turned to find a rakish-looking pirate standing at her side—another one of Eleni’s D’Alessandro cousins? This man’s dark hair was pulled back and tied with a black bow at his nape, and a black mask covered his face from brow to top lip. Tight black trousers were tucked into black boots, emphasising the long length of his legs, a black sash was about his waist, and a long black leather tunic was worn over the white billowy shirt that was de rigueur for any respectable pirate.
Except pirates weren’t respectable by definition, were they?
This one certainly didn’t look as if he was. Dark, dark eyes glittered through the slits in the mask as his gaze roamed boldly over Dani, from her toes to her powdered hair and then back to her face behind the gold mask.
‘Champagne…?’ he prompted again huskily, and he held out one of the two glasses he held in his hands.
Dani swallowed hard, not taking her gaze off the pirate for even a second. It was one thing to fantasise about meeting a man like this when you were an impressionable teenager. Another thing altogether, at the age of twenty-four, to find yourself face to face with a man who looked as if he were every bit as dangerous as the pirate he was dressed as.
Which meant he definitely had to be a D’Alessandro cousin!
Still, it was a masquerade party, where no names were exchanged and there would be no expectations after tonight. Eleni was right; it could be fun for Dani to just anonymously enjoy herself for one evening.
Until ten minutes ago Niccolo had been finding the evening tedious. Conversation became louder as bottles of champagne began to disappear, the laughter too shrill, the flirtations more obvious—and the culmination of those flirtations was obvious as couples began to disappear off into the darkness of the garden.
But Niccolo had never particularly enjoyed the Venetian Festival, and he certainly had no intention of being lured into the privacy of the surrounding trees by any of the women who had so far tried to tempt him.
As usual, he had kept a wary eye out for the sharp-tongued Daniella Bell as each of the female guests had arrived, but at ten o’clock he had assumed that she either wasn’t here at all or he had missed her in the crowd.
In fact, until he had seen the woman in the gold gown enter the garden, he had been considering taking a bottle of champagne and disappearing into the relative privacy of Eleni’s conservatory.
The woman’s hair was powdered white, and she had a heart-shaped beauty mark above her top lip. The creamy swell of her breasts was inviting above the low neckline of the gold gown, and her arms were white and slender, a gold fan held in one of her delicately graceful hands.
Her very stillness made her stand out from the rest of the guests as she looked slowly about her with an almost untouchable air of separation from those about her.
It was a feeling Niccolo easily recognised and related to. As head of the D’Alessandro family and banking consortium he had to keep himself apart out of necessity. The fact that he hadn’t yet found a woman suitable to become the D’Alessandro bride only added to his aloofness.
But he put on hold his plan to disappear the moment he saw the woman in the gold gown. Instead he collected two glasses of champagne and made his way determinedly towards her before any of the other men present sensed her air of detachment and saw it as the same challenge he did.
She was even more alluring close up, her skin as pale as milk. The colour of her eyes was not discernible behind the mask in the poorly illuminated garden, but somehow Niccolo thought they would be blue. Her perfect bow of a mouth was highly erotic, with that heart-shaped beauty mark above the fuller top lip, and Niccolo believed the hair beneath the powder would probably be a rich burnished gold.
Dani felt slightly flustered by the intensity of that dark gaze—not sure that encouraging this man by accepting a glass of champagne would be a good idea. Although she had no doubt that the more mischievous Eleni wouldn’t have hesitated.
‘Thank you.’ Her voice was husky as she took the glass of champagne the pirate presented to her, not quite managing to avoid touching the man’s long, slender fingers as she did so, and feeling something like an electric jolt up her arm as her own fingers briefly made contact with his.
‘Our hostess has strictly forbidden us the use of our own names,’ he said with a wicked smile. ‘So, if you have no objection, I would like to call you Belladonna.’
His voice was very deep and very sexy. Dani suddenly became aware that she was slowly being seduced.
‘As in the poison?’ she said pertly.
His teeth gleamed very white in the darkness as he grinned at her appreciatively. ‘As in beautiful lady,’ he corrected softly. ‘And you are very beautiful.’
Dani’s smile widened at the compliment. ‘How can you possibly tell?’
‘Would you really like me to tell you?’
Slowly being seduced? This man’s intent had just gone up a couple of notches!
But it was fun, she realised with dawning wonder. More fun than she’d had in a very long time.
‘Yes, please,’ she invited.
‘You have skin like white satin, a mouth that was surely made for kissing, and breasts—’
‘I think perhaps you should stop there!’ Had she thought only a couple of notches? Make that a dozen or so! She was starting to feel light-headed from all this flattery, and she had only sipped at the champagne.
‘Perhaps for the moment…’ He gave in gracefully with an inclination of his head. ‘Would you care to dance?’
Would she? The idea certainly had its appeal. But who was this man? The dark hair, swarthy skin and slight accent gave no clue other than that he was probably a D’Alessandro relative. What if he should turn out—horror of horrors!—to be Niccolo D’Alessandro himself?
It would be just her luck, when they all removed their masks at midnight, to discover she had spent the evening flirting with Niccolo!
No, she realised with some relief as she glanced briefly across at the other D’Alessandro men. They had just been joined by a sixth man, even taller than they were and dressed very lavishly, and his regal air of arrogance was unmistakably that of Eleni’s brother.
Dani relaxed slightly as she turned back to the pirate at her side. ‘And what do I call you?’
‘What would you like to call me?’ he countered.
Dani felt a quiver of excitement down her spine as her body was suffused with a heat that was in no way connected to the warmth of this beautiful summer evening.
This really was a seductive experience, she thought. To be complimented, enticed by a man she didn’t know, and who didn’t know her, and whose attention seemed to be fixed intensely on her. No wonder the Venetian Festival was so popular!
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, that butterfly fluttering in her stomach increasing as she sensed his dark gaze watching the movement.
‘Come, Bella, what is your fantasy? Tonight I will be whoever you wish me to be.’
