LITMIR.BIZ

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stared at the tears shimmering in Alisha’s large brown eyes, his breath punching into his throat.

      It was the equivalent of a punch to his gut. He had borne enough of those in Sicily in his teenage years. Boys he’d known all his life had turned against Dante overnight; calling him names, roughing him up.

      All thanks to his father’s crime.

      Those boys’ punches had lit a fire in him back then, fueling his ambition to build a name for himself, separate from his father’s. They had turned his young heart into a stone that never felt hurt again.

      He had craved a fortune and a name all of his own. He had decided never to be weak like that again; never to be at anyone’s mercy, least of all be controlled by a woman’s love. And he had turned it into reality.

      But the candid emotion in Alisha’s face as she touched her mother’s necklace, the havoc it wreaked on him, was a thousand times worse than any harm that had been inflicted on his teenage self.

      When he’d delved into those reports on Alisha, he’d been shocked to find that Alisha had visited London several times over the last five years.

      She’d had to go to London to deal with problems concerning her mother’s charity. She had even spearheaded a charity gala to raise money. He’d been looking for leverage and he had found it.

      He wasn’t cheating Alisha out of anything she wanted. He was, in fact, proposing he give her what she wanted out of it, the one thing she held precious in return for what he wanted.

      No, what threw him into the kind of emotional turmoil that he’d always avoided like the plague was that he was involving her in this play.

      Alisha, who was a mass of contradictions, who he’d never quite figured out, who’d been the kind of flighty, selfish, uncaring kind of woman he loathed, was an unknown.

      From the moment she’d come to live with her father, Neel, she’d hated Dante with an intensity that he’d first found amusing and then dangerous. Even worse, she’d always incited a reaction in him that no one else provoked.

      But all this was before the changes in her the last six years had wrought.

      Cristo, the sight of her walking into the back alley a few hours ago—the white spaghetti top plastered to her breasts, her shorts showing off miles and miles of toned legs, the utter sensuality of her movements as she pushed away tendrils of hair falling on her face, the sparkle of the fading sun on her brown skin...

      The shock in her face, the greedy, hungry way she’d let those big brown eyes run all over him...even that hadn’t made a dent in the need that had pulsed through him.

      Dios mio, this was Neel’s daughter.

      She was forbidden to him. And not just because he was determined to take the last bit of her father’s legacy from her. But because, with everything he planned to put into motion, Alisha would be the variable. His attraction to her was a weakness he couldn’t indulge, much less act on. There were only two positions for women in his life: colleagues like Izzy and a couple of his business associates, women whose judgment he respected, women he genuinely liked; and then there were women he slept with who knew the score, and didn’t want more from him.

      Alisha didn’t fall into either of those camps.

      “Dante? What the hell are you doing with my mother’s necklace?”

      “I bought it back from the guy you sold it to.” He made a vague motion to her tears, more shocked than discomfited by them. He’d never seen her as anything but poised to fight her father, him, Vikram, with all guns blazing. Never in this...fragile light. “Looks like I made the right call in thinking you would like it back. Why did you sell it?”

      She took another longing look at the box before pushing it back toward him. “For a pair of Jimmy Choos.”

      “Don’t be flippant, Alisha. I never understood why you were always so determined to be your own worst enemy.”

      “I have no idea what you’re talking about. And really, did you invite me to dinner just to point out my flaws?”

      He forced himself to pull his gaze from the way she chewed on her lower lip. Suddenly, everything about her—her mind, her body, Dio...everything—felt fascinating. Everything was distracting. “I know your mother’s charity is failing. Why didn’t you come to me for help?”

      “Why didn’t I come to you for help?” Some of that natural fight in her crawled back into her shoulders. He liked her better like that. He didn’t want a vulnerable Alisha on his hands for the next few months. She laughed. White teeth flashed in that gamine face. “Have you met me? And you?”

      Despite himself, Dante smiled.

      He’d forgotten how witty Alisha could be, how she’d always laughed in any situation, how even with all her tantrums and drama she’d made the house lively when she’d come to live with Neel after her mother’s death. Even with grief painting her eyes sad, she’d been so full of life, so full of character, even at the age of twelve.

      He’d never gravitated to her, true, but when she’d blossomed into a teenager, it had seemed as if her hatred for him had grown too. The more he had tried to fix things between her and her father, the more she had resented him.

      Her gaze slipped to his mouth for a fraction of a second. Every muscle in him tightened. “I’d starve before I take anything from the company. Or you.”

      He was far too familiar with that spiel to question it now. “What did you need the money for?”

      “If you know I sold it, and to whom, then you know why. Come on, Dante, enough beating around the bush.”

      The waiter brought their food and she thanked him.

      She dug into the food with the same intensity with which she seemed to attack everything in life.

      Dante, mostly because of the jet lag, pushed his food around. He watched her as she sipped her wine, her tongue flicking out to lick a drop from her lower lip.

      He wanted to lick it with his own.

      The thought came out of nowhere, hard and fast. He pushed a hand through his hair and cursed under his breath.

      Maledizione! In all the scenarios he had foreseen for this, he hadn’t counted how strikingly gorgeous Alisha had become. Or the intensity of the pull he felt toward her.

      Whatever tension had been filling up the air, it now filled his veins. And he realized it was because she wasn’t focused on him anymore.

      Not so with him. Not even the constant reminder, the ironclad self-discipline that made him a revered name in his business circles, the one that told him this was nothing but a quid pro quo, could distract his gaze from the expanse of smooth brown skin her dress exposed. He took the wine flute in his hands, turned it around and around, watching his fingers leaving marks against the condensation.

      He wanted to trace his finger against the slope of her shoulders to see if her skin was as silky as it looked. He wanted to touch the pulse at her throat, to sink his fingers into her silky hair and pull her to him, hold her against his body as he plundered her mouth...

      She put her fork and spoon down, and took another sip of her wine. Then she leaned back all the way into her seat, her head thrown back over the top. The deep breath she took sent her chest rising and falling.

      Basta! He needed to direct this conversation back to his plan.

      “Tell me what you’ve been up to in the last few years.” The words slipped out of his mouth. She looked just as shocked as he felt. “You know, other than living like a hobo and moving around every few months.”

      She shrugged, and the simple gold chain she wore glimmered against her throat, the pendant dangling between her breasts playing peekaboo with him. “You don’t have to pretend an interest, Dante. Not now.”

      “You’re

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