British art conservator Charlie Bennett has arrived in Venice to advise billionaire Orlando Rossi on his most recent acquisition. Before meeting the mogul, she heads to the Rialto Bridge to do some sketching of her own. While making a caricature of the most imposing man she sees, Charlie is shocked when she is accosted by the man’s bodyguards! And she is even more surprised to learn the identity of her subject....
Chapter One
‘What are you doing?’
Shocked, Charlie Bennett tried to escape the two men bearing down on her. She failed. One snatched the caricature she had been working on, while the other hauled her to her feet.
A third man, the man she had been sketching, remained motionless with his proud Latin profile etched against a washed out Canaletto sky.
Venice was where many artists gathered, and to all intents and purposes, she was just one more. So, why the drama? Charlie wondered as they brought her in front of him.
‘Well,’ he murmured, looking down at her. ‘Explain yourself.’
She shivered involuntarily. He was an incredible looking man. ‘Explain myself?’ She stared up into the commanding face. ‘It’s you who has the explaining to do. How dare you set your men on me?’
‘How dare you,’ he cut across her, ‘invade my privacy like this?’ He held the sketch she had been working on up to her face.
The caricature exaggerated his features, capturing the essence of the man, revealing someone hard, calculating and arrogant.
She had captured a good likeness, Charlie thought grimly, taking the opportunity, to shake his men off.
‘Bring her to the apartment,’ the man instructed. I won’t allow her to make a spectacle of herself here-’
‘Come back here!’ Charlie yelled as he strode ahead, but his men recaptured her arms and frog-marched her across the bridge.
‘What’s going on?’ Charlie demanded as they took her through a side door of her hotel. Was she being deported? Had they brought her back to pick up her things?
‘Where are you taking me?’ she asked in alarm as the bodyguards forced her into the elevator. There was only one floor available,’ Charlie noticed as the steel door slid shut.
The men wouldn’t speak, and like their master they were so much taller than she was they only had to stare ahead to cut her out.
‘Where is this?’ It was as if she had been transported into some impossibly opulent world, where even the six-star hotel situated on the floors below them seemed tacky and tasteless by comparison.
She was about to enter the private residence of someone immensely rich, Charlie realised, shaking in spite of her determination not to be intimidated.
But what did he want with her?
The man was waiting for her, and with the light behind him she couldn’t see his expression, she could only feel the power of his will dragging her unwilling feet towards him.
Her senses reeled as she walked past him. He threw out the type of heat no woman could ignore. It promised pleasure beyond her wildest imaginings, and took all she’d got to block it out.
‘This way,’ he said, indicating what looked like a wood panelled library
A horrible realisation crept up on Charlie as she entered the room. She knew this man. And when he found out who she was, she would be finished.
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The Venetian's Defiant Woman