The Twelve Nights of Christmas

by Sarah Morgan

  ‘Six four,’ he breathed, his eyes scanning the length of her legs. ‘And I’ve never had a problem with a woman’s height.’

  That was because he was unlikely to meet a woman taller than him, Evie thought weakly. ‘Most people think I’m a freak.’

  Without giving her a chance to argue, he scooped her off the bed and dumped her on her feet in front of the mirror. ‘Look at yourself. Tell me what you see.’

  Evie closed her eyes. ‘I don’t see anything.’

  ‘Look!’

  Evie flinched and opened one eye cautiously. ‘Evie the elephant,’ she said immediately and his brows met in an impatient frown.

  ‘If that title is a throwback to your childhood, then you’d better let it go now. You’re stunning and that gives us a major problem.’

  Stunning?

  Evie, who couldn’t even for a single moment think why being considered stunning would present a major problem to anyone, looked at him dizzily. ‘Even if that was true, which it isn’t, I don’t see how that could be a problem. How can being stunning be a problem? People judge by appearances. I’ve never been a member of the “oh, it’s such a bore to be beautiful” camp.’

  ‘It’s a problem because you need to look wholesome.’

  Evie was about to say that she’d been trying to escape from the ‘wholesome’ image for most of her life, when he took her hair in his hands and twisted it, assessing the effect with narrowed eyes. ‘You have good skin.’

  ‘And freckles.’

  ‘Freckles are good. They suggest a healthy outdoor life. Wholesome.’

  Why did he keep saying wholesome?

  ‘I’m not with you—’

  ‘Unfortunately, you are with me and that is why we have a problem.’

  ‘We wouldn’t have a problem if you hadn’t kissed me.’

  ‘I’m fully aware of that fact.’ He paced over to the window, keeping his back to her. ‘Get dressed.’

  Wriggling into the housekeeper uniform, Evie stared at his broad shoulders. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so stressed about this. You celebrities are always in the newspapers. You may be the reason they want that photo, but it’s going to damage me far more than you.’

  He turned, and the expression on his face was all it took to silence her. His eyes were haunted and there was a tension in his body that was unmistakably real.

  ‘The damage to me could be incalculable,’ he said coldly and Evie thought back to the exchange he’d had earlier with Carlos.

  Whatever the ‘deal’ was, he was obviously prepared to stop at nothing to make sure it went through. It had to be about more than money, she thought. It had to be something to do with ego. Winning. The addictive quality of power.

  ‘And creepy Carlos did this to you on purpose and I got caught in the middle, is that right?’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  She wondered what Carlos had against Rio Zaccarelli. What was he trying to achieve with that photograph? If it hadn’t been her, would he have used someone else? ‘If there is no way you can stop that photograph being published then I’d better make a phone call.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You’re calling a lover?’

  Evie gave a hysterical laugh. ‘Oh, yes—I have loads of those—’ Catching the dangerous gleam in his eyes, her laughter faded. ‘Not a lover. I’m calling my grandfather, if you must know.’

  Bold black eyebrows met in a fierce frown. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-three, but, like most people of his generation, he doesn’t believe in public displays of affection,’ Evie said wearily, ‘and he absolutely doesn’t believe in one-night stands. Neither do I, for that matter.’ She tried to sound casual, as if talking about sex was something she did all the time, rather than something she never did.

  She stared at Rio Zaccarelli, the epitome of male sophistication, and felt her face grow scarlet.

  Her grandfather definitely would have classed him as a real man.

  It was the ultimate irony, she thought, to have been caught naked with him.

  As if—

  ‘So you don’t have a lover at the moment.’ His slumberous gaze rested on her mouth. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘Well, that depends on where you’re standing,’ Evie muttered, wishing she wasn’t standing quite so close to him. She was getting hotter and hotter. ‘If you must know, I was supposed to be getting married yesterday but my fiancé dumped me. If that hadn’t happened I’d be in Bali now, not London. I wouldn’t have lost my job and my flat and generally had a completely awful six weeks and there might have been the smallest, remotest chance that my grandfather might be bouncing a baby on his knee next Christmas. As it is, there’s no chance. None. I don’t expect you to understand. You look like the sort of person whose life always goes according to plan.’

