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Scorching golden eyes locked to hers and stole the very air from her lungs. ‘I wanted to be with you and when I want something I stop at nothing to get it.’
Detaching her gaze from his, Gwenna lowered her head. Now she felt hot all over and there was a tightness low in her tummy at the unmistakable awareness of his meaning and the high voltage sexual charge that he made no attempt to hide. ‘Is that your recipe for success?’
‘That would be too predictable for me. I choose my battles, gioia mia.’
As champagne was poured she grasped her glass, sipped steadily through the effervescent bubbles tickling her nose and studied the menu with fevered determination. He began to talk to her about Paris and she was intrigued by the discovery that he was an unexpectedly brilliant storyteller, capable of drawing an amusing picture with a handful of words. Enthralled, she listened and drank more than she ate; before dinner, she had shared a bar of chocolate with Piglet. As the champagne stole away her remaining discomfiture she was happy to let herself be entertained.
‘Are you not eating?’ Angelo enquired.
‘I’m not hungry.’ Except for you, a little voice whispered inside her head, shocking her with that instinctive message that rebelled against everything she had believed about her nature. But it was true: fascination had taken a powerful hold of her and she had shut out the voice of common sense that usually kept her feet on the ground. Even though she had suppressed that initial reckless thought she still found it almost impossible to break the potent hold of his dark golden eyes. Soon she was lost in her admiration of the ebony luxuriance of his lashes, the smooth olive planes of his hard cheekbones above the blue-black roughened skin of his jaw line and the pure masculine beauty of his wide sculpted mouth. In the same way she could not resist the exhilarating zing of awareness in the atmosphere.
Every fibre of his lean, powerful body on sexual alert, Angelo thrust his plate away. Finally he had her full attention and his predatory reaction was instinctive: to take immediate advantage. He reached for her hand. ‘Let’s go…’ he urged huskily.
‘But we haven’t finished,’ she framed shakily.
Angelo used his strength to inexorably tug her upright. His smouldering gaze gripped hers with a sensual force that made her knees tremble. ‘We haven’t even begun, bellezza mia.’
The buzz of conversation around them died. Gwenna was conscious of the stares as Angelo escorted her out, an arm possessively closed to her slim back. Her colour was high, her legs as weak as twigs. Without warning she found herself wondering if he had been with any other woman while he’d been away and a hollow sensation filled her tummy. He tucked her into the limo, got in beside her and pulled her to him. A heartbeat later the hungry driving heat of his mouth was on hers and a blaze as hot as an indoor sun was coursing through her tremulous length. It hurt not to breathe, but it would have hurt more to do without the gloriously erotic plunge of his tongue and the sweet flood of sensation he unleashed. A vital force was energising her body to a pitch of response so intense it almost hurt.
He released her lips, leaving her gasping for air and yet stricken at that loss of contact. Her bemused blue eyes focused on him again.
‘You’re amazing,’ Angelo purred. ‘I knew you would be.’
Her lashes dropped to shadow her shaken gaze. In a matter of moments he had rewritten her knowledge of herself. Her body was crying out for him and she was shocked. Chafed by the lace cups of her bra, her tender nipples were tingling. The prickling throb between her slender thighs painted her face pink. She wanted him. He had made her want him. Of course, a few glasses of champagne had loosened her inhibitions, she told herself defensively. But wasn’t that a good thing? Angelo Riccardi had offered her the devil’s bargain, and she had surrendered choice when she agreed to share his bed in return for the charges against her father being dropped. Wasn’t it wiser to make the best of a bad situation rather than try to resist the inevitable? And wouldn’t asking if she was currently the only woman in his life demean her? Give him the impression that she cared?
Angelo could feel her trembling and his very sensitivity to that fact annoyed him in the same way that so many things had in recent weeks. Disturbed nights when he had tossed and turned and burned for her had presumably affected his mood. The concept of deferred satisfaction was not for him. He wasn’t used to waiting for a woman. But he wasn’t an animal either, was he? She was a virgin and as highly strung as one of his pedigree racehorses. Gone, he could not help noticing, was the happy aura of serenity she had exuded at their first meeting. The brutal pressure he had utilised had left its mark. But why should that bother him? As Donald Hamilton’s daughter, she had been raised in the cosy comfort of middle-class respectability, he reminded himself grimly. The discovery that the world could be a much more challenging place would be a character-building exercise for her.
In the hall of the Chelsea house she gave him a swift uncertain glance from eyes as blue as the china his mother had once collected. He closed a hand to hers in an imprisoning gesture. ‘You haunt my dreams,’ he ground out with a harsh laugh. ‘You could be seriously bad for my health.’
Gwenna was feeling slightly dizzy from the champagne. Her mind was full of muzzy, disjointed thoughts, but the bitter light in his brooding dark eyes twisted something painfully inside her. Without understanding or conscious decision she lifted a hand to trace his aggressive jaw line in a soothing motion. Then startled by that extraordinary prompting, belatedly aware that he was equally surprised as questioning gold drenched the darkness of his gaze and his ebony brows pleated, she froze in confusion.
‘Per amor di Dio,’ Angelo breathed roughly, cupping her soft cheeks between long brown fingers. ‘Right now I think I could die from wanting you, mia bella.’
He tasted her lips with a searing sweetness that sent her every barrier crashing down. She didn’t want to think, she refused to think when he bent down and scooped her up into his arms as though she weighed nothing to carry her up the handsome staircase. But fear of being seen prompted her to mutter uneasily, ‘The housekeeper—?’
‘Off duty until we call.’ Angelo claimed a passionate kiss that silenced her.
MERE minutes later, Gwenna caught an accidental glimpse of herself in the cheval mirror in her bedroom. Dismayed, rudely recalled to reality, she stared at her hectically flushed cheeks and swollen mouth. She looked like a shameless hussy. Air cooled her spine as Angelo ran down the zip on her dress and inched it off her shoulders.
‘I feel like a slut…’ she gasped strickenly.
Angelo spun her round, simmering dark eyes pinned to her unhappy face. ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard, bellezza mia,’ he censured. ‘I want you and you want me. What could be more natural than the desire to make love?’
A half-dozen tart retorts hovered on the edge of Gwenna’s mind but she kept them there, consciously protecting herself from a pointless outburst that would only upset her more. She was having an affair, nothing more or less, she told herself squarely. Hadn’t she always been a very practical person? Flights of fancy and histrionics were not for her. She would live only in the present, taking each day as it came.
Angelo smoothed her honey-blonde hair back from her troubled brow in a motion so gentle she blinked in surprise. ‘I saw you and I wanted you before you even spoke. One look and that was that.’
‘But that’s crazy.’
‘Dio mio, I would have moved heaven and earth to bring us to this moment,’ he drawled in a driven undertone. ‘Being desired to that degree should be a source of pride to you.’
Disconcerted by that statement, she blinked. ‘We…we don’t think the same…’
Angelo drew her to him with strong hands,