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  ‘Goodnight,’ she muttered hurriedly and fled.

  Ten minutes later, her teeth brushed and her face bare of cosmetics, she switched out the light and leapt into her comfortable bed with an appreciative sigh. But her adrenalin was still on too high a charge to allow her to relax into sleep and her restless thoughts strayed back to the past and her initial meetings with Roel.

  She had fallen in love with a guy who never even took her out on a date. About once a month he had returned to the salon where she worked. In the aftermath of his first visit, for his limo and the size of that tip had been noticed, the most senior stylist had insisted on taking Hilary’s place. To Hilary’s surprise and delight, Roel himself had objected to the change of personnel and had asked specifically for her.

  ‘Did you remember my name?’ Hilary questioned.

  ‘I described you.’

  ‘How?’ she prompted with unhidden eagerness.

  ‘Do you always talk this much?’

  ‘If you tell me how you described me, I’ll shut up,’ she promised.

  ‘Very small, purple lips, workman’s boots.’

  She was less than thrilled by that portrayal but after five minutes she forgot her promise to give him peace and soon became engaged in finding out what age he was and whether or not he was single. In the appointments that followed, it would have been an untruth to say that he chatted to her but he didn’t object to her chatting to him. She tried to get to know him by letting him get to know her. She asked him what he did for a living.

  ‘I work in a bank.’ A long time afterwards, she quite accidentally noticed the Sabatino name heading an article in the business section of a Sunday newspaper. That article revealed that, far from merely working in a bank, Roel pretty much owned a bank.

  The day she heard him lamenting his grandfather’s will and the potential loss of the family home he so clearly loved, she leapt into his dialogue on pure impulse and offered to become his ‘fake’ wife. Breaking off from his phone call, he surveyed her in disbelief.

  ‘Well, why not?’ she continued, face burning at her own nerve in making such a suggestion, but even so she was desperate to grab at the chance to do something for him. Something, anything, that would make him more liable to take notice of her and maybe even like her.

  ‘I can think of a thousand reasons why not,’ Roel fielded in an icy putdown.

  ‘Probably because you’re a very cautious guy and you complicate things,’ she pointed out gently. ‘But you have a simple problem. You need a fake wife so that you can hang onto your home and I would help out—’

  ‘I refuse to discuss this with you. You eavesdropped on a personal conversation.’

  ‘Maybe you should ask one of your friends to help you out and stop being so proud,’ Hilary advised in addition.

  ‘Where did you learn to speak Italian like a hill-billy?’

  ‘Like a what? What’s wrong with my Italian?’ she flamed back at him, distracted as he had no doubt intended by the insult.

  Roel started to laugh. ‘You use archaic words and expressions—’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Hilary seethed, ‘you’re incredibly rude!’

  ‘You interrupted a confidential dialogue and slung an outrageous proposition at me. What did you expect?’

  ‘I was offering to help you—’

  ‘Why? We’re strangers,’ Roel derided.

  Cut to the bone, she just jerked her chin down in a nod and shrugged her stiff shoulders. ‘Sorry I spoke—’

  ‘Sulking is not attractive.’

  Hilary perked up at amazing speed. ‘What do you find attractive about me?’ she pressed hopefully, less than subtle at the age of nineteen years.

  ‘Nothing,’ Roel imparted drily.

  ‘Come on…you don’t mean it…there’s got to be something reasonable about some part of me,’ she cajoled.

  Watching him in the mirror, she saw him smile. That rare, wildly charismatic smile that made her palms damp and her tummy flip. But he still refused to be drawn. Three weeks later, he phoned her at work and asked her to meet him for lunch at a hotel.

  ‘Business,’ he specified lest she get the wrong idea.

  ‘I’m not fussy,’ she admitted cheerfully. ‘Don’t be surprised if I dress up.’

  While Roel spelt out the terms of the marriage of convenience that she herself had originally suggested might meet his requirements, he was terrifyingly businesslike. He killed her appetite and she ate nothing. He said he would have to compensate her for doing him a favour. She said no, she didn’t want to be paid and she meant it. Then he mentioned a sum of money that bereft her of breath.

