Italy's Most Scandalous Virgin - Carol Marinelli Page 0,42

just her first lover but her first orgasm? Dante was considering pulling the car over so curious was he.

So curious!

He looked over and saw her uptight features and for once felt rather chastised as Ms Prim took out her own phone to look at the articles. ‘Don’t,’ he said hurriedly. ‘You really don’t need to see them.’

‘I want to know what’s being said.’ Mia let out an anguished cry and dropped the phone in her lap as if it was a hot coal.

Oh, it was such an intimate photo.

Mia had barely recognised herself in the mirror before she had headed down to the ball, and she barely recognised herself now, because in the photo she was clearly on fire for Dante for all to see.

There was not a strap or a button undone in the photo, yet she felt as if the world had been invited into her bedroom.

‘What?’ Dante said.

But she refused to answer him, just sat with that pained expression and with her hand over her mouth. Even though they were only a little way from home, now he pulled over the car and retrieved her phone to see what was being said for himself.

The headlines were pretty brutal, but one in particular stood out.

Step-Mamma Mia!

Beneath the headline was a picture of them groin to groin and with his face over hers. It had been taken from inside, probably with a phone, but it was enough to capture her in that red dress, gazing right at him, him holding her tight and close. There was a stirring in his groin as he recalled the feel of Mia in his arms, pressing the key into her hand and the quiet certainty that they were again headed for bed.

‘That’s not me,’ she said, and Dante frowned at her choice of words.

‘Oh, that’s you all right, Mia,’ Dante refuted, but it was dawning on him that this was a side to Mia only he had seen, and though usually this type of picture didn’t rattle him, her clear distress had him angry on her behalf. There was no real time to dwell on it, though, as her phone lit up then. ‘Someone called Michael is calling you.’

‘My brother.’ She shuddered. ‘He must have seen it.’

Yet instead of declining the call, he was surprised and more than a touch impressed when she took the phone and answered the call with brisk aplomb. ‘Mia speaking.’

She listened for a moment and then laughed dismissively.

‘Oh, do stop worrying Michael, it’s fine,’ she told him. ‘Just a stupid misunderstanding.’

So she really did have a brother and one she seemed to be close to; Dante blinked when he heard her calm, upbeat tone.

Now she was reassuring him. ‘Michael, I’m completely fine. In fact, I’m just heading to Dante’s now. I’m going to turn my phone off, but you can call me on the landline if you need me.’ If Dante had not seen her pallor and heard her moan just moments ago, he would have believed her when she said, ‘Absolutely. I’m fine.’

It took the angry wind from his sails.

Had Mia been like that when he’d called her about the reference and prompted her about the ball?

Who was Mia? he pondered. She was like a chameleon. Seductive, yet reticent and shy, upset at times and the next icy calm. A wife, a virgin...pregnant.

‘Let’s get home,’ Dante said.

Dante drove towards the sprawling Romano residence but as they approached the lake Mia thought of the grave, and knew there was no way she could stay there tonight.

‘I want to stay at the hotel.’

‘Mia, the whole point of being here is so we can have some privacy. There is no one but my father’s—I mean, my staff here...’ They were his now. ‘The hotel has its own helipad, the press will soon be there...’

‘You have your own helipad,’ she pointed out.

‘Yes, but if they dare land on my property they’ll be charged with trespassing and they know it. As well as that, the hotel is going to be full of paparazzi—the very people we are trying to avoid.’

‘Dante, I really don’t want to stay here.’

‘I’ve told you, the press can’t get to us.’ He assumed that was what concerned her. ‘There are guards on the perimeters.’

It wasn’t the press that concerned her, though; it was the grave inside the perimeter.

‘It’s creepy,’ she attempted.

But Dante had never known fear and gave a half-laugh. ‘If things go bump in the night, you know where to find me...’ Then he halted.

No flirting, Dante