A Scandal in the Headlines Read Online Free PDF Page A

what she
felt
?
    “Are we still maintaining that little bit of fiction?” He shrugged carelessly, though his gaze was hot. “Then consider yourself fired. Someone will find anotherstewardess for my yacht. You, however.” His smile then made her blood heat, her traitorous body flush. “You, I think, have a different purpose here altogether.”
    Elena had to fight herself to focus, to remember. Alessandro Corretti was one of the notorious Sicilian Correttis. More than that, he was the oldest son of his generation, the heir to the legend, no matter how they’d split up the family fortune or the interfamily wars the press reported on so breathlessly. He was who Niccolo aspired to become—the real, genuine article. Corrupt and wicked to the marrow of his bones, by virtue of his blood alone.
    He should have disgusted her to the core. He should have terrified her. It appalled her that he didn’t. That nothing could break this hold he had on her. That she still felt this odd sense of safety when she was near him, despite all evidence to the contrary.
    “Oh, right,” she said now. “I forgot.” She sighed, though her mind raced as she tried to think of what she would do if she really was the woman he thought she was. If she was that conniving, that amoral. “You think I’m a spy.”
    “I do.”
    No man, she thought unsteadily, should look that much like a wolf, or have dark green eyes that blazedwhen he looked at her that way. It turned her molten, all the way through.
    “And what do you think spying on you would get me?”
    “I know it will get you nothing. But I doubt you know that. And I’m sure your lover doesn’t.”
    That he called Niccolo her lover made her skin crawl. That she’d had every intention of marrying Niccolo—and probably would have, had fate and this man and Niccolo’s own temper not intervened—made her want to curl up into a ball and wail. Or tear off her own skin. But she tacked on a little smile instead, and pretended.
    She got better at it all the time.
    “You’ve caught me,” she said. “You’ve unveiled my cunning master plan.” She lifted her eyes heavenward. “I’m a spy. And I let myself be caught in the act of … stewardessing. Also part of my devious mission! What could I possibly want next?”
    He looked amused again, which only made the ferocity he wore like a shield around him seem that much more pronounced.
    “Access,” he said easily. “Though I should warn you now, my computers require several layers of security, and if I catch you anywhere near them or near me when I’m having a private conversation, I’ll lock you in a closet. Believe that, Elena, if nothing else.”
    He said that so casually, almost offhandedly, that smile playing around his gorgeous, battered mouth—but she believed him.
    “You’ve clearly given my imaginary career in espionage a great deal of thought,” she said carefully, as if she was appeasing a raving lunatic. “But ask yourself, why would I risk this? Or imagine you’d let me?”
    His expression of amusement edged over into something else, something voracious and dark, and her pulse jumped beneath her skin.
    “Your fiancé was not blind, all those months ago,” he said softly. She felt him everywhere, again, as if he was touching her the way she knew he wanted to do. The way she couldn’t help but wish he would. “Nor was I.”
    For a moment, she forgot herself. His dark green eyes were so fierce on hers then, searing into her. Challenging her. The world fell away and there was nothing but him and all the things she couldn’t—wouldn’t—tell him. All the things she shouldn’t want.
    And despite herself, she remembered.
    Six months ago …
    “Tell me your name,” he demanded, sweeping her into his arms without even asking her if she’d like to dance with him.
    Elena had seen the way he looked at her. She’d
felt
it, like a brand, a claim, from halfway across the room. She told herself that Niccolo, who had gone to