Dear Reader,

When I left my home near Plymouth, England, and flew across the Atlantic to Massachusetts to research The Vengeful Groom, I imagined myself as nervous as any Pilgrim. I found woodlands, clapboard houses, glorious beaches and historic inns. “English” scenery, and yet everything felt so foreign.

I filmed, I researched, I learned new languages. Pudding is dessert, estate agents are Realtors, cafés are diners…. I also walked in Giovanni and Tina’s footsteps, living their lives, dreaming on beaches, talking to students, exploring mansions, a garage and small-town life. I visited Harvard and Boston’s Italian quarter.

There was also time for playing hooky—wandering the wilder shores of Cape Cod, boating up silvery rivers and across vast salt marshlands. At Plymouth Plantation, I told a costumed carpenter that he’d find old Plymouth much changed if he went back! We drew maps for each other in the dirt and talked about the Old World and the New.

I wasn’t as daring as the settlers who’d made the journey from England long ago, but I felt an affinity with them. I’d come from a great distance, with high hopes of adventure and a broadening of my world. I gained a deep respect and admiration for the American way of life—for its energy and enthusiasm and family values.

I think we need those strong, caring qualities in a marriage; Giovanni and Tina have them in The Vengeful Groom—a tough grit, a regard for family and a “can do” attitude. With a never-dying love for each other, they’ll be happy together for eternity. Hope you agree!

With affection,

Sara Wood

INVITATION TO ALL COUPLES IN LOVE

We, the citizens of Eternity, take great pleasure in inviting you to hold your wedding at the Powell Chapel. Remember the legend: Those who exchange their vows in the chapel will remain together for the rest of their lives.

So let us help plan your special day. We’ve been making dreams come true for more than a hundred years.

Weddings, Inc.

Eternity Massachusetts

Weddings, Inc.

Directory

Your guide to the perfect Happily-Ever-After

BRIDAL CONSULTANT…. Bronwyn Powell

INVITATIONS & STATIONERY…. Jennifer Thompson

ANTIQUES & GIFTS…. Patience Powell

HAIR SALON…. Dodie Gibson

CATERER…. Manuel Silva

BRIDAL GOWNS…. Emma Webster

FLORIST…. Julianna Van Bassen, Marguerite Van Bassen

LIMOS…. Daniel Murphy

RECEPTION/ ACCOMMODATION…. Lincoln Mathews

TRAVEL AGENCY…. Jacqui Bertrand

PHOTOGRAPHER…. Sarah Powell

LINGERIE, ETC. ….. Christine Bowman

JEWELRY…. Marion Kent

BAKERY…. Lucy Franco

GIFTS…. Jean Stanford

FABRIC…. Marg Chisolm

SHOES…. David Guest

BAND…. Kerry Muldoon

The Vengeful Groom
Sara Wood

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For David Santa Maria, who helped me build the True Love Ranch

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

SHE OUGHT to go over there. Even a Lamborghini could break down—otherwise why would that guy be lying underneath it? Tina shut the apartment door, mesmerized by the seductive lines of the dark green automobile on the derelict lot next door. From beneath the megasize front bumper emerged a pair of leather shoes and a small pool of oil.

Man at work, she thought in amusement, and there was the obligatory crowd—almost a dozen students! Though why the guy had run the car up the clamshell path and parked by the ruined barn, she couldn’t imagine. Her grandfather’s garage stood within pushing distance.

With a quick gesture, she thrust back the disorderly chunks of black hair that had flopped into her eyes from the dash downstairs and contemplated leaving the Lamborghini owner to cope. A slow smile curved the poppy red of her mouth as she speculated on the shock the poor guy must be in!

She could ignore his predicament since her grandfather had ordered her to concentrate on her own pleasures for once and let everything else go hang. Since he’d taken Adriana away on an extended birthday treat, the weekend didn’t involve planning a whole heap of the enriching experiences Adriana needed if she was to progress. Although Tina loved them—from the hilarious cooking sessions at breakfast to the stories she read at night to help Adriana unwind—it meant she never had a moment to herself.

Today she was as free as a bird, with nothing to concern her but which pickle to put on her sandwich. She’d felt a little guilty, a little lost, that morning. Scrambling into her T-shirt and shorts, she’d realized she needn’t hurry for once. No dependents. No detailed planning. No mental exertion. No dealing with emotional dramas. Bliss!

Seven-fifteen. The part-timers would arrive at the garage in half an hour. And business was business. She clambered over the picket fence and strolled toward the students.

“Hi, everyone,” she called amiably.

“Hi, Miss Murphy!” they answered with enthusiasm.

She beamed back and found she had to stretch all of her curvy five-foot-two frame to get a glimpse of the low-slung auto above the milling heads.

“Are you guys studying chiropody this term, or is this a customer for my grandpa?” she asked, nodding in amusement at the leather soles sticking out from beneath the car. To her surprise, the feet wagged as if they enjoyed the feeble joke.

“More’n that, Miss Murphy! Come see!” cried Josh Davis, good-naturedly shoving his neighbors in all directions to clear a space for her.

“Oh, boy!” she murmured in approval, running a connoisseur’s eye over the auto. It would snarl and roar and overtake everything in sight, leaving a choking cloud of dust behind. She smiled. “Grandpa will die to hear he’s missed it!”

“Yeah. Awesome,” breathed Josh. “It’s a Countach! Smooth!”

“As silk,” she agreed fervently, her fingers reaching out with due respect to stroke the satiny finish on the curvaceous bodywork. She loved to touch sensuous objects. She leaned over and sniffed the leather interior. Wonderfully evocative. And then she frowned faintly. Cream linen pants weren’t the most likely gear for wriggling under low-slung cars. How very odd.

It dawned on her that Mr. Rich-in-Trouble had chosen that spot in the sunken path of the garden so he could shoehorn himself beneath the hood and work on the underside. Doing what? she wondered, a little baffled over the limited possibilities. Intrigued, she studied the pool of oil and concluded that it looked rather…arranged.

Lisa Powell distracted her from the mystery. “And sexy,” she sighed dreamily. “Moves like molasses.”

“The car?” murmured Tina dryly.

“No! Him.” Lisa sighed, gazing at the few inches of linen-clad shins as though she coveted everything above and below. “Sex appeal,” she announced with all the assurance of a sixteen-year-old, “is a matter of body language. And eyes that melt tarmac.”

“No wonder he’s got a hole in his car,” said Tina gravely. The students all laughed and the feet did their annoying jiggle. “Since you never mentioned you’ve got X-ray vision on your profile forms for college, Lisa,” she added with a grin, “I suppose you watched the guy slide under there.”

“Yes, and wait till he slides out again!” Lisa gloated. “He’s very exotic. Or do I mean erotic? And his hair is the most extraordinary white-blond…”

Giovanni, Tina thought at once, his name shocking her with its sudden arrival in her head. Giovanni moved with an undeniably erotic grace, and his hair sat like whipped cream on his tanned Latin forehead, making a startling contrast.

Back came that star-burst moment when she’d fallen so helplessly in love with him. He’d walked into her class when she was an impressionable fourteen and he’d been a year older—a tall, graceful Polish-Sicilian from the back streets of Palermo, with pride and apprehension and defiance fighting in his expression.

“I prefer dark guys myself,” she stated emphatically, wrinkling her small nose.

“How’s it goin’, sir?” called Josh respectfully to the feet and cream pants.

“Great.”

The muffled reply came as a relief because it meant she didn’t need to hang around. But she couldn’t help wishing he was some rich guy who’d turned up to buy the garage. Then her grandfather could retire and stop creaking himself into gear every morning. Even with the part-timers and guys on school placement sharing the work, he ended up exhausted. Having Adriana around with her innocent demands didn’t help, however much happiness she brought.

Tina’s expression grew soft and affectionate when she scanned the small Murphy’s Garage, with their cramped apartment above and a For Sale sign in front. Then her gaze returned to the burned-out buildings of the derelict Alden place a few yards away. Brent Powell—now Josh’s stepfather, she reminded herself—had nearly lost his life in the fire there a couple of years ago. A terrible scene, an awful memory.

It was a scandal that the old colonial house and outbuildings were still standing in ruins and that the town couldn’t enforce the destruction order. The place was an eyesore, and the blackened timbers and collapsing clapboard facade had badly affected Grandpa’s asking price.

And then she gave a wry grin. She’d promised Grandpa she wouldn’t think of anyone but herself today, and already she’d checked on a crowd of students and a tinkering Lamborghini driver, and worried about selling the garage!

“Well, if everything’s okay, I’m off to pick up a picnic for the beach,” she said cheerfully. “Hang around, you guys. Awed hayseeds sometimes get dimes thrown to them!”

Lisa giggled. “I’m not going! Bet you’d stay, too, if you were sixteen.”

