“Gabriella.” His voice was soft but his eyes were ice. “What’s it going to be? Do we do this my way—or the hard way?”

He watched her face, saw the play of emotions across it. She was shivering. From the cool of the night or from anger? He didn’t give a damn. And if it was all he could do to keep from hauling her into his arms again and kissing her until she sighed his name and trembled not with cold or rage but with need, what did that prove—except that she was a woman, an incredibly beautiful woman, he’d never stopped wanting? And, damnit, what did that have to do with anything?

“For the last time,” he said sharply. “Is Daniel mine?”

Perhaps it was exhaustion. Perhaps it was acceptance of the inevitable. Or perhaps, Gabriella thought, perhaps it was hearing her son’s name on the lips of the man who had planted his seed deep in her womb thirteen long months ago.

Whatever the reason, she knew it was time to stop fighting.

“Yes,” she said wearily. “He is. So what?”

Of all the night’s questions, that was the only one that mattered. And Dante knew, in that instant, his world would never be the same again.

Dante:
Claiming
His Secret
Love-Child

by

Sandra Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

DANTE Orsini was in the prime of his life.

He was rich, powerful and as ruggedly good-looking as a man could hope to be. He worked hard, played hard, and on those rare nights he went to bed alone, he slept soundly until morning.

But not tonight.

Tonight he was dreaming.

In his dream he walked slowly along a narrow road. It led to a house. He could hardly see it because of the heavy mist that hung over everything, but it was there.

His footsteps slowed.

It was the last place on earth he wanted to be. A house in the suburbs. A station wagon in the driveway. A dog. A cat. Two-point-five kids.

And a wife. One woman, the same woman, forever…

Dante sprang up in bed, gasping for air. A shudder racked his big, leanly muscled body. He slept naked, kept the windows open even now, in early autumn. Still, his skin was slick with sweat.

A dream. That’s all it was. A nightmare.

The oysters last night, maybe. Or that brandy right before bedtime. Or…he shuddered again. Or just another resurfacing of that long-ago memory of what had happened when he was just eighteen, stupid and in love.

In what he’d thought was love.

He’d gone steady with Teresa D’Angelo for three months before he’d so much as touched her. When he finally did, one touch led to another and another and another….

Christmas Eve, he’d given her a gold locket.

She’d given him news that almost brought him to his knees.

“I’m pregnant, Dante,” she’d whispered tearfully.

He’d been stunned. He was a kid, yeah, but he’d still known enough to use condoms. But he loved her. And she’d wept in his arms and said he’d ruined her life, that he had to marry her.

He would have.

He would have Done The Right Thing.

But fate, luck, whatever you wanted to call it, intervened. His brothers noticed how withdrawn he’d become. They sat him down, saw to it that he had enough beer to loosen him up a little and then Nicolo asked him, point-blank, what was going on.

Dante told them about his girl.

And the three of them, Nicolo and Raffaele and Falco, looked at each other, looked at him and said, was he out of his freaking mind? If he’d used protection, how could she have gotten knocked up?

She had to be lying.

He went after Falco because he’d said it first. When Rafe and Nick repeated it, he went after them, too. Falco grabbed him in an arm lock.

“I love her, dammit,” Dante said. “You hear me? I love her and she loves me.”

“She loves your money, dude,” Nicolo had said, and for the first time in days Dante had laughed.

“What money?”

Falco let go of him. And Rafe pointed out that the girl didn’t know he wasn’t loaded. That even way back then, all four Orsini brothers had thumbed their noses at their old man’s money and power and everything that went with it.

“Ask around,” Falco, the oldest of them, said bluntly. “Find out how many other guys she’s been with.”

Dante lunged for him again. Nick and Rafe held him back.

“Use your head,” Nick snapped, “not that divining rod in your pants.”

Rafe nodded in agreement. “And tell her you want a paternity test.”

“She wouldn’t lie to me,” Dante protested. “She loves me.”

“Tell her you want the damned test,” Rafe growled. “Or we’ll tell her for you.”

He knew Rafe meant it. So, with a dozen apologies, he’d suggested the test.

Teresa’s tears had given way to fury. She’d called him every name in the book and he’d never heard from her again. Yeah, she’d broken his heart but she’d also taught him a lesson that still came back to haunt him when he least expected it.

Like that ridiculous dream.

Dante took a couple of deep breaths, sank back against the pillows and folded his arms behind his head.

Marriage? A wife? Kids? No way. After years of trying to decide what to do with his life, of coming close to losing it a couple of times in places no sane man should have been, he’d finally sorted things out. Now he had everything a man could possibly want: this penthouse, with the morning sun pouring through the skylight above his bed. A cherry-red Ferrari. A private jet.

And women.

A wicked grin lit his hard, handsome face.

More women, sometimes, than a guy could handle and all of them beautiful, sexy and not foolish enough to think they could con him into anything more permanent than a relationship—and, God, he hated that word—a relationship of a few months duration.

He was between women right now.

Taking a breather, Falco had said wryly. True. And enjoying every minute of it. Like the blonde at that charity thing last week. He’d gone to what should have been a dull cocktail party. Save the City, Save the World, Save the Squirrels, who knew what? Orsini Brothers Investments had bought four tickets, but only one of the brothers had to show his face.

As Rafe had so elegantly put it, it was Dante’s turn in the barrel.

So he’d showered and changed in his private bathroom at the office, taxied to the Waldorf figuring on a few polite handshakes and a glass of not-very-good wine—the wine was never very good at these things even if it cost five thousand bucks to buy a ticket.

And felt someone watching him.

It was the blonde, and she was spectacular. Long legs. Lots of shiny hair. A slow, sexy smile and enough cleavage to get lost in.

He’d made his way through the crowd, introduced himself. A few minutes of conversation and the lady got to the point.

“It’s so noisy here,” she’d purred and he’d said, yeah, it was and why didn’t he take her somewhere quiet, where they could talk?

But what happened in the taxi the doorman hailed had nothing to do with talk. Carin or Carla or whatever her name was had been all over him. By the time they got to her apartment, they were both so hot they’d barely made it through the door…

Dante threw back the blankets, rose from the bed and made his way to the bathroom. He had her cell number but he wouldn’t use it tonight. Tonight he had a date with a cute redhead he’d met last week. As for that dream…

Ridiculous.

All that had happened almost fifteen years ago. He knew now he’d never loved the girl who’d claimed he’d made her pregnant, though he did owe her a thank-you for teaching him an important life lesson.

When you took a woman to bed, it was your trousers you left on the floor, not your brain.

Dante tilted his head back, closed his pale-blue eyes, let the water sluice the shampoo from his dark-as-midnight hair.

No woman, no matter how beautiful, was worth any deeper involvement than the kind that took place between the sheets.

