Italian Bachelors: Devilish D'angelos: A Bargain with the Enemy / A Prize Beyond Jewels

‘No—’ Bryn started to interrupt.

‘I promised Bryn one of your famous pizzas with everything on, and a bottle of your best Chianti, Toni,’ Gabriel interjected, cutting lightly across Bryn’s denial as he took a firm hold of her elbow and squeezed warningly.

‘No problem.’ The older man beamed. ‘You will find somewhere for you and your young lady to sit, and I will ’ave Mamma bring the wine to you.’ He waddled off in the direction of the door at the back of the room marked Kitchen, stopping often to chat with one or other of his many customers.

Finding somewhere to sit wasn’t as easy as it sounded; Gabriel was right, the place was heaving, despite the decor and the music. Luckily a young couple with a baby were just preparing to leave, and Bryn and Gabriel were able to grab their table before someone else did.

‘This is wonderfully mad,’ Bryn murmured a few minutes later, feeling slightly bemused by all the people around them talking in loud voices, most of them in Italian, and gesticulating with their hands to emphasise a point.

Gabriel grinned. ‘My mother always refers to Antonio’s as “picturesque”.’

Bryn looked across the table at him. ‘Your mother comes here too?’

He nodded. ‘My father insists on coming to eat here at least once a week whenever my parents are back in London.’

Bryn slipped off her jacket as she settled more comfortably on her chair. Talking about Gabriel’s parents might not be ideal but it was certainly a safer subject than her own family. ‘Where do your parents live?’

‘They moved to Florida ten years ago when my father retired, and left the running of the original Archangel Gallery, which was all we had at the time, to myself and my two brothers.’ Gabriel shrugged, surprising Bryn by appearing totally relaxed in his surroundings.

She smiled slightly. ‘That would be Raphael and Michael.’

He grimaced. ‘My mother’s romantic choice of names rather than my father’s.’

‘And you’ve opened two more galleries since then, one in New York and one in Paris. With the Italian connection, why not Rome?’

‘The D’Angelos have always visited Italy for pleasure, not work.’ He gave one of those totally disarming smiles that made him appear several years younger and which made it all too easy for Bryn to guess exactly what sort of ‘pleasure’ the three D’Angelo brothers enjoyed when in Italy.

‘Have you—?’

‘Gabrielo!’ A tall, voluptuous, dark-haired woman—no doubt Toni’s wife—descended on them, placing a raffia-bottomed bottle of Chianti and two glasses down on the table before pulling a now-standing Gabriel in tightly against her overabundant bosom as she burst into a flourish of Italian.

‘English, please, Maria.’ Gabriel chuckled.

‘You are as ’andsome as ever, I see!’ She leant back to beam up at him. ‘Ah, if I were only twenty years younger!’ she added wistfully.

‘Even if you were you would never leave Antonio.’ Gabriel smiled at her warmly.

Bryn felt a bit disconcerted, both by the friendly way that Toni and Maria had greeted Gabriel, and his warm response to them in return. It was much easier for her to keep her own distance from Gabriel when she could continue to think of him as that cold and ruthless man who had sealed her father’s fate. The warmth shown to him by Toni and Maria, and his own obvious and long-standing affection for both of them, revealed a completely different side to the arrogantly ruthless Gabriel D’Angelo than the one Bryn had come to expect. Especially following so quickly on the heels of those moments of intimacy between them in his office.

‘Toni tells me you ’ave brought your young lady with you?’ Maria eyed Bryn speculatively as she stepped away from Gabriel.

‘No embarrassing Bryn, please, Maria!’ Gabriel warned quickly as he slipped off his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair, wondering if it had been a wise move on his part to bring Bryn to Antonio’s. The Italian couple were always asking when he intended settling down and having bambinos, and Bryn was the first woman he had ever brought here.

In his defence, bringing Bryn to Antonio’s had been a knee-jerk reaction to her obvious belief that he was a man who thought himself far above frequenting high-street coffee shops, or little Italian bistros, instead favouring exclusive restaurants and bars. Gabriel had just forgotten to factor in the consequences of bringing a woman to Antonio’s for the first time; in the past he had only ever come to the bistro with members of his family, knowing the women he usually dated wouldn’t give a damn how good the food was—this little bistro simply wasn’t fashionable enough or exclusive enough for their ‘sophisticated’ tastes.

