LITMIR.BIZ

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the wedding be? Here?’

      Bianca blinked. She hadn’t rehearsed any answers to their questions. Yesterday’s moment of intimacy with Liev had completely thrown her off her usual organised course.

      ‘Nothing is set yet.’ Liev came to her rescue as he took her hand and lifted it to his lips. The camera she thought had been packed away clicked once more as she looked up at him. ‘We are enjoying being together for now, are we not, Bianca?’

      ‘That’s it. That’s the one.’ The photographer’s ecstatic voice hardly registered as she looked into Liev’s eyes. The icy grey had softened as desire blended within them. Desire she knew was echoed in her eyes, but it was the intensity of them, the potent power of that seductive look, which almost made her knees buckle.

      He lowered his head and kissed her—slowly, lingering so sensuously she closed her eyes and gave herself up to the moment. Then it ended. He pulled away and a chill swirled around her despite the warm wind and afternoon sun.

      ‘Thank you,’ Liev said as he turned to shake hands with the interviewer, but Bianca just wanted them gone, wanted back the peace that had surrounded the small villa as they’d arrived.

      * * *

      The sun was low in the sky, but Liev didn’t feel the happiness he should feel as he stood and looked out over the ocean. The photoshoot had gone well. Bianca had been amazing, providing plenty of photos that could be used to show how much they were in love. She’d been so convincing he’d almost believed it too. But he’d been deceiving himself.

      Try as he might, he couldn’t fight the attraction he had for Bianca. She had unlocked the man he could have been if his life had taken a different course, the man who wanted love and happiness, just as his parents had enjoyed before everything went spectacularly wrong. But he wasn’t that man any more and never could be again. One disastrous affair had seen to that.

      ‘It’s so peaceful here. You can almost forget the rest of the world exists,’ Bianca whispered as she joined him on the balcony, the warm evening breeze moving through her dark hair as he turned to look down at her. This was a much softer version of the woman he’d outbid at the auction for a bracelet. During the time they’d been together as a couple he’d fallen harder and harder for her, until he knew he couldn’t get enough of her.

      What would she say if he told her he wanted to scoop her up and take her to the big bed he’d slept in alone last night and make her completely his? Would she welcome his touch, his kiss and his possession?

      ‘Thank you.’

      ‘For what?’ His thoughts were muddled as heat infused him at the image of her in his bed.

      ‘For bringing me here.’ Her voice had a delicate wobble and he clenched his hands into fists to prevent himself reaching for her, pulling her into his arms and kissing away that worry. ‘I know it’s for the benefit of the exclusive, but thank you.’

      ‘Is it true, that you have never spent time with a man like this, that you’ve never had a holiday romance?’ He was still getting his head round the fact that a woman as sexy and alluring as Bianca had never gone away with a man.

      She blushed and looked down. ‘Yes.’

      Now he couldn’t help himself. He reached out and lifted her chin, forcing her to look at him. Apprehension showed in her eyes as well as that ever-increasing vulnerability. Had he pushed her too far in his pursuit of revenge? ‘I’m sorry to have put you in this position. I never intended it to be this way.’

      It had all been about keeping her from her latest trinket, but he suspected even that wasn’t the truth. Whatever was going on with the bracelet, she’d stood up to him, fought her battles hard and kept her side of the deal.

      The gentle breeze moved her hair across her face as she looked up at him with an expression of innocence. Gently he pushed her hair back and tenderness squeezed at his chest. If only he wasn’t the heartless man life had made him, he knew he could love her.

      ‘I needed the bracelet,’ she said softly, her eyes searching his, but no trace of anger in her voice.

      ‘I know,’ he whispered, guilt pressing down on him.

      ‘You thought I was just being frivolous, buying myself jewellery?’ Her words, though barely above a whisper, still held the injustice of that. ‘It’s not like that at all.’

      ‘No, I don’t think it is. There are many things about you that I have got wrong, Bianca.’

      ‘Such as?’

      ‘I believed you were a cold woman. One who knew exactly what she wanted and went for it, but I was wrong. The woman I see now is someone completely different. She is soft and loving, loyal and innocent, making me want things I can’t have, things I don’t deserve.’

      ‘What things?’ The cracked whisper sent a lust-filled heat racing around him.

      ‘Affection.’ He meant love, but that was a word he’d thought he’d never use out loud again. Bianca had done something to him, touched a part of his heart that had frozen the day he’d buried his father and sworn revenge and later had been shattered by a woman’s betrayal.

      ‘Everyone deserves affection.’

      ‘I’ve done bad things, Bianca. I’m not the kind of man your grandfather would wish you to date, let alone become engaged to.’

      ‘You’ve blackmailed me, deceived my grandfather and all of New York’s society with our engagement and made me an accomplice in that deceit. What could be worse?’

      If he told her of his past, about what had made him the man he was today, would it end this madness he was feeling? Would it stop the thoughts of making her truly his? Of course it would. A woman like Bianca Di Sione would want nothing to do with a criminal, even if his childhood record had been wiped away, as if those years in prison had never happened. But they had and he’d never forget them.

      ‘I am what I am today, cold and calculating, because I had to learn to survive on my own, to fend for myself and fight my own battles—literally.’ For a moment his mind raced back to those dark days on the streets of St Petersburg.

      She reached up and touched his face, her palm soft against his skin, and he bit down hard to prevent himself from pulling her against him. She was seriously testing him. He caught her hand in his, her eyes widening with shock as he held her wrist. Her gaze held his, a hint of the strength he’d first seen in her coming forward.

      ‘I was in prison, Bianca—for five years.’

      She gasped and the horrified look on her face told him all he needed to know. ‘What for?’ she asked, trepidation in those whispered words.

      ‘For trying to stay alive.’

      ‘I don’t understand.’

      No, she wouldn’t. How could she when she’d never worried or wanted for anything? A protected princess.

      ‘After my parents died, I had no choice but to live rough on the streets of St Petersburg. I stole to eat and fought for a safe place to sleep. One day I was caught stealing bread and potatoes for myself and the younger kids.’ The embittered words snapped from him as he remembered the day he’d arrived at the prison, the hell of the place shaping who he now was.

      ‘That was the home you mentioned the other day? How old were you—when you went to prison?’

      ‘Thirteen.’

      Why hadn’t she backed away? Why hadn’t she pulled herself free of him in disgust, knowing she could truthfully add thief to the charges she’d already laid on him? He let go of her and turned away, hardly able to bear the suspense of waiting for her to do just that. Why had he told her? He’d never let anyone know and had gone to great lengths to cover up that part of his past.

      * * *

      Bianca watched as Liev turned away from her. She should be glad. He was

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