Dante stiffened inside. He could see the woman’s mouth open to speak, the spark of rage in her eyes and in a flash he also remembered the words she’d hurled at him last week. His head had been full of the upcoming negotiations, which was how she’d caught him slightly off guard.
‘You’re the father of my sister’s baby and if you think you can walk away without accepting responsibility then you’ve another think coming.’
It had been such a preposterous accusation that he’d barely acknowledged her or her words. He didn’t even have to think about it; he hadn’t been seeing anyone in England and knew exactly who his recent lovers had been and not one of them would be remotely related to her. He was a billionaire; his lovers were carefully chosen and he was always, without fail, supremely careful to avoid such a scenario. Many women had attempted to trap him, lure him, and this woman was no different. He didn’t have the time to try and figure out where she’d come from, if she was an employee…
Assimilating all this information in a split second, he also realized quickly that she evidently meant business as she’d followed him all the way to Lake Como. And, more importantly, he instantly assessed the damage she could do with her foolish audacity.
He had to stop her.
Alicia seized the opportunity she’d come so far for with both hands. ‘This man,’ she started bravely, but her voice sounded husky with the remnants of her cold. A dog suddenly barked halting her words. Her head whipped around. A security man held the dog back with a straining leash. She couldn’t let this stop her. She faced back to Dante D’Aquanni. Desperation fuelling her movements, she squared her small defiant chin.
‘This man…’ It came out stronger this time and the dog mercifully stopped barking. The two men who’d followed her here looked at her eagerly, sensing a huge story in the offing. In that instant she regretted not having told them her story before now, she’d judged that the shock value would be greater, have more impact this way. She only hoped and prayed she could get it out.
‘This man is responsible for—’
Before her lips could utter another word, they were smothered and stopped under a cruel, hard mouth. The world went dark and disorientation took over. Shock rendered Alicia stiff under the onslaught. It was comprehensive. Dante D’Aquanni crowded her, wrapped those strong arms around her, pulling her off her feet and into his chest. Her senses were so overloaded that she had trouble disentangling the strands of sensation.
There was his smell…musky and hot. There was the feel of his chest…hard, taut, unyielding. There was his firm mouth…touching, exploring. Suddenly she didn’t feel stiff any more; she was melting, unable to stop the flood of heat to every part of her. His tongue was a silky, heated invasion that he pushed past shocked opening lips that belonged to someone else, not to her. Because, right now, she didn’t inhabit her own body any more; it was someone else. Someone who had gone temporarily mad.
Dante lifted his head and it felt heavy. The clear, concise reasons for doing what he’d just done were unavailable to him now as he looked down into a grimy face, streaked with blood where she’d been struck by branches from the trees surrounding his property. Huge, liquid brown eyes stared up at him, lashes tangled and even more luxuriant up close. Lush lips were plump and pink. Quivering. Her whole body trembled in his arms; her hands were curled into his chest. Where had this nymph come from? Had the whole world gone mad in just an hour?
The security guard shouted something and Dante felt the return of sanity. He realized that he was holding this woman off the ground, into his chest and, as he lowered her back down with an abruptness that bordered on dropping her, he had to acknowledge the fact that he was aroused to a point that had most definitely eluded him earlier.
He knew that as much as he wanted to fling this stranger down his steps to join the paparazzi, something more compelling was stopping him. He also couldn’t figure out his instinctive reaction to shut her up in any way possible, or why kissing her had been the only option.
The security guard surged forward and caught the two men by the scruffs of their necks, holding them easily. The reporter shouted out, ‘Mr D’Aquanni, you were spotted with Alessandra Macchi earlier. What does this mean? Aren’t you going to tell me who your new girlfriend is? It won’t take long to find out…’
A curt, No Comment hovered on his lips but for some reason Dante didn’t say it. He was certain of one thing. He couldn’t let this woman go now because she was a loose cannon. Her determination to confront him told him he would be foolish to dismiss her so quickly this time. He had to get to the bottom of the preposterous allegations she had made—was making—and he welcomed the clarity that reminded him that at all costs he had to avoid any unwelcome press attention in the run up to the vital business negotiations next week. What the hell was wrong with him? Acting so out of character made him very nervous. He focused his mind again with effort.
He knew that his security guard would confiscate the camera, delete the digital images which had surely been taken, but, with technology being what it was, he knew he couldn’t be certain they wouldn’t have obtained an image of that kiss another way.
He had just kissed her in front of these men, they didn’t need an image… This all flashed through his head in a nanosecond.
‘Wait.’ Dante’s voice cracked out. The security man halted.
Alicia was taking all this in but she felt disembodied. His kiss—if you could even call it that—had seared its way into her blood, into her brain, and had lobotomized her ability to speak or function. All she could do was watch helplessly as Dante pulled her tight into his side.
He smiled urbanely, dangerously. ‘I’m afraid that it’s really quite banal. You’ve been used as a pawn in a lovers’ spat. It’s true I was out with Alessandra earlier. She, I’m afraid, was my attempt to make this woman jealous.’ He looked down at Alicia and lifted her hand. It was held in a death grip; she could feel the blood stopping. But to their small audience it must have looked like a tender gesture when he brushed his mouth across her scratched knuckles.
