There was a heartbeat of a pause before Dante answered. She was so unexpected, he thought. Like finding a shaded space in the middle of a sizzling courtyard. Like running cool water over your hot and dirty hands and seeing all the grime trickle away. ‘No, not especially predictable,’ he said. ‘But not satisfactory either.’
He leaned forward and as he did he could smell the tang of salt on her skin and wondered if she’d been swimming earlier that morning. He wondered what her body looked like beneath that all-enveloping shawl. What that blond hair would look like if it fell down over her bare skin. ‘The only satisfactory response I can think of right now is that I think you should lean forward and part your lips so that I can kiss you.’
Willow stared at him—shocked—as she felt the whisper of something unfamiliar sliding over her skin. Something which beckoned her with a tantalising finger. And before she had time to consider the wisdom of her action, she did exactly as he suggested. She extended her neck by a fraction and slowly p
arted her lips so that he could lean in to kiss her. She felt the brush of his mouth against hers as the tip of his tongue edged its way over her lips.
Was it the champagne she’d drunk, or just some bone-deep yearning which made her open her mouth a little wider? Or just the feeling of someone who’d been locked away from normal stuff for so long that she wanted to break free. She wanted to toss aside convention and not be treated like some delicate flower, as she had been all her life. She didn’t want to be Willow Hamilton right then. She wanted the famous fairy godmother to blast into the Caribbean airport in a cloud of glitter and to wave her wand and transform her, just as Willow had been transforming models for the past week.
She wanted her hair to stream like buttery silk down her back and for her skin to be instantly tanned, shown to advantage by some feminine yet sexy little dress whose apparent simplicity would be confounded by its astronomical price tag. She wanted her feet to be crammed into sky-high stilettos which still wouldn’t be enough to allow her to see eye to eye with this spectacular man, if they were both standing. But she didn’t want to be standing—and she didn’t want to be sitting on a bar stool either. She wanted to be lying on a big bed wearing very sexy underwear and for those olive fingers to be touching her flesh again—only this time in far more intimate spots as he slowly unclothed her.
All those thoughts rushed through her mind in just the time it took for her own tongue to flicker against his and Willow’s eyes suddenly snapped open—less in horror at the public spectacle she was making of herself with a man she’d only just met than with the realisation of what was echoing over the loudspeaker. It took a full five seconds before her befuddled brain could take in what the robotic voice was actually saying, and when it did, her heart sank.
‘That’s me. They’re calling my flight,’ she said breathlessly, reluctantly drawing her mouth away from his, still hypnotised by the blazing blue of his eyes. With an effort she got off the stool, registering the momentary weakness of her knees as she automatically patted her shoulder bag to check her passport and purse. She screwed up her face, trying to act like what had happened was no big deal. Trying to pretend that her breasts weren’t tingling beneath her pashmina and that she kissed total strangers in airports every day of the week. Trying not to hope that he’d spring to his feet and tell her he didn’t want her to go. But he didn’t.
‘Oh, heck,’ she croaked. ‘It’s the last call. I can’t believe I didn’t hear it.’
‘I think we both know very well why you didn’t hear it,’ he drawled.
But although his eyes glinted, Willow sensed that already he was mentally taking his leave of her and she told herself it was better this way. He was just a gorgeous man she’d flirted with at the airport—and there was no reason why she couldn’t do this kind of thing in the future, if she wanted to. It could be the springboard to a new and exciting life if she let it. That is, if she walked away now with her dignity and dreams intact. Better that than the inevitable alternative. The fumbled exchange of business cards and the insincere promises to call. Her waiting anxiously by the phone when she got back to England. Making excuses for why he hadn’t rung but unable—for several weeks at least—to acknowledge the reason he hadn’t. The reason she’d known all along—that he was way out of her league and had just been playing games with her.
Still flustered, she bent down to grab her carry-on and straightened up to drink in his stunning features and hard blue eyes one last time. She tried her best to keep her voice steady. To not give him any sense of the regret which was already sitting on the horizon, waiting to greet her. ‘Goodbye, Dante. It was lovely meeting you. Not a very original thing to say, I know—but it’s true. Safe journey—wherever you’re going. I’d better dash.’
