‘You are playing with fire, Dr Chapman.’

Hannah gave a wry smile. ‘I’m trained to treat burns.’

‘Not the kind you will get from me. You’ll have to find another man to do the job. I’m not for hire.’

She tilted her head to the side. ‘Do I scare you?’

‘On the contrary. It is you who should be afraid of me.’

‘But I’m not scared of you. I don’t care about your reputation. After everything you’ve done for me, how can I not trust you?’

He shook his head. ‘You think I’m worthy of your trust?’

Unthinkingly, he reached out a hand and captured a lock of her hair.

Reclosing the gap between them, she tilted her head back a little and placed a hand on his cheek.

‘I want one night when I can throw caution to the wind. I want to know what it’s like to be made love to, and I want it to be you because you’re the only man I’ve met who makes me feel alive without even touching me.’

Francesco could hardly breathe. His fingers still held the lock of her hair. The desire that had been swirling in his blood since he’d nuzzled into her neck thickened.

When had he ever felt as if he might explode from arousal?

This was madness.

THE IRRESISTIBLE SICILIANS

Dark-hearted men, with devastating appeal!

These powerful Sicilian men are bound by years of family legacies and dark secrets.

But now the power rests with them.

No man would dare challenge these hot-blooded Sicilians… But their women are another matter!

Have these world-renowned Sicilians met their match?

Read Luca Mastrangelo’s story in:

WHAT A SICILIAN HUSBAND WANTS March 2014

Read Pepe Mastrangelo’s story in:

THE SICILIAN’S UNEXPECTED DUTY April 2014

And read Francesco Calvetti’s story in:

TAMING THE NOTORIOUS SICILIAN August 2014

MICHELLE SMART’S love affair with books began as a baby, when she would cuddle them in her cot. This love for all things wordy has never left her. A voracious reader of all genres, she found her love of romance cemented at the age of twelve, when she came across her first Mills & Boon® book. That book sparked a seed and, although she didn’t have the words to explain it then, she knew she had discovered something special—that a book had the capacity to make her heart beat as if she were falling in love.

When not reading, or pretending to do the housework, Michelle loves nothing more than creating worlds of her own, featuring handsome, brooding heroes and the sparkly, feisty women who can melt their frozen hearts. She hopes her books can make her readers’ hearts beat a little faster too. Michelle Smart lives in Northamptonshire with her own hero and their two young sons.

Taming the Notorious Sicilian
Michelle Smart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to all the staff and volunteers at the John Radcliffe Children’s Hospital, with special thanks to the team on Kamran’s Ward. Without their care, compassion and sheer dedication, my beautiful nephew Luke would not be here.

This book is also dedicated to the memory of Henry, Lily and Callum. May you all be playing together with the angels.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

The Irresistible Sicilians

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Endpages

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

FRANCESCO CALVETTI BROUGHT his MV Agusta F4 CC to a stop and placed his left foot on the road as he was foiled by yet another set of red lights. Barely 7:00 a.m. and the roads were already filling up.

What he wouldn’t give to be riding with nothing but the open road before him and green fields surrounding him.

He thought of Sicily with longing. His island had none of the grey dreariness he was fast associating with London. This was supposed to be spring? He’d enjoyed better winters in his homeland.

He yawned widely, raising his hand to his visor out of pure habit. After all, no one could see his face with his helmet on.

He should have gotten Mario to bring him home after such a long night, but being driven by anyone irritated him, especially in a car. Francesco was a man for whom drive had multiple definitions.

The light changed to green. Before twisting on the throttle and accelerating smoothly, he swiped away the moisture clinging to his visor.

What a country. At the moment it was like driving through a saturated cloud.

As he approached yet another set of lights, a cyclist on a pushbike just ahead caught his attention—or, rather, the fluorescent yellow helmet she wore caught it. She reached the lights at the moment they turned amber. If that had been him, Francesco mused, he would have gone for it. She’d had plenty of time.

But no, this was clearly a law-abiding woman with a healthy dose of self-preservation. She stopped right at the line. The car in front of Francesco, a large four-wheel drive, drew level on her right side.

She had the thickest hair he’d ever seen—a shaggy mass of varying shades of blonde reaching halfway down her back.

The light turned green and off she set, sticking her left arm out and turning down the street in that direction. The car that had been beside her also turned left, forced to hang a little behind her, with Francesco joining the convoy.

The road ahead was clear. The cyclist picked up speed....

It happened so quickly that for a moment Francesco was convinced he had imagined it.

Without any indication, the four-wheel drive in front of him pulled out to overtake the cyclist, accelerating quickly, but with the spatial awareness of a cauliflower, because it clipped the cyclist’s wheel, causing her to flip forward off the saddle and land head-first on the kerb.

Francesco brought his bike to an immediate stop and jumped off, clicking the stand down through muscle memory rather than conscious thought.

To his disgust, the driver of the offending car didn’t stop, but carried on up the road, took a right and disappeared out of sight.

A passer-by made a tentative approach towards the victim.

‘Do not move her,’ Francesco barked as he pulled off his helmet. ‘She might have a broken neck. If you want to help, call for an ambulance.’

The passer-by took a step back and dug into his pocket, allowing Francesco to stand over the victim.

The woman lay on her back, half on the pavement and half on the road, her thick hair fanning in all directions. Her helmet, which had shifted forward and covered her forehead, had a crack running through it. Her bike was a crumpled heap of metal.

Dropping to his haunches, Francesco yanked off his leather gloves and placed two fingers on the fallen cyclist’s neck.

Her pulse beat faint beneath his touch.

While the passer-by spoke to the emergency services, Francesco deftly removed his leather jacket and placed it over the unconscious woman. She wore smart grey trousers and an untucked black blouse covered with a waterproof khaki jacket. On one of her bare feet was a white ballet shoe. The other was missing.

His chest constricted at the thought of the missing shoe.

He wished he could tuck his jacket under her to create a barrier between her and the cold, damp concrete, but he knew it was imperative to keep her still until the paramedics arrived.

The important thing was she was breathing.

‘Give me your coat,’ he barked at another spectator, who was hovering like a spare part. A small crowd had gathered around them. Vultures, Francesco thought scornfully. Not one of them had stepped forward to help.

It never occurred to him that his presence was so forbidding, even first thing in the morning, that none of the crowd dared offer their assistance.

The spectator he’d addressed, a middle-aged man in a long lambswool trench coat, shrugged off his coat and passed it to Francesco, who snatched it from his hands. Francesco wrapped it across the woman’s legs, making sure to cover her feet.

‘Five minutes,’ the original passer-by said when he disconnected his call.

Francesco nodded. For the first time he felt the chill of the wind. He palmed the woman’s cheek. It felt icy.

Still on his haunches, he studied her face carefully, ostensibly looking for a clue to any unseen injuries. No blood ran from her nose or mouth, which he assumed was a good thing. Her mass of blonde hair covered her ears, so he carefully lifted a section to look. No blood.

As he searched, he noticed what a pretty face she had. Not beautiful. Pretty. Her nose was straight but just a touch longer than the women of his acquaintance would put up with before resorting to surgery. She had quite rounded cheeks, too, something else that would be fixed in the endless quest for perfection. But yes, pretty.

He remembered she’d had something slung around her neck before he’d covered her chest with his jacket. Carefully, he tugged it free.

