Harlequin Presents--July 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Natalie Anderson

  Matteo led her inside the gorgeously appointed mansion. It had a functional and masculine feel about it but there were softer touches here and there that perfectly balanced the overall look. ‘Is there any particular room you’d like to see?’ he asked.

  ‘Where do you spend most of your time when you’re here? Apart from your bedroom, of course.’ Emmie wished she hadn’t mentioned his bedroom. She was dying to take a peek at it, but the thought of entering it with him made her feel hot all over. She could only imagine how many women he took in there and made mad passionate love to. Not that she had read anything about him being an out-and-out playboy, but what woman wouldn’t want a night in his arms? There was a sensual energy about him that spoke to her body in a way nothing had ever done before. Her awareness of him increased with every moment she spent with him. She could easily have waited for another day to ask to see his home but she had felt compelled to extend the evening with him, to delve a little more deeply into his enigmatic personality.

  ‘I spend most of my time in my study.’

  She rolled her eyes. ‘I should have known.’

  A half-smile flirted with the corners of his mouth. ‘Come this way. It’s through here.’

  Emmie followed him upstairs to a bookshelf-lined room on the second floor. She walked over to the mullioned windows that overlooked a neat garden at the back of the house. The garden was a mostly formal affair, illuminated by subtle lighting set in sandstone flagstones. There was a small water feature in the centre, complete with water lilies floating on the top, that was also illuminated. It looked like a peaceful place to spend a summer evening entertaining friends, or even to sit in quiet reflection on one’s own. She suspected Matteo did the latter far more frequently than the former.

  Emmie turned back from the window to cast her eyes over the study. There was a large leather-topped desk in dark wood in front of one row of bookshelves, and it had a leather Chesterfield-type chair. A slimline desktop computer was situated on the desk and a printer set up on a lower shelf of the bookcase that kept them out of sight.

  Emmie ran her gaze along the bookshelves to see what sort of books he liked to read. There were many Italian titles as well as English ones, and numerous financial tomes, including some hefty tax law volumes. There were a few crime fiction novels and biographies and even some art history. Not surprising, given the art work on the walls looked like originals. But there were no personal photographs of friends or family although, given what he’d told her about his parents, that too wasn’t all that surprising.

  ‘Seen enough?’ Matteo asked.

  Emmie turned from examining the bookshelves to face him. ‘It’s a nice study. It’s got an old-world atmosphere, suggesting you’re a bit of a traditionalist at heart.’

  A cynical light entered his gaze. ‘On some issues, perhaps. Others not so much.’ He walked over to the door. ‘I’ll go and put some coffee on and let you have a wander around on your own.’

  ‘Are you sure you’d be comfortable with me doing that?’

  ‘If I find something valuable missing after you leave, I know where to find you.’ His tone was playful, his smile teasing, and it made her heart give an extra beat. It was the first full smile he had given her and it transformed his features, making him appear younger and even more attractive.

  ‘I can assure you, I am completely trustworthy.’

  ‘There’s nothing here you could steal that couldn’t be replaced.’

  But what about your heart?

  The errant thought shocked Emmie into silence and, within another moment, he had gone.

  * * *

  Matteo went to put on some coffee, wondering if he had made a mistake in engaging Emmie’s professional services. Her approach seemed reasonable on one level, but he was uneasy her mission to get to know him might reveal things about himself he would prefer to keep hidden. But any misgivings on his part would have to be shelved—he had to find a wife sooner rather than later. The deadline set out in his father’s will was rapidly approaching and, while he could have cast his net via a dating app, he hadn’t wanted to risk attracting the wrong person. A professional dating agency, especially one with Emmie Woodcroft’s reputation for excellent service and results, was his best option.

  What he hadn’t expected was Emmie herself to be so alluring. Or so against finding a partner herself. It seemed a little odd for a professional match-maker to be single. After all, she knew how to find the right person for her clients—how much easier to find one for herself? He admired her ambition, the focus on her career, but something about her adamant stance on singledom didn’t ring true.