She nearly extended her hand to shake his before realising how stupid that would look and she turned away before she could make even more of a fool of herself. She ended up running for the plane but told herself that was a good thing, because it distracted her from her teeming thoughts. Her heart was pounding as she strapped herself into her seat, but she was determined not to allow her mind to start meandering down all those pointless what if paths. She knew that in life you had to concentrate on what you had, and not what you really wanted.
So every time she thought about those sensual features and amazing eyes, she forced herself to concentrate on the family wedding which was getting closer and the horrible bridesmaid dress she was being made to wear.
She read the in-flight magazines and slept soundly for most of the journey back to England, and it wasn’t until she touched down at Heathrow and reached into the overhead locker that she realised the carry-on bag she’d placed in the overhead locker wasn’t actually her bag at all. Yes, it was brown, and yes, it was made of leather—but there all similarities ended. Her hands began to tremble. Because this was of the softest leather imaginable and there were three glowing gold initials discreetly embossed against the expensive skin. She stared at it with a growing sense of disbelief as she matched the initials in her head to the only name they could stand for, and her heart began to pound with a mixture of excitement and fear.
D.D.S.
Dante Di Sione.
CHAPTER TWO
DANTE’S PLANE WAS halfway over northern Spain when he made the grim discovery which sent his already bad mood shooting into the stratosphere. He’d spent much of the journey with an erection he couldn’t get rid of—snapping at the stewardesses who were fussing and flirting around him in such an outrageous way that he wondered whether they’d picked up on the fact that he was sexually excited, and some hormonal instinct was making them hit on him even more than usual.
But he wasn’t interested in those women in too-tight uniforms with dollar signs flashing in their eyes when they looked at him. He kept thinking about the understated Englishwoman and wondered why he hadn’t insisted she miss her flight, so that he could have taken her on board his plane and made love to her. Most women couldn’t resist sex on a private jet, and there was no reason she would be any different.
His mouth dried as he remembered the way she had jumped up from the bar stool like a scalded cat and run off to catch her flight as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him. Had that ever happened to him before? He thought not.
She hadn’t even asked for his business card!
Pushing her stubbornly persistent image from his mind, he decided to check on his grandfather’s precious tiara, reaching for his bag and wondering why the old man wanted the valuable and mysterious piece of jewellery so much. Because time was fast running out for him? Dante felt the sudden painful twist of his heart as he tried to imagine a future without Giovanni, but he couldn’t get his head around it. It was almost impossible to envisage a life without the once strong but still powerful figure who had stepped in to look after him and his siblings after fate had dealt them all the cruellest of blows.
Distracted by the turbulent nature of his thoughts, he tugged at the zip of the bag and frowned. He couldn’t remember it being so full because he liked to travel light. He tugged again and the zip slid open. But instead of a small leather case surrounded by boxer shorts, an unread novel and some photos of a Spanish castle he really needed to look at for a client before his next meeting—it was stuffed full of what looked suspiciously like...
Dante’s brows knitted together in disbelief.
Swimwear?
He looked at the bag more closely and saw that instead of softest brown leather embossed with his initials, this carry-on was older and more battered and had clearly seen better days.
Disbelievingly, he began to burrow through the bikinis and swimsuits, throwing them aside with a growing sense of urgency, but instantly he knew he was just going through the motions and that his search was going to be fruitless. His heart gave a leap in his chest as a series of disastrous possibilities occurred to him. How ironic it would be if
he’d flown halfway across the globe to purchase a piece of jewellery which had cost a king’s ransom, only to find that he’d been hoodwinked by the man who had sold it to him.
But no. He remembered packing the tiara himself, and although he was no gem expert, Dante had bought enough trinkets as pay-offs for women over the years to know when something was genuine. And the tiara had been genuine—of that he’d been certain. A complex and intricate weaving of diamonds and emeralds which had dazzled even him—a man usually far too cynical to be dazzled.