Read an Excerpt
Riccardo's Secret Child
By Cathy Williams Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2004 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
All right reserved. ISBN: 0-373-12419-8
Chapter One
RICCARDO FABBRINI stood towards the back of the dim, overcrowded bar, his black eyes narrowed as they moved methodically through the room. He felt another swell of intense irritation hit him as he realised the disadvantage of his situation.
The call had come this morning and the voice at the other end of the phone had been persuasive enough to bypass the rigid series of obstacles that siphoned off all but the most important callers. He hissed an oath under his breath as he continued to scour the room, seeking out the lone female, the woman who had left the message to meet him at an appointed time in this smoky wine bar. If he had personally handled the call he would have made sure to have found out what the hell this meeting was all about. In fact, if he had handled the call there would have been no meeting, but Mrs Pierce, competent to the point of meticulousness, had obviously been conned by a soft voice and a fairy story.
Whatever she had to say, it must be good, he thought grimly. It had better be good. He was not a man who found it amusing to have his time wasted.
"May I help you, sir?"
Riccardo's dark, impatient gaze focused on a small woman dressed in a waitress's uniform standing next to him, peering up at him, her oval face tinged with pleasure.
He was used to this kind of reaction from the opposite sex and normally he would have automatically fallen back on his charm and flirted with the pretty little thing hovering with her tray tucked neatly under one arm, but this was not a normal situation. He had been manoeuvred into coming here by some woman who had only conveyed to Mrs Pierce that her message was of the utmost importance, relying, no doubt, on his curiosity to grab at the mysterious carrot that had been dangled provocatively in front of his eyes.
Just the thought of it made him catch his breath in another surge of frustrated anger.
"I'm meeting someone," he answered in a clipped voice.
"What's the name?" The petite blonde moved three steps to a desk at the side and picked up a sheet of paper on which were listed a series of names, most with ticks alongside them, customers who had arrived to take up their reservations.
"That's the one." He pointed at a name on the sheet, Julia N., with the tick alongside it. "She's here, is she?" he said grimly, casting his eyes around the room again and failing to find anyone matching up to the woman he had mentally conjured up.
Because conjured her up he had. He would have gone out with her at some point, of that he was sure, which hardly narrowed his options, but he knew his preferences. She would be tall, leggy, blonde and, he had to admit, fairly lightweight in the brains department. That was the way he liked them. Their vanity was his protection from emotional involvement. They enjoyed being seen on his arm, relished the privileges he could offer them but understood their place. Emotional baggage, he had discovered to his cost, did not sit easily on his shoulders.
He also had a good idea of what the woman in question would be after. Money. Weren't they always? However simpering and ingenuous they appeared, his vast bank balance never failed to impress. And he also knew how he intended to deal with any gold-diggers, whatever their trumped-up sob stories. Ruthlessly.
He bit back his anger at finding himself engineered into a meeting he had not initiated and decided, grimly, that now that he had found himself here he would enjoy the situation for what it was worth.
"Just follow me, sir." The little blonde with the curly hair and the very cute behind walked in front of him and he followed, curious, now that he had come this far, to see where she was leading him. Riccardo anticipated, with a certain amount of relish, a short, sharp and illuminating conversation. Illuminating for the woman in question. Illuminating enough for her to realise that no one, but no one, got the better of Riccardo Fabbrini.
His sensuous lips curved coldly into a smile of anticipated victory.
He was still feverishly scanning the crowd for the single, blonde female, when he realised that his brief tour of the wine bar, which had taken them from the bustling front to a slightly quieter section at the back, had come to an end. He found himself in front of a table at which was seated a slender, mousy-haired woman who had half risen to her feet and appeared to be holding out her hand in greeting.
"May I get you a drink, sir?" enquired the waitress.
Riccardo ignored the polite question and stared in disbelief at the figure in front of him, who had now subsided back into her chair, though she continued to watch him. Very cautiously indeed. As though he might very well bite.
Who the hell was she?
"Mr Fabbrini?" Julia stared up at the towering, olive-skinned stranger and nervously tried to gather herself, already regretting her decision to meet him, even while she knew that the meeting was as inevitable as the sun rising and setting. Inevitable and every bit as difficult as she had imagined it would be, judging from the expression on his face.
"Would you care to sit down?" Julia persisted politely, her anxious eyes briefly meeting those of the waitress, whose expression was sympathetic.
"No, I would not like to sit down. What I would like is for you to tell me who you are and why you have wasted my time dragging me here."
Julia felt clammy perspiration break out over her body like a rash. She took a deep, steadying breath and reminded herself that the man in front of her, menacing though he seemed, could do absolutely nothing to her.
The waitress, having hovered indecisively for a few minutes, had retreated to safer waters, clearly intimidated by him.
"I did think about coming to see you at your office," Julia said weakly, "but I decided that a neutral zone might be better. I really wish you'd sit down, Mr Fabbrini. It will be impossible holding a conversation with you if you continue to glare down at me like that."
"Is this better?" Instead of sitting down, Riccardo leant forward, hands firmly planted on the table so that his eyes were on her level and provided Julia, up close, with a vision of such disconcerting masculinity that she flinched back, an automatic response to his aggressive invasion of her space.
Of course, she knew what he looked like. She had seen pictures of him, and she had heard all about his terrifying personality, but nothing had prepared her for the impact of it full-on. Nothing had prepared her for his height, his overpowering maleness that had her breath catching uncomfortably in her throat, the constricting force of his swarthy good looks.
"No," Julia said as calmly as she could. "No, it's not, Mr Fabbrini. You're doing your best to threaten me and it won't work. I won't be threatened by you." Thank goodness she had made sure that their table was situated at the back of the wine bar, where they were at least out of the range of curious ears and eyes. Thank goodness she had chosen somewhere large and very lively, where this little scene was lost amid the babble of voices and the roars of laughter from the groups of after-work men lounging on stools by the bar.
Riccardo continued to look at her without saying a word. Her smoky voice, so at odds with her average appearance, was controlled and self-contained but her hands were trembling. There was nothing her body could do about containing the effect he was having on her, he thought with a hot stab of satisfaction, even though she was doing her best to quell it.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Riccardo's Secret Child by Cathy Williams Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
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