Santino parked behind the open-top sports car and jumped out of the four-by-four. He strode up to the car, leaned over and snatched the key out of the ignition before Arianna had a chance to stop him.
‘You really are the most tedious man,’ she said languidly, although he sensed the effort it took her to control her temper.
‘That’s not the impression you gave when you kissed me earlier.’ He felt a spurt of satisfaction when she bit her lip, and dismissed the odd idea that her air of vulnerability was not an act.
Her eyes were hidden behind oversized designer sunglasses and he was frustrated that he had no idea what she was thinking. She looked expensively chic in tight white jeans and a blue-and-white-striped Breton top. A red silk scarf kept her long chestnut hair back from her face. Her lips were coated in scarlet gloss and he felt a crazy urge to kiss her until he had removed all traces of lipstick from her mouth.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming into town?’
‘Because I’m going to the beauty salon,’ she told him in a bored tone, nodding towards a shop with the name Lucia’s Salon over the door. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard while I’m having my nails done.’ She threw her hands up in the air. ‘Look around you. There are no paparazzi here to report on my wild behaviour that might embarrass my dear daddy.’
She started to walk towards the salon and glared at him when he fell into step beside her. ‘You can’t come in. If you insist on staying, you can wait outside, but don’t blame me if you get bored, Mr Vasari.’
‘I doubt I could ever get bored around you,’ he said drily. ‘And I thought we had agreed to drop the formality, Arianna.’
She spun round to face him and jabbed her finger into his chest. ‘I didn’t agree to anything, certainly not to my every move being watched by one of my father’s sycophants. I demand that you give me some space.’
Despite his intention to try and win her trust, Santino felt riled by her withering tone. He was tempted to tell her that, far from being her father’s sycophant, Randolph had begged him to be her bodyguard.
‘You’re not really in a position to make demands, are you, Arianna? If I were you I would remember that your father promised to stop your allowance if you refuse my protection. How would you survive?’ he taunted. ‘It’s not as if you have a successful career to fund your extravagant lifestyle. You simply leech off your father.’
‘If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,’ she snapped, jabbing her finger into his chest a second time.
‘Do that again and I guarantee you won’t like the consequences.’
‘What will you do?’ Her husky voice was laced with amusement. ‘Will you put me across your knee and spank me?’
Desire kicked hard in his groin at the erotic images her words evoked. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. ‘Would you like me to? Are those the kinds of games you like to play?’ he drawled, fighting an unbearable temptation to pull her into his arms and cover her sulky mouth with his. She was the most infuriating woman he had ever met, and he could not comprehend why she made him feel more alive than he had felt in years.
He stretched out his hand and removed her sunglasses. She blinked in the bright sunshine and the flecks of gold in her brown eyes gleamed with temper.
‘Give those back immediately.’
He made a tutting sound. ‘Try saying “please”. Didn’t your parents teach you better manners when you were a child?’
Something flickered in her gaze that surely could not be sadness, Santino told himself. Arianna was a beautiful, rich heiress and she wanted for nothing.
‘My mother cleared off to the other side of the world with her lover when I was eleven,’ she told him in a hard voice. ‘My father didn’t know how to deal with my “difficult behaviour” when I cried every night. He was so desperate to send me back to boarding school that he drove me there himself—the first and last time he took any interest in my education. I didn’t see him again for months. Every school holiday, he used to send me out to Villa Cadenza with a nanny.’
She snatched her sunglasses out of Santino’s fingers and replaced them on her nose. ‘The only thing I learned from my parents is to put me first, and look after myself, because no one else gives a damn.’
CHAPTER THREE
ARIANNA WISHED SHE could speak Italian better as she tried to explain to the receptionist in the beauty salon that, if the tall man who was standing in the street came into the salon and asked for her, she was to tell him that Miss Fitzgerald was having her legs waxed in one of the treatment rooms.
‘You have appuntamento?’ the girl asked, studying the appointments book on her desk.
‘No.’ Arianna opened her purse and took out a wad of notes. ‘I haven’t booked any treatments. I just want you to pretend to the man outside that I will be here in the salon for a few hours—per favore,’ she added, remembering Santino’s jibe about her manners.
She handed the confused-looking receptionist the money before she walked to the back of the building and exited into a small courtyard that she had discovered by chance on a previous visit to the salon. A door at the rear of the building adjacent to the beauty salon led to a flight of stairs, and at the top she entered a large workroom. There were several tables with sewing machines and around the room were tailor’s dummies draped with material.
‘So you are here at last. But you are late.’ The woman who greeted Arianna was small and round, with jet-black hair swept into a severe bun and fierce black eyes. ‘If you want to learn to sew from the best seamstress on the Amalfi coast, I expect you to be here at the time we arranged.’
‘I’m sorry...mi dispiace,’ Arianna said meekly.
Rosa handed her a length of muslin. ‘Probably you have forgotten everything I taught you last summer, but we will see. You can begin by showing me that you can construct a French seam.’
