The Innocent and the Playboy

by Sophie Weston

  ‘They must be up to something,’ said their fond stepmother. She sent them her love and went off to the discreetly smart hotel that Mandy had organised.

  When she arrived the luxury of the suite made her raise her eyebrows. It was a new hotel with a reputation to make but, even so, this was not going to be within her normal price range. There had to be a mistake over the booking. She was picking up the telephone to query it when there was a knock at the door.

  Rachel got up and opened it. It was the man who should have just about been watching the end of the last in-flight movie coming into JFK. She fell back.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, taking it as an invitation. He strolled in and closed the door behind him. ‘Frankly, I’ve had enough of slithering round hotel rooms in the dark. It may be your fantasy but it is not comfortable.’

  Rachel backed before him. ‘My fantasy?’ she said, totally bewildered. ‘What do you mean?’

  He laughed. ‘What did you think I was doing, creeping into your room in Aberdeen? Not my usual form. But you said you could imagine your hero breaking into your room at midnight.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ she gasped.

  ‘Oh, but you did. “Like something out of a silent movie,”’ he reminded her helpfully. ‘I recall it clearly.’

  Rachel had a blinding flash of memory. She had said something very like that, she realised. Now she thought about it, she could even remember when. When his chauffeur had carried her off to lunch, if she was right.

  ‘You didn’t take that seriously?’

  ‘I take everything you say to me seriously.’ Riccardo paused, then added thoughtfully, ‘I drew the line at the mask, though.’

  Rachel sat down on the edge of the bed rather suddenly. ‘You’re crazy.’

  That interested him. ‘Do you think so? I thought a mask might be difficult to explain if you lost your head and screamed for the management.’

  ‘If I lost my head—Oh! You’re impossible.’

  A half-smile curled the handsome mouth. ‘Incidentally,’ he said idly, ‘why didn’t you, do you think?’

  Rachel glowered. ‘Yell for the hotel manager? I should have done, the moment you showed up,’ she hissed. ‘I can’t think why I didn’t.’

  His smile grew. ‘You could have been half-asleep,’ Riccardo said helpfully.

  Rachel was outraged. ‘You thought I was half-asleep and you still invaded my privacy?’

  He chuckled. He did not need to remind her exactly how thoroughly he had invaded. Rachel began to feel very unsure all of a sudden.

  He took pity on her and sat down—on the sofa, not next to her on the bed. ‘To be honest, it was not the way I planned it at all,’ he admitted. ‘I arrived later than I expected. You were already having dinner. With Torrance.’

  He sounded grim about that. Rachel remembered his anger over Colin. Had he been jealous? But, if so, why? You were not jealous about people unless you loved them. Were you? She almost demanded an explanation. But her courage failed. It would be so humiliating if she was wrong. She began to tremble, though.

  Riccardo went on levelly, ‘I decided I’d wait. Then I got a call from London. By the time I’d done with that you seemed to be asleep. I went back to my room.’ He paused. ‘I would have left you alone but you called out. It might have been a dream but I could not be sure. So I came in to you. And what happened, happened.’

  Rachel remembered those dreams. She found she believed him. But she was not going to let him get away with it so easily.

  ‘That still doesn’t explain what you were doing in the room next to mine,’ she pointed out. ‘With the connecting door unlocked.’

  Riccardo looked at her for a long moment. He showed no sign of remorse.

  ‘Careful planning. Plus a good eye for an opportunity when it presented itself.’ He sounded smug.

  Rachel bounced on the spot, revolted. ‘I have not,’ she told him, ‘presented myself to you in any way.’

  He laughed again. ‘Don’t I know it,’ he said ruefully. ‘I’ve never cancelled so many meetings in my life. The day before yesterday. Yesterday. Next week’s on hold. All thoroughly out of character. And all your fault.’

  It shook her. She said, ‘I don’t believe it.’

  He shrugged. ‘Believe it or not. It’s the truth.’

  He leaned forward and smiled straight into her eyes. Rachel felt her senses reel. She could feel herself being drawn off down a path she had never dreamed of, with only Riccardo to show the way.

  She brought herself back to the matter in hand with a mental shake. The other road was much too dangerous.

  ‘How the hell did you get yourself installed in the room next to mine anyway?’

  ‘Enterprise and a romantic receptionist.’

  ‘What?’

  He stood up and came over to the bed at last. She had discarded her jacket when she’d come in and now he undid the top two buttons of her businesslike blouse. He pushed it off one shoulder. Rachel’s mouth went dry but she did not stop him.

