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 cool the fierce desire she aroused in him, more strongly now, if that were possible, than she had in the past.
Tensely Libby fumbled with the buttons of her shirt, glaringly self-conscious of the way Romano had been looking at her ever since she’d unthinkingly pulled off her clothes. As if he wanted to wrench the rest from her body, she realised, with heat tingling along her nerve-endings, reawakening her to the frightening power of his sexuality.
‘My son is giving you problems and your family suddenly decides it wants to invite me back into its oh-so-loving circle!’ Her injured little statement was strung with all the bitterness she had harboured towards the Vincenzo family since she had been a vulnerable and powerless teenager.
‘Not the family,’ he negated tersely. ‘My mother is against it. And my father—as I’m sure you must know—is dead.’
Yes, she knew that. It had made all the papers six months ago. The demise of a man as wealthy as Marius Vincenzo didn’t go unreported. There had been a piece about Romano too. It was that that she had soaked up with the thirst of someone parched while knowing that they were drinking from a poisoned well. It had been a brief account of how an important area of Vincenzo-held interests—once floundering under Marius Vincenzo—had started to flourish again when his son had taken over to pull it out of stormy waters and, with his head for business and fearless judgement, shares had rocketed now that he was fully in command. His achievements really were quite remarkable. Since the demise of Luca’s grandfather, there was no doubt among the Vincenzo males where the real influence and talents really lay.
‘I’m sorry,’ she uttered curtly, experiencing a pang of guilt because she couldn’t feel any regret. Marius Vincenzo had been a tyrant and she had disliked him more than it was possible to dislike anyone. ‘For you, that is,’ she felt she had to add, because it wasn’t in her nature to be hypocritical. ‘And your mother,’ eventually she decided to tag on.
Sophia Vincenzo hadn’t liked her, any more than her overbearing husband had. In fact the only thing she had had in common with her rather frosty-tongued mother-in-law was that they had both loved Luca. A love that had festered hatred on the woman’s part towards Libby after the death of the woman’s favourite and idolised younger son.
The light from the high windows of the trailer emphasised the hard lines around Romano’s mouth as he dipped his head, acknowledging her. Her condolences had surprised him though. She had had as little time for his parents as they had had for each other, he thought cynically, remembering the farce of a united front his parents had shown to the world.
‘Well, then,’ Libby accepted pointedly, telling herself not to get too excited, hope for too much, though every cell was leaping from even the smallest chance of seeing her son again. ‘If your mother’s against it, there’s little more to be said, is there? After all, she’s his guardian.’
‘No.’
That incisive response brought Libby’s gaze flying to his. He was so big and darkly dominating in the confined area of the trailer that she could feel him, touch him, breathe him in almost, his lethally magnetic presence with the subtle spice of the cologne he used infiltrating the space around them, percolating the very air she needed to fill her lungs.
‘My mother’s too weary these days to cope with an energetic child. I’m the boy’s official guardian now.’
‘But I thought…’ Libby’s words tailed off. How could it be possible? Her son. Her baby. In the care of Romano Vincenzo? The man who had made his distrust of her felt in the way his parents had never done. Subtly and with a hard-edged intelligence that had hurt even more because, surprisingly, there had been odd times when he had shown snatches of consideration towards her.
‘You thought what, Libby?’ His hard mouth twisted with bitter derision. ‘That he’d be handed over to someone else? Packaged off as just a nuisance? In the way?’
As he thought she had packaged him off when Luca had died?
‘So you see, cara,’ he said with a controlled softness that sent shivers through her yearning insides, ‘whatever you decide to do, or how you act or decide to treat my nephew, you’re only answerable to me. Well?’
One thick eyebrow moved questioningly as she reached for her jeans. She could sense his eyes following her every movement as she pulled them on, hips moving with unintentional sensuality in her keenness to wriggle into them, her breath quickening from what he might be thinking, and from the sudden reckless speculation of what it would be like to have those long, dark hands shaping every curve of her lissom frame.
‘Well what?’ she challenged acridly, pushing the fitted shirt into her waistband, her movements agitated from the outrageous and unwelcome images that had suddenly invaded her mind. ‘I come back and fill the gap in Giorgio’s life until you suddenly decide you don’t need me any more?’ She couldn’t bear that. Didn’t think she could cope with the heartache of parting from him again once she had been allowed to play even a small part in his life. And yet she would! she resolved desperately. No matter how much it cost her emotionally, she would do it! Just to see him. Be with him again. Hold him in her arms, if only for the shortest time.
‘It’s Giorgio who needs you,’ Romano reminded her coldly. ‘I, fortunately, have been spared that particular privation.’
His words stung, as he’d intended them to.
‘Have you really?’ It was a shrill little retaliation as she battled not to give him the satisfaction of knowing it. Proudly she faced him with her head held high. Yet now, as her eyes clashed with the glittering depths of his, she was shocked to recognise the familiar desire she’d become accustomed to seeing in the eyes of nearly every man she met, only with this man she could tell it was a dark obsession for which he despised himself.
Way down inside her something throbbed. Some equally dark emotion she didn’t want to acknowledge.
‘Why do you hate me so much, Romano?’ For all her maturity her voice still quavered as that eighteen-year-old’s had done. ‘Is it because you hold me responsible for Luca’s death?’
His features seemed to darken from a well of repressed emotion. Clearly it still hurt to talk about the brother who had been six years his junior.
‘I’ve never blamed you for that.’
‘Well, bravo!’ Libby’s head came up in a toss of flaming cynicism. ‘Why not? Your father did!’
‘But I’m not my father!’ He was only barely restraining a surprising degree of anger, as something in what she had said sent a surge of colour slashing across his hard-boned cheeks. A second later, however, and he was back in control, though his features
