Olivero's Outrageous Proposal. Kate Walker

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ of him.

      ‘Not that I’d put it past him,’ Marcus stunned her by declaring now. ‘A man with his reputation.’

      ‘Rep...reputation?’ Alyse managed, stunned to learn that Marcus seemed to know something about Dario—more, in fact, than she did herself. ‘What...?’

      But Marcus wasn’t listening, intent instead on turning the venom he had directed at her previously onto Dario himself.

      ‘Dragged up in the gutter by a mother who was anyone’s for the price of—’

      It was only the tiniest movement. Just a tensing of Dario’s long body, a curl of his fists, a hint of a step forward. But that, when combined with the black thundercloud of his frown, the way his sensual mouth was clamped hard and tight into a thin line, was enough of a warning to have Marcus biting off the last of his insulting sentence and clearly backing down. He obviously didn’t think that it was safe to risk baiting Dario any further, however much he might want to.

      And the other man’s reaction turned Alyse’s legs to water at the memory of the way that this had been just what she had planned as part of her original scheme in the first place. It had all seemed so exciting, so brilliant—so possible when she had come up with the idea as a way of getting rid of Marcus’s unwanted attentions. Give him the impression that she was involved with another man, that she was seeing someone else—maybe even sleeping with someone else—and then surely he would back off and leave her in peace?

      But now, finding herself in exactly the situation she had anticipated, with Marcus at the door, having found her and Dario in a decidedly compromising situation—far more compromising than she had ever planned—things were not at all as she had foreseen. For one thing, Marcus, though looking disgusted and furious, didn’t seem to have the intention of turning round and walking away, as he had in her mind when she’d imagined this happening.

      And Dario...

      She risked a glance at the tall, dark, glowering man to her left, and immediately wished she hadn’t. He wasn’t actually snarling but he might as well have been and she could practically see his hackles rising in hostile threat to the intruder into his territory. The sparks that seemed to flash between the two men made her feel like some tasty but already wounded prey that was the subject of a face to face confrontation between two powerful and equally ravenous lions.

      Giving up on trying to fasten her dress, she folded her arms tightly around her waist, as much to hold herself together as to keep the blue silk from falling into a pool on the carpet at her feet.

      ‘No matter what my reputation,’ Dario drawled now, making Alyse start because she was so used to him being silent, ‘it seems that Alyse doesn’t give a damn about it, mi caro fratello.’

      My—what? Alyse shook her head faintly, unable to believe she had heard right. The stress must be getting to her so that she was imagining things. He couldn’t have said...

      But, whatever he had said, it had been deliberately provocative. And it had the desired effect, enraging Marcus so that his whole face went white with fury, pulling taut over his bones.

      ‘Marcus...’ she tried, desperate to have this appalling stalemate broken, to avoid what she was now starting to fear might actually bring these two to blows. There was something here between these two that was evil. Something she didn’t understand but if she could just avoid an actual fight...

      ‘Look, I’m sorry if this has upset you, but really you know I never said...’

      He wasn’t listening, all his attention focused on Dario’s hard, set face. But, even as she watched, Alyse was stunned to see the faint flicker of a smile on the Italian’s sensual lips. A smile that was there and gone again in a moment and had nothing warm about it at all.

      ‘I could kill you...’

      Marcus’s threat, directed at Dario’s impassive face, was a low, savage mutter, one that sent a horrified shiver slithering down Alyse’s spine. In a panic she stepped forward, her hand coming out as she forgot about holding her dress up and could only think about stopping him.

      ‘Marcus, I tried to tell you that I couldn’t see any future for us, so I thought—’

      ‘Thought you’d teach me a lesson?’

      ‘No—I...’

      But her voice had no strength, no conviction. Wasn’t that really what she had wanted to do? To convince him that she was not for him? That she wasn’t at all interested in the proposal he had pushed at her so unexpectedly and had kept pushing for days.

      ‘You thought you’d rub my face in it,’ he snarled, the look he turned on her scraping over her body like the burn of acid.

      It was only now, when that hateful look paused and lingered deliberately, that Alyse became aware of the betraying damp, darkened patches directly over her breasts where Dario’s hot mouth had sought out the sensitive peaks that had strained against her bra. The realisation dried her throat in a moment.

      ‘No...’ she tried but, even though her lips moved, no sound managed to come out. And when she glanced uncertainly at Dario, the darkness and focus of his eyes told her that he had something else on his mind other than belief in her declaration.

      From a shadowy corner of her thoughts came an uncomfortable memory of the time in the car when she had looked back and seen Marcus staring after them. She’d been careless enough to smile just briefly. And Dario had caught it. Could he think this was what she had wanted?

      ‘Well, you couldn’t have made a better job of it than this, you bitch.’ Marcus was continuing his rant. ‘You must have known if there was one thing that would guarantee I’d want nothing more to do with you—something that would turn my stomach—it was the sight of you getting down and dirty with my bastard brother.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      MY BASTARD BROTHER.

      This time there could be no doubt about it, though Alyse’s thoughts reeled in disbelief at what she heard. She hadn’t been sure earlier—mi caro fratello—but in plain, straightforward English it couldn’t be clearer.

      But that just wasn’t possible—was it? Marcus was a solid, stolid Englishman with the pale colouring and eyes that marked him out as pure Anglo-Saxon. He had nothing of Dario’s stunning golden skin and sleek black hair. Those blue, blue eyes that met hers in a stare of blank confrontation were the only thing that could seem to connect the two. And bastard brother...

      ‘Half-brother, to be more accurate,’ Dario put in now, though it stuck in his throat to even acknowledge that connection. ‘Though definitely the bastard.’

      She hadn’t known that—or certainly not all of it, he realised. If the confusion that was written on her pale face was genuine. Somehow she had managed to avoid hearing about the scandal that had exploded in the gossip columns years ago when he had turned up at the Kavanaugh home to carry out his mother’s last wishes and claim acknowledgement from his family. But that was impossible, surely. When her father was employed by Marcus and his father, tangled up in everything the younger man did, then even Lady Alyse Gregory must know something of what was going on.

      ‘I...’

      That СКАЧАТЬ