The Sicilian's Christmas Bride

The old man had looked at him as if he were insane.

“Buying a bank on a seeming whim, suggesting something anyone in town would know is impossible…You have a strange sense of humor, Mr. Russo,” he’d said with a thin-lipped Yankee smile.

Dante stood away from the door.

Dennison was wrong. There was nothing the least bit humorous about this situation. It was payback, pure and simple.

And it was time Taylor knew it.

“Aren’t you going to come inside and face me, cara?” he said, his tone deliberately soft and coaxing. “Perhaps not. Facing me is not your forte, is it?”

He saw her stiffen. She probably wanted to run, but she didn’t. Instead, she raised her chin, squared her shoulders and stepped inside the bank. He had to admire her courage, the way she was girding herself for confrontation.

She had no way of knowing that nothing she could do would be enough. The news he was going to give her was bad, and it delighted him to do it.

“Hello, Dante.”

Her voice trembled. Her face had taken on some color, though it was still pale. Three years. Three years since he’d seen her…

And she was still beautiful.

More beautiful than his memory of her, if that were possible. Was it time that had made her mouth seem even softer, her eyes wider and darker?

Still, time had not been completely kind. It had affected her in other ways.

Purple shadows lay beneath her eyes. Her hair was pulled back in an unbecoming knot and he had the indefensible urge to close the distance between them, take out the pins and let all those lustrous cinnamon strands tumble free.

He let his gaze move over her slowly, from her face all the way to her feet and back again. A frown creased his forehead. He’d never seen her in anything but elegantly tailored clothing. Designer suits and gowns, spiked heels that could give a man dangerous fantasies, her face perfectly made up, her hair impeccably cut and styled.

Things were different now. The lapels of her coat were frayed. Her boots were the no-nonsense kind meant for rough weather. Her hair was in that ridiculous knot and her face was bare of everything but lipstick—lipstick and the shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.

He spoke without thinking. “What’s happened to you?” he said sharply. “Have you been ill?”

“How nice of you to ask.”

She was still pale but her gaze was steady and her words were brittle with sarcasm. He moved quickly; before she could step back he was a breath away, his hand wrapped around her arm.

“I asked you a question. Answer it.”

A flush rose in her cheeks. “I’m not ill. I’m simply living in the real world. It’s a place where people work hard for what they have. Where you can’t just snap your fingers and expect everyone to leap to do your bidding, but then, what would you know of such things?”

What, indeed? It was none of her business, of anyone’s business, that he’d started his life scrounging for money, that he’d worked his hands raw in construction jobs when he came to the States, or that he could still remember what it was like to go to sleep hungry.

He’d never snapped his fingers and never would, but he’d be damned if he’d explain that to anyone.

“And your lover? He permits this?”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “My what?”

“Another question you don’t want to answer. That’s all right. I have plenty of time.”

Tally wrenched free of his grasp. “I’m the one with questions, Dante. What are you doing here?”

“We haven’t seen each other in a long time, cara.” A slow smile that turned her blood to ice eased across his lips. “Surely, we have other things to talk about first.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“But we do. You know that.”

She didn’t know anything. That was the problem. What did he know? Did he know about Sam? She didn’t think so. Surely, he’d have tossed that at her already, if he did.

Then, what did he want? He wasn’t here for a visit. He hadn’t bought the Shelby bank on a whim…

The loan. Her loan. Oh God, oh God…

“Ah,” he said slyly, “your face is an open book. Have you thought of some things we might wish to discuss?”

She couldn’t let him see her fear. There had to be some way she could gain the upper hand.

“What I know,” Tally said, “is that we never talked in the past. We went to dinner, to parties…” She took a steadying breath. “And we went to bed.”

His mouth twisted. Had she struck a nerve?

“I’m glad you remember that.”

“Is that why you came here, Dante? To remind me that we used to have sex together? Or to ask why I left you?” Somehow, she managed a chilly smile. “Really, I thought you’d understand. My note—”

“Your note was a bad joke.”

Tally shrugged her shoulders. “It was honest. Or did it never occur to you that a woman is no different from a man? I mean, yes, we can pretend in ways a man can’t, but sooner or later, things grow, well, old.”

Dante’s face contorted with anger. “You’re a liar!”

“Come on, admit it. We’d been together for months. It was fun for a long time but then—”

She gasped as he caught hold of her and encircled her throat with his hand.

“I remember how you were in bed,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Are you telling me it was all a performance?”

He tugged her closer, until her body brushed his and she had to tilt back her head to look into his eyes. It was deliberate, damn him, a way of emphasizing his strength, his size, his domination.

God, how she hated him! Three years, three endless years, and he was still furious because she’d walked out on him, but she’d done what she had to do to survive. To protect her secret from his unpredictable Sicilian ego.

“You were fire in my arms.” His eyes, the color of smoke, locked on hers. She tried to look away but his hand was like a collar around her throat. When he urged her chin up, she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “You cried out as I came inside you. Your womb contracted around me. Would you have me believe you faked that, too?”

“Is it impossible for you to be a gentleman?” Tally said, hating herself for the way her voice shook.

His smile was slow and sexy and so dangerous it made her heartbeat quicken.