Without warning a memory shot into his head. A woman. Eyes the color of rich coffee. Hair so many shades of gold the sun seemed trapped there. A soft, rosy mouth that tasted of honey…

Scowling, he shot out his hand, turned off the water and reached for a towel. What the hell was the matter with him this morning? First the insane dream. Now this.

Gabriella Reyes—amazing how he could remember her name and not the name of a woman he’d been with last night, especially since it was a year since he’d seen Gabriella.

One year and two months. And, yeah, okay, twenty-four days…

Dante snorted.

That was what came of having a thing for numbers, he thought as he dumped the towel on the marble vanity. It made him good at what he did at Orsini’s but it also made the damnedest nonsense stick in his head.

He dressed quickly in a beat-up New York University T-shirt, the sleeves long since torn out, and a pair of equally disreputable NYU gym shorts, and went down the circular staircase to the lower level of his penthouse, hurrying past the big, high-ceilinged rooms until he reached his gym. It wasn’t an elaborate setup. He had only a Nautilus, some free weights, an old treadmill. He only used the stuff when the weather was bad enough to keep him from running in Central Park, but this morning, despite the sunshine, he knew he needed more than a five-mile run if he was going to sweat a couple of old ghosts out of his system. It was a Saturday; he could afford the extra time.

When he was done, he spent a couple of hours online looking at auction sites that dealt in vintage Ferraris, checking to see if there was anything out there that came close to the 1958 Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta “Tour de France” he’d been searching for. There’d been word one had been coming on the market about a year ago in Gstaad; he’d thought about flying over to check it out, but something—he couldn’t recall what—had come up just then…

His hands stilled on the keyboard.

Gabriella Reyes. That was what had come up. He’d met her and everything else had flown straight out of his head.

“Dammit,” Dante said tightly. That was twice today he’d thought about the woman, and it made no sense. She was history.

Okay. Enough sitting around. He closed his computer, changed into another pair of shorts and a T-shirt and went out for a run.

Getting all those endorphins pumping did it. He came home feeling good and felt even better when Rafe phoned to say he’d just put away the French bank deal they’d been after. He’d already called Falco and Nick. How about meeting for a couple of drinks to celebrate at their favorite hangout, The Bar down in Chelsea?

By the time the brothers parted, it was hard to remember the day had started badly, but his good mood evaporated when his mother called. Dante loved her with all his heart and even her usual questions—was he keeping good hours? Was he eating properly? Had he found a nice Italian girl to bring to dinner?—even those things couldn’t dim his pleasure at hearing her voice.

The message she delivered from his father did.

“Dante, mio figlio, Papa wishes you and Raffaele to come for breakfast tomorrow.”

He knew what that meant. His father was in a strange mood lately, talking of age and death as if the grim reaper was knocking at the door. This would be another endless litany about attorneys and accountants and bank vaults…as if his sons would touch a dollar of his after he was gone.

His mother knew how he felt. How all her sons felt. Only she and their sisters, Anna and Isabella, persisted in believing the fiction that the old man was a legitimate businessman instead of the don he was.

“Dante?” Sofia’s tone lightened. “I will make you that pesto frittata you adore. Si?”

Dante rolled his eyes. He despised the sight, the smell, the taste of pesto but how could a man ever say such a thing to his mother without hurting her feelings? Which, he thought grimly, was exactly why Cesare sent these invitations through his wife.

So he sighed and said yes, sure, he’d be there.

“With Raffaele. Eight o’clock. You will call him, si?”

That, at least, made him grin. “Absolutely, Mama. I know Rafe will be delighted.”

All of which was why Sunday morning, when the rest of Manhattan was undoubtedly still asleep, Dante sauntered into the Orsini town house in what had once been Little Italy but was now an increasingly fashionable part of Greenwich Village.

Rafe had arrived before him.

Sofia had already seated him at the big kitchen table where they’d had so many meals a famiglia. The table groaned under the weight of endless platters of food, and Rafe, looking not too bad for a man who’d spent last night partying with Dante, the redhead and a blonde Red had come up with after Dante had called and told her his brother needed something to cheer him up—considering all that, Rafe looked pretty good.

Rafe looked up, met Dante’s eyes and grunted something Dante figured was “good morning.”

Dante grunted back.

He’d danced the night away with Red, first at a club in the meatpacking district, then in her bed. It had been a long night, a great night, lots of laughter, lots of sex…lots and lots of sex during which his body had done its thing but his head had been elsewhere. He’d awakened in his own bed—he made it a point never to spend the night in a woman’s bed—with a headache, a bad attitude and no desire whatsoever for conversation or his old man.

Or for the frittata his mother placed in front of him.

“Mangia,” she said.

It was an order, not a suggestion. He shuddered slightly—food was not supposed to be green—and picked up his fork.

The brothers were on their second cups of espresso when Cesare’s capo, Felipe, stepped into the room.

“Your father will see you now.”

Dante and Rafe rose to their feet. Felipe shook his head.

“No, not together. One at a time. Raffaele, you are first.”

Rafe smiled tightly and muttered something about the privileges of popes and kings. Dante grinned and told him to have fun.

When he looked back at his plate, there was another frittata on it.

He ate it, got it down with another cup of coffee, then fended off his mother’s offerings. Some cheese? Some biscotti? She had that round wheel of bread he liked, from Celini’s.

Dante assured her he was not hungry, surreptitiously checked his watch and grew more and more annoyed. After forty minutes he shoved back his chair and got to his feet.

“Mama, I’m afraid I have things to do. Please tell my father that—”

The capo appeared in the doorway. “Your father will see you now.”

“So well trained,” Dante said pleasantly. “Just like a nice little lap dog.”

His father’s second in command said nothing, but the look in his eyes was easy to read. Dante showed his teeth in a grin.

“Same to you, too, pal,” he said as he pushed past him to the old man’s study.

The room was just the way it had always been. Big. Dark. Furnished in impeccably poor taste with paintings of saints and madonnas and God-only-knew-who on the walls. Heavy drapes were pulled across the French doors and windows that led to the garden.

Cesare, seated in a thronelike chair behind his mahogany desk, gestured for Felipe to leave them.

“And close the door,” he said, his voice hoarsened by decades’ worth of cigars.

Dante sat in a chair across from his father, long legs extended and crossed at the ankles, arms folded. He had dressed in a long-sleeved navy sweater and faded jeans; on his feet were scuffed, well-worn sneakers. His father had never approved of such clothes—one reason, of course, that Dante did.

“Dante.”

“Father.”

“Thank you for coming.”

“You summoned me. What do you want?”

Cesare sighed, shook his head and folded his perfectly manicured hands on the desk.

“‘How are you feeling, Father? What is new in your life, Father? Have you done anything interesting lately?’” His bushy eyebrows rose. “Are you incapable of making polite conversation?”