It was an identity card for one of the hospitals in the capital. Peering closer, he read her name. Dr H Chapman. Specialist Registrar.

This woman was a doctor? To his eyes she looked about eighteen. He’d guessed her as a student...

Her eyes opened and fixed on him.

His thoughts disappeared.

Shock rang out from her eyes—and what eyes they were, a moreish hazel ringed with black—before she closed them. When they reopened a few beats later, the shock faded to be replaced by a look of such contentment and serenity that Francesco’s heart flipped over.

Her mouth opened. He leaned closer to hear what she had to say.

Her words came out as a whisper. ‘So there really is a heaven.’

* * *

Hannah Chapman leaned her new bike against the stone building and gazed up at the sparkling silver awning that held one word: Calvetti’s.

She admired the explicitness of it. This belonged to Francesco Calvetti and no one else.

Even though it was 6:00 p.m. and the club wasn’t due to open for another four hours, two hefty-sized men dressed all in black stood beneath the awning, protecting the door. She took this as a good sign—the past three times she’d cycled over, the door hadn’t been manned. The club had been empty.

‘Excuse me,’ she said, standing before them. ‘Is Francesco Calvetti in?’

‘He’s not available.’

‘But is he in?’

‘He’s in but he’s not to be disturbed.’

Success! At last she’d managed to track him down. Francesco Calvetti travelled a lot. Still, tracking him down was one thing. Getting in to see him was a different matter entirely.

She tried her most winning smile.

Alas, her fake smile wasn’t up to par. All it resulted in was the pair of them crossing their arms over their chests. One of them alone would have covered the door. The pair of them standing there was like having a two-man mountain as a barrier.

‘I know you don’t want to disturb him, but can you please tell him that Hannah Chapman is here to see him? He’ll know who I am. If he says no, then I’ll leave, I promise.’

‘We can’t do that. We have our orders.’

She could be talking to a pair of highly trained SAS soldiers, such was the conviction with which the slightly less stocky of the duo spoke.

Hannah sighed. Oh, well, if it wasn’t meant to be, then...so be it.

All the same, she was disappointed. She’d wanted to thank the man personally.

She thrust forward the enormous bunch of flowers and thank-you card. She’d cycled the best part of two miles through London traffic with them precariously balanced in her front basket. ‘In that case, could you give these to him, please?’

Neither made a move to take them from her. If anything, their faces became even more suspicious.

‘Please? This is the third bunch I’ve brought for him and I’d hate for them to go to waste. I was in an accident six weeks ago and he came to my rescue and...’

‘Wait.’ The one on the left cocked his head. ‘What kind of accident?’

‘I was knocked off my bike by a hit-and-run driver.’

They exchanged glances, then drew back to confer in a language that sounded, to her untrained ear, as if it was Italian. Or she could have imagined it, knowing Francesco Calvetti was Sicilian.

Since she’d discovered the identity of her benefactor, she knew a lot more than she should about Francesco Calvetti. internet searches were wonderful creations. For instance, she knew he was thirty-six, unmarried but with a string of glamorous girlfriends to his name, and that he owned six nightclubs and four casinos across Europe. She also knew his family name was synonymous with the Mafia in Sicily and that his father, Salvatore, had gone by the nickname Sal il Santo—Sal the Saint—a moniker allegedly given due to his penchant for making the sign of the cross over his dead victims.

She wouldn’t have cared if his father had been Lucifer himself. It made no difference to what Francesco was—a good man.

The man who’d brought her back to life.

The stockier one looked back to her. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Hannah Chapman.’

‘One minute. I will tell him you are here.’ He shrugged his hefty shoulders. ‘I cannot say if he will speak to you.’

‘That’s fine. If he’s too busy, I’ll leave.’ She wasn’t going to make a scene. She was here to say thank you and nothing else.

He disappeared through the double doors, letting them swing shut behind him.

She hugged the flowers to her chest. She hoped Francesco wouldn’t think them pathetic but she hadn’t a clue what else she could give him to express her gratitude. Francesco Calvetti had gone above and beyond the call of duty, and he’d done it for a complete stranger.

In less than a minute, the door swung back open, but instead of the bouncer, she was greeted by a man who was—and Lord knew how this was even possible—taller than the guards he employed.

She’d no idea he was so tall.

But then, her only memory of the man was opening her eyes and seeing his beautiful face before her. How clearly she remembered the fleeting certainty that she was dead and her guardian angel had come to take her to heaven, where Beth was waiting for her. She hadn’t even been sad about it—after all, who would be upset about being escorted to paradise with the most gorgeous man on either heaven or earth?

The next time she’d opened her eyes she had been in a hospital bed. This time, the fleeting feeling was disappointment she hadn’t gone off to paradise with Adonis.

Fleeting feeling? No. It had been more than that. Adonis had come to take her to Beth. To learn she was still alive had been on the verge of devastating. But then, of course, sanity poked through.

As she’d come back to the here and now, and memories of her Adonis kept peppering her thoughts, so, too, came the revelation that she truly was alive.

Alive.

Something she hadn’t felt in fifteen years.

Limbo. That was where she’d been. She, hardworking, practical Hannah Chapman, for whom bedtime reading consisted of catching up on medical journals, had been living in limbo.

In the weeks since her accident, she’d convinced herself that her memory of that brief moment was all wrong. No one, surely, could look like he did in her memory and be a mortal? She’d had severe concussion after all. Even the pictures she’d found on the internet didn’t do justice to her memory of him.

Turned out her brain hadn’t been playing tricks on her.

Francesco Calvetti truly was beautiful...

But in a wholly masculine way.

His tall, lean frame was clothed in tailored dark grey trousers and a white shirt unbuttoned to halfway down his chest, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. In the exposed V—which she was eye height with—he wore a simple gold cross on a chain, which rested on a dark whorl of hair.

A rush of...something coursed through her blood, as if a cloud of heat had been blown through her veins.

Unsettled, Hannah blinked and looked back up at his unsmiling face. Not even the forbidding expression resonating from his deep-set eyes—and what a beautiful colour they were, making her think of hot chocolate-fudge cake—could dent the huge grin that broke out on her face. She extended the flowers and card to him, saying, ‘I’m Hannah Chapman and these are for you.’

Francesco looked from the flowers back to her. He made no effort to take them.

‘They’re a thank you,’ she explained, slightly breathless for some reason. ‘I know they’re a drop in the ocean compared to what you’ve done for me, but I wanted to get you something to show how grateful I am—I am truly in your debt.’

One of his thick black brows raised and curved. ‘My debt?’

A shiver ran up her spine at his deep, accented voice. ‘You have done so much for me,’ she enthused. ‘Even if I had all the money in the world I could never repay you for your kindness, so yes, I am in your debt.’

His eyes narrowed as he studied her a little longer before inclining his head at the door. ‘Come in for a minute.’

‘That would be great,’ she said, not caring in the least that his directive was an order rather than a request.

The two-man mountain that had flanked Francesco up to this point, guarding him as well as they would if she were carrying an Uzi nine-millimetre, parted. She darted between them, following Francesco inside.

After walking through a large reception area, they stepped into the club proper.

Hannah’s eyes widened. ‘Amazing,’ she whispered, turning her head in all directions.