  ‘Think it over and we’ll discuss it next time I see you—’

  ‘Look, if I had wanted money, I wouldn’t have offered to do this. It wouldn’t be right to take money for going through a marriage ceremony. I mean, all you want to do is hang onto the home that’s been in your family for generations and there’s no way you should have to pay me or anyone else to do that!’

  Roel dealt her a cool, measuring scrutiny. ‘I have no wish to become too personal but you live on the poverty line and you have little hope of improving your own prospects—’

  ‘That’s a matter of opinion—’

  ‘A financial injection would give you choices you’ve never had before. You could go back to school—’

  Hilary gave him an aghast look. ‘No, thanks. It was bad enough the first time round. I didn’t just end up doing what I do, you know…I always wanted to be a hairdresser and I love it!’

  ‘You should continue your education,’ Roel completed as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘Expand your horizons. You should be more ambitious.’

  ‘Would you go out with me if I went to college?’ Hilary asked in sudden hope. ‘I suppose you wouldn’t want to wait that long.’

  ‘Don’t be flippant. I was merely trying to offer you some advice.’

  ‘And tempt me with your money.’

  And he had tempted her successfully because in the days that followed she worked out that she could turn her life and her sister’s life around with just a fraction of the vast sum of cash he had mentioned. If she found them a flat in a nicer area, she would be able to separate her sibling from the bunch of troublemakers that the younger girl was hanging around with. If she opened up a small hair salon of her own, she would be able to choose her own working hours and spend more time at home with Emma. In the end she agreed to accept a tithe of the amount he had wanted to give her. She was seduced by the idea of what she could do with that money and only after she accepted Roel’s cheque did she realise how much of his respect she had lost.

  As she suppressed a sigh for a past that could not be altered Hilary’s mind roved back to the present. She was rudely sprung from her drowsiness by the sound of a door opening. A second later, lights illuminated the room. Startled and blinking furiously, she focused on Roel and tried to persuade her brain back into activity.

  Before she could achieve that goal, however, an imperious hand closed over the edge of the bedding and flung it back from her prone body. She let out a yelp of mingled astonishment and mortification. He bent down and scooped her up like a parcel he had come to retrieve.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she squealed.

  ‘From now on, we share the same bed, cara,’ Roel delivered, striding back into his own room with both arms firmly wrapped round her.

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Hilary mumbled.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ROEL settled Hilary down on his bed.

  Feverish heat lit her cheeks. The short blue nightdress she wore had not been chosen for modesty. In the privacy of her own bedroom, Hilary loved to wear highly feminine lingerie that made her feel glamorous but she had never had an audience before. Thrusting herself up into sitting position, she yanked in desperation at the sheet, keen to cover her bare legs.

  He unbuttoned his shirt and embarked on removing his shoes. She stopped breathing. She told herself to look away b
ut she knew she wouldn’t. She was twenty-three years old and she had never seen a man undress. She had never even been alone in a bedroom with a man. Why? She was still a virgin. In many ways she thought that she was still a virgin because she had met Roel first and learnt to want what she could not have.

  At nineteen she had discovered that physical desire could cut like a knife through every thought and all pride. Roel might not have reacted to her in the same way but she had never forgotten the sheer exhilarating strength of her response to him. Every guy who came into her life after him had been measured up against the same yardstick. She had wanted to feel again what she had felt for Roel and it had made her picky.

  ‘I’m going for a shower, bella mia…’

  Face hot, she dredged her attention from the vibrant slice of muscular brown chest showing between the parted edges of his shirt. ‘I’m not beautiful…don’t call me that,’ she muttered.

  Roel came down on the bed on one knee. Laughing dark golden eyes assailed hers. ‘If I tell you that you’re beautiful, I mean it—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You have a heavenly shape—’

  ‘I’m not very tall—’

  ‘But what there is of you is of exceptional quality. I keep on getting an irresistible urge to snatch you off your feet and flatten you to the nearest bed…so here you are.’

  Roel vaulted off the bed and unzipped his well-cut trousers.

