Reckless in Paradise Read Online Free Page A

walls shudder and Sophie jump with them as Daniel stormed away along the length of the windows. Just as suddenly he stopped and turned, his hand slashing through the air. ‘I don’t have to accept anything! Not when there will be no wedding!’
    â€˜You really think you can stop them?’ She dragged in a breath, shaking her head, realising that arguing was futile and that she would do better to try and persuade. ‘Look, Mr Caruana,’ she said, taking a tentative and what she hoped was a conciliatory step forward, ‘Monica and Jake are crazy about each other. You should see them together—this is a true love-match.’
    His left palm cracked down so hard on his timber desk that she flinched. ‘She does not love that man!’
    â€˜You don’t know that.’
    â€˜Don’t you think I know my sister? Monica likes to think she’s in love. She always has. She’s been in love with fairy tales for ever, in love with the idea of being in love, always waiting for a knight in shining armour to come riding over the hill and rescue her. But if there’s one thing my sister doesn’t need it’s rescuing. Not by anyone.’
    No? With a brother like him, rescuing by a knight in shining armour sounded like a perfectly reasonable idea, if not a necessity. ‘I’m not actually talking fairy tales, Mr Caruana. I’m talking about love—deep, abiding love.’ She hesitated, wondering how far she could go before overstepping the mark from ‘cool and professional’ to tripping into ‘foot in mouth’ territory. Then she figured that, with all that had gone before, she was already there. ‘I gather from your reaction that you’re unfamiliar with the concept.’
    The sudden tightness of flesh against cheek and jaw was his first response. ‘I’m talking reality!’ was his second, before he took to pacing again, eating up the floor in long, fluid strides. She would have liked to ignore him, but she was compelled to watch. Compelled to admire the big-cat-like grace and economy of his movements, even when anger seemed to be the prime motivator behind his motion.
    Whoever his tailor was, he was a genius, she thought guiltily; there was no way he’d bought those trousers off the rack. The fabric moved over the tight musculature of his behind and thighs like it was part of his very flesh.
    â€˜How much do you think my sister is worth?’ He wheeled around so suddenly she had to drag her eyes north, and her wayward thoughts with them. ‘How many millions?’
    Sophie shrugged, struggling for nonchalance as she reined in thoughts that had no place in this confrontation. ‘And that’s relevant because?’ It seemed a fair question to her—she’d never given two thoughts to Monica’s wealth or otherwise—but it only appeared to make him madder.
    â€˜Are you really that naïve, Miss Turner?’ Three long steps brought him closer—perilously closer. Now there was only a pace between them, and even that seemed shrunken and almost vibrating with tension, a tension that inexplicably madeher breasts ache and her nipples harden. ‘Do you have any idea how many men have come sniffing after my sister, hoping to find a way to the Caruana fortune?’
    She forced herself to concentrate on his words instead of the shimmering sensations of the flesh, kicking up her chin in a futile effort to appear taller, even though he had at least six inches on her five-foot-eight frame. ‘And you’d know that was their motive, because…?’
    â€˜Because as soon as they got a sniff of a cheque they conceded defeat and cleared off.’
    Shimmer turned to shock, rendering her momentarily speechless. When she could finally put voice to thoughts again, out spilled the disbelief in words. ‘You paid them?’
    She put a hand over her mouth, swaying a little on her feet at the revelation.