Calvetti’s oozed glamour. All deep reds and silver, it was like stepping into old Hollywood. The only club she’d been to was at the age of eighteen when her entire class had descended on The Dell, their sleepy seaside town’s only nightclub, to celebrate finishing their A levels. It had been one of the most boring evenings of her life.

Compared to this place, The Dell had been grey and dingy beyond imagination.

And, in fact, compared to Francesco, with his olive skin, short black curly hair and strong jawline, all the men she had ever met in her life were grey and dingy beyond imagination, too.

‘You like it?’

Her skin heating under the weight of his scrutiny, she nodded. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘You should come here one evening.’

‘Me? Oh, no, I’m not into clubbing.’ Then, fearing she had inadvertently insulted him, quickly added, ‘But my sister Melanie would love it here—it’s her hen night on Friday so I’ll suggest she drops in.’

‘You do that.’

It didn’t surprise Francesco to learn Hannah Chapman wasn’t into clubbing. The women who frequented his clubs were a definite type—partygoers and women looking to hook up with a rich or famous man, preferably both.

Hannah Chapman was a doctor, not a wannabe WAG. He allowed himself to take in her appearance more fully, and noticed that she was dressed professionally, in another variation of the trouser suit she’d been wearing on the day she was knocked off her bike. The lighting in the club had the effect of making her white blouse see-through, illuminating her bra, which, to his trained eye, looked practical rather than sexy. Her thick blonde hair looked as if it hadn’t seen a hairbrush in weeks, and he could not detect the slightest trace of make-up on her face.

He’d assumed when he’d seen her at the door that she had come with an agenda. In his experience, everyone had an agenda.

He slipped behind the bar, watching as she set the flowers and card to one side. He had never been presented with flowers before. The gesture intrigued him. ‘What can I get you to drink?’

‘I could murder a coffee.’

‘Nothing stronger?’

‘I don’t drink alcohol, thank you. In any case, I’ve been working since seven and if I don’t get an enormous shot of caffeine I might just pass out.’ He liked the droll way she spoke, the air of amusement that laced her voice. It made a change from the usual petulant tones he was used to hearing from her sex.

‘You’re back at work already?’

‘I was back within a fortnight, as soon as I’d recovered from the concussion.’

‘Any other injuries?’

‘A broken clavicle—collarbone—which is fusing back together nicely. Oh, and a broken middle finger, but that seems to be healed now.’

‘You don’t know if your own finger’s healed?’

She shrugged and hopped onto a stool, facing him. ‘It doesn’t hurt anymore so I assume it’s healed.’

‘Is that a professional diagnosis?’

She grinned. ‘Absolutely.’

‘Remind me not to come and see you if I need medical attention,’ he commented drily, stepping over to the coffee machine.

‘You’re about twenty years too old for me.’

He raised a brow.

Her grin widened. ‘Sorry, I mean you’re twenty years too old for me to treat in a medical capacity, unless you want to be treated on a ward full of babies, toddlers, and kids. I’m specialising in paediatrics.’

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask why she had chosen to specialise in children but he kept his question to himself. He wanted to know why she had sought him out.

He placed a cup in the machine and pressed a button. ‘Do you take milk and sugar?’

‘No milk but two sugars, please. I might as well overdose on that as well as caffeine.’

His thoughts exactly. He added two heaped spoons to both cups and passed one to her.

His initial assessment of her had been correct. She really was very pretty. Of average height and slender, her practical trousers showcased the most fabulous curvy bottom. It was a shame she was now sitting on it. The more he looked at her, the more he liked what he saw.

And he could tell that she liked what she saw, too.

Yes, this unexpected visit from Dr Chapman could take a nice twist.

A very nice twist.

He took a sip of his strong, sweet coffee before placing his cup next to hers, folding his arms across his chest and leaning on the bar before her.

‘Why are you here?’

Her eyes never left his face. ‘Because I needed to let you know how grateful I am. You kept me warm until the ambulance arrived, then travelled in the ambulance with me, stayed at the hospital for hours until I’d regained consciousness, and you tracked down the driver who hit me and forced him to hand himself in to the police. No one has ever done anything like that for me before, and you’ve done it for a complete stranger.’

Her face was so animated, her cheeks so heightened with colour, that for a moment his fingers itched to reach out and touch her.

How did she know all this? He’d left the hospital as soon as he’d been given word that she’d regained consciousness. He hadn’t seen her since.

‘How about you let me buy you dinner one night, so I can thank you properly?’ Colour tinged her cheeks.

‘You want to buy me dinner?’ He didn’t even attempt to keep the surprise from his voice. Women didn’t ask him out on dates. It just didn’t happen. For certain, they thought nothing of cajoling him into taking them out to expensive restaurants and lavishing them with expensive clothes and jewellery—something he was happy to oblige them in, enjoying having beautiful women on his arm. But taking the initiative and offering him a night out...?

In Francesco’s world, man was king. Women were very much pretty trinkets adorning the arm and keeping the bed warm. Men did the running, initially at least, following the traps set by the women so the outcome was assured.

She nodded, cradling her coffee. ‘It’s the least I can do.’

He studied her a touch longer, gazing into soft hazel eyes that didn’t waver from his stare.

Was there an agenda to her surprising offer of dinner?

No. He did not believe so. But Francesco was an expert on female body language and there was no doubt in his mind that she was interested in him.

He was tempted. Very tempted.

He’d thought about her numerous times since her accident. There had even been occasions when he’d found his hand on the phone ready to call the hospital to see how she was. Each time he had dismissed the notion. The woman was a stranger. All the same, he’d been enraged to learn the police had failed to track down the man who’d so callously knocked her down. The driver had gone into hiding. Unfortunately for the driver, Francesco had a photographic memory.

It had taken Francesco’s vast network precisely two hours to track the driver down. It had taken Francesco less than five minutes to convince the man to hand himself in. By the time he’d finished his ‘little chat’ with him, the man had been begging to be taken to the police station. Francesco had been happy to oblige.

And now she had come to him.

And he was tempted to take her up on her offer of a meal—not that he would let her pay. It went against everything he believed in. Men took care of their women. The end.

If it was any other woman he wouldn’t think twice. But this one was different. For a start, she was a doctor. She was a force for good in a world that was cruel and ugly.

Despite her age and profession, Hannah had an air of innocence about her. Or it could just be that she was totally without artifice. Either way, she had no business getting involved with the likes of him.

If he was a lesser man he would take advantage of her obvious interest, just like his father would have done if he’d been alive.

But he would not be that man. This woman was too...pure was the word that came to mind. If she were the usual kind of woman who frequented his world, he would have no hesitation in spelling out how she could repay her so-called debt to him. Naked. And horizontal.

‘You owe me nothing,’ he stated flatly.

‘I do...’

‘No.’ He cut her off. ‘What you consider to be your debt is not redeemable. I did what I did without any thought of payback—consider the fact you are alive and healthy and able to do the job you love to be my payment.’

The animation on her face dimmed a little. ‘So you won’t let me buy you dinner?’

‘Look around you. You don’t belong in this seedy world, Dr Chapman. I thank you for taking the time to visit me, but now I have business to attend to.’

‘That sounds like a dismissal.’

‘I am a busy man.’

Those hazel eyes held his for the longest time before she cast him the most beautiful smile he’d ever been the recipient of, lighting her face into something dazzling.

