Blackmailed For Her Baby. Elizabeth Power
making a move towards the hall.
‘Turn it up!’ The technician was grabbing her arm, shouting at the top of his voice, ‘Turn it up! Blaze wants to dance! Blaze wants to dance with me!’
Libby tried to resist as he spun her round in the middle of the floor and, with his arms crossing her chest, pulled her back against him, forcing her body to sway with his to the raucous music.
His aftershave lotion was cloying, and his alcohol-stained breath was revoltingly warm against her throat. Somewhere in her repulsed brain it registered that the banging on the front door had stopped. That the neighbour had given up all hope of being heard and gone—probably to call the police!
‘Come on, baby, dance. You know how to move.’ The scoop-necked sweater she had changed into when she’d showered had slipped off one shoulder and the man’s mouth was suddenly moving, hot and moist, across her bare flesh. Trapped in his arms, she jerked her head aside, but he only laughed and tightened his hold on her.
In a minute, she decided, she was going to elbow him—hard!
The only thing that stopped her was the shocking silence as the music was cut dead, along with every other sound in the room.
All eyes were turned towards the CD player and the man in the impeccable dark raincoat and executive suit who was straightening up beside it. And it wasn’t just the formality of his clothes but that hard air of command that set him apart from everyone else in the room.
Romano Vincenzo!
Stunned, Libby could only gaze speechlessly at his strong, tanned face and those glittering black eyes, which, focusing only on her now, flared, like those proud nostrils, with unequivocal anger.
‘I think you’d better ask your friends to leave.’ His recommendation fizzed with seething displeasure.
Barely able to grasp that it must have been him who had been thundering on the door—that someone had let him in—Libby could only despair at the compromising position in which he had walked in and found her, locked as she still was in the technician’s arms. Things couldn’t look worse, she thought, knowing that it wasn’t the first time that he had caught her in a situation like this.
‘Romano!’
It was all she could utter as Steve Cullum lifted his head to demand in a slurred voice, ‘Are you suggesting I quit this party and walk out of here—just because you said so?’
Beneath his rain-splashed coat, Romano’s shoulders squared. The last thing he wanted was trouble. But the sight of Libby, the girl who had plagued his thoughts and got under his skin as he had allowed no other woman to do—filling him with self-disgust when she was married to his brother—and who still aroused the same complexity of emotions in him—not only living it up after all he had told her today without a care for her child, which just went to prove just how heartless she was, but also crushed against that lecherous drunk, which she was obviously consenting to, only fuelled his anger, filling his veins with cold, jealous fury.
‘That’s exactly what I’m suggesting.’ Anger blanched the skin around his taut upper lip. ‘Unless you’d rather be thrown.’
Feeling the technician’s body tightening up behind her, Libby sucked in a breath. The last thing she wanted to witness was a brawl. But one step forward from the man who was taller, broader and light-years ahead in the fitness stakes than the inebriated Steve Cullum had the technician instantly backing off.
‘OK, mate. OK. Keep your shirt on.’ Hands held up in acquiescence to the other man’s dominant will, he moved grudgingly away, while the others, bottles in hand, their eyes fixed on Romano, also started filing out, muttering their goodnights to Libby as they yielded to an authority they recognised as one not to be tested.
‘Still denying it?’ Fran grimaced as she moved past Libby.
Denying what? Libby asked herself, quietly fuming. That Romano Vincenzo was her lover? Because he was certainly acting like one, she thought angrily, her aching head throbbing even more from the thought of being alone with him; from imagining the scene she didn’t want, but which she knew would inevitably follow.
‘Are you going to be all right?’ the lingering Fran whispered protectively to her.
Libby darted a glance towards Luca’s brother. His sheer physical presence and that dark charisma sent something like untapped electricity crackling across her nerve-endings.
‘Of course,’ she croaked, not at all sure she would be before Fran, too, went the same way as the others and the front door banged loudly behind them all.
An interminable silence filled the flat as Libby faced hard, unrelenting features across the carpeted space of her sitting room.
‘What the devil did you think you were doing?’ Her voice shook with her own hot emotion. ‘What gave you the right to come in here and speak to my guests so rudely?’ Hardly guests! she thought with a mental grimace, immensely relieved that he had driven them away, even if she didn’t approve of the way he had done it.
‘Forgive me if I broke up such a wildly enjoyable party.’ The deep tones were anything but contrite. ‘I would have thought even you would have had the decency to skip the good time when you’ve just been informed of how much your child needs you. Obviously it means far less to you than entertaining your precious friends!’
‘They aren’t my friends!’
His head cocked to one side. ‘No?’
‘Well, only one of them is and—’
‘Evidently!’
Libby stifled a small, despairing sigh. It was clear he meant the man who had been forcing his attentions upon her.
‘Steve Cullum was drunk,’ she emphasised, as though that would somehow vindicate her. ‘And they came here uninvited!’
‘But it didn’t take you long to get into the swing of things!’
Which is what it would have looked like, Libby realised, especially if he had heard Steve shouting to everyone that she wanted to dance, which he probably had!
‘I was going to ring you,’ she said.
‘When? Tonight?’ His eyes were steel-hard, his voice sounding blatantly unconvinced. ‘Or tomorrow—after the hangover?’
Well, of course, he would think that, Libby despaired.
He looked like an avenging angel, from the flawless sheen on his coat to the striking force in his unrelenting features. There were raindrops glistening on his black hair, she noticed now, watching, mesmerized, as one fell from the thick strands to meet the startling contrast of his immaculately white collar.
She opened her mouth to speak, to assure him that not a drop of alcohol had passed her lips, but he cut across her protest, saying smoothly, ‘You forget. I know you, Libby.’ There was a cruel reminder in his softly spoken words. ‘Perhaps even better than Luca did.’
‘That’s what you think,’ she argued bitterly, and from the way his mouth pulled down one side knew exactly what he was remembering. Hadn’t he stumbled upon her here in England, five months pregnant, supposedly caring for her father, but instead living it up with friends in his father’s country club? He hadn’t listened to her excuses then, so she didn’t see any reason why he would listen to them now. ‘What did you want anyway?’ she asked wearily, turning her back on him.
He watched her clearing up glasses, stoop to pick up a cushion, toss it onto a chair.
He’d come back to apologise, he reflected with self-chastening mockery. To apologise for the way he had spoken to her today. It had been unwarranted, he’d decided afterwards, especially offering to pay her to accompany him back to Italy. Knowing the manager of the hotel where she was supposed to be tonight, he had tried to ring her there, and been relieved to learn that she hadn’t attended the party after all. She had gone up a few notches in his estimation then and, as