He had hurt her, he could see it. She felt humiliated and cheap. But he couldn’t change the unpalatable fact that having suspected that she was thinking of Edward just when he’d kissed her had effectively ruined what had been promising to be a mind-blowing experience for him.
Because no woman, he vowed with an inner harshness that narrowed his eyes when she flicked up those lashes to look at him again—no woman thinks of another man when she should be thinking of Giancarlo Cardinale! In fact, the next time he brought Natalia Deyton to a point of complete surrender, he would make absolutely certain that she did no thinking at all!
So, ‘Unless, of course, you prefer the quick roll?’ he offered with just enough of a taunt in his tone to make her eyes flash.
‘Why?’ she came back like the flick of a whip. ‘Is that all that’s on offer?’
Oh, very good… He began to grin. The English had a saying for this, he mused, something to do with being foisted or hoisted on one’s own petard. He began to laugh. He was enjoying himself again.
While she looked ready to attack him like a deranged cat.
Well, that was okay. He could deal with that. In fact, he would look forward to it. Only this particular cat would be purring for him by the time the deed was done…
I’ll swing for him. I promise I will! Natalia vowed as she turned and walked stiffly away. When she’d managed to calm down a little she would begin to appreciate what a lucky escape she’d had!
For the man was a tease—an arrogant tease. He ought to know better at his age. Unless, of course, leading women on then backing off once he had them where he wanted them was the way Giancarlo Cardinale got his sexual kicks!
And she had surrendered. That telling little truth shuddered through her on a shaft of self-disgust as she stepped through the first opening that she came to—then stopped dead in utter surprise at what her eyes were being treated to.
Because she had never seen anything quite like it. The room—if you could call it a room—opened out into a square-shaped arena with a high white ceiling and a polished maple floor, which went down in steps to a sunken seating area furnished with soft cream leather sofas and chairs. In its centre sat a slab of marble that was supposed to be a table, she assumed. And the walls were painted in the palest yellow, the long plain hung curtains of lined white voile.
‘I think we have found the sitting room,’ a sardonic voice murmured behind her.
She would have stiffened in revolt, but she was just too overcome by what she was seeing. ‘You’re really going to live here?’ she asked, unable to imagine anyone actually using this place!
‘Looks like it,’ he answered, stepping past her to walk down into the seating area, where he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and began to look around.
He’d done up his shirt, Natalia noted. In the short walk from where she had left him to him joining her here, he had tidied away all the evidence of his little after-lunch diversion. Even his tie was back around his neck, though hanging loose there, at least.
‘Come down here and take a look at this,’ he said, unaware of the bitter thoughts going through her head.
She went because it was easier to do that than argue. ‘Some bachelor pad,’ he drawled, nodding towards one of the walls where another doorless opening led straight into a bedroom. You could even see the bed—a vast low-slung thing covered in snowy white linen. ‘I even have the sacrificial altar on which to lay out my victims.’
He was amused, but as she looked at the slab of marble posing as a table through a new set of eyes she felt herself blushing like an idiot.
‘Not yet,’ he whispered close to her ear, sending her nerve-ends screaming for cover.
But before she could retaliate with something really cutting, he was frowning at his watch and already turning away. ‘We are running out of time,’ he clipped out as if the other provocative remark had never been uttered. ‘Let’s see the rest of the place. We need to find somewhere to set up operations before a team of technicians arrive to connect us up.’
The idea of having to work here with him on a daily basis was becoming less palatable by the minute. But she followed him through room after room of minimalism gone mad. The dining room, for instance, almost matched the living room in style and texture. The kitchen was more white floor tiling, more maple wood, with more marble and some stainless steel thrown in as a feature.
As he’d said. The perfect bachelor pad.
There was even a room set up ready as a designer office. ‘Ah,’ Giancarlo said, glancing round them. ‘At last I begin to see why Fredo suggested this place.’
So could she. Thinking of it from a strictly business point of view—and she was determined to keep her view of this situation strictly business from now on—this was absolutely ideal for what she assumed was required of the busy venture capitalist wanting to work from home.
All it lacked at the moment was its communications hardware to link him into anywhere he wanted to go. The rest was already provided for. The workstations, the chairs—even the sunlight he professed to need for his Sicilian blood to run smoothly through his veins was managing to filter in through the voile-covered window.
It was her own needs which were beginning to trouble her because there was no separate office for her to escape to for a bit of relief from his relentless personality.
Also, it was right on the other side of town from Knight’s—and her own home in Chelsea.
‘What’s the matter?’ As sharp as a needle, he picked up on her concern.
‘Nothing,’ she said, turning away from him, suddenly feeling so weary she just wanted to sit down in a dark corner somewhere and sulk. ‘How soon do you intend to move in here?’ she asked, looking for a diversion, and finding it where she did not want it to be.
‘Now,’ he announced. ‘We will do it now. I will make a few phone calls to get things started, then leave you here to oversee the installation of everything we require while I shoot off to Knight’s to meet with my staff.’
