The Mediterranean Billionaire's Blackmail Bargain Read Online Free

do you really think that we could have made anything of this relationship if you’d known that I was seeing someone new, someone serious? ’
    Alicia was so stunned that she couldn’t even begin to see how she could possibly get out of this mess.
    Dante hated the woman at his side with a vengeance for bringing this intrusion into his life. How dare she? He was caught between a rock and a hard place. The reporter had his story anyway and if Dante called the police in it would fan the flames of a news item that didn’t even exist!
    He smiled again and it was cold. ‘Needless to say, this will be the last time you invade my privacy and if I catch you even attempting to trespass again, you will pay the price.’ Dante tightened his hold on Alicia, making her gasp painfully. ‘You’re lucky that love is making me magnanimous.’
    And with that the reporter and his companion were summarily marched down the driveway. Alicia’s legs were very wobbly and she had a taste of just how stupid she’d been in thinking for a second that it had been easy to get in. She’d just been very, very lucky.

CHAPTER TWO
    A LICIA FELT ANYTHING but lucky now, though, as her head swirled with everything that had just happened and Dante D’Aquanni dropped his hands as though she were infectious.
    â€˜Get inside. Now.’
    Alicia opened her mouth. He made a move and she flinched. She didn’t know this man, didn’t know his capacity or otherwise for violence and, right now, he looked murderous.
    â€˜Not a word, lady. Inside. Now.’
    Alicia walked into the villa on cotton wool legs. She saw a chair and went and sat down, seriously afraid that she might fall.
    â€˜Get up. Did I say you could sit down?’
    Alicia looked up, her face leached of all colour. ‘Please…I—’
    Dante strode forward and pulled her out of the chair. Two hands on her arms, holding her like a rag doll. And she felt like a rag doll.
    â€˜How dare you? How dare you invade my private space, bring those miscreants onto my property, a photographer for heaven’s sake—’
    Alicia looked up into the harsh features—no less handsome now because of his anger. Even more mesmerizing because of it. From some reserve she called up her own anger, which had been in woefully short supply for the past few minutes. He might have turned the tables but she was still here. He hadn’t turfed her out on the road.
    â€˜I dare, Mr D’Aquanni, because someone I love very much is lying in a hospital bed and she needs help. Help that I can’t give her. As much as it kills me to come here and have to deal with someone as amoral as you, I have no choice.’ Bitterness laced her words. ‘Believe me, it’s not my idea of fun scrabbling around thorn bushes in the dark. I did try to talk to you last week, if you recall, but you wouldn’t listen.’
    He delivered a scathing glance up and down. ‘I don’t have time to waste, listening to someone shrieking such unfounded accusations.’
    Alicia remembered the panic that had galvanized her actions, the fear that had been barely in check when she’d seen him. She’d had to stop him somehow and, as much as she might have wanted to be civil, she hadn’t been allowed. She strove for calm now.
    â€˜I tried to make an appointment to see you in your office but it would have been easier to get an audience with the Pope.’
    He snorted inelegantly and in the next second moved so fast that Alicia was caught totally by surprise.
    He had slipped her bag from her shoulders and upended it on to the floor in seconds. After a moment of shock she stepped forward. ‘How dare you—’
    But he held her back easily with one hand and the feel of that hand against her belly made her jump back like a scalded cat.
    She watched as he flicked through the contents of her bag. Her wallet had a shockingly small amount of money.