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He studied her expression again, noting all the little nuances of her face: the way she chewed at the inside of her mouth but tried to hide it, the way her eyes flickered away from his but then kept tracking back, as if they were being pulled by a magnetic force, and the way her finely boned jaw tightened when she was feeling cornered.
‘How were you brought up to resolve conflict?’ he asked.
She reached for her bag and got to her feet. ‘Look, I have a train to catch,’ she said. ‘I have a hundred and one things to see to.’
‘Why didn’t you drive down from Edinburgh?’ he asked. ‘You haven’t suddenly developed a fear of driving too, have you?’
Her eyes hardened resentfully. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I like travelling by train. I can read or sketch or listen to music. I find driving requires too much concentration—especially in a city as crowded as London. Besides, it’s better for the environment. I want to reduce my carbon footprint.’
Angelo rose to his feet and joined her at the door, placing his hand on the doorknob to stop her escaping. ‘I’ll need you to sign some papers in the next day or two.’
Her chin came up. The hard glitter was back in her gaze. ‘A prenuptial agreement?’
He glanced at her mouth. He ached to feel it move under the pressure of his. He could feel the surge of his blood filling him with urgent, ferocious need.
‘Yes,’ he said, meeting her gaze again. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
‘No,’ she said, eyeballing him right back. ‘I’ll have one of my own drawn up. I’m not letting you take away everything I’ve worked so hard for.’
He smiled and tapped her gently on the end of her nose. ‘Touché,’ he said.
She blinked at him, looking flustered and disorientated. ‘I—I have to go,’ she said, and made a grab for the doorknob.
Angelo captured her hand within his. Her small, delicate fingers were dwarfed by the thickness and length and strength of his. He watched her eyes widen as he slowly brought her hand up to his mouth. He stopped before making contact with his lips, just a hair’s breadth from touching. He watched as her throat rose and fell. He felt the jerky little gust of her cinnamon-scented breath. He saw her glance at his mouth, saw too the quick nervous dart of her tongue as she swept it out over her lips.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said, dropping her hand and opening the door for her. ‘Ciao.’
She brushed past him in the doorway and without a single word of farewell she left.
CHAPTER THREE
‘CONGRATULATIONS,’ said Linda, Natalie’s assistant, the following morning when she arrived at work.
‘Pardon?’
Linda held up a newspaper. ‘Talk about keeping your cards close to your chest,’ she said. ‘I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.’
‘I’m …’ Natalie took the paper and quickly scanned it. There was a short paragraph about Angelo and her and their upcoming nuptials. Angelo was quoted as saying he was thrilled they were back together and how much he was looking forward to being married next week.
‘Is it true or is it a prank?’ Linda asked.
Natalie put the paper down on the counter. ‘It’s true,’ she said, chewing at her bottom lip.
‘Pardon me if I’m overstepping the mark here, but you don’t look too happy about it,’ Linda said.
Natalie forced a smile to her face. ‘Sorry, it’s just been such a pain … er … keeping it quiet until now,’ she said, improvising as she went. ‘We didn’t want anyone to speculate about us getting back together until we were sure it was what we both wanted.’
‘Gosh, how romantic!’ Linda said. ‘A secret relationship.’
‘Not so secret now,’ Natalie said a little ruefully as her stomach tied itself in knots. How was she going to cope with the constant press attention? They would swarm about her like bees. Angelo was used to being chased by the paparazzi. He was used to cameras flashing in his face and articles being written that were neither true nor false but somewhere in between.
She liked her privacy. She guarded it fiercely. Now she would be thrust into the public arena not for her designs and her talent but for whom she was sleeping with.
Her stomach gave another little shuffle. Not that she would be actually sleeping with Angelo. She was determined not to give in to that particular temptation. Her body might still have some sort of programmed response to him, but that didn’t mean she had to give in to it.
She could be strong.
She would be strong.
And determined.
He wouldn’t find her so easy to seduce this time around. She had been young and relatively inexperienced five years ago. She was older and wiser now. She hadn’t fallen in love with him before and she wasn’t about to fall in love with him now. He would be glad to call an end to their marriage before a month or two. She couldn’t see him tolerating her intransigence for very long. He was used to getting his own way. He wanted a submissive, I’ll-do-anything-to-please-you wife.
There wasn’t a bone in Natalie’s body that would bend to any man’s will, and certainly not to Angelo Bellandini’s.
‘These came for you while you were at the lawyer’s,’ Linda said when Natalie came back to the studio a couple of hours later.
Natalie looked at the massive bunch of blood-red roses elegantly wrapped and ribboned, their intoxicating clove-like perfume filling the air.
‘Aren’t you going to read the card?’ Linda asked.
‘Er … yes,’ Natalie said unpinning the envelope from the cellophane and tissue wrap. She took the card out and read: See you tonight, Angelo.
‘From Angelo?’ Linda asked.
‘Yes,’ Natalie said, frowning.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re frowning.’
She quickly relaxed her features. ‘I’ve got a few things to see to in my office at home. Do you mind holding the fort here for the rest of the day?’
‘Not at all,’ Linda said. ‘I guess you’ll have to leave me in charge when you go on your honeymoon, right?’
Natalie gave her a tight on-off smile as she grabbed her bag and put the strap over her shoulder. ‘I don’t think I’ll be away very long,’ she said.
‘Aren’t you going to take the roses with you?’ Linda asked.
Natalie turned back and scooped them up off the counter. ‘Good idea,’ she said, and left.
Angelo looked at the three-storey house in a leafy street in the well-to-do Edinburgh suburb of Morningside. It had a gracious elegance about it that reminded him of Natalie immediately. Even the garden seemed to reflect parts of her personality. The neatly clipped hedges and the meticulous attention to detail in plants and their colour and placement bore witness to a young woman who liked order and control.
