LITMIR.BIZ

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hand pushed open the main doors and Rachel lost the next few seconds beneath the glare of flashing flickering lights and the pandemonium of questions that burst out.

      His arm was around her shoulders now, hugging her to him and keeping her upright.

      ‘Smile,’ he hissed and she smiled like an alien.

      Then the words came, those low, smooth accented tones dryly confirming that no, as they could see, she was not Elise. She was in fact Elise’s beautiful half-sister, Rachel Carmichael.

      Then he let drop the big one, by calmly inviting their congratulations because they had just become engaged to be married.

      The fake ring was displayed on her finger for the pack to snap to their greedy hearts’ content.

      How long had they known each other? Where had they met?

      He answered all the questions with the relaxed humour of one who had all the answers, since he was merely duplicating facts from his short affair with Elise.

      Breathing took on a shallow necessity aimed to maintain the fragile beat of her heart. The rest was a haze, a fog of nothing in which she must have performed well because no one suggested she was about to pass out or, worse, that she looked more like a horrified prisoner being hauled to the gallows than a happily betrothed future bride.

      ‘Now you have what you came for would it be possible that you can do us a favour and leave us in peace?’

      So lightly requested, so full of lazy charm. The pack laughed. He turned her within the iron grip of his arm. Silence hit with a deafening force as the doors closed with them back inside.

      ‘Congratulations, Mr Villani, Miss Carmichael,’ the eavesdropping security guard said with a grin.

      If the man holding her clamped to his side said anything in response then Rachel didn’t hear it. She was too busy trying to decide if she was dizzy with relief because he hadn’t thrown her out there to face the paparazzi alone, or if she was dizzy with fear over what was still to come.

      They travelled back up in the lift. She was in shock. She had been totally incapacitated by a man locked into his own agenda. An agenda that involved him seizing control of a situation they—she had taken away from him.

      His apartment door closed behind them. Rachel shivered. And still the ordeal did not end there. The arm propelled her down the hall and in through another door. It closed with a quiet deathly click and only then did she manage to find the strength to break free.

      She had moved three shaky steps before it hit her that this was a bedroom. A very male bedroom with very masculine items scattered around it and a very large bed standing out like a threat, with its very dark plum-coloured linen upon which it was too easy to imprint the solid frame of a dark-haired honey-skinned man.

      She turned. He was still by the door and watching her. Not one small gram of anger had softened from his face. Her skin gave a fizz of alarm-cum-excitement because, even in anger, the way he was looking at her was stripping her bare to her quivering skin.

      ‘Why—?’ she breathed.

      ‘You wanted my co-operation and you have had it,’ he answered. ‘Now I want what I want, and you, Miss Carmichael, are about to pay your dues.’

      He started closing the gap between them.

      ‘No.’ Rachel shook her head and began backing away. ‘I won’t let you do this.’

      ‘Oh come on, mi amore,’ he taunted coldly. ‘We are betrothed to be married. You wear my ring on your finger and my impeccably mannered family is going to try not to be shocked that my bride is wearing farmers’ boots to her wedding and straw to decorate her hair.’

      ‘Very funny,’ she muttered, looking about her for an escape.

      ‘They will tread daintily between organic lettuce and—’

      ‘Will you just stop this!’ His words might taunt but the rest was now getting scary. ‘Look,’ she said quickly. ‘I know you are angry—and I know that you have every right to be.’

      ‘Grazie.’

      ‘Oh, God,’ she choked as his hands closed around her waist and the shock of feeling them there again lit up her skin. ‘I’m sorry about everything, okay?’

      His dark head began to lower. Rachel tried to arch away.

      ‘Your heart is racing.’

      ‘Because you’re frightening me!’

      ‘Or exciting you.’

      No, frightening—frightening me! Rachel repeated—though only inside her head where a strange tumbling darkness was gathering, closing around her like a cold mist that began to take her legs from beneath her and brought forth a string of soft tight curses as she began to go limp.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      SHE came around to find she was lying on the bed and her head was pounding. Someone moved close by and she flicked open her eyes as Raffaelle Villani came to lean over her.

      With a startled jerk she tried to get up but he pushed her back down again.

      ‘Be calm,’ he said grimly. ‘I do not ravish helpless females.’

      Well, forgive me for not believing you, she wanted to say but, ‘W-what happened to me?’ she whispered instead.

      ‘You—fainted.’ His mouth tightened as he said that and his eyes were hooded; in fact his whole face was hidden behind a tightly controlled mask that did not make Rachel feel any safer. ‘You are also very cold.’

      It was only as a soft cashmere throw landed across her that she realised she was shivering.

      ‘I should not have taken you outside to meet the press wearing only that dress.’

      The press. It all came flooding back like a recurring nightmare and she closed her eyes again. ‘I can’t believe you actually did that,’ she whispered unsteadily.

      Straightening up, ‘Mi dispiace,’ he offered stiffly. ‘I have no excuse for frightening you as badly as I did.’

      ‘I wasn’t talking about you playing the sex maniac!’ She sat up and this time he did not stop her. ‘I meant what you just did down there in front of all those reporters.’ She grabbed her dizzy forehead and stared up at him. ‘Have you no idea what it is you’ve done?’

      ‘I did what I had to do,’ he stated coldly.

      ‘Great,’ she choked. ‘You did what you had to do and managed to escalate this whole thing right out of control!’

      ‘It was out of control long before I became involved. You said as much yourself.’

      So she had. ‘Well, we are now stuck with a fake betrothal, complete with a fake ring and all the other fake stuff that is going to come with it.’

      ‘But your sister’s marriage will be safe, which, of course, makes the subterfuge, sacrifice and lies worth it?’

      The sarcasm was still alive if the frightening anger had lessened, Rachel heard, and went to get up.

      ‘Stay there,’ he commanded, turning to stride towards the door. ‘Give yourself chance to—warm up a little and—recover.’

      Recover for what? Rachel wondered half hysterically. She was never going to recover from this awful night for as long as she lived!

      Ignoring his command, she moved to sit on the edge of the bed, then sat trying to calm the sickly swimming sensation still taking place in her head.

      ‘I have to find a way to get out of here undetected so I can go home,’ she mumbled, more to herself than to him.

      Still, he heard

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