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He didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to, Lauren thought, with colour tingeing her cheeks.
‘I did not come here to resurrect anything that might have transpired between us,’ he remarked coldly. ‘Though, heaven knows, if there had been a prize for driving a man crazy you would have won it hands down, would you not, mia cara?’ His tone made a mockery of the endearment. ‘You did not exactly hold back in your efforts to please me that night I took you to my bed.’
How she could feel a throbbing deep inside just from thinking about that night, Lauren didn’t know, and shaming colour stained her cheeks almost puce.
Somehow, though, she managed to say cuttingly, ‘Save it, Emiliano.’
He laughed, savouring her discomfiture and embarrassment like he’d savoured the nectar of her willing body.
‘Of course. There are far more pressing matters in hand.’
Like taking Daniele away from her?
‘If you think I’ll be handing my sister’s baby over to you just like that, you’ve got another thing coming!’
He smiled, the type of smile that had had the power to draw her to him that fateful weekend two years ago in a way she had never been drawn to any man before or since.
‘Of course, I would not be expecting you to hand him over—as you say—“just like that”. Naturally there would be a period of adjustment while the child became acquainted with me as his new guardian. And naturally you will be suitably rewarded for the time he has been in your care.’
Dumbfounded, Lauren couldn’t believe what he was saying.
‘Suitably rewarded?’ She flung the words back at him as if they were poison darts. ‘And what is the price you’d consider suitable for trading a child?’
A dark eyebrow shot up as he regarded her with something approaching disdain.
‘I am not buying him from you, Lauren, if that is what you’re imagining. I will simply be reimbursing you for the inconvenience and loss of earnings you will most certainly have suffered during the time you have been caring for him. But if it means that much to you, I will allow you to name your price. Within reason. I am sure that between us we can arrive at a figure that will suit us both.’
‘Oh, are you?’ Disbelievingly, Lauren stared up into the strikingly masculine face, trying not to baulk at the determination she could see stamped on every purposeful feature. ‘You think you and your kind can buy anything you want, don’t you? Well, sorry to disappoint you, Emiliano, but I’ve no intention of giving up my nephew any time soon. So you can take your fancy car and your over-stuffed wallet and go back to whatever cold, damp stone you happened to crawl out from under, because Daniele isn’t going back with you under any circumstances! Not now. Not ever!’
His mouth twitched at one corner as he contemplated what she was saying. ‘And there I was thinking that we could be civil about this,’ he remarked. ‘Do I understand you to be saying you would prefer a legal battle?’
And one he would surely win?
Tremulously, yet refusing to be fazed, she answered, ‘If that’s what it comes to.’
He clicked his tongue. ‘You are very foolish, Signorina Westwood.’ The formality only seemed to widen the glaring distance between them. ‘It seems I underestimated you in imagining we could come to a reasonable settlement without resorting to the needless involvement of expensive lawyers. Or does the idea of a court case whet your appetite for a taste of even greater pickings?’
‘You’re despicable!’ Lauren breathed.
‘Not nearly as despicable as you would find me if you drag me through a court of law.’
She looked at him askance. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘No, just some good advice.’
‘Well, you can stick your advice where the sun doesn’t shine!’
He laughed very softly. ‘Such spirit!
He was moving towards her and she backed away, sending a shocked glance over her shoulder when she came up against the solid bulk of the dresser.
Hardly daring to breathe, she stood stock-still, her eyes guarded and challenging as Emiliano’s hands came to rest on the dresser on either side of her, effectively trapping her there.
‘You know...that was the first thing that attracted me to you. Other than...’ One strap of her dungarees had slipped off her shoulder, dragging the bib down with it, and from the slide of his gaze over the vest it had exposed she knew he could see the outline of her naked breast. Breasts which were too full, she had always thought, in comparison with her small waist and far less curvy hips. Now, in response to his heated gaze, she felt the nipple swelling beneath the soft revealing cotton. ‘The way you tried to cut me dead in response to everything I said was a real turn-on. And it was not just me who was affected by it, was it, cara?’
He meant her, Lauren thought with shame, remembering how he had even gone as far as suggesting that she actually enjoyed arguing with him.
‘And that was even before you knew who I was.’
The softness of his voice and his nearness was making her head start to swim. She hated him! And yet it was taking all her willpower not to thrust out her breasts in invitation to those hands that had pleasured her like no other man ever had.
But she didn’t. And thankfully he didn’t attempt to touch her.
Instead, straightening up, with his face taking on grim lines, he said, ‘May I also advise that if you take me to court and you lose, then you will get nothing from me. Is that clear? Not a cent.’