  His job was to spot irregularities, to uncover secrets and hidden information. Was there some other reason Emmie wasn’t interested in finding love? Had she been hurt in the past? Had her heart broken by a lover? Been frightened off commitment because of the fear of losing herself in a relationship and not being able to follow her dream career the way she wanted to? She certainly put a lot of her time into her clients. Her willingness to travel and spend time individually with them was commendable. It was no wonder she got the results she did. And, as long as she got results for him, he would be happy. Well, as happy as he could be under the circumstances, and as circumstances went they weren’t exactly happy-making.

  * * *

  Emmie peeped into a couple of the spare rooms on the upper floor but the one room she was drawn to look at was Matteo’s bedroom. She walked towards it as if pulled by a powerful magnet and gently pushed the door open. She stepped over the threshold and breathed in the light citrussy notes of his aftershave that lingered in the air. The king-sized bed dominated the room and drew her gaze as if the same powerful magnet was at work. The bed linen was a blinding white, but there was a dark-blue throw on the end of the bed, as well as three scatter cushions in the same hue propped against the array of snowy-white pillows. Twin bedside lamps and tables were at either side of the bed. The left-side table had a book with a bookmark poking out of the top, which told her Matteo slept on the left side of the bed.

  She moved across the room and took a peek in the walk-in wardrobe. His clothes were neatly organised, even colour coordinated, which suggested either he was a little pedantic or obsessive or his housekeeper was. She assumed he had one. The place was immaculate and, given he was such a busy man who travelled a lot for work, she couldn’t imagine him wandering around his many homes flicking a duster over the furniture and doing his own laundry.

  She slid the pocket door closed and went to have a peek at the en suite. It was stylishly and luxuriously appointed in white Italian marble with veins of grey and black running through. The large shower area triggered her thoughts into imagining him in there naked, hot water from the shower attachment splashing over his toned and hard male flesh. She suppressed a shiver and moved further into the en suite and picked up a bottle of his aftershave from the marble counter, unscrewing the cap and holding it up to her nose. It was intoxicating but not half as intoxicating when it was mixed with his own personal scent. She closed her eyes and took another sniff...

  ‘Found anything interesting?’ Matteo’s deep voice sounding from the en suite doorway startled Emmie into dropping the cologne bottle on the marble floor. It smashed into several pieces and she gasped in horror at the mess she’d created.

  ‘I’m so sorry!’ She bent down and began to pick up the pieces, but the first shard of glass cut her finger and large droplets of blood began dripping to the floor. Eek! How could she have been so clumsy?

  ‘Leave it.’ Matteo snatched up a snowy-white hand towel and crouched down beside her, holding her hand and inspecting her finger for fragments of glass before he wrapped her hand in the towel to stem the flow of blood. ‘Are you okay?’

  Emmie was sure her cheeks were as bright red as the droplets of blood on the floor. Never had she felt so hideously embarrassed. What must he think of her, snooping round
his bathroom? She was hardly acting like a consummate professional. She was acting like a star-struck teenager let loose in a celebrity’s house, hunting for a souvenir to take home. Seriously, what was wrong with her? She had never acted so out of line before. Never.

  ‘I’m fine. I’m really sorry. You startled me and I... I shouldn’t have been snooping around in your bathroom, but I really like your cologne. It’s one of the nicest ones I’ve ever smelt and I...’ She scrunched her eyes closed and opened them again to say with a self-conscious grimace, ‘I’ll shut up now. Nothing I can say can excuse my appalling behaviour. Please forgive me.’

  Matteo helped her to her feet, his towering height all the more apparent in comparison to her smaller stature. The top of her head barely came up to his shoulder. He was so close she could feel his body warmth and she had to resist the temptation to move even closer. She hadn’t been this close to a man for years. In fact, the only men who had touched her since her teens were her oncologist and the occasional male nurse.

