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that—forgotten protection. He looked into her happy love-lit eyes, about to tell her, but couldn’t bring himself to spoil the moment. Instead he heard himself say, ‘Marry me.’ And realised he meant it…. Whatever the future held, Sophie was to be his and his alone….

      With anger simmering just below the surface, Max cast a hard, cold glance at the catalyst of his trip down memory lane. With the benefit of hindsight he realised his proposal had probably been a simple gut reaction to the massive blow his male ego had suffered at the thought of testicular cancer. But at the time, after having sex with her, he had deluded himself into believing it was something more and asked her to marry him.

      Max glanced across at Sophie again, and this time his gaze lingered, his dark eyes narrowing as he saw her smiling and charming the men either side of her. He saw Abe Asamov stroke her cheek with one finger, and his mouth curled in a bitter, cynical smile—a smile that was strained to the limit as she got up to dance with the man. The easy familiarity between Sophie and Abe was unmistakable.

      Dio! Sophie was certainly sleeping with him, and it could only be for one reason—money. Disgust churned his gut. When he saw them leave the dance floor, and watched her kiss the fat Russian on the cheek, he dismissed any notion of waiting a week or two to speak to her. In fact another minute was too long, and he changed his plan accordingly.

      It was said that revenge was best taken cold, and Max told himself he felt nothing but ice-cold anger for the beautiful Sophie and what she had become. He rose to his feet and excused himself. He had once thought the timing wasn’t right for an affair with Sophie, and then changed his mind. Two days later he had been dumped unceremoniously by the heartless witch. Now he had changed it back again, and this time he would be the one to walk away. But not until he had sated himself in her gorgeous body….

      CHAPTER THREE

      EVERY SELF-PROTECTIVE instinct Sophie possessed was telling her to turn and run. She’d known coming back to Italy was not a good idea, and seeing Max confirmed it. But she knew she had to get through this dinner—if only to prove that she was a true professional and Max Quintano meant nothing, in fact less than nothing, to her.

      Luckily for Sophie, Abe had asked her to interpret Cesare’s conversation and she readily agreed; if she kept her eyes on Cesare and Abe she could almost pretend that Max and Gina didn’t exist.

      Back at university, after her brief affair with Max, it had been hard—but with the help of her friends and by throwing herself into work she had finally got over him and convinced herself she didn’t care. Now it was galling to have to admit that it still hurt to see Max with Gina.

      For the next hour Sophie ate, drank and smiled in all the right places, but she was intensely conscious of Max Quintano’s powerful presence. She felt as though his eyes were on her, and that made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. It took every bit of will-power she had to chat normally and avoid glancing back at the hateful man. The realisation that just the sight of him could upset her so much after all this time gnawed away at her. To compensate she sparkled all the brighter with the clearly admiring Cesare, so much so that Abe picked up on her distress.

      He raised a finger to her cheek and stroked her jawline. ‘Sophie?’ She looked into his shrewd blue eyes. ‘You are trying too hard—whoever it is you are trying to avoid, my dear,’ he murmured, ‘use me, not young Cesare. You could hurt him. But I have broad shoulders, and I don’t mind playing the game.’

      ‘You see too much,’ Sophie sighed, and when Abe asked her to dance she managed an almost natural smile and rose to her feet, going gracefully into his arms.

      Surprisingly, for all his bulk, Abe was a good dancer, and Sophie relaxed into the music, her tall, graceful body drawing the eye of many appreciative males—and one in particular.

      ‘You’re a very beautiful woman, as I’ve told you before,’ Abe said as the music ended and with a guiding hand around her waist he led her back towards the table. ‘Whoever he was, he was a fool, and he didn’t deserve you in the first place. You are worth the best, and don’t you forget it.’

      She looked at Abe’s hard face and realised that not only was he an extremely nice man, but also extremely astute—no wonder he was a billionaire oil mogul.

      ‘You’re right.’ She smiled and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you.’ Why was she wasting her time getting upset all because she had had one disastrous love affair with a womanising bastard? It was time she moved on with her life, she thought determinedly.

      ‘Excuse me,’ a deep, dark voice drawled mockingly, and Max Quintano appeared in front of them. ‘May I claim your partner for the next dance?’

      Abe looked up at Max, not in the least intimidated by his great height, and slowly let his eyes inspect the man, before quirking an enquiring brow at Sophie and demanding in his own language to know what had been said. She was too shocked by Max’s sudden interruption and request to think of lying, and she told Abe.

      ‘Ah.’ He looked back at Max. ‘You want my woman?’ he managed in English, and his blue eyes danced with a wicked light.

      Sophie knew Abe was enjoying himself, and she glanced up at Max through the thick veil of her lashes. The look of cynical contempt on his harshly handsome face infuriated her. Abe had implied that she was his lover, and it was obvious Max believed him. He had a nerve to sneer at her, when he was the one with a legion of lovers and his long-term lover sitting at the other side of the dance floor. So why was he insisting on dancing with her given his obvious distain?

      ‘I hope you will allow me the pleasure of dancing with your charming companion. Sophie and I are old friends.’ His dark eyes narrowed challengingly on Abe.

      Abe let go of her waist and threw up his hands in a theatrical gesture. ‘I am not her keeper—ask her.’ Abe suddenly seemed to know a lot more English than anyone had given him credit for—Sophie included.

      Max’s dark head turned and his gaze captured hers. ‘May I have this dance, Sophie? Your partner does not seem to mind,’ he opined, with a sardonic curl of his firm lips.

      ‘Max—what a surprise,’ she said coldly. Words couldn’t begin to describe the anger that had swelled up inside her as the two men talked over her as if she wasn’t there. ‘I didn’t know you could dance. Did Gina teach you?’ she asked pointedly. The two-timing toad had the nerve to take a dig at her in front of everyone, and still demand that she dance with him.

      ‘As a matter of fact she did. Amongst other things,’ he said, grinning.

      Shock kept her silent for a moment, his brazen reply adding insult to injury. Then, realising that standing in silence, sandwiched between two men on the edge of the dance floor, was arousing the antennae of the company around them, she said sweetly ‘I’m sure she did. And, given she is your companion for the evening, shouldn’t you be dancing with her?’

      ‘No, Gina has other things on her mind,’ he replied with an amused glance across at his table.

      His callous indifference amazed her, and she allowed her gaze to rake angrily over him. He hadn’t changed much. His black hair was cut shorter, and liberally sprinkled with grey, and the lines bracketing his mouth were slightly more pronounced. There was a hard edge about him, which was in direct contrast to the laughing, teasing man she had known, but he was still strikingly attractive.

      ‘I’m surprised you want to dance with me,’ she finally said bluntly.

      Max moved closer and held out his hand. ‘You shouldn’t be, Sophie. After all, we were once extremely close friends.’ His glittering eyes mocked her, and for a moment she hesitated. But she didn’t trust him not to blurt out something even more compromising if she refused, and the gossip it would cause was not something she wanted.

      ‘I’d be delighted to dance with you, Mr Quintano,’ she said with a coldly polite social smile, and put her hand in his.

      Max sensed she hated the idea but was too polite to say so, and he deliberately linked his fingers

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