Once, his kisses had meant everything. Tender, they’d been soft enough to bring her to the verge of tears; passionate, they’d made her dizzy and hungry for more.

And it hadn’t been only his kisses that meant everything. It was the man.

Deep inside, she’d known it had not been the same for him. She’d never been foolish enough to think it was. He was rich, powerful, incredibly good-looking. Many of the models she knew dated such men. She never had…

Until him.

His initial interest had been flattering. Exciting. She had thought, Why not? She’d promised herself dating him would be nothing serious.

And then, despite everything, she had fallen in love with him. Deeply, desperately in love.

Dante had been magic.

But the magic was gone, lost in the cold reality of the past year. Completely gone, she told herself frantically, when she saw the sudden darkening of his eyes, the tightening of skin over bone, the all-too-familiar signs that said he was going to take her in his arms.

“Don’t,” she said, slapping her hands against his chest, but he was not listening, he was not listening…

“Gabriella,” he murmured, saying her name softly as he used to when they made love. His arms tightened around her, he drew her against him…

And kissed her.

The room spun. The crowd disappeared. All that mattered was the sweetness of his kiss, the hardness of his body, the strength of his arms. Her foolish, desperate heart began to race.

“Dante,” she whispered. The hands that had tried to push him away rose and slid up his chest, skimmed the steady beat of his heart and curved around his neck. She rose on her toes, leaned into him, parted her lips to his just as she’d done in the past.

She felt him shudder with desire at her touch.

He wanted her, still.

Wanted her as if nothing had ever separated them.

The realization shot through her like a drug, and when he groaned, thrust one hand into her hair, slid the other to the base of her spine and angled his lips over hers, his kiss going from sweet to passionate as if they were alone, alone in that perfect world his lovemaking had always created, a world in which he had never abandoned her…

A meaty hand clamped down on her shoulder, fingers biting hard into her flesh.

“Pirhana!”

The foul Portuguese curse word was followed by a stream of profanities. Her eyes flew open as Ferrantes yanked her out of Dante’s arms, a stream of words even worse than whore flying from his lips.

Dante shot into action, grabbed Ferrantes’s arm, twisted and jerked it high behind the man’s back. Ferrantes hissed with fury and pain.

“I will kill you, Orsini,” he said, spittle flying from his lips.

“Dante,” Gabriella said desperately, “Dante, please. He’ll hurt you!”

Dante pushed her behind him and brought his lips close to Ferrantes’s ear.

“Touch her again,” he snarled, “and I promise, you bastard, I’ll be the one doing the killing!”

“She is a witch! She makes a fool of you. That you do not see it—Ahh!”

The big man yelped; his face contorted with pain as Dante forced his arm even higher.

“Listen to me, Ferrantes. You are not to speak to her. You are not to speak of her. You are not to so much as look at her or so help me God, you’re a dead man!”

Dante was dimly aware of the room emptying, men rushing for the door, footsteps hurrying across the veranda, truck and car engines roaring to life outside, but he never took his eyes from Ferrantes.

“You hear me? You’re to keep away from her. You got that?”

The big man’s breathing was heavy. At last he gave a quick jerk of his head in assent.

Dante let go, took a step back, and Ferrantes spun around and swung at him. His hand was the size of a ham but there had been many things to learn in the wilds of Alaska, including how to defend yourself in some of the roughest bars in the world. Dante danced back; Ferrantes’s fist sailed harmlessly by his face and when the big man came at him again he grunted, balled his own fist and jabbed it into the man’s solar plexus with the force of a piston.

Ferrantes went down like a felled tree.

Dante stood over him for a long moment. Then he looked up, saw de Souza, saw the auctioneer…

But Gabriella was gone.

De Souza was staring at the motionless hulk on the floor as if it were a rodent. Dante grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

De Souza gulped, looked from Ferrantes to Dante. “You have made a bad enemy, senhor.”

“Answer the question, man. Where is Gabriella?”

The advogado shrugged. “She is gone.”

“I can see that for myself. Where?”

De Souza licked his lips. “Listen to me, Senhor Orsini. This situation is—how do you say—more complicated than it might at first seem.”

Dante barked a laugh. “You think?” His eyes fixed on the lawyer’s. “Where did she go?” he demanded. “Upstairs?”

