The Italian Millionaire's Virgin Wife. Diana Hamilton

she has a face like a dustbin—glamorous mistresses are ten a penny.’

      ‘I’ve shocked you,’ Andreo commiserated, misconstruing his housekeeper’s appalled expression. Springing to his feet, he paced across the room to refill her wineglass. ‘But I wanted you to know where I’m coming from and to stop you accusing me of breaking that woman’s heart. The only difference between her and the rest is that she didn’t stick by the rules. She decided she could persuade me to marry her. As if!’

      His brow suddenly clenching, Andreo vented an impatient sigh. He never explained himself, as he’d reminded himself once before this evening. So why break the habit of a lifetime now? Howard was his housekeeper, hired to iron his socks—or whatever was done to them—not to be privy to his lifestyle.

      Handing her the glass, his brow cleared. Those amazingly big blue eyes were drenched with sympathy—maybe something could be done about them—mud-coloured contact lenses, perhaps?

      Lowering himself beside her, he congratulated himself that at last she was on side. After what he’d told her she would be seeing through whatever sob story Trisha had come out with. No more righteous and misguided accusations of cruelty to make her prim her mouth and categorically refuse to do as he wanted.

      Her heart swelling with pity and something else entirely as the devastating Italian again joined her on the press, Mercy stared at the glass in her hands. She hadn’t asked for it and didn’t want it—already her head was feeling peculiar. But she felt so achingly sorry for him she just couldn’t bring herself to thrust it back at him. Poor, poor thing!

      He was so gorgeous, so vital, how could he believe no woman could love him for himself and not his bank balance? She could throttle his cynical old grandfather for planting the idea in his head! He must feel so lonely!

      ‘Howard…’

      ‘Yes, sir?’ Mercy glanced up at his low-pitched murmur then hurriedly transferred her gaze back to the glass she was holding. His eyes were a gleam of pure silver beneath the heavy dark fringe of his lashes and the long line of his mouth had softened with outrageous sensuality. Like a man looking at an object of desire.

      Her cheeks blossoming with wild colour, she berated herself for thinking like a lunatic and buried her nose in her glass for something to do with herself just as he said, ‘Cut out the ‘‘sirs’’. We’re friends, right?’

      He’d angled himself so that he was looking directly at her and here, in the intimacy of his bedroom, with him so close, close enough to smell the faint lemony drift of his aftershave, feel his body heat, it made her insides curl up with tension, her breath come in strange little gasps, her entire body tingle in a way she had never experienced before.

      ‘Er—right,’ she gulped strainedly and frantically tried to pull herself together. ‘Friends’ was okay. Normal, really. And with his track record he’d be used to looking at a woman—any woman from one-year-old to a hundred—that way. Just a habit. She was busy blaming her silliness on her unaccustomed intake of alcohol until he said, his dark velvet voice liberally smeared with honey, ‘I have a proposition to put to you.’