‘Have you lived here long?’ he asked and she relaxed further as the conversation moved onto far safer ground.
She looked around the lounge, her heart warming at the comfort and beauty of this little room.
‘I moved here straight out of University,’ she said with a small nod. ‘I thought I’d stay only a year or so, but then the cottage came on the market and, what can I say, it was love at first sight,’ she said, looking fondly around the small lounge, with its low ceiling and unevenly rendered walls.
‘I can see why,’ he drawled cynically and she laughed.
‘You sound just like my brother!’
Carlo had been just as scathing about the ‘relic’. ‘Why don’t you buy some land and build something bigger? You’re a diSalvo, cara, and this place isn’t fit for a mangy dog.’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh, only in so much as he didn’t really like Bumblebee Cottage. He’s far more into luxury and glamour.’
‘And you’re not?’ Antonio enquired.
‘What do you think?’ she asked with a lifted brow and a half-smile, gesturing around the room.
‘I think the house is charming,’ he supplied, leaning forward a little, and his ankle brushed hers, probably by accident, but the effect was the same as if it had been intentional. She sat up straighter, her eyes finding his, a plea and a question in them. ‘And so is the occupant,’ he added, and now the charge of electricity that flared between them was unmistakably mutual.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat, her eyes round like saucers. His foot brushed hers and now she knew it wasn’t an accident she told herself she should pull away. Remove her legs from his reach. Do something, anything, to show him she didn’t welcome his presumptuous advances.
But oh, how she welcomed them. How she welcomed him.
‘Thank you.’
It was hard to think straight in that moment. Her body was charged, her senses in complete disarray, and she was left wondering at the bizarre circumstances that had brought this billionaire tycoon to her door right at the moment when she’d been at risk of sinking into thoughts of loneliness and the pervasive emptiness that came with being alone.
‘Well, Antonio—’ his name made husky by her too-dry throat ‘—perhaps you should tell me why you’re here?’
* * *
He had come to Bumblebee Cottage expecting to hate her. She was a diSalvo; it was written in the stars that he would hate her. Only he didn’t.
And not only did he not hate her; he was actually enjoying himself. He was finding it hard to keep his mind to himself, to concentrate on business when she was smiling at him and joking with him, and when her huge blue eyes kept dropping to his chest, roaming over his breadth as though she were starving and he the only meal around for miles.
And what would she say when he told her the truth of their relationship? What would she say when he explained what he needed from her?
Would she understand? Or would she tell him to get the hell out? Then he’d have to enact plan B, and her smiles would disappear when she realised how close he’d brought her brother to breaking point. And how much he was enjoying that knowledge.
How long had it been since he’d been with a woman? Months. Many months. His father’s illness had been sudden and, between the company and Javier’s demise, Antonio had barely had time for the distraction of women.
Did that explain the undercurrent of desire that was swirling around them? Was that the reason he was reluctant to tell her why he’d come?
It was the last thing he’d planned for, but now that he sat opposite Amelia diSalvo he wanted to shelve business and his drive for revenge. Just for a moment. Just for a night.
A temporary delay, that was all, while he enjoyed her company. What was the harm in that?
‘Antonio?’ she prompted.
He sipped his wine thoughtfully. ‘Our grandfathers were friends,’ he said slowly, testing her, interested to see what she knew of the feud.
‘Were they?’ Her nose wrinkled, and his gut kicked. Damn it, she was distracting.
‘A long time ago.’
‘And that’s why you’re here?’ she prompted.
‘In part.’
Her look was teasing. ‘Are we playing a guessing game?’
‘We can do,’ he murmured. ‘Let me guess what you’re doing in a village like this,’ he murmured.
‘You don’t like it here?’
‘It’s a far cry from the life you must have lived in Rome.’
‘Why do you say that?’
His eyes glittered and with effort he kept the disdain from his voice. ‘You’re a diSalvo,’ he said with the appearance of calm. ‘And this cottage is...not.’
She laughed again, a genuine sound of pleasure. ‘True.’
Then her eyes fixed on his and he let the silence surround them, aware it was affecting her as much as it was him.
‘I feel like I know you,’ she said finally, simply, with a sense of surrender that made his body tighten. ‘That’s crazy, isn’t it?’
Yes. It was. Everything about this was. She was a part of something he wanted, with all his being, to destroy, and yet in that moment all he could think about was her soft pillowy lips and how they’d feel beneath his. About the fact she was staring at him with huge eyes and her chest was heaving with the force of her breathing.
‘I must be losing my mind,’ she said, blinking her eyes as if waking from a dream. And then she sipped her wine before offering him a smile that was part self-deprecating and part the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. What the hell was he thinking, letting himself be so distracted by her, and the way the air around them seemed to crackle and hum? He’d come here with a purpose—a plan he’d set in motion long ago, and nothing was going to derail that.
‘My grandfather’s name was Enrique Herrera. Has your father ever mentioned him?’
She blinked, her huge blue eyes showing obvious confusion. Outside, the rain was falling heavier now but he was barely conscious of it. ‘No.’
That was strange. How could Amelia know nothing of a feud that had dominated both his and Carlo’s lives?
‘We weren’t big on tête-à-tête,’ she explained with a shrug of her slender shoulders that drew his attention to the fine, soft curve of her neck and the hint of cleavage revealed by her simple shirt. Then her eyes lifted to his and his body tightened, his arousal straining against his trousers.
Antonio had spent his adult life moving the pieces into place to destroy Carlo diSalvo, and this woman was a vital part of that. Only through her would he gain control of the one company he desperately wanted and finally avenge the feud that had destroyed his father. Only through appealing to her and then, if it came to it, blackmailing her, would he achieve his goal.
So why was he finding it impossible to sharpen his focus? Because he’d been celibate for months, he told himself. Because he’d been focused on easing his father’s last few months of life, and then mourning him appropriately. And now, on acquiring the company that would set all of this to rights.
‘My