She blinked, faltering, trying to understand. Crushed against him, she suddenly became aware of the power he had over her. Power to bend her to his will. Power, also, to arouse her with his hard, male body that burned like a furnace of intense heat against hers. She was consumed by him. Drowning in wanting.
Desperately she tried to keep her mind clear. ‘What risk? If I’m not to collect Carlo and take him home, then why on earth have you brought me here?’ she stumbled. ‘This is a nightmare!’ she moaned. Helplessly she gazed up at him. ‘I’ve long since stopped trying to understand you!’
He released her, his eyes glittering with anger behind his lowered lashes. Yet his lips had curved and parted as if he contemplated kissing her till she couldn’t breathe. Awash with his compelling sexuality, she blinked in confusion, trying to make sense of this contradiction. And put it down to his high libido.
‘And I, you,’ he muttered, his mouth now cruel. ‘Pay attention. This is my proposition.’
‘You expect me to sleep with you?’ she blurted out in panic, knowing she’d shamefully betray her need for him if he ever tried to caress her.
Dante immediately flinched, as though the idea was repulsive. ‘You were a little quick to come up with that suggestion,’ he taunted. ‘Is that what you’ve been banking on? That sheer lust would drive us together again?’
‘N-no!’ she husked.
But to her eternal shame her eyes gave the lie to that, and his contemptuous expression told her that he’d recognised the needs of her throbbing body.
‘You can forget the idea. I do not touch soiled goods,’ he clipped in contempt. ‘My standards are above that. I have never understood the need for men to resort to whores.’
‘This is the mother of your son you are talking about,’ she whispered, appalled that he should regard her in such low esteem.
‘And don’t I regret that you are!’ he snapped, smoothing down his shirt and adjusting his jacket, which had been disarrayed by her frenzied attack. ‘Whatever your ice-queen appearance may suggest to the contrary, I know how eager you are for sex. I have personal experience of your wantonness. And your wild outburst just now shows that you are ruled by passions you cannot control—’
‘You’re denying me my child!’ she cried, white-faced and terrified. ‘Any woman would go crazy with grief—!’
‘Spare me the hearts and flowers,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t buy that one. The trouble is, Miranda, you didn’t hear me out. You were too ready to condemn me, to jump to conclusions. You cannot deny that I have Carlo’s interests at heart.’
‘Only in your own, twisted way,’ she retorted sulkily.
He glared. ‘I’ll ignore that. Unfortunately, where my son’s interests are concerned, it seems I have to take you into account.’
The breath left her lungs. She stared at him warily. Yes. He would come up with a solution—and if it included her… Oh, God! What was his Machiavellian mind focused on now?
With a trembling hand she slicked dislodged strands of pale hair back into her chignon, playing for time, for a moment to think.
‘Let me know when you are satisfied with your appearance,’ Dante drawled, ‘and I’ll tell you something to your advantage.’
She met his mocking gaze head-on and wished her glare could fell him on the spot. ‘Spit it out.’
Italian through and through, he winced at her deliberate choice of phrase. ‘Sit,’ he snapped, as if talking to a disobedient dog.
Naturally she remained standing. In proud defiance she lifted her chin and drew up the whole slender length of her body. His eyes dropped to her heaving breasts, then the neat, wasp waist. It felt as if he was branding her, the caress of his gaze as it slid over her curving hips forcing her to squeeze her thighs together in an attempt to deny her shameful response.
She only hoped that he couldn’t read the signals of her treacherous body. In case he thought she was a pushover, she spoke more forcefully than necessary.
‘I won’t be bullied—not by you or anybody!’ she seethed. Her ice-blue eyes simmered with silvery lights and she lifted her chin high in defiance.
And, thunderously angry for some reason, he turned and walked to the window, his usually liquid movements strangely jerky and uncoordinated. The set of his broad shoulders was daunting, however, and she bit her lip.
That was what he wanted, she thought. To dominate her. To teach her that no one ever crossed him and came away laughing.
Mutinously, she scowled. She hadn’t done anything wrong. One day she’d discover what had happened to her that night. And she’d make Dante apologise for doubting her. He’d grovel—she’d see to that!
‘Carlo needs you,’ he stated in a distant, chillingly frosty voice.
‘At least we agree on something,’ she said sharply.
‘Therefore,’ he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken, ‘I have decided that you will live here.’
Her eyes widened as her jaw dropped. Seconds ticked away before she could jerk out an astonished,
‘What?’
In a haughty gesture he swung back on his heel to face her.
‘You will have total access to him,’ Dante went on as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘You—you’re letting me have him?’ she gasped, her face suddenly radiant with hope.
The black eyes flashed and his mouth tightened.
‘No.’
She slumped down in the chair, feeling as if he’d hurled a bucket of iced water over her. She passed a shaking hand over the smooth silk of her hair.
‘Then what? My patience is exhausted. If you don’t tell me exactly what you’re proposing,’ she grated, ‘I’ll start smashing things.’ With a menacing glare, she picked up a figurine from the desk and held the voluptuous ivory in her cold and trembling hand. ‘Starting with this!’
‘I’m trying to,’ he gritted. ‘I am not finding this easy—’
‘Do you think I care?’ she flung.
His expression became utterly forbidding and closed.
‘No,’ he answered quietly. ‘I don’t think you do. Still, at least that will make your part in this less difficult. You will be able to consider this as a business arrangement.’
‘A…what?’ she gasped.
‘We will be colleagues, as we were once before. It worked well then—’
‘I was your secretary!’ She frowned, puzzled. ‘Is that what you want? I am to work for you?’
‘Not exactly. I don’t think either of us would want the hothouse atmosphere. Me in this chair dictating letters, you sitting there…’
His hoarse rebuttal croaked to a halt. But it had reminded her of the heady days when she was falling in love with him. The way he’d watched her, his dark eyes turning her knees to water, ruining her concentration so that he’d had to come close and go through her shorthand notes, one hand on the back of her chair, his breath whispering on the hairs at the back of her neck.
She gulped and shifted in the seat because of the pooling heat in her loins.
He looked grim, his lips pressed firmly together as though he had loathed the charade he’d had to act out, the pretence of falling in love with his secretary.
Whereas it had been a roller coaster of ecstasy for her. Tense moments of excitement. The thrill of seeing him so