‘That’s good,’ she returned, pulling up her strap, relieved at least to be able to breathe again. ‘Because I don’t deal in cents. Only common decency! Unlike you Cannavaros. But then you don’t ever think about anything else except making money!’
‘Which is marginally more commendable, I think, than being one of life’s takers,’ he remarked with an unperturbed, humourless curl to his devastating mouth. ‘Nevertheless, where agenda-armed little vamps are concerned I find that it is always best to be one step ahead.’
‘So you insult me with the promise of some disgusting pay-off!’
He sent another cursory glance around him at the obvious decay of her clean yet humble environment. ‘You look as though you could use it.’
‘Not half as much as I could use you getting off my property!’
‘Of course.’ Though he had stepped away from her now, the fresh masculine scent of him still lingered in her nostrils. ‘But I will be back. You can depend on that. And when I do return, I will see my nephew. Is that understood?’
He looked so commanding that for a moment Lauren could only nod. ‘I wouldn’t dream of trying to stop you,’ she riposted as soon as she found her voice.
‘In that case...I will see myself out,’ he said, obviously satisfied that he had achieved what he had set out to do, which was to scare her silly with his threat to take Daniele away from her.
Well, if he wanted a fight, she would give him one! she thought, calling on all the powers of survival she had had to engage as a teenager after losing both her parents. After all, since Vikki had died, Daniele was all she had, and Emiliano Cannavaro could swing before she would give up her little nephew to him or anybody else!
But the fear had taken hold and she couldn’t shake it off. And that wasn’t the only thing unsettling her as she listened to his powerful car growling away.
It was that raging sexual attraction that had flared into life the minute she had seen him again, coming across the yard. But, even worse, her body’s betraying response to it when he had had her trapped—without even touching her—against the dresser. An attraction, she thought hopelessly, which had been born in her the instant she had laid eyes on him across that crowded ballroom, and reluctantly she let her thoughts drag her back to those two days in that exclusive London hotel two years ago.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN HER SISTER had invited her to her pre-nuptial party on the eve of her marriage to one of Italy’s most eligible bachelors, Lauren hadn’t envisaged spending what felt like hours smiling politely at a twice-divorced ageing Romeo of a banker until her face ached.
She’d been renting a bedsit in London at the time, having leased the farmhouse for some extra income with a view to going back to college and doing some serious studying. But she had felt as out of place in the city, she remembered, as she had in the emerald-green strapless gown she had been wearing at that party which, with no long-standing boyfriend to accompany her, she had chosen to attend alone. That still hadn’t stopped her from feeling immensely relieved when another guest had finally claimed the Romeo’s company.
Her sudden isolation, however, had left her exposed to the gaze of a man she hadn’t known then was Emiliano Cannavaro, although she had sensed him watching her for most of the time that she had been suffering the older man’s unwelcome attention.
With a clear field between them after the banker had moved away, Lauren had been unable to avoid meeting the cool intensity of his midnight-dark eyes.
He must have been around thirty then and was, from his tanned skin and thick black hair that flopped forward at the temples, like a number of the guests, unmistakably Italian. Yet, in this man she hadn’t known, Lauren had sensed an air of cool detachment and authority that had set him apart from the rest. Perhaps it had been that autocratic nose and the way that intensely dark shadow around his jaw had added something to its angular strength that had given her the notion that he wasn’t a man to be messed with. Or perhaps it had been that restless quality about him and the rather bored suggestion that he would rather have been somewhere else. But what he had had was presence. And it had been nothing less than spell-binding! Add that impression of straining muscle beneath the constraints of his dark tailored evening suit and Lauren had realised why every woman who had passed within ten yards of him seemed to fall over herself with the need to be noticed by him. And he hadn’t taken his eyes off her once!
Unused to being studied with such blatant interest, Lauren had looked quickly away to where the reed-slim blonde with the baby doll face and her far too handsome groom-to-be had been standing by the buffet tables with their arms interlinked in front of them, sipping from tall flutes of champagne.
‘Is that envy I see in your eyes? Or are you wondering, as I suspect you are, whether they are as happy as their animated laughter suggests?’
The heavily accented voice at her shoulder made every nerve sharpen in Lauren’s body, causing her fingers to tighten around the stem of her own glass. But it was the way its rich tones washed over her like a warm wave that had her catching her breath as though she had been submerged beneath the power of its sensuality.
‘Why shouldn’t they be happy?’ The effect of his nearness produced her unusually curt rejoinder. Nevertheless, her eyes challenged his, even though she knew her cheeks were probably as red as her swept-up hair that the woman in the store where she had bought her gown a few days ago had said would complement the emerald creation superbly.