Then, to his utter shock, Hannah levered herself so her torso was on the bar and pressed her lips to his.

They were the softest of lips, a gentle touch that sent tiny darts fizzing through his blood.

He caught a faint whiff of coffee before she pulled away.

‘Thank you. For everything,’ she said, slipping back down onto her stool then getting to her feet. Her cheeks glowing, she finished her coffee and reached for her bag, her eyes never leaving his. ‘I will never forget what you’ve done for me, Francesco. You have my undying gratitude.’

As she turned to leave, he called out after her, ‘Your sister—she has the same family name as you?’

She nodded.

‘I’ll leave word that Melanie Chapman’s hen party is to be given priority at the door on Friday.’

A groove appeared in her forehead. ‘Okay,’ she said slowly, clearly not having the faintest idea what he was talking about.

‘Your sister will know what it means.’ A half smile stole over his face. ‘Tell her she’ll be on the list.’

‘Ah—on the list!’ The groove disappeared. Somehow the sparkle in her eyes glittered even stronger. ‘I know what that means. That’s incredibly lovely of you.’

‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he dismissed, already regretting his impulsive offer, which had come from where he knew not, but which unsettled him almost as much as her kiss.

Francesco never acted on impulse.

That same serene smile that had curved her cheeks when she’d lain on the road spread on her face. ‘I would.’

He watched her walk away, his finger absently tracing the mark on his lips where she’d kissed him.

For the first time in his life he’d done an unselfish act. He didn’t know if it made him feel good or bad.

CHAPTER TWO

HANNAH STARED AT the queue snaking all the way round the corner from the door of Calvetti’s and sighed. Maybe the queue was an omen to stay away.

No. It couldn’t be. Even if it was, she would ignore it. Just being this close to his sanctum was enough to send her pulse careering.

Meeting Francesco in the flesh had done something to her...

‘Come on, Han,’ her sister said, tugging at her wrist and breaking Hannah’s reverie. ‘We’re on the list.’

‘But this is the queue,’ Hannah pointed out.

‘Yes, but we’re on the list.’ Melanie rolled her eyes. ‘If you’re on the list you don’t have to queue.’

‘Really? How fabulous.’ She’d thought it meant getting in for free—she had no idea it also encompassed queue jumping.

Giggling, the party of twelve women dressed in black leotards over black leggings, bright pink tutus and matching bunny ears hurried past the queue.

Three men in long black trench coats guarded the door.

Melanie went up to them. ‘We’re on the list,’ she said with as much pride as anyone with a pink veil and bunny ears on her head and the words Mucky Mel ironed onto the back of her leotard could muster.

Hannah had guessed Calvetti’s was popular but, judging by Melanie’s reaction, she could have said she’d got VIP backstage passes to Glastonbury. Her sister had squealed with excitement and promptly set about rearranging the entire evening. Apparently Calvetti’s was ‘the hottest club in the country’, with twice as many people being turned away at the door than being admitted.

Luckily, Melanie had been so excited about it all that she’d totally failed to pump Hannah for information on the man himself. The last thing Hannah wanted was for her sister to think she had a crush on him. It was bad enough knowing her entire family thought she was a closet lesbian without giving them proof of her heterosexuality—one sniff and they’d start trying to marry her off to any man with a pulse.

The bouncer scanned his clipboard before taking a step to one side and unclipping the red cordon acting as a barrier.

‘Enjoy your evening, ladies,’ he said as they filed past, actually smiling at them.

Another doorman led them straight through to the club, which heaved with bodies and pulsated with loud music, leading them up a cordoned-off set of sparkling stairs.

Her heart lifted to see one of the man mountains who’d been guarding the club the other afternoon standing to attention by a door marked ‘Private’.

Surely that meant Francesco was here?

A young hunk dressed in black approached them and led them to a large round corner table. Six iced buckets of champagne were already placed on it.

‘Oh, wow,’ said Melanie. ‘Is this for us?’

‘It is,’ he confirmed, opening the first bottle. ‘With the compliments of the management. If you need anything, holler—your night is on the house.’

‘Can I have a glass of lemonade, please?’ Hannah asked, her request immediately drowned out by the hens all badgering her to have one glass of champagne.

About to refuse, she remembered the promise she’d made to herself that it was time to start living.

She, more than anyone, knew how precarious life could be, but it had taken an accident on her bike for her to realise that all she had been doing since the age of twelve was existing. Meeting Francesco in the flesh had only made those feelings stronger.

If heaven was real, what stories would she have to tell Beth other than medical anecdotes? She would have nothing of real life to share.

That was something she’d felt in Francesco, that sense of vitality and spontaneity, of a life being lived.

Settling down at the table, she took a glass of champagne, her eyes widening as the bubbles played on her tongue. All the same, she stopped after a few sips.

To her immense surprise, Hannah soon found she was enjoying herself. Although she didn’t know any of them well, Melanie’s friends were a nice bunch. Overjoyed to be given the VIP treatment, they made sure to include her in everything, including what they called Talent Spotting.

Alas, no matter how discreetly she craned her neck, Hannah couldn’t see Francesco anywhere. She did, however, spot a couple of minor members of the royal family and was reliably informed that a number of Premier League football players and a world-championship boxer were on the table next to theirs, and that the glamorous women and men with shiny white teeth who sat around another table were all Hollywood stars and their beaus.

‘Thank you so much for getting knocked off your bike,’ Melanie said whilst on a quick champagne break from the dance floor, flinging her arms around Hannah. ‘And thank you for coming out with us tonight and for coming here—I was convinced you were going to go home after the meal.’

Hannah hugged her in return, holding back her confession that she had originally planned on slipping away after their Chinese, but that the lure of seeing Francesco again had been too great. It had almost made up for the fact Beth wasn’t there to share Melanie’s hen night. She wouldn’t be there to share the wedding, either.

The wedding. An event Hannah dreaded.

She felt a huge rush of affection for her little sister along with an accompanying pang of guilt. Poor Melanie. She deserved better than Hannah. Since Beth’s death, Hannah had tried so hard to be the best big sister they both wished she could be, but she simply wasn’t up to the job. It was impossible. How could she be anything to anyone when such a huge part of herself was missing? All she had been able to do was throw herself into her studies, something over which she had always had total control.

But now her drive and focus had been compromised.

Never had she experienced anything like this.

Hannah was a woman of practicality, not a woman to be taken in with flights of fancy. Medicine was her life. From the age of twelve she’d known exactly what she wanted to be and had been single-minded in her pursuit of it. She would dedicate her life to medicine and saving children, doing her utmost to keep them alive so she could spare as many families from the gaping hole that lived in her own heart as she could.

At least, she had been single-minded until a car knocked her off her bike and the most beautiful man in the universe had stepped in to save her.

Now the hole in her heart didn’t feel so hollow.

Since that fateful cold morning, her mind had not just been full of medicine. It had been full of him, her knight in shining armour, and meeting him in the flesh had only compounded this. She wasn’t stupid. She knew she would never fit into his world. His reputation preceded him. Francesco Calvetti was a dangerous man to know and an exceptionally dangerous man to get on the wrong side of. But knowing this had done nothing to eradicate him from her mind.

