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Had he heard our conversation? Why did the thought mortify me even more? Even though I knew he couldn’t have understood what we were saying.

I trembled, aware of all the people watching us, suddenly feeling hideously exposed again, and vulnerable. Was he going to reprimand me in front of them? Spank me again like a disobedient child.

The muscle in his jaw tensed, but then his gaze darkened and I felt the answering spike in my heart rate, and the aching emptiness returned in the swollen spot between my thighs.

‘Ora sei la mia donna,’ he said, staking his claim on me again.

I swallowed heavily, my pulse going haywire, but I couldn’t seem to contradict him again, even inside my own head.

He gripped my hand and, after speaking to one of his men, he strode across the terrace towards the doors leading inside, hauling me with him.

As we walked back onto the internal balcony the music from the ballroom below became deafening again. But then we entered an antechamber, full of men wearing designer suits, laughing and joking as one of them brandished a gun in front of the others. Another one shouted out a greeting, addressing Dante as Capo, but he barely acknowledged it as he marched past them.

The power that clung to him, the arrogance and charisma that made him stand out as the boss of these people, was like an integral part of his personality, I realised.

While on one level that still terrified me—because I knew I was totally at his mercy here—when we left the antechamber and headed down a long hallway, alone, I found myself rushing to keep up with his long strides.

We reached the end of the corridor, where two guards swung open the doors to a lavish suite. Expensive antique furniture was limned by lamplight, the night outside and another large terrace visible through glass doors.

Choppy waves sparkled in the distance, the island’s mountainous terrain as stark and forbidding as the man beside me.

He released my hand. I stepped out of the heels, which had begun to hurt, and squeezed my toes into the silk carpeting, all my erogenous zones throbbing in time with my thundering heartbeat.

Was he going to take me at last? Finally make me his woman, as he had declared to his men?

And me? Did I want to stop him? Even though everything about this situation felt outside my control.

He stared at me for what felt like an eternity, then grunted and, grasping my shoulder to spin me around, unzipped the dress. My pulse ramped up to warp speed, anticipation and arousal drowning out all the reasons why I shouldn’t want this to happen.

But then he gave my bottom another cursory slap, propelling me towards the bedroom next door.

‘Ouch,’ I said as I rubbed my abused flesh.

‘Dormi, Eva,’ he ordered in that dictatorial tone which seemed calculated to aggravate me even more. Then strode back out of the room.

‘I wish you’d stop doing that…’ I managed, but he didn’t turn around or even acknowledge my show of defiance. The door slammed shut and the lock clicked.

Disappointment joined the stinging in my bum.

I had been dismissed, discarded.

Having been confused and scared and aroused and frankly on edge the whole day, his sudden departure felt like a massive letdown.

I could hear music vibrating the floorboards from the party he obviously planned to rejoin.

I hated the way he ordered me around like a child or, worse, a possession. But what I hated even more was the swift kick of jealousy—at the conviction he was probably going back to the party to hook up with the former lover I’d spoken to, or one of the other women who had looked at me so enviously.

Why on earth should I care who he slept with, when he was the cause of all my problems? The bastard.

I found a collection of transparent negligées in the bedroom’s antique wardrobes but ignored them to drag on one of Dante’s oversized T-shirts. And then got even more annoyed with myself, because I had been stupidly relieved to discover this was his bedroom.

I climbed into the enormous king-size four-poster bed set up on a platform in the centre of the bedroom. But I couldn’t seem to drift off to sleep. My mind kept whirling, the panic and confusion about my situation increasing as I replayed every one of Dante’s expressions, his actions, since the moment he’d grabbed me on Isla Donna. Not to mention my own ridiculous reactions.

I slipped in and out of sleep for hours, unable to settle, the throbbing ache between my thighs as humiliating as it was insistent, until a muscular arm banded around my waist in the darkness, to drag me against a solid chest. I inhaled the tantalising scent of musk and sandalwood.

Dante.

‘Dormi,’ a tired voice demanded again against my hair.