‘Why, indeed?’ Up close, he looked even more stupendous than he had from a distance. His features were strong with clearly defined cheekbones, and his mouth, she recognised at once, had a hard-edged sensuality that could probably drive most nubile women mindless just from the promise of its unquestionable passion. His winged collar looked stark white against the hard bronze of his skin and he smelled good too, of some subtle masculine cologne that Lauren wanted to inhale—and keep on inhaling—until her suddenly starved senses were full of him. ‘She must have something very special to have brought Angelo Cannavaro to heel.’
Unaware that he was the brother of her sister’s fiancé, it was the fact that he was obviously acquainted with the groom’s playboy reputation that prompted Lauren to ask, ‘Are you a friend of the family?’
That passionate mouth of his twitched slightly before he said, ‘I would not exactly...call myself that.’
A business associate then, she speculated silently, and wondered, as she still did, at the reason for that definite hesitation in the way he said it.
A burst of laughter brought her attention to the couple, who were twirling to imaginary music with their arms still linked, champagne flutes still held high.
‘She strikes me as a young woman who knows what she wants and exactly how to get it.’
The man’s gaze was resting on the obvious mound of Vikki’s middle beneath the smoky blue satin of an outrageously low-cut, backless dress, split almost from hip to hem. But the critical note in his voice made Lauren bristle and look up at his devastating profile with narrowing eyes. ‘What are you implying, exactly?’
His thick hair gleamed darkly as he turned back to her again. ‘No implication, I assure you. But she must obviously be aware that there are worse fates than linking up with one of Italy’s oldest and most...significant families.’
Lauren’s hackles continued to rise. ‘And there are some who might say she could do better than marry into a family which has put too much emphasis on making money at the expense of investing the right kind of values in its offspring.’
Her piqued rejoinder brought a speculative curve to his mouth. ‘With you being one of them, I suppose?’
She hadn’t intended to make such a pointed remark about the groom’s family. It had slipped out before she could contain it, but his comments had irked, especially as she had been so worried about Vikki.
Ever since they had lost their parents within days of each other to that tropical disease six years ago, Lauren had found herself at eighteen playing mother and father to her often difficult and rebellious sixteen-year-old sister. Vikki had reacted to her parents’ death by lashing out at the world, and her anger and resentment at their loss had resulted in a spiralling lifestyle of alcohol-fuelled all-night parties, illegal drugs and far too many one-night stands.
Painfully, Lauren recalled how Vikki had refused to listen to her concerns about her ruining her life and eventually, when Vikki was still only seventeen, their differing opinions and clash in personalities meant they could no longer remain under the same roof and Lauren had seen very little of her sister over the next few years.
When Vikki had telephoned only three weeks prior to that party to say that she was not only pregnant, but getting married, Lauren had been as surprised as she’d been happy for her sister. She’d also had to secretly admit to feeling more than a little relieved.
It wasn’t until the sisters had met for a tearful reunion lunch that Lauren had learned of Vikki’s choice of husband, and her gratitude that her wayward sibling was finally settling down had dissipated on a surge of anxiety.
Angelo Cannavaro’s decadent lifestyle was legendary, with his penchant for glamorous women exceeded only by his wealthier, yet considerably more discreet older brother, who, by some miracle, had managed to keep himself and his personal life out of the papers! Which was why Lauren hadn’t instantly realised who he was on that first meeting. It hadn’t surprised her, though, to learn that Vikki’s year-long involvement with the twenty-five-year-old Italian playboy, whom she’d met while working as a croupier in a London nightclub, had already been a tempestuous on-off affair, with Angelo sounding rather too partial to his freedom, in Lauren’s mind, to make suitable husband material. Vikki had said he had changed since their last break-up only five months previously, but it had done very little to allay Lauren’s worries for her sister’s future.
‘It isn’t for me to cast aspersions on either the bridegroom or the calculating little blonde who’s so lucky to have him marrying her.’ She was unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice as she clutched the glass she hadn’t remembered draining so tightly it was in danger of shattering. ‘And neither should you.’
Her reprimand, instead of shaming, seemed merely to amuse him.
With a smile touching his sensuous mouth, he allowed his gaze to stray with disturbing intensity over the fine symmetry of her face, down her rather flushed throat to her full breasts, which were pushed up enticingly—too enticingly, she remembered now with a sensually inspired little shiver—above the shimmering emerald of her bodice.
‘And who are you,’ he enquired in that remarkably sexy voice of his, ‘that you jump so readily to the defence of the blushing bride-to-be?’
She found him so disconcertingly male that it was an effort to meet those equally disturbing eyes with any confidence, but she managed it. Just.