That moment when she’d been lying on the cold concrete and opened her eyes, she had looked at him and felt such warmth.... Someone who could evoke that in her couldn’t be all bad. He just couldn’t.

‘Come on, Han,’ said Melanie, tugging at her hand. ‘Come and dance with me.’

‘I can’t dance.’ What she really wanted to do was search every nook and cranny of Calvetti’s until she found him. Because he was there. She just knew it.

Melanie pointed at the dance floor, where a group of twenty-something men with more money than taste were strutting their stuff. ‘Nor can they.’

* * *

Francesco watched the images from the security cameras on a range of monitors on his office wall. Through them, he could see everything taking place in his club. The same feeds were piped into the office where his security guys sat holed up, watching the same live images—but the only eyes Francesco trusted were his own. Tomorrow he would head back to Palermo to spot-check his nightclub and casino there, and then he would fly on to Madrid for the same.

A couple of men he suspected of being drug dealers had been invited by a group of city money men into the VIP area. He watched them closely, debating whether to have them dealt with now or wait until he had actual proof of their nefarious dealings.

A sweep of thick blonde hair with pink bunny ears caught his attention in one of the central feeds. He watched Hannah get dragged onto the dance floor by another pink-tutued blonde he assumed was the hen of said hen party, Melanie.

Not for the first time, he asked himself what the hell Hannah was doing there.

She looked more than a little awkward. His lips curved upwards as he watched her try valiantly to move her body in time to the beat of the music. He’d seen more rhythm from the stray cats that congregated round the vast veranda of his Sicilian villa.

The half smile faded and compressed into a tight line when he read the slogan on her back: Horny Hannah.

That all the hen party had similar personalised slogans did nothing to break the compression of his lips.

It bothered him. Hannah was too...classy to have something so cheap written about her, even if it was in jest.

He downed his coffee and absently wiped away the residue on the corner of his lips with his thumb.

What was she doing here? And why did she keep craning her neck as if she was on the lookout for someone?

Since he’d dismissed her three days ago, he’d been unnerved to find her taking residence in his mind. Now was not the time for distractions of any sort, not when the casino in Mayfair was on the agenda. This particular casino was reputed to be one of the oldest—if not the oldest—in the whole of Europe. It had everything Francesco desired in a casino. Old-school glamour. Wealth. And credibility. This was a casino built by gentlemen for gentlemen, and while the old ‘no women’ rule had been relaxed in modern times, it retained its old-fashioned gentility. More than anything else, though, it was the one business his father had wanted and failed to get. This failure had been a thorn in Salvatore’s side until his dying day, when a life of overindulgence had finally caught up with him.

After almost forty years under the sole ownership of Sir Godfrey Renfrew, a member of the British aristocracy, the casino had been put up for sale.

Francesco wanted it. He coveted it, had spent two months charming Godfrey Renfrew into agreeing the sale of it to him. Such was Godfrey’s hatred of Francesco’s dead father, it had taken a month to even persuade him to meet.

What was more, if Francesco’s spies were correct, Luca Mastrangelo was sniffing around the casino, too.

This news meant he absolutely could not afford to lose focus on the deal, yet still he’d found himself, an hour before opening for the night, giving orders to his hospitality manager to reserve the best table in the club—for a hen party of all things. He’d only ever intended to have Melanie Chapman’s party on the guest list.

Under ordinary circumstances, free tables were given to the most VIP of all VIPs and only then because of the publicity it generated.

He hadn’t expected Hannah to be in attendance, but now she was here he couldn’t seem to stop his eyes from flickering to whichever monitor happened to be fixed on her.

* * *

Hannah tried heroically to get her feet moving in time with the music, aware her dancing was easily the least rhythmic of the whole club. Not that this seemed to put any of the men off. To her chagrin, a few seemed to be suffering from what her sister termed Wandering Hand Syndrome. One in particular kept ‘accidentally’ rubbing against her. When his hand brushed over her bottom the first time she’d been prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, and had stepped away from him. The second time, when he’d been bolder and tried to cup her buttocks, she’d flashed him a smile and said in her politest voice, ‘Please don’t do that,’ he’d removed his hand. Which had worked for all of ten seconds. The third time he groped her, she’d ‘accidentally’ trod on his foot. And now the sleaze had ‘accidentally’ palmed her breast and was grinding into her back as if she were some kind of plaything.

Did people actually like this kind of behaviour? Did women really find it attractive?

Just as she was wishing she had worn a pair of stilettoes like all the other women there so she could bruise him properly, a figure emerged on the dance floor.

Such was Francesco’s presence that the crowd parted like the Red Sea to admit him.

Her sister stopped dancing and gazed up at him with a dropped jaw. The other hens also stared, agog, their feet seeming to move in a manner completely detached from their bodies.

And no wonder. A head taller than anyone else on the dance floor, he would have commanded attention even if he’d looked like the back end of a bus. Wearing an immaculately pressed open-necked black shirt and charcoal trousers, his gorgeous face set in a grim mask, he oozed menace.

Even if Hannah had wanted to hide her delight, she would have been unable to, her face breaking into an enormous grin at the sight of him, an outward display of the fizzing that had erupted in her veins.

She’d hoped with a hope bordering on desperation that he would spot her and seek her out, had prepared herself for the worst, but hoped for the best. She’d also promised herself that if he failed to materialise that evening then she would do everything in her power to forget about him. But if he were to appear...

To her disquiet, other than nodding at her without making proper eye contact, his attention was very much focused on the man who’d been harassing her who, despite trying to retain a nonchalant stance, had beads of sweat popping out on his forehead.

Francesco leaned into his face, his nostrils flaring. ‘If you touch this woman again, you will answer to me personally. Capisce?’

Not waiting for a response, he turned back into the crowd.

Hannah watched his retreating figure, her heart in her mouth.

Melanie shouted over the music to her, her face animated, yet Hannah didn’t hear a single syllable.

It was now or never.

Unlike the regularity of her life, where the only minor change to her schedule came in the form of the monthly weekend-night shift, Francesco’s life was full of movement and change, hopping from country to country, always seeing different sunsets. Her life was exactly where she had planned it to be and she didn’t want to change the fundamentals of it, but there was something so intoxicating about both Francesco and the freedom of his life. The freedom to wake up in the morning and just go.

He could go anywhere right now.

Hurrying to catch him, she followed in his wake, weaving through the sweaty bodies and then past the VIP tables.

‘Francesco,’ she called, panic fluttering in her chest as he placed his hand on the handle of the door marked Private.

He stilled.

She hurried to close the gap.

He turned his head, his features unreadable.

The music was so loud she had to incline right into him. He was close enough for her to see the individual hairs in the V of his shirt and smell his gorgeous scent, all oaky manliness, everything converging to send her pulse racing.

‘Why did you just do that?’ she asked.

His eyes narrowed, the pupils ringing with intent, before he turned the handle and held the door open for her.

Hannah stepped into a dimly lit passageway. Francesco closed the door, blocking off the thumping noise of the music.

She shook her head a little to try to clear her ringing ears.

He leaned back against the door, his eyes fixed on her.

‘Why did you do that?’ she repeated, filling the silence with a question she knew he’d heard perfectly well the first time she’d asked it.

‘What? Warn that man off?’

‘Threaten him,’ she corrected softly.

