Sicilian's Bride For A Price. Tara Pammi

any given day, he knew how and where Alisha was. “Now, however, I need a little bit more info on her.”

      “Dante—”

      “None of your business, Isabel.” He cut her off smoothly and closed the door behind him.

      Izzy had been the one constant person in his life for so long, from the moment he had come to live with Neel all those years ago, yes. But it didn’t mean he invited her into his private thoughts or that he considered her a personal friend.

      Dante Vittori didn’t do relationships, of any kind.

      * * *

      “There’s someone here to see you, Ali.”

      Alisha Matta looked up from her crouch on the floor of the Grand Empire Palace restaurant. Her shoulders were tight from supporting the weight of the camera and her thighs burned at her continued position. Ignoring her friend Mak’s voice, she kept clicking.

      She’d been waiting all morning in the small kitchen of the crowded restaurant, waiting for Kiki to come home.

      The pop of the flash of her Nikon sang through her nerves, the few moments of clarity and purpose making the wait of the last three months utterly worth it. “To your right, look into the camera. No, jut your left hip out, you’re gorgeous, Kiki,” she continued the words of encouragement. She’d managed to learn a little Thai in the last year but her stuttering accent had only made Kiki laugh.

      The neon lights and the cheap pink linoleum floors became the perfect background as Kiki shed her jeans and shirt in a move that was both efficient and sensual as hell. Her lithe dancer’s body sang for the camera.

      But even the perfection of the shot couldn’t stop the distraction of Mak hovering.

      “If it’s John, tell him we’re done,” she whispered.

      “It’s an Italian gentleman. In a three-piece Tom Ford suit that I’m pretty sure is custom designed and black handmade Italian loafers. Gucci, I think.”

      Ali fell back onto her haunches with a soft thud, hanging on to her expensive camera for dear life. Mak was crazy about designer duds. There was only one Italian gentleman she knew. Except, if it was who she thought it was, he shouldn’t be called a gentleman. More a ruthless soul in the garb of one.

      “Said his name was...”

      Ali’s heart thudded in tune with the loud blare of the boom box. “What, Mak?”

      Mak scrunched his brow. “You know, the guy who wrote about all those circles of hell, that one.”

      “Dante,” Ali whispered the word softly. How appropriate that Mak would mention Dante and hell in the same sentence.

      Because that was what her papa’s protégé represented to her.

      The very devil from hell.

      Princesses in glass castles shouldn’t throw stones, bella.

      Okay, yes, devil was a bit overboard because he hadn’t actually ever harmed Ali, but still, Ali hated him.

      So what was the devil, whose usual playground was the London social circuit, doing on the other side of the world in Bangkok?

      The last time they had laid eyes on each other had been when she’d learned of Vikram’s plane crash. She closed her eyes, fighting the memory of the disastrous night, but it came anyway.

      She’d been so full of rage, so vulnerable and so vicious toward Dante. For no reason except that he was alive while her brother was gone. Gone before she could reconnect with him.

      “He doesn’t look like he’s happy to be kept waiting,” Mak interrupted her trip down a nightmarish memory lane.

      Ali pulled herself up.

      No, super busy billionaire Dante Vittori wouldn’t like waiting in the ramshackle hotel. How impatient he must be to get back to his empire. To his billions.

      How dare Ali keep him waiting while each minute of his time could mean another deal he could broker, another billion he could add to his pile, another company he... She smiled wide.

      She’d make him wait.

      Because Dante being here meant only one thing: he needed something from her.

      And she would jump through those nine circles of hell before she did anything that made his life easier. Or calmer. Or richer.

      Slowly, with shaking fingers, she packed up her camera. She pulled the strap of the bag over her shoulder, picked up her other paraphernalia, kissed Kiki’s cheek and pushed the back door open.

      The late September evening was balmy, noisy and full of delicious smells emanating from all the restaurants that lined up the street.

      Her stomach growled. She promised herself some authentic pad thai and a cold can of Coke as soon as she got to her flat. Thwarting Dante and a well-earned dinner suddenly seemed like a highly pleasurable way to spend her day.

      Just as she took another step into the busy street, a black chauffeur-driven Mercedes pulled up, blocking her. Ali blinked at her reflection in the polished glass of the window when the door opened. Out stepped Dante.

      In his crisp white shirt, which did wonders for his olive complexion, and tailored black pants, he looked like he’d stepped out of a GQ magazine cover and casually strolled into the colorful street.

      His Patek Philippe watch—a gift from her father when he’d welcomed Dante onto the board of Matta Steel, yet one more thing Papa had given Dante and not her—gleamed on his wrist as he stood leaning carelessly against the door, a silky smile curving that sculpted mouth. “Running away again, Alisha?”

      He was the only one who insisted on calling her Alisha. Somehow he managed to fill it with reprimand and contempt.

      All thoughts of pad thai were replaced with the cold burn of resentment as that penetrating gaze took in her white spaghetti strap top and forest green shorts and traveled from her feet in flip-flops to her hair bunched into a messy bun on top of her head. It was dismissive and yet so thorough that her skin prickled.

      Chin tilted, Ali stared right back. She coated it in defiance but after so long, she was greedy for the sight of him. Shouts from street vendors and the evening bustle faded out.

      A careless heat filled her veins as she noted the aristocratic nose—broken in his adolescence and fixed—the dark, stubble-coated line of his jaw and deep-set eyes that always mocked her, the broad reach of his shoulders, the careless arrogance that filled every pore. He exuded that kind of masculine confidence that announced him as the top of the food chain both in the boardroom and out of it.

      And his mouth... The upper lip was thin and carved and the lower was fuller and lush, the only hint of softness in that face and body. It was a soft whisper about the sensuality he buried under that ruthlessness.

      Her heart was now thundering in her chest, not unlike Mak’s boom box. Heat flushed her from within. She jerked her gaze to meet his, saw the slight flare of his nostrils.

      Christ, what was she doing? What was she imagining?

      Ali moved her tongue around in her dry mouth, and somehow managed to say, “I have nothing to say and I want nothing to do with you.”

       To do with you...

      The words mocked her, mocked the adolescent infatuation she’d nursed for him that she now hated, morphing into something much worse. Everything she despised about him also attracted her to him. If that weren’t a red flag...

      He halted her dignified exit with his fingers on her wrist, the calloused pads of his fingers playing on her oversensitized skin.

      She jerked her arm out of his grip like a scalded cat. His mouth tightened, but whatever emotion she had incited disappeared behind his controlled mask. “I have a proposal that I’m sure you would like to hear.”

      God,