Read Moth to the Flame for Free Online Page B

shrugged, and felt the towelling robe slip away
    from one shoulder. Her immediate instinct was to drag it back into
    place and it took all the self-command of which she was capable to
    leave the revealing folds of fabric where they were. She could feel
    his eyes on her, frankly assessing, lingering over the exposed line of
    her throat and the creamy skin of her bare shoulder, and she could
    feel a tight knot of fear in her chest—fear and something perilously
    approaching excitement. Her hands began to ball into fists at her
    sides and she made herself relax. Jan, she thought wryly, would
    never tie herself into a mass of tensions just because a man was
    looking at her. Besides, she was supposed to be a successful model
    who was used to being looked at. And to be fair to herself, she
    wouldn't be fighting this strange sort of panic under normal
    circumstances. Only these were not really normal circumstances, '
    and this was not just any man.
    She rallied herself defensively. 'But I don't quite understand you,
    signore. What game are you referring to and what rules am I
    supposed to have broken?'
    'Quite the guileless innocent, aren't you, cara, when it suits you to
    be. The game is love, for want of a better word, and the rule is that
    a woman like you does not expect the man to marry her.'
    She had half expected what he was going to say, but the shock of
    hearing it brutally spelled out was sickening. She felt as if a fist had
    been driven into the pit of her stomach, and her breathing quickened
    perceptibly.
    His words did not apply to her—she knew that, and that should
    have lessened their impact, yet that was impossible because they
    applied to Jan instead. How dared he? she thought as hurt and
    bewilderment fought with the anger inside her. How dared he say
    such things—make such insinuations about Jan?
    . Clearly he must know that she and Mario had been living together,
    at least on a casual basis, and this was the reason for his
    condemnation. That was the traditional viewpoint after all. The man
    could be as wild as he chose, but the girl must be pure, jealously
    guarding her virginity for her wedding day. And because Jan had
    transgressed this unwritten law with her future husband, she was
    regarded as an outcast. The colour rose faintly in her cheeks as she
    realised that Santino had probably recognised the bathrobe that she
    was wearing at that moment as Mario's and drawn his own
    conclusions.
    She remembered too Jan's bitter remarks about his hypocrisy. It was
    the ultimate in male chauvinism, she thought angrily, to use women
    for his own cynical pleasure and then despise the woman who had
    been his partner in that pleasure. Besides, Jan and Mario loved each
    other. Didn't that enter into the reckoning? She found her own
    resolution hardening. She and Santino Vallone would play a whole
    new game, and this time she would invent the rules.
    She smiled at him, her long lashes brushing her cheeks. 'Your
    argument should be with Mario, signore. After all, it was he who
    proposed marriage to me, not the other way round.'
    'But I only have your word for that, cara,' he said softly, with a
    sting underlying every word.
    She pretended to wince, laughing a little as she did so, controlling
    her own rage and contempt. 'Ouch, you play dirty, signore , and
    that's not in the rules either.'
    'I write my own,' he said quite pleasantly, and she believed him.
    Quite inconsequentially she found herself wondering how he would
    react when he discovered the truth about her deception, but she
    comforted herself with the reflection that by the time that happened
    she would be safely back in England and Jan and Mario would have
    to bear the brunt of his wrath together. Besides, she reasoned, Jan
    could always say with perfect truth that she'd had no idea what her
    sister had been up to in her absence.
    'You seem nervous,' he observed.
    'Is it any wonder?' She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue.
    She had not intended it to