Dante glanced across the aisle of his plane. The woman’s face was averted, her body tense and huddled into the seat, which seemed to dwarf her petite form. She was staring out of the window at the white expanse of cloud as if it contained some fascinating image that he couldn’t see. He wanted to go over, haul her out of the seat and demand payment for disrupting his life, making him trek all the way back to England, which had laid claim to him for almost a year previously. Make her pay—how? asked a snide voice as an unwelcome image of her crushed into his arms, her head falling back, throat and mouth bared for his kisses, inserted itself like a lurid B movie image into his imagination.

His face hardened. She’d been silent since leaving the house. She’d shown no awe or surprise at the experience of being taken by helicopter to the private landing strip of a tiny airport reserved only for VIPs and dignitaries. When they had been in the helicopter she had not even needed to be told what to do, what safety procedures to follow. She’d done them automatically.

So she was accustomed to the luxury that private helicopter travel afforded. While it didn’t gel immediately with the downbeat image she portrayed—he could vaguely remember jeans and another shapeless dark top in London, her hair tied back—he had to concede that she’d quickly smashed his first impressions. She’d proven that, with just soap and water; a lily had lain underneath all the grime and dust, under the voluminous garments. His chest tightened at the thought of how much a little more gilding might make her even more alluring. How the silk of a custom-made dress would skim and cling enticingly to those slight curves…

Alicia turned her head as though compelled and found Dante looking at her with an intense expression on his face. It made more than a quiver of awareness run through her. It made her heart flip and thump unevenly.

He settled back into his seat and regarded her coolly. She couldn’t look away and she felt a flush come up under her skin.

Contradicting his own avowal not to mention it, he asked, ‘Tell me why you are so certain that I am the father of your sister’s baby.’

Alicia fought to stay calm. She couldn’t believe he was being so obtuse, and then she felt slightly sick. Perhaps the man did have so many lovers that he literally didn’t know one from the other. And yet…he seemed far too discriminating for that kind of behaviour which led her again to wonder what he had seen in Melanie.

‘Because,’ she bit out, ‘she told me and I trust her. She’s my sister.’ Something made her defiant then. ‘You’re not making this trip for the good of your health so you obviously believe me, even if you say you don’t.’

His jaw clenched and he leant forward slightly, even though a few feet separated them. Alicia leant back into her seat. ‘What did she say exactly?’

Alicia took a calming breath. ‘I asked her who had done this to her. She said you, how she’d been on her way to try and see you when the accident happened…how you’d sent her away. I knew she was seeing someone from work, I just had no idea it was you.’

He frowned slightly. ‘To the best of my knowledge, she was still working for me.’

‘Yes…but she obviously meant you sent her away from her association with you. She was still feverish, in shock. She’d just suffered a major accident.’ Alicia could feel the shock setting in again.

Dante shook his head incredulously as something became very clear to him. He cursed himself for not having seen it before. ‘Your sister would know that the merger is coming up. She knows how vulnerable I am to public scandal at this moment…’ He shook his head. ‘I know exactly what you and she are up to now.’

Alicia leant forward again, her hands clenched, her eyes bright. ‘Signore D’Aquanni, right now she is fighting for her life, she’s not up to anything beyond that. And as for me, do you really think I’ve nothing better to do than chase around Europe trying to get some holier-than-thou autocratic billionaire playboy to speak to me?’

He looked at her coolly and then said, ‘You can drop the act now, it’s unnecessary.’ He turned away from her, making her insides boil over with fury.

She undid her belt and stood up from the seat, her face pink with rage. His calculating dismissive look had driven her blood pressure even higher. As if he knew something she didn’t. He looked back up at her as she planted herself in front of him, hands on hips.

‘You really are unbelievable. Do you think you’re so untouchable that you can treat people like things? Like…’ she flung her hand out ‘…toys to be played with and then discarded when you’re bored? You might have grown up getting your own way, but that’s not how—’

In that instant the plane suddenly hit some turbulence and Alicia was thrown forward and off balance. With deadly inevitability and in sickening slow motion, she fell straight into Dante D’Aquanni’s lap.

The wind was knocked out of her and she was plastered against his front. And when she tried to move, hard arms held her captive. In a second she became aware of hard, taut thigh muscles under her bottom, a very hard chest and his breath, feathering across her face. He smelt fresh, masculine, musky.

She struggled in earnest, in panic at the way her own body was responding eagerly. ‘Let me go.’

‘No way. I’m far too interested in hearing the end of your tirade. Please, do go on. I believe you were about to tell me how things work.’ His voice was innocuous enough, not a hint of the extreme torture of her squirming position on his lap.

She looked up and wished she hadn’t. His face, that mouth, was inches away and his eyes told the real story of the emotion behind his words. They were dark and utterly cold. Remote.

‘I…I…’ Her voice sounded squeaky, ineffectual. Why, oh, why, did she have to be so aware of him physically? He was the enemy, the man who had rejected her sister, who even now was denying paternity. This man was the lowest of the low…

‘Actually, I’m not interested in what you have to say, as you’re so far from the truth it’s not even funny. What I am interested in, however, is this…’

And, before Alicia could ask what he meant, his mouth had landed on hers and she was transported back in time to the previous evening. Every nerve ending exploded into a tiny ball of fire. It was madness, insanity, this instantaneous effect he had.

One of his hands had found its way underneath her sweater and was climbing up over her skin, skimming her waist. Her breasts throbbed as if on cue and swelled to tight points. She wriggled as a shaft of pure arousal pulsed between her legs and Dante groaned softly against her mouth. Her heart thumped even faster, reality slipping away with an inexorability that Alicia couldn’t fight.

His hand cupped one of her breasts and, with aching slowness, his thumb found and rubbed against the tight bud under its covering of lace. Hard, not soft, went through her overheated brain as the callused feel of his hands were an exquisite torture against her sensitive skin. Alicia’s head fell back, her eyes closed. She’d never, ever felt like this before—this immediate fire that erupted and washed away any resistance. The only time she’d come close to anything like this—

Her thoughts seized to an icy halt as a memory surfaced and she stiffened. Dante’s hand was seeking her other breast and Alicia was aghast to see that she’d shifted in order to offer him easier access. She seized on that painful memory and pushed with all her might against him. His arms loosened and she tumbled back and out of the seat, landing on her rear on the soft carpet.

What the hell had just happened?

She stood awkwardly, breathing heavily. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, her eyes huge. She dropped her hand and her mouth was pink, her cheeks glowing red. Dante said nothing, his face implacable, barely a hair out of place. Unmoved.