CHAPTER 1

               ‘I hate this carpet… these people… Sitting here and waiting. Wondering…’ the woman thought. ‘I just want to know where Ari is… And no one here knows… So why are they here?’

          She was standing on one of the soft-cushioned sofas, staring at the carpet under her feet. Six hours since it happened… Six long, terrifying hours… She was here, in London, in this beautiful, big house, close to Hyde Park, trying to make sense of what was really going on around her.

          Everybody in the living room was doing something… except for her. She was just standing there, motionless, empty, still stunned. The tension in the room was so thick one could cut it with a knife.

          People were standing in small groups, some talking in low, worried voices, some breaking into tears now and then, others comforting, others holding themselves apart from it all, standing or sitting with fierce self-control about them which held them silent and still.

          Waiting for some news, any kind of news, Hailee Baroni was sitting alone, away from the others. She appeared calm, composed now as she stared down at the carpet beneath her feet, seemingly oblivious to everyone else. But she was far from oblivious, far from composed.

          Every movement, every single breath, each sound was reverberating shrilly inside Hailee’s head. And she was sitting there like that, straight-backed and very still because she knew that if she did so much as move a muscle she might break in millions of tiny pieces.

          Hailee knew she must maintain her self-control, she mustn’t break. It had already happened once. When the dreadful news had been brought to her, her initial reaction had been one of almost overwhelming horror.

          They had tried to put her to bed, then tried to force tranquilizers down her throat to put her out of her torment, tried to render her oblivious to it all. She'd refused categorically, pushing everybody away. How could any woman… any mother take refuge in sleep at a time like this?

           People tried it since they had been alarmed by her reaction because they'd needed something palpable to worry about and she'd seemed the most obvious candidate. Since she couldn’t fight the army of worried people around and the infinite number of bad thoughts running around in her mind, Hailee decided to stay calm and silent, away from everybody. 

          But she was waiting for hours now… like the rest of them. Waiting for the man who was at the center of all this unfortunate event to come and take control of the situation.

“He’s on his way, Mrs. Baroni,” they'd told her as if that piece of information was it enough to make Hailee feel better.

          She nodded but knowing he was coming there changed nothing. So, she sat very still, blue eyes lowered so no one could read what was happening inside her mind and concentrated all her attention on remaining calm while they, in their own anxiety, didn’t seem to notice the way her black clothes were accentuating the whitened strain in her face.

          ‘Would I be able to get up from the sofa without falling to the ground?’ she thought.

          Hailee knew she had to do it. No one knew she was sitting so straight because the shock was holding her spine like a vice, or that her hands, resting quietly on her lap, were clenched and cold and so stiff that she didn't think she could unclench them again even if she tried to.

          But at least they didn't approach her anymore. At least they weren't trying to comfort her by whispering useless clichés no mother wanted to hear at a time like this. At least they were leaving her the hell alone.

          The sudden sound of crunching tires on the gravel driveway outside the house had everyone else jumping, but Hailee didn’t move. She didn’t even lift her head in response. Finally, some answers… some truths… maybe.

          There was the sound of voices in the hallway, one deep, sharp, and commanding, standing out from the rest as special, unique. And the air in the room began to fizz. Then footsteps, firm, precise, came towards the closed living-room door.

          Everyone inside the room turned towards it as it shot open, their eyes fixing expectantly on the man who appeared in the doorway. But Hailee kept her gaze fixed on the carpet she'd had it fixed on for ages now, carefully counting the tiny squares which made up part of the pale blue and peach design.

          She could sense his eyes on her but stood still. She knew him… all too well. Tall, hard features, arrogant look, black hair, tight body. White shirt, dark tie, grey suit that sat on him as expensive silk should.

          Tanned skin-natural, not worked on. Long, thin nose ruthlessly drawn, resolute sensual mouth. And the sharp and shrewd eyes of a hunter. Gold and cold, like the features. A man carved out in stone.

          He stood still and composed in the doorway for a few incredible, interminable seconds. His sheer power could be felt in every corner of the room, of the house. Everyone held their breath, not her. She couldn’t care less about his little… power show. She needed something else from him.

          His strange eyes flicked from one anxious face to another, surveying the scene as a whole without so much as acknowledging a single person. The young nanny, slumped in a chair by the window, let out a muffled sob when his gaze touched her. Her cheeks spotty, eyes red and swollen, she stared up at him as if she were begging for her very life.