“I know how you’re feeling. Hale and hearty, despite your conviction you’re approaching death’s door, just as I know whatever might be new in your life is best left unmentioned.” Dante smiled coldly. “And if you’ve done anything interesting lately, perhaps you should entertain the Feds by telling it to them, not to me.”

Cesare chuckled. “You have a good sense of humor, my son.”

“But not much tolerance for BS so let’s get to it. What do you want? Is this another session of ‘I am dying and you must know certain things’? Because if it is—”

“It isn’t.”

“Straight and to the point.” Dante nodded. “I’m impressed. As impressed as I can ever be, by the likes of you.”

Cesare flushed. “Insults from two sons, all in one morning. It is I who am impressed.”

Dante grinned. “I gather your conversation with Rafe was so pleasant he decided to leave through the garden rather than spend an extra minute under your roof.”

“Dante. Do you think you might grant me time to speak?”

Well, well. A new approach. No barking. No commands. Instead, a tone that bordered on civility. Not that it changed anything, but Dante was, he had to admit, curious.

“Sure,” he said politely, checked his watch then met the old man’s eyes. “How’s five minutes sound?”

A muscle knotted in Cesare’s jaw but he kept silent, opened a desk drawer, took out a manila folder and slid it toward his son.

“You are a successful investor, are you not, mio figlio? Take a look and tell me what you think.”

Damn, another surprise. That was as close as his father had ever come to giving him a compliment. Clever, too. The old man surely knew he couldn’t resist opening the folder after that.

The sheaf of papers inside was thick. The top sheet, labeled Overview surprised him.

“This is about a ranch,” he said, glancing up.

“Not just a ranch, Dante. It is about Viera y Filho. Viera and Son. The name of an enormous fazenda in Brazil.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed. “Brazil?”

“Si.” His father’s mouth twitched. “You have heard of the place, I assume?”

“Very amusing.”

“The ranch covers tens of thousands of acres.”

“And?”

“And,” Cesare said with a casual shrug, “I wish to purchase it.”

Dante stared at his father. Cesare owned a sanitation company. A construction company. Real estate. But a ranch?

“What the hell for?”

“It is, according to those documents, a good investment.”

“So is the Empire State Building.”

“I know the owner,” Cesare said, ignoring the remark. “Juan Viera. Well, I did, years ago. We, ah, we had some business dealings together.”

Dante laughed. “I’ll bet.”

“He came to me for a loan. I turned him down.”

“So?”

“So, he is ill. And I feel guilty. I should have—” Cesare’s eyes went flat. “You find this amusing?”

“You? Feeling guilt? Come on, Father. This is me, not Isabella or Anna. You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Viera is dying. His only son, Arturo, will inherit the property. The boy is unfit. The ranch has been in the Viera family for two centuries, but Arturo will lose it, one way or another, before Viera is cold in the ground.”

“Let me get this straight. You expect me to believe your motives are purely altruistic? That you want to buy this ranch to save it?”

“I know you do not think highly of me—”

Dante laughed.

“Perhaps I have done some things I regret. Don’t look so shocked, mio figlio. A man nearing the end of his life is entitled to begin thinking about the disposition of his immortal soul.”

Dante put the folder on the desk. This was turning into one hell of a strange day.

“I ask only that you fly to Brazil, look things over and, if you deem it appropriate, make an offer on the ranch.”

“The market’s going to hell in a hand basket and you expect me to set aside my work, fly to South America and make an enemy of yours an offer he cannot refuse?”

“Very amusing. And very incorrect. Viera is not my enemy.”

“Whatever. The point is, I am busy. I have no time to stomp around in cow manure just so you can assuage a guilty conscience.”

“This is a far simpler thing than I asked of your brother.”

“Yeah, well, whatever you asked him, I’ll bet he told you what I’m going to tell you.” Dante shot to his feet. “You can take your so-called conscience and—”

“Have you ever been to Brazil, Dante? Do you know anything about it?”

Dante’s jaw tightened. The only thing he knew about Brazil was that it was Gabriella Reyes’s birthplace, and what the hell did she have to do with anything?

“I’ve been to Sao Paulo,” he said coldly. “On business.”

“Business. For that company of yours.”

“It’s called Orsini Investments,” Dante said, even more coldly.

“It is said you are excellent at negotiating.”

“So?”

His father shrugged. “Why ask a stranger for help when one’s own son is considered the best?”

A compliment? Pure bull, sure, but, dammit, it hit its mark. Why not admit that?

“Well,” Cesare said, on a dramatic sigh, “if you will not do this thing…”

Dante looked at his father. “I can only spare a couple of days.”

His father smiled. “That will surely be enough. And, who knows? You might even learn something new.”

“About?”

Cesare smiled again. “About negotiating, mio figlio. About negotiating.”

A world away, more than five thousand miles southwest of New York, Gabriella Reyes sat on the veranda of the big house in which she’d grown up.

Back then the house, the veranda, the fazenda itself had been magnificent.

Not anymore. Everything was different now.

So was she.

As a child on this ranch, she’d been scrawny, all legs and pigtails. Shy to the point of being tongue-tied. Her father had hated that about her; the truth was, she couldn’t think of anything about herself that he hadn’t hated.

This place, the verandah, had been her sanctuary. Hers and her brother’s. Arturo had been even less favored by their father than she had been.

Arturo had left the ranch the day he turned eighteen. She had missed him terribly but she’d understood, he’d had to leave this place to survive.

At eighteen, Gabriella had suddenly blossomed. The ugly ducking had become a swan. She hadn’t seen it but others did, including a North American who had seen her on a street in Bonito, doubled back and handed her his business card. A week later she’d flown to New York and landed her first modeling assignment. She’d loved her work…

And she’d met a man.

She’d been happy, at least for a little while.

Now, she was back at Viera y Filho. Her father was dead. So was her brother. The man was gone from her life. She was alone in this sad, silent house, but then, one way or another, she had always been alone.

Even when she had been Dante Orsini’s lover.

Perhaps never as much as when she had been Dante’s lover, if she had ever really been that. She had warmed his bed but not his heart, and why was she wasting time thinking of him? There was no point in it, no reason, no logic—

“Senhorita?”

Gabriella looked up into the worried face of the ama who had all but raised her. “Sim, Yara?”

“Ele chama lhe.”

Gabriella shot to her feet and hurried into the house. He was calling for her! How could she have forgotten, even for a moment?

She was not alone. Not anymore.

Chapter Two

HE FLEW to Brazil by commercial jet. Falco was using the Orsini plane.

Based on the way they were dressed, he figured that most of the other passengers in the first-class cabin were going to Campo Grande on vacation. The city was near something called the Pantanal. His travel agent had started gushing about the area’s trails, the canoeing, the amazing variety of wildlife.

Dante had cut her short.

“Just book me into a decent hotel and arrange for a rental car,” he’d said curtly.

He was most assuredly not heading to South America for pleasure.

This was strictly business. His father’s business, and that he’d let Cesare push the right buttons ticked him off no end.

