Christmas in Da Conti's Bed

by Sharon Kendrick

  Frustratedly running his fingers through his hair, he got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

  If she hadn’t been such a damned hypocrite when she’d slammed her way out of his car last night, then he wouldn’t be feeling this way. If she’d been honest enough to admit what she really wanted, he wouldn’t have woken up feeling aching and empty. She could have invited him in and turned those denim-blue eyes on him and let nature take its course. They could have spent the night together and he would have got her out of his system, once and for all.

  He turned on the shower, welcoming the icy water which lashed over his heated skin.

  True, her home hadn’t looked particularly inviting. It didn’t look big enough to accommodate much more than a single bed, let alone any degree of comfort. But that was okay. His mouth hardened. Mightn’t the sheer ordinariness of the environment have added a piquant layer of excitement to a situation he resented himself for wanting?

  Agitatedly, he rubbed shampoo into his hair, thinking that she made him want to break every rule in the book and he didn’t like it. The women he dated were chosen as carefully as his suits and he didn’t do bad girls. His taste tended towards corporate bankers. Or lawyers. He liked them blonde and he liked them cool. He liked the kind of woman who never sweated…

  Not like Alannah Collins. He swallowed as the water sluiced down over his heated skin. He could imagine her sweating. He closed his eyes and imagined her riding him—her long black hair damp with exertion as it swung around her luscious breasts. He turned off the shower, trying to convince himself that the experience would be fleeting and shallow. It would be like eating fast food after you’d been on a health kick. The first greasy mouthful would taste like heaven but by the time you’d eaten the last crumb, you’d be longing for something pure and simple.

  So why not forget her?

  He got ready for the office and spent the rest of the week trying to do just that. He didn’t go near Alekto’s apartment, just listened to daily progress reports from Kirsty. He kept himself busy, successfully bidding for a new-build a few blocks from the Pembroke in New York. He held a series of back-to-back meetings about his beach development in Uruguay; he lunched with a group of developers who were over from the Middle East—then took them to a nightclub until the early hours. Then he flew to Paris and had dinner with a beautiful Australian model he’d met at last year’s Melbourne Cup.

  But Paris didn’t work and neither did the model. For once the magic of the city failed to cast its spell on him. Overnight it had surrendered to the monster which was Christmas and spread its glittering tentacles everywhere. The golden lights which were strung in the trees along the Champs Élysées seemed garish. The decorated tree in his hotel seemed like a giant monument to bad taste and the pile of faux-presents which rested at its base made his mouth harden with disdain. Even the famous shops were stuffed with seasonal reminders of reindeer and Santa, which marred their usual elegance.

  And all this was underpinned by the disturbing fact that nothing was working; he couldn’t seem to get Alannah out of his mind. Even now. He realised that something about her was making him act out of character. There were plenty of other people whose style he liked, yet he had hired her without reference and only the most cursory of glances at her work. Governed by a need to possess her, he had ignored all reason and common sense and done something he’d sworn never to do.

  He had taken a gamble on her.

  He felt the icy finger of fear whispering over his spine.

  He had taken a gamble on her and he never gambled.

  He ordered his driver to take him to the towering block which rose up over Hyde Park. But for once he didn’t take pride in the futuristic building which had been his brainchild, and which had won all kinds of awards since its inception. All he could think about was the slow build of hunger which was burning away inside him and which was now refusing to be silenced.

  His heart was thudding as he took the elevator up to the penthouse, his key-card quietly clicking the door open. Silently, he walked through the bare apartment, which smelt strongly of paint, and into the main reception room where he found Alannah perched on a stepladder, a tape measure in her hand.

  His heart skipped a beat. She wore a loose, checked shirt and her hair was caught back in a ponytail. He didn’t know what he’d been planning to say but before he had a chance to say anything she turned round and saw him. The stepladder swayed and he walked across the room to steady it and some insane part of him wished it would topple properly, so that he could catch her in his arms and feel the soft crush of her breasts against him.

  ‘N-Niccolò,’ she said, her fingers curling around one of the ladder’s rungs.

  ‘Me,’ he agreed.

  She licked her lips. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Should I have rung to make an appointment?’

  ‘Of…of course not,’ she said stiffly. ‘What can I do for you?’

  His eyes narrowed. She was acting as if they were strangers—like two people who’d met briefly at a party. Had she forgotten the last time he’d seen her, when their mouths had been hot and hungry and they’d been itching to get inside each other’s clothes? Judging from the look on her face, it might as well have been a figment of his imagination. He forced himself to look around the room—as if he were remotely interested in what she was doing with it. ‘I thought I’d better see how work is progressing.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ She began to clamber down the ladder, stuffing the tape measure into the pocket of her jeans. ‘I know it doesn’t look like very much at the moment, but it will all come together when everything’s in place. That…’ Her finger was shaking a little as she pointed. ‘That charcoal shade is a perfect backdrop for some of the paintings which Alekto is having shipped over from Greece.’

  ‘Good. What else?’ He began to walk through the apartment and she followed him, her canvas shoes squeaking a little on the polished wooden floors.