“You got it!” Tina admitted. “But I’m more than ten years beyond that sell-by date!” She grinned, knowing how old that must seem to Lisa. “Only a senior citizen with a decent pension would give me a passing glance now.”

Something hit her small sandaled foot. A silver coin. She blinked. “What the…?”

Everyone was laughing. “A dime for a hayseed, Miss Murphy!”

“It’s his pension—you hit the jackpot!” cried Josh.

“Then he’s got sound judgment,” she said simply.

The blueness of her eyes deepened with warmth at their laughter. She loved it that they could crack jokes together and that they regarded her as a friend. The relationship she’d evolved with them over the years had gotten to be as comfortable and familiar as an old sofa. Too comfortable sometimes, she thought ruefully; the students seemed to think she was available all hours of the day—and night. But then, they knew she’d move heaven and earth for them and she’d root for them till she dropped. Though, come a crunch, she could do some tough talking and deal with a drama or two.

A second coin landed on her red-painted toe. Fascinated, she pushed her hands into the pockets of her shorts. Skillful, she thought. He didn’t have much room to maneuver under there.

“I’m being targeted,” she marveled. “Hey. I’m a high school guidance counselor, not a slot machine!”

“He’s pretty accurate,” Brad Phister said admiringly.

“Perhaps he pitches for the Red Sox,” she suggested.

Feeling curious, she crouched down, tipping her head sideways in an attempt to see under the car. She got a view of a male body clad in discreetly toned cream, a hunky quarterback chest soaring up and preventing her from seeing beyond, and a bared flexing arm and the flash of a gold watch as another silver coin whizzed in her direction.

“Hi, there! You practicing stone skipping?” No answer. “Okay, I give up. What are you doing? Try dollar bills! I take credit cards! Gold!” she called, unable to keep the laughter from her voice. It was crazy! The guy still didn’t answer, and she stood up in puzzled defeat.

Then the glove-soft shoes shot forward, the girls taking in a collective breath as the long legs and slim hips of a young, athletic-looking male came into view. Rich, too, thought Tina, highly intrigued. Those immaculately pressed pants weren’t from a thrift shop. Her curiosity soared as questions of who, why and what skated around her brain.

Under her fascinated gaze, the discreet cream knees bent and the leather-clad heels propelled the body out a little more. Now they could all see that the guy had been lying on a proper mechanic’s trolley. The mystery deepened. A trolley wasn’t the kind of thing a rich man kept handy.

“I think he’s Italian,” stated Lisa, “despite the blond hair. Wait till you see his pecs!”

“Pecs? I’ve seen pecs,” said Tina mildly, but she stayed nevertheless, dying to know why a blond Italian would throw coins….

She took a step back in shock. Her small hand went to her brightly painted mouth. A blond Italian. Italian car. Italian shoes.

Oh, God!

Her skin paled beneath its tan, washed with gray from head to toe, her huge, dark-lashed eyes suddenly great sinking navy pools in her horrified face. Suddenly she didn’t want to stay around the dime-tossing stranger any longer. Just in case. Her heart stopped beating for a brief moment as the ground seemed to heave beneath her feet and she tried to steady herself.

It could well be Giovanni.

Hazily she focused on the feet, the legs, the dancer-slim hips. It couldn’t be. No, some other guy. Why had she thought of Gio? Her intuition had gone crazy. He could never afford to rent a Lamborghini, let alone buy one. Surely… She swallowed. No man in his position would want to come back. The shame, the accusing stares, the stony silence from everyone would be unbearable for him.

Yet there was the familiar thud in her chest that came when Giovanni was close, the melting of her body into a molten heap, ready to erupt when he touched her, spoke, fixed her with his brooding, heavy-lidded eyes.

Since his departure so long ago, nothing had changed the way she felt deep inside. A crowd of guys had dated her; a few had kissed her. She scowled, firmly pushing back the inevitable thought that none of them had taken her all the way to heaven the way Giovanni had.

Perhaps it was just as well. The lush red of her lips parted in a grimace of pain. Never again in her entire life did she want to feel that she was dying inside because of a man’s rejection and his casual betrayal. Or to realize that the man she’d loved was without honor or backbone. No wonder Gio’s adoring parents had disowned him!

She inhaled sharply, slamming the door on a pain ten years old. That was how you dealt with tragedy; when it was too huge, too hurtful to cope with, you eliminated it from your mind and threw yourself into work one hundred percent and made some kind of a life for yourself.

Her mouth trembled. Every now and then, a word, a gesture, the angle of a jaw or a word spoken on the television, caused her to learn the cruel lesson that her love for Giovanni had never faded; it was merely suppressed. Which made her a mindless fool, because only a mindless fool carried a torch for a cheat and a liar.

Men like Gio were virtually programmed to build up a woman’s hopes, to deceive and disappoint—then to vanish. He was a coward. No, worse than that, she thought unhappily. Much worse. As bad as a man could be.

She pressed a trembling hand against the cerulean blue of her T-shirt. Beneath her soft breath, her heart beat in an alarmingly erratic rhythm.

“Miss Murphy? You okay?”

“I…oh, too many waffles for breakfast,” she told Brad, taking a quick gulp of oxygen to fill her crushed lungs. “I’ll give the pecs a miss. They’re a dime a dozen now that everyone works out,” she continued hurriedly. “Ask him if they do Countachs in a ragtop!” Her attempt to sound casual began to fall apart. The feet and legs had edged forward ultraslowly, and the beefy torso was being revealed in all its masculine glory. Giovanni, her brain told her. “Have fun, you guys! Gotta go!” She whirled around, striding fast as a whippet toward the street.

To her acutely tuned ears came the rasping sound of trolley wheels on the clamshells. She hastily flung open the drunken gate and strode onto the sidewalk. “There’s no earthly reason that it should be him!” she muttered to herself. “None at all—”

“Teeenaaa!”

“Ohhhh!” she gasped.

Quickening her pace, she pretended she didn’t recognize the rich, rolling, elaborately drawn-out extension of the syllables of her name. But no one in the world except Giovanni had the ability to caress even the most ordinary word. Those lilting cadences, a rough edge and an Italian’s way with women had given him advantages over other men, and the easily won adoration had flawed him fatally. Women came willingly to his arms, she thought, sick at heart.

“Teeenaaa!”

Grim faced, she faked deafness and forged on till a painfully remembered musical whistle stopped her as dead as if she’d hit a brick wall. Their call!

Their secret call, when they’d needed one another. How could he? How could he? Emotions coursed through her in destructive waves. Love. Regret. Shame. Anger. And contempt by the bucket. Too much to cope with. Tina got her leaden feet working again, her mind still in turmoil. Giovanni! Not in a million years had she expected to see him again—or ever wanted to!

Why had he come? Her dazed mind whirled, seeking an explanation for his hiring an ostentatious car when it was unlikely he could afford such extravagances. He’d never made it to college, and there’d been that period in… Tina’s white teeth savaged her lower lip as she fought to keep her emotions under control. Jail. She’d said it. Jail had taken up two years of his life. Not much opportunity to make money with that track record.

Reluctantly she faced the truth she’d been avoiding. He’d sworn he’d return one day—and make everyone sit up and take notice.

An image burned itself in her mind. She closed her eyes briefly in anguish, but the image was even clearer, and when she snapped them open again he was still there—in court, just after the sentence had been read, his eyes flickering in malediction between her and her once-dear friend Beth, because they’d provided the evidence that had damned him.

“I’ll be back!” he’d yelled across the courtroom, her heart breaking at the way he’d struggled with the restraining officer. The hurt racked through her now and then; Gio had protested his innocence to the last and never admitted his guilt. “I swear to God you’ll all know when I’ve hit town!”

Ashen faced, Tina stepped up her pace, driving her wobbling legs toward the café a few hundred yards down the street. She wished it wasn’t Saturday, because only a handful of people were stirring—mainly students and those like herself who’d become accustomed to getting up for school at seven-thirty. She wanted crowds. The safety of numbers and friendly faces because that day in court was one she wanted to forget forever. And suddenly it was here and now, and she couldn’t bear it.

The whistle sounded again, louder, more imperious, as though she’d turn and run to him like some obedient dog. Her heart tripped a beat. He’d called her a bitch of the first order, his eyes glittering with hatred, the promise of retribution in every inch of his powerful body.

Sicilian vengeance. Cold, calculated, final.

And now he was here. Giovanni, having been brought up a Sicilian half his life, would be nursing a grudge he would take to the grave if it wasn’t satisfied. The past swept relentlessly into the present: everything she’d seen and felt that day in court, Gio’s black malevolent eyes, staring, condemning, the nervous sips she’d taken of the water they’d given her when her voice had failed, the physical sickness….

