by Penny Jordan
‘Signorina, it is you. Ah, you grow more lovely with every visit.’
Old Mario, the head of the family, gave her a gummy smile as he welcomed her.
‘And you grow more silver-tongued, Mario.’ She laughed, already looking past him towards the inner sanctum where they kept their special one-off creations, like a small child anticipating Christmas, and salivating almost at the prospect of being allowed to choose just what she wanted.
Mario was turning away from her and she made to follow him, but his son stopped her.
‘Please, we have something special for you this time. My father has made it himself. He said that he had this thought of you and that he felt he must do this thing…’
Natalia tried not to look as disappointed as she was feeling. She was strong-minded and independent enough to want to choose her own perfume bottle, but sensitively she didn’t want to offend the old man.
He had disappeared into the back room and it seemed an age before he returned, carrying a battered cardboard box from which she could see tissue paper sticking out.
‘Here,’ he told her, proffering her the box.
Forcing a wide smile, Natalia took it, carefully unwrapping the tissue paper until she had revealed the small perfume bottle that lay within it. At first all she could see was every colour of the rainbow spliced with silver and gold and every nuance of beautiful colour and shade the human eye could imagine. It defeated her ability to rationalise what colour it actually was.
‘Hold it in your hand,’ the old man urged her.
A little hesitantly Natalia removed the bottle, and held it.
‘Now look,’ the shop owner commanded.
Natalia gasped as she stared at the bottle. It seemed to shimmer and glow as though it were still molten and not solid; as though it had a life force of its own that pulsated within it and, absurdly, she felt afraid to touch it, in case she harmed it.
‘What…what is it?’ she asked in an awed whisper.
‘It is diamond glass, a very special and old recipe—we don’t use it any more because it is not easily possible to come by the ingredients, and they have to be ground down and heated in such a way that makes it dangerous to the creator and the creation. Legend has it that only the Doge was allowed to own glassware made from this recipe, which was stolen from one of the great Caliphs of the East,’ the younger boy explained wryly to her.
‘It’s so beautiful…’
‘It is unique—possibly the last of its kind ever to be made and my father has made it for you. It is said that when the pure of heart hold the bottle it glows as it did just then for you, but when those who are motivated by darkness and evil touch the glass it grows dull and cold so that its colour vanishes.’ He laughed. ‘As yet we have not been able to confirm whether or not that is true, although my father swears that it is.’
The older man said something huskily in Venetian, which his son translated for Natalia even though she was able to do so herself.
‘My father says that whenever you touch this bottle you will be reminded of the purity of your heart and the true beauty that comes from within. May it lift your spirits and warm your heart throughout your life.’
Tears filled Natalia’s eyes. Increasingly she was beginning to worry that she might need raw warmth from outside her marriage to sustain her through it, and yet again she questioned whether she had made the right decision.
It was later than she had planned when Natalia finally left the factory and as she glanced at her watch she recognised that she was only just going to make it back to the spa hotel in time to join Maya and Howard for the pre-dinner drink they had offered her.
However, the minute she stepped into their private suite she realised that they had more to worry about than her being late for drinks. Maya was seated on one of the large room’s three plain cream leather sofas, her right hand heavily bandaged and her arm in a sling.
‘She slipped and dropped a glass bowl and then cut her hand on it,’ Howard explained.
‘And now we are in the most dreadful fix.’ Maya sighed miserably. ‘We had a phone call earlier, before I fell, from an unexpected client who is in between flights and who wanted to book in for the night. He plays polo and has an old injury that occasionally flares up. He requested the massage you showed me, Natalia, you know the one? The deep muscle massage you devised for sports injuries?’
Natalia nodded her head. The massage in question was one of her spa’s specialities.
‘When he was here last month I recommended it to him,’ Maya continued, ‘and he said it was most beneficial. Apparently these days he spends more time behind a desk than he does on the polo field and so this old injury occasionally flares up. Naturally I took the booking, and now he is expecting his massage in half an hour’s time. He has taken our best suite, so he is not someone we would want to offend. Now I can’t do the massage, and Gina, the only other masseuse we have who could do it, is on holiday. I can’t tell you how cross with myself I am for doing something so stupid as dropping that wretched bowl.’
Natalia sympathised with her. She could tell that Maya was like her in that she set herself very exacting standards and she knew just how she would be feeling in her shoes. ‘Couldn’t I do the massage for you?’ she offered impulsively.
‘Would you?’ Immediately Maya was all relieved and grateful smiles. ‘We were hoping you might offer,’ she admitted honestly, adding, only half jokingly, ‘Natalia, are you sure you would not like a partnership with us? Only you would be the most wonderful asset to the business.’
Don’t tempt me, was Natalia’s immediate private reaction as she smiled and shook her head. The explanation she had given the other couple for her decision to sell the spa had been her wish to focus on developing her skills as a perfumier. Another lie, but a necessary one, according to King Giorgio.
‘What time is he booked in for?’ she asked Maya quietly, slipping into her professional persona.