  Riccardo bent his head and began to kiss her shoulder without urgency. She felt the response in spite of herself.

  She said in a high, hurried voice, ‘Who told you the receptionist was romantic?’

  ‘She did.’

  His mouth barely touching her skin, he travelled along her collar-bone. Rachel could feel herself begin to shake. She could also feel herself tipping backwards dangerously. She swallowed and tried to concentrate on other things.

  ‘When?’ It was not much more than a squeak, she thought, disgusted with herself.

  He lifted his head to answer her. Her eyes were losing focus. She knew he was smiling from his voice.

  ‘When I arrived. I was annoyed about being late. She thought I was your husband. She said you weren’t expecting me.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘What else could I do but agree?’

  Rachel swallowed. ‘Clever.’

  ‘Lucky,’ he said modestly.

  He kissed her throat lingeringly. She felt herself sway back another dangerous ten degrees. ‘And all because you want me,’ she said bitterly. ‘It hardly seems worth it, does it?’

  There was a short, startled pause. Then Riccardo sat up. It was so far from what Rachel had been expecting that she collapsed in sheer astonishment. He looked down at her but he made no move to touch her.

  ‘I think we may be at cross purposes here,’ he said in quite a different tone. ‘What exactly do you think is going on between you and me?’

  Rachel winced. But she said steadily enough, ‘You want to sleep with me. You’re an attractive man and you don’t see why you shouldn’t have what you want.’

  He looked as if he could not believe his ears.

  Hurting herself more than him, she went on in a hard voice, ‘I don’t know if that’s just because you think it was an untidy ending all those years ago, or whether you want to be the one to walk away this time—’

  ‘Stop it.’

  She fell silent. His eyes were blazing. She would not have thought that the cool Riccardo di Stefano could look so wild.

  ‘You insult both of us.’

  ‘Can the truth be an insult?’

  ‘Truth!’ He stood up on a surge of contempt. ‘Let me show you the truth, Rachel McLaine. Then you tell me if I want to be the one who walks away.’

  He strode across to a table under the window and picked up a small box. It looked like a jeweller’s box, too big for a ring, too small for a necklace. He almost threw it at Rachel.

  ‘Look.’

  She struggled up and opened it. Inside there was something that looked like a pattern of tissue-paper, brown and ginger with a hint of apricot. She looked up, puzzled.

  ‘What is it?’

  He took it out of her hands. He handled it very gently. Rachel thought, He’s done this a thousand times before.

  He turned the thing round, disposing it tenderly over her palm, as if were a small animal. Rachel looked down at it. It began to fold into a familiar shape: a dried trumpe
t flower.

  She said slowly, ‘Hibiscus.’

  ‘You were wearing it. Do you remember? When I went to your cabin, that was all that was left. It was tucked down between the pillows.’

  Rachel touched one long dried petal with a fingertip.

  ‘It must have fallen out of my hair. You kept it?’

  He looked down at her, his mouth wry. ‘If it hadn’t been for that, I might have started to think you had never existed at all.’

  She felt humbled.

  Riccardo sat down beside her. He took her hand.

  ‘Why did you disappear like that?’ he asked quietly.

  She folded her lips together. It hurt to remember. But with that dead flower in her hand she could not tell him anything but the truth.

  ‘My father,’ she said honestly. ‘You don’t know what it was like. He...’ Her voice became suspended. She touched the flower, as if it were a talisman, and went on bravely. ‘His business was in trouble. He’d married a woman half his age. She wanted to leave him. The easiest thing was to blame me.’

  Riccardo stared. ‘Blame you? Why? How?’

  ‘I never thought a daughter of mine would behave like a slut,’ her father had said, white-lipped. ‘Judy can’t handle it. You embarrassed her too much. You’re old enough to make your own way in the world and that’s clearly what you want. Get out of this house now and don’t come back.’

  For years Rachel had suppressed it. Now she said, ‘He was floundering. He felt a failure. If he kicked me out, he felt he had taken control of his life again for a bit. I suppose he thought he would have a better chance of mending things if he and Judy were alone together.’

  Riccardo took her chin and turned it to him. ‘Kicked you out?’ he echoed. ‘Are you serious?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Oh, my love.’ He sounded remorseful enough now. ‘I didn’t know. How could he? You were so young.’ He paused. ‘I didn’t know how young until this week. That didn’t make me feel any better either.’

  Rachel touched his face.

  ‘Not that young. I knew what I was doing.’

  ‘Did you?’ He searched her face. All of a sudden he was desperately serious. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as I am that I know what I’m doing now,’ she said.

