“Sicily? You and I are going to—”
“Right. You and I, and a pilot.”
That was when Anna saw the sign. Aeroporto Ciampino. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop to weigh her words. She simply swung toward him and said, “No!”
“In fact …” Draco checked his mirror, accelerated, swung around a black van in the lane ahead. “We’re running late. I want to be off the ground before—”
“Listen to me, Draco. I am not flying anywhere with you.”
“We aren’t flying ‘anywhere,’ consigliere, we’re flying to Sicily.”
“Forget the word games! And stop calling me consigliere.”
“It’s what you are, aren’t you?”
“I am not my father’s counselor. I am not even his lawyer. I’m his daughter, and I am not letting you take me to Sicily.”
“Wow,” Draco said, his voice thick with sarcasm, “so much information in one breath! I’m impressed.”
“Damn you, Valenti—”
Anna gave a little cry as he swung the wheel hard to the right, pulled onto the shoulder of the road and put the car in neutral.
“Frankly,” he said, turning toward her, his eyes, his words, cold, “I don’t care what you call yourself, lady. You came to Italy to do a job for your old man. You made threats. You—”
“Threats?” Anna laughed. “What, do you think I’m carrying a pistol? That I’m going to put a gun to your head and—”
Draco moved fast. Too fast for her to protest. One heartbeat, he was sitting next to her; the next, he’d pulled her half over the gear shift and into his arms.
“I know every inch of you,” he said in a low voice. His hand swept up her side, cupped her breast; Anna gasped and tried to slap his hand away, but he wouldn’t let her. “So, no, I don’t think you’re going to threaten me physically.” His eyes grew dark and hot. “Hell,” he growled, “you’re already a physical threat, Anna. When you’re in my arms, when you’re looking at me the way you are now, Dio, I can’t think straight.”
“I don’t know what you mean. And you’d better let go of me, Valenti. Let go, or—”
Draco cupped the back of her head and brought her mouth to his. Anna stiffened, tried to twist away … and then she moaned, wound her arms around his neck and sucked his tongue into her mouth.
The kiss was long and deep; it left her shaken. When Draco finally drew back, she was trembling.
“This is crazy,” she whispered. “Just plain crazy! We cannot—”
“Yes,” Draco said roughly, “we can.”
“One minute we’re enemies. The next … the next—”
He kissed her again, his lips gentle on hers, so gentle that she wanted to sigh, to melt, to stay in his arms not so much for the sexual pleasure she knew he could bring her but for the simple joy of feeling his arms around her.
The thought was unsettling, and she tore her lips from his. He let her do it, let her turn her head and lay it against his chest.
“Please.” Her voice was low, almost breathless. “Please, Draco. Don’t.”
Draco held Anna close, one hand stroking her hair, the other on the small of her back.
He was a man who’d had considerable experience with women. Perhaps that was putting it modestly. He’d been with a lot of women, all of them willing and eager. Sometimes, despite all the talk of women meaning what they said, women who said “don’t” meant just the opposite.
“Don’t,” a woman might say, even as she put her hand over your fly. “Don’t,” she’d say, even as she moaned into your mouth and rubbed against you. “Don’t,” she’d whisper, when she wanted you to tell her why she should be saying “Do.”
That was how he knew, with all the instincts of a man holding an aroused woman in his arms, that “don’t” was not what Anna really meant.
She wanted him.
He could hear it in her voice, feel it in the way she trembled in his arms, in the way she remained curled tightly against him. One more drugging kiss. One more caress and she would whisper his name, lift her mouth to his, kiss him with all the passion he knew was in her.
But he didn’t kiss her, or touch her. Instead, he went on holding her, his eyes closed, his face buried in her hair. Long moments went by before he raised his head.
“Anna.”
She sighed. Then she sat up and her eyes met his.
His heart turned over.
Delicate and strong, his Anna. His beautiful, beautiful Anna.