‘I don’t deal in threats, Dr Chapman,’ he said, his voice like ice. ‘Only promises.’

‘But why?’

‘Because he wouldn’t take no for an answer. I will not allow abuse of any form to take place on my premises.’

‘So you make a point of personally dealing with all unwanted attention in your clubs, do you?’

His eyes bored into hers, his lips a tight line.

Far from his forbidding expression making her turn and run away, as it would be likely to make any other sane person do, it emboldened her. ‘And did I really hear you say capisce?’

‘It’s a word that the man will understand.’

‘Very Danny DeVito. And, judging by his reaction to it, very effective.’

Something that could almost pass for amusement curled on his lips. ‘Danny DeVito? Do you mean Al Pacino?’

‘Probably.’ She tried to smile, tried hard to think of a witty remark that would hold his attention for just a little longer, but it was hard to think sensibly when you were caught in a gaze like hot chocolate-fudge cake, especially when it was attached to a man as divine as Francesco Calvetti. If she had to choose, she would say the man was a slightly higher rank on the yummy stakes than the cake. And she liked hot chocolate-fudge cake a lot, as her bottom would testify.

‘Thank you for rescuing me. Again.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He made to turn the door handle. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me...’

‘Dismissing me again?’

‘I’m a very...’

‘Busy man,’ she finished for him. God, but her heart was thundering beneath her ribs, her hands all clammy. ‘Please. I came along tonight because I wanted to see you again. Five minutes of your time. That’s all I ask. If at the end of it you tell me to leave then I will and I promise never to seek you out again.’

She held her breath as she awaited his response.

He eyed her coolly, his features not giving anything away, until, just as she feared she was about to run out of oxygen, he inclined his head and turned the handle of another door, also marked Private.

Hannah followed him into a large room that was perhaps the most orderly office she had ever been in. Along one wall were two dozen monitors, which she gravitated towards. It didn’t take long to spot her sister and fellow hens, all back at their table, talking animatedly.

It occurred to her that she had simply walked away without telling Melanie where she was going.

‘So, Dr Chapman, you wanted five minutes of my time...’

She turned her head to find Francesco staring pointedly at his chunky, expensive-looking watch.

He might look all forbidding but she could sense his curiosity.

How she regretted allowing Melanie to talk her into wearing the ‘hen uniform’, but it would have been churlish to refuse. She had denied her sister too much through the years. Dressing in a ridiculous outfit was the least she could do. Still, it made her self-conscious, and right then she needed every ounce of courage to say what she needed to say.

She swallowed but held his gaze, a look that was cold yet made her feel all warm inside. Seriously, how could a man with chocolate-fudge-cake eyes be all bad?

‘When I was knocked off my bike I thought I’d died,’ she said, clasping her hands together. God, but this was so much harder than she had imagined it would be and she had known it would be hard. ‘I honestly thought that was it for me. Since then, everything has changed—I’ve changed. My accident made me realise I’ve been letting life pass me by.’

‘How does this relate to me?’

Her heart hammered so hard her chest hurt. ‘Because I can’t stop thinking about you.’

His eyes narrowed with suspicion and he folded his arms across his chest.

Hannah’s nerves almost failed her. Her tongue rooted to the roof of her mouth.

‘What is it you want from me?’

Out of the corner of her eye she spotted the thank-you card she’d given him. Seeing it there, displayed on his desk, settled the nerves in her stomach.

Francesco had kept her card.

He’d sought her out and rescued her again.

She wasn’t imagining the connection between them.

She sucked her lips in and bit them before blurting out, ‘I want you to take my virginity.’

CHAPTER THREE

FRANCESCO SHOOK HIS HEAD. For the first time in his thirty-six years he was at a loss for words.

‘God, that came out all wrong.’ Hannah covered her face, clearly cringing. When she dropped her hands her face had paled but, to give her credit, she met his gaze with barely a flinch. ‘I didn’t mean it to come out quite so crudely. Please, say something.’

He shook his head again, trying to clear it. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

‘No.’

‘You’re a virgin?’

‘Yes.’

For a moment he seriously considered that he was in some kind of dream.

Had he fallen asleep at his desk?

Since the discovery of his mother’s diaries ten months ago, he’d been consumed with rage. This rage fuelled him. Indeed, for the past ten months, his drive had been working at full throttle. Only a month ago his doctor had told him to slow down, that he was at risk of burnout. Naturally, he’d ignored that advice. Francesco would not slow down until he had eradicated every last trace of Salvatore Calvetti’s empire.

And to think he’d almost missed those diaries. Had he not given the family home one last sweep before emptying it for sale, he would never have found them, hidden away in boxes in the cubbyhole of his mother’s dressing room. He hadn’t even intended to go into his mother’s rooms but the compulsion to feel close to her one last time had made him enter them for the first time in two decades.

Reading the diaries had been as close to torture as a man could experience. The respect he’d felt for his father, the respect that had made him a dutiful son while his father was alive, had died a brutal death.

His only regret was that he hadn’t learned the truth while his father was alive, would never have the pleasure of punishing him for every hour of misery he’d put his mother through. Duty would have gone to hell. He might just have helped his father into an early grave.

He hoped with every fibre of his being that his father was in hell. He deserved nothing less.

Because now he knew the truth. And he would not be satisfied until he’d destroyed everything Salvatore Calvetti had built, crushed his empire and his reputation. Left it for dust.

The truth consumed him. His hate fuelled him.

It was perfectly feasible he had fallen asleep.

Except he’d never had a dream that made his heart beat as if it would hammer through his ribcage.

He rubbed the back of his neck and stared at the woman who had made such a confounding offer.

She looked ridiculous in her hen outfit, with the pink tutu, black leotard and leggings, and black ballet slippers. At least the other hens had made an effort, adorning their outfits with the sky-high heels women usually wore in his clubs. It didn’t even look as if Hannah had brushed her hair, never mind put any make-up on. What woman went clubbing without wearing make-up?

Indeed, he could not remember the last time he’d met a woman who didn’t wear make-up, full stop.

And she still had those ridiculous bunny ears on her head.

Yet there was something incredibly alluring about Hannah’s fresh-faced looks. Something different.

He’d thought she was different. He’d resisted her offer of a date a few short days ago because of it; because he’d thought she was too different, that she didn’t belong in his world.

Could he really have judged her so wrong?

What kind of woman offered her so-called virginity to a stranger?

And what the hell had compelled him to warn her groper off and not send one of his men in to resolve the situation? If he’d followed his usual procedures he wouldn’t be standing here now on the receiving end of one of the most bizarre offers he’d ever heard.

It had been watching that man paw her—and her dignity when rebuffing his advances—that had made something inside him snap.

The rules were the same in all his establishments, his staff trained to spot customers overstepping the mark in the familiarity stakes. The usual procedure was for one of his doormen to have a polite ‘word’ with the perpetrator. That polite word was usually enough to get them behaving.

Francesco might have little respect for the type of women who usually littered his clubs but that did not mean he would tolerate them being abused in any form.

In the shadows of his memory rested his mother, a woman who had tolerated far too much abuse. And he, her son, had been oblivious to it.

A rush of blood to his head had seen him off his seat, out of his office and onto the dance floor before his brain had time to compute what his feet were doing.

