advised hoarsely.
If he was truthful with himself, Romano thought, he was shocked by the strength of her reaction to what had, after all, been his unprovoked taunts. But what human being wouldn’t feel justified in making them? he vindicated himself with his jaw clenching. Knowing exactly what made this single-minded little opportunist tick? But perhaps that was the reason for her wild and totally unexpected outburst. Guilt, it occurred to him suddenly. She’d be less than human if what she had done hadn’t left her with some measure of remorse, so perhaps she had suffered. Because she was human, and very much a woman, two aspects he was vitally aware of now as he became conscious of the slender bones of her wrists beneath the hard pressure of his fingers, felt the life that was pulsing through her like the fluttering of a frantic sparrow so that he had to harden his swerving convictions and try to focus on her as the heartless little gold-digger she had proved herself to be, because he could deal with that.
‘So there’s a flame beneath the fire,’ he recognised mockingly, obviously wise to that unkind headline about her. ‘But then we always suspected I’d be the one to bring it out in you, didn’t we, cara?’
‘Wh-what are you talking about?’ Libby stammered. He couldn’t have the slightest notion of the way he had used to affect her—still affected her!—could he? she wondered hectically. Couldn’t have guessed how he had plagued her troubled dreams even when she was happily married to his brother. But that was only because she had been so young, so overawed and intimated by him, she exonerated herself. Because she had loved Luca! She still loved Luca!
And Giorgio…
Her green eyes clouded over now as fear and grief, despair and a repression of feelings that she wasn’t equipped to deal with coalesced with her maternal longing so that she swayed unsteadily under the weight of them.
‘I think you’d better sit down.’
Catching his husky recommendation, shockingly aware of one iron-strong arm across her back, Libby did as she was told, dropping down onto the chair angled away from the mirror and Fran’s pots of creams, mascara wands and lipstick phials.
Rocking back on his heels, Romano dragged in a deep breath. She wasn’t going to like hearing what he had to say.
Wedging her hands between her knees to stop them trembling, Libby stared up at him as though he had just descended from a cloud.
‘Would you mind repeating that?’ she whispered.
His features were passive, his eyes hard and assessing. ‘I think you heard me, Libby.’
Yes, she had, she realised, stunned, disbelieving. She hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that Romano Vincenzo was actually here—on the shoot—let alone got her brain round the demands he was suddenly making. In a minute, she thought, she would wake up and find that this was all some crazy dream, yet contrarily she knew he was anything but a figment of her imagination.
Here in this superficial world she inhabited, where everyone called her ‘Blaze’ and no one cared a jot for her beyond how well she could pretend to love the product they wanted to sell, he was the only representation of anything real; of her past, of which he was a vital part; of Luca and the girl she had once been. Only he knew who she really was. Or thought he did, she corrected bitterly.
‘You want me to go to Italy with you?’
To see Giorgio…
She had never once expected that any member of the Vincenzo family would allow her to do that, let alone insist upon it.
She was trembling so much that she had to do something—anything—so she got up, moving like an automaton over to the couch where she had left her own clothes. Mindlessly, she started to peel off the skirt she had worn for the commercial with fingers that shook.
Watching his brother’s widow, Romano couldn’t believe how calmly she could carry on functioning as though he had said nothing, his eyes dark, judgemental slits in the hard lean, structure of his face.
Coldly he regarded the way the virginal fabric slithered down her long, golden legs, pooled alluringly around her ankles, the way she stepped nimbly out of it in nothing but her lacy white camisole and briefs.
‘Had it been left to me I would never have entertained the thought of coming here,’ he stated with grim assurance. ‘I did so only because of a five-year-old who can’t understand why it is that he doesn’t have a mother. Who’s trying to make sense of what it is he’s done wrong.’
Libby choked back a small stifled cry as Romano continued, deaf and blind to how he was hurting her.
‘A kid who’s so distressed at being goaded by his peers he doesn’t want to go to school any more. Won’t sleep. Won’t eat properly. Won’t even play with his friends.’ A five-year-old going on six who couldn’t be placated with a new pony or a trip to Disneyland. Who foolishly believed his Zio Romano could make anything happen—including bringing home the mother who didn’t want him!
The child had been pushing him and pushing him until Romano—always able to solve the most intricate problems in his multi-faceted business empire—didn’t know what else to do. His trusting nephew. A bright, intelligent kid. Luca’s son.
He hadn’t realised just how many problems the boy had until recently. His mother had been right, though, he accepted grudgingly. His father would never have let Libby Vincent—as he’d recently discovered she called herself—near his grandson. That was if she had ever entertained any desire to see Giorgio, which he strongly doubted. The demands of a growing, energetic youngster would simply have put paid to her shallow, artificial life!
She was tugging off her camisole and, unable to help himself, Romano gazed broodingly at the willowy arc of her raised arms as she pulled it over her head, at the smooth, golden contours of her slender back.
Her skin was the texture of silk, her tapering waist amazingly small above the gentle flare of her hips. Unashamedly, as she turned slightly, his gaze flickered upwards to the outer curve of one beautifully shaped breast and desire kicked him in the loins, making his breath lock beneath the hard cage of his ribs.
She was a model. Just a face and body to promote whatever lucrative opportunities came her way. She was used to undressing in front of others. Yet now, as he found himself resenting every other man who must have seen her like this, he realised that her power to ensnare was as strong and as lethal to him now as it had ever been.
Because he had been bewitched by this girl! Had fallen under her spell from the first moment he had met her and she had fixed him with those proud yet wary emerald eyes. Wary, because she had known at once that he could see right through her; recognise—just as his parents had—what a scheming little gold-digger she was.
And yet that still hadn’t stopped him wanting her—stopped him envying Luca—or from lying awake at night, mentally beating himself up for allowing himself to become totally captivated by his younger brother’s wife.
She had appeared like a breath of spring in a jaded world, possessing a quiet maturity that went way beyond her years. But that cultivated innocence that was the other side of the coin—and which sometimes almost roused in him a ludicrous desire to protect—hadn’t fooled him. She was as heartless as he’d believed her to be—and as mercenary.
She was pulling on a cheesecloth shirt, for which he was extremely grateful, because even the reminder of what this girl was really like couldn’t