  ‘My plan,’ he said tightly, ‘wasn’t to find a strange woman lying naked in my bed. Fortunately, I’ve always considered adaptability to be an asset. I can turn this situation around.’

  ‘You can?’ Evie’s gaze drifted to the neck of his shirt. Dark hairs tangled at the base of his throat and disappeared inside the snowy-white shirt. She imagined the hair hazing his chest and narrowing over his abdomen, which was no doubt as muscular as the rest of him. Shocked by her own thoughts, she lifted her eyes back to his and discovered that he was watching her with an unsettling degree of sexual interest.

  ‘Why did he dump you?’

  ‘Why does it matter?’ Was she supposed to read him a list? Evie chewed the corner of her fingernail and then gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘Because he met someone more exciting. Because I’m the girl next door and he’s known me since I was three years old. Because I was taller than him and I made him feel less of a man—’ She stared at him with exasperation, wondering why she was having to spell this out. ‘Because I’m me. He sent me a text, dumping me.’

  His lips thinned with disapproval. ‘That’s bad.’

  ‘Hypocrite. Are you seriously trying to tell me you’ve never dumped a woman?’

  ‘I wouldn’t use the word “dumped”. I’ve ended plenty of relationships, but always in person. I’ve never sent a text. That’s cowardly.’

  ‘I suppose it’s human nature to avoid a difficult conversation.’

  ‘Difficult conversations are part of my daily existence.’

  Evie had no trouble believing that. ‘Jeff is nothing like you.’ A wimp, her grandfather had called him. ‘Perhaps he was sensible. After all the lies he told, I would have blacked his eye if he’d told me in person.’

  His eyes lingered on her hair. ‘A true redhead with a temper to match.’

  Reminded of the embarrassing fact that he knew she was a true redhead, Evie ploughed on. ‘What this boils down to is that my grandfather isn’t going to be impressed to see me naked with another man. He’s very old-fashioned. I don’t want him to think I’m like that. I’m not like that! I don’t flit from one man to another.’

  ‘Unless the other man was someone important to you.’ Rio spoke under his breath and she had a feeling that he was thinking aloud.

  That thought was confirmed when she muttered, ‘Sorry?’ and received no response.

  ‘If it was someone you’d been secretly seeing. A rebound relationship that turned into something special—’ He paced the length of the bedroom and then turned to look at her, his eyes burning dark. ‘Wholesome.’

  ‘You make me sound like a breakfast cereal,’ she said irritably. ‘Why do you keep saying that?’

  ‘Never mind. How long ago did you start working here?’

  ‘I don’t know…I…’

  ‘Think!’

  ‘Don’t shout at me! I can’t concentrate when people shout!’

  Rio sucked in a breath. ‘I’m not shouting. I just want an answer. When?’

  ‘About six weeks ago. I came down after Jeff dumped me. I started as a receptionist. I thought it was my big break.’

  ‘Six weeks—’ Before the words had left his lips, his
BlackBerry was in his hand and he was checking something. ‘I was staying in the Penthouse six weeks ago. I spent one night here on my way to New York. I need you to find out if you were working here then.’

  ‘I know I was because I made a point of avoiding you. So what? What difference does that make?’ Failing to follow his train of thought, Evie looked at him blankly but he was already dialling a number and speaking into his phone in Italian.

  He made call after call and each time Evie opened her mouth to ask him what was going on, he simply lifted his hand to silence her until she was ready to scream with exasperation.

  ‘Hello, I’m here too!’ After his seventh consecutive phone call, she waved at him. ‘I need to ring my grandfather.’

  ‘First, I want to get this announcement into the press and arrange a photo.’

  ‘What announcement? What photo?’ Worried, irritable, Evie snapped at him. ‘Haven’t we had enough photos for one day?’

