Alone, Dante told himself he’d accomplish nothing unless he stayed calm, but a knot of red-hot rage was already blooming in his gut. Taylor hadn’t left him because she’d grown bored. She’d left him for another man. She’d been seeing someone, making love with someone, while she’d been with him.

He went to the window and clasped the edge of the sill, hands tightening on the marble the way they wanted to tighten on her throat. Confronting her wouldn’t be enough. Beating the crap out of her lover wouldn’t be enough, either, although it would damned well help.

He wanted more. Wanted the kind of revenge that her infidelity merited. How dare she make a fool of him? How dare she?

There had to be a way. A plan.

Suddenly, he recalled the P.I.’s words. She’s done well. In fact, she’s just applied for an expansion loan at the local bank.

Dante smiled. There was. And he could hardly wait to put it into motion.

CHAPTER TWO

TAYLOR SOMMERS POURED a cup of coffee, put it on the sink, opened the refrigerator to get the cream and realized she’d already put it on the table, right alongside the cup she’d already filled with coffee only minutes before.

She took a steadying breath.

“Keep it up,” she said, her voice loud in the silence, “and Walter Dennison’s going to tell you he was only joking when he said he’d change those loan payments.”

Dennison was a nice man; he’d been a friend of her grandmother’s. He’d shown compassion and small-town courtesy when Tally fell behind on repaying the home equity loan his bank had granted her.

But he wasn’t a fool and only a fool would go on doing that for a woman who behaved as if she were coming apart.

Was that why he wanted to see her today? Had he changed his mind? If he had, if he wanted her to pay the amount the loan called for each month…

Tally closed her eyes.

She’d be finished. The town had already shut down the interior decorating business she’d been running from home. Without the loan, she’d lose the shop she’d rented on the village green even before it opened because, to put it simply, she was broke.

Flat broke.

Okay, if you wanted absolute accuracy, she had two hundred dollars in her bank account, but it was a drop in the bucket compared to what she needed.

She’d long ago used up her savings. Moving to Vermont, paying for repairs to make livable the old house she’d inherited from her grandmother, just day-to-day expenses for Sam and her had taken a huge chunk of her savings.

Start-up costs for INTERIORS BY TAYLOR had swallowed the rest. Beginning a decorating business, even from home, was expensive. You had to have at least a small showroom—in her case, what had once been an enclosed porch on the back of the house—so that potential clients could get a feel for your work. Paint, fabric, wicker furniture to make the porch inviting had cost a bundle.

Then there were the fabric samples, decorative items like vases and lamps, handmade candles and fireplace accessories…Expensive, all of them. Some catalogs alone could be incredibly pricey. Advertising costs were astronomical but if you didn’t reach the right people, all your other efforts were pointless.

Little by little, INTERIORS BY TAYLOR had begun to draw clients from the upscale ski communities within miles of tiny Shelby. Taylor’s accounts had still been in the red, but things had definitely been looking up.

And then the town clerk phoned. He was apologetic, but that didn’t make his message any less harsh.

INTERIORS BY TAYLOR was operating illegally. The town had an ordinance against home-based businesses.

That Shelby, Vermont, population 8500 on a good day, had ordinances at all had been a surprise. But it did, and this one was inviolate. You couldn’t operate a business from your house even if you’d been raised under its roof after your mother took off for parts unknown.

Tally’s pleading had gained her a two-month reprieve.

She’d found a soon-to-be-vacant shop on the village green. Each night, long after Sam was asleep, she’d worked and reworked the costs she’d face. The monthly rent. The three-months up-front deposit. The fees for the carpenter, painter and electrician needed to turn the place from the TV-repair shop it had been into an elegant setting for her designs.

And then there were all the things she’d have to buy to create the right atmosphere. Add in the cost of increased advertising and Tally had arrived at a number that was staggering.

She needed $175,000.00.

The next morning, she’d kissed Sam goodbye, put on a white silk blouse and a black suit she hadn’t worn since New York. She’d pulled her blond hair into a knot at the base of her neck and gone to see Walter Dennison, who owned Shelby’s one and only bank.

Dennison read through the proposal she’d written, looked up and frowned.

“You’re asking for a lot of money.”

“I know.”

“Asking for it in a home equity loan.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You understand what would happen if you were unable to pay the loan off, Ms. Sommers? That the bank would have the right to foreclose on your house?”

Taylor had nodded. “Yes, sir,” she’d said again. “I do.”

Dennison had looked at her for a long moment. Then he’d smiled. “You’ve got your grandmother’s gumption, Tally,” he’d said, and held out his hand.

The loan was hers.