  ‘Here, in the study, I’ve used Aegean Almond as a colour base,’ she said. ‘I thought it was kind of appropriate.’

  ‘Aegean Almond?’ he echoed. ‘What kind of lunatic comes up with a name like that?’

  ‘You’d better not go into the bathroom, then,’ she warned, her lips twitching. ‘Because you’ll find Cigarette Smoke everywhere.’

  ‘There’s really a paint called Cigarette Smoke?’

  ‘I’m afraid there is.’

  He started to laugh and Alannah found herself joining in, before hurriedly clamping her mouth shut. Because humour was dangerous and just because he’d been amused by something she’d said it didn’t mean he’d suddenly undergone a personality transplant. He had an agenda. A selfish agenda, which didn’t take any of her wishes into account and that was because he was a selfish man. Niccolò got what Niccolò wanted and it was vital she didn’t allow herself to be added to his long list of acquisitions.

  She realised he was still looking at her.

  ‘So everything’s running according to schedule?’ he said.

  She nodded. ‘I’ve ordered velvet sofas and sourced lamps and smaller pieces of furniture.’

  ‘Good.’

  Was that enough? she wondered. How much detail did he need to know to be convinced she was doing a good job? Because no matter what he thought about her past, he needed to know she wasn’t going to let him down. She cleared her throat. ‘And I’ve picked up some gorgeous stuff on the King’s Road.’

  ‘You’ve obviously got everything under control.’

  ‘I hope so. That is what you’re paying me for.’

  Niccolò walked over to the window and stared out at the uninterrupted view of Hyde Park. The wintry trees were bare and the pewter sky seemed heavy with the threat of snow. It seemed as if his hunch about her ability had been right. It seemed she was talented, as well as beautiful.

  And suddenly he realised he couldn’t keep taking his anger out on her. Who cared what kind of life she’d led? Who cared about anyt
hing except possessing her? Composing his face into the kind of expression which was usually guaranteed to get him exactly what he wanted, Niccolò smiled.

  ‘It looks perfect,’ he said. ‘You must let me buy you dinner.’

  She shook her head. ‘Honestly, you don’t have to do that.’

  ‘No?’ He raised his eyebrows in mocking question. ‘The other night you seemed to imply you felt short-changed because I’d made a pass at you without jumping through the necessary social hoops first.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘How?’

  She lifted her hand to fiddle unnecessarily with her ponytail. ‘I made the comment in response to a situation.’

  ‘A situation which won’t seem to go away.’ His black eyes lanced into her. ‘Unless something has changed and you’re going to deny that you want me?’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m a good enough actress to do that, Niccolò. But wanting you doesn’t automatically mean that I’m going to do anything about it. You must have women wanting you every day of the week.’

  ‘But we’re not talking about other women. What if I just wanted the opportunity to redeem myself? To show you that I am really just a…what is it you say?’ He lifted his shoulders and his hands in an exaggerated gesture of incomprehension. ‘Ah, yes. A regular guy.’

  ‘Of course you are.’ She laughed, in spite of herself. ‘Describing you as a regular guy would be like calling a thirty-carat diamond a trinket.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Alannah,’ he urged softly. ‘One dinner between a boss and his employee. What’s the harm in that?’

  Alannah could think of at least ten answers, but the trouble was that when he asked her like that, with those black eyes blazing into her, all her reservations slipped right out of her mind. Which was how she found herself in the back of a big black limousine later that evening, heading for central London. She was sitting as far away from Niccolò as possible but even so—her palms were still clammy with nerves and her heart racing with excitement.

  ‘So where are we going?’ she questioned, looking at the burly set of the driver’s shoulders through the tinted glass screen which divided them.

  ‘The Vinoly,’ Niccolò said. ‘Do you know it?’

  She shook her head. She’d heard about it, of course. Currently London’s most fashionable venue, it was famous for being impossible to get a table though Niccolò was greeted with the kind of delight which suggested that he might be a regular.

  The affluence of the place was undeniable. The women wore designer and diamonds while the men seemed to have at least three mobile phones lined up neatly beside their bread plates and their gazes kept straying to them.

  Alannah told herself she wasn’t going to be intimidated even though she still couldn’t quite believe she’d agreed to come. As she’d got ready she had tried to convince herself that exposure to Niccolò’s arrogance might be enough to kill her desire for him, once and for all.

  But the reality was turning out to be nothing like she’d imagined. Why hadn’t she taken into account his charisma—or at least prepared herself for a great onslaught of it? Because suddenly there seemed nothing in her armoury to help her withstand it.

  She had never been with a man who commanded quite so much attention. She saw the pianist nodding to him, with a smile. She saw other diners casting surreptitious glances at him, even though they were pretending not to. But it was more than his obvious wealth which drew people’s gaze, like a magnet. Beneath the sophisticated exterior, he radiated a raw masculinity which radiated from his powerful body like a dark aura.

  They sat down at a discreet table but suddenly the complex menu seemed too rich for a stomach which was sick with nerves. Alannah found herself wishing she were eating an omelette at her own kitchen table rather than subjecting herself to a maelstrom of emotions which were making her feel most peculiar.

