Bought for the Sicilian Billionaire's Bed

‘Champagne?’ questioned Garth, offering her an engraved flute with pale liquid foaming up the sides. ‘It’s rather a good vintage.’

‘Yes, please.’ Jessica smiled as if she drank vintage champagne every day of her life. She took a sip and began to chat to Jeremy, who—despite his unlikely appearance—turned out to be something very powerful in the City.

‘And what about you?’ he questioned. ‘Do you work?’

Jessica supposed that this was a world where women didn’t have to work. ‘Oh, yes, I’m…I’m…’ Oh, why hadn’t she prepared something? Jessica looked up to find Salvatore watching her.

‘Jessica is training to be an office manager,’ said the Sicilian smoothly and she blinked at him in surprise. Had he really remembered that?

‘Oh, is that how you two met?’ butted in Clare. ‘In the office?’

Jessica’s gaze locked with his. Say what you want to say, those blue eyes seemed to tell her.

‘Kind of,’ said Jessica, and blushed.

Salvatore hid a smile. Oh, but she was perfect for the role! Perfetto. The way the blush of rose crept into her cheeks made her look coy and sweet—as if she were embarrassed about a supposed office romance. So that no one, not even the woman Clare with her heavy eye make-up and brazen cleavage—would have had the guts to interrogate her any further.

‘Let’s go in to dinner, shall we?’ said Amy sharply.

A table was laid up with gleaming crystal and silver and studded with tightly bunched white roses in small vases. As she unshook a giant napkin over her knees Jessica found herself wondering whether she was going to be presented with any unfamiliar foodstuffs which she wouldn’t have a clue how to eat, even though Willow had given her a crash course in posh dining while she’d been getting dressed. Oysters and artichokes were apparently the biggest hurdles to clear, but thankfully neither of them made an appearance and so she was able to concentrate on what was being said around the table.

Which was easier said than done. Most of the conversation went right over her head and she noticed that most of the food remained uneaten—though everyone seemed to drink plenty of wine.

She forced herself not to feast her eyes on Salvatore—whose black hair and blue eyes and formidable physique seemed to dominate the entire table. Maybe everyone else was aware of him, too, Jessica thought—because the women certainly didn’t seem to be intimidated by the fact that he had brought a partner with him. They flirted with him as if flirting had just been invented.

Did he ever get bored with such a gushing reaction? she wondered suddenly as she turned to talk to the man beside her.

What she knew about banking and takeovers could be written on the back of a postage stamp, but she gently quizzed Jeremy about what he did to relax. It turned out that he was mad about fishing and real enthusiasm entered his voice as he told her about digging for bait.

‘Rag worms or lug worms?’ she enquired and a silence fell over the table.

Jessica looked up to find Salvatore’s gaze on her, the bright blue eyes narrowed in mocking query.

‘They’re talking about worms—ugh!’ shuddered Clare theatrically, her breasts pushing against the fine silk of her pink dress as if they were fighting to get out.

‘You like to fish, do you, Jessica?’ questioned Salvatore softly.

For some stupid reason, colour stole into Jessica’s cheeks and she shrugged her shoulders a little awkwardly as she answered him. ‘Oh, I did a bit, when I was a child.’ In that faraway time when her parents had still been alive and the days had always seemed full of sunshine and games. Her mother would take her down to the riverbank and Jessica would sit solemnly with a hook and line dangling from an old gardening cane.

‘Presumably you must have been a tomboy,’ observed Suzy.

It was like being in one of those awful nightmares where everyone was staring at you waiting for an answer and you couldn’t speak. Except that this wasn’t a nightmare and she could speak. So stand up for yourself, Jessica, she thought. Don’t let this woman intimidate you just because she’s crazy about Salvatore.

‘I liked climbing trees and fishing and swimming in the river, yes,’ she said. ‘But I never considered them pastimes which were exclusively for boys—why should they be when they’re such fun?’

‘Bravo!’ said Jeremy softly, and laughed.

She felt on a bit of a high for the rest of the meal, especially when Jeremy offered to take her fishing in Hampshire, where apparently he owned a stretch of the river—and he pressed his card into her hand as she was leaving.

But her exhilaration evaporated the moment the car door closed on her and Salvatore and they were enclosed in their own small, private world.

Slowly, he let his eyes drift over her as if reassessing her potential. ‘So I have seen the little English mouse in action,’ he murmured.

‘What…what’s that supposed to mean?’

In the darkness his eyes gleamed. ‘Quiet. Unassuming. Then she throws off her overall and becomes the unlikely temptress—’

‘Temptress?’ echoed Jessica. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Ah, but you tempted Jeremy—that much was plain,’ mused Salvatore silkily. There was a pause. ‘And you’re tempting me. Right now.’

Too late she sensed the danger in the air and too late she read the sexual intent in his eyes.

It was too late for everything, because Salvatore Cardini had pulled her into his arms and started to kiss her with a passion which took her breath away.

CHAPTER FOUR

FOR a moment Jessica thought that this must be like drowning—when they said your life flashed before you. As Salvatore’s lips covered hers she saw the past speed by—with its good and bad, its sadness and joy. But it was as if she had been only a shadow of herself before and his powerful kiss was awakening all her senses.

