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Scandals Of The Powerful: Uncovering the Correttis / A Legacy of Secrets
CAROL MARINELLI
Sarah Morgan
Secrets to hide…Journalist Emily Hyslop is covering a wedding in Sicily and it’s clear there’s a mystery behind the union of the Corretti and Battaglia families. Then Emily meets the sexiest man she's ever encountered… Does she have to leave Sicily once the wedding is over?*PA Ella is ready to handle whatever devilish Santo Corretti throws at her. But there’s real darkness in her boss's eyes this morning – scandal is circling Santo's family. All he wants is a little TLC. Except, Ella's heart is not a toy for his amusement!*Careful Taylor Carmichael knew her encounter with playboy Luca Corretti, a bottle of chilled champagne and a skintight dress was a bad idea, worse still the paparazzi caught it all on camera. Taylor is fuming. Luca could have stopped the press…




About the Authors (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
Originally from England, CAROL MARINELLI now lives in Melbourne, Australia. She adores going back to the UK for a visit – actually, she adores going anywhere for a visit – and constantly (expensively) strives to overcome her fear of flying. She loves the fast paced, busy setting of a modern hospital, but, every now and then admits it’s bliss to escape to the glamorous, alluring world of her Presents heroes and heroines. A bit like her real life actually!
USA TODAY bestselling author SARAH MORGAN writes lively, sexy stories for both Mills & Boon Modern and Medical Romance. Romantic Times has described her writing as ‘action packed and sexy’ and nominated her books for their Reviewer’s Choice Awards and their ‘Top Pick’ slot. Readers can find out more about Sarah and her books from her website www.sarahmorgan.com (http://www.sarahmorgan.com). She can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.
Scandals of the Powerful
Uncovering the Correttis
Carol Marinelli
A Legacy of Secrets
Carol Marinelli
An Invitation to Sin
Sarah Morgan


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08512-0
SCANDALS OF THE POWERFUL
Uncovering the Correttis © 2012 Harlequin Books S.A A Legacy of Secrets © 2013 Harlequin Books S.A An Invitation to Sin © 2013 Harlequin Books S.A
Published in Great Britain 2018
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.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Table of Contents
Cover (#u82fa44af-fb72-538d-95ec-eaebfdca14dd)
About the Authors (#u3162d065-2223-5380-99b7-52c3f8863ca0)
Title Page (#ua7f70b6f-dbec-5bbc-81a8-60355d294643)
Copyright (#u1f898294-56f2-5bac-8deb-bf1a021a6b92)
Uncovering the Correttis (#ud2270d7f-e924-5275-9e01-a4b77ae62c0d)
Back Cover Text (#ub82fe965-affb-597d-af68-3a5541fd2c5a)
CHAPTER ONE (#u935fe509-3027-5144-9db9-8ea43c1d5507)
CHAPTER TWO (#uf5733ac3-5033-564f-81ab-0f5ee9056a97)
CHAPTER THREE (#ua05c40b5-7270-57e1-be38-5c9acb53d500)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u3efc9544-da2f-5134-bef1-7d9d44354299)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u0f6b834a-5cb5-56fb-9db0-5941c125bee1)
CHAPTER SIX (#u05565985-1f45-5ccc-99c9-a5e15e306469)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u5e309384-2545-5473-9ac2-f278ac368867)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ua8524d82-d8bc-5f13-ae2c-be625ae1ddec)
CHAPTER NINE (#u136d7836-94c7-5fbc-9290-8c6285dbbafe)
CHAPTER TEN (#u14925c07-9478-593b-9222-9a89e505b57d)
A Legacy of Secrets (#uda8be45e-24c5-561f-93aa-f0682e2b7848)
Back Cover Text (#u34035321-350b-5e7a-a127-ae0a792ee5b4)
PROLOGUE (#u341a5aee-2f36-5978-863e-3963d9726bfa)
CHAPTER ONE (#ub4b255ba-d2ba-5388-bd8d-9dc07d94d9b9)
CHAPTER TWO (#u5b70b7b8-1719-5254-b926-a62fc7a9b959)
CHAPTER THREE (#uf0faead4-fa96-56ba-8d84-4f35568b7a96)
CHAPTER FOUR (#uc0244cf9-de96-5bdb-948e-b367297eb303)
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)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Behind the Scenes (#litres_trial_promo)
An Invitation to Sin (#litres_trial_promo)
Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo)
Dedication (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
Behind the Scenes (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Uncovering the Correttis (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
Carol Marinelli
The more powerful the family...the darker the secrets. Meet the family everyone’s talking about in this prequel novella to the Sicily’s Corretti Dynasty series, bought to you by Harlequin Presents.
Investigative journalist Emily Hyslop is furious when her editor—and ex—reassigns her from a career-making exposé to a frivolous wedding in Sicily. But scandalous secrets lie behind the union of the rival Corretti and Battaglia families. Things start looking up when Emily meets the most intimidating, not to mention sexiest, man she’s ever encountered....
Detective Anton Soranno has valuable insight into the Correttis and their scandalous dealings...and plenty of reason to hate them. He’s the perfect source of information—and the more he helps Emily with her story, the more time they have to explore their intense desire. But even as their passionate nights uncover surprising feelings in both of them, Emily and Anton know that she must leave Sicily once the wedding is over....
Look for more books in the Sicily’s Corretti Dynasty series, beginning with A Legacy of Secrets by Carol Marinelli.
CHAPTER ONE (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
‘A WEDDING?’ Emily Hyslop frowned. ‘You’re not seriously asking me to cover a wedding?’
‘I thought you’d jump at the chance of two nights in Sicily,’ Adam said, knowing full well that she wouldn’t.
Emily was an investigative reporter for a large British newspaper and had just been called into her editor’s office to be asked to cover a wedding. Or rather, her ex-boyfriend was telling her that she would be covering a wedding—at the precise time the case Emily had been working so hard on was about to crack open.
‘I’m working on the Hetherington case.’ Emily tried to keep her voice even. ‘You know that I have to be in Wales this weekend. They’re dredging the lake and I—’
‘I’ve asked Dianne to take it over.’
Emily sat there, her cheeks on fire but trying desperately to appear calm, refusing to let Adam see just how upset she was. Journalism was a fiercely competitive world at the best of times. At the worst of times it was downright cruel. Emily had been working on the Hetherington case on and off for months, utilising her contacts, chasing leads, and now it would seem, again, Dianne was being handed the plum piece and would take the credit for all Emily’s hard work.
You didn’t have to be Einstein to work out why.
Emily had long ago guessed that the arrival of Dianne had been the reason for she and Adam breaking up. Well, Dianne was welcome to Adam but not her job, Emily thought while trying to work out how best to play this.
‘Dianne has amazing contacts and she’s got the edge that’s needed to report a gritty case like this,’ Adam said. ‘I know how hard you’ve worked on it, Emily, but I really feel that you’ve taken it as far as you can.’ Adam didn’t have much of a conscience—you couldn’t do this work otherwise—but even he felt a tinge of discomfort as he attempted to come up with a reason for snatching the case from Emily and handpassing it to Dianne. ‘There are going to be a lot of hard questions if they ever do find a body and asking the tough ones is Dianne’s forte.’ He looked at Emily’s huge blue eyes and blond hair and told himself that Dianne was right. ‘We’ve spoken about this several times. If you want to get on in this field, then you need to toughen up.’
‘And sending me to cover a wedding’s going to achieve that?’ Emily couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice; she hadn’t covered a wedding in years, not since she started at the paper.
‘It will go nicely with the travel feature on Sicily that the paper’s running next week.’ Adam wanted the conversation over. ‘Cheer up, Emily. I wouldn’t mind a weekend in Sicily. Instead I’ll be stuck in Wales in the pouring rain....’ He trailed off, perhaps realising what he’d just admitted.
‘So you’re going, too?’
‘It’s a big story.’
Yes, and it had been her story.
Emily gave him a tight smile, stood and headed out to her desk. She could feel all eyes in the office on her. It was clear everyone already knew why she’d been called in to speak with Adam.
At thirty, Emily had been with the paper for eight years and had enjoyed working there till recently. As was the case everywhere these days, there were talks of staff cuts, and Emily was aware that her department was being closely looked at. She could easily envision Adam’s red pen going through her name.
How convenient.
What the hell was I thinking getting involved with someone from work? Her eyes skimmed the brief she had been given but then she stopped thinking about Adam and frowned when she saw a name.
Corretti?
The Correttis were one of Sicily’s most notorious dynasties; she had seen on the news just the other week the funeral of the head of the family, Salvatore Corretti. The security had been incredible and Emily had watched various family members arriving grim faced, their eyes hidden behind dark glasses. She had been intrigued even then.
Emily pulled up the name on her screen and read a little more about the family, her heart starting to race a little as it did when she knew she was onto something, because it would appear that this marriage was so much more than a love match.
Alessandro Corretti was to marry Alessia Battaglia. The Italian media was alight with rumours that Salvatore had set this union in place to ensure his family had Battaglia’s backing for some extensive regeneration of docklands on the Sicilian coast. There was far more to it than that, though. The history between the two families went way back.
She could hear Dianne on the phone booking hotel rooms, or rather, one hotel room, for the weekend in Wales—the romantic champagne-on-arrival and breakfast-in-bed package!
Refusing to let it get to her, Emily returned to her research. They really were the most fascinating family. Salvatore had risen from an orphaned street urchin, charming and thieving his way to survive, to working for the mob dynasty the Battaglias. But it had all turned sour and a price had been put on Salvatore’s head. The more Emily read, the more intrigued she became. There was surely more she could report on than just the wedding. It was time to take back control of her career, Emily decided.
She just needed to sort out how.
‘Can I have a word?’ Emily looked up from her research into the face of her nemesis.
‘Of course.’
‘I need the names of a couple of your contacts,’ Dianne said.
‘Sorry.’ Emily gave a sweet smile. ‘Naturally, I promised them that I’d never reveal.’
‘But how do you know the lake’s going to be dredged?’
‘Dianne.’ Emily gave a helpless shrug, then glanced at the clock, surprised to see that it was already after five. She’d been totally immersed in the Correttis and Battaglias and was now excited at the prospect of covering the wedding—but in her own way. She certainly wasn’t going to be assisting Dianne.
‘I just need a name,’ Dianne pushed. ‘We’re on the same team.’
Emily felt her face flush. But hadn’t Adam told her that she needed to toughen up?
‘Well, this part of the team is off to cover a wedding. Sorry I can’t help—I have to go and pack for Sicily.’
‘I can’t wait to hear what the bride wore.’ Dianne smirked.
‘You can both read about it on Sunday,’ Emily responded. ‘When they bring you breakfast in bed.’
* * *
Emily didn’t bother with packing till the morning. Even though it was late May, it felt strange to be pulling out summer dresses and sandals when it was pouring down outside. She packed some loose dresses and espadrilles and, determined that this piece be about more than what the bride wore, she also packed a dress suitable for a wedding, hoping to mingle amongst the notorious guests. Maybe she could even try to slip inside, Emily thought, although she knew that it would be close to impossible.
She met with Gina, the photographer, at Heathrow, though thanks to the weather, they weren’t going anywhere fast. They sat on the tarmac for ages, the planes backed up due to storms, but finally they were in the air. They moaned all the way to Rome about horrible Adam and Dianne and all the changes that were happening in the department.
‘You need to remind Adam and the powers that be what a good journalist you are,’ Gina said.
‘I’m hoping to.’ Emily sighed. ‘I’m looking to do something a bit different with the wedding piece,’ she admitted, but Gina shook her head.
‘Every journalist in Italy will be hoping to do the same.’ Gina was Italian and knew how it worked. ‘Some of them will have serious contacts.’ Again Gina shook her head. ‘These two families are huge, especially the Correttis. The press watch them all the time and even they can’t get close. I doubt you’ll uncover anything new. I think you might have to wait till Monday to set the world on fire.’
They landed at Rome and said goodbye. Emily was heading straight to Palermo and Gina was going to sneak in a night with family and see Emily there tomorrow. ‘Have fun,’ Gina said.
There wasn’t time to have fun, Emily thought. Her career was nosediving; she had to come up with something.
Palermo was gorgeous, though. The sky was blue, the air warm, and as she stepped into summer, she breathed it in, determined despite Gina’s warning to turn things around this weekend. As the taxi drove her from the airport, she noticed how many developments were unfinished, left deserted midconstruction. She tried to ask the taxi driver about them but he spoke little English, though Emily felt the hair on her arms rise when the name Corretti was mentioned.
Emily checked in and was taking the elevator up to her room when one of her informants called.
‘Hi there...’ Emily smiled into the phone but her voice broke off as the most stunning man followed her into the elevator. His hair was jet-black and he was unshaven with a full, scowling mouth, and her first, illogical thought was, it would be heaven to be the recipient of his smile. He was wearing black jeans, a black top and a black jacket, his eyes covered with dark glasses. The lift doors closed and it was just the two of them. As his expensive scent reached her, Emily was incredibly aware of his presence, so much so that she forgot she had taken a phone call until her informant’s voice came down the line.
‘Emily?’
‘Sorry!’ She returned her attention to the call, or tried to, but her eyes watched as a beautifully manicured finger pressed the button for one of the top floors.
‘Wrong lake.’ The connection was loud and Emily held her phone from her ear.
‘Oh!’
‘I don’t even know which one the police are going to be dredging—they’re keeping it really quiet. But I don’t want you freezing by a lake for nothing in this weather.’
‘I’m not covering the story now. Adam and Dianne are on their way there. I’m in sunny Sicily.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Covering a wedding.’ Emily rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t ask. It’s a very sore point.’
‘I never imagined you as a wedding reporter.’
‘Neither did I. Look, thanks for letting me know about the lake. I’ll pass it on.’
‘No I bloody well won’t.’
Emily didn’t mean to say the words she had been thinking, but as she pocketed her phone, she realised that she had spoken out loud. Her eyes jerked up to the gorgeous stranger, her face burning red as the elevator doors opened and she realised she was at her floor. He wasn’t even looking at her; he was lounging against the elevator wall reading from his phone. He probably couldn’t speak English anyway, Emily consoled herself as she stepped out.
‘Fattispecie.’
Just as she got out of the elevator, his deep voice halted her and she turned around and looked at him, wishing he weren’t wearing dark glasses just so she could know the colour of his eyes when she dreamt about him tonight. ‘Actus reus,’ he translated, and even though he still didn’t, Emily found herself smiling as the elevator doors closed, as that delicious stranger gave her the legal term for a lie by omission.
Ah, fattispecie, Emily thought, letting herself into her room and thinking of Adam and Dianne standing in the pouring rain at the wrong lake.
Such a lovely word.
CHAPTER TWO (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
EMILY WASN’T going to find out anything in her hotel room, so she freshened up with a shower, then put on a summer dress and some make-up before she went for a wander.
It was early evening and the streets were teeming. Everyone was chattering excitedly about the upcoming nuptials. There were scores of reporters and the police were combing the church with detectors and dogs. Emily dictated a few lines and then put away her recorder. Everything was cordoned off. Even the barriers for the press were set farther back than usual. There really wasn’t a hope of getting closer. Even the most seasoned Italian reporters would have their work cut out, so Emily knew she didn’t stand much of a chance. She walked across to the reception venue but that and the gardens too were cordoned off.
Damn.
It was then she saw him again, and despite the dark glasses, she could see that he was unashamedly watching her. ‘Signor Fattispecie!’ Emily smiled.
‘The name is Anton.’ He made his way over and introduced himself. Emily waited for him to give his surname, to reveal a bit more as to who he was.
He did neither.
‘It is a pleasure to meet you, Emily.’ He watched her frown as she tried to fathom how he knew her name. ‘I heard your contact speak. So, you’re here to cover the wedding?’
Emily nodded. ‘You?’
‘To observe,’ he said.
‘Oh!’
He could be a Corretti. He was dark and delicious, and like them—well, according to her research, anyway—he gave nothing away. His voice was low and richly accented, and there was that urge again to rip off his glasses, that wish for this man to reveal just a little more of himself to her.