  ‘What are you going to have?’ asked Niccolò as the waiter appeared.

  The words on the menu had blurred into incomprehensible lines and she lifted her gaze to him. ‘I don’t know. You order for me,’ she said recklessly.

  He raised his eyebrows before giving their order but once the waiter had gone he turned to study her, his black eyes thoughtful. ‘Are you usually quite so accommodating?’

  ‘Not usually, no.’ She smoothed her napkin. ‘But then, this isn’t what you’d call usual, is it?’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well.’ She shrugged. ‘You made it sound like a working dinner, but it feels a bit like a date.’

  ‘And what if we pretended it was a date—would that help you relax a little more?’

  ‘To be honest, it’s been so long since I’ve been on a date that I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like,’ she said slowly.

  He took a sip of water which didn’t quite disguise the sudden cynicism of his smile. ‘I find that very difficult to believe.’

  She laughed. ‘I’m sure you do—given your apparent love of stereotypes. What’s the matter, Niccolò—doesn’t that fit in with your image of me? You think that because I once took off my clothes for the camera, that I have men queuing up outside the bedroom door?’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Not half as many as you, I bet,’ she said drily.

  They were staring at one another across the table, their eyes locked in silent battle, when suddenly he leaned towards her, his words so low that only she could hear them.

  ‘Why did you do it, Alannah?’ he questioned roughly. ‘Wasn’t it bad enough that you were kicked out of school for smoking dope and playing truant? Why the hell did you cheapen yourself by stripping off?’

  The waiter chose precisely that moment to light the small candle at the centre of the table. And that short gap provided Alannah with enough time for rebellion to flare into life inside her.

  ‘Why do you think I did it?’ she demanded. ‘Why do people usually do jobs like that? Because I needed the money.’

  ‘For what?’ His lips curled. ‘To end up in a poky apartment in one of the tougher ends of town?’

  ‘Oh, you’re so quick to judge, aren’t you, Niccolò? So eager to take the moral high ground, when you don’t have a clue what was going on in my life and you never did! Did you know that when my mother handed in her notice, she never found another job to match that one—probably because the reference the school gave her was so grudging. Did you know that they got all their clever lawyers to pick over her contract and that she lost all her rights?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of rights?’

  ‘There was no pension provision made for her and the salary she got in lieu of notice was soon swallowed up by the cost of settling back in England. She couldn’t find another live-in job, so she became an agency nurse—with no fixed contract. I had to go to a local sixth-form college to take my exams and at first, I hated it. But we were just beginning to pick ourselves up again when…’

  Her voice tailed off and his words broke into the silence.

  ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

  She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It does.’

  Alannah hesitated, not wanting to appear vulnerable—because vulnerability made you weak. But wasn’t anything better than having him look at her with that look of utter condemnation on his face? Shouldn’t Niccolò da Conti learn that it was wise to discover all the facts before you condemned someone outright?

  ‘She got cancer,’ she said baldly. ‘She’d actually had it for quite a long time but she’d been ignoring the symptoms so she didn’t have to take any unnecessary time off work. By the time she went to see the doctor, the disease was advanced and she was scared,’ she said, swallowing down the sudden lump in her throat. They’d both been scared. ‘There was nobody but me and her. She was only a relatively young woman and she didn’t want…’ The lump seemed to have grown bigger. ‘She didn’t want to die.’

  ‘Alannah—’

  But she shook her head, because she
didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t need his sympathy.

  ‘Our doctor told us about an experimental drug trial which was being done in the States,’ she said. ‘And early indications were that the treatment was looking hopeful, but it was prohibitively expensive and impossible to get funding for it.’

  And suddenly Niccolò understood. Against the snowy tablecloth, he clenched his hands into tight fists. ‘Bedda matri!’ he said raggedly. ‘You did those photos to pay for your mother to go to America?’

  ‘Bravo,’ she said shakily. ‘Now do you see? It gave me power—the power to help her. The thought of all that money was beyond my wildest dreams and there was no way I could have turned it down.’ No matter how many men had leered in her face afterwards. No matter that people like Niccolò judged her and looked down their noses at her or thought that she’d be up for easy sex because of it. ‘My unique selling point was that I’d left one of the most exclusive Swiss finishing schools under rather ignominious circumstances and I guess I can’t blame them for wanting to capitalise on that. They told me that plenty of men were turned on by girls in school uniform, and they were right. That’s why that issue became their best-seller.’

  Alarmed by the sudden whiteness of her face, he pushed the wine glass towards her, but she shook her head.

  ‘It wasn’t narcissism which motivated me, Niccolò—or a desire to flash my breasts like the exhibitionist you accused me of being. I did it because it’s the only way I could raise the money. I did it even though I sometimes felt sick to the stomach with all those men perving over me. But I hid my feelings because I wanted to bring a miracle to my mother, only the miracle never happened.’ Her voice wavered and it took a moment or two before she could steady it enough to speak. ‘She died the following spring.’