SALVATORE stood outside the small family-owned jeweler's, feeling a wholly unfamiliar wariness.

It wasn't normal for him to hang back from a confrontation. He thrived on the head-to-head combat in the world of big business or the hand-to-hand combat sometimes necessary in his line of work, but this was something entirely different.

It would be a confrontation all right, but it wouldn't be related to business.

He didn't fool himself into believing Elisa would thank him for his interference in her life, even at the instigation of her worried papa. She'd spent a whole year avoiding Salvatore as if he had a particularly deadly communicable disease. She hated him with the same passion she had once given herself to him.

And he could not blame her. She had more reason than most to despise her ex-lover, but that did not mean he would accept his dismissal from her life. He couldn't. His Sicilian soul would not let such a debt remain outstanding. Even if she did not currently believe it, the di Vitale family was one of honor and he would not bring shame to the name.

He pushed open the door to Adamo Jewelers and frowned when he did not hear the faint buzz that should have accompanied his entry into the store. It was a minimum security measure to alert store employees to a customer's presence.

He took two steps inside and stopped. She was bending over one of the cases with a young couple. Her soft voice floated toward him even though he could not distinguish her words. Glossy brown hair he remembered best spread across white silk sheets had been pulled into a neat French twist. The conservative style exposed the delicate line of her neck and the faint pulse there that