LITMIR.BIZ

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      Emily forced her mouth shut, but kept right on staring at him.

      ‘Food?’ Alessandro offered with an innocent shrug as he cocked his head to one side to look at her.

      ‘That’s fine, I can manage,’ Emily said, almost snatching one of the white porcelain plates from his hands.

      ‘Shrimp, signorina?’

      ‘Don’t you ever take no for an answer?’

      The look he gave her sent a flame of awareness licking through every inch of her body.

      ‘Relax, Emily. I deliver what I promise—just a light snack, in this instance.’

      ‘I’m perfectly relaxed, thank you,’ Emily retorted, concentrating on making her selection from the platters of delicious-looking salads…a selection she was making with unaccustomed clumsiness, thanks to the route her thoughts were taking.

      Was it her fault that those beautifully sculpted lips provided a rather different example of a tasty snack…or that stubble-darkened jaw? Not to mention the expanse of hard chest she supposed must reside beneath his superior-quality jacket and shirt—and, talking of superior quality, what about the muscle-banded stomach concealed beneath that slim black leather belt? Distractedly, she spilled half a bowl of coleslaw on top of the mountain of food she seemed to have absent-mindedly collected on her plate.

      ‘I don’t think the pudding will fit,’ Alessandro pointed out, removing a serving spoon holding a heaped portion of sherry trifle from her hand.

      ‘Of c-course not,’ Emily stammered, while the erotic mind games kept right on playing—ignoring her most strenuous efforts to put all thoughts of whipped cream and tanned torsos out of bounds.

      When later she found herself drawn towards a tower of honey-coloured choux balls drizzled with chocolate, he asked, ‘Do you like chocolate, Emily?’

      ‘I love it. Why?’ she said suspiciously.

      Alessandro shrugged as he piled some profiteroles onto a plate, adding some extra chocolate sauce and pouring cream for her. ‘We have a chocolate festival in Ferara every year; free chocolate is handed out all over the city. We even have a chocolate museum—you should make time to see it.’ As he handed her the plate his amused golden gaze scanned her face. ‘What do you say?’

      ‘Thank you.’ Was she accepting an invitation to consume a plate of delectable pudding, or something rather more?

      ‘Imagine this, Emily—a thousand kilos of delicious chocolate sculpted into a work of art before your very eyes; artists coming from all over Europe to compete for a prize for the best design—’

      He turned to pour them both a steaming cup of strong dark coffee from an elegant silver pot.

      ‘Clean sheets are placed underneath each block so that the onlookers can help themselves to slivers as they watch—’ He stopped, and stared straight into her eyes, his expressive mouth tugging up in a grin. ‘Well?’

      Emily’s pulse-rate doubled. ‘No cream, no sugar,’ she blurted, certain he intended to provoke her—a chocolate festival, for goodness’ sake!’

      Murmuring her thanks as he pressed the coffee cup into her hand, she glanced up, only to encounter a dangerous gaze alive with laughter. She was right to be wary, she realised, looking away fast.

      But thankfully this was his final sally, and he allowed her to finish her meal in peace. When they returned to his luxurious bedroom-turned-office, he kept the lights soothing and low as he slipped a CD into the music centre.

      Emily smiled. Brahms, she realised, surprised he had remembered her mother mentioning Miranda’s competition piece.

      He poured champagne and brought two crystal flutes across before settling himself down on the opposite sofa.

      ‘Better?’ he murmured, watching her drink. ‘Do you mind if I take my jacket off?’ he added, loosening a couple more buttons at the neck of his shirt.

      ‘Not at all,’ Emily said, forgetting her pledge to keep champagne celebrations until later as she watched him ease up from the chair to slip off a jacket lined with crimson silk. Freeing a pair of heavy gold cufflinks from his shirt, he dropped them onto the table and rolled up his sleeves to reveal powerful forearms shaded with dark hair. There couldn’t have been a more striking contrast to the type of pasty-faced executive she was accustomed to dealing with.

      ‘So, Emily,’ he challenged, eyes glinting as he caught her staring at him. ‘Do you still think I’m one of those misguided individuals you referred to?’

      For his opinion of cabaret singers, yes; where everything else was concerned—

      ‘I take it from your expression that you do.’

      His smile had vanished.

      ‘Let’s get one thing straight between us before we go any further. I don’t give a damn what people do, as long as they’re not hurting anyone else in the process. But I do care about motives—what makes people tick. What makes you tick, Emily?’

      Racing to put her brain back in gear, the best she could manage was a few mangled sounds.

      ‘Barrister by day,’ he went on smoothly, ‘moonlighting as a cabaret singer by night. There’s no harm in that, if you can cope with the workload. And it’s even more to your credit that you were moonlighting to help your sister out of a fix. What is not to your credit, however, is the fact that you intended to deceive me. Why was that, Emily?’

      ‘I admit things got out of hand—’

      The lame remark was rewarded by a cynical stare.

      ‘You really thought you could pull this off?’ he demanded incredulously. ‘What kind of a fool did you take me for?’

      Emily’s face burned scarlet as she struggled with an apology. ‘I didn’t know you—I’m really sorry. I didn’t think—’

      Alessandro held up his hands, silencing her. ‘As it happens, you’re not the only one who hasn’t been entirely straightforward.’

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘Let’s consider this plan of yours first.’

      ‘My plan?’ It was clear he was on a mission to tease out her motives whilst taking care not to reveal any of his own, Emily realised.

      ‘Amongst your misconceptions is the notion that your sister’s crazy scheme is actually going to work.’

      ‘Will you help her or not?’

      ‘Without my co-operation your sister will never play the instrument she has set her heart upon.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ Emily said anxiously, finding it impossible to sit down a moment longer.

      Stretching his arms out across the back of the sofa, Alessandro tipped his head to look at her. ‘Why don’t you sit down again, Emily?’ he suggested calmly. ‘You do want to help your sister, don’t you? You do want her to be able to play that violin she saw in the instrument maker’s shop near the castle in Heidelberg?’

      Emily could feel the blood draining out of her face as she stared at him. ‘How do you know about that?’ she said in a whisper.

      ‘I make it my business to know everything relevant to a case before I enter into any negotiation,’ he said steadily. ‘I never leave anything to chance.’

      Emily’s professional pride might have suffered a direct hit, but the only thing that mattered was Miranda’s future…But what was Alessandro Bussoni really after? Why had he gone to so much trouble? And how did he come to have such a hold over a German violin maker?

      ‘The violin in Heidelberg—’ she began, but her voice faltered as she remembered Miranda playing the beautiful old instrument. ‘What did you mean when you said that my sister might never get to

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