Sandra Marton - The Scandalous Orsinis

“She is not my…” Rafe shot the woman a quick glance, then lowered his voice. “I already told you, I am not interested in marrying your daughter.”

Cordiano’s eyes turned hard. “Is that your final word, Orsini?”

“What kind of man are you, to put your daughter through something like this?” Rafe said angrily.

“I asked you a question. Is that your final word?”

Could a man feel any worse than Rafe felt now? He hated what Cordiano was doing to the girl. Why in hell didn’t she say something? Was she meek, or was she stupid?

Not my worry, he told himself, and looked at Freddo Cordiano.

“Yes,” he said gruffly, “it is my final word.”

Pig Man laughed. The don shrugged. Then he clamped his fingers around his daughter’s delicate-looking wrist.

“In that case,” he said, “I give my daughter’s hand to my faithful second in command, Antonio Giglio.”

At last the woman’s head came up. “No,” she whispered. “No,” she said again, and the cry grew, gained strength, until she was shrieking it. “No! No! No!”

Rafe stared at her. No wonder she’d sounded familiar. Those wide, violet eyes. The small, straight nose. The sculpted cheekbones, the lush, rosy mouth.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “just wait one damned minute…”

Chiara swung toward him. The American knew. Not that it mattered. She was trapped. Trapped! She had to do something…

Desperate, she wrenched her hand out of her father’s.

“I will tell you the truth, Papa. You cannot give me to Giglio. You see—you see, the American and I have already met.”

“You’re damned right we have,” Rafe said furiously. “On the road coming here. Your daughter stepped out of the trees and—”

“I only meant to greet him. As a gesture of—of goodwill.” She swallowed hard; her eyes met Rafe’s and a long-forgotten memory swept through him of being caught in a firefight in some miserable hellhole of a country when a terrified cat, eyes wild with fear, had suddenly, inexplicably run into the middle of it. “But… but he… he took advantage.”

Rafe strode toward her. “Try telling your old man what really happened!”

“What really happened,” she said in a shaky whisper, “is that—is that right there, in his car—right there, Papa, Signor Orsini tried to seduce me!”

Giglio cursed. Don Cordiano roared. Rafe would have said, “You’re crazy, all of you,” but Chiara Cordiano’s dark lashes fluttered and she fainted, straight into his arms.

IT WAS like being trapped in a nightmare. One minute, Rafe was about to launch into his father’s all-too-florid verbal apology. The next—

The next, Chiara Cordiano was lying as limp as laundry in his arms.

Was she faking it? The woman was a class-A actress. First a tough bandit, then a demure Siciliana , when the truth was, she was anything but demure.

A little while ago, she’d attacked him with the ferocity of a lioness.

And there’d been that sizzling flash of sexual heat.

Oh, yeah. The lady was one hell of an actress and this was her best performance yet. Claiming he’d tried to seduce her. He’d kissed her, was all, and one kiss did not a seduction make.

The don was holding his capo back with a hand on his arm and an assortment of barked commands. Rafe knew that Pig Man wanted to kill him. Good. Let him try. He was more than in the mood to take on the load of lard.

First, though, the woman in his arms had to open her eyes and admit she’d lied.

He looked around, strode to a brocade-covered sofa and unceremoniously dumped her on it. “Chiara,” he said sharply. No response. “Chiara,” he said again, and shook her.

Pig Man snarled an obscenity. Rafe looked up.

“Get him out of here, Cordiano, or so help me, I’m gonna lay him out.”

The don snapped out an order, pointed a finger at the door. The capo shrugged off his boss’s hand. Like any well-trained attack dog, he did as he’d been ordered but not without one last threatening look at Rafe.

“This is not over, American.”

Rafe showed his teeth in a grin. “Anytime.”

The door swung shut. Cordiano went to a mahogany cabinet, poured brandy into a chunky crystal glass and held it out. Give it to her yourself, Rafe felt like saying but he took the glass, slipped an arm around Chiara’s shoulders, lifted her up and touched the rim of the glass to her lips.

“Drink.”

She gave a soft moan. Thick, dark lashes fluttered and cast shadows against her creamy skin. Wisps of hair had escaped the ugly bun and lay against her cheeks, as delicately curled as the interior of the tiny shells that sometimes washed up on the beach at Rafe’s summer place on Nantucket Island.

She looked almost unbelievably fragile.

But she wasn’t, he reminded himself. She was as tough as nails and as wily as a fox.

“Come on,” he said sharply. “Open your eyes and drink.”

Her lashes fluttered again, then lifted. She stared up at him, her pupils deep as a moonless night and rimmed by a border of pale violet.

“What… what happened?”

Nice. Trite, but nice.

“You passed out.” He smiled coldly. “And right on cue.”

Did defiance flash in those extraordinary eyes? He couldn’t be sure; she leaned forward, laid cool, pale fingers over his tanned ones as she put her mouth to the glass.

Her throat worked as she swallowed. A couple of sips and then she looked up at him. Her lips glistened; her eyes were wide. The tip of her tongue swept over her lips and he could imagine those lips parted, that tongue tip extended, those eyes locked, hot and deep, on his—

A shot of raw lust rolled through him. He turned away quickly, put the glass on a table and stepped back.

“Now that you’re among the living again, how about telling your old man the truth?”

“The truth about.” Her puzzled gaze went from her father to Rafe. “Oh!” she whispered, and her face turned scarlet.

Rafe’s eyes narrowed. Her reactions couldn’t be real. Not the Victorian swoon, not her behavior at the memory of what had happened in the car. He’d kissed her, for God’s sake. That was it. He’d lifted her into his lap and kissed her and, okay, she’d ended up biting him, but only after she’d responded, after he’d gotten hard as stone and she’d felt it and…

And he’d behaved like an idiot.

He was not a man who did things like that to women. A little playing around during sex was one thing; he’d had lovers who liked a hint of domination, but having a woman whisper “more” even as she pretended something else was not the same as what had happened with Chiara Cordiano.

What in hell had gotten into him? He’d been furious, but anger had nothing to do with sex… did it?

It was a subject to consider at another time. Right now he might just have a problem on his hands. This culture had its roots in times long gone. Its rules, its mores, were stringent.

Back home, a kiss, even a stolen one, was just a kiss. Here it could be construed as something else.

“Don Cordiano,” he said carefully, “I kissed your daughter. I’m sorry if I offended her.”

“And I am to accept your apology?”

The don ’s tone was arrogant. It made Rafe bristle.

“I’m not asking you to accept it,” he said sharply, and turned to Chiara. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. If I frightened you, I’m sorry.”

“Perhaps you would care to explain how you managed to meet with my daughter before you met with me.”

Perhaps he would, Rafe thought, but he’d be damned if he’d stand here and admit he’d almost been bested by a slip of a girl and an old man. Besides, that part of the story belonged to Cordiano’s daughter, he thought grimly, and looked at her again. But she locked her hands together in her lap, bent her head and studied them as if she had no part in this conversation.