She’d made the first payment…but not the second. Or the third. The contractors demanded their money according to the schedules she’d agreed to. Things couldn’t get worse, she’d thought…

And the furnace in the house went belly-up.

Pride in tatters, Taylor had gone to Dennison again. If he could see his way clear to lower the monthly payments…

He’d sighed and run his fingers through his thinning hair. In the end he’d done it.

Which brought her back to today’s phone call. It had come while she and Sam were having breakfast.

“I need to see you, Ms. Sommers,” Dennison had said. “Today.”

She’d almost stopped breathing. “Is it about my loan?”

There’d been a little pause. Then Dennison had said yes, it was, and she was to come to his office at four.

“Four,” he’d repeated, “promptly, please.”

The admonition had surprised her. So had the change from Tally to Ms. Sommers. She’d told herself it wasn’t a bad sign. A man who wanted to discuss a six-figure loan was entitled to be a little formal, even if he’d known you since you were a baby.

“Of course,” she’d said, all cool New York sophistication. Then she’d hung up the phone and tried to smile at Sam, whose eyes were filled with questions.

“Nothing to worry about, babe,” Tally had said airily.

Sam had grinned a Sam-grin, at least until she said she might not be home until suppertime.

“You can visit the Millers,” she’d said reassuringly. “You know how much you like them.”

She’d smoothed things over by promising they’d have the entire weekend together, doing what Sam liked most: snuggling with her on the sofa, watching videos and eating popcorn.

Dante Russo had probably never watched a video or eaten popcorn in his life…

And what was that man doing in her head again?

Who gave a damn what Dante Russo did or didn’t do? He was history. Besides, he’d never meant anything more to her than what she’d meant to him. New York was filled with relationships like theirs. Two consenting adults going out together, being seen together…

Having sex together.

Tally’s eyes closed. Memories rushed in. Scents. Tastes. Sensations. Dante’s hands, deliciously rough on her skin. His mouth, demanding surrender as he kissed her. His face above her, his silver eyes dark as storm clouds, his sensual lips drawn back with passion…

She swung toward the sink, dumped her coffee and rinsed out the cup.

What stupid thoughts to have today of all days, when she had to be at her best. Still, she understood why she would think of Dante.

Her mouth curved in a bitter smile.

This was an anniversary of sorts. She’d left Dante Russo a few weeks before Christmas, three years ago. All it took was the scent of pine and the sound of carols to bring the memories rushing back.

She wouldn’t let that happen. Dante had no place in the new life she’d built for herself. For herself and Sam.

He was nothing to her anymore.

Or to Sam.

Sam didn’t know Dante existed. And Dante certainly didn’t know about Sam. He never would, either. She would see to that.

Tally knew her former lover well.

Dante hadn’t wanted her and surely wouldn’t have understood why she wanted Sam…But that didn’t mean he’d simply let her have Sam, if he knew.

Her former lover could be charming but underneath he was cold, determined and ruthless. She refused to think about how he might react if he knew everything.

Tally sighed and turned on the kitchen lights. Night had fallen; it came early to these northern latitudes. The coming storm the weatherman had predicted rattled the old windows.

She’d fled New York on a night like this. Cold, dark, with snow in the forecast.

What a wreck she’d been that night! Pretending to be sick, then packing her clothes and scribbling that final note. All she’d been able to think about was getting away before Dante showed up.

She wasn’t stupid. She’d known he hadn’t wanted her anymore. He’d been removed and distant for a while and sometimes she’d caught him watching her with a look on his face that made her want to weep.

He was bored with her. And getting ready to end their affair, but she wouldn’t let that happen. She’d end it first. It would be quicker, less humiliating…

And safer, because by then she had a secret she’d never have been foolish enough to share with him.

So she’d made plans to leave him. And she’d done it so he wouldn’t be able to find her, even if he looked for her. Not that she thought he would. Why would a man go after a woman when she’d saved him the trouble of getting rid of her?

Even if he had, maybe out of all that macho Sicilian arrogance made all the more potent by his power, his wealth, his gorgeous face and body—even if he had, he’d never have found her. He’d never dream she’d flee to a tiny village in New England. He knew nothing about her. In their six months together, he’d never asked her questions about herself.

Not real ones.

Would you prefer Chez Nicole or L’Etoile for dinner? he’d ask. Shall I get tickets for the ballet or the symphony?

Things a man would ask any woman. Never anything more important.

Well, yes. He’d asked her other things. Whispered them, in that husky voice that was a turn-on all by itself.