“Not there,” de Souza said quickly. He gave another expressive shrug. “She fled with the others.”

Dante ran from the house. Only three vehicles remained in the clearing: his, a gold Caddy he figured was the lawyer’s and the big, ugly black SUV that surely belonged to Ferrantes.

He sagged against the veranda railing.

Gabriella was gone.

And maybe that was just as well.

He’d come here to buy this place for his father. Instead, he’d bought it for a woman who had once meant something to him but no longer did. Yes, he’d kissed her. And, yes, that one kiss had damned near consumed him, but so what?

He was a normal, healthy male. She was a beautiful woman. They had a shared history. But that was it.

He looked around him at the weed-choked corral, the dilapidated outbuildings. He’d dropped five million bucks on this place—his money, not Cesare’s—but so what? The truth was he had a lot of money. An obscene amount of money, and he’d made every penny on his own. Losing five million dollars was nothing. And Gabriella didn’t owe him anything. Hadn’t he promised her there would be no strings? Hadn’t buying the fazenda for her been his idea?

A muscle in Dante’s jaw began to tick.

It had been his idea…hadn’t it?

Yes. It damned well had. Still, he had the right to a couple of minutes of conversation. Okay, questions, not conversation, but he was entitled to ask them. Why had she returned to Brazil? Why did she want this rundown disaster? Why did it belong to the bank?

Most of all, why would an ugly SOB like Ferrantes act as if he had a claim on her?

The muscle ticked again.

And then there was the biggest question of all. Why had she melted in his arms when he’d kissed her? Hell, why had he kissed her in the first place? Forget the history thing. He was a man who never looked back—

“Yo, American!” Ferrantes stepped out of the house. He was grinning, even though his gut had to be aching. “You throw a good punch, for a Yankee.”

Dante’s lips drew back from his teeth. “My pleasure.”

The other man chuckled. “The pleasure is all mine, Orsini. Your blow gave me the chance to think. That two intelligent men would have fought over such a woman…”

Dante narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you learn anything?” he said, his tone soft and dangerous. “I told you to watch your mouth!”

The big man lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Trust me, meu amigo. The woman is all yours.” A sly smirk lifted one corner of his mouth. “But I must be honest. You saved me from wasting a lot of money.”

Dante folded his arms. “Glad to have been of service.”

“And from wasting the rest of my life.”

What in hell was the man talking about?

“So, senhor, now I owe you a favor.” Ferrantes made a show of looking around, then lowered his voice. “Before you get in too deep, ask the lady a question.”

“Listen, pal, when I need advice from you—”

“Or ask the advogado. Perhaps he will tell you what you need to know about his charming client.”

A coldness danced along Dante’s spine. Don’t fall for it, he told himself, but it was impossible to ignore the bait.

“What in hell are you talking about?”

All pretence at camaraderie vanished from Andre Ferrantes’s ugly face.

“Ask de Souza whose bed your Gabriella has been sleeping in,” he said coldly, “until you showed up and she decided it might be more profitable to sleep in yours.”

He’d wanted to go for Ferrantes’s throat, but pride held him back.

Why give the man even a small victory? Dante thought hours later, as he sped along a narrow road that led deeper and deeper into a verdant wilderness.

Bad enough she’d played him for a fool in front of everybody, including the lawyer, who’d known her game all along, and the auctioneer, who was probably still celebrating the haul he’d made. Bad enough, too, that every man in that room knew she’d slept with Ferrantes.

Not that he gave a damn that she’d been with someone else—he had no claims on her anymore—but Ferrantes? She’d wanted the ranch badly enough to lie beneath a pig like that? Open herself to him, take him deep inside her, beg him to touch her, taste her, take her…

Dante’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

She’d done all the things with Ferrantes she had once done with him—and then he’d come along and she’d seen an easy way to put the bastard out of her life.

His mouth twisted.

What a piece of work she was! The earrings he’d bought her had been worth a small fortune but she’d made it seem as if she were too good to accept such an expensive gift from a lover. A former lover, okay, but that wasn’t the point.

Apparently, accepting a ranch was different.

The car hit a pothole and swerved to the right. Dante cursed and fought the wheel, brought the car back on the road.

