Blackmailed For Her Baby

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He hadn’t shaved since this morning and the angry graze of his jaw was a delicious friction against her soft skin as his mouth plundered hers with punishing thoroughness.

Libby groaned into his mouth, her mind despairing even as her body welcomed it, welcomed the arms that were suddenly tightening like steel bands around her, bringing her shockingly alive to the whipcord strength of him beneath his impeccable clothes and to the startling awareness of just how turned on he was.

Her errant, adolescent dreams about him, she realised, hadn’t prepared her for this! Nor had she imagined she could know such…wanting…

With another small groan—induced only by desire now—she leaned into him, mind and body yielding together in some crazy sacrifice to an irrational need.

She hated him—and yet she wanted him!

Her limbs weakening with that acceptance, she clutched at his broad shoulders like someone clinging to a precipice, her red-tipped nails curling desperately against the dark, damp fabric of his raincoat.

Driven by her response, Romano felt his body hardening with an urge that made it almost hurt. It would be so easy to forget himself; to take her and all that her gloriously feminine body promised. He had wanted this girl for far longer than he cared to remember; wanted her so much she was the only woman who had ever made him disgusted with himself for entertaining such thoughts about her, especially while she was married to his brother. While he had had to bear it in silence, ignore the way her big doe eyes swept coyly away from him like some shy little virgin’s whenever he spoke to her on some occasions, while on others they had seemed to challenge his with a sophistication well beyond her years!

But now there was no reason for restraint.

He jerked her against him, catching the small, stifled cry she uttered as though she was fighting her own battle between rejection and desire. But the thought of Luca and the mercenary way this girl had behaved was already cooling his ardour. Was he being extremely unwise even considering taking her back with him?

Confusion registered in her emerald eyes as he steeled himself to draw away from her. What was he thinking of? Could he not do without this added complication right now?

‘Since it was your clear intention to wind up in someone’s bed tonight,’ he none the less felt compelled to taunt softly, ‘perhaps you should make it mine? I can give you pleasure if that’s what you’re so hungry for, Libby. And I think I can guarantee you more satisfaction than you’d have found in the arms of that drunken lout who was here just now.’

Libby couldn’t move—couldn’t think—aware only of one long, tanned finger making light, sensuous circles over her bare shoulder and the tap, dribbling into the sink, that someone must have used and neglected to turn off properly.

All she could focus on was what Romano—her late husband’s brother and the man she despised—was suggesting, while her brain made unwilling comparisons with the man who had been there earlier. Romano Vincenzo wouldn’t force himself on a woman the way Steve Cullum had. He wouldn’t need to. He would be subtle, using his voice and his lips and hands with such articulated skill…

Reminding herself again of just who he was, head dropping back against the doorjamb, she was determined not to let him see how much his suggestion had fazed her. Heart pounding in her breast, her temples throbbing from her headache and her outlandish response to him, somehow she managed to query pointedly, ‘Are you propositioning me?’

His smile was without warmth. ‘And wind up in the same bitter-sweet trap as my brother?’

So he wasn’t. He was only playing with her, she realised. Weighing her reactions—which had probably been behind the reason for that kiss—just to see how easily he could get his brother’s scheming little widow into his bed! And she had fallen into his trap! Even if he had been more than a little out of control himself. Those black eyes still glinted with hot primal desire, yet behind it burned open hostility too.

With a surprising degree of force she pushed at the arm that was blocking the doorway and got herself out of his disturbing sphere, catching his soft laughter as she wrestled with the fact that even touching him like that gave her a whole host of unwelcome responses to deal with.

‘We’ll leave the day after tomorrow.’

His change of subject was so abrupt that it unbalanced her for a moment, shaken as she was from the shaming way she had responded in his arms.

‘What?’ Swinging to face him, she couldn’t stop herself wondering what woman wouldn’t fall victim to his dark attraction. Even now his stark masculinity was making her stomach muscles curl like brittle leaves.