The wave of nausea now made her stumble. Hot, sweating, she recovered, thrust her hand through her hair and plunged blindly on. She’d gotten to the bank. Nearly up to the bridge, the café, the haven that lay inside.

By the time she crested the old bridge she was out of breath and could feel his presence close behind her like an evil force. Suddenly her legs lost their ability to move and her feet just gave up. She hung on to the parapet wall and looked down at her legs in bewilderment, willing them to obey her. Failing.

“Ciao, Tina,” Giovanni murmured, so softly, so slowly it could break a woman’s heart. “Ciao.”

Small flurries of nerves rippled right down to her bare and wriggling toes. The punch of pure delight had knocked her brain away and left space for her sensuality to flow unheeded. Her small hands screwed into tight hurting balls, because the old magic was still there despite everything he’d done, and her whole emotional inner world had roared into life. Tina gritted her teeth against the long-forgotten ability of her brain and physical body to melt when his voice caressed her in that sexy indolent way. It was nothing but a memory quirk. A cruel reflex action.

“Arrivederci!” she flung behind her shakily.

“Turn around, Tina. Allora, turn to me.”

The warm, languid and silken voice slid over her shoulder, shivering up her sensitive neck and then crawling over every inch of her body. And the memories flooded back like the remorseless tide, washing away all her flimsy barriers and leaving her stranded, high and dry, with only one focus. Giovanni.

Weakly she lifted her face to the early-morning warmth of the sun, and she could almost feel his firm dreamy mouth on hers, teaching her how to kiss, how to enjoy her body without shame. Dark with anger, her eyes narrowed. Of course he’d taught her that! Look what he’d gotten in return!

“I don’t want to see you. Or speak to you,” she said huskily. “I’m on my way to the café.” She was afraid, unwilling to look him in the eye. This was the man she’d loved, ached for. Betrayed.

“You might as well face me,” he drawled. “You can’t run from your mistakes forever.”

Stunned, she whirled around, every inch of her quivering with the injustice of his remark, her Irish temper flaring as she tasted in her throat the bitterness of her error in giving her love to a sham.

“You were my mistake, Gio! You were a mistake!” she cried incoherently. “It was a mistake that you were ever born!” With that, her hand swept up and connected with his sardonic mocking face in a resounding crack that went right through her, shuddering down into her bones. She uttered one strangled broken cry of horrified remorse and turned, planning to run, her mind reeling from the terrible image of Giovanni’s savage mouth, his malefic eyes, her fingers tingling from the electric sensation when they’d connected with warm satin skin clothing the rock of his jaw.

A huge hand closed on her slender arm, stopping her with its crushing force before she’d taken one faltering step. “That slap, Tina,” he said with a dangerous softness, “was your mistake.”

“Take your hand off me!” she said jerkily. Being touched by him was a shock. They were joined again, the tension between them firing her with a sensation of uncontainable volcanic energy. Appalled, she tugged at his hand, but it only tightened, drawing her closer, and she knew with sinking heart that she’d have to look in his accusing eyes again and face the situation.

She could deal with this. She wasn’t a guileless teenager any longer. She had a track record of dealing with trouble. Anyone who could handle unwanted pregnancies, knife fights and anxious parents could pull herself together and show a bit of cool in a crisis.

This was nothing, she told herself, but knew she lied, because she was emotionally involved and it wasn’t the same at all.

“I won’t release you yet. First, I have something for you, Tina,” he muttered. And he twisted her around, impaling her with his black, black eyes.

The white imprint of her hand flared accusingly against the dark gold of his skin, and she stared at the mark of her contempt as if hypnotized by it.

“You have nothing for me,” she said in a low tone.

He had changed. Bigger, harder, with a hatred that lay cold as ice in the cruel eyes. Yet whatever the hardships he’d suffered, there was still that stomach-clenching impact of stunning good looks. Blond hair on a dark-skinned Sicilian had thrown a curve at women of all tastes and ages, and she’d never been immune. Her mouth trembled with a soft exhalation.

“I have,” he murmured. “More than you think.”

“Only memories, Giovanni,” she replied quietly.

The songs they’d sung on clambakes, the trips down the Sussex River in a flat-bottomed boat, the lazy days building sand castles on Neck Beck. The laughter. The affection. Licking each other’s sticky fingers—and then the doughnut sugar off Giovanni’s lips…

Tina drew in a quick breath, her expression guilty because she’d become aware that she was being watched by a pair of melting eyes that gleamed like deep shaded water—black, still and fathomless—and the mark on his face had grown into an angry red. His expression chilled her to the bone.

“Done all the checking you’re going to do?” he murmured sardonically. “Have I changed so much?”

She shrugged and pretended that was what she was still doing, quite surprised at his sophistication and casually elegant clothes. Yet in the rawness of his wicked eyes lay hints of that exciting rough edge of danger, which also touched his carnal mouth and made her think carnal thoughts.

“Little change,” she said huskily. “You still have the arrogance to imagine women will come whenever you call.” Her head lifted in defiance. “Let me go, or I’m going to scream.”

His eyes narrowed. The steady pull of his hand brought her close enough to feel his hot breath flaming her hot skin. His finger had delicately scooped up a bead of sweat from her forehead and transferred it to his tongue before she could blink. But the effect devastated her; all the sensual pleasures they’d enjoyed had turned her into a voluptuary, and that one small gesture filled her body with a terrible ache. He smiled with triumph when she remained mute, nursing her desolation.

“I need five minutes of your time,” he said, his black eyes unreadable. “Nothing more. Yet.”

Five minutes. She could survive that and wipe him from her life again. “What do you want?” she demanded shortly.

The extravagant mouth eased into a cynical smile. “You left these behind just now. They’re yours. Multiply them by ten,” he drawled, “and you get thirty pieces of silver.”

And before she knew what he intended, he’d reached out and pulled forward the neck of her thin T-shirt with a disdainful thumb and forefinger, audaciously dumping the three dimes into the gap. They lay stuck to her sweating breasts and stomach, dust and dirt and bits of clamshell and all.

“You brute!” she gasped in red-faced outrage as he calmly dusted off his hands and wiped them on an immaculate navy silk handkerchief. “You’ve made me feel dirty inside!”

The corners of his mouth swooped downward in scorn and he tucked the handkerchief back in his jacket pocket. “But, Tina,” he demurred, “I thought you were already dirty inside.”

She winced. “I’m clean scrubbed,” she said tightly, easing her top from the waistband of her shorts and letting the coins fall to the ground. Then she concentrated on trying to dislodge the bits from her stomach by rubbing vigorously—till she realized from the breathless silence, and then his frowning stare, what the movement was doing to her unsupported breasts.

“You look pretty pure,” he conceded laconically. “But there’s no honor or loyalty in there.” His scornful finger stabbed the air, pointing at her heart. “And when you drop the demure act, we get the truth. A woman driven by sex who’s only too ready to launch into a display of erotic originality.”

Tina was momentarily lost for words. Slowly her expressive eyes widened, their color first pale, then becoming almost navy as her emotions changed from shock to shame and then to outrage.

“Hypocrite!” she said bitterly. “I thought that we had a loving relationship and that our lovemaking was the natural consequence of our affection. I wasn’t ashamed of sharing my body with you—then. I am deeply shamed by it now!” she said shakily. “I trusted you with my most precious secrets…and you tricked me! All my life I’ll resent you for taking my innocence and betraying it when it had been so gladly, so devotedly given as a gift for the man I loved!”

“Do you hold me solely responsible for your seduction?” he drawled.

Tina lowered her head. She blamed herself for trusting him. “I—I was innocent and I didn’t know I was…”

“Getting me beyond the point of no return?” he suggested. “So was I to blame for finding you irresistible, or were you to blame for not realizing how naive and provocative your behavior was to a teenager with Sicilian blood?”

“We were both to blame,” she said quietly.

“Progress at last,” he mocked. “There’s always shared blame, Tina. Remember that. Hold it in your beautiful head and think about it. And remember we were in love,” he said softly, as though remembering with pleasure. ”Love.”

Heat scoured through her, head to toe, making her skin prickle. Shaken by the warmth in his voice, the lyrical indolence that cruelly brought back the soft nights beneath the stars and the moonlight gleaming on their naked skin, she let her thick black lashes hide the desolate expression in her eyes. If only she’d never let him arouse her to that fateful point of no return! It had been such a corny error to make after hearing the magic words, I love you. He loved himself. Sex. Her teeth snagged at her lip, stilling its tremble.

“Take the coins,” he said tightly. “They represent your betrayal,” he said, slivers of steel behind each carefully enunciated word.

She winced. “What did you want me to do in court? Stay silent? Perjure myself?” she asked, her voice husky with emotion, because she’d considered those options but obeyed her conscience.