‘I have no idea what you’re playing at,’ he said slowly, ‘but I will not be a party to such a ridiculous game. I have given you your five minutes. It’s time for you to leave.’

This had to be a game. Hannah Chapman had discovered his wealth and, like so many others of her gender, decided she would like to access it.

It unnerved him how disappointed he felt.

‘This isn’t a game.’ She took a visibly deep breath. ‘Please. Francesco, I am a twenty-seven-year-old woman who has never had sex. I haven’t even kissed a man. It’s become a noose around my neck. I don’t want to stay a virgin all my life. All I want is one night to know what it feels like to be a real woman and you’re the only man I can ask.’

‘But why me?’ he asked, incredulous.

Her beautiful hazel eyes held his. ‘Because I trust that you won’t hurt me.’

‘How can you trust such a thing? I am a stranger to you.’

‘The only men I meet are fellow doctors and patients. The patients are a big no-no, and the few single doctors I know...we work too closely together. You might be a stranger but I know you’ll treat me with respect. I know you would never laugh at me or make fun about me being a twenty-seven-year-old virgin behind my back.’

‘That’s an awful lot of supposition you’re making about me.’

‘Maybe.’ She raised her shoulders in a helpless gesture. ‘I thought I was dead. When I opened my eyes and saw your face I thought you’d come to take me to heaven. All I can think now is what if... What if I had died? I’ve done nothing with my life.’

‘Hardly,’ he said harshly. ‘You’re a doctor. That takes dedication.’

‘For me, it’s taken everything. I’m not naturally bright—I had to work hard to get my grades, to learn and to keep learning. In the process I’ve been so focused on my career that I’ve allowed my personal life to go to ruin.’ The same groove he remembered from the other evening reappeared on her forehead. ‘I don’t want to die a virgin.’

Francesco rubbed his neck.

It seemed she was serious.

Of course, she could be lying. Having discovered who he was, this could be a clever, convoluted game to access his life and wealth.

Yet her explanation made a mad kind of sense.

He remembered the expression of serenity that had crossed her face at the moment she’d opened her eyes and looked at him, remembered her words and the fuzzy feelings they had evoked in him.

Something had passed between them—something fleeting but tangible.

There was no way Hannah could have known who he was at that moment.

One thing he did know was that she had gained a false impression of him. If she knew who he really was, he would be the last man she would make such a shameless proposition to.

Regardless, he could hardly credit how tempted he was.

He was a red-blooded male. What man wouldn’t be tempted by such an offer?

But Hannah was a virgin, he reminded himself—despite the fact that he’d thought virgins over the age of eighteen were from the tales of mythology.

Surely this was every man’s basest fantasy? A virgin begging to be deflowered.

‘You have no idea who I am,’ he told her flatly.

‘Are you talking about the gangster thing?’

‘The gangster thing?’ His voice took on a hint of menace. How could she be so blasé about it? Was she so naive she didn’t understand his life wasn’t something watched from the safety of a television set, played by men who likely had manicures between takes?

Scrutinising her properly, her innocence was obvious. She had an air about her—the same air he saw every time he looked through his parents’ wedding album. His mother had had that air when she’d married his father, believing it to be a love match, blissfully oblivious to her husband’s true nature, and the true nature of his business affairs.

Hannah raised her shoulders again. ‘I’ve read all about you on the internet. I know what it says your family are.’

‘And do you believe everything you read on the internet?’

‘No.’ She shook her head to emphasise her point.

Deliberately, he stepped towards her and into her space. He brought his face down so it was level with hers. ‘You should believe it. Because it’s true. Every word. I am not a good person for you to know. I am the last person a woman like you should get involved with.’

She didn’t even flinch. ‘A woman like me? What does that mean?’

‘You’re a doctor. You do not belong in my world.’

‘I just want one night in your world, that’s all. One night. I don’t care what’s been written about you. I know you would never hurt me.’

‘You think?’ Where had she got this ludicrous faith in him from? He had to eradicate it, make her see enough of the truth to scare her all the way back to the safety of her hospital.

He straightened to his full height, an act capable of intimidating even the hardest of men. He breached the inches between them to reach into her thick mane of hair and tug the rabbit ears free. They were connected by some kind of plastic horseshoe that he dropped onto the floor and placed a foot on. He pressed down until he heard the telltale crunch.

She stared at him with that same serene look in her hazel eyes.

‘Tell me,’ he said, gently twisting her around so her back was flush against him, ‘how, exactly, do you want me to take your virginity?’

He heard an intake of breath.

Good. He’d unnerved her.

Gathering her hair together, he inhaled the sweet scent of her shampoo. Her hair felt surprisingly soft. ‘Do you want me to take you here and now?’

He trailed a finger down her exposed slender neck, over the same collarbone that had been broken less than two months before, and down her toned arm before reaching round to cup a breast flattened by the leotard she wore.

‘Or do you want me to take you on a bed?’ He traced his thumb over a nipple that shot out beneath his touch.

‘I...’ Her voice came out like a whimper. ‘I...’

‘You must have some idea of how you would like me to perform the deed,’ he murmured, breathing into her ear and nuzzling his nose into a cheek as soft as the finest silk. ‘Is foreplay a requirement? Or do you just want to get it over with?’

‘I...I know what you’re doing.’

‘All I’m doing is ascertaining how, exactly, you would like me to relieve you of your virginity. I can do it now if you would like.’ He pressed his groin into the small of her back so as to leave her in no doubt how ready he was. ‘Right here, over the desk? Up against the wall? On the floor?’

Much as he hated himself for it, his body was responding to her in the basest of fashions.

He would control it, just as he controlled everything else.

He would not give in to temptation.

He would make the good doctor see just how wrong she was about him.

Hannah Chapman was one of the few people in the world who made a difference.

He would not be the one to taint her, no matter how much he desired her or how much she wanted it.

He was better than that. He was better than the man who had created him, who would, no doubt, have already relieved Hannah of her virginity if he’d been in Francesco’s shoes.

He would not be that man. And if he had to come on heavy to make her run away, then that was what he would do. Reasoning clearly didn’t work with her.

‘You’re trying to scare me off.’

Francesco stilled at her astuteness.

Although her breaths were heavy, he could feel her defiance through the rigidity of her bones.

It was with far too much reluctance that he released his hold and turned her back round to face him.

Hannah’s hair tumbled back around her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes wide. Yet there was no fear. Apprehension, yes, but no fear.

‘You are playing with fire, Dr Chapman.’

She gave a wry smile. ‘I’m trained to treat burns.’

‘Not the kind you will get from me. You’ll have to find another man to do the job. I’m not for hire.’

His mind flashed to the man who’d been groping Hannah earlier—who, he imagined, would be more than happy to accede to her request. He banished the image. Who she chose was none of his concern.

All the same, the thought of that man pawing at her again sent a sharp, hot flush racing through him. She was too...pure.

A shrewdness came into her eyes, although how such a look could also be gentle totally beat him.

She tilted her head to the side. ‘Do I scare you?’

‘On the contrary. It is you who should be afraid of me.’

‘But I’m not scared of you. I don’t care about your reputation. I’m not after a relationship or anything like that—the only thing being with you makes me feel is good. After everything you’ve done for me, how can I not trust that?’

He shook his head.

This was madness.

He should call his guards and have her escorted out of his club. But he wouldn’t.