‘I gathered from that comment you made about ringing me that you have decided to heed my request and come back with me. Or am I being naïve in presuming that you’ve even allowed it any headroom with so much else going on in your life?’

An angry retort sprang to her lips, but wisely she bit it back. It would have been futile anyway, she told herself on a frustrated little sigh.

Wearily she said, ‘Yes, I’m coming.’

‘Good.’ He strode away from her, turning in the doorway to assess her; her bright, dishevelled hair, the dark half-moons under her emotion-strained eyes and her cheeks, which she knew were flushed from more than just a pounding headache. ‘Get a couple of good nights’ sleep. I wouldn’t want my nephew to see any remaining traces of the good-time girl in his mother.’

Tight-lipped, Libby swung away from him, her arms clutched tensely around herself to stem the urge to hit him rather than take any more of his jibes.

‘And cara…’ the endearment was so out of character at that moment and so sexily soft, she thought she was imagining it as she turned round with her arms still locked around her and met the cruel mockery on his lips. ‘…turn off that tap.’

CHAPTER THREE

‘WHAT have you got in here?’ Romano grimaced a couple of days later at the airport when he was hauling her suitcase out of the boot of the large chauffeur-driven saloon. ‘Next spring’s whole fashion collection?’

Libby dragged in a breath. Naturally he would think that, she thought waspishly, her tone brittle as she answered in the only way she knew he would expect her to. ‘Bang on the nail!’

He sliced her a glance as he slammed the boot closed, hitting it twice to indicate to their driver that he could pull away. ‘Thinking of partying while you’re staying out there with us in Italy?’

‘I could be,’ she responded, keeping pace with his stride as he guided her towards the busy terminal. Nothing was further from her mind, however, and, deciding that she was carrying this charade a little too far, she added in defence of herself, ‘Well, I wasn’t quite sure what to bring or…how long I’d be staying.’ A ton weight seemed to press down on her chest as she said that. ‘I’ve also brought a few things for Giorgio.’

Like what? Romano thought. Things to soften him up to make up for the years she hadn’t been around? What was she hoping to do? Buy her way into the kid’s affections?

With features cast of stone he considered how easily she had given him up—as women like her could—without a backward glance, without a second thought as to how he would feel all the time he was growing up. Whether he was well. Being kindly treated. Happy.

As he held back for her to precede him through the automatic door into the terminal, he wondered if perhaps he was being too hard on his brother’s widow. After all, she had agreed to come, which was more than he had expected, he conceded with a grim compression of his mouth, and she would naturally want to try to win Giorgio’s trust in the only way she probably knew how.

The journey in the private jet was a far from relaxed one for Libby, sitting there uncomfortably aware of Luca’s darkly brooding older brother in the seat opposite.

He had made small talk with her at first about inconsequential things, controlling the conversation, taking the lead. Then he spent the rest of the time working on his laptop on the narrow table in front of him, his ebony head bent, his mind anywhere but with Libby, who sat gazing at the rain streaming down the small round window beside her, listening to those deft, dark fingers moving with surprisingly alacrity over the keys.

‘Do you want anything?’ he asked when a pretty stewardess came and enquired if she could bring them some refreshment, glancing up at Libby in a way that made her stomach flip.

Only for these nerves to stop plaguing me! she prayed silently, shaking her head. She couldn’t eat or drink. Not now. Not when she was only a couple of hours away from seeing her baby again.

‘It might be some time before you get another chance.’ Romano’s expression held a surprising degree of concern. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Libby replied tightly, but couldn’t tell him that she was too knotted up inside to swallow a thing.

What would Giorgi look like? she wondered, fearful of being rejected. He wouldn’t remember her, but would there be a bond there? A tug of something he’d recognise? Would he take to her? Or would she just be a total stranger walking into his life?

A cold, sick fear trickled through her as she considered the alternative. It would be his birthday in less than three weeks. Was he old enough yet to have begun to despise her for what she had done? And if he was, would he ever forgive her? Judge her less harshly if he knew how much she had wanted to see him? How hard she had tried—and how many times—only to be denied access on every occasion?