‘So,’ Anton asked, ‘covering a wedding is a sore point?’
Yes, he’d understood every word.
‘Can I ask why?’
‘My career’s just been shot.’ Emily was honest. His presence was just so consuming that there wasn’t the room in her mind to fathom lying or watering down the truth. ‘Well, slowly strangled.’ She looked at him and saw just a hint of a small smile lift the edge of a very beautiful mouth, and so she proceeded on. ‘Prolonged suffocation.’
‘What do you usually work on?’
‘I’m an investigative journalist.’ Emily sighed. ‘Or I thought I was till I was sent here. Still, this wedding sounds pretty interesting.’ He did not respond to her probe. ‘I heard there was a lot of rivalry between the families.’
‘Heard?’ Anton checked.
‘Read,’ Emily admitted.
‘Read what exactly?’
She breathed out through her nostrils, feeling as if she was being tested. She was unsure just whom she was speaking to, but she so badly needed to know more. ‘That Antonioni Battaglia is the minister of trade and industry.’ She watched as from behind his glasses one perfect eyebrow raised. ‘That his backing is needed for the regeneration of the docklands.’ She was aware he could be a member of either family, but it was all or nothing and Emily chose to push on. ‘And I read that the Correttis want the docklands project.’
‘Do you really want to cover more than just the wedding?’ He made her a little nervous, or was it just that he made her breathless?
‘Yes.’ Emily nodded. ‘Are you related to them?’
He gave a small, mirthless laugh and shook his head in clear distaste.
‘Do you know them, then?’
‘Very well, though sometimes they would prefer that I did not.’
Emily blinked.
‘Tomorrow Antonioni will see his daughter, Alessia, married into the Corretti dynasty. Unlike his father and grandfather, Antonioni could never amass his own fortune. He’s an embittered politician and only too happy to buy into power.’
‘So, how do you know all this?’
‘Because I make it my business to know.’
Emily was used to getting information from others, but she knew full well that Anton was revealing this by choice, not because of her excellent interviewing skills. She just didn’t know why. Yet she wanted more from him, more insight and information and... Emily swallowed. She didn’t want their conversation to be over. She wanted more time with this intriguing man.
‘Scusi,’ he said, and she stood waiting as he took a phone call, feeling a bit awkward when he glanced over to her and then proceeded to make another.
‘I’ll go....’
‘Wait,’ he said, reaching out and taking her wrist, and Emily stood there, terribly aware of the contact but choosing to wait as instructed. Clearly he knew the families. It might be her only way in.
‘Do you want to know more about them?’ Anton asked.
‘Of course.’ Emily nodded. ‘Would you be happy to answer a few of my questions?’ She found she was blinking, only rather rapidly. Oh God, she was flirting, which she hadn’t done in forever.
‘Over dinner?’
‘That would be lovely.’ She gave a small swallow. There was this strange charge to the air and she decided to make it very clear that this would be a working dinner. ‘If you’re willing to be interviewed, then the paper can pay.’
‘Good.’ There was a twist of a smile on the edge of his mouth. ‘I just booked us a table for eight p.m.’
Had he been so sure she’d say yes?
‘I’ll meet you in the hotel foyer just before that.’
There was a flutter in her stomach that wasn’t just from nervousness as he continued speaking. ‘Wear something nice.’
‘Nice?’
‘Formal.’
Emily frowned. She didn’t want formal; she wanted a small cafe where they could properly talk. She didn’t have time to shop for something nice for some fancy restaurant. But already he was gone.
Emily heard the bells of the church and realised she had less than an hour to get ready. She headed back to the hotel and dashed up to her room. The only formal item of clothing she had was the dress she had brought in the vague hope of squeezing into the wedding, but surely it was far too much for dinner?
She really didn’t have much choice.
Emily was used to getting ready at a moment’s notice, but as she did her hair and make-up, there was a slight tremor to her hand at the prospect of dinner with Anton.
Why hadn’t she pushed for his surname before agreeing to dinner with him? She could have looked him up and found out whom she was dealing with.
Emily pulled on the silver dress and strappy sandals she had brought with her and piled up her hair, pinning it in place. A couple of long blond curls kept falling out, but glancing at the clock, she knew there wasn’t time to fix it. She looked in the mirror for one final check before heading down to the foyer, worried that she was ridiculously overdressed.
She need not have worried.
Anton had changed into a suit, and though still unshaven, with his hair brushed back he looked elegant and expensive. Yet there was an edge to him, a touch of the untamed as he watched her approach, and his eyes told her he approved as to her outfit choice.
Navy eyes, Emily noted, and smiled as she added another detail to tonight’s dream.
‘I didn’t get your surname?’ Emily said as he took her elbow and they walked out into the street and to his waiting car.
‘I did not give it,’ Anton responded. ‘Do you really think I want you quoting me?’
‘No....’ She was more than a little nervous now. His low black sports car was as expensive looking as he was, and as the door closed on her and he climbed in, she knew he could be taking her anywhere. ‘I do like to know who I’m dealing with, though. You could be anyone.’
‘So could you,’ Anton pointed out, starting the engine. ‘Do you usually go out for dinner with men you have only just met?’
‘In my line of work, yes,’ Emily said in a rather hopeless attempt to remind him that she was here only for business, except she knew she was fooling herself.
Despite what Adam might think, Emily was, in her own way, tough. She kept her wits about her at all times. She had to in her line of work. Yet around Anton she was struggling to keep her head. From the second he had stepped into the elevator, he had been heavily on her mind.
Emily sneaked a look at his strong profile. He was easily the sexiest-looking man she had ever been out with, but it wasn’t just his looks that attracted her to him; it was the mystery and the intrigue that she found intoxicating. She could not read him. He handled the car with ease. He was far from tense in the heavy traffic. If anything he seemed a little bored by the roadblocks set up for the coming wedding. The crowds gathering and spilling out onto the streets did not faze him either. Yet there was an edge to him she could not place, a guardedness in his responses that told Emily he did not readily welcome intrusion.
‘You have a question?’ As if he could feel her scrutiny, he turned to her.
‘I have many,’ Emily said as he turned his attention back to the traffic.
‘Go ahead.
‘Who are you?’
‘I thought you wanted to find out about the Correttis.’
‘I do, but—’
‘Keep your questions to them.’
They pulled up outside a very smart restaurant. People were lined up outside and Emily was glad that he had booked ahead—Anton wasn’t exactly liberal with small talk. The car door was opened for them, and it was clear the doorman knew him because there was a brief greeting. As she walked into the restaurant, Emily blinked. The place really was sumptuous, the guests elegant. The smell of herbs and garlic had Emily’s mouth watering.
Instead of being led through to the main restaurant, though, they were taken upstairs. Emily assumed it was because they were a last-minute booking. Only as she rounded the bend on the stairs did she realise that this section was the most exclusive, and she was terribly grateful for the prompt from Anton to dress formally. The jewels on the elegant guests glittered more than the candles on the beautifully dressed tables. One wall was glassed, French windows leading out to a balcony where the guests ate to the stunning backdrop of the Mediterranean at sunset.
Anton had better have some good information. Otherwise she was going to have hell to pay when she put in her expenses.
He spoke with their host as they walked through the restaurant, and when they reached their table, Emily frowned as instead of sitting opposite her, Anton took a seat to her side, their waiter hastily rearranging the place settings.
‘I like to face the view,’ he said. He was sitting so close that their knees briefly brushed and Emily pulled hers away.
‘You are nervous,’ he commented.
‘Do you blame me?’ Emily asked, and then it happened. The man who had given her nothing suddenly gave her the first thing her mind had begged for on meeting him—she was treated to his smile. His full mouth moved slowly and she saw his white, perfectly straight teeth. But more than that, his face lightened as his smile reached right to his eyes and claimed Emily’s ability to breathe in the process.
‘You have nothing to be nervous about,’ Anton said. ‘You are with me.’
‘Which tells me nothing,’ Emily responded with a wry smile, but yes, despite her nervousness around him, she did not feel unsafe.
‘Wine?’ he asked, but Emily shook her head.
‘Not while I’m working.’ This was, perhaps, a poor excuse. Normally Emily would be the one ordering it in the hope that whoever she was interviewing might open up a touch further, but she felt terribly aware that she needed to somehow stay in control here. ‘Speaking of work...’ She went to her bag to pull out her recorder but as she did, his hand closed over hers.
‘Not here.’ There was a slightly ominous note to his voice, and she looked at the hand closed over hers. ‘Why would you draw attention to yourself?’
‘I’m not,’ Emily breathed. ‘It’s more that I’ve got a terrible memory.’
‘Perhaps that is why your career is shot.’ His hand was still around hers. He watched her suppress a smile as she guessed that he knew she was lying—there was nothing wrong with Emily’s memory, and certainly not around him. Every feature of his was emblazoned on her mind for later recall. Even the scent of him, she would surely recognise twenty years from now. Not the bergamot and cardamom of his cologne but the unique male scent that was Anton. Her gaze moved from his navy eyes to his mouth and for a bizarre moment she thought she was about to be kissed. More than that, she was aching for him to do so. His next sentence was, for a brief second, logical under the caress of his gaze.
‘I’m going to move in as if to kiss you.’
As his hand moved to capture her chin, a more sensible Emily emerged. She was in a restaurant with an unknown male, a possible contact with the most dangerous family in Sicily, and she was about to let him kiss her. She had no idea what was happening, was almost tempted to grab her bag and run, yet she was overwhelmed, spellbound too, and struggled to find an assertive tone. ‘Could you remove your hand, please?’
‘Emily.’ In his voice there was none of the panic she felt. ‘Look at me and keep looking at me while I tell you what you can now know.’
Her face was on fire as she did as told, her breath burning in her chest as she met the blaze of his eyes.
‘Seated behind me are the Correttis.’
CHAPTER THREE (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
SHE UNDERSTOOD now Anton’s hand on her chin and why his face was so close, for immediate was the temptation to glance over his shoulder.
She looked down to his mouth. He was talking in low, sensual murmurs, as if they were lovers, and though the words were not of romance, they still sounded like a caress. ‘Do not for a second let them think you are interested in them. It is why I sit with my back to them. They must think you have only eyes for me, or we will be asked to leave.’
‘Okay.’ Her heart was hammering. She was in a restaurant with the Correttis. She was up close with the untouchables and there was excitement and terror in her veins, and not just for that reason. Emily looked at the beautiful man whose breath she could feel on her lips. She had so many questions that she must ask him, but the only thing she could see now was his mouth.
‘I got a booking because I told them I was proposing to my girlfriend, so for tonight, we are lovers.’
She smiled to his mouth. ‘Err, no.’
‘Oh, we are,’ Anton said. ‘At least according to our fellow guests.’
‘Couldn’t you have told me all this in the car?’
He smiled at her, his fingers moving from her chin and coiling around a lock of her hair. ‘You walked straight past them without so much as a glance.’ He watched her blink in silent admission, for of course it would have been near impossible not to look. ‘This was the only way to pull it off.’
His mouth moved to her ear, and she closed her eyes, not for the sake of curious onlookers, just for the feel of him close. His jaw was rough and unshaven on her cheek. His cologne was subtle, yet it made her dizzy. ‘The old woman in black...’ His words were business, his voice pure pleasure, as he lightly kissed her ear. ‘That is Teresa, the matriarch. She is the reason some of the two sets of cousins are here. You would not see Luca at the same table as Santo and Alessandro otherwise.’
She knew his caress was for the benefit of others and yet her body responded as if it were solely for her. Emily felt a shiver run through her as his breath blew gently on her ears, felt her stomach fold over a little as his mouth dusted the sensitive skin, and when he pulled his head away and looked into her eyes, for Emily, in that moment, the Correttis were forgotten.
‘So now,’ Anton said, ‘you see why I had to not tell you.’
‘I do.’
He dropped contact then, for a waiter stood over them, and Anton ordered for them both.
It was incredibly exhilarating to be sitting with this beautiful man with Sicily’s most notorious just a breath away. They started with antipasto and it was more heavenly than anything she had tasted—asparagus spears wrapped in prosciutto and balsamic-glazed cipollines, which he explained were like shallots. Yes, it tasted like heaven, or was it more the unexpected company she kept? Emily could hear the low murmur of conversation from the Corretti table, the occasional burst of laughter or the slight raise of voices.
Just knowing who they were gave Emily the thrill of imminent danger—and then there was Anton.
She had given up moving her knees. They had been lightly pressed against each other and now, as their plates were cleared, not quite so lightly, as if in warning.
‘If you look over again,’ Anton said when he caught her eyes wandering, ‘we change places or,’ he said, ‘I kiss you properly this time.’
‘That won’t be necessary.’
Shame. He thought it but did not say it. Anton looked to where she sat beside him and though he was rarely intrigued, he found he was. ‘Tell me about you,’ Anton said, but as she opened her mouth to protest he got in first. ‘We are being watched not just by them but by bodyguards. It is time to speak just about you.’
Emily nodded, felt the heat rise on her cheeks as he took her hand, and reminded herself for the hundredth time they were acting. Except her body was on fire. Not even his question doused it.
‘Why has your career been shot?’
‘I really don’t want to think about it,’ Emily said. Adam and Dianne seemed light-years away and were a place she did not want to visit, but Anton was insistent, as was his thumb in the palm of her hand.
‘Why would I want to share information with someone who doesn’t have the capability to properly report it?’ He watched her struggle to come up with a suitable answer and suppressed the smile from his lips. ‘Don’t worry, like you, my memory is not good.’
‘Liar.’ She smiled.
‘Said the liar.’
She was looking down at his hand, beautiful, long fingers that curled around hers, and whatever he was doing with his thumb was making it rather hard to think. Their foreheads were almost touching to enable them to keep their voices low, and so intimate was the contact that when she spoke, the words just came out in a jumble. ‘Three months ago everything was fine. I was going out with Adam. My editor.’
He made a tutting noise.
‘I know it was stupid to get involved with someone from work, but...’
‘But you did,’ Anton said.
‘Foolish me. Anyway, we were fine but then Dianne joined.’ Emily pursed her lips for a moment, clearly trying to think how best to describe the woman, and Anton watched a mouth he wanted to kiss tighten. He loved reading faces and hers was fascinating. He watched the little flickers of spite light her china-blue eyes, watched her mouth open and hesitate, and still, even as she went to speak, she chose her words. ‘She’s very savvy, very beautiful and completely determined to make her mark on the world.’
‘She wants your job.’
He watched her cheeks flood with colour as she gave a brief nod.
‘And she’s doing whatever it takes to get it.’
‘Including Adam,’ Anton checked, hearing her sharp exhale.
‘I really don’t want to discuss it.’
‘Well, I insist that you do. Finally we look as if we’re having a real conversation....’ His voice faded. It was a long time since Anton had sat holding hands in a restaurant and engaged in anything other than seduction. It was a long time since the goal for the night had not simply been bed.
He would have removed his hand, the contact—his thought process was suddenly unbearable—but Emily started talking then. ‘I’ve been working on a huge case. It’s messy, espionage, possibly murder. I’d heard the police are going to be dredging a lake.’ She looked at him and he didn’t even blink. ‘I was supposed to be heading up to Wales this weekend to be there when the news breaks but instead I was sent here.’
‘Poor Emily,’ he said. His thumb resumed stroking her palm and making her toes curl in her sandals. ‘Stuck in Sicily, being wined and dined and about to cover one of the most interesting weddings in Sicilian history.’
‘I know.’ She gave a small smile. ‘I don’t think Adam realised just how huge this wedding was when he gave it to me.’
‘Too busy with his hand up Dianne’s skirt,’ Anton said, and he made the horrible better, actually made her laugh.
Emily could scarcely believe she was here, seated just a table away from the most scandalous family, and on the night before the wedding, too. ‘I’m good at what I do,’ Emily said determinedly. ‘Though according to Adam I’m not tough enough.’
