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  He drew in a harsh breath. ‘I ask you again, Daniella—will you be able to do so?’

  Never, came the unequivocal answer, Dani acknowledged heavily.

  If her experience with Philip had soured her towards marriage for life, then her night with Niccolo had ruined her chances of ever taking another lover. That time with Niccolo had been so totally perfect that she knew anything else—anyone else—would always be second best.

  She sighed. ‘Does that really matter, Niccolo, when the two of us intend going back to our normal habit of ensuring that we see as little of each other as possible?’

  ‘You do not think that our night together is reason enough for us to explore this…relationship further?’

  She gave a choked laugh. ‘The fact that you hesitated in even calling it a relationship should be answer enough!’

  ‘I hesitated simply because I do not know what else to call it!’ he growled. ‘Damn it, Daniella, we both know that we found pleasure together that night.’

  She closed her eyes to block out the image of his fiercely angry face, quickly opening them again as images of that night—being completely naked in Niccolo’s arms, the beautiful strength of his perfectly proportioned body—instantly overwhelmed her.

  ‘Have dinner with me this evening.’

  ‘No!’ she protested instantly, her hands clenching into such tight fists that her nails dug into her palms. ‘No, Niccolo,’ she repeated more calmly. ‘We made a mistake; let’s not compound it by trying to create something out of nothing.’

  Niccolo had found her grandfather’s interest both in his family and his financial affairs bordering on offensive earlier, but Daniella couldn’t have shown him any more clearly that she had absolutely no interest in either of those things.

  Intriguing.

  He knew he was considered extremely eligible, but Niccolo didn’t delude himself into believing his personality and looks had too much to do with that. Rather it was the D’Alessandro name and millions that gave him his eligible status. Dozens of women had pursued him with those things solely in mind.

  But now Daniella was making it more than obvious that neither his name, money, or indeed he himself interested her!

  ‘We will not know whether or not there is a basis on which to create something until we have…explored the possibilities,’ he said slowly.

  Her mouth quirked. ‘Until we’ve gone to bed together again, you mean?’

  Was that what he had in mind? Possibly, Niccolo allowed grimly. And was that so unreasonable? Did Daniella have no curiosity herself to know whether or not they could recreate that one perfect night together? Did she feel none of the heated desire that churned just below the surface of their every conversation, their every glance? Had she not felt the same jolt of awareness he had just now, when he’d merely touched her arm?

  ‘Are you not the least bit curious to know, Daniella?’ he felt compelled to demand huskily.

  Of course she was, Dani admitted privately. Only someone who was as blasé about lovemaking as Niccolo had earlier implied that she was could possibly remain immune to that curiosity.

  But that curiosity, that daring, had already landed her in this impossible situation; to repeat it, with both of them aware of exactly who the other was, would be the height of stupidity.

  ‘Not in the least, Niccolo,’ she lied, with a brightness she was far from feeling, knowing by the angry tightening of Niccolo’s mouth that her response had succeeded in alienating him. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I think I would like to take a nap before we reach London.’ She pointedly closed her eyes on the stony disapproval she could see in his face.

  But she was far too aware of his brooding presence beside her for the next two hours to sleep, and her relief was immense when she realised that the increase in traffic and noise meant that they had finally reached their destination.

  She opened her eyes to look around her. ‘My apartment is—’

  ‘I know where your apartment is, Daniella,’ Niccolo gritted, the last two hours of silence having grated unbearably on his already frayed temper.

  He desperately wanted to shake Daniella—wanted to physically pick her up and shake her until her teeth rattled.

  His only reason for seeking her out today had been to clear the air between them, to somehow come to some sort of understanding that would enable them to meet again in future—as they were sure to do because Eleni was Daniella’s best friend—without awkwardness.

  But seeing Daniella again, speaking with her, had somehow achieved the opposite effect!

  Dani sensed Niccolo was far from happy. Who could possibly have guessed so many complications would arise from what had at the time seemed so uncomplicated? Come and enjoy the anonymity of a masked Venetian festival, Eleni had invited her. Take a lover, if you want one—at a Venetian festival it is allowed.

  Admittedly, Dani doubted that Eleni had intended for her to take Niccolo as that lover, and Dani knew now that any lover would have been a mistake.

  Yet Niccolo’s reaction to that night was to suggest repeating it—and Dani had spent the last two hours fighting against accepting that invitation!

  Her body actually ached from the tension of remaining unmoving in the car beside him. Her jaw ached from the effort it had taken not to speak. And the closer they had got to London, to their parting, the harder it had been for her to remain silent and still.

  ‘Thank you,’ she muttered now, as Niccolo parked his car outside her apartment building.

  ‘Daniella—’

  ‘No, Niccolo. Don’t say anything else—please!’ she exclaimed, before turning to open the car door and scramble outside onto the pavement, immediately breathing in deep lungfuls of the late summer air in an effort to calm her rapidly racing pulse.

  Everything looked as it normally did outside her apartment building. People strolling in the early evening sunshine in the park opposite. The ice-cream shop open across the street. One of her neighbours walking his dog.

  Only she was different, it seemed.

