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She had been a roughly stunning sketch in black-and-white then. Now, now she was a hauntingly beautiful painting that had grown into its promise, that would bestow pleasure for years to come.
Her brown eyes, bold and direct, searched the room and settled on him.
A pure bolt of energy flew between them, locking them together as if they were the only people in the room, in the world.
Something inside him, something only she had known leaped and growled at the sight of her again.
Her skin paled under the brilliance of the crystal chandelier even as she held his gaze stubbornly. She held her left hand awkwardly against her body.
Cutting his gaze away from her, which took far too much effort, Leandro stifled the life out of that strange fever in his veins.
Why was she here now, after seven years? On the eve of my engagement of all nights?
Before he could voice a question, Antonio’s stringent words shattered the choking quiet. “It is family here tonight, Luca. Your dirty playthings are not welcome.”
Alexis flinched. When Luca would have interrupted, she stilled him with a hand on his arm. His usually volatile brother relented with a shrug.
Something ugly erupted in Leandro’s gut. Dio, she would make me jealous of his own brother?
Leandro saw her falter, pull a deep breath and then face Antonio. “I’m not Luca’s...plaything, Mr. Conti, nor will I leave before I say what I intend.” Then she leveled that resolute gaze at him. “I need to speak to you alone.”
Leandro hardened himself against the beseeching look in her eyes. After seven years, that she showed up tonight of all nights, there was only one thing she could be after—money. And that perversely made him angrier. “There is nothing you could say to me that you could not say here, Ms. Sharpe.”
“Leandro...” his brother again.
Leandro held up his hand, more than furious now.
How long had Luca been in touch with her? How could there be such...a friendship between them if not so?
And why the hell did he care whatever was between them?
He skewered the woman with his gaze. “Whatever game you’re up to, I’m not playing.”
Anger burned in her eyes, her lithe body faintly trembled with it. “Fine, so be it.” Her voice rang crystal clear in the rapt room, and still he could hear the tremble in it. “I came to tell you that you... I have a daughter.” Her chin rose. “Her name is Isabella Adrian. She’s six years old and she’s beautiful and precious and she...she’s yours.”
“No,” fell from Leandro’s lips, a snarling whisper in the quiet room. “That can’t be.”
His grandfather’s and Salvatore Rossi’s curses in Italian and Valentina’s muffled gasp registered on the periphery of his consciousness.
Lips quivering, Alexis’s chest rose and fell but she held his gaze over the distance. “A DNA test will prove I’m right,” she said, as if she’d prepared the response. But it was the absolute purpose in her voice that held him mute.
A daughter...
His skin felt chilly as if all warmth had been leeched away from the world around him.
And yet, the crystal chandeliers in the room glowed bright, the fire cackled in the marble-wrought fireplace and the moon hung jewel bright in the sky outside.
The world continued spinning whereas all of the control he prided himself on deserted him, leaving him shaken to the core.
He shook his head, gasping for breath.
He looked at Luca. Who looked just as aghast as he did.
Only Alexis stood composed amid the curious and accusing glares aimed at her, her shoulders ramrod straight.
Alexis whose eyes gleamed with pride and love as she claimed that he was a father. Of her little girl.
His child...something Rosa had wanted so desperately for years.
Now, this woman, whom he’d tried to forget, claimed her daughter was his...that his one moment of weakness had led to such a consequence?
Everything inside him clenched tight, as if the merest breath could shatter him. Robbing him of speech even.
“Whatever your scheme, Ms. Sharpe, you have already made a misstep in your bait.” Antonio finally spoke, his accented English falling like hard gravel over the marble floor. “If there were Conti bastards lying around for you to sully our name with, your claim would be believable if you said Luca fathered them.
“Not Leandro.
“Now before I call the polizia—”
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_fb6a6453-5307-5f19-912f-a03077cd6193)
“ENOUGH!” ALEX BIT OUT, her throat raw. Leandro’s silence distressed her more than his grandfather’s words. “I won’t stand quietly while you call my little girl names.”
She felt Luca’s hand on her shoulder and drew strength from it.
Faking defiance she didn’t feel, Alex held Leandro’s gaze.
Disbelief? Disgust? Something finally flickered in his expression and she felt as if she was bucking, bending against the force of it.
Aquiline nose, thinly sculpted mouth and the sleek, sharp planes of his face...he was just as arrogantly beautiful as she remembered.
Seven years hadn’t changed his feelings about that night then. She hadn’t hoped differently, neither would she let him shame her.
She had done nothing to be shameful of. Not then, not now.
“You stay silent even as you know there’s a chance that it’s true? I was wrong to come here, wrong to think Izzie...” She took a bracing breath. “You and your family, you don’t deserve to know her.”
Alexis turned her back on them with her head held high.
Out into the corridor she went, her pumps clicking hard on the gleaming marble floor, ignoring the hollow ache in her gut.
It was the uncertainty caused by the accident, the uncertainty about Isabella’s future, she told herself. Nothing to do with the man who stood there, unmoving like a rock while his family castigated her.
Having arrived at the end of the corridor, Alex stilled.
Approaching dusk hadn’t dimmed the beauty of the villa one bit.
The corridor opened into a semicircular balcony, offering a view to the ground floor, the acreage surrounding the house lit up by solar lights and the dark waters of the lake beyond.
