Her skin dampened. Vito was in view now. Taller than she remembered, darker than she remembered, about a hundred times more staggeringly attractive than she had ever allowed herself to remember. All the sophisticated trappings were there; the superbly elegant suit, the absolutely unshakeable good manners that were prompting that coldly polite smile. But they were only a facade on a fiercely elemental nature and an immense and arrogant ego, a galaxy away from her New-Age-man ideal.
'Thanks for seeing me.' It wasn't the opening she had planned. Indeed, it sounded demandingly humble to her own ears.
CHAPTER TWO
'I'M SURE you'll understand that I'm not being rude when I ask you to be brief.' Vito indicated the chair placed in readiness about six feet from the desk. If his secretary had stepped forward with a blindfold, Ashley wouldn't have been surprised. 'I'll be as brief as possible.'
A satiric black brow elevated. 'Bearing in mind that I have no desire to hear a plea for clemency on your brother's behalf.'
Crushed before she could even warm up, Ashley was relieved when a phone buzzed and he stretched out an impatient hand. As his attention switched from her, she breathed again. The temptation to study him was overpowering. He was incredibly attractive. Hard cheekbones slashed his strong, dark features, highlighting the proud temperamental flare of his nose and a mouth that was a wide, blatantly sensual arc. But, if you were a woman, it was the eyes you noticed first and remembered longest. Vito had stunningly beautiful eyes, golden as the purest precious metal in sunlight or dark as darkest ebony.
In defiance of her every wish to the contrary, Vito still radiated a dark, savage sexuality boldly at variance with a three-piece suit and a silk tie.