The Temporary Mrs Marchetti. Melanie Milburne

and newly qualified as a beauty therapist. It had been her first trip abroad without friends accompanying her. She had been on a shoestring budget while she backpacked around Europe but she’d only got as far as Italy when she’d met him in a crowded street in Milan when a sharp catch on her backpack had become caught on his clothing, as she’d brushed past.

      They’d stood in the middle of the street, comically locked together by their clothes. He’d made a comment about it bringing a whole new meaning to ‘hooking up with someone’ and she’d laughed. Once he had untangled himself he’d insisted on buying her a coffee.

      One coffee had turned into two coffees and then dinner. Instead of going back to the backpackers’ centre she’d found herself accepting his offer of accommodation for the night or two she’d planned to spend in his home city. At no time had she felt any pressure to sleep with him. She was not unaware of his interest in her and she hadn’t been all that good at hiding hers in him. But his respectful handling of her had impressed her. Not many healthy and virile young men of twenty-seven, as he was at that time, would have asked a woman back to his place and not expected something in return.

      In the end it had been Alice who made the first move. She still remembered their first kiss. Sometimes when she closed her eyes she could still feel those firm lips moving with such urgency against hers, making every cell in her body vibrate. One kiss hadn’t been enough. Next minute she was tearing his clothes off him and all but throwing herself at him.

      Her mind drifted... The drugging kisses. The phenomenal foreplay. The earth-rocking sex. The mind-bending orgasms. The electric tingling of her flesh for hours afterwards.

      How had she gone so long without it?

      Alice sighed and picked up her lipstick. She had never found anyone else who made her feel desire quite like that, as if she would literally die if she didn’t have him. Which meant she would have to be super careful around him now. She didn’t want to betray herself, to give him any hint she hadn’t managed to move on with her life. Of course she had moved on with her life. She was a successful businesswoman with money in the bank...most of it borrowed, but still.

      What else did she need?

      The doorbell sounded and she put her lipstick in her purse and picked up her evening wrap and went to the door. Even though she was in four-inch heels Cristiano towered over her. ‘You’re late,’ she said. ‘I thought you said seven. It’s half-past.’

      He gave a shrug of one broad shoulder as if punctuality and common politeness were no longer of any interest to him. ‘I knew you’d wait for me.’

      The way he said it made it sound as if she had spent the last seven years doing exactly that. She raised her chin and sent him a look that would have soured long-life milk. ‘How did you find out where I lived?’

      ‘Your very helpful previous landlord.’

      The slight emphasis on the word ‘previous’ made Alice’s nerves jangle.

      She wound her wrap around her shoulders, wishing she could wind it around Cristiano’s neck instead. ‘Where are we going to dinner?’

      ‘Aren’t you going to show me around your house first?’

      Alice pinched her lips together. ‘My home is hardly on a league with yours.’

      He glanced around her foyer with an appraising eye. ‘Nice. How long have you lived here?’

      ‘Two years.’

      ‘Alone?’

      Alice forced herself to hold that piercing gaze even though it made every atom in her body protest. ‘At the moment.’

      He gave a slight nod as if her answer satisfied him on some level. ‘Big place for a single girl. How many bedrooms?’

      ‘Four.’

      His ink-black brows lifted in an arc. ‘Are you renting?’

      Alice threw him a black look. ‘Why? Are you thinking of buying it too, and jacking up the rent? Sorry to spoil your fun but I own it.’ Or at least the bank does.

      His mouth curved at one corner in a half-smile that should not have caused her heart to stumble. ‘You could pay this mortgage off and have money to spare if you agree to the terms of my grandmother’s will. You could expand your business as well.’

      Alice’s brows snapped together in a frown. How did he know she wanted to expand her business? Who on earth had he been talking to? He had an unnerving ability to gain information about her. And read her mind. Not to mention her body.

      Oh, dear God, why wasn’t her body ignoring him? Damn it.

      Her body was a traitor. It remembered him too well. It only had to be within touching distance and it went haywire. It was as if the last seven years hadn’t happened. All her nerves were screaming out for his touch like starstruck teenage fans at a boy-band concert. ‘My business plans are absolutely no concern of yours. Nor indeed are my private ones.’

      His eyes moved over her body in an assessing sweep that made her insides coil with lust. She knew that look. The look that said, I want you and I know you want me. And I can prove it.

      ‘It must get a bit lonely at times, living in this big old house by yourself, sì?’

      ‘I’m not one bit lonely.’

      He released a small puff of air that had cynicism riding on its backdraft. ‘Sure you’re not.’ He was suddenly standing closer than she’d realised. Had she been so mesmerised by his gaze she hadn’t detected him closing the distance between them? He reached out and picked up a tendril of her hair and wound it around the length of his index finger. It was too late to step back.

      Why the hell hadn’t she stepped back?

      Every nerve root on her scalp was tingling from the tether of his touch.

      ‘Have you missed me, cara?’ His voice was a deep, seductive burr of sound that sucker-punched her self-control.

      Alice had to swallow three times to locate her voice. Three times! As it was she only just stopped herself from giving a betraying whimper. ‘If you don’t let go of me this instant I’ll file my nails on your cheek. Got it?’

      His mouth curved in an indolent smile and he wound her hair a little tighter. ‘I’d much rather you’d rake them down my back.’

      His incendiary words sent a shockwave of lust through her body. She swore she could feel the echo of where he had been in the past—the thickened length of him driving into her until they both lost control. Her blood simmered in her veins, rushing through her system as if it were on fire.

      Get control. Get control. Get control.

      The words were sounding an alarm in her brain but her body was blatantly ignoring it. Her body swayed towards his...or maybe his moved closer. His muscle-packed thighs brushed hers, reminding her of all the times they had trapped hers beneath their sensual power and superior strength. Sex with Cristiano had always had an element of danger to it. The dark unknowable power of it. The uncontrollable force of it had thrilled and frightened her in equal measure. Her body felt things with him it had never felt before or since. Not even close. She was spoilt now for anyone else.

      Another good reason to hate him.

      Alice pushed back against his chest even though it tugged cruelly on her hair. ‘In your dreams, buddy.’

      Cristiano’s gaze had a mocking glint to it. ‘I could have you in a heartbeat and you damn well know it.’

      ‘Ah, but you don’t want me, remember?’ Alice said with an arch look. ‘A marriage in name only, wasn’t it?’

      A whip-quick flicker of tension moved across his mouth. He stepped back and held open the door. ‘We’ll lose the booking if we don’t make a move. I had to pull strings to secure it.’

      ‘You’re good at that, aren’t you, Cristiano? Pulling strings to get