‘But I need to go back there myself!’ she protested. ‘I’ve left my things there—my coat, my purse, my—’
‘No problem. I will collect anything of yours and bring it with me when I return,’ he insisted, not even seeming to see her look of angry dismay at the way he was completely taking her over like this! ‘By the time I get back, I expect this place to be up and running,’ he warned, already lifting a mobile phone from his pocket and punching in numbers while Natalia sank into the nearest chair in an air of defeat.
It was like being in the presence of a human dynamo and she just didn’t have any energy left with which to keep up with him. So she didn’t bother—the chair was as good as any dark corner to sulk in at this precise moment. So she sat there and simply let his voice waft over her head as he made call after call and she pondered the miseries of crossing London on a daily basis just to endure more of—this.
‘Okay. Everything is organised,’ he said eventually. ‘The technicians will be here in half an hour. They know what I want. Make sure that everything is up and running before you let them leave.’ He glanced at his watch, frowned and began heading for the door that wasn’t a door. ‘Give the concierge a call,’ he instructed over his shoulder. ‘Find out the name of the nearest supermarket and get some provisions delivered here. I will be back—whenever.’ He was already at the lift. ‘Until then—make yourself at home…’
CHAPTER FIVE
MAKE yourself at home…
Well, Natalia decided to do just that. Giancarlo wanted provisions? He got provisions. He wanted his office up and running by the time he got back? He got his office up and running by the time he got back. He even got the office drawers and cupboards stocked with every miscellaneous item known to the nearest office stores suppliers she could locate as soon as the telephone line was connected.
Efficiency was her middle name, she decided. No one could fault her organisation skills! Everything was neatly filed, everything had its own neatly printe
d tab. In fact, in the few hours she’d had, she’d brought Signor Cardinale’s nice new workplace to life with an absolute vengeance.
And vengeance felt like a very good word to her at this precise moment while she sat in her chosen chair at her chosen monitor screen, in her chosen corner of the room, doing exactly what she was paid to do, which was dealing with all the neglected business of the day that had arrived in her network-linked work-folder while she had been otherwise engaged.
In fact she was just finishing up when the sound of the lift drawing to a halt alerted her to his return, so even her timing was super-efficient, she made a very satisfied note, glancing at her watch as she did so.
Seven o’clock, it told her. Which made her a very dedicated personal assistant with super-efficient secretarial skills! she mocked herself grimly as she shut down her network-link to Knight’s.
Outside it had been dark for hours, so it was a long time since she’d gone round the apartment switching on lights and drawing curtains. But although the place had taken on a more appealing image with the subtle use of artificial lighting, she was heartily glad to be getting out of it.
She stood up as she heard his footsteps sound in the white-tiled foyer. By the time he appeared in the opening she had stepped around her chair and was just unhooking her suit jacket from its backrest. Glancing up, she found herself looking into a lean dark face that was beginning to look a little jaded round the edges. He needed a shave, his shirt was open at the neck again, the tie knotted but hanging loose as if tugged like that by impatient fingers. Over his arm lay her coat, her soft lilac scarf, and he was holding a plastic carrier bag in which, she presumed, was her handbag.
The desire to voice a polite greeting to him was not even an option. She was angry, and if it weren’t for her loyalty to Edward she would have walked out of this apartment hours ago, gone to collect her own things from Knight’s, then walked out of there too, with the intention of never returning!
But as things stood regarding her commitment to Edward, she merely demonstrated her anger with Ginacarlo Cardinale by flicking her eyes away from him, then completely ignoring him as she finished pulling on her jacket.
But that did not mean she wasn’t hotly aware that his eyes were sliding over the dark red top she was in the process of covering up…
Red on red, he was thinking, wanting to voice some deep, dark, sensual question as to why the red of her wonderful hair was not clashing with the red of her very sexy top. But he was too alive to the silent warning that any comment at all from him was not going to be appreciated.
She was back behind her frosty wall, he made note, then grimaced because—hell, who could blame her? Separated, isolated, and infiltrated were the buzzwords which came to mind to describe what he had done to Natalia Deyton.
Then he’d left her alone here to stew on it all for hours upon end with the deliberate intention of keeping her balanced on an emotional edge, ready to tip over whenever he felt like making it happen.
So, no wonder she looked frosty. No wonder her chin was up and her mouth pulled into that flat little line of stiff disapproval meant to convey a warning to him that if he said just one word out of place she would most probably kill him.
But, Dio, she looked sensational in her anger with her hair streaming down her back like a proud defiance in her absolute refusal to redress what he had arrogantly undressed earlier.
‘Your luggage has arrived.’ She spoke suddenly.
His loins gave him a vicious kick because that icy voice was just begging to be melted.
‘I had it placed in your room for you to deal with.’
Her fingers were busy fastening buttons on the severe black jacket that did nothing to hide the body beneath and, even if it had, he would still have been able to feel the firmness of her breast against his palm so it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
‘Also, a car was delivered.’ She pointed to a set of keys lying on the workstation set up near the window. ‘You will find it parked down in the basement. Black, I believe,’ she added with just the merest hint of acid. ‘Of the Italian variety. Not easy to miss, I should think…’
And that, he read, had been a deliberate strike at his masculine ego for his choice of car in a traffic-blocked city like London. She would have been more impressed by a small nondescript run-about than his brand new phallic-symbol Ferrari, he judged, and almost sent her a provocative challenging smile—but the conditions didn’t advise it.
