breath of astonishment and studied him with frowning eyes. ‘But it wouldn’t be right to let you pay those bills.’
Luciano raised a cynical brow. ‘Of course you will be happy for me to settle your debts,’ he countered forcefully. ‘That is the sort of woman you are. Why are you trying to pretend otherwise?’
At that direct and unsettling question, Jemima flushed and hurriedly dropped her eyes. Julie would never have argued against such a benefit. In that he was quite correct. Her twin had always happily taken money to settle her problems and fulfil her dreams and not once had she protested or done anything that would have worked against her own natural interests. So, if Jemima was still set on pretending to be Julie, she had to bite her lip and go with the flow. She tried to take a sensible overview of her situation. The debts Julie had acquired in Jemima’s name were a major source of worry to both her and her parents. To be free of that pressure would be wonderful, she acknowledged guiltily.
‘And quite naturally I don’t want my son’s mother dragged into court over debts or dishonesty,’ Luciano pointed out without hesitation.
But I’m not your son’s mother, she suddenly wanted to tell him, because the web of her deceit was getting thicker and harder to justify. And what would happen if she simply told him the truth now? Would he still take her with them to Sicily? Still offer her the chance to learn how to part gently from the baby she loved? Jemima thought not. She stole a glance at him from below her lashes. She had lied to him. If he found that out, he would be so angry he would snatch up his son and walk away. He wasn’t a forgiving or understanding or tolerant man. Furthermore the only thing she had to offer on his terms was that she was supposedly the mother of his son. Shorn of that borrowed status, she would have no standing whatsoever in his eyes.
‘Obviously not,’ Jemima conceded tightly before she could lose her nerve again. ‘I’ll come to Sicily with Nicky—’
‘Niccolò,’ Luciano corrected without hesitation.
‘He’ll always be Nicky to me,’ she fielded quietly, refusing to give ground.
Something bright flashed in his dark gaze, lighting his eyes gold like the dawn sky, and she stiffened, like a small animal suddenly faced with a predator.
‘Doing what I tell you to do would be a wise move now,’ Luciano spelt out softly, his intent gaze raking down over the fullness of her pink lips, the swell of her tantalising breasts and the slim legs on view. He had never lusted after a woman of her ilk before. What did that say about him? But lust was healthy and indifference was not, he reasoned fiercely, all too reluctant to banish the sexual energy infusing him when for the first time in much longer than he cared to recall he felt alive again.
Suddenly restless, Jemima uncoiled her legs and stood up. ‘You’re trying to intimidate me.’
The golden gaze grew ever more intense. ‘Am I?’
‘I’ll do everything that is reasonable but I won’t be intimidated and I won’t grovel,’ she framed tautly, extraordinarily aware of the darker, deeper note in his rich drawl and the warning flare of his brows.
‘You won’t?’ Luciano’s intonation was soft and slippery as silk brushing her skin as he stalked closer, all predator, all threat.
And she should have backed away, she knew that was what she should do, but a current of inexplicable excitement was quivering up through Jemima and working its own seduction. ‘I won’t,’ she confirmed shakily, her own voice dropping in volume and, to her annoyance, emerging breathily.
‘But the idea of you grovelling at my knees is appealing, piccolo mia,’ Luciano confided huskily, eyes golden and predatory as a raptor’s locked to her upturned face. ‘The image of you giving me pleasure while you’re doing it gives me a high...’
At first, Jemima just couldn’t credit that he had said that to her and then she told herself that he couldn’t possibly have meant that sexual innuendo. A surge of embarrassment and uncertainty caused a burst of colour to fly into her cheeks and she blinked, trying to close him out, trying to rescue her brain from the sudden erotic imagery he had filled it with. That wasn’t something that had ever happened to her before in a man’s presence. She didn’t imagine doing sexual things with men as a rule, but maybe if she had, a little voice whispered, Steven would not have been so stupefied by her infinitely bolder twin. Something about Luciano Vitale got to her on a primal level she had never experienced before.
‘Did you really just say what I thought you said?’ she mumbled unevenly.
A HUSKY LAUGH escaped from Luciano. ‘Is that how you work this spell with men who should know better? You flutter your lashes and blush at will and act naïve? Let’s hit the bottom line and save some time. I don’t want naïve or shy or fake virginal, Jemima. I like women who aren’t afraid to be women...just as I am a man unafraid to admit when I feel like sex.’
Jemima was out of her depth and didn’t know where to look or what to say. She couldn’t admit that she wasn’t a fake virgin and she couldn’t admit to being naïve or shy when Julie hadn’t had a shy or modest bone in her entire body. Julie had treated sexual invitations as ego boosts and had revelled unashamedly in male admiration. For just a moment, Jemima longed for the cool to emulate her late sister, who had taken her looks and sensuality for granted. He felt like sex? Involuntarily she glanced up at him again and a tiny little hot frisson ran up from her feminine core to pinch her nipples taut when she collided with his gleaming golden eyes. She felt the pull of his magnetic force then, the potent, compelling awareness of a powerful sexuality.
‘And equally unafraid to act,’ Luciano imparted, every predatory instinct in his big powerful body fired by her masquerade of innocence as he reached for her, determined to smash that façade that was so very foolish in the circumstances when he knew so much about her true character.
Jemima regained the strength to move a little too late, her paralysed legs moving her clumsily backwards in the unfamiliar room. He had knocked her off her usual calm, rational perch and wrecked her composure with that blunt sexual come-on. He had truly shocked her but he had excited her as well because, on a level Jemima didn’t want to examine, she was hugely flattered by the idea that a male as gorgeous as Luciano Vitale could find her attractive.
As he spoke Luciano reached for her and propelled her back against the door she had almost reached, one hand closing round her shoulder, the other rising to curve to her chin. ‘I like the chase. You’re right about that, piccolo mia,’ he told her incomprehensibly as if she had spoken. ‘But this is the wrong time to run away.’
She was entrapped by his gaze, her chest swelling as she snatched in a needy breath, her throat tight with tension. Luciano Vitale wanted her. Her? The very concept turned her inside out because he was drop-dead beautiful in a way she had never dreamt existed. From the crown of his luxuriant black hair to his stunning eyes and flawless bone structure, he mesmerised her.
‘Your pupils are dilated...’ Luciano breathed, stroking a strand of golden hair back from her brow to tuck it below her ear, shifting closer, bending his dark head.
‘Are they?’ She was so insanely aware of how much taller and stronger he was, she was frozen with her hips welded against the solid wooden door. The lemony scent of his cologne assailed her nostrils. He smelled amazingly good and a ball of heat warmed in her pelvis.
‘I scare
