by Kim Lawrence
Maybe that wasn’t just due to the presence of the charming wife, though. Danilo had allowed himself to be distracted today by the thought of a pair of big, scared, golden eyes.
Those damned eyes had been prodding his conscience all day and he resented it. Hiring the Englishwoman was one of those ideas that had seemed good at the time. It was only when you walked away that you saw the flaws. If he was honest, Danilo had been hoping that Tess would get cold feet. He’d expected her to get cold feet but inconveniently she hadn’t so presumably she was in her room now, feeling lost and overawed by her surroundings, totally out of her depth.
He just hoped that Nat hadn’t been too off with her. He really hadn’t anticipated his sister’s reaction. In retrospect he could see he’d been clumsy with the way he’d broached the subject of the new, if temporary, addition to their household. The car crash of a conversation drifted through his head as he let himself into the house.
‘A companion?’
He hadn’t immediately recognised the danger in Nat’s tone. ‘More a friend.’
‘Do you think I’m so pathetic you have to buy me friends? You can’t buy friends.’
‘I’m not—’
‘Do you think I’m so stupid that I can’t see what you’re trying to do? She’s a guard dog, isn’t she? A spy—your spy—reporting back to you. I agreed not to see Marco—do you really trust me so little?’
‘I do trust you, Nat,’ he’d promised while thinking, no, it was the kid she’d got involved with he didn’t trust. And Nat’s reaction earlier today was yet another example of the influence the boy had had on his sweet little sister, who would never previously have argued with him this way.
He’d hardened his heart against the tears on her face and the crack in her voice when she’d said the lad’s name; he’d had no hesitation in dismissing him and his decision had been proved right. Not that his sister had seemed to care when he’d revealed her boyfriend had already had several run-ins with the law.
Her reaction—I know about that; we have no secrets—had really set the danger bells in his head ringing.
‘If this woman doesn’t work out, fine,’ he’d soothed, trying to make up lost ground.
‘Do you even know her name?’
‘She is called Tess.’
Going over the conversation in his head now, Danilo swore. He hated scenes and it was rare for Nat to treat him to one, but she had changed and he didn’t know how to deal with it.
Oh, well, at least he didn’t have to deal with it tonight.
He was approaching the staircase, a monumental curved cantilevered structure that was illuminated by light set in the stained-glass cupola two storeys above, when the laugh derailed his depressing train of thought. It was an unrestrained husky sound. He paused and listened, aware as he did so of the sound of music and voices, then that laugh again.
‘Damn you, Franco, I meant it!’ he growled as he realised this was a repeat of the night when Franco had brought back a group of friends. On that occasion they’d managed to leave a trail of destruction behind, along with the half-dressed blonde Danilo had found fast asleep on the library floor.
A dishevelled and very hungover Franco had been suitably contrite after he had first sulkily thrown the accusation of jealousy at Danilo. His jaw tightened as he moved through the rooms searching out the party venue, knowing he had no choice but to follow through with his threat of sacking Franco—an action which would no doubt bring Franco’s doting mother down on his head.
‘You idiot, Franco, why do you always have to push it?’
He swore softly in two languages. He’d cut Franco a lot of slack but he’d made it clear after the last incident that the next time it happened would be the last.
It wasn’t until he had opened and slammed several doors that Danilo realised the noise that he had assumed was a party in progress was actually coming from the cinema room in the basement.
Some of the tension slid from his shoulders; he smiled at his mistake.
The cinema room was one of those things that had seemed like a good idea at the time. He could count on the fingers of one hand how many times they had used it even though he’d had it installed at the same time the builders had been making the necessary adaptations to make the historical building suitable for a wheelchair, two years ago now.
The half-open door of the soundproofed room explained the noise. As he pushed it and stepped inside the noise got louder and so did the voices.
Against the background of the big screen that seemed to be playing the closing credits of an old black-and-white movie, three people sat in a half-circle.
His eyes went immediately to his sister’s wheelchair, drawn up beside a table that bore the remains of a bowl of popcorn. Looking at her carefree smile brought a tightness to his chest. It made him realise how long it was since he’d seen her look that way. It reminded him of a time... He looked away quickly before the pressure in his chest became crushing, moving his focus onto Franco. His young cousin was sitting on the floor, a bottle of beer in his hand, for once not trying to look like something out of a men’s fashion magazine as he took a swallow then choked, spluttering unattractively as he let out a cry of protest as the third person in the room lobbed a handful of popcorn at him.
‘You pig, Franco!’ His sister sent a second handful of popcorn that made her cousin duck his head.
Danilo caught himself grinning, then stopped suddenly, feeling old, or at least like the only adult in the room, but then he probably was! His interest shifted to the stranger who was curled up, her face turned away from him, on one of the big leather sofas that faced the screen with her legs tucked up under her. It was hard to tell from this angle if the person for whose benefit he assumed the conversation was being conducted in English was eighteen or thirty-eight. Franco was going through an older woman stage just now!
