Love's Revenge: The Italian's Revenge / A Passionate Marriage / The Brazilian's Blackmailed Bride. Michelle Reid

vast polished floor in the arms of her new husband in her flowing gown of gold which had been specially designed for her.

      ‘Have I told you today how beautiful you are?’ Vito’s softly seductive voice echoed back to her through a trail of memories. ‘You outshine every woman here tonight.’

      ‘You’re only saying that because it flatters your own ego,’ she’d mocked him.

      She could still hear the sound of his burst of appreciative laughter ringing around this room even as she drew the doors shut on the ballroom. And she was smiling wryly to herself as she turned to make her way to the elegant central stairway. For Vito had laughed like that because the man was conceited enough to know that having a beautiful wife flattered his ego for choosing her, not her ego for being her.

      That was the way it was with a Giordani, she mused whimsically as she strode along the upper mezzanine and in through one of the many doors that lined the elegant two-winged landing. To them, other people were the satellites which revolved around their rich and compellingly seductive world. It was supposed to be a privilege to be invited to enter it.

      Enter where? she then thought suddenly, and brought her wayward attention to an abrupt standstill along with her feet, when she realised just where it was she was standing.

      A bedroom. Their bedroom. The one she’d used to share with Vito before she ran away.

      Her heart began to thud, her throat closing over as she took on board just what she had done while her mind had been elsewhere.

      She had walked herself right into the one room in the house she had been meaning to steer well clear of.

      Her first instinct was to get out of there again as quickly as she could! Her second instinct had her pausing instead, though, giving in to an irresistible urge to check out the one place where she and Vito had always managed to be in harmony.

      The bedroom. The bed, still standing there like a huge snow sleigh, made of the richest mahogany and polished to within an inch of its life. The width of three singles, it still had the same hand-embroidered pure white counterpane covering its fine white linen, still had its mound of fluffy white pillows they’d used to toss to the floor before retiring each night.

      Then she recalled why they’d used to toss those pillows away so carelessly, and felt the tight sting of that memory attack the very centre of her sexuality.

      Was that all to begin again? she asked herself tensely. All the rowing and fighting, followed by the kind of sexual combat that used to leave them both a little shell-shocked afterwards?

      It has already started again, she reminded herself. And on that grim acknowledgement let her eyes drift around the rest of the room to discover that not a single thing had been changed since she’d last stepped into it.

      Yet, she had changed. She wasn’t the same person she had been three years ago. In fact, at this precise moment she felt rather like a lost penny that had found itself being tossed back, only to land in the wrong place entirely.

      She didn’t want to be here, didn’t think she should be here, even though she knew without a single doubt that this was the room Vito would be expecting her to share with him again.

      Not that she’d asked the question, and would not be doing when she knew it would only give Vito the chance to taunt her with the fact that she had been brought back here to provide him with sex.

      Sex, lies and pretence—the status quo re-established for Santo’s sake—and to slake Vito’s thirst for revenge. She was about to turn back to the door when—without any warning at all—the bathroom door suddenly flew open and Vito appeared in its aperture. He must have come directly from the shower, because all he had on was a white towel slung around his lean hips and he was rubbing briskly at his wet hair with another towel.

      His arrival froze her to the carpet. And seeing her standing there had the same effect on him. So for the next few pulsing seconds neither seemed able to move another muscle as shocked surprise held them utterly transfixed.

      CHAPTER SIX

      WAS he seeing her like a lost penny that really shouldn’t be where it was standing? she wondered as she watched those lush dark sensual lashes slowly lower over eyes that were determinedly giving nothing away.

      The silence between them stretched into tension, and within it Catherine tried to stop her gaze from drifting over him. But it was no use. She had been drawn to this man’s physical attraction from the first moment she ever set eyes on him. And nothing had changed, she realised sadly as, dry-mouthed, she watched crystal droplets of water drip from his hair onto his wide tanned shoulders then begin trailing into the crisp dark hair covering his chest.

      He was male beauty personified, his face, his body, the long lean muscular strength in his deeply tanned legs.

      ‘Have your things arrived yet?’ Deep and dark, and unusually sedate for him in this kind of situation, Vito’s voice held no hint of anything but casual enquiry.

      Yet her skin flinched as if he’d reached out and touched it with the end of an electric live wire. ‘I … n-not that I know of,’ she replied, eyelashes fluttering as she dragged her gaze away from him. ‘I’ve been—showing myself around,’ she then added on a failed attempt at sounding casual.

      ‘No surprises?’ he asked, drawing her eyes back to him as he began to rub at his wet hair with the towel again.

      She watched his biceps flex and his pectorals begin to tremble at the vigorous activity. ‘Only Santo’s room,’ she murmured, and wished she knew how to cure herself of wanting this man. ‘It’s nice,’ she tagged on diffidently.

      ‘Glad you think so.’ There should have been a hint of sarcasm when he said that, but there wasn’t. In fact he was playing this all very casual—as if the last three years had never happened and they shared this kind of conversation in this room all the time.

      But then, wasn’t she trying to treat it the same way herself?

      The towel was lowered and cast aside. Catherine bit her inner lip and tried desperately to come up with some excuse to leave that wouldn’t make her appear a total coward.

      In the end it was Vito who solved the dilemma for her. ‘Sorry,’ he apologised suddenly, and took a step sideways. ‘Did you come here to …?’

      He was asking if she needed to use the bathroom. ‘N-No,’ she murmured. Then, ‘Yes!’ she amended that, seeing the bathroom, with the lock it had on its door, as the ideal place to escape to.

      But it was only as she pushed her tense body into movement that she realised she was going to have to pass very close by him to gain that escape. And Vito didn’t move another muscle as he watched her come towards him. So her tension grew with each step that she took, and by the time she reached him her heart was thumping, and her breathing was so fragile that it was all she could do to murmur a frail, ‘Thank you,’ as she went to pass by him.

      ‘Are you going to take a shower?’

      Her senses were lost to a medley of tingles, all of which were set on high red alert. ‘Y-Yes,’ she heard herself answer, seeing yes as good as no at this precise moment, when she had absolutely no idea what she was intending to do in there! She didn’t even need to use the bathroom!

      ‘Then allow me …’ his smooth voice offered.

      At which point she found herself freezing yet again as his hands came to rest upon her shoulders. Then his fingers began trailing downwards over her pale skin until they reached the scooped edge of her jade linen dress where the long zip lay.

      Gritting her teeth, Catherine prayed for deliverance. He was standing so close she could actually feel his lightly scented dampness eddying in the air surrounding her. It was incredibly alluring, the kind of scent that conjured up evocative pictures of warm, naked bodies tangled in loving.

      She shivered delicately when, with a deftness that had always been