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

Yes, Francesca agreed. It had been crass and insensitive—but which man had been the most crass and insensitive?

‘Forget it,’ she said, but both of them knew she was only mouthing words she did not mean.

‘If it helps, he did not mention you by name,’ he offered.

‘Meaning what?’ she flashed. ‘That he left it open to interpretation as to whether he was sleeping around or not? Great. Thanks.’ She gave an angry tug at her arm.

He refused to let go. She could feel his anger, the pulse of his frustration because his bit of light teasing had gone so wrong.

‘I apologise—again,’ he bit out finally.

Francesca glared daggers at his chest. ‘I suppose you think it’s all just jolly good fun to swap sexual experiences across some office desk,’ she said shakily. ‘Men being men,’ with lots of phews and wows and you’d have overslept too if you’d been there. She’d heard the men at work talking like that, having no idea how cheap they made their lovers sound. ‘Egotistic cockerels crowing about their prowess,’ she muttered, not realising she’d said the words out loud until he laughed as if he couldn’t help himself.

‘Don’t laugh at me!’ she snapped out hotly.

‘Then don’t say such comical things,’ he threw back. ‘You sound like some outraged virgin.’

But she was an outraged virgin—that was the whole point! ‘Did you tell him all about the way you propositioned me on the Corso just to even up the score a bit?’

‘No,’ he denied. ‘But the interesting point here is—did you tell him?’

‘Why, are you worried that he might damage your famed sexual ego by telling him how you made a play for his woman and got turned down flat?’

It was reckless. She shouldn’t have said it. His eyes turned as black as bottomless caverns and his other hand came up to capture her other arm. Hard fingers crushed the denim fabric as he drew her closer.

‘Did you turn me down?’ he prompted. ‘Or did you run like a frightened rabbit because you were already so turned on you didn’t know how to cope with it?’

‘That’s not true!’ she gasped in shocked horror.

‘Shall we test that?’

She saw in the dark glitter of his eyes what he meant to do next and drew in a sharp breath. Suddenly something dangerous was dancing in the air, spinning silver spider webs of tension into the golden sunlight.

Then a twig snapped somewhere, bringing the whole episode clattering down as both heads turned to stare across the top of her great-uncle’s wooden gates. Trapped in a trembling force field that held her breathless, Francesca searched the wilderness in some wild, weak, pathetic hope that her great-uncle was about to appear to rescue her from this.

It didn’t happen. No dapper old gentleman wearing a wine-red velvet smoking jacket appeared on the twig-strewn driveway. The dappling light from the afternoon sun quivered amongst the heavily leafed branches of the tangled trees and vines and played with peeling ochre paint, but otherwise the wilderness garden remained at peace.

She sighed as she thought that, the action parting her lips to release the sad sound. He moved, she looked back at him without thinking and met head-on with a pair of dark, brooding eyes that told her things she didn’t want to know—or feel the way she was feeling them.

It was better to look away. ‘Please let me go,’ she whispered shakily.

His fingers flexed against the denim and for a horrible moment she thought he was going to ignore her plea and just continue from where he’d been interrupted. Her throat ran dry. She tried to swallow. The promise of tears bloomed across her eyes.

Then his grip eased and slowly lifted. She stepped back—went to turn her back, desperate now to get away.

‘You are acquainted with Bruno Gianni?’ he asked.

‘What…?’ She blinked, lifting slightly unfocused eyes back to his face. ‘Oh, n-no,’ she denied, and quickly lowered her eyes again—not because of the lie she’d just uttered but because she didn’t want him to see the threatening tears.

She shoved her hands back in her pockets, swung away and made another attempt to leave.

‘Strange …’ he murmured. ‘I could have sworn I saw you posting a note in the letter box as I drove up.’

And she froze all over again. ‘Y-you mistook what you saw,’ she said stiffly. ‘I was admiring the garden, that’s all.’

‘The garden,’ he repeated and uttered a soft laugh. ‘Cara, that isn’t a garden, it is a neglected mess!’

‘And what would you know about a real garden?’ she swung round to slice at him, not sure if she was responding to his derision or the near kiss she had just escaped. ‘I bet your idea of a beautiful garden has to be something filled with straight lines and must be manicured to within an inch of its life!’

‘Bruno Gianni obviously doesn’t feel like that,’ he pointed out.

He was laughing—still laughing at her! He’d even leant a shoulder against one of the gateposts—right next to her letter box! And he’d folded those wretched arms again, tugging that jumper up over the bronze stud at his waist. She hated him, really hated every hard, mocking inch of his sardonic, handsome—sexy stance!

‘Well, neither do I,’ she declared, uttering this next halflie as she tried very hard to put her temper back under wraps. ‘And I like this garden,’ she added within a tightly suppressed breath. ‘I like the way it’s been left to do its own thing. It has soul and atmosphere and—and—’

‘An irresistible hint of romance about it,’ he inserted when she stammered then stalled. ‘We could even say it possesses a kind of lost-in-time mystique about it that some may love to weave secret fantasies around. We could even imagine Sleeping Beauty lying in one of the cobweb-strewn rooms inside waiting for her prince to come and waken her with the all-important kiss.’

‘Oh, very droll,’ she derided. ‘Next you will be telling me you believe in fairies.’

‘Why not?’ he quizzed. ‘We should all believe there is magic out there or we would stop bothering to look for it and that would be sad, don’t you think? Oh, come on, Francesca,’ he sighed out impatiently when she stiffened up in offence. ‘I was teasing you. Stop prickling.’

‘I’m not prickling,’ she snapped, prickling even as she denied it.

He uttered a short laugh. ‘You remind me of a very beautiful but temperamental tabby cat,’ he told her. ‘Every time I look at you I can almost see the hairs on the back of your neck standing up.’

‘You don’t know me well enough to know anything of the sort,’ she hit back, saw the amusement lurking behind those glossy eyelashes, went to stiffen up some more—then sighed heavily instead. ‘You enjoy winding me up.’

’Sì,’ he acknowledged.

So she was a game, Francesca concluded. An easy game.

Carlo studied her beautiful face as she stood in her own pool of sunlight and wondered grimly if she had any idea how hurt she looked by his last comment. Anger gripped him, along with a hot and bloody frustrated urge to grab for her again and impress on her why his barbs could hurt so much.

Easy, he thought inwardly in grinding contempt and flicked a hard glance at the crumbling Palazzo Gianni hiding inside its romantic wilderness. Sleeping Beauty she was not; Cinderella more like, so damn starved of ordinary love and affection that she left herself wide open for any no-good adventurer to take advantage of.

Damn it, he cursed to himself and straightened away from the gatepost. ‘I suppose,’ he started, ‘if I offer you a lift, you will throw the offer back in my face.’

He was right and she would. ‘Take no offence but I will enjoy the walk.’

The sound of his dry laughter brought her reluctant gaze back to his face again. ‘That was so beautifully English and polite, cara.’ The mocking man was back, she saw.

‘I am English.’

‘Mm,’ he murmured as if even that amused him now. Then he surprised her by abruptly striding back to his car. ‘Like a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day,’ he threw over his shoulder as he opened the door then swung his long body into the seat. ‘Very—contradictory.’

‘Thank you—I think.’ She frowned.

Carlo just grimaced and gunned the car engine. ‘I will see you later,’ he said by way of a farewell.