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Damiano?’

      She felt the burn of his gaze move over her face and touch the gentle swell of her breasts, just visible above the multi-print gypsy-style blouse she was wearing with a long plain calico skirt, and she felt their tender tips drawing into tight buds.

      ‘Sì. I like being happy,’ he breathed, the downward sweep of those thick black lashes unable to conceal the heated desire in his eyes that promised her that what would make him happy would be to tug loose the strings securing her tantalising blouse and show her pleasure such as she had never known. ‘And you, Riva? What do you suppose I should call you if your mother marries my uncle? Cousin?’ The intimate way in which he enunciated the word, with those visual images already in her mind of him, stroking and arousing her with those long hands, and that voice that was designed for loving a woman, sent molten heat coursing through her veins.

      ‘What do you mean “if"? It’s “when", surely?’ She exhaled, her cheeks tinged with colour from the feelings he aroused, which were a wild concoction of sexual excitement, indignation and inexplicable unease.

      He smiled that lazy smile, the type that made her feel she was drowning in those incredible ebony eyes. Then he was pulling her gently towards him, allowing his lips to brush hers in a feather-light kiss that sent her rocketing senses into overdrive, before he breathed—humouring her, she realised now—in that dark, seductive and oh, so caressing voice, ‘Sì. When.’

      That had been the first of many such blissful times when they were alone together, though she’d never fully lost her nervousness with him, amazed as she’d been that such a frighteningly attractive man could be interested in her.

      He’d wanted to know everything about her. Where she came from, who she was, what made her tick. No one had ever made her feel so special—or so aware of herself as a woman. But knowing that he would reject her out of hand if he knew the truth, unable to bear it, she had woven a fanciful and glamorous picture around herself, mixing fact and fiction in a story she’d dearly wanted to believe, unaware of how dangerous he was, oblivious to the sensual and deadly trap he had been laying for her.

      When he had made a point of extending his visit to the villa, idiotically she’d convinced herself that it was because of her.

      ‘Be careful, Riva,’ Chelsea, aware of her excitement, had warned her daughter again.

      They’d been in Riva’s suite, experimenting with make-up, because Marcello was taking Chelsea out to dinner. She’d looked young and modern and sensational, Riva remembered with a swift sharp shaft of pain. Because Chelsea had borrowed a dress from her that her mother adored.

      ‘I know he’s handsome and mature and far more exciting than any of the boys you’ve brought home, but he’s too experienced for someone of your age. I know we might not look so different, but I’ve been around a bit longer than you have, and I don’t want to see my baby getting hurt.’

      ‘I’m not your baby any more, Chelsea,’ Riva had reminded her gently. ‘If you haven’t noticed, I’ve grown up.’

      ‘I know.’ Standing behind her at the dressing table mirror, Chelsea had bent and kissed the top of her head. ‘And dangerously dynamic creatures like Damiano D’Amico have noticed it too—and that’s what worries me.’

      Oh, Mum! Riva mourned now—now it was too late. If only I’d listened to you!

      ‘Don’t worry. I can handle him,’ she remembered telling her anxious mother.

      What a misconception! What a joke!

      She’d been so far out of her depth she hadn’t realised that her feet weren’t even touching the bottom any more, that she was playing with a hard, masculine sensuality that was more dangerous than a lethal current. Unaware that there was no safety net to catch her—nothing to stop her from drowning beneath her own stupidity. Because, desperate to keep him from guessing how inexperienced she was, she had woven an illusion of sophistication around herself that had fooled even a man as worldly as Damiano D’Amico.

      ‘You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?’ he had groaned that night in his private rooms, when things had got so out of hand between them, when her hands had stolen inside his shirt and slipped it off his shoulders so that she could see him, touch him, feel the satin of his pulsing flesh that clothed the exciting strength of his body. The night she had allowed him to lead her into the bedroom, realising that unless she admitted the truth there would be no turning back.

      Scared by what her boldness had instigated as she’d allowed her hands and lips free rein over his muscular, hair-feathered chest, she’d been even more afraid of his turning away from her in disgust if she told him the truth, perhaps ridiculing her innocence and her lack of sophistication. There was no way she could have suffered the humiliation of that. It would have been too demoralising and degrading, as well as agonizing, to have him reject her. And so, aroused to fever-pitch by his lips and those skilled and oh, so capable hands on her body, when he’d asked her if she was on the pill, she had murmured tremulously that she was.

      He had known almost at once, of course, that she had lied, but things had gone too far, and the fire that had raged between them had been too hot and consuming even for his disciplined will.

      As pain had made her cry out, she’d heard his groan of rejection, swiftly followed by one of defeat as he lost control.

      It had been an experience she could never have imagined. Rivers of sensation had tumbled through every electrified cell in her body, making her cry out again, but this time in ecstasy from the earth-shattering strength of her climax.

      He’d waited until she’d slumped back against the pillows, gasping and spent, before rolling away from her with the swiftness of the mistral that blew down from the mountains in winter, and to Riva it had seemed just as chillingly.

      ‘What the devil was all that about?’

      Riva recoiled from the white-hot emotion running through his burning question.

      ‘You lied to me! Why the hell did you think you could get away with lying to me?’

      He was angry. She couldn’t understand how he could be so angry. Not if he loved her! He should have been pleased, flattered …

      ‘I—I didn’t think you’d mind.’ Reduced by the experience of a lifetime and then his frightening anger, she let slip the charade of sophistication that had resulted in her winding up in bed with him.

      ‘You didn’t think I’d mind!’ On his feet now, he swung away from the bed, slapping his forehead as he did so. ‘My dear, reckless girl. Mamma mia! Did you even think?’

      Shamed by his unexpected reaction, and by how irresponsible he thought her, she covered her small breasts with the sheet and asked candidly, ‘Why is my virginity so anathema to you?’ And, in view of how gladly she had sacrificed it for him, she murmured, ‘Shouldn’t you be glad?’

      ‘No, I darn well shouldn’t! What did you imagine I would say? “Grazie, signorina? That was very generous of you"?’

      ‘Stop it!’ She couldn’t bear it! Not his mood, nor his angry words, let alone the meaning behind them. He was reducing what they had just done to nothing. No—worse than that—to something sordid, making her feel no better than a whore.

      ‘And what if I’ve made you pregnant? Had you thought of that?’

      Yes, she had, she remembered thinking, but only fleetingly, caught up in too many other emotions—desire, passion, embarrassment, the fear of rejection.

      ‘Do you really think I will have any sympathy with you if you come crying to me in a few weeks saying you’re going to have my baby?’

      Numbed by the significance of what those last words could only mean—that he didn’t love her—Riva couldn’t believe he could hurt her any more until, with eyes narrowing into cold, speculative slits, he added, ‘Or was that all part of the plan?’

      Pain

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