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‘It couldn’t have done your company’s reputation any good when an up-and-coming racing driver was killed at the wheel of your prototype.’ She injected a jaunty edge to her words, issuing a challenge. At the same time she wished she could run and hide—from the memories he stirred as much as from the way her body reacted to each glance from his devilishly dark eyes.
He didn’t move. He didn’t flinch at all. He was in complete control as his eyes glittered, sharp sparks like diamonds spiking her soul.
‘It wasn’t good for anyone.’ His voice was icy cold and, despite the warmth of the September sun, she shivered, but still he remained, watching as if he could read every thought that raced through her mind.
She drew in a ragged tear-laden breath and swallowed hard. She couldn’t cry, not now. Not again. She was done with crying. It was time to move on, time to forge a new path through life. She couldn’t go back to what she’d been doing before. Her time in front of the cameras, representing Seb’s team, was over. The memories would be too much, yet this man seemed hell-bent on bringing the past into the present.
‘I think you should leave, Mr Roselli.’ She stepped away from him, out of his shadow and into the sun as it crept out from behind the clouds. ‘Neither is it doing me any good.’
With eyes narrowed by suspicion, he watched her as she took another step back and away from him. ‘I am here because Sebastian asked me to come.’
She shook her head, the emotional meltdown she’d wanted to keep at bay threatening to erupt. ‘I still want you to leave.’
She didn’t care if he remained standing in her precious garden; she just wanted to escape him, escape the aura of a man obviously used to getting all he wanted, no matter what the cost to anyone else.
* * *
Alessandro closed his eyes and sighed as Charlie fled across the garden, heading for the open door of the cottage. Hysteria had not been on his agenda. He didn’t need this now. For a moment he thought about turning and walking away, getting in his car and driving as fast and as far away as he could. He’d kept part of his promise to Sebastian, after all. But had he even achieved that?
‘Maledizione!’ he cursed aloud and strode after her, his legs brushing against the lavender which tumbled from the borders, raising the scent. Just being in the garden, with its proud display of flowers, made him remember the time he’d looked after his sister while she’d recovered from a car accident. It was a memory that wouldn’t help at all right now.
As he neared the open back door he heard Charlie’s frustrated growl. He didn’t knock, didn’t pause. He just walked straight in. He wasn’t going to be dismissed so easily.
This woman had stubbornly refused her brother’s requests to go to Italy and see the car they’d been working on and it had angered him. Then, after the accident, he’d offered his support, but he’d never expected her rejection or her cold and furious denial of his existence.
With her arms locked rigidly tight, she leant on the kitchen table, her head lowered in despair. She spun round to face him. ‘How dare you?’ Hot angry words hurtled across the small space to him, but he stood tall, despite the low beams of the old cottage, and took her anger.
‘I dare because I promised Sebastian that I would.’ He moved nearer to the small table, nearer to her, until only a pulled-out chair, left as if recently vacated, separated them.
‘I’m sure Seb would not have made anyone promise to come and hassle me like this.’ He watched as her full lips clamped shut on further words and he felt the strangest desire to kiss those lips, to taste her rage and frustration, to draw it from her and replace it with hot desire.
‘Hassle?’ He frowned at her and saw her green eyes widen, liking the swirling brown within their depths, reminding him of autumn.
‘Yes, hassle. Hound. Harass. Call it what you like, but he wouldn’t have wanted that.’ Her words were short and sharp. Irritation made her breathing shallow and fast. Her breasts rose and fell rapidly beneath her T-shirt, snagging his attention as lustful hormones raced to places he just didn’t need them going right now.
‘He made me promise to bring you to Italy and involve you in the launch.’ His words were sharper than he’d intended, but then he’d never expected to meet a woman who unleashed such a cocktail of fury and fire within him. She was not at all the sweet and happy girl Sebastian had told him about; she was sexy and passionately angry.
‘He what?’ She pushed the chair under the old pine table and moved closer to him.