‘I’m Lauren Westwood. Her sister.’ She gleaned a wealth of satisfaction from saying that.
‘Ah!’
‘Yes,’ she added smugly before he could say another thing. ‘Another of the money-grubbing Westwoods, as you’ve obviously labelled my sister. From one of the most insignificant families in Cumbria.’
If she had expected to embarrass him then she should have guessed, Lauren thought now, that men like him weren’t easily—if ever—caught out. A mere dip of his head in almost amused acknowledgement confirmed it.
‘A gross error on my part, I think,’ he said, which was as near to an apology as Lauren knew she was likely to get. ‘In which case, you will at least allow me to get you another drink.’
‘No, I don’t...’ she started to say as he relieved her of her glass. But the accidental touch of his fingers against hers robbed the words from her mouth as a bolt of something electric ignited powerful impulses in her blood.
His smile was far too aware.
Though not inexperienced, having had a couple of undemanding relationships in the past, she was still unaware of the dangerous responses she was provoking in such a sophisticated man as Emiliano Cannavaro. She took advantage of the remarkably sudden appearance of a waiter at his side to try and stabilise her senses as he deposited her empty glass on the silver tray.
‘Insignificant is definitely not a word I would apply to you, signorina.’ He was looking at her—not in the leering way a lot of men looked at her because of her far too voluptuous figure, but with the subtlety of a man who was well acquainted with the female anatomy and knew just how to turn it to his advantage.
And how! Lauren remembered now, resenting the way he had made—and could still make—everything that was feminine in her respond readily to the pull of his flagrant masculinity.
‘Nor I you.’ A raw sexual tension made her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth. ‘But then you know that already.’ She meant it as a barb, reluctant to acknowledge how those eyes that seemed to be penetrating the emerald silk made her breasts grow heavy. But her voice sounded husky from imagining what it would be like to feel those long tanned hands pulling down her zip, and that sensual mouth moving over the screamingly sensitive flesh covering her spine before...
She brought her thoughts up sharply as her nipples swelled inside their strapless cups.
‘What are you doing, Lauren Westwood?’ Through a rush of shaming heat she caught the sensuality in his lowered tones. ‘Trying to ensnare me with those heavy, come-hither eyes as your sister has ensnared poor unsuspecting Angelo?’
She felt herself blushing, certain that he was fully au fait with her body’s shaming responses.
‘As you’ve already pointed out,’ she returned, mortified, yet trying to maintain some degree of equanimity, ‘Angelo Cannavaro’s far from poor. And if you think pledging one’s troth is a form of penal servitude then you have a very cynical view of love and marriage!’
‘Touché,’ he said softly, ‘but I wasn’t talking about a mutual exchange of vows. There are more ways of being ensnared than by just slipping a ring on one’s finger. And it has nothing to do with love...’ he seemed to place an almost derisive emphasis on the word ‘...or even liking.’
Lauren’s body pulsed with the need to retaliate in some way. Because she didn’t like him! She thought it now with as much vehemence as she’d tried convincing herself on that night. Why, then, she remembered wondering, did her breasts ache to feel his touch? And why did the thought of pushing him to the limit and provoking what she guessed would be a frighteningly controlled yet lethal anger have her playing all sorts of outrageous scenarios in her mind? Like tumbling down onto a bed beneath him and quelling their mutual antagonism in the most heated and primeval way?
‘I can assure you that nothing is further from my mind so, rest assured, you’re perfectly safe.’ She flashed him a falsely bright smile, yet knew from the almost indiscernible lifting of an eyebrow that he had picked up on the breathless note in her voice.
‘I don’t know whether to be gratified or disappointed to hear it.’ His smile was cool and mockingly sensual. ‘The question is, Signorina Westwood...are you?’
His meaning was so subtly explicit that Lauren was shocked to feel a deep answering throb in her lower body.
‘I don’t know what you’re...’ Talking about, she started to say, but her sentence was cut in midstream as Vikki Westwood, all gleaming teeth and voluminous blonde hair, suddenly exploded onto the scene.
‘Oh, great! I see you two have already met. Are you going to let on, Emiliano, as to what you think of my sister? Isn’t she gorgeous?’
‘She is.’ Vikki’s words seemed to give those dark eyes licence to tug with leisurely insolence over Lauren’s shamefully aroused body. ‘But I’m afraid we haven’t yet been properly introduced.’
‘Emiliano, this is Lauren, my older and very available sister. Lauren, this is Emiliano Cannavaro. The Emiliano Cannavaro,’ she emphasised with relish. ‘Angelo’s older brother and the head of the Cannavaro dynasty—not to mention the company—since their father died last year.’
