by Penny Jordan
‘I’m always so clumsy,’ she heard herself saying apologetically. ‘My parents were always telling me that.’
She started to bend down, to retrieve the piece of paper that was now on the floor, but Raphael stopped her, his voice harsh as he instructed, ‘No, leave it. I’ll look at it later. Right now I have some estate business to deal with, and some phone calls to make, and I am sure that you have work to do also.’
Hot-cheeked, Charley nodded her head and quickly made her escape from his office.
Raphael waited until Charley had gone before he bent down to retrieve the fallen piece of paper, his knuckles showing white through the tan on his skin as he did so. Had he allowed Charley to kneel down and retrieve the paper, as she had plainly intended to do, she would have seen quite plainly his arousal and known the cause of it. What manner of man was he that the mere accidental touch of a woman he desired was enough to breach the defences of his self-control?
Back in her room, Charley tried to concentrate on her work, knowing even as she did so that concentrating on anything other than the fool she had just made of herself was going to be impossible. Inside her head were images of Raphael: the way he stood, the way he moved, the way her imagination stripped the clothes from his body, the way her whole body had trembled when she had touched him. Charley gave a small groan of defeat. Thinking about work was impossible now that she had unleashed the dangerously sensual awareness of Raphael that was building inside her—wildly reckless and foolish thoughts of an intimacy between them that could never happen and that she should not even want to happen. But her body did want it to happen, and every day it wanted it to happen a little more. A little more? Didn’t she mean an awful lot more? Charley questioned herself. She was like a girl in the grip of an impossible sexual crush on an idol, not a woman who ought to know better. Beneath her tee shirt her nipples peaked and ached on the surge of sexual longing that rushed through her.
Charley groaned again. She must not feel like this. She must not!
CHAPTER SEVEN
FLORENCE and Raphael! Florence with Raphael! Was she really sure that was a good idea? Charley asked herself. But then did she really have any choice? A shiver, half expectation, half dread, but wholly sensual, stroked taunting fingertips down her spine, immediately sending into disarray all the promises she had made herself the previous day about stopping herself from thinking about the effect he had on her sexually. Couldn’t her body understand how humiliating it was for her to want a man who had made it plain how little time he had for her? Raphael did not want her in his life in any capacity at all, and he most certainly did not want her in his bed. Her breath caught on a savagely sweet ache of longing, which she had to fight to suppress. Why should Raphael want a woman like her—a woman devoid of beauty and female grace, a woman devoid of sexual expertise and sensual allure? He didn’t, and he wouldn’t, and if she had any self-respect she would find a way to stop herself from reacting to him in a way that could easily end up with her making a total fool of herself if she ever accidentally betrayed to Raphael himself what had happened to her.
What she should be doing was focusing on the job she had to do.
It wasn’t even as though she could blame Raphael for the way she felt, or claim that he was the one who had deliberately made her feel the way she did. The truth was the opposite. Charley had grown up being honest with herself—especially when it came to her own shortcomings and failures. She couldn’t blame Raphael for the fact that she was so acutely and intensely susceptible to him. The responsibility for that lay with her, and within her. But it wasn’t too late for her to change things. She could draw a line under her vulnerability to him and set herself some new conditions and rules for the way she would permit herself to react to him. First and foremost amongst those rules would be at all times observing a proper professional attitude towards him, maintaining a proper professional distance between them. She could do it. She must do it, Charley told herself as she made her way downstairs. After all she had texted her sisters now, to tell them that she would be staying on in Italy to begin immediate work on the garden restoration, so it was too late to change her mind.
There was no sign of Raphael in the hallway, so whilst she waited for him Charley was free to study the frescoes in more detail, marvelling at the skill of the artist who had painted them. Every expression told its own story about the character who wore it, but it was the expressions on the faces of the three children grouped together that drew Charley. The tallest of them, a boy obviously meant to represent the young heir, had all of Raphael’s arrogance and pride in his expression as he stood slightly in front of his mother and brother and sister, his clothes richer than theirs, his gaze fixed on the distant landscape, as though aware that one day those lands would belong to him. To his side, his sister, in her ermine-trimmed gown, was looking to her mother for approval as an envoy dressed in livery kneeled before her, offering her a roll of parchment on a shield—perhaps meant to signify a marriage agreement? Charley wondered. The youngest child, another boy, was seated on his mother’s lap, reaching for the gold cross she was wearing. As a second son he might well have been destined for high office in the church, Charlotte recognised.
‘The third Duchess with her children.’
The sound of Raphael’s voice sent a frisson of forbidden pleasure curling down Charley’s spine. Not trusting herself to turn round, she told him, ‘The eldest son looks a little like you.’
‘He was killed when the castle came under attack from enemy forces. He died defending his mother and his sister.’
Charley shivered. Raphael’s words showed her that despite the air of arrogance and superiority the boy carried with him, underneath it he had still been vulnerable. Unlike Raphael, who she was sure would never be vulnerable to anything or anyone.
‘You are ready to leave?’
Charley nodded her head, wondering as she followed him out to the waiting Ferrari what had caused the swift frowning look Raphael had given her.
