cell phone was halted by the deep caress of a familiar accent.

‘Going somewhere?’

She turned to find Dante effectively blocking her path, and she hated the shiver which whispered its way down over her spine. Hated even more the way she seemed mesmerised by the sardonic curve of his lips. ‘Trying to,’ she said pointedly. ‘If you’d be so good as to get out of my way?’

‘But there’s dancing.’

‘I know there is. But I’ve had enough.’ Of you. She didn’t say the words out loud; she didn’t need to.

He frowned. ‘So you’re travelling back to London?’

‘Not tonight, no. I’ve booked into a hotel in Burnham Market.’ She gave a little sigh as she met his raised eyebrows. ‘It’s a town not far from here.’

He nodded as he delved into the pocket of his suit trousers for his car keys. ‘I’ll drive you there.’

‘Thanks, but I’d prefer to get a cab.’

‘Don’t be melodramatic, Justina. A cab will take ages and my car is parked by the stables.’

In the cool shadows she could see the bright gleam of his eyes.

‘What are you so afraid of?’

She wondered how he would react if she told him the truth. She was afraid of wanting him. Of wanting him to kiss her, despite knowing that it was wrong. Because what did it say about her that she should still desire him after everything that had happened?

‘I’d hate to drag you away from the party.’

‘I’m happy to be dragged. As it happens, I’d intended driving back to London tonight anyway—I have a flight to the States tomorrow.’

Put like that, it made her continued resistance sound unreasonable—or maybe she just didn’t have the strength to oppose him any more.

Justina accompanied him outside as he handed his keys to a valet. While they were waiting for his car to be brought round he turned to her.

‘Whatever happened to Lexi?’ he asked suddenly.

Justina met his curious gaze. It was a long time since anyone had mentioned Alexi Gibson, the third member of the Lollipops—or ‘Sexy Lexi’ as the press used to dub her.

‘You know she went solo?’ she questioned. ‘That it was her desire to go it alone which led to the break-up of the band?’

‘No, I didn’t know that.’ Up until the day he’d received the wedding invitation he’d deliberately excised all references to the Lollipops from his life, as carefully as a surgeon might remove an area of diseased tissue. ‘Is she here?’

‘Nope. Nobody ever sees her since she married one of Hollywood’s biggest players.’ Briefly, Justina found herself wondering if Lexi was happy—and for the first time in a long time, she turned the question on herself. Am I happy? she wondered. The answer hit her with a jolt. She wasn’t. Successful and fairly contented, yes—and certainly fulfilled in her choice of career. But happy? No way. Not compared to the happiness she’d known in the past, with Dante.

The valet had arrived with Dante’s sports car—a low and gleaming machine which made wriggling into the passenger seat something of a challenge, despite the accommodating side-split in her cheongsam dress.

‘Name of hotel?’ he questioned steadily, as if the sight of her bare thigh hadn’t just sent his blood pressure shooting through the ceiling.

‘The Smithsonian.’

She watched as he keyed the details into his sat-nav and then sat back as the powerful car pulled away from the big house with a small spurt of gravel. The silence which descended hung heavily on the air—with what they weren’t talking about filling the space around them and making the atmosphere feel claustrophobic. The elephant in the room was alive and well, thought Justina wryly, and currently crammed into a powerful car in Norfolk.

They drew up outside the lighted hotel which stood in a pretty Georgian Square and her fingers were unsteady as she tried to unclip her seat belt. Despite her relief that the awkward journey was over, she felt strangely reluctant to get out and just walk away. It was funny, but the older you got, the more you realised the significance of goodbyes. At twenty-five she hadn’t really thought about whether or not she’d see Dante again because at that age she hadn’t been thinking beyond her heartbreak. This time she was aware that their paths were unlikely to cross again, that this was probably the last time she would ever see him—and she was unprepared for the sudden twist of pain in her heart.

‘Justina?’

The soft dip in his voice was distracting, and so was the false intimacy created by the limited space inside the vehicle. In the dim light she could see the gleam of his eyes and she became aware of just how close he was. ‘What?’

There was a pause. ‘You know that I still want you.’

She thought how blatant he was. How only Dante D’Arezzo would have the nerve to come out and say something like that. ‘Well, tough. The feeling isn’t mutual.’

‘Oh, come on. You’ve been undressing me with your eyes since you walked down the aisle and saw me at the cathedral.’

‘I think you must be mistaken. I’m not interested in a man who spreads his favours so thinly.’

There was a heartbeat of a pause, and when he spoke his voice was harsh. ‘You know damned well that it was over when I went with her! How many times do I have to tell you that?’