  Matteo was still holding her hand wrapped in the towel, his expression etched in lines of concern. ‘There’s nothing to forgive. I’d better take another look to see if it’s stopped bleeding. Do you mind?’

  ‘Go for it.’

  He peeled the towel away and inspected the wound with a frown of concentration. The blood was still seeping, so he quickly bound it up again and applied more pressure. ‘You’re lucky you didn’t sever a tendon or something. Does it hurt?’

  ‘Not really.’ What hurt was standing so close to him and wanting to lift her face to be kissed. Emmie kept her gaze lowered, worried he might see what she was trying so hard to suppress. The need to be held by him, to feel his arms go around her and bring her closer to the hard, warm frame of his body. It was as if her body was under some weird sort of spell, activated the first moment she’d met him.

  ‘Do you feel light-headed? Faint?’ His other hand slipped to her other wrist and measured her pulse. ‘Your pulse is quite fast.’

  ‘I—I always have a fast resting pulse. I’m not very...erm...fit...’

  His thumb stayed on the blue-veined skin of her wrist, his eyes holding hers in a lock that made her insides twist and coil with lust. ‘You don’t look unfit to me.’ His voice was deep and low with an edge of huskiness. His thumb began to stroke her wrist in a slow caress that sent her pulse rate soaring.

  ‘I—I can’t run up a flight of stairs without getting breathless.’ Nor could she stand in such close proximity to him without becoming breathless. Breathless with longing, a longing she had never expected to feel with such intensity. A longing she had to suppress.

  His lazy smile made something in her stomach turn over. His eyes were so dark she could barely make out his pupils from the sea of dark, bottomless blue. His gaze drifted to her mouth and she disguised a swallow...or tried to. The silence was so thick she could hear the up and down movement of her throat and, judging from his expression, so could he. His eyes went to her mouth again, lingering there for an infinitesimal moment.

  Emmie didn’t realise she was holding her breath until her lungs began to beg for more air. She snatched in a wobbly breath and pulled her hand out of his, holding the towel in place. ‘Do you have a bandage I could borrow? I’m really sorry about this. I feel so foolish. I’m not normally so clumsy.’

  ‘Stop apologising. I’m just glad you didn’t do any worse damage.’ He opened one of the drawers below the marble basins and took out a first aid kit and laid it on the counter. He opened the kit and took out a crepe bandage as well as antiseptic and cotton pads. He turned back to take her hand again, peeling away the towel to check the bleeding. ‘We’d better give it a wash under cold water just in case there are any tiny fragments of glass embedded in there.’

  ‘I can’t feel any. It’s just a clean cut.’

  He held her hand under the cold tap and, even though his touch was gentle, it made her intensely aware of every point of contact with her skin as if she was being permanently branded by him. Her arm brushed his shirt sleeve and it was impossible not to notice the firm muscles the fine cotton covered. Her gaze drifted to his hand, holding hers under the water, his skin tanned, his fingers long and strong. She thought of his hands touching her in other places—places that hadn’t been touched by a man in so long she had forgotten what it felt like.

  She stole a glance at his profile while he was concentrating on cleansing her finger. The dark stubble surrounding his nose and mouth and running over his lean jaw made her want to reach up and stroke her fingers along its sexy roughness. She wondered what it would feel like against her softer skin. Her heartbeat increased as her thoughts ran wild, let out of a locked vault inside her head—thoughts of being kissed by his firm mouth, touched by his surprisingly gentle hands, possessed by his hard maleness. A soft flutter in her feminine core brought forth an involuntary gasp and he glanced at her with an apologetic look.

  ‘Sorry if this stings.’ Matteo turned off the water and dried her hand with a fresh towel and then proceeded to dab the wound with antiseptic.

  ‘I’ve felt worse pain.’

  He gave her another sideways glance as if something in her tone intrigued him. ‘A broken bone?’