  Rachel put the flower back in its box very carefully. She stood up and restored the box to the table. When she came back to him, she was undoing the remaining buttons of her blouse. She pulled it out of the waistband of her skirt. Riccardo watched her gravely.

  She slipped the blouse off her shoulders. It fell to the floor unnoticed. His hands came out to her waist. He tipped his head forward, resting it against her breasts for a moment.

  ‘I love you,’ he said against her skin.

  Rachel gave a long, sweet shiver. ‘Make love to me,’ she whispered.

  He looked up then. Whatever it was that he read in her face, it seemed to lift a great burden off him. He reached up and pulled her down to him. Rachel went joyfully into his arms.

  They lay breast to breast. Riccardo ran his hands over her skin as if he were reminding himself of every curve and texture.

  ‘I never forgot.’

  Rachel believed him. She was finding that her own hands knew his body as well as if- it were her own.

  ‘Nor me.’

  ‘You were so special. So real. You didn’t fit in at the Villa Azul. I did. I’d known people like that all my life. Been part of them. Suddenly I didn’t want that any more.’

  ‘No one would have guessed,’ said Rachel ruefully.

  He raised himself up on one elbow and looked down at her.

  ‘I’d been working in Central America. I was running food into hill villages under siege. At the end of a year I was—different. I knew I had to go back to the family business. Apart from anything else, there were too many people dependent on it and no one but me to inherit. But I was kicking against it. When I talked to you, I thought, With her I could have some private happiness as well.’

  Rachel smiled up at him. ‘Only some?’ she murmured.

  He slid his hands under her, lifting her comprehensively against him. Her breath caught in her throat at the electric touch. Riccardo smiled, his eyes burning into hers.

  ‘Maybe more than that.’

  Rachel stretched against him provocatively.

  Riccardo chuckled. ‘Only a few hours ago you told me you never wanted to see me again,’ he reminded her.

  Rachel ran her hands through his hair, wonderingly. She could feel a laugh rising. ‘Never underestimate the effects of bravado,’ she reminded him solemnly.

  She ran a finger up his spine. He gave a little shudder of sensation. She savoured it. He began to kiss her body slowly. It seemed as if be was taking infinite care of her. Rachel basked.

  ‘I thought I meant it,’ she murmured. ‘At the time. Now you’re here, I can’t even remember why.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘How did you get here, by the way? Did you bribe my family or my secretary?’

  She could feel him laugh against her skin. ‘Does it matter?’

  Her hands went round his body convulsively.

  ‘No,’ said Rachel on a long sigh. They both knew it was total surrender. ‘No, it doesn’t matter at all.’

  He had reached the silken skin of her stomach. He raised his head and thoughtfully traced the contour of a hip-bone. He looked up, his eyes dancing.

  ‘Then I’ll tell you. It was both.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But only on the strict understanding that I made an honest woman of you.’

  She was blank. ‘You’re joking.’

  Rachel tried to struggle up. Riccardo held her pinned in place with easy strength. He was laughing.

  ‘On my honour. Marriage or nothing. Lexy was very precise. I think,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘she feels she’s turning the tables a bit.’

  ‘Lexy...?’ Rachel was utterly bewildered. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Conspiracy. Your nearest and dearest. Hugh turned off the gas. Lexy got the two of them beds for the night. Mandy booked the room I specified.’ He leant back on one elbow. ‘I organised it but cutting off the gas was Hugh’s idea. I think that boy has promising managerial quality.’

  Rachel was trying hard not to laugh. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Also bargaining skills. Same price as Lexy. Legal matrimony. Just what I had in mind, in fact.’

  ‘What about me? What if I had something else in mind?’ Rachel demanded, justifiably incensed.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you?’

  Oh, that smile. It warmed you right through to your bones. It stopped the laughter right there in your throat. Which was not what Rachel wanted at all. She tossed her head, her loosened hair finally tumbling out of its pins, and would not answer.

  Riccardo’s hands moved, skilfully. Rachel gasped in spite of herself.

  ‘Are you starting another fight, Rachel?’ he murmured mischievously.

  She moved, arching under his hands, reaching for him.

  Her voice was thick with longing but there was answering laughter when she said, ‘Only if you finish it.’

  ISBN : 978-1-4592-6348-2

  THE INNOCENT AND THE PLAYBOY

  First North American Publication 1998.

  Copyright © 1997 by Sophie Weston.

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part. in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road. Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, an
d all incidents are pure invention.

  This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

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