Mistress to the Mediterranean Male (Mills & Boon By Request)

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘There’s no need to go.’

  ‘But you said—’ Her voice sounded like a frog with a sore throat. She clamped her mouth shut and shivered again, despite the heat of the sun.

  ‘I know what I said.’

  He sounded gently amused now—an improvement on that authoritative bite. Anna flicked a sideways glance, her eyes colliding with the broad expanse of his perfectly honed, bronzed torso, with the ‘gold’ chain round his neck that left telltale green marks where it touched his so-touchable satin-smooth skin.

  No rich playboy, then! No playboy worth the name would be seen dead wearing something that cheap and nasty! Just ordinary—like her! If such a charismatic specimen could ever be classed as ordinary! Emboldened, she raised her eyes, met his. Warm, smoky grey with dancing silver lights. Smiling eyes now.

  ‘But I happen to know the owner is on holiday, and I’m sure he wouldn’t want your day to be spoiled.’

  Francesco released her arm. He’d made a mistake. Now he had to make amends. In his comprehensive experience of gold-diggers they never blushed. Wouldn’t know how. Bold-faced to a woman. As his mother had been. Not content with bleeding his blinkered father dry, she’d broken his heart when she’d taken off with a far better financial prospect after the reality that the cash was drying up had hit.

  Not willing to go there, he turned his attention back to the unwitting trespasser, still pink-cheeked and clearly uncomfortable. His sensual mouth quirked. ‘I take it you prefer solitude to crowded beaches?’

  Anna expelled a long breath and found herself smiling and nodding. Rather inanely, she was afraid.

  True, this guy had given her a real fright to begin with—had made her want to scurry for cover before the heavy mob moved in to escort her from someone’s private property. But now he seemed nice and ordinary—no, she amended, extraordinary. And despite that initial chilling note of authority he was actually being really gentle as he removed the shawl from her slackened fingers, then the carrier, dropped them to one side and invited, ‘Please make yourself comfortable again. Enjoy the day.’

  She had a spectacular body. Lush curves, a too-enticing cleavage, a waist he could span with both hands with room to spare. His brow furrowed. ‘Look, don’t take this personally, but there are some pretty dodgy characters around. A lone attractive woman could be at risk.’

  ‘Attractive’ didn’t cut it. She was lovely—hair, face and body to die for. Annoyingly, he felt something kick hard in his loins. Basta! That was not what he wanted. The women he bedded, when he could be bothered to take up the invitation, knew the score. He had never touched a wide-eyed innocent, and everything about the trespasser told him she was exactly that. Which was why he had suddenly become protective, he rationalised. The thought of one of the young men on the prowl latching on to her, all sweet words and empty promises, seducing her, made him metaphorically clench his fists.

  But she’d be safe here. The local Lotharios knew better than to trespass on his property, and visitors tended, sheep-like, to herd together on the public beaches, and in the cafés and shopping areas.

  Anna was tempted to take him at his word. She craved solitude, the opportunity to laze around and relax, to clear her head of worries about what was happening back home. It was the only way she could hope to return to England refreshed and able to face the problems, somehow cope with them.

  ‘You’re sure the owner—whoever—wouldn’t mind?’ she pressed. ‘You’re not just saying that?’ She didn’t want bother. Bother didn’t gel with the bliss of a long unwinding session on a sun-soaked deserted beach.

  A slow smile curved his sensual mouth. ‘You have my word. I know the owner very well.’

  The boat, beached on the shore, seemed to bear this out. He obviously must have permission to use the cove. ‘Right. Thanks.’ Anna’s smile was sunny as she arranged herself back in the comfy nest she’d made in the pebbles, then faded as she saw he was on the point of leaving.

  She didn’t want him to go. Not giving herself time to analyse how strange that was, she dipped her hand into the carrier and held out a couple of plump peaches. ‘Have one? Rowing a boat must be thirsty work.’

