The Italian's Christmas Proposition (HQR Presents)

by Cathy Williams

  Shaking Bob’s hand as they made plans for their final meeting, Matteo was ill prepared for what happened next.

  A scene.

  A blonde woman bearing down on them from nowhere. The high pitch of her voice was as piercing as the scrape of fingernails on a blackboard. Heads spun round, mouths opened and closed and there was a flurry of activity as stunned hotel employees and guests alike gasped and wondered what was going on.

  For a split second, Matteo was utterly lost for words. Next to him, Bob and Margaret were also stunned into immobility.

  ‘Who do you think you are... Matteo whoever you are...? How dare you mess with Rosie? People like you should be strung up! And I guess you’re going to run away and leave her all broken-hearted. And I bet you won’t even look back. You have no morals at all! She’s been hurt too many times!’

  ‘Are you talking to me?’

  ‘Who else could I be talking to? Is your name Matteo?’

  ‘Yes, but there seems to have been some kind of misunderstanding...’

  Matteo, already on the back foot, peered around the tall blonde to see a shorter, plump girl, wearing an expression of dismay, borderline panic and acute embarrassment.

  For a few seconds, he was utterly nonplussed. She was staring directly at him and she had the bluest eyes he had ever seen. Her hair was vanilla-blonde, a tangle of unruly curls framing a heart-shaped face that was, just at the moment, suffused with colour. Her mouth was a perfect bow shape and her skin was satiny smooth.

  Words failed him. He stared. He registered that she was calling his name and then, somehow taking advantage of that moment of weird disorientation he had experienced at seeing her, he realised she was leading him away from the others with a sharp tug on his arm.

  ‘Please, please, please...’ Rosie was whispering, simultaneously tiptoeing and tugging him down so that she could whisper into his ear, ‘Could you just play along with this for the moment? I’ll explain in a bit. I’m really, really sorry, but all you have to do is...’

  Is what? Matteo thought. Through the confusion of his thoughts, he felt her small, delicate hands clutch at his arm. She was so much smaller than Matteo, his tall form and muscular body towering over her.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ Matteo kept his voice low, a whispered conversation that he knew looked a lot more intimate than it was. He was thinking fast but was disconcerted by the softness of her body and the sweet, floral scent of her hair. She was much shorter than him and her reaching up to him somehow emphasised the fullness of her breasts, pushing against her jumper, just brushing against him.

  ‘Rosie. Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I had no idea my sister would rush down here like a tornado...’

  ‘This isn’t what I expected from you, son. You know how traditional I am when it comes to treating other people the way you would want to be treated yourself.’ This from behind him—Bob’s voice, thick with disappointment.

  How the hell did the woman know his name? And who was she anyway? His head was clearing and one thing was certain—the ramifications of what was going on were becoming patently obvious.

  No deal.

  Lengthy unravelling of this mess was going to take time and time was not on his side. Bob was making noises under his breath, wondering whether he hadn’t made a dreadful mistake, while his wife was trying to be the voice of reason. The deal was disappearing into the ether. He had no idea who was the woman imploring his help. His assumption was it was some kind of set-up somehow to extract money from him. He was made of money. Public accusations of some kind? Blackmail? Press somewhere waiting in the wings, cameras at the ready?

  His levels of anger bordered on volcanic. Of key importance was to take this scene away from Bob and his wife and sort out the consequences later. Damage limitation was essential. He wanted this deal and he was going to do whatever it took to seal it.

  And the only thing he could think of doing right now was to follow the lead of the pink-faced girl still looking at him and play along, much as he didn’t want to.

  He smiled and Rosie went a shade pinker.

  ‘Rosie,’ he murmured, spinning her round and edging them both back to the group, who had fallen silent during their whispered tête-à-tête, including the screeching sister. ‘You know we talked about this...’

  He looked at Bob and Margaret with a self-deprecating smile and anchored the fiery little blonde closer to him so that she was nestled against his side. ‘She’s gone off the rails because she thinks I’m going to be one of those fly-by-night guys...’ He shook his head, leant down and brushed his mouth against her cheek. ‘How can I convince you, my darling, that this isn’t just a fling for me?’

  Rosie looked at him. Her skin burned where he had brushed it with his mouth. His arm, hooked around her waist, was doing all sorts of things to her body, making her squirm.

  In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t quite appreciated just how stunning the guy was. Raven-black hair, bronzed skin and eyes as dark as midnight. She knew that she was breathing quickly, just as she knew that she wasn’t thinking straight. She was conscious of her femininity in ways she hadn’t thought possible.

  ‘Um...’

  ‘This feels like the start of something big, Bob,’ Matteo said in a darkly persuasive voice. ‘I would have mentioned it to you but I didn’t want to jinx it.’

  ‘So romantic,’ Margaret was saying with approval.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Matteo commented neutrally. He tightened his hand on Rosie’s waist and gave her the tiniest of squeezes, nudging her ever closer, thigh against thigh, his arm resting just below her breast now.