  And perhaps Niccolo a little, too…

  Nothing, she realised emotionally, was ever going to be quite the same again…

  ‘Daniella?’

  She turned slightly confused eyes to look at Niccolo as he came to stand beside her after placing her overnight bag—all she had taken to Wiverley Hall as she kept some clothes there—on the pavement at her feet.

  God, he looked good, she acknowledged achingly. His overlong hair appeared as dark as ebony in the sunlight, and his swarthy features were softened by that light too; deep brown eyes appeared almost golden, high cheekbones less hard, and his mouth—that pleasurably tormenting mouth!—had relaxed into a slightly enquiring smile.

  She must not weaken now!

  She straightened abruptly, her mouth set, green gaze direct. ‘It was kind of you to drive me back to London,’ she told him stiffly as she extended her hand.

  Niccolo’s breath caught in his throat as he looked down at the slenderness of that hand.

  Daniella thought to part from him as if he were just any casual acquaintance who had given her a lift to her home? She believed that she could dismiss him, and the intimacy they had shared, so easily?

  ‘Oh, no, Daniella,’ he snarled, ignoring that hand to reach out, his hands planted firmly on the slenderness of her waist, and draw her towards him. ‘You do not dismiss me so easily!’ And with that his head lowered and his mouth took fierce possession of hers.

  Niccolo’s eyes closed instinctively, shutting out her startled expression as his mouth began to taste, to savour hers.

  She tasted like the woman in gold!

  She felt the same!

  She was the same…

  Niccolo growled low in his throat as, with a soft groan of surrender, her lips parted to deepen the kiss, and he drew her body close into his to mould her softness against his much harder contours.

  His body leapt with remembered, renewed desire, heat rising rapidly between them as he r
estlessly caressed the curve of her spine, holding her firmly against him so that she could feel his throbbing response.

  He wanted her.

  Now.

  Wanted to feel her naked beneath him as he plunged deep inside her, as his hardness stroked rhythmically against her arousal. Wanted to once again feel her heat, her passion, as she convulsed around him in ecstasy.

  How could Daniella even think of denying them that pleasure—?

  Dani wrenched her mouth away from Niccolo’s to look up at him with dark, slightly bruised-looking green eyes, her breathing ragged as she pushed against his chest to be released.

  ‘Let me go, Niccolo,’ she told him shakily as he still held her tightly against him. ‘Let me go now!’ she repeated fiercely, her eyes glittering angrily.

  He blinked once at her vehemence before narrowing his gaze questioningly. His arms slowly fell back to his sides to allow Dani to step back.

  She was trembling, shaking—more shaken, more aroused than she could ever allow Niccolo to know.

  God knew what would have happened if they hadn’t been standing on a public London street! Her jaw tightened and she looked up at him challengingly. ‘What was that supposed to prove?’

  ‘I did not set out to prove anything, Daniella. What it did prove is that you are not as immune to me as you claim to be.’

  She breathed raggedly. ‘You—!’

  ‘It also proved that you will not find it so easy to forget our evening together as you think it will,’ he continued ruthlessly.

  ‘Neither will you!’ Dani retorted.

  ‘I never claimed I would forget it, Daniella,’ he reminded her softly.

  No, he hadn’t, had he? she thought. In fact, Niccolo had been so affected by their lovemaking last weekend that he had spent the last few days searching for the woman in the gold gown.

  Well, now he had found her. Only, as Dani had no intention of becoming Niccolo’s latest mistress in a no doubt long line of mistresses, it was up to her to put a stop to this once and for all. Even at the risk of damaging her friendship with Eleni.

  She forced a deliberately mocking smile to her lips. ‘I really do hate to dent your inflated ego, Niccolo, but our lovemaking really wasn’t that memorable, and I can assure you I am going to have absolutely no problem whatsoever in forgetting both it and you!’

  To her chagrin, her claim only made Niccolo smile. Widely. Confidently. ‘Have you ever heard the saying “the lady doth protest too much”…?’

  ‘Of course I’ve heard it,’ she snapped. ‘It just doesn’t happen to apply in this case.’

  ‘No?’ he pressed.

  ‘No!’ Dani scowled fiercely.

  ‘Very well.’ He nodded, those sculptured lips still curved into a mocking smile. ‘I will be back in London at the end of next month, Daniella. Four weeks from now.’

  ‘Of what interest can that possibly be to me?’

  ‘If your lack of interest is genuine, then it will be of little relevance,’ Niccolo allowed. ‘But if, as I suspect, your body still burns with the same desire as mine, then it may be of great interest—’

  ‘God, you’re unbelievably arrogant!’ Dani cut in.

  Niccolo knew that his arrogance was a part of his nature, that it was part and parcel of being the head of the D’Alessandro family and business. But when he talked of the desire that burned between himself and Daniella he knew he was not speaking out of arrogance, but fact. Just now had proved as much. And perhaps the month until he and Daniella could meet again would give her time to realise the truth of that too.

  He sincerely hoped that it would!

  He gave an elegant shrug. ‘I am merely being more truthful, both to myself and you, than you appear to be.’

  ‘You just want to find yourself a convenient mistress for whenever you’re in London!’