Arianna nodded and immediately set to work. For years she had fought against the idea of becoming a fashion designer. She had been determined to distance herself from her father, not follow in his footsteps. But a year ago she had acknowledged that ignoring her creativity was making her unhappy. She had a natural flare for designing and sketching clothes, and she loved playing around with different materials, textures and colours. She knew instinctively when an outfit looked right or wrong, the importance of how a material draped and the need for precision tailoring to create a truly beautiful garment.
Last summer while she’d been staying in Positano she had commissioned an evening gown from local designer and dressmaker Rosa Cucinotta. Rosa had shown her around her workroom and it had been a defining moment for Arianna, confirming her decision that she wanted a career in fashion design. But although she had good drawing skills she needed to learn how to sew, make patterns and know how to construct a garment.
She had dismissed the idea of applying to study fashion design at a college in England for fear that the press would find out. It was important to keep her hope of one day owning her own fashion label a secret, especially from her father. If she did make a successful career, she wanted it to be on her own, without Randolph’s money or influence.
She had persuaded Rosa to give her sewing lessons, and when she’d returned to London last autumn she had studied with Sylvia Harding, a famous fashion designer who, before she’d retired, had been a couturier to royalty. During the six months that Arianna had spent in Australia, she had worked with a couple of funky young designers in Sydney. For the first time in her life she had had to work hard, and she’d loved it.
For the next hour she concentrated on pinning and cutting the material, before using a sewing machine to make a neat seam that she hoped would be up to Rosa’s high standards. Finally she looked up, feeling reasonably happy with her efforts. She was sitting next to the window that overlooked the street and had a perfect view of Santino seated at a table outside the café opposite the dress shop
and the beauty salon next door.
The constant presence of a bodyguard following her around was going to make it difficult to spend a few hours every day at Rosa’s workshop, she thought with a frown. It would be easier if she told Santino that she was having sewing lessons, but she was reluctant to reveal her dream of establishing her own fashion label.
Her stomach squirmed with shame as she remembered how he had called her a leech who relied on her father for money. At the age of twenty-five she knew she should be independent, although many of her peers in her social circle—the offspring of super-rich parents—lived off trust funds and vast inheritances. But she wanted to be her own person—whoever that was, Arianna thought wryly. She had spent her teenage years and early twenties hating her father, but the result was that she’d become someone she did not like or respect.
As she stared at Santino she felt that strange breathless sensation that only he had ever induced in her. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and his impressive biceps showed beneath his short-sleeved T-shirt. She had noticed earlier that he had a tattoo of a snarling tiger on his upper right arm. He glanced at his watch. No doubt he was bored waiting for her but he would have to get used to it. It occurred to Arianna that she would not need to fire Santino—all she had to do was behave so badly that he was bound to resign from his post as her bodyguard.
‘Are you sewing or admiring the scenery?’ Rosa asked drily.
Arianna quickly jerked her head round and felt her face grow warm when the dressmaker moved closer to the window and looked at Santino. ‘Is he your lover?’
‘No! Definitely not.’
‘A pity.’ Rosa shrugged her ample shoulders. ‘He is very handsome.’ She picked up the length of fabric that Arianna had been working on and inspected the neat seam. ‘Eccellente. You have improved a lot since last summer when you began sewing lessons with me. You still have much to learn, of course, but I can see you have a natural skill.’
‘Thank you.’ Arianna blushed again. She was not used to being praised, which was partly her own fault, she acknowledged. As a child she had sought attention from her various nannies by misbehaving, and she’d done the same with her father. At least when Randolph had been angry with her it meant that he’d actually noticed her. But mostly her father had treated her with crucifying indifference on the rare occasions when they met. He travelled extensively for his work, and Arianna had felt the same sense of abandonment that had been so devastating when her mother had left her behind to start a new life in Australia.
Meeting Celine in Sydney after they had not seen each other for more than a decade had been a strange experience, Arianna mused. She had been shocked to discover that she had a half-brother, Jason, who was nearly fifteen. Her mother had explained that she’d been pregnant by her Australian lover when she’d left her husband and daughter. She had wanted to take Arianna to Australia with her, but Randolph had refused to allow it, and he had offered Celine a large amount of money in return for her agreement not to seek custody of Arianna or contact her.
Celine had sacrificed a relationship with her daughter and accepted the pay-off from Randolph, which had allowed her to bring up her son. Arianna understood her mother’s reasons but it hadn’t hurt any less to hear that she had been used as a pawn in her parents’ bitter divorce.
At least she was back in touch with Celine and, although they would never have a close mother-daughter bond, Arianna had promised to visit her mum in Australia and get to know her stepbrother. She was about to start a new chapter in her life and launch her career. For the first time ever she had a sense of purpose and she had surprised herself with her fierce determination to succeed as a designer.
Her unexpected fascination with Santino Vasari was as annoying as it was inexplicable. Once again, Arianna’s gaze was drawn to the window, and as she stared at Santino she unconsciously traced her tongue over her lips where his mouth had branded hers. She could still taste him, and she could remember in vivid detail the hunger in his kiss—the glorious, blazing heat of it that had burned through her and pooled, molten and yearning, low in her pelvis.
