‘Stop just here, will you?’ said Lily quickly.
She had already unclipped her seat belt and was reaching for the door-handle. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to bite,’ he said wryly.
Lily thought how ironic it was that he should have said that, when not so long ago she’d wanted him to graze his teeth all over her aching nipple. ‘Thank you very much for the dinner,’ she said formally. ‘I enjoyed it very much.’
He gave a low laugh. She really was a one-off. She sounded so uptight. But despite his intense frustration, he felt an unfamiliar sense of exultance, too—because the novelty of this situation was exhilarating. How many times had a woman said ‘no’ to him and meant it—even though the chemistry between them had been sizzlingly hot? Never. It had never happened to him before. He saw a woman, he wanted her and then he bedded her—it was as simple as that. Except this time. This time it had been nothing like that. ‘So when am I going to see you again?’
There was a split-second pause before Lily turned to face him, steeling herself against his dark beauty and knowing that she’d be crazy to put herself in a similar position again. To open herself up to a vulnerability which she knew to be dangerous and to run the risk of being rejected again. She’d managed to hold him off because some shred of decency had arrived in time to stop her making a fool of herself, but she couldn’t guarantee being strong enough to resist him next time. Especially not if he used that abundance of Neapolitan charm to whittle away at her already weakened defences. When even now she was having to fight the urge to throw herself into his arms and lose herself in the fleeting passion of his kiss. ‘You’re not,’ she said quietly.
Ciro’s dark brows rose in disbelief. ‘Excuse me?’
She licked her dry lips. ‘You’re not going to see me again.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I don’t really think I’m your kind of woman.’
Night-dark eyes pierced her with their ebony gleam. ‘And don’t you think I ought to be the judge of that?’
‘No,’ she said fervently, telling herself that she mustn’t let his persuasiveness influence what she knew to be the right decision. ‘I don’t. Because I don’t think you’re thinking straight—not at the moment, anyway. We… we live in different worlds, Ciro—you know we do. You’re an international hotelier from Naples and I’m… well, I’m a small-town girl who bakes cakes and waitresses for a living. Perhaps we’ll run into each other once you start work on making the house into an…’ she gulped down a lungful of air ‘… hotel. But if we do, then it’s probably best if we just smile politely at each other and go on our separate ways.’
Ciro shook his head. Smile politely? Go their separate ways? Did she have no idea about the kind of man he was? As if he would ever smile politely at a woman he was planning to take as his next lover. His masculinity had never been outraged—but, to his surprise, it was not anger he felt as a result, but a fierce sense of destiny. And of challenge, too. Did she really think he would take no for an answer, when he wanted her more than he had ever wanted any woman?
But Ciro knew the value of biding his time. Of waiting until the moment was right to strike—wasn’t that one of the reasons why he was so successful in business? He got out of the car to open the door for her and held out his hand to assist her. After a moment of hesitation, she took it and her lips parted as their flesh made contact, as if an electric current had just passed between them. And didn’t it feel exactly like that to him? It was so physical, this reaction between them, he thought. So uniquely chemical. He wanted to kiss her again, to sear his mouth against hers and remind her just what she was missing, before getting in the car and driving away.
But Lily was making him react in a way which was unfamiliar. He saw the small glance she sent towards the upstairs window and a fierce wave of something which felt like protectiveness washed over him.
‘Lily,’ he said softly.
She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously. The last time he’d said her name like that she had just melted into his arms—and wasn’t she tempted to do it again? ‘What?’
‘You know I’m happy to move your belongings into your new home? You only have to say the word and I will help in any way I can. I told you that before and nothing has changed.’
She nodded, too chewed up to speak as a terrible sadness rushed over her. What, and have him witness her emotional crumbling as she said goodbye to her old life? Watch as she embraced a future which at the moment looked bleak? Never. Never in a million years. She forced a smile. ‘It’s very kind of you, Ciro—but I’d rather do it on my own.’
Frustratedly, he balled his hands into two tight fists. ‘Your stepmother is moving to London?’
She nodded. ‘That’s right.’
‘So you won’t have anyone round here you can rely on?’
Now was not the time to tell him that she’d never been able to rely on Suzy. That it had been a long time since she’d been able to rely on anyone. Now was the time to convince him she was going to be absolutely fine on her own—even if at that precise moment she didn’t really believe it. ‘I’ll be okay.’
She turned to walk away but he reached out to catch hold of her wrist—its slender paleness making his own hand look so big and dark in comparison. He could feel the urgent hammer of her pulse and the desire to hold her close was almost overwhelming. But he fought it, just as he seemed to have been fighting his feelings all evening.
‘Promise me one thing,’ he said.
She gave a brief laugh. ‘I can’t possibly promise anything until I know what it is.’
He smiled, because wouldn’t he have said exactly the same thing himself in the circumstances? For a small-town girl, she certainly wasn’t stupid. ‘You’ve still got my details?’
She nodded, thinking of his cream business card, which was tucked away inside her purse.
‘Bene. Then I want you to promise me that if you get in any trouble—with the apartment or with your brother, or anything—that you will come to me and let me help you. Will you do that, Lily?’
