The Venetian's Midnight Mistress

‘As if!’ Dani slung her capacious bag over her shoulder. She was wearing her usual work clothes: fitted black trousers and, today, a cashmere sweater the same deep green as her eyes. ‘Although I doubt anyone will even notice what I’m wearing once you appear in that delectable froth of white lace.’

‘I have every intention of introducing you to all my eligible male cousins next Saturday, you know,’ Eleni promised.

Dani shook her head. ‘Introduce away, Eleni, but I can assure you I won’t fall for any of them.’ Especially if they were anything like the arrogantly forceful Niccolo D’Alessandro!

‘Maybe not at the wedding next weekend, but how about at my masquerade party here next summer?’

Dani knew that was part of the reason that Eleni had fallen in love with this particular house. Her friend had taken one look at the spacious garden with its numerous trees and shrubs and instantly decided that the following August she would throw a real Venetian masquerade party there. In fact, her friend was almost as excited about the party next summer as she was about her wedding next week!

‘Not then, either,’ Dani said dryly.

‘But everyone falls in love during the Venetian Festival,’ her friend protested. ‘I remember my Aunt Carlotta telling me that she once spent the whole evening at one of the festivals flirting with her own husband—my Uncle Bartolomeo—without even realising it!’

Dani grinned. ‘I bet he was surprised!’

‘From the becoming blush on my aunt’s cheeks when she told me about it afterwards I would say they both were!’

‘Eleni!’ Dani chided laughingly.

‘You’ll see at the party next year,’ her friend promised. ‘The festival is a way for everyone to misbe have without anyone needing to feel guilty about it.’

‘Even your brother?’ Dani taunted.

‘Well…perhaps not Niccolo,’ Eleni conceded. ‘But the party is months away, Dani, and if you haven’t solved the problem with your grandfather’s will by then, an evening of anonymity could be the answer.’

‘No, Eleni,’ Dani said, easily able to guess what her friend was about to suggest, and having no intention of being seduced into the shrubbery by one of Eleni’s male cousins in order to become pregnant. ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking, and the answer is most definitely no,’ she repeated firmly.

‘But—’

‘No, Eleni.’

‘It was just an idea.’ Her friend shrugged ruefully.

‘Well, it was a lousy one—oh!’ Having intended making her way out of the house to her car in the driveway, Dani instead found herself crashing painfully into something very hard and unyielding.

A man’s chest, she realised, once the pain in her jarred chin had abated to a mild throb.

Niccolo D’Alessandro’s chest, Dani discovered breathlessly when she raised her gaze reluctantly to look at his handsome face above a black silk sweater.

Brooding dark eyes chillingly returned her startled gaze, and that same coldness was in the derisive twist of Niccolo’s sculptured lips as he grasped the tops of her arms with elegantly long hands and put her firmly away from him.

‘Daniella,’ he acknowledged as he released her. ‘I should have guessed.’

Dani’s eyes narrowed at his sarcastic tone. ‘Should have guessed what, exactly?’ she challenged, two bright wings of colour in her cheeks. Colour she knew would not be complementary to the bright red of her straight below-shoulder-length hair.

But at least she had the answer to her earlier question—Niccolo had obviously arrived in England for the wedding next Saturday.

And he was looking even more devastatingly gorgeous than ever, making Dani’s pulse race and her breath catch in her throat. The colour burning her cheeks was from physical awareness this time. Complete physical awareness. Of Niccolo D’Alessandro.

Her breasts tingled uncomfortably and a fierce heat gathered between her thighs.

Oh, God!

She had thought she was over this infatuation—had imagined that no man would appeal to her ever again after what Philip had done to her. But she knew she had been wrong as every nerve ending, every part of her, silently screamed her attraction to Niccolo—of all men!

She looked up at him from beneath lowered dark lashes. Maturity had given him lines beside those chocolate-brown eyes and the firmness of his mouth, but instead of detracting from his good looks they merely added another layer to his attraction, giving him that dangerous sexual aura Eleni had alluded to earlier.

Niccolo was dangerous, Dani acknowledged to herself. He exuded power, a complete domination over everything and everyone within his vicinity.

Well, not her. She’d had enough of domineering men—Philip and her grandfather to name but two—to last her a lifetime.

She turned away abruptly. ‘Never mind,’ she said, in answer to her own question.

‘I thought this morning would be the perfect opportunity for Niccolo to come by and look at the house,’ Eleni said awkwardly.

Dani knew by the way Eleni refused to meet her gaze that there was a lot more to it than that. By inviting him here at the same time as Dani, Eleni had perhaps been hoping for yet another chance of reconciling her brother with her best friend.

Dani sighed in irritation. ‘I really do have to go now, Eleni.’

‘Surely you are not leaving on my account, Daniella?’ Niccolo taunted softly, his voice moving like husky velvet across Dani’s already sensitised flesh.

Dani’s chin rose at the challenge she heard in his tone. ‘No, I was leaving anyway,’ she snapped.

Niccolo watched Daniella Bell from between narrowed lids, noting that she wore her red hair longer than when he had seen her at Eleni’s engagement party a year ago. Now styled in layers, it tumbled fierily onto her shoulders and down her spine. Long, dark lashes were lowered over eyes he knew to be an unfathomable green. Her nose was small and pert and dusted with a dozen or so freckles. Her face was thinner than he remembered, her cheeks hollow, giving those softly pouting lips a fuller appearance above her determinedly pointed chin. Her loss of weight was also borne out by the slenderness of her waist and narrow hips, although her breasts were still firmly full.

And unless he was mistaken—and Niccolo felt sure that he wasn’t—they were also naked beneath that clinging green sweater!

His mouth tightened. Ten years ago he had not approved of or understood Eleni’s affection and friendship for the gawky English girl she had only known for less than a year, and had absolutely refused to allow his sister to complete her education in England so that she could remain in England with her new friend. Eleni had eventually complied with his decision, of course, and instead continued the friendship by telephone and letter.

Then, at the age of eighteen, a much more stubbornly determined Eleni had informed him that she intended attending an English university, and she had instantly met up with Daniella Bell again. If anything, the friendship between the two women had become all the stronger as they had matured.

Admittedly Daniella had grown into a self-assured woman of passable beauty, and Eleni reported she was very successful as an interior designer, but Niccolo still did not approve of her as a friend for his young sister. Even less so after Daniella’s brief marriage two years ago, followed by an equally hasty divorce. It just proved how fickle she really was.

‘I’ll see you later.’ Daniella moved to kiss Eleni on the cheek. ‘Mr D’Alessandro.’ She gave him a curt nod as she straightened.

Daniella didn’t exactly approve of him either, Niccolo recognised with wry self-mockery.

‘What? You have no parting kiss for me, Daniella?’ he asked, a smile curving his lips as she stared at him incredulously.

‘We’re hardly kissing acquaintances, Mr D’Alessandro,’ she finally managed to splutter in disgust.

‘Possibly not.’ He drawled his amusement. ‘Perhaps when we meet again at the wedding…?’

Those green eyes flashed. ‘I believe I will forgo that dubious pleasure!’ she came back waspishly.

Niccolo’s gaze was intent on Daniella as he ignored his sister’s snort of laughter at his expense.

Daniella, he knew, had been in awe of him when they’d first met almost ten years ago—an awe that had quickly turned to infatuation. An infatuation he had been aware of, but had chosen to ignore, even to deliberately rebuff; to a man of twenty-seven years of age Daniella Bell’s calf-like devotion as she’d watched his every move with those deep green eyes had been a danger as well as a nuisance.