Claimed by the Sicilian. Kate Walker

like a hawk, she didn’t dare even try.

      ‘And you’re never likely to be either.’

      Oh, damn, damn, damn it! Just saying those words had made the tears burn even more cruelly, and blinking so hard didn’t seem to be working. Instead of holding them back it was making them spill out onto her cheeks, blurring her sight, soaking into her lashes.

      ‘Don’t worry, it’s not your friend I want to be.’ Was she imagining things or had there been the faintest of emphasis on that word ‘friend’? ‘So why don’t you answer the question?’

      ‘Why are you asking it?’ Amber countered. ‘Are you telling me that if I say I love him you’ll let me go—set me free to be with him?’

      The sudden hope in her eyes stabbed daggers at Guido, making him clench his hands furiously over the sheet, crushing it mercilessly. The temptation to gather it up and rip it from end to end to express the way he was feeling was a tormenting provocation in his thoughts, one he fought an ugly little battle with, only just managing to subdue it in time.

      Just for a wild, crazy second, he almost wished that she was right. Wished that she could say she loved Rafe St Clair with all her heart, all her soul. At least that would get him off this appalling treadmill that he had been on ever since she’d left him. If he’d been able to believe that she truly loved any other man—even Rafe St Clair—if she could say that to his face and mean it, then he would have to let her go, he admitted to himself. He would have no option.

      But of course she was never going to say any such thing.

      So what was it that had brought tears to her eyes, spiking her long dark lashes and sparkling like diamonds against the blackness? The temptation to reach out and touch a finger to one of those sparkling drops ate at him inside so that he tightened his grip on the sheets again in order to resist it.

      ‘You had your chance to say you loved him in the church,’ he challenged her roughly. ‘You didn’t take it. You couldn’t take it.’

      Just for a moment she looked as if she was going to fight him on that. As if she was going to try and say he was wrong, even though they both knew before she started that she would never convince him.

      Her green eyes flashed defiance, the warm pink lips even opened and she drew in a ragged breath…

      Then let it out again in a sigh.

      ‘No,’ she admitted, low and soft. ‘No, I’m not madly in love with Rafe.’

      It was what he knew anyway. What he’d been wanting her to say, pushing her to admit. So what did he feel now that she had admitted it?

      Nothing.

      And that was the most disturbing thing. He had been thinking he would feel something—satisfaction at least. Satisfaction at the thought that she didn’t care about someone who wasn’t worthy of her love. Relief that he hadn’t broken up a true match.

      But instead he knew a strange emptiness where his feelings should be. And a cold, uncomfortable voice was whispering inside his head that of course she hadn’t loved Rafe St Clair because when had Amber Wellesley—Amber Corsentino—ever loved anyone but herself?

      With the thought of that name—that Amber Corsentino—came the sudden rush of realisation of an extra complication in this whole mess that had never entered his head until now.

      D’accordo, no—it had entered his head, but he’d pushed it right out again. Other, more powerful feelings, at that moment more vital, more demanding feelings, had pushed it out again. And only now was he remembering it and looking at just what it really meant.

      He was looking at the yawning gap between what he had planned to do, what had been in his mind as he made the journey from Siracusa to London, and from London to the village, and the church—and what had actually happened in that church. And here, in this hotel room.

      ‘So now you know,’ Amber was saying, bitterness darkening her tone, making her voice brittle. ‘I suppose that condemns me totally in your eyes. Well, don’t worry—you won’t have to put up with me for long. We just need to ride these uncomfortable few days and then, hopefully, things will calm down.’

      ‘You think they’ll do that?’ Guido questioned, looking into her face and seeing that realisation hadn’t yet dawned there. She was still a couple of steps behind him on this. She had to be or she wouldn’t be sitting there so calm and composed.

      ‘Of course they will. It will be just a nine-day wonder…’

      Something in his voice had caught on her nerves. The words faltered, faded from her tongue and she stared into his face in obvious uncertainty.

      ‘You don’t think they will?’ she questioned sharply.

      ‘We have to get out of here first.’

      ‘Oh, I know that!’ Amber actually sounded relieved. ‘That won’t be fun. But surely…’

      Once more her voice faded as she watched his expression change. Guido was surprised that she couldn’t read his thoughts in his face. He felt sure that every second of regret, of disbelief, of sheer blind fury at himself and the way he had handled this had communicated itself to her without any need for words.

      Because he hadn’t handled this in the way that he had meant to and because of that he had complicated things even more.

      It had seemed so simple at the beginning. He was supposed to have walked into that church and stopped the wedding—then taken Amber away from there. Taken her somewhere where they could talk, where they could be alone together. Somewhere where they might have a hope in hell of sorting out this mess.

      Somewhere where he could find out what she had really felt about him—if she felt anything. Where he could tell her the truth about Rafe St Clair and the bastard’s real reasons for wanting to marry her.

      Where he could see if they had anything that bound them together other than that fierce, blazing passion that had put them in bed together from the start.

      That passion was the thing that had caused all the trouble from the beginning. It had rushed them from a bed to the wedding chapel, into an ill-conceived and ill-thought-out wedding—and then back into bed again. And when they were in bed they didn’t talk. They communicated in far more basic, far more fluent ways.

      So this time he had vowed to himself that he would do this so very differently. He would not touch her, not even kiss her. He wouldn’t risk a repeat of that fiery passion that had stopped them both thinking, stopped them ever getting to know each other, the first time. He would hold back, take things steady, turn the rush to the altar they’d had the first time into a steady, controlled voyage of discovery. That this time he would run his relationship with Amber with his mind and not with his hormones—and he’d see where that would take them.

      And he’d failed completely.

      He’d made a total, ruinous mess of the whole thing. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands off her. He’d fallen into bed with her every bit as fast—faster—than he had done that first time. And so now here they were, both caught in the same cleft stick. Except that this time they were both painfully aware of the fact that this marriage was legal and binding and they couldn’t get out of it and he was sure that Amber hadn’t thought out the repercussions for herself.

       ‘Dannazione!’

      The viciousness of the curse brought him to his feet in a rush, slamming the fist of one hand into the palm of another as he paced his way around the room. The movement brought Amber’s head round to stare at him, her eyes turning the colour of moss as they clouded with apprehension and confusion.

      ‘What is it?’

      With an effort Guido imposed a degree of control on himself, forced himself to swallow down the second outburst that almost escaped him. He even managed a smile, though his lips felt as if they were formed from marble and might split open on the movement.

      ‘You’re