‘And it worked.’
The reporter’s mouth was a round O of shock—presumably, Alicia thought for one clear second, that someone like her had the power to turn his head at all. She would have reacted the same way.
Dante D’Aquanni could have been Oscar nominated, the way he looked away from Alicia with extreme reluctance, but with what she could see very clearly was extreme loathing. His eyes were dark and hard.
The reporter shouted out, ‘Where has she come from?’
‘Come now, a man has to keep some things secret. Do you not think after all these years that I’d have a few evasive tricks up my sleeve? And do you really think that we could have made anything of this relationship if you’d known that I was seeing someone new, someone serious?’
Alicia was so stunned that she couldn’t even begin to see how she could possibly get out of this mess.
Dante hated the woman at his side with a vengeance for bringing this intrusion into his life. How dare she? He was caught between a rock and a hard place. The reporter had his story anyway and if Dante called the police in it would fan the flames of a news item that didn’t even exist!
He smiled again and it was cold. ‘Needless to say, this will be the last time you invade my privacy and if I catch you even attempting to trespass again, you will pay the price.’ Dante tightened his hold on Alicia, making her gasp painfully. ‘You’re lucky that love is making me magnanimous.’
And with that the reporter and his companion were summarily marched down the driveway. Alicia’s legs were very wobbly and she had a taste of just how stupid she’d been in thinking for a second that it had been easy to get in. She’d just been very, very lucky.
CHAPTER TWO
ALICIA FELT ANYTHING but lucky now, though, as her head swirled with everything that had just happened and Dante D’Aquanni dropped his hands as though she were infectious.
‘Get inside. Now.’
<
br /> Alicia opened her mouth. He made a move and she flinched. She didn’t know this man, didn’t know his capacity or otherwise for violence and, right now, he looked murderous.
‘Not a word, lady. Inside. Now.’
Alicia walked into the villa on cotton wool legs. She saw a chair and went and sat down, seriously afraid that she might fall.
‘Get up. Did I say you could sit down?’
Alicia looked up, her face leached of all colour. ‘Please…I—’
Dante strode forward and pulled her out of the chair. Two hands on her arms, holding her like a rag doll. And she felt like a rag doll.
‘How dare you? How dare you invade my private space, bring those miscreants onto my property, a photographer for heaven’s sake—’
Alicia looked up into the harsh features—no less handsome now because of his anger. Even more mesmerizing because of it. From some reserve she called up her own anger, which had been in woefully short supply for the past few minutes. He might have turned the tables but she was still here. He hadn’t turfed her out on the road.
‘I dare, Mr D’Aquanni, because someone I love very much is lying in a hospital bed and she needs help. Help that I can’t give her. As much as it kills me to come here and have to deal with someone as amoral as you, I have no choice.’ Bitterness laced her words. ‘Believe me, it’s not my idea of fun scrabbling around thorn bushes in the dark. I did try to talk to you last week, if you recall, but you wouldn’t listen.’
He delivered a scathing glance up and down. ‘I don’t have time to waste, listening to someone shrieking such unfounded accusations.’
Alicia remembered the panic that had galvanized her actions, the fear that had been barely in check when she’d seen him. She’d had to stop him somehow and, as much as she might have wanted to be civil, she hadn’t been allowed. She strove for calm now.
‘I tried to make an appointment to see you in your office but it would have been easier to get an audience with the Pope.’
He snorted inelegantly and in the next second moved so fast that Alicia was caught totally by surprise.
He had slipped her bag from her shoulders and upended it on to the floor in seconds. After a moment of shock she stepped forward. ‘How dare you—’
But he held her back easily with one hand and the feel of that hand against her belly made her jump back like a scalded cat.
She watched as he flicked through the contents of her bag. Her wallet had a shockingly small amount of money. The printout of her one way ticket to Milan—she hadn’t been able to get a return as the world and its wife were there that weekend for a football game. Her phone. A credit card.
Dante threw the paltry things back into her holdall and stood easily, towering over her as he inspected her driver’s licence. He quirked a brow and looked at her.
‘Alicia Parker…’
She nodded jerkily. Surely the name would register with him? It didn’t seem to. He advanced dangerously and she moved back, feeling more and more light-headed.
‘So, what exactly are you up to, coming here with a one-way ticket? Were you hoping your little trip would be so successful that you’d score a lift back on my private jet…or score me? Is that your plan? To seduce me and really get pregnant so your bizarre claims are founded on truth?’
Alicia’s mouth opened but, before she could say a word, he was continuing, his words falling and stinging her flesh.
‘If that was what you’d planned, then you’re doing a woeful job. I don’t go for dramatics and unkempt shrieking fishwives are not my type.’
Alicia stopped moving. She glared up at him, adrenalin surging through her quivering five foot two frame. Her voice shook with emotion.