  Niccolo refused to rise to her deliberate attempt at insulting him. ‘And what sort of mistress do you think you would make, Daniella?’

  ‘A very unaccommodating one.’

  He smiled at the obvious truth of that remark; anyone less like the warm and, yes, accommodating women he had taken as mistresses in the past he had yet to meet!

  ‘I’m glad you find this so funny, Niccolo,’ she continued as she saw and obviously misunderstood that smile. The impatience in her tone told him she found it the exact opposite of amusing. ‘What do you think Eleni would have to say about all this?’

  Niccolo’s humour faded, and his mouth tightened at what was an obvious ploy on Daniella’s part to halt this conversation by mentioning his sister.

  Eleni had had plenty to say to him earlier that morning, before he’d set out for Gloucestershire, leaving Niccolo in no doubt whatsoever that if he intended harming Dani in any way he would have Eleni to answer to.

  ‘What is between us does not concern Eleni,’ he stated flatly.

  ‘There is absolutely nothing between us, Niccolo!’ Dani denied desperately, her unfair use of Eleni as a weapon having failed utterly. ‘This—whatever it was—is over.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that, Daniella,’ he drawled as he took the car keys from his trouser pocket before moving around to the driver’s side of the car. ‘Who knows? By the time I return in four weeks’ time you might even have convinced yourself into believing it.’ He raised one mocking eyebrow. ‘I will then have the pleasure of proving otherwise.’

  Dani opened her mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with his pleasure, but the words died on her lips as he slid smoothly behind the wheel of the car and closed the door behind him before turning on the ignition.

  Arrogant, arrogant man, she muttered to herself in frustration as she watched Niccolo drive away.

  It could be four weeks until she saw him again, four years or four decades, and she would not—she could not—give in to the desire Niccolo ignited inside her with just a look!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘DID you decide that you could not, after all, wait the full four weeks until my return to London this weekend?’

  Niccolo’s surprise of a few minutes ago, when his secretary had come into his Venetian office and told him of Daniella Bell’s presence in the outer room, was completely under control now as he sat behind the width of his imposing leather-topped oak desk and looked at the slenderness of Daniella’s back where she stood across the room from him, gazing out of the window at the busy Grand Canal below.

  He had stood up when she entered the room, and indicated for her to take a seat across the desk from his. But instead of doing so Daniella had moved to the huge window, her back remaining firmly towards him as she gazed out at the beauty that was Venice in September, with the weak sun bathing the buildings and the water in a soft amber glow.

  Niccolo had seen that view dozens of times in his lifetime, both before his father died and then more since he had taken over this office as his own, and he knew exactly how mystical, how beautiful Venice looked as it stretched majestically into the hazy distance.

  But Daniella had been in the room for at least five minutes now, and so far had not spoken a word….

  ‘Daniella?’ he prompted impatiently, when she did not even respond to the deliberate provocation of his remark.

  It was three and a half weeks since he had last seen her. Three and a half weeks during which he had not forgotten a single thing about her or the evening they had made love so beautifully. Three and a half weeks during which he had longed to return to London, but forced himself not to do so to give Daniella time. Time, he had hoped, to discover she wanted him as much as he still wanted her.

  When Melina had told him Daniella was here, waiting outside to see him, Niccolo had believed that to be the case and had been filled with expectation. But Daniella’s behaviour since entering the room—her silence, the fact that she had barely glanced at him before moving to stand in front of the window with her back towards him—did not fill him with the same confidence.

  But by the same token, she could have not have flown to Ven
ice, sought him out at his office, without good reason…

  She was dressed more formally than he would have expected. Her black suit was expertly tailored and matched with a cream silk blouse; her slender legs and feet were bare in black court shoes. The formality of her clothing implied this was more of a business appointment than a social call.

  ‘Daniella, your silence is becoming intolerable!’ he rasped, his movements restless as he stood up.

  Dani was aware of Niccolo behind her in the room, just as she had been aware for several minutes of his rising impatience at her silence.

  She hadn’t meant for it to be this way. Had intended coming to Venice to see Niccolo, and stating confidently and calmly exactly how she intended things to be between them in future, then returning to her hotel to spend the night there before flying back to England tomorrow.

  But one glance at Niccolo when she’d entered the room—just one heart-stopping look at his ruggedly handsome face and lithely muscular body in the lightweight grey suit and pristine white shirt with its neatly knotted grey tie—and Dani had felt her throat close up and her mouth go completely dry, making it impossible for her to force a single word past her lips.

  Niccolo was perfectly correct. This silence could not continue!

  She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to turn, slightly disconcerted to find he had moved from behind the desk and was now standing only feet away, but determined to stand firm and say what needed to be said.

  ‘Okay,’ she breathed huskily. ‘This is the way it’s going to be. I will continue to live in England, but you may visit whenever you are in London—’

  ‘Stop right there!’ he cut in icily. ‘Daniella.’ His voice softened as he saw her pallor. ‘You are discussing a possible relationship between the two of us as if it were a business arrangement,’ he chided gently.

  Dani blinked, confused for a moment, until she realised exactly what Niccolo was saying. ‘You thought I was discussing the two of us having an affair?’ she said with a frown.