  Rosie felt the tightening of her nipples. She had no intention of catching her sister’s eye but she could feel Candice looking at the pair of them and heaven only knew what was going through her head. Candice was astute but it had to be said that this dark stranger, dragged into a charade not of his making, was doing a fine job of pulling it off and her only question was why?

  ‘You should head back to your hotel.’ Matteo’s primary objective at this point was to put distance between Bob, Margaret and the combustible situation unfolding in front of them. ‘Long day tomorrow finalising our deal.’

  ‘You’re getting a good man in this one,’ Bob said warmly, moving in to shake Rosie’s hand. ‘Glad everything’s sorted, lad. Misunderstandings can get out of control! Nice to see you’ve got the makings of a family man within you. A good woman is always the making of any man.’ He chuckled and gave his wife a hug.

  Matteo thought it best to speed things along. He had no idea what was going on but the threat of it all blowing up was a distinct possibility and one he intended to divert with everything at his disposal. He mentally bid a temporary farewell to his Venetian villa that was waiting for him the following evening. It wasn’t going to happen.

  ‘So they say,’ he murmured as he thought ahead to how he intended to squash whatever machinations were afoot. ‘Comprehensively’ was the word that sprang to mind.

  ‘Hope we get to spend some time with the two of you before we head back to Yorkshire. Family is everything, like I say, and I wouldn’t mind raising a glass or two to celebrate young love.’

  Matteo murmured, nodded, half-smiled, brushed his lips against Rosie’s hair... He exerted every ounce of charm to smooth over the sudden, alarming pot holes that had surfaced on the very smooth road. He walked them to the glass door, where they were waiting to be met, the little blonde still by his side because question time was about to begin.

  * * *

  Rosie watched with mounting dread as Matteo disposed of her sister with ruthless speed. He was the essence of charm, even though his hand on her waist carried the hint of a threat that sent shivers racing up and down her spine. She could hardly blame him. She listened in mutely as he smoothed over Candice’s doubts, laying it on thick until Candice was smiling and telling him how relieved she was t
hat things were back on track, apologising for the fuss and then, somehow, laughingly blaming Rosie for having given her the wrong impression.

  Rosie couldn’t believe the way events had transpired. Who knew that her five-foot-ten, ice-queen sister could let rip with such uncharacteristic drama? Candice was the one who flinched if someone raised their voice slightly too loudly in a restaurant. She moaned about people shouting into their mobile phones in public! She’d once told Emily off, when they had just been kids, for laughing too much.

  Candice out of the way, Matteo dropped his hand, stood back and surveyed the blonde coldly.

  ‘So,’ he said flatly, ‘Let’s find somewhere nice and cosy and private and have a little chat, shall we?’

  Rosie quailed. The man was sexy, dangerous...and from the expression on his face in the presence of his quarry.

  ‘I’m really sorry, I—I know how this must look...’ she stammered, only dimly aware that he was leading her out of the crowded foyer. She found she couldn’t quite meet those wintry eyes.

  ‘Do you, now?’ Matteo purred.

  Where was he taking her? She cast a desperate backward glance behind her, back down to the marbled foyer with the tall Christmas tree. The low buzz of curious voices that had greeted the little scene earlier had died down but there would still be curious eyes looking to see whether it might kick off again.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Somewhere private,’ Matteo murmured, voice as smooth as silk and as razor-sharp as a knife, ‘Where we can have our cosy little chat.’

  ‘I’ve already apologised...’ Her legs, however, were obeying his command. She stood up and began walking alongside him, hyper-aware of his presence. There was a leashed power to the guy that made her quiver with a combination of apprehension, downright fear and a weird sort of breathless excitement that stemmed from a place she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  He wasn’t saying a word and seemed unaware of the cluster of well-heeled people around him that parted to allow him passage as if in the presence of royalty.

  It was extraordinary.

  She had no idea where they were going but eventually they reached a door which he slid open, standing back to allow her to brush past him.

  She’d never been into this particular inner sanctum, even though she had been coming to this very resort with her parents for as long as she could remember, before they’d bought their own chalet just a bit further up the slopes.

  It was a large, square room, richly panelled, with a gleaming wooden floor that was largely covered by an expanse of expensive, silk Persian rug. A cluster of deep, comfortable sofas was positioned here and there and a long bar extended along the back of one panelled wall. Rosie assumed this was the chill-out area for the senior management who ran the resort, somewhere where they could relax and unwind, away from the clamour of what might be going on outside.

  She stared around her and, when she settled her eyes back on Matteo, it was to find that he had made himself at home and poured a whisky for himself. Needless to say, there was no offer of any form of refreshment for her.

  ‘Okay,’ Rosie began. ‘I know what you’re going to say and I’m sorry.’

  ‘First, you have no idea what I’m going to say, and secondly, if you’re sorry now, then you’re going to be a whole lot sorrier when I’m through with you and your accomplice.’

  ‘Accomplice?’ She gazed at him, bewildered, and then wished she hadn’t because he seemed to have the most peculiar effect on her. He made her feel as though the room was beginning to spin and if she didn’t sit down fast she would topple to the ground in an undignified heap.