It made no sense that she was attracted to one of her father’s minions. She was certain that Santino had been hired by Randolph to police her behaviour and she didn’t understand why she was tempted to tell him that most of the stories about her had been fabricated by the paparazzi. She had pretended to be a social butterfly, aimlessly flitting from one glamorous party to another and from one celebrity lover to another, to punish her father and remind him of her existence.
But admitting those things would be akin to ripping away the mask she had hidden behind the whole of her adult life to reveal the real Arianna Fitzgerald—the vulnerable, un-confident woman...the lonely girl who expected everyone to let her down. She could not be side-tracked by a man who said he was her protector but who, her instincts warned, was dangerous to her peace of mind. She was just starting out on a journey of self-discovery and she was not ready to deal with the disturbing effect that her bodyguard had on her. Deep down, she suspected that she would never be ready for Santino Vasari’s devastating sensuality.
* * *
‘I swear your nail polish is the same colour it was before you went into the beauty salon two hours ago,’ Santino said tersely when Arianna walked over to where he was sitting outside the café.
He stood up as she approached and she had to tilt her head to look at his face. She hated that she felt small and ridiculously fragile when he towered over her. He was easily several inches over six feet tall, but more than his impressively muscular physique he exuded a latent power and an air of command that she guessed came from his time in the army.
She dropped her phone into her bag and gave a careless shrug. ‘They’re acrylics and need to be replaced every two weeks. I did warn you that you would get bored,’ she murmured with a saccharine-sweet smile that evidently did nothing to lighten his black mood.
His heavy brows drew together. ‘Seriously, can’t you think of anything more interesting to do than spending hours having your body pampered?’
‘Seriously, you need to remember that you are an employee, and not my spiritual guide whose job is to lead me towards enlightenment and a better life,’ Arianna told him furiously. She spun round and marched along the street, straight past where her car was parked. ‘I’ve just had a call from my friend Jonny, inviting me to spend the afternoon on his yacht. I won’t require a bodyguard,’ she said to Santino over her shoulder. ‘You might as well go back to the villa and I’ll call you later this evening when I want you to collect me.’
She increased her pace and walked swiftly through the pedestrianised streets, past pretty restaurants, art galleries and clothes shops with brightly coloured dresses displayed on rails outside. In midsummer Positano was full of tourists and she had to weave her way through the crowds on the steps down to the beach. She had almost reached Giovanni’s’ Bar when she sensed someone close behind her, and she turned her head and glared at Santino.
‘Go away,’ she hissed. ‘I can’t enjoy a drink with my friends when you are hanging around. I don’t want to admit that you are my...’ She had been about to say ‘minder’, but he interrupted her.
‘Babysitter,’ Santino mocked. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be discreet,’ he drawled as he followed her into the bar.
Most of the crowd who Arianna had met the previous day were in the bar and she joined Davina Huxley-Brown at a table and ordered a drink. What she really wanted to do was go back to Villa Cadenza and work on her designs. But it was Filippo and Ida’s afternoon off. She’d felt uncomfortable at the prospect of being alone with Santino at the villa, which was why she had accepted Jonny’s invitation.
‘Jonny is sending the motor launch over to collect us,’ Davina told her. ‘Who’s the hunk that you arrived with?’
Arianna pretended to be puzzled. ‘I didn’t arrive with anyone.’
> ‘Shame. I was hoping you could introduce me to the gorgeous guy over there.’
Arianna followed her friend’s gaze across the bar and saw Santino chatting to the Dutch twins Poppy and Posy Van Deesen. He was about as discreet as a nuclear explosion, she thought, gritting her teeth when she watched him flirting with the two attractive blondes. Of course he had to glance over in her direction at that exact moment and caught her staring at him. Hot-faced, she turned her head away and took a gulp of her gin and tonic before she remembered that she hadn’t eaten breakfast or lunch.
The launch drew up alongside the wooden jetty on the beach and Arianna and some of the others climbed aboard. She immediately put on a life-jacket, although most people did not bother. Minutes later the dingy was zipping over the sparkling sea to where the luxury motor yacht Sun Princess was anchored some way off shore.
‘You look better than you did yesterday.’ Jonny greeted her when she boarded the yacht. He beckoned to a steward who stepped forward and handed her a glass of champagne. It would be churlish to refuse, but she definitely did not need any more alcohol, Arianna decided as she strolled along the deck, looking for somewhere to put down her drink. She felt an odd sensation that she was being watched, and when she glanced over her shoulder she saw that the steward was staring at her. For some reason a shiver ran through her. She did not remember seeing that particular steward on board the yacht yesterday, but she’d been so jet-lagged that most of the day was a blur.
She whirled round at the sound of a familiar voice, and anger fizzed inside her when she saw Santino step onto the deck of the yacht, followed by the Van Deesen twins. The launch had returned to pick up the remaining guests from the beach and bring them out to the Sun Princess, and evidently he had managed to get himself included. Poppy Van Deesen linked her arm though his and her twin sister clung to his other arm.
The Virgin's Sicilian Protector Page 4