With more curiosity than he usually felt for the women in his cousin’s life—this one had made his sister smile—his gaze travelled from the flash of pink-painted toenails, moving upwards over what he could see of her slim, denim-clad legs and the tee shirt she wore tucked in at the waist. The logo emblazoned across the white cotton encouraged readers to save a tree but Danilo’s attention was less captured by the sentiment than the soft curves the cotton hinted at.
His libido gave a lazy kick. He recognised this as a call to stop putting off pencilling in a space in his mental diary for some fun or at least sex, because the day he felt even vaguely attracted to anyone his cousin dated it was time to take action!
As he watched her, the girl’s head fell back and her face, hidden up until this point, was revealed. First just her profile, clear cut and youthful, then, as she twisted around a little, he got the full-face effect.
She was beautiful, or was that striking? A hard call to make even if his brain had been functioning, which it wasn’t. The impact of that first glimpse had suspended all but the most basic functions. It took him several suspended heartbeats to wrestle it into submission and the effort brought a sheen of moisture to his skin.
He was back in control now, but struggling to get to grips with the sheer mind-numbing strength of that flash flood of raw lust that had ribboned like fiery threads through his body. The feeling remained but in a more manageable form, a knot of pulsing desire. As he continued to stare the cause of the electrifying moment pulled her knees up to her chin and, one arm curved in a graceful arc above her head, gave a rich chuckle of laughter, low and husky. Earlier, the earthy sound had drawn him; closer up it had a nerve-tingling, tactile quality.
He had no idea what she was laughing at. It didn’t really matter—the sound was genuinely infectious. The corners of his own mouth lifted as he listened to the warm and uninhibited sound.
He was still smiling as she lowered her arm and pushed a gleaming strand of the wavy golden-brown hair that fell in ripples down her back from her face while simultaneously pulling herself upright into a cross-legged sitting position. Both actions h
eld a supple fluidity that was fascinating to watch. He studied her face, which was the visual equivalent of the uninhibited musical laughter, laughter that had a skin-tingling quality—as did that mouth!
Danilo felt the last remnants of the fatigue that he had felt lift as he gazed at the bold, passionate curve of her lips. Fighting the fascination the pink cushiony softness exerted on him, it took a few moments to drag his gaze free from them and take in the smooth curve of high cheeks, a pointy, stubborn chin and dark slanted brows angled above wide eyes. A fractional turn of her head brought him into direct contact with those eyes, revealing a startlingly golden gaze, the amber glow emphasised by the dark rim around the iris.
The colour triggered a buried memory, where had he seen...? He shrugged away the half-formed question. No matter how deeply buried, he wouldn’t have forgotten a woman this striking, this sleek and sexy.
And sensual, he silently added as he watched the tilted heavy-lidded eyes widen...in recognition? Again the question surfaced in Danilo’s head but he barely heard it above the blood pounding in his skull, sending testosterone-fuelled heat flooding through his hardening body.
Not in his hormone-fuelled teens, or his hedonistic playboy days, could he recall feeling anything even approaching the level of raw sexual attraction that had nailed him to the spot for the second time in as many minutes. He didn’t have a clue how long he remained that way before he became aware of his dog nudging his leg with her nose.
Spell broken, he glanced down at the retriever at his feet, her devoted eyes on him, her tail thudding on the floor.
‘Danilo!’ They had parted on poor terms but his sister sounded happy to see him.
‘Good girl.’ He bent down to pat Goldie, offering her the treat he always carried in his pocket and letting her take it off his hand before responding to his sister’s warm welcome. He continued to be aware, very aware, of Franco’s date, but his social mask was fully functioning.
From his position on the floor Franco yelled, ‘I want it on record that it was not my choice of film and my eyes were only watering.’ With a grunt he got to his feet and held out a hand to the girl on the sofa.
She didn’t need it.
She performed the action a lot more stylishly than his cousin, rising from her cross-legged pose with the natural grace he associated with a dancer. There was something about her that made him think of a Degas painting.
Something... He stopped dead, shock colliding with disbelief in his head. It was quite impossible, and for several stunned heartbeats Danilo’s brain simply refused to accept it. Finally he had no choice. The proof was there in a wide-eyed amber stare that seemed to mock him.
The barefooted, glowing woman standing shoulder height to his cousin with the rippling mass of shiny hair, arrestingly vivid face and provocative dancer’s body calmly returning his scrutiny was the red-nosed, needy creature who’d dragged a chivalrous response from him a week ago.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE GUILTY IMAGE of a lost, vulnerable creature rose up to mock him before vanishing. And in her place stood a woman straight from a man’s sexual fantasy—or was that just his?
She dropped down into a crouch with unstudied feline grace to rub the ears of the animal who was staring up at her with longing before planting a wet doggy kiss on her nose.
‘Goldie!’ Danilo said sharply.
He watched, hot colour streaking his cheekbones, as Tess rose with balletic grace, rubbing her hands over invisible creases in the jeans that clung to her hips as she pulled herself up to her full height, which couldn’t be much more than five-two. Her height was the only thing that had remained unchanged.
It was her, but he still couldn’t believe it!
‘I don’t mind. She’s a lovely dog,’ Tess said. ‘I always wanted one growing up, but my mum hates dog hairs on her clothes.’