Justina looked down at her lap. Yes, it had been over between them—certainly as far as he’d been concerned. Her determination to go on tour with the Lollipops had led to Dante abruptly ending their engagement. But she had missed him. She had missed him more than she’d thought it possible to miss anyone. The reality of life without him had hit her hard, and his absence had felt like falling down a bottomless black hole. So she had flown back to England unexpectedly, planning to go to his hotel and ask him if they could try again, to give it one more go—because deep down she’d thought that they loved one another enough to overcome their fundamental differences. But she had been cruelly mistaken.

Her last memory of Dante was bursting into his hotel suite and seeing him in bed. But he hadn’t been alone. His eyes had been closed and something had been moving at his groin beneath the sheet. Justina’s horrified gasp had made the movement stop and a head had emerged. It had been a tousled blond head, and somehow that had only driven the knife in deeper. As if he was piling on cliché after cliché. Not just taking another lover—taking a blonde lover.

Justina had managed to turn on her heel and make it all the way to the lift. She’d even managed to hold it together enough to hail a taxi outside the hotel. But her heart had felt as if he’d stamped on it with a metal-studded boot.

She had cut all communication with him from that moment and done everything she could to try to forget him. No one could have been more assiduous than Justina in cutting all references to Dante from her life. She had destroyed every photo of him and had sold all the jewellery he had showered on her and then donated the proceeds to charity.

She was aware that his dark eyes were still fixed on her questioningly, and she vowed that he would never know the true depths of her heartbreak. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to move on with quite such insulting speed!’

‘You think I should have waited?’ he questioned heatedly. ‘When already you had kept me waiting for so long? Waiting while you did your world tour. Waiting while you did more of your television interviews and your damned newspaper spreads. You knew the kind of man I was, Justina. I was young and I was hungry and I expected the woman I loved to be by my side, supporting me. I had certain appetites which needed to be fed—and I could not tolerate the life you were forcing me to lead. Our very separate lives.’

‘It’s done,’ she said flatly, her heart contracting painfully as she heard him say it. The woman I loved. Past tense. The love was gone—for both of them. ‘It’s in the past, Dante—and it was best for everyone in the long run. It certainly made for a clean break.’

His eyes searched her face and in that moment he felt a pang of regret washing over him. Guilt, too. And he was unprepared for the way it made his heart clench, as if someone was squeezing it with icy fingers. ‘You know, you were never meant to find me with her,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if I hurt you.’

Justina nodded. Once she would have given anything to have him acknowledge the pain he’d caused. But now it sounded like a patronising afterthought. Almost as if he suspected that she’d never really been able to move on from him without this final sense of closure.

And yet was that so far from the truth? Despite all her best intentions she’d never really got over him, had she? Part of her was still stuck inside her old self, still remembering the lover he’d been—against whom all subsequent men had been measured only to fail.

Maybe she had continued to idealise him. Maybe his undeniable qualities as a lover had made her place him on an impossibly high pedestal which had subsequently distorted her views on men. Was that what had caused her to erect these high barriers around herself, which nobody else had ever been able to scale?

Pride helped her form careless words, and a career on the stage meant that she was able to utter them with a degree of conviction. ‘The hurt I felt was just a part of growing up,’ she said. ‘You were simply a necessary part of my sexual education, Dante.’

For a moment there was a stunned silence, and when he spoke his voice was underpinned with a dark note of anger. ‘I must say that I’ve heard myself described in many ways—but never quite like that before.’ The tip of his tongue slowly traced the outline of his upper lip. ‘And did I provide you with good grades during this sexual education I gave you?’

Justina’s heart skipped a beat as her body began to ache with half-forgotten hunger. She told herself she ought to get out of the car while she still had a chance, but it was as if someone had turned her limbs to stone. ‘I don’t...I don’t remember.’

‘You don’t? That’s such a pity. Then maybe I ought to refresh your memory for you.’

She met the challenge in his shadowed eyes and saw the way his lips had parted. Did she murmur something—or indicate with her expression that she wasn’t averse to the idea? Was that what made him move closer?

And suddenly they were kissing. Kissing as she’d forgotten how to. His hands were at her waist and she was reaching for his shoulders. In no time at all he was running his fingers over her satin-covered breasts and she was moaning like a woman in pain.

He snapped his seat belt free, swiftly followed by hers, but the space inside the car was cramped and already the windows were starting to get steamed up. It was hard to move, because there was nowhere to move, and her cheongsam made it even harder. The realisation that they were sitting right outside her hotel didn’t even enter the equation until she heard Dante mutter something urgent in Italian. He dragged his mouth away from hers and she could see the look of frustration burning in his eyes.

