LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘No! You can’t marry her!’

      The words tumbled from Kristen’s mouth before she could stop them. Her voice sounded deafeningly loud in the silent room and she felt her face burn as the party guests all turned to look at her. She swallowed as Sergio jerked his head in her direction. Even across the distance of the room, she sensed his shock as he recognised her.

      ‘Kristen?’

      The husky way he spoke her name, the slight accent on the first syllable, touched something deep inside her. Her eyes locked with his and she felt the same inexplicable connection she had felt the very first time she had seen him. But when they had met on a Sicilian beach Sergio had smiled at her. Now, his shocked expression was rapidly changing to anger—which was hardly surprising when she had just ruined his engagement party, Kristen thought ruefully.

      Dear heaven, what had she done? But it was too late to backtrack now.

      ‘It...it isn’t right,’ she faltered. ‘You have responsibilities...you have...’ Her nerve failed her. She could not reveal to Sergio that he had a son when he was staring at her with a coldly arrogant expression that froze her blood.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ His voice sounded like the crack of a whip and jerked Kristen from her state of stunned immobility. She became aware of the startled faces of the guests around her and felt sick as the magnitude of what she had done hit her. She shouldn’t have come and she had to leave, immediately.

      She thrust the tray of drinks into the hands of one of the guests and ran across to the double doors just as they opened to allow several waiters bearing trays of canapés to file into the room.

      ‘Stop her!’

      The harsh command filled Kristen with panic. A security guard stepped in front of her, blocking her path, and she gave a startled cry as a hand settled heavily on her shoulder and spun her around. She stumbled in her high heeled shoes and fell against Sergio’s broad chest.

      He stared down at her, his dark eyes blazing with fury. ‘What the hell is going on?’

      As she stared at his handsome face, the words of apology died on Kristen’s lips and her brain stopped functioning. But her senses went into overdrive. The feel of his hand on her shoulder seemed to burn through her thin blouse and the close proximity of their bodies caused her heart to slam against her ribcage. For timeless moments the voices of the guests faded and there was just her and Sergio alone in the universe.

      The anger in his eyes turned to curiosity and something else that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. An electrical current seemed to arc between them and Kristen felt heat surge through her body. But then a flashlight flared, half-blinding her, and when Sergio came back into focus his expression was once more furious.

      His fingers gripped her shoulder so tightly that she winced. ‘Dio, the press are going to love this,’ he said bitterly.

      The press! The flashbulbs suddenly made sense. Kristen stared wildly at the flank of photographers who were circling her and Sergio. No doubt the journalists were eager to know why she had interrupted him just as he had been about to announce his engagement. ‘Oh, God,’ she muttered and, with a strength born of desperation, she tore free from Sergio’s hold and shot past the security guard, out into the corridor.

      With one of their quarry gone, the journalists crowded around Sergio. ‘Mr Castellano, do you want to make a statement?’

      ‘No, I damned well don’t,’ Sergio growled savagely. What he wanted to do was race after Kristen and find out what she was playing at. He had hardly been able to believe his eyes when he had looked across the ballroom and seen her, and one part of his mind had instantly registered that she was even lovelier than his memory of her.

      Enzo, his PR man, appeared beside him and for once the usually unflappable manager looked shaken.

      ‘I think you should say something and explain the situation,’ Enzo advised in an undertone meant for Sergio’s hearing only. ‘Earl Denholm seems to think that you have humiliated his daughter by ending your engagement to her in public, and he’s threatening to call off the deal.’

      ‘Santa Madonna! There was no damned engagement. I assumed Felicity had made that clear to her father.’ Sergio’s nostrils flared as he struggled to control his temper. He had no wish to talk to the press, but if the deal with Denholm was about to blow up in his face he realised he had no choice.

      He spun back round to the journalists, his face now expressionless as he controlled his anger. ‘There has been a misunderstanding. Miss Denholm and I are not engaged...’

      A microphone was shoved at him. ‘Has she called it off because she found out about your mistress?’

      ‘Who is the mystery blonde who just left?’

      ‘Are you planning to marry the waitress?’

      Sergio’s patience snapped. ‘I’m not planning to marry anyone—ever.’ He glanced at his PR man. ‘Enzo, I’ll leave you to deal with this—while I deal with the “mystery blonde”,’ he said with grim irony, and strode out of the function room.

      CHAPTER TWO

      WHERE THE HELL was she? Sergio stared up and down the empty corridor before turning left out of the function room. His instincts proved correct as he walked swiftly and turned a corner to see a petite blonde-haired figure at the far end of the passageway.

      He was rarely surprised by anything, but tonight he had received a shock that was still causing his heart to thud unevenly. He had seen a ghost from his past, although Kristen Russell—for all her ethereal beauty—was no spectre from the spirit world. She was very real, albeit a woman now rather than the innocent girl he had known four years ago.

      An unbidden memory came to him of the first time he had made love to her. It had been a new experience for both of them, he thought wryly. He had been shocked to discover she was a virgin. Before he had met her, and after their relationship had ended, his numerous affairs had been with women whose sexual experience matched his own. It was true that his affair with Kristen had been different from any of his previous relationships, but ultimately it had ended for the same reason his affairs always ended—she had wanted more from him than he could give. When she had left him, he had let her go, knowing there was no point trying to explain his bone-deep mistrust of emotional commitment.

      Psychologists would no doubt blame his childhood and in particular his mother as a reason for his inability to connect with women on a deep level. Sergio’s mouth curved into a derisive smile. Maybe the shrinks were right. As a child he had taught himself to block out pain—both mental and physical—until nothing could hurt him. It was a trait he had continued as an adult and his freedom from emotional distractions gave him an edge over his business rivals and had earned him a reputation for ruthlessness in the boardroom.

      Yet he admitted that he had missed Kristen, and for a while after she had returned to England he had been tempted to follow her and re-ignite the fiery passion that he had never felt so intensely for any other woman. He had resisted because nothing had changed. He could not be the man she wanted. And then there had been Annamaria, and for the only time ever in his life his actions had been driven by love. The cruelty of her untimely death had served as a reminder that even he could not freeze his emotions completely.

      Sergio forced his mind from the past and continued his pursuit of Kristen along the corridor which led only to his private suite. She was clearly finding it difficult to keep up a fast pace in her high-heeled shoes and her hips swayed, causing her tightly clad derrière to bob tantalisingly in front of his eyes.

      His footsteps were muffled by the thick carpet, but Kristen must have sensed someone was behind her because she glanced over her shoulder and gave an audible gasp when she saw him.

      ‘If you’re looking for the way out, you won’t find it along here,’ he told her curtly.

      Kristen froze and, realising the futility of continuing

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