  ‘The blonde with a voice that could shatter glass. Sit.’

  A voice that could shatter glass? That was a first when it came to a description of her sister. Of either of her sisters, for that matter. Both were tall, sophisticated and impossibly beautiful in an ice-queen kind of way. Whereas she was... Rosie: short, way too plump because of the siren call of chocolate and all things sweet, with shoulder-length blonde hair that refused to be tamed, breasts far too abundant to be fashionable...

  She recalled the heat of his hand so close to her breast and shivered.

  Conscious of each and every one of those downsides, and aware of those cool, cool eyes on her, she haltingly headed for the closest chair and dropped into it, little knowing what was coming but all too ready to take the blame.

  ‘If that little scene was some half-baked attempt to screw money out of me then you messed with the wrong guy,’ he said flatly. He didn’t raise his voice or move a muscle but for all that the single sentence was imbued with threat and Rosie shivered and licked her lips.

  ‘I came here to do a deal that means a great deal to me,’ he continued, in the same deathly subdued, almost conversational tone. ‘Which is why I played along with whatever game you fancied you’d set in motion. I’m going to play along just until my deal is done, and then, let’s just say you’ll understand the meaning of regret.’

  ‘You can’t threaten me,’ Rosie objected weakly. ‘And that woman was my sister, not an accomplice!’

  ‘Can’t threaten you? No, you’ve got that wrong, I’m afraid. Here’s the thing, whoever the hell you are—whatever scheme you and your sister or whoever she was have concocted, you can bury it, because there’s no money at the end of this particular rainbow.’

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Did you really think that you would create a public scene to grab my attention, hurl baseless accusations against me to grab the public’s attention and then somehow manoeuvre me into a place where I would part with hard cash to shut the pair of you up?’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t play games with me, miss!’

  ‘I’m not playing games! I honestly have no idea what you’re getting at! Are you saying that you think my sister and I are out to get money from you? Why would we want to do that?’

  Matteo clicked his tongue with blatant incredulity, reached into his pocket and extracted a card from his wallet, which he tossed onto her lap. Then he sat back and crossed his legs.

  ‘How rude!’ Rosie exploded, her face bright red. ‘Is this how you treat women? How dare you just...just fling something at me?’

  ‘Spare me the self-righteous outrage,’ he returned smoothly. ‘Why don’t you have a look at the card?’

  Still fuming, Rosie looked at the card, which had just a name on it and three telephone numbers. She politely reached forward to return it.

  ‘I’m sorry but this doesn’t mean anything to me. Well, I guess it’s your name. Matteo Moretti.’ She sighed. He’d taken the card back and was obviously waiting for her to expand. His expression was unreadable and she got the impression that this was a man who knew how to conceal what was in his head and that it was something he was accustomed to doing. He emanated a certain amount of menace but she wondered whether that hint of menace wasn’t amplified by the fact that she was just so conscious of him in a way she had never been conscious of any man in her life before.

  Suddenly very much aware of her physical shortcomings, she fidgeted in the chair and tried to get herself into a suitably more elevated, commanding position.

  ‘I suppose you’re someone important, which is why you think I should recognise your name, but I don’t know who’s who in the world of business. You must be rich, because you think that I’m some kind of master criminal who wants your money, but you’re wrong.’

  ‘Your sister knew my name,’ Matteo said bluntly. ‘Care to explain?’

  ‘Her name is Candice.’

  ‘Irrelevant. Just answer my question. Time is money.’

  Sinfully good-looking he might be but Rosie was beginning to think that he was the most odious guy she had ever encountered. Rude didn’t begin to cover it.

  ‘I teach skiing here,’ she said
stiffly. ‘For the season. I happened to meet your...your friends on the slopes. Pierre was supposed to be giving them a lesson but he went out last night with his girlfriend and he didn’t show up for—’

  ‘Get to the point!’

  ‘I’m getting there! Bob and Margaret told me that they were here mixing business with pleasure. They told me your name—Matteo. They said you never left the hotel, then they laughed and said that if they didn’t get to grips with skiing then you were to blame because they were too busy feeling guilty about you being cooped up inside to concentrate on getting their feet in the right place. Obviously I didn’t know it was you at the time, but that’s how I happened to know your name. It was just coincidence that you happened to be where you were when...’

  When all hell broke loose.

  Matteo gritted his teeth. ‘How much more tortured can this explanation get? I feel as though I’m being made to sample a vision of hell. Are you ever going to get to the point or do I have to bring the police in to question you?’

  ‘Police? How dare you?’ She glared at him and he stared back at her without batting an eyelid.

  ‘Just. Get. To. The. Point.’

  ‘Okay, here’s the point!’ Rosie snapped, leaning forward and gripping the sides of her chair tightly. ‘I had to pretend that I had broken up with someone, because I didn’t want to be condemned to seeing Bertie over Christmas, and I spotted you down there in the foyer with Bob and Margaret and I... I...figured that you were the businessman called Matteo so I lied and told my sister that I’d been seeing you! Is that enough of an explanation for you? I’m really sorry but you were the fall guy!’