The Ranieri Bride. Michelle Reid

linked with his, and she said—nothing.

      Freya felt her silence spray like a million pinpricks down her front as she held his cold, narrowed stare. She hated him for asking that, but…

      Dear heaven, he looked good, she found herself thinking helplessly. The silk black hair that didn’t dare to curl like Nicky’s did, unless it was early in the morning and he’d just woken up from a long night of loving and sleep; those dark eyes, half-lost beneath two sets of long eyelashes that gave him such a sexy, slumberous look when really he was as wide awake as a hunting shark. Then there was the mouth, hidden at the moment by the long, tanned finger he had resting along its slender width. That mouth could kill you with pleasure if you let it get close enough. It could make you lose touch with everything, but how it could make you feel!

      And it could slice you into tiny pieces—or the white teeth that hid behind it could—and there was the tongue that could issue insults as effectively as it could devour you in other ways.

      Her nipples pricked and she knew why they did. Just thinking about that mouth—angry or hell-bent on giving you pleasure—was enough to make her breasts respond in a greedy, tight leap of remembered bliss.

      She pulled in some air. ‘I work here,’ she informed him. ‘What happened in the foyer this lunchtime has caused a big enough sensation in this building, without Fredo standing guard at the crèche and making the gossip ten times worse.’

      ‘He is guarding my son.’

      ‘He is not your son.’ She was going to go on repeating that until hell froze over.

      ‘White panties or grey to match the miserable suit?’ he said, making her eyes flicker in confusion. ‘I only ask because you left me with this…image after your very novel telephone call,’ he explained. ‘White or grey used to be the sum total colour in your underwear drawer when I first met you. Plain cotton, very practical things with no hint of silk or lace in sight.’

      ‘What I’m wearing is none of your business!’ Freya responded, but she could suddenly feel the intricate lace pattern of her panties acutely against her skin.

      ‘And tights,’ he continued regardless. ‘You used to be very practical about pantihose until I introduced you to the special pleasures of stockings with very sexy lace tops.’

      Suddenly very aware of the lacy tops on her stay-ups, Freya shifted uncomfortably. ‘I suppose you think you can say anything you like to me because we were once lovers,’ she said stiffly.

      ‘Also those awful cotton bras you wore a full cup size too big—in case your breasts decided to grow into them, I always presumed,’ he persisted. ‘Did they grow when you were carrying my son?’

      ‘He is not your son!’ she sliced hotly at him.

      He uncoiled from the chair like a big black snake rising upwards, then he leant towards her and placed his hands flat on the desk.

      ‘Did they?’ he spat at her through tightly gritted white teeth. ‘Did your breasts grow plump and your body grow round, and did your lousy conscience prick you even once, that you were keeping my son from me?’

      CHAPTER THREE

      FREYA leapt to her feet, shaking with anger and quaking with alarm at this second act of threatened violence he was treating her to. She stared into those flashing black eyes and wanted to take a defensive step back, but she would not allow herself to do it.

      Instead, heart thundering, she planted her hands on his desk and took him on hard, look for look.

      ‘Not once,’ she shook out angrily. ‘I didn’t think about you once, Enrico. Why would I? What were you but just another guy who’d got what he’d wanted and then walked away?’

      ‘You walked. I threw you out!’

      ‘And weren’t you happy to see me go?’ she hit back. ‘Perhaps you even set Luca up for me to give you an excuse to throw me out!’

      ‘You could have said no to him.’

      But he did not deny the charge! ‘And spoil the Ranieri sport?’ Freya retaliated. ‘At least Luca had the honesty to tell me to my face that he only wanted me for the sex!’

      He’d gone white but she was whiter, the amount of anger bouncing between them acting like a static cocoon to close them into a tight corridor of seething eye contact that sizzled and sparked and spat across the desk.

      ‘I hope I would not be quite so crass as to say that to any woman,’ he fed to her like vile-tasting poison.

      It hit its spot, too, sank into her flesh and hurt.

      Freya straightened up, quivering like crazy. ‘Stand where I’m standing, Enrico,’ she responded huskily. ‘Believe me, from this side of the desk you are as crass as they come.’

      With that she turned, arms folding around her as she slumped down against the edge of the desk, feeling weak and shaky now because it had all become so heated when she’d been determined to—

      He moved behind her. The fine hairs across her nape tingled as she waited in the thrumming, drumming silence that had fallen to find out what he was going to do or say next.

      It was annoying to feel it, but tears began pricking at her backs of her eyes and her throat. She had loved this man once, and so thoroughly she’d believed nothing he could ever do would kill that love.

      Maybe it wasn’t dead, she thought then as her silly, dipping, thumping heart gave a squeeze to remind her that some feeling for him was still there—like a desperately hurt and wounded love that was suddenly threatening to strangle her breath.

      Bleakly she stared fixedly down at her feet. Her shoes were scuffed, she noticed inconsequentially. She’d forgotten to buff them up this morning before she left the flat. And her skirt was creased.

      Unclipping a hand from beneath her other arm, she tried to smooth out the creases with fingers that trembled so badly she gave up and shoved the hand back where it had been.

      He appeared on the periphery of her lowered vision. A pair of long masculine legs wrapped in the finest silk-wool mix striding with long grace across the office. His shoes weren’t scuffed, she saw. That almost black suit wouldn’t dare to show a crease.

      ‘Want something?’ he offered.

      She heard the chink of glass and shook her head. ‘I have to get back…’

      ‘To the riveting job scanning hard copy?’

      That brought her head up, dignity firing up her green eyes. ‘It pays my wages, Enrico.’

      ‘Meagre wages,’ he derided. ‘You earned ten times that amount when you worked for me. Josh Hannard did not know what a gem he had hiding in his basement. You could have run this place more efficiently than he did standing on your head with your hands tied behind your back.’

      ‘You sacked me—’

      ‘For colluding with my cousin to rob me.’ He nodded. ‘I remember it so well. Luca made some big mistakes in his life but that one got him caught and thrown out of the family. You were only thrown out of a job.’

      And your life, Freya tagged on silently. ‘Without a good reference from you I was virtually unemployable.’

      He just lifted his drink to his mouth and drank. Indifferent, uncaring, cold, arrogant…

      She was back to those adjectives, she realised and heaved in a deep breath. ‘I didn’t do it. He set me up. I caught him with his fingers in your safe and threatened to tell the police.’

      ‘Only threatened?’ A sleek eyebrow arched cynically.

      And that, Freya thought, had been her downfall. Luca was family. She’d worked and lived with Enrico long enough to know that you did not shop family to anyone, especially to the police.

      Or thought she knew