Married For The Italian's Heir. Rachael Thomas

was as terrifying as it was exciting. His breath was coming hard and fast as he fixed her with those dark, sexy eyes. She lifted her hips, clasping her legs around him as her need to be one with him increased.

      Another curse left his lips and he let one of her arms go as he raised his hips and ripped her black panties from her. Her shocked gasp only encouraged him further, and he barely paused as she pressed her nakedness against him, feeling the heat of his erection intimately.

      ‘Per Dio.’

      The words rushed from him as she moved, bringing them together. He thrust into her, her startled cry making him stop. She glanced up to see a furious frown on his handsome face, but she couldn’t let it end there. She wanted total possession. She wanted him to take her, make her his. Even if it was only for tonight.

      ‘Don’t stop.’ She lifted her hips, taking him deeper inside her as she raised her head and pressed kisses against his chest, tasting the salty tang of desire on his skin.

      ‘You’re a...’ he whispered hoarsely.

      But she pressed her lips against his, hiding the truth as she used the unrelenting need in her body and lifted herself up to him, making his possession deep and powerful, forcing him to surrender to the moment too.

      Another feral curse left him as he joined her in the frenzied dance of sex. It was so exquisite, so much more than she’d ever dared to hope it could be, that as she hovered on the brink of oblivion she cried out, holding him tight against her as several tears escaped, sliding down her face. She buried her face against his chest, inhaling the sexy scent of him, knowing it would be etched in her memory for ever.

      As would the moment she’d lost her virginity, becoming a real woman with a man whose name she didn’t even know.

      As her heart rate slowed and his body relaxed she moved, but he caught an arm around her, pulling her close against him. ‘You are not going anywhere yet, cara.’

      Those sultry words made her mind spin—as did the reality of what she’d done. Through the fog of desire rational thought was finally becoming clear. She’d lost her virginity and jeopardised her new job—all for a man who hadn’t even bothered with the pleasantries of an introduction. His kisses and soft words had seduced her on a day when she was at her most vulnerable, a day when she needed to know she was alive, prove she could be a woman in charge of her life.

      His breathing deepened as he slept, and even though her body was held tightly against his Piper knew she had no option but to leave. She might have experienced the most wonderful night, but this wasn’t who she was.

      She slipped carefully from the bed and quietly gathered her clothes, dressing in the near darkness. He stirred and she looked at him—at his handsome face, his lean body partially covered by the white sheet—committing it all to her memory, because this was a man who didn’t want anything other than casual affairs. Despite her naivety, she knew this.

      Quietly she left the room of the man whose name she didn’t even know—the man she would never see again as she returned to being the shy woman who’d arrived in London from Australia only a year before.

CHAPTER ONE

      FURIOUS AT THE way his life had begun to unravel over the last two weeks, Dante Mancini pushed back the effects of too much whisky at last night’s impromptu meeting. He tried not to think of the outrageous solution Benjamin Carter had proposed to counteract the damning article Celebrity Spy! had run.

      The scandalous piece—naming himself, Ben Carter, Sheikh Zayn Al-Ghamdi and Xander Trakas as the world’s most debauched bachelors—had done untold damage to their favourite charity, The Hope Foundation. Now those who ran it had demanded they clean up their acts or step aside as patrons. To make matters worse, a business deal he’d been working on was in danger of collapsing because of the damage to his reputation—he was a bachelor who played the field and now everyone knew it.

      Could Ben’s idea work? Would taking such drastic action as marriage divert unwanted attention from the charity and secure his most lucrative business deal yet? Possibly. But was he prepared to take the gamble...?

      Dante pushed open the door to his office building, not bothering to remove his sunglasses and definitely not ready to admit that the copious amount of whisky he’d drunk whilst being told he needed to find himself a wife was the reason for his fierce headache and foul mood.

      He stabbed at the button to call the elevator and inhaled deeply as he waited, still fuming that Bettino D’Antonio was pulling out of the deal because he, Dante Mancini, and his company didn’t uphold family values.

      As the doors to the elevator swished open he walked in, desperate for a moment of solitude before he entered the suite of offices which served as the headquarters for his self-built global business empire dealing in renewable energies. In a bid to bring back some control and chase away the threatening headache he inhaled deeply once again.

      The doors closed and instantly his senses were on alert. His memory rushed back to an illicit night of hot sex in a London hotel with an unknown redhead who’d haunted his dreams and stalked his thoughts each day ever since.

      She had been wild and passionate, and yet as he’d made her his he’d realised she was a virgin. A fluid curse left him as the elevator doors closed, trapping him inside with a memory which only added to his unaccustomed bad mood. It irritated the hell out of him that those gorgeous green eyes continued to haunt him and that, despite the alcohol still in his system from last night, his blood heated at the memory and a shot of lust hurtled round him.

      ‘Maledizione.’ He never thought of a woman once their affair was over, and the redhead encounter had been two months ago. Well and truly over.

      He clenched his hands into tight fists at his sides. Now was not the time to become embroiled in memories of one meaningless night. He had to remain in control—focus on the matter in hand. He couldn’t allow that piece of gossip in Celebrity Spy! to jeopardise one of the biggest deals he’d ever gone after, or to tarnish the work of the charity he helped to fund. But neither was he about to be dictated to by Benjamin Carter. He had absolutely no desire to settle down in that very elusive state of marital bliss just to salvage his reputation. There had to be another way and he’d find it—of that he was sure.

      Not a moment too soon the elevator doors opened and he left the memory-evoking scent of perfume and marched into his office. His head thumped mercilessly from last night’s excess of whisky and his temper was frayed from the latest developments on the deal.

      His secretary jumped up eagerly as he stormed in but he refused to indulge in his usual morning pleasantries. He didn’t have the stamina for niceties right now. All he wanted was total silence and coffee—strong and black.

      ‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’ He snapped the instruction at her as he strode past her desk, desperate for the solitude of his office with its sought-after views over the old quarter of Rome.

      ‘Signor Mancini...’ she began, overriding his instruction, and he stopped and looked at her, about to open his office door, glad of the sunglasses he still wore.

      The last thing he wanted his secretary to know was that he was suffering from an uncharacteristic over-indulgence of alcohol. After his meeting with Ben and the others he’d managed to catch an hour or two of sleep during the overnight flight back to Rome on his private jet, but that hadn’t helped dull the effects of the whisky. All he needed was to be left alone.

      ‘No calls. No meetings. Nothing.’ He threw the words at her and as she took a breath to protest turned from her and burst into his office. He slammed the door and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The world had gone mad. Everything he’d worked so hard to achieve seemed in danger of falling to pieces around him.

      He muttered a curse and strode across his large office, pressed the button on his coffee machine, then stood at the windows looking out over the city that had at first been a hard and demanding mistress but was now one of only two places in the world