  There’d been no sound of an engine. Maybe he couldn’t afford an outboard? It was the faux gold chain that did it, she decided, as her heart flipped. It made her feel all mushy inside. Sort of achingly protective—like a mother who saw a kid of hers trying to keep up with the big boys and failing because he had no street cred. He was unaware that the flashy gold chain left green stains on his skin which shouted out Brass! It was crazy, because in every other respect this hunk had everything. Plus.

  ‘Grazie.’ Mildly surprised at himself, Francesco took a peach and found himself wondering if her skin felt the same—soft, firm, warmly seductive. Just humouring her, he excused himself, and sank down beside her. ‘You are English? You are staying here on the island?’ he asked.

  Nodding her affirmative, peach juice dribbling down her chin, Anna named the hotel and saw his spectacular eyes narrow. She felt immediately uncomfortable.

  Being a local, he would know that it cost an arm and a leg just to walk through the doors.

  She was about to launch into an explanation of how she came to be staying there when he said, in a roughened undertone, ‘Madre di Dio! You remind me!’ He was on his feet, smiling down at her. ‘My—some people are waiting there for me to give them a tour of the island. Scusi—’ He was walking away, sunlight glistening on those wide bronzed shoulders. ‘Enjoy your days here, signorina.’

  She dreamt of him that night. Which was ridiculous. And woke feeling wired which was quite unlike her normally pragmatic self.

  Should she go to the private cove again? Or not?

  Would he put in an appearance?

  Her tummy flipped alarmingly.

  He’d need to collect his boat if he’d found punters wanting a trip out to sea. On the other hand he might again be booked as tour guide and not need to go anywhere near the cove.

  Over dinner last night, while Cissie had been regaling her with how she and Aldo had spent the day—going some place on the back of his motor scooter—she hadn’t been listening properly at all really. Too busy looking at the other diners and wondering which group had hired the gorgeous Italian to show them round the island.

  How stupid was that?

  She didn’t even know his name.

  If they passed in the street he wouldn’t recognise her, so she had to stop thinking like a teenager in the throes of a silly crush!

  She prodded Cissie awake when Room Service arrived with their breakfast. ‘Get up!’

  Bleary eyes peered through a tangle of rich auburn hair. ‘Why the hurry? Where’s the fire?’

  No hurry. The whole day and what to do with it stretched out before her. And the fire was here, right inside her, a sort of fiery fever.

  ‘It’s another lovely day,’ she said inanely, crossing to the side table and pouring coffee into two wide bowls. Passing one to Cissie, forcing her to sit up to take it, ignoring her grumbles, she asked, half hoping the answer would be negative, ‘Are you seeing Aldo today?’

  If she wasn’t then the poser of whether to take off to the cove again would be answered—the decision taken out of her hands. She and Cissie would spend the day sightseeing, lounging by one of the pools—doing nothing in particular except keeping each other company.

  ‘You bet—weren’t you listening? I told you over dinner last night, didn’t I? His aunt runs a pensione—he lives with her during the season—and he’s got this room. Said he’d make lunch for me.’ The prospect of the day ahead brightened Cissie’s eyes as she dumped her coffee bowl on the night-table and swung her endless legs out of bed, heading for the shower.

  Shaking her head, a wry smile on her soft mouth, Anna drank her coffee. Cissie’s morals were bang up-to-date, twenty-first-century stuff. While she—well, she was so old-fashioned she was in danger of turning into a laughing stock.

  So what was she doing, s
crambling down to the private cove, her heart banging as if it wanted to jump out of her body, her eyes straining to see if the little row-boat was still beached on the shore?

  It was.

  Slowing her descent, even more jittery inside, she felt her legs like wobbly jelly. Weak-kneed at the sight of a very ordinary boat!

  How sad was that?

  Well, the guy was fascinating. No question about that. And people were always fascinated by the exotic, weren’t they? And she was no different. It wasn’t as if she was wanting to have sex with him. Perish the thought! Her face burned at the very idea. She wasn’t Cissie. She was practical, sensible, and very, very moral!

