Tall, Dark... Collection

Bella raised startled eyes to Gabriel’s, frowning slightly as she saw the glass he held out to her. Champagne. It would have to be champagne, wouldn’t it?

‘Thank you,’ she accepted stiltedly.

Gabriel watched beneath hooded lids as Bella’s cheeks warmed with colour as she took the fluted glass from him with a deftness that prevented her fingers from coming into contact with his.

His mouth twisted derisively as he asked, ‘Is this your first visit to San Francisco, too, Bella?’

‘Yes.’

‘You like the city?’

‘Very much.’

‘Have you done much sightseeing since your arrival?’

‘Some, yes.’

Gabriel’s gaze narrowed at the economy of her replies. ‘Perhaps—’

‘Excuse me for interrupting, Gabriel,’ his cousin Dahlia, tomorrow’s bride, cut in lightly as she joined them, ‘but my brother Benito is anxious to become reacquainted with Claudia,’ she added indulgently.

‘Really?’ The younger of the two Scott sisters glanced across the room to where Benito stood watching her intently.

Bella felt herself begin to tremble as she was overwhelmed with an impending sense of doom. If Claudia left then Bella would be completely alone with—

‘You don’t mind, do you, Bella?’ Claudia’s eyes were glowing with excitement. She had confided in Bella earlier today, after being introduced to Benito the previous evening, that she definitely wanted to get to know Dahlia’s older brother better.

Obviously the attraction was reciprocated—which didn’t help Bella in the least when she had no inclination whatsoever to be left alone with Gabriel Danti!

‘I assure you, Claudia, your sister will be perfectly safe with me,’ Gabriel replied with dry mockery before Bella had a chance to say anything.

Bella shot him a glance beneath her long lashes. She still had absolutely no idea whether or not Gabriel remembered her from their night together five years ago—and she didn’t want to know, either.

She remembered him, and that was bad enough!

But before she could add anything to his reply Claudia gave her arm a grateful squeeze. ‘Thanks, Bella,’she whispered before moving away to accompany Dahlia over to where the dark and handsome Benito stood waiting.

The sudden silence the two women left in their wake seemed deafening to Bella.

The room was full of people, at least a hundred or so of the guests invited to the wedding tomorrow, all of them chatting or laughing as they either renewed old acquaintances or met new ones. And yet as far as Bella was concerned she and Gabriel could have been alone on an island in the Arctic—the air between them was certainly frigidly cold enough for them to be on one!

‘There is a more—private sitting area next to this one in which we might talk,’ Gabriel bit out abruptly.

Bella raised apprehensive eyes, knowing that wariness was justified as Gabriel looked down his nose at her with a glacial brown gaze, his mouth—the mouth she had once found so sensually mesmerising!—flattened to a thin, uncompromising line above that cleft chin.

She moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘I’m perfectly happy where I am, thank you, Mr Danti.’

His eyes became even more icy as he reached out and curled his fingers compellingly about the top of her arm. ‘It was a statement of intent, Bella, not a question,’ he assured her grimly as he began to walk towards the exit, Bella firmly anchored to his side, the stiffness of his left leg barely noticeable.

‘But—’

‘Do you really want to have this conversation here, in front of Dahlia and Brian’s other guests?’ he asked harshly as he came to a halt halfway across the crowded room to look down at her through narrowed lids.

Bella swallowed hard as she saw the unmistakeably angry glitter in that dark gaze. ‘I have absolutely no idea what conversation you’re referring to—’

‘Oh, I think that you do, Bella,’he retorted menacingly.

Bella thought that she did, too!

She only wished that she didn’t. But Gabriel’s behaviour since Claudia and Dahlia’s departure all pointed to the fact that he did remember her from five years ago, after all…

CHAPTER TWO

‘I REALLY have no idea what the two of us could possibly have to talk about, Mr Danti,’ Bella told him stiltedly as he sat perfectly relaxed in the armchair across from hers in the quiet of the otherwise deserted small reception-room just down the hallway from where the family party was being held.

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed on the paleness of her face as she sat stiffly upright in her own chair. ‘Considering our—past acquaintance, shall we say?—I believe refraining from addressing me as “Mr Danti” in that superior tone would be a good way to begin.’

She raised her brows in what she hoped was a querying manner. ‘Our past acquaintance…?’

Gabriel’s mouth thinned. ‘Do not play games with me, Bella!’

She shot him another glance before looking sharply away again. ‘I wasn’t sure you had remembered we’d met before…’

‘Oh, I remember,’ he growled.

She swallowed hard before speaking. ‘As do I—Gabriel,’ she conceded tightly.

He gave a humourless smile. ‘You had absolutely no idea I would be here tonight, did you?’

Those eyes flashed deeply purple at his mocking tone. ‘Why should I have done? Dahlia’s name is Fabrizzi.’

‘Her mother, my aunt Teresa, is my father’s younger sister,’ Gabriel supplied evenly.

Bella’s mouth twisted. ‘How sweet that you flew all the way from Italy to attend your cousin’s wedding!’

Gabriel’s mouth thinned at her obvious mockery. ‘I no longer live in Italy, Bella.’

She looked startled. ‘You don’t?’

Gabriel shook his head. ‘I spend most of my time at the Danti vineyards about an hour’s drive away from here, but I also have a house right here in San Francisco.’

Bella could easily guess exactly where in San Francisco that house was!

She and the rest of her family had gone for a tour of the city earlier today, and part of that tour had been through an area known as Pacific Heights, where the houses were grand and gracious—and worth millions of dollars!

‘Do you like living in America?’ she asked curiously.

Gabriel shrugged. ‘It has its—advantages.’