Not that he thought Bryn unsophisticated. His sole reason for bringing her here had been to show her that he wasn’t the arrogant sophisticate she so obviously believed him to be.

Nor should he think of this as being a date—

Oh, to hell with this; whatever his reason for bringing Bryn here, she was here now, and it was his own fault if he had to suffer Toni and Maria’s teasing speculation. ‘Maria, Bryn. Bryn, Toni’s wife, Maria,’ he introduced stiffly.

* * *

‘None of this is what you expected, is it...?’

Bryn took a sip of the Chianti that Gabriel had poured into the two glasses, Maria having hurried off to the kitchen shortly after the introductions to see if their pizza was ready. Introductions where, Bryn had noted, Gabriel had made no effort to correct Maria’s assumption as to who Bryn was—or wasn’t!

And no, this disorganised and noisy bistro wasn’t the sort of place Bryn would ever have imagined seeing the Gabriel D’Angelo she had met earlier at Archangel, when he had looked every inch a wealthy and arrogant D’Angelo brother in his designer-label suit and silk shirt and tie.

‘I have every reason to hope the pizza will be as delicious as this Chianti,’ she murmured noncommittally.

‘Oh, it will be.’ Gabriel nodded, dark eyes hooded as he looked across the table at her. ‘But I probably should have taken you somewhere a little more...upmarket, to celebrate your inclusion in the New Artists Exhibition.’

Her brows rose. ‘Then shouldn’t the other five finalists, and the reserve, have been invited too?’

He gave a hard smile. ‘No.’

‘Oh.’ Bryn could feel her cheeks warm, but wisely said nothing; she had already made one wrong assumption about Gabriel this evening, an assumption he had taken exception to, and she wasn’t inclined to make another. ‘Well, this is absolutely fine for me,’ she continued quickly. ‘I would probably have felt out of my depth somewhere overly sophisticated anyway. Dining out hasn’t exactly been something I’ve done a lot of since— This is fine,’ she repeated flatly, lowering her eyes to avoid meeting his suddenly piercing and probing gaze. She had almost—almost—said ‘since my father went to prison’. A slip that could have been extremely costly to her inclusion in the exhibition.

Bryn had no doubts that it was the very informality of their surroundings that was responsible for her feeling so relaxed she had almost spoken without thinking, rather than the man seated opposite her. There was nothing about Gabriel that caused her to feel in the least relaxed—not his dangerous good looks, or her own unwelcome response to them.

‘To you, Bryn.’ Gabriel held up his glass in a toast, seeming unaware of her inner turmoil. ‘Let’s hope that the Archangel exhibition is not only a successful one but also the first of many for you.’

‘I’ll drink to that!’ Bryn took a grateful sip of her own wine. ‘Do you—? Oh, wow!’ Her eyes widened as she saw Maria winding her way deftly through the other diners towards their table, holding aloft the biggest pizza Bryn had ever seen in her life. Maria placed the hot plate down in the centre of their table with the beaming instruction to ‘Enjoy!’ before she hurried off again.

Bryn’s mouth watered as she stared down at the laden pizza, seeing pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, spinach, ham and aubergines.

‘I hope you don’t mind that there are no anchovies?’ Gabriel shrugged ruefully. ‘Toni knows that I don’t like them.’

‘Are you kidding? Who would ever miss them with all these other toppings?’ Bryn laughed delightedly as she continued to look at the pizza.

Gabriel felt his mouth go dry as he drank in the sight of Bryn relaxed and smiling; those dove-grey eyes warm and glowing, her creamy cheeks slightly flushed, her full and sensual lips—that had no need of the lip gloss so many women wore and which Gabriel, for one, found such a turn-off—delectably plump and rosy.

And watching those tempting lips as Bryn ate the pizza was going to be nothing short of physical torture for him!

‘Tuck in before it gets cold,’ he encouraged gruffly. ‘There are no knives and forks,’ he added dryly as Bryn frowned slightly at the obvious omission of utensils from the table. ‘The only way to eat pizza is with your fingers,’ he explained as she looked up at him questioningly.

‘Is that another Gabrielism?’ she teased as she helped herself to a slice of the pizza.

‘Trust me,’ Gabriel murmured softly.

She stilled before raising suddenly guarded eyes. ‘You keep saying that....’

Yes, he did. Because, after meeting Bryn again, after spending time with her this evening knowing that she believed he had no idea who she was, and knowing how much he still wanted her, Gabriel did want Bryn to trust him.

