Wife By Force: International Billionaires II: The Italians by Caro LaFever

found herself leaning in, the musky man smell of him filled her nostrils and she’d been very, very close to snuggling into him and nuzzling his strong neck.
    He’d made a sound in his throat then.
    Not quite a growl or a moan or a groan. The sound had been more animalistic, more primitive than anything she’d ever heard. It had sent a shiver of feminine need down her spine.
    She’d been lost. Utterly lost.
    She’d glanced up instinctively. Met his stare. Black and hot and burning with lust.
    And anger.
    She’d sucked in her breath and stilled in his arms. Anger? When she’d been falling, falling, falling into...him? “What—”
    “Do I feel like a robot now, bella ?” he’d snarled. “Do you feel anything cold-blooded about me now?”
    What she said before, at dinner, had penetrated his thick hide. Evidently, it had done more than penetrate. Her accusation had sliced right into his pride, carved a gaping gouge into his ego.
    Then, she’d seen something flash in his eyes. Had her words actually hurt him?
    “Dante,” she’d whispered.
    He twitched in her arms as if he’d hit an electrical current. His lashes fell, masking his eyes. When he looked up, a mere moment later, everything, every emotion, was wiped clean from his expression. She swore she sensed his body temperature cool several degrees in seconds. She immediately doubted she’d ever seen anything in those blank, black eyes other than blank, bland distance.
    “Dante.” No longer a whisper, her voice had turned hoarse.
    “I want you.” His mouth, the upper lip thin, the lower lip lush, had twisted. “But I’m not willing to turn myself into a crazy man in order to get you.”
    I want you .
    His words rang in her heart exactly as they had when he’d said them in the pool days ago. Her feminine core rejoiced and she’d trembled in his arms with her unwanted need.
    Then his other words hit her.
    Crazy man? What did he mean by that? She’d jerked her gaze up to meet his once more.
    Black eyes stared at her. Intent resolve flashed in them, golden highlights mixed within the darkness. “We’re going to do this my way.”
    Her trembling turned from need to anger in a mere second.
    “We’re going to do this in a civilized manner.” His hand tightened on her hip, a signal of dominance. His voice was pitched low and it was hard. Tight.
    She tried to find some words in her scrambled brain, but the heat of his body combined with the coldness of his statement struck her dumb.
    “My aim is to give you some time, court you as you deserve.” He turned them in the dance so her blurry eyes stared out at the swarm of his family, all smiling as they watched her with their cherished son and brother. “And you will eventually tell me what happened to you in your marriage.”
    “No.” The word pushed out, instinctive and automatic. The one word was no to everything he stated, yet more than anything, it was a no to the last command.
    He laughed, a dry, raspy sound. “I’m not even going to respond. I’ve figured out that’s what you do when you want to rile me. I refuse to let you do that to me anymore.” He’d looked down at her and scared her with his next words. Scared her with his goal. “ You are mine .”
    The determination in his stare told the story. He meant to hunt her down and have her.
    She’d yanked out of his arms and fled.
    Like a rabbit or a fawn or prey.
    Lara sucked in a deep breath of sea-salted air. She was nothing of the kind. Not anymore. She was no longer a cowering, stupid girl who served only as a pawn for a rigid, disapproving husband. She’d had eighteen months to recover after Gerry’s death, recover her pride and her intelligence. Recover the person who’d disappeared layer by layer in England.
    The last thing she needed was to be the focus of another controlling man.
    What was she going to do?
    Perhaps she would find the answer in the place she was instinctively going to now. The part of this garden that had always