“Mr. Orsini,” the flight attendant said pleasantly, “may I get you something?”

Somebody to examine my head, Dante thought grimly.

“Sir? Something to drink?”

He asked for red wine; she launched into a listing of the choices available and he stopped himself from snarling at her the way he’d snarled at the travel agent.

“Your choice,” he said, before she could ask him anything else.

Then he opened his briefcase and read through the papers his father had given him.

They didn’t tell him very much that he didn’t already know. The Viera ranch ran thousands of head of cattle as well as a relatively small number of horses. It had been owned by the same family for generations.

A vellum business card bore the name, phone number and address of Juan Viera’s lawyer. A note in Cesare’s handwriting was scrawled on the back:

“Deal through him, not through the Vieras.”

Fine.

He’d call the man first thing, maybe even tonight. Brazilians kept late hours; the times he’d been in Sao Paulo on business, dinner never started much before 10 p.m. Whenever he called the lawyer, he would request an immediate meeting. He’d explain the purpose of his visit and make an offer for the ranch.

How long could that take? Maybe not even the two days he’d allocated for it.

He felt his mood lighten. With luck, he might be heading back to New York in no time.

It was midevening when he stepped off the plane.

Thanks to the time change, he’d lost two hours. Too late to phone Viera’s attorney and maybe that was just as well. All he wanted to do after the seemingly endless flight was pick up a car, get to his hotel, shower and eat something prepared by a human being instead of an airline catering service’s assembly line.

The hotel, in the town of Bonito, maybe twenty minutes from the Campo Grande Airport, met the requirements he’d laid out to his travel agent. It was comfortable and quiet, as was his suite. He showered, changed into a pale blue cotton shirt and faded jeans. Room service sent up a rare steak, green salad and a pot of coffee, and Dante settled down to leaf through the documents again.

Maybe he’d missed something the first time.

Ten minutes later he tossed the papers aside. No. He hadn’t missed anything. What he’d hoped to see was something about the filho of Viera y Filho. Why Cesare was so convinced that the son’s stewardship would lead to disaster. A hint as to why his father should give a damn.

But there was nothing.

Dante took a bottle of beer from the minibar, opened it and stepped onto a small balcony that overlooked a moonlit pool. He was exhausted but he knew he wouldn’t sleep. The long flight, the time change, the fact that he was still angry at being here…

If a man carved time out of a busy week to fly more than 5,000 miles, it should be for a better reason than running an errand he didn’t understand for a father he didn’t respect.

Like conducting business for Orsini Brothers. Or kicking back and enjoying a vacation.

Or locating Gabriella.

Dante scowled, lifted the bottle of beer and took a long swallow.

Where had that come from? Why would he want to locate her? For starters, Brazil was an enormous country. He had no idea what part she was from, no certainty she’d returned there. Rafe’s girlfriend, Miss Germany 2000-something-or-other, Rafe’s former girlfriend, a model the same as Gabriella, had once said that was what she’d heard.

Not that he’d asked, Dante thought quickly.

He’d just sort of wondered, out loud, if Rafe’s ex had known her.

Dammit, why was he even thinking about Gabriella? The affair had been fun while it lasted. A couple of months, that was all, and then she’d slipped out of his life or maybe he’d slipped out of hers….

Okay. So it hadn’t been quite like that.

He’d gone away on business, a trip Nick was supposed to make but Nick had had other things going on and Dante had offered to go in his place.

“You sure?” Nick had said. “Because I can just postpone this for a week…”

“No,” Dante had said, “no, that’s fine. I can use a break in routine.”

So he’d flown to Rome or maybe it was Paris, and he hadn’t said anything about leaving to Gabriella because why would he? They were dating, that was all. Dating exclusively because that was how he did things, one woman at a time while it lasted, but dating was all it was.

While he was away it had hit him that the thing with Gabriella had pretty much run its course. He’d gone to Tiffany’s as soon as he got back, bought a pair of diamond earrings, phoned her, arranged to meet her at Perse for dinner.

He’d been uncommonly nervous through the meal. Ridiculous, when he’d been through moments like this many times before. Finally, over coffee, he’d taken her hand.

“Gabriella. I have something to tell you.”

“And I…I have something to tell you, too.”

Her voice had been a whisper. Her cheeks had been flushed. Hell. She was going to tell him she’d fallen in love with him. He’d lived this scene before; he knew the warning signs. So he’d moved fast, put the little box that held the earrings on the table between them and said, quickly, how fond he was of her but how busy things had suddenly become at work, how he wished her the best of luck and if she ever needed him for anything…

She hadn’t said a word.

The flush had left her cheeks. In fact, she’d gone white. Then she’d pushed back her chair and walked out of the restaurant, leaving the earrings, leaving him, just walked, head up, spine straight, never once looked back.

Dante tossed back the last of the beer, exchanged his jeans for shorts and went out for a run. When he returned an hour later, he tumbled into bed and slept, dream free, until the wake-up call from the front desk awakened him the next morning.

Eduardo de Souza, the Viera attorney, sounded pleasant enough.

Dante explained he was the son of an old acquaintance of Juan Viera and asked if they could meet as soon as possible.

“Ah,” de Souza said, on a long sigh. “And your father knows what has happened?”

That Viera was dying? That the man’s son was about to inherit the Viera ranch?

“Yes,” Dante said, “he does. That’s why I’m here, senhor.” He paused, unsure of how the lawyer would react. “My father wishes to buy the place from him.”

Silence. Then de Souza, sounding puzzled, said, “From whom?”

“From Viera. From the estate. Look, senhor, if we could meet to discuss this…”

“Indeed. I can see we have much to discuss…but little time in which to do it. I am, in fact, on my way to the Viera fazenda right now. Can you meet me there?”

De Souza gave him directions, told him to watch for a turnoff about thirty miles from town.

“The sign is gone, I am afraid, but you will know you are in the right place because it will be the only turnoff for miles in any direction. Just drive through the gate. It is perhaps one mile from there to the house.”

Dante found the turnoff without any difficulty. The gate was open, the gravel road ahead pockmarked with holes. After about a mile, a house and half a dozen outbuildings came into view. A corral stood off to one side of the clearing.

Dante frowned. The buildings, including the house, gave off a general sense of neglect. The corral enclosed only weeds. There were some vehicles in the clearing: a few well-used pickups, cars with mud caked on their wheels, and an enormous SUV, all gleaming black paint and shiny chrome. Stupid to dislike a vehicle, Dante knew, but he disliked this thing on sight.

Slowly he stepped from his car. This was a successful ranch? Maybe he’d taken the wrong road…

“Senhor Orsini?”

A short, stout man was hurrying down the steps, patting his sweating face with a handkerchief.

“Senhor de Souza?” Dante extended his hand. “It’s good to meet you, sir.”

