His Reluctant Bride. Sara Craven

spite of her continuing struggles, Sandro carried her back into the now deserted drawing room. The contessa had disappeared, Polly realised with a stab of panic, and, although neither of them were her company of choice, it meant that she and Sandro were now alone. Which was far worse …

      ‘This was easier when you were unconscious,’ he commented as he walked across the room with her. ‘Although I think you have lost a little weight since our last meeting, Paola mia.’

      ‘Put me down.’ Polly was almost choking with rage, mingled with the shock of finding herself in such intimately close proximity to him. ‘Put me down, damn you.’

      ‘As you wish.’ He lifted a shoulder nonchalantly, and dropped her onto one of the sofas flanking the fireplace. She lay, winded and gasping, staring up at him.

      ‘You bastard,’ she said unevenly, and he clicked his tongue in reproach as he seated himself on the sofa opposite.

      ‘What a name to call the man you are going to marry.’

      ‘Marry?’ The word strangled in her throat. Polly struggled to sit up, pulling down the navy dress which had ridden up round her thighs. ‘You must be insane.’

      He shrugged. ‘I once asked you to be my wife. You agreed.’ He watched as she fumbled to re-fasten the buttons he’d undone, his lips slanting into faint amusement. Looking so like Charlie that she almost cried out. ‘That makes us fidanzato. Or am I wrong?’

      ‘You’re wrong,’ she bit back at him, infuriated at her own awkwardness, and at the pain he still had the power to cause her. ‘Totally and completely mistaken. And you know it, as well as I do, so let’s stop playing games.’

      ‘Is that what we’re doing?’ Sandro shrugged again. ‘I had not realised. Perhaps you would explain the rules to me.’

      ‘Not rules,’ she said. ‘But laws. Laws that exist to deal with someone like you.’

      ‘Dio,’ he said. ‘So you think our government interests itself in a man’s reunion with his woman? How enlightened of them.’

      ‘Enlightened enough to lock you up for harassment,’ Polly said angrily. ‘And I am not your woman.’

      He grinned at her, making her realise that the scar had done little to diminish the powerful sexual charisma he’d always been able to exert, which was as basic a part of him as the breath he drew. He was lounging on the sofa opposite, jacket discarded and tie loosened, his long legs thrust out in front of him, totally at his ease. Enjoying, she thought bitterly, his control of the situation. While she remained shaken and on edge, unable to comprehend what was happening. Or why. Especially why …

      ‘No? Perhaps we should have stayed in the bedroom after all, cara mia, and continued the argument there.’ The topaz eyes held a familiar glint.

      ‘You dare to lay a hand on me again,’ Polly said, through gritted teeth, ‘and I’ll go straight to the police—have you charged.’

      ‘With what offence? The attempted seduction of my future bride?’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘A girl who once spent a summer as my lover. I don’t think they would take you seriously, carissima.’

      ‘No,’ she said. ‘I expect they have to do what you want—like the contessa. And where is she, by the way?’

      ‘On her way back to Comadora, where she lives.’

      ‘But she was supposed to be staying here.’

      He shook his head. ‘No, Paola mia. I reserved the suite for myself.’ He smiled at her. ‘And for you to share with me.’

      ‘If this is a joke,’ Polly said, recovering herself from a stunned silence, ‘I don’t find it remotely funny.’

      ‘And nor do I,’ Sandro said with sudden curtness. ‘This is no game, believe me. I am entirely serious.’ He paused. ‘Do you wish to test my determination?’

      He hadn’t moved, but suddenly Polly found herself remembering the strength of the arms that had held her. Recognised the implacable will that challenged her from his gaze and the sudden hardening of the mobile, sensuous mouth which had once stopped her heart with its caresses.

      She bit her lip, painfully. ‘No.’

      ‘You begin to show sense at last,’ he approved softly.

      ‘Not,’ she said, ‘when I agreed to come to Italy today. That was really stupid of me.’

      ‘You must not blame Zia Antonia,’ he said. ‘She shares your disapproval of my methods.’ He shrugged. ‘But if you and I had not met again tonight, then it would have been at some other time, in some other place. Or did you think I would simply allow you to vanish?’

      She said coldly, ‘Yes, of course. In fact, I counted on it.’

      His head came up sharply, and she saw the sudden tensing of his lean body. ‘You were so glad to be rid of me?’

       You dare to say that—to me? After what you did?

      The words trembled on the tip of her tongue, but she fought them back. He must never know how she’d felt in those dazed, agonised weeks following his rejection. How she’d ached for him, drowning in bewilderment and pain. Pride had to keep her silent now. Except in defiance.

      She shrugged in her turn. ‘Do you doubt it?’ she retorted. ‘After all, when it’s over, it’s over,’ she added with deliberate sang-froid.

      ‘You may think that, mia cara.’ His voice slowed to a drawl. ‘I do not have to agree.’

      She looked down at her hands, clamped together in her lap. ‘Tell me something,’ she said in a low voice. ‘How did you find me?’

      ‘I was at a conference on tourism. A video was shown of a British company which looks after single travellers. You were its star, cara mia. I was—most impressed.’

      Polly groaned inwardly. Her one and only television appearance, she thought, that her mother had been so proud of. It had never occurred to her that it might be shown outside the UK.

      She said coldly, ‘And you were suddenly overwhelmed by nostalgia, I suppose.’

      ‘If so,’ Sandro said with equal chill, ‘I would have sighed sentimentally and got on with my life. But it reminded me that there are issues still unresolved between us.’ He paused. ‘As you must know, also.’

      She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I need to say something. To tell you that—I’ve never talked about you. Never discussed anything that happened between us. And I wouldn’t—I give you my word …’

      He stared at her, frowning. ‘You wished to wipe me from your memory? Pretend I had never existed? But why?’

      She swallowed, her throat tightening. Because it hurt too much to remember, she thought.

      ‘Once I discovered your—your background,’ she said, ‘I realised it was—necessary. The only way …’

      His gaze became incredulous. ‘It disturbed you to find that I was rich. You’d have preferred me to be a waiter, existing on tips?’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Dio mio.’

      Polly sat up very straight. She said coldly, ‘It was the way you’d acquired your money that I found—unacceptable. And your—connections,’ she added bravely, controlling a shiver as she remembered the man who had confronted her. The scorn and menace he’d exuded.

      ‘Unbelievable,’ he said slowly. ‘But if you expect me to apologise for my family, Paola, you will wait a long time.’ The look he sent her was hard—unrelenting. ‘I am what I am, and nothing can change that. Nor would I wish it to.’

      He was silent for a moment. ‘Certamente, I hoped—at one time—that you would