‘No, I don’t...’ she started to say as he relieved her of her glass. But the accidental touch of his fingers against hers robbed the words from her mouth as a bolt of something electric ignited powerful impulses in her blood.
His smile was far too aware.
Though not inexperienced, having had a couple of undemanding relationships in the past, she was still unaware of the dangerous responses she was provoking in such a sophisticated man as Emiliano Cannavaro. She took advantage of the remarkably sudden appearance of a waiter at his side to try and stabilise her senses as he deposited her empty glass on the silver tray.
‘Insignificant is definitely not a word I would apply to you, signorina.’ He was looking at her—not in the leering way a lot of men looked at her because of her far too voluptuous figure, but with the subtlety of a man who was well acquainted with the female anatomy and knew just how to turn it to his advantage.
And how! Lauren remembered now, resenting the way he had made—and could still make—everything that was feminine in her respond readily to the pull of his flagrant masculinity.
‘Nor I you.’ A raw sexual tension made her tongue cleave to the roof of her mouth. ‘But then you know that already.’ She meant it as a barb, reluctant to acknowledge how those eyes that seemed to be penetrating the emerald silk made her breasts grow heavy. But her voice sounded husky from imagining what it would be like to feel those long tanned hands pulling down her zip, and that sensual mouth moving over the screamingly sensitive flesh covering her spine before...
She brought her thoughts up sharply as her nipples swelled inside their strapless cups.
‘What are you doing, Lauren Westwood?’ Through a rush of shaming heat she caught the sensuality in his lowered tones. ‘Trying to ensnare me with those heavy, come-hither eyes as your sister has ensnared poor unsuspecting Angelo?’
She felt herself blushing, certain that he was fully au fait with her body’s shaming responses.
‘As you’ve already pointed out,’ she returned, mortified, yet trying to maintain some degree of equanimity, ‘Angelo Cannavaro’s far from poor. And if you think pledging one’s troth is a form of penal servitude then you have a very cynical view of love and marriage!’
‘Touché,’ he said softly, ‘but I wasn’t talking about a mutual exchange of vows. There are more ways of being ensnared than by just slipping a ring on one’s finger. And it has nothing to do with love...’ he seemed to place an almost derisive emphasis on the word ‘...or even liking.’
Lauren’s body pulsed with the need to retaliate in some way. Because she didn’t like him! She thought it now with as much vehemence as she’d tried convincing herself on that night. Why, then, she remembered wondering, did her breasts ache to feel his touch? And why did the thought of pushing him to the limit and provoking what she guessed would be a frighteningly controlled yet lethal anger have her playing all sorts of outrageous scenarios in her mind? Like tumbling down onto a bed beneath him and quelling their mutual antagonism in the most heated and primeval way?
‘I can assure you that nothing is further from my mind so, rest assured, you’re perfectly safe.’ She flashed him a falsely bright smile, yet knew from the almost indiscernible lifting of an eyebrow that he had picked up on the breathless note in her voice.
‘I don’t know whether to be gratified or disappointed to hear it.’ His smile was cool and mockingly sensual. ‘The question is, Signorina Westwood...are you?’
His meaning was so subtly explicit that Lauren was shocked to feel a deep answering throb in her lower body.
‘I don’t know what you’re...’ Talking about, she started to say, but her sentence was cut in midstream as Vikki Westwood, all gleaming teeth and voluminous blonde hair, suddenly exploded onto the scene.
‘Oh, great! I see you two have already met. Are you going to let on, Emiliano, as to what you think of my sister? Isn’t she gorgeous?’
‘She is.’ Vikki’s words seemed to give those dark eyes licence to tug with leisurely insolence over Lauren’s shamefully aroused body. ‘But I’m afraid we haven’t yet been properly introduced.’
‘Emiliano, this is Lauren, my older and very available sister. Lauren, this is Emiliano Cannavaro. The Emiliano Cannavaro,’ she emphasised with relish. ‘Angelo’s older brother and the head of the Cannavaro dynasty—not to mention the company—since their father died last year.’
Lauren recalled her dismay at finding out that the man she’d been as good as insulting was the one man her sister had previously warned her to be nice to. She was already cringing from the way the younger girl had pointed out her unattached status to him, without being made aware of exactly at whom she had been directing her uncharacteristically barbed remarks.
‘He flew in from Rome to join us tonight and for the wedding tomorrow, even though he’s so busy and it was such short notice and he only touched down less than two hours ago. Wasn’t that good of him?’ Vikki added unnecessarily, although her rushed and effervescent sentence went some way to explaining why Lauren hadn’t noticed him earlier in the evening. ‘But don’t be fooled by all that Italian charisma and irresistible charm because, from what I hear, he doesn’t suffer fools easily. He might look like the perfect gentleman and like a gift from the gods to all womankind but, from what Angelo tells me, he’ll break you if he can. Snap you in half.’ She clicked her tongue and made a meaningful gesture with her hands. ‘Like a twig. So mind how you tread, lovely sister.’ Lauren detected a thread of nervous anxiety in her sister’s warning and in her shrill little laugh. ‘Oh, well. Better circulate. See ya!’ And with that she spun away in a cloud of expensive perfume.
Mortified, Lauren watched her sibling grab another female guest’s arm, saw several air kisses being exchanged.
‘I hope you don’t think that my sister’s outspoken remarks have any bearing on my character,’ Lauren remarked, still recoiling from the way Vikki had referred to her as ‘available’.
‘Meaning?’ Emiliano sent her a slanted look.
‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’
‘You didn’t ask,’ he rebuked her softly, unfazed by the censuring note in her voice. ‘Why? Would it have made any difference to our conversation if you had?’
She considered his question for a moment. Yes, it would, she thought. I would have run like the wind before it took the turn that it did!
‘I thought not,’ Emiliano expressed with that mocking twist to his lips, misunderstanding her hesitation in answering.
‘Is it true what she said?’ She looked up into eyes that were much too dark to be anything but sinful. ‘That you break people?’ She recalled wondering why his own brother would say a thing like that.
Something pulled at the corners of his arresting mouth. ‘Is that what you would like to believe?’
He was much too worldly—way out of her league—and Lauren prayed he hadn’t noticed the way her throat worked nervously before she replied, ‘No, but I think you could.’
She didn’t know why she had said that, but all he did was throw back his proud dark head and laugh.
‘I am afraid that your sister, as
