Her Passionate Italian: The Passion Bargain / A Sicilian Husband / The Italian's Marriage Bargain

‘Let me go,’ she choked out. Being this close to him was beginning to take on the properties of a nightmare—the whole evening was!

‘Not in the near future, cara,’ he responded with dry, grim sarcasm that was so thick with sexual reference that she stumbled.

He kept her upright. He kept her moving over uneven cobblestones. He kept her wrapped so closely to him that she had difficulty trying to take in her surroundings though she did manage to note that they were walking across an enclosed courtyard that made her footsteps echo off the surrounding walls. She could also hear the soft sound of a fountain somewhere, saw dark blue paintwork framing long, narrow windows set into burnt-sienna-painted walls.

Then they were stopping in front of a door. Muscles flexed as he leant forward to grasp the handle, the grasp of his long fingers sliding upwards a small inch that was all it required to let her right breast know they were there. She sucked in a sharp gasp as a fresh wave of heat poured in that direction. If it hadn’t been for the denim jacket helping to conceal what was happening to her she would have folded with embarrassment when she felt the nipple grow excruciatingly tight.

The door swung open with a twist of the handle, and she was being propelled through it into a fully lit long, wide hallway with faded blue walls and gold-leaf plasterwork. He didn’t so much as pause as he began hustling her over a stunning blue mosaic floor towards the other end of the hall. They passed by a pair of staircases that sped off at right angles, one on either side of them, passed beautiful pieces of furniture that were in themselves priceless works of art. Everything she set her dizzy eyes on was stunningly tasteful and elegant, nothing bore so much as a vague resemblance to the Batistes’ white villa with its overt grandeur and style.

Another door was flung open and once again she was being ushered firmly through it into a square-shaped room with more gold-leaf plasterwork, chalk-pale terracotta walls and yet another mosaic floor made up of brown and black marble inlaid with gold.

At last he let her go and she swayed a little as she looked for balance, then instantly spun round as the door was slotted into its frame. Eyes wide, control shot, unsure whether she should be terrified or just plain angry after that shocking kiss and the way he’d hustled her in here, ‘W-what is this place?’ she demanded. ‘Why have you brought me here?’

His smile had a sinister cut to it. The way he folded his arms across his impressive chest, crossed his elegant black shoes at his ankles then leant those broad shoulders back against the door and even the glitter behind his narrowed eyes were displays of arrogant provocation that brought every nerve-end she had left ringing on full alert.

‘Welcome, to the Palazzo del Carlucci,’ he murmured smoothly. ‘Home to my family for the last four centuries and now, mi amore, the venue for your complete ravishment—in the honourable name of revenge, of course.’

As a calculated heart-stopper he had certainly hit the perfect note, Carlo saw as he watched all colour drain from her face. His sarcastic tone had slid right by her and he was angry enough not to care.

No, he was more than angry—he was bloody furious! He’d put his reputation on the line for her tonight. He’d watched over her, been there to catch her when she’d fallen, found her time and the privacy to come to terms with the reality of what Batiste was really like. He’d protected, sup-ported—smiled in the face of a hundred scandalised stares while he got her out of that situation as fast as he could. And what did she do?

She took the word of a lying tramp like her flatmate and turned him into the enemy!

‘Lay a hand on me and I’ll claw your eyes out,’ she responded shakily to his silk-honed threat.

He sent her a smile that mocked and derided. ‘Since we both know that my laying both hands on you is more likely to make you purr than claw, it was a rather wasted threat, don’t you think?’

It was like feeding candy to a baby, he noted. She grabbed every word and swallowed it whole. In some dark corner of his anger he enjoyed watching her squirm in growing alarm. He even shifted his stance as if to come after her, just to see how she would react.

She took a step back. ‘Stay right where you are!’ she jerked out sharply and put out a hand to ward him off.

Some chance, he thought. The ravishment was becoming more appetising by the second. And that kiss-softened quivering mouth was just begging to be ravished again—and again. If her beautiful eyes went any darker they would be the same colour as his own eyes, which made him very curious as to how dark they were going to go in the throes of some very intense passion.

‘I will be no one else’s victim—especially not yours!’

‘Why not mine? When you don’t think twice about playing the willing victim for anyone who wants to beat you up with their lies?’

‘Whose lies are you referring to?’ She threw a puzzled frown at him. It hit him low in his loins like a kick. He’d never known a simple dusky frown could be so damn sexy, it sent his shoulders shifting tensely inside his dinner jacket.

‘Are you saying that Nicola Mauraux isn’t your stepsister?’

‘No,’ he sighed. ‘I am not saying that.’

‘Then what are you saying? Do you think tonight has been a ball of laughter for me, signor? Do you think I want to be standing here listening to you play stupid word-games just for the fun of it?’

He went to answer but wasn’t given the chance to. ‘I am not the one at fault for whatever Angelo did to your stepsister,’ she told him in trembling self-defence. ‘As far as I knew they’d finished their relationship when Nicola returned to her studies in Paris!’ she cried. ‘I do not steal other women’s men from them. And I will not take the blame because your stepsister was hurt! If you want your revenge look to Angelo—and show a little class by moving away from that door so that I can leave!’