‘He is wrong,’ Anton said, moving his face closer. ‘Nervous is good. A little naive, a little sweet,’ he said, his mouth terribly near hers. ‘If you had a secret, if you had something it might be better not to disclose, who would you feel inclined to be indiscreet with? The tough bitch or...?’
How could a thumb stroking her palm feel indecent?
How did he make her so wanton, so weak?
‘That’s a terribly difficult question to answer,’ Emily attempted.
‘Why?’
‘Well...’ She could hardly breathe. ‘From the female perspective—’ she could feel his breath on her lips now ‘—I’d far rather prefer to be indiscreet—’ it was coming out all wrong, but his smile made it right ‘—with the tough bastard.’
‘Really?’
‘I don’t know!’ Emily said. He was making her dizzy. ‘Could you stop with your thumb?’
‘You could always remove your hand.’
It was he who removed his. ‘Go out onto the balcony and take in the view for a moment and then return. See what you can find out.’
His eyes were everywhere, Emily realised, because one of the Correttis was standing, and for it to not look as if she were following them, she needed to go now. For the second time today he caught her wrist as she went to walk off and she turned and looked down at him, tried to imagine that, yes, they were lovers, that this was her usual world.
‘Don’t be long.’
And were they lovers, were this real, of course she would lower her head and kiss him.
It was just a light kiss on his lips; it was nothing, she told herself, yet her cheeks were scorching as she pulled back from him. Emily pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth in an effort not to retaste him as she walked towards the French windows.
Anton turned his head as any man might and watched her walk off, surprised just how much he was enjoying her company, how much more about her he wanted to know. Then he saw Luca Corretti’s eyes follow Emily out of the room, and Anton felt an uncharacteristic surge of protectiveness for her. The thought of a Corretti near her stirred unwelcome feelings.
Unwelcome because feelings had been left behind years ago for Anton. Emotion had no place in his world. Yet he glanced out to the balcony, saw her clutching the stone wall and looking out to the Mediterranean, and as she breathed in the night air, he wanted to join her, wanted to walk out there now and turn her around to kiss her. Wanted to take her not back to a hotel room to satisfy his needs but back to his home to satisfy theirs. Theirs because even with thick glass between them, he could sense her arousal and there was no denying his.
For the first time in the longest time, Anton was enjoying company, when usually company was something Anton did not keep.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
EMILY WAS almost glad to be away from Anton, just grateful for the moment to gather her thoughts. It was as if the soft contact of their mouths had bruised her, for she could still feel him on her lips, and now she gave in and ran her tongue over them. She looked out to the sultry Palermo night. The moon was glittering on the ocean and the boats were bobbing in the gentle breeze. It all looked so tranquil and calm, unlike the busy restaurant behind her.
Unlike herself.
No man had ever affected Emily so.
She tried to think of one that had even come close but no-one ever had. As she stood there, every thought, every safe assumption, was fast coming undone. Emily didn’t believe in lightning bolts or attractions so intense that she might consider going to bed with a man whose surname she didn’t even know.
Yet here she was considering it.
More than that, she was picturing it.
Right here, right now her mind was trying to delete images, because just the memory of his mouth on her ear had her neck arching to one side with sinful imaginings.
It was then she heard the door open and close behind her as a couple stepped onto the balcony, and she remembered the reason Anton had sent her out here. She smiled briefly to the woman but the man’s eyes did not wander to her, so she turned back to the view. But so devastating was the impact of Anton that Emily had to remind herself she was here to eavesdrop on the couple, and she was surprised to hear that they were speaking in English.
When the conversation became heated and to stay would appear intrusive, Emily headed inside to find their mains had been served.
They chatted about the stunning view as the waiters did the cheese-and-pepper thing, and after a suitable pause Anton asked what she had heard.
‘She was telling him to slow down his drinking. That he needed to be sober.’
‘You speak Italian?’
‘No, they were speaking in English.’
‘Okay.’ He gave a slight impatient shake to his head. ‘I do not know her, but that is nothing new. No-one can keep up with the women he dates. That is Santo. Tomorrow he is best man.’
It was the strangest night. She was acting, yet she was surrounded by glamour, by beauty, and there was just this thrum between them, and the laughter and conversation came from a more natural place than the woman she was portraying.
He watched as she struggled to finish her pasta.
‘It is the best in Sicily,’ he said as she put her cutlery down and pushed her half-finished plate aside.
‘It’s divine.’ It was, except her hand did not want to be swirling strings of pasta around a fork when it could be held by his, and her mouth did not want to be eating when she could be speaking with him. The restaurant was suddenly too noisy, too busy, all distractions unwelcome. Emily shook her head when the waiter came over with champagne but he ignored her protest and poured two glasses.
‘Tonight, we celebrate,’ Anton said, still holding her hand, and even though he’d prewarned her, Emily’s surprise was genuine when, with his free hand, he went into his pocket and he pulled out a ring. For a while there she had forgotten they were acting, just completely caught up in the moment, enjoying being with this stunning man, and she took a breath to steady herself as he took her hand and slipped on the ring.
It was exquisite, Italian gold with yellow diamonds and tiny seed pearls in an antique setting, and there was no question it was real.
‘Where...?’ She did not understand. They’d only been apart an hour.
‘It was my mother’s.’
Of course they were acting, Emily thought, out-of-place tears suddenly filling her eyes, for lucky was the woman this night belonged to.
‘Is that a yes?’ Anton asked.
She heard the murmur from a few tables. It was just so overwhelming. Her face was burning as she nodded, and as she did, the patrons in the restaurant started tapping their glasses, urging the couple to seal things with a kiss.
‘Anton...’ As his hands held her cheeks, she was petrified to kiss him, not because he was a stranger but because there could then be no denying her pleasure and want.
‘The things you have to suffer for your craft.’ Anton smiled as his mouth moved in.
Yes, she could be in Wales now, was her last thought as his mouth met hers and the tension from brief kiss that had teased was both relieved and inflamed with much-needed pressure. A five-star kiss in a five-star restaurant, his mouth soft yet suggestive on her lips, his scent, the feel of his warm hands on her burning cheeks. There was a moment where he increased the pressure, where he shifted just a little and she felt as if they were both lost, not in the moment or in the couple they were pretending to be but in each other.
Anton was.
He tasted her lips and he wanted more; he felt them part and he wanted inside. He wanted her head on his pillow and her legs wrapped around him, but more than that he wanted the morning.
He pulled his mouth back, jolted by private admissions, fighting the urge to reclaim her mouth and lose himself again.
‘You make tonight possible.’ His forehead was resting on hers and both were breathless. ‘They do not even glance over,’ Anton said. ‘They know we are turned on.’
‘We’re good actors,’ Emily attempted.
‘Some things you cannot fake,’ Anton said, and it would be pointless to deny. They both fought to remember then the real reason that they were here. ‘What is happening?’
Emily glanced over. ‘The old lady looks as if she is about to go.’
Anton called for the bill.
‘I’m getting this.’ Emily reached for her bag but he simply ignored her and she let him. It had long ago stopped being simply work. His hand was completely steady as he put his card in the heavy velvet folder.
‘They will stay about two minutes after she has gone. They are here only for her sake.’ Anton’s face was close. ‘Soon I’ll kiss you again,’ he warned. ‘Soon we give the bodyguards our reason to leave.’
‘She’s standing.’ His thumb was playing with Emily’s bottom lip.
‘So are her bodyguards,’ Anton said, and she saw in her peripheral vision that two men at another table had stood.
The credit card was back.
‘Don’t look,’ Anton warned. ‘Not once.’
He didn’t have to worry. The second his mouth touched hers, Emily forgot all about the Correttis. His lips were warm. His hands moved to the back of her head, pressing her into him, and she struggled to stop her lips from parting until, as if remembering where they were, he stood.
‘Come.’
They walked through the restaurant and down the steps that led to the entrance but he halted her on the bend midway, kissed her hard against the wall, and her mouth stopped fighting instinct then, simply opened up and let him in, his tongue repeating his thumb’s motions in her mouth—circling, pressing, probing. Emily was kissing him back for dear life, tasting him as if she recognised him, absolutely forgetting where she was as she gave in to the thunderbolt that had struck. He cupped her buttocks and kissed her senseless. Her hands moved to his chest, into his jacket, and suddenly the kiss halted, his hand catching hers, stopping hers, but not before she felt the cool metal of a gun.
‘Keep kissing.’ The doors were opening, people were coming out and she was in terror. He was kissing her thoroughly. She could hear the conversations from the Correttis as they walked down the stairs past them and out into the night. Only then did he release her lips, which were trembling in fear.
‘No wonder you didn’t want to give your name!’ What the hell had she been thinking? Maybe she did need to toughen up, as she had never been more terrified in her life. He was holding her and telling her to calm down.
‘It’s not what you think, Emily. I’m a detective.’ He took out his wallet and showed it to her and all the little things he had said made sense now. ‘Which is why the Correttis would prefer that I did not know them at times.’
Her breath was coming back but still her heart would not slow down.
‘I did not expect what just happened.’ He looked at her. ‘That things would get so out of hand.’
‘You should have told me.’
‘I tell few people,’ Anton said, ‘but I would have told you later tonight.’ Her eyes flashed at the inference. Her mind searched for a sharp retort to his presumption but they both knew it would be a lie. ‘I took a phone call when I was speaking with you earlier this evening. A colleague told me where the Correttis were dining. I eat there sometimes.’
Her eyebrows raised because she didn’t really imagine that the five-star restaurant would be frequented regularly on a detective’s wage, but she didn’t have time to properly process that as Anton continued.
‘To get a booking, given they were dining there tonight, I had to give a good reason.’ He looked down to the ring on her hand. ‘I went home and got this. There wasn’t time for anything else. Emily, had I told you I was a detective and this was my plan, we would never have pulled it off.’
Emily nodded. She could see that now.
‘Having seen them, perhaps now you understand better their world. It is almost impossible to get close to them at such a function.’
‘And we did.’ A pale smile stretched her lips, but just as she was starting to calm down, he spun her into confusion again.
‘Spend the weekend with me.’ He looked at her. Two nights with one woman was a big deal for his black heart, but two nights with Emily, he could do. Feelings were surfacing, ones that had been locked in a vault and entombed in cement. No-one got close. And yet she had. Though it unnerved him, the saving grace was that by Sunday she would be gone.
‘I can tell you everything you want to know about them.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I want to spread the word, not just about the Correttis but they would be a very good place to start.’ And then he looked at her and gave her the other reason, the words unfamiliar to his lips. ‘I would like to spend time with you, to get to know you some more,’ Anton said, safe in the knowledge that soon she’d be gone. He released her then and took her hand as they walked out into the dark street. It had been evening when they had entered, and it was night-time now. Just a space of a few hours and yet so much for Emily had changed.
His car had been brought around and they drove in silence to her hotel, Emily wrestling with indecision. Tonight she had glimpsed not just wealth and glamour but the dizzying presence of Anton, and the combination was undeniably heady. She wanted the information he would give her, but in truth it played no part in the decision she was coming to. A holiday romance, Emily thought. A working-holiday romance....
Although the word romance did not really equate with Anton.
She sneaked a look at him, scarcely able to believe what she was considering, but in thirty years on this earth she hadn’t even come close to tasting the passion she already had tonight, had never been more intrigued by another. This was a man she so badly wanted to get to know.
He pulled to a halt at the foyer. The car door was opened and she turned in her seat to step out.
‘Aren’t you coming?’ Emily frowned because the engine was still idling and he was making no indication of getting out.
‘I’m not staying here.’
‘Oh!’ She had assumed, given it was where they had met, that he was. Emily had hoped for a drink in the bar to see where that led, for some time to make up her mind.
He had, in effect, driven her home, Emily realised.
‘I think you’re the guy my mother spent years warning me about.’ She tried to make a small joke but he just stared back at her.
‘Was she wasting her breath?’ Anton asked.
It was a good question. The choice now was completely hers. She pushed a foot towards the ground, went to remove herself from the car, but already she could taste the regret that would surely plague her forever if she denied herself this time. And in that moment Emily followed not her head but her heart.
She turned to his waiting eyes and with one smouldering look he confirmed her decision was the right one. Emily wanted wild and irresponsible. She wanted her weekend with this beautiful, sexy man.
‘Completely,’ was her response.
Nervous, unsure, hopelessly aroused, she pulled in her legs and closed the door and, most unexpectedly, a moment later she found herself laughing. He told her to put her belt on as the car pulled off, and he turned on the hidden sirens and lights. She was pressed back in her seat as he sped her through the dark streets of Palermo.
‘Do we need the siren?’ she shouted.
‘Unless you want me to stop and take you over the car.’
He took her hand and placed it where nature surely intended.
There was a moment where she considered tapping him on the shoulder and telling him that she did not do this sort of thing.
‘Anton, I—’
‘Don’t.’ He felt a decade younger; he felt as if he was living. She did not need to offer excuses. This night was theirs. ‘There is no explaining it.’
There was no explaining it and so she did not try. It was the most reckless night of her life, but the best one.
He turned the lights and sirens off as they left the town centre, but he drove at breakneck speed through the rocky hills to his vast home. Huge security gates opened and closed behind them as a garage door opened and they slid inside.
The garage alone was twice the size of her house and about ten times more luxurious. She could barely stand as she climbed out of the car and he walked around to take her hand. She’d had two sips of champagne, yet she felt as if she’d drunk the bottle.
He started to kiss her but she moved her head back. One taste and they’d be doing as he had teasingly suggested, but her willpower was rather lacking when Anton was around.
Just one taste....
CHAPTER FIVE (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
IT WASN’T a kiss; it was sex with their mouths.
His tongue was everywhere, his teeth on hers, his hands the only sensible part of them because he took off his jacket and removed his holster. The holster, he lowered to the floor. The jacket, he pulled condoms from and then threw onto the car as he lowered his mouth again, his hands lifting her dress, and not just to her hips. Their lips parted a moment as he tugged it over her head and then tore at her panties.
She had never known nor imagined anything like it. He’d felt huge beneath the fabric but exposed now there should surely be some apprehension—but instead there was only want. She took him in her hands and heard his moan of approval as she ran her finger over the tip and he tore open the wrapper.
Taking it from him, Emily slid it on. She wanted to pause, she wanted to taste, she wanted so many things, but with her orgasm building, there was time only for need. She thought he would lower her onto the car, but sensing her arousal, he lifted her onto him and Emily wrapped her legs around his hips and clung on. The second he was inside her it hit, but then, he had been turning her on since the elevator.
She lost her head and he took her hair, claiming her mouth as he pulled her hard down onto him. He stilled for just a moment, suckling her tongue as he held himself back from joining her in release, luxuriating in the feel of her hot centre pulsing around him, of her mouth tensing in orgasm and then slowly kissing him back as it faded.
He lowered her onto the bonnet and moved the jacket beneath her. Soon he would let himself join her in abandon, but not yet.
‘Anton.’ She wanted a moment. She could feel the warmth from the engine beneath her and the heat between her legs. He was looking down not at the sensuous coupling of their sexes but straight into her eyes, and it was more breathtaking than the sensual thrusting as he moved deeply within.
She was shocked by the tenderness that held her gaze as the guarded, remote man faded and she glimpsed firsthand what being made love to by Anton felt like. His eyes adored her, his passion blatant, another thunderbolt to her heart.
As if regretting revealing so much, he started to move faster, his hands pulling down her bra and exposing her breasts, his rhythm building, but he wanted again that elusive pleasure. He wanted to care.
Anton just gave in then, lowered himself onto her, wrapped his arm beneath her, and she found out then what it was like to be truly adored by Anton. She was sobbing as he thrust within her and she shattered into an orgasm that came from no place she had ever been. Heat seared not just from her centre; every muscle in her body seemed to contract as she arched into him. He was kissing her eyes, her cheeks, her ears, stunned at what had been unleashed. She was in the arms of the devil, yet he devoured her as if she were a saint. She bathed in his moans, in his caress, and then in the rush of still silence that warred with the pulse of his release within. She lay there spent beneath him, grateful for the hand that a little while later lifted her up.