* * *

‘I had a really good time this evening, thank you,’ Bryn murmured as she and Gabriel sat together in the darkened interior of his sports car. He had parked outside the old Victorian building where she lived, only the moonlight from above illuminating the quiet residential street.

Apart from the fact that it wasn’t raining, it was an end to the evening so reminiscent of the one five years ago. A memory that had remained etched in Bryn’s mind.

She had been mooning about Gabriel for weeks by that time, totally infatuated with his dark good looks and confident air. After he had come to her parents’ house to talk with her father a couple times, she had taken to calling in to the Archangel Gallery several times a week on the off chance she might see him again.

That evening she had hung around outside at closing time, telling herself it was because she was waiting for the rain to ease off before making a dash for the bus stop, but in reality she had been hoping to catch a glimpse of Gabriel as he left the gallery.

Her breath had caught in her throat when she’d seen him coming out of the main doors, a fiery blush on her cheeks as he’d looked up and seen her, his face going blank for several seconds before recognition had widened those chocolate-brown eyes and he’d stopped to chat with her. It had been a blushingly stilted conversation on Bryn’s part, and she had been rendered completely speechless when Gabriel had asked if he could drive her home.

She had been so aware of Gabriel’s proximity once they were seated in the confines of his sleek sports car, the silence between them on the drive to her home seeming heavy with possibility and causing Bryn to tremble with nervous anticipation.

She had given him a shy glance from beneath dark lashes once he’d stopped the car outside her parents’ house. ‘Thank you for driving me home.’ She had groaned inwardly at her lack of sophistication.

‘You’re welcome.’ His voice had been husky as he’d turned in his seat to look at her. ‘Sabryna, I— Tomorrow there’s going to be—’ He had broken off, frowning darkly. ‘Oh, to hell with it, if I’m going to burn I may as well go down in a ball of flames!’ he had muttered fiercely before his head had swooped down and his lips had captured hers.

It had been the most exquisite kiss of Bryn’s young life, slow and searching, but at the same time so erotically charged she had felt as if she might drown in the feelings, emotions, coursing through her body.

She had been totally dazed by those emotions as Gabriel had suddenly wrenched his mouth from hers to look down at her briefly with hot, passionate eyes before moving back and turning away.

‘You should go in,’ he muttered darkly. ‘And try not to— Never mind,’ he had bitten out abruptly as he’d turned to look at her with tortured eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Sabryna.’

She had blinked. ‘For kissing me?’

‘No,’ he had rasped harshly. ‘I’ll never be sorry I did that. Just— Try not to hate me too much, okay?’

At the time Bryn had believed she could never hate Gabriel, that she loved him too much to ever hate him.

The following day, that ‘tomorrow’ Gabriel had referred to so obliquely, her world had blown up in her face, as her father had been arrested for forgery, with Gabriel lined up as the prosecution’s lead witness against him.

‘I’m glad,’ Gabriel murmured now in answer to her earlier comment.

Bryn came back to the present with a bump. ‘I’d ask you in for coffee, but...’ She trailed off with hard dismissal.

It had been a surprisingly enjoyable evening, Bryn acknowledged self-disgustedly, knowing that the past shouldn’t have allowed her to enjoy an evening with the hateful Gabriel D’Angelo.

But she had....

The food had been so excellent and the decor, the crowded room and loud conversation had all become part of that enjoyment. Two glasses of wine and she had even become fond of Toni’s off-key renditions of classical Italian arias!

As for the company... Gabriel had proved to be an amusing and entertaining dining companion, as they discussed their favourite artists as they ate, along with some of the funnier stories from Gabriel’s years of running the Archangel Galleries with his brothers.

Bryn had felt totally relaxed in his company by the time they left the bistro, from the good food, the wine and the good company, so much so that it had seemed like the most natural thing in the world to agree to Gabriel driving her home.

Enjoyable as the evening had been though, she admittedly inwardly that she found Gabriel even more disturbing now than she had five years ago.

As Gabriel D’Angelo he was unmistakably intelligent, sinfully handsome, as well as being equally sinfully rich and powerful.

As Gabriel he was obviously intelligent and handsome, but he was also relaxed and charming, plus he had a slightly wicked sense of humour, and a warmth that had allowed him to accept, without so much as a blink, the enthusiastic kiss Maria had planted on his lips, with the plea to ‘come back and see me soon’, before they left the bistro earlier.

