The Orsini Brides. Sandra Marton
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with a dangerous stranger, are you?”
Isabella lightened her question with a laugh. After a second, Anna laughed, too.
“Not even I would do something so crazy,” she said, and then she said she had to run, that she’d phone when she had more time, kiss-kiss, talk to you soon …
And ended the call.
Silly to have called Isabella. The truth was, she’d intended to ask her if she’d ever wanted hot, fast sex with a stranger, and what would sweet Izzy know about sex, hot or otherwise?
Anna sighed. Undressed. Headed into the ancient bathroom, stepped into a rust-stained tub, tried not to bang her skull on the showerhead and turned a squeaking handle that wheezed out a thin stream of lukewarm water.
Forget the plane. The unintelligible files. Most of all, forget the man and what had happened. Correction. What had almost happened, because, thank goodness, she’d come to her senses in time.
What she had to concentrate on was the forthcoming meeting. The farcical concept of a prince in this, the twenty-first century. On making it crystal clear that no one, not even a doddering old stooge with a pretend crown on his balding pate and, for all she knew, a roomful of lawyers, could steal her mother’s land and get away with it.
It was a good plan.
An excellent one.
It might have taken Anna far had she not, seventy-five minutes later, rushed through the doors of an elegant building just off the Via Condotti and paused at a reception desk only long enough to tell a receptionist elegant enough to grace the elegant building that she had an appointment with Prince Draco Valenti.
“And you are …?” the receptionist said, peering at Anna down her—what else could it have been?—Roman nose.
“I,” Anna said, knowing it was time to marshal her resources, “I am counsel for Signore Cesare Orsini.”
The receptionist nodded and reached for a telephone.
“Fourth floor, take a right, end of the corridor.”
The elevator was elegant, too.
So was the man waiting for her. One man, not the legal team she’d anticipated. One man, standing at a window overlooking the street, his back to her.
Even so, he gave an immediate impression of … what?
Power, she thought. Power and strength, masculinity and youth. The tall, leanly muscled body evident within the stylish gray Armani suit; the broad shoulders; the long legs. He stood with those legs slightly apart; she could tell his arms were folded. His posture signaled irritation and arrogance.
Strange. There was something familiar about him …
Anna’s heart leaped into her throat. No, she thought, no!
She made a sound, something between a choked gasp and a low moan. The man heard it.
“I do not appreciate being kept waiting,” he said coldly as he swung toward her …
“You,” Draco Valenti, il Principe Draco Marcellus Valenti of Rome and Sicily said, and the only good thing about this awful, terrible moment was that Anna knew the surprise and shock on his cold, classically beautiful face had to mirror hers.
DRACO stared at the figure in the doorway.
No. No! It was not possible!
Lots of women had golden hair. Eyes the color of the Tyrrhenian Sea. A soft-looking, tender-pink mouth …
Dio, who was he trying to fool?
It was she. It was her. And what the hell did the intricacies of English grammar matter right now? He hadn’t worried about his command of English in years, not since he’d taken the small financial company he’d started on equal parts bluff, brains and balls and turned it into an empire.
That a woman—that this woman—should turn his life so upside down proved that his brain was scrambled …
And, yes, impossible or not, it was the same woman. No question, no doubt. The unforgettable face, the curvaceous body demurely hidden within a dressed-for-success suit, the long legs set off by nothing-demure-about-them stiletto heels …
This was the woman he’d almost initiated into the Mile High club. Although initiated might be the wrong word. The way she’d come awake in his arms, the way she’d responded to his kisses …
For all he knew, she was a charter member.
Or wasn’t.
She’d gone from hot to cold in the blink of an eye, and—
And who cared about that?
What was she doing here? She could be in Rome, yes. But she most assuredly could not be Cesare Orsini’s rep resentative.
Had she come looking for him? Maybe she hadn’t been able to forget what had happened and now she wanted to finish that long, exciting slide into sexual oblivion …
Forget that.
His receptionist had buzzed him. Cesare Orsini’s representative is here, sir, she’d said. And his receptionist had been with him a long time. No one could get past her without proper ID. So this had to be—it had to be—
The woman stopped in the doorway, face white.
“Ohmygod,” she said. “Ohmygod!”
Draco’s last, faint hope that this was a mistake vanished.
“You?” The woman reached for the doorjamb, curved her hand around it as if that might keep her from fainting. Her voice rose an octave. “You’re Draco Valenti?”
Draco took a deep breath. “And you are …?”
She laughed, but it was not a real laugh. It was the kind of sound someone might make when what was really called for was an anguished wail of despair.
“The Orsini attorney.”
Draco had always heard that hope died hard. Now he discovered that it didn’t simply die—it crashed to earth in flames.
“Small world,” he said drily.
She nodded. “Small, indeed.” All at once the look of shock vanished. “Wait a minute,” she said slowly, letting go of the jamb, straightening to her full height. Her eyes narrowed. “It was all deliberate!”
“I beg your pardon?”
Color suffused her face. “I cannot believe anyone would resort to such a thing.”
“Perhaps you’d like to enlighten me, Miss—Miss—”
She stalked toward him menacingly, a cat approaching its prey.
“You set me up!”
“What?”
“You—you sneaky, slimy—”
“Watch what you say to me,” Draco said sharply.
“You played me for a patsy!”
What did that mean? This woman was playing havoc in his head.
“You tried to take advantage of me!”
Draco gave a mirthless laugh.
“Are we back to that?” Slowly he let his gaze travel over her, from head to toe and back again. “Believe me, if I could erase that momentary behavioral aberration, I would.”
A momentary behavioral aberration? Was that what he called what had happened—what had almost happened? And that chill in his eyes. In his voice. How could he speak so—so clinically of what had taken place on the