“I wanted you to believe me,” he replied quietly.

“It wasn’t possible!” she cried irritably. “I know what I saw. Please, Gio. Don’t let’s go over it again. It was bad enough the first time. What benefit is there in raking up the past and accusing one another? Let it be!” she pleaded.

“I can’t.” He seemed unaware that his hands were lightly sweeping up and down her bare arms. His eyes impaled hers, blazing a message she didn’t understand. “I wish I could walk away right now,” he said huskily. “But the memories have drawn me back, and I can’t escape them any longer.”

Nor could she. All she could think of right now was what it would be like to be in his embrace again, clasped to the big curves of his muscular body. She felt a flash of fire deep within her slumbering core, and she tensed, her hands curling like claws to stop her maverick fingers from humiliating her by touching him. He had to go. Now, before she said or did something she’d regret for the rest of her life. She had regrets enough.

“You must leave town,” she said flatly. “Or…”

“Or what?” he murmured. “You’ll call the police and claim I harassed you?”

“I don’t want to, Gio. But push me and I might,” she muttered.

“I’d be arrested.”

Her head tipped high. “Not if you left,” she pointed out.

“You’d get me into trouble again just because you can’t cope with your own sexual response to me?” he asked in clipped tones. “Like the last time?”

He showed no shame, no guilt, no recognition that he’d been in the wrong. Tina felt the color in her face drain away, the beat of her pulse ticking like a time bomb.

“The evidence was overwhelming,” she rasped. “You drove your car on the night of the accident. You kept denying it and you’re still stubbornly denying it, but I saw you and so did dozens of others, and there is no doubt in my mind that you drove the car that…that…” She choked, but forced herself to say it, however much it hurt. “That killed my sister—and her baby!” she finished hoarsely.

And she felt her heart jerk in pain, remembering the last time she’d seen her sister, Sue, and her baby, Michael, alive—she and Sue splattered with apple-and-banana puree, laughing fondly at little Mikey’s determined attempts to feed himself. A sob rose in her throat, choking her, and she gritted her teeth to hold back the threatening tears.

Gio’s lips had whitened in anger. “How could you believe that? I’ll never understand….” he said, shaking his head.

“Beth said—” she began miserably.

“Didn’t it matter what I had to say?” he asked roughly. “Wasn’t I owed any loyalty? I was your lover. You were supposed to be in love with me and I deserved a hearing. You gave me none! How do you think I felt when you abandoned me?”

“I’m asking you for the last time. Leave me in peace!” she moaned.

“Peace? Il quieto vivere? I wish to God I had peace in my life! If only you had believed me, I could have survived anything!” he said bitterly. “But no, you blanked out everything we’d been to one another, all knowledge of my feelings about honor and life and women, and descended into behaving like a petulant bitch who’s been denied the dog she wants!”

She snatched breath from somewhere, her huge eyes dark with pain. Giovanni and Beth. Her lover and her best friend. That had been hard enough to take, seeing them together that night. Worse was seeing the two smashed cars and knowing that each contained someone she loved.

She put her hands over her ears, wishing she could shut out forever the sound of Beth screaming that awful night of the accident, hating the memory of the white-faced Giovanni shaking Beth violently and snarling at her to shut up before he reversed his car away from Sue’s.

He had changed. There was no gentleness in him at all now. And she shuddered, wondering what two years in prison could do to an eighteen-year-old who’d loved his family and life with a wonderful zest and optimism. Every Christmas, each New Year, each Thanksgiving that she’d celebrated with her grandfather and Adriana, she’d wondered how Giovanni was coping, because he was so alone and no one was visiting him. Tears welled up to wash the blue eyes and she turned her head away.

“Prison…prison has brutalized you….”

Her voice trailed away, choked by relentless emotions, and then his fingers were drawing her chin back, tilting it up so she was forced to meet his unreadable eyes. Emotions were taking their toll on him, too, perhaps the memories of the dark days in jail, and she winced in heartfelt sympathy. It was misplaced.

“You brutalized me,” he accused harshly. A thumb scooped the tears from her cheeks without tenderness. And the sickness threatened to overwhelm her. Hastily she brought her hand to her mouth and swallowed back the hard lump in her throat. Giovanni’s breath hissed in through his teeth, his merciless eyes flashing a spine-chilling warning that rooted her to the spot. “So you think you’re suffering!” he mocked. “You don’t even know you’re born! But you will soon.”

And she saw the raw anger in him, the sense of injustice he bore her as though he’d been brooding for all the intervening years and planning revenge. Nervously she looked around, hoping to catch the eye of a passerby and evade Giovanni, but the street was empty. In any case, she knew her only hope was to make him go. If he stayed for any length of time, even if there was a restraining order on him, he’d find out about Adriana.

Her heart lurched with sheer horror at the prospect. She had to shield Adriana from Giovanni, or he’d move heaven and earth to take her away. And the bewildered Adriana would scream and cry and he wouldn’t give a damn.

A sense of tender protectiveness engulfed her at the horrible scenario. It must never happen. She’d make sure Giovanni left. Now.

Her head snapped up, her mouth tight with determination. “You’re crazy to come here!” she said coldly. “You’ll be recognized at any moment! Given half a chance, folks here’ll tar and feather you!”

“And you?” he said, in a sinister tone.

“I’d be selling the brushes,” she said curtly. “You really don’t appreciate how strongly some folks feel. They have long memories.”

“So do I,” he said quietly, his eyes raking her body. And in the wake of his appraisal there came a sudden heat that radiated over her skin and made her suck in a breath sharply. “Memories that make me desire…action.”

“Like what?” she asked huskily, and foolishly, before she knew it, she’d responded to the sudden dryness of her lips by licking them. She scowled, hoping to cover up her giveaway reaction.

Giovanni smiled faintly but didn’t answer the question. “You really think there’s still bad feelings in Eternity about me?” he asked casually. “Even after all this time?”

“I know there is,” she said in a low tone. Go! She pleaded with her eyes. Go and leave us all alone!

Unperturbed, he shifted his weight against the low parapet of the bridge and folded his arms confidently. “Bad feeling,” he mused. “That’s awkward.”

“Why?” she asked warily.

“Because I’m coming back to live here,” he replied with a pleasant smile, and walked off in the direction of her apartment while she stood staring at his retreating back in horror.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS A DREAM. A nightmare. But Tina saw the tall resolute figure in the cool cream suit turn to give her a mockingly seductive smile, and she knew from the hot spilling of hormones into her bloodstream that this was cold reality.

She could ignore the come-on and be safe. Walk away, get on with her day. Her finger slicked over the perspiration on her upper lip as she dismissed that choice.

Adriana’s welfare came first. The last thing she wanted was for Giovanni to find out that she and her grandfather weren’t alone anymore. Tina’s heart thudded in alarm. If he was insensitive enough to hang around, he’d hear everything there was to know.

Adriana needed stability more than anything. Tina hoped she’d provided that. Love and attention, laughter and understanding had filled the small apartment, and she and her grandfather were devoted to Adriana. Without her, their lives would be less full, less rewarding. Tina let her eyes close, dreading the thought of losing her. They were family. Giovanni was an outsider, however closely he might be bound by blood to Adriana.

If he should assert his rights and demand access—or even custody—it would be unbearable. The days would be too empty. They’d gotten into the habit of washing one another’s hair, curling up on the sofa with their eyes glued to some weepie on TV and trying out new recipes together.

What would Giovanni make of the trivial things that gave Adriana such pride? That neatly sewn apron, the final pom-pom on the knitted hat, the poem learned by heart…. She knew what milestones they were. Gio didn’t. And Adriana would be hurt by his lack of praise and bewildered at being torn from her familiar, much-loved surroundings and the safe rituals.

Tina thought of her parents, devoting themselves to their teaching jobs in Puerto Rico, and how badly she missed her mother. Adriana had helped to fill that need for another female in the house who was close to her heart, someone to receive the huge amounts of love she needed to give to others.

But stupidly she’d forgotten Gio’s rights. When she’d committed herself so completely to caring for Adriana, it had never crossed her mind that he’d come back to Eternity.

Her worried eyes focused on his striding figure. He was an inveterate liar. Perhaps his threat that he was intending to live in the town had been spite and nothing else. For Adriana, for her own peace of mind, she must make every effort to make sure he left Eternity before he talked to anyone.

Her body jerked into motion and she began to run, stumbling at first because her legs seemed to have lost their strength, and then finally catching up with him in a burst of fury and panic.

“Giovanni!” she panted, jogging along beside him while his long strides covered the ground rapidly. “You’re bluffing, aren’t you?” she asked anxiously. “You mean to drive off—”

“No.” He glanced down at her briefly, a flash of triumph in his eyes. “I’m not.”

