A mouth that already felt disconcertingly familiar. She could still taste it. Her tongue even made a passing swipe at her lips in response to the thought.
Headlights lit up the car’s interior again, dragging her attention back to his eyes. They’d narrowed and were watching her like a hawk waiting to pin its next victim. Rachel’s breathing fell into small jerky fits. Her heart was pounding. He was frighteningly exciting to look at, all well cared for male with just the right balance between sensational good looks and raw masculinity.
Her mouth had to part to aid her quick breathing. He dropped his gaze and the result was a tingling quiver across her lips that sent the tip of her tongue nervously chasing it. Sexual awareness was suddenly alive and cluttering the atmosphere. Rachel felt her breasts grow heavy, their tips pushing out with a terrible knowing sting. He flicked those eyes back to hers again and he knew—he knew!
Then the traffic lights decided to change, demanding that he set them moving. She watched as if mesmerised as his dark head shifted back into profile, watched his long-fingered hands as he flipped the car into a slick right turn. More seconds ticked by and her chest felt as if it was burning beneath the pressure she was placing on it by barely breathing at all now.
‘The name means plenty to me,’ he finally answered. ‘And you are not Elise.’
No, Rachel knew she wasn’t Elise. She was her younger, less pretty, more sensible half-sister.
More sensible—when? She then scoffed at that. Sensible women did not get themselves into situations like this. Sensible women steered clear of the complicated love lives of others—and especially of frighteningly sexy men like him!
Sensible women did not fall in love with handsome Italians with a rich repertoire of words of love and a killer seduction technique—yet she had done it.
She had to close her eyes as an image of Alonso suddenly appeared in front of her. Tall, dark, beautiful Alonso, who had been so warm and attentive and flatteringly possessive when they had been out together, and so excitingly intense and passionate when naked with her in bed. They’d spent six glorious weeks living together in his apartment overlooking Naples. He’d vowed he loved her. ‘I love you—ti’amo mia bella cara …’ he’d murmured to her in his rich, dark, accented voice and she’d known without a doubt that she loved him.
Rachel shivered.
It was only when the time had come for her to return to England and he’d said, ‘We had a wonderful time, hmm, amore? It is a shame it now has to end,’ that she’d understood what a stupid, gullible, naïve fool she had been.
‘I said you are not Elise,’ this other Italian with the rich, dark accent prompted.
Rachel opened her eyes and let the real world back in. ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘But very few people will be able to tell that from behind …’
A bell of understanding suddenly clanged loud in Raffaelle’s head. Next to come was an action replay of the way this woman had thrown herself on him, followed by several camera flashes. Like a wild beast sniffing danger in the atmosphere, he picked up the scent of a deliberately constructed scandal involving him and the very married Elise.
But it was a scandal he believed he had already diverted. As far as he was aware, the lovely Elise had seen the error of her ways after his last spiked conversation with her on the telephone before he’d broken all contact with her and made his quick exit from London back to Milan. The grapevine, via Daniella, said she had not been seen on the social circuit since.
So what was this devious creature up to? Why had she gone to so much trouble to make out for the camera that she was Elise?
‘Explain,’ he commanded.
Not this side of midnight, Rachel thought tensely and clamped her lips together. Having come this far, she was not about to scupper everything by getting Mark’s story pulled before going to print.
She’d already revealed more than she should have done.
‘Look …’ she heaved out instead. ‘You’re not an idiot, Mr Villani. You must know you’re asking for trouble taking me against my will like this—so just stop the car and let me out now.’
‘Not a chance in hell,’ he refused.
And the way he turned his head to slide his eyes up her legs had Rachel tugging jerkily at the short skirt of her dress. She knew that look. It was as old as the human race. She’d let him see her attraction to him; now he was looking over the goods on offer.
‘If you honestly think—!’
‘Changing your mind about the hit, cara?’ he taunted. ‘Wondering if you might have bitten off more than you can chew with me? Well, let me confirm that you have done.’ His voice hardened. ‘You made the hit. I bought it. Now you are going to play it my way.’
‘You’re crazy,’ she whispered.
Maybe he was, Raffaelle conceded. But no woman—no woman—played games with him and got away with it!
‘I’m getting out of this car—’ Rachel reached for the door handle. The automatic lock gave a clunk as it fell into place at the same time that he increased their speed.
True—true unfettered fear began to scream in her head as it finally began to sink in what a stupid, crazy, dangerous situation she had managed to get herself into here. What did she know about Raffaelle Villani, other than the details fed to her by Mark and Elise? How did she know he wasn’t some kind of mega-rich sex maniac prowling Europe unhindered because his money could buy his victims’ silence.
Just as he said, he had bought her …
Her skin began to creep, her fingers closing tightly around her small clutch bag so they felt the reassurance of her cellphone.
How much time did she need to call the police before he reacted?
She dared a quick glance at him, heart hammering, fingers tensely toying with the clasp on her bag. He didn’t look like a lunatic, just a very angry man—which he had every right to be, she was forced to admit.
‘Your partner in crime did not hang around to protect you,’ he taunted grimly next.
He had to mean Mark. ‘You don’t—’
‘Unless he is in one of the cars following behind us, that is …’
Cars—? Rachel twisted around to peer through the rear window.
‘There are three back there I can pick out as belonging to the paparazzi,’ she was told. ‘And there are most likely more of them following not far behind them.’
Twisting forward again, she stared at him. ‘But why should they want to follow us?’
‘You are not that naïve,’ he derided the question, flicking his eyes from the rear-view mirror and back to the road ahead. ‘Or you would not have chosen Raffaelle Villani to pull your life-wrecking stunt.’
Life wrecking—? ‘N-no.’ Rachel gave an urgent shake of her head. ‘You don’t understand. This was not—’
‘Not that it matters,’ he interrupted. ‘We are here now.’
As in where—? Even as Rachel thought the question, one of those shiny new apartment blocks that flanked the river loomed up close. With a spin of the wheel he sent the car sweeping on to its forecourt. He stopped it hard on its brakes and was already out of the car and striding around it to open her door.
Rachel didn’t move. She was trembling like mad and her heart was thundering. She didn’t look at him either, but just stared starkly ahead.
‘Do you get out yourself or do I have to lift you?’ he demanded.
Since