Well, well, Carlo thought curiously, narrowing his eyes on her stiff if trembling stance, and had to acknowledge that his tables had just been turned. It came as a surprise because he hadn’t thought she had it in her to take him on with quite so much ego-shredding venom.

Show a little class, he repeated musingly to himself, and almost smiled at the hit that cutting remark had landed on his pride.

‘And here I was, waiting for you to apologise to me for daring to believe the word of some vamped-up little tramp in really deep trouble, who thought she would stick a few knives in by telling you that I was capable of using you for the purposes of revenge!’

His voice had risen in anger; now she was staring at him through huge shocked eyes. ‘I…’ she began.

‘From there I thought we would continue where we left off in the courtyard,’ he continued ruthlessly without letting her speak. ‘With some really deep, passionate sex—preferably in my very big, comfortable bed, where we would work to help clear away your quite understandable blues.’

Her chin shot up at the very deliberate way he had just casually dismissed the devastation she had to be suffering.

‘After the sex we could then discuss Nicola and how the whole Carlucci clan is in your debt for luring Batiste into believing that the Gianni fortune would be more accessible than hers would be.’

At last she was beginning to realise that this conversation had another edge to it. He could see a slow dawning colouring her eyes.

‘However,’ he went on, ‘if you prefer to leave then by all means do so.’ He even straightened from the door to give her safe passage. ‘There is a phone in the hall and a pad lying next to it with the number of a very good taxi service. If I were you I would get the driver to recommend a hotel for the night and avoid going back to your apart-ment—just in case you walk in on your best friend and your ex-fiancé indulging their lusts on the sitting-room carpet.’

Having watched her blanch at his final cut-throat comment, he strode across the room, arrogantly assured that he had recovered his ego—at the expense of hers.

Did that knowledge sit well on him? No, it didn’t, he admitted with a grimace. But one of them had to climb off their high horse and, since he had no intention of doing it, it had to be Francesca.

He was a full-blooded Carlucci after all. She was only half a Gianni.

And anyway, he was still angry despite his smooth, careless speech. There were a million things he could have been doing out there if he hadn’t been devoting his full and undivided attention to Francesca Bernard and her Cinderella plight!

Cinderella, he scathed as he approached the antique French armoire almost dominating one wall. Well, if that made him her Prince Charming then he wasn’t doing a very good job of it, he conceded as he glared at the armoire his stepmother had brought with her from Paris when she married his father.

As he opened the doors he smelled the age of the solid old wood. Inside had been converted into a comprehensive drinks cabinet, which had always seemed a desecration to him but—he offered another grimace. Nanette had been proud of it and in the end that was all that mattered. This single piece of furniture had been her one and only heirloom and she’d loved to see it sitting here in this great house that groaned beneath centuries of Carlucci statements to wealth and good taste. What else she brought into this house had always been far more valuable.

It was called love and happiness. And for those gifts alone the armoire would remain exactly where it stood for as long as he held power of decision over the house.

Reaching for the bottle of cognac and a deep-bowled glass, he was aware that Francesca still hadn’t made that move towards the door. Placing the bowl of the glass in his palm to warm it while he uncapped the bottle of cognac, he dared a sideways glance at her.

She looked like a pale and bewildered ghost, he observed. Her eyes were too wide and rimmed by the stinging threat of tears that placed a fine quiver on her mouth. She was trying to control it, trying her best to maintain some pride and dignity. But she wasn’t standing where he was standing and seeing what he was seeing. She looked vulnerable, exhausted, so damn shattered he was amazed she was still in one piece.

Her skin looked so strained it was waxen. And her hair was trying its best to escape again, the beaded comb barely clinging to the twisted silken knot.

But not for long, he promised himself as he turned away again. He was going to help the hair out in a minute. He was going to remove the silly comb and let the whole tawny mass tumble free. And he was going to heat that waxen flesh until it melted. He was going to remove that silly denim jacket then that silly dress with its romantic layers of chiffon that did nothing for her and yelled ‘bought to please Angelo Batiste!’.

Anger growled like a snarling dog inside him; his lips bit together to stop the sound from coming out.

He was going to strip her down to her wonderful skin and bin the whole bloody outfit. Then he was going to begin the task of rebuilding her from the inside out. He was going to turn her into what he perceived she would be if she hadn’t had her self-confidence beaten to a pulp by inadequate selfish swines like Bruno Gianni and Batiste.

But for now he was going to have to continue to play it tough here, because she also looked like a trapped bird trying to sum up the courage to make a bolt for escape. If she did then he was going to have to stop her—and cornered, trapped birds had a nasty habit of flying at your face.

He poured a generous splash of cognac into the glass then swirled it around while deftly recapping the bottle with his free hand. By the time he turned back to her he was relieved to find that she’d moved at last and was no longer staring vacantly into space but was looking up at the gilt-framed portrait hanging above the huge stone fireplace, in which his father stood with his arms linked around the slender frame of the beautiful dark-haired Nanette. Nanette was looking up, his father was gazing down, and only a blind idiot would miss the wealth of love and affection that poured from every brushstroke.

‘You look like him,’ she said.

‘Mm,’ he acknowledged with a small wry smile. ‘Nanette Mauraux was my father’s second wife,’ he explained as he walked towards her. ‘My mother died when I was—quite young.’