New Arrivals: One Secret Child: Mistress, Mother...Wife? / Wealthy Australian, Secret Son / Her Prince's Secret Son

Anna had watched Dan’s tall broad-shouldered physique as he left the bar with her heart thumping. Now, in the privacy of her room, she blew out a trembling breath, dropping down onto the padded stool in front of the dressing table because she hardly trusted her legs to keep her upright.

The enigmatic stranger was staying in the only suite in the building. It was the most luxurious and gorgeous accommodation she had ever seen. With its beautiful Turkish kelims hanging on the walls, artisan-created bespoke furniture and under-floor heating, no expense had been spared in its creation and it cost a small fortune to stay there for even one night.

Biting her lip, Anna peered into the dressing table mirror to gauge if her expression was as terrified as she felt. Was she really contemplating visiting a male guest in his room? Talking to that lovely couple who’d been to the theatre earlier, she had felt such a pang of envy at their closeness. It wasn’t very often she succumbed to feelings of loneliness, but somehow tonight she had. What had he meant when he’d whispered, It would mean a lot to me…especially tonight? Was he feeling lonely too? Had the funeral she guessed he’d attended been for someone really close to him? His wife perhaps?

A heavy sigh, part compassion, part longing, left her. If anyone saw her go to his room then she really could lose her job. Was the loneliness that had infiltrated her blood tonight making her a little desperate? Not to mention reckless? Sighing again, Anna went into the bathroom to splash her face with cold water.

Back in the main room, she glanced unseeingly at the television that sat there. Somehow a late-night movie or talk show didn’t hold any draw for her. Neither did curling up in bed alone with her thoughts appeal. She’d sensed an inexplicable overwhelming connection to the man who had whispered in her ear downstairs and it was somehow impossible to ignore it. Tomorrow he might be gone, she reasoned feverishly.

She would be wondering what might have been—and the feeling would gnaw away at her if she didn’t act.

With fingers that shook, she freed her hair from the neatly coiled bun she’d got so adept at fashioning for work, then pulled a careless brush through the river of auburn silk that flowed down her back. Pinching her cheeks to make them pinker, she quickly changed into a dark green top and light blue jeans. He only wants to talk, she reassured herself as she walked out into the corridor. But her pulse beat with fright because he might have been looking for something more…something that in her heart of hearts she secretly longed for.

Flicking an anxious glance towards the small elevator that would soundlessly deliver her to the topmost floor, Anna sucked in a breath as she walked towards it.

The memory of Dan and his haunting mist-coloured eyes came back to her, cutting a swathe through her sudden doubt. Just because he was rich it didn’t mean that he didn’t suffer like everyone else…didn’t mean that he didn’t need help sometimes. And from her very first glimpse of him Anna had known he was tortured by something.

The polite welcome he’d intended got locked inside his throat when Dante opened the door to the vision that confronted him. She wore her bright auburn hair loose, and it resembled a burnished autumn sunset cascading down over her shoulders. His stomach muscles clamped tight and the saliva in his mouth dried to a sun-baked desert.

Finding his voice, he murmured, ‘Come in.’

Stepping inside, Anna smiled. It was shy and brief, but it still gave him a jolt that had his heart thrumming with undeniable excitement.

‘What can I get you to drink?’ Moving across the gold and red Chinese rug that covered the main area of the polished wooden floor, Dante paused in front of the dark mahogany glass-fronted cabinet that contained several bottles of spirits behind it and rested his gaze on Anna.

‘Nothing, thanks. Alcohol and me don’t mix, I’m afraid. Just one sip is enough to make me dizzy.’

‘A soft drink, then?’

‘Please… just see to yourself. I’m fine, really.’

Dropping his hands restlessly to his hips, he let a rueful grin hijack his lips.

‘I think I’ve probably had quite enough for one night.’

‘You’ve decided not to drown your sorrows after all?’

‘Not now that you’ve consented to visit me, Anna.’

She crossed her arms over her dark green top, and Dante couldn’t think of a colour that would complement her pale satin skin more. Without warning, the fresh, searing pain of his recent loss swept over him. It returned with renewed force and he wanted to reach out, anchor himself to life again, remind himself that even though his mother had gone beauty and grace were still his to appreciate if only he’d take the trouble to see it. If he brushed up close to such admirable qualities in Anna would it relieve him of the bitter, despairing thoughts that pounded on him so disturbingly? Thoughts that confirmed his growing belief that he must be no good?

Yes, his nature was clearly unlovable and unworthy of regard—hadn’t his own father abandoned him?—so perhaps he deserved abandonment by the people close to him? Especially when he’d been so ruthlessly focused on making himself rich that he scarcely saw the needs of anyone else.

‘It upsets me when you look like that,’ Anna confessed softly.

‘Like what? ‘

‘As if you don’t like yourself very much.’

‘Is there no hiding from that all-seeing gaze of yours?’ Dante retorted uncomfortably.

‘I just want to help you if I can.’

‘Do you? Do you really?’

‘Of course I do. Why do you think I came? Would you like to talk about it?’

‘No, sweetheart. Talking is not what I need right now,’ he answered, gravel-voiced.