He helped her into his jacket and, she noted, did not meet her eyes.
She teetered on legs that were a little unsteady and he tapped in a code that opened a door.
‘There’s no-one home, I hope.’
‘Just us.’
She was perhaps the worst investigative journalist in the world around Anton, because until that moment she hadn’t really questioned why he drove such a luxurious sports car. She had been more focused on Anton than the outside appearance of his house, but as she stepped into opulence, as the lights came on and unveiled a home more stunning than any she had been in, she realised there were questions she should surely ask.
She stood as he opened huge glass doors and looked out beyond the pool and to the ocean behind.
Anton’s wealth far outreached that of any detective she had ever come in contact with.
Or rather, any honest one.
CHAPTER SIX (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
‘I AM not corrupt.’ It was as if he could read her mind. ‘It is my own money.’ He looked over to her. ‘I worked for ten years in my father’s business and turned it around. One of the nice things about making a fortune is you can then do whatever work you choose. My job now is to flush out certain people. Because of my wealth I get closer than any of them like.’
‘Like tonight?’
‘The restaurant do not want to say no to me either. They know I always am seated upstairs. It was good to observe them, to see the cousins seated at the same table and hating it.’
He left her alone for a moment and then returned with a large T-shirt for her. For a moment she considered asking where the bathroom was so she could put it on, but they were a bit past that. Still, he was back to the old Anton now. He turned his back and opened the fridge and pulled out some wine as Emily quickly took off his jacket and slipped the T-shirt on, then removed her shoes.
She sat on the sofa and tucked her legs under her, a part of her wanting only to find out about him, but she’d sworn no regrets and she did not want to be sitting at her desk on Monday without words for her work.
‘Why don’t the cousins get on?’ Emily asked as he handed her a drink.
‘Salvatore and Teresa had two sons, Benito and Carlo, brothers but rivals. Salvatore divided his empire up between them. They were killed a few years ago in a fire and the rivalry continued down the line to their children. The cousins are always trying to outdo each other. The only reason they were together tonight is for Teresa.’
‘Will they all be at the wedding tomorrow?’
‘Not all,’ Anton said. ‘There is Angelo—he is Carlo’s illegitimate son. They like to forget about him, but he has Corretti blood in his veins and he is slowly moving in on them. I doubt you will see Gio. He is one of Benito’s sons but tends to stay away from family things, though he might make an appearance. He is more interested in horses. There is the Corretti Cup in three weeks. He will be there for that.’
‘Will you be at that, too?’
‘Like a bad smell.’ Anton’s smile was black.
‘You hate them, don’t you?’
‘More than you could know.’ She could hear the loathing in his voice. ‘My family owned many properties all across Sicily, but we did not conform to the rules. We refused to bow to the Sicilian powers that be. There was a car bomb. My family was in it. I should have been in that vehicle. By chance I was not.’
‘The Correttis did that?’ She was horrified but he shook his head.
‘I do not know who. That is why I joined the polizia. My only interest now is working out who ordered the hit on my family.’
‘And then what?’
‘Justice.’
He was a police officer, Emily told herself. He just wanted the people responsible behind bars. Her imagination was working overtime from reading too much about the Correttis.
She looked down at the ring still on her finger.
‘Is this really your mother’s?’
He nodded. ‘Tonight it was worn for a very worthy cause.’
‘Anton...’ She was more confused than she had ever been. She understood now the guardedness to him, but the loathing in his voice unnerved her. She started pulling at the ring, but an olive-skinned hand halted her.
‘You’ll be needing that tomorrow. Why would my guest, my new fiancée, not be wearing her ring?’
‘You mean the wedding.’ Emily’s mouth gaped. ‘You’re invited?’
‘Of course. They hate me because they cannot buy me, yet they try to keep me on their side, too. So, would you care to join me?’
And not for the first time tonight, and certainly not for the last, as his mouth moved towards her, Emily found herself saying yes to Anton.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
EMILY WOKE in an unfamiliar bed with a thumping headache and a body that was so sore and tender she wondered for a moment if she’d been in an accident, which wouldn’t account for the ache between her legs, the luxurious sheets beneath her or the aroma of coffee and the sound of gushing water from the pool.
Maybe she’d died and gone to heaven, Emily thought for a blissful moment, and stretched and then looked up into the navy eyes of Anton.
Maybe she had.
Yes, it all came back in delicious stages.
Emily drank her coffee and then figured she ought to ring Gina, but she didn’t pick up, so Emily fired off a text to say she would meet her there.
‘I hope she’s there,’ Emily said, but Anton was talking on his own phone.
‘What size are you?’ He saw her frown. ‘Dress size.’
‘I’m not sure.’
He smirked and told whomever it was he was talking to his estimate. Unfortunately he guessed right.
‘Shoe size,’ Anton said, and she wished for daintier feet but, for blisters’ sake, she told him the truth.
He must be seriously loaded, because an hour later when surely anyone who was anyone was, this morning, getting their hair done, she was sitting in one of his shirts on a bar stool having her hair curled and put up as Anton showered.
She couldn’t wait till he came out of the bathroom for a proper look at herself and, modesty long since discarded, she walked in to where he was shaving at the sink, a towel wrapped low on his hips.
‘Bella,’ he said when he saw her hair. ‘Has the dress not arrived?’
‘Not yet,’ Emily said, moving to wash her panties, but his hand halted her.
‘I asked for a selection of underwear.’
‘And a toothbrush?’
He smiled and nodded to the drawer.
It was strange for Anton. Usually he loathed getting ready with another. He liked sex but not too much conversation. He did not do the dating thing. ‘Am I taking someone’s spot?’ Emily checked, sure he must have had a date lined up.
He had naturally RSVP’d plus-one for the wedding but was reluctant to take one of his usual companions.
‘I could have gone with someone, but I chose not to. Women tend to think you are serious about them if you ask them to such things.’
‘Have you ever been serious about anyone?’
‘My wife,’ he said, not looking at her horrified expression. Instead he carried on shaving. ‘She was in the explosion.’
‘When you said family, I thought you meant just your parents.’ She was truly lost for words. ‘I don’t mean just....’
‘I did,’ Anton said. ‘They were all in the car at the time. Unfortunately I had gone back to the house to get my wallet.’
‘Unfortunately?’
‘They went to heaven. I went to hell.’
She could not fathom such pain, just stared for a moment.
‘Did you...?’ She was nearly crying. ‘Did you have children?’
He closed his eyes.
Fattispecie, Anton thought. ‘No.’
‘How could you stand to sit in the same restaurant?’ Emily asked.
‘Because I do not yet know if it was the Correttis that were responsible.’ He rinsed his face and forgot to dry it because, yes, he was dreading today. ‘But there will be other family heads there today. Almost certainly the one who ordered the hit will be...’ Anton stopped speaking then. She was right—he almost could not stand to be in the church today, had been dreading it since the wedding was announced. The only reprieve was Emily, and he pulled her in for a fierce kiss. His breath was shallow and ragged. He felt her soft lips and it did not match his mood. He loathed sharing and he wasn’t about to. He pulled his mouth away.
‘Get ready.’
‘I can’t till my dress arrives.’
‘Your make-up.’
He went to leave, to release her, yet at the last moment hauled her back to him, a mire of confusion, for he wanted her but he did not. He could not share pain.
Emily could.
She felt the push and then the pull of his hands and the agony in his lips. She kissed down his neck and he held her close. She continued down his chest and he did not halt her as she went to her knees. She kissed his stomach and then down his thighs, heard his moan as she coaxed him from hell with her mouth.
His hands bunched at his sides as he stopped hating and loathing and thought of nothing but Emily on a morning he had dreaded for so long. He felt soft lips become firm, felt the comfort of her tongue and mouth and gave in.
She swallowed his tension—there was no other word for it—but she relished it a moment on her tongue and then, a bit shocked at her own boldness, she just knelt there until he pulled her up to him and held her fiercely. They clung on to each other for a long moment, Emily scared of her own feelings toward this very dark man, Anton basking in the calm she had just allowed, both holding each other till a bell rung out.
‘That will be your wardrobe.’
‘I hope you’ve got good taste.’
He thought of his wife for a moment and then he looked at Emily, and his answer, even if she did not fully understand it, was completely true. ‘I do.’
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
‘WHERE ON earth have you been?’ Gina asked when she saw Emily. She had been snapping away as they approached, and only when they had drawn near had Gina realised it was her colleague. ‘You look stunning.’
Emily was dressed in lilac with pale grey stilettos, but it was not the designer wardrobe or the rather hastily applied make-up that had Emily glowing, nor was it the answer she gave to Gina.
‘I’ve managed to get into the wedding.’
‘How?’ Gina wailed. ‘There’s security everywhere. They’re not letting in press.’
‘She’s coming with me.’ Anton stepped forward then and Gina’s mouth literally gaped, and Emily didn’t blame her. He looked amazing in a dark suit. The dark glasses were back on and he looked groomed yet brooding and slightly menacing.
‘Lucky, lucky you,’ Gina said, and she wasn’t talking about the wedding. ‘Are you going to the reception?’
‘No,’ Anton said when it was clear that Emily didn’t know. ‘They would not be so foolish to ask me there.’
He headed off and Emily stood for a moment with Gina. ‘Meet up after?’ Emily asked, while secretly hoping not, but thankfully Gina shook her head.
‘I’m flying back to Rome. I’ll get a few shots of guests going into the reception and then I’m out of here.’ She gave a naughty smile. ‘Don’t tell Adam.’
‘Of course not. I’ll see you back at work on Monday, then.’
‘Emily?’ Gina picked up her hand and looked at the yellow diamonds and seed pearls. ‘How the hell did you swing this?’
‘That’s for me to know,’ Emily said, smiling.
She caught up with Anton, but instead of taking her hand, he seemed distracted. From behind his glasses he was scanning the crowds, his expression unreadable as he observed the guests all mingling outside the church, but then he seemed to remember she was beside him.
‘That is Rosa Corretti.’ He nodded in the direction of a very beautiful woman who wore a flower in her hair that didn’t match her strained expression. ‘She was the apple of Benito’s eye and her brothers keep her on a very short leash.’ As they entered the church and took their places, he pointed out a few others. ‘Over there is Zach Scott. His father is a U.S. senator. Zach was shot down in the war....’ His voice trailed off and he looked around.
It almost killed him to be here.
To watch the groom standing where he once had, though unlike Anton all those years ago Alessandro showed no nerves. This was surely not a love match. Unlike his own wedding.
Emily didn’t notice his sudden pensiveness. Instead she was trying to keep her eyes from popping as they landed on Taylor Carmichael, an American actress who had been off the radar for ages and was making a return. She looked stunning, of course, breathtakingly so. She was wearing a dress so tight she must surely have been sewn into it.
It wasn’t just the guests who were stunning. Her eyes lifted to the stained windows, taking in the architecture as the anticipation built for the bride’s arrival.
‘It’s a beautiful church.’ Emily said it more to herself but her heart stilled for a moment when Anton responded.
‘I was married here.’
There was nothing she could say. Just like earlier, there were no words, so Emily slipped her hand into his.
‘Thank you,’ he said, surprised how much it helped.
‘Well, I could hardly...’
He smiled, not a big one, but there was a lift to the edge of his lips as she referred to earlier, and he never thought he would stand in this place and want another beside him, let alone be able to smile.
The music was starting. All in the church were standing and Emily craned her neck to get a glimpse of the bride as she entered. The dress was all lace, with long sleeves and a high neck, and, though beautiful, Alessia looked terribly wary.
Someone’s phone went off, and remembering that she hadn’t turned hers off, Emily went to do just that but noticed there were a couple of people filming the blushing bride on their phones.
‘Can I?’ she said, remembering the no-press-allowed rule.
‘You’re a guest,’ Anton said. ‘Go for it.’
It was a new phone, though, and instead of filming, she took a shot, just not the one she had intended. She had captured the bride turning, running the wrong way down the aisle. There was commotion all around—the church doors opening, the shocked congregation starting to ask questions, the press going into a frenzy outside.
‘Oh my!’ Emily said. ‘Did she just run off?’ Emily simply could not believe it. ‘This is huge.’
‘You have no idea,’ Anton said. ‘And neither does the rest of the world.’
There was a man running after her, yet it wasn’t the groom. Alessandro stood, shoulders back, taking it on the chin as he was jilted at the altar.
‘I have to ring my boss.’
‘Why?’ Anton asked. ‘So Dianne can first report it?’ He took the phone from her hand and opened it to her social media account, quickly typing.

Developing story—Alessia Battaglia jilts Alessandro Corretti at altar, Matteo Corretti seen chasing bride—back soon with more.

More than that, he attached the photo she had accidentally taken. Unlike Emily, he knew all their names without checking notes. ‘While the rest of the world is wondering if there is a security breach or if, indeed, the bride has fled, you, Emily, have just confirmed it.’ Anton handed her back her phone.
They just stood there grinning as she broke the story, her phone practically melting in her hand as responses poured in. But she really did have to call Adam. ‘I’m in the church.’ Briefly she explained what had happened.
‘Keep on it,’ Adam told her. ‘How the hell did you get inside?’
Emily didn’t even try to explain. Instead she stood behind a pillar, her hand shaking slightly but working her phone like a pro, just caught up in the rush of being in the centre of the storm in a breaking story. ‘Is it wrong how turned on I am right now?’ she asked as she frantically texted.
‘If it is, then we are both in trouble.’
He took her hand and helped her through the crowd outside, but he steered her in the opposite direction when she went to follow the masses who were heading over to the reception venue.
‘We go back to the hotel.’
‘Anton! We can’t.’ There was her career to think of, except she couldn’t think clearly right now. She had, after all, just broken the news; surely she was allowed a teeny celebration. Her feeble protest was a short-lived one. ‘Oh, okay, then.’
He gave her a smile, one she couldn’t work out, and they ran down the street and raced to get to her room. In the elevator she was so busy being kissed she paid no attention to the button he was pushing.
‘Wrong floor,’ Emily groaned as they stepped out of the elevator, but again, Anton, in everything, was a step ahead.
‘We go to my room.’
‘Your room? But—’
He kissed her through the doorway. Emily started stripping off the second they were inside, but then she halted, frowning, when she saw him standing beside a small, high-up open window.
‘Given they didn’t want me at the reception, I booked a room with a view.’ She teetered over, her cheeks scalding as she peered out. No, he hadn’t been racing back to make frantic love to her. Instead he’d been bringing her back for a bird’s-eye view of the reception. Emily could see everything—the manicured gardens, the streets filled with press and police and excited onlookers.
‘What did you think we were coming back for?’ Anton asked.
She cringed and went to retrieve her dress, embarrassed at her own presumption, but if it was a cruel tease, it was a brief one.
‘Come here,’ he said, his voice thick with lust as she joined him at the window.
Her arms leant on the window and he stood behind, wrapping his around her and making her smile as he whispered into her ear. ‘Now that’s pole position.’
CHAPTER NINE (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
IT WAS heaven to watch the chaos, though there were more than a few distractions.
Namely Anton.
He was working her neck but Emily’s mind was on work.
‘Is that who I think it is?’ Emily asked, watching a fight break out, but only briefly. Her eyes widened as the Correttis lived up, in every sense, to their depraved reputations. ‘Oh my God, look at those two making out.’
‘Are you glad you came up here?’
‘Very.’ It was dark now and she didn’t want the night that was suddenly here.
Her last in Sicily.
As the figures became impossible to make out, Emily worked for an hour on his computer to get her report in.
He lay on the bed and for once his heart was not black. For a brief moment he glimpsed the peace of normal, of a couple together and sharing an evening. An honest, normal evening. The television on in the background, the tap of the keyboard as Emily worked. Then she looked up. ‘I’m going to have a bath.’ She smiled at him, and as naturally as breathing he returned it.
Yet his soul had been dead for years.
Unnerved by the normalcy, Anton ordered supper and it was waiting for Emily when she came out.