No wonder Ferrantes had stood there with that slab of beef he called an arm wrapped around Gabriella’s waist. No wonder he’d objected when Dante kissed her. Gone crazy when she’d kissed him back.

Except, she hadn’t.

He knew that now. It had all been a carefully calculated performance. The lady had seen her chance to get possession of those useless acres without continuing to spread her legs for Ferrantes.

An image, so hot and erotic it all but obliterated his vision, filled Dante’s mind.

“Dammit,” he snarled, and pushed the gas pedal the last inch to the floor.

The car rocketed ahead.

What an idiot he’d been! Falling for her act. Behaving precisely as she’d intended so that now he owned a useless piece of dirt in the middle of nowhere, every stinking weed, every collapsing outbuilding all his. He’d written a check for the auctioneer, ignored the man’s outstretched hand, brushed past the lawyer without a word because they’d both known what was happening. They could have told him. Warned him.

Warned him?

The auctioneer’s job was to sell the ranch. The lawyer’s was to protect his client. Besides, de Souza had tried. There is more to this than you know,Senhor, he’d said. Something like that and Dante had chosen to ignore—

Something raced across the road, came to a dead stop, glared at him through eyes that were a shocking red against the dark onset of night. Dante stood on the brakes, fought to control the steering. The car swerved, spun; the tires squealed as if in pain. A wall of thick trees reared up ahead and he cursed, hung on to the steering wheel…

The car came to a shuddering halt.

The sound of the engine died. Silence and the night closed in as he sat behind the wheel breathing hard, hands shaking.

The car had done a one-eighty, ending up pointing in the direction from which he’d come.

He looked in the rearview mirror. The road behind him, what had moments ago been the road ahead of him, was empty. The animal—a big cat, he was almost certain—was gone.

His heart was still pounding. He took half a dozen breaths, sat back until his hands were steady again.

All this crap, reliving the stupid things he’d done almost as soon as he’d stepped off the plane at Campo Grande, was not getting him anywhere. What was done, was done. It was something he had learned to live by, how he had gone from almost flunking out of high school to doing okay in college and then putting in those years in Alaska before finally admitting that success in life wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

Besides, he was the one who’d get the last laugh.

Sure, he’d been conned into dropping a big chunk of change buying property he didn’t want for a woman who meant nothing to him, but this wasn’t over. As he’d walked past de Souza, the lawyer had put out his hand.

“Senhor Orsini?” he’d said politely. “I will expect your phone call.”

Dante had looked at him blankly. De Souza had cleared his throat.

“To make an appointment to come to my office, yes? To transfer ownership of Viera y Filho to Senhorita Reyes.”

“Yeah,” he’d said brusquely, as he’d brushed by the man.

Now, Dante smiled.

Why would he transfer the deed to Gabriella?

She’d wasted her time. No way would he give her the ranch. He’d sell it to the first buyer that wanted it. Or let it go on rotting until every last sign of it had been swallowed up by the surrounding scrub. He would do whatever it took to keep her from profiting from what she’d done to him.

Still smiling, he turned the key. The engine coughed, then caught, and he headed for Bonito.

The drive, even the near accident, had done him some good. Cleared his head. He felt a thousand times better, calm and in control, and that was important.

He was a man who prided himself on being in control.

Goodbye and good riddance to this place, this cast of characters. He was going home.

By the time he reached the main road, he was whistling. He felt good. He’d get to the hotel, shower, change, phone down for room service—or no, why do that? The travel agent had faxed him a list of restaurants and bars. This was Brazil and even in a town that specialized in eco-friendly tours, there was sure to be a hot night scene, and Brazilian women were spectacularly beautiful.

A little rest and relaxation was what he needed.

He didn’t just feel good, he felt great…

Until he approached the road that led to the Viera y Filho fazenda and saw distant lights blazing like the fires of hell against the black night sky at the end of that road.

His good mood disappeared.

Lights. There was someone in the house. And he knew, instinctively, that someone was Gabriella. De Souza had deliberately misled him. Gabriella hadn’t gone out the door, she’d gone up the stairs.

The rage he’d fought for so many hours reached out, all but consumed him. To hell with heading back to the States without confronting her. No matter what he told himself, he’d be leaving with his tail between his legs.

