Italian Deception: The Salvatore Marriage / A Sicilian Seduction / The Passion Bargain. Michelle Reid

to cross to the window to tug the cream curtains over the rain-soaked glass.

      When she turned she found him standing in the doorway staring at her through narrowed dark brown, gold-flecked eyes set in a face that wore the proud stamp of his Florentine lineage. He was handsome but hard; handsome but cold; forge a statue in his image and you would have yourself a reflection of a modern-day god.

      But this man was no god, she reminded herself quickly. He might have the face and the body of one, might possess the kind of power and arrogance the old gods liked to wield, but inside he was as mortal as anyone. Flawed and fickle, she concluded as she waited for the shock to ease so that the old bitter emotions could come flooding in.

      Emotions like pain and anger, and the miserable ache of a love cruelly ripped away from her—a passionately professed, returned love that she’d learned the hard way had never gone more than skin-deep for him.

      It didn’t happen. Standing here white-faced and tensed in readiness for it all to surge up and grab her, Shannon discovered that she continued to feel absolutely nothing, not even a slight twinge of that old sense of desperation with which mere thoughts of him used to fill her. Those eyes that used to turn her heart inside out were leaving her cold now, as did the slender mouth that used to act like a magnet to her own hungry lips. The slashing high cheek-bones, the dark golden skin, the magnificent body hidden beneath the heavy coat; she used to worship all of them with every touch, every breath or sensual homage she could find. The man in his whole god-like entirety was doing nothing for her any more.

      It came as such a relief, because it had to mean that she was over him.

      Over him at last and for ever.

      ‘Satisfied with your search?’ she asked with acid-tipped sarcasm. ‘Or would you like to check behind the curtains too?’

      There was a hint of a frown before he acknowledged the comment with a small grimace.

      ‘No,’ was all he said and he shifted his gaze to take in the décor with its soft pastel shades and neat modern furniture that was such a contrast to the antique luxury he’d furnished his own home with. Her small twin sofas were covered with cream linen, her floor was of pale polished wood. His floors displayed priceless rugs thrown over intricate inlaid wood parquetry and his sofas were made of rich brown leather that were big and deep enough to stretch out upon two at a time to canoodle and kiss in exquisite—

      Once again she was forced to bring her wandering thoughts up short. Why recall all of that when it no longer meant anything? she asked herself crossly, and moved across the room to flick another switch, which sent flames leaping up over designer logs resting on a bed of pale pebbles in her open hearth.

      This time when she turned she found that his attention had switched back to her again, his hooded gaze moving over her pencil-slim skirt with its natty little kick pleat at the back, which gave her long legs a rather sexy shape. Did he like her legs? Of course he liked her legs; he used to worship them with his hands and his mouth and the teasing lick from his tongue as it trailed upwards on its way to—

      Oh, stop it! she told herself. He looked up suddenly, as if she’d said the words out loud. Their eyes connected. Tension erupted to rush screaming round the room on the back of a mutual, intimate knowledge that would never go away no matter how much they both might want it to.

      They’d been lovers, gorgeous, greedy, sensually indulgent lovers. They knew every inch of each other, what made the other sigh with pleasure and what would send them toppling over the edge. But those thoughts did not belong here—he didn’t belong here!

      Say something, damn you! she wanted to scream at him. But he’d always been good at using silence to whittle down people’s nerves, and he continued to stand there looking at her as if he was waiting for her to say something. Say what? she wondered. Was he expecting her to invite him to sit down?

      The phrase about burning in hell first whipped through her head.

      Maybe he heard it. Maybe he was still able to tune himself in to what was going on inside her head because the black silk lashes flickered slightly as he shifted his gaze yet again and fixed it on something over her right shoulder.

      Shannon didn’t need to look to know what it was that had now caught his attention. It had to be the framed wedding photograph standing alone on a shelf that showed the sweet face of her sister Keira smiling adoringly up at his handsome brother Angelo.

      Behind the blissful couple and fortunately out of focus stood Luca, playing the dauntingly sophisticated best man to the groom and herself as the young and self-conscious chief bridesmaid. Luca had been all of twenty-eight years old to her own meagre eighteen at the time, but they’d enjoyed each other’s company that day.

      Odd, she thought, that she should remember that now when there were so many bad things about Luca she could be remembering instead.

      ‘I think it might be best if you sit down.’

      Muscles all over her body jerked suddenly, bringing her chin up sharply as her senses leapt in alarm. When someone told you to sit down it could only mean they were about to tell you something that was guaranteed to take the legs from under you, and the only way this man could do that to her was by bringing her bad news about—

      ‘What’s wrong with Keira?’ she shot at him sharply.

      A hand came out; long-fingered and lean, it indicated to one of the sofas. ‘When you sit down,’ he countered, then watched calmly as if he was expecting it as she sparked like a firework.

      ‘Oh, stop being so bloody sensitive to my feelings, Luca, and tell me what’s happened to my sister!’ she cried. ‘All I got was some static-splashed message telling me that there had been an accident and would I ring a stupid mobile phone number that did not exist!’

      ‘It exists,’ he murmured.

      And like a lightning strike Shannon suddenly realised what a terrible—terrible—mistake she had made. ‘It was your mobile number, wasn’t it?’ she bit out accusingly, struggling to believe that she could ever have mistaken the deep, terse tones of his voice for the warmer tones of his brother Angelo. ‘Poor Luca,’ she mocked with sudden bitterness, ‘being forced to give the wicked witch his new number and risk a second flood of unwanted calls.’

      His half-grimace acknowledged her right to toss that remark at him. Two years ago she’d tried every which way she could use to get him to talk to her. She’d called him on his cell-phone night and day until suddenly the number had been no longer obtainable. He’d cut off her main source of contact—just as she’d been ruthlessly cut off from everything else that had been important to her.

      ‘Just speak, damn you,’ she prompted huskily.

      With a grim pressing-together of his lips, Luca looked ready to continue holding out until she sat down. Then she saw his eyes make a flickering inventory of the way she was standing there, fine-boned and slender enough that the tremors now shaking her body almost forced her down. Stubbornness held her upright; stubbornness and a defiance that had always been one of her most besetting sins in his eyes—though not her worst sin.

      Then—no, she slammed a door shut on that kind of thinking. Stop going there! she told herself angrily. Don’t think about anything. Don’t even bother to notice the way he’s looking at you again with a contempt he believes you deserve. So he hates and despises you. Let him, she invited. I don’t care—I don’t.

      He moved then, and on a thick, inner quiver of fear she saw his expression alter from hard to grave. His eyes flicked away. He heaved in a deep breath. The fine hairs on her body started to tingle as he parted his mouth to speak.

      Then the words came. ‘There has been an accident—a car crash this morning,’ he told her. ‘People are hurt—badly hurt,’ he then extended grimly.

      ‘Keira—?’ Her sister’s name arrived as a fragile whisper.

      ‘Yes.’ He nodded. ‘And I need you to be strong here, Shannon,’ he warned then, ‘because