It was nice to sit huddled in a hotel bathrobe sipping a cocktail as Anton flicked through the news channels. Most were filled with the unfolding drama. She even saw her tweet and photo on one of the U.K. channels. But then something caught her eye.
‘Stop,’ Emily said. ‘Go back.’ She took a sip of her icy cocktail and smiled. ‘That’s Dianne.’
Dianne was scowling into the camera, her hair dripping. With really nothing to report, they were heading over to the correct lake now.
‘This is the woman you hate?’ Anton asked.
‘Hate?’ Emily laughed. ‘I don’t hate her, I just don’t like her. Fattispecie.’ Emily smiled.
‘You’re a bad girl.’
‘I know.’ She slipped onto his lap, wrapped her arms around his neck and said sorry with her eyes. ‘And I know what happens to bad girls.’ She shocked herself, but what happened then shocked Anton even more.
He heard the sound of laughter and it came from him. A sound he had not heard since the morning his life was blown apart. He was younger, lighter, and it was with Emily in his arms. He had not felt like this since... He stopped laughing then, buried his face in her hair and remembered that morning, lying there hearing the wonderful news his wife had shared, and he thought the pain might actually choke him.
‘Anton?’
‘Come.’ He tried for normal. He went to the window and looked out on the dark streets but the crowds were dispersing. Only the press were still there, waiting for a morning that would be here soon.
‘We should get some sleep.’
* * *
Both tried.
He lay, for once not consumed with the pain of the past, just knowing there was fresh grief to come, for in a few hours she would be gone.
Emily lay there watching the moon gliding across the night sky as if someone had their finger on the fast-forward button and was speeding them towards dawn.
‘If we close the shutters, can we stop the morning?’ Emily asked in the fading darkness.
He fought for a glib comment to shut out not the morning but the woman in bed beside him, to disengage before dawn, as Anton always did, except his hands were stroking her down her waist, his arms pulling her right into him, his lips deep-kissing her shoulder.
She could feel his erection stirring between her thighs, and his hand brushed her stomach and moved down and stroked her clitoris before her mind even had a chance to wish it there. It was as if he knew her body; it was as if he were made for her. He was nudging her entrance when he should have been stretching over for a condom. Another assumption, another principle dissolved in his presence. She could not fight her want, her need, for the man stealing inside her. She was trying not to cry as he filled her, except she couldn’t hold on to a single emotion with Anton around.
‘Emily...’ He knew he should withdraw, only this wasn’t just sex, even if he tried to deny it. He rocked deeper within her. He could feel her sobbing, feel her orgasm building to meet his, and he wanted to feel. For so long he hadn’t, and it actually hurt to feel good.
Intimately she gripped him, pressed herself back into him as his mouth found her cheek. Emily’s neck craned for his mouth, for his tongue, for the close of his eyes as she throbbed to her first intimate spill on the inside, and she knew, she just knew, they belonged together.
They lay in silence, still locked together, as unspoken, reckless possibilities were entertained. It was Emily who voiced them. ‘Anton.’ She did not turn to him. Instead she felt him tense at her tentative suggestion. ‘I’ve got some annual leave....’
‘You need to get back.’
‘I know that but maybe in a couple of weeks...’ He was pulling away. ‘You spoke about the Corretti Cup. Maybe I could come back—’
She was interrupted by his phone, but she felt the relief from Anton at the reprieve, and he spoke for a few moments in Italian, his back to her, not wanting to turn around because he knew that he had gotten too close.
‘Maybe you could visit again,’ was his response to her offer, ‘but don’t come back for me.’ Only then did he turn to her. ‘That was a colleague. Alessandro has been arrested. I know the station. You could go there and get the scoop.’
‘Poor guy.’ Emily shook her head. ‘Just leave him alone.’
‘You’re not tough enough.’ Anton’s words were terse.
She rolled onto her back and looked at the ceiling. ‘So people tell me whenever they’re about to break up with me.’
‘Break up?’ he said. ‘It was a weekend.’
Absolutely she wasn’t tough enough, because Emily started to cry.
‘For God’s sake,’ he shouted. ‘It’s been two nights.’
It had been the most amazing two nights of her life. She should be more sophisticated, Emily knew that.
She tried. She got out of the bed and dressed, and he lay there, hand behind his head, not watching, but as she went to leave the room, he halted her.
‘What happened before...’ Anton said. ‘We need to discuss...’
‘Am I to stop off at the farmacia?’ Emily asked. ‘How very thoughtful of you. Don’t worry, Anton, I’m on the pill. The condoms were only necessary in case I had an urge to shag a stranger the whole weekend.’ She just looked at him and couldn’t hide the hurt from her eyes. ‘It would seem that I did.’ She stared at his guarded, closed-off face and she saw the stranger he chose to be.
‘You’re right, it is time for me to leave.’
‘Then go.’
She took off the ring, but she would have her say.
‘It’s not your love for your wife that’s holding you back, Anton. It’s your hate for them.’ He just lay there and she knew she was right. ‘I don’t want to be a part of it. I don’t want to be around a man who spends his time booking restaurants in advance and looking for vantage points, who’s no doubt got pole position booked for the Corretti Cup.’ Tears did not make her weak, Emily realised, though she fought them. ‘That kiss on the stairs...’ She could see it all now. ‘You were turned on by revenge, when you should have been turned on by me.’
‘I lost my family.’
‘So you think you have nothing more to lose.’ Emily could be tough when it was called for. ‘That’s a dangerous place to be, Anton.’
She closed the door on him.
He waited for relief.
She was gone.
He could get back to...
To what?
He did not want to think. He flicked on the television. He met Dianne’s cold eyes as she reported on the most recent findings, as she barely blinked as she read the latest news.
Tough, jaded, bitter.
No, Anton corrected, Dianne was focused, determined.
And then his own words haunted him.
A little naive, a little sweet.
What would you choose?
CHAPTER TEN (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
EMILY STEPPED into her hotel room. One that she had been in for all of an hour. She changed quickly and threw her clothes into the suitcase and was out of the hotel in moments.
She jumped into a taxi ahead of a couple of tourists, and if she was rude, if she wrong, it was better than relenting, way better than charging back to his room.
As if to taunt her, her phone bleeped and it was Gina.

Thought you might like a little memento (and congratulations on the scoop).

How could her career seem not to matter?
How could what had been so vital on Friday seem almost obsolete now?
Why did this have to be love?
Attached were the pictures Gina had taken of her and Anton. Emily saw her smiling face beside his closed one and she knew she could not let his pain darken her soul, which it would if she stayed.
He did not want her to stay, Emily reminded herself, but that did not soothe. She wanted on the plane and in the air and away from him.
Away from a dangerous love.
‘Fai presto!’ Emily urged the driver to go faster. She could see the airport, yet she felt as if the devil itself were chasing her. And it was.
She could hear the sirens, knew without turning that he had changed his mind, knew before he had overtaken them that the car the flashing lights belonged to was his.
Emily thrust the money at the driver, dragged her case from the car and just refused to look where he stood waiting.
‘I’m going.’
‘Emily.’
He took her wrist and she shook him off.
‘Emily.’ He went for the top of her arm and she turned in fury to him. ‘Unless you’ve got your cuffs with you, I’m...’
It was not her poor choice of words that halted her speech; it was the smile that met her gaze. It was an Anton she had never seen. A smile was the first thing her mind had begged from him, and if she had thought she had seen it in the restaurant that night, then she had been mistaken. For what she had witnessed then did not even come close. All the stress had vanished. The eyes hers met were no longer navy; they were the colour of a waking Mediterranean. There were shimmers and specks she should choose not to see.
‘There is someone I do not want to lose,’ Anton said.
‘Anton...’ Emily looked at him, saw the tenderness unhidden. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Fattispecie,’ Anton said as he confessed to her his lie by omission. ‘Louanna was pregnant. She had told me just that morning.’
Ah, fattispecie, Emily thought. Such a sad word.
‘I swore revenge that day and I vowed it again at their graves, but I am letting it go.’
‘For now.’
‘For good,’ Anton said, and then he said it again but with different meaning. ‘For good. A good that I do not want to lose.’ He did not want to crowd her. He did not want her to leave. He did not want another decade of bitterness. ‘Come back, not for the Corretti Cup. Come back, or I come and visit you. We can take it slow if you need to.’
‘I need to take this.’ It was her phone ringing hot now and she had to answer because it wasn’t Adam. Instead it was the chief of the newspaper, calling on a Sunday morning, no less. ‘I need a moment,’ Emily said to Anton.
‘Of course.’
Her career was not quite so obsolete, Emily realised as she struggled to keep the nerves from her voice as she took the call.
‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Have you got more?’
‘Alessandro Corretti was arrested last night.’
‘That’s already broken.’
‘Taylor Carmichael—’
‘I saw that she was back.’
‘And deliciously misbehaving,’ Emily said.
‘Anything else?’
‘Plenty,’ Emily said, ‘and it’s not going away anytime soon.’ She told him about the docklands and about Carlo’s illegitimate son, Angelo, who looked set to make a move against the family that had disowned him. They spoke for a few moments, then she turned off her phone and looked over to Anton. Then, taking a deep breath, she wheeled her case over to him.
‘That was my boss,’ Emily said. ‘Not Adam—the big one. He said my two favourite words.’
‘Which are?’
‘Clothing allowance.’ Emily smiled. ‘They want me to stay on and find out more. I’m going to be busy....’
‘You won’t need to lift a finger. I can tell you anything you need to know.’
‘Which means I’m going to be busy.’ Emily grinned. ‘Hello, research.’ He pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair, not in grief, just to inhale her scent.
It was a kiss at the airport but neither a hello nor a goodbye; it was a kiss of life and taking chances and staying around long enough to feel your heart again. And as he loaded her case into his car, as she climbed in to set off on another adventure, there was no need for sirens or flashing lights.
They had time.
Time before they heard their three favourite words.
But both already knew what they were.
* * * * *
A Legacy of Secrets (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
Carol Marinelli
Business & Pleasure: What the Corretti playboy wants…
Personal assistant Ella is never without her “Santo Bag”—not the latest designer “must have,” but emergency supplies to handle whatever the devilish Santo Corretti throws at her. But no pair of sunglasses will cover the darkness in her boss’s eyes this morning.
Scandal is circling. Santo’s family is in tatters. His brother is languishing in a jail cell and his latest film’s on the rocks. All Santo wants is a little TLC. Except, Ella’s heart is not part of the playboy fix-it kit.
But what Santo Corretti wants he gets!
PROLOGUE (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
‘PLEASE.’
Ella wasn’t sure how many times that word had been said to her in the past, but she knew that she would forever recall this time.
‘Please, Ella, don’t go.’
She stood at the departure terminal of the busy Sydney International Airport, passport and boarding pass in hand, and looked into her mother’s pleading eyes—the same amber eyes as her own—and she almost relented. How could she possibly leave her to deal with her father alone?
But, given all that had happened, how could she stay?
‘You have a beautiful home....’
‘No!’ Ella would not be swayed. ‘I have a flat that I bought in the hope that you would move in with me. I thought that you’d finally decide to leave him, and yet you won’t.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’ Ella stood firm. ‘I have done everything to help you leave and yet you still refuse.’
‘He’s my husband.’
‘And I’m your daughter.’ Ella’s eyes flashed with suppressed anger. ‘He beat me, Mum!’
‘Because you upset him. Because you try to get me to leave...’ Her mother had been in Australia for more than thirty years, was married to an Australian, and yet her English was still poor. Ella knew that she could stand here and argue her point some more, but there wasn’t time for that. Instead she said the words she had planned to say and gave her mother one final chance to leave. ‘Come with me.’
Then Ella handed her mother the ticket she had secretly purchased.
‘How?’
‘I’ve brought your passport with me.’ Ella pulled it out of her bag and handed it to her mother to show that she was serious and that she really had thought this through. ‘You can walk away now, Mum. You can go back to Sicily and be with your sisters. You can have a life....’ She saw her mother wrestle with the decision. She missed her country so much, spoke about her sisters all the time, and if she would just have the courage to walk away then Ella would help her in any way that she could.
‘I can’t.’
There was simply no point, but Ella did her best to persuade her mum. Right up to check-in, right up to the departure gate, Ella tried to convince her mother to leave, but she had decided now that the subject was closed.
‘Have a nice trip, Ella.’
‘I’m not going for a holiday, Mum,’ Ella said. She wanted her mother to realise how serious this was, that she wasn’t just going to be away for a few weeks. ‘I’m going there to look for work.’
‘But you said you will visit Sicily.’
‘I might.’ Ella honestly didn’t know. ‘I don’t know if I can, Mum. I’d hoped to go there with you. I think I’ll stay in Rome.’
‘Well, if you do get to Sicily, give my love to your aunts. Tell them...’ Gabriella faltered for a moment.
‘Don’t tell them, you mean.’ Ella looked at her mum, who would be in trouble for even coming to the airport, and couldn’t believe she was expecting Ella to tell her aunts how fantastic her life was in Australia, to keep up the pretence. ‘Are you asking me to lie?’
‘Why you do this to me?’ Gabriella demanded, as she did whenever Ella didn’t conform or questioned things. Possibly Ella was more Sicilian than she gave herself credit for, because as her mother used the very familiar line, Ella was tempted to use it herself. Why you do this to me? Why did you stand and scream as you watched your daughter being beaten? Why didn’t you have the guts to get up and leave? Of course she didn’t say that. Ella hadn’t shared her feelings with anyone, not even her mum, since that day.
‘I have to go, Mum.’ Ella looked up at the board—she really did have to, customs would take forever—but at the last moment her voice cracked. ‘Mum, please...’
‘Ella, go.’
Gabriella wept as she said goodbye but Ella didn’t—she hadn’t since that terrible day two months ago. Instead she hugged her mum and headed through customs and then sat dry-eyed on the plane with an empty seat beside her, nursing her guilt for leaving her mother behind, but knowing deep down there was nothing more she could do.
She was twenty-seven years old, and had spent enough of her life trying to get her mother away from her father. Even her job had been chosen with money, rather than passion, in mind.
Ella had worked as a junior assistant for a couple of CEOs, then moved through the ranks, eventually becoming a PA to a politician. She’d spent the past two years in Canberra, dreading what she might come home to in Sydney.
Unable to live like that, she had swapped a very good job for a not-so-good one, and bought a home nearer her parents. Now, after all those years of trying to help her mum, Ella knew she just had to get away.
She had references in her bag and could speak Italian.
It was time to get a life.
Her life.
It never entered her head that she might need some time off to heal from all she had endured—instead Ella’s focus was on finding work.
Except it was just rather more intimidating than she’d first thought.
It was January, and she had left the hot Australian summer for a cold Italian winter. Rome was busier than anywhere Ella had ever been. The Gypsies seemed to make a beeline for her every time she ventured from the hotel, but she took in the sites, stood in awe in the Vatican and threw a coin in the Trevi Fountain, as her mother had told her to do. But what was the point, Ella thought, for her mother would never be back.
She took a train to Ostia Antica, visited the ruins and froze as she walked along the beach, wondering when the healing would start, when the revelation that she had done the right thing by leaving would strike.
It didn’t.
So instead of sitting around waiting, Ella set about looking for work.
‘You have a lot of experience for someone your age, but...’ It was the same wherever she went—yes, her résumé was impressive, but even though they were conversing in Italian, Claudia explained at her interview, as the others had yesterday, Ella’s Italian simply wasn’t good enough for the agency to put her forward to any of the employers on their books.
‘You understand it better than you speak it,’ Claudia said. She really had been nice, so Ella chose not to be offended. ‘Is there any other type of work you are interested in?’
Ella was about to say no, to shake her head, but with nothing to lose she was honest. ‘The film industry.’
‘We don’t handle actors.’
‘No, no...’ Ella shook her head. ‘I’m interested in directing.’ It was all she had ever wanted to do, but saving up enough money to give her mother the option to move had been her priority. Instead of trying to break into the industry as a poorly paid junior, Ella had gone for better-paid jobs. But this morning, sitting in a boutique Rome employment agency, Ella realised she could perhaps focus on herself.
