by Various
Her expression was scornful as she shook her head. ‘If my identity is the only problem you have with what happened, then I suggest you just forget about it and move on.’
‘Have you forgotten it, Daniella?’
Dani would never forget that night. Not one single moment of it.
It had been magical. Wonderful. Exhilarating. Liberating. And not even the fact that her lover had turned out to be Niccolo D’Alessandro could ever change that.
In fact, Dani had come to realise that knowing her lover was Niccolo only made it more memorable. The infatuation she’d felt for him ten years ago hadn’t died or been crushed under the force of his cutting sarcasm, after all, but had deepened into something else. Something she had kept well hidden. Even from herself….
Maybe she hadn’t consciously known it was Niccolo she was making love with on Saturday night, but had some inner part of her—some inner sense, the part of her that still found him so devastatingly attractive—actually told her who it was?
The more Dani thought about her impetuous behaviour that night, the more she believed it was more than a possibility.
But she had to protect herself. ‘Of course I’ve forgotten all about it,’ she lied.
Niccolo’s eyes narrowed to dark slits as he spoke even more icily, if that were possible. ‘So you make a habit of making love with men you do not even know and then conveniently forgetting about them?’
He’d meant to be insulting, Dani recognised heavily—and he had succeeded.
But if she defended herself, if she said no she didn’t, then Niccolo was going to demand to know why she had made an exception in his case.
And her reasons were too complicated.
Or too simple!
There were those hidden feelings for him, of course, but there was also another explanation. She was tired, worn down by worry over her grandfather’s will on her parents’ behalf. The attention of her seductive pirate last weekend had lifted her out of all that, had transported her into another world—a world of light-hearted fun that had deepened into intense sexual tension and the indescribable pleasure that followed.
Not an excuse, perhaps, but it was certainly an explanation.
None of which she could possibly confide to Niccolo D’Alessandro!
‘I don’t make a habit of it, no,’ she answered lightly. ‘But I very much doubt I’m the first woman to indulge in a little—what was it you called it that night?—fantasy, I believe. Morgan,’ she added pointedly, and was rewarded by a fierce frown. ‘I certainly don’t see why you’re making such a big thing out of it.’
‘You do not?’ he grated.
‘Not at all. After all—’
‘You are the best friend of my sister,’ Niccolo cut in furiously. ‘Does that fact not make this a “big thing”?’ he challenged.
Dani winced. It did make things a little awkward, she had to admit, and it was certainly not something that she and Eleni would ever be able to laugh about. But surely the awkwardness of the situation was for the two women to work out, not Niccolo?
‘Hello, there!’
Dani flinched as she easily recognised her grandfather’s strident tones, turning slowly to watch him as he strolled down the front steps of Wiverley Hall.
Still tall and erect, his bearing military even though he had retired from the army over twenty years ago, Daniel Bell had a full head of iron-grey hair and a neatly trimmed moustache. His clothes—a checked jacket over a twill shirt worn with brown corduroys—added to his ‘country squire’ image.
‘We’ve been waiting for you to bring your visitor up to the house, Daniella,’ he reproved as he joined them in the driveway.
Introducing Niccolo to any of her family—least of all her tactlessly outspoken grandfather—was not something Dani wanted to do. But in the circumstances it seemed she had little choice…
‘Grandfather, this is Niccolo D’Alessandro,’ she said stiffly. ‘Niccolo, my grandfather—Major Daniel Bell.’
‘Sir.’ Niccolo shook the other man’s hand.
‘D’Alessandro…’ Her grandfather repeated slowly. ‘Any connection with the D’Alessandro Bank?’ He eyed the younger man speculatively.
Niccolo inclined his head. ‘It is the family business, yes.’
Dani couldn’t help but notice the increased speculation in her grandfather’s shrewd expression. Obviously her grandfather was perfectly aware of the prestigious D’Alessandro Bank. And there was one thing that could be said about her grandfather—he was never averse to a little social snobbery!