Do you like it when I touch you this way? And if what he was doing seemed too much, if it made her tremble in his arms, he’d kiss her deeply and say, Don’t stop me, bellissima. Let me. Yes. Let me do this. Yes. Like that. Just like that…

She was trembling even now, just remembering those moments.

“You’re a fool,” Tally said, her voice sharp in the silence of the kitchen.

Sex with Dante had been incredible, but sex was all it was, even though lying beneath him, feeling the power of his penetration, his possession, sometimes made her want to weep with joy. But it didn’t make up for the fact that he’d never once spent the entire night in her bed or asked her to come to his.

Stay with me, she’d wanted to say, oh, so many times. But she hadn’t. Only the once, when the words had slipped out before she could stop them…

Only the once, when she’d forgotten that all her lover wanted was her body, not her heart.

Tally turned her back to the window.

So what?

Why would she have wanted a man to tie her down, give her a baby and then turn his ever-wandering eyes elsewhere as her father had done, as a man like Dante Russo would surely do?

It was the meeting with Walter Dennison that had her feeling so strange, that was all. Once she put that behind her, she’d be fine.

And it was time to get moving. Be here at four, Ms. Sommers, and please be prompt.

She smiled as put on her coat and grabbed her car keys. All those years in New York had made her forget how pedantic a true Yankee could be.

AS USUAL, the weatherman had it wrong. Snow was already falling as if someone were shaking a featherbed over the town.

The snow dusting the woods and fields with a blanket of white as Tally drove past would have made a beautiful Christmas card. In the real world, it made for a dangerous drive. The narrow road that led into the heart of town already wore a thin coating of black ice, and the new snow hid stretches of asphalt as slick as glass.

Her old station wagon needed better snow tires. The rear end slewed sickeningly as she turned onto Main Street and her stomach skidded with it, but there were no other vehicles on the road and she came through the turn without harm to anything but her nerves.

Only two cars were parked in the bank’s lot, the aged maroon Lincoln she recognized as Dennison’s and a big, shiny black SUV that looked as if it could climb Everest in a blizzard and come through laughing.

Dennison would have sent his employees home early because of the storm. The SUV probably belonged to some tourist on his way to ski country who’d stopped to use the ATM.

Tally parked and got out of the station wagon. The double doors to the bank opened as she reached them, revealing Walter Dennison wearing a black topcoat over his usual gray suit.

“You’re late, Ms. Sommers.”

He whispered the words. And shot a quick look over his shoulder. Tally felt a stab of panic. The black car. The paleness of Dennison’s face. His whisper.

Was the bank being held up?

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to peer past him, “but the roads—”

“I understand.” He hesitated. “Ms. Sommers. Tally. There’s something you need to know.”

Oh, God. It was true. She’d walked into a holdup in progress—

“I sold the bank.”

She stared at him blankly. “What?”

“I said, I sold the bank.”

He might as well have been speaking another language. Sold the bank? How could he have done that? The Dennison family had started the Shelby Bank in the early 1800s.

“I don’t understand, Mr. Dennison. Why would you—”

“It’s nothing for the town to worry about. The new owner will keep everything just as it is.” Dennison cleared his throat. “Almost everything.”

His eyes shifted from hers, and Tally’s stomach dropped. There could only be one reason he’d wanted to see her.

“What about the new payment arrangements on my loan?”

She saw Dennison’s adam’s apple move up, then down. He opened his mouth as if he were going to speak. Instead, he shouldered past her, turned up his collar and went out into the storm. Tally stared after him as his lean figure was lost in a swirling maelstrom of white.

“Mr. Dennison! Wait!” Her voice rose. “Will this affect my loan? You said the new owner will keep everything just as it is—”

“Not quite everything,” a familiar voice said.

And even as her heart pounded, as she swung toward the open bank doors and told herself it couldn’t be true, she knew what she would see.

That voice could belong to only one man.

DANTE SMILED when Taylor turned toward him.

Her face was white with shock.

Excellent. He’d wanted her stunned by the sight of him. Things were going precisely as he’d intended, despite how quickly he’d had to work. He’d put his plan in motion in less than a week, first convincing the old man to sell and then getting the authorities to approve the sale, but he was Dante Russo.

People always deferred to him.

This morning, he’d phoned Dennison and told him he’d be there at three. Told him, as well, to notify Taylor to be at the bank at four.

Promptly at four.

And, of course, not to mention anything about the bank’s new ownership.

Dante’s lips curved in a tight smile. He’d figured Taylor would be on edge to start with. A woman who’d put up her home as equity for a loan of $175,000.00 she couldn’t pay would not be at ease. Add in Dennison’s refusal to explain the reason for the meeting and the warning to be prompt, her nerves would be stretched to the breaking point.