He smiled to himself as he thought how annoyed she would be at the way things were now out of her control. He had the upper hand and he was going to keep it. He would enjoy watching her squirm. He had five years of bitterness to avenge. Five years of hating her, five years of wanting her, five years of being tortured by memories of her body in his arms.
Five years of trying to replace her.
He put his finger to the highly polished brass doorbell. A chime-like sound rang out, and within a few seconds he heard the click-clack of her heels as she came to answer its summons. He could tell she was angry. He braced himself for the blast.
‘How dare you release something to the press without checking with me first?’ she said as her opening gambit.
‘Hello, cara,’ he said. ‘I’m fine, thank you. And you?’
She glowered at him as she all but slammed the door once he had stepped over its threshold. ‘You had no right to say anything to anyone,’ she said. ‘I was followed home by paparazzi. I had cameras going off in my face as soon as I left my studio. I almost got my teeth knocked out by one of their microphones.’
‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘I’m so used to it I hardly notice it any more. Do you want me to get you a bodyguard? I should’ve thought of it earlier.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Of course I don’t want a bloody bodyguard!’ she said. ‘I just want this to go away. I want all of this to go away.’
‘It’s not going to go away, Natalie,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to go away.’
She continued to glare at him. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I’m here to take you out to dinner.’
‘What if I’m not hungry?’
‘Then you can sit and watch me eat,’ he said. ‘Won’t that be fun?’
‘You are totally sick—do you know that?’ she said.
‘Did you like the roses?’
She turned away from him and began stalking down the wide corridor. ‘I hate hothouse flowers,’ she said. ‘They have no scent.’
‘I didn’t buy you hothouse flowers,’ he said. ‘I had those roses shipped in from a private gardener.’
She gave a dismissive grunt and pushed open a door leading to a large formal sitting room. Again the attention to detail was stunning. Beautifully co-ordinated colours and luxurious fabrics, plush sofas and crystal chandeliers. Timeless antiques cleverly teamed with modern pieces—old-world charm and modern chic that somehow worked together brilliantly.
‘Do you want a drink?’ she asked uncharitably.
‘What are you having?’
She threw him a speaking glance. ‘I was thinking along the lines of cyanide,’ she said.
He laughed. ‘Not quite to my taste, mia piccola,’ he said. ‘Can I have a soda and lime?’
She went to a bar fridge that was hidden behind an art deco cabinet. He heard the rattle of ice cubes and the fizz of the soda water and then the plop of a slice of lime. She fixed her own glass of white wine before she turned and passed his drink to him with a combative look on her face.
‘I hope it chokes you,’ she said.
He lifted the glass against hers in a salute and said, ‘To a long and happy marriage.’
Her gaze wrestled with his. ‘I’m not drinking to that.’
‘What will you drink to?’
She clanged her glass against his. ‘To freedom,’ she said, and took a sip.
Angelo watched her as she moved across the room, her body movements stiff and unfriendly. She took another couple of sips of her drink, grimacing distastefully as if she wasn’t used to drinking alcohol. ‘I drove past your studio on the way here,’ he said. ‘Very impressive.’
She gave him a quick off-hand glance over her shoulder. ‘Thank you.’
‘I have a project for you, if you’re interested,’ he said.
She turned and looked at him fully. ‘What sort of project?’
‘A big one,’ he said. ‘It’s worth a lot of money. Good exposure for you, too. It will bring you contacts from all over Europe.’
She stood very still before him, barely moving a muscle apart from the little hammer beat of tension at the base of her throat. ‘Go on,’ she said, with that same look of wariness in her gaze.
‘I have a holiday villa in Sorrento, on the Amalfi Coast,’ he said. ‘I bought another property nearby for a song a few months back. I’m turning it into a luxury hotel. I’m just about done with the structural repairs. Now it’s time for the interior makeover. I thought it would be a good project for you to take on once we are married.’
‘Why do you want me to do it?’ she asked.
‘You’re good at what you do,’ he said.
Her mouth thinned in cynicism. ‘And you want a carrot to dangle in front of me in case I happen to find a last-minute escape route?’
‘You won’t find an escape route,’ he said. ‘If you’re a good girl I might even consider using your linen exclusively in all of my hotels. But only if you behave yourself.’
The look she gave him glittered with hatred. ‘You’ve certainly got blackmail down to a science,’ she said. ‘I didn’t realise you were this ruthless five years ago.’
‘I wasn’t,’ he said, taking another leisurely sip of his drink.
She tightened her mouth. ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ she said. ‘I have a lot of work on just now.’
‘How capable is your assistant?’ Angelo asked.
‘Very capable,’ she said. ‘I’m thinking of promoting her. I need someone to handle the international end of things.’
‘It must be quite limiting, not being able to do the travelling yourself,’ he said.
She lifted a shoulder in a dismissive manner. ‘I manage.’
Angelo picked up a small photo frame from an intricately carved drum table next to where he was standing. ‘Is this Lachlan as a toddler?’ he asked.
Her deep blue gaze flickered with something as she glanced at the photo. ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not.’
Angelo put the frame back on the table and, pushing back his sleeve, glanced at his watch. ‘We should get going,’ he said. ‘I’ve booked the restaurant for eight.’
‘I told you I’m not having dinner with you,’ she said.
‘And I told you to behave yourself,’ he tossed back. ‘You will join me for dinner and you will look happy about it. I don’t care how you act in private, but in public you will at all times act like a young woman who is deeply in love. If you put even one toe of one foot out of line your brother will pay the price.’
She glared at him, her whole body bristling with anger. ‘I’ve never been in love before, so how am I going to pull that act off with any authenticity?’ she asked.