‘Sorry.’ Claudia gave a helpless shrug and as Ella went to thank her, she halted her. ‘One moment. We have a client, Corretti Media—they are in Sicily—Palermo. Have you heard of them?’
‘A bit.’ Ella was obsessed with the industry. ‘They’ve done well with a few blockbusters recently.’
‘Alessandro is the CEO, and there is Santo—he’s a film producer.’
‘I have heard of him.’ Ella said, though chose not to add that it wasn’t his producing skills he was famous for—more his scandalous ways. Still, Claudia seemed quite happy to discuss them.
‘He goes through a lot of PAs!’ Claudia rolled her eyes as she pulled up the file. ‘Yes, it is Santo who is looking for someone—you would go with him when he is on location. You would need an open mind though—he is always getting into trouble and he has quite a reputation with women.’
Ella didn’t care about his reputation, just the thought of being on location. Maybe she could get some experience—at least it would be a start. ‘Perhaps he would be more forgiving of your Italian if I tell him that you are familiar with the industry.’
‘My Italian is improving,’ Ella said.
‘And you’d need to seriously smarten up.’
This time Ella was offended. She was sitting in a very expensive grey suit—one that had been suitable for Parliament, she wanted to point out—but then again, it was three years old and politicians weren’t exactly known for their stand-out fashion.
‘Santo Corretti expects immaculate.’
Ella forced a smile. ‘Then he’ll get immaculate.’
‘One moment.’
Ella sat as Claudia made the call, trying to quell the excitement that was mounting. Because for the first time she actually wanted a job, wanted it in a way she never had before, though her cheeks did burn a bit when Claudia looked her over and said that yes, she was good-looking. Was honey blonde hair really a prerequisite for this job? Ella wondered as she heard her hair being described.
As it turned out it didn’t matter.
‘Sorry...’ Claudia shook her head. ‘That was his current PA, and though she is very keen to leave, she says there is no point even putting you forward. He is very particular.’
‘Well, thank you for trying.’
Leaving the agency Ella stopped for coffee. Gazing out the window at a busy Rome morning, she told herself it was ridiculous to be so disappointed about a job she hadn’t even been interviewed for.
And even if she had... Ella looked out at the women. There was just an effortless elegance to them and if Santo Corretti went for immaculate then the bar was raised very high here in Italy. He would have taken one look at Ella in her rather boring interview suit and the answer would have been the same.
Anyway, Ella asked herself, did she really want to work in Sicily, did she really want to go and revisit her mother’s past?
Yes.
Ella’s heart started a frantic thump, because she simply wasn’t ready. Except she was walking out of the café and instead of tackling the next agency on her list, she found herself peering into the beautifully dressed windows, wondering what a PA for Santo Corretti might wear. And a few moments later she was asking a shop assistant the same.
Well, she didn’t say his name, just said that she had a very important job interview. A little while later Ella sat and had her long curly hair trimmed and tamed and then loosely tied at the nape and her make-up and nails done too.
By early afternoon she checked out of her hotel, and took the short flight to Sicily. She looked out at the land she had seen in endless faded photos that had been described to her over and over by her mother. Despite the beauty of the snowcapped mountains, the glistening azure sea and the juts of buildings vying for space on the coastline, Ella wasn’t quite sure that she was ready for this. But she was here to work, she reminded herself.
While the bravest thing she had ever done might have been to leave Australia, Ella thought as she checked her luggage into storage and stepped out into the winter sun, this felt pretty brave too.
Or foolish.
She’d find out soon enough.
Ella climbed into a white taxi. ‘Corretti Media.’
Ella held her breath, worried he might ask for an address, or say he had no idea where she meant, but the driver just nodded and Ella pulled out her mirror from her handbag, smoothed down her hair and touched up her make-up. Her newly capped gleaming white smile felt unfamiliar. No one would ever guess the price she had paid to get it—and not in money.
Snapping the mirror closed, Ella refused to dwell on it, just pushed all thoughts of her father aside. As the taxi pulled up outside the Corretti Media tower it was a very determined woman who paid the driver and then stepped into the sleek air-conditioned building and told the receptionist that she was here about the PA vacancy.
‘Un attimo, prego.’ The receptionist reached for her phone and a few moments later Ella stepped out of an elevator and was somewhat stunned by the response she received.
‘Buona fortuna!’ An exceptionally pretty and very tearful woman thrust a black leather-bound diary and a set of car keys at Ella as she wished her good luck dealing with Santo and then shouted over her shoulder an old Italian proverb that Ella had heard a few times from her mother. ‘If a man deceives me once, shame on him. If he deceives me twice, shame on me.’
‘I take it that’s a no, then?’
A deep, rich voice had Ella turn and, as he walked out of his office, she could, for a dizzying second, understand his PA’s willingness to have given this man a second chance. She clearly wasn’t giving him a third for, with a sob, she ran for the door, leaving Ella alone with him.
Green eyes met hers and there was a hint of an unrepentant smile on a very beautiful mouth and, on his left cheek, a livid red hand print.
‘Are you here for an interview?’ he asked Ella in Italian and when she nodded and introduced herself, he gestured to his office and she followed him in.
He needed no introduction.
CHAPTER ONE (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
SANTO JERKED AWAKE, his heart racing, and reached out for familiar comfort, but rather than in bed with a lover beside him, he was asleep alone on a couch.
What happened last night?
His mind was a cruel trickster.
It did not tell him what had happened—it showed him little clues.
There was an empty whisky bottle on the floor, which Santo stepped over to get to the bathroom, and when he looked down he saw that he was still wearing the wedding suit, but his tie was off and the shirt torn and undone.
He checked the inside pocket of his jacket, remembered Ella double- and triple-checking that he had them before she left and he went off to be best man at his brother’s wedding.
The rings were still there.
He splashed his face with water; his face and chest were a mass of bruises.
Santo looked at his neck and grimaced, but a few love bites were the least of his concerns as yesterday’s events started to come back to him.
Alessandro!
Santo picked up the phone to arrange a driver, but he got the night receptionist who, perhaps unaware that she should not ask such questions, enquired where he wanted to go and Santo promptly hung up.
Looking out of the window, from his luxurious vantage point, Santo could see the press waiting. Rarely for Santo, he couldn’t stomach facing them, or his brother, alone.
‘Can you pick me up?
Despite the hour, Ella answered the phone with her eyes closed. After four months working for Santo Corretti she was more than used to being called out of hours, though he sounded particularly terrible this morning. His deep, low voice, thick with Italian accent, was still beautiful, if a touch hoarse.
Yes, beautiful and terrible just about summed Santo up.
Peeling her eyes open, she looked at the figures on her bedside clock. ‘It’s 6:00 a.m.,’ Ella said. ‘On a Sunday.’ Which should have been enough reason to end the call and go back to sleep. Yet, all night, Ella had been half expecting him to ring, so much so she had sat with her giant heated rollers in last night and had already laid her clothes out. Like the rest of Sicily, Ella had watched the drama unfold on television yesterday afternoon and had seen updates on the news all night. Even her mother in Australia, watching the Italian news, would know that the much-anticipated wedding of Santo’s brother, Alessandro Corretti, to Alessia Battaglia had been called off at the last minute.
Literally, at the last minute.
The bride had fled midway down the aisle and the world was waiting to see how two of Sicily’s most notorious families would deal with the fallout.
Yes, Ella had had a feeling that her services might be required before Monday.
‘Look, this is my day off.’ She did her best to hold firm. ‘I worked yesterday...’ Of course, as just his PA, Ella hadn’t been invited to the wedding. Instead her job had been to ensure that Santo arrived sober, on time and looking divine as he always did.
The divine part had been easy—Santo made a beautiful best man. It was the other two requisites that had taken up rather a lot more of her people skills.
‘I need to pick up Alessandro from the police station,’ Santo said. ‘He was arrested last night.’
Ella lay there silently, refusing to ask for details, while privately wondering just what else had happened yesterday.
She had raised a glass to the screen as she had seen Santo arrive at the church, talking and joking with Alessandro, privately thinking that the gene pool had surely been fizzing with expensive champagne when these two were conceived.
They could, at first glance, almost be twins—both were tall and broad shouldered, both wore their jet-black hair short, both had come-to-bed dark green eyes—but there were differences. Alessandro was the eldest, and the two years that divided the brothers were significant.
As firstborn son to the late Carlo Corretti, Alessandro was rather more ruthless, whereas Santo was a touch lighter in personality, more fun and extremely flirty—but he could still be completely arrogant at times.
‘Come and pick me up now,’ Santo said, as if to prove her point. Ella let out a long breath, telling herself that in a few weeks, if she got the job she had applied for, then all the scandal and drama of the Correttis would be a thing of the past. Working for Santo was nothing like she’d imagined it would be. ‘The press are everywhere,’ he warned, which was Santo’s shorthand to remind her to look smart—even in a crisis he insisted on appearances. ‘Take a taxi and then pick up my car and drive it around to the hotel entrance. Text me when you’re there.’
‘I hate driving your car,’ Ella started, but was met again with silence. Having given his orders, Santo would assume she was jumping to the snap of his manicured fingers, and had already hung up.
‘Bastard,’ Ella hissed and then she heard his voice.
‘You love me, really.’
Ella was too annoyed to be embarrassed. ‘I love lying in on a Sunday morning.’
‘Tough.’
This time he did hang up.
In a few weeks you’ll be out of it, Ella told herself as she rang for a taxi. The woman on the other end of the phone sounded half asleep as well and told Ella it would be a good fifteen minutes to half an hour, which suited her fine. She climbed out of bed and headed straight for the shower and then to the mirror, but Santo could forget it if he thought she was going to arrive in full make-up. She changed her mind, because like it or not, Santo was her boss and Ella took her work very seriously. So, instead of a slick of mascara and lipgloss—which were usual weekend fare, if she wore any make-up at all—Ella set to work with the make-up brushes and then smoothed out her hair a touch and tied it into a low ponytail. She pulled on a dark grey skirt and sheer cream blouse and added low heels.
One good thing about working for Santo was her clothing allowance.
Actually, it was the only good thing.
And Ella wasn’t even particularly interested in clothes!
Hearing the taxi toot outside her small rented flat, Ella checked her appearance one more time and then grabbed her ‘Santo Bag’ as she called it, making sure that she had his spare set of car keys, before heading outside. She squinted at the morning sun and took in the vivid colours of a gorgeous Palermo in May. The ocean was glistening and the city still seemed to be sleeping. No doubt the whole of Sicily had had a late night, waiting for updates in the news.
‘Buongiorno.’ Ella gave the taxi driver the address of the smart hotel where Santo was staying and then sat back and listened to the morning news on the radio.
Of course the jilted Corretti groom was being talked about long after the headlines had been read.
And, of course, the taxi driver was more than delighted with the news. ‘Trouble!’ he told her. ‘As if a wedding would ever unite the Corretti and Battaglia families...’ and happily he chatted some more, unaware he was driving her to meet with Santo. Ella chose not to enlighten him. Santo didn’t exactly keep her informed about the goings-on in his family. If anything, his Italian picked up pace if he ever had to speak with one of them, just enough to make it almost impossible for her to work out what was being said.
‘They have always fought?’ Ella checked.
‘Always,’ the driver told her and then added that even the death of Salvatore Corretti a few weeks ago would not bring peace between the two families. ‘The Correttis even war with themselves.’
That much Ella knew. Even though Santo didn’t reveal much about his family, Ella was forever having to deal with the feuding Corretti cousins. The family was incredibly divided and they were all constantly trying to outdo the other, under the guise of the family empire. They were all trying to outmanoeuvre one another in the bid to become top dog, not just at work, but with cars, with women, with horses. Ella was sick of it. She was tired of the dark secrets and mind games they all played.
She’d have put up with it for a while longer though, if Santo would just give her a small step onto the ladder she wanted to climb. Over and over she had asked him if she could work on just one of his films as a junior assistant director.
‘Presto,’ Santo would say and then, as he did all too often when he spoke to her in Italian, he would annoyingly translate for her. ‘Soon.’
Well, soon, she’d be gone.
Ella asked the driver to stop while she bought some coffee and then climbed back in.
As they approached the hotel Ella told the driver that she wished to be dropped off in the underground car park. As they approached she saw that Santo was right—there were a lot of press around and security was tight. Ella was more than happy to show her ID before paying the taxi driver and telling the concerned valet that she wanted to personally take the car up to collect her boss.
Ella slipped into the front seat and smelt not the leather, but the familiar, expensive scent of Santo. Before she started the engine she texted him, letting him know she was in the basement and on her way to collect him.
The engine growled at the merest touch of her foot and she jerked her way through the car park, doing her best to ignore the flash of cameras as the paparazzi stirred at the new activity taking place.
Come on, Santo, she muttered as she sat with the engine idling, glad of the effort she’d made as cameras clicked away, worried, too, that he might have fallen back to sleep after he had called her. But then, still wearing last night’s suit, she saw him, walking just a little unsteadily towards the car. Ella’s lips pressed together when she saw the state he was in. The press were going to have a field day. His suit was torn and dirty and he was wearing several fresh bruises too. His deathly pale skin only accentuated the fact that he hadn’t shaved.
‘Buongiorno!’ Ella said loudly and brightly as he climbed in.
‘Good morning, Ella.’
It was a small game that they played, one that they had partaken in since her interview. Ella, determined to show him how wonderful her Italian was, attempting to prove that just because she was Australian it didn’t mean that she wasn’t up for the job, had introduced herself in her very best Italian.
Santo had promptly responded in English—pulling rank and basically saying that his English was better than her Italian, which was of course right. Though, as it turned out, Ella did speak enough Italian to land the job. But when it was just the two of them, they conversed mainly in English, except for this one mutual game.
‘I thought you wanted us looking smart.’
He just frowned.
‘You said there were press everywhere.’
‘There are,’ Santo said. ‘I was just warning you.’
‘Here.’ She handed him his coffee.
‘You need to get one for Alessandro,’ Santo said.
‘I already did.’
‘Let’s go then.’
They jerked out of the forecourt. ‘Why do you have to have gears?’ Ella moaned, because she always drove an automatic, though of course Santo didn’t consider that real driving. Still, he didn’t answer, just sat, unusually quiet, as the car moved out into the bright sunlight. Glancing over she watched him wince and, taking mild pity, Ella put her hand in her Santo Bag and handed him a pair of sunglasses. But even they didn’t fully cover the purple bruise on his eye.
As the press surged, Ella inched gingerly forward, aware that one slip of her foot on Santo’s accelerator could flatten the lot of them.
‘Just go!’ Santo cursed as they gathered for their shots and then he cursed again as Ella blasted the horn a few times and finally dispersed them.
His mood didn’t improve as they drove through town. ‘I hate driving in this country,’ Ella muttered as she was forced to swerve and narrowly missed a Vespa. In Australia they drove on the left-hand side of the road and occasionally they even managed to follow the road rules.
Though it wasn’t the traffic that was getting to Ella, nor the 6:00 a.m. wake-up call from her boss, whatever fight he had been in last night didn’t account for the purple marks on his neck.
Bloody hell, she thought darkly, even in the middle of a family scandal, even as the Battaglia and Corretti families exploded, trust Santo to still be at it.
With who though?
No, Ella was not going to ask for details.
She really didn’t want to know if he’d run true to form and gotten off with Taylor Carmichael, the stunning American actress who was playing the leading role in the latest film Santo was producing.
Shooting started on Monday and Santo had made it his personal mission to keep Taylor out of trouble. He had insisted that she attend yesterday’s wedding to both ensure that Taylor behaved and to garner some publicity for the film. But with both their reputations, it was perhaps a forgone conclusion as to what had taken place.
It really was time to move on. If she didn’t get the new job, then maybe she could head to London, or France perhaps.
Or even go home?