“But why come here, of all places in the world?” she asked, a sense of dread settling in the pit of her stomach.

“For one thing,” he said evenly, “I mean to persuade the folks around here to give me a different kind of character from the one you and your dear friend Beth landed me with.”

“Beth?” She felt relieved that Beth was safely out of harm’s way in Boston. But she was her ex-friend now. Giovanni’s two-timing and the trial had killed their lifelong friendship stone dead. “How do you intend arranging that?” she asked with a worried frown.

“I have a very carefully thought-out plan,” he said smoothly. “Time hangs heavily in jail. One has to do something to keep amused.”

She flushed. “Gio, this is unrealistic. You can’t come here to settle down! You’re behaving like…like a cartoon character!”

“Well, this is my fantasy and I’m making it happen,” Giovanni said in mild sarcasm.

“Don’t you have any concern for what I’d feel seeing you walking the streets? Or Grandpa?” she asked angrily.

“It’s worth a little pain to get what you want,” he said quietly.

Her shoulders drooped, her body slumping in distress, and she fell back a step or two. If he meant he wanted to give her pain, he was succeeding already. Grandpa would be hurt when he saw Gio, the man who’d killed his elder granddaughter and great-grandchild, driving around Eternity and showing no contrition, no sensitivity to their feelings. Then Adriana would be flung into the maelstrom…

Seeing Giovanni had forged on ahead again, Tina hurried to catch up. “If you stay,” she reasoned, “you’ll upset us—and Beth’s parents, everyone who saw you that night, everyone who knew and loved Sue,” she said passionately.

“Possibly.”

Her mouth crimped with anger at his callousness. “Haven’t you the decency to stay away? Didn’t you learn anything from what happened?” she asked sadly.

“Yes,” he replied. “Never to trust women.” His beautiful, rich chocolate eyes were almost black with contempt, the long lush lashes spiking at her accusingly. “If you want to know what else I learned in prison, we’ll need several hours and you’ll need a strong stomach.”

“Oh, Gio!” she whispered brokenly. She’d have done anything not to be driving him away. In her heart of hearts, if he’d been different—penitent, changed, less vengeful—she would have loved to see him with Adriana and would have gladly prepared the ground for them to accept one another. The wounds would have healed. But sadly, it seemed he was no fit guardian for her precious Adriana. “Gio, if only you’d come back to apologize…” she began wistfully. And hesitated. Perhaps there was hope. “You could. It would make everything quite different.”

“I have nothing to apologize for,” he said flatly. “You know, if you keep running along beside me, people will think you’re chasing me. Amazing how people can get the wrong impression from an isolated event they witness, isn’t it?”

Tina flushed at the implication, the quickly rising color making her feel even hotter than before. She eased her T-shirt from her sticky body under Giovanni’s watchful dark eyes, then quickly smoothed her damp palms on her shorts and looked ahead as they strode on. Worryingly, a handful of students were still hanging around the derelict lot, discussing the car.

“I did see you in the driver’s seat that night of the accident,” she insisted. “You did hit my sister’s car during a row with Beth, and all I want now is to watch you drive away before you hurt the people I love again!” she said miserably.

“Save your breath, Tina. You won’t dissuade me from my intentions.”

Suddenly he stopped, allowing his gaze to roam over her. And her soft-fringed eyes mistakenly lingered on him. Lisa had been right about the body language. He spoke fluent sensuality from every pore. Plenty of guys had spectacular muscles that left her cold, but Giovanni knew how to stand and move and project his masculinity and make a woman feel feminine and desirable and hungry. His sex appeal was earthy and direct and irresistible because he adored women and all that came with them.

Gorgeous, she thought hazily. He was absolutely gorgeous and totally evil. Incredibly she caught herself wishing she didn’t look so scruffy and—

“Were you really so beautiful before?” he mused as if genuinely unsure. Her eyes must have shown the leap of surprised pleasure that had taken her unawares, because his mouth curved into a beguiling smile. “Tempting. Tantalizing. Mysterious.”

“M-mysterious?” she stuttered, unable to help herself from asking.

“Then there’s the distortion of time.”

“Time?” She could have kicked herself for falling into his trap. The say-something-kooky trap, to get a woman interested. “Look—”

“It makes fools of us all,” he said softly. “Because I can’t recall that your eyes were such a deep blue. I could swear they’re almost as clear as the lagoon. You know the way it sparkles and invites you to plunge right in.” He gave her a disarming smile, but the words were enough to shake her.

Tina tried to muster some reply, a sharp crack perhaps, but his gaze had drifted to her mouth and she hesitated, wondering what lavish claims he’d make, all thought of coaxing him back to his car temporarily forgotten while she waited, quivering in anticipation.

“I remember that softness,” he said huskily, his eyes caressing. “Know what they always reminded me of?” She shook her head wordlessly. “That silky texture of a petal. Poppies in the meadows,” he mused with such a drowsy murmur that her mouth flowered into an even lusher pout of scarlet invitation. He smiled, breathing out hard so that his breath filtered tantalizingly over her lips till they parted. “I’m afraid that kissing you would tempt a man to linger too long for his safety.”

Aware she was on the brink of sinking in shameful delight beneath the blatant flattery, she forced herself to remember that he was the last person she should allow to compliment her, a man convicted of manslaughter. Ex-convict. Ex-lover. Ex! Ex! she told herself fiercely.

“I said it wasn’t healthy for you around here,” she agreed huskily.

His mouth twitched. “You misunderstand. I’m staying. I’ve gone through too much to be scared off by townspeople,” he said dismissively. He gave an enigmatic smile. “I have schemes to protect me from being tarred and feathered. Be patient. You’ll learn about them soon enough.”

Leaving her openmouthed in dismay, he made straight for her apartment door at the side of the garage, and before she could find her brains he’d put his finger on the bell and was keeping it there.

Tina slipped quickly through the picket gate to his side. “What are you doing?” she asked warily.

“Waiting.”

She closed her eyes and offered up a brief thanks for deliverance. With her grandfather and Adriana on their way to Rockport—probably planning on exploring the delights of rock pools and the gift shops at Bearskin Neck, she thought fondly—she’d been saved an ugly scene.

“No one’s in,” she said.

“I’ll hang around.”

Alarmed, she ruthlessly calmed her nerves, wondering what he meant to do. Judging by the set of that smooth jaw, he had a purpose in mind and was going to see it through once his car was mended. But he was a mechanic! she thought, kicking herself for not remembering.

“If you can’t handle the trouble with your car and can’t wait for the part-timers,” she suggested brightly, “try the garage in Ipswich. There’s a pay phone nearby.”

He smiled faintly, his cynical mouth curling at the corners. “There’s nothing wrong with the car. I parked by the garage on purpose.”

“Oh!” Stunned, she remembered the neat patch of oil, the handy car trolley and his still-immaculate suit. A setup. “What…purpose?” she said, her voice wavering, her nerves crumbling.

“I arranged the car—and myself,” he said, ringing the bell impatiently again, “as a lure.”

Her eyes widened. It had worked. “To bring me out?” she asked.

“Heaven forbid,” he murmured, rolling eloquent eyes up to heaven. “I knew what your reaction would be when you saw me. I was hoping to lure out your grandfather.”

“He’s not about, and the garage is closed till the part-timers arrive,” she said stiffly, still not understanding why he needed her grandfather. Her black eyebrows arched and disappeared beneath her bangs. “Have you run out of gas?”

“No. Patience,” he answered dryly. “Where is Dan? He always started at seven.”

“Not nowadays. He’s nearly eighty,” Tina reminded him shortly.

“I see. I thought he was probably still having breakfast. That’s the reason I slid under the car to wait for him to come over and ask me what the trouble was.” He smiled, his eyes distant as though remembering happier times. “He and I could smell out classic cars at a hundred paces. I was sure he’d be out like a shot.”

“Seems an elaborate ploy,” she said with a frown. “Why risk ruining your rented suit for that?”

A blankness deadened his eyes and he stared at her somberly for a while. “The stakes were high,” he said eventually. “Worth a little subterfuge, a little waiting and some good honest dust.”

Tina went cold. “Like I said, he’s not in.” Her tone was curt, her voluptuous mouth set in decidedly stubborn lines.

He looked upward, scanning the windows and frowning when he came to the small barred one. Tina held her breath. “I don’t believe you. Let me in, Tina,” he ordered.

Incredulous that he’d even consider asking, she said coldly, “Not on your life.”

He leaned against the porch, elegant, cool and totally implacable. And his body language told her in no uncertain terms that he’d keep attempting to reach his declared goal and wouldn’t let up. His arms were folded across the big chest, his legs were slightly spread, and his jaw stuck out ominously. She leaned against the opposite side, but for support, not display.