He tasted of wine and desire and promise and Jessica’s lips opened beneath his, her fingers reaching up to clutch at his broad shoulders as if she was afraid that she might collapse. But that was just how it felt—as if a sudden gust of air might blow her clean away.

‘Salvatore—’ she breathed into his mouth, shockingly aware that it was the first time she had ever used his Christian name, but surely such a situation demanded it.

‘Sì?’ Groaning, he caught her by the waist, his hands moving beneath her coat to rest proprietorially on the silk of her dress. He slid his palms up to her breasts and cupped them, as if he were examining their weight, before fingering their peaking points through the straining silk.

‘Oh!’ she gasped, in shock and delight.

He stroked her hips. Her bottom. The curve of her thighs—his hunger for her tempered by a sudden shaft of objectivity. This was crazy, he told himself. This was not what he had intended—not at all. Was that why it suddenly seemed unbearably exciting—because he liked to control a situation and here was one which seemed to have blown up in his face? ‘Tell me what you like to do, cara,’ he whispered. ‘Show me what you like.’

She touched her lips to his neck; she couldn’t seem to stop herself as her every dark fantasy sprang to life. ‘Salvatore…’ she whispered again.

Her hand had fluttered down to alight like a butterfly on the tensed muscle of his thigh and his head jerked back as it moved away again. ‘I live not far from here,’ he bit out. ‘Come on—we’re going. Adesso!’

His hungry words wove themselves into her consciousness as her fingers wove into the silken tangle of his dark hair. Jessica felt as if she had stepped on an escalator which was hurtling her towards a shockingly unexpected pleasure. But even while her body gave itself up to the sensations which were washing over her with such sheer, sweet allure she felt the first unwelcome stir of protest in the back of her mind.

‘Salvatore—’

‘Mmm?’

His lips were at the base of her neck now, drifting in a tantalising path down towards her breasts. And she held her breath, not wanting to break the moment nor the feeling even as some stubborn resistance reared again its unwanted head. Go away, she told her doubts fiercely—but somehow those doubts refused to die. ‘I mustn’t—’

‘Sì, you must.’ He smiled against her skin as the tip of his tongue flicked against her skin. ‘You want to. You know you do.’

Jessica felt herself slipping under—as if sensual dark waters were lapping over her. Her eyelids fluttered open and all she could see was the ceiling of the luxury car. The car! He was seducing her in the back seat of his car! ‘You…you…oh, oh!’

But, ironically, it was as his hand began to slide its way up her thigh that reality hit her like a sudden spray of ice-water and Jessica tore herself out of his arms, wriggling over to the corner where she surveyed him as if she had found herself alone with an unknown and deadly predator.

Her fingers reached for her neck and she could feel the rapid rise and fall of her breast as she struggled to cope with her ragged breathing.

‘What…what on earth do you think you’re doing?’ she breathed.

‘You know exactly what I’m doing—I’m going to make love to you.’

Jessica swallowed. ‘You are not!’

‘But you want me to.’

Oh, the arrogance and the assurance which was printed all over that gorgeous face—but even worse was the glaring truth which underpinned his words. She did want him—more than she could ever remember wanting anyone, but, oh, at what price? Her dignity? Her job? She tugged at the black silk dress which had ridden up round her thighs. ‘Maybe for a moment I did—but this certainly wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan tonight!’

‘No?’ he drawled, infuriated now by the sudden, abrupt ending and by the growing feeling of disbelief that a woman should be turning him down. And such a woman as this! ‘I wasn’t aware that we had drawn up some kind of itinerary for the evening.’

‘That’s not what I meant and you know it!’ she flared.

‘No?’

‘No!’ And suddenly Jessica was angry—not just with herself but with him, too. ‘Did you think that I’d jump into bed with you at the drop of a hat?’ she demanded.

He wanted to say that it was far more likely to be a drop of her panties, which—unbelievably and infuriatingly—he had yet to see. ‘I think you were pretty close to it, Jessica. Sì.’

‘You think that all you have to do is to whisk me off to a fancy dinner in a chauffeur driven car and I’ll be so…so…grateful that I’ll capitulate to you!’

Salvatore was beginning to grow bored now. ‘I hadn’t actually given it that much thought,’ he told her damningly. ‘It wasn’t a situation I’d anticipated.’

Stupidly enough, this only added to her anger. So now he was saying that he hadn’t even considered he might find her attractive enough to make a pass at her! Was that why he had chosen her—because she was too plain to provide any temptation? Well, thank heavens she had seen sense before it was too late.

Imagine if she’d gone back with him—let him make love to her, and then what? Would he have sent her on her way in the middle of the night—to be taken home by his driver, like a toy he had grown bored with playing with? Or, even worse, being given money for a taxi to conveniently disappear from his bed?

‘We are just a man and a woman,’ he mused, when still she said nothing. ‘And sometimes passion comes along when you are least expecting it. It is the way of these things.’

As he spoke he reached out to brush a stray strand of the thick, shiny hair which had fallen over her face and that one innocent, almost tender gesture was almost Jessica’s undoing. Because that was the kind of thing that a real lover might do—especially if he was trying hard to seduce you. Not that Jessica was the world’s biggest expert on lovers, but she knew what was considered acceptable by most women with a degree of self-respect and what was not.

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