LITMIR.BIZ

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hesitate? It couldn’t be clearer that he had no intention of changing his mind, of turning back. And that was what she’d wanted; wasn’t it?

      So why did she feel a thickness in her throat, a knot around her heart, as if she was in danger of losing something valuable? Something she would regret discarding so carelessly in the future?

      She watched him stride further up the beach to where his shoes had been kicked off in that wild, frantic run towards the sea. To rescue her. As he stooped to snatch them up, still not giving the slightest glance backwards in her direction, her conscience twisted sharply inside her, giving a nasty little stab of reproach that made her wince inwardly. She shifted awkwardly from one foot to another on the soft sand, huddling closer into the jacket as a cold wind coiled round her, the black clouds now scudding across the sky, darkening the atmosphere threateningly.

      The jacket! Her conscience stabbed at her again, more cruelly this time. Vito Corsentino had come to her rescue without hesitation. He’d dragged her from the waves and brought her safely to dry land. He’d even given her his jacket to keep her warm and to cover her sodden, bedraggled clothing and all she’d done was to tell him to go and leave her alone.

      Had she even thanked him properly? What sort of an ungrateful idiot was she?

      ‘Wait!’

      He hadn’t heard her. Or he’d heard her but he wasn’t prepared to stop.

      She watched his long, determined stride cover the sand, taking him further away from her with each movement…He would soon be out of earshot.

      ‘Wait—please!’

      One more stride further away. And another. But then, with this last one, he slowed, stopped, swung round. He didn’t say a word but those dark eyes flashed the question Well? in her direction with a fierce impatience that made her heart quail inside her.

      ‘Your jacket…’

      She was shrugging herself out of his coat, coming forward, holding it out to him.

      ‘You need it back.’

      For a moment he stayed where he was, looking deep into her eyes, and then, briefly, that black-eyed gaze flicked down to focus on the garment she held towards him.

      The hand he used to gesture expressed such total contempt that it was a dismissal of her as well as the apparently unwanted jacket.

      ‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘You need it more than I do.’

      ‘But…’

      But Vito was already turning away again, even as she tried to form the protest.

      ‘Keep it,’ he tossed over his shoulder at her. ‘It’s getting cold and you have nothing else to keep you warm. I would hate to think that my efforts to save you from the sea would all go to waste because you caught a chill as a result.’

      The memory of his rescue—the way that he had dashed into the sea without a thought—stung at her conscience again, making her shift uncomfortably on the sand, tracing a pattern in it with one bare toe.

      ‘Vito, please don’t do this…’ she began again. ‘I’m sorry—I—’

      But what she had been about to say was drowned, totally obliterated, as with a roar of thunder and a brilliant flash of lightning the storm that had been threatening all afternoon broke suddenly and violently right overhead.

      ‘That settles it!’

      At least that was what she thought that Vito said but the truth was that she saw his lips move and barely caught any sound from them. This time it was the rain that swept away any hope of hearing properly, the heavens opening and a savage downpour thundering onto the sand, taking just a second to drench them all over again.

      ‘Vito!’

      His name was a cry of shock and confusion as once more water lashed against her face, drove into her eyes. Gasping and spluttering, Emily lifted her hands to cover her face, providing a little, inadequate cover, then just as swiftly let them drop down again as she realised that she was holding Vito’s expensive and now very much worse-for-wear jacket up too.

      ‘Oh, I’m sorry!’

      But Vito didn’t hear her or if he did, he didn’t care. The next moment she was grabbed, those strong hands clamping hard on her again as once more she was swung off her feet and up into his arms.

      ‘Damn the jacket!’ he muttered roughly, inclining his head so as to dodge another battering from the rain. ‘I told you it didn’t matter. We’ll talk about it when we get inside.’

      ‘Inside where? I told you…’ Emily began, only to have the words die on her lips as Vito glared down into her rain-swept eyes.

      ‘And I told you that we’d talk about this inside!’

      He was moving as he spoke, carrying her off the beach and climbing precariously up the steep wooden steps to the promenade. And all Emily could do was fling her arms around his neck and hold on tight, her heart in her mouth with the fear they might fall making her shiver even more than the storm that buffeted them ferociously. Vito had to pause a couple of times, rebalance himself, but he made it safely to the top of the steps and onto the security of the paved promenade.

      ‘All right—you can let me down now!’ Emily tried again but he simply shook his head, jaw set hard, dark eyes shuttered against her.

      ‘I’m not letting you go until we’re inside. We need to talk and we can’t talk in this. I’ve saved you from drowning once—I don’t intend to do it again. Like it or not, you don’t have any choice—you’re coming home with me.’

      CHAPTER THREE

      ‘ALL right, we’re inside…’

      Emily’s voice was cold and tight, seeming even more stiff and hostile in the sudden silence that had descended after the door to the flat had slammed behind them, shutting out the slashing rain and muffling some of the sound of the storm that was still raging outside.

      ‘So put me down—you promised!’ she insisted when Vito hesitated, tempted not to go along with what she wanted.

      It was her tone that set his teeth on edge. The sharp, peremptory edge to it had him clenching his jaw tight shut on the angry retort he was tempted to make, the equally abrupt refusal to do anything of what she wanted.

      But there was another reason, of course. One he was less willing to acknowledge.

      He didn’t want to let her go. She felt good in his arms, in spite of the fact that she was still soaking wet, drops of water from her sodden hair dripping onto to him with uncomfortable regularity. But then he too was drenched, so he couldn’t actually get any wetter. And he didn’t want to put her down. He knew what would happen if he did. Then she would forget all about the flame of passion that had flared so wildly between them. She would put up the barriers, slam mental doors in his face, and it would be once again as it had been out there on the beach.

      She would fight him every inch of the way, her pretty face stiffening, closing up, as it had done when he had suggested that she came back here. Well, he had her here now, but she was still fighting, and if that mutinous look on her face was anything to go by then her grip on her temper was fraying rapidly.

      ‘Signor Corsentino…’ she said warningly, and, deciding that, for now, cooperation was probably the best policy, he let her slide to the floor, as he had earlier let her slip down until her feet were in the sand.

      And just as it had then, the slow slide of her body against his made him clench his jaw against the burn of sensuality that flashed through his body, the throb of hot blood in his veins. He had to fight against the impulse to grab her again and kiss her hard as he had done on the beach. But he knew that if he did that then she would fight him even harder. And fighting was not what he had in mind. So for now he’d play things her way—but only for now.

      ‘I told you it’s Vito,’

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