          Coldly, dismissively the man moved on. Until his eyes found Hailee, sitting there in her isolated splendor, face lowered and seemingly unaware of his presence. Then something happened to his face. His gaze changed. It sent an icy chill down the spines of those who saw it.

          The man began to move, graceful like a tiger. Without so much as giving anyone else a second glance, he walked across the patterned carpet and stopped directly in front of her.

“Hailee,” he prompted quietly.

          She didn’t move. Her eyes did focus dimly on the pair of Italian handmade leather shoes which were now concealing the patch of carpet she had been concentrating on. But other than that, she showed no sign that she was aware of his presence.

“Hailee.”

          There was more command threaded into the tone this time. It had the required effect, making her dark lashes quiver before her eyes began the slow, sluggish journey upwards, skimming his long, silk-clad legs, powerful thighs, his lean, tight torso made of steel muscle and covered by a white shirt that didn’t quite manage to hide the abundance of crisp black hair shadowing satin-smooth, stretched-leather skin beneath.

          Hailee reached the throat, taut and tanned. Then the chin, rigidly chiseled. Then the shadow of a line that was his grimly held, perfectly sculptured mouth. His nose was thin, straight, and uncompromisingly masculine. Cheeks, lean and sheened with the silken gleam of well cared for skin.

          Then, at last, the eyes. Her blank blue gaze lifted to clash with the gold eyes belonging to the only man in this world she swore she wouldn’t see ever again in her life. Not after all he said and done to her. Still, she was here again.

          ‘How long had it been since I saw him the last time?’ Hailee found herself thinking dully. ‘Two years? No, almost three… He hadn’t changed at all. Still cold and arrogant as hell. Satan himself is keeping his distance from this man…’

          The man in front of her was Alessandro Baroni. One of the most powerful and important men Hailee ever knew. A wealthy Italian man who could afford expensive houses in every major city in the world.

          He was slick, smooth, terrifying. Born to power, raised to power, and used to power. When he frowned, people cowered. The man had everything. Good looks, great body, the mind of an evil genius.  

          Why should three small years change any of that? He possessed the looks and power of a god. The hair, so black it gleamed navy blue in the light. The nose gave an arrogant image of him that was so true. The mouth, firm, set, perfectly drawn.

          And finally, the eyes. The eyes of a lion, a tiger, a sleek black panther. The eyes of a hard, cold, ruthless predator. Cruel and unforgiving. If her mouth had been up to it, it would’ve smiled, although bitterly.

          He was the unforgiving god. She was the sinner. It was a shame Hailee viewed the whole situation the other way around. It meant that neither of them was prepared to give an inch. Or hate the other less.

          ‘Three years,’ she was thinking. ‘And here I am again…’

          Three years of cold, silent, slow death. And it was all still there, lying hidden beneath the surface right now, but there all the same. Three years since Alessandro had shared the same space as her.

          And now he had the nerve to appear before her and say her name as though it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do. But it wasn't. And they both knew it wasn't. And Hailee was in no right mind to play stupid, pride-saving games. Not with him. And not now. Not with this man, whom she had once loved and now hated with the same intensity.

          Hailee looked away, eyes lowering back down his length, dismissing his handsome face, dismissing his superb body, dismissing his long legs encased in expensive Italian silk. Dismissing the man in his entireness.

          The message was loud and clear. The room gasped.

“Get out.”

          It was quietly spoken, almost conversationally so, yet there wasn’t a person in the room who didn’t understand the command or whom it was aimed directly at. Indifferent to them all, unmoving, Alessandro remained directly in front of Hailee's bowed head while he waited in silence for his instruction to be carried out.

          They jolted into action, responding like robots, heads, bodies, limbs jerking with a complete lack of coordination that shifted them towards the door. Two policemen, both in plain clothes. The uniformed chauffeur, hat gone, half mussed, face white. The weepy young nanny with her face buried in a handkerchief. And the old housekeeper and her grim-faced Jack-of-all-trades husband.

          And the doctor who had been called out to treat the young nanny and had ended up staying because he had been seriously concerned that Hailee was on the verge of collapsing. Or maybe because Alessandro Baroni had ordered him to stay and was too afraid to say no.