  He gave a lethal smile. ‘This photograph will be different.’

  ‘Different as in I get to wear clothes? Yippee.’ She didn’t know how she was still managing to joke because she’d never felt less like joking about anything in her life.

  She knew enough about the press to understand that scandal and humiliation sold better than anything else. ‘Can’t you just stop them printing the photograph? Isn’t there a privacy law or something?’

  ‘That isn’t going to help us. The best thing we can do is stop this whole thing looking sleazy.’ Ruthlessly focused, he strode towards the door of the Penthouse. ‘Stay out of sight. Whatever you do, don’t emerge from the bedroom until I come and get you. I don’t want anyone to see you.’

  ‘Why? What are you going to do?’

  ‘Find you some proper clothes and then show the world we didn’t have a one-night stand.’

  Bemused, Evie stared at him. ‘How?’

  ‘By proving that we share something special.’ A triumphant gleam in his eyes, he yanked open the door and turned to look at her. ‘I’m going to announce our engagement.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  RIO gave his Director of Communications a volley of instructions over the phone and then updated his lawyers.

  Listening to Pietro’s dire predictions, he felt his stomach clench.

  Whiter than white….

  He should have anticipated this.

  He should have known they’d do something to try and stop this deal going through. He’d been arrogant, allowing himself to relax and think that the whole thing was in the bag.

  Sweat cooled his brow and he realised that his hand was shaking. Making a conscious effort to control his breathing, he hauled his emotions back and buried them deep. Emotions had no place in negotiation, he knew that. And this was the most complex, delicate negotiation he’d ever conducted.

  ‘Whatever it takes,’ he promised his lawyer. ‘You wanted wholesome—I’m giving you wholesome.’

  When the delivery arrived at the Penthouse, he dismissed the staff member and took the boxes through to the bedroom himself. He then handed them to the girl without breaking off his conversation and without risking another look at her luxuriant red hair.

  Why the hell had he kissed her?

  He was well aware that his own libido had catapulted him into this situation. If he’d taken one look at her and left the room, the photographer wouldn’t have been able to get his shot.

  As it was…

  With a low growl, Rio focused his mind on the present.

  Having hammered out the plan with his team in Rome, he was about to call his team in New York when he heard the bedroom door open.

  The girl stood there, her eyes blazing with anger, her hair flowing like liquid fire down her back. ‘Excuse me! In case you’ve forgotten, this affects me, too. Do you intend to discuss any of this with me or are you just going to do your own thing?’

  ‘I don’t problem solve by committee.’ Congratulating himself on his brief to the stylist, Rio scanned the discreet, elegant dress with satisfaction. It was perfect. She managed to look wholesome and sexy at the same time. This could just work. ‘I’m busy sorting out our problem right now.’

  ‘No, Mr Zaccarelli, you’re sorting out your problem—I’m incidental. You haven’t once asked what I want to do about this mess which, by the way, is ultimately the fault of you and your stupid, slimy hotel manager, who can’t keep his hands to himself.’ She stalked across to him and shoved the redundant housekeeper uniform into his hands while Rio dissected that sentence into its relative parts.

  ‘What do you mean, he “can’t keep his hands to himself”? Are you saying he touched you?’ Astonished by the sudden explosion of anger that was released by that unexpected revelation, Rio was suddenly glad he’d fired Carlos on the spot. His voice cold, he probed for the details. ‘Did you report him for sexual harassment?’

  ‘No. I broke his finger.’

  ‘You broke his finger?’

  ‘My grandfather taught unarmed combat during the war. He taught me self-defence.’

  Distracted by that unexpected confession, Rio looked at her in a new light. ‘I’ll remember that.’

  ‘You should. But, to repeat, you’re not solving our problem, Mr Zaccarelli, you’re solving your problem.’

  ‘Call me Rio. I think we moved on to the first name stage about an hour ago. And, if it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have a problem.’ His observation appeared to act as fuel to her already happily burning temper.

