Mediterranean Men Unleashed: The Billionaire's Blackmailed Bride. JACQUELINE BAIRD

kismet, whatever it was, but as she entered the hall the telephone rang and she answered. Anton …

      ‘You’re a very hard lady to get hold of, Emily. But I like a challenge. Have dinner with me tonight?’

      So, she did what she had wanted to do for days and said yes …

      Emily viewed the apartment and decided against it. Then spent the rest of the morning at the museum, and the afternoon shopping for a new dress.

      Emily smiled, happy with her reflection in the mirror, and, straightening her shoulders, she picked up her dark blue wrap and matching purse from the bed and left the room. She was nervous, butterflies were fluttering in her stomach, but none of her inner emotions showed as she opened the drawing-room door and walked in. Anton Diaz was picking her up at seven and it was ten to.

      ‘Well, Helen, will I do?’ She smiled at her sister-in-law reclining on a sofa, a glass of juice in her hand, and saw the embarrassed expression on her face just as a deep dark voice responded.

      ‘You look beautiful, Emily.’

      Emily turned her head, her eyes widening as Anton walked towards her from the far side of the room, Tom trailing in his wake.

      ‘Thank you.’ She accepted the compliment politely, but it was an effort. She had thought he looked dangerous dressed as a dark angel, but in a perfectly tailored light grey suit with a white shirt and silk tie he looked gorgeous. ‘You’re early,’ she added, raising her eyes to his face. He had stopped barely a foot from her, and his dark gaze slid slowly over her from head to toe, then he lifted his eyes to hers and what she saw in the smouldering black depths made the breath catch in her throat.

      For the second time in a week Anton Diaz could not control his instant arousal at the sight of a woman. He had seen a photo of Emily in baggy clothes, and seen her in a very sexy latex suit with her hair down. But the Emily who stood before him now was something else again. She was the personification of sophisticated elegance.

      Her blonde hair was swept up into a knot on top of her head, her make-up understated, but perfect. Her big blue eyes were accentuated even more by the clever use of cosmetics, her full lips a soft glossy rose. As for her gown, it was designer; he had bought enough over the years to know. Ice-blue to match her eyes, it was cut on the bias, the bodice, supported by slight straps, clung faithfully to her high firm breasts and subtly shaped her narrow waist and hips to flare ever so slightly a few inches from the hem that ended on her knees. Not too short to appear tacky, but short enough for a man to fantasize about slipping his hand beneath it.

      ‘Beautiful does not do you justice—you look exquisite, Emily. I will be the envy of every man in the restaurant.’ Reaching for a cashmere wrap that she held in her hand, he gently took it and slipped it over her shoulders. ‘Shall we go?’ It was definitely going to be no hardship to bed the lovely Emily, the finer details of when and where were all he had to decide on, he thought as he battled to control his libido.

      Amazingly, Tom Fairfax, despite his usual easygoing nature, had taken him to one side when he had arrived and told him quite seriously he expected Anton to behave himself with Emily and return her home at a reasonable hour. No one had attempted to tell him what to do in years, if ever, and he had been too stunned to reply when Emily had walked into the room.

      He could understand the man’s concern, but it simply reminded him that he had been unable to take care of his own sister, and the memory cooled his wayward body in an instant.

      Emily was too flustered to do more than take the hand Anton offered her. She felt his hand tighten on hers, and caught a flicker of some strange emotion in his dark eyes, gone as he turned and said goodnight to Tom and Helen.

      He opened the passenger door of a silver Bentley and ushered her inside. She watched as he walked around the bonnet and slid behind the wheel. He glanced at her, one brow arched enquiringly, and she realized she was staring like a besotted fool.

      ‘Where are you taking me?’ She blurted the first thing that came into her head.

      He chuckled a deep dark sound. ‘To dinner, Emily.’ Slipping a hand around her neck, he tilted her face to his dark eyes dancing with amusement. ‘But ultimately to my bed.’

      His provocative statement had her lips parting in a shocked gasp, and Anton’s mouth covered them, firm, warm and tender. Her lips tingled and trembled as his hand trailed around her throat, his fingers curving around her small chin to hold her firm as the tip of his tongue sought hers with an eroticism that ignited a sudden warmth deep inside her. Her eyes closed and her hands slid up to clasp his nape, her fingers trailing involuntarily into the silken blackness of his hair as he deepened the kiss, his tongue probing the moist interior of her mouth, and the slow-burning heat ignited into flame.

      ‘Emily.’ He raised his head, and lifted her hands from their death-like grip around his neck. ‘Emily, we have to go.’

      She looked dazedly up at him, then down at his hands holding hers. Had she really flung her arms around him and clung like a limpet? And suddenly the heat of arousal became the heat of embarrassment.

      ‘What did you do that for?’ she asked.

      ‘I believe in getting the first kiss over with quickly, instead of wondering all evening, and to be blunt you have kept me waiting a week already.’ He grinned.

      ‘I’m surprised you persisted.’ She grinned back, suddenly feeling wonderful, all her doubts and fears about Anton wiped out by his kiss.

      ‘I surprised myself. I am of the W.C. Fields train of thought. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, and then give up—there is no point in being a damn fool about it. Usually two approaches with no response and I move on. But in your case I made an exception. You should be flattered.’

      Emily chuckled. ‘You are impossibly arrogant, Anton.’

      ‘Yes, but you like me.’ He grinned and started the car.

      The restaurant was exclusive, the food superb and Anton the perfect dinner companion. His conversation was witty and gradually she relaxed. He told her he spent a lot of time travelling between his head office in New York, and the subsidiaries in Sydney, London and Athens, where he had an island villa within commuting distance by helicopter. But he tried to spend the winter months on his estate in Peru.

      Without being aware of it, Emily was already half in love with him by the time he took her home.

      ‘Admit it, Emily, you enjoyed yourself tonight,’ Anton prompted as he stopped the car outside her home and turned to look at her. ‘I am not quite the ogre you thought, hmm?’ And he slid an arm around her shoulders.

      ‘I concede you really are very civilized and, yes, I did enjoy myself.’ The champagne she had consumed making her ever so slightly tipsy, she smiled up at him and added, ‘But you are still arrogant.’

      ‘Maybe, but will you allow me to take you out again tomorrow night?’ he asked formally, but there was nothing formal about the sensual gleam in the black depths of the eyes that held hers as he drew her close.

      ‘Yes,’ she murmured, and watched in helpless anticipation as his dark head bent and his wide mouth covered hers.

      The second kiss was even better than the first and she leant into him with bone-melting enthusiasm, her arms eagerly wrapping around his neck. She felt his great body tense, felt the brush of one hand against the fabric covering her breast as he deepened the kiss, his tongue searching her mouth with a skilful eroticism that sent shuddering sensations of pure pleasure coursing hotly through her slender body.

      She inhaled the unique masculine scent of him, trembled with wild excitement at the pleasure of his kiss, a kiss so deep, so passionate, she never wanted to come up for air. When his fingers closed around the strap of her dress she quivered, but made no objection as he peeled the fabric down over her braless breasts.

      He raised his head and she didn’t understand his husky words as he palmed her breast, his long fingers grazing over the rosy tip. Her whole body jerked and her