  To prove it, she thrust him out of her mind and, not in the mood to lounge around in the sun—because she just knew she’d start thinking about him again—headed over the beach to cool off in the sea …

  Sorted. Methodically, efficiently sorted. Without giving himself time to think of anything beyond the practical. Alerting his housekeeper to the imminent arrival of a long-stay house guest. Paying a patiently waiting Nick Whoever for the battery, his time and his trouble. Stopping the objection he saw coming from the younger man with a single downward slash of his hand. Arranging for the return of the van to Rylands. Making his excuses to his cousin, ditto the sex-on-legs offering. And leaving.

  The future mother of his child would be waiting. A concise phone call to her mother—Beatrice, nice lady—had elicited her agreement that, yes, Anna would be packed and waiting.

  There’d been an unspoken yet firm ‘or else’ about that agreement. Despite her wispy appearance there was steel in that backbone. He approved of that. And as for the father—well, he’d seemed happy enough with the financial arrangement. He’d been uncomfortable throughout the entire interview, which pointed to the undeniable fact that Anna had put him up to that attempt to squeeze a sizeable amount of money from her besotted lover. Had she promised that it would be a dead cert?

  And as for Sweet Anna—definitely cranky. Spluttering about not wanting anything from him. A plain case of saying one thing and meaning another. Grouchy because perhaps she’d expected, eventually, a bigger pay-off?

  Or marriage? His eyes narrowed to dark slits as his jaw clenched. A snowflake in hell just about summed up the chances of that!

  Navel-gazing, pulling out buried emotions and putting them under a microscope wasn’t his style. What was done was done. Lesson learned. Move on.

  Yet as he eased the Ferrari out onto the lane the hypnotic rhythm of the windscreen wipers as they cleared the intermittent rain took him back to where he didn’t want to be.

  That morning.

  He’d seen her walk past his holiday hideaway. The Hovel, his sister called it. The private place he went to when he wanted to unwind, to forget he was one of the wealthiest men in Italy with all the pressures, responsibilities and constant calls on his time that went with that status. The place where interruptions were forbidden.

  A rule that had been broken for the first time the day before, when his senior aide had arrived nervously bleating about a problem with the Christou takeover, needing his decision. A decision had been made while rowing out to drop lobster pots on the other side of the headland—a trip not relished by his green-gilled employee. Returning to the cove, he’d found his dishy little trespasser, dismissed the older man and then headed off to tell her to take her scheming little self off his property. A mistake. And he’d ended up assuring her she would be welcome any time, hoping he hadn’t scared her off for good.

  Obviously he hadn’t. That had made him feel good. He wasn’t used to making mistakes.

  That morning she’d worn her glorious hair piled precariously on top of her white-gold head. Tendrils already escaping. The silky fabric thing had been tied around her waist, fluttering unevenly around her shapely calves, and underneath she’d worn the same black swimsuit as before, which caressed her magnificent breasts like a lover’s touch.

  Did she realise how gorgeous she was? He had wondered. From their brief encounter yesterday he didn’t think so. He would put money on her being that rare creature, a woman in—what?—her early twenties, at a guess, who was innocent, unaware.

  After ten minutes he had followed her, telling himself he was merely going to assure her, yet again, that it was OK for her to use the cove. Neglecting, of course to tell her he owned it—owned most of the land on this magical corner of the island, plus the hotel where she was staying.

  She had been swimming. A sedate breaststroke. Without questioning the wisdom of what he was doing he had joined her, his racing crawl powerful, and he had enjoyed the flash of surprise in those wide sea-green eyes before a dazzling smile of recognition had lit her water-spangled lovely face.

  From then on, without knowing it, he’d been hooked. By her warmth, her beauty, the artlessness that had made his heart melt. Such a thing had never happened to him before, so he’d had no idea what was happening. Had only known that he didn’t want the morning to end. Lazy conversation beneath the lazy sun. Abstract, nothing personal apart from the exchange of names. He had watched, narrow-eyed, for the glitter of recognition as he told her his name—a name regularly turning up in frivolous gossip columns or, more soberly, in the international financial pages in London, where he was based for months at a time.

  Nothing. She’d had no idea who he was! He had felt like a six-year-old on Christmas morning. And the feeling had been great!

