Dante: Claiming His Secret Love-Child. Sandra Marton

was this? A contest over what looked like a place that would suck in tens, maybe hundreds of thousands to put right? Maybe Cesare was nuts, Dante thought, but he wasn’t, and hadn’t his father said he was handing this off to him because of his business expertise?

      Dante shrugged. “You want it that bad,” he started to say…

      And then a voice as soft as the petal of a rose said his name and he knew, God, he knew who it was even before he turned to the stairs and saw her.

      Gabriella’s heart was pounding.

      It was Dante. But it couldn’t be. He was a bitter memory from another time, another place…

      “Gabriella?”

      Deus, he was real!

      Almost a year and a half had gone by and yet everything about him was familiar. His broad shoulders and long, leanly muscled body. The hard planes and angles of his face. His eyes, the palest shade of blue.

      And his mouth. Firm and sensual, and even now she remembered the feel of it against hers.

      He was moving toward her. She shook her head, stepped back. She knew she could not let him touch her. If he did, she might crumple. All the nights she’d thought of him. Willed herself not to think of him. Told herself she hated him, that she hoped and prayed she would never see him again…

      True, all of it.

      And yet, standing in the shadows of the second-floor landing, listening as her fate was decided by a group of faceless men, she’d heard his voice and reacted with the predictability of Pavlov’s dog, her heart racing, her lips readying to curve in a smile.

      She drew a deep, unsteady breath.

      Those days were gone. She had no reason to smile at this man. She felt nothing for him. Not even hatred. The sight of him had stunned her, that was all…

      Unless…unless he had come for her. In the darkest hours of the darkest nights, even despising him, she had wept for him. For his touch. And sometimes…sometimes, she had dared to dream that he had discovered her secret, that he was coming to her, coming for her…

      “What are you doing here?” he said.

      His bewildered question shattered the last of those ridiculous dreams. Reality rushed in and with it, the cold knowledge that she had to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Her heart was racing again, this time with trepidation, but the recent changes in her life had brought back the ingrained habits of childhood, and she drew herself up and met his confusion with calm resolution.

      “I think a far better question is, what are you doing here?”

      He looked surprised. Well, why wouldn’t he? He was a man who never had to answer to anyone.

      “I’m here on business.”

      “What kind of business would bring you to the end of the earth?”

      “I came to buy this ranch.”

      She felt the color leave her face.

      “Viera y Filho,” he said impatiently, “and you still haven’t answered my question.”

      A sigh swept through the room, followed by the sound of a man’s unpleasant laughter. She saw Dante turn toward Andre Ferrantes and she felt a rush of panic. Who knew what he would say?

      “Something about this amuses you?” Dante said coldly.

      Ferrantes smiled. “Everything about this amuses me, senhor, including this touching scene of reunion.” Ferrantes cocked his head. “I only wonder…how well do you know the senhorita?”

      “Dante,” Gabriella said quickly, “listen to me…”

      Ferrantes stepped forward, elbowing another man aside. “I ask,” he said softly, “because I know her well.” Gabriella gasped as he wrapped a thick arm around her waist and tugged her to his side. “Intimately, one might say. Isn’t that correct, Gabriella?”

      Dante’s eyes went cold and flat. They locked on Ferrantes’s face even as he directed his question to her.

      “What is he talking about?”

      She had heard him use that tone before, not long after they’d met. They’d been strolling along a street in Soho. It was late, after midnight, and they’d heard a thin cry down a dark alley, the thump of something hitting the ground.

      “Stay here,” Dante had told her.

      It had been a command, not a request, and she’d obeyed it instinctively, standing where he’d left her, hearing scuffling sounds and then thuds until she’d said to hell with obedience. She’d run toward the alley just as Dante had reappeared with an old man shuffling beside him. A street person, from the looks of him, saying “Thank you, sir,” over and over, and then she’d looked at Dante, saw that his suit coat was torn, his jaw was already swelling…saw the look in his eyes that said he had done what he’d had to do…

      And had enjoyed it.

      “Gabriella, what is he talking about? Answer me!”

      She opened her mouth. Shut it again. What could she possibly tell him? Not the truth. Never that. Never, ever that!

      “Perhaps I can help, senhor.” It was the lawyer, looking from one man to the other and smiling nervously. “Obviously, you and the senhorita have met before. In the States, I assume.”

      “Senhor de Souza,” Gabriella said, “I beg you—”

      “You could say that,” Dante growled, his eyes never leaving the big man who still stood with his arm around Gabriella. Her face was as white as paper. She was trembling. Why didn’t she step away from the greasy son of a bitch? Why didn’t she call him a liar? No way would she have given herself to someone like this.

      “In that case,” the lawyer said, “you probably knew her as Gabriella Reyes.”

      Dante folded his arms over his chest. “Of course I know her as—”

      “Her true name, her full name, is Gabriella Reyes Viera.” De Souza paused. “She is the daughter of Juan Viera.”

      Dante looked at him. “I thought Viera had only one child. A son.”

      “He had a son and a daughter.” De Souza paused, delicately cleared his throat. “Ah, perhaps—perhaps we should discuss this in private, Senhor Orsini, yes?”

      “Indeed you should,” Ferrantes snarled. “There is an auction taking place here, advogado, or have you forgotten?”

      “Let me get this straight,” Dante said, ignoring him, his attention only on the attorney. “The ranch, which should be Gabriella’s, will be sold to the highest bidder?”

      “To me,” Ferrantes looked down at Gabriella. The meaty hand that rested at her waist rose slowly, deliberately, until it lay just beneath her breast. “Everything will be sold to me. So you see, American, you are wrong. There is no business here for you, whatsoever.”

      Dante looked at him. Looked at Gabriella. Something was very wrong here. He had no idea what it was, no time to find out. He could only act on instinct, as he had done so many times in his life.

      He took a deep breath, looked at the auctioneer. “What was the last bid?”

      The auctioneer swallowed. “Senhor Ferrantes bid two hundred thousand United States dollars.”

      Dante nodded. “Four hundred thousand.”

      The crowd gasped. Ferrantes narrowed his eyes. “Six.”

      Dante looked at Gabriella. What had happened to her? She was as beautiful as in the past, but she had lost weight. Her eyes were enormous in the weary planes of her face. And though she was tolerating Ferrantes’s touch, he could almost see her drawing into herself as if she