A faithless hound, Danilo thought as the animal reacted with obvious reluctance to the click of his fingers and began to pad across the room to him.
While Danilo waited for the animal to reach him the conflicting emotions in his chest built and built until finally solidifying into something he could deal with—anger!
He’d spent the day feeling guilty for, as he’d seen it, taking advantage of the woman, for pretending even to himself that his motives were altruistic. If he’d really wanted to help Tess, he’d have dragged her to the police or even reported the incident himself, not brought her somewhere the little mouse was bound to be unhappy and out of her depth.
Yet here Tess was, in his home, looking not out of place but relaxed, as if she belonged! The roles were reversed: he was the one who felt like a damned intruder, an intruder in his own home, he decided, feeding his sense of outrage.
‘Good evening, Mr Raphael.’ She smiled and pushed her far-from-lank hair off her face. Nothing in her manner suggested she needed looking after, certainly not carrying up the stairs. Though if she had he couldn’t imagine there would be any lack of offers. In fact, if you looked at the situation from one angle this might, at least on the surface, have worked out better than he could have hoped, but Danilo just couldn’t shake off that initial gut response, the feeling, the totally irrational feeling, that he had been cheated.
‘Good evening. I hope you had a good flight, Miss Jones?’
Was every dialogue she had with him going to sound like something from a Jane Austen novel? Tess wondered, deciding to go along with the lie that he had known who she was from the outset. He’d been as shocked by her appearance as she had anticipated, but she’d not been in a position to enjoy it.
Before delivering her response she pressed a hand to cover the pulse that was still frantically beating at the base of her throat. Focus on the positive, Tess, you didn’t fall down, or drool. ‘Apart from the take-off and the landing it was perfect, thank you, Mr Raphael.’
He gave an uninterested nod and continued to look every inch the brooding hero, though a lot more Heathcliff than Mr Darcy.
His sister spun her chair around and sped across the room to him, no visible trace of the sulky, resentful young woman he had seen earlier that day. He had no idea how the change had been wrought in such a short space of time, he just wished that he’d been the one responsible for it.
‘Come on,’ Nat urged. ‘Join us. We could watch another film.’
‘It’s after twelve.’ Danilo watched his sister’s face fall, silently kicking himself when her happy smile vanished and was replaced by an antagonistic expression.
‘But I’m not a child, Danilo, and, unless you’ve moved the goalposts, I don’t have a curfew.’
Tess’s elaborate and loud yawn broke the tense silence, and as eyes swivelled her way she gave a rueful grimace and apologised. ‘It’s been a long day. I think if nobody minds I’m ready for my bed.’
‘Do you remember the way or shall I show you to your room?’
‘I’m sure Miss Jones is capable of finding her own way to her room, Franco.’ Danilo wondered at what point his cousin had abandoned his dump and run policy. Probably after the first smile. ‘But first a word, Miss Jones...?’ He aimed his glance a safe inch or so to the right of her lovely face, but found his eyes irresistibly tugged towards her mouth.
His inability to fight the draw of the sensual outline fanned the flame of his growing sense of being the victim of some giant con. He felt like someone who had paid for a safe and solid family car and been conned into leaving the showroom with a powerful motorbike. Shiny, attractive, guaranteed to make his heart beat faster, but not what he’d signed up for. This woman was not what he had signed up for.
His sister, framed in the doorway in her chair, swung back. ‘You can’t call Tess “Miss Jones” like that. It’s so stuffy.’
Tess was quite happy if relations between herself and Danilo remained stuffy! Far less distracting that way!
It had taken Tess about five minutes after arriving to pick up on the underlying resentment when Natalia spoke of her brother, but it was equally obvio
us she adored him. It didn’t take a genius to see that the household’s personal dynamics were strained and she was starting to see why. Danilo had the rare ability to walk into a room and drain the joy out of it.
‘Your brother is my boss, Nat.’ For how long? was the question. His attitude suggested she had messed up in his eyes before she had even opened her mouth, or she might be paranoid.
Tess slid a covert sideways glance under her lashes towards the tall figure, and her stomach sank a little farther. No, not paranoid! She could feel the waves of disapproval and antagonism rolling off him from across the room, a reality that made little or no sense but then, after that moment tonight when she had first seen him, her reasoning capacity was pretty limited.
A little shiver rose from her toes. Before she had turned her head she’d known he was there. She had felt his eyes, something she had previously heard people say and she wanted to roll her eyes, but she really had!
There was no time to analyse it now, which she was quite glad about. Disturbing didn’t begin to describe the head-spinning, finger-in-a-socket moment when heat had sizzled through her body. She had breathed her way through it and not done anything crazy but it remained a shameful reminder in her core.
There should have been no shock involved. She’d spent the last two hours glancing at the door, imagining Danilo standing there, at intervals glancing casually over her shoulder.
The only shock she’d anticipated, if she was honest, was his.
She was well aware that the last time their paths had crossed she had rarely registered on his radar as a woman, let alone a passably attractive one. Her efforts tonight to repair the minor dent he had delivered to her ego had worked, but seriously, oh, wow, had they backfired!