“I tried to delay things, senhor, but there was some impatience. You understand.”

Delay what? Dante started to ask, but the lawyer clutched his elbow and hurried him into the house. Men stood in little clusters, arms folded. One man, huge in girth and height, dressed like a movie villain in black and puffing on a cigar that filled the room with its stink, stood alone. Dante pegged him instantly as the owner of the SUV. A wide staircase rose toward the second floor; in front of it stood a guy in a shiny suit, rattling away in indecipherable Brazilian Portuguese. Every now and then, one of the spectators grunted in response.

Dante frowned. “What’s going on here?”

“Why, the auction, of course,” de Souza whispered. “Of the ranch. By the bank.” An expressive shrug. “You know.”

No, Dante thought furiously, he did not know. His father had sent him into a situation without giving him any of the necessary facts. He grabbed the lawyer’s arm, dragged him into a corner.

“Juan Viera is selling the place?”

The little man’s eyebrows lifted. “Juan Viera is dead, senhor.”

Dead? Dante took a breath. “His son, then? Arturo is selling it?”

“Arturo is dead, too. Is that not why you are here? To bid on Viera y Filho?”

“Well, yeah, but I had no idea that—”

“You must be prepared to bid strongly, senhor.”

Hell. This was not a way to do business.

“What’s the place worth?”

The lawyer quoted a figure in Brazilian reals, quickly amended it to its U.S. dollar equivalent.

“That’s it? Fifty thousand is all?”

“That will cover the money owed the bank.” De Souza hesitated. “But if you bid, you will have to go much higher.” His voice fell to a whisper. “There is another interested party, you see.”

Dante had been to auctions before. He’d bought a couple of paintings at Sotheby’s. There was often another interested party but Sotheby’s hadn’t been like this. There was a sense of something not just competitive but raw in the air.

“Okay. What’s the bid up to?”

The lawyer listened. “Twenty thousand reals. Half what the bank wants.”

Dante nodded. This wasn’t his money, it was his old man’s. Spend what you must, Cesare had ended up telling him, up to half a million bucks. That gave him significant leeway—and the sooner this was over, the sooner he could leave.

“Bid one hundred thousand.”

The lawyer cleared his throat. Called out the amount in reals. The room fell silent. Everyone looked first at Dante, then at the big guy in black who slowly turned and looked at him, too. Dante held the man’s gaze until he shifted the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and showed all his teeth in what no one in his right mind would ever call a smile.

“Two hundred thousand dollars, U.S.,” the man said, in lightly accented English.

There were audible gasps from the others.

What was this? A contest over what looked like a place that would suck in tens, maybe hundreds of thousands to put right? Maybe Cesare was nuts, Dante thought, but he wasn’t, and hadn’t his father said he was handing this off to him because of his business expertise?

Dante shrugged. “You want it that bad,” he started to say…

And then a voice as soft as the petal of a rose said his name and he knew, God, he knew who it was even before he turned to the stairs and saw her.

Gabriella’s heart was pounding.

It was Dante. But it couldn’t be. He was a bitter memory from another time, another place…

“Gabriella?”

Deus, he was real!

Almost a year and a half had gone by and yet everything about him was familiar. His broad shoulders and long, leanly muscled body. The hard planes and angles of his face. His eyes, the palest shade of blue.

And his mouth. Firm and sensual, and even now she remembered the feel of it against hers.

He was moving toward her. She shook her head, stepped back. She knew she could not let him touch her. If he did, she might crumple. All the nights she’d thought of him. Willed herself not to think of him. Told herself she hated him, that she hoped and prayed she would never see him again…

True, all of it.

And yet, standing in the shadows of the second-floor landing, listening as her fate was decided by a group of faceless men, she’d heard his voice and reacted with the predictability of Pavlov’s dog, her heart racing, her lips readying to curve in a smile.

She drew a deep, unsteady breath.

Those days were gone. She had no reason to smile at this man. She felt nothing for him. Not even hatred. The sight of him had stunned her, that was all…

Unless…unless he had come for her. In the darkest hours of the darkest nights, even despising him, she had wept for him. For his touch. And sometimes…sometimes, she had dared to dream that he had discovered her secret, that he was coming to her, coming for her…

“What are you doing here?” he said.

His bewildered question shattered the last of those ridiculous dreams. Reality rushed in and with it, the cold knowledge that she had to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Her heart was racing again, this time with trepidation, but the recent changes in her life had brought back the ingrained habits of childhood, and she drew herself up and met his confusion with calm resolution.

“I think a far better question is, what are you doing here?”

He looked surprised. Well, why wouldn’t he? He was a man who never had to answer to anyone.

“I’m here on business.”

“What kind of business would bring you to the end of the earth?”

“I came to buy this ranch.”

She felt the color leave her face.

“Viera y Filho,” he said impatiently, “and you still haven’t answered my question.”

A sigh swept through the room, followed by the sound of a man’s unpleasant laughter. She saw Dante turn toward Andre Ferrantes and she felt a rush of panic. Who knew what he would say?

“Something about this amuses you?” Dante said coldly.

Ferrantes smiled. “Everything about this amuses me, senhor, including this touching scene of reunion.” Ferrantes cocked his head. “I only wonder…how well do you know the senhorita?”

“Dante,” Gabriella said quickly, “listen to me…”

Ferrantes stepped forward, elbowing another man aside. “I ask,” he said softly, “because I know her well.” Gabriella gasped as he wrapped a thick arm around her waist and tugged her to his side. “Intimately, one might say. Isn’t that correct, Gabriella?”

Dante’s eyes went cold and flat. They locked on Ferrantes’s face even as he directed his question to her.

“What is he talking about?”

She had heard him use that tone before, not long after they’d met. They’d been strolling along a street in Soho. It was late, after midnight, and they’d heard a thin cry down a dark alley, the thump of something hitting the ground.

“Stay here,” Dante had told her.

It had been a command, not a request, and she’d obeyed it instinctively, standing where he’d left her, hearing scuffling sounds and then thuds until she’d said to hell with obedience. She’d run toward the alley just as Dante had reappeared with an old man shuffling beside him. A street person, from the looks of him, saying “Thank you, sir,” over and over, and then she’d looked at Dante, saw that his suit coat was torn, his jaw was already swelling…saw the look in his eyes that said he had done what he’d had to do…

And had enjoyed it.

“Gabriella, what is he talking about? Answer me!”

She opened her mouth. Shut it again. What could she possibly tell him? Not the truth. Never that. Never, ever that!

“Perhaps I can help, senhor.” It was the lawyer, looking from one man to the other and smiling nervously. “Obviously, you and the senhorita have met before. In the States, I assume.”

“Senhor de Souza,” Gabriella said, “I beg you—”

“You could say that,” Dante growled, his eyes never leaving the big man who still stood with his arm around Gabriella. Her face was as white as paper. She was trembling. Why didn’t she step away from the greasy son of a bitch? Why didn’t she call him a liar? No way would she have given herself to someone like this.