Lily hesitated. At that moment he seemed to symbolise all the things in life which she didn’t have—strength and power and safety. If it had been anyone else, then she might have accepted. But she knew that there was only one reason why Ciro was offering his assistance—and that was to get her into his bed.
Her fingers tightened around her clutch bag as she shook her head. ‘I appreciate your offer, Ciro, but I’ve already told you that I can’t accept—and I meant it. Thanks again for dinner, and goodnight.’
And with that, she walked away—aware that he must still be standing there watching her because there was no sound of the car door slamming. No sound other than the sudden eerie swoop of an owl as it hooted in a distant tree.
In fact, she didn’t hear his car driving away down the gravel drive until she had slipped upstairs to her room, thankfully without Suzy hearing her. Until she had peeled off the blue dress and thrown it to the ground with an uncharacteristic lack of care.
Wearing just her underwear, she stood looking in the long mirror, her fingers creeping guiltily to her breast and cupping it, just as Ciro had cupped it earlier. And she closed her eyes with sweet, remembered pleasure.
It was only then that she heard the sound of his car driving away, spraying gravel in its powerful wake.
CHAPTER SIX
THE icy water hit her face with a welcome shock and Lily was just dabbing another handful over her puffy eyes, when the doorbell rang. She stilled, cold water dripping down her fingers, thinking that she might ignore it—until she realised that it was probably only Fiona. Her boss was the only person who’d called since she had moved into the tiny apartment. Nobody else had been here apart from her brother and he… he…
Sniffing back another stupid tear, she wiped her hands and went to open the door. No point in hiding away like some sort of cave-dweller and making her sense of isolation even more complete. She pulled open the door and the breath cau
ght in her throat as she saw who was standing on her doorstep. His dark hair was ruffled and he was dressed down in a dark T-shirt and black jeans which hugged the taut length of his thighs.
‘You,’ she breathed, her heart racing as she remembered his kiss in that darkened car park. Remembered the way he’d cupped her straining breast and traced the rough pad of his thumb over its puckered nipple. During that brief passionate interlude, he had made her feel like a woman again and she had wanted him. Oh, God, yes. She had wanted him with a fierce hunger which still haunted her.
‘Me,’ said Ciro, his eyes narrowing with shock as he took in her appearance—her blotchy face and puffy red eyes.
‘Who let you in?’
‘The other waitress. Danielle, I think her name-badge said—but what does it matter? What the hell has happened?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Doesn’t look like nothing to me,’ he observed caustically. ‘You’ve been crying, Lily.’
‘So I’ve been crying. So what? Should I have asked your permission first?’
Ciro scowled as a primitive urge made him want to reach out and protect her. He wanted to haul her up against his chest and tell her not to cry. That he was going to dry her tears and make everything better. ‘Can I come in?’ he said.
Her lips about to frame the word ‘no’, Lily realised it was one of those questions which didn’t really require an answer because he was walking inside and she was actually pulling the door open wider to let him pass. And that was a mistake, she realised. A big mistake. She’d thought that the apartment had looked tiny when her brother had been here at the weekend, but Ciro made it look like toy-town.
‘This is it?’ he queried incredulously.
His question voiced nothing more than her own thoughts about the size of her new home, but it hit a very raw nerve. Lily had spent three busy days decorating before Jonny’s visit. She had slapped on two coats of white emulsion in an effort to make it look bigger. She had hung mirrors everywhere to reflect back the light. In the limited space available, she’d positioned pot-plants and some carefully chosen family photos and had scattered cushions over the brand-new sofa-bed. But none of her efforts had changed a thing. The flat had still looked exactly what it was—a cramped place which was much too small for a gangly teenager with sneakers the size of dustbin lids.
Not that Jonny had complained. She almost wished he had. The brave look he’d adopted had seemed too heartbreakingly old for his sixteen years. It had made her want to cry—to rail against a fate which had already robbed him of so much of his childhood. And after he’d gone back to school she had found the crumpled letter which had fallen from his rucksack—and that was when her own tears really had come.
‘This is it,’ she agreed, wishing that Ciro didn’t look so infuriatingly strong and dependable as he stood in the centre of the minute sitting room. Because by some kind of weird osmosis his towering strength seemed to emphasise her own terrible sense of weakness. ‘What do you want?’ she croaked.
What did he want? Ciro took in the belligerent set of her mouth, which wasn’t quite managing to disguise the fact that it was trembling. Her question was a pretty difficult one to answer. What would she say if she’d known that he’d been waiting for her to call after that frustrating conclusion to their dinner date? That he’d found himself looking incredulously at his mobile phone for a message which had never arrived? He’d thought that she would be unable to resist coming back for a little more of his love-making. That once she’d realised she was uselessly depriving herself of pleasure she’d see sense and come round to his way of thinking. He’d thought she would be in his bed within days. But she hadn’t. There had been nothing from Lily Scott but a resounding silence.
He’d waited. And waited. Until he couldn’t wait any more—and had come here today thinking that he wanted to find the quickest way into her bed. But now he wasn’t sure what he wanted any more because the sight of her puffy eyes was filling him with a feeling he wasn’t used to. As if he wanted to ring-fence her from trouble and keep her safe from every bad thing the world could throw at her. He frowned. So what the hell was that about?
