LITMIR.BIZ

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      Did he, too, think her grandfather’s scheme was crazy? Had he come all this way to humour a distant relative he had never met out of respect? Italians went a bundle on respect, didn’t they?

      But the question flew out of her head as he reached the apartment well ahead of her, despite her best efforts in the scampering department. The door opened directly into her living room. She had left a table lamp burning and the room just looked like comfortable chaos. But when he found the main light switch and depressed it the room looked like a squalid hovel.

      And Aldo, standing in the middle of the muddle, was so beautifully groomed and immaculate. The contrast made her cheeks flame with embarrassment. The velvet bow that had held her hair in check fell off. She heard it hit the floor behind her just before the riotous chestnut tangle tumbled around her shoulders. And she was still holding her skirt above her knees. She dropped the hem immediately and said starkly, ‘Coffee?’ and picked her barefoot way through to the tiny kitchen, avoiding the piles of trade magazines and glossies, the pile of curtains she’d laundered but hadn’t got around to re-hanging and the heap of work clothes she’d got out of before going through to shower and change earlier this evening.

      When she was working, deeply engrossed in a new project, she forgot to be tidy, forgot everything. But no way would she explain or make excuses to this so obviously superior being, who probably had an army of servants to keep everything around him picture perfect plus one in reserve just to iron his shoelaces.

      Thankfully, he didn’t follow her to the kitchen to sneer at the empty baked-bean tin with the spoon still in it. There’d been nothing else for breakfast because she’d forgotten to shop and the Belfast sink was over-flowing with unwashed dishes, but at least she did have decent coffee.

      When she carried the tray through he had his back to her. He was studying the framed prints that broke the severity of the white-painted walls. Nudging aside a bowl of wilting roses, she set the tray down on the low table that fronted the burnt-orange-upholstered small sofa then stood very straight, dragging in a deep breath.

      Time to get the show on the road. Throw Gramps’s stupid idea straight out of play and get on with the rest of her life. The old man would be deeply disappointed, she knew that, and would probably carry through his threat to disinherit her, but she could handle that.

      ‘So you think my grandfather’s idea of an arranged marriage is mad,’ she stated for starters, carefully keeping her voice level, non-confrontational as she waited for his robust confirmation of what he’d said earlier. And watched him turn, very slowly.

      ‘Not necessarily.’ His lean features betrayed nothing. ‘It was idle supposition on my part—on your behalf. Do you really think I would have come this far if I’d thought the idea had no merit?’ He strolled with an appallingly fluid grace to where she was standing. ‘Shall I pour, or will you?’

      The question didn’t register. Cat’s mouth ran dry, her lips parted. She gasped for air; she felt she was being suffocated. From his attitude since they’d taken leave of her grandfather she’d drawn the conclusion that he’d been humouring the old man, had as little intention as she did of entering into an arranged marriage. Now it seemed the game was back on. It was a deeply terrifying prospect.

      Though why that should be she couldn’t work out. No one could force her to marry anyone!

      ‘Your silence tells me you don’t care either way. About who should pour the coffee.’ A strange satisfaction threaded through his voice and curved his lips. Cat’s eyes went very wide as they locked on to that sinfully sexy mouth. Her own lips felt suddenly desperately needy and she was hot, much too hot; she could spontaneously combust at any moment!

      The silence was stinging; it gathered her up and enclosed her with him, very tightly, and there was no escape. Her flurried gasp of relief was completely involuntary when he finally broke the awful tension and turned to pour the coffee.

      Taking his own cup, he angled his lean body into one corner of the sofa, long legs stretched out in front of him, the sleek fabric caressing the taut muscles of his thighs like the touch of a lover.

      Cat gulped thickly. Her thoughts were so wicked! She had to blank them, and when he glanced at the vacant space beside him and invited softly, ‘Shall we talk?’ she shied away, wrapping her arms around her trembling body, and had to force herself to say, ‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ because the temptation to join him, sit intimately close, was enormous.

      And very, very dangerous!

      ‘No? No opinions?’ he queried softly, his honeyed tone giving her goose bumps. The look in his eyes as they fastened on her hectically coloured face made her stop breathing. ‘Then I’ll give you mine, shall I?’

      Cat forced herself to move, to give a slight, careless shrug before she picked her way over to a vaguely throne-like chair she’d picked up one Sunday afternoon at a car-boot sale. It’s slightly vulgar ostentation had amused her but it was supremely uncomfortable.

      Aldo was watching her, his eyes hooded, looking smoky. Seated, Cat kept her eyes firmly on her bare toes. He could spout opinions all night but that didn’t mean she needed take the slightest notice of them.

      But her heart was beating uncomfortably fast as he raised his arms and laced his hands behind his head and told her, ‘I have nothing against arranged marriages, all things being equal. Up until now I’ve been too busy to consider marrying. I confess to never having been in love, and unlike most of my compatriots,’ he added drily, ‘I consider the condition to be vastly overrated. It dresses the basic human need to procreate in romantic flummery.’

      Cat’s eyes shot up from the anodyne contemplation of her toes to lock with his. ‘So you don’t believe in love,’ she challenged. Her eyes gleamed. ‘Bully for you! I bet you a dime to a king’s ransom the right woman could teach you differently!’

      Brilliant dark eyes sparked with pinpricks of golden light at her husky outburst but his voice was cool when he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘As far as I’m concerned, marriage is a serious matter. An heir is necessary. Any wife I choose would have to be intelligent, good to look at, have her feet firmly on the ground—no girlish claims to be madly in love with me because such emotional demands would merely make life difficult. Besides all this, I would need her to bring something of substance to the marriage. Family honour as well as sound financial sense demands that much.’ He brought his hands down, his beautifully cut jacket settling back against his upper body with exquisite, unruffled elegance. ‘I think you qualify on all counts.’

      ‘Especially Grandfather’s shares,’ she said on a dry snap. ‘Couldn’t you offer to buy them off him—twist his arm or something? You could save yourself a whole heap of trouble.’ If what he’d been saying was supposed to be a proposal then it was the coldest, most calculating one any woman was ever likely to hear. It deserved her utmost contempt. It showed in the green glitter of her eyes, in the tight downturn of her generous mouth.

      Water off a duck’s back as far as Aldo was concerned, apparently. He expanded his argument fluidly. ‘Perhaps Domenico would agree to sell; perhaps not. But I have no intention of going down that road. Why should I when I can kill three birds with one stone? One,’ he ticked off on his long, tanned fingers, ‘I secure those possibly rogue shares for the family, where they belong. Two, I get a beautiful and intelligent wife, and three, I get an heir. And as far as you’re concerned, you get a pampered lifestyle, more financial security than you’ve ever dreamed of—’

      ‘I don’t need it!’ Distraught, Cat shot to her feet, her breasts heaving. Listening to this man—this…this sex-on-legs—talking of marriage as if it were a cold business arrangement was the last thing she wanted. ‘I don’t want your empty wealthy lifestyle—I want my own life, warts and all. I’m a big girl, signor; I can stand on my own feet, or hadn’t you noticed?’

      ‘Oh, I noticed,’ he countered, smooth as cream. He rose to his feet and sauntered towards her and she gritted her teeth. He had too much style. He was too much altogether. And this close she could see those intriguing golden lights

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