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Natalie’s eyes came back to his. ‘The truth about you hating me and wanting revenge?’ she asked with an arch look.
His dark brown eyes gleamed. ‘I could hardly tell my parents I hate you, now, could I?’
‘What did you tell them?’
His eyes kept on holding hers. ‘I told them I had never stopped loving you,’ he said.
She moistened her lips. ‘And they … believed you?’
‘They seemed to,’ he said. ‘Although the real test will be when they see us together. My mother, in particular, is a hard person to fool. You’ll have to be on your toes with her.’
Natalie felt her insides quake at the thought of interacting with his parents and other members of his family. How would she do it? How would she play the role of a happy bride without revealing the truth of how things were between them? How long before someone guessed? How long before it was splashed all over the newspapers?
‘Why do we have to get married?’ she asked. ‘Why couldn’t we just have an … an affair?’
Those unfathomable brown eyes measured hers. ‘Is that what you want?’ he asked. ‘An affair?’
She ran her tongue over her lips again. ‘No more than I want to marry you. I was just making a point,’ she said. ‘It seems a bit over the top to go to all the trouble of getting married when ultimately we know it’s going to end in divorce.’
‘You seem very sure it will end in divorce,’ he said.
Natalie’s heart fluttered like fast moving wings against her breastbone. ‘You can’t want to be tied to me indefinitely?’
His eyes moved over her leisurely. ‘Who knows? You might like being married to me,’ he said. ‘There will be numerous benefits to wearing my ring and bearing my name.’
She sat up like a puppet suddenly jerked backwards. ‘I don’t want your name,’ she said. ‘I’m perfectly happy with my own.’
A steely glint came into his eyes. ‘You will take my name,’ he said. ‘And you will be proud of it.’
She glowered at him, her whole body trembling with anger. ‘I will not change my name.’
Angelo’s eyes warred with hers. ‘You will do what I tell you to do,’ he said, his voice low but no less forceful.
Natalie stood up so abruptly her chair knocked against the one behind it. Every eye turned to look at her but she was beyond caring. She tossed her napkin down on the table and scooped her purse up with the other.
‘Find yourself another wife,’ she said, and stormed out.
A camera went off in her face as soon as she stepped outside the restaurant.
‘Miss Armitage?’ A journalist pushed a microphone close. ‘Can we have an exclusive on your current relationship with Angelo Bellandini?’
Natalie tried to avoid the reporter, but another member of the paparazzi cut her off as she tried to escape.
‘We notice you’re not wearing an engagement ring,’ he said. ‘Does that mean the wedding’s off?’
‘I …’
Angelo’s arm came around her protectively and he gently led her away from the throng. ‘Please give my fiancée some space,’ he said.
‘Mr Bellandini, do you have a comment to make on your engagement to Miss Armitage?’ the first journalist asked.
Angelo’s arm tightened around her waist a fraction. ‘The wedding is going ahead as planned,’ he said. ‘I have an engagement ring already picked out for Natalie. I am giving it to her tonight when we get home. Now, please leave us to celebrate our engagement in privacy.’
Natalie was ushered to Angelo’s car without further intrusion from the press. She sat back in her seat, her fingers white-knuckled around her purse.
‘Don’t ever do that again,’ Angelo said as he fired the engine.
She threw him a cutting glance. ‘I am not going to be ordered around by you.’
His hands gripped the steering wheel as tightly as she was clutching her purse. His knuckles looked as if they were going to burst through the skin.
‘I will not tolerate you flouncing out on me like a spoilt child,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘Do you have no sense of propriety? You do realise that little scene will be all over the papers tomorrow? What were you thinking?’
Natalie gave her head a toss. ‘I’m not going to be bullied into changing my name.’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘It’s obviously a sore point with you. I’m prepared to compromise. I should’ve realised how important it was to you. It’s your trademark.’ He paused for a beat. ‘I’m sorry.’
She slowly loosened her grip on her purse. ‘Are the press always that intrusive?’ she asked.
He let out a breath in a sigh. ‘I hardly notice it any more,’ he said. ‘But, yes, they are. It won’t last for ever. They’ll lose interest once we’re married.’
Natalie frowned as she looked at him. ‘I hope people don’t think I’m marrying you for your money.’
His lips lifted in the slightest of smiles. ‘No, cara, they’ll think it’s my body you are after.’
She turned away to stare at the passing scenery, her lower body flickering with a pulse she had thought long ago quelled. ‘I’m not going to sleep with you, Angelo,’ she said.
‘Are you saying that to convince me or yourself?’ he asked.
Natalie couldn’t have answered either way, so she changed the subject. ‘Have you really got an engagement ring?’ she asked.
‘I have.’
‘Do you not think I might have liked to choose it for myself?’
He threw her an exasperated look. ‘In my family it’s traditional for the man to choose the engagement ring,’ he said.
She toyed with the catch on her purse for a moment or two. ‘It’s not the same one you bought five years ago, is it?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said.
She sneaked a glance at him but his expression was inscrutable. ‘Did you give it to someone else?’ she asked. ‘As a present or something?’
