The Sicilian's Passion Read Online Free PDF

she had ever seen in her life. ‘Why should I be waiting for you?’
    So she wanted to play games.
    And, suddenly, so did he, damn her!
    â€˜Didn’t you forget something?’ he purred.
    Right at that moment, she would be hard-pressed to remember her name. She felt a shivering awareness of him as she shook her head distractedly. The lemony, musky scent of him had invaded her nostrils like some kind of raw pheromone and she could sense the warm, male heat radiating off him.
    â€˜I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She frowned.
    Part of him wanted to ram the accusation home. To tell her that he had no need of women who lacked such subtlety. Predatory women with hungry green eyes. But that part of him seemed to be fast on the wane and some alien emotion was in the ascendancy.
    Until he reminded himself that emotion had no place in what was happening between them. He didn’t know her. Or particularly like her. Certainly didn’t respect her. He just wanted her, it was as simple and as complicated as that.
    His lips parted to say with soft venom, Oh, yes, you do, but some interloper had stolen the words from his mouth. He raised his dark eyebrows questioningly and the hand which had been partially concealed by the hard shaft of his thighsuddenly withdrew and he held out the overstuffed black leather diary towards her. ‘This is yours, I believe?’
    â€˜My Filofax!’ Kate stared at it in astonishment. Why, she depended on it as she would her lifeblood—and she had been in such a state that she hadn’t even noticed it missing! ‘I didn’t even realise I’d left it behind!’
    She was a good actress, he would say that for her! For a moment her surprise looked almost genuine. But her reaction to him told him the true story. Should he taunt her with it? Let her know that he could see through her schoolgirl games? ‘You mean you hadn’t missed it?’ he mocked.
    Kate stiffened, and indignation took the place of surprise. ‘You think I left it behind on purpose?’ she asked, her voice rising with incredulity.
    He shrugged, and the blue eyes glittered a challenge at her. ‘Didn’t you?’
    She raised her eyebrows, scarcely believing what she was hearing. ‘Presumably just so that you would return it, I suppose?’
    â€˜If that was your intention.’ He gave a coolly beautiful smile. ‘Then you have succeeded, mmm, cara ?’
    She almost laughed aloud at his arrogance. ‘Maybe such a scenario happens to you all the time Mr Calverri—’
    â€˜Giovanni,’ he corrected softly, unable to stop himself even though the distant clamour of his conscience told him not to enter into this delicious game of flirtation.
    â€˜Maybe women do throw themselves at you—’
    â€˜They do,’ he agreed gravely, and was rewarded with a renewed look of outrage, though was unprepared for the stealthy acceleration of his pulse as her sinful lips pursed themselves together.
    â€˜Well, for your information—’ she drew a deep breath, slightly aware of behaving a little hypocritically since she had been sitting here obsessing about him, hadn’t she? ‘—if I was that interested in a man I wouldn’t resort to such transparent tactics, I would…would…’
    Dark brows were raised in query as her words tailed off. ‘You would…?’
    Well, why not tell him the truth? ‘I would have asked you out,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice.
    Giovanni knew a moment of intrigue. Women had asked him out before, particularly English and American women, and he had always felt a sizzling disdain for such forward behaviour. Though a modern man in terms of accomplishments, he remained a staunch traditionalist at heart. The island of his birth defined the roles of the sexes far less markedly than in centuries past. But at its root still lay a machismo society where the man