Scandals Of The Powerful. Sarah Morgan

at another table had stood.

      The credit card was back.

      ‘Don’t look,’ Anton warned. ‘Not once.’

      He didn’t have to worry. The second his mouth touched hers, Emily forgot all about the Correttis. His lips were warm. His hands moved to the back of her head, pressing her into him, and she struggled to stop her lips from parting until, as if remembering where they were, he stood.

      ‘Come.’

      They walked through the restaurant and down the steps that led to the entrance but he halted her on the bend midway, kissed her hard against the wall, and her mouth stopped fighting instinct then, simply opened up and let him in, his tongue repeating his thumb’s motions in her mouth—circling, pressing, probing. Emily was kissing him back for dear life, tasting him as if she recognised him, absolutely forgetting where she was as she gave in to the thunderbolt that had struck. He cupped her buttocks and kissed her senseless. Her hands moved to his chest, into his jacket, and suddenly the kiss halted, his hand catching hers, stopping hers, but not before she felt the cool metal of a gun.

      ‘Keep kissing.’ The doors were opening, people were coming out and she was in terror. He was kissing her thoroughly. She could hear the conversations from the Correttis as they walked down the stairs past them and out into the night. Only then did he release her lips, which were trembling in fear.

      ‘No wonder you didn’t want to give your name!’ What the hell had she been thinking? Maybe she did need to toughen up, as she had never been more terrified in her life. He was holding her and telling her to calm down.

      ‘It’s not what you think, Emily. I’m a detective.’ He took out his wallet and showed it to her and all the little things he had said made sense now. ‘Which is why the Correttis would prefer that I did not know them at times.’

      Her breath was coming back but still her heart would not slow down.

      ‘I did not expect what just happened.’ He looked at her. ‘That things would get so out of hand.’

      ‘You should have told me.’

      ‘I tell few people,’ Anton said, ‘but I would have told you later tonight.’ Her eyes flashed at the inference. Her mind searched for a sharp retort to his presumption but they both knew it would be a lie. ‘I took a phone call when I was speaking with you earlier this evening. A colleague told me where the Correttis were dining. I eat there sometimes.’

      Her eyebrows raised because she didn’t really imagine that the five-star restaurant would be frequented regularly on a detective’s wage, but she didn’t have time to properly process that as Anton continued.

      ‘To get a booking, given they were dining there tonight, I had to give a good reason.’ He looked down to the ring on her hand. ‘I went home and got this. There wasn’t time for anything else. Emily, had I told you I was a detective and this was my plan, we would never have pulled it off.’

      Emily nodded. She could see that now.

      ‘Having seen them, perhaps now you understand better their world. It is almost impossible to get close to them at such a function.’

      ‘And we did.’ A pale smile stretched her lips, but just as she was starting to calm down, he spun her into confusion again.

      ‘Spend the weekend with me.’ He looked at her. Two nights with one woman was a big deal for his black heart, but two nights with Emily, he could do. Feelings were surfacing, ones that had been locked in a vault and entombed in cement. No-one got close. And yet she had. Though it unnerved him, the saving grace was that by Sunday she would be gone.

      ‘I can tell you everything you want to know about them.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because I want to spread the word, not just about the Correttis but they would be a very good place to start.’ And then he looked at her and gave her the other reason, the words unfamiliar to his lips. ‘I would like to spend time with you, to get to know you some more,’ Anton said, safe in the knowledge that soon she’d be gone. He released her then and took her hand as they walked out into the dark street. It had been evening when they had entered, and it was night-time now. Just a space of a few hours and yet so much for Emily had changed.

      His car had been brought around and they drove in silence to her hotel, Emily wrestling with indecision. Tonight she had glimpsed not just wealth and glamour but the dizzying presence of Anton, and the combination was undeniably heady. She wanted the information he would give her, but in truth it played no part in the decision she was coming to. A holiday romance, Emily thought. A working-holiday romance....

      Although the word romance did not really equate with Anton.

      She sneaked a look at him, scarcely able to believe what she was considering, but in thirty years on this earth she hadn’t even come close to tasting the passion she already had tonight, had never been more intrigued by another. This was a man she so badly wanted to get to know.

      He pulled to a halt at the foyer. The car door was opened and she turned in her seat to step out.

      ‘Aren’t you coming?’ Emily frowned because the engine was still idling and he was making no indication of getting out.

      ‘I’m not staying here.’

      ‘Oh!’ She had assumed, given it was where they had met, that he was. Emily had hoped for a drink in the bar to see where that led, for some time to make up her mind.

      He had, in effect, driven her home, Emily realised.

      ‘I think you’re the guy my mother spent years warning me about.’ She tried to make a small joke but he just stared back at her.

      ‘Was she wasting her breath?’ Anton asked.

      It was a good question. The choice now was completely hers. She pushed a foot towards the ground, went to remove herself from the car, but already she could taste the regret that would surely plague her forever if she denied herself this time. And in that moment Emily followed not her head but her heart.

      She turned to his waiting eyes and with one smouldering look he confirmed her decision was the right one. Emily wanted wild and irresponsible. She wanted her weekend with this beautiful, sexy man.

      ‘Completely,’ was her response.

      Nervous, unsure, hopelessly aroused, she pulled in her legs and closed the door and, most unexpectedly, a moment later she found herself laughing. He told her to put her belt on as the car pulled off, and he turned on the hidden sirens and lights. She was pressed back in her seat as he sped her through the dark streets of Palermo.

      ‘Do we need the siren?’ she shouted.

      ‘Unless you want me to stop and take you over the car.’

      He took her hand and placed it where nature surely intended.

      There was a moment where she considered tapping him on the shoulder and telling him that she did not do this sort of thing.

      ‘Anton, I—’

      ‘Don’t.’ He felt a decade younger; he felt as if he was living. She did not need to offer excuses. This night was theirs. ‘There is no explaining it.’

      There was no explaining it and so she did not try. It was the most reckless night of her life, but the best one.

      He turned the lights and sirens off as they left the town centre, but he drove at breakneck speed through the rocky hills to his vast home. Huge security gates opened and closed behind them as a garage door opened and they slid inside.

      The garage alone was twice the size of her house and about ten times more luxurious. She could barely stand as she climbed out of the car and he walked around to take her hand. She’d had two sips of champagne, yet she felt as if she’d drunk the bottle.

      He started to kiss her but she moved her head back. One taste and they’d be doing as he had teasingly suggested, but her