No way, he thought grimly. Not him.

Dante made a sharp left and headed for Gabriella.

Chapter Four

GABRIELLA came slowly down the stairs, exhausted at the end of the long day.

At least the house was quiet. Yara had left; she had her own responsibilities.

Just as well. Gabriella wanted to be alone. There were memories in this house, some bad but a few that were good; she could, at least, gather them to her tonight.

She went from room to room, switching on the lights. She’d been up since before dawn. There was nothing she could do to restore the property from the years of neglect it had suffered, but she’d done what she could inside the house, cleaning and polishing as if for company, ridiculous when the only people who had been coming were those who had wanted to take it from her.

The bank’s representative. The auctioneer. Her attorney, who kept patting her on the shoulder and saying how sorry he was, yet never finding a single way to help her.

And Andre Ferrantes.

She shuddered.

Just thinking of Ferrantes sent a chill through her. He’d turned up, too. No surprise there. He’d sniffed after her like a wolf on a blood trail ever since she’d returned to the fazenda. Lots of sympathetic words. Lots of tsk-tsking. Lots of deep sighs.

But none of those things ever disguised the avaricious glint in his tiny eyes or the way he ran his tongue over his fleshy wet lips when he looked at her.

Today he’d finally made his move. Put his thick arm around her, his way of announcing his intentions to the world, that when he bought the ranch, she would be part of the furnishings.

Never, she thought grimly, plucking a throw pillow from the sofa and all but beating it into shape. No matter how badly she wanted this land, this house, no matter what the reasons, she’d sooner live on the streets than be in Ferrantes’s debt or, even worse, his bed.

The thought was enough to make her feel ill.

And then, the miracle. The second miracle, because the first had been hearing Dante’s voice, discovering him in the room, tall and imposing, hard-faced and intent. For an instant she’d imagined he’d come for her. Searched for her, found her, wanted her again.

Gabriella wrapped her arms around the pillow and shut her eyes.

Stupid thoughts, all of them.

He was here, that was all. She still didn’t know why he’d come; she only knew it had nothing to do with her. But his coming had still saved her. He’d bought the fazenda. For her. At least, that was what he’d said.

So far, that had not happened.

He had not gone to the advogado’s office to sign the documents de Souza said he would have to sign for the transfer of ownership. Instead he had vanished.

The lawyer had no idea where.

“Perhaps he returned to New York,” de Souza told her, shrugging his shoulders. “I do not know, Senhorita. I have not heard from him. I know only that he spoke with Senhor Ferrantes after their, ah, their disagreement.”

Gabriella tossed the pillow aside.

Disagreement? She almost laughed. Was that what you called it when two men went at each other with blood in their eyes? She had fled then, terrified of the consequences, of Ferrantes winning the fight…

Of the noise of it traveling up the stairs.

So she’d gone up to the rooms that were hers, stayed there until de Souza called her name. Everyone was gone, he’d told her, including the senhor from the United States.

“How did—how did the fight end?” she’d asked in a shaky voice.

“Senhor Orsini won,” the lawyer had replied with a little smile. Then his expression had sobered. “But he and Ferrantes had a private talk after. When it was done, the senhor drove away very fast.”

Without arranging to sign transfer papers. Without doing anything to fulfill that “no strings” promise.

Why? The question plagued her through the ensuing hours. She’d come at it from a dozen different angles but she still had no answer, only the nagging worry that though Dante’s initial intent had been decent, his machismo had gotten in the way.

That kiss.

The way he’d held her. Plundered her mouth. As if no time had passed since they’d been lovers. As if he still owned her. Not that he ever had, but that was the way he’d acted when they were together, as if she belonged to him even though she’d known he had no wish to belong to her.

Had it all been an act for Ferrantes? The kiss? The outrageous bid? The promise? The questions were endless, but the one that mattered most was the one she’d posed to de Souza.

“What do we do now?” she’d said.

That had earned her another little smile.

“We wait to hear from Senhor Orsini, of course.” The smile had turned sly. “It is good to have such a powerful man as a friend, yes?”

The way he’d said “friend” had made her want to slap his face.

But she hadn’t.

