He ignored her. He ignored everyone, including the blonde who was still desperately trying to get free. Opening the front passenger door to the limo, he tried to propel her inside.
She dug her heels in. ‘I’m not—’
He picked her up and bodily put her into the car. When she tried to get out again, her mouth opening wide with the intention of screaming for help, he bent swiftly and smothered the sound with his mouth.
He didn’t take pleasure from hard angry kisses, he told himself, particularly when he’d just been hit on by a woman who deserved a slap not a kiss. However the kiss gave him a hell of a lot more satisfaction, especially when her muffled scream rolled around his mouth and sent his tongue chasing it.
She quivered. She tasted of champagne and pink lipstick.
By the time he yanked his mouth away again she’d sunk into trembling shock.
‘Now, listen to me,’ he incised as he locked the seat belt around her. ‘I don’t know how much your partner in crime was paying you to pull off that stunt, but in case you did not notice, he was not the only sleaze-gathering scum working the room back there. The pack has scented a story and is about to descend on us.’
On that hard warning he straightened, slammed the car door shut, then strode round to the other side while Rachel twisted her head to stare dazedly at the press pack gathering at the main hotel doors. By the time she’d absorbed all of that, Raffaelle Villani had folded himself into the driver’s seat next to her—a lean, dark, hard-muscled male with aggression bouncing off him.
His chauffeur had left the engine runni
ng. He snaked out a hand and threw the car into drive. They took off with a jerk just as the press pack tumbled over each other with their cameras flashing. Rachel watched as the whole debacle played out like a comic strip. Even his stepsister had her part to play. She was standing by the kerb staring after them while the chauffeur was politely trying to urge her into the back of a black cab.
Mark was nowhere.
Thanks, Mark, Rachel thought helplessly, visualising her darling half-brother rushing off to file his scoop without giving a second thought to what he had left her to face!
Rachel flicked a scared glance at the man sitting beside her, then shivered. If murder had a look to it then he was wearing it.
‘Please stop the car so I can get out,’ she begged and didn’t even care that she was begging.
He didn’t answer. Lips clamped together, he sent the car shooting out into the main stream of traffic. Several car horns blared in protest at his pushy arrogance. He ignored those too.
‘Look, I know you’re angry,’ she allowed shakily. ‘And I know that you have every right to be, but—’
‘Grazie.’
‘This is kidnap!’
‘So sue me,’ he gritted. ‘That could be fun.’
Fun—? Rachel trembled and shivered as she sat tensely beside him. None of this had beenfun from the moment she’d allowed Elise and Mark to talk her into it. One minute she’d been perfectly content, hiding away in Devon nursing her broken heart, the next minute she’d found herself staying up here in London with her half-sister and being embroiled in her complicated love-life!
‘It w-wasn’t what you think—’
‘You don’t know what I’m thinking.’
‘I amnot being paid to—’
‘Hit on me?’ he offered when those very same words dried in her throat. ‘It is a relief to know I still have some natural pulling power then.’
He had loads of natural pulling power. That was his problem.
‘Are you always this obnoxious when you’ve been caught off your guard?’ she flared up on the back of pure agitation. ‘So I hit on you—what’s new there to a man like you? From what I hear, half the women in Europe have done it at some point in your blessed life—and not all of them because of your sex appeal!’
He sent her a glinting look. ‘Did I hear a hint of scorn in your tone then?’
‘Yes!’ she flicked out. ‘Men like you stroll through life as if you own it. You do what you want when you want to do it. You pick your women on looks alone and don’t give a care whether they have feelings you could actually wound!’
Something sharp hit his voice. ‘I wounded—you?’
‘You mean you don’t know?’ The sarcasm was out before she could stop it.