so light I didn’t realise the time. Tony has just gone to change the music. You go and enjoy yourself, and I’ll pack up here.’
For Beth it already felt like the longest night of her life, and she leapt at the chance to escape. People were moving to replenish their drinks, and her route was almost clear to her back door.
She was nearly there when the music started again—this time slow and moody—and suddenly her way was blocked as Cannavaro stepped in front of her, crowding her. She wanted to step back, but her pride would not let her.
‘May I have this dance? Tony is partnering Ellen, and it will give us a chance to get to know each other. We might all be family one day.’
Beth tensed and looked up at him—which was an unusual event in itself for her. She noticed that his eyes were not black. They were the colour of molasses—dark and golden. She found herself thinking that once she fell into them she would be stuck for ever. Disturbed by the fanciful thought, she caught the gleam of mockery in those same eyes and wanted to refuse his request outright. But she did not dare. He had not recognised her, she was sure, but she had aroused his suspicion by being less than courteous when they had been introduced. She did not want to compound her mistake by showing her dislike again.
She took a deep breath. ‘That’s not likely to happen. Tony was just teasing,’ she managed to say evenly. ‘But, yes, if you insist, I will dance with you.’
‘Oh, I insist, Beth.’ He drawled her name softly and his arm slid around her waist.
He looked at her, his other hand taking hers, and she was not prepared for the tingling sensation that crept over her skin and made her shiver as he held her close to his long body.
A reaction to the cooling night air, she told herself, but somehow her body, with a will of its own, was moving with him, automatically following his movements.
‘You are a very lovely lady, Beth. What man wouldn’t insist?’ he added in that deep, barely accented silken voice she remembered so well and so bitterly.
She forgot her good intentions. ‘Are you trying to flirt with me, Mr Cannavaro?’ she demanded. ‘And you an engaged man,’ she prompted, giving him a derisory smile while trying to control her inexplicably racing pulse.
A quizzical expression flickered across his face for a moment, and his incredible eyes seemed to bore into hers as his hand stroked up her spine to hold her closer still. To her shame she felt a fullness in her breasts when they came in contact with his broad chest.
‘No, Beth. I was stating the truth. But if I was flirting with you I would not have to try very hard,’ Dante opined, fully appreciating the feminine sway of her shapely body against his own, testing his control to the limit. ‘I felt you tremble when I took you in my arms, and sensed it in the softening of your body against mine. There is an instant sexual attraction between us—unfortunate, but true. Under the circumstances it is obviously not to be acted upon. But I also sense something more. You seem afraid of me—even actively to dislike me—and I have to wonder why. Are you sure we have not met before?’
God, he analysed everything, and talked like a lawyer even as they moved to the music. His muscular thighs brushed against hers, raising her temperature, and it took all her nerve to hold his dark gaze.
‘I shivered because it is getting cooler now,’ she lied. ‘And, no, we have never met before. I didn’t even know Tony had a brother. He never mentioned you until you turned up here in the garden.’
Dante stilled and let Beth take a step back, putting space between them. His heavy-lidded eyes were shrewd and penetrating, and swept over her flushed defiant face before moving lower.
‘Interesting if true!’ He raised a sardonic eyebrow, noting the thrust of her nipples against her shirt.
The lovely Beth was definitely lying about one part of that statement. He had met enough females in his time, and was experienced enough to recognise when a lustful attraction was mutual. But was she lying about not knowing Tony had a brother until tonight? She had not said half-brother, and if she was telling the truth surely she would naturally assume his name was Hetherington, the same as Tony’s? And yet she had called him Mr Cannavaro—even though his name had not been mentioned when the introductions had been made. He doubted Tony, who was not into formality of any kind, would have called him anything but Dante or bro in the couple of minutes before they had been introduced. So how could she know his surname unless she had met him before, or at least heard of him?
The mystery of Beth Lazenby deepened. His legal instincts told him she was hiding something—but what? And in that moment Dante decided to make it his business to discover everything about her. Not for himself, but to protect his brother, of course.
A wave of heat swept through Beth at his intense scrutiny and it took every scrap of willpower she possessed to control her traitorous body. But at least she was saved from having to respond as Tony and Ellen appeared.
‘One fiancée returned to you, bro, worn out from dancing with me—or it could be the vodka I gave her. She wants to go home.’ Tony grinned, swaying on his feet, and Beth grabbed his arm to steady him. He had definitely had too much to drink.
‘Thanks a bunch, Tony,’ Dante said dryly, his expression grim as he wrapped his arm around a slightly glassy-eyed Ellen. And with a goodnight and a curt nod to Beth, much to her relief he left.
Beth took the key from her back pocket and, ignoring Tony’s drunken request to dance, slipped into her apartment and locked the door behind her. She fell back against it, breathing deeply, fighting to regain her composure.
Binkie appeared and she picked him up in her arms and carried him through into the living room. Her knees weak, with a sigh she sank down onto the sofa, cuddling the cat on her lap, her mind in turmoil as the significance of Cannavaro being Tony’s brother sank in.
Everyone had bad days, she reminded herself, but today hers had gone from good straight to diabolical. She glanced around the cosy room that was her sanctuary, her gaze resting on the two photographs in identical silver frames on the mantelpiece. One was of the parents she had adored, and the other of Helen, her dearest friend. All three were dead now, and moisture glazed her eyes.
Clive Hampton, Helen’s lawyer, whom Beth now considered a friend and mentor, was the closest thing she had to family. He had been instrumental in getting her a job in the offices of a local accountancy firm, where she had got the opportunity to train in-house as an accountant. After taking the requisite exams over two years she had eventually become qualified.
She spoke to Clive frequently on the telephone, and often visited him at his home in Richmond. She was meeting him tomorrow for Sunday lunch, and had almost forgotten in the trauma of the evening. He was over sixty now, and thinking of retiring soon, and though she talked to him about most things, telling him how she felt about Cannavaro was not one of them. It was much too personal. She had never even told Helen how badly the man had affected her in court, only that he was clever and that her lawyer, Miss Sims, had been useless against him. No, this latest development she had to take care of herself.
Her time in prison had taught her how to build a protective shell around her emotions and present a blank face in front of warders and prisoners alike. Living in a confined environment and sharing communal showers had come as a shock, but she had quickly realised that women came in all shapes and sizes and soon thought nothing of stripping off in front of anyone. She told herself she was no better or worse than anyone else, but all her life she had always felt the odd one out and that hadn’t changed. And with her new identity she was even more wary of making friends.
Tony and Mike were the only friends she had in London, though she had quite a few in Faith Cove.
Wearily she let her head fall back on the sofa and closed her eyes. She had never felt as alone as she did now. Not since that fatal day eight years ago when she had stood in the dock, trembling with fear. And the same hateful arrogant man was responsible…. In her head she wished she had the nerve to tell Dante Cannavaro exactly what she thought of him, but in reality she knew she could not.