  ‘If creepy Carlos hadn’t used me, then he would have used someone else and frankly I wish he had because then I wouldn’t be in this mess.’ She paced the room, trying to work off her stress.

  Watching all that fabulous hair ripple down her back, Rio fought the urge to flatten her against the nearest hard surface and conduct in-depth research into the impact of extremely long legs on the enhancement of sexual pleasure.

  He had no idea what her true role had been in what he now recognised as a final desperate attempt to stop this deal going through. Maybe she was innocent. Maybe she wasn’t. Either way, she was the means by which he was going to extract himself from the catastrophic mess he now found himself in.

  The upside of his plan was that he didn’t need to struggle to keep his hands off her. In fact, the more hands the better.

  He was slightly puzzled by her lack of confidence. Accustomed to women so narcissistic that they used every reflective surface to admire themselves, it came as a shock to discover one who didn’t seem to spend her time in endless self-admiration. When she’d confessed that men found her too tall it had been on the tip of his tongue to point out that height was irrelevant when you were horizontal, but he’d managed not to voice that thought aloud. Rio wondered whether it would count as a charitable act to demonstrate just how well those endless legs of hers would wrap around his waist.

  ‘You look perfect in that dress.’

  ‘I look like a politician or something.’ Keeping her back to him, she paced towards the window and Rio frowned.

  ‘Don’t go near the windows.’ His clipped command earned him a challenging glance.

  ‘Why? We’re too high up for anyone to see.’

  ‘In today’s world of long lenses?’ Watching her lose more colour from her face, he let the observation hang in the air. ‘The next photograph they take of us will be when I’m ready and not before.’

  ‘I don’t want any more photographs taken!’ But she moved away from the window, fiddling nervously with the fabric of her dress as she paced in the other direction. ‘Look—this whole engagement thing is ridiculous. Can’t you just stop that photo being printed?’

  ‘No.’ Rio recoiled from the sheen of tears he saw in her eyes. ‘But I can stop it looking like a sleazy one-night stand. We’re going to make people believe we’re in a relationship—serious about each other.’ Looking at her now, those high heels elongating her spectacular legs, he was even starting to believe it could work. No red-blooded male would question his interest
.

  ‘It’s a really s-stupid plan.’

  Rio, who had been congratulating himself on a truly genius idea, was insulted. ‘It’s an incredible plan.’ His tone cooled. ‘You’re lucky I’m not currently involved with anyone.’

  ‘Lucky?’

  Rio dismissed thoughts of the Russian ballerina. ‘It’s unusual for me not to be in a relationship.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s one of the advantages of being filthy rich. Where there’s money, there will always be women.’

  Taken aback by that diminution of his qualities, Rio breathed deeply. ‘Women are generally interested in more than my wallet.’

  ‘How do you know? They’re not going to tell you, are they? And I don’t suppose gold-diggers come with a warning hanging round their neck.’

  ‘I can spot a gold-digger in the dark from a thousand paces.’ He ignored the discordant image in his head that reminded him that on at least one occasion that statement had proven not to be true.

  ‘Good for you.’ Her slightly acidic tone matched her growing agitation. She explored the room, picking things up and putting them down again. First the vase on the table, then a notepad, then a remote control. She squinted down at it and pressed a button mindlessly and a gas fire flared to life behind a glass panel in the wall.

  Swearing under his breath, Rio crossed the room and turned her to face him. ‘I know you’re anxious that they’re going to print your photograph but, trust me, it will be fine providing people think we’re together. This is the best way of dealing with it.’

  ‘That’s just your opinion.’

  Rio, who had never before had his opinion dismissed, ground his teeth. ‘If you have an alternative suggestion, then I’m listening.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’re pretending to listen while secretly thinking that you’ll let me say my piece and then just do what you were planning to do all along, but it isn’t going to work. I won’t pretend to be engaged to you.’

  Assuming that her reluctance was rooted in her insecurity, Rio sought to reassure her. ‘By the time we’ve done something about your wardrobe, your nails and your hair, it will be easy to convince people that we are involved with each other.’