A Savage Betrayal

With a groan of frustration, Cesare drew back and dispensed with his own clothing. ‘Someday we are going to do this with control and finesse!’ he swore.

‘But not today.’

‘No, not today,’ he agreed, pulling her back to him, impatient fingers locating the zip on her elegant summer dress.

He skimmed the dress down her arms and it pooled at her feet. He took in the satin and lace brevity of her lingerie, dark eyes blazing molten gold. ‘Dio…I have incredibly good taste.’

Mina was headily flushed. ‘You went shopping?’

‘It kept me going before the wedding…when I had nothing else.’

He found her reddened mouth hungrily again and backed her down on the bed. A fire raging out of control could not have been more dangerous than the sudden scorchingly intimate connection they made. Theirs was an electrifying passion made all the wilder as the unleashed emotions ruling them both took over.

She lost herself in him. Her heart hammering, her slender body writhed beneath his, desperate for the completion that only he could give. She clutched at his hair, scored the satin-smooth skin of his back and then arched and sobbed as he sank into her in one powerful thrust.

‘Nobody is going to take you away from me,’ he said savagely, scanning her with glittering golden assurance. ‘Nobody!’

And after that there was nothing but the hot, surging pleasure which drove her relentlessly up to the heights and then dropped her again into the valley of sobbing satisfaction.

‘We are crazy to be doing this in the midst of a crisis,’ Cesare conceded lazily a long time later as she lay wrapped in his arms, blissfully satiated, never, ever wanting to move again. ‘But even if it can only be for a few hours, I want nothing else to intrude between us.’

Mina climbed back into the limousine feeling like a woman reborn. She felt strong, she felt good, she felt wonderfully liberated from her darkest fears. It was an extraordinary feeling. But she was less afraid of the police than she was of losing Cesare. Of course she would not allow him to step in and try to take the heat for her. He could make as many plans as he liked towards such an end but Mina knew that she would foil him if he made any such attempt.

But he had to care about her, he really had to care to be this concerned, this determined, this protective. He didn’t need to say the words. At that moment she didn’t mind if he never said the words. All the emotion he struggled to conceal had been communicated by his lovemaking. That hadn’t just been sex. There had been an intense closeness between them that went far beyond anything they had ever shared. The barriers had come down. Cesare was hers in exactly the way she had always wanted him to be. Hook, line and sinker hers…and with that behind her she could face anything, she told herself.

‘I have a few calls to make,’ he imparted before they got out of the car outside the town house. ‘Then we’ll go down and pick up Susie. You will fly straight back to Sicily and tomorrow morning I will approach the police——’

‘No!’ Mina objected, dragged from her blissful inner world with a vengeance.

‘It is imperative that I go to them before they come to you. They may well have been covertly investigating Severn for months,’ Cesare pointed out grimly, and gripped her hand.

‘I am not going back to Sicily,’ Mina asserted tautly, and yanked her fingers free. ‘I will go to the police. I don’t want you involved——’

Her voice was cut off as the chauffeur opened the door. Mina scrambled out and walked into the town house, smiling tautly at the manservant who greeted her. As she entered the hall, Cesare powering up close behind with his long, impatient stride, an older woman appeared. She was very elegantly dressed and her ash-blonde hair was beautifully styled.

‘Where have you been?’ she demanded of Cesare, her face distraught. ‘You left the airport five hours ago and I’ve been trying to reach you ever since!’

‘What’s wrong?’ Cesare questioned tautly.

The older woman bit back a sob and breathed in convulsively. ‘Your brother’s been arrested——’

‘Di che cosa parli?’ Cesare raked.

‘English, Cesare,’ the woman stressed shakily.

‘Sì Mamma…English,’ Cesare rasped, and pushed open the door to a sunlit drawing-room. ‘So what has Sandro done? Another car smash? I hope there is nobody injured this time——’

‘He’s in much deeper water than that!’

‘Mina…allow me to introduce you to my mother, Louise Falcone,’ Cesare breathed heavily.

‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ his mother shot at him hysterically, in no fit state to acknowledge her new daughter-in-law.

Cesare closed the door. Mina hovered uncomfortably, wondering if she should leave mother and son in private, wondering why Cesare had never mentioned the fact that his mother was English and not Italian.

‘Sandro’s been arrested for fraud!’ the older woman told them, stricken.

‘Fraud?’ Cesare exclaimed incredulously.