At Her Latin Lover's Command: The Italian Count's Command / The French Count's Mistress / At the Spanish Duke's Command

With a trembling hand she slicked dislodged strands of pale hair back into her chignon, playing for time, for a moment to think.

‘Let me know when you are satisfied with your appearance,’ Dante drawled, ‘and I’ll tell you something to your advantage.’

She met his mocking gaze head-on and wished her glare could fell him on the spot. ‘Spit it out.’

Italian through and through, he winced at her deliberate choice of phrase. ‘Sit,’ he snapped, as if talking to a disobedient dog.

Naturally she remained standing. In proud defiance she lifted her chin and drew up the whole slender length of her body. His eyes dropped to her heaving breasts, then the neat, wasp waist. It felt as if he was branding her, the caress of his gaze as it slid over her curving hips forcing her to squeeze her thighs together in an attempt to deny her shameful response.

She only hoped that he couldn’t read the signals of her treacherous body. In case he thought she was a pushover, she spoke more forcefully than necessary.

‘I won’t be bullied—not by you or anybody!’ she seethed. Her ice-blue eyes simmered with silvery lights and she lifted her chin high in defiance.

And, thunderously angry for some reason, he turned and walked to the window, his usually liquid movements strangely jerky and uncoordinated. The set of his broad shoulders was daunting, however, and she bit her lip.

That was what he wanted, she thought. To dominate her. To teach her that no one ever crossed him and came away laughing.

Mutinously, she scowled. She hadn’t done anything wrong. One day she’d discover what had happened to her that night. And she’d make Dante apologise for doubting her. He’d grovel—she’d see to that!

‘Carlo needs you,’ he stated in a distant, chillingly frosty voice.

‘At least we agree on something,’ she said sharply.

‘Therefore,’ he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘I have decided that you will live here.’

Her eyes widened as her jaw dropped. Seconds ticked away before she could jerk out an astonished,

‘What?’

In a haughty gesture he swung back on his heel to face her.

‘You will have total access to him,’ Dante went on as if she hadn’t spoken.

‘You—you’re letting me have him?’ she gasped, her face suddenly radiant with hope.

The black eyes flashed and his mouth tightened.

‘No.’

She slumped down in the chair, feeling as if he’d hurled a bucket of iced water over her. She passed a shaking hand over the smooth silk of her hair.

‘Then what? My patience is exhausted. If you don’t tell me exactly what you’re proposing,’ she grated, ‘I’ll start smashing things.’ With a menacing glare, she picked up a figurine from the desk and held the voluptuous ivory in her cold and trembling hand. ‘Starting with this!’

‘I’m trying to,’ he gritted. ‘I am not finding this easy—’

‘Do you think I care?’ she flung.

His expression became utterly forbidding and closed.

‘No,’ he answered quietly. ‘I don’t think you do. Still, at least that will make your part in this less difficult. You will be able to consider this as a business arrangement.’

‘A…what?’ she gasped.

‘We will be colleagues, as we were once before. It worked well then—’

‘I was your secretary!’ She frowned, puzzled. ‘Is that what you want? I am to work for you?’

‘Not exactly. I don’t think either of us would want the hothouse atmosphere. Me in this chair dictating letters, you sitting there…’

His hoarse rebuttal croaked to a halt. But it had reminded her of the heady days when she was falling in love with him. The way he’d watched her, his dark eyes turning her knees to water, ruining her concentration so that he’d had to come close and go through her shorthand notes, one hand on the back of her chair, his breath whispering on the hairs at the back of her neck.

She gulped and shifted in the seat because of the pooling heat in her loins.

He looked grim, his lips pressed firmly together as though he had loathed the charade he’d had to act out, the pretence of falling in love with his secretary.

Whereas it had been a roller coaster of ecstasy for her. Tense moments of excitement. The thrill of seeing him so cool and businesslike at meetings, knowing they had just made love across his desk…

‘What, then?’ she jerked out, hurting from the self-torture of those wild memories of unbelievable pleasure.

He took his time to answer, his chest rising and falling several times before he was ready. By which time she hated him for keeping her dangling.

‘I propose,’ he said tautly, ‘that you will live in this house. I want people to assume we are a perfectly normal husband and wife—’

‘That’s not likely when we’re at daggers drawn,’ she said caustically.

‘They won’t know that. Must not know that. To all intents and purposes we will seem to be on good terms,’ he snapped. ‘For our son’s sake we will be polite and courteous to one another in public. We will appear at functions together. It is not necessary that we give an impression that we lust after one another—that would be asking too much of me,’ he added scathingly, ‘but we will keep up appearances—’

‘You must be joking!’ she gasped.

‘Deadly serious. There will be no bickering, no acid-tipped remarks, and no double meanings in our conversation when Carlo or others are around.’

His eyes were frighteningly remote. Miranda shrank back, absorbing his extraordinary suggestion and the catalogue of dos and don’ts, her face pale with shock.

For several seconds he studied her, then when she said nothing but remained trembling and astonished, he firmed his mouth and continued.

‘In your private life,’ he said tautly, ‘you will be irreproachable. You will not get drunk. You will not take drugs. You will never, never,’ he roared suddenly, making her jump, ‘be indiscreet and cause a scandal by taking a lover. If you do, you’re out of here. Is that understood?’

She felt as if he’d hit her with a steam-hammer. He wanted her to live here as his wife. The thought of living with Dante and not making love with him was impossible to imagine.

‘You want me to live like a nun for the rest of my life?’ she asked slowly.

‘Too difficult?’ he scorned.

The way things were, she never wanted to commit herself to another man again. Her plush mouth thinned. Stunned and still trying to absorb his suggestion, she pretended indifference.

‘I’m just establishing the ground rules.’

‘One of which is that you will be chaste and above suspicion. That is my ultimatum. As I said, if you break it, I will throw you out to fend for yourself. And you will never see Carlo again.’