A Clash With Cannavaro Read Online Free PDF Page A

circulate. See ya!’ And with that she spun away in a cloud of expensive perfume.
    Mortified, Lauren watched her sibling grab another female guest’s arm, saw several air kisses being exchanged.
    ‘I hope you don’t think that my sister’s outspoken remarks have any bearing on my character,’ Lauren remarked, still recoiling from the way Vikki had referred to her as ‘available’.
    ‘Meaning?’ Emiliano sent her a slanted look.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me who you were?’
    ‘You didn’t ask,’ he rebuked her softly, unfazed by the censuring note in her voice. ‘Why? Would it have made any difference to our conversation if you had?’
    She considered his question for a moment. Yes, it would , she thought. I would have run like the wind before it took the turn that it did!
    ‘I thought not,’ Emiliano expressed with that mocking twist to his lips, misunderstanding her hesitation in answering.
    ‘Is it true what she said?’ She looked up into eyes that were much too dark to be anything but sinful. ‘That you break people?’ She recalled wondering why his own brother would say a thing like that.
    Something pulled at the corners of his arresting mouth. ‘Is that what you would like to believe?’
    He was much too worldly—way out of her league—and Lauren prayed he hadn’t noticed the way her throat worked nervously before she replied, ‘No, but I think you could.’
    She didn’t know why she had said that, but all he did was throw back his proud dark head and laugh.
    ‘I am afraid that your sister, as you are probably well aware, is rather a drama queen. Isn’t that what you English call it?’ And when she nodded, he told her, ‘I do what is necessary. But I am always fair.’
    Strangely, she believed him. From what Vikki had already told her about him, he could run rings around his brother for playing hard and fast. As brothers, they weren’t that close, but Vikki had sounded overawed when she’d spoken of the respect Emiliano’s leadership had generated among his colleagues as well as his employees, and Lauren had only been able to guess from the success of the company that it had the right man at its helm. After all, Cannavaro Cruise & Freight Lines were up there with the kings of the seas.
    Changing course, she asked, ‘Why aren’t you best man?’ She’d already chatted earlier to the person who was taking on that role and he’d been an old college friend of the groom’s.
    Emiliano’s mouth tugged down at one side. ‘It’s a long story. Why aren’t you maid of honour?’
    ‘It’s an even longer one.’
    Something almost feral flickered in those sinful eyes. ‘I’ve got all night.’
    She should have listened to the warnings leaping through her, Lauren thought bitterly in hindsight, because all her instincts of self-preservation had been urging her to shake off the sensual spell that Emiliano had woven around her ever since he had come over to speak to her, but she hadn’t seemed able to move, nor had she wanted to. But neither had she felt inclined to tell him about the past strained relationship with her sister, or what had brought it about, and so she’d evaded the issue altogether by saying, ‘I didn’t come here tonight to bare my soul to a perfect stranger.’
    Perfect being the operative word, her brain had whispered provocatively.
    ‘My brother is marrying your sister,’ he reminded her. As if he needed to! ‘That surely relates us in some obscure way.’
    She caught sight of herself in a mirrored pillar and noticed how her hair seemed to blaze like luminous fire. Or like the ultimate scarlet woman’s, she thought with a kind of feverish excitement as she glanced quickly away.
    ‘Even relations have secrets from each other,’ she parried with a smile, trying to avoid thinking too much about the estrangement between her and Vikki. But, in doing so, her words came out with unintended provocation and she saw the heavy masculine eyelids droop as his gaze sliced over