Harlequin Presents--July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Natalie Anderson

  ‘You don’t know me well enough to make that kind of judgement,’ he said, the even tone of his words not quite disguising the warning note she could hear, telling her to retreat this minute.

  ‘You’re generous with your time and your resources,’ she countered, ignoring it. ‘You like police stations as little as I do. You back off when conversation gets too close. You’re a risk-taker and a thrill-seeker and you have an unusual relationship with food. And lastly, you’re attracted to me yet you don’t want to be, which is odd when only yesterday lunchtime you were asking me out.’

  ‘A mistake.’

  ‘Evidently.’

  ‘And the only reason I’ve been helping you is to ensure you leave Venice just as soon as is humanly possible.’

  Okay. Well. ‘What I do know,’ she said, absolutely refusing to take offence at those last two points of his, since she didn’t care what he thought of her, ‘is that no man is an island, not even you, Rico. Everyone needs someone and you have the very best of a someone. You have a brother. I can’t understand why you wouldn’t be moving heaven and earth to make up for lost time.’

  ‘And I can’t understand why you’re so desperate for me to meet Finn,’ he said bluntly. ‘You came to Venice, Carla. What is your interest in this?’

  ‘I told you,’ she said, refusing to be intimidated by the darkening of his expression. ‘Georgie is like family to me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We’ve been through a lot together.’

  ‘Such as?’

  She wasn’t ready to tell him. She’d never be ready to tell him. ‘We’re not talking about me.’

  His eyes glittered. ‘I think we should start.’

  ‘There’s no point.’

  ‘There’s every point. Why don’t you see your parents, Carla?’

  ‘Why don’t you like police stations?’ she shot back.

  His jaw tightened. ‘Why do you work so hard? What are you running from?’

  ‘Why have you decided to shut yourself off from everyone and everything? What are you running from?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘That’s not my problem.’

  ‘So what is your problem?’ she asked, her blood heating to a simmer.

  ‘You are.’

  ‘Then you should have let me stay in a hotel.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said roughly. ‘Maybe I didn’t want you to come to any harm by fainting again and falling into a canal. Maybe I wanted to uncover your secrets the way you’re so determined to hunt down mine. Maybe for some inexplicable reason I felt responsible for you.’

  For a moment a flame of pleasure flickered into life inside her but she swiftly extinguished it because none of that could be true. If it was it would mean she was somehow beginning to matter to him, which couldn’t be the case when he was detachment personified. And the very idea of him being responsible for her was ridiculous. ‘Distracting me won’t work.’

  ‘Then what will?’ he said, putting down the spoon and stalking round to her side of the island, his eyes glittering and his shoulders rigid. ‘What will it take to stop you talking?’

  She could think of something. She could think of lots of things, all of them accelerating her pulse and heating the simmer to a boil. He could give her a smile—a real one—that would drain the blood from her head and suck the breath from her lungs. He could pulverise her thoughts with a touch and stop her mouth with a kiss, and he would barely have to even try.

  ‘Agreement to go and see Finn,’ she said a bit breathlessly, struggling to block out the images of him doing all of that.

  ‘That’s not going to happen.’

  ‘Answers, then.’

  ‘You’re getting them,’ he said softly, taking one step closer to her, trapping her against the island and looming over her in a way that should have felt threatening and should have triggered a need to escape but was instead having the opposite effect.

  ‘Not the ones I want.’

  ‘So what do you want, Carla?’

  Something she really shouldn’t but was finding it increasingly hard to resist, she thought, burning up in response to his size and proximity. Because Rico might be a threat to her self-control and an attack on her defences, but right here, right now, with her thoughts spinning and her body on fire, she couldn’t quite remember why.

  All she knew was that she wanted him and he wanted her. Heat flared in the inky blue depths of his glittering eyes. She could feel the tightly leashed power and tension tightening his body. Her heart thundered. Her breath hitched. The intensity with which he was looking at her was stealing her wits and stoking the desire whipping around inside her and she didn’t even care.

  ‘You know what I want,’ she said, giving him the option to interpret her words in one of two ways, trying to tell herself she was still talking about Rico meeting Finn but actually meaning she wanted him, and practically erupting with excitement when he got it.

  Whether it was the way she’d jutted her chin up in silent challenge or whether he was equally at the mercy of the attraction that flared between them and could no longer deny, she neither knew nor cared. He took her in his arms and with a muffled curse brought his mouth down on hers and all that mattered then was kissing him back as fiercely as he was kissing her.

  With a moan she wrapped her arms around his neck and wound her fingers through his hair, which was as thick and soft as she’d imagined, and pressed herself so close that there was barely an inch of her that wasn’t touching him. The heat and skill of his mouth, his lips, his tongue sent shock waves of desire shooting through her, fogging her brain and focusing all her attention on him and what he was doing to her.

  She moaned again and he tightened his hold on her, deepening the kiss as he put his hands on her waist and lifted her onto the island as if she weighed nothing. She instinctively opened her legs and he stepped between them, and she could feel the thick, hard length of his erection pressing against the spot that was aching and desperate.

