LITMIR.BIZ

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his heart under further stress?”

      A sense of impotency filled her. Despite the fact they were not exactly close, she loved her father very much. And he hadn’t looked well the last time she’d seen him. “No.”

      “Then I stay.”

      With a tremendous effort of will, she stepped back, away from that insidious touch. “No. If Papa is that worried, I’ll agree to a bodyguard, but not you.”

      “It is too important an assignment for me to put it in the hands of another.”

      “Me, important?” She couldn’t help deriding.

      His jaw went taut and fire rained down on her from those dark chocolate eyes. “Keep pushing, Elisa.”

      His tone implied that, for her own sake, she had better do anything but. Only she couldn’t make herself stop. There was too much pain inside her to govern everything that came out of her mouth when she was with him.

      He’d hurt her and there was a terrible part of her that wanted to hurt him back, even if it was just with digs that did no more than annoy his sense of masculine pride.

      “Get me a different bodyguard.”

      “That’s not going to happen.”

      “I’ll call Papa and tell him I don’t want you around me.”

      “And will you tell him why?”

      Salvatore’s smooth question stopped her progress toward the phone on the small table beside the one armchair in her apartment.

      “I don’t have to tell him why.”

      “He wants the best for you and I’m the best. He will expect an explanation.”

      The problem was, she knew he was right. Even though several of the Vitale Security operatives were ex-military, none of them had been trained as thoroughly as Salvatore. His father and grandfather had seen to that, going so far as sending him to spend his formative years’ schooling and training in an élite academy that taught a form of hand-to-hand combat second to none in the world.

      It had been followed by a technical education at the university level that put him on a par with coordinators in the government’s secret service.

      “Then I shall tell him.”

      “And prompt a full-on heart attack? Does he mean so little to you?”

      Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “Why are you doing this to me?” She spun to face him, her body vibrating with emotions she would give anything not to feel. “Haven’t you hurt me enough?”

      There it was. The truth laid bare between them. He had the power to hurt her and he had exercised it.

      His face looked set in stone. “I am not doing this to hurt you. You need my protection.”

      “Just being around you hurts!” she cried, not able to hide that from him any longer. Perhaps if she was honest, told him just how hard it was to be with him, he would withdraw from the fray and assign someone else to guard her. His Sicilian guilt should be good for something to her. “I can’t stand the memories, Salvatore. Can’t you see that? Not seeing you is the only way I can even begin to cope.”

      Pain shot through his expression, but then it was gone. “Pretending it did not happen is not coping.”

      Suddenly she knew. He wanted to force a confrontation. The man who found talking about his feelings right up there with Chinese water torture wanted to talk things out. She could see it in his eyes, in the stubborn set of his jaw.

      She couldn’t bear it. Rehashing the past would only hurt more, not heal.

      He didn’t realize that, of course. Because he was not hampered by the soul-destroying pain of a betrayed love. He had never felt anything more for her than sexual lust.

      Desperate to avoid the confrontation she sensed was coming, she took the lesser of two evils. “You said you’d take me to dinner.”

      “We need to talk, Elisa.”

      She ignored that. “I’m really tired. I’d prefer not to cook tonight.”

      His frown expressed his irritation with her refusal to talk, but in the end, and to her undying shock, he nodded. “All right. If you do not need to change clothes, we can go.”

      “Just let me fix my hair and put on some lipstick.”

      Again he agreed, giving her a much needed reprieve from his presence as she closed herself into the tiny cubicle that served as her bathroom.

      Salvatore swore with frustration. He had believed it would be difficult to overcome her aversion to him, but had not been prepared for it to be almost impossible.

      Elisa was not just angry with him. She hated him.

      She had lost her baby because of him. She’d never said so, but their final argument, the stress of that confrontation had no doubt precipitated the miscarriage. It was a guilt he’d learned to live with, but he would not live with the knowledge he had done nothing to make it right.

      However, it was patently obvious she was not prepared for talk of marriage yet.

      He had to woo her. His mouth twisted cynically. He knew how he wanted to woo her. In bed. Seducing her would be far easier than talking the stubborn woman round to his way of seeing things. He would enjoy it more too.

      She might not like it, but her body still reacted to him almost helplessly. Her pulse had increased with the barest touch of his hand on her neck. Given enough time and close proximity, it would simply be a matter of when they made it back into each other’s arms.

      No matter what had gone before, back in her bed was a place he definitely wanted to be. Even marriage was not too high a price to pay to know that all her passion, all her fire would belong to him.

      Elisa came out of the bathroom looking fragile, but lovely. She’d brushed out her hair and pulled it back with a clip. Her face had more color than it had earlier, but that was probably due to makeup rather than an improvement in her feelings. Not that her green eyes revealed anything. Their usually animated depths were blank of any emotion.

      “Are you ready?” she asked, her voice as flat as her expression.

      He detested that flatness, wanted to experience Elisa as she had been a year ago, not this buttoned-down stranger. But he had won one victory; he would consolidate his position before demanding more.

      “I’m ready.”

      Just those two words and her eyelids flinched. He wanted to curse. He’d been a stupid bastard a year ago. Even if she was like her mother, as her father had said, she’d been different in one key way. She’d wanted to marry him when she discovered she was pregnant.

      He still wasn’t sure the baby was his. They’d only been together a month when she told him she was pregnant…What were the chances? But even so, he had decided to risk them because he had wanted her in his bed and in his life on a permanent basis. He’d made that decision too late and lived to regret his tardiness and stupidity.

      “Let’s go.” He took her hand to lead her from the apartment.

      She tried to pull away from him, the way she did from every single touch since they’d seen each other that morning in the jeweler’s. And just as before, he didn’t let go. She had to get used to his touch again. The prospect that she wouldn’t was not a circumstance he wanted to contemplate.

      “Where are we going?”

      “Does it matter?”

      “No.”

      “I did not think so.”

      Two hours later, they were back in the apartment, dinner having been nothing short of a disaster. She’d avoided looking at him, touching him and talking to him if she could.

      The

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