it might at first seem.”
Dante barked a laugh. “You think?” His eyes fixed on the lawyer’s. “Where did she go?” he demanded. “Upstairs?”
“Not there,” de Souza said quickly. He gave another expressive shrug. “She fled with the others.”
Dante ran from the house. Only three vehicles remained in the clearing: his, a gold Caddy he figured was the lawyer’s and the big, ugly black SUV that surely belonged to Ferrantes.
He sagged against the veranda railing.
Gabriella was gone.
And maybe that was just as well.
He’d come here to buy this place for his father. Instead, he’d bought it for a woman who had once meant something to him but no longer did. Yes, he’d kissed her. And, yes, that one kiss had damned near consumed him, but so what?
He was a normal, healthy male. She was a beautiful woman. They had a shared history. But that was it.
He looked around him at the weed-choked corral, the dilapidated outbuildings. He’d dropped five million bucks on this place—his money, not Cesare’s—but so what? The truth was he had a lot of money. An obscene amount of money, and he’d made every penny on his own. Losing five million dollars was nothing. And Gabriella didn’t owe him anything. Hadn’t he promised her there would be no strings? Hadn’t buying the fazenda for her been his idea?
A muscle in Dante’s jaw began to tick.
It had been his idea…hadn’t it?
Yes. It damned well had. Still, he had the right to a couple of minutes of conversation. Okay, questions, not conversation, but he was entitled to ask them. Why had she returned to Brazil? Why did she want this rundown disaster? Why did it belong to the bank?
Most of all, why would an ugly SOB like Ferrantes act as if he had a claim on her?
The muscle ticked again.
And then there was the biggest question of all. Why had she melted in his arms when he’d kissed her? Hell, why had he kissed her in the first place? Forget the history thing. He was a man who never looked back—
“Yo, American!” Ferrantes stepped out of the house. He was grinning, even though his gut had to be aching. “You throw a good punch, for a Yankee.”
Dante’s lips drew back from his teeth. “My pleasure.”
The other man chuckled. “The pleasure is all mine, Orsini. Your blow gave me the chance to think. That two intelligent men would have fought over such a woman…”
Dante narrowed his eyes. “Didn’t you learn anything?” he said, his tone soft and dangerous. “I told you to watch your mouth!”
The big man lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Trust me, meu amigo. The woman is all yours.” A sly smirk lifted one corner of his mouth. “But I must be honest. You saved me from wasting a lot of money.”
Dante folded his arms. “Glad to have been of service.”
“And from wasting the rest of my life.”
What in hell was the man talking about?
“So, senhor, now I owe you a favor.” Ferrantes made a show of looking around, then lowered his voice. “Before you get in too deep, ask the lady a question.”
“Listen, pal, when I need advice from you—”
“Or ask the advogado. Perhaps he will tell you what you need to know about his charming client.”
A coldness danced along Dante’s spine. Don’t fall for it, he told himself, but it was impossible to ignore the bait.
“What in hell are you talking about?”
All pretence at camaraderie vanished from Andre Ferrantes’s ugly face.
“Ask de Souza whose bed your Gabriella has been sleeping in,” he said coldly, “until you showed up and she decided it might be more profitable to sleep in yours.”
He’d wanted to go for Ferrantes’s throat, but pride held him back.
Why give the man even a small victory? Dante thought hours later, as he sped along a narrow road that led deeper and deeper into a verdant wilderness.
Bad enough she’d played him for a fool in front of everybody, including the lawyer, who’d known her game all along, and the auctioneer, who was probably still celebrating the haul he’d made. Bad enough, too, that every man in that room knew she’d slept with Ferrantes.
Not that he gave a damn that she’d been with someone else—he had no claims on her anymore—but Ferrantes? She’d wanted the ranch badly enough to lie beneath a pig like that? Open herself to him, take him deep inside her, beg him to touch her, taste her, take her…
Dante’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
She’d done all the things with Ferrantes she had once done with him—and then he’d come along and she’d seen an easy way to put the bastard out of her life.
His mouth twisted.
What a piece of work she was! The earrings he’d bought her had been worth a small fortune but she’d made it seem as if she were too good to accept such an expensive gift from a lover. A former lover, okay, but that wasn’t the point.
Apparently, accepting a ranch was different.
The car hit a pothole and swerved to the right. Dante cursed and fought the wheel, brought the car back on the road.
No wonder Ferrantes had stood there with that slab of beef he called an arm wrapped around Gabriella’s waist. No wonder he’d objected when Dante kissed her. Gone crazy when she’d kissed him back.
Except, she hadn’t.
He knew that now. It had all been a carefully calculated performance. The lady had seen her chance to get possession of those useless acres without continuing to spread her legs for Ferrantes.
An image, so hot and erotic it all but obliterated his vision, filled Dante’s mind.
“Dammit,” he snarled, and pushed the gas pedal the last inch to the floor.
The car rocketed ahead.
What an idiot he’d been! Falling for her act. Behaving precisely as she’d intended so that now he owned a useless piece of dirt in the middle of nowhere, every stinking weed, every collapsing outbuilding all his. He’d written a check for the auctioneer, ignored the man’s outstretched hand, brushed past the lawyer without a word because they’d both known what was happening. They could have told him. Warned him.
Warned him?
The auctioneer’s job was to sell the ranch. The lawyer’s was to protect his client. Besides, de Souza had tried. There is more to this than you know,Senhor, he’d said. Something like that and Dante had chosen to ignore—
Something raced across the road, came to a dead stop, glared at him through eyes that were a shocking red against the dark onset of night. Dante stood on the brakes, fought to control the steering. The car swerved, spun; the tires squealed as if in pain. A wall of thick trees reared up ahead and he cursed, hung on to the steering wheel…
The car came to a shuddering halt.
The sound of the engine died. Silence and the night closed in as he sat behind the wheel breathing hard, hands shaking.
The car had done a one-eighty, ending up pointing in the direction from which he’d come.
He looked in the rearview mirror. The road behind him, what had moments ago been the road ahead of him, was empty. The animal—a big cat, he was almost certain—was gone.
His heart was still pounding. He took half a dozen breaths, sat back until his hands were steady again.