‘Half past. You’ve got twenty minutes to get ready. I’ve already brought up a uniform for you. His name is Leon Perez. Since his injury is a polo injury I imagine he must be South American. He’s requested the massage in his suite, by the way, but there’s nothing untoward in that, as you will know. We do offer that facility. However, if for any reason his behaviour should become unacceptable, just press the buzzer at the side of the bed. We’ve had them installed in all of the rooms just in case. We intend to keep a list of those guests who mistake our services for those of a very different kind, so that we can make sure they don’t repeat their mistake.’
‘A wise precaution,’ Natalia agreed. ‘I did the same thing, although fortunately they haven’t been used as yet.’
‘When you’ve finished, we’ll have drinks and dinner and continue our business discussions then,’ Maya said as she handed Natalia a spa uniform.
The spa’s uniform was a simple cap-sleeved, high-necked, linen-mix, A-line shift dress in plain white. The fabric was thick and heavy enough not to reveal what its wearer might be wearing underneath, Natalia noted approvingly. She liked the fact that Maya respected her employees enough not to give them a uniform that was in any way provocative. There was just about enough time for her to go to her own suite to shower, plait her hair to keep it out of the way and change into the uniform. It was rather shorter perhaps than she would have liked, and a bit tighter, but that was a problem one became accustomed to when one was tall and had a voluptuously curved hourglass figure. She gathered together everything Maya had given her that she would need before making her way to the guest’s suite.
Natalia had given clients massages a hundred thousand times and more so there was no reason at all for that funny little sensation to curl its way through her stomach as she pressed the bell and then stood outside the suite waiting to be let in.
The suite door was being opened. A man was standing just inside it, wearing the ubiquitous white hotel bathrobe.
As she looked at him Natalia found that she was blinking dizzily
in much the same way she had done when she’d first looked at the perfume bottle. It was him. Leon Perez was the man she had seen earlier, crossing the square. That it should be him was surely against all the laws of reason and logic, and yet there was no mistake. It was him. Her senses were telling her that very loudly and clearly. Her senses. What right had they to get themselves involved in what was after all a purely professional matter? This was dreadful. And what was worse, far worse, was that everything she had just told herself about there being no need for her to feel anxious had just been blown totally out of the water by the force of one single look from those impossibly long-lashed jade green eyes.
Her heart swung crazily through her chest as though suspended from a pendulum and then stopped dead. She felt as though she were drowning in the depths of his eyes; as though she were being sucked under by some powerful sensual undertow come out of nowhere to possess her. Through the clamouring tumult of her senses she could think only one clear thought. And that was how very, very badly she wanted him.
CHAPTER TWO
WHAT was this…this lightning dart of pure volcanic sexual desire shooting up inside Natalia to spill past the long-closed gates of her own restraint, melting them into nothing?
Leave! Leave now, an inner voice was urging her. You can’t afford this. Just turn around and go…because if you don’t…
‘You booked a massage?’
Too late…too late. Why hadn’t she done what that inner voice had urged her? she wondered shakily as she stepped into the warm womb of semi darkness that was the dimly lit foyer of the suite. Her ‘nose’, so sensitive always, too much sometimes, went into overdrive. She was being overwhelmed by the flood of scents washing over her, the new decorations smell of paint and carpet and fibres all mingled together. The scent of the lilies in the hallway, overlaying the special signature perfume she had created for herself and always wore, a special recipe based on roses, with a hint of musk sharpened with the unique oil she had produced by blending grapes as they ripened, and vines as they thrust out new growth, maturity blended with the raw, powerful surge of new life. Normally it pleased and soothed her, but now was distorted perhaps by the smell of her own fear and she discovered that she was fighting against its unfamiliar demanding sensuality.
But most powerful of all was the scent of him. Images flashed inside her head; heat; the scent of something alien and unknown to her carried on a hot wind, the scent of male power both physical and mental; a rawness and vitality merging into something so intimate that she felt almost as though he had physically imprisoned her. Something dangerous and very unwanted was happening to her, Natalia admitted, grand slamming her senses, rushing over her and through her, forcing her to surrender to it.
‘This way.’
With a tremendous effort Natalia forced herself to ignore what she was feeling. For a moment she had wanted him. So what? That was probably just a knee-jerk reaction to her own knowledge that her unplanned years of celibacy were shortly to be brought to an end via her marriage. There was perhaps nothing like recognising that something was about to be taken ‘off the menu’ for it suddenly to be extraordinarily desirable. As for that dizzy, soft-boned feeling sliding through her like warmed precious oils, that was probably caused by the unfamiliar act of having to tilt her head back to look up at him, instead of him being on her own eye level as most men were. How tall was he, exactly?
King Giorgio had not offered her any information as to the physical make-up of his illegitimate son, other than his very proud boast that he was ‘obviously his son’. All she knew about him was that he was forty years old, had never been married, and had been brought up as a sheikh-in-waiting, but that on being offered the throne of Niroli he had handed over the rulership of Hadiya to his younger half brother.
There had been days since she had agreed to the king’s proposition when it had been a hard call not picturing someone squat, plump and wearing too much gold, especially in his teeth, despite King Giorgio’s obvious admiration for him.
