Page 223 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

They watched the last race and then everyone started to drift downstairs.

‘What happens now?’ she whispered.

‘Drinks, canapés, a lot of pointless conversation.’

‘Scusi.’A beautiful dark-haired woman glanced up from her phone, smiling approvingly, her cat’s eyes flaring at the corner as she caught sight of Tiger. ‘No, darling. Let’s go to Corbucci’s. I heard Harris Carver was there and I want to see if he’s as delectable in person as everyone claims.’

Sydney felt her face freeze.

Harris Carver.

He was here.

She felt sick. Looked sick too, she realised a moment later as she looked up and found Tiger staring at her steadily.

‘You know Harris Carver.’ His eyes were narrowing, and she could sense him moving pieces of a puzzle around, turning them, rearranging them.

‘Signor McIntyre, would you like to join the winning teams for a photo?’

It was one of the event organisers, beaming.

‘I would.’ Tiger cut him off smoothly. ‘But unfortunately something has come up. Another time maybe.’

His arm tightened around her waist and he began to frogmarch her through the crowd.

‘We don’t have to leave.’

He jerked her round to face him. ‘Oh, but we do. You see, I saw your face back there. You know Harris Carver, and right now all that matters to me is finding out how.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

THEJOURNEYBACKto the island seemed to take no time at all.

As Angelo slowed alongside the jetty, Tiger was already out of the speedboat, pulling her up alongside him and guiding her back towards the villa.

Silvana was waiting for them in the entrance hall but as she stepped forward to greet them she caught sight of her boss’s face and changed her mind.

‘In here.’ Tiger threw open the door to his office and Sydney followed him in, her breath catching in her throat as he stalked past her and turned to face her.

Today in the sunshine with the cheers of the spectators echoing around them as the McIntyregondolinohad crossed the finishing line first, she had forgotten this was how it had started. Gazing up into his golden eyes, she’d been lulled into a false sense of security, but Tiger and Harris Carver moved in the same circles and now it felt inevitable that his name should have come up.

‘Sit. Talk. Now,’ he ordered, folding his arms in front of his body and lifting his chin in that commanding, autocratic way of his. He was practically vibrating with a mix of fury and disbelief so in that sense it was more or less a replay of what had happened in the New York office, except she could see the sea here through the windows and there were no burly security guards hovering at the margins of her vision.

She sat down, her heart thumping jerkily.

This wasn’t like before when they had argued about the clothes. Then, his anger had been hot and blurred at the edges with exasperation, and her survival instincts had kicked in and overridden everything so that even though she wasn’t physically scared of Tiger, she’d had to run.

But she didn’t want to run now.

What she wanted was for things to go back to how they had been at the regatta when he had stood slightly behind her to watch the race, his hands resting on her hips, anchoring her to him, his stubble grazing her skin as he’d leaned in to kiss her softly at the base of her neck.

She stared at him, dry-mouthed, trying to calm her beating heart. He didn’t look as if he wanted to kiss her now.

He looked distant. Hostile. And when he spoke, his voice scraped over her like sandpaper. ‘Do you think that silence is going to save you? That if you stall for long enough, I’ll give up? I won’t, I promise you. So why don’t you stop wasting my time and tell me how you know Harris Carver?’

‘I only met him once.’

‘When?’ He bit the question off and spat it at her.