LITMIR.BIZ

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hadn’t occurred to her that he didn’t know who she was.

      ‘Rachel,’ she pushed out. ‘Rachel Carmichael.’

      Something about him suddenly altered. For some unknown reason she felt as if the air circulating around him had gone as tense as a cracked whip. And the eyes—the eyes were not merely hooded now, they’d narrowed into sharp eyelash-framed slits.

      ‘Well, hello, Rachel Carmichael,’ he drawled in a very slow, lazy tone that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. ‘Now this has just become very interesting…’

      ‘Why has it?’ she asked warily.

      ‘Why don’t you come and sit down so we can talk about it?’

      She had the impression that the jungle cat in him had just sharpened its teeth. Taut as a bow string and balanced right on the balls of her feet now, Rachel wondered if this would be a good time to try to make a run for it.

      But the idea lasted for only a moment. He had not brought her up here to his apartment to let her get away before she had given him an explanation as to why she’d set him up tonight.

      Making herself walk across the room took courage, especially when he watched her all the way as if she was performing some special provocative act designed purposely to keep his attention engaged.

      Oh, God, did he have to look so sleekly at ease and so gorgeously interested?

      Beginning to feel disturbingly hollow from the neck down, if she did not count the sparking sting making itself felt, Rachel picked one of the black sofas at random and sat down right on its edge.

      The skirt to her dress immediately rode upwards to reveal more slender thigh than was decent with a peek of her stocking lace tops. Unclipping her fingers from the death grip they had on her bag she gave a tug at the dress’s hem, only to notice to her horror that its bodice wasn’t doing much to keep her modesty covered, either.

      And still he stood there watching her every single move, deliberately, she suspected, building on the sexual tension that was fizzing in the air. Her heart was pounding. She refused to look up. She wanted to swallow but would not allow herself the luxury of trying to shift the anxious lump lodged in her throat.

      Then he moved and she jerked up her head, unable to stop the wary response, only to feel almost dizzy with embarrassment when she saw how he was looking at her.

      ‘I will have that drink now,’ she burst out, desperate for him to turn away so she could pull up the bodice of her dress without him watching.

      One of those sleek black eyebrows arched in quizzing mockery at her abrupt change of mind about the drink. He knew what she was trying to do. It was scored into his eyes and his body language.

      ‘What would you like?’ he asked politely.

      ‘I don’t know—anything,’ she shook out.

      He turned his back. Rachel feathered out a tense breath and hurriedly rearranged herself. In all her life she had never felt so out of sorts and out of place as she was feeling right now, sitting on this sofa, wearing this dress, with that man standing only a few feet away.

      She was nobody’s luxury appendage—never had been. She’d always left that kind of thing to the more beautiful and capable Elise. Playing the role given to her tonight had been tough on her pride, from the moment she’d donned the whole image. And the only man she’d ever thrown herself at in her whole life before tonight had been Alonso, and, she recalled with a grimace, he’d been more or less crawling all over her by then anyway.

      And Alonso hadn’t been rich. He’d just been a very junior car salesman with good lines in smart suits and a tiny apartment. He drove flashy cars but he didn’t own them, and he’d earned less money than she had earned picking fruit on a farm just outside Naples.

      A glass appeared in front of her. Glancing up, she un-clipped one of her hands from her bag and took it with a mumbled, ‘Thanks,’ then sat staring at it wondering what the heck was in it?

      ‘Splash of vodka topped up with tonic,’ he provided the answer. ‘And it is not spiked with something lethal, if that is what the frown is about.’

      ‘I wasn’t—’

      ‘Then you should,’ he intruded curtly. ‘You don’t know me, Rachel Carmichael. I might go in for drug-enhanced love-ins. How old are you, by the way?’

      Rachel blinked. ‘Twenty-three. Why, what has my age got to do with anything?’

      ‘Just curious.’ He sat down right next to her sending her spine arching into a defensive stretch.

      Raffaelle saw it happen and smiled. The air circulating around them was alive with an ever increasing sting of awareness. He could feel it. He knew that she could feel it. What he could not figure out was why it was there and what he was going to do about it.

      Liar, the dry part of his brain fed back.

      ‘Okay…’ Relaxing into the sofa, he stretched out his long legs. ‘Now, start talking.’

      Talking…Sending her tongue round her dry lips, Rachel looked down at the bag she was still clutching in one hand and made a small shift of her wrist so she could see the time on her watch.

      It was just coming up to midnight. How long did Mark need to do his thing with his digital camera, write his accompanying piece, then file it with the newspaper via the Internet?

      She looked at her bag with the comforting feel of her cellphone inside it, and wondered if she dared take it out and ring him to check?

      Great idea, she then thought heavily. As if Raffaelle Villani was going to let her contact anyone until he had his explanation.

      ‘Sit back and relax,’ he invited.

      What she did was stiffen up all the more. ‘I’m perfectly relaxed as I am, thank you.’

      ‘No, you are not. There is tension—here…’ A finger arrived in the naked taut hollow between her shoulders, sending her spine into another muscle splitting arch as if she’d been stung by an electric shock.

      The sensation flung her, gasping to her feet. ‘That wasn’t—necessary,’ she protested.

      ‘You think not?’

      ‘No.’ Taking a few shaky steps away from him, she put the glass to her mouth and sipped while he watched her through half hidden eyes and a knowing smile on his lips.

      ‘We share chemistry, cara.’

      Rachel laughed thickly. ‘That of kidnapper and victim.’

      ‘And who do you believe is the victim here—?’

      Just like that, with one smooth question, he brought the whole madness which had made up this evening tumbling down to where it really belonged.

      For which of them was the real victim? Certainly not her, she had to admit. He had every right to be angry. She had no right to be anything at all.

      On the short sigh that quivered as it left her, Rachel finally took responsibility for her own misdemeanours. It was no use trying to pretend she was innocent when she wasn’t. Or to wish Raffaelle Villani a million miles away because he’d ruined all their plans when he had stopped her from getting away back there at the hotel.

      He was right about the chemistry too. Just turning to look at his long, lean, relaxed sprawl, giving off all kinds of innate sexual messages, sent her insides into an instant tight spiral spin.

      Then—okay, she told herself grimly, let’s keep this strictly to business, then maybe the—other—stuff will die a natural death.

      On that stern piece of good common sense, she lifted her chin, pushed her eyes upwards to fix them on his face, then she steadied her breathing and plunged right in.

      ‘As I just told you, my name is Rachel Carmichael,’ she reminded him. ‘Elise is my half-sister.

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