All of those things, together with those dark and mesmerising good looks, that Bryn had become so increasingly aware of as the evening progressed made her very aware that she was in danger of falling under this man’s spell for the second time in her life.

‘But?’ Gabriel turned in his seat to prompt Bryn out of her continued silence.

She raised startled eyes. ‘Sorry?’

‘“I’d ask you in for coffee, but...”’ he reminded her.

She smiled ruefully. ‘That’s a woman’s polite way of saying thank you for the evening but now it’s over.’

‘You don’t have any coffee?’

‘I always have coffee.’

‘Then why not invite me in?’

She blinked long lashes. ‘I—well—it’s late.’

‘It’s only eleven o’clock.’ Although it was obvious to Gabriel that Bryn didn’t want to invite him into her home, and he knew she was right to feel that caution, he wanted so badly for her to change her mind.

He hadn’t thought it was possible, but his attraction to her had deepened in the past few hours and he was now desperate to taste and feel those plump lips that had been tormenting him all evening.

So desperate he moved to close the distance that separated them. ‘Bryn—’

‘Please don’t!’ She immediately held her hands up defensively, her eyes wide with alarm as she leaned back against the door behind her.

‘Why not?’ Gabriel prompted.

She ran the moistness of her tongue over her lips before answering him. ‘Why ruin a perfectly good evening?’

He frowned darkly. ‘My kissing you would ruin the evening?’

‘Please, Gabriel—’

‘But that’s what I want to do, Bryn— To please you!’ He closed the last of the distance between them as he pulled her gently forward into his arms before looking down at her hungrily.

‘I can’t!’ Her eyes glittered with unshed tears, her hands still held up defensively between them, not pushing Gabriel away, but desperately trying not to touch him either. ‘I can’t, Gabriel,’ she repeated achingly.

It was the despair in her voice, along with those unshed tears glistening in her beautiful eyes, that caused an icy chill down the length of Gabriel’s spine as he stilled. ‘Talk to me, Bryn,’ he encouraged gruffly. ‘For God’s sake, talk to me!’

‘I can’t.’ She gave another desperate shake of her head.

‘I have to kiss you, damn it,’ he said, wanting Bryn, but more than that wanting her to trust him.

With her body. With her emotions. With her past....

She looked up at him searchingly in the moonlight for several tense, timeless seconds, before she gave another slow and determined shake of her head. ‘I really can’t,’ she repeated flatly.

‘Not good enough, Bryn!’ he rasped. ‘Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you, that you don’t want that as much as I do, that you haven’t ached for it all evening, and I won’t ask you again,’ he encouraged gruffly.

Her throat moved as she swallowed convulsively. ‘I can’t do that either,’ she acknowledged achingly, her voice carrying a desperate sob.

‘You want me to make that decision for both of us, is that it?’ he bit out harshly.

Bryn was no longer sure what she wanted!

Well... She was, but what she wanted—to kiss and to be kissed by Gabriel—was what she shouldn’t want.

He was a D’Angelo, for goodness’ sake. And no matter how charming and entertaining he had been this evening, underneath all that charm he was still the cold and ruthless Gabriel D’Angelo from all those years ago. To allow— To want to kiss and be kissed by that man went against every instinct of loyalty she had, as well as every shred of self-preservation she possessed.

Except... She couldn’t escape the fact that the man she had met earlier today, the man she had just spent the evening with—the same man who made her pulse race and caused her body to be so achingly aware of everything about him—wasn’t in the least cold or ruthless, but was instead hot and seductive. That man she desperately wanted and longed to kiss.

Which was utter madness, when she knew exactly how Gabriel would react if he knew who she really was.

‘Please let me, Bryn.’

She couldn’t breathe as she looked up at Gabriel, unable to make a move to stop him as his hands moved up to cup her cheeks and lift her face to his, feeling herself drowning, becoming totally lost in the dark and enticingly warm depths of his piercing brown eyes as his mouth slowly descended towards hers.

CHAPTER FIVE

BRYN MELTED AS Gabriel first sipped, tasted and then devoured her as he crushed her lips beneath his, hearing the low groan in his throat as her fingers became entwined in the dark hair at his nape. Her breasts were heavy and aroused as they pressed against the hardness of his chest, Gabriel having pulled her in as tightly against him as was possible in the confines of the car as he continued to kiss her with an ever-deepening hunger.