“Anna.” Draco stroked back the riot of curls that had come loose from her ponytail. “Something is happening with us, bellissima.”
Anna shook her head.
“We’re attracted to each other,” she said quickly. “Why make it sound so unusual?”
She was right. There was nothing unusual in a man and a woman desiring each other. So why did her swift denial anger him?
Draco sat up straight. Checked for traffic, then pulled onto the road.
“We both want more of what happened last night,” he said brusquely. “Don’t waste time denying it, Anna. You know I’m speaking the truth.”
Anna smoothed back her hair, redid the ponytail, folded her hands in her lap.
Damnit, why were they shaking?
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “There’s still the land.”
“Exactly. That’s why we’re going to Sicily. We’ll settle this thing once and for all. And then—”
“And then,” Anna said firmly, “I’ll go home.”
The plane was a small private jet, all leather and luxury inside. The pilot and Draco shook hands, Draco introduced Anna, all of it done with the politeness of people doing business for the first time.
Not Draco’s plane, then, Anna thought as she settled into her seat.
“It’s a rental,” Draco said as if she’d spoken the thought aloud. “Mine is en route to Rome, from Hawaii.”
Rome. Hawaii. Sicily, and hadn’t some of the documents in her father’s file carried a San Francisco address?
The prince knew his way around the world.
Around women, too. That was why she felt so confused. It wasn’t him. Or rather it was, but not because of anything special he made her feel. She was confused because he was so suave, so sophisticated, so damned smooth. She knew men who thought they were all those things, but she’d never known one like Draco.
And that was over.
She’d come to Italy on business, and this trip to Sicily wasn’t going to change that.
A couple of hours from now she’d have seen whatever earthshaking thing he wanted her to see, and then Rome and Sicily and Prince Draco Valenti would be history.
Wrong. W-r-o-n-g. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The flight took just a little over an hour. Draco had arranged for a rental car to be waiting at Catania for the drive to Taormina. It was some kind of sturdy-looking SUV, and once they were under way, Anna understood why he’d chosen it.
Put simply, the roads.
Taormina was a tourist destination. She’d had, at least, enough time to determine that before setting off for Rome. And from what she saw of it as they drove through, it was charming. Cobbled streets, winding alleyways, the incredible blue of the Ionian Sea and, of course, the breathtakingly beautiful Mount Etna, the heat of its volcanic breath rising against a cloudless sky.
Then they left the town behind.
The road grew narrower and rougher. It twisted around mountains, clung to rocky slopes, climbed and climbed and climbed.
“I thought the Orsini land was in Taormina,” Anna said as she tried to keep from clinging to the edges of her seat.
Draco looked at her.
“My land, you mean.”
Anna rolled her eyes.
“Could you just answer the question? Is it in Taormina or isn’t it?”
“Sure. More or less. Definitions of what is and isn’t a boundary line are a little less stringent here than in Rome. Or Manhattan.”
“Shouldn’t we have stopped at the town
hall? Or wherever it is they keep real estate records?”
“They keep records, all right. Some go back a couple of thousand years.”
Anna raised an eyebrow. “Well, then—”
“My lawyers sent copies of all that stuff to your father weeks and weeks ago. Didn’t you read it?”
“I did,” she said, lying through her teeth. “And nothing I read changed my mind. I only meant it might be helpful to have the deed, whatever, with us right now.”
Draco nodded.
“I sent your old man photos, too. Did he pass those along to you?”
Photos. Photos? Anna did a quick mental review of the material she’d seen.
“What kind of photos?”
Draco took his hand off the gearshift and held it out to her. “What do you see?”
What, indeed?
A strong, very masculine hand. Tanned skin. Long fingers. Without warning, she thought of how those fingers had felt, learning the curves of her body.
“What do you see?” he demanded.
Anna looked away.
“A hand. Am I supposed to congratulate you for having one instead of a tentacle?”
He laughed. “Nice.”
“Thank you,” she said primly. “I thought so.”
