A Clash with Cannavaro. Elizabeth Power

despicable!’ Lauren breathed.

      ‘Not nearly as despicable as you would find me if you drag me through a court of law.’

      She looked at him askance. ‘Is that a threat?’

      ‘No, just some good advice.’

      ‘Well, you can stick your advice where the sun doesn’t shine!’

      He laughed very softly. ‘Such spirit!

      He was moving towards her and she backed away, sending a shocked glance over her shoulder when she came up against the solid bulk of the dresser.

      Hardly daring to breathe, she stood stock-still, her eyes guarded and challenging as Emiliano’s hands came to rest on the dresser on either side of her, effectively trapping her there.

      ‘You know...that was the first thing that attracted me to you. Other than...’ One strap of her dungarees had slipped off her shoulder, dragging the bib down with it, and from the slide of his gaze over the vest it had exposed she knew he could see the outline of her naked breast. Breasts which were too full, she had always thought, in comparison with her small waist and far less curvy hips. Now, in response to his heated gaze, she felt the nipple swelling beneath the soft revealing cotton. ‘The way you tried to cut me dead in response to everything I said was a real turn-on. And it was not just me who was affected by it, was it, cara?’

      He meant her, Lauren thought with shame, remembering how he had even gone as far as suggesting that she actually enjoyed arguing with him.

      ‘And that was even before you knew who I was.’

      The softness of his voice and his nearness was making her head start to swim. She hated him! And yet it was taking all her willpower not to thrust out her breasts in invitation to those hands that had pleasured her like no other man ever had.

      But she didn’t. And thankfully he didn’t attempt to touch her.

      Instead, straightening up, with his face taking on grim lines, he said, ‘May I also advise that if you take me to court and you lose, then you will get nothing from me. Is that clear? Not a cent.’

      ‘That’s good,’ she returned, pulling up her strap, relieved at least to be able to breathe again. ‘Because I don’t deal in cents. Only common decency! Unlike you Cannavaros. But then you don’t ever think about anything else except making money!’

      ‘Which is marginally more commendable, I think, than being one of life’s takers,’ he remarked with an unperturbed, humourless curl to his devastating mouth. ‘Nevertheless, where agenda-armed little vamps are concerned I find that it is always best to be one step ahead.’

      ‘So you insult me with the promise of some disgusting pay-off!’

      He sent another cursory glance around him at the obvious decay of her clean yet humble environment. ‘You look as though you could use it.’

      ‘Not half as much as I could use you getting off my property!’

      ‘Of course.’ Though he had stepped away from her now, the fresh masculine scent of him still lingered in her nostrils. ‘But I will be back. You can depend on that. And when I do return, I will see my nephew. Is that understood?’

      He looked so commanding that for a moment Lauren could only nod. ‘I wouldn’t dream of trying to stop you,’ she riposted as soon as she found her voice.

      ‘In that case...I will see myself out,’ he said, obviously satisfied that he had achieved what he had set out to do, which was to scare her silly with his threat to take Daniele away from her.

      Well, if he wanted a fight, she would give him one! she thought, calling on all the powers of survival she had had to engage as a teenager after losing both her parents. After all, since Vikki had died, Daniele was all she had, and Emiliano Cannavaro could swing before she would give up her little nephew to him or anybody else!

      But the fear had taken hold and she couldn’t shake it off. And that wasn’t the only thing unsettling her as she listened to his powerful car growling away.

      It was that raging sexual attraction that had flared into life the minute she had seen him again, coming across the yard. But, even worse, her body’s betraying response to it when he had had her trapped—without even touching her—against the dresser. An attraction, she thought hopelessly, which had been born in her the instant she had laid eyes on him across that crowded ballroom, and reluctantly she let her thoughts drag her back to those two days in that exclusive London hotel two years ago.

      CHAPTER TWO

      WHEN HER SISTER had invited her to her pre-nuptial party on the eve of her marriage to one of Italy’s most eligible bachelors, Lauren hadn’t envisaged spending what felt like hours smiling politely at a twice-divorced ageing Romeo of a banker until her face ached.

      She’d been renting a bedsit in London at the time, having leased the farmhouse for some extra income with a view to going back to college and doing some serious studying. But she had felt as out of place in the city, she remembered, as she had in the emerald-green strapless gown she had been wearing at that party which, with no long-standing boyfriend to accompany her, she had chosen to attend alone. That still hadn’t stopped her from feeling immensely relieved when another guest had finally claimed the Romeo’s company.

      Her sudden isolation, however, had left her exposed to the gaze of a man she hadn’t known then was Emiliano Cannavaro, although she had sensed him watching her for most of the time that she had been suffering the older man’s unwelcome attention.

      With a clear field between them after the banker had moved away, Lauren had been unable to avoid meeting the cool intensity of his midnight-dark eyes.

      He must have been around thirty then and was, from his tanned skin and thick black hair that flopped forward at the temples, like a number of the guests, unmistakably Italian. Yet, in this man she hadn’t known, Lauren had sensed an air of cool detachment and authority that had set him apart from the rest. Perhaps it had been that autocratic nose and the way that intensely dark shadow around his jaw had added something to its angular strength that had given her the notion that he wasn’t a man to be messed with. Or perhaps it had been that restless quality about him and the rather bored suggestion that he would rather have been somewhere else. But what he had had was presence. And it had been nothing less than spell-binding! Add that impression of straining muscle beneath the constraints of his dark tailored evening suit and Lauren had realised why every woman who had passed within ten yards of him seemed to fall over herself with the need to be noticed by him. And he hadn’t taken his eyes off her once!

      Unused to being studied with such blatant interest, Lauren had looked quickly away to where the reed-slim blonde with the baby doll face and her far too handsome groom-to-be had been standing by the buffet tables with their arms interlinked in front of them, sipping from tall flutes of champagne.

      ‘Is that envy I see in your eyes? Or are you wondering, as I suspect you are, whether they are as happy as their animated laughter suggests?’

      The heavily accented voice at her shoulder made every nerve sharpen in Lauren’s body, causing her fingers to tighten around the stem of her own glass. But it was the way its rich tones washed over her like a warm wave that had her catching her breath as though she had been submerged beneath the power of its sensuality.

      ‘Why shouldn’t they be happy?’ The effect of his nearness produced her unusually curt rejoinder. Nevertheless, her eyes challenged his, even though she knew her cheeks were probably as red as her swept-up hair that the woman in the store where she had bought her gown a few days ago had said would complement the emerald creation superbly.

      ‘Why, indeed?’ Up close, he looked even more stupendous than he had from a distance. His features were strong with clearly defined cheekbones, and his mouth, she recognised at once, had a hard-edged sensuality that could probably drive most nubile women mindless just from the promise of its unquestionable passion. His winged collar looked stark white