His smile faded. The only thing that would have made this more interesting was if Samuel Gardner was with her, but from the investigator’s comments, he’d gathered that his former mistress’s new lover didn’t stand up to life’s tougher moments.

“Why didn’t Sam Gardner sign for the loan?” he’d asked Dennison.

The old man had looked at him as if he were insane.

“Buying a bank on a seeming whim, suggesting something anyone in town would know is impossible…You have a strange sense of humor, Mr. Russo,” he’d said with a thin-lipped Yankee smile.

Dante stood away from the door.

Dennison was wrong. There was nothing the least bit humorous about this situation. It was payback, pure and simple.

And it was time Taylor knew it.

“Aren’t you going to come inside and face me, cara?” he said, his tone deliberately soft and coaxing. “Perhaps not. Facing me is not your forte, is it?”

He saw her stiffen. She probably wanted to run, but she didn’t. Instead, she raised her chin, squared her shoulders and stepped inside the bank. He had to admire her courage, the way she was girding herself for confrontation.

She had no way of knowing that nothing she could do would be enough. The news he was going to give her was bad, and it delighted him to do it.

“Hello, Dante.”

Her voice trembled. Her face had taken on some color, though it was still pale. Three years. Three years since he’d seen her…

And she was still beautiful.

More beautiful than his memory of her, if that were possible. Was it time that had made her mouth seem even softer, her eyes wider and darker?

Still, time had not been completely kind. It had affected her in other ways.

Purple shadows lay beneath her eyes. Her hair was pulled back in an unbecoming knot and he had the indefensible urge to close the distance between them, take out the pins and let all those lustrous cinnamon strands tumble free.

He let his gaze move over her slowly, from her face all the way to her feet and back again. A frown creased his forehead. He’d never seen her in anything but elegantly tailored clothing. Designer suits and gowns, spiked heels that could give a man dangerous fantasies, her face perfectly made up, her hair impeccably cut and styled.

Things were different now. The lapels of her coat were frayed. Her boots were the no-nonsense kind meant for rough weather. Her hair was in that ridiculous knot and her face was bare of everything but lipstick—lipstick and the shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.

He spoke without thinking. “What’s happened to you?” he said sharply. “Have you been ill?”

“How nice of you to ask.”

She was still pale but her gaze was steady and her words were brittle with sarcasm. He moved quickly; before she could step back he was a breath away, his hand wrapped around her arm.

“I asked you a question. Answer it.”

A flush rose in her cheeks. “I’m not ill. I’m simply living in the real world. It’s a place where people work hard for what they have. Where you can’t just snap your fingers and expect everyone to leap to do your bidding, but then, what would you know of such things?”

What, indeed? It was none of her business, of anyone’s business, that he’d started his life scrounging for money, that he’d worked his hands raw in construction jobs when he came to the States, or that he could still remember what it was like to go to sleep hungry.

He’d never snapped his fingers and never would, but he’d be damned if he’d explain that to anyone.

“And your lover? He permits this?”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “My what?”

“Another question you don’t want to answer. That’s all right. I have plenty of time.”

Tally wrenched free of his grasp. “I’m the one with questions, Dante. What are you doing here?”

“We haven’t seen each other in a long time, cara.” A slow smile that turned her blood to ice eased across his lips. “Surely, we have other things to talk about first.”

“We have nothing to talk about.”

“But we do. You know that.”

She didn’t know anything. That was the problem. What did he know? Did he know about Sam? She didn’t think so. Surely, he’d have tossed that at her already, if he did.

Then, what did he want? He wasn’t here for a visit. He hadn’t bought the Shelby bank on a whim…

The loan. Her loan. Oh God, oh God…

“Ah,” he said slyly, “your face is an open book. Have you thought of some things we might wish to discuss?”

She couldn’t let him see her fear. There had to be some way she could gain the upper hand.

“What I know,” Tally said, “is that we never talked in the past. We went to dinner, to parties…” She took a steadying breath. “And we went to bed.”

His mouth twisted. Had she struck a nerve?

“I’m glad you remember that.”

“Is that why you came here, Dante? To remind me that we used to have sex together? Or to ask why I left you?” Somehow, she managed a chilly smile. “Really, I thought you’d understand. My note—”

“Your note was a bad joke.”

Tally shrugged her shoulders. “It was honest. Or did it never occur to you that a woman is no different from a man? I mean, yes, we can pretend in ways a man can’t, but sooner or later, things grow, well, old.”

Dante’s face contorted with anger. “You’re a liar!”

