Italian Mavericks: Forbidden Nights With The Italian: The Forbidden Ferrara / Surrendering to the Italian's Command / The Unwanted Conti Bride

Only something really, really important would make him do that.

Terror rippled through her. No, she thought wildly, it couldn’t possibly be that.

He didn’t know.

He couldn’t know.

With a final curious glance, Gina hurried out of the kitchen and Fia ran cold water over her burned elbow, trying to reassure herself that it was a routine visit. Another attempt by the Ferrara family to hold out an olive branch. There had been others, and her grandfather had taken each and every olive branch and snapped it in two. Since her brother’s death, there had been nothing. No overtures. No contact.

Until now …

Functioning on automatic, she reached above her head for a fresh bulb of garlic. She grew it herself in her garden, along with vegetables and herbs and she enjoyed the growing almost as much as she enjoyed the cooking. It soothed her. Gave her a feeling of home and family she’d never derived from the people around her. Reaching for her favourite knife, she started chopping, trying to think how she would have reacted if the circumstances had been different. If the terror wasn’t involved. If the stakes weren’t so high—

She would have been cold. Businesslike.

‘Buonasera, Fia.’

A deep male voice came from the doorway and she turned, the knife turning from a kitchen implement to a weapon. The crazy thing was, she didn’t know his voice. But she knew his eyes and they were looking at her now—two dark pools of dangerous black. They gleamed bright with intelligence and hard with ruthless purpose. They were the eyes of a man who thrived in a cut-throat business environment. A man who knew what he wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it. They were the same eyes that had glittered into hers in the darkness three years before as they’d ripped each other’s clothes and slaked a fierce hunger.

Those three years had added a couple of inches to his broad shoulders and more bulk to muscles she remembered all too well. Apart from that he was exactly the same. Still the same ‘born to rule’ Ferrara self-confidence; the same innate sophistication, polished until it shone bright as the paintwork of his Lamborghini. He was six foot three of hard, sensual masculinity but Fia felt nothing a woman was supposed to feel when she laid eyes on Santo Ferrara. A normal woman wouldn’t feel this searing anger, this almost uncontrollable urge to scratch his handsome face and thump that powerful chest. When she was near him, every feeling was exaggerated. She felt vulnerable and defenceless and those feelings brought out the worst in her. Usually she was warm and civil to everyone who stepped inside her kitchen. Reviews commended her hospitality and the intimate, friendly atmosphere of the restaurant. But she couldn’t even bring herself to wish this man a good evening. And that was because she didn’t want him to have a good evening.

She wanted him to go to hell and stay there.

He was her biggest mistake.

And judging from the cold, cynical glint in his eye, he considered her to be his.

‘Well, this is a surprise. The Ferrara brothers don’t usually step down from their ivory tower to mingle with us mortals. Checking out the competition?’ She adopted her most businesslike tone, while all the time her anxiety was rising and the questions were pounding through her head.

Did he know?

Had he found out?

A faint smile touched his mouth and the movement distracted her. There was an almost deadly beauty in the sensual curve of those lips. Everything about the man was dark and sexual, as if he’d been designed for the express purpose of drawing women to their doom. If rumour were correct, he did that with appalling frequency.

Fia wasn’t fooled by his apparently relaxed pose or his deceptively mild tone.

Santo Ferrara was the most dangerous man she’d ever met.

Without exchanging words, she’d fallen. Even now, years later, she didn’t understand what had happened that night. One moment she’d been alone with her misery. The next, his hand had been on her shoulder and everything that had happened after that was a blur. Had it been about human comfort? Possibly, except that comfort implied gentle emotions and those had been in short supply that night.

He watched her now, his face giving no hint as to his thoughts. ‘I’ve heard good things about your restaurant. I’ve come to find out if any of them are true.’

He didn’t know, she thought. If he knew, he wouldn’t be toying with her.

