‘Someday I’ll take you back to see it,’ Vitale promised and then he frowned.
‘I’m leaving in the morning,’ she reminded him helplessly.
His beautiful dark deep-set eyes lingered on her anxious face and he lifted a hand, brushing her delicate jawbone with his knuckle in an unexpected caress. ‘Let your hair down,’ he whispered.
The look of anticipation gleaming in his eyes made her heart race and the blood surge hotly through her body. ‘Why?’ she asked baldly.
‘I love your hair … the colour of it, the feel of it,’ he confessed huskily.
And like a woman in a dream, Zara lifted her hand and undid the clip. Vitale need no further invitation, angling his proud dark head down as he studied her and used his hands to deftly fluff her rumpled hair round her shoulders. ‘I even like the smell of it,’ he admitted, a bemused frown tugging at his ebony brows even as his nostrils flared in recognition at the vanilla scent of her.
He was gorgeous, Zara thought dizzily, the most gorgeous guy she had ever met and he seemed equally drawn to her. It was a heady thought, and not her style, but she was basking in the hot golden glow of his appreciative appraisal. It was the work of a moment to mentally douse the sparks of caution at the back of her mind and instead stretch up on tiptoe as if she were free as a bird to do whatever she liked and taste that remarkably beautiful mouth of his again. He lifted her up in his arms and began to carry her upstairs.
ZARA surfaced from that kiss to discover that she was on a bed in an unfamiliar room.
It was a larger, more masculine version of her room with bedding the colour of parchment. Unfortunately the last time that Zara had been alone in a bedroom with a man she had been handcuffed half naked to a metal headboard and it was thanks to that terrifying experience that she remained a virgin at the age of twenty-two. Momentarily transfixed by that chilling recollection she turned pale as milk and studied Vitale, reminding herself that she had kissed him, and encouraged him entirely of her own free will. She was not under the influence of alcohol this time around either.
‘What’s wrong?’ His shirt already half unbuttoned to display a dark, hair-roughened wedge of muscular torso, Vitale regarded her with observant eyes, reading her tension and her pallor and wondering at her mood.
He was too clever by half to miss her nervous tension, Zara registered in dismay. A blush of discomfiture warmed her face as she struggled to suppress the apprehension that was a direct result of the betrayal she had suffered. Vitale wasn’t a blackmailer, she told herself urgently. He wasn’t going to whip out a camera either … at least she hoped not. He was a wealthy successful man in his own right with no need to target her as a potential source of profit.
‘It’s all right … it’s not you,’ she told him awkwardly. ‘I had a bad experience once …’
Vitale spread his hands in a fluid soothing movement. ‘If you want to change your mind I’ll understand.’
Her wide eyes prickled with tears at that considerate offer because she knew it could not have been easy for him to make. He was not selfishly putting his own needs first, he cared how she felt and that meant a great deal to Zara. After all, in spite of all his protestations Julian had never cared about her, he had only seen her as a means to an end, a convenient conduit to her father’s bank account. Her chin came up and she kicked off her shoes in a statement of intent. It was time she shook off the shadows cast over her life by Julian Hurst; it was time that she accepted that not every man was a user or an abuser.
‘I’m staying,’ Zara informed him unevenly, fighting her nerves with all her might. Twenty-two and a virgin—no, she absolutely was not going to share that embarrassing truth with him. She had read somewhere that men couldn’t tell the difference so he would never guess the level of her inexperience unless she made it obvious by parading her insecurity.
Vitale wanted to tell her that she wouldn’t regret sharing his bed but he was no hypocrite and he knew that she would. But what was another one-night stand to a woman with her level of experience? Unhappily for him, however, nothing seemed as cut and dried as it had before and he was suffering stabs of indecision directly in conflict with his usual rock-solid assurance and resolute focus. When and how had the business of avenging his sister contrived to become a guilty pleasure?
How could a little pixie-like blonde threaten to come between him and his wits? Vitale always knew what he was doing and controlled his own fate every step of the way. Time after time in his life he had made tough choices and he had never flinched from them. He might loathe the fact but he wanted Monty Blake’s daughter much more than he had ever dreamt possible. Even knowing that she was engaged to another man and a heartless little cheat didn’t kill his desire for her. Did it matter how he felt though? Surely all that mattered was that he took revenge for his sister’s pitiful death at the hands of a filthy coward? And the woman on his bed was the magic key to that much desired objective.
‘Take the shorts off,’ he urged huskily.
Tensing, Zara was very still for a moment before she scrambled off the bed. It was a modest request, she told herself. He hadn’t asked her to take off everything. But she was all fingers and thumbs as she undid the button at the waistband of her shorts and shook her slim hips clear of the garment, finally stepping out of them to reveal a pair of high cut blue satin knickers.
There was something wrong. What, Vitale didn’t know, but his instincts were good and he sensed it. Her face was pink, her eyes evasive below concealing lashes and her movements curiously stiff. This was not a woman confident in the bedroom and the suspicion sparked a sense of unease in him for once again she was defying the picture he had of her. Her lavender eyes met his with an unmistakeably anxious glint and her arms were crossed defensively. He recalled that bad experience she had mentioned and wondered just how bad it had been to leave a beautiful young woman so unsure of herself. Disconcerted by the train of his thoughts, Vitale reminded himself that he only wanted to spend the night with her, not step into her mind and psychoanalyse her. He never went deep in relationships, never got involved. He liked his affairs light and easy, with sex the main event and no bitter aftertaste. What was it about her that continually off-balanced him?
Zara had always worried about displaying her body to a man. Unforgettably Julian had laughed at her very slight curves, remarking that she might as well have been a boy as she would never make a centrefold. She had once considered getting a breast enlargement but had feared that with so slim a body she might end up looking top heavy and unnatural. Now all of a sudden she wanted to be perfect—she wanted to be perfect purely for Vitale.
‘What is it?’ he prompted, crossing the floor to grip her taut shoulders.
‘I’m feeling horribly shy,’ she told him in a rush.
He lifted her off her feet and set her on the side of the bed and then he kissed her, knotting one hand into the soft silky fall of her hair to hold her steady. It was a hungry, demanding kiss, his tongue flicking against the sensitive roof of her mouth to fire a response that raced through her like an explosive depth charge. She forgot who she was, she forgot who he was, she even contrived to forget that she was a virgin. Her palms skated up over the hard muscular wall of his powerful chest and with a groan deep in his throat he caught her hand and, in a stark expression of need, brought it down to the thrust of his erection beneath his trousers.
Pleased to recognise
