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‘Yes, but you don’t need Ballybawn and it’s not as if you ever really wanted it or even fell madly in love with it,’ Kerry reasoned ruefully. ‘So you might as well sell the castle back to the family for the best offer you’re ever likely to get.’
‘You’re telling me to sell out to your sisters—?’
‘Yes. It’ll keep them happy and give them less reason to threaten your business interests. I’m certain that they’ll back off if you let
them have the castle.’
Raw dark colour accentuated the hard slant of his blunt cheekbones and his brilliant eyes blazed gold. ‘I am not afraid of your sisters or their husbands—’
Kerry stretched up and framed his lean, powerful face with spread fingers, blue eyes full of troubled appeal. ‘Just for once in your life, don’t be macho and aggressive. Try to think like a woman and be cool-headed and sensible…’
His beautiful mouth quirked.
‘You know what I mean. Why look for trouble when you don’t have to?’ Kerry reasoned feverishly. ‘You have no fight with them—’
‘Don’t I?’ Long brown fingers drifted through the tumbled fall of her curls and slowly knotted there, his hot, hungry gaze resting full on her. ‘I had a quarrel with your sisters the instant they tried to come between us, bella mia.’
Her delicate face clouded. ‘You wouldn’t believe how excited and happy I was when I realised that I had sisters…and meeting them at first was wonderful.’ Kerry swallowed hard, for it was too upsetting to recall the special sense of connection which she had initially experienced in her siblings’ company. ‘But it all just fell apart when I realised how they felt about you…’
Luciano knew he ought to tell her that her sisters had probably spoken out of the best of intentions: their protective concern for her versus their distrust of him. He knew he ought to point out that she had no true experience of how normal family members interacted. Caring relatives did interfere in each other’s lives but Kerry’s father had never had the interest to do so.
Conscious that an essential spirit of fair play and decency ought to have prompted him to speak up, Luciano remained stubbornly silent. He much preferred to mull over the amazing fact that Kerry had turned her back on her own sisters for his benefit. Her first loyalty had lain with him. Automatically and instinctively, she had rejected their arguments against him. She had also rushed across London to warn him that her siblings were behind the offer for Ballybawn. What had he done to deserve that loyalty? Not a lot, Luciano was prepared to concede. But he knew how best to conserve his own good fortune. Removing Kerry from all possibility of further contaminating contact with her troublemaking sisters loomed large on his immediate agenda.
‘We’re going to Italy together,’ he murmured gruffly.
Kerry felt a dreamy smile curve the softened line of her lips. ‘Yes…but—’
His big, powerful frame tensed against her. ‘No buts—’
‘I’ll need to go to Dublin first and see my grandparents. I’m also dining with Miles this evening—’
‘Phone him…I have a stronger claim on you, cara.’ As Luciano’s breath fanned her parted lips, she trembled. She wanted that hard mouth of his on hers so bad it was a literal pain to be denied it. ‘We’ll see your grandparents together tomorrow. We’ll stop off on the way to Italy—’
‘Miles is waiting at his apartment for me. I can’t let him down like that.’
Brilliant eyes narrowed, Luciano set her back from him with ruthless cool.
The shock of separation from that lithe, powerful length of his hurt even more. Her body ached, the wanton heat and dampness at the very heart of her reacting with shameless disappointment to his retreat. Her colour high, Kerry stepped back from him on unsteady legs. The amount of power he had over her shocked her but she was determined not to give way to his demand that she cancel her evening with her stepbrother. Even though her every shameless skin cell urged her to spend that same time with Luciano?
But when would she next be in London? In addition, she no longer had a home of her own to which she could invite Miles whenever she might choose. As she finally appreciated just how dependent she would be on Luciano in the future, her innate streak of caution almost went into panic overload. Suppressing her uneasiness, she backed away and secretly cringed over the fact that she had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from suggesting that she saw Luciano later that evening.
‘I’ll call you later,’ Luciano drawled.
When Miles opened the door of his apartment, he was in the middle of a tense conversation with someone out of view. Turning back to Kerry with a hangdog air, he muttered rather indistinctly, ‘Sorry about this.’
Kerry had entered his sitting room before she understood why he was apologising. His sister, Rochelle, was poised by the fireplace, her green eyes alight with defiance. ‘Look, this was my idea, not my brother’s…OK? Satisfied, Miles?’
As Miles closed the door again in craven masculine retreat, Kerry was very tempted just to walk right back out of his apartment again. ‘I can’t imagine what you could have left to say to me.’
Rochelle planted her hands on her hips. ‘That I’m not the competition you needed to worry about…your real challenge is Paola Massone—’
‘I have no idea who you’re referring to, nor do I want to know.’ Kerry gave the aggressive blonde a weary appraisal and decided that there was something a little immature about a woman of twenty-eight who chose to wear a skirt so short that the slightest bend threatened to expose her panties.
Her stepsister lifted the gossip magazine lying on the coffee-table and then slung it down again in emphasis. ‘Read this and weep! I bet Luciano hasn’t mentioned wedding bells to you this time around. Now that he’s rolling in the dosh and the vineyards, he’s got much fancier game in mind for the bridal role. Paola’s got the looks, the social status and she’s Italian too…and her daddy and Luciano are planning to make world-class wine together! Now, isn’t that sweet? Top that little lot if you can!’
‘Is that it? Are you finished now?’ Kerry prompted hopefully.
‘Just about. Of course, if you had any pride, you wouldn’t settle for being his tart now when you were once engaged to him,’ Rochelle remarked with soft, stinging scorn.
