Elizabeth Power - A Clash with Cannavaro

Strangely, she had never been able to place him anywhere, other than in the swish resorts where the rich and famous vacationed, or in some stark, state-of-the-art high-rise office at the heart of his maritime empire.

‘I don’t intend wasting any unnecessary thought over it,’ she retorted, wishing she wasn’t letting him reduce her to the level of sniping.

‘Not even to wonder where this nephew—whom you claim to be instilling with your own questionable values—is likely to be living?’

Lauren forced herself to bite her tongue. She was past caring over the last two years what Emiliano Cannavaro thought about her. Memories might shame, but they couldn’t hurt her. She had learned to shrug her shoulders, grit her teeth and carry on. But Emiliano Cannavaro wasn’t a memory any more. He was here—now as large as life, and he had it in his power to hurt her and would if she let him, by taking away the one thing she held most dear.

‘I don’t need to wonder, Emiliano,’ she said determinedly. ‘I know exactly where he’ll be living. And that’s with me. It was my sister’s wish that I should take care of Danny if anything ever happened to her before he became of age.’

‘Which she had no right to express or to request of you while the child’s father was still alive.’

‘She had every right!’ Lauren shot back, affronted by his dictatorial attitude. ‘Although she wouldn’t have needed to if Angelo hadn’t been as bad a father as he was a husband!’

‘You mean the husband she saw only as the key to a life of luxury? And one she had no intention of giving up?’

I’m going to screw him for every penny I can get!

Lauren didn’t want to remember Vikki’s venomous remark on that tragic day, eleven months ago, when her sister had gone off to see Angelo, leaving the six-month-old Danny in Lauren’s care. But it came back startlingly now with the things Vikki had told her on her wedding day, things that Lauren wished—if only for her own sake—that she had never heard.

‘Oh, don’t misunderstand me.’ The deep Latin voice penetrated her thoughts, bringing her back to the present. ‘I am not defending Angelo’s actions.’

Lauren slanted a censuring look at him. ‘Aren’t you?’

‘My brother’s faults were glaringly obvious, but that didn’t stop him from being totally and utterly taken in.’

Which you never would be, she thought, skimming a reluctant glance down over his magnificent physique, and shuddering as she recalled the way he had reacted when he thought he had been.

Those dark assessing eyes of his seemed to be stripping her naked with their unsettling intensity.

‘No,’ he said, in a way that was lethal in its very softness, startling her into wondering if he had the power to read her thoughts

‘No what?’ she challenged, trying not to think about that day that had been the most humiliating of her life.

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t need to, Lauren thought, with colour tingeing her cheeks.

‘I did not come here to resurrect anything that might have transpired between us,’ he remarked coldly. ‘Though, heaven knows, if there had been a prize for driving a man crazy you would have won it hands down, would you not, mia cara?’ His tone made a mockery of the endearment. ‘You did not exactly hold back in your efforts to please me that night I took you to my bed.’

How she could feel a throbbing deep inside just from thinking about that night, Lauren didn’t know, and shaming colour stained her cheeks almost puce.

Somehow, though, she managed to say cuttingly, ‘Save it, Emiliano.’

He laughed, savouring her discomfiture and embarrassment like he’d savoured the nectar of her willing body.

‘Of course. There are far more pressing matters in hand.’

Like taking Daniele away from her?

‘If you think I’ll be handing my sister’s baby over to you just like that, you’ve got another thing coming!’

He smiled, the type of smile that had had the power to draw her to him that fateful weekend two years ago in a way she had never been drawn to any man before or since.

‘Of course, I would not be expecting you to hand him over—as you say—“just like that”. Naturally there would be a period of adjustment while the child became acquainted with me as his new guardian. And naturally you will be suitably rewarded for the time he has been in your care.’

Dumbfounded, Lauren couldn’t believe what he was saying.

‘Suitably rewarded?’ She flung the words back at him as if they were poison darts. ‘And what is the price you’d consider suitable for trading a child?’

A dark eyebrow shot up as he regarded her with something approaching disdain.

‘I am not buying him from you, Lauren, if that is what you’re imagining. I will simply be reimbursing you for the inconvenience and loss of earnings you will most certainly have suffered during the time you have been caring for him. But if it means that much to you, I will allow you to name your price. Within reason. I am sure that between us we can arrive at a figure that will suit us both.’

‘Oh, are you?’ Disbelievingly, Lauren stared up into the strikingly masculine face, trying not to baulk at the determination she could see stamped on every purposeful feature. ‘You think you and your kind can buy anything you want, don’t you? Well, sorry to disappoint you, Emiliano, but I’ve no intention of giving up my nephew any time soon. So you can take your fancy car and your over-stuffed wallet and go back to whatever cold, damp stone you happened to crawl out from under, because Daniele isn’t going back with you under any circumstances! Not now. Not ever!’

His mouth twitched at one corner as he contemplated what she was saying. ‘And there I was thinking that we could be civil about this,’ he remarked. ‘Do I understand you to be saying you would prefer a legal battle?’

And one he would surely win?

Tremulously, yet refusing to be fazed, she answered, ‘If that’s what it comes to.’

He clicked his tongue. ‘You are very foolish, Signorina Westwood.’ The formality only seemed to widen the glaring distance between them. ‘It seems I underestimated you in imagining we could come to a reasonable settlement without resorting to the needless involvement of expensive lawyers. Or does the idea of a court case whet your appetite for a taste of even greater pickings?’

‘You’re despicable!’ Lauren breathed.

‘Not nearly as despicable as you would find me if you drag me through a court of law.’

She looked at him askance. ‘Is that a threat?’

‘No, just some good advice.’

‘Well, you can stick your advice where the sun doesn’t shine!’

He laughed very softly. ‘Such spirit!

He was moving towards her and she backed away, sending a shocked glance over her shoulder when she came up against the solid bulk of the dresser.

Hardly daring to breathe, she stood stock-still, her eyes guarded and challenging as Emiliano’s hands came to rest on the dresser on either side of her, effectively trapping her there.

‘You know...that was the first thing that attracted me to you. Other than...’ One strap of her dungarees had slipped off her shoulder, dragging the bib down with it, and from the slide of his gaze over the vest it had exposed she knew he could see the outline of her naked breast. Breasts which were too full, she had always thought, in comparison with her small waist and far less curvy hips. Now, in response to his heated gaze, she felt the nipple swelling beneath the soft revealing cotton. ‘The way you tried to cut me dead in response to everything I said was a real turn-on. And it was not just me who was affected by it, was it, cara?’

He meant her, Lauren thought with shame, remembering how he had even gone as far as suggesting that she actually enjoyed arguing with him.