His dark eyes narrowed to slits, but the startled annoyance glittering in the dark depths was mingled with reluctant admiration as he registered the mockery shining in her eyes. ‘You are a very aggravating female.’
She glared back up at him, torn between exhilaration and exasperation and wishing that he’d yelled—not used that purring tone which made more places than the soles of her feet tingle. ‘And you,’ she declared, dumping diplomacy in favour of bluntness, ‘are much more likely to be the cause of the break-up of your sister’s marriage than I am!’
His lips curled. ‘Me…?’ He dismissed her words with a shrug of his magnificent shoulders. ‘You think you can shift the blame that easily?’ A suspicious expression slid into his deep-set eyes. ‘You are talking as though a break-up is inevitable…?’
When Sam turned her head away, her lips tight, Alessandro placed a finger under her chin and drew her face round to him. His narrowed eyes scanned her angry face.
‘What do you know…?’ he demanded, his voice dropping in volume in direct proportion to the degree of threat in his tone.
‘Like I’d tell you if I did know anything,’ she retorted, pulling her chin free.
Her breath coming in short, angry gasps that made her chest rise and fall in tune with her rapid respirations, Sam planted her hands on her hips and angled an angry glare up at him, her eyes flashing green fire.
‘Oh, you will tell me…’
At that moment Sam was willing to do just about anything to wipe that confident smirk off his impossibly good-looking face. ‘Brought your thumbscrews with you, did you?’
Before he could confirm or deny this a giggling couple carrying glasses of wine came around the corner. They saw Alessandro and Sam and stopped dead.
‘Oops—pretend we’re not here!’ said the girl, grabbing her partner’s hand and winking at Sam before she dragged him away.
‘Oh, God!’ groaned Sam, burying her face in her hands. ‘Just what I need.’ Pam Sullivan was the sort of gossip who could make the most innocent incident sound salacious.
‘You’re right—we need some privacy.’
Sam’s head came up, her expression horrorstruck. She needed privacy with Alessandro Di Livio the same way she needed cellulite!
‘That place over there—what is it?’ He nodded towards a section of tiled roof just visible beyond a large shrubbery.
‘It’s the gazebo, I think.’ The original intention had been for a band to be situated there, so that the guests could listen while they sat or strolled around the lovely grounds. Then the weather had intervened and things had been hastily transferred indoors.
‘It will suit our purposes,’ he announced.
God, if Pam had heard that it would have made her year. ‘Look,’ Sam said, deciding it was time to inject a little reality into the conversation, ‘the only place I’m going is back indoors. I’m freezing cold, and this conversation—such as it is—is over.’
She froze and looked at the hand on her arm. A strong, shapely hand, with long, tapering fingers. Having it touching her without any sort of warning switched her brain into mush mode.
‘Yes, you are cold,’ he agreed, sliding one brown finger under the neck of her blouse. It slid slowly across the bony prominence of her collarbone before moving back to the hollow at the base of her throat. The blue-veined pulse there was throbbing so hard that he couldn’t fail to feel it.
Had her brain not already been mush, she might have noticed that his fingers lingered there a lot longer than was strictly necessary—not that it mattered. The damage was done in the first micro-second of contact.
It had an electric effect—almost literally! It was, Sam mused, as she tried to focus her hazy thoughts, like being plugged into the mains. It took the space of a heartbeat for the shock to travel all the way to her curling toes.
‘I don’t want your jacket.’ Actually, there were other things she wanted less—things like the surge of lustful longing that was making her ache in every cell of her body. But a lifetime of focusing on good things enabled her to look on the bright side: now that he was no longer touching her, her paralysed vocal cords had started working.
Acting as if she hadn’t spoken—no change there—he carried on shrugging off the beautifully tailored pale grey jacket he wore. Draping it over her shoulders, he placed a hand in the small of her back and propelled her in the direction of the gazebo.
‘You don’t take no for an answer, do you?’ His jacket retained the warmth of his body and held the faint, elusive fragrance that was exclusively him—a mingling of the masculine fragrance he favoured, soap, and warm male.
Standing there in his silk shirt, he appeared not to notice the cold—even though the fabric was fine enough for her almost to see through. She could definitely see the strategic drift of dark body hair on his chest, and the suggestion of muscle definition on his taut washboard belly.
Ashamed of what amounted to a fascination with his body, Sam—painfully aware that her cheeks were burning—turned her head to one side. Well, as far as she was concerned he could freeze to death—and good riddance!
‘This is ridiculous,’ she muttered under her breath, thinking, He’s not a man, he’s a darned force of nature. Despite the fact that saying no to him had as much impact as saying no to a hurricane, she was uneasily aware that she ought to have at least tried. The casual observer might have been forgiven for jumping to the conclusion that she actually wanted to prolong their time together.
A comment Emma had made not long after she’d met the man she was eventually to marry popped into Sam’s head. ‘You know, Sam, I have more fun fighting with Paul than having sex with any other man. Makes me wonder what the sex will be like…Actually, I started wondering that about five seconds after I met him.’
When Sam had admitted with a touch of envy that she’d never met a stranger who had that effect on her, Emma had laughed and said with total conviction that she would one day.
Though exposed on one side, the gazebo did offer some protection from the elements. Once inside, Alessandro took her by the shoulders and spun her to face him. Leaving his hands where they were, he looked down into her face.
Chapter Four
OH, GOD, did today have to be the day? And did he have to be this stranger?
‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he asked.
I was trying to imagine what it would be like having sex with you, was clearly out, and she wasn’t sure if her voice even worked, so Sam shook her head, and inside his jacket carried on trembling. She had no intention of surrendering to her darkest urges even had the opportunity arisen. And she supposed to some people the gazebo, tucked away from prying eyes, might represent that opportunity.
Actually, the fact she had dark urges at all was a bit of shock-horror revelation. The urges she felt for Jonny could not be described as dark, she mused. Those feelings were a lot more wholesome and easier to handle. Also, there was a certain safety in fantasising about a man who had never noticed you had breasts.
While Alessandro didn’t like her, and actually seemed pretty much to despise her, Sam did get the impression he knew…
‘This situation is easily resolved. Just tell me what you know.’
Shamefully aware of the ache and burning tingle in her shamelessly engorged breasts, Sam crossed her hands across her chest in a protective gesture.