Yet surely she should be immune to him by now? She hadn’t seen him for nearly five years. She was older and supposedly a whole lot wiser—wise enough for his undeniable sex appeal to leave her cold. So why wasn’t that happening? Why were her breasts tingling as his arrogant gaze skated over her, that molten aching at her thighs making her feel embarrassingly self-conscious?

With a feigned composure she stared at him—praying for an objectivity she’d never been able to apply to this Tuscan aristocrat. He was wearing a suit, like every other man there—apart from the few guests in uniform —but something about the way he wore it instantly marked him out as someone special. The exquisite cut of the charcoal cloth hugged his powerful frame, emphasising the narrow jut of his hips and the definition of his long legs. Yet despite his highly sophisticated exterior, with Dante D’Arezzo all you were aware of was the primitive man beneath. He was the sort of man who saw what he wanted and went out and took it. Who made women cry with pleasure. And with pain, she reminded herself. With terrible and lasting pain.

‘Maybe Roxy was short on numbers and that was the reason for your out-of-the-blue invitation,’ she said as she glanced up at the cathedral with a flippant shrug. ‘It’s a pretty big church to fill. And I expect a token Tuscan aristocrat is on every bride’s wish list.’

He smiled, as if her insult meant nothing to him—as if he guessed that it was all for show. ‘It’s been a long time, Justina,’ he said softly.

‘Five years.’ Her smile was fixed. ‘Time flies when you’re having fun—something which was certainly in short supply when I was engaged to you.’

But he didn’t appear to be listening. His gaze was drifting slowly over her body as if he still had the right to look at her that way. As if she was his possession and he owned her.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said.

She felt her heart miss a beat, unsure if it was caused by disappointment or anger—because wasn’t that just typical of Dante? For him to take something she felt proud of and make it sound like something bad. She’d worked very hard for this body. Dragged herself out of bed on the most inhospitable of mornings to pound the pavements, come rain or shine. When she was travelling, she was a frequent visitor to hotel gyms—padding the anonymous carpeted corridors at unsociable hours while she listened to music from her earphones. And hadn’t her strict regime rescued her from the essential loneliness of those solitary hotel stays?

She never ate carbs after 5:00 p.m., and she rarely drank alcohol. She was disciplined about her lifestyle because it was harder to stay fit the older you got. And physical fitness helped her to cope. It kept her fresh and alert in an industry where youth was everything—an industry which she’d seen claim the lives of those who couldn’t cope with its impossibly high demands. And she had sacrificed too much for her to career to do anything to ever jeopardise it.

‘Well, isn’t that fortunate? Since losing weight was what I was aiming for,’ she responded, her gaze flicking over his charcoal-grey suit, which was doing nothing to disguise the hard musculature beneath. ‘You might try working out a little yourself some time, Dante. Try for the leaner look—it’s very fashionable, you know.’

‘I don’t think so. I get all the exercise I need without the narcissistic need to spend hours down at the gym.’ He leaned forward by a fraction, noting the automatic dilatation of her eyes as he did so, and suddenly he wanted her. Wanted her so badly that he could have pulled her into his arms and crushed those cushioned lips beneath the hungry clamour of his own. His eyes glinted. ‘My body is hard in all the places it needs to be hard.’

Justina felt her face grow hot, as unsettled by his sudden closeness as by the unashamedly sexual boast, and she took a step back. ‘You’re disgusting.’

‘You think so? You used to like my particular brand of disgusting, as I recall.’

‘That was a long time ago. Fortunately I’ve grown up since then. My tastes have matured and I’m no longer attracted to the Neanderthal type.’

‘Then you really must have changed. I’ve never known a woman who was so turned on by a man being masterful in bed.’

His silky taunt whispered towards her and brought back memories Justina thought she’d buried for ever. Memories of Dante kissing her. Dante pushing his hardness deep into her warm, wet heat. Dante doing that to another woman. She wanted to scream. To lash out at him and ask why he’d done it—why? But she would not give in to the pointlessness of resurrecting the past. The past was over. Her life was now and her future didn’t involve him.

And she needed to get away from him.

Directing her gaze to an imaginary spot behind his head, she forced her mouth into a smile of recognition, as if she’d just seen someone she knew, so that by the time she allowed herself to look into those dark eyes again she had composed herself enough to adopt a convincing air of indifference.

‘You really mustn’t let me monopolise you any longer, Dante. I’m sure there are lots of people who are longing to speak to you. In fact there’s a young lady over there who seems eager to catch your eye. I’m sure you’ll still be quick enough off the mark to have her in your bed before the day is out.’

And then she began to walk away, half afraid that he might try to stop her. But he did no such thing. She saw the brief narrowing of his eyes as she turned on her towering heels and walked across the cathedral square, and she was aware of the burn of his gaze as she allowed herself to be swallowed up in a group of guests. Her hands were trembling and her heart was racing and for a moment she contemplated leaving the wedding right then. Nothing was stopping her. She could hurry back to the hotel she’d booked into, pack up her stuff and head back to London. She could run away from her ex-fiancé and all the painful memories that seeing him again evoked.

But Justina knew she couldn’t do that. She and Roxy had only recently been reunited, and she couldn’t let her old friend down on such an important day. Averting her face from a paparazzi camera which seemed to have sprung from out of nowhere, she gave a ragged sigh. She was just going to have to behave like a grown-up and deal with it. She would go to the wedding reception and avoid Dante. How hard could it be? She was good at avoiding people—and she doubted that he’d be on his own for long.

She made her way towards the line of red double-decker buses which had been hired to take all the guests to the reception and found a seat, smiling politely at the man who immediately slid in next to her and started to introduce himself. But it was difficult to concentrate on what he was saying, even though he was doing his level best to flirt and was wearing a whole row of bright medals on his military uniform. He was probably some kind of dashing war hero, she thought gloomily, as well as being handsome in that blond and square-jawed sort of way.

So why could she never be attracted to someone like him—the sort of man she knew she should be attracted to? The dependable type who might easily adore her if only she’d give them half a chance. Wasn’t it a mark of her own emotional failure that nobody had ever come close to making her feel the way that Dante had done? And wasn’t that the main reason why she was still single as thirty loomed on the horizon—with no stable relationship and the chances of having a baby receding with every year that passed?

She remembered the magazine interview she’d given only last week, when the persistent journalist had managed to make her confront that uncomfortable fact. That if she waited too long she might never have a baby of her own. Feeling cornered, Justina had said that of course she wanted a baby. And then had added jokily that first she would need to find someone to be her baby’s father!