One

It was done.

Danielle Sinclair let out the breath she'd unconsciously been holding all day and thrust the snowy bridal bouquet of lilies, freesias and baby's breath into a hand-blown glass vase on her dressing table. Kim was safely married. At last.

After years spent looking out for her sister, dragging her out of endless scrapes, Kim was no longer her problem. Kim had a husband—and Danielle could relax.

The wedding of the year had been an ornate, A-list occasion frothing with white lace, formal flower arrangements and French champagne. Not exactly what Danielle had expected of her wild-child sister. Yet Kim had glowed in a stylishly un-Kim designer gown, her fiery hair framing her willful—yet unexpectedly pale—face.

As the festivities had drawn to a close, Kim had turned, scanned the crowd, then flung the bouquet straight into Danielle's unsuspecting arms. Clutching the blooms and enveloped with their heady perfume, Danielle had stood statue still. Catching a bouquet was not going to land her a groom—and certainly not the man of her dreams. If life had been that easy she'd have done exactly what Kim had done—spent wedding after wedding clawing like an agile cat at tumbling flowers, until it brought her the man she'd sought.

Danielle only hoped Bradley Lester, the CEO of her father's company and her newly acquired brother-in-law, knew what he'd let himself in for. But Kim deserved a slice of happiness—after the humiliation and misery Rico D'Alessio had put her through four years ago.

No. She wasn't thinking about that man on Kim's special day. He could burn in hell for all she cared! Danielle glanced at her wafer-thin gold watch. By now Kim and Bradley should be comfortably ensconced in the Hilton's Premier King suite overlooking the luxurious superyachts berthed in Auckland's Viaduct Basin. Tomorrow they'd fly out for a slice of tropical heaven in Fiji.

Danielle unpinned her hair and gave her aching head a shake. Oh, bliss. A swathe of mouse-mixed-with-toffee whispered across her shoulders. The pins tinkled from her fingers into the dresser drawer, and she nudged the drawer shut with her knee before shimmying out of the tight magenta taffeta sheath she'd worn all day. Out of habit she hooked the dress onto a hanger—even though she'd never wear it again.

The deep, rich colour wasn't her choice. She'd have gone for a cool aqua or an elegant iced blue. But who argued with a bride? Especially one everyone wanted to see settled.

A quick bath to soak away the aches from the too-high shoes and the forced, social smile she'd worn all day, and then she'd see what her father wanted to talk about. Perhaps she'd even get a chance to look over the report she'd finalised yesterday before she went to bed.

Work was something she understood far better than weddings.

"What the devil do you want, D'Alessio?"

To take you and your daughter to hell with me. But instead of declaring his intent, Rico D'Alessio ignored Robert Sinclair's demand and towered over the wide desk that would've dwarfed an ordinary room. Here, in the immense space of Sinclair's study in the Paritai Drive mansion, the desk barely filled a corner. With scarcely a glance at the splendour surrounding him, Rico slowly and deliberately placed the knuckles of his clenched fists on the antique desk and glared at the man on the other side.

Rico had to give Sinclair credit. The older man didn't cower in the face of six foot three of taut muscle. Nor did he quiver as the sole heir to countless generations of hot Italian D'Alessio blood leaned further forward.

Then Sinclair blinked.

So his former mentor was nervous. Rico narrowed his gaze as Sinclair glanced past him to check that the minions were in place. Rico wasn't particularly worried by the presence of David Matthews, Sinco's top legal eagle. Nor was he concerned about the young bit of muscle packing a gun who stood beside Matthews shivering like a whippet ready for action. But the dark, thick-set man across the room was another story. Ken Pascal would be the man to watch.

The glimmer of sweat beading Sinclair's brow gave Rico intense satisfaction. Sinclair was going to sweat a lot more before this was over.

"I told you on the telephone yesterday that I'd compensate you." Robert Sinclair gestured to a pile of paperwork in a wooden tray at the edge of the vast desk. "Sign the contract David Matthews has prepared and I'll arrange for a lump sum to be transferred to an account—anywhere in the world."

Rico clenched his jaw. "No sum of money you pay me could make up for what I've lost."

A frown creased Robert Sinclair's brow. "So what do you want?"

Rico decided to go for broke. "Everything!"

"Everything?" For the first time the other man looked disconcerted. "What do you mean, everything?"

Sinclair was good, damned good. But good wouldn't be enough. Only a couple of days after receiving the call from his lawyer, Rico had flown to stand by his ailing father's bedside and endured his plea for a grandson. Later the same day, in a cemetery on the outskirts of Milan, his heart swelling with pain and unforgotten grief, Rico had sworn revenge. On Lucia's grave. For the first time in four years he had a mission: to return to New Zealand and make Robert Sinclair and his daughter pay. Already one of his goals had been thwarted: Kim was married.

Rico gave Sinclair a slow, menacing smile, allowing it to widen as the first hint of naked fear darkened the older man's steel-grey eyes. "You have a problem understanding the word everything?" Rico asked, his tone softly mocking. "Perhaps we can find a dictionary that can define the word?" He arched a black eyebrow. "Or it's my accent, hmm, that you are not able to understand?"

Copyright © 2007 by Tessa Radley.