  She tilted her hips to increase the pressure and writhed against him, needing him closer, inside her, while his hands were in her hair, on her back, large and warm against her body, holding her in place, scorching through the thin fabric of her dress.

  With a harsh groan he moved his mouth to her neck, to the sensitive spot beneath her ear, and a hand to her breast, which instantly tingled and tightened and made her wish there was no material in the way either on her or him.

  Suddenly desperate to discover what she’d denied herself by not checking him out in the pool earlier, she tugged at his T-shirt, he reared back and pulled it over his head, and there was his chest in all its naked glory. Tanned. Muscled.

  And scarred.

  A small brown circle lay just above his heart and another on his opposite shoulder. A thin white mark cut a jagged line through the smattering of fine dark hair at the bottom of his ribcage.

  But before she had time to even think about what they could be or what they might mean, he’d leaned forwards and bent his head for another scorching kiss and all she could focus on was the desire hammering around inside her. The heat that was igniting her blood and making her burn.

  And that wasn’t the only thing that was burning.

  Through the swirling fog of desire and the intoxicating scent of him, came the trace of smoke. Acrid smoke. That unless they’d set fire to the island came from the stove.

  With Herculean effort and a rush of alarm, Carla broke away, breathing hard, and put her hands on the rock-solid wall of his chest.

  ‘The garlic,’ she managed hoarsely. ‘It’s burning.’

  ‘Dio,’ he muttered after a moment in which he looked as dazed as she felt.

  Raking his hands through his hair and
giving himself a quick shake, Rico stepped back, taking the heat and the madness with him, and went off to investigate the damage, which gave Carla an all too clear view of herself in the mirror that hung over the fireplace. Her hair was a mess, her cheeks bright red and her lips swollen. Her heavy, tingling breasts strained against the bodice of her dress and her legs were spread wide.

  Who was this woman in the mirror with the desire-soaked eyes and the heaving chest? Where had that unexpectedly fierce and wanton response come from? She didn’t recognise herself. If they hadn’t been interrupted she and Rico wouldn’t have stopped, and it was suddenly terrifying because this wasn’t who she was. She didn’t act on instinct and throw caution to the wind with no thought for the consequences. She never allowed herself to be dazzled to distraction by a handsome face and a great body. She took great care to avoid any situation in which the kind of lust that could lay waste to her judgement might arise.

  So what had she been thinking? How could she risk destroying the wall around her emotions and the control she’d worked so hard to achieve? Was she insane? More pressingly, how could she and Rico possibly sit down to dinner after that? It would be excruciating.

  ‘You know what?’ she said, slipping off the island and pulling her dress down with still trembling hands. ‘On second thoughts, I’m not really hungry. And I should probably go and make some calls,’ she added, unable to look at him as she backed away just as fast as her unsteady legs could carry her. ‘So, ah, thanks for your help today and I guess I’ll see you in the morning. Goodnight.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  IT WAS GOOD that Carla had fled when she had, Rico thought darkly as he shoved the linguine alle vongole he’d finished off making—minus the burnt garlic—into the fridge, his appetite, for food at least, gone. Her sense of self-preservation was clearly as strong as his, even if it had kicked in late.

  His, on the other hand, hadn’t kicked in at all. He’d taken one look at her, at the challenge and heat in her gaze, and he’d known exactly what she wanted. Too tightly wound and befuddled by need to recall at that precise moment why getting involved with her was a bad idea, he’d succumbed to the temptation to give it to her.

  The kiss had been wild and hot, far more explosive than anything he’d imagined. The minute their mouths had met desire had erupted inside him, powering along his veins and channelling all his blood to his groin. The longer the kiss had gone on, the hotter and harder he’d become, and if she hadn’t stopped him he’d have leaned her back, pushed her dress up and taken her right there and then. The entire kitchen could have been on fire and he wouldn’t have noticed.

  What the hell had he been thinking? he wondered, still dazed by the intensity of the encounter, as he switched the lights off and crossed the hall to his flight of stairs with barely a glance in the direction of hers. Where had his control gone? And why on earth had he approached her in the first place? Everything had been fine until he’d stalked round to her side of the island and foolishly positioned himself within reaching distance of her in a move designed to scare her off but which had spectacularly backfired.

  Well, maybe not that fine, he mentally amended, striding into his room, tossing the T-shirt she’d pulled off him into the laundry bin and shuddering at the memory of how warm and soft her hands had felt on his naked skin.

  Despite his outward cool, he’d been on shaky ground ever since they’d met. On her arrival in Venice cracks had begun to appear when he’d realised how tempting she was but how dangerous she could be. And when she’d stood there in the gym and questioned him about the accident, those cracks had opened up into great, jagged fissures.

  He didn’t like the burgeoning possibility that his accident could have affected him emotionally as well as physically. The idea that he had somehow been fundamentally altered by what had happened was troubling. Yet, there was no denying that he’d experienced more doubt, bewilderment and wariness in the last three months than he had in the last two decades, and who was he if he wasn’t the man who was supremely confident in what he did, who’d always thrived on risk and recklessness and to hell with the consequences?