‘Well, I hope you’ve come here to cheer Daniella up, D’Alessandro,’ her grandfather continued briskly. ‘Girl’s been moping around here for almost a week now—’
‘Grandfather!’ Dani exclaimed sharply, aware of the amused twist to Niccolo’s mouth as he obviously enjoyed her discomfort.
Eyes the same colour green as her own met hers unapologetically. ‘Only telling the truth, young lady. I trust my granddaughter has invited you to join us for lunch?’ He turned his narrowed gaze on the younger man.
Dani’s breath caught and held in her throat as she too turned to look at Niccolo.
She didn’t want him to stay to lunch.
And she was pretty sure that Niccolo didn’t want to accept the invitation, either.
But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to…
CHAPTER FOUR
NICCOLO sensed Daniella’s silent plea for him to refuse her grandfather’s invitation to join her family for lunch. And a part of him—a large part, he had to admit—wanted to refuse. Now that he had confirmed it had been Daniella last weekend he just wanted to leave—to get as far away from her as he possibly could. But another part of him wanted something quite different….
‘Niccolo has to get back to London. Don’t you, Niccolo?’ Daniella prompted, her gaze forceful as it met his.
He eyed her consideringly. That she wished him to leave—that she wished he had never come here in the first place—had never been in any doubt. The very fact that she obviously wanted that so badly perversely made Niccolo want to stay.
He shrugged. ‘I am sure I have time to join you and your family for luncheon before I go.’
Daniella paled. ‘I—’
‘Well, of course you do.’ Daniel Bell nodded his satisfaction with the arrangement. ‘I’ll take Mr D’Alessandro to the drawing room to meet Beatrice and Jeffrey while you go upstairs to shower and change, Daniella,’ he added with a disapproving glance at her clothing.
Dani couldn’t believe this was happening!
Niccolo couldn’t really have any desire to prolong this torturous meeting, let alone further his acquaintance with any of the Bell family. Her grandfather’s motive for the invitation was easy to guess; he just saw Niccolo—as he did any reasonable red-blooded man—as a possible father to the Bell heir. But she was sure that Niccolo’s only intent in accepting the invitation was to make her feel uncomfortable.
How could she have been such a fool last Saturday? How could she not have known her fantasy lover was the arrogantly forceful Niccolo D’Alessandro?
Because she hadn’t, that was how. Because she hadn’t wanted to know. And now Niccolo was making her pay for that mistake.
One glance at Niccolo’s face was enough to tell her how much he was enjoying her discomfort. Those dark eyes were glittering with mockery, those sculptured lips quirked into a derisive smile.
It was a self-satisfied smile that she wanted to wipe off those taunting lips!
‘Perfect,’ she accepted lightly. ‘This way I’ll be able to join you on your drive back to London, Niccolo, instead of spending hours sitting on an overcrowded train later this evening.’
Her gaze met his in glittering challenge. His expression didn’t alter, but those dark, dark eyes took on a glitter as intense as her own. ‘It would be my pleasure,’ he finally said curtly.
Like hell it would, Dani thought happily. The last thing she wanted was to spend three hours in the conf
ines of a car with Niccolo, but the fact that she knew he didn’t want to spend those three hours with her, either, meant she intended doing exactly that.
And she’d thought he was being perverse! Feeling as they did about each other, they would probably both end up with indigestion from trying to eat lunch together, followed by three hours of awkward silence on the drive back to London.
But it would be worth it, Dani decided stubbornly, if only to show Niccolo that she had no intention of feeling guilty for what had happened last weekend. That she didn’t care about his opinion of her.
Even if she did…
Just seeing Niccolo again, remembering the intimacies they had shared, was enough to show her that leaving London so hastily the previous weekend had achieved nothing. Seeing Niccolo again today only made her ache to repeat the experience.
It was at complete odds with the aversion Dani had felt towards physical relationships after her brief marriage to Philip, but she only had to look at Niccolo, at the broad width of his shoulders, his flat stomach and tapered thighs, to want him all over again.
