One Last Night Read Free

the day of the wedding had been a torturous reminder of how Maya had failed to produce an heir. She wondered if that was why she had acted so stupidly and recklessly once the reception had ended. She had been so emotionally overwrought, so desperately lonely and sad at the breakdown of her own marriage that she had weakened when Giorgio had suggested a nightcap.
    Going back to his room at the Sabbatini hotel in Milan where the reception was held had been her first mistake. Her second had been to let him kiss her. And her third…well, she was deeply ashamed of falling into his arms like that. She had acted like a slut and he had walked away from her when it was over as if he had paid for her services like a street worker.
    'I want the villa, Giorgio,' she said, holding his diamond-hard gaze. 'I surely deserve some compensation. I could ask for a whole lot more and you know it.'
    His jaw moved forward in an uncompromising manner, his eyes now darker than ink. 'I wouldn't want you to get the wrong idea here, Maya. I want this divorce just as much as you do. But the villa is not negotiable. I am not going to budge on this.'
    His intransigence fuelled Maya's defiance, so too did his all too ready acceptance of the divorce.
    Surely, if he had ever felt anything for her, wouldn't he have fought to keep her by his side no matter what? The only reason he was dragging the chain a bit was over the settlement.

    Her bitterness was like a hot flood inside her, scorching its way through her veins. 'You bastard,'
    she threw at him. 'You're rich beyond belief and you won't give me the only thing I want.'
    'Why do you want it?' he asked. 'You're moving to London within days. What use would you have for a thirty-room villa?'
    'I want to develop it,' she said with a combative toss of her head. 'It would make a fabulous hotel and health spa. It would provide a supplementary income to my teaching. It would be an investment, a great investment in fact.'
    His eyes flashed like lightning. 'Are you deliberately goading me?' he asked. ' Dio, Maya, I've already warned you not to push me too far.'
    'Why?' she tossed back at him. 'Are you worried you might show some human feelings for once?
    Some anger, some passion, or maybe even some vulnerability for a change?'
    The air pulsed with a current of energy that made the skin on the back of Maya's neck start to tingle. His eyes were so black she could not tell where his pupils ended and his irises began. He had stopped clenching his hands as soon as he saw her eyes flick to them but she could sense the tension in him all the same. His face was carved from stone, his lips flat and tight. She wondered if he was going to close the distance between their bodies and take her in his arms the way he had done the night of his brother's wedding. They had argued just like this and then suddenly, instead of shouting at each other, they were locked in a passionate embrace. Her body quivered at the memory and when she met Giorgio's eyes she could almost swear he was recalling exactly the same shamelessly erotic moment when his mouth had crashed down on hers.
    'Is that what you want, Maya?' he asked in a low and deep and silky tone as his hand snaked out and captured one of hers. 'You want me to lose control and take you just like the last time?'
    Maya's body flared with heat, her wrist burning like a ring of fire where his fingers curled around it like a handcuff. 'You wouldn't dare,' she bit out.
    He pulled her up against him, his body hot and hard and unmistakably male against her soft femininity. 'I dared before,' he reminded her. 'And you enjoyed every second of it.'
    Shame flooded her cheeks but she put up her chin haughtily all the same. 'I'd had too much champagne to drink.'
    His mouth turned up derisively. 'Is that the only way you can absolve yourself for sleeping with me again?' he asked. 'Come on, Maya, you were begging for it even before you had your first sip of champagne. I saw it in your eyes the moment