‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.’ Anger blanched the skin around his taut upper lip. ‘Unless you’d rather be thrown.’
Feeling the technician’s body tightening up behind her, Libby sucked in a breath. The last thing she wanted to witness was a brawl. But one step forward from the man who was taller, broader and light-years ahead in the fitness stakes than the inebriated Steve Cullum had the technician instantly backing off.
‘OK, mate. OK. Keep your shirt on.’ Hands held up in acquiescence to the other man’s dominant will, he moved grudgingly away, while the others, bottles in hand, their eyes fixed on Romano, also started filing out, muttering their goodnights to Libby as they yielded to an authority they recognised as one not to be tested.
‘Still denying it?’ Fran grimaced as she moved past Libby.
Denying what? Libby asked herself, quietly fuming. That Romano Vincenzo was her lover? Because he was certainly acting like one, she thought angrily, her aching head throbbing even more from the thought of being alone with him; from imagining the scene she didn’t want, but which she knew would inevitably follow.
‘Are you going to be all right?’ the lingering Fran whispered protectively to her.
Libby darted a glance towards Luca’s brother. His sheer physical presence and that dark charisma sent something like untapped electricity crackling across her nerve-endings.
‘Of course,’ she croaked, not at all sure she would be before Fran, too, went the same way as the others and the front door banged loudly behind them all.
An interminable silence filled the flat as Libby faced hard, unrelenting features across the carpeted space of her sitting room.
‘What the devil did you think you were doing?’ Her voice shook with her own hot emotion. ‘What gave you the right to come in here and speak to my guests so rudely?’ Hardly guests! she thought with a mental grimace, immensely relieved that he had driven them away, even if she didn’t approve of the way he had done it.
‘Forgive me if I broke up such a wildly enjoyable party.’ The deep tones were anything but contrite. ‘I would have thought even you would have had the decency to skip the good time when you’ve just been informed of how much your child needs you. Obviously it means far less to you than entertaining your precious friends!’
‘They aren’t my friends!’
His head cocked to one side. ‘No?’
‘Well, only one of them is and—’
‘Evidently!’
Libby stifled a small, despairing sigh. It was clear he meant the man who had been forcing his attentions upon her.
‘Steve Cullum was drunk,’ she emphasised, as though that would somehow vindicate her. ‘And they came here uninvited!’
‘But it didn’t take you long to get into the swing of things!’
Which is what it would have looked like, Libby realised, especially if he had heard Steve shouting to everyone that she wanted to dance, which he probably had!
‘I was going to ring you,’ she said.
‘When? Tonight?’ His eyes were steel-hard, his voice sounding blatantly unconvinced. ‘Or tomorrow—after the hangover?’
Well, of course, he would think that, Libby despaired.
He looked like an avenging angel, from the flawless sheen on his coat to the striking force in his unrelenting features. There were raindrops glistening on his black hair, she noticed now, watching, mesmerized, as one fell from the thick strands to meet the startling contrast of his immaculately white collar.
She opened her mouth to speak, to assure him that not a drop of alcohol had passed her lips, but he cut across her protest, saying smoothly, ‘You forget. I know you, Libby.’ There was a cruel reminder in his softly spoken words. ‘Perhaps even better than Luca did.’
‘That’s what you think,’ she argued bitterly, and from the way his mouth pulled down one side knew exactly what he was remembering. Hadn’t he stumbled upon her here in England, five months pregnant, supposedly caring for her father, but instead living it up with friends in his father’s country club? He hadn’t listened to her excuses then, so she didn’t see any reason why he would listen to them now. ‘What did you want anyway?’ she asked wearily, turning her back on him.
He watched her clearing up glasses, stoop to pick up a cushion, toss it onto a chair.
He’d come back to apologise, he reflected with self-chastening mockery. To apologise for the way he had spoken to her today. It had been unwarranted, he’d decided afterwards, especially offering to pay her to accompany him back to Italy. Knowing the manager of the hotel where she was supposed to be tonight, he had tried to ring her there, and been relieved to learn that she hadn’t attended the party after all. She had gone up a few notches in his estimation then and, as he’d made his way to her apartment, he’d been doubly ashamed of his behaviour, but his desire to make amends, he realised grimly now, had been far too premature!
The wide scoop-neck of her top had been pulled down on one side—probably by that inebriated lout who had been manhandling her, he thought—while her hair lay like a twist of fire against the pale silken slope of her shoulder. He felt a kick in his gut from watching the sway of her marginally curved hips as she went through into the kitchen, his eyes resting on her small, tight denim-clad bottom, his teeth clamping together from the host of temptations that he knew had once ensnared his brother.
‘We parted on a rather unfortunate note,’ he answered her from the kitchen doorway. ‘It was my intention to rectify that.’ After all, he could hardly persuade her to go back with him with threats and insults, he’d assured himself earlier, but that was before he had come up here, seen first-hand what little feeling this girl really had. ‘In the circumstances,’ he breathed, his anger with her spilling over from mere disillusionment into something hot and irrationally possessive, ‘it seems all I have to apologise for is spoiling your fun!’
That it had even occurred to him to apologise for anything was unimaginable to Libby. The great Romano Vincenzo contrite? Even the thought of it was laughable.
A bitter little smile touched her mouth as, finding his proximity in the doorway of her small kitchen too unsettling, she couldn’t think of anything to say.
She wanted to move away from him back into the larger room, but one darkly clad sleeve was stretched across the doorway, effectively blocking her way out.
Libby swallowed. ‘C-could you let me pass, please?’
His eyes, probing into the wary depths of hers were far, far too disturbing. ‘Of course.’ She caught a waft of his cologne as he dropped his arm and she inhaled sharply, every nerve cell honing to his scent, his warmth, the closeness of his strong, hard body. But he didn’t move and without looking at him she made to brush past him, stifling a small startled cry as his arm came up unexpectedly again, trapping her there against the doorjamb.
‘Let me go!’
He laughed softly at her proud, indignant features. ‘I wasn’t aware that I was holding you.’ His other hand came to rest disconcertingly just above her other shoulder.
Breath