“Look again.”
“Listen, Valenti, you may find this amusing, but—”
He put his hand on her thigh. She swallowed hard. His hand was hot. So hot. She could feel its heat straight through her jeans.
“See this ring?”
Anna looked down. Yes. She saw it. The ring he wore was obviously old. Very old. It was made of gold. And it had a …
“Is that a crest?” She looked at Draco. “I never saw you wear that ring before.”
He took his hand away, downshifted, took the SUV through a hairpin curve that left Anna certain they were going to fall into the sea.
“I don’t wear it,” Draco said, his eyes on the road, his voice low. “I’m not into jewelry. Besides, it is irreplaceable.”
“Irreplaceable?”
“There hasn’t been another like it for a thousand years.”
Anna blinked. “A thousand …”
“Sì.”
She looked at the ring again. “And the crest?”
Draco cleared his throat. “The Valenti crest. The mark of my family. The mark that is on the once-crumbling pile of marble my father brought to near ruin in Rome.”
“I don’t understand. What has that to do with—”
He braked. Hard. The SUV jerked to a stop.
“Look,” he said.
It was hard to take her eyes from Draco, but finally she did.
And caught her breath.
Ahead was a castle. Or what remained of a castle. A tower. Wide stone steps. Ancient stone walls. The ruins were stark against the blue of the sky.
Draco opened his door and stepped out of the SUV. So did Anna. He held out his hand; she hesitated. Then she took it and they walked slowly across the clearing.
“Look at the wall,” he said. “Do you see what is chiseled in it? There, just above the steps.”
Anna looked at the wall. Her breath caught. “It’s—it’s the crest.”
He nodded. “The deed, if you will, and more telling than any piece of paper—though there are those, too.”
A falcon called out high above them, its cry poignant and chill.
“This was once a great castle,” Draco said softly. “My great-great who knows how many times great-grandfather built it. He was not like my father, or my father’s father, who brought dishonor to our name. He was a man others respected, you understand? He cared for his people, defended them and this place against robbers, against barbarians, he and his sons and the sons of his sons. But eventually all things end. Invaders came from across the sea.” Draco took a long breath. “The land and the castle were lost. After that, who knows? Somehow a Valenti prince put down roots in Rome. Maybe he forgot this place existed. Maybe he wanted to forget it.” Draco shook his head. “I didn’t know anything about the castle, the land, or the Valenti connection to Sicily until a year or so ago.”
“How did you find out?”
“I was in Palermo on business. After a couple of days I felt the need to get away for a few hours. So I rented a car, took a drive ….”
“And ended up here.”
Draco nodded. “It was by accident, I know, but I drove around that last curve, saw this ruin … I don’t know how to say it. It seemed somehow familiar. Crazy, perhaps, but I got out of the car, walked up to these steps …”
Anna traced her fingers lightly over the crest chiseled into the stone. Then she put her hand on Draco’s arm. His muscles were tight as steel.
“No,” she said softly, “not crazy at all.” She smiled when he took his gaze from the ruins of what had surely once been a magnificent castle and looked, instead, at her. “You walked to the steps, and you saw the Valenti crest.”
Draco nodded. “Yes.” He shrugged as if it were not important, but the darkness in his eyes told her that it was. “I don’t know if you can understand what it was like to discover that I carry the blood of brave, good men in my veins.”
Could she understand? Anna wanted to laugh. Or maybe cry.
“I understand all too well,” Anna said gently. “And now you’re going to restore the castle.”
A muscle knotted in his jaw.
“Yes. Sì. I am.” His smile was fleeting. “Trust me, bellissima. My architect and builder assure me that this wish is crazy.”
Was this truly Prince Draco Valenti? Did her arrogant, take-no-prisoners aristocrat actually have a heart?
Not that he was hers. Not that she would want him to be hers. There was nothing logical to that idea, nothing rational about it …
“I know succeeding in this is important to you, Anna. Securing the land for your family, I mean. But—”
To hell with logic.
