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He hadn’t been in the mood for small talk but, as he hadn’t been in the mood for seduction, and there had been something endearing about her nervousness, he’d sat beside her and chatted. He couldn’t remember a single thing about that conversation other than the fact that he hadn’t been as bored as he’d expected to be, as he so often was these days.
He was not bored now, though. Not in any way, shape or form.
She was looking at him coolly, like a scientist ready to dissect an insect, no trace of that shy, nervous woman he’d talked to in the club. Which must mean that it had been an act. An act he hadn’t spotted.
Oh, she was good. She was very good.
His heart rate sped up even further, the tug of interest becoming something stronger, hotter.
Are you insane? She wants to kill you and you want to bed her?
Was that any surprise? It had been too long since he’d had any kind of excitement in his life, too long since he’d had anything like a challenge. The closest he’d come to interesting had been when his older brother Enzo had married a lovely English woman and Dante had been tasked with making sure Enzo’s son behaved himself. A shockingly difficult task, given the boy had already decided that Dante was less uncle than partner in crime.
Dante had had to spend at least a week afterwards in the company of various lovely ladies simply to recover.
Marriage and children were not the kind of excitement he was after. They were too restrictive and far too...domestic for his sophisticated tastes.
Though, given the state of his groin, if a lovely woman could get him hard simply by waving a gun at him maybe his tastes had grown a little toosophisticated even for him.
Then again, it didn’t look as though he was going to be able to escape any time soon, unless he charmed his way out. It wouldn’t be the first time that he’d used his considerable physical appeal to manipulate a situation and this was a situation that definitely required some degree of manipulation.
And besides. It might be fun.
‘Stupid, hmm? Maybe I am.’ He allowed himself to relax, looking up at her from underneath his lashes. ‘Or maybe I knew who you were all along and simply wanted to see what you wanted from me.’
Her lovely mouth curved in a faint, cool smile. ‘I see. In that case, care to enlighten me on why you’re here?’
Dante raised a brow. ‘Isn’t that your job? I’m still waiting for your villain monologue.’
‘Oh, no, you apparently know all about it already, so don’t let me stop you.’ She cocked her head, the light gleaming on her golden hair. ‘I’d like to hear it so, please, go on.’
Adrenaline flooded through him in a hot burst. This was getting more and more interesting by the second. And so was she, playing him at his own game. Little witch.
He allowed his gaze to roam over her, giving himself some time to collect his thoughts. If she wanted him to give her the run down on what he thought was going on so far, then he was happy to oblige her. Especially as he was starting to get some idea.
If she was from Monte Santa Maria—and that seemed certain—then the most obvious explanation for his current predicament was an issue with his family. The Cardinalis had once been rulers of Monte Santa Maria, at least until Dante’s father had mismanaged the country so badly that the government had removed him from his throne and exiled their entire family.
Luca Cardinali hadn’t earned them any friends during his troubled reign.
So, did that mean she was from a family whom Luca had wronged? She looked young—younger than he was—and he’d only been eleven when their family had had to leave, so she was likely to be someone’s daughter.
He didn’t remember much of his Monte Santa Marian history—he’d tried his best to forget about his country entirely—but he seemed to recall an aristocratic family who’d been famous for their beauty, and most especially their golden hair.
‘Well, if you insist,’ he said. ‘Your accent is familiar—from Monte Santa Maria, if I’m not much mistaken—and, given your general antipathy towards me, it’s likely you’re someone my father wronged at some point.’ He watched her lovely face intently. ‘But you’re young, so I don’t imagine Luca wronged you personally, but your family. And, given your accent again, I would say you’re from one of the aristocratic families. Probably...’ His brain finally settled on the name it had been looking for. ‘Montefiore.’
Something in her shattered sky eyes flared. Shock.
So. He’d been right. How satisfying.
‘Guess work,’ she said dismissively, her chin lifting, her hold on the gun tightening. ‘You know nothing.’
‘And you are very good at pretending.’ He smiled. ‘If you’re going to pull the trigger, darling, you’d better do it now. Or do you want the suspense to kill me before you do?’
‘You think this is a joke?’
‘With that gun in my face? Obviously not. But, if you imagine this is the first time I’ve woken up tied to a bed, you’d be wrong.’
‘This isn’t some sex game, Cardinali.’
‘Clearly. If it was, you’d be naked and so would I, and you’d be calling me Dante. Or screaming it, rather.’
A whisper of colour stained her pale cheekbones and he didn’t miss the way her gaze flicked down his body and then back up again, as if she couldn’t help herself.
Excellent. It would appear she wasn’t immune to him after all.
His satisfaction with the whole situation deepened, not to mention his excitement. This was indeed going to be a lot more fun than he’d initially envisaged.
Her jaw had tightened. ‘You seem very casual for a man who’s about to die.’
Apparently she didn’t like his attitude. Well, not many people did.