He asked her to stop so that he could draw out some cash to hopefully expedite getting his brother out of the lock-up and Ella closed her eyes and leant her head back on the headrest. The thought of home brought no comfort at all. It was her mother’s birthday in a few days and Ella would be expected to call. She was gripped with sudden panic at the thought and opened her eyes and took a couple of deep breaths as she realised that no, she was nowhere near ready to go home.
She watched as Santo had a few attempts at the machine and then, with an irritated sigh, Ella climbed out of the car and walked over to him, tapping his number in.
‘What would I do without you?’ There was no endearment in his question. He turned his head for a moment and Ella felt heat rise on her cheeks, but then told herself that there was no challenge behind his words. There was no way Santo could know what she had been up to in recent days.
And, Ella consoled herself, who in her position wouldn’t be looking for another job? She was tired of bailing him out, tired because now she’d had to get up at some ridiculous hour on her one day off to bail his brother out. Tired, too, of running Santo’s not-so-little black book—sending flowers and jewellery to his girlfriends, booking intimate tables in fantastic restaurants, organising romantic weekends and then having to calm ruffled feathers when invariably, inevitably, Santo upset them in his oh-so-usual way.
‘How was Taylor?’ She simply couldn’t stop herself from asking, because it was imperative for the film publicity that Taylor had behaved herself last night.
‘Niente dichiarazione,’ Santo responded, smiling at her pursed lips. ‘I am practising “no comment” for the press today. Perhaps you could practise too.’
He was so good at deflecting questions, not just about women, about everything. Always managing to shrug off things that should matter but simply didn’t to Santo.
As they pulled up at the police station, Ella was relieved that there were no press waiting; at least word hadn’t got out yet that Alessandro was here.
‘How do you think he’ll be?’
‘Hungover.’ Santo yawned. ‘And far better off without her.’
He went to climb out and Ella, who’d assumed that she’d be sitting for half an hour, or however long it took to bail someone out, was surprised when Santo turned around and asked if she would come in with him.
‘Me?’ Ella checked.
‘You might sweeten up the polizia.’
‘I find that really offensive, Santo.’
‘Ah, but you find so many things really offensive, Ella,’ he drawled.
Ella collected Allesandro’s coffee and walked towards the police station with Santo. She knew exactly what that little dig had been about—Ella was the first PA he hadn’t slept with. She had made it clear, to his obvious surprise, that this was business only. To his credit he had backed off completely, but now and then there was a little dig, a tiny reference to the fact she was resistant to his charms.
Not completely, of course.
No woman could be. He was stunning to look at and incredibly sexy, but completely incorrigible. Yes, a night with the boss might be tempting at times, especially when he smiled, especially when he looked as impossibly beautiful as he did today. But it was the thought of the morning after that, for Ella, was enough to ensure she resisted.
They stepped into the station and there was a lot of talking, a lot of hand waving and the handing over of an awful lot of cash, but, surprisingly quickly, a very dishevelled Alessandro appeared. He had his share of bruises too and there were grazes over his knuckles and that oh-so-immaculate bridegroom suit was covered in dust and torn.
‘Here.’ Ella handed him his coffee, which was no doubt cold by now, but Alessandro drained it in one go as they walked back out of the police station. He winced at the far-too-bright morning sunlight that seemed to be magnified by the ocean, and Ella handed him a pair of sunglasses too—she always carried spares.
Ella wasn’t Santo’s PA for nothing!
‘Thank you,’ Alessandro said. Putting them on he looked at his brother, taking in the bruises and thick lip and the nasty graze on Santo’s cheek. ‘What happened to your face?’
Ella held her breath.
She was dying to know, but the answer served only to surprise and further confuse her.
‘You did,’ came Santo’s wry response.
CHAPTER TWO (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
‘YOU DON’T REMEMBER?’ Santo asked, once they were in the car and Alessandro had asked Ella to drive him to his home.
‘I am trying not to.’
They were speaking in Italian, but Ella could pretty much make out all that was being said.
‘I spent the whole night trying to contact you,’ Santo said.
‘Clearly, not the whole night,’ came Alessandro’s terse response. ‘Who the hell did you let loose on your neck?’
Santo just laughed and offered no explanation. ‘I must have rung you fifty times.’
‘And forty-nine times I chose not to answer.’ Alessandro withdrew into silence and Ella didn’t blame him. Santo, it would seem, had not a care in the world. He just scrolled through the endless ream of texts on his phone as they talked, ignoring the constant buzzes to alert him to a call.
Ella drove them to the Corretti Media tower, where Alessandro had a luxurious penthouse, but the paparazzi were still clamouring for their shot of the jilted groom.
‘Lie down in the back if you want,’ Ella suggested. ‘I brought a coat for you. I’ll try to get in the back way.’ But Alessandro refused her suggestion to lie down, told her to just drop him at the front and sat there stony faced as the cameras flashed and reporters shouted their questions.
‘I’ll come in with you,’ Santo said.
‘I don’t need a handhold,’ came Alessandro’s terse response, but Santo ignored him and when she stopped the car both the brothers got out.
The gathered press went into a frenzy. Both were, Ella knew, more than used to dealing with them. There were always questions and scandal where this family was concerned. But though there were questions that would certainly need to be answered, interviews that would have to be given and the press to be faced, clearly, for Alessandro, it was all just a little too soon. Ella watched as a rather personal question was asked and Alessandro’s shoulders stiffened, his hands balling into two fists. Perhaps Santo realised that his brother was very close to losing his temper again, because for once, Santo made a very sensible choice and turned his brother back towards the vehicle. Ella reached out and opened the door and Santo shoved his fuming brother into the back of the car before climbing into the front.
‘Drive on,’ Santo said. ‘Get around the corner, and then I will drive.’ He was clearly impatient by Ella’s rather tentative speed and once around the corner Santo reminded her that he had asked her to pull over.
‘Fine, but if you’re driving I’m getting out. I can smell the whisky from here.’
For once he didn’t offer a smart retort, just gestured for her to carry on, and turning the car around at the first opportunity, she drove the trio back into town.
‘We can go to the hotel you are staying at,’ Ella suggested to Santo. ‘We can enter via the basement.’
‘No,’ Alessandro said. ‘I’m not going to be holed up somewhere by the press. I just want away from them.’
‘We could go to mine.’ Ella tried to think how best to give Alessandro privacy for a few days, though she could hardly imagine him staying at her cheap rental place. ‘It’s just a small villa, but it’s pretty tucked away, so I’m sure that they’d never think to look for you there.’
Ella glanced in the mirror as she awaited his response, but instead of answering her, Alessandro spoke briefly to his brother, who argued with him for a moment.
But then Santo spoke. ‘Take him to the harbour at Cala Marina.’ Santo gave her directions. ‘Alessandro wants to go to his yacht.’
Ella did as she was told, heading to the harbour where Alessandro’s yacht was docked. But despite her resolve to refuse to ask for details and despite reminding herself that it was none of her business as the car ate up the miles, on this, Ella couldn’t stay silent. ‘Do you really think that’s such a good idea?’ She turned worried eyes to Santo. Ella really didn’t like the idea of Alessandro alone on a yacht, given all that had happened.
‘I have just been reminded that I am the younger brother.’ Santo scratched at his neck and then pulled at his unbuttoned collar as if it was a little too tight. ‘He insists that we take him or he shall arrange his own transport there.’
Which gave them no choice—they were hardly going to let Alessandro out on the street to make his own way. So they drove, pretty much in silence, till they neared the pretty harbour. Ella almost willed one of the brothers to start talking so she could find out just a little of what had taken place last night, but perhaps because she was there, neither spoke about family matters.
‘Dove Alessia?’ For the first time Alessandro initiated conversation, asking where his ex-fiancée was, and Ella held her breath as they pulled into the harbour.
‘Puttana,’ came Santo’s crude and dismissive response, but Alessandro was insistent.
‘Where is she?’
And Ella was still holding her breath when Santo answered his brother, telling him the truth in a very dismissive voice—that it would seem that Alessia and their cousin Matteo had run off together.
The expletive that came from Alessandro was perhaps merited, and unlike Santo, he was nice enough to give a brief apology to Ella for his language before leaving the car and staggering off towards his yacht.
Santo sat for a moment and watched his brother and then climbed out of the car, trying, Ella presumed, to persuade Alessandro to come back with them.
She watched them argue for a moment but the bond between the two brothers was clear. It mattered not that Alessandro had thrown a few punches at Santo last night. It didn’t change anything between them. Not for the first time Ella wondered what it would be like to have a sibling, how it might feel to have someone in your corner—for how it hurt to deal with her parents alone.
But whatever Santo said to his brother, it didn’t work. Alessandro shrugged him off and she watched as Santo stood for a moment, then turned around. But instead of a roll of the eyes and the slightly cocky smile Santo often wore, his face was grey as he walked back towards the car and climbed in.
They sat for a moment and watched Alessandro board his yacht.
‘Do you think he’ll be all right?’ Ella was loath to leave.
‘Of course,’ Santo said. ‘He’s tough.’
He’d need to be tough—being jilted at the altar with the world’s cameras aimed on him, Ella thought. ‘Santo, I don’t know that it’s right to leave him.’
‘Just drive.’ Again Santo dismissed her worries. ‘He’ll be fine.’
She couldn’t believe his lack of concern, but that was Santo. He dealt with stuff as it cropped up and then moved easily on to the next thing, never worrying about the chaos he was leaving behind.
Ella rang ahead and asked housekeeping to sort out his suite and run a bath and asked for some breakfast and a lot of coffee to be sent up.
‘Assuming that your company won’t mind,’ Ella checked, telling herself that she wasn’t fishing for answers.
‘She’s gone.’
‘Just the one?’ Ella glanced over, thinking she’d get a glimpse of a smile, but Santo was just staring out of his window.
The press were still waiting but Santo didn’t duck. He just sat there as they got their shots. As Ella went to indicate, to enter the hotel via the more secure route of the basement, Santo stopped her.
‘The foyer will be fine—I don’t need the basement.’ In fact, he took off his dark glasses and pocketed them before he got out, hurling a filthy look straight in the direction of the cameras before stalking into the hotel with his head held high. Ella threw the car keys to the valet and caught up with him at the lift. As the doors closed behind them, Santo slumped against the wall for a moment, his eyes closed, and Ella was no longer just worried about Alessandro—no, she was more than a little concerned for Santo too. He was incredibly pale. Assuming that it was Alessandro who had hit him last night, then it was one very angry fist Santo would have found himself at the end of—maybe he’d been knocked out?
‘Are you hurt anywhere else?’
He didn’t open his eyes, just shook his head.
‘Were you knocked out?’ Ella checked.
‘Unfortunately, no.’ Green eyes opened and he gave a thin smile and she found herself staring back to a different Santo. It was as if all the arrogance had left him, as if, for once, she was seeing the man he really was and it was mesmerising. She simply could not stop staring—even as the lift doors opened—and for a moment the two of them just stood.
‘What happened?’ She had sworn not to ask, yet she did.
‘Why?’
‘I just...’ She flailed for words. ‘I’m concerned.’
‘Sure you are!’ There was an edge to his words that told her he considered her a liar. For a moment she was confused, but now wasn’t the time to dwell on it. Instead they walked to his suite. Of course, he couldn’t find his swipe card but, of course, she carried a spare.
As they stepped into the suite it was scandal rather than breakfast that awaited. Santo thumbed through the papers and Ella gave in and picked up one. Perhaps, she consoled herself, it was better that Alessandro was on a boat and escaping all this, for the photos and write-ups were brutal.
‘Oh!’ Ella let out a small crow of shock at one particular photo. There was Taylor Carmichael, the woman Santo should have been policing yesterday, the actress who he was relying on to behave, running true to form despite promises that she had changed.
‘Is it any surprise?’ Santo shrugged.
Probably not, Ella conceded. In fact, her only surprise was that the man in the image wasn’t Santo. But did he care about nothing? Filming started tomorrow and there had been a lot of fireworks about the casting of the leading female role. Taylor’s comeback after a spectacular unravelling was risky at best—a disaster for the film at worst.
And this looked like it was turning into a complete disaster.
Still, problems with the film would have to wait till tomorrow. Right now Ella had more pressing things to sort out—like six-foot-three of beaten-up, hungover male. ‘Go and have a bath,’ Ella said. ‘I’ll chase breakfast.’
‘I don’t want breakfast’ was his inevitable response. ‘I’m just going to go to bed. Thanks for all your help.’
‘You have to eat something,’ Ella started, and then shut up. After all, she wasn’t his mother. Not that his own mother would be worrying too much—Carmela Corretti’s only concerns were fashion and manicures.
‘Just have a bath.’ Ella settled for, ‘I don’t care whether or not you eat. I for one happen to be starving, so I’m chasing them.’
‘Sure.’
He headed to the bathroom and after a few minutes there was a knock at the door and Ella stood as the maid set up the table.
‘Thank you,’ Ella said, pouring herself a coffee and trying not to overthink who he’d been with last night. It was none of her business what Santo got up to.
She flicked through the papers, reading some of the more salacious details that had come out. They were the most complicated of families and for a while she was lost in the gossip. But later, glancing at the bedside clock, Ella realised he’d been in there ages. She thought maybe he had fallen asleep and she tried to ignore the knot of worry in her stomach, but after a moment or two she knocked.
‘Breakfast is here.’
Ella stood at the door and all she could hear was silence.
‘Santo...’ She knocked again. ‘Answer me.’
Nothing.
‘Santo!’ Ella tried to keep the note of panic from her voice as she thought of head injuries and hangovers and the fact that the newspaper headlines could be far worse tomorrow than they were now. She was actually terrified for him.
‘Santo!’ She rapped loudly. ‘If you don’t answer then I’m going to have to come in.’
Still nothing.
Ella tried the handle, but of course it was locked.
Heart in her mouth she ran to her bag, rummaging through it and then through her purse to find a coin. With shaking fingers, she fitted it into the slot and turned the lock.
‘Santo!’ she shouted and when still there was no response, Ella knew she had no choice but to go in.
CHAPTER THREE (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
‘SANTO...’ AS SOON as she opened the door, Ella regretted it.
There were some things she simply shouldn’t see and immediately Ella knew why he hadn’t answered her.
Santo’s modesty was covered by bubbles, his head resting on the edge of the bath. His eyes were screwed closed, and his lips were pressed together. For once Ella wasn’t catching her boss doing something inappropriate—that she could deal with. What she couldn’t immediately deal with was the fact that Santo Corretti, a man who charmed his way through life, who always had a smart answer for everything, who, she was sure, cared about nothing other than movies and getting laid, was lying in a bath and trying and failing not to cry.
* * *
Santo never cried.
He could not remember a single time that he had. It was an entirely new experience to him.
Not when his father, Carlo, had died alongside his uncle. Nor had there been a hint of a tear at his grandfather’s death. Not even as a little boy—it was as if he’d been born knowing that tears would never work with his mother, Carmela, and any sign of weakness would only have infuriated Carlo. So instead Santo had relied solely on looks, wit and charm.
He’d just run out them today.
‘Go...’ He put his hand up, the word barely making it out of his lips, his shoulders shaking with the effort of holding it in. Both wished they were embarrassed for a rather more salacious reason.
‘I can’t just go.’ And no, this wasn’t in her job description, but Ella wasn’t just going to leave him, so she sat on the edge of the bath and pondered the man. He was unshaven, there were bruises on his chest too and he looked battered but not just physically—he looked broken.
She had at times wondered if there were any feelings to be had in that beautiful head, but now he lay clearly shattered and she watched as he blew out a breath and then finally spoke.
‘Do you really think he’ll be okay?’
‘It’s Alessandro!’ Ella said firmly. ‘Which means yes—of course he’ll be fine. He just needs some time.’
After a moment Santo nodded and then opened his eyes. Ella didn’t want him to be so beautiful, but seeing this side of him just served to confuse her more. ‘I really do think that he’ll be fine.’
‘It’s not just Alessandro...’ he admitted. ‘It’s the whole lot of them. You should have heard the stuff that came out last night,’ Santo started, but didn’t continue.
