that hard warning he straightened, slammed the car door shut, then strode round to the other side while Rachel twisted her head to stare dazedly at the press pack gathering at the main hotel doors. By the time she’d absorbed all of that, Raffaelle Villani had folded himself into the driver’s seat next to her—a lean, dark, hard-muscled male with aggression bouncing off him.
His chauffeur had left the engine running. He snaked out a hand and threw the car into drive. They took off with a jerk just as the press pack tumbled over each other with their cameras flashing. Rachel watched as the whole debacle played out like a comic strip. Even his stepsister had her part to play. She was standing by the kerb staring after them while the chauffeur was politely trying to urge her into the back of a black cab.
Mark was nowhere.
Thanks, Mark, Rachel thought helplessly, visualising her darling half-brother rushing off to file his scoop without giving a second thought to what he had left her to face!
Rachel flicked a scared glance at the man sitting beside her, then shivered. If murder had a look to it then he was wearing it.
‘Please stop the car so I can get out,’ she begged and didn’t even care that she was begging.
He didn’t answer. Lips clamped together, he sent the car shooting out into the main stream of traffic. Several car horns blared in protest at his pushy arrogance. He ignored those too.
‘Look, I know you’re angry,’ she allowed shakily. ‘And I know that you have every right to be, but—’
‘Grazie.’
‘This is kidnap!’
‘So sue me,’ he gritted. ‘That could be fun.’
Fun—? Rachel trembled and shivered as she sat tensely beside him. None of this had been fun from the moment she’d allowed Elise and Mark to talk her into it. One minute she’d been perfectly content, hiding away in Devon nursing her broken heart, the next minute she’d found herself staying up here in London with her half-sister and being embroiled in her complicated love-life!
‘It w-wasn’t what you think—’
‘You don’t know what I’m thinking.’
‘I am not being paid to—’
‘Hit on me?’ he offered when those very same words dried in her throat. ‘It is a relief to know I still have some natural pulling power then.’
He had loads of natural pulling power. That was his problem.
‘Are you always this obnoxious when you’ve been caught off your guard?’ she flared up on the back of pure agitation. ‘So I hit on you—what’s new there to a man like you? From what I hear, half the women in Europe have done it at some point in your blessed life—and not all of them because of your sex appeal!’
He sent her a glinting look. ‘Did I hear a hint of scorn in your tone then?’
‘Yes!’ she flicked out. ‘Men like you stroll through life as if you own it. You do what you want when you want to do it. You pick your women on looks alone and don’t give a care whether they have feelings you could actually wound!’
Something sharp hit his voice. ‘I wounded—you?’
‘You mean you don’t know?’ The sarcasm was out before she could stop it.
They’d stopped at a set of traffic lights and he turned in his seat. Instantly the sheer size and power of the man flooded over Rachel like a simmering hot shower. She could feel his eyes skimming her face and her body as he checked her out while flipping through his huge data bank of women, trying to pinpoint who she was. Any second now and he was going to make a connection he could have made hours ago if he’d been more observant.
Rachel felt the stinging temptation to lie, if only to really confuse him, but—‘No,’ she said finally.
Someone just like you did that to me, she added inside her head. Then she flicked him a hard resentful glance,’ heaved in a breath and saved him the bother of further taxing his no doubt phenomenal brain power.
‘Elise Castle,’ she breathed out.
THE name had its desired effect, Rachel noticed bitterly, as a long thick silence stretched between them and he didn’t say or do a single thing.
She held her breath again while she waited for him to recover and begin spitting out a barrage of angry questions—but still nothing came.
In the end she took the initiative and broke the silence. ‘The name means nothing to you?’ she gibed.
Other vehicle headlights swished past the car windows, lighting their faces momentarily. Illuminated, she saw only the cold steel of his eyes as they fixed hers like lashing daggers and he kept his silence. In the darkness her gaze dropped for some reason to the single line straightness of his mouth.
A mouth that already felt disconcertingly familiar. She could still taste it. Her tongue even made a passing swipe at her lips in response to the thought.
Headlights lit up the car’s interior again, dragging her attention back to his eyes. They’d narrowed and were watching her like a hawk waiting to pin its next victim. Rachel’s breathing fell into small jerky fits. Her heart was pounding. He was frighteningly exciting to look at, all well cared for male with just the right balance between sensational good looks and raw masculinity.
Her mouth had to part to aid her quick breathing. He dropped his gaze and the result was a tingling quiver across her lips that sent the tip of her tongue nervously chasing it. Sexual awareness was suddenly alive and cluttering the atmosphere. Rachel felt her breasts grow heavy, their tips pushing out with a terrible knowing sting. He flicked those eyes back to hers again and he knew—he knew!
Then the traffic lights decided to change, demanding that he set them moving. She watched as if mesmerised as his dark head shifted back into profile, watched his long-fingered hands as he flipped the car into a slick right turn. More seconds ticked by and her chest felt as if it was burning beneath the pressure she was placing on it by barely breathing at all now.
‘The name means plenty to me,’ he finally answered. ‘And you are not Elise.’
No, Rachel knew she wasn’t Elise. She was her younger, less pretty, more sensible half-sister.
More sensible—when? She then scoffed at that. Sensible women did not get themselves into situations like this. Sensible women steered clear of the complicated love lives of others—and especially of frighteningly sexy men like him!
Sensible women did not fall in love with handsome Italians with a rich repertoire of words of love and a killer seduction technique—yet she had done it.
She had to close her eyes as an image of Alonso suddenly appeared in front of her. Tall, dark, beautiful Alonso, who had been so warm and attentive and flatteringly possessive when they had been out together, and so excitingly intense and passionate when naked with her in bed. They’d spent six glorious weeks living together in his apartment overlooking
