‘Are you...are you trying toblackmailme, Corso? Is that what this is all about?’
He laughed then, but she thought it sounded as empty as the cruel wind which sometimes howled in the trees outside her cottage, during the long months of winter.
‘Don’t be so melodramatic,’ he remonstrated silkily. ‘What would be the point of that? I am not in the business of destroying lives. I’m just pointing out that if you do me a favour, I could return the compliment and do one for you. It could be mutually beneficial, don’t you think?’
Her head was spinning but, despite the magic wand temptation of having the Mediterranean king cancel the debt, Rosie knew she had to refuse—because warning signs were leaping up in front of her like road blocks. She didn’tneedhis help. She and Bianca were managing on their own...just. She didn’twantto make herself beholden to his immense privilege and power. She had weaned herself off Monterosso and its spurious glamour. She’d turned her back on her former life and put it in the past.
Plus, she didn’t like him. Not any more. She found him proud and cold and arrogant. It didn’t help that she had started wanting him in a way she’d never wanted anyone before. But the things you wanted and the things you got were two very different things.
‘My answer is still no,’ she said, ignoring the disbelief which made his autocratic features grow so cold. ‘And now, I’m going to have to cut this visit short, I’m afraid. I need to do some cleaning over at the big house because Signor Corsini is flying a bunch of guests over from Palermo next weekend and he likes everything looking its best.’
But to her surprise Corso didn’t react to the kind of dismissal he was unlikely to have experienced before. He just put his hand in the breast pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a card, his expression still unyielding. It was the same stony countenance which was stamped on the front of every Monterossian coin and, for a moment, Rosie felt slightly intimidated.
But then he wrong-footed her and afterwards she wondered if it had been deliberate. He walked across the room towards her, covering the tiny space in seconds until he was standing directly in front of her—tall and golden, dominant and beautiful. A glowing god of man, pulsing with life and virility. Rosie gazed up at him as he took her hand, slipping the card into her palm before gently closing her fingers around it, and the resulting spark which fizzed over her skin was just...
Electric.
It was the briefest of touches yet her body rippled in instant response—as if she had spent her whole life waiting for him to touch her like that. Did he feel it too? Was that why he suddenly tensed, as if someone were about to land a blow on his solar plexus? Why he fixed her with that questioning golden gaze which seemed to burn right through her? She held her breath—almost as if she were waiting for him to do something else. Like what? Pull her into his arms and kiss her? Wasn’t that what her fevered imagination was conjuring up?
But he didn’t.
Of course he didn’t.
His lips simply curved with a hint of mockery as he let go of her hand.
‘Why don’t you think about what I’ve said, Rosie? In my experience, it’s always better to sleep on a proposition, before coming to a decision.’
His words hung in the air like silken baubles as, noiselessly, he let himself out of the cottage.