“Come on, admit it. We’d been together for months. It was fun for a long time but then—”

She gasped as he caught hold of her and encircled her throat with his hand.

“I remember how you were in bed,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Are you telling me it was all a performance?”

He tugged her closer, until her body brushed his and she had to tilt back her head to look into his eyes. It was deliberate, damn him, a way of emphasizing his strength, his size, his domination.

God, how she hated him! Three years, three endless years, and he was still furious because she’d walked out on him, but she’d done what she had to do to survive. To protect her secret from his unpredictable Sicilian ego.

“You were fire in my arms.” His eyes, the color of smoke, locked on hers. She tried to look away but his hand was like a collar around her throat. When he urged her chin up, she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “You cried out as I came inside you. Your womb contracted around me. Would you have me believe you faked that, too?”

“Is it impossible for you to be a gentleman?” Tally said, hating herself for the way her voice shook.

His smile was slow and sexy and so dangerous it made her heartbeat quicken.

“But I was a gentleman with you. Was that a mistake? Perhaps you didn’t want a gentleman in your bed.” She gasped as he forced her head back. “Is that why you ran away in the middle of the night?”

“I left you, period. Don’t make it sound so dramatic.”

“Left me for what, exactly? The glory of an existence in the middle of nowhere? A bank account with nothing in it?” His tone turned silken. “I think not, cara. I think you left me for a new lover who isn’t a gentleman at all.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

He thrust his fingers into her hair. The pins that held it confined clattered sharply against the marble floor as the strands of gold-burnished cinnamon came loose and fell over her shoulders.

“Is that it? Was I too gentle with you?” He wound her hair around his fist and lowered his head until his face was an inch from hers. “Had you hoped I would do things to you, demand things of you, that people only whisper about?”

“Dante. This is—It’s crazy. I don’t—I didn’t…” She swallowed dryly. “Let me go.”

She’d meant the words to be a command. Instead, they were a whisper. He smiled with amusement, and she felt an electric jolt in her blood.

“I said, let go…Or did you come here thinking you could bully me back into your arms?”

His eyes grew dark; she saw his mouth twist. The seconds ticked away and then, when her heart seemed ready to leap from her breast, he thrust her from him, stepped back and folded his arms.

“Never that,” he said coolly. “And you’re right. Things were over between us. I knew it. In fact, that was the reason I went to see you that night. I wanted to tell you we were finished.” He gave a quick smile. “As you say, cara, things get old.”

She’d known the truth but hearing it made it worse. Still, she showed no reaction. He wanted her to squirm, and she’d be damned if she would.

“Is that what this is about? That the great Dante Russo wants to be sure I understand I made the first move only because your timing was off?”

Dante chuckled. “Bright as always, Taylor—though you surely don’t believe I bought this bank and made this trip only so I could tell you it was pure luck you ended our affair before I did.”

Tally moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. She was dying inside, but she’d be damned if she’d let him know it.

“No. I’m not that naive. You bought the bank because—” Desperately, she ran through the terms of the loan in her mind. Could he do that? Could he cancel what Dennison had already approved? “Because you think you can cancel my loan.”

“Think?” he said, very softly. “You underestimate me. I can do whatever I wish, but canceling a loan that already exists would take more time and effort than it’s worth.” He smiled. “So I’m going to do the next best thing. I’m reinstating the original repayment terms.”

Her gaze flew to his. “Reinstating them?” she said stupidly. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s simple, cara,” he said, almost gently. “As of now, you will pay the amount you are supposed to pay each month.”

Tally thought of the four-figure number the loan called for. She was paying a quarter of that amount now, and barely managing it.

“That’s—it’s out of the question. I can’t possibly—”

“Additionally, you will pay the amount that’s in arrears.” He took a slip of paper from his pocket and held it out toward her. His lips curved. “Plus interest, of course.”

Tally looked at the number on the paper and laughed. It was either that or weep.

“I don’t have that kind of money!”

“Ah.” Dante sighed. “I thought not. In that case, you leave me no choice but to start foreclosure proceedings against your home.”

She felt the blood drain from her face. “Foreclosure proceedings?”

“This was a home equity loan. You put up your house as collateral.” Another quick, icy smile. “If you don’t understand what that means, perhaps your lover can explain it to you.”

“Are you crazy?” Tally’s voice rose. “You can’t do this! You can’t take my house. You can’t!” Her hands came up like a fighter’s, fists at the ready as if she would beat him into understanding the horror of his plan. “Damn you, there are rules!”

“You’ve forgotten what you know about me,” Dante said coldly. “I make my own rules.”

He proved it by gathering her into his arms and kissing her.

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