‘And if I was really about to die, I would be dead already. But, no, you put something in my drink, dealt with my bodyguards, somehow managed to transport me to...’ he took a brief glance around the room which looked like a standard five-star hotel room ‘...wherever this is. Cuffed me to the bed. Waited until I woke up, then started talking to me instead of pulling that trigger.’ He allowed his voice to deepen and become lazier, more sensual. ‘And, darling, considering that little look you gave me just now, it’s not killing that you want to do to me. It’s something else entirely.’ He let his smile become hot, the smile that had charmed women the world over and had never failed him yet. ‘In which case, be my guest. You’ve already got me all tied up. I’m completely at your mercy.’
* * *
Stella Montefiore had never thought killing Dante Cardinali would be easy. He was rich, important and more or less constantly surrounded by people, which made getting an opportunity to take him down very, very difficult.
But since she’d taken on the mission she’d spent at least six months planning how to get access to him and, now she had, her family was counting on her to go through with it. Especially her father.
It was a just revenge for his son’s death and a chance to reclaim the lost honour of the Montefiores. It was also her chance at redemption for her brother’s death, a death for which her parents still hadn’t forgiven her, and she did not want to make any mistakes. There was no room for error.
In fact, everything had gone completely to plan, and here he was, at her mercy, just as he’d said.
So why couldn’t she pull that trigger?
He was lying on the bed in the hotel room she’d managed to get him into with the help of the hotel staff, having told them he was drunk, and he was cuffed hand and foot. He shouldn’t be dangerous in the slightest.
And yet...
There was something about the way he took up space on the bed, all long and lean and muscular, the fabric of his expensive black trousers and plain white shirt pulling across his powerful chest and thighs. Not to mention the lazy way he looked at her from underneath his long, thick, black lashes, the glints of gold in his dark eyes like coins on the bottom of a lake-bed. Completely unfazed. As if he dealt with guns in his face every day and it didn’t bother him in the slightest.
And it didn’t help that he was so ridiculously beautiful in an intensely masculine way. All aristocratic cheekbones, a hard jawline, straight nose and the most perfectly carved mouth she’d ever seen. A fallen angel’s face with a warrior’s body, and the kind of fierce sexual magnetism that drew people to him, whatever their gender.
She hadn’t anticipated that, though she should have, given she’d put a lot of work into researching him.
In fact, there was quite a lot about Dante Cardinali that she hadn’t anticipated, including her own response to him.
Her heartbeat was strangely fast, though that was probably due to the sheer adrenaline of the moment and the unexpected success of her mission, nothing at all to do with the seductive glint in Cardinali’s dark eyes.
Not that she should be thinking about how seductive he was when she was busy trying to work up the courage to pull that trigger.
‘In which case,’ she said, trying to maintain her cool, ‘Perhaps you should be begging for your life instead of making casual comments about me sleeping with you. Which, I may add, I would rather die than do.’
He laughed, a rich sound that rolled over her like velvet, all warm and soft with just a hint of roughness. ‘Oh, I’m sure you wouldn’t.’ That fascinating hint of gold gleamed from underneath his lashes. ‘In fact, give me five minutes and you’ll be the one who’s begging. And it won’t be for your life... Stella Montefiore.’
Shock trickled like ice water down her back, smothering the heat his sexy laugh somehow had built inside her, and distracting her totally from his outrageous statement.
He knew her name.
Kill him. Kill him now.
Her palm was sweaty, the metal of the gun cool against her skin. She’d practised this, shooting at tin cans in the makeshift gun range her father had set up in the barren hills behind the rundown house they’d had to move into after her brother had been arrested, working on her aim in between shifts as a waitress at a local restaurant—the only employment she could get, as no one wanted to hire a Montefiore. Not when they were such a political liability.
But shooting a can was very different from shooting an actual man. A man who would have his life snuffed out. By her.
She swallowed, her mouth dry.
Don’t think of him as a person. This is revenge. For Matteo. For yourself.
Yes, all she needed to do was pull that trigger. A muscle twitch, really, nothing more. And then all of this would be over—her father’s quest for blood done, Matteo’s death avenged and her role in it redeemed.
You asked for this, remember?
Her father had wanted to hire someone and she’d told him, no, that it was better for one of the family to undertake the mission, to minimise discovery, and that the person who did it should be her. He’d told her she was too weak for the job, too soft-hearted, but she’d insisted she wasn’t. That she could do it.
And she could. It should be easy.
But still her finger didn’t move.
‘You’re wrong,’ she said, not quite sure why she was arguing with him when a single movement would solve all her problems. ‘That’s not my name.’
‘Is it not?’ His eyes glinted, the curve of his beautiful mouth almost hypnotising in its perfection. ‘My mistake.’ His voice was as deep and rich as his laugh and the sound of it did things to her that she didn’t want.