It had rained in the night, and the morning sunshine was filling the air with the rich scent of damp earth and growing things—of life returning to the world after the darkness of winter.
At least now there was no need for her to feel deprived because her stay in Italy would be too brief for her to see all those things she longed to see, Charley told herself. There would be ample time for her to visit its cities and its art galleries, to breathe in its magic and fill her senses with its beauty.
The Ferrari made nothing of the kilometres, each signpost promising that they were getting closer to Florence.
‘We shall go first to my apartment,’ Raphael announced, ‘since we shall be staying there.’
Charley’s heart rolled over inside her chest. She didn’t trust herself to say anything, but then what could she say? I don’t want to stay in your apartment because I want you and I’m afraid of betraying that to you? Hardly.
The sound of Raphael’s voice cut across her uncomfortable thoughts, giving her a welcome excuse not to dwell on them.
‘This evening, as you know, we shall be dining with Niccolo Volpari, Antonio Riccardi, the landscape architect, and their wives.’ Another frowningly assessing look, just like the one he had given her earlier when they had left the palazzo, raked her from head to toe, leaving her feeling vulnerable but reluctant to demand an explanation.
They had reached the outskirts of the city and were turning off the autostrada, heading for the River Arno.
‘The Ponte Vecchio is to your left, beyond the Ponte alle Grazia,’ Raphael informed her, as though guessing what was on her mind as they reached the river.
It made Charley feel dizzy to think of the history that lay before her, like a precious jewel waiting to be admired. Now Raphael was driving through a maze of narrow streets with names straight from history, bordered by buildings that had Charley silent with awe. In a small square she saw a sign for the Piazza della Signoria and the Uffizi, and her heart leapt with excitement. People,
many of them tourists, Charley suspected, spilled from the pavements into the narrow streets. Car horns sounded, impatient Italian drivers gesturing from open windows, and a crocodile of uniformed schoolchildren caught her eye as the crowds and the traffic spilled out into another square dominated by an ancient church. To their left was the river, but Raphael turned right.
‘This is the Via de’ Tornabuoni,’ he told Charley. ‘At the next intersection you will see the Palazzo Strozzi, belonging to the family who once plotted against the Medicis and paid for their crime with banishment.’
The street was lined with imposing buildings, many of them housing designer shops, and the pavement was busy with elegantly clothed women who held themselves with that confidence that Charley thought uniquely continental. Charley was so busy watching one of them stepping out of a store that it took her by surprise when Raphael suddenly turned into a narrow opening between the buildings, guarded by a pair of heavily studded wooden doors. The doors opened automatically, allowing Raphael to drive in, then down a ramp into an underground car park.
‘This building was rebuilt in the eighteenth century and originally came into the family via marriage,’ he explained to Charley once they were out of the car and standing in a lift. ‘It fell into disrepair after my parents’ death. I had it restored, but decided to retain only two of its five floors and let out the others.’
The lift had stopped, allowing them to step out of it and into a magnificent eighteenth-century marble hallway, with curved niches containing polished marble busts, and a wrought-iron banister curling upwards with the marble staircase. But where Charley imagined gilt-framed traditional family portraits must have once hung on the staircase wall, the walls now had a distinctly modern air to them, with their dark grey paint and their white-framed black and white photographs of street scenes and buildings. The effect somehow suited the hallway. It certainly spoke of a man who had the confidence and the arrogance to follow his own artistic instincts rather than adopt those of someone else. She couldn’t imagine herself having the confidence to impose such a modern style on a traditional building.
‘I don’t employ any staff here; I use a concierge service instead,’ Raphael was informing her. ‘I will show you to your room, so that you can leave your things there, and once you have done that I suggest you rejoin me in the living room, which is through that door to the left of us.’
She and Raphael were going to be alone in the apartment? Charley fought to remain composed as she followed Raphael towards the stairs, wide enough for them to climb side by side, thankfully with a good few inches between them.
The room Raphael showed her to was furnished in a French empire style and decorated in soft blue, grey and white. It had, as she discovered once Raphael had left her to ‘make herself at home’, a huge en suite bathroom, with an enormous claw-footed bath and several wall mirrors gilded with swags and cherubs. Charley could easily imagine someone like Napoleon’s sister Pauline relaxing in the deep tub as she gloated over her brother’s conquest of Italy. Despite its delicate colour scheme, somehow the rooms possessed an air of sensuality that reminded Charley of her own awkwardness. This was a bedroom for a woman confident in her sexuality—a purring, sensual seductress of a woman, who wore silks and satins and spent long, lazy summer afternoons lying in the arms of her lover.
Was this where Raphael brought his lovers? Sophisticated, knowing women who—Quickly Charley clamped down on thoughts she had no right to have, and which were an intrusion on Raphael’s privacy that surely shamed her just as much as the betraying ache which had now started to pulse through her lower body. She must not let herself feel like this. She must not and she would not, Charley assured herself as she made her way back downstairs—just in time to see a small plump man stepping out of the lift to shake Raphael’s hand.
‘Charlotte, your timing is excellent,’ Raphael told her. ‘Come and meet my friend, Paulo Franchetti. It is Paulo who has acted as go-between for us with Niccolo Volpari.’