She knew how things looked. Dante had kissed her and she had responded, but so what? It was a simple matter of hormones and he was an expert at making her hormones respond. Besides, he’d caught her by surprise. She had never expected to see him again, never wanted to see him again. He meant nothing to her; he never had. It had taken her a while to figure that out—his easy disposal of her had wounded her pride, that was all.

She was over him. Completely over him, and—

What was that?

Gabriella threw up her hand. Lights blazing through the front windows from a fast-moving vehicle all but blinded her.

Her heart began to gallop.

“Ferrantes,” she whispered. It had to be him, hot with fury. Dante had made a fool of him in front of everyone, and, he would surely think, so had she.

Tires squealed. A car door slammed. Footsteps pounded up the steps to the veranda and a hand stabbed at the doorbell, over and over and over.

Her mind raced.

What should she do? Phone the policia? The nearest station was miles away. Besides, would they give a damn? Ferrantes was of this place. She was not. Not anymore. Her father had seen to that. He’d told endless lies about her, turned her into an outsider…

The bell was still ringing and now the sound of a fist pounding on the door added to the din. She could not let this continue. It was too much, far too much, and she gave one last frantic look up the stairs before she took a deep breath, went to the door and flung it open.

But it wasn’t Ferrantes filling the night with his presence.

It was Dante. And even as her traitorous heart lifted at the sight of him, the expression on his face made the breath catch in her throat.

Dante saw a rush of emotions flash across Gabriella’s face.

Surprise. Shock. Fear. And, just before that, something he couldn’t identify. Not that it mattered. Whatever she felt was meaningless compared to his rage.

She was good, though. He could almost see her clamp the lid on all the things she’d felt on seeing him again.

“Dante,” she said, as politely as a capable hostess greeting a not-so-welcome drop-in guest. “I didn’t expect to see you tonight.”

“I’ll bet you didn’t.”

“In fact, I thought—Senhor de Souza and I both thought—you’d gone back to New York.”

“Without signing over the deed?”

She could almost see the sneer on his face. Don’t react to it, she told herself, and forced a calm response.

“I only meant—”

“Trust me, sweetheart. I know exactly what you meant.” He smiled; he could feel the pressure of his lips drawing back from his teeth. “Aren’t you going to ask me in?”

She hesitated. He couldn’t blame her. She was far from stupid.

“Actually, it’s rather late.”

“It’s the shank of the evening. Back home, you and I would be heading out for a late supper right about now.”

She flushed. “That was a long time ago.”

“Supper,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken, “and then maybe a stop at one of those little clubs way downtown that you liked so much.”

“You liked them,” she said stiffly, “I preferred simpler places.”

He felt a stir of anticipation in his blood. Her accent had just thickened. She had only the slightest accent. She’d told him once, in a rare moment when they’d talked about their lives, that she’d been tutored in English from childhood—but her accent always grew more pronounced when she was trying to contain her emotions.

In bed, for example.

When they’d been making love. Her whispered words would take on the soft sounds of her native tongue. Sometimes she’d say things to him in Portuguese. Things he had not understood but his body, his mouth, his hands had known their meaning.

He looked down at her, his muscles tense.

“But you liked what we did when we went back to your apartment or mine,” he said, his voice low and rough. “What we did in bed.”

Her color deepened. Or maybe the rest of her face turned pale. He didn’t give a damn. If she thought she was going to control the situation the way she’d controlled it this morning, she was in for a hell of a surprise.

She took a deep breath that lifted her breasts. They seemed larger than in the past. Fuller. But then, he hadn’t seen her breasts in a very long time.

Too long, he thought, and a surge of hot lust rolled deep in his belly.

Lust? For a woman with no makeup on her face? A woman wearing a loose cotton top over baggy jeans? Hell, she looked beautiful anyway, though he had never seen her dressed like this before. She’d always worn chic designer clothes when they were together. Her own clothes, though he’d often tried to buy things for her.

“I prefer to pay for my own things,” she’d always said with a polite smile. She’d used that same line when he tried to buy her any but the simplest of gifts.

She didn’t need convincing anymore, he thought coldly. She hadn’t blinked an eye at his dropping five million bucks on her this morning.

“Whatever we did in New York is over, senhor.”

“Such formality, sweetheart. After all we’ve been to each other?”

