A Scandal, a Secret, a Baby. Sharon Kendrick
clamouring for her attention—but she wasn’t listening to them. Her attention was fixed on the door, as if she’d been waiting for him to appear, and as her eyes found their target in him he felt the thrill of something he could never have described—not even in his native tongue.
He began to walk towards her, only vaguely aware of the women who turned to watch his progress—women watching him was something which had happened throughout his charmed life. He saw Justina’s teeth dig into the pink cushion of her bottom lip, and as he remembered just what those beautiful lips were capable of a stab of lust threatened to overwhelm him.
He had reached her now, and the people surrounding her grew quiet as faces were turned towards him in open curiosity. He guessed that the novelty of his dark Italian looks was enough to arouse interest in this most English of settings. And maybe his face looked as forbidding as he intended it to look, because they quickly moved away, so that the two of them were left alone.
‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘Look who’s here.’
Justina stared up at him, her heart pounding in a way it hadn’t done in a long, long time. She could feel her senses firing into life as if someone had just set light to them. She could feel the prickle of her breasts and the instant pooling of liquid heat and she was praying that the cheating bastard wouldn’t guess. She didn’t want to desire him. She wanted to present a cool and unruffled exterior. But it wasn’t easy. Not when his face was just inches away from hers—a face more beautiful and yet more elementally savage than any other she’d ever seen. His dark eyes were boring into her and his powerful body was imprinting itself into her consciousness. She felt weak. As if someone had just drained away all her blood and replaced it with water.
Well, you’re stronger than that, she told herself. You aren’t going to show any sign of weakness. Because this is Dante D’Arezzo. The man who confuses love with control. Who dumped you because you wouldn’t behave like his own personal puppet. Who cold-bloodedly took another woman to his bed and...and....
She saw a bed with rumpled sheets. A mass of ruffled blond hair and a high, pert bottom. And Dante, his eyes closed, a smile of ecstasy on his cheating lips as the naked woman administered to his every need.
The vivid images of his betrayal were like jagged pieces of glass at the edges of her mind and Justina only just managed to blunt them—just as she’d spent the last five years blunting them. She mustn’t think of that. She couldn’t afford to. She had to focus on what was important—and the only thing she could think of right then was making him go away and leave her alone.
She kept her expression unwelcoming, her voice a cool drawl. ‘Thanks for ruining what could have been a perfectly good day,’ she said. ‘Who invited you?’
Dante hadn’t been expecting such open hostility, and for some reason that he wasn’t quite able to work out this pleased him. Was it because the prospect of a fight with her was almost as tantalising as the thought of spreading her over the bonnet of that nearby car and riding her until he came?
He took a stealthy step closer. ‘Who do you think invited me? The bride, of course. Or did you imagine that I gatecrashed?’
Justina couldn’t suppress a faint shiver as his powerful form cast a shadow over her like a dark omen. As if Dante had ever had to gatecrash anything in his life!
‘Really?’ she questioned, wishing that she could stop reacting to him like this.
She felt as if her body had suddenly started thawing after spending years in some arctic waste. As if she would die if she didn’t touch him again, or feel those hard lips pressing down on hers. She found herself remembering the way he’d used to put his head between her legs and lick her there, and she shivered with shameful longing. How did he do that? How could he still make her want him when she hated him so much?
‘I didn’t even think you were still in touch with Roxy.’
‘I wasn’t. We lost contact a long while ago—about the time when you and I split.’ His dark eyes mocked her. ‘But presumably she was feeling generously disposed towards the world when she found herself a duke to marry, and so she decided to track me down.’
Justina knew exactly why Roxy had done it. A man like Dante would be a luminary on any guest list; his grandness and stature would be a boost to any hostess’s street-cred. And, of course, his outstanding good looks would guarantee that all the single female guests would be purring with contentment. But why the hell hadn’t Roxy bothered to warn her about it beforehand? Had her ex-bandmate guessed that she wouldn’t have come within a hundred miles of the church if she’d known he was going to be here?
Yet surely she should be immune to him by now? She hadn’t seen him for nearly five years. She was older and supposedly a whole lot wiser—wise enough for his undeniable sex appeal to leave her cold. So why wasn’t that happening? Why were her breasts tingling as his arrogant gaze skated over her, that molten aching at her thighs making her feel embarrassingly self-conscious?
With a feigned composure she stared at him—praying for an objectivity she’d never been able to apply to this Tuscan aristocrat. He was wearing a suit, like every other man there—apart from the few guests in uniform —but something about the way he wore it instantly marked him out as someone special. The exquisite cut of the charcoal cloth hugged his powerful frame, emphasising the narrow jut of his hips and the definition of his long legs. Yet despite his highly sophisticated exterior, with Dante D’Arezzo all you were aware of was the primitive man beneath. He was the sort of man who saw what he wanted and went out and took it. Who made women cry with pleasure. And with pain, she reminded herself. With terrible and lasting pain.
‘Maybe Roxy was short on numbers and that was the reason for your out-of-the-blue invitation,’ she said as she glanced up at the cathedral with a flippant shrug. ‘It’s a pretty big church to fill. And I expect a token Tuscan aristocrat is on every bride’s wish list.’
He smiled, as if her insult meant nothing to him—as if he guessed that it was all for show. ‘It’s been a long time, Justina,’ he said softly.
‘Five years.’ Her smile was fixed. ‘Time flies when you’re having fun—something which was certainly in short supply when I was engaged to you.’
But he didn’t appear to be listening. His gaze was drifting slowly over her body as if he still had the right to look at her that way. As if she was his possession and he owned her.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said.
She felt her heart miss a beat, unsure if it was caused by disappointment or anger—because wasn’t that just typical of Dante? For him to take something she felt proud of and make it sound like something bad. She’d worked very hard for this body. Dragged herself out of bed on the most inhospitable of mornings to pound the pavements, come rain or shine. When she was travelling, she was a frequent visitor to hotel gyms—padding the anonymous carpeted corridors at unsociable hours while she listened to music from her earphones. And hadn’t her strict regime rescued her from the essential loneliness of those solitary hotel stays?
She never ate carbs after 5:00 p.m., and she rarely drank alcohol. She was disciplined about her lifestyle because it was harder to stay fit the older you got. And physical fitness helped her to cope. It kept her fresh and alert in an industry where youth was everything—an industry which she’d seen claim the lives of those who couldn’t cope with its impossibly high demands. And she had sacrificed too much for her to career to do anything to ever jeopardise it.
‘Well, isn’t that fortunate? Since losing weight was what I was aiming for,’ she responded, her gaze flicking over his charcoal-grey suit, which was doing nothing to disguise the hard musculature beneath. ‘You might try working out a little yourself some time, Dante. Try for the leaner look—it’s very fashionable, you know.’
‘I don’t think so. I get all the exercise I need without the narcissistic need to spend hours down at the gym.’ He leaned forward by a fraction, noting the automatic dilatation of her eyes as he did so, and suddenly he wanted her. Wanted her so badly that he could have pulled