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to be on time!’

      ‘So much devotion!’ He was like a cat playing with a mouse, relishing every second of her discomfiture. ‘He must be pretty special.’

      Angrily, she snapped, ‘He is!’ then wished she hadn’t, when those luxurious brown eyes narrowed to speculative slits and that hardening male mouth seemed to turn to stone.

      ‘Does he know that another man only has to touch you to make you forget just how special he is.’ His tone derided, and his cruel reminder of what had transpired a few moments ago made Riva’s pale cheeks flame.

      ‘If you’re talking about your assault on me just now, I was taken totally off-guard, that was all.’

      ‘Really?’ Mockery gave a cruel curve to his lips again. ‘In that case I’d be interested to witness how you’d react if I. prepared you, carissima.’

      The deliberate hesitation, plus the endearment, were heavy with meaning, and she was reminded—as he’d intended her to be—of just how expertly he had ‘prepared’ her before.

      That riveting sexual tension made her too slow to respond, and she stiffened as he spoke again in a voice now stripped of anything but professionalism.

      ‘Is this what I am to expect? Your darting off at a moment’s notice every time we have a meeting?’

      ‘Of course not,’ she uttered defensively, breathing again. ‘It wouldn’t have seemed like a moment’s notice if you’d been here so I could let you know earlier that I had to get away sharply tonight.’

      ‘Very well,’ he conceded at last. ‘As long as you realise in future that while you’re doing this job your first loyalty is to me.’

      Like hell! Riva thought, closing down her laptop before grabbing her bag and her papers and racing away.

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE clock on her dashboard was showing ten past five as she swung out of the cobbled courtyard and along the leafy lane towards the dual carriageway.

      ‘How could it have happened?’ she demanded fiercely of anyone who might be listening. How could she—after not seeing the detestable Damiano D’Amico for nearly five years—suddenly be working for him? And not just working for him—at his beck and call!

      The snarl of her car’s engine reflected her mood as she pulled out into the rush-hour traffic, and despite all the concentration needed to keep her mind on the road the past suddenly rushed upon her like a submerging tide.

      Born when her mother was barely eighteen, Riva knew everything about deprivation and financial hardship. Her father she could only remember as a shadowy figure, flitting in and out of their lives, absent more than he was around. By the time she was old enough to know him he was already in prison, and that, and then his early death shortly afterwards, had plunged Riva and her mother into inescapable poverty.

      Young, artistic and pretty, Chelsea had had no end of possible suitors who might have taken her and her daughter on. Strong-willed and free-spirited, though—a champion of causes—Chelsea Singleman had been determined to ‘go it alone'.

      Scarred and disillusioned after her experience with

      Riva’s father, her mother had always warned her of the dangers in succumbing to sexual desire. When Riva had met Damiano D’Amico, therefore, she had been ill-equipped to match his hard sophistication—which was why it had been so easy for him to turn her lack of experience to his own ends, she thought, hating him with a passion she couldn’t believe she could feel for anyone. But with just cause, she assured herself, feeling emotion surfacing as hot tears in her eyes at the way she was allowing him to use and manipulate her—unavoidably—now.

      She couldn’t forget the impact he had made upon her the first time she had seen him standing there in the drawing room of Marcello’s villa—the dark excitement of his features, the blazing charm of his smile, the breath-catching power of his smouldering sexuality. Nor could she forget the way he had looked at her with a fire in his eyes that had touched the secret places of her young, untutored body. But there had been suspicion too—that she’d been too inexperienced to recognise—as he’d looked from her to her mother and then back at Riva again, with a hard, concealed intent behind that lazy urbane charm which she had foolishly mistaken for mutual attraction.

      His exciting masculinity had blinded her to everything—even the truth—because he had come to vet his uncle’s new fiancée under the pretext of merely celebrating Marcello D’Amico’s betrothal.

      A picture flashed through Riva’s mind of the gentle silver-haired man who had captured Chelsea Singleman’s heart and who, for the first time in Riva’s life, it had seemed, had made her struggling parent perfectly happy. He’d been nearly twice her mother’s age, and yet Riva had had no problem with that. Her mother had been head over heels in love with Marcello, and he with her, and Riva had been happy for them both without a thought for how wealthy he was. She’d been only aware and pleased that all the struggles Chelsea had endured throughout her life, her loneliness and her sometimes inevitable depressions, were finally going to be things of the past.

      After a celebratory lunch, tipsy with champagne, they had giggled like schoolgirls while strolling arm in arm through Marcello’s spectacular gardens, on one of those sultry, halcyon days before the storm broke.

      ‘I’ve seen the way he’s been looking at you,’ Chelsea had commented when their conversation had turned, as it always had, to the disturbing subject of Damiano. ‘I’ve seen, all right—and all I can say is that he’s trouble, Riva. And I don’t mean trouble like your father was. I mean the type most women imagine they want and then wind up regretting with a passion—especially when he tosses them aside for the next easy conquest, as I’m sure a lot of women must have found to their cost.’

      As if her mother’s words alone had conjured him up, he had appeared on the hot flagstones in front of them.

      ‘Well … Damiano … Or should I call you Nephew?’

      His smile for Chelsea Singleman didn’t actually touch his eyes, and he seemed to be assessing the mere ten years or so between their ages.

      ‘A little premature, I think.’ With that almost detached air—just one of the many things about him that excited Riva—he dismissed the familiar way in which her mother had addressed him. ‘I believe Marcello’s looking for you. I think he feels he has been deserted.’

      Even the mention of her fiancé's name had made Chelsea’s eyes light up.

      Keen to get back to him, she turned a little too quickly and almost lost her footing on a crack between the stones. Riva’s arm shot out to steady her.

      Chelsea had giggled, Riva remembered, obviously self-conscious about making a fool of herself in front of a man of such formidable poise and self-possession. ‘Come on then, Riva,’ she’d encouraged, eager to get away. ‘Let’s get back.’

       ‘Not you, signorina.’

      His soft command had been startling, causing excitement to leap wildly in Riva. But more startling had been the dark, warm hand that had suddenly entrapped hers—because that was how it had felt. Like a trap, Riva thought bitterly, wishing she had followed her instincts and fled from the reckless danger she had sensed, which Chelsea had warned her about. But she had been too flattered and too attracted to him, as well as far too inexperienced and swept off her feet, to care.

      ‘I think your mother has had a little too much champagne,’ he’d commented, turning from the figure of the older woman tripping back to the villa with her blonde hair billowing out behind her, like her loose white cotton sundress, and Riva had sensed an edge of disapproval in his tone.

      ‘No, she hasn’t. She’s just happy.’ Instantly she flew to Chelsea’s defence. ‘And if she has, then why not? She’s celebrating her forthcoming marriage, after all.’ She didn’t know why she suddenly needed to feel protective of her mother.

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