"Stop calling me that," she hissed.
"Dante." His mother's voice cut through the tension between them with a swift slice.
He tore his gaze away from his infuriating nemesis to the sharp, assessing scrutiny of his mother. With a difficulty that astounded him, he managed to plaster the bland look on his face he rarely, if ever, dropped. "Si, Mamma?"
"It is time for the speeches."
Thankfully, his erection had subsided, replaced by a pure anger he'd forgotten how to feel. He stood. Immediately, the crowd fell silent.
He was the respected Dante Casartelli. No one pitied him. No one insulted him. No one held him in contempt.
Except for her.
He'd given her patience. For years. He'd given her his heart. For years. He'd given her an explanation for what he'd done years ago, but all he got from Lara Derrick was abuse.
Dante began his speech. The words came easily and smoothly. He never experienced the nerves anymore, nerves that had nearly driven him mad when he first started speaking in front of hundreds of people. Not anymore. He never felt much of anything anymore except duty.
But the moment she had stepped into his life again, he'd felt everything.
Lust and longing and love.
Fury and frustration and fear.
His brain whirred as he kept on speaking.
He didn't want this. All this emotion. No, his original goal had been something quite different. He and Lara would marry. They would have children. It would be as it was meant to be.
Life would be...satisfying.
Not filled with chaotic emotion he couldn't control.
He finished his speech and sat down. His family clapped and smiled at him. He'd done well, he'd done his duty as everyone expected. Something ugly inside him moved, threatening to upset his stomach.
"Very good, Dante." Lara's sugared tone held only contempt. "You could have been giving a speech to your stockholders about their latest dividend check."
"What do you mean by that?" His gut bubbled with nerves and anger and resentment.
Her golden eyes were filled with-with that damned pity again. "What I mean is your youngest sister just got married and you couldn't care less. This event is as important to you as another corporate takeover or some meaningless business meeting."
"Lara." She had to stop, had to stop before he did something-
"But it's nothing to do with me, is it?"
Then she shrugged.
Shrugged.
Chapter 7
She'd run.
Her pride stung at the thought. However, truth was truth.
She'd run away from him.
Dusk snuck around the trees and bushes as she strode down one of the many garden paths. Away from the dancing, laughing wedding crowd. Away from the lights and conversation. Away from him.
The dance had done it.
She'd managed to hold it together through the dinner. She smiled and deflected his family's comments about her and Dante. She managed to mostly ignore the man seated beside her through the long torture of a five-course meal. When the dancing had started, she laughed and clapped as the bride and groom circled the floor. She chatted with Dani and her husband as the crowd joined the married couple and the music's volume rose. She ignored the man still sitting beside her.
Until he stood up and offered his hand. Looked at her as if waiting for her rejection.
She should have used her good sense and declined. In fact, she tried, but before she could get the words out, he'd tugged her off the chair and into his arms.
Treacherous territory.
She should have pulled herself out of his grasp and slapped his face, made a scene even though it was the last thing she wanted to do in front of his family and at Carlotta's wedding. Yet before she could start the attack, he'd pressed her into his heat and she'd noted his desire.
And promptly lost all thought.
Which showed, he'd been right.
When he touched, she lost.
Lost her good sense, her determined decisions, her mind. The look in his eyes told her he knew it. Knew what burned between her legs and fired her blood and torched any need to leave his arms.
He'd held her tight, his arm taut against her back, his broad hand curled around hers in a firm grasp. The heat of him had encircled her, a fire of male intention. His smell, as she found herself leaning in, the musky man smell of him filled her nostrils and she'd been very, very close to snuggling into him and nuzzling his strong neck.
He'd made a sound in his throat then.
Not quite a growl or a moan or a groan. The sound had been more animalistic, more primitive than anything she'd ever heard. It had sent a shiver of feminine need down her spine.
She'd been lost. Utterly lost.
She'd glanced up instinctively. Met his stare. Black and hot and burning with lust.
And anger.
She'd sucked in her breath and stilled in his arms. Anger? When she'd been falling, falling, falling into...him? "What-"
"Do I feel like a robot now, bella?" he'd snarled. "Do you feel anything cold-blooded about me now?"
What she said before, at dinner, had penetrated his thick hide. Evidently, it had done more than penetrate. Her accusation had sliced right into his pride, carved a gaping gouge into his ego.
Then, she'd seen something flash in his eyes. Had her words actually hurt him?
"Dante," she'd whispered.
He twitched in her arms as if he'd hit an electrical current. His lashes fell, masking his eyes. When he looked up, a mere moment later, everything, every emotion, was wiped clean from his expression. She swore she sensed his body temperature cool several degrees in seconds. She immediately doubted she'd ever seen anything in those blank, black eyes other than blank, bland distance.
"Dante." No longer a whisper, her voice had turned hoarse.
"I want you." His mouth, the upper lip thin, the lower lip lush, had twisted. "But I'm not willing to turn myself into a crazy man in order to get you."
I want you.
His words rang in her heart exactly as they had when he'd said them in the pool days ago. Her feminine core rejoiced and she'd trembled in his arms with her unwanted need.
Then his other words hit her.
Crazy man? What did he mean by that? She'd jerked her gaze up to meet his once more.
Black eyes stared at her. Intent resolve flashed in them, golden highlights mixed within the darkness. "We're going to do this my way."
Her trembling turned from need to anger in a mere second.
"We're going to do this in a civilized manner." His hand tightened on her hip, a signal of dominance. His voice was pitched low and it was hard. Tight.
She tried to find some words in her scrambled brain, but the heat of his body combined with the coldness of his statement struck her dumb.
"My aim is to give you some time, court you as you deserve." He turned them in the dance so her blurry eyes stared out at the swarm of his family, all smiling as they watched her with their cherished son and brother. "And you will eventually tell me what happened to you in your marriage."
"No." The word pushed out, instinctive and automatic. The one word was no to everything he stated, yet more than anything, it was a no to the last command.
He laughed, a dry, raspy sound. "I'm not even going to respond. I've figured out that's what you do when you want to rile me. I refuse to let you do that to me anymore." He'd looked down at her and scared her with his next words. Scared her with his goal."You are mine."
The determination in his stare told the story. He meant to hunt her down and have her.
She'd yanked out of his arms and fled.
Like a rabbit or a fawn or prey.
Lara sucked in a deep breath of sea-salted air. She was nothing of the kind. Not anymore. She was no longer a cowering, stupid girl who served only as a pawn for a rigid, disapproving husband. She'd had eighteen months to recover after Gerry's death, recover her pride and her intelligence. Recover the person who'd disappeared layer by layer in England.
The last thing she needed was to be the focus of another controlling man.
What was she going to do?
Perhaps she would find the answer in the place she was instinctively going to now. The part of this garden that had always soothed her as a child. She intentionally hadn't visited since returning to Italy because it was the place where he'd rejected her and changed her life.
Yet, she needed to be there.
Her pace slowed and her steps brought her deeper into the wilder part of Giana Casartelli's prized gardens. The formal walks and finely cut hedges gave way to ivy-covered stone walls and beds of honeysuckle and wild rose.
She'd stayed away purposefully, sure the place would no longer hold magic, only pain for her. But she needed a moment to settle and breathe. She needed a magic moment to figure out what she had to say to Dante to make him understand it was useless to keep trying to win her. Somehow she had to find a way to show him that with this one goal, no matter what strategy he had, he would never win.