  ‘No, just the usual cuts and bruises.’

  Matteo continued to dress her wound and finished up with winding a bandage around her finger, padding it with cotton wool beneath to protect it from bumping. She found herself wishing she had a bigger wound so she could stay close to him longer. ‘There you go.’

  ‘You missed your calling as a doctor.’

  He gave a soft laugh, which was even more breath-snatching than his smile. ‘My bedside manner would need some work.’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’

  His eyes met hers and time seemed to come to a standstill. The silence was so thick she could feel it pressing from all four corners of the room. Emmie could feel the colour pouring back into her cheeks and sank her teeth into her lower lip. ‘I think I need to go home now. It’s way past my bedtime.’ Oh, dear God, could she just stop mentioning the word bed?

  Matteo guided her out of the en suite with a gentle hand at her elbow. ‘Careful—there’s still glass on the floor.’

  ‘I’ll replace the bottle of cologne for you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I insist.’ Emmie moved away to put some distance between them before she made an even bigger fool of herself. ‘And I’ll catch a cab home. I’ve taken up too much of your time.’

  ‘I’ll take you home, and that’s not negotiable. Understood?’ He had an intractable light in his eyes that should have annoyed her but somehow didn’t. She was looking forward to eking out the last few minutes of the evening in his company before the clock struck midnight.

  Cinderella has nothing on me, Emmie thought. Just as well she wasn’t wearing glass slippers or she would likely shatter them too.

  * * *

  Matteo pulled up in front of Emmie’s house a few minutes later. He was out of the car and round to open her door before she had even undone her seat belt. Emmie stepped out onto the footpath and turned to face him. ‘Thank you for dinner.’

  ‘I’ll walk you to your door.’

  ‘I’m sure I won’t sever an artery between here and my front door,’ Emmie said with a self-deprecating smile.

  Something flickered in his gaze and his lower jaw tightened. ‘You should probably get a doctor to check your finger in the morning. It could become infected.’ He placed a gentle hand below her elbow and guided her towards her door.

  Emmie had so rarely been touched by a man she decided that was why Matteo’s touch was doing such weird things to her. In fact, she couldn’t recall the last time a man had got close to her, held her, kissed her, looked at her with desire gleaming in his eyes. Matteo’s eyes were inscrutable most of the time but every now and again she caught a glimpse of som
ething that looked like interest. The same interest she was trying so hard not to show in her own gaze.

  Emmie took out her key from her bag but realised her cut finger was going to make unlocking the door difficult. But Matteo had already anticipated that and held out his hand for her key. ‘I’ll do it.’ She slipped the key into the broad span of his palm but somehow her fingers brushed against his skin and a flicker of electricity shot through her body.

  Matteo unlocked the door and pushed it open for her. ‘There you go.’ He handed her the key but it was impossible to take it without touching him again. The lightning bolt of awareness zapped from her fingers to her armpit and all the way down to her core like the fizzing wick of a firework.

  Emmie closed her hand around her key and stepped across the threshold but then turned and faced him. ‘Would you like to come in?’ She issued the invitation before her rational mind caught up and warned her against spending any more time alone with him.

  His dark eyebrows rose ever so slightly above his unreadable eyes, the only sign her invitation had surprised him. ‘Sure.’ He stepped through the door and closed it with a soft click behind him.

  Emmie ran the tip of her tongue across her lips, her breath stalling when his gaze followed the movement.

  ‘Erm, would you like a drink? Cocoa? Hot chocolate? Juice? I’m afraid I don’t have any alcohol.’ She knew she sounded as unsophisticated as she felt. She was offering him nursery-school drink options when no doubt he was used to complicated cocktails and nifty little nightcaps.

  One side of his mouth came up in a half-smile. ‘It’s actually nice to meet someone who doesn’t drink.’

  ‘Would you like me to add that to your list of requirements in a partner?’ Emmie asked.

  ‘A moderate drinker is fine.’