‘Nic, no!’ Her voice changed and she took a heaving breath. Emotion was storming in her, threatening to overwhelm her. She’d nerved herself for this and she would see it through. She must.
‘Nic, listen to me. You’ve got no business stonewalling me like this. It’s me, Fran. You owe me some courtesy, at least. I’ve not done any harm to you. Listen...’ She took another shuddering breath. ‘Don’t take your anger out on me! I am not anything to do with whatever the hell is going on between you and Vito. I didn’t even know you’d tried to take over half his company, let alone that it was ripped back from you. Why should I? I didn’t even damn well know you were Nicolo Falcone. You made sure I didn’t know.’
Nic’s voice stayed icy. ‘And you made sure I didn’t know who you really were!’
‘Because it wasn’t relevant!’ she shot back vehemently. ‘It wasn’t relevant then, and it isn’t now.’ She took another shuddering breath. Held out her hand towards him. ‘Nic, please, don’t be like this.’ Her voice changed, dropped. ‘There was something good between us...don’t spoil it now! Don’t spoil those memories—’
She broke off, feeling emotion rising in her, her hand still outstretched towards him, where he stood rigid and unmoving.
But behind the mask of his face something was moving. Something was building like an unstoppable tide. She was standing there, breasts heaving, the jewels around her throat catching the low lamplight. The woman he was finally going to put behind him. Into the past, where she needed to be. Needed to stay. The past that was reaching forward now, reaching towards him as she was reaching her hand towards him, her eyes huge, lips parted, as if imploring him. As if tempting him beyond endurance.
‘There was something good, Nic, and it doesn’t deserve your hostility to me!’
Something changed in his eyes. Something that glittered with memory and was fuelled by the heat suddenly rising in his body, the heat she was engendering, with her slender body moulded by that gown that showed every curve, every contour, the body he knew with all the intimacy of possession.
As if of their own volition his feet took a step towards her. He did not touch her outstretched hand. Instead his fingers reached to touch her cheek. Lightly...the slightest brush.
‘Shall I tell you what there was between us? Shall I show you?’
The fingers trailed to her lips, grazed their outline. The husk in his voice was low, sensual...
She stilled. ‘Nic, no! I didn’t come here because—’ She broke off, stricken. Lifted her hand to push his fingers away. ‘Nic, I know you have someone else in your life now—another woman! I know what we had is over.’
A rasp broke from him and there was a glitter in his eyes now, like the glitter of light on the sapphires around her throat.
‘There is no other woman...’ The words fell from his lips, hoarse.
How could there be any other woman when this woman had reappeared in his life, out of nowhere, taking his senses by storm? As she had the very first time he’d laid eyes on her.
As she always would...every time...
The truth seared through him like a burning brand. He would always want her, this woman he could not resist. He would be foolish to think otherwise.
He saw her expression change at what he’d said, heard the intake of her breath, saw her pupils start to dilate, a flush rise in her cheeks, her breasts rise and fall. Her hand fell to her side, too weak to ward him off as he lifted his fingers to her cheek again, slid his hand around the delicate line of her jaw to cup the nape of her neck, drawing her towards him.
She faltered, and yielded, exhaling his name in a breath, on a soft, helpless sigh, as his other hand reached forward towards her straining breasts, curved openly around one lush mound, felt it crest through the silk.
Desire shot through him. Hot, urgent. The world receded, ceased to exist. He heard he
r gasp—a gasp he knew, recognised. It was a gasp of pleasure, of arousal.
‘Nic...’ Her voice was a low moan, an exhalation of desire.
He moved towards her. ‘Shall I show you what there was between us?’ he said again, and his voice was that low husk still, his lashes dropping over his eyes, mouth lowering to hers.
His kiss was velvet. Slow, deliberate, controlled, opening her mouth to his with practised ease. A moan broke from her. A cry inside her head. This should not be happening—it was not why she had come.
But she was beyond stopping him. Beyond anything except letting her clutch bag tumble to the floor to free both her hands, sliding them around the strong column of his body, feeling a release inside her as she did so, as she felt the warmth of his body beneath her sliding palms.
She said his name again and it was a sigh, a plea.
A yielding.
She could not stand against it—against what was happening. She hadn’t come here for this... She had come for understanding, for making peace, for—
I came for this.
The truth—the truth she’d blinded herself to—seared across her brain.