  ‘You’re supposed to be resting…’ Hilary fought a valiant battle with her conscience and averted her eyes in chagrin at her own longing to spy on his every move. ‘I should be in my own room.’

  ‘Go to sleep and stop fussing.’ Roel laughed.

  He was laughing, smiling. He seemed happy in a way that was unfamiliar to her. She turned over and told herself that there was no harm in sharing the same bed. It was a gigantic bed. It would be silly of her to make a fuss about such a small thing. But suppose he rolled over in the middle of the night and…and became amorous. Yes, just suppose. Would she be able to resist him? She knew she wouldn’t want to. Tears of self-loathing stung her eyes and she blinked them back furiously.

  On the other hand, another inner voice reasoned, he would soon get his memory back and if something physical had happened between them before that point, how would he feel about it? He was a sophisticated single guy and sex was unlikely to be something he regarded in a serious way. If she acted casual, he would think it had not meant anything more to her. Hilary pressed cool fingers of restraint hard to her hot cheeks and strove to kill her own seditious thoughts stone-dead. She was mortified to appreciate that she was trying to talk herself into the conviction that it would be all right to let Roel do whatever he wanted to do with her.

  ‘Still awake, cara?’

  At the sound of his deep, dark drawl Hilary pulled her head out from under the pillow and peered at him over the top of the sheet.

  Only a towel knotted round his sleek brown midriff, crystalline drops of water still glittering in the cluster of dark curling hair hazing his powerful pectoral muscles, Roel studied her with slumberous cool. Slowly she nodded. He sank down on her side of the bed and her heart started thumping so hard she thought she might be about to suffer a panic attack. He eased back the sheet degree by degree while she held her breath.

  ‘I want to see you,’ he told her almost roughly.

  Her mouth tingled at the mere thought of his on hers.

  ‘I want to see all of you…’ he completed huskily.

  She was going to say no, she really was just a whisper’s breadth from mustering all her defences and saying no to herself and then disaster occurred: she met smouldering dark golden eyes and her conscience drowned there. ‘Roel…’

  ‘I like the way you say my name.’ He leant down and tasted her pink mouth with devastating expertise. His tongue pried apart her lips. He delved deep and sure in an exploratory foray. As she made a low sound of driven response her hands flew up to sink into his luxuriant hair and hold him close.

  ‘You have the most incredible mouth,’ he growled, hauling her up into his arms and across his spread thighs.

  Dazed grey eyes roved up to his darkly handsome features. ‘We can’t do this…’ she warned him shakily. ‘We just can’t.’

  ‘Watch me…’ Roel invited thickly, deft fingers releasing the tiny provocative pearl buttons on the bodice of her nightdress.

  He thrust back the fabric to expose her full breasts. ‘Santo cielo…you’re gorgeous…’

  She was blushing fierily. He toyed with the straining raspberry pink crests that crowned the ripe mounds. Her heart was racing so fast it felt as if it were in her throat. All at one and the same time she was shy and embarrassed and thrilled by his touch. With a groan of appreciation he lowered his proud dark head and captured a taut nipple with his mouth, teasing the tender bud with his teeth and his tongue.

  ‘Oh…’ Sensual shock engulfed her unprepared body. As a delicious sensation of pleasure-pain darted from the sensitive tip of her breast to the secret place between her thighs she jerked and dragged in an audible breath. Her neck extended and her head stretched back over his arm in surrender.

  ‘Ever since I laid eyes on you at the clinic I’ve been thinking about spreading you across my bed. Instant lust,’ Roel confided, spectacular golden eyes raking over her with raw masculine heat. ‘Was it like that the first time I saw you?’

  ‘You never said,’ she muttered, pushing her face into his shoulder and hiding it there.

  ‘So I don’t share my every waking thought with you?’

  ‘No…’

  He pushed her back onto the pillows so that he could study her and he kissed her again long and hard. The kernel of heat in the pit of her tummy swelled and made her hips shift restively against the mattress.

  ‘You’re hot for me, bella mia,’ Roel pronounced with satisfaction.