Impossible for her to pull away when Raphael reached out to take hold of her arm and draw her towards them.
‘Buongiorno, Charlotte.’ Paulo greeted her with a smile and a handshake.
Fifteen minutes later, after a brief discussion about the garden, Paulo left. Flicking back the cuff of his pale blue shirt, Raphael studied his watch and then told her, ‘Soon we shall have some lunch, but first there is something else we have to do.’
Since he was already striding towards the main door to the hallway, plainly expecting her to follow him, there was nothing else Charley could do.
The moment he opened the door bright sunlight streamed in, making Charley blink.
‘This way,’ Raphael directed her, putting his hand beneath her elbow and taking the outside edge of the pavement. Somehow, almost miraculously, the crowd seemed to part to allow them through, and within a few short yards Raphael came to a halt in front of the plate glass windows of the store of an internationally famous Italian designer of women’s clothes.
‘You will need a working wardrobe commensurate with your position,’ Raphael informed her. ‘We may as well deal with that now, whilst we are here in Florence.’
Charley looked at him.
‘I have plenty of clothes at home that my sisters can send out to me.’
Raphael raised one eyebrow in a way that made her face burn.
‘Let me guess: these clothes that you have at home are dull, plain garments that are two sizes too big for you? Si? They will not be suitable for your new role. You will be dealing with artists and craftsmen who value beauty—Italian men,’ he emphasised. ‘It is vitally important, since you are representing me, that they respect you and recognise that you understand the importance of quality craftsmanship. To the master stonemason the correct drape of fabric against a woman’s body is as important to his artistic eye as the correct choosing of a piece of stone, and that applies to all those with whom you will be dealing. In addition to that there will be many occasions on which I shall require you to accompany me to meetings and business dinners. Tonight, for instance, I do not want…’
‘Me to show you up with my dull plain clothes?’ Charley finished for him. ‘Well, in that case I’m surprised you’ve brought me here instead of…of some elegant clotheshorse.’
‘Why does the thought of wearing beautiful clothes fill you with such panic? Most women…’
‘I am not most women, and it does not fill me with panic,’ Charley denied. But of course he was right. She couldn’t tell him, though, that she was afraid of beautiful clothes because she knew they would only underline how unworthy she was of wearing them.
‘What I was actually going to say,’ Raphael continued, ‘was that most women would wish to be dressed appropriately in the company of other women—particularly Italian women, who take a pride in their appearance. You will feel uncomfortable if you are not comparably clothed.’
No, she wouldn’t, Charley wanted to say, because she knew how unsuited she was to the kind of Italian elegance to which Raphael was referring.
‘You have already agreed to work under my direction and to abide by my conditions,’ Raphael reminded her.
‘As project manager, not in telling me what to wear,’ Charley retorted. ‘Work clothes for me mean a sturdy pair of boots and a properly fitting hard hat.’ Was that really pity she could see in Raphael’s gaze?
‘You shall have those, of course, but I hardly think that even you would want to dress in such things for dinner.’
His words were a statement and not a question, Charley recognised, and, much as she would have liked to argue the point, Raphael was turning away from her, nodding to the uniformed doorman to open the door to the store, signalling that any attempt at rebellion on her part simply would not be tolerated.
Now Raphael’s hand under her elbow felt like a form of imprisonment, but despite everything she believed about herself, humiliatingly, Charley was forced to admit that, when the sultry-looking sales assistant who ha
d glided forward cast an assessing glance over her, she was glad she was wearing good-quality clothes—even though at the same time she felt acutely conscious of how badly her looks and lack of self-confidence at being in this most feminine of female places compared to that of the sales assistant. Not that the sales assistant spent much time in looking at her—she was far too busy looking at Raphael for that, Charley thought acidly. But then an older woman came forward, dismissing the other girl, smiling warmly but professionally at Raphael.
‘My assistant is in need of a new wardrobe,’ Raphael told the saleswoman. ‘She will need everyday clothes, at least two business suits, and cocktail and evening dresses.’
No, Charley wanted to protest, not dresses. She never wore dresses. Her mother had always said that she was too much of a tomboy to wear them, and had laughed at her on the rare occasions when Charley had insisted that she wanted to be dressed like her sisters, telling her, ‘Oh, poppet, you can’t wear that.’ Dresses—indeed all feminine clothes—were Charley’s enemy. Just looking at them in shop windows brought her out in a cold sweat of remembered childhood humiliation.
The sales assistant’s dark gaze, sent once in Charley’s direction, didn’t return to her as she nodded her head.
‘Please come this way,’ she invited them.
Within two minutes they were inside a private trying-on suite, complete with newspapers, magazines and a television, coffee having been ordered for them both.
Charley was then whisked into a luxuriously equipped large changing room, where she was measured by the saleswoman and then allowed to return to the main room of the suite, where Raphael was drinking his coffee whilst studying his BlackBerry.
Two young assistants were summoned and given a volley of instructions in Italian so rapid that Charley couldn’t keep up with it, though she strained to catch the dreaded word ‘dress’ so that she could counteract it.