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INAPPROPRIATE.

It was the first word that sprang to mind as dark, clearly irritated eyes swung round to face her, black eyes that stared down at Matilda, scrutinising her face unashamedly, making her acutely aware of her—for once—expertly made-up face. The vivid pink lipstick the beautician had insisted on to add a splash of colour to her newly straightened ash blonde hair and porcelain complexion seemed to suddenly render her mouth im-movable, as, rather than slowing down to assist, the man she had asked for directions had instead, after a brief angry glance, picked up speed and carried on walking.

Inappropriate, because generally when you stopped someone to ask for directions, especially in a hospital, you expected to be greeted with a courteous nod or smile, for the person to actually slow down, instead of striding ahead and glaring back at you with an angry question of their own.

"Where?"

Even though he uttered just a single word, the thick, clipped accent told Matilda that English wasn't this man's first language. Matilda's annoyance at this response was doused a touch. Perhaps he was in the hospital to visit a sick relative, had just flown in to Australia from, In that split second her mind worked rapidly, trying to place him—his appearance was Mediterranean, Spanish or Greek perhaps, or maybe,

"Where is it you want to go?'he barked, finally deigning to slow down a fraction, the few extra words allowing Matilda to place his strong accent—he was Italian!

"I wanted to know how to find the function room,' she said slowly, repeating the question she had already asked, berating her luck that the only person walking through the maze of the hospital administration corri-dors spoke little English. That the tall, imposing man she had had to resort to for directions was blatantly annoyed at the intrusion. "I'm trying to get there for the opening of the hospital garden. I'm supposed to be there in, ' She glanced down at her watch and let out a sigh of exasperation. "Actually, I was supposed to be there five minutes ago."

"Merda!" As he glanced at his watch the curse that escaped his lips, though in Italian, wasn't, Matilda assumed, particularly complimentary, and abruptly stepping back she gave a wide-eyed look, before turning smartly on her heel and heading off to find her own way. He'd made it exceptionally clear that her request for as-sistance had been intrusive but now he was being down-right rude. She certainly wasn't going to stand around and wait for the translation—she'd find the blessed function room on her own!

"I'm sorry.'He caught up with her in two long strides, but Matilda marched on, this angry package of testos-terone the very last thing she needed this morning.

"No, I'm sorry to have disturbed you," Matilda called back over her shoulder, pushing the button—any button—on the lift and hoping to get the hell out of there. "You're clearly busy."

"I was cursing myself, not you." He gave a tiny grimace, shrugged very wide shoulders in apology, which sweetened the explanation somewhat, and Matilda made a mental correction. His English was, in fact, excellent. It was just his accent that was incredi-bly strong—deep and heavy, and, Matilda reluctantly noted, incredibly sensual. "I too am supposed to be at the garden opening, I completely forgot that they'd moved the time forward. My secretary has decided to take maternity leave."

"How inconsiderate of her!'Matilda murmured under her breath, before stepping inside as the lift slid open.

"Pardon?"

Beating back a blush, Matilda stared fixedly ahead, unfortunately having to wait for him to press the button, as she was still none the wiser as to where the function room was.

"I didn't quite catch what you said," he persisted. "I didn't say anything,'Matilda lied, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her, or, at the very least, the blessed lift would get moving. There was something daunting about him, something incredibly confronting about his manner, his voice, his eyes, something very inappropriate.

There was that word again, only this time it had nothing to do with his earlier rude response and every-thing to do with Matilda's as she watched dark, olive-skinned hands punching in the floor number, revealing a flash of an undoubtedly expensive gold watch under heavy white cotton shirt cuffs. The scent of his bitter, tangy aftershave was wafting over towards her in the confined space and stinging into her nostrils as she re-luctantly dragged in his supremely male scent. Stealing a sideways glance, for the first time Matilda looked at him properly and pieced together the features she had so far only glimpsed.

He was astonishingly good-looking. The internal admission jolted her—since her break-up with Edward she hadn't so much as looked at a man—certainly she hadn't looked at a man in that way. The day she'd ended their relationship, like bandit screens shooting up at the bank counter, it had been as if her hormones had been switched off. Well, perhaps not off, but even simmering would be an ex-aggeration—the hormonal pot had been moved to the edge of the tiniest gas ring and was being kept in a state of tepid indifference: utterly jaded and com-pletely immune.

