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Draco held Anna close, one hand stroking her hair, the other on the small of her back.
He was a man who’d had considerable experience with women. Perhaps that was putting it modestly. He’d been with a lot of women, all of them willing and eager. Sometimes, despite all the talk of women meaning what they said, women who said “don’t” meant just the opposite.
“Don’t,” a woman might say, even as she put her hand over your fly. “Don’t,” she’d say, even as she moaned into your mouth and rubbed against you. “Don’t,” she’d whisper, when she wanted you to tell her why she should be saying “Do.”
That was how he knew, with all the instincts of a man holding an aroused woman in his arms, that “don’t” was not what Anna really meant.
She wanted him.
He could hear it in her voice, feel it in the way she trembled in his arms, in the way she remained curled tightly against him. One more drugging kiss. One more caress and she would whisper his name, lift her mouth to his, kiss him with all the passion he knew was in her.
But he didn’t kiss her, or touch her. Instead, he went on holding her, his eyes closed, his face buried in her hair. Long moments went by before he raised his head.
“Anna.”
She sighed. Then she sat up and her eyes met his.
His heart turned over.
Delicate and strong, his Anna. His beautiful, beautiful Anna.
“Anna.” Draco stroked back the riot of curls that had come loose from her ponytail. “Something is happening with us, bellissima.”
Anna shook her head.
“We’re attracted to each other,” she said quickly. “Why make it sound so unusual?”
She was right. There was nothing unusual in a man and a woman desiring each other. So why did her swift denial anger him?
Draco sat up straight. Checked for traffic, then pulled onto the road.
“We both want more of what happened last night,” he said brusquely. “Don’t waste time denying it, Anna. You know I’m speaking the truth.”
Anna smoothed back her hair, redid the ponytail, folded her hands in her lap.
Damnit, why were they shaking?
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “There’s still the land.”
“Exactly. That’s why we’re going to Sicily. We’ll settle this thing once and for all. And then—”
“And then,” Anna said firmly, “I’ll go home.”
The plane was a small private jet, all leather and luxury inside. The pilot and Draco shook hands, Draco introduced Anna, all of it done with the politeness of people doing business for the first time.
Not Draco’s plane, then, Anna thought as she settled into her seat.
“It’s a rental,” Draco said as if she’d spoken the thought aloud. “Mine is en route to Rome, from Hawaii.”
Rome. Hawaii. Sicily, and hadn’t some of the documents in her father’s file carried a San Francisco address?
The prince knew his way around the world.
Around women, too. That was why she felt so confused. It wasn’t him. Or rather it was, but not because of anything special he made her feel. She was confused because he was so suave, so sophisticated, so damned smooth. She knew men who thought they were all those things, but she’d never known one like Draco.
And that was over.
She’d come to Italy on business, and this trip to Sicily wasn’t going to change that.