But maybe she should tell him exactly what he was letting himself in for by accepting her grandfather’s invitation to eat with them.
She broke away from the intensity of his gaze. ‘Grandfather, would you mind very much if I just have a brief word with Niccolo in private? I promise I will point him in the direction of the sitting room as soon as we’ve finished talking,’ she assured him as she saw her grandfather was about to protest.
‘If you really must,’ he allowed tightly, but he looked most displeased by this change in his arrangements.
It was a displeasure Dani refused to back down from. ‘I really must,’ she said firmly.
Her grandfather shot her one last narrow-eyed glare before turning to Niccolo. ‘Don’t let my granddaughter keep you out here too long,’ he advised, before turning to stride stiff-backed into the house.
Dani waited only long enough for him to be safely out of earshot before turning back to Niccolo. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded fiercely.
Niccolo had been expecting this—had known from the outset that Daniella did not want him to accept the invitation to lunch; it was the very reason he had accepted!
‘Politely accepting an invitation to luncheon with your family, I thought.’
‘Why?’
He gave a humourless smile. ‘It has obviously not occurred to you that I have driven for almost three hours this morning and would appreciate something to eat and drink before repeating the journey.’
Her eyes narrowed to green slits. ‘You don’t have to do that here—you could find any number of suitable places to eat on your way back to London.’
Niccolo gave an unconcerned shrug. ‘I choose to do so here.’
Daniella shook her head. ‘You’ll regret it.’
Niccolo became very still as he looked down at her with hooded eyes. ‘Are you threatening me, Daniella?’
She gave another shake of her head, her smile as humourless as the one he had given her seconds ago. ‘I’m trying to warn you. The Bells, although you haven’t yet had the chance to witness it, are your typical twenty-first-century dysfunctional family.’
Niccolo’s mouth quirked. ‘In what way?’
‘In every way,’ Dani said impatiently, knowing he wasn’t taking this conversation seriously at all. ‘My mother runs the house and gardens with grace and style. My father is a very successful trainer of racehorses—’
‘And you, Daniella?’ Niccolo taunted. ‘Eleni tells me that you are a very successful interior designer.’
‘So they say,’ Dani confirmed, choosing to take his words at face value and ignore the sarcasm. ‘But the truth of the matter is that my mother and father do not own Wiverley Hall and the stables; my grandfather does. And it is something that he never lets his son and daughter-in-law, or his disappointment of a granddaughter, ever forget.’
Niccolo looked at her searchingly, doubting for a moment that Daniella could be sincere in her warning. Admittedly Niccolo had only met Daniel Bell for a few minutes, and he was sure that Daniella knew her grandfather much better than he did, but the scenario she presented sounded a little extreme.
‘In what way is he disappointed with his granddaughter?’
Daniella gave the ghost of a smile. ‘I might have known you would pick up on that part of the statement. Probably because you share that disappointment…’
Disappointment was the last emotion Niccolo felt towards Daniella. He wasn’t yet sure what emotions he did feel for her, but he was pretty sure disappointment was not amongst them.
‘Do not change the subject, Daniella,’ he advised harshly.
‘I’ve been married and divorced, and all without producing the Bell heir,’ she told him flatly. ‘An unforgivable omission as far as Grandfather Bell is concerned.’
Dani regretted having even started this conversation; her grandfather’s feelings towards her and her parents were none of Niccolo’s business.
‘Never mind—ten minutes in the company of the Bell family and you’ll see exactly what I mean,’ she said. ‘Come into the house and I’ll show you where the drawing room is—let me go, Niccolo!’ she gasped as he suddenly reached out and grasped her arm.
He looked at her intently for several long, deliberate seconds before slowing releasing her. ‘This conversation is not over, Daniella,’ he warned softly.
As far as Dani was concerned it should never have begun!