He brought the car to a standstill outside her house before he answered. ‘I donated it to a charity for their silent auction,’ he said. ‘There’s some lucky girl out there now wearing a ring that cost more than most people’s houses.’
Natalie chewed at the inside of her mouth. ‘I never asked you to spend that amount of money on me.’
His swung his gaze to hers. ‘No, you didn’t, did you?’ he said. ‘But then it wasn’t money you wanted from me, was it?’
She couldn’t hold his look. ‘I’ve seen what money can do to people,’ she said. ‘It changes them, and not always for the good.’
She felt his gaze studying her for endless seconds. ‘What have you told your parents about us?’ he asked.
She pressed her lips together. ‘Not much.’
‘How much?’
She looked at him again. ‘It was my mother’s idea for me to come and see you,’ she said. ‘I only did it for her sake.’
‘And Lachlan’s, presumably?’
Her eyes fell away from his. ‘Yes …’
The silence stretched interminably.
‘Are you going to ask me in?’ he asked.
She gave him a pert look. ‘Are you going to come in even if I don’t?’
He brushed an idle finger down the curve of her cheek, his eyes focussed on her mouth, his lips curved upwards in a half-smile. ‘If you don’t want me then all you have to do is say so.’
I do want you.
The words were like drumbeats inside her head.
I want you. I want you. I want you.
She locked out that traitorous voice and pasted an indifferent look on her face. ‘Are you staying in town overnight?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I was hoping you’d offer me a bed for the night.’
Natalie felt her heart give a hard, sharp kick. ‘I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because … Because …’
‘The press will think it odd if I don’t stay with you,’ he said, before she could think of an excuse. ‘I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but a car followed us back here. It’s parked behind the red car.’
She checked in the side mirror. There was a man sitting behind the wheel with a camera’s telephoto lens trained in their direction. Panic gripped her by the throat. Was this how it was going to be? Would she be hounded like a terrified fox with nowhere to hide?
Angelo opened his door and came around to where she was sitting, frozen in dread.
‘He’ll move on once we’re inside,’ he said. ‘Just try to act naturally.’
Natalie got out of the car and allowed him to take her hand. She felt the strong grip of his fingers as they curled around hers. It was the same feeling she’d had when he had put his arm around her waist earlier.
She felt protected.
‘Give me your keys,’ he said.
She handed them over. ‘It’s the big brass one,’ she said.
He unlocked the door and held it open for her to pass through. ‘How long have you lived here?’ he asked as he closed the door.
‘Three and a half years.’
‘Why Scotland? I thought you said you grew up in Gloucestershire?’
‘My mother is a Scot,’ she said. ‘She grew up in the seaside village of Crail in Fife. I spent a lot of holidays there with my grandparents when I was young.’
‘You didn’t tell me that before.’
She gave a shrug as she placed her purse on the hall table. ‘It didn’t seem important.’
‘What else didn’t you tell me that didn’t seem important?’
Natalie turned away from his probing look. ‘Do you want a drink or something?’
He stalled her by placing a hand on her arm. ‘Tatty?’
She looked down at his hand. How dark and masculine it looked against her paler skin. It dredged up memories she didn’t want to resurface. She felt the rumble of them like tectonic plates rubbing against each other. An earthquake of sensation threatened to spill out like lava. She felt the heat of it bubbling like a furnace inside her.
‘I asked you not to call me that,’ she said.
His hand moved along her arm in a gentle caress. ‘I don’t always do what I’m told,’ he said. ‘I like bending the rules to suit me.’
Natalie tried to pull away but his fingers subtly tightened. She met his gaze—so dark and mesmerising—so in control. He knew he had her where he wanted her. She was at his mercy. Lachlan’s freedom and future depended on her. Angelo knew she would not do anything to jeopardise it. Her little temper tantrum back at the restaurant had achieved nothing. He would always come after her and remind her of what was at stake.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked. ‘You must know how it’s going to end.’
His hooded gaze drifted to her mouth. ‘I don’t care how it ends,’ he said. ‘This is about the here and now.’
She looked at his mouth. Oh, how she wanted to feel those firm lips move against hers! She remembered the heat; she remembered the blistering passion that burned like a taper all over her flesh. She remembered the sexy thrust of his tongue as it came in search of hers.
Her breath caught in her throat as she felt the breeze of his breath skate over her lips. He lowered his mouth to just above hers. She swept her tongue over her lips, wanting him, aching for him to make the first move.
‘Go on,’ he said, in a low, husky, spine-melting tone. ‘I know you want to.’
Natalie’s stomach shifted like a speeding skater suddenly facing a sheet of broken ice. Could he read her so well even after all this time? She fought for composure, for self-control, for anything.
‘You’re mistaken,’ she said coolly. ‘I don’t want any such thing.’
He brushed a finger over her tingling bottom lip. ‘Liar.’
It took all of her resolve and then some to step back, but somehow she did it. She moved to the other side of the room, barricading herself behind one of the sofas set in the middle of the room. ‘I think you should leave,’ she said.
‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Because you don’t trust yourself around me?’
