The Heat Of Passion

rfect body of yours?'

She wondered sickly whether, if someone handcuffed talkative hands behind his back, he would still be liable to articulate. 'You know that's not what I meant.'

'Do I?' Nostrils flaring, he surveyed her with derisive

dark eyes.

She rested her brow down on the heel of one unsteady hand. It was almost one in the morning. That wouldn't bother Carlo. He had reserves of energy unknown to less advantaged mortals. She wanted to go to bed but the prospect of bed was fraught with far more alarming possibilities than she could face. 'At this moment,' she whispered, 'all I need to know is what you expect from me over the next three months.'

Silence fell. Since silence was rare from Carlo's corner,

she looked up. Carlo cleared his throat, tension thrumming from his

poised stance by the window. 'I want you to pretend to

be my fiancee '

She couldn't hide her astonishment. 'Why?'

'I have my reasons,' he parried, the anger gone and

replaced by a set gravity which disturbed her.

'I don't see why you can't tell me '

‘I will tell you only this,' he breathed shortly, his

golden eyes grim and distant as he studied her. 'I have

been estranged from my father for some years and now

he is dying. I wish to spend some time with him and, to facilitate this wish, I require a fiancee to accompany me

to his home.'

Shaken by the unemotional explanation, Jessica studied him in turn, helplessly, maddeningly curious about why a pretend fiancee should be a necessary requirement of such a visit. She presumed he was intending a reconciliation with his father. Why muddy the water with the presence of a fafee fiancee, for goodness' sake? Especially when his father was dying... a stranger would surely be even less welcome in those

circumstances? Her smooth brow furrowed. 'Once you told me thff

you had no family.'

'In the sense of the true meaning of the word "family",’ he stressed, 'that was the truth. My mother died when I was fourteen. I was sent off to school. My father remarried and after a while he chose to forget my existence. He had his life and I my own until, some years ago, we met again at his instigation...' His strong features shadowed, his eyes night-dark and impassive. 'And what happened between us then severed all familial ties,’ he completed harshly.

There were so many questions she wanted answered that she was on the edge of her seat. 'What happened?' she finally prompted in frustration when it was clear that he had no intention of continuing.

Carlo cast her a sardonic smile. 'Like all women, you are incurably inquisitive. Knowledge is a weapon in a calculating woman's hands. Do you think I don't know that?' he gibed, scanning her sudden pallor with derision. 'I don't spill my guts to anyone, cara... I never have and I never will.'

He made her feel like a peeping torn with a door slammed shut on her prying fingers. It hurt, humiliated.

(I only require one thing from you. A good act. My father is not a stupid man. He will not be easily deceived,’

‘I don't want to deceive anyone.'

"That's why we really will be lovers by the time we arrive. Intimacy, like sexual chemistry, is something that can be felt,’ Carlo asserted with husky conviction. "The sole deception will be the pretence of love and of course... my intention to many you.'

Lovers... She stiffened helplessly at the threat of what was yet to come. Arrive where? she might have asked, had not her nervous tension been too heightened for her to care at that moment. But still she longed to know why he was prepared to put on such an elaborate deception for his father's benefit. And then cynicism suggested his motive. His father was dying, presumably a wealthy man. Was Saracini Senior attaching conditions to his heir's

inheritance? Was he demanding that Carlo settle down and marry? Could anyone be that old-fashioned these days? And was cold, hard cash at the foot of Carlo's