Anna grasped Draco’s shirt, lifted herself to him and pressed her lips to his.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE drive back to Catania seemed to take forever.
How could it not, when Draco kept pulling the SUV onto the shoulder of the road so he could draw Anna into his arms and kiss her?
He kept telling himself that the exquisite torture would end once they boarded the plane. Then they’d have all the privacy they needed.
He gathered her into his arms as soon as they were in the air.
She came to him with hot eagerness, straddling him, her kisses wild and abandoned, her hands on him and his on hers until he made a sound that was half groan, half laugh, leaned his forehead against hers and said, “Bellissima. You’re killing me.”
“Am I?” she whispered, and the delight in her voice made him laugh again.
“You know you are.” He pressed his lips to the hollow of her throat, felt the swift race of her blood just beneath the delicate skin. “Anna. I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you.” He paused. “But we’re going to wait.” He wrapped his arms around her, gathered her tightly against him. She was trembling, Dio, so was he. He kissed her hair, her temple, her eyes. “We are going to wait until we are alone. Until there is all the time in the world for us.”
For us. Anna closed her eyes, buried her face in his shoulder, inhaled the glorious scent of him, of his arousal.
“I want you in my bed, not on a plane, not in a hotel room.” He gave a soft laugh. “It makes no sense, I know, but—but that is what I want, Anna. You and me and a quiet place that belongs only to us.”
Gently he cupped the back of her head, tilted it so that their eyes met.
“I love having sex with you,” he said gruff ly. “But it’s time to make love.”
What he’d said hung between them. He hadn’t planned it; he wasn’t even sure what it meant. He only knew that it was true. He, the pragmatist, the man who thought making love was a phrase used by romantic fools, wanted to do exactly that.
Now he waited for Anna’s
answer. He stroked his hand the length of her back, soothing her, steadying himself. Waited for her to tell him he was wrong, that sex was sex, that she didn’t want to be in his bed, to lie in his arms, that all she wanted was quick, passionate release ….
“Yes,” she whispered. Her lips curved in a tender smile. “Take me to your bed, Draco. And make love to me.”
Something inside him took wing. “Anna,” he said, “il mio amore …”
He kissed her. Kissed her deeply. And held her in his arms all the way to Rome.
The night was very dark, the ancient Appian Way lit only by a quarter moon and a scattering of stars that some ancient god might have tossed against the firmament.
The tall pines sighed at the caress of a warm summer breeze.
Draco led Anna through the shadow-filled silence of his villa, to his bedroom, where he turned on a lamp that shed a pale, ethereal glow over the bed.
Then he took her hands and drew her to him.
Dio, how lovely she was! Her hair streamed down her back in long, loose curls of palest gold. Her blue eyes glittered as she raised them to his. She was beautiful beyond any woman he had ever known.
Even her name was beautiful, he thought, and he spoke it now as she came into his arms.
He bent to her and kissed her.
She rose on her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck and returned kiss for kiss.
It was almost as if they had never been intimate before. He knew Anna felt it, too; she looked up at him, her lips delicately parted, her eyes luminous and filled with questions.
The questions weren’t hers alone.
Last night had been incredible. Such passion. Such desire. But this—this was not the same. It was a different kind of passion, a new kind of desire. It was a storm, building inside him.
The seconds ticked away. Then Anna stepped back and reached for the hem of her T-shirt.
He caught her wrists, brought her hands to his lips, kissed each with lingering tenderness.
“I want to undress you,” he said in a low voice.
A tremor went through her. “Yes,” she whispered, “oh yes.”
He caught hold of the bottom of the shirt, eased it up, drew her free of it and tossed it aside.
His heart turned over.
Her bra was pale peach silk, almost the color of her skin. Her breasts swelled above the delicate cups. Ripe fruit, awaiting the touch of his hands, the heat of his mouth.
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