A hunger that Bryn couldn’t help but feel in return, groaning low in her throat as she felt the brush of Gabriel’s tongue against her bottom lip, light, questing, possessing as her lips parted and his tongue surged inside, licking and tasting, learning every nuance, every dip and curve, his hands a restless caress along the length of her spine.

Bryn broke their kiss, her slender neck arching as she felt Gabriel’s hand push her blouse up, his fingers lightly caressing the bareness of her spine, her abdomen, before his hand cupped beneath the bared fullness of her breast.

The soft pad of his thumb was a light, sweeping torture across her aroused nipple, his lips a hot caress against Bryn’s throat as pleasure coursed hotly through her body, heating, dampening between her thighs, as he captured her aching nipple between thumb and finger, squeezing lightly.

His ragged breath burned against her throat as his other hand moved to unfasten the buttons of her blouse, allowing his questing lips to move lower, his tongue a sweeping, hungry caress against the tops of her breasts before dipping lower as he sucked her aching, straining nipple into the moist heat of his mouth.

Bryn’s head fell back against the headrest behind her, her fingers becoming entwined in the dark thickness of Gabriel’s hair as she held him against her, the intense pleasure of the dual assault of Gabriel’s lips and fingers against her breasts almost too much to bear.

Almost.

The pleasure was just too good, too exquisite, as it built higher, and then higher still, as Gabriel continued to draw deeply on her nipple, his tongue a moist and rasping caress against that burgeoning heat, rising higher, deeper, until she felt as if she would explode into a million pieces that could surely never be completely put back together again.

Never.

‘Gabriel, you have to stop!’

Gabriel was so aroused by the taste of Bryn and the desire that had raged so deeply, so out of control between them, that it took him several moments to realise that her hands were now pushing against his chest, her face turned away from him as she struggled to free herself from his arms.

He backed off the instant he realised what she was doing; he had never forced himself on a woman in his life before and he certainly wasn’t about to start now. He desired Bryn too much to ever want to do anything that she didn’t want, ache for, as much as he did.

Gabriel’s breathing sounded harsh in the confines of the car. ‘Hell, I totally forgot where we were.’ He gave a wince as he realised they were still sitting in his car parked outside the building where Bryn lived, and that although the side windows of the car were darkened glass, the windscreen certainly wasn’t. ‘I’m sorry, Bryn.’ He ran an agitated hand restlessly through the dark thickness of his hair.

She avoided so much as looking at him as she straightened and refastened her blouse with hands that shook slightly, her face pale in the moonlight.

‘Bryn?’

‘Not now, Gabriel. In fact, not ever!’ she insisted shakily. ‘I have to go.’ She turned to look out of the side window. ‘I— Thank you for dinner. I enjoyed Antonio’s.’

‘Just not what followed?’ Gabriel murmured knowingly.

Bryn gave a pained grimace. ‘I’m sure you’ll agree it wasn’t the most sensible thing either of us has ever done—’

‘Bryn, will you, for the love of God, look at me?’ he rasped his frustration with the situation. ‘Talk to me, damn it!’

She turned slowly, eyes huge and shadowed, her cheeks as pale as ivory in the moonlight. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’

‘Don’t you?’

She looked away from the intensity of his gaze. ‘How about, this should never have happened?’ She gave a shake of her head. ‘We both know that already.’

‘Do we?’

‘Yes.’ Bryn looked at him searchingly. ‘Unless— Is this standard procedure? Did you think, expect, that I would be so grateful to be included in the exhibition at Archangel I would—?’ She broke off abruptly as she obviously saw, and recognised, the tightening of Gabriel’s jaw and the anger now glittering in the darkness of his eyes.

‘I’m getting a little tired of that accusation, Bryn.’ He spoke softly, dangerously so. ‘And no, kissing me isn’t the price you’re expected to pay for inclusion in the exhibition!’

She winced. ‘I didn’t exactly say that—’

‘You didn’t exactly have to!’ Gabriel bit out harshly, wondering if he had ever been this angry in his life before. ‘What the hell sort of man do you think I am? Don’t answer that,’ he immediately amended. He already knew what sort of man Bryn thought he was.

Gabriel had thought, believed, that after a rocky start they had managed to spend a relaxed evening together, that Bryn was starting to see beyond what happened in the past—starting to see him beyond that—and instead she now thought him capable of using his position as one of the owners of the gallery to— What an idiot, what a fool he was, to think that Bryn could ever see him as anything more than the man who had helped to put her father in prison....