A tinkle of laughter from the guests below her brought her attention back. Pressing a hand to her throbbing temples, she faced her current problem.
She couldn’t ask Valentina for a ride back. Would Luca help?
She turned and slammed headlong into a solidly male body. Threaded her fingers in that hard chest for purchase. “Luca, can you please...”
Crisply masculine and with a hint of aqua, the scent that filled her nostrils arrested the words on her lips. Her head jerked up so fast that she felt dizzy.
Penetrating gray eyes studied her.
“Why assume Luca?”
“Because he seems like the only decent person in your family.”
She tugged at her arm but Leandro didn’t relent. Her legs tangled with his, the hard, muscular length of his thighs against hers knocking the breath out of her.
Hard and hot, he made her head spin. “I have nothing more to say to you,” she breathed into his shoulder.
“You think to announce what you did and walk away calmly? Probably into the media’s mouthpiece? Make a mockery of the Contis?”
His grip viselike, he dragged her through a turn in the corridor that led to another sit-out area and then past a dark oak door. The hard thud of the door cut off the noise from the party, locking them away.
Breath rattling, Alex kept her back to him.
Her skin prickled at his nearness, her senses still jarred at the impact with his hard body. She rubbed fingers over her forehead, willing her heart to calm.
Slowly, she took in the sumptuous furnishings in the huge room, a dark mahogany study table to the side with papers strewn on it, the large four-poster king bed with dark blue sheets. That same cool aqua scent clung to the room. A small, framed picture sat on the nightstand on the opposite side, of a pretty woman with dark hair and delicate features.
Dear Lord, was this his room? Who was that woman then?
With her gut in a tight knot, Alex forced her gaze to the window. The view afforded here of Lake Como was even better. Spectacularly maintained gardens, acres of it, lit softly by moonlight and solar lights along the paths greeted her. Silence lingered in this part of the gardens.
Even his guests were not allowed to impinge on his private slice of heaven, she realized slowly.
This estate was not just beautiful but huge.
And this was only one of the many properties they owned.
The Contis were a dynastic family with an old-world wealth and Leandro...at the helm of it. And she had barged in on their illustrious party and told them that he had a daughter.
If her chest wasn’t so tight, Alex would have laughed at the absurdity of it.
“You’re afraid to face me now? After that performance in front of everyone.”
Low and crisp, his tone was like fingertips sliding over her bare skin. As if it was yesterday he had touched her and not seven long years ago.
Alex turned slowly, loathe to betray how unbalanced she felt in his presence.
He stood leaning against the closed door, minus the suit jacket, the gray of his dress shirt making his eyes gleam doubly. Leaner than she remembered, his features sharper. Even more settled into that powerful aura that had always clung to him.
The austere severity of his features from the sculpted jaw to that aquiline nose, the lean, wiry breadth of his chest tapering to a waist, the thinly sculpted curve of his lower lip, everything about Leandro Conti said leashed power.
Any moment now, she wouldn’t find him attractive. Any moment now, she’d remember that the same mouth that could kiss so passionately and tenderly could also shred her to pieces as soon as he was done.
“I’m trying to overcome my shock that you cared enough to stop me.” Instead, her insides thrummed with a thrill. “And if that was a performance, then you forced me to it.”
Those eyes of his studied her relentlessly. Why didn’t the infuriating man say anything? Demand a DNA test? Throw her out if he didn’t believe her? Threaten her like his grandfather had done?
She had been prepared for all of that. Except his impenetrable silence, this unnerving composure.
It made her want to take a sledgehammer and smash it to pieces.
“You pulling me into a room like this, away from prying eyes should bring back memories for you,” she threw recklessly. “Lucky for me, because it seems you erased that evening from your mind.”
His chin jerked, and his eyes lost that inscrutable expression. “I was successful. Until this very evening.”
Alex blinked at the hurt that pinged through her, as if her poisonous dart had found its way back to her. She didn’t think he was saying it to get a rise out of her, like she’d done.
No, he merely stated fact.
“What would you have dared to remind me, Alexis?”
Her name on his lips was a possessive caress that threatened her paper-thin composure.
Suppressing the dangerous urge to take up the challenge in his tone, she said, “Your assumption that I’m dying to...renew our acquaintance smacks of arrogance. I’m here only for Isabella.”
Whether he believed her or not, Alex didn’t know. But then, from what little she knew of Leandro, he thrived on self-control. That he hadn’t instantly called her a liar like his grandfather had done, his utter silence in the face of her declaration, said something else entirely, she realized with a little panic.
He circled the room, moving a thing here and there and finally, leaned against the bed. “How are you here, today?”
“I don’t understand.”
“How did you come to be here at the villa, tonight of all nights? Did you know—?”
“About the party? Of course not. You think I wanted to make a spectacle of myself in front of your exalted family? Valentina must have decided tonight was best.”
One haughty brow rose on his face. “For what?”
“I hinted, pretty heavily, that I wanted to say hello to you and Luca. She assumed that I was eager to renew my friendship with Luca.”
“And Luca?” The two words rang with his displeasure.
Frustration made her voice sharp. “What about Luca?”
Something flashed in his gaze, the first sign that maybe he wasn’t so composed. “How did you arrive on his arm?”
Of all the things he had said and unsaid today, this annoyed her most. “He was kind enough to escort me to you when I insisted on seeing you.”
“You told me that night that you were protected.”
