Note to Readers
AS ONE OF Europe’s most notorious playboys, Dante Cardinali was used to waking up in strange beds. He was also used to beautiful women standing beside said beds and looking down at him. There had even been a couple of instances where he’d woken up with his wrists and ankles still cuffed, the way they clearly were now.
What was unfamiliar was the barrel of the gun pointed at his head.
Dante had never been a man who cared over much about anything, but one thing he did care about was himself. And his life. And the fact that the beautiful woman standing over him was holding a gun in a very competent grip.
The same beautiful woman who’d been in the VIP area of his favourite Monte Carlo club and with whom he’d spent some time...talking...because he hadn’t been in the mood for seduction—something that had been happening to him more often than not of late. It was a worrying trend if he thought about it too deeply, which he didn’t. Because he didn’t think about anything too deeply.
Whatever. He couldn’t remember how long he’d spent talking to her, because he couldn’t remember full-stop. In fact, he couldn’t remember much at all about the evening and, given his current situation, it probably meant he’d blacked out at some point.
What he did remember was the beautiful woman’s piercingly blue eyes, fractured through with silver like a shattered sky.
Those eyes were looking at him now with curious intentness, as if she was trying to decide whether or not to shoot him.
Well, considering his wrists and ankles were cuffed and he wasn’t dead already, it meant there was some doubt. And if there was some doubt, he could probably induce her to give in to it.
He could pretty much convince anyone to give in to anything if he put his mind to it.
‘Darling,’ he drawled, his mouth dry and his voice a little thick. ‘A gun is slightly overkill, don’t you think? If you want to sleep with me, just take your clothes off and come here. You don’t need to tie me to the bed.’ He frowned, his head suspiciously muzzy but beginning to clear. ‘Or put something in my drink, for that matter.’
The woman’s cool gaze—she had told him her name but he couldn’t remember it—didn’t waver. ‘I don’t want to sleep with you, Dante Cardinali,’ she said, her icy tone a slap of cold water on his hot skin. ‘What I would like very much is to kill you.’
So. She was trying to kill him and she was very serious.
He should probably be a little more concerned about that gun and the intent in her fascinating eyes, and he definitely was. But, strangely, his most prevalent emotion wasn’t fear. No, it was excitement.
It had been a long time since he’d felt anything like excitement.
It had been a long time since he’d felt anything at all.
He stared at her, conscious of a certain tightening of his muscles and a slight elevation in his heartbeat. ‘That seems extreme.’
‘It is extreme. Then again, the punishment fits the crime.’
The barrel of the gun didn’t waver an inch and yet she hadn’t pulled the trigger. Interesting. Why not?
He let his gaze rove over her, interest tugging at him.
She was very small, built petite and delicate like a china doll, with hair the colour of newly minted gold coins, falling in a straight and gleaming waterfall over her shoulders. Her precise features were as lovely as her figure—a determined chin, finely carved cheekbones and a perfect little bow of a mouth.
She wore a satin cocktail dress the same kind of silvery blue as her eyes and it looked like silky fluid poured over her body, outlining the delicious curves of her breasts and hips, skimming gently rounded thighs.
A lovely little china shepherdess of a woman. Just his type.
Apart from the gun in his face, of course.
‘What crime?’ Dante asked with interest. ‘Are you Sicilian by any chance? Is this a vendetta situation?’ It was a question purely designed to keep her talking, as he knew already that she wasn’t Sicilian. Her Italian held a cadence from a different part of the country and one he was quite familiar with.
The sound of the island nation from where he’d been exiled along with the rest of the royal family years and years ago.
The island nation of which he’d once been a prince.
Monte Santa Maria.
‘No.’ Her tone was flat and very definite. ‘But you know that already, don’t you?’
Dante