Till now!

Never had she seen someone so exquisitely beauti-ful close up. It was as if some skilled photographer had taken his magic wand and airbrushed the man from the tip of his ebony hair right down to the soft leather of his expensively shod toes. He seemed vaguely familiar—and she tried over and over to place that swarthy, good-looking face, sure that she must have seen him on the TV screen because, if she'd witnessed him in the flesh, Matilda knew she would have remembered the occasion.

God, it was hot.

Fiddling with the neckline of her blouse, Matilda dragged her eyes away and willed the lift to move faster, only realising she'd been holding her breath when thankfully the doors slid open and she released it in a grateful sigh, as in a surprisingly gentlemanly move he stepped aside, gesturing for her to go first. But Matilda wished he'd been as rude on the fourth floor as he had been on the ground, wished, as she teetered along the carpeted floor of the administration wing in unfamiliar high heels, that she was walking behind instead of ahead of this menacing stranger, positive, absolutely positive that those black eyes were assessing her from a male perspective, excruciatingly aware of his eyes burning into her shoulders. She could almost feel the heat ema-nating from them as they dragged lower down to the rather too short second half of her smart, terribly new charcoal suit. And if legs could have blushed, then Matilda's were glowing as she felt his burning gaze on calves that were encased in the sheerest of stockings.

"Oh!" Staring at the notice-board, she bristled as he hovered over her shoulder, reading with growing indig-nation the words beneath the hastily drawn black arrow. "The opening's been moved to the rooftop."

"Which makes more sense," he drawled, raising a curious, perfectly arched eyebrow at her obvious annoy-ance, before following the arrow to a different set of lifts. "Given that it is the rooftop garden that's being of-ficially opened today and not the function room.' "Yes, but, ' Swallowing her words, Matilda fol-lowed him along the corridor. The fact she'd been arguing for the last month for the speeches to be held in the garden and not in some bland function room had nothing to do with this man. Admin had decided that a brief champagne reception and speeches would be held here, followed by a smooth transition to the rooftop where Hugh Keller, CEO, would cut the ribbon.

The logistics of bundling more than a hundred people, in varying degrees of health, into a couple of lifts hadn't appeared to faze anyone except Matilda—until now.

But her irritation was short-lived, replaced almost immediately by the same flutter of nerves that had assailed her only moments before, her palms moist as she clenched her fingers into a fist, chewing nervously on her bottom lip as the lift doors again pinged open.

She didn't want to go in. Didn't want that disquieting, claustrophobic feeling to assail her again. She almost turned and ran, her mind whirring for excuses—a quick dash to the loo perhaps, a phone call she simply had to make—but an impatient foot was tapping, fingers pressing the hold button, and given that she was already horribly late, Matilda had no choice.

Inadeguato.

As she stepped in hesitantly beside him, the word taunted him.

Inadeguato—to be feeling like this, to be thinking like this.

Dante could almost smell the arousal in the air as the doors closed and the lift jolted upwards. But it wasn't just her heady, feminine fragrance that reached him as he stood there, more the presence of her, the, He strug-gled for a word to describe his feelings for this delec-table stranger, but even with two languages at his disposal, an attempt to sum up what he felt in a single word utterly failed him.

She was divine.

That was a start at least—pale blonde hair was sleeked back from an elfin face, vivid green eyes were surrounded by thick eyelashes and that awful lipstick she'd been wearing only moments ago had been nibbled away now—revealing dark, full red lips, lips that were almost too plump for her delicate face, and Dante found himself wondering if she'd had some work done on herself, for not a single line marred her pale features, her delicate, slightly snubbed nose absolutely in propor-tion to her petite features. She was certainly a woman who took care of herself. Her eyes were heavily made up, her hair fragranced and glossy—clearly the sort of woman who spent a lot of time in the beauty parlour. Perhaps a few jabs of collagen had plumped those de-licious lips to kissable proportions, maybe a few units of Botox had smoothed the lines on her forehead, Dante thought as he found himself scrutinising her face more closely than he had a woman's in a long time.

A very long time.

He knew that it was wrong to be staring, inadeguato to be feeling this stir of lust for a woman he had never met, a woman whose name he didn't even know.

A woman who wasn't his wife.