Languidly his hand reached out, and Tina’s mesmerized eyes followed its progress to her throat. She swallowed, the flicker of his eyes telling her that he’d seen her fear. Then the tips of his fingers met her hot skin and she felt them slide over the slippery surface down to her collarbone.

“Nervous about something?” he murmured, lifting his fingers from her skin and holding out their sweat-dampened tips for her to explain.

“Hot. From running. You’ve got a long stride.”

“I’ve got a long checklist to get through.”

“Meaning?” she asked nervously.

The black velvet eyes glimmered. “I came to talk to your grandfather. Since he’s not around, it seems I must make do with you, instead,” he said in a lazy predatory drawl. “Alternatively, I could ask a few questions in town.”

“What questions?” she asked, brazening it out.

“Anything there is to know about you, for a start. Since you’re a school counselor, I imagine those students over there know a few things about you they’d be willing to divulge.”

“Don’t involve them!” she said quickly, hating to beg.

“Let me in and I won’t need to.”

She was silent. Her pulse throbbed heavily in her temples, and she put her fingers there for relief so she could think straight. It was the uncertainty she couldn’t stand. There were three possibilities: either he knew about Adriana, or he suspected something, or he knew nothing at all. But if she invited him in to talk sense into him, he’d see enough evidence to give the game away after a few minutes.

“You can’t come up,” she said firmly. “People will talk.”

“Plan C, then.” With a casual shrug, he strolled over to his car. Tina waited, holding her breath. A bluff. He’d get in the car and drive away…

He began talking to Lisa. She fumed as Lisa and Giovanni laughed together, his sun-shot blond head bent low over hers. Recognizing that look of admiration Lisa was giving him, Tina winced. If she didn’t move soon, he’d dispense with the preliminaries and ask a few direct incriminating questions.

Angrily she stomped across the lot to where Giovanni was holding court.

“Oh, yes, known her for years,” he was saying. The students stared at Tina in awe as she came closer, and he smiled at her in a sickeningly winsome way. “We’ve been talking over old times,” he said in a husky reminiscing tone of voice. “You know the kind of thing. The high school prom, the homecoming dance, old films, clambakes.”

Tina eyed him cynically. “Time you went home, Gio. Byee!”

“It was at a clambake,” he remarked idly to his rapt audience, ignoring her completely, “that Tina poured a half-gallon tub of melted chocolate ice cream—”

“Please!” she protested indignantly.

“—into the school bully’s gas tank,” he finished.

Four pairs of astonished eyes turned on Tina’s flushed face.

“You’ll give them ideas, Gio,” she muttered.

“I could,” he said worryingly. “Shall we continue our chat indoors, Teen? I’m ready if you are,” he added with an encouraging lift of his eyebrow.

She screwed her mouth up tightly at his misuse of her name. “I’m heading for the beach in a while.” Somehow she dug up a smile for the students’ benefit. “Aren’t you all off to the beach, too?” she suggested to them hopefully.

Giovanni grinned amiably at the fascinated group. “Or you guys could take a moment to sit in the car, try it for size. Feel free.”

There was a chorus of enthusiastic agreement, so he obligingly opened the Lamborghini’s passenger-side door. Watching the excited faces, hearing him answering the eager queries, she grudgingly admired the way he had won the interest of the students. He’d done something for them; now it would be their turn to do something for him. Like answering his questions, she thought with apprehension.

And their eyes met, his triumph plain to see. Tina felt trapped, wanting to run away but unable to. It seemed that whatever she did, he’d find out that she’d kept a secret from him all these years. One so important that by rights she should have told him.

“I won’t be long, darling,” he said warmly to Tina. At her gasp, he gave a theatrical groan and a sheepish grin, releasing appealing laughter lines around his dark eyes. “I’ve let the cat out of the bag!” he exclaimed. “I suppose they don’t even know we were once close friends—”

“Stop it, Gio!” Tina interrupted desperately.

“Aw, shucks! Mustn’t tease my best girl, must I?” He grinned, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her fondly into his hip. He looked down at her as if they were lovers reunited.

Tina wanted to hit him. Aw, shucks and best girl indeed! She caught the look in Giovanni’s eye and was furious to see that he was vastly amused by the way he’d put her on the defensive. Time she got Giovanni somewhere he couldn’t bring her name into disrepute! Already his hipbone was burning into hers with more heat than friends ought to generate between them.

“Not if you want to reach thirty, you mustn’t,” Tina agreed lightly, without a clue in the world as to how to get rid of him safely. But at least she could lose their audience while she did it. So she swallowed her pride and her fear, flashed him a big friendly smile and tucked her arm in his. “I might see you guys at the beach,” she said to the students. “If I’m carrying a tub of ice cream, it’s because I’m going to take my revenge on a bully—”

“I hope you’re not planning on pouring it into my gas tank,” he said with a low laugh, squeezing her waist with his big crushing hand and making her gasp.

“No,” she said sweetly. “Down your cream suit.”

He chucked her indulgently under the chin. “Saucy witch!” he said fondly. His lips parted and his eyes became drugged with a drowsy desire. “You know I’d make you lick it off.”

There was an intake of breath all round. Giovanni’s trick of wrapping each word in curling sensuality had made that sound like a highly erotic act. Red in the face with embarrassment, Tina felt his fingers sliding down her hip, and she could see from the expression on the students’ faces that she needed to play the remark down or she’d lose all credibility as an upholder of the moral tone.

“Idiot,” she said fondly. “Don’t take any notice of this guy,” she said in an offhand way to the students, trying to hold his roaming hand still. The rhythm was penetrating her bones and creating far-reaching vibrations in places she’d rather not remember. “He’s a real joker. Won the debating prize most years. You know the kind. All talk, no do. Come on,” she said, grimly shooting the amused Giovanni a hands-off look. “Tell your aunty Teen what you’ve been up to since you left and how your lovely wife is and your—is it eight?—children. Loves kids,” she confided, her voice a little wobbly now from the strain. “Bye, everyone. Have a nice day.”

With knowing smirks that made her want to scream, the teenagers wandered away and Tina drew in a deep breath. First blow to her. And then her brief sense of deliverance vanished rather rapidly when she found herself being firmly propelled toward her apartment door.

“I knew you’d see sense,” murmured Giovanni.

“Now it’s your turn,” began Tina. But suddenly she found his arms around her. “Gio!” she warned huskily.

“Mmm?” he said with a slow smile.

She felt his long fingers sliding down her back and tensed, ready to raise her knee and… Tina blinked rapidly. Both his hands were pushed into the side pockets of her shorts, and for a few delicious seconds her hipbones were being treated to a seductive massage. She stiffened, motionless as a statue. Giovanni’s long fingers had crept into the warm socket beyond her pelvic bones and the caress was driving heat into her loins. Lovely liquid heat that made her back arch involuntarily and her head lift till her face was uptilted and available.

He murmured something and then laughed softly. She heard a clink and saw that he was waving her key in front of her nose.

“No!” she wailed, furious with herself for not realizing what he was doing. Always he tricked her. Always she fell for it! Angrily she shot her hand up for the key. He lifted it higher, waggling it about in smug triumph. Tall he might be, but she could jump, couldn’t she? And wipe that smile off! Her knees flexed and she sprang into the air just as he stepped closer. And to anyone watching, it must have seemed she’d leapt into his waiting embrace with unseemly eagerness.

Giovanni reacted with typical enthusiasm. “Tina!” he said silkily, wrapping his arms around her with the speed of lightning.

Helplessly she kicked her dangling legs in midair only too uncomfortably aware that her body was being pressed into his and her mouth had ended up inches away from his jaw. “Opportunist!” she gasped, the breath being crushed from her. To her horror, she saw a movement at the Alden place and her eyes widened in dismay. “Put me down!” she yelped.

He glanced behind him and also saw that Lisa had returned and was straightening up from collecting something she’d left behind by the car. With a cruelly mocking grin, he turned back, at the same time casually kicking out at a gas can stowed in the porch.

“I think you’d better stop wiggling,” he said huskily. “I’m enjoying it too much. Do you know where your pelvis is?”

The distraught Tina went instantly limp. Of course she knew! Wasn’t she wishing she didn’t? “Put me down!” she whispered, her mouth a lick away from his. “Lisa must have heard the rattle of the can….”

“Oh, do you think so?” he asked innocently. “I imagine she’s glancing over now, don’t you? I’m afraid,” he added gravely, “that it’ll look as if we’re locked in a friendly clinch.”

“Manipulator! Down!” she whispered fiercely against his laughing mouth.

“If you insist. Mmm. Gorgeous.” His mouth drifted lower to her throat. A hand, thrust between them, crept to the top of her thighs.