‘Melanie. Melanie Parker is her name. Does that even ring a bell with you? Or do you categorize your lovers by their social standing, in which case I’d imagine Melanie came somewhere near the bottom of the heap—’
‘What did you say?’ he asked sharply, stopping in his tracks.
Alicia was stymied for a second. He looked genuinely confused. And then she did see a flicker of something cross his face. Recognition. Anger surged all over again; apparently Melanie hadn’t made that much of an impression.
‘You are unbelievable. You can sleep with someone and not even recall their name unless pushed?’
He closed the distance between them and took her shoulders roughly. She bit back a gasp. As if he realized how delicate she was, he dropped his hands abruptly and she stumbled back, but kept standing even though everything swayed ominously for a second. She could not be weak. Not here, not now. She had to be strong for Melanie.
Dante’s face felt rigid with rage and anger. He didn’t believe what she said for a second…but that name…it did ring a bell—a loud one. Not that he was going to admit that now, not until he had more independently trustworthy information. This woman was up to something and he felt very sure it had to do with money.
He enunciated his words very slowly. ‘Be clear. I have very little patience left. What is it you want?’
Alicia tilted her chin up and she unconsciously confirmed his prediction. ‘What I want, Mr D’Aquanni, is money. I need money for my sister’s care. If you don’t give it to me—to us—then her unborn child is in serious danger of not coming to term.’ Her voice shook ominously. ‘Your baby. Or don’t you even care about that?’
Dante frowned. ‘What on earth are you talking about, woman?’ She was talking in riddles. Perhaps she was a little crazy? She also looked as if a gust of wind would knock her down and he steeled himself not to give in to the delicate image she was trying to project.
‘Care—what are you talking about?’
The harsh quality of his voice shocked Alicia out of the stupor that had rendered her momentarily speechless. Of course. How would he know that Melanie had been in the accident?
She spoke, but increasingly she was feeling more and more detached from her body. ‘Melanie…Melanie was in an accident. She was on her way to see you, and a lorry skidded on the motorway in front of her; it jackknifed right back—’
At that moment everything seemed to hit Alicia at once. The magnitude of what she’d just done. What she’d been through in the past week since she’d arrived home from Africa. The fact that she was here. What had just happened out on the front steps.
Had he really kissed her? And had she clung to him so helplessly?
The hall around her swayed, went into double vision, and this time she couldn’t stop it.
When she came round, she was sitting on the chair with her head between her legs, a large hand clamped to the back of her neck. She was mortified and felt like protesting vociferously—she didn’t faint! She’d been through unspeakable horrors in the last year and had developed nerves of steel. And yet here, surrounded by luxury, she’d fainted within minutes.
Alicia saw the black clothed legs and shoes of Dante D’Aquanni beside her. She saw another pair of feet. She muttered something unintelligible and tried to move. The pressure of the hand eased. His hand. She looked up; the kindly, matronly face of the housekeeper looked at her. She felt like crying. They spoke in Italian above her head.
With little ceremony she was pulled up again, her head swam and, before she knew which way was up, she was over Dante D’Aquanni’s shoulder, dangling inelegantly against his back. He strode across the hall and started climbing stairs.
‘What the hell do you think you’re—?’
‘Be quiet. This will help the blood get to your head and restrain me from doing something I’ve never been tempted into before. When was the last time you ate or were you so consumed with gold-digging that you forgot?’
Alicia’s hands were balled into fists as she couldn’t look anywhere but at the man’s perfectly shaped behind, his back against which her breasts were crushed.
‘Gold-digging? Gold-digging? How dare you? Have you even considered the havoc that you’ve caused in my sister’s—’
And, just as suddenly as she
had been picked up, she was back on her feet, the rush of blood to her brain making her dizzy all over again. She put a hand to her head. She was barely aware of standing in a huge bedroom, discreetly designed with understated elegance and extreme luxury.
Dante was walking away from her. She ran after him. ‘Wait a minute. I’m not finished. What are you going to do about my sister? You can’t ignore me.’
He turned, with his hand on the doorknob. His mouth was tight. ‘No, you’ve made that impossible. But what I can do for now, and what I am going to do, is lock you in here.’
Alicia’s mouth opened and closed. ‘You…what…you’re not going to…’
‘Oh, yes, I am.’
And then he walked out, the door shutting ominously behind him. Stupefied, Alicia heard a key turn. She ran to the door, jiggled the knob. He had done it. He had locked her in.
She beat on the huge, heavy door with tiny fists. ‘Come back here! You can’t just lock me away. This is outrageous.’
Nothing. Not a sound. He was gone. Alicia sank back against the door and slid to the ground in a heap. She didn’t have a thing. Not even her phone to try and get help. And who would she call? Her only relative lay unconscious in a hospital bed in England. She didn’t need a friend to tell her what she already knew. She’d trespassed on the property of one of the most powerful men in the world. He had every right to go and call the police, which was probably exactly where he had gone. Any accusation she could level at him regarding her sister would be her word against his right now. Her brave, stupid mission had just gone up in flames. She should never have left England, never left her sister’s side.
Sexy Billionaires Page 18