took her less time than that to realise she had lost the attention of her audience. She couldn’t have been a day over twenty-five, he realised as she turned around. And then it hit him like a fist in the gut. He knew her!
CHAPTER TWO
SANTINO saw the recoil in her eyes as if she had recognised him in the same instant, but she quickly rallied, and held his stare.
It was a wonder he recognised her. She looked quite different now. He wondered what had happened in the five years since their last memorable encounter. He didn’t like puzzles. When things appeared different than they should he knew it was a warning.
‘This is a closed set. No visitors allowed.’ His tone was uncompromising, and he fully expected to rattle her. He expected her to frown, flinch, do something.
‘I’m here to protect the interests of my client Cordelia Mulhoon,’ she told him coolly.
Clear grey eyes stared back at him without a flicker of fear from a face that was far lovelier than he remembered, a face that made him frown as he processed the visual information. The features were chiselled now, and, however cruelly scraped back, her waist-length hair was still magnificent. Her lips were firm and full, and only her eyes might have been considered too large in the piquant, heart-shaped face, had they not been tinted such a mild grey…
Mild grey? That was a joke! The last time they’d met those mild grey eyes had been flashing fire at him, and those sculpted lips hid pearl-white teeth that could give a man one hell of a nip. Just thinking about it now made him hard. She was a woman he had never expected to see again, a woman he had never forgotten, a woman who by some quirk of fate represented the star of his film, a woman who for some reason had chosen to hide her wild side beneath the deceptively subtle shades of a mouse. Of the flighty fun-lover there was no sign…unless she was playing him like a fish on a rod, of course.
How she was holding it together Kate had no idea. Santino Rossi was Francesca’s father, a fact that made her mind reel. The father of her beautiful little girl, and he didn’t know it. Only the need to keep her thoughts and feelings hidden gave her the strength to stare him in the eyes. And they were dark, intuitive eyes that could so easily lay bare her soul.
She had never forgotten him. How could she? His face was as familiar to her now as if they had never been apart…the aquiline nose and ebony winged brows, and the thick, coal-black hair he still wore a little too long. The rough shading of stubble on his cheeks only reminded her how good it felt when he raked it against her skin, and his ridiculously sensual mouth brought back memories of pleasure so intense her whole being had started to respond.
It was dangerous to still want him so badly, and there was something in his eyes and in the tug of self-assurance at the corner of his mouth that warned her to be careful. She wasn’t the person Santino thought he knew. There was a whole world of difference between Kate Mulhoon today and the girl Santino Rossi had taken to his bed. Somehow she had to make him see that. But it wouldn’t be easy when they knew every inch of each other intimately.
‘I’m here in response to my client’s urgent request.’ Kate held his gaze, determined to keep the conversation confined to business. She wasn’t ready to tell him about Francesca, and this was hardly the time. She knew his body, but she didn’t know the man. Santino Rossi was still a stranger to her. She didn’t know what kind of father he would make for their daughter.
‘Very well.’ The tension in his shoulders eased fractionally. ‘I am also concerned, which is why I’m here.’
He sounded almost reasonable, but would that change when he discovered he had a four-year-old child?
‘I suggest we move to somewhere quieter…’ He gestured towards a group of chairs the actors used when they weren’t needed on the set. ‘We’ll be out of the way and can have a preliminary chat.’
‘Thank you.’
‘We will both need to speak to Cordelia in depth,’ he said once they were settled, ‘and get to the bottom of this problem before we hold a proper meeting.’
A proper meeting? Kate’s heart began to thunder. She didn’t want time alone with him. She couldn’t risk a question and answer session.
It was too late now to wish she had told him the moment she’d realised she was pregnant. Back then she had still been reeling from her parents’ rejection, and no sooner had she and Francesca settled in Meredith’s farmhouse than a story had broken in the press that had rocked Kate’s world. It had stoked the fires of the gossipmongers yet again, making Kate retreat further into herself.
It was said that while Santino Rossi had been in England he had fathered a child. Santino hadn’t let it rest there, and had taken the supposed mother of his child to court, exposing her as a fraud. Kate’s face had burned with the same humiliation as the woman’s family on the day the girl had been discredited, and she had been riveted to the television screen when the shamefaced young woman had been ushered out of court.
Seeing one woman exposed for a gold-digger had made Kate all the more determined to start paying her way the moment Francesca could be left. When Meredith had identified an opportunity with a theatrical agency in London and offered to care for Francesca, Kate had known it was her chance to hold her head up high again and save some money for Francesca’s future. She had also known she couldn’t risk a long-running court battle with a man like Santino Rossi, and so she had erased him from her life, if not her conscience.
Kate’s little girl Francesca was surrounded by the love of her family at Meredith’s warm and happy farmhouse where she was untouched by all the ugliness in the world, and she was growing up unspoiled the way Kate wanted her to. As Francesca was just a defenceless child it was up to Kate to make decisions for her, and so now she took the only path she could. She didn’t know the man she had slept with. She didn’t know what Santino Rossi cared about, or if he cared about anything other than himself. The world of film was a fascinating place, but not all the characters inhabiting that world were entirely stable. Until she knew more about Santino Rossi the man, she would not trust him with the knowledge that they had a child together.
After their brief chat Kate watched Santino on the set. Everyone responded well to him, and had she been meeting him for the first time she might have been impressed. He had reacted as quickly as she had at the first sign of trouble on the lot, dropping everything to come and sort it out. It made her want to trust him, but could she do that after so short an acquaintance? Could she trust her own judgement after what had happened five years ago? She wouldn’t risk Francesca’s happiness on a whim in the same way she had risked her own.
Kate could feel Santino assessing her in the same way she was weighing him up and felt her face burn when their gazes clashed. How could she ignore the fact that time had only improved upon perfection? Apart from silver wings creeping into his thick dark hair Santino appeared stronger and more virile than ever. He belonged on the big screen, rather than behind it, but she could not allow herself to be swayed by Santino’s good looks, or by his blatant sex appeal. She wasn’t eighteen now. She was a grown woman with responsibilities. She couldn’t allow herself to feel anything for him.
The crew weren’t even listening to their conversation, Santino realised, though it should have raised some interest, surely? Whatever she had been saying to them must have worked because everyone was going quietly about their business. Relieved to have the burden of decision-making taken from their shoulders, he guessed. The thought drew his gaze back to her and to her slender shoulders…too slender to bear a burden, their shape was clearly discernible beneath the cheap fabric of her blouse. A quick mental sketch of her naked body lit an old fire that invoked another strong physical reaction, and that in turn warned him to keep his gaze firmly fixed upon her face in future.
He felt like a caged lion. She made him feel like a caged lion. He was used to taking charge; he didn’t sit on the sidelines. It seemed incredible to him that a mere scrap of a girl could come in and take over his film set.
A scrap of a girl