Blackmailed Bride, Innocent Wife

Fury radiated from his glittering eyes, the steel-grey of a drawn sword. His posture was aggressive, like that of a man poised to destroy.

Alissa opened her mouth to tell him her life hadn’t been one of luxury, but of punishment and fear. Yet he wouldn’t believe her. He’d seen her grandfather’s home, the grandest in that district of Victoria. He’d believe what he wanted to believe.

Just as the local townspeople had found it convenient to believe Gianfranco was a devoted old man who lavished care and luxury on his granddaughters. Far easier than facing the truth, that the pillar of society was a miserly sadist who spent a small fortune entertaining dignitaries to build his prestige but who thought nothing of sentencing his granddaughters to a week of bread and water for the slightest disobedience.

‘Well? Nothing to say?’

She looked up into heavily lidded eyes, ignoring the flutter of tension in her stomach as she met his scathing glare. It wasn’t her fault Dario Parisi was caught up in the destructive vendetta between their families.

‘I’m not responsible for my grandfather’s actions.’

‘So you admit he did wrong?’

Alissa’s lips firmed at the recollection of Gianfranco’s crimes. The memories were so vivid she found her hands clasped together, white-knuckled and shaking.

Carefully she unknotted her fingers and let her hands fall. The past was the past. It was that knowledge which had enabled her to turn her life around, hers and Donna’s.

‘He did many things that were wrong. Perhaps now he’s paying for them.’ He’d been frightened enough by the looming prospect of death to leave his estate to the church, trying to atone for a lifetime of sins. All except the Sicilian property. He’d used that to try manipulating her one last time.

‘Don’t expect me to shoulder his guilt.’ She stared back boldly, refusing to be intimidated. After what she’d survived a tongue-lashing was nothing. More important was the vital question of how to meet the terms of the will and get the inheritance she so desperately needed.

‘Can I help you?’ A disapproving voice made Alissa spin round. A woman in a navy suit glared at them from an open doorway. Alissa opened her mouth to apologise for intruding but Dario forestalled her.

‘Chiedo scusa. We shouldn’t be here, I know.’ He lifted his shoulders and spread his open hands and smiled.

Even from where Alissa stood to one side, that smile was spectacular. It transformed his face from censorious and autocratic to warm, attractive and, she hated to admit it, downright sexy.

She blinked but the metamorphosis remained in place. He looked a completely different man. If she hadn’t known what sort of guy Dario Parisi was she’d have thought him stunning. Even his eyes sparkled with charming, rueful apology. And that smile…

He was more dangerous than she’d thought!

The sheer force of his personality and his absolute determination to get what he wanted made him formidable enough. But with a charm that made even Alissa’s pulse quicken? Definitely a man to beware.

The office worker didn’t think so. Her frown melted and a smile hovered on her prim mouth as she heard his glib explanation, liberally peppered with Italian phrases. Cynically Alissa wondered if they were a deliberate part of the charming-Mediterranean-male persona he’d adopted.

It was only when he used the words ‘my fiancée’ and stepped close that she focused on the content of his spiel. She jerked out of reach as he explained how he and his fiancée needed privacy to discuss a personal matter.

Alissa glared, but her anger only corroborated the implication they’d had a lovers’ tiff. Before she could set the record straight the other woman was actually apologising that she couldn’t let them use her office as she had urgent work to do.

Unbelievable!

‘No, no, you mustn’t apologise. We have intruded here long enough.’ He turned to Alissa. ‘Come, cara.’

Alissa nodded at the now beaming woman and walked stiff-legged from the room, speeding up when she felt the proprietorial warmth of his touch in the small of her back.

She didn’t pause as they walked outside. The rain had eased and she marched down the steps, too aware of Dario beside her. He was infuriating, impossible and an undoubted threat. Yet she couldn’t ignore a tiny thrill of awareness at his long, lean body so close to hers.

She must be going crazy.

‘In here, fidanzatina mia.’

‘I’m not your little fiancée.’ The words shot out of her mouth, indignation flaring anew. Her Italian was rusty but that she understood. ‘We don’t have an audience now so you can drop the act.’

She turned to see him inviting her to enter a limo, complete with tinted windows and a chauffeur standing to attention at the door. It was in a ‘No Stopping’ zone and the chauffeur, despite his suit, looked more like a burly bodyguard than a mere driver. More reminders of Dario’s status and wealth.

‘I’m not going anywhere in that.’ Not with Dario Parisi. Especially not in a limo with blacked-out windows, driven by a goon.

‘We have things to discuss.’ The thread of almost-temper wove through his words, though his face gave nothing away. ‘You know it. This isn’t finished.’

Unfortunately he was right. Alissa would have loved to stalk away and never see him again. But that wasn’t going to happen. Her shoulders slumped as weariness and worry took their toll. What choice did she have?

‘OK.’ She paused, thinking rapidly. ‘There’s a decent café two blocks away. We should find a quiet table.’

Silently he regarded her as if she were some unique specimen. Perhaps she was, refusing to kowtow to him. She’d bet a lot of women would just say ‘Yes, Dario. Whatever you say, Dario’, blinded by his wealth and fatal charm.

Even now the memory of his sexy smile warmed a shocked part of her.

‘Daccordo. Come on, then. Lead the way.’ He gestured her forward and paused to speak to the chauffeur.

You will be marrying me instead. His words resounded in her head as she walked. The words she’d steadfastly refused to think about for the last few minutes.

Could it be true? Could that be why he’d come to Australia? To claim her as his bride?

The idea sent a chill of trepidation through her. She tugged her shoulder bag on more securely and hugged her arms tight across her torso.

Dario Parisi’s bride…the very fate she’d been so determinedto avoid.

How she’d paid for her determination that last year in the old man’s house. He’d never forgiven her refusal to comply with his scheme to link the two families.

She should have left home then, but she’d felt compelled to stay till Donna was legally old enough to leave home too. Donna had been her responsibility for as long as she could remember. She’d never leave her little sister alone to their grandfather’s tender mercies.

Absently she rubbed at her wrist, remembering Gianfranco’s reaction when she’d rejected the marriage he’d schemed to bring about.

‘You’re getting wet.’ The deep voice curled like smoke through her memories, drawing her back to the present.

She turned her head to find Dario walking beside her, holding an enormous umbrella over them both. Heat from his body transferred the few centimetres to hers: her arm, her shoulder, her hip and thigh. And further, spreading through her shock-numbed body. Latent energy sizzled off him in waves, sparking tingles of awareness.

What was this man? Some sort of power generator?

Her pulse quickened and so did her pace. She didn’t like the illusion of intimacy as he sheltered her from the rain. The world beyond the umbrella was an anonymous blur, cocooning them together as the soft rain became a downpour.

It didn’t seem to bother him, though the rain angled down so his legs must be getting wet. Had he chosen her left side to shelter her from a soaking? Surely not. This man was no protector.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured eventually, forcing the words through her tense lips, ‘for the umbrella.’

He looked at her then. She could no longer see the gleam of anger in his eyes or stark impatience. But his expression made her stomach muscles spasm tight, her breath falter. She read speculation and something that looked almost like possessiveness.

No! Abruptly she looked away. There was no expression in his eyes. Nothing at all.