mouth dropped open, her heart falling to her toes.
‘Dio mio.’ Her voice snagged on the words.
He leaned back and smiled. A pure evil smile that drew her dumbfounded gaze to his sensual lips. ‘Sí, this is the expression I’ve been waiting three years for.’
He’d been scheming. Laying the perfect bait for her downfall. And like a lamb to the slaughter, she’d walked right into his trap.
Just as she’d been a weak, trusting lamb throughout her father’s machinations, childhood fears of abandonment unconsciously stalking her into adulthood so stealthily that she hadn’t realised she was being taken advantage of until it was too late. She’d sacrificed herself for her father.
And now she was to be a sacrifice for Javier Santino.
A sheer wall of dread rose before her, every single brain cell frozen as she was caught in suspended animation.
From far away, she heard Javier speak but she couldn’t rouse herself from the horror of her circumstances.
Firm hands caught her elbows. Eyes fringed by thick lashes narrowed. ‘What is wrong with you, Carla? Or should I call you The Ice Princess? Isn’t that what the media calls you? You’re certainly dressed for it.’
Numbly, she glanced down at her white palazzo pantsuit. The jacket’s severely cut style opened at the elbows when she lifted her arms, and the sleeves dropped almost to the floor. Teamed with a white silk camisole and white stilettos, the ensemble broadcasted a cutting-edge style suitable for a woman at the top of her game. Or so the stylist had insisted when she’d arrived with the clothes this morning. Staring at the get-up, she suddenly saw differently.
White, for innocent sacrificial lambs.
White, for fools.
The hysterical laughter she’d tried to stem bubbled up from her chest and burst free. It sounded strange in the impressive, masculine room. But the crack in her self-control felt good.
So good she couldn’t stop laughing.
Javier blinked, then jerked her once. ‘Carla!’
Laughter cut off like a light switch. ‘I thought I was only Miss Nardozzi to you?’
Puzzlement tracked over his face. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ he demanded again.
‘What do you care?’ she flung at him.
‘I don’t, except I’d prefer not to have a conversation with a woman who’s acting like a walking, talking zombie.’
‘Right in this moment, I wish I were one.’
A dark frown clamped his brow. ‘Excuse me?’
Another bubble of laughter bursting free, she shook her head. ‘You should see your face, Javier. Is this not going how you expected? Did you expect me to be a quivering idiot in the light of your revelation? Did you—what are you doing?’ she screeched as strong arms lifted her off her feet.
In half a dozen strides he pinned her against a wall. They stared at each other for a charged, timeless second. Then someone moved. Her gasp was swallowed by the mouth that slanted over hers, the domineering possession so electrifyingly potent, every trace of numbness was instantly zapped from her body.
In its place raw, intense emotion flooded. Every sensation she’d retreated from surged in a tidal wave of feeling, concentrating in that powerful connection of their fused lips. From one heartbeat to the next, they tore at each other. Tongues duelled, groans fought for supremacy, hands searched and groped. And Javier came out on top each time, his indomitable will pounding into her, into the kiss until she was a seething ball of sensation, ready to be done with as he pleased.
Gradually the other emotions receded, leaving her with a deep, decadent arousal she’d only believed existed in her dreams. The realisation that it did not had her surging up on tiptoes, eager to experience more of it.
Javier deepened the kiss, his hands moulding her, his teeth nipping at her full lower lip. Powerful thighs parted hers and he planted himself firmly between them, the evidence of his arousal unmistakeable.
Dio, but he felt glorious. And he made her feel alive!
About to spike her hand through his hair, demand more, more, more, she was brought back to earth when her arms were wrenched from around his neck and pinned ruthlessly to her sides.
‘Do I have your attention now?’ he rasped.
White lamb. Sacrificial fool.
She glimpsed the menacing look in his eyes and her insides turned to useless jelly. ‘Wh-what do you plan to do to me?’
Teeth bared in a cruel smile, he dropped his head and rubbed the tip of his nose against hers in a gesture so divorced from affection, it staked a cold knife of fear in her heart.
‘Where would be the fun in laying it all out for you, Principessa? All you need to know is that by the time I’m done with you, you’ll know that you should never have used me the way you did three years ago. Before I’m done with you, Carla Nardozzi, you’ll get on your knees and beg my forgiveness.’
One month later
‘SIR, I THINK you’ll want to turn on the TV.’
‘And why would I want to do that?’ Javier Santino drawled, not lifting his head from the graphics spread on his desk. His designers had done an exemplary job, the sample bottles for the launch of his new and exclusive tequila line truly exquisite.
About to reach for the glossy image he’d settled on, he paused when his PA rushed to the far side of the room and grabbed the remote.
Javier sighed. Had she not been ruthlessly efficient, he wouldn’t have forgiven her occasional bouts of excitable behaviour. Making a mental note to crush that tiny irregularity out of her, he turned from the view of Manhattan spread beyond his corner-office window and watched her flick on the TV.
‘You asked the PR department to alert you if and when any of our clients make the news. They just called. Carla Nardozzi is on every channel.’
Javier froze.
In all his nearly thirty-three years, only two names had possessed the power to stop his breath. For the first three decades of his life, it’d been his father’s name. The day after his thirtieth birthday, Carla Nardozzi’s had joined the list. Both names sent icy chills of rage down his spine. Both robbed him of the ability to speak.
Three years after the event, his brief dalliance with Carla and how it’d ended still stuck between his ribs like the sharpest stiletto. As much as he detested himself for his weakness, he’d never been able to put it behind him.
It didn’t matter that he knew why. The fact that he’d been unable to do anything about it angered him even more. In the grand scheme of things, Carla Nardozzi should be forgettable. A blip in his memory that shouldn’t be worth his time or effort.
And
