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In that instant the plane suddenly hit some turbulence and Alicia was thrown forward and off balance. With deadly inevitability and in sickening slow motion, she fell straight into Dante D’Aquanni’s lap.
The wind was knocked out of her and she was plastered against his front. And when she tried to move, hard arms held her captive. In a second she became aware of hard, taut thigh muscles under her bottom, a very hard chest and his breath, feathering across her face. He smelt fresh, masculine, musky.
She struggled in earnest, in panic at the way her own body was responding eagerly. ‘Let me go.’
‘No way. I’m far too interested in hearing the end of your tirade. Please, do go on. I believe you were about to tell me how things work.’ His voice was innocuous enough, not a hint of the extreme torture of her squirming position on his lap.
She looked up and wished she hadn’t. His face, that mouth, was inches away and his eyes told the real story of the emotion behind his words. They were dark and utterly cold. Remote.
‘I … I …’ Her voice sounded squeaky, ineffectual. Why, oh, why, did she have to be so aware of him physically? He was the enemy, the man who had rejected her sister, who even now was denying paternity. This man was the lowest of the low.
‘Actually, I’m not interested in what you have to say, as you’re so far from the truth it’s not even funny. What I am interested in, however, is this …’
And, before Alicia could ask what he meant, his mouth had landed on hers and she was transported back in time to the previous evening. Every nerve ending exploded into a tiny ball of fire. It was madness, insanity, this instantaneous effect he had.
One of his hands had found its way underneath her sweater and was climbing up over her skin, skimming her waist. Her breasts throbbed as if on cue and swelled to tight points. She wriggled as a shaft of pure arousal pulsed between her legs and Dante groaned softly against her mouth. Her heart thumped even faster, reality slipping away with an inexorability that Alicia couldn’t fight.
His hand cupped one of her breasts and, with aching slowness, his thumb found and rubbed against the tight bud under its covering of lace. Hard, not soft, went through her overheated brain as the callused feel of his hands were an exquisite torture against her sensitive skin. Alicia’s head fell back, her eyes closed. She’d never, ever felt like this before—this immediate fire that erupted and washed away any resistance. The only time she’d come close to anything like this—
Her thoughts seized to an icy halt as a memory surfaced and she stiffened. Dante’s hand was seeking her other breast and Alicia was aghast to see that she’d shifted in order to offer him easier access. She seized on that painful memory and pushed with all her might against him. His arms loosened and she tumbled back and out of the seat, landing on her rear on the soft carpet.
What the hell had just happened?
She stood awkwardly, breathing heavily. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, her eyes huge. She dropped her hand and her mouth was pink, her cheeks glowing red. Dante said nothing, his face implacable, barely a hair out of place. Unmoved.
‘Don’t touch me ever again. You make me sick.’
And, before he could see how much turmoil she was in, she turned and fled to the toilet at the front of the cabin, narrowly avoiding the stewardess, who appeared just then with a tray piled high with food and drinks.
After spending an inordinately long time in the bathroom splashing cold water on her face and wrists, Alicia emerged. She wondered what kind of spell this man held over her and felt sick to the stomach at the thought of facing Melanie when she’d proven herself to be no less immune to his charms. For a brief cataclysmic moment in there, faced with her own bewildered image, she’d actually wished that somehow he wasn’t the father of Melanie’s baby. She was going to be the aunt of this man’s child, for goodness’ sake. Her stomach had lurched ominously and she thought for a second that she’d be sick.
But when she emerged, steeled to see him again, the cabin was empty. The stewardess turned around from where she’d been laying out cutlery and plates. Alicia thought hysterically that Dante must have parachuted out in order to get away from her. The cool blonde woman cut through her thoughts. ‘Mr D’Aquanni has taken a call in the office at the back of the plane. He said to call me if you need anything. We’ll be landing in a little under an hour, Ms Parker.’
Alicia nodded. She couldn’t trust herself to speak. Of course the plane had an office. Silly her, she chided herself. And no doubt he was as disgusted by what had just happened as she was. Her cheeks burned as she recalled what it must have looked like. She had practically thrown herself into his arms, had all but begged him to keep going.
Dante sat at the back of the plane, his call having lasted only a couple of minutes. His body still hummed, his trousers still felt tight. He’d watched, uncharacteristically speechless as Alicia had walked into the bathroom. When she’d landed on his lap, in his mind’s eye he’d seen very clearly what he should do—put her away from him and back to her own seat. But his arms had come around her instinctively. His lap had cupped her bottom as if it had known it from a previous existence. And the feel of her tiny, curved form had been so seductive that he’d found it nigh on impossible to remember the rage that her words had sparked within him.
But without her bewitching presence he could remember. How dared she presume to know what kind of upbringing he’d had? It had been more like an up-dragging. He’d fought and kicked every step of the way, staying on the right side of the law only by the mercy of some divine force. And if it hadn’t been for Stefano Arrigi plucking him and his brother from the streets when he had, who knew where he—they—might have ended up …?
He cursed the woman for making him think of these things. He knew rationally that he couldn’t entirely blame her as he’d never publicized his background—oh, the information was there, he couldn’t move without someone commenting on it—but he’d learnt the hard way that once you had money people didn’t much care how you’d got it, and yet Alicia’s condemnation had cut him in a tender place. And he had no idea why. She was a complete stranger to him.
He didn’t seek pity from anyone. Especially when he had such a bitter memory of the one and only time he had told someone the truth—a woman. And yet he felt instinctively that this woman would somehow empathise. Or, more accurately, pretend to.
He stood abruptly, making some papers fall from the desk. The sooner they got to England and sorted this farce out the better. And the sooner he made sure this woman had no recourse or claim, however bogus, on his life, the better. He vowed that within the day he would be back in his villa on Lake Como, any threat from these women nullified and eradicated.
Dante returned to the main cabin just as the plane was landing and Alicia studiously avoided looking anywhere near him. She trembled inside. Watching the ground below become clearer and clearer, she could make out fields, buildings, tiny cars … she realized then that she hadn’t told him where to go but they were in fact circling over the Oxford area.
She turned around. ‘How did you know where to come? I never told you.’
She was relieved to see him buttoned up, suit jacket on.
‘I know because it didn’t take much to find out.’
Alicia had to consciously stop her gaze from dropping to his mouth, the strong brown column of his throat. ‘Oh …’
‘You never did tell me what you want the money for exactly, or how much. You pulled your fainting stunt just before you did. Which was, no doubt, designed somewhat crudely to arouse sympathy.’ His tone was conversational, bored even.
Alicia’s heart hardened. The man was a bastard. She hated him. He had hurt Melanie unforgivably.
