by Lynne Graham
‘Let’s cut to the chase. What are you doing in Tuscany?’ Rio demanded and it was a demand as only Rio could make it, every accented vowel laced with command and hostility.
‘That’s none of your business,’ Ellie told him flatly.
‘Beppe’s my business… He’s my godfather.’ Lustrous dark eyes landed on her like laser beams, watching her face, keen to construe her expression.
Ellie froze in receipt of the very bad news he had just dropped on her from a height and in a defensive move she lowered her eyes. Rio actually knew Beppe Sorrentino and, even worse, had a familial relationship with the older man.
‘You wrote to him looking for information about some woman he met well over twenty years ago,’ he prompted doggedly, his dismissal of the likelihood of such a request clear in every word.
‘Not some woman, my mother,’ Ellie corrected, seeing no harm in confirming a truth he was already acquainted with. It was quite probable that Rio had already read her very carefully constructed letter to his godfather. Naturally she had mentioned nothing about boyfriends, pregnancies or putative fathers in it. She had been discreet, fearful of ruffling feathers and causing offence, but she did plan to question the older man to establish whether or not he knew anything about her paternity. It might be a long shot but it was the only shot she had. Beppe’s friendly response to her letter had encouraged her and lightened her heart but the discovery that Rio Benedetti could be involved in any way in her very private quest for information infuriated her. Was she never to escape the shadow of that misguided night in Dharia?
‘A mother whom you somehow know nothing about?’ Rio pressed in a disbelieving tone.
‘I was a newborn when my mother placed me in my grandmother’s care. I never knew her,’ Ellie admitted grudgingly, throwing him