“I…mmm! I meant down as in put me down!” she mumbled breathily, feeling the quick rush of flowing need spreading from where his hand had briefly rested and radiating through her whole body.

“Okay.”

One arm alone held her slight weight. She heard the sound of the key being inserted into the lock, but before she could protest, she was being carried inside and the door had slammed. Almost immediately Giovanni let her go and she tumbled to the floor in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs. So did he.

“Well, this is nice,” he murmured, halfheartedly untangling his legs from hers. “Like Bambi and Thumper, when they bumped on the ice.” She gave him a look of loathing, and his hand clamped around her chin. Her mutinous eyes glowered at him, he gave her a crooked grin, then touched his lips to hers.

“They were friends,” she muttered through the kiss, unwillingly adoring the taste of him as her inner lip moved against his mouth.

“I love your sulky pout. Mmm. Your tongue’s so sour tipped when you talk to me and yet you’re really tasty,” he mused. “Must be all those doughnuts. Sugar sweet. I’m crazy about sweet things. Chocolate ice cream on naked flesh, honey-tipped breasts, your luscious poppy red lips. Come here.”

“Gio!” she protested, deeply shocked. His mouth swooped on hers again and she felt his laugh shape the kiss and his breath feeding into her with a rush of deliciously tingling warmth. Weakly she fought the instant pleasure, appalled that she found it wonderful to be drowning in his arms once more and that it was a joy to be mingling the taste of her lips with his, inhaling the clean-showered scent of his body and experiencing the feeling of satin stroking satin as his mouth explored hers.

Sun warm, his mouth, she thought dazedly, pushing at his shoulders because she knew she must. Kisses deep and driving and dangerous. Thoroughly wanton. A hand crawled up her back, and she arched away when all her instincts told her to wriggle into the sweep of his palm and let him explore every curve of her warm body.

With a sudden effort she broke free, her mouth strangely reluctant to do anything more than hold its crushed-kiss pout. Feeling sick with herself, she took a huge breath and said, “Get out!”

“Sure. When I’m satisfied,” he replied in a sexy growl.

Her eyes widened in alarm. She was alone. With a guy who couldn’t control himself. God, her sex drive had driven her mad! “Giovanni!” she whispered shakily. “You…you wouldn’t…” Fear cut off her vocal cords. He was gently stroking the shimmering skin that stretched over her collarbone, a look of dangerous lust in his eyes as he gazed at her.

“I will do whatever I have to,” he said softly.

His body shifted a little closer. She felt the warmth of him a breath or two away and her lips parted in a whimper. The blond head lowered, offering her the full impact of its glorious sun-bleached curls, tousled charmingly by the fall, cascading in touchable damp tendrils on his smoothly tanned forehead. Two dark eyes melted into hers.

A spear of something unrecognizable caught her unawares and made her quiver from head to foot. Her head spun. Flu, she thought. A stomach bug. Just when she needed all her strength.

And then she was swallowing back a cry of alarm because his powerful arms and body were forming an imprisoning cage around her, and she knew that if she attempted to come upright, she couldn’t avoid being pressed intimately against him again. The thought made her feel sick. That strong male body. The hard muscular thighs…

A sudden flash of sexual reaction ripped through her, from loins to stomach, to breasts, throat and mouth, her lips flowering into an unwilling lushness. It wasn’t sickness, she thought, appalled. It was a totally unwelcome carnal excitement that had overtaken her and refused to go away.

My sister is dead, she said to herself. Her child is dead. Gio killed them. The destructive desire receded a little. To her eternal shame, it ebbed away more slowly than it had come.

He smiled mockingly as if he knew everything that was going on inside her and growled with sexy appreciation in his golden throat. “So it still happens,” he marveled. “You become aroused by a look, a gesture, by the passing of warm breath over your ultrasensitive skin.” He gazed at her through the dark fringe of lashes, his expression infinitely seductive. “I do so love the combination of madonna and whore in your makeup.”

“That’s insulting!” she cried with hot-faced indignation. “Being near you makes me sick with disgust!”

“Sure?”

His knowing eyes played on her trembling body in a slow and devastatingly sexy prelude to possession, and to her utter dismay she felt each part tense painfully in turn and leave a tingle on the skin that seeped deeper into each receptive pore. Although he was caressing her only with his eyes, it was as though he was lightly drawing his fingers across her body in a sensual movement that snaked thrillingly down her throat and across her naked shoulders. She was sick with something—hunger, emptiness, a lost dream.

Pain flashed through her, the pain of misery and violent need. The shock of her response thickened her tongue, and it was a great effort to say what she had to. “I’m sure,” she rasped, even those two words wavering.

“I don’t think you’re sure at all. Your big blue eyes are a real giveaway,” he said with a contemptuous drawl. His voice became husky. “They’re glazed and they’re alarmed and they’re begging.”

“No!” she denied, making them as narrow as she could.

He smiled mockingly. “And your beautiful mouth is asking to be kissed so prettily,” he said, touching her hot swollen lower lip. His finger traced a delicate trail to the corner, and it was all she could do to keep her mouth closed and not groan in hunger. “Then there’s your breathing,” he murmured.

“My…what?” she said jerkily, and blinked. She’d squeaked, actually squeaked! Her obvious horror at her own self-betrayal made him smile triumphantly.

“Very shallow, rapid, rather rasping,” he observed with a solicitous smile. “Health problem or me?”

Bodies were treacherous, she thought irritably. They had long memories. She suffered a cruel split-second reminder of their exciting union—wild, passionate, utterly satisfying and perfectly wonderful to her innocent mind and body. Pushing away the memory of his golden body above hers in all its naked glory, she squirmed beneath his knowing stare and tried to concentrate.

“Anger!” she explained in a furious croak.

His eyebrow lifted cynically. “Uh-huh.”

“It is,” she muttered, incensed that he was able to invest such depth of meaning in one little “uh-huh.”

“I’d advise you not to get angry too often, then,” he said. “The results do the most alarming things to your lovely breasts and only a saint would keep his hands off them. In case you hadn’t noticed,” he added unnecessarily, “I’m not a saint.”

She folded her arms with difficulty. There seemed to be a lot of her in the way suddenly. “Keep your eyes and your mind off my body!” she mumbled. “And get in your dream machine and drive off into the blue yonder!” she added in despair.

“I would if I could, believe me,” he said, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “But I have too many memories of your eager responses. Like when I was dating Beth and had dropped her off with her aunt. You and I were stuck in my car while the blizzard raged around us….”

Tina bristled. “I was cold. You said you’d warm me up. You were the one coming on to me,” she said tightly.

A faint smile tilted the corners of his expressive mouth, and Tina found herself staring at it, hopelessly remembering his first gentle respectful kiss. “I think you were with me every step of the way,” he said quietly.

“I was scared,” she countered, ruthlessly obliterating the dreamlike quality of the kiss and her naively delighted demands for more. He’d obliged, of course. Till she was dizzy and intoxicated with love. “I needed comfort. I was afraid we’d be stranded,” she explained.

“No, you weren’t. You hoped we might be,” he reminded her brutally.

She lifted a stubborn chin. “Only because I wanted to miss study period.”

Giovanni laughed, his even teeth dazzling white in his dark handsome face. Tina felt her heart lurch infuriatingly as it used to in the days when she’d been shamelessly and helplessly in love with her best friend’s lover. Being kissed by him in the car had been her secret dream come true. Other than Brent Powell, who’d been Giovanni’s rival in every walk of life, Gio was the most desirable guy in school.

Brent was everything a mother would want for her daughter. Giovanni had an edge of danger, a rawness that made him exciting. Mothers didn’t want him for their daughters; they wanted him for themselves.

“You’re deluding yourself,” he said in amusement. “You were nuts about me.”

“I was nuts, all right,” she muttered. “You were a fake charmer. You fooled us all.”

“But not anymore?” His eyes grew soft with warm melting desire and his fingers lightly brushed her bare arm. “God!” he breathed huskily. “You look sinfully wanton and inviting sprawled out like that!”

Fear killed the initial flame of pleasure that lit her up inside. She edged backward, feeling the hard line of the stairs against her spine. Giovanni didn’t move, but she could see his muscles were tensed, ready, his eyes working over her body as though she were in a shop window or a cheap peep show.

Against her rib cage, her heart beat frantically, and try as she might, she couldn’t stop the fear from welling up inside. “Don’t touch me!” she whispered.

He caught her in his strong grip, and she froze as he boldly slid one hand under her T-shirt to cup her breast. “But I have to,” he said softly. “There are things my body and soul cry out for. Things I need, or I can’t be content. Don’t you see?” And his mouth descended ruthlessly on hers.

