The Italian’s Ruthless Marriage Command. Helen Bianchin

we do so?’

      ‘It doesn’t have to encompass lunch.’

      Dante paused as they reached the pavement. ‘You’d prefer we adjourn to your apartment?’

      No. The negation was a silent scream inside her head, and it took a few seemingly long seconds to summon her voice to project a polite veneer. ‘There are a few cafés close by,’ she acquiesced evenly, and missed the slight hardening in his eyes. ‘Perhaps a sandwich and coffee?’

      He led her to a restaurant, and ignored her protest as the maître d’ seated them.

      ‘I dislike—’

      ‘Not having total control?’ Dante intercepted with deceptive mildness, and caught the way her eyes flared green.

      ‘It’s something at which you appear to excel,’ Taylor said, tongue firmly in cheek.

      He accepted the wine list, and requested her preference.

      ‘Iced water is fine.’ Her tolerance level was diminishing by the second. Any minute soon she’d be tempted to toss the contents of her glass in his face.

      ‘I wouldn’t advise it,’ he said quietly, as if again reading her mind, and speared her with a look that promised retribution.

      She collected her bag and stood, only to stifle an audible gasp as his hand closed over her wrist.

      ‘Sit. Please,’ he added.

      She glared at him. ‘Give me one reason why I should.’

      ‘Ben.’

      The little boy’s image filled her mind, his solemn saddened eyes…and knew she’d give anything to provide a happy, healthy life for him. ‘It will never work.’

      ‘Lunch?’

      Taylor gave him an exasperated look. ‘Sharing the same house.’

      ‘As far as Ben is concerned, given all your reasons, it’s the best option.’

      She opened her mouth, then closed it again as the waiter appeared to take their order.

      Dammit, she hadn’t even looked at the menu, let alone made a selection.

      ‘Taylor?’

      She met the silent challenge in his gaze, hesitated, then ordered a Caesar salad, and waited until they were alone before venturing, ‘You employ unfair tactics.’ She lifted the goblet of iced water, took a sip, then carefully replaced it.

      To his credit he didn’t attempt to misunderstand. ‘Had it been my initial suggestion, you would have immediately dismissed it out of hand.’

      ‘I have yet to agree,’ she ventured, and held his measured look.

      ‘Common sense ensures you will.’

      Her eyes sharpened. ‘And if I don’t?’

      Dante took his time before answering, ‘Then you leave me no option but to lodge an application to formally adopt Ben.’

      CHAPTER TWO

      SHOCK dilated Taylor’s eyes, and she felt the blood drain from her face.

      ‘You can’t do that,’ she managed shakily. ‘Such an action would contravene Leon and Casey’s will.’

      Dante’s features held a compelling quality, and a chill shiver feathered the length of her spine.

      ‘Leon’s lawyer is witness to you declining each solution I presented.’ His voice held a silky softness that was totally lacking in arrogance, yet there was a dangerous quality evident beneath the surface. ‘Unless you choose to reverse your decision, you leave me little option but to take the matter to court.’

      She didn’t trust herself to speak. At the very least she wanted to hit him, and if a mere look could kill he’d be dead.

      ‘Such a move would involve time and a large amount of money,’ Dante enlightened smoothly.

      She owned her apartment, her car, and was debt-free, thanks to the popularity of her work. But when it came to wealth, Dante d’Alessandri won hands down.

      ‘Do you particularly want to go that route?’ he pursued silkily. ‘Subject Ben to unwarranted stress and trauma? Fund exhaustive legal fees?’ He waited a beat. ‘What will it achieve, other than an exercise in futility?’

      ‘Except at the end of the day you win.’ She attempted to keep the faint bitterness out of her voice, and was unsure she succeeded.

      His eyes remained steady, inviolate. ‘This is about Ben,’ he reminded quietly. ‘And what’s best for him.’

      It didn’t help that he was right. Or that she viewed his threatened alternative of adoption as totally unconscionable.

      There was no way she’d allow that to happen, although she refused to give in easily without protest.

      The waiter delivered their meal, and Taylor looked at the salad, contemplated her plate and wondered if she’d be able to eat so much as a morsel.

      ‘I don’t want to share a house with you.’ And if you comment I’m the first woman to say that, I’ll hit you.

      He looked at her carefully, caught the fast-beating pulse at the base of her throat, and his eyes narrowed fractionally.

      ‘There’s a boyfriend on the scene who will object?’

      A fleeting darkness clouded her eyes, then it was gone. ‘No.’ Betrayed trust ensured true friends were limited to a few, and acquaintances kept at a distance.

      Interpreting body language and subtle nuances in the human voice was an art in which he excelled…an invaluable asset in the cut and thrust of international business dealings.

      It took, Dante mused, an accomplished actress trained to submerge her own personality in order to assume that of the character she was contracted to play.

      And somehow he doubted Taylor was playing a part. Yet he’d stake his reputation on there being something responsible for her chosen façade…even allowing for recent grief, and Ben’s welfare.

      ‘And you, Dante? Won’t your current mistress protest at your proposed live-in arrangement with another woman?’

      ‘No.’

      Just…no?

      ‘Eat,’ Dante bade and he began doing justice to the food on his plate.

      The salad looked delicious…although her nerves were stretched too taut to appreciate the taste of food.

      She declined dessert and settled for coffee, sweet, black and strong, aware it was also Dante’s choice, and when the waiter presented the bill she reached for her wallet…only to have Dante refuse her offer to pay her share.

      ‘There’s enough time to check out the house before we collect Ben.’

      House? We? ‘I don’t think—’

      ‘We have an hour and a half,’ he enlightened as he ushered her out onto the pavement. All it took was a brief conversation via his mobile phone, and within minutes a black Mercedes slid in to the kerb.

      Dante opened a door, ushered her into the rear seat, then he crossed round the vehicle and slipped in beside her, introduced his driver, Gianni, with friendly ease. Given Dante’s reputed ruthlessness in the business arena, she assumed he’d appear businesslike with his staff, and she sat in silence as he issued instructions to an address in Watson’s Bay, one of Sydney’s luxurious suburbs offering widespread panoramic harbour views.

      House was a misnomer. Mansion seemed a more adequate description, Taylor conceded as the Mercedes swept through high, ornate remotely operated steel gates, circled a wide driveway and eased to a halt beneath a wide porte-cochère protecting broad double entrance doors of steel-strutted