“In that case,” the lawyer said, “you probably knew her as Gabriella Reyes.”

Dante folded his arms over his chest. “Of course I know her as—”

“Her true name, her full name, is Gabriella Reyes Viera.” De Souza paused. “She is the daughter of Juan Viera.”

Dante looked at him. “I thought Viera had only one child. A son.”

“He had a son and a daughter.” De Souza paused, delicately cleared his throat. “Ah, perhaps—perhaps we should discuss this in private, Senhor Orsini, yes?”

“Indeed you should,” Ferrantes snarled. “There is an auction taking place here, advogado, or have you forgotten?”

“Let me get this straight,” Dante said, ignoring him, his attention only on the attorney. “The ranch, which should be Gabriella’s, will be sold to the highest bidder?”

“To me,” Ferrantes looked down at Gabriella. The meaty hand that rested at her waist rose slowly, deliberately, until it lay just beneath her breast. “Everything will be sold to me. So you see, American, you are wrong. There is no business here for you, whatsoever.”

Dante looked at him. Looked at Gabriella. Something was very wrong here. He had no idea what it was, no time to find out. He could only act on instinct, as he had done so many times in his life.

He took a deep breath, looked at the auctioneer. “What was the last bid?”

The auctioneer swallowed. “Senhor Ferrantes bid two hundred thousand United States dollars.”

Dante nodded. “Four hundred thousand.”

The crowd gasped. Ferrantes narrowed his eyes. “Six.”

Dante looked at Gabriella. What had happened to her? She was as beautiful as in the past, but she had lost weight. Her eyes were enormous in the weary planes of her face. And though she was tolerating Ferrantes’s touch, he could almost see her drawing into herself as if she could somehow stand within the man’s embrace and yet remain apart from it.

“Gabriella,” he said quietly. “I can buy this place for you.”

The crowd stirred. Ferrantes’s face darkened, but Dante had eyes only for the woman who had once been his lover.

“No strings,” he said. “I’ll buy it, sign it over to you and that’ll be the end of it.”

She stared at him. He could see her weighing her choices but, dammit, what was there to weigh?

“Gabriella,” he said, urgency in his tone, “tell me what you want.”

Ferrantes pushed Gabriella aside, took a menacing step forward. “You think you can walk in here and do anything you want, American?”

Dante ignored him. “Talk to me, Gabriella.”

She almost laughed. Talk? It was too late for that. They should have talked that terrible day when her life had changed forever. She had been so alone, so frightened, so in need of her lover’s strength and comfort. She’d phoned his office, found out he was away. He had not told her that. She saw it as a bad sign, but when he called the next evening and said he was back and wanted to see her, her heart had lifted. And that night, when he said he had something to tell her, she’d been sure fate had answered her plea, that he was going to say that he had gone away not to put distance between them but to think about her and now he knew, knew what he felt…

But what he had felt was that he was tired of her.

She would never forget the small blue box. The exquisite, obscenely expensive earrings. And his oh-so-polite little speech including that guilt-driven assurance that if she ever needed anything, she had only to ask.

The pain of his rejection had been momentarily dulled by his sheer arrogance. She could not have imagined ever wanting anything from him.

But the world and her life had changed.

“The fazenda is mine,” Ferrantes growled, “as is the woman.”

Gabriella dragged a steadying breath into her lungs. “Sim. Please. Buy…buy the fazenda for me.” Her words were rushed and desperate. “I will pay you back. It will take time but I’ll repay every dollar.”

Dante never hesitated.

“Five million dollars,” he called out. “Five million, U.S.”

The crowd gasped. Ferrantes cursed. The auctioneer swung his gavel.

And Dante took Gabriella in his arms and kissed her.

Chapter Three

DANTE’S kiss was the last thing Gabriella expected.

The last thing she wanted.

Once, his kisses had meant everything. Tender, they’d been soft enough to bring her to the verge of tears; passionate, they’d made her dizzy and hungry for more.

And it hadn’t been only his kisses that meant everything. It was the man.

Deep inside, she’d known it had not been the same for him. She’d never been foolish enough to think it was. He was rich, powerful, incredibly good-looking. Many of the models she knew dated such men. She never had…

Until him.

His initial interest had been flattering. Exciting. She had thought, Why not? She’d promised herself dating him would be nothing serious.

And then, despite everything, she had fallen in love with him. Deeply, desperately in love.

Dante had been magic.

But the magic was gone, lost in the cold reality of the past year. Completely gone, she told herself frantically, when she saw the sudden darkening of his eyes, the tightening of skin over bone, the all-too-familiar signs that said he was going to take her in his arms.

“Don’t,” she said, slapping her hands against his chest, but he was not listening, he was not listening…

“Gabriella,” he murmured, saying her name softly as he used to when they made love. His arms tightened around her, he drew her against him…

And kissed her.

The room spun. The crowd disappeared. All that mattered was the sweetness of his kiss, the hardness of his body, the strength of his arms. Her foolish, desperate heart began to race.

“Dante,” she whispered. The hands that had tried to push him away rose and slid up his chest, skimmed the steady beat of his heart and curved around his neck. She rose on her toes, leaned into him, parted her lips to his just as she’d done in the past.

She felt him shudder with desire at her touch.

He wanted her, still.

Wanted her as if nothing had ever separated them.

The realization shot through her like a drug, and when he groaned, thrust one hand into her hair, slid the other to the base of her spine and angled his lips over hers, his kiss going from sweet to passionate as if they were alone, alone in that perfect world his lovemaking had always created, a world in which he had never abandoned her…

A meaty hand clamped down on her shoulder, fingers biting hard into her flesh.

“Pirhana!”

The foul Portuguese curse word was followed by a stream of profanities. Her eyes flew open as Ferrantes yanked her out of Dante’s arms, a stream of words even worse than whore flying from his lips.

Dante shot into action, grabbed Ferrantes’s arm, twisted and jerked it high behind the man’s back. Ferrantes hissed with fury and pain.

“I will kill you, Orsini,” he said, spittle flying from his lips.

“Dante,” Gabriella said desperately, “Dante, please. He’ll hurt you!”

Dante pushed her behind him and brought his lips close to Ferrantes’s ear.

“Touch her again,” he snarled, “and I promise, you bastard, I’ll be the one doing the killing!”

“She is a witch! She makes a fool of you. That you do not see it—Ahh!”

The big man yelped; his face contorted with pain as Dante forced his arm even higher.

“Listen to me, Ferrantes. You are not to speak to her. You are not to speak of her. You are not to so much as look at her or so help me God, you’re a dead man!”

Dante was dimly aware of the room emptying, men rushing for the door, footsteps hurrying across the veranda, truck and car engines roaring to life outside, but he never took his eyes from Ferrantes.