“The past,” she said stiffly, ignoring his remark, “has no bearing on this matter.”

“But it does,” he said softly. “After all, I bought this house today.”

She nodded, folded her arms over her breasts. “Yes. And…and it was a very kind thing for you to—”

“Based on the way you looked at your boyfriend, I have to assume you were glad I did.”

“Sim. I was. But Ferrantes is not—”

“Your lover.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever you want to call him.”

He watched the tip of her tongue peep out, watched it sweep across her lips and hated himself for the way it made him feel, hated her for doing it. It was deliberate; everything she’d done from the second she’d set eyes on him this morning had been deliberate.

“Must have been hell, a woman as fastidious as you, sleeping with a man like—”

She slapped him. Her hand moved so fast he never really saw the blow coming. The best he could do was jerk back, grab her wrist, twist it behind her as he tugged her toward him.

“What’s the matter, baby? Does the truth hurt?”

“Get out,” she hissed. “Get out of my house!”

“This isn’t your house. Not anymore.”

Tears filled her eyes. Angry tears, phony tears. One of the two. He knew damned well they couldn’t be any other kind.

“I bought it. Just as you assumed I would.”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “Assumed?” A choked laugh burst from her throat. “I didn’t even know you were in Brazil! Come to think of it, why are you in my country?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, sweetheart. I didn’t come looking for you.”

She knew that. Still, hearing it hurt. It was time to hurt him back.

“I came on business. Family business.”

“Ah, yes,” she said, tossing her head. “The famous famiglia Orsini. How could I have forgotten?”

She gasped as his hold on her tightened. In the few months they’d been together, they had never discussed his family, his father’s underworld connections. She’d have known about it, of course. That the Orsini brothers were sons of Cesare Orsini was favorite gossip-column fodder.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that perhaps the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Dammit, you’re hurting me!”

She was twisting against his hand, trying to get free, but each jerk of her body only brought her more closely against him.

It was agony.

Exquisite agony.

The soft brush of her breasts against the hardness of his chest. The whisper of her belly against his. The feel of her thighs rubbing lightly over his. Just the sight of her, all that sun-streaked hair tumbling around her face, that lush mouth, the eyes deep enough for a man to get lost in.

Memories swept through him.

The feel of her, moving beneath him.

The scent of her, when he brought her to climax.

The taste of her mouth, her skin, her clitoris.

Desire, wild, hot and dangerous, took fire. It thickened his blood, ignited nerve endings, brought him to full, rampant arousal. Maybe she was right. Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. Go back a couple of generations, to the land of his ancestors, a woman would not have dared make a fool of an Orsini as this woman had done this morning.

On a low growl, Dante clasped Gabriella’s shoulders, lifted her to him and claimed her mouth.

She fought. It didn’t matter. Kissing her, subduing her, taking her was everything.

This morning she had told him what she wanted. Now, it was his turn to tell her what he wanted.

Her. Her, in his bed, again. For as long as he chose to keep her there. He’d never wanted another man’s leavings but this—this was different.

He would wipe Ferrantes’s possession away. Replace it with his own demands. His own pleasure. Her pleasure, too, because that would happen, she would soften under his touch as she had earlier today, she would moan against his lips, run her hands up his chest, press herself to him, yes, as she was doing now, moving her hips against his, making those sexy little whimpers that could raise the temperature a hundred degrees.

He groaned her name. Slid his hands under her bulky shirt. Cupped her breasts and groaned again at the feel of them in his hands, all warm, sweet silky flesh straining against her bra, filling his palms, the nipples lifting to the caressing sweep of his thumbs.

“Gabriella,” he said, his voice urgent, and she wound her arms around his neck, sucked his tongue into the heat of her mouth…

Merda! What in hell was he doing?

Cursing, he pushed her from him. She stumbled back, shoulders hitting the wall, eyes flying open and fixing on his. She looked shocked, on the verge of tears, but he wasn’t fooled. He was letting her do it all over again, blinding him to reality, using sex to turn his body on and his brain off as if she were a sorceress and he a fool she could enchant.

But he wasn’t.

“Nice,” he said, as if he’d been in control all the time. “Very nice. We’re going to get along just fine.”

“Get out,” she said, her voice trembling.

Poprzedni 1 234 Kolejny