The same things it had done to her all evening from the moment she’d seen him in the flesh and not as an image in a photo or an online video. She’d spent months studying him, reading up on his history, his lifestyle, his business practices and personality. Basically everything she could find on him, building up a picture of a dissolute yet charming playboy who seemed to spend more time in his string of clubs than he did in the offices of Cardinal Developments, the huge multi-national that he owned with his brother Enzo. He ruled the gossip columns and the beds of beautiful women everywhere, apparently.
‘The world won’t miss him,’ her father, Santo Montefiore, had said viciously. ‘He’s selfish, just like Luca was. Another useless piece of Cardinali trash.’
Yet when she’d stepped into that club in Monte Carlo, sick with nerves—unable to adopt the veneer of icy sophistication she’d perfected to get past the VIP bouncer—and Cardinali had appeared out of nowhere telling the bouncer that it was fine and she could come in, it wasn’t trash she’d been thinking of. Not when he’d smiled at her. Because it hadn’t been a practised seducer’s smile. It had been kind—reassuring, almost—and inexplicably comforting. In fact, he’d been kind all evening. He’d taken her under his wing, sitting her down in a quiet end of the club and getting her a drink. Then he’d sat opposite and talked easily to her about everything and absolutely nothing at all.
She’d been expecting predatory and cynical and he hadn’t been either of those things. To make matters worse, she’d found him so utterly beautiful, so magnetic, so charming, that she’d almost forgotten what she’d come to do. He’d overwhelmed her.
The attention he’d given her had made her feel like she was the centre of the world and, for a girl who’d come second best most of her life, it had been an intoxicating feeling.
Until he’d looked at his expensive, heavy gold watch that highlighted the bones of his strong wrist and said that he was going to have to leave soon. And she’d realised that if she wanted to make a move she was going to have to do it then. One more drink, she’d said. Just one more. And he’d agreed, not noticing when she’d slipped the drug into it.
Cardinali was watching her now and the smile turning his mouth wasn’t kind this time. No, there was something else there. A hint of the predatory seducer she’d been expecting, along with a certain calculating gleam. Almost as if he now saw her as an equal and not the nervous, inexperienced woman she’d been in the club, or the soft-hearted, weak girl her parents had always thought her.
It made her heart thump hard in her chest, an inexplicable excitement flickering through her.
‘My name is Carlotta,’ she said. ‘I told you that in the club.’
‘Ah, then you’ll have to forgive me my poor memory. Someone must have spiked my drink.’ He shifted on the bed, as if he was getting himself more comfortable, a lazy movement that drew attention to his powerful body. ‘So, are you going to stand there all night talking at me or are you going to murder me in cold blood? If it’s the former, I hope you don’t mind if I go to sleep. All this excitement is exhausting.’ He shifted again and she caught a hint of his aftershave, warm and exotic, like sandalwood. It was delicious.
She took a steadying breath, trying to ignore the scent. ‘Don’t you care at all which one it is?’
‘Since you’re not going to kill me, not particularly.’
Her finger on the trigger itched. ‘You don’t know that.’
‘Please, darling. Like I’ve already told you, if you’d really wanted to kill me you would have done it by now.’
He’s right. You would have.
Except she hadn’t. She’d told herself she couldn’t shoot an unarmed and unconscious man. Plus, he needed to know why he had to die, otherwise what would be the point? But now he was awake and she wasn’t telling him why he had to die. She was lying and pretending to be someone else instead.
What was she doing?
You don’t want to kill him.
A shiver passed through her. She had to kill him. This was the job she’d undertaken months ago, for her father and for the sake of her brother’s memory. For the honour of the Montefiores.
An eye for an eye. Blood for blood.
One of Luca Cardinali’s sons had to die and, as his older brother Enzo was untouchable, that left only Dante.
Except...
His eyes were inky in the dim light of the room and they seemed to see right into her soul. There was no sharpness in them, only a velvet darkness that wrapped her up and held her tight.
‘Lower the gun, sweetheart,’ he said quietly. ‘No matter what I’ve done, nothing is worth that stain on your soul.’
No, she shouldn’t lower the gun. She needed to keep everything her father had told her about blood, honour and revenge in the forefront of her mind. She needed to be strong and, most important of all, hard. There could be no emotional weakness now.
And yet...her hand was shaking and she didn’t understand why he should be so concerned with her soul when she herself didn’t care about what happened to her after this was over.
‘My soul is none of your business.’ She tried to keep her voice firm and sure.
‘If you’re preparing to risk it to kill me, then it most certainly is my business.’ His dark gaze held hers and there was no fear in it at all, only an honesty that wound around her heart and didn’t let go. ‘I’m not worth it, believe me.’
How curious. He made it sound as if her soul was actually worth something.
She should have shot him right then and there, but instead she found her hand lowering, exactly as he’d told her to.
He didn’t glance at the gun, his dark eyes steady on her instead.
The weapon was heavy in her hand and she didn’t understand why she hadn’t pulled that trigger when she’d had the chance. Because now that chance had gone. The moment when she could have fired was lost.
You failed.