Because, despite all the frosty defiance, she looked tired and a little pale and the finest hint of bruising was beginning to darken the sockets of her beautiful eyes. Oddly, he didn’t like to see it. For all he was aware that his siege tactics were a deliberate part of his divide and conquer war of attrition, he had no wish to lay to waste that part of her which had fired his motives in the first place.
So he did absolutely nothing as he watched her turn to walk towards him with her jacket buttoned up to her stiff neck, and her eyes as cold as the Arctic. Coming to a stop in front of him, she reached out to take her scarf first, sliding it off his arm and looping it around her neck before reaching for her coat. He said not a thing as the warm cashmere-wool mix settled across her shoulders, its long length reaching way beyond her slender calves. Nor remarked when, with a careless grace, she slid the long pelt of her hair out from inside the coat, then reached out to take the carrier bag containing her handbag.
‘Goodnight,’ she said, and walked proudly away from him.
It really was a sensational performance. Shame it was all spoiled by the distinct threat of tears he had glimpsed in her eyes just before she’d turned away…
Nothing, she was telling herself as she walked. No words, no expression, no attempt to thank her for the hours she had put in here for his benefit—not even a hint that he was aware of everything else he had put her through today! She hated him, she really did!
But what really hurt was that he’d let her walk away just now. Why should it hurt? she asked herself as she stabbed an angry finger at the lift-call button. What was the matter with her? Was she an absolute sucker for punishment or something? The man was cruel, he played cruel games like a cat would with a mouse before it gobbled its victim up and spit out the bones. Was that what Giancarlo Cardinale had in store for her? A final gobbling up of her before he spit out what was left and walked away?
‘Oh, come on—come on!’ she begged the lift, feeling the tears begin to threaten for real now.
She went to hit the button again—found her fingers clashing with another set of fingers and glanced up to see through a veil of tears—him standing beside her.
Her hand snapped away. ‘Forgotten something?’ she asked, meaning to sound sarcastic, but she only managed husky and wished she weren’t such an emotional fool.
‘No,’ he replied, quietly, levelly. ‘It was you who forgot me.’
The lift arrived. She frowned, not understanding his meaning. Then decided she didn’t want to understand it as she stepped into the lift and turned to press for the ground-floor foyer—when once again his hand beat her to it.
He pressed for the basement. ‘I am driving you home,’ he explained.
Standing there, not half an inch separating her from his whipcord lean, muscle-hardened, arrogant stance, she noticed the bunch of car keys dangling from his lean dark fingers, looked up at his carefully neutral expression, and said, ‘Go to hell,’ thickly, succinctly. Then reached out again to press for the ground-floor foyer, and had her hand firmly captured, stopping her from touching anything—but him.
Sensation hit her in a crackling rush that fled round her system. She tried to break free, got herself pinned for her trouble against mirror-lined walls that sent back reflected images of the two of them from just about every angle. It was mad, compelling. Dark face—white face. Black hair—copper hair. Flashing blue eyes—steady brown velvet. And two mouths coming closer as if unable to resist the hypnotic pull of the other.
‘Don’t…’ she whispere
d in a last-ditch attempt to save herself from disaster.
He drew back. She hated him for it. ‘Do you allow me to drive you home,’ he levelled quietly, ‘or do we return upstairs to—discuss the matter?’
What a choice. The ultimate ultimatum, she recognised, for, despite his level voice, the quiet, calm manner, she knew what was being put on offer here. Escape, the chance to live another day—or capture, in its most consummate sense.
The silence sizzled with hesitation. It ate at her senses and burned in her breasts. His hands were locked on her upper arms, hers were flattened against his rock-solid chest, so she could feel the steady pound of his heart, and the even spacing of his breath. But she could also feel her own heart rattling around as if in a whirlpool—panicking because she wasn’t breathing at all.
The decision was that difficult to make…
If she chose to go back upstairs, he would be the loser here, Giancarlo told himself, because she would be coming to his bed still fighting him, and by tomorrow she would hate him for it.
But he didn’t want her hatred. He wanted her warm and willing and believing that to be with him in his bed was the only place she wanted to be. In fact, it was essential she feel like that. For what good was a single night of passion going to do him when it came to seducing her right away from Edward?
It was the long-term seduction of Natalia Deyton which was the real goal he had set himself—making her want him enough and trust him enough to need him more than she’d ever needed anyone.
But if she chose to go home, he wasn’t sure he could let her go that easily either. She had no idea what her eyes were telling him, he thought tensely. No suspicion that he was being eaten up inside. She was tying him in knots, he freely admitted it. Sensual knots, emotional knots. Greedy, compulsive, frustrated knots that made a complete mockery of the offer to drive her home.
He’d meant to be kind, show her another side to himself that was thoughtful and caring because she’d looked so tired and stressed out. He’d discovered he didn’t like it—didn’t like knowing that her strain was entirely his fault.
A Sicilian Seduction Page 7