“You hear me? You’re to keep away from her. You got that?”

The big man’s breathing was heavy. At last he gave a quick jerk of his head in assent.

Dante let go, took a step back, and Ferrantes spun around and swung at him. His hand was the size of a ham but there had been many things to learn in the wilds of Alaska, including how to defend yourself in some of the roughest bars in the world. Dante danced back; Ferrantes’s fist sailed harmlessly by his face and when the big man came at him again he grunted, balled his own fist and jabbed it into the man’s solar plexus with the force of a piston.

Ferrantes went down like a felled tree.

Dante stood over him for a long moment. Then he looked up, saw de Souza, saw the auctioneer…

But Gabriella was gone.

De Souza was staring at the motionless hulk on the floor as if it were a rodent. Dante grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

De Souza gulped, looked from Ferrantes to Dante. “You have made a bad enemy, senhor.”

“Answer the question, man. Where is Gabriella?”

The advogado shrugged. “She is gone.”

“I can see that for myself. Where?”

De Souza licked his lips. “Listen to me, Senhor Orsini. This situation is—how do you say—more complicated than it might at first seem.”

Dante barked a laugh. “You think?” His eyes fixed on the lawyer’s. “Where did she go?” he demanded. “Upstairs?”

“Not there,” de Souza said quickly. He gave another expressive shrug. “She fled with the others.”

Dante ran from the house. Only three vehicles remained in the clearing: his, a gold Caddy he figured was the lawyer’s and the big, ugly black SUV that surely belonged to Ferrantes.

He sagged against the veranda railing.

Gabriella was gone.

And maybe that was just as well.

He’d come here to buy this place for his father. Instead, he’d bought it for a woman who had once meant something to him but no longer did. Yes, he’d kissed her. And, yes, that one kiss had damned near consumed him, but so what?

He was a normal, healthy male. She was a beautiful woman. They had a shared history. But that was it.

He looked around him at the weed-choked corral, the dilapidated outbuildings. He’d dropped five million bucks on this place—his money, not Cesare’s—but so what? The truth was he had a lot of money. An obscene amount of money, and he’d made every penny on his own. Losing five million dollars was nothing. And Gabriella didn’t owe him anything. Hadn’t he promised her there would be no strings? Hadn’t buying the fazenda for her been his idea?

A muscle in Dante’s jaw began to tick.

It had been his idea…hadn’t it?

Yes. It damned well had. Still, he had the right to a couple of minutes of conversation. Okay, questions, not conversation, but he was entitled to ask them. Why had she returned to Brazil? Why did she want this rundown disaster? Why did it belong to the bank?

Most of all, why would an ugly SOB like Ferrantes act as if he had a claim on her?

The muscle ticked again.

And then there was the biggest question of all. Why had she melted in his arms when he’d kissed her? Hell, why had he kissed her in the first place? Forget the history thing. He was a man who never looked back—

“Yo, American!” Ferrantes stepped out of the house. He was grinning, even though his gut had to be aching. “You throw a good punch, for a Yankee.”

Dante’s lips drew back from his teeth. “My pleasure.”

The other man chuckled. “The pleasure is all mine, Orsini. Your blow gave me the chance to think. That two intelligent men would have fought over such a woman…”

Dante narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you learn anything?” he said, his tone soft and dangerous. “I told you to watch your mouth!”

The big man lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Trust me, meu amigo. The woman is all yours.” A sly smirk lifted one corner of his mouth. “But I must be honest. You saved me from wasting a lot of money.”

Dante folded his arms. “Glad to have been of service.”

“And from wasting the rest of my life.”

What in hell was the man talking about?

“So, senhor, now I owe you a favor.” Ferrantes made a show of looking around, then lowered his voice. “Before you get in too deep, ask the lady a question.”

“Listen, pal, when I need advice from you—”

“Or ask the advogado. Perhaps he will tell you what you need to know about his charming client.”

A coldness danced along Dante’s spine. Don’t fall for it, he told himself, but it was impossible to ignore the bait.

“What in hell are you talking about?”

All pretence at camaraderie vanished from Andre Ferrantes’s ugly face.

“Ask de Souza whose bed your Gabriella has been sleeping in,” he said coldly, “until you showed up and she decided it might be more profitable to sleep in yours.”

He’d wanted to go for Ferrantes’s throat, but pride held him back.

Why give the man even a small victory? Dante thought hours later, as he sped along a narrow road that led deeper and deeper into a verdant wilderness.

Bad enough she’d played him for a fool in front of everybody, including the lawyer, who’d known her game all along, and the auctioneer, who was probably still celebrating the haul he’d made. Bad enough, too, that every man in that room knew she’d slept with Ferrantes.

Not that he gave a damn that she’d been with someone else—he had no claims on her anymore—but Ferrantes? She’d wanted the ranch badly enough to lie beneath a pig like that? Open herself to him, take him deep inside her, beg him to touch her, taste her, take her…

Dante’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

She’d done all the things with Ferrantes she had once done with him—and then he’d come along and she’d seen an easy way to put the bastard out of her life.

His mouth twisted.

What a piece of work she was! The earrings he’d bought her had been worth a small fortune but she’d made it seem as if she were too good to accept such an expensive gift from a lover. A former lover, okay, but that wasn’t the point.

Apparently, accepting a ranch was different.

The car hit a pothole and swerved to the right. Dante cursed and fought the wheel, brought the car back on the road.

No wonder Ferrantes had stood there with that slab of beef he called an arm wrapped around Gabriella’s waist. No wonder he’d objected when Dante kissed her. Gone crazy when she’d kissed him back.

Except, she hadn’t.

He knew that now. It had all been a carefully calculated performance. The lady had seen her chance to get possession of those useless acres without continuing to spread her legs for Ferrantes.

An image, so hot and erotic it all but obliterated his vision, filled Dante’s mind.

“Dammit,” he snarled, and pushed the gas pedal the last inch to the floor.

The car rocketed ahead.

What an idiot he’d been! Falling for her act. Behaving precisely as she’d intended so that now he owned a useless piece of dirt in the middle of nowhere, every stinking weed, every collapsing outbuilding all his. He’d written a check for the auctioneer, ignored the man’s outstretched hand, brushed past the lawyer without a word because they’d both known what was happening. They could have told him. Warned him.

Warned him?

The auctioneer’s job was to sell the ranch. The lawyer’s was to protect his client. Besides, de Souza had tried. There is more to this than you know,Senhor, he’d said. Something like that and Dante had chosen to ignore—

Something raced across the road, came to a dead stop, glared at him through eyes that were a shocking red against the dark onset of night. Dante stood on the brakes, fought to control the steering. The car swerved, spun; the tires squealed as if in pain. A wall of thick trees reared up ahead and he cursed, hung on to the steering wheel…

The car came to a shuddering halt.