Francesco had heard stories about people who saved lives being bound to the person they’d saved, and vice versa. And while he hadn’t saved her in a technical sense, it was the only explanation he could think of for the strange chemistry that brewed between them. Total strangers yet inexplicably linked.

Something had passed between them, connecting them.

It was his duty to sever that link. His duty. Not his guards’.

He would make her see.

‘You think I’m worthy of your trust?’ Unthinkingly, he reached out a hand and captured a lock of her hair.

‘I know you are.’ Reclosing the gap between them, she tilted her head back a little and placed a hand on his cheek. ‘Don’t you see? A lesser man wouldn’t try to scare me off—he would have taken what I offered without a second thought.’

His skin tingled beneath the warmth of her fingers. He wanted to clasp those fingers, interlace his own through them....

‘I’m not cut out for any form of relationship—my career matters too much for me to compromise it—but I want to feel.’ She brought her face closer so her nose skimmed against his throat, her breath a whisper against his sensitised skin. ‘I want one night where I can throw caution to the wind. I want to know what it’s like to be made love to and I want it to be you because you’re the only man I’ve met who makes me feel alive without even touching me.’

Francesco could hardly breathe. His fingers still held the lock of her hair. The desire that had been swirling in his blood since he’d nuzzled into her neck thickened.

When had he ever felt as if he could explode from arousal?

This was madness.

‘If I believed you felt nothing physically for me, I would walk away now,’ she continued, her voice a murmur. ‘I certainly wouldn’t debase myself any further.’

‘How can you be so sure I feel anything for you physically?’

‘Just because I’m a virgin doesn’t mean I’m totally naive.’

In his effort to scare her away, he’d pressed his groin into her back, letting her feel his excitement through the layers of their clothing.

That particular effort had backfired.

Hannah had turned it round on him.

Well, no more.

Clasping the hand still resting against his cheek, he tugged it away and dropped it. He stepped back, glowering down at her. ‘You think you can spend one night with me and walk away unscathed? Because that isn’t going to happen. Sex isn’t a game, and I’m not a toy that can be played with.’

For the first time a hint of doubt stole over her face. ‘I never meant it like that,’ she said, her voice low. ‘It’s not just that I’m wildly attracted to you, it’s more than that. I can’t explain it, but when I look at you I see a life full of excitement, of travel, of so much more than I could ever hope to experience. All I want is to reach out and touch it, to experience some of it with you.’

‘You think you know me but you don’t. I’m not the man you think. My life is seedy and violent. You should want nothing to do with it.’

For long, long moments he eyeballed her, waiting for her to drop her eyes. But it didn’t happen—her gaze held his, steady and immovable.

‘Prove it.’ She gave a feeble shrug. ‘If you really think you’re so bad for me, then prove it.’

He almost groaned aloud. ‘It’s not a case of proving it. You need to understand—once your virginity’s gone you will never get it back. It’s lost for ever, and who knows what else you might lose with it.’

She swallowed but remained steady. ‘There’s nothing else for me to lose. I’m not after a love affair. Francesco, all I want is one night.’

It was hearing his name—and the meaning she put into it—on her lips that threw him.

It made him want to find a dragon to slay just to protect her. Yet he knew that the only thing Hannah needed protecting from was herself.

He reminded himself that he did not need this aggravation. His mind should be focused on the Mayfair deal—the deal that would be the crowning glory in his empire. Hannah had compromised his concentration enough these past few days.

Maybe if he gave her some of what she wanted his mind could regain its focus without her there, knocking on his thoughts.

‘You want proof of who I really am?’ he said roughly. ‘Then that’s what you shall have. I will give you a sample of my life for one weekend.’

Her eyes sparkled.

‘This weekend,’ he continued. ‘You can share a taste of my life and see for yourself why you should keep the hell away from me. By the end of our time together I guarantee you will never want to see my face again, much less waste your virginity on a man like me.’

CHAPTER FOUR

HANNAH HAD BEEN twitching her curtains for a good half hour before Francesco pulled up outside her house on an enormous motorbike, the engine making enough racket to wake the whole street.

It didn’t surprise her in the least that he waited for her to come out to him. Once Francesco had agreed to a weekend together, he had wasted no time in dismissing her by saying, ‘I will collect you at 7:00 a.m. Have your passport ready.’

He was taking her to Sicily. To his home.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this excited about something. Or as nervous.

Her very essence tingling with anticipation, she stepped out into the early-morning sun, noticing that at least he had taken his helmet off to greet her.

‘Good morning,’ she said, beaming both at him and, with admiration, at the bike. There was something so...manly about the way he straddled it, which, coupled with the cut of his tight leather trousers, sent a shock of warmth right through her. ‘Are we traveling to Sicily on this?’

He eyed her coldly. ‘Only to the airbase. That’s if you still want to come?’ From the tone of his voice, there was no doubting that he hoped she’d changed her mind.

If she was honest, since leaving his office six short hours ago, she’d repeatedly asked herself if she was doing the right thing.

But she hadn’t allowed herself to even consider backing down. Because all she knew for certain was that if she didn’t grab this opportunity with both hands she would regret it for the rest of her life, regardless of the outcome.

‘I still want to come,’ she said, almost laughing to see his lips tighten in disapproval. Couldn’t he see, the more he tried to scare her off, the more she knew she was on the right path, that it proved his integrity?

Francesco desired her.

The feel of his hardness pressed against her had been the most incredible, intoxicating feeling imaginable. She had never dreamed her body capable of such a reaction, had imagined the thickening of the blood and the low pulsations deep inside were from the realms of fiction. It had only served to increase her desire, to confirm she was following the right path.

She’d been his for the taking in his office but he had stepped back, unwilling to take advantage. Again.

Francesco was doing everything in his power to put her off, but she doubted there was anything to be revealed about him that would do that. What, she wondered, had made him so certain he was all bad? Was it because of his blood lineage? Whatever it was, she knew there was good in him—even though he clearly didn’t believe it himself.

Face thunderous, he reached into the side case and pulled out some leathers and a black helmet. ‘Put these on.’

She took them from him. ‘Do you want to come in while I change? Your bike will be perfectly safe—all the local hoodlums are tucked up in bed.’

‘I will wait here.’

‘I have coffee.’

‘I will wait.’

‘Suit yourself.’

‘You have five minutes.’

In her bedroom, Hannah wrestled herself into the tight leather trousers, and then donned the matching jacket, staggering slightly under the weight of it.

When she caught sight of her reflection in the full-length mirror she paused. Whoever said leathers were sexy was sorely mistaken—although she’d admit to feeling very Sandra Dee in the trousers.

Sandra Dee had been a virgin, too.

Hannah was a virgin in all senses of the word.

But, she reminded herself, with Francesco’s help she was going to change that. Just for this one weekend. That was all she wanted. Some memories to share with Beth.

She took a deep breath and studied her reflection one last time. Her stomach felt knotted, but she couldn’t tell if excitement or trepidation prevailed.

She checked the back door was locked one last time before grabbing her small case and heading back out to him.

‘That will not fit,’ Francesco said when he saw her case.

‘You’re the one whisking me away for a romantic overnight stay on a motorbike,’ she pointed out. ‘What do you suggest I do?’

‘Let me make this clear, I am not whisking you away anywhere.’

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