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“Which sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.”
“It’s a recipe for something,” he muttered under his breath, and with a flick of his eyes, he glanced at her lips and her whole body reacted as if struck by lightning. She felt as if her feet were smoking. It was just a look. A fleeting glance! Yet there she stood, in virtual flames.
Was he right? Was this kind of animosity a recipe for something other than enmity?
“Whatever,” she replied, but her voice trembled a little. “You just…you need to stay out of my life, and I’ll stay out of yours.”
“Is that what you want?” He asked and damn it if he didn’t lift his hand and place it on the wall to her side, like some kind of power move, trapping her where she was in a way she knew she should hate. But really, really didn’t. Up close, he was just so hyper-masculine. So incredibly…attractive.
“I want?—,”
He reached for her chin, pressing a finger there, tilting her face up. His eyes on her lips now were more than a mechanism for heat; they were a prelude. A promise. She held her breath, the world tilting sideways.
She wanted him to kiss her. No way was she going to admit that to him. No way could she ever let him know. But to herself, she was honest. It scared the heck out of her just how much she wanted to feel his lips on hers.
How much she craved that physical connection.
How long had it been since she’d been touched by a man? Kissed? Looked at in this way?
Desire flooded her body, but she knew better than to trust it. She knew better than to trust any of her instincts when it came to men. The breakup with Brock might have happened years ago, but the mistakes she’d made back then were burned into her brain. So was what he’d done to her afterward—the pain of that betrayal was something that had changed her for life. She had never known what men were capable of until then.
“I want you to get out of our life,” she muttered. “I wish I’d never heard the name Rocco Santoro.”
“But you have,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “And I’m guessing you won’t be forgetting it anytime soon.”
CHAPTER THREE
ROCCO READ THE EMAIL once more before reaching for his phone and lifting it to his ear. “Dante,” he spoke as soon as his cousin picked up. “You won’t believe it.”
Ensconced in his villa on the edge of Lake Como with his new wife, Dante’s voice had a relaxed quality that had been absent a long time. A widower far too young, for a long time, they had all thought they’d lost Dante to a tidal flow of grief. Yet here he was, returning to himself, and it was all courtesy of the Australian Georgia. “Something wrong?”
“Quite the opposite.”
“He’s agreed to sell?”
And just like that, Rocco was plunged back in time, to twelve hours ago, when Maddison Young had had her back to his wall, her huge amber eyes staring up at him, imploring him to kiss her. Willing him to bring his mouth to hers and claim it with all the fire and heat that coursed through his veins.
And God, he’d wanted to. He’d wanted to kiss her hard and fast, pushing her head back against the wall and angling his thigh between her legs until she was crying out with need. He’d wanted to make her forget all about the damned house and how angry she was with him. Or maybe he’d wanted to seduce her until she’d agree to anything he wanted—including selling the place to him.
“Rocco?”
“No. I anticipate more of a battle there.”
“He really is a stubborn old thing, isn’t he?”
“It’s not Jack Young.” Rocco shook his head. “His granddaughter is dead set against the sale.”
“So? It’s not her home.”
“That’s not how she sees it.”
“But how does the law see it?”
“It’s her grandfather. He’s not going to sell when she feels like this.”
“You’ve offered enough money, right?”
“And explained that if he doesn’t sell, he’s going to be surrounded by construction noise for two years and then a whole block of shops and apartments will wrap around their house.”