The sound of the engine died. Silence and the night closed in as he sat behind the wheel breathing hard, hands shaking.

The car had done a one-eighty, ending up pointing in the direction from which he’d come.

He looked in the rearview mirror. The road behind him, what had moments ago been the road ahead of him, was empty. The animal—a big cat, he was almost certain—was gone.

His heart was still pounding. He took half a dozen breaths, sat back until his hands were steady again.

All this crap, reliving the stupid things he’d done almost as soon as he’d stepped off the plane at Campo Grande, was not getting him anywhere. What was done, was done. It was something he had learned to live by, how he had gone from almost flunking out of high school to doing okay in college and then putting in those years in Alaska before finally admitting that success in life wasn’t such a bad thing, after all.

Besides, he was the one who’d get the last laugh.

Sure, he’d been conned into dropping a big chunk of change buying property he didn’t want for a woman who meant nothing to him, but this wasn’t over. As he’d walked past de Souza, the lawyer had put out his hand.

“Senhor Orsini?” he’d said politely. “I will expect your phone call.”

Dante had looked at him blankly. De Souza had cleared his throat.

“To make an appointment to come to my office, yes? To transfer ownership of Viera y Filho to Senhorita Reyes.”

“Yeah,” he’d said brusquely, as he’d brushed by the man.

Now, Dante smiled.

Why would he transfer the deed to Gabriella?

She’d wasted her time. No way would he give her the ranch. He’d sell it to the first buyer that wanted it. Or let it go on rotting until every last sign of it had been swallowed up by the surrounding scrub. He would do whatever it took to keep her from profiting from what she’d done to him.

Still smiling, he turned the key. The engine coughed, then caught, and he headed for Bonito.

The drive, even the near accident, had done him some good. Cleared his head. He felt a thousand times better, calm and in control, and that was important.

He was a man who prided himself on being in control.

Goodbye and good riddance to this place, this cast of characters. He was going home.

By the time he reached the main road, he was whistling. He felt good. He’d get to the hotel, shower, change, phone down for room service—or no, why do that? The travel agent had faxed him a list of restaurants and bars. This was Brazil and even in a town that specialized in eco-friendly tours, there was sure to be a hot night scene, and Brazilian women were spectacularly beautiful.

A little rest and relaxation was what he needed.

He didn’t just feel good, he felt great…

Until he approached the road that led to the Viera y Filho fazenda and saw distant lights blazing like the fires of hell against the black night sky at the end of that road.

His good mood disappeared.

Lights. There was someone in the house. And he knew, instinctively, that someone was Gabriella. De Souza had deliberately misled him. Gabriella hadn’t gone out the door, she’d gone up the stairs.

The rage he’d fought for so many hours reached out, all but consumed him. To hell with heading back to the States without confronting her. No matter what he told himself, he’d be leaving with his tail between his legs.

No way, he thought grimly. Not him.

Dante made a sharp left and headed for Gabriella.

Chapter Four

GABRIELLA came slowly down the stairs, exhausted at the end of the long day.

At least the house was quiet. Yara had left; she had her own responsibilities.

Just as well. Gabriella wanted to be alone. There were memories in this house, some bad but a few that were good; she could, at least, gather them to her tonight.

She went from room to room, switching on the lights. She’d been up since before dawn. There was nothing she could do to restore the property from the years of neglect it had suffered, but she’d done what she could inside the house, cleaning and polishing as if for company, ridiculous when the only people who had been coming were those who had wanted to take it from her.

The bank’s representative. The auctioneer. Her attorney, who kept patting her on the shoulder and saying how sorry he was, yet never finding a single way to help her.

And Andre Ferrantes.

She shuddered.

Just thinking of Ferrantes sent a chill through her. He’d turned up, too. No surprise there. He’d sniffed after her like a wolf on a blood trail ever since she’d returned to the fazenda. Lots of sympathetic words. Lots of tsk-tsking. Lots of deep sighs.

But none of those things ever disguised the avaricious glint in his tiny eyes or the way he ran his tongue over his fleshy wet lips when he looked at her.

Today he’d finally made his move. Put his thick arm around her, his way of announcing his intentions to the world, that when he bought the ranch, she would be part of the furnishings.

Never, she thought grimly, plucking a throw pillow from the sofa and all but beating it into shape. No matter how badly she wanted this land, this house, no matter what the reasons, she’d sooner live on the streets than be in Ferrantes’s debt or, even worse, his bed.

The thought was enough to make her feel ill.

And then, the miracle. The second miracle, because the first had been hearing Dante’s voice, discovering him in the room, tall and imposing, hard-faced and intent. For an instant she’d imagined he’d come for her. Searched for her, found her, wanted her again.

Gabriella wrapped her arms around the pillow and shut her eyes.

Stupid thoughts, all of them.

He was here, that was all. She still didn’t know why he’d come; she only knew it had nothing to do with her. But his coming had still saved her. He’d bought the fazenda. For her. At least, that was what he’d said.

So far, that had not happened.

He had not gone to the advogado’s office to sign the documents de Souza said he would have to sign for the transfer of ownership. Instead he had vanished.

The lawyer had no idea where.

“Perhaps he returned to New York,” de Souza told her, shrugging his shoulders. “I do not know, Senhorita. I have not heard from him. I know only that he spoke with Senhor Ferrantes after their, ah, their disagreement.”

Gabriella tossed the pillow aside.

Disagreement? She almost laughed. Was that what you called it when two men went at each other with blood in their eyes? She had fled then, terrified of the consequences, of Ferrantes winning the fight…

Of the noise of it traveling up the stairs.

So she’d gone up to the rooms that were hers, stayed there until de Souza called her name. Everyone was gone, he’d told her, including the senhor from the United States.

“How did—how did the fight end?” she’d asked in a shaky voice.

“Senhor Orsini won,” the lawyer had replied with a little smile. Then his expression had sobered. “But he and Ferrantes had a private talk after. When it was done, the senhor drove away very fast.”

Without arranging to sign transfer papers. Without doing anything to fulfill that “no strings” promise.

Why? The question plagued her through the ensuing hours. She’d come at it from a dozen different angles but she still had no answer, only the nagging worry that though Dante’s initial intent had been decent, his machismo had gotten in the way.

That kiss.

The way he’d held her. Plundered her mouth. As if no time had passed since they’d been lovers. As if he still owned her. Not that he ever had, but that was the way he’d acted when they were together, as if she belonged to him even though she’d known he had no wish to belong to her.

Had it all been an act for Ferrantes? The kiss? The outrageous bid? The promise? The questions were endless, but the one that mattered most was the one she’d posed to de Souza.

“What do we do now?” she’d said.

That had earned her another little smile.

“We wait to hear from Senhor Orsini, of course.” The smile had turned sly. “It is good to have such a powerful man as a friend, yes?”

The way he’d said “friend” had made her want to slap his face.

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