‘You can tell me.’
‘Because you care?’ There was a strange surliness to his words and Ella frowned, but then he shrugged. ‘It is family stuff—it is not for me to say.’
Ella chose not to push. She knew all about family secrets, knew there were certain things you just didn’t speak about. She had lived her life keeping quiet after all.
She looked around the bathroom and wondered how someone could make so much mess in so little time. His clothes were strewn all over the floor, the tap was still running where Santo had brushed his teeth and no, she noted he didn’t replace the cap.
‘It’s a mess,’ Santo said, only she guessed that he wasn’t talking about the bathroom.
‘Families often are.’
She looked at him then, met his eyes. Usually she pulled hers away, usually she could not stand to have anyone examine her soul. But she saw the green and the bloodshot and the pain in his and for a second she thought she might cry too, which she hadn’t since that terrible day. As Ella sat looking at Santo she was a breath away from telling him that she knew the pain the people who should love you the most could cause, but she held on to it, just as she always had.
He did not ask.
She did not tell.
It was safer that way.
‘Come on,’ Ella finally said. She knew that he would hate to have been seen like this, knew that neither would mention it again.
She put her hand in the water and met his ankle, but she brushed past that and pulled out the plug. Then standing she turned off the sink tap. But as she went to go, Santo just lay there, the water rather rapidly disappearing, and before she saw far too much of her boss Ella grabbed a towel.
‘I’ll avert my gaze,’ Ella said, holding the towel up while trying to make a joke, but there was simply no room for jokes this morning and no room for modesty either. In the end, Santo took her hand and sort of hauled himself out of the bath as Ella did her best not to look. He tucked the towel around his hips and walked out to the suite, bypassing the breakfast that had been laid out and heading straight to bed.
‘Sorry about this.’
‘Oh, you will be...’ Ella started and then stopped. Now really wasn’t a time for their regular teasing. ‘Let’s just forget about it.’ He gave her a slightly suspicious look, but Ella meant it. Yes, they might tease each other at times, but she wasn’t going to use this. ‘It never happened, Santo.’
‘Thanks.’ He gave a brief nod and then went back to telling her what to do. ‘Can you get my phone?’
He sat on the edge of the bed as Ella went off and he could hear her loading up plates and pouring drinks. Santo really did not know what was happening to him—it was as if everything had suddenly caught up, everything he had pushed down and ignored or suppressed was now strewn out before him and refused to go back into its neat box. Family secrets spewing out last night had made Santo feel physically sick. For the first time he hadn’t even been able to screw his way out of it—last night he had removed his mouth from hers, felt her lips on his neck and looked down at another nameless blonde and couldn’t be fagged to head to bed. Instead he had sent her on her way and spent the night with a bottle of whisky, trying to get hold of Alessandro.
Santo sat there searching for one good area of his life, but even the film was in trouble now thanks to Taylor’s behaviour yesterday.
One good thing.
He looked up as Ella walked in, his very professional, somewhat aloof PA, and very annoyed suddenly, Santo climbed into bed and tossed the towel to the floor in a very surly gesture because, apart from the drama of his family, he’d found another thing out yesterday.
‘You’re leaving?’
Ella felt a blush spread over her cheeks, and it wasn’t because he was clearly naked beneath the sheets. There was the awful part when looking for another job where you naturally didn’t let your employer know. She had felt such horrible guilt as she’d lied about her whereabouts and, to make matters worse, Santo had been really nice about her trip to Rome to supposedly visit a doctor. He’d paid for her flight and even put her up in a luxurious hotel overnight. Ella understood now a couple of the barbs that had come her way this morning. She’d offered him the chance to speak about his family when he’d known that she was already planning to leave.
Ella walked over and actually sat on the edge of the bed and looked at his scowling face. ‘I don’t know for sure if I’m leaving yet,’ she said.
‘That trip to Rome wasn’t for the doctors...’ She blushed darker as he said it. ‘The film industry is a tight one, Ella—people talk.’
‘I don’t even know if I’ve got the job.’
‘Well, it sounds like you have. Luigi rang yesterday for your references,’ Santo said. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t offer my congratulations.’
And she wanted more details but, given the situation, it would be unfair to ask for them. She daren’t get her hopes up either, not till Luigi contacted her. Maybe all it would be was an invite for a second interview. ‘Can we talk about this later?’
‘We’ll talk about it now.’ Santo glared at her. ‘I understand you want to be a director—I get that you want some involvement—but the director I have hired for this movie comes with his own team.’ He took a breath, realised that he did not want to lose her. ‘When I hire for the next movie, I will make it a priority to see if whomever I hire—’
‘I wanted in on this movie, Santo.’ Ella looked at him. ‘I love the script so much, you know that.’
‘And you know how important this film is to me, Ella, even more so now.’
‘Now?’
‘I am not going into that, other than to say I am not taking any risks with it.’
‘Unless it’s a risk called Taylor Carmichael,’ Ella snapped.
‘And look how that risk has paid off? But I will consider you for the next one.’
‘It’s not just that.’ Ella closed her eyes. When you were Santo’s PA there was plenty of other stuff to complain about. ‘I don’t get a moment....’ She looked at him. ‘You’re way more than a full-time job, Santo.’
‘This was an exception. I do not ring you usually on a Sunday.’
‘Santo, Sunday starts at midnight on a Saturday night, so actually, quite often, you do.’
This was her job, Santo consoled himself as he sat there, but he knew he had been pushing things this weekend. Though he would never admit it out loud, he did concede that he had been nervous about the wedding, at the two families in the same church and the reception afterwards. Spending yesterday morning with Ella had been somewhat soothing.
Today, facing his brother, he had wanted her alongside.
‘You’ve become indispensable.’
‘No,’ Ella said, refusing to give in to him. Santo had a way with words and was very good at saying the right thing when he wanted his own way. ‘No one is.’
‘Perhaps,’ Santo said, and then thought for a moment. ‘We get on.’
‘Not all of the time.’
‘I thought we did—we have had some laughs.’
She looked at his depraved face, at a man who so easily made her laugh and had no idea what a feat that was—no idea how tender and bruised her soul had been when she had first met him. That the smile she had worn for her interview had been false on so many levels. Of course she could share that with no one and so Ella looked down, took a croissant from the plate and peeled a piece off and then popped it in her mouth, aware that he was closely watching.
‘I thought you were about to feed me.’
She was glad to see the slight return to his humour.
‘Not a chance.’ She gave him a weak smile as he checked his phone. ‘Any messages?’
‘Nothing.’
She could see the worry in the set of his lips. ‘I didn’t realise you and Alessandro were so close.’
‘We’re brothers,’ Santo said, as if that explained everything. ‘Do you have a brother or sister?’
‘Nope—just me.’ He noticed the slight strain to her voice, and he should have left it, really, except he did not.
‘You hardly ever speak of your family.’
‘Because we hardly ever speak.’
‘How come?’ Santo asked, but Ella shook her head. She just wasn’t going to go there with him. It was time she left the room now and so once he’d eaten a croissant and drained his coffee she took the tray and stood.
‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’
‘You know there is.’
Yes, his humour was back!
‘Get some sleep,’ Ella said and turned off the hotel phone by his bedside. Then she headed over and drew the drapes, more than a little aware that Santo was watching her. She was just too aware of him too much of the time. As she glanced down she could see the press outside the hotel, still hovering, and she knew that this wasn’t going to go away any time soon.
‘Okay.’ She walked back over to the bed. ‘I’ll leave you till about two.’
‘You’re staying?’
‘I’ll do some work in the lounge.’
‘Come in and check my pulse.’
‘No, but I will answer your phone. Is there any comment you want me to give?’
‘I’ll deal with all of that.’
As she went to take his phone from the bedside he stopped her, his hand closing over hers. ‘No.’
‘I’ll deal with the calls,’ Ella said. ‘Santo, that’s what you pay me for. If it’s Alessandro I’ll bring the phone straight through to you.’ She was terribly aware of his hand over hers, and more so when still it remained. She should simply have lifted her hand and walked out the room, as she would have on any other day, except she didn’t and neither did she resist when he pulled her back to sit on the bed. With the curtains drawn it was unlike before—dark and more intimate and too much for her racing heart.
‘Do you have to leave?’
‘Santo, please...’ Ella really didn’t want to talk about it now. ‘I have to think about my career. Can we...?’
‘I meant, do you have to leave the room?’
‘You didn’t mean that.’ Ella blushed as he smiled. Usually she rebuffed any flirting easily. It was just a little harder to do this morning and not just because they were on a bed in a very dark room, more because she felt as if she had glimpsed today the real Santo, the one behind the very expensive but very shallow facade.
‘I would miss you.’
‘For a little while.’ Ella smiled.
‘There could be advantages though....’ As he spoke, Ella’s heart thumped in her chest, knew what he was leading up to. ‘Remember how you told me you would never get involved with someone you work with?’
‘I do.’
Her second day at work, they had gone for dinner after, had sat side by side and pored through his diary, Ella taking notes, trying to be efficient but terribly aware of his beauty and trying to ignore it, just trying to work, when his hand had reached for her face.
She’d tried to emulate the hairdresser, had done everything they had said, except her curls hadn’t been quite so glossy and kept escaping the hair tie. She’d felt his hand move to her cheek, his fingers capturing a lock of her hair.
‘Don’t.’
Refreshingly he hadn’t made an excuse and neither had he apologised as he dropped contact. Instead he’d asked a question. ‘Why?’ His eyes had frowned a little, a curious smile on his lips at her response. No doubt it was one he wasn’t used to.
‘I don’t have to give an answer to that.’ Ella had more than met his eyes. ‘But if you try anything like that again, you’ll have my notice with immediate effect.’
How she rued those words now.
‘We have a problem,’ Santo said and she looked at him. Though it was terribly hard to think of Santo and morals at the same time, Ella realised, he did actually have some. For apart from a few stunning suggestions, apart from the odd gentle flirt, not once since that day had he put so much as a finger wrong.
She just wanted him to put that finger wrong now.
And he did.
Just one finger dusted her forearm and Santo waited for her hand to halt his, gave her every opportunity to stand, to change her mind. She’d been very clear as to her boundaries, but his breath stilled as he felt them tumble down.
Hell had been the night, and the morning pure misery, but now... He felt the tiny hairs on her arm rise beneath the pads of his fingers and the constant shiver between them deepen as her silence let him go on.
‘Immediate effect...’ Santo said and he wasn’t checking her leaving date, more the flare of her skin to his, but she did appreciate the check-in. All she wanted now was to find out how it felt to be kissed by a man as expert and beautiful as Santo.
‘I already told you—today never happened.’
He was wary to move too fast and kiss her, and anyway, there was more that his hand wanted to do. It moved up to her neck, his fingers to her cheek, and it lingered a long time on that same lock of hair, where once she had halted him, and then to lips that had never met his. He felt them, slowly explored them.
Ella sat there, her heart pounding, because she had never expected this. She had never known fingers on her lips could be so sensual. Oh, she had heard much about the man, had dreamt about him a little more than she would ever admit to, but she had just never thought of him like this.
She had never thought that he might be slow and unhurried and make her burn between her legs without even offering his mouth.
His fingers worked the flesh of her lips as if he were stroking her below, teasing and worrying the curve of her Cupid’s bow. Then he slipped his finger in and she caught it loosely with her teeth and licked around it, sucked lightly on it. Her tease worked too, because Santo pulled her to him then and replaced his fingers with his tongue. It was a very deep, intimate kiss, his tongue lolling around hers. His hand was on her head, pushing her deeper towards him.
It was, Ella thought as she sank beneath his hand, as if they had kissed five hundred times before, for both knew exactly what the other wanted. She loved the noise of them, the moan he sighed into her mouth. But just as she went to end it, just when she knew she had to, his other hand found her breast and, not in the least bit tenderly, he stroked it. She succumbed to his palm and fingers for there was nothing subtle and as her body responded she was very aware that he was naked beneath the bedding and also, thanks to earlier, very aware as to how delicious the view was under there.
Just when she should leave, when she should stop this, just as her face went to move back, Santo read it. He chased her with his mouth, reached now for her hips and guided her to a stand, a stand where she was bending and kissing him. When she stopped, he did not let her retreat, because the magic of his mouth had her kneeling on the bed and the implicit message from his hands had her lying on top of him, looking down at him.
‘Where were we?’ He smiled. ‘Oh, that’s right...’ and he got back to kissing. And even though it was Ella dressed and on top, she felt as if she were naked beneath, for he had completely taken her over, his hands sliding over her bottom, pressing her in. Then he moved her a fraction, till she was perfectly poised, and he lifted his hips as his hands shifted her.
It was supposed to be a kiss, but he was filthy and indecent and just so good. It really was supposed to have been just a kiss except his fingers had undone her skirt and his hands now slid in and cupped her bottom and still he moved her.
‘Santo.’ She tried to halt him, had no idea the fire she’d been playing with. She’d known he’d be good, but Ella just hadn’t been prepared for how good he was. In just a few minutes her body felt scalded, and in no time at all she wanted to tear at her clothes just for the relief of being naked. She was grappling for control here and fast realising that with Santo she had none.
‘Come on, Ella...’ He was hurrying her for a reason. He wanted her to come so that two minutes later he could, because Santo knew the second he was inside he’d explode. His hand was working the curves that had taunted him for months now and he wanted to spend the day making up for lost time. Finally there was one good thing to hold on to and hold on to it he did, squeezing and digging his fingers into her buttocks, grinding his hips up to hers. He was just lost in the reprieve from the hell she had given him, so lost that it took a second to realise that she had stopped kissing him He looked up to Ella as she lifted her head, his hands stilling as the once-mutual rhythm stopped.
‘Get some sleep.’ She was as breathless as he.
‘Don’t do that to me.’ Santo grinned and pressed into her again.
‘I am doing that.’
‘Ella!’
‘It’s a kiss, Santo...’ she attempted, because it had been so very much more. ‘It doesn’t always have to lead to something.’ Except her body said otherwise, but she was not going to lose her head to him. She reminded herself why—he was a rake, and an unrepentant rake at that. ‘Have you seen the state of your neck?’ she sweetly said. ‘I find it a bit off-putting.’
‘Nothing happened last night.’
He felt her disbelieving half-laugh, felt it reverberate through him as her breasts lay heavy and warm on his chest. ‘Actually, it’s true. I got so bored kissing her, midway my mind wandered.’ It was terrible that he could make her laugh. ‘Next thing I knew she was leeched onto my neck.’
‘You should pay more attention.’
She was reminded of the placement of his hands as his fingers stroked her buttocks gently and then ventured just a little further to her centre. ‘Oh, I’ll pay attention, miss.’
So tempting was that thought she almost conceded, but no, it was supposed to have been just a kiss and Ella needed her head, needed to think, and with Santo lying naked beneath her, it wasn’t a very doable ask.
‘Go to sleep.’ She gave him a light kiss on the lips but did not linger. She prised her body from his and stood, did up her skirt with hands that were shaking and made no effort to tuck her blouse in, just collected the phone. But as she reached the door his voice caught her.
‘Could you pass me the tissues?’
‘You know what, Santo?’ Ella was at the door. ‘You just take things too far sometimes.’
‘Sorry?’ She heard the question in his voice and then he laughed. ‘I want to blow my nose. It’s a curious thing this crying. I’ve never done it before. I feel like I have a cold.’
‘Liar!’ Ella said, and threw him the box.
He caught it and then his words caught her again at the door. ‘But if you change your mind...’
CHAPTER FOUR (#u513e9808-37ee-5b1c-8569-ec733bef2466)
SHE WOULD NOT be changing her mind, so instead Ella headed out of the bedroom and, closing the door, poured herself a glass of grapefruit juice. She liked the tart taste on her tongue but it did not quench her, because her mouth still thrummed from his attention. The skin on her face was still alive from the drag of his jaw and there was a triangle of ache from her nipples that pointed down. The heavy bedroom door might just as well be made of paper, because it would be so easy to walk through it.

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