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what the frown is about.’

     ‘I wasn’t—’

     ‘Then you should,’ he intruded curtly. ‘You don’t know me, Rachel Carmichael. I might go in for drug-enhanced love-ins. How old are you, by the way?’

     Rachel blinked. ‘Twenty-three. Why, what has my age got to do with anything?’

     ‘Just curious.’ He sat down right next to her sending her spine arching into a defensive stretch.

     Raffaelle saw it happen and smiled. The air circulating around them was alive with an ever increasing sting of awareness. He could feel it. He knew that she could feel it. What he could not figure out waswhy it was there and what he was going to do about it.

     Liar, the dry part of his brain fed back.

     ‘Okay…’ Relaxing into the sofa, he stretched out his long legs. ‘Now, start talking.’

     Talking…Sending her tongue round her dry lips, Rachel looked down at the bag she was still clutching in one hand and made a small shift of her wrist so she could see the time on her watch.

     It was just coming up to midnight. How long did Mark need to do his thing with his digital camera, write his accompanying piece, then file it with the newspaper via the Internet?

     She looked at her bag with the comforting feel of her cellphone inside it, and wondered if she dared take it out and ring him to check?

     Great idea, she then thought heavily. As if Raffaelle Villani was going to let her contact anyone until he had his explanation.

     ‘Sit back and relax,’ he invited.

     What she did was stiffen up all the more. ‘I’m perfectly relaxed as I am, thank you.’

     ‘No, you are not. There is tension—here…’ A finger arrived in the naked taut hollow between her shoulders, sending her spine into another muscle splitting arch as if she’d been stung by an electric shock.

     The sensation flung her, gasping to her feet. ‘That wasn’t—necessary,’ she protested.

     ‘You think not?’

     ‘No.’ Taking a few shaky steps away from him, she put the glass to her mouth and sipped while he watched her through half hidden eyes and a knowing smile on his lips.

     ‘We share chemistry,cara .’

     Rachel laughed thickly. ‘That of kidnapper and victim.’

     ‘And who do you believe is the victim here—?’

     Just like that, with one smooth question, he brought the whole madness which had made up this evening tumbling down to where it really belonged.

     For which of them was the real victim? Certainly not her, she had to admit. He had every right to be angry. She had no right to be anything at all.

     On the short sigh that quivered as it left her, Rachel finally took responsibility for her own misdemeanours. It was no use trying to pretend she was innocent when she wasn’t. Or to wish Raffaelle Villani a million miles away because he’d ruined all their plans when he had stopped her from getting away back there at the hotel.

     He was right about the chemistry too. Just turning to look at his long, lean, relaxed sprawl, giving off all kinds of innate sexual messages, sent her insides into an instant tight spiral spin.

     Then—okay, she told herself grimly, let’s keep this strictly to business, then maybe the—other—stuff will die a natural death.

     On that stern piece of good common sense, she lifted her chin, pushed her eyes upwards to fix them on his face, then she steadied her breathing and plunged right in.

     ‘As I just told you, my name is Rachel Carmichael,’ she reminded him. ‘Elise is my half-sister. W-we had different fathers, hence the different surnames…’

     CHAPTER THREE

     HE DIDnot move. He remained relaxed. His eyes told her absolutely nothing and his mouth held on to its smooth flat line.

     So why did Rachel get the unnerving impression that he had already worked most of that out?

     ‘Elise has been out of the modelling scene for over five years now since—since she married Leo Savakis—’

     ‘And gave him a son.’

     Rachel could only