  Nor did he appreciate the stirring up of his past. He hated thinking about the senseless death of his parents at the hand of a recklessly overtaking driver who’d ripped him from everything he’d ever known. Family. Home. Love. And he never allowed himself to wonder how his life might have turned out had they lived.

  He didn’t wish to revisit any of those memories in any great detail, or contemplate his regret at having repeatedly run away from his foster carer in search of what he’d thought would be a better life, with a need to take control. He certainly wasn’t ready to welcome back the maelstrom of feelings he’d had at the time, which had become so overwhelming, so unbearable, that he’d shut them down. He doubted he ever would be, and that was all right with him.

  What wasn’t all right was allowing Carla to have pushed that far in the first place. He should have put a stop to it sooner, when he could have done so with a cooler head. Despite having had virtually no experience of that kind of conversation, he should have pressed her for more instead of allowing her to fight back. But even though he hadn’t, he should have been one hundred per cent ready for whatever she chose to throw at him.

  However, he’d failed at that too.

  He didn’t know why he’d been so rocked to learn that he’d been born in Argentina and was one of three. As he’d told her, he’d always known he was adopted, so it shouldn’t make any difference where he’d been born. Nor should it matter how many siblings he potentially had. He wasn’t interested in one, let alone two.

  So why did the letter that his parents had left with a law firm in Milan, which he’d been told about at the age of eighteen and ruthlessly ignored, suddenly now seem significant?

  On learning of its existence he’d instructed the solicitor to do whatever he liked with it, since its contents held zero appeal. He’d already been on his way to making his first fortune. Every gamble he’d taken had paid off and everything he’d touched had turned to gold. He’d been living the hedonistic life his new-found wealth afforded him and he absolutely had not needed a reminder of his past, of the crucifying rejection and abandonment he’d felt in the aftermath of his parents’ death, the gaping hole they’d left, and how vulnerable and gullible he’d once been.

  Now, as he unbuckled his belt and shucked off his shorts, he wondered what had become of it. Had the solicitor done as he’d instructed and destroyed it? What had it contained? Could it have held information about the circumstances of his birth? He couldn’t seriously be contemplating trying to track it down, could he?

  The crushing pressure of now questioning everything he’d always considered a certainty was pushing him to the end of his tether and fraying his control. All day he’d been on edge, and it was largely down to Carla, who he wanted with a fierceness that blew him away. Who dazzled him and robbed him of reason and possibly now knew more about him than he’d realised he’d revealed. Who was just as tenacious and dangerous as he’d suspected and had to be kept at arm’s length by whatever means possible.

  Tuesday morning, he thought grimly, stepping into the shower and turning it on to cold, couldn’t come fast enough.

  * * *

  With her body clock finally back on track Carla should have slept beautifully. She should have woken up firing on all cylinders, feeling strong and invincible and raring to go.

  Unfortunately, however, the kiss in the kitchen the night before had put paid to any rest she’d been hoping for. The heat...the passion...the wanton yet terrifying lack of control... If she hadn’t been jolted back to reality by the burning garlic she and Rico would have had hot, wild sex right then and there, and that was something she just couldn’t seem to stop imagining.

  The sizzling memory of it and the myriad questions she had about the scars on his chest, not to mention the intense emotion that had blaze
d in his eyes, which she’d never seen before in him but which confirmed her suspicion that still waters ran deep, had kept her tossing and turning in bed for hours. Exhaustion had finally won out in the early hours, and as a result she woke up feeling gritty and on edge, her nerves frayed by desire she just couldn’t shake no matter how hard she tried.

  And now they were going to be spending most of the day together.

  Petrified of bumping into Rico over breakfast and having to make horrendously awkward chat, Carla waited for the all clear before darting into the kitchen and grabbing a pastry from the fridge while keeping her gaze firmly away from the scene of the crime.

  On the dot of eight she arrived at the helipad that was situated a couple of hundred metres from the house. Rico was already there, mirrored sunglasses concealing his eyes, his expression unreadable, the headset he had on thankfully precluding conversation.

  Apparently as disinclined to acknowledge what had happened last night as she was, he barely glanced at her as she climbed aboard. He merely handed her a headset of her own and coolly indicated that she should buckle herself in before returning his attention to the dozens of dials and switches in front of him.

  Moments later, the engine fired and the rotors started turning, and then they were up and away, soaring above the lagoon, leaving Isola Santa Margherita far behind and heading for the mainland, hurtling through the air in such a tiny contraption at such a great speed that her stomach was in her throat, while she clung on to her seat, her knuckles white.

  To her relief, Rico’s concentration on what he was doing, combined with the noise of the helicopter, prevented any further communication. But as the journey continued, the urban sprawl giving way to a patchwork of fields dotted with villages, Lake Garda in the distance and the foothills of the Italian Alps beyond, and her nerves began to ease, she became increasingly aware of him.