‘Are you going to tell me why you’ve been crying?’ he demanded.
Lily stared at the ground, swallowing down the infuriating tears which kept springing to her eyes. ‘None of your business,’ she muttered.
‘Lily.’ And when still she didn’t respond, he said her name again. ‘Lily. Will you please just look at me?’
Unwillingly, she lifted her head to meet his dark gaze. ‘What?’
‘Why have you been crying?’ he repeated.
Why did he think? She could have given him a whole list of reasons. Because it was no fun living in a place which was next door to a noisy pub. Because she was still exhausted after having done the move herself—stubbornly hiring a van which had been bigger than anything she’d ever driven before. What a nightmare it had been trying to manoeuvre the cumbersome vehicle around the village green, while all the regulars had stood outside The Duchess of Cambridge, shaking with laughter. But all these irritations had been eclipsed by her discovery that Jonny was just about to have his hopes and dreams crushed by their new-found poverty.
She shook her head, terrified that the tears would return and that this time they wouldn’t stop. That they would pour down her face in an unstoppable flow and she would turn into a blubbering mess in front of him. She wanted to keep her mouth clamped tightly shut and refuse to answer and yet there was something so unyielding about him. Something so strong and determined—as if he wasn’t going anywhere unless she provided some sort of answer.
She gave a small shrug. ‘It’s just been more difficult than I thought—moving in here. It was hard saying goodbye to the Grange, and even harder knowing what furniture to bring here.’ Her stepmother had taken anything of value, of course, and most of the stuff left over had been far too large and grand to ever contemplate putting in a tiny flat above a cake shop.
Lily had managed to hang onto her mother’s old writing desk and the painting of a ship which had hung in her father’s study and always fascinated her when she’d been a child. Other than that, she had taken very little. Her new sitting room now contained an old, overstuffed armchair, a table which was slightly too big—and the new sofa-bed which looked completely out of place. She remembered the pitiful sight of Jonny’s six-foot frame barely able to be accommodated within its cheap frame and she stared defiantly at Ciro, as if he was to blame. And he was to blame, she told herself fiercely. If he hadn’t bought the Grange then none of this would have ever happened.
‘And my brother was here this weekend,’ she continued.
‘Jonny?’
She was surprised he’d remembered his name and, somehow, that small touch of thoughtfulness made it even worse. She could feel that scary helplessness welling up inside her again and the tears she’d been trying to suppress started to slide remorselessly down her cheeks again.
Ciro stared at her, his face tensing. ‘Lily?’
‘No!’ she protested, wiping a clenched fist across her face. ‘It… it’s not such a big deal. We’ll work it out.’
‘Work what out?’
‘It d-doesn’t matter.’
‘Oh, believe me—it does,’ he said grimly, putting his hands on her shoulders and guiding her towards the sofa and gently pushing her down onto it, before heading out of the room towards the kitchen.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she called after him.
‘I am making you tea. Isn’t that what you English always do in times of trouble?’
The remark—delivered in his deep, Neapolitan accent—might have made her smile if the circumstances had been different. As it was, she’d never felt less like smiling and she was just blowing her nose into a sodden tissue when Ciro came back into the room, carrying a loaded tray.
He put the tray down on the table and stared at her with a stern expression. ‘So what’s happened with your brother which
has made you cry?’
Slumped with exhaustion against the sofa, Lily watched as he poured her a cup of horribly weak tea and a terrible urge to tell him washed over her again. Maybe it was because she had bottled things up for so long that it felt as if she was threatening to explode. Or maybe it was because he just looked so determined that she suspected he wouldn’t leave until she’d given him the information he wanted.
‘He’s been offered a place at art school.’
‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ His dark eyes narrowed as she blew her nose again. ‘Not the most reliable job in the world in terms of future employment, but if he’s talented…’
‘Yes, he’s talented!’ Frustratedly, she shook her head. ‘And no, it isn’t good.’
‘Why not?’
She stared at him. Was he really so dense that he couldn’t see—so that she’d be forced to spell it out for him, syllable by humiliating syllable? Maybe it was vulgar to mention the precarious state of her finances—especially to a man who had clearly never known such a predicament himself. But she knew it was too late for restraint, that she’d gone too far to stop and she needed to tell someone. ‘Because it costs money to go and study in London. Money we haven’t got.’
‘You haven’t got any tucked away somewhere? No stocks? Shares? That kind of thing?’
‘Do you think I wouldn’t already have redeemed them if I had any? When I said that my stepmother had inherited everything, I meant it.’
There was a moment of silence during which Ciro despaired at his lack of insight. Why the hell hadn’t her words sunk in properly? Maybe he’d been too distracted by the sight of her heaving breasts, or the tantalising strand of hair which had flopped down around her tear-stained cheek. Or maybe he just never bothered to look at the detail of other people’s lives. He knew that if she hadn’t sold the Grange to him, then her stepmother would have found another buyer. But he could also see that in her emotional state, Lily might see him as partially responsible for her brother’s thwarted dreams.
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