Tina couldn’t even struggle. Weeping inside in frustrated anger, she gritted her teeth to steel herself against the slow, torturing rhythm of the finger and thumb that delicately rubbed the already throbbing peak of her breast, whisking it shockingly to harder and tighter tension and thus arousing every inch of her love-starved body with a perfectly timed, accurately judged pressure. Enough to drive her wild. Enough to make her lean in to him for more. Enough of a kiss to divert her attention, enough to remind her….

“Mmm…” she moaned.

He became still, his hands wandering to her waist while she strained against him hungrily for more. A terrible anger filled her. He was going to cheat her body of its needs. Slowly his mouth lifted from hers and his dark unfathomable eyes fixed her with a tenacious stare. “Is that a capitulation?” he murmured huskily.

“I’ll…” She fought for breath, for some composure and for time.

“Give in, Tina!” he commanded softly. “You know how it is between us. There’s never been anyone as good, has there?”

It was the slightly hesitant query that alerted her. Lifting her lashes briefly to identify the cause, she saw with a firing spurt of satisfaction that he wasn’t quite as indifferent as he pretended. His breathing was ragged, his chest rose and fell with jerky irregularity, and he looked more than a little glazed. He did desire her. He wanted confirmation that he was the greatest lover on God’s earth—and that meant she had a potential weapon.

Giovanni Kowalski cared only for bodily pleasures, and his desire was nothing more than an animal urge. He was man. She was woman. Prison had changed him and made his nature even more carnal than before.

Yet it meant that she had something she could bargain with. Since he wanted her, maybe she could stop him from going upstairs, from seeing the evidence that pointed to Adriana’s presence. She scowled. Except she’d have to only pretend she’d fallen for his seduction. Whatever she did, she was wedged between a rock and a hard place.

Her instinct was to protect the vulnerable Adriana and shield her from all knowledge of Giovanni’s visit. And to keep Giovanni at arm’s length. And to abandon all sense and slither into his waiting arms! Was she confused?

“You’re rushing me,” she said huskily, stalling for time, contemplating a suggestion of a drive in the Lamborghini. Did that make her a temptress? Would she deserve scorn for leading him on? And if he agreed, what she’d do then she couldn’t imagine. Struggle in the back seat, probably. “I need a bit of time….”

“Forget the convention of waiting,” he added roughly. “We’ve been down that road before. You want me and I want you. Here’s the proof.”

Lazily he lifted her limp, despairingly unresisting hands above her head. She knew she must protest, but her brain wouldn’t accept the slow message. Seconds passed and it was too late. He’d lowered his body to hers, the whole warm glorious length of him balanced with just the right amount of force bearing down on her. She groaned and lost her protest in the pleasure of his searching kiss.

“I think this is the moment to go upstairs and explore,” he murmured seductively in her ear.

“No!” she croaked. That was the last thing she wanted! “Not upstairs…here! No, I mean…” She turned a confused and pinkened face to his. “Gio, we can’t! Not here.”

“Make up your mind,” he drawled lazily. “Afraid someone will come back and surprise us frolicking on the doormat?”

She felt the heat of his loins rising, the hardness of his body unnervingly virile and excitingly urgent. “Yes!” she cried in an outrush of breath.

“So your grandfather’s coming back.”

“No. Yes! No! Not for two weeks!” she gasped, as Giovanni sighed and curved his big hands around her breasts. “I mean…please…” Her body arched beneath him.

“I will, once we establish where,” he murmured, his fingers taking an intense delight in her silken warmth.

“The…the beach,” she said breathlessly, trying to twist away. “I’ll get…the picnic. We’ll…go for a s-swim and…”

Tina felt her eyes closing and her body relaxing, giving in to hedonistic pleasure. Giovanni was kissing her naked breasts with total concentration, his lashes thick on his golden cheekbones, and he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and what he was doing was producing the most beautiful sensation in the world. And she was out of her mind.

“Gio,” she gasped. “Don’t…” Her body seemed to be flowing all over the floor and her brain couldn’t sort out the right messages. All she kept getting was desperate signals from the most intimate parts of her body that they wanted Giovanni’s touch, for him to kiss and caress her till dark, and then some more.

CHAPTER THREE

“SO, TINA,” he said thickly, one finger lightly massaging her embarrassingly hard nipple, “what’s it to be? You choose. A roll in the hay, a furtive tumble in the dunes…or will you tell me where my mother is?”

She froze. “Your…mother?” she repeated stupidly.

He dipped his head to the wet peaks and lapped at them like a satisfied cat, watching them jerk spasmodically. “Mmm. I…went to…her house…” he said slowly, then cleared his throat. “She’s not there.” His lashes flicked up suddenly, seeing the alarm in her enormous blue eyes.

“No, she left,” she said, hardly recognizing her own voice in the thick labored sounds.

His expression became cynical. “So I gather from the old lady who lives there now. Mother left years ago. Nice for me to know.”

Tina met his cold bleak eyes and felt a great sadness that he’d lost touch with his mother. And even sadder at the cause. “You knew she’d disowned you,” she said quietly.

There was a quick glitter in the dead eyes. “Yes. However, I did at least expect to be kept informed of her address,” he said harshly. “The old lady didn’t have it, but your grandfather will. He and my father were good friends. That’s why I came to see him. Since he’s away, you’re going to tell me—or find out pretty damn quick.”

His eyes glittered with a metallic light that scared her. Slowly he pulled her defenseless body to a sitting position, holding her fast. His high Slavic cheekbones looked more pronounced than usual. The brooding intensity he’d inherited from his Polish father had never been more apparent. He had his father’s fiery temper, his mother’s sense of Sicilian justice. And that meant trouble, she thought, wary of Giovanni’s explosive nature.

He’d gotten into a rage with Beth when she’d refused both his advances and his plea for her father’s assistance in financing a place at Harvard. In a blind fury, he’d jammed his foot on the accelerator and driven straight into Sue’s car. He’d sworn Beth had been driving, even though there were enough eyewitnesses to call him a liar. And she had been one of them. His anger had awed them all.

Tina trembled, her gaze colliding with his. Time, apparently hadn’t lessened his sense of betrayal. It had deepened it. Transfixed by his cold stare, she swallowed, trying to get rid of the awful lump blocking her throat.

Mustering up courage and contempt, she said, “I refuse to be threatened. Is that what this is all about? You’re trying to find your mother?”

“Why else would I come over from Sicily?” he replied huskily, a raw emotion in his tone that made her eyes glisten with sad tears.

Sicily! He must have gone there when he’d left jail, back to his mother’s family, the country where he’d been born, to lick his wounds. Praying he’d go right back, she said unevenly, “I’m sorry. You’ve had a wasted journey. I understand she’s gone away.”

“Where?” he demanded urgently.

Defiantly, holding back her sorrow, she lifted her chin. “Why would I know?”

“Why, indeed.” He released her, his face stark with disappointment.

“Gio,” she mumbled compassionately.

He pulled her to her feet and stepped back, opening the apartment door. “You were going to the café,” he said noncommittally.

Half blinded by tears, she nodded and stepped out into the brilliant sunshine. Giovanni strode toward his car, and with every stride she felt her heart tearing, strand by strand, till it seemed there was nothing left, no heavy beat, only the stillness of the aftermath of a storm.

She’d done it. He was leaving and— Oh, God! she groaned. She needed to be alone, to walk, to swim… Any physical exercise would do to take her mind from Giovanni and the dark days that had returned to haunt her.

Without another thought in her head, she ran to the café, her mind still on hold. But standing at the counter, staring at the menu on the blackboard, she felt that she didn’t want to eat at all because she felt so chewed up inside.

“Teen, Teen! You okay?”

“Oh, yes. Dreaming,” she said hastily, seeing Teresa Silva’s concerned eyes on her. “Nightmares. College placements,” she explained with a roll of her eyes to the ceiling. “Gruesome workload.”

“You work too hard. Take a break today—it’s going to be a scorcher. Manuel’s going crazy, keeping everything fresh for the weddings today.” She smiled, as she always did when she spoke of her son, and Tina smiled back.

“I thought he’d be busy with the catering,” Tina said. “Grandpa’s left endless lists for our part-timers so that the limos are polished to exhaustion.”

“We’re all glad of the business.” Teresa grinned. “What’ll you have? The tuna melt’s good, or I can do you a gilded lily…”

“Oh, tuna melt and pineapple muffins to go. And I’ll pick out some fruit,” Tina answered, trying to sound cheerful. Trying to be cheerful.

Yet once outside the diner, the tears began to fall again onto the back of her hand, and she knuckled her eyes irritably when she heard the door open behind her and someone came out.

“Teen, something is wrong,” came Teresa’s gentle voice in her ear. “Is it Adriana? Is she getting too much for you, what with your job and everything?”

“No.” She sniffed. “I can manage. You know I love her.”

“It can’t be easy. I suppose you couldn’t afford more help?”

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