‘Not here,’ he bit out, shaking his dark head. ‘Not like this. Take me inside, Justina.’ He bent his head to drift his lips over hers. ‘Take me into your body before I explode.’


CHAPTER THREE (#ufae33ed9-f8f3-5cbb-9429-0db1cd429e30)

HER HOTEL ROOM was pristinely tidy. It was one of the things which Dante remembered as being uniquely Justina. While the rest of the band had existed in a rubble of half-eaten room service food and discarded wine bottles she had lived in her own neat little bubble, sitting writing her songs in the middle of all the chaos. He remembered her telling him that it was her particular antidote to a messy and erratic upbringing.

But his thoughts about her orderliness lasted for about as long as it took for the door to close behind them, for him to take her into his arms again and for his mouth to crush down on hers in another hungry kiss. He could feel the restless movement of her body as she writhed against him, but he got the sense that her mind was screaming out all kinds of objections.

Very deliberately, he grazed his mouth over hers with a slow and erotic brush. ‘I want you,’ he said, his words coming out unsteadily. ‘I have never wanted a woman as much as I want you in this moment.’

Justina closed her eyes as his lips moved to her neck, her fingers tangling themselves luxuriously in the thick darkness of his hair. ‘Dante...’ she whispered, knowing that the rest of the sentence went something like, You know we shouldn’t be doing this. But the words remained unspoken—and how could they be spoken when he had started touching her breasts like that?

‘What the hell kind of dress is this?’ he questioned as he felt around for a zip.

‘It’s called a...a cheongsam. I...I bought it in Singapore and I—’

‘I’m not interested in its history!’ Roughly, he cut through her stumbling explanation. ‘The only thing I’m interested in is how to get the damned thing off.’

‘There are buttons down the side,’ she gasped.

‘Sono mille!’ His fingers were trembling as he began to fumble them open. ‘How many?’

She felt cool air rushing onto her skin and told herself to call a halt to this madness. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Her body was too hungry, her desire too strong to be able to resist what he was doing to her. Hadn’t she spent the past five years wondering if she’d ever feel like this again? Wondering if her body would ever feel this incomparable rush of desire? And suddenly Justina knew that she didn’t want to be passive. That if this was to be their swansong then they would come together as the equals they’d never really been. She was no longer the virgin lover he had needed to teach. She had graduated with honours, and maybe it was time to remember just how much she’d loved having sex with this man.

She kicked off her high heels and sent them flying across the room before beginning to tug at his tie.

‘Impatient?’ he queried, thinking that in the past she would have slid the shoes tidily from her feet.

‘Aren’t you?’ she whispered back as she turned her attention to his shirt. She slid open the buttons and greedily peeled it away to reveal the honed torso beneath, bending her head to graze her teeth against his skin, her tongue licking luxuriously against its silken surface.

‘Dio.’ He shuddered, and tore at another button of her dress. He pulled the garment away from her with hands which were shaking, and if such a reaction was unheard of for someone of his experience he didn’t care. He unclipped her bra in one deft movement. Her panties he disposed of by ripping apart the delicate lace with his fingers, and he heard her little gasp of pleasure as they brushed over her honeyed heat.

‘You always liked me to play a little rough, didn’t you, tesoro?’ he demanded as he tugged off the last of his own clothing—and was taken off guard by her fervent passion as she pushed him down onto the bed.

She moved over him, her face filled with an expression he could never remember seeing before as she straddled him. Her eyes were slitted so he couldn’t read them, and she was biting her lips as if she was trying to stop them from trembling.

‘Do it,’ he commanded.

But Justina shook her head. Tonight she was going to call the shots. This was going to be her therapy, the recovery she needed. She would feast on his body until she’d had her fill. She would let the harsh light of reality shine down on this demi-god of her imagination and by morning she would see him for the mortal he really was. This was sex, she told herself fiercely—and she wasn’t going to make the mistake of confusing it with love.

‘I’ll do it when I’m good and ready.’

Dante moaned as she circled her hips to brush her feminine core over his steely erection so that he could almost feel her—but not quite. She was close enough for him to be able to plunge inside her, and yet she kept her moist treasure almost tantalisingly out of reach. His head fell back against the pillow and for a moment he felt almost helpless. This was not how he liked it to happen—at least not with Justina. He liked to be in control, to play the dominant role, and yet she was writhing around on top of him like some teasing whore. And, God help him, he liked it.

‘Per favore,’ he groaned. ‘Please.’




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