  There was no denying that. Her body felt tight and tense and terrifyingly sensitive on the outside. She had never felt more aware of it. She had never, ever felt anything as strongly as the sensations he was introducing her to and that very intensity was the most complete seduction. She couldn’t think, she could only feel. Burning with a dulled frustrating ache, she reached up to him with a need she could not control.

  ‘Don’t be in such a hurry,’ he teased in a sexy undertone and he skimmed sure hands down over her hips to remove her nightdress. Hungry golden eyes scanned her ripe curves and centred on the tangle of silvery blonde curls at the apex of her thighs.

  ‘Roel…’ Hilary gasped for she was too conscious of her own imperfections to withstand that audacious appraisal, and with a stifled moan of embarrassment she rolled over and dragged the sheet over herself.

  Vaulting upright, he shed the damp towel and her eyes flew wide and her mouth ran dry for he was boldly aroused. He also had the lithe sun-darkened magnificence and sleek muscular power of a born athlete. Unconcerned by his nudity, he padded back to the bed to join her. Anticipation gripped her like a shower of sparks lighting her up from within but she still couldn’t meet his smouldering gaze.

  ‘I want you,’ he growled, repossessing her swollen mouth with the driving demand of his own. The erotic invasion of his tongue left her weak, submissive to the storm of his hot sexuality. ‘But I also want to torment you with pleasure…’

  She rejoiced in the weight of his hard naked body against her, linked her arms round his neck when he crushed her softer curves beneath his powerful torso. She couldn’t get enough of his devastating mouth. Every kiss was in itself even more than she had once dreamt of and she was lost in a dark world of sensuality that was utterly new to her. She breathed in short little gasps. The expert attention he paid to her tender-tipped breasts was almost more stimulating than she could bear for she twisted and turned, little cries breaking low in her throat.

  ‘I like watching you,’ Roel confided.

  The tight sensation of aching fullness between her thighs made her squirm. He touched her where she had never
been touched before. He discovered the moist secret heart of her, traced the swollen entrance, forcing a pleading moan from her parted lips. She was on fire for him and writhing, enslaved by the fierce hunger he had unleashed in her.

  ‘Roel…please,’ she sobbed.

  He drove her wild. In the grip of that fevered seduction, she was helpless and out of control. Waves of throbbing heat were washing over her. He tipped her back and plunged into her slick, damp core.

  ‘You’re so tight, cara mia,’ he groaned with ragged pleasure while she was still in shock from that unfamiliar invasion.

  He thrust again, overcoming her resisting flesh and driving home to the very centre of her. She cried out in pain, startled tears pooling in her eyes.

  Stilling, Roel stared down at her with incredulous force. ‘You were still a virgin…or am I imagining things?’

  Already her body was adjusting to the bold incursion of his and the sharp edge of pain had faded. Emotions and responses running at storm-force strength, she stretched up to give him a forgiving kiss. That Roel should be her first lover was what she had always dreamt of and she had no room for regret. ‘I didn’t know I could feel like this…don’t stop—’

  ‘My wife…a twenty-two-carat virgin,’ Roel commented again, rich dark accented drawl not quite level.

  Hilary wrapped her arms round him and angled up to him in frantic invitation. ‘Please…’

  As she made that instinctive movement of encouragement he succumbed and sank into her again. The racing excitement that had momentarily gone into abeyance claimed her afresh. With every fluid shift of his powerful body he mastered her and she surrendered to his primal rhythm with helpless abandon. The excitement built and built until she could have screamed with frustration and only then did he send her spiralling out of control into a convulsive climax of explosive pleasure. Bereft of all breath and voice in the aftermath of that revelation, she fell back against the pillows and lay shell-shocked for long moments afterwards.

  Roel had made love to her and it had transcended her every naive expectation. However, not only was she already becoming guiltily, uneasily aware that she should not have succumbed to temptation, it was also dawning on her that in becoming intimate with Roel she had trapped herself into a tight corner. She had been too inexperienced to appreciate that Roel might realise that he was the very first lover she had ever had. She was supposed to be a married woman, not a virgin.