CHAPTER TWO

      NICO’S stomach felt strangely hollow. He was standing here, looking at this woman who he could hardly believe was the grown-up little sister of his old friend and archrival, and he knew what she was saying even though she did not actually speak the words.

      She was telling him she was pregnant. With his child.

      But he knew it was a lie. No matter what she said about Venice and the masks, she was not that woman. It was a trick, a ruse cooked up by her brother in order to settle old scores. Oddly, it disappointed him to think she could be as ruthless as Renzo when she’d once been so shy.

      He didn’t know how they knew, but he would not fall for it.

      His gaze raked her body as he tried to recall the woman he’d shared that night with. He’d found her on the docks outside the palazzo, gulping air and shivering. He’d feared something bad had happened to her initially, but that had not been the case at all.

      He remembered how sweetly innocent she’d been, and how he’d been drawn to her in spite of his usual preference for more experienced bed partners. He had not thought she would be a virgin, but she’d surprised him on that score, as well.

      How could this be the same woman?

      It couldn’t be. Somehow, Valentina D’Angeli knew the woman he’d been with and she and her brother were using the situation to their advantage. It was too outrageous otherwise.

      “You are lying,” he said.

      Her eyes widened with hurt. “Why would I do that? What could I possibly gain from something like this?”

      Fury roared through him in giant waves. She played the innocent so well. “I can imagine a few things,” he grated. “I am wealthy. Titled. And my company is a thorn in D’Angeli Motors’ side.”

      Her brows drew down in a dark frown. Unwelcome heat flared inside him as she stood.

      It hit him like a blow that she was very beautiful, with strong features and smooth skin and a mouth that needed kissing. Her chestnut hair tumbled over her shoulders in an insane riot of curls. He would have remembered hair like that, hair that twisted and curled and caught the light like it had been dusted with gold. He cast his mind back to that night, saw long dark hair that was thick and shiny … and straight.

      Violet eyes flashed fire as she put her hands on her hips and faced him squarely. “Six weeks ago, you did not have a title. And my brother has as much money as you do, if not more. As for the companies, I could give a damn about either of them for all the good it would do me.”

      Nico tried not to be distracted by the way her waist curved in over the flare of her hips or the way her posture emphasized the full thrust of her breasts against her silk shirt. His body was hyperaware of her, but he could handle that. He simply refused to give in to the attraction.

      “Her hair was straight,” he said coldly.

      She blinked, and triumph surged within him. He had her there. What a pretty liar she was.

      Then she laughed at him as she twisted a finger into a curl and pulled it straight. “It’s called a blow out, you idiot. Give me twenty minutes with a hair dryer, and I’ll show you hair as straight as a file.”

      He stiffened. “That hardly proves it was you.”

      She took a step closer to him, and he had the distinct impression she was stalking him. It turned him on more than it ought. For a moment he wanted to close the distance between them, wanted to fit his mouth to hers and see if the sparks he felt in the air also extended to the physical. He had enough self-control not to do so, however.

      She tilted her chin up, those eyes still flashing fire at him. She had a temper. He didn’t remember that about her, but then she’d only been a teenager when he’d last known her. All he remembered about her then was a girl who hid behind her hair and went mute whenever he spoke to her.

      Now she jabbed a manicured finger at him. “Shall I tell you everything about that night, starting with the moment you asked me if I was okay on the dock? Or should I describe your room at the Hotel Daniele? The way you turned off all the lights and told me no names and no faces? The way you peeled off my gown and kissed my skin while I—” here she swallowed “—I gasped?”

      She broke off then, her face red, and Nico felt a jolt of need coiling at the base of his spine. He’d bedded a lot of women over the years, but none so fascinating as the one he’d taken that night. It had been a true one-night stand, and in the morning he’d awakened to find her gone. He’d been rather amused with the way it had made him feel, as if she’d used him and discarded him, and yet he’d been wistful, too.

      Because, no matter what he’d said to his mystery woman about remaining anonymous, he’d wanted to see her again after that night. There’d been something between them that he’d wanted to explore further. It had only been sex, he knew that, but when he found a woman he enjoyed, he usually spent more than one night with her.

      He’d asked the hotel staff if they remembered her or if they had seen which direction she’d gone in when she’d left.

      The lone man on duty that night had said she’d left around two in the morning, silk-and-feather mask intact and pale green dress clutched in her fists as she ran through the lobby. He had not noted which direction she’d gone after she’d taken the gondola, and he didn’t remember which gondolier had taken her.

      A general inquiry of the gondoliers plying that part of the city had turned up nothing.

      And that had been the end of that. Nico had been disappointed, but he’d gotten over it soon enough. It was sex, not love—and he could find plenty of sexual partners when the need arose. One sexy, inexperienced woman was not necessary to his life any more than a fine brandy was. They were both enjoyable, but completely dispensable.

      “You could have learned those details from someone else. They prove nothing,” he told her. And yet his blood hummed at her nearness, almost the way it had that night.

      Her head dipped then, her eyes dropping away from his. “This is ridiculous,” she breathed. And then she turned and sank onto the couch again, her eyes closing as her skin whitened.

      Guilt pricked him. “Do you need another biscuit? More tea?”

      “No. I just need to sit a moment.” She looked up at him, her mouth turning down in a frown. “You’re right, of course. I’m making the whole thing up. Renzo put me up to it so we could embarrass you. Because of course you would be embarrassed, wouldn’t you? You, the man who has at least a dozen scantily clad paddock girls clinging to you after your races, the man who appears in the tabloids on a regular basis with some new woman on his arm, the man who famously stood in the middle of a party one evening and kissed every woman who asked to be kissed—yes, that man would be so embarrassed by me and my baby, though we would probably only burnish his bad-boy reputation.”

      Anger flared inside him. She was making fun of him—and the worst part was that what she said made a perverse sort of sense.

      “How do I know