  ‘Yesterday you gave me fruit. Today I will give you pasta. I will cook for you.’ Surprised by that invitation, he waited for her reaction. His hideaway was inviolate, private to him, but her company delighted him and he wasn’t about to lose it. How serious was that?

  The eyes that had been smiling for him were veiled by the intriguing sweep of her lashes. Finally her glorious hair was down, pale silky tendrils parting over her sun-kissed shoulders, a stray corkscrew lying against a cleavage that was more tempting than she could know.

  ‘I have no ulterior motive,’ he vowed softly, guessing she needed that reassurance. Female English tourists were easy game, or so he’d heard. She wasn’t like that. ‘Merely I enjoy your company.’ That was true, wasn’t it?

  He wasn’t sure at all when he reached out his hand to tip her chin, to let his eyes meet hers and impress upon her his trustworthy intentions. The small chin beneath his fingers, the delicacy of bone beneath the soft skin, the visceral shock of registering that this was the first time he’d touched her, the brilliance of the eyes that met his in unquestioning trust, the way those luscious lips parted as she said, ‘I’d like that,’ almost proved his undoing.

  From then on the outcome was inevitable. Starting with the delight she took in his tiny stone cottage. ‘This is just perfect! Do you live here all the time?’

  ‘Not all the time,’ he prevaricated, feeling like a cad when she nodded solemnly.

  ‘No, I guess work’s hard to find out of season. No call for a tour guide if there are no tourists. You’d have to go to the mainland to find work. But, hey! It must be wonderful to know you’ve got this place to come back to in the spring.’

  Her smile dazzled him. So much so he almost came clean there and then. Selfishly, he supposed, he did no such thing. It was fantastic to find a woman who enjoyed his company, liked him for the man he was rather than his bank balance.

  More than liked him? A beat of anticipation slammed through his body at the way that soft veil of colour stole into her cheeks whenever their eyes met. Her breath quickened, and the rise and fall of those magnificent breasts beneath the straining black fabric—

  His gruff apologies for their scratch meal, a simple salad and pasta, had brought forth, ‘It’s delicious! The herby sauce is to die for! And I cook for a living—private dinner parties and stuff—so I should know! Of course bookings slow to a standstill during the summer holiday period, which is why I was able to take a break.’

  Cue to delve more deeply into her life, her background. He let it go. The only important thing w
as that somehow, almost without him knowing it, she had become the most entrancing female on the planet.

  Inevitable.

  Quite how it happened that first time he would never know. One minute she was on the point of leaving—thanking him, smiling for him, gathering the bits and pieces she seemed unable to go anywhere without—the next his hands were touching her. Her warm silky shoulders. And her hands touched him. Splayed out against his chest, where his heart was beating a furious tattoo.

  And then frenzy. A white heat explosion inside his head as he kissed her. Her soft mouth opening for him as their bodies meshed. Her fractured moan of surrender as her hips tilted to meet his urgent arousal. And he knew he was entering paradise as somehow they took the stairs, slowly, one by one, entwined, breath straining, reaching the sanctuary of his bed where he found true heaven, found love, for the first time in his life.

  That she had been a virgin, that no thought of using protection had entered his head, he’d accepted without a single qualm. He had found the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IT WAS well into the afternoon—dull and rainy now, which suited her mood perfectly—when Anna heard the growl of Francesco’s arrival. No doubt about it. Trust him to drive that in-your-face piece of costly ego-massaging machinery!

  Her stomach feeling like a lead balloon, she picked up her bag of toiletries and followed her father as he carried her suitcase downstairs. She’d been left alone until lunchtime—alone with all that counter-productive backwards-peering stuff—when Mum had walked into her bedroom.

  ‘Time to stop sulking. Lunch first, then you must pack. Francesco will pick you up at around four.’

  So when had Mum decided to put on the first brisk act of her life? It would have been a subject of amazement—like watching a house mouse turn round and punch the cat on its nose—if it hadn’t been so annoying.

  ‘If you imagine I’m going anywhere with him, you’ve got rocks in your head!’

  ‘Now, don’t be childish! It’s not like you, Anna. I know this morning’s been a shock—for all of us—but you must have thought he was special once. He is the father of your baby, after all.’