And for a man who had prided himself on achieving anything he put his mind to in life it was ironically too difficult a task to keep the raw need that surged through his body like a tidal wave completely out of his tone.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_efea989e-863b-5558-acd0-11def0ea4d78)

IN SLOW motion he reached for Anna’s hand. His eyes—those intense, burning, ethereal eyes—held her willing prisoner, right then becoming her whole world.

‘What do you want?’ she whispered, hardly able to hear over the pounding of her heart. ‘What do you need?’

‘You, Anna…right now I want and need you.’

After that, words became unnecessary. His fingers were slipping through her hair, anchoring her head so that she was placed perfectly for his kiss when he delivered it…when the touch of his lips ignited a heartfelt need that had slumbered achingly inside her for years and promised to more than satisfy it.

She’d always thought that maybe her impassioned secret desires were doomed to remain unrequited. On the rare occasion when she’d allowed herself to overcome her mistrust and be caressed by a man, the experience had never remotely lived up to her hopes. All it had done was leave her feeling vulnerable, scared that she would end up alone and unloved until the end of her days. But now, as his warm velvet tongue so hungrily and devastatingly swept her mouth’s interior, the flavours she tasted rocked her.

Along with passion, fervour and consuming need, Anna was alive to the anger, despair and pain that she tasted too. But she didn’t let such stark emotions scare her…not when they mirrored feelings of her own that she’d often been too afraid to bring into the light. Because of that she innately understood the tumult that flowed heatedly through his blood—good and bad—even if she didn’t know the details.

Crushed to his warm hard chest in its dark roll-necked sweater, she felt musky male heat and sexy woody cologne captivate her senses as he ravished her in the starved, insatiable way she’d always dreamt of being loved by a man. Holding on to his hard-muscled biceps to keep from falling, Anna feverishly and willingly paid him back in kind. And in her head echoed the advice from her mother that she’d never forgotten: Only give yourself to someone you love.

On the bed in a room where in their haste to be together they hadn’t even paused to turn on a light they raided each other’s clothes with trembling hands—desperate for skin on skin contact and more drugging open-mouthed kisses that promised to last all night long. And if he’d temporarily lost his mind in taking this young red-haired beauty to bed then Dante heartily welcomed the state. She was the first really good thing that had happened to him in ages, and he wasn’t about to question his good fortune.

The intoxicating feminine scent of her body had already taken up residence in his blood, and it thrummed with wanting her. The arresting sight of that rippling blanket of fiery hair on the silk cream pillow behind her head made a stirring, ravishing picture that he would not soon forget. Now, as his hands eagerly caressed the smooth, slender contours of Anna’s body, the breathless gasps she emitted made him blind to any other sensation but their wild and heady mutual desire. He was all but desperate to plunge inside her, to forget everything except the unrestrained thundering joy of the chemistry that had exploded between them from almost the first glance, to relegate the darkness that had recently threatened to suffocate him, to the shadows.

Sensing her stiffen a little as he explored her heat with his fingers, Dante rose up to cup and stroke her face. A duty that should have been at the forefront of his dazzled mind suddenly stabbed at his conscience.

‘I’m sorry, Anna…I should protect you. Is that what you are concerned about? ‘

‘It’s okay,’ she sighed, dark eyes shy. ‘I’m protected already. I’m on the pill.’

For an indeterminate amount of time Dante got lost in her wide fire-lit stare, and then he came to and kissed her. The caress seemed to gentle her. Then, his blood flowing with increasing desire and demand, slowly, care fully, he drove himself deep inside her. The heat that exploded around him was incredible.

Anna’s sherry-brown eyes smouldered and brightened at the same time, but Dante had not missed the momentary flash of apprehension in her beautiful glance either. Too aroused and aching to wonder about it for long, he felt his body naturally assume the age-old rhythm that would take him to the destination and release he longed for…a destination that could and would free him for a while from the merciless torment that had deluged him when his mother had breathed her last laboured breath in his arms. Instead of grief and misery, ecstasy and bliss would be his. And for a blessed short time, at least, all the hurt would be swept away.

His strength of purpose all but overwhelmed Anna as she watched him move over her, his arrow-straight hips slamming into hers as his loving became ever more intense, ever more voracious. By instinct and by desire she wound her long legs round his back, until he was so deep inside her that she felt as if her body no longer existed just as one. Instead, she and he had become a single entity, with two hearts beating wildly in tandem and mind, body and spirit in stunning accord. She had given herself to him without doubt that it was the right thing. destined, even.

Would it scare him to know that she thought that? A girl he had just met, to whom he probably wouldn’t even give the time of day normally?

In the soft darkness that seemed to be growing ever lighter as Anna’s eyes grew more accustomed to it his smooth muscles rippled like warm steel beneath her trembling, caressing fingers. His breath was harshly ragged as he alternately devoured her lips and then, with that same hot, tormenting mouth, moved lower to caress her breasts. He suckled the rigid aching tips in turn, and Anna couldn’t withhold the heated moan that broke free. It was as though her very womb rejoiced when he touched and caressed her.

When he rose up again to capture her lips in another hotly exploring and intimate kiss, something inside her started irrevocably to unravel, to spiral dizzyingly out of control. At first, because she was nervous of being so vulnerable and exposed in front of him, Anna tensed, trying to stem the sensation. But at that same moment she stared up at him, to find the corners of his oh-so-sensuous lips lifting in what might have well been a quietly knowing smile, and she completely gave up trying to control what was happening.