But she didn’t have any more time to argue about it now; she had to get herself quickly showered and changed before returning downstairs. The less time she left Niccolo alone with her parents—and with her obviously matchmaking grandfather—the better. Given the chance, her grandfather, just like her father with one of his horses, was likely to ask Niccolo for his complete pedigree!
‘I did try to warn you,’ Daniella sighed, as she sat beside Niccolo in the car later that afternoon and he drove them both back to London.
Yes, she had, Niccolo acknowledged ruefully. But even without that warning it would have been all too easy for him to pick up on the undercurrents of emotion running beneath the polite conversation as the five of them ate lunch together. Neither did Niccolo need to ask why Daniella was making further apologies now.
‘You did,’ he allowed. ‘But that warning did not include the fact that your grandfather would be under the misapprehension that I am a prospective suitor for your hand in marriage,’ he drawled.
The older man’s barrage of questions about Niccolo’s family and D’Alessandro business interests had bordered on rudeness. A fact Beatrice and Jeffrey Bell had also been aware of, if the way they had constantly tried to silence the older man was anything to go by.
Daniella turned to him. ‘Don’t take it personally, Niccolo; my grandfather considers any man under the age of sixty as being “a prospective suitor”, as you so eloquently put it.’
Niccolo wasn’t sure he altogether liked the image that statement conjured up. He and Daniella might be completely unsuited to each other, but the thought of some other faceless man making love with her in the way that he had was not a pleasant one.
He scowled. ‘Why?’
Dani gave Niccolo a hard look, but could read nothing from his—deliberately?—bland expression. ‘I told you—Grandfather is very big on continuing the Bell family line,’ she dismissed with forced lightness.
Lunch had been as embarrassing as she had imagined it might be, with her grandfather asking Niccolo increasingly personal questions, and her parents doing their best to laugh it off. It hadn’t helped that halfway through the meal her grandfather had made a scathing comment about Dani’s ‘friend Eleni’. And then he’d added insult to injury and remained completely unapologetic when Niccolo had frostily informed him that Eleni was his sister.
Her grandfather really was the most obnoxious man.
What Niccolo had thought of them all Dani had no idea. And she didn’t particularl
y want to know, either!
‘Don’t look so worried, Niccolo,’ she teased. ‘I can assure you that I’ve told my grandfather repeatedly that I have no intention of marrying again.’
Niccolo raised dark brows. ‘Was your first experience of marriage so awful, then?’
Awful? Traumatic better described it!
‘Oh, yes.’ She grimaced.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t believe that’s any of your business, Niccolo,’ she snapped, too aware of him for comfort in the close confines of the car. Those brief few seconds of triumph she had felt earlier at wrong-footing him had been completely nullified by this self-imposed torture.
In fact, Dani wasn’t sure she wasn’t the one suffering the most discomfort from the arrangement, as Niccolo seemed his normal confidently relaxed self!
The previous mild interest Niccolo had felt towards Daniella’s marriage became something much more at her blank refusal to discuss it.
Of course it was a personal matter—very personal—but the marriage had been of very short duration and had taken place two years ago now; surely long enough ago for Daniella to be able to talk about it dispassionately? Unless she still had feelings for her ex-husband….
It was strange, but after years of complete uninterest where Daniella Bell was concerned, Niccolo now found himself wanting to know everything he could about her. Perhaps because the Daniella he had thought he knew—and disapproved of—as Eleni’s friend was a complete contradiction to the woman who had made love with him so passionately and unselfishly last weekend.
No matter how he tried, no matter how many times Daniella herself told him it was better for him to do so, Niccolo could not forget the woman in the gold gown. Or that Daniella and the woman in the gold gown were one and the same…
‘And If I choose to make it my business?’ he challenged her now.
‘My advice is, don’t! ’ told him fiercely. ‘Go back to Venice, Niccolo, and just forget any of this ever happened.’
That had been precisely his intention before he had spoken to Daniella today. But the more Daniella repeated that advice the less inclined Niccolo was to take it.