LITMIR.BIZ

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      Ellie barely touched the food on her plate. She eavesdropped on Carmela’s airheaded views on suntans as affected by climate change. She noticed that Rio didn’t listen to a word his companion said and appeared to be tuning her out like an irritating noise. She watched him, as well, catching the downward slant of his beautifully shaped mouth, the tension in his exquisite bone structure that hardened his exotic cheekbones and placed hollows beneath them. He was furious with her, she knew he was. Rio had a temper like a flamethrower and he was boiling like a cauldron of oil.

      But Ellie was angry too. Only the day before he had been with her and last night he had been waiting for her in her hotel room. And now he was with a beautiful blonde model, who operated off one very talkative brain cell. Why was she hurt? Why the hell was she hurting over his rejection of her as a woman? Time after time over the years Ellie had learned that men didn’t really want career-driven, independent women. She wasn’t feminine enough, she wasn’t soft enough, she could deal with a spider just fine but a mouse sent her screaming. She was stubborn and contrary and choosy and he didn’t fit the bill for her either, so why was she agonising? Why would she want a gorgeous, arrogant, shameless man whore in her life anyway? She was far too sensible and strait-laced for a male of his ilk. Sheer lust had put her in his arms and she had got what she deserved, she told herself repressively.

      Beppe took her and several other guests to admire his latest painting acquisition in the hall. Rio and Carmela joined them. Carmela wondered out loud if the seventeenth-century subject of the portrait was wearing hair extensions. Ellie whispered a polite, ‘Excuse me...’ in Beppe’s ear as he guided the group into his library to show them something else and she walked down the corridor to the cloakroom instead. Freshening up, she grimaced at her anxious reflection in the mirror. Why was it that when Rio was around he dominated everything? Including her thoughts?

      When she emerged, Rio was standing waiting for her, his lean, dark face stormy and tense. ‘I want a word,’ he told her grimly.

      ‘But I don’t,’ Ellie told him as he snapped a hand round her wrist and pulled her outdoors onto the cool, formal loggia with pillars that ran along that side of the house.

      ‘You’re such a bully, Rio!’ Ellie objected, rubbing her wrist the instant he released it as though he had bruised her.

      Rio backed her up against the stone wall behind her by the simple expedient of moving forward, shutting out any view of the gardens and forcing her to tip her head back to look up at him. ‘What did you tell Beppe about us?’ he demanded in a raw undertone.

      ‘Very little. That we met at the wedding and that you called on me at the hotel the day I arrived,’ Ellie proffered. ‘I didn’t tell him what you said or threatened or anything of that nature. I simply wanted to clear the air. Pretending we were strangers... I mean, why would I mislead Beppe like that? I’ve got nothing to hide—’

      ‘Not according to the report I had done on you,’ Rio reminded her darkly.

      Ellie bridled at that reference, fully convinced that any close and proper check on her background would reveal that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. ‘I didn’t intend to cause friction between you and Beppe. I didn’t think of that angle,’ she admitted guiltily. ‘But I’m sorry that I embarrassed you like that—’

      ‘Are you really?’ Rio lifted a sardonic ebony brow, staring down at her, noting the mere hint at her neckline of the pale valley between her full breasts and entranced by the new discovery that showing so little could actually be sexier than showing a lot. As he tensed, inescapably recalling his own response to those luscious curves the day before, he whipped his gaze up to her face in the hope of lowering his temperature. ‘I think you dropped me in it deliberately to cause trouble,’ he contended.

      ‘But then you would think that because you always think the worst of me,’ Ellie shot back at him in exasperation. ‘Exactly what is your problem, Rio?’

      Rio ran his fingertip along the succulent curve of her lower lip and watched a tiny pulse flicker fast at the base of her elegant white throat. ‘You’re my only problem, principessa,’ he told her huskily. ‘We had our moment and that was supposed to be it—’

      ‘It is it!’ Ellie seethed, furious that he was cornering her when he had brought another woman to dinner.

      ‘Not for me,’ Rio confided, letting a coppery corkscrew curl coil round his finger like a vine, his stunning dark golden eyes hot and hungrily gripping hers by sheer force of will. ‘I’m not done yet—’

      ‘But I am,’ Ellie spelled out thinly. ‘You’re ruining my holiday—’

      ‘When we’re done, I’ll tell you,’ Rio asserted, bending down to nip at her full lower lip with the edge of his teeth.

      A violent shiver ran down through her taut body, that tiny sting of pain somehow setting off a chain reaction of electrified awareness and sensitivity. He lowered his head and he took her mouth with a raw sexual demand that momentarily stole Ellie’s wits. She fell back against the wall, knees weak, melting heat surging in her pelvis.

      ‘Rio!’ a voice interposed curtly, and both of them froze.

      Rio lifted his dark head and stepped back to study his godfather, keen to interpret his expression. Beppe looked angry and protective. Ellie straightened, her face flushing as mortification consumed her.

      ‘Carmela’s looking for you,’ Beppe murmured flatly. ‘I suggest that you take her home. I would also suggest that you stay away from Ellie.’

      Rio released his breath in an audible hiss. ‘Although I’m always ready to listen to suggestions, Beppe,’ he conceded, ‘I’ve always forged my own path.’

      With a nod of acknowledgement to Ellie and the older man, Rio strode back indoors, not one whit perturbed by the scene Beppe had interrupted. Or, at least, if he was bothered, he wasn’t showing it, Ellie acknowledged.

      ‘I have no right to interfere,’ Beppe said uncomfortably to Ellie. ‘I love Rio like a son but I also know him. He had some unfortunate experiences with women in his youth and I would advise you to keep your distance. He plays with women. He doesn’t take them seriously. He would hurt you and I would hate to see that happen. Furthermore, if you prove to be either my niece or even my daughter, you will often meet Rio and that—’

      ‘Could get very awkward,’ Ellie filled in ruefully for herself. ‘It’s all right, Beppe. I kind of worked out that stuff about Rio anyway, so don’t worry about me. I’m a big girl and I can look after myself.’

      Rio and Carmela were nowhere to be seen when they rejoined the rest of the guests. Ellie stayed quite late but insisted on returning to her hotel when Beppe offered her the use of a guest room. She drove back in a contemplative state of mind and wondered if she would find Rio in her room again. Not this time however.

      Soberly she lay in bed, wondering about the results of the DNA test. Would she prove to be half-Sorrentino? Or was she in for a shock on that score? It was perfectly possible, after all, that some time after Beppe’s rejection her mother had spent a night with some other man. Well, at least she would soon know one way or another, even if she didn’t actually manage to identify her father, she told herself soothingly.

      But how would Rio react if she was a Sorrentino? Ironically she didn’t want to upset him but nor was she willing to apologise for an act of fate. She was already wondering what Beppe’s mention of Rio’s ‘unfortunate youthful experiences’ with women had entailed. But then surely no intelligent male could be so innately distrustful and cynical about her sex without cause?

      And what did it matter? She relived the teasing sting of his teeth on her lip and a forbidden little quiver snaked through her. With a groan she rolled over and pressed her offending mouth into the pillow. Rio was as potent as poison and equally toxic and Beppe was right, she needed to keep her distance. To do anything else would be to court disaster because Rio had no off switch, no respect for boundaries...and probably even less respect for her, she conceded unhappily.

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