‘They’re all true, but I’m afraid I can’t satisfy your curiosity. We’re fully booked.’ Her lips formed the words while her mind raced over the possible reasons for his visit. Was that really all this was? An idle visit to check out the competition? No, surely not. Santo Ferrara would delegate that task to a minion. Her brain throbbed with the strain of trying to second-guess him.

‘We both know you can find me a table if you want to.’

‘But I don’t want to.’ Her fingers tightened on the knife. ‘Since when did a Ferrara dine at the same table as a Baracchi?’

His eyes locked on hers. Her heart beat just a little bit faster.

The searing look he sent her from under those dense, inky lashes reminded her that once they hadn’t just dined; they’d hungered and they’d feasted. They’d devoured each other and taken until there was nothing left to take. And she could still remember the taste of him; feel the rippling power of his body against hers as they’d indulged in dark, forbidden pleasure, the memory of which had never left her.

In a crowded room she wouldn’t have known his voice, but she knew how he’d feel and her palms grew hot and her knees weakened as her thoughts broke free of the restraints she’d imposed, liberating memories so vivid that for a moment she couldn’t breathe.

He smiled.

Not the smile of a friend, but the smile of a conqueror contemplating the imminent surrender of a captive. ‘Eat at my table, Fia.’

His casual use of her name suggested a familiarity that didn’t exist and it unbalanced her, as he’d no doubt intended. He was a man who always had to be in control. He’d been in control on that night and there had been something terrifying about the force of passion he’d unleashed.

She’d taken him because she’d been in desperate need of human comfort.

He’d taken her because he could.

‘This is my table we’re talking about,’ she said in a clear voice, ‘and you’re not invited.’ She had to get rid of him. The longer he stayed, the bigger the risk to her. ‘You have your own restaurant next door. If you’re hungry then I’m sure they’d accommodate you, although I admit that neither the food nor the view is as good as mine so I can understand why you find both lacking.’

There was a stillness about him that made her uneasy. A watchfulness that she didn’t trust.

‘I need to speak to your grandfather. Tell me where he is.’

So that was why he was here. Another round of fruitless negotiations that would lead the same way as the others. Thanks goodness he’d made this visit at night, she thought numbly. No matter what happened, she had to ensure he didn’t return during the day. ‘You must have a death wish. You know how he feels about you.’

Those eyes were hooded as he watched her. ‘And does he know how you feel about me?’

His oblique reference to that night shocked her because it was something that had never been mentioned before.

Was he threatening her? Was he about to expose her?

Relief had been replaced by sick panic as various avenues of horror opened up before her. Was that why he’d done it? To have a hold over her in the future? ‘My grandfather is old and unwell. If you have something to say you can say it to me. If you want to talk business, then you’ll talk to me. I run the restaurant.’

‘But the land is his.’ His soft voice was a million times more disturbing than an explosion of temper and that control of his worried her because she felt none where he was concerned. She thought about what she’d read—about Santo Ferrara more than filling his brother’s large shoes in his running of their global corporation. And suddenly she realised how foolish she’d been to think that the Beach Club was too insignificant to be of interest to the big boss. It was precisely because it was too insignificant that it had caught his attention. He wanted to expand the Beach Club, and to do that he needed—

‘You want our land?’

‘It was once our land,’ he said with lethal emphasis, ‘until one of your unscrupulous relatives, of which there have been all too many, chose to use blackmail to extract half the beach from my great-grandfather. Unlike him, I am willing to propose a fair deal and pay you a generous price to regain that which should never have left my family.’

And it was all about money, of course. The Ferraras thought everything could be bought.

Which was what frightened her.

The initial feeling of relief that had flooded her had been replaced by trepidation. If he were intent on developing the land then she’d never be safe.

‘My grandfather will never, ever sell to you so if that is what this visit is about you’re wasting your time. You might as well go back to New York or Rome or wherever it is you live these days. Pick another project.’

‘I live here.’ His lip curled. ‘And I am giving this project my personal attention.’