cold shiver went down her spine. Ciro Sant’Angelo had been kidnapped and brutally assaulted two years ago. Lara had been kidnapped with him, but she’d been released within hours. Dumped at the side of a road outside Florence. It had been the singularly most terrifying thing they’d ever experienced and she’d been the reason it had happened.
For a moment Lara hesitated at the bottom of the steps leading up to a porch and an open front door. She could see black and white tiles in the circular hallway. A grand-looking interior.
‘Mr Sant’Angelo is waiting.’
One of the suited men was extending his arm towards the house. He looked civil enough, but she imagined it was a very superficial civility.
She went up the steps and through the door. A sleek-looking middle-aged woman approached her with a polite smile. ‘Miss Templeton, welcome. Please let me take your things. Mr Sant’Angelo is waiting for you in the lounge.’
Numbly, Lara handed over her hat and bag, barely even noticing the use of her maiden name. She wore a light cape-style coat over her shift dress and she left it on, even though it was warm. She followed the woman, not liking the sensation that she was walking into the lion’s den.
The sensation was only heightened when she saw the tall figure of Ciro, his back to her as he helped himself to a drink from a tray on the far side of the room.
‘Would you like tea or coffee, Miss Templeton?’
Lara shook her head at the question from the woman and murmured, ‘No, thanks.’ The housekeeper left the room.
The muted sounds of London traffic could be heard through the huge windows. It was a palatial lounge, beautifully decorated in classic colours with massive paintings hanging on the walls. The paintings were abstract, and a vivid memory exploded into Lara’s head of when Ciro had taken her to an art gallery in Florence, after hours.
They’d only just met a few days previously, and she’d been surprised enough at his choice of gallery to make him say with a mocking smile, ‘You expected a rough Sicilian to have no taste?’
She’d blushed, because he’d exposed her for assuming that a very alpha Italian man would veer towards something more...classical, conservative.
She’d turned to him, still shy around him, wondering what on earth he was doing with her, a pale English arts student. ‘You’re not rough...not at all.’
He’d been like a sleek panther, oozing a very lethal sense of coiled sensual energy.
The gallery had been hushed and reverential. She could still remember the delicious knot of tension deep in her abdomen, and how she’d thought to herself, How can I not fall in love with this man who opens art galleries especially for me and makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt?
They hadn’t even kissed at that stage...
Ciro’s voice broke through her reverie. ‘Would you like something stronger, Lara? Perhaps some brandy for the overwhelming grief you must be feeling?’
Lara’s nerves were jangling. He’d turned to face her now, and she noticed that he’d taken off the jacket and wore dark trousers and a white shirt open at the throat. Her mouth went dry. She knew how he tasted there. She could still remember how she’d explored that hollow with her tongue—
Stop.
She ignored his question. ‘How long have you lived here?’ Had he been here all this time? Just seconds away from where she’d been existing so miserably?
Lara thought she saw Ciro’s hand tighten on his glass, but put it down to her overwrought imagination. He said, ‘I bought it months ago but the renovations have only just been completed.’
So he hadn’t been living here. Somehow that thought comforted Lara. She didn’t know if she could have borne being married to Winterborne while knowing Ciro was so close. Even the thought of seeing him with another woman coming out of this house made her insides clench. Crazy. She had no jurisdiction over this man. She never had. She’d been dreaming. Delusional.
She lifted her chin. ‘I don’t have time for this, Ciro...whatever it is that you want. I have to be somewhere.’
Evicted. She ignored the fresh spiking of panic.
Ciro lifted his tumbler of golden liquid and downed the lot in one go. For a second Lara wished she’d asked for a drink.
Then he said slowly, ‘But that’s just it, Lara. You don’t have anywhere to go, do you?’
She actually felt the blood drain from her face. How could he possibly...?
‘How can I know?’
He read her mind. Speared her with that dark gaze. Maybe she’d spoken out loud. She felt as if she were slipping under water, losing all sense of control.
He lifted a brow. ‘The guests at the funeral were a hotbed of gossip, but I also have my contacts, who’ve informed me that Winterborne left everything to a distant relative and that as soon as you collect your things from the apartment, you’re out on the streets. As for your trust fund—apparently you’ve blown through that too. Poor penniless Lara. You should have stayed with me. I’m worth three times as much as your dead husband and you wouldn’t have had to put up with an old man in your bed for the past two years.’
Lara’s head hurt to think of how he’d obtained all that information about her trust fund, and her insides churned at the mention of old man.
Any money left to her by her parents had been long gone before she’d ever had a chance to lay her hands on it. ‘It was never about the money.’
Ciro’s mouth tightened. ‘No. It was about class.’
No, Lara thought, it was about blackmail and coercion.
But, yes, it had been about class too. Albeit not for her; she couldn’t have cared less about class. She never had. Not that Ciro would ever believe her. Not after the way she’d convinced him otherwise.
She clamped her lips together, resisting the urge to defend herself when she knew it would be futile. She hardly knew this person in front of her, even though at one time she’d felt as if she’d known every atom of his being. He’d disabused her of that romantic notion two years ago. Yet, she couldn’t deny the rapid and persistent spike in her pulse-rate ever since Ciro had revealed himself. Her body knew him.
Something caught her eye then, and she gasped. His right hand...the one holding the glass...was missing a little finger.
He saw where her gaze had gone. ‘Not very pretty, eh?’
Lara felt sick. She remembered Ciro lying in that hospital bed, his head and half his face covered in bandages...his arms... She’d been too distraught to notice much else.
‘They did that to you? The kidnappers?’ Her voice was a thread.
He nodded. ‘It amused them. They got bored, waiting for their orders.’
Lara realised that he was different. Harder. More intimidating. ‘Why
