she.
Tires squealed. A car door slammed. Footsteps pounded up the steps to the veranda and a hand stabbed at the doorbell, over and over and over.
Her mind raced.
What should she do? Phone the policia? The nearest station was miles away. Besides, would they give a damn? Ferrantes was of this place. She was not. Not anymore. Her father had seen to that. He’d told endless lies about her, turned her into an outsider…
The bell was still ringing and now the sound of a fist pounding on the door added to the din. She could not let this continue. It was too much, far too much, and she gave one last frantic look up the stairs before she took a deep breath, went to the door and flung it open.
But it wasn’t Ferrantes filling the night with his presence.
It was Dante. And even as her traitorous heart lifted at the sight of him, the expression on his face made the breath catch in her throat.
Dante saw a rush of emotions flash across Gabriella’s face.
Surprise. Shock. Fear. And, just before that, something he couldn’t identify. Not that it mattered. Whatever she felt was meaningless compared to his rage.
She was good, though. He could almost see her clamp the lid on all the things she’d felt on seeing him again.
“Dante,” she said, as politely as a capable hostess greeting a not-so-welcome drop-in guest. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t.”
“In fact, I thought—Senhor de Souza and I both thought—you’d gone back to New York.”
“Without signing over the deed?”
She could almost see the sneer on his face. Don’t react to it, she told herself, and forced a calm response.
“I only meant—”
“Trust me, sweetheart. I know exactly what you meant.” He smiled; he could feel the pressure of his lips drawing back from his teeth. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”
She hesitated. He couldn’t blame her. She was far from stupid.
“Actually, it’s rather late.”
“It’s the shank of the evening. Back home, you and I would be heading out for a late supper right about now.”
She flushed. “That was a long time ago.”
“Supper,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “and then maybe a stop at one of those little clubs way downtown that you liked so much.”
“You liked them,” she said stiffly, “I preferred simpler places.”
He felt a stir of anticipation in his blood. Her accent had just thickened. She had only the slightest accent. She’d told him once, in a rare moment when they’d talked about their lives, that she’d been tutored in English from childhood—but her accent always grew more pronounced when she was trying to contain her emotions.
In bed, for example.
When they’d been making love. Her whispered words would take on the soft sounds of her native tongue. Sometimes she’d say things to him in Portuguese. Things he had not understood but his body, his mouth, his hands had known their meaning.
He looked down at her, his muscles tense.
“But you liked what we did when we went back to your apartment or mine,” he said, his voice low and rough. “What we did in bed.”
Her color deepened. Or maybe the rest of her face turned pale. He didn’t give a damn. If she thought she was going to control the situation the way she’d controlled it this morning, she was in for a hell of a surprise.
She took a deep breath that lifted her breasts. They seemed larger than in the past. Fuller. But then, he hadn’t seen her breasts in a very long time.
Too long, he thought, and a surge of hot lust rolled deep in his belly.
Lust? For a woman with no makeup on her face? A woman wearing a loose cotton top over baggy jeans? Hell, she looked beautiful anyway, though he had never seen her dressed like this before. She’d always worn chic designer clothes when they were together. Her own clothes, though he’d often tried to buy things for her.
“I prefer to pay for my own things,” she’d always said with a polite smile. She’d used that same line when he tried to buy her any but the simplest of gifts.
She didn’t need convincing anymore, he thought coldly. She hadn’t blinked an eye at his dropping five million bucks on her this morning.
“Whatever we did in New York is over, senhor.”
“Such formality, sweetheart. After all we’ve been to each other?”
“The past,” she said stiffly, ignoring his remark, “has no bearing on this matter.”
“But it does,” he said softly. “After all, I bought this house today.”
She nodded, folded her arms over her breasts. “Yes. And…and it was a very kind thing for you to—”
“Based on the way you looked at your boyfriend, I have to assume you were glad I did.”
“Sim. I was. But Ferrantes is not—”
“Your lover.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever you want to call him.”
He watched the tip of her tongue peep out, watched it sweep across her lips and hated himself for the way it made him feel, hated her for doing it. It was deliberate; everything she’d done from the second she’d set eyes on him this morning had been deliberate.
“Must have been hell, a woman as fastidious as you, sleeping with a man like—”
She slapped him. Her hand moved so fast he never really saw the blow coming. The best he could do was jerk back, grab her wrist, twist it behind her as he tugged her toward him.
“What’s the matter, baby? Does the truth hurt?”
“Get out,” she hissed. “Get out of my house!”
“This isn’t your house. Not anymore.”
Tears filled her eyes. Angry tears, phony tears. One of the two. He knew damned well they couldn’t be any other kind.
“I bought it. Just as you assumed I would.”
She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Assumed?” A choked laugh burst from her throat. “I didn’t even know you were in Brazil! Come to think of it, why are you in my country?”
“Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. I didn’t come looking for you.”
She knew that. Still, hearing it hurt. It was time to hurt him back.
“I