In contrast, this man was six feet three at least, powerfully muscled without an ounce of excess weight and, as for his teeth, well, that small chip in one of the front pair suggested that despite their excellent shape and colour they were all his own. It would be wonderful to dance with a man whose height was so perfectly devised by nature to physically match her own. Just to dance, what about…? She tensed her body against what she was thinking. It was tilting her head that was responsible for her out-of-character response to him, she told herself feverishly. After all, at that angle the flow of blood to the brain would be diminished and that alone would be enough to induce…to induce what? Mind blowing images of such sensory sensuality that her nerve endings felt stripped of their protective covering.
For such a tall and powerfully built man he moved very lightly and easily—and very confidently, walking ahead of her, leaving her to follow in his wake like some harem woman following her master? Now where on earth had that idea come from? This man was South American, Maya had told her.
Maya and Howard had chosen to renovate the interior of the small palazzo they had transformed into their spa hotel in a way that was naturally holistic and an example of pared-down minimalism. The luxurious comfort of its rooms and décor came from the quality of the natural furnishings and fabrics they had used. This suite, the most exclusive of all the rooms, had plain off-white walls to offset its marble floors. All the rooms had specially designed massage tables in addition to their huge king-sized beds.
‘You booked one of the spa’s special neck and back massages,’ Natalia checked as they approached the massage table.
‘Yes. And let me warn you, you had better know what you are doing.’
He sounded almost antagonistic towards her, something that Natalia wasn’t used to either as a woman or as a professional, and somehow, instead of dampening down the unwanted feverish intensity of her reaction to him, it only seemed to inflame it. Was she really so immature? Wanting what she couldn’t have because she couldn’t have it? That was ridiculous. She just wasn’t that kind of person.
Perhaps now wasn’t the time to tell him that she was the one responsible for creating the massage in the first place, Natalia admitted, even if his attitude towards her had put her on her mettle. She knew without vanity that she was an excellent masseuse—it was a gift and an instinct she had known she possessed virtually from childhood, this power to soothe and heal with the touch of her hands. Had she been doing this in her own spa she would have been talking with her clients, drawing them out about themselves whilst she assessed which of her own specially blended oils would suit their needs best. She had no intention of trying that with this man though. She had no idea why she should feel this instinctive awareness of a need to protect herself from him.
Don’t you? an inner voice taunted her. Take a good look at him—that should tell you. No woman with red blood in her veins could fail to be affected by his maleness, especially not one who has just agreed to a passionless dynastic marriage.
Was that it? Was her unexpected and definitely unwanted reaction to him solely some unfamiliar last-minute and reckless desire to rebel against her own decision; a reminder by her senses of just what she would be giving up? She had never been promiscuous, she reminded herself, so why on earth should her senses suddenly have her physically yearning for an unknown man now? Physically yearning? She was doing no such thing! Yes, you are, her senses responded smartly. Determinedly Natalia fought to subdue them. She was here to work, nothing else. Just to work.
He had his back to her now and was stripping off the spa’s robe, letting it drop to the floor. Natalia held her breath. If he was nude, beneath the robe—and he certainly had the kind of male confidence that would mean that he could quite easily be. But he wasn’t. And she wasn’t prepared to let herself know whether she was pleased or disappointed to see that he had a small towel wrapped around his hips. Far better from a masseur’s point of view than underwear, it showed her that he was fam
iliar with this kind of experience. How many other foolish women had felt as she was feeling right now? Had he looked at them as indifferently as he was looking at her or had they seen desire for them in those dark green eyes? From out of nowhere like a fierce tornado, jealousy gripped hold of her. The shock of it made her hands tremble as she waited for him to lie face down on the table.
She was, Natalia discovered, holding in her breath, and no wonder, when she saw the way those superbly defined muscles rippled with pure male strength. Yes, he was obviously a horseman, she acknowledged—those thighs certainly indicated that. And as for him being a polo player—he certainly had the requisite muscle structure, and the wealth if the understated but still discreetly logoed expensive watch and the fact that he was in this suite were anything to go by. His flesh shone a subtle warm bronze in the room’s lights, moving sleekly over the heavy padding of his muscles. He moved like a hunting cheetah, light on his feet, swift, silent and deadly. If she had not known he was South American she suspected that she might have put him down as Italian, although there was something within the devastatingly hard-boned masculinity of his face that hinted at a cultural legacy she could not quite define, something alien—and challenging to her as a woman? Ignore it, she warned herself speedily, trying to focus on other aspects of her client. His manner was certainly European, and yet it was also not. Because he was South American? Irritatingly that something ‘other’ for some reason was nagging at her subconscious, trying to tell her something, though she didn’t know what. More out of habit than anything she turned away whilst he settled himself on the massage table.
An important part of this particular form of massage was the mood music and lighting that accompanied it. Maya had instructed her how to activate the sound and light systems, both pretty similar to her own, although she preferred whenever possible to open the windows and have the simple sounds of nature as the only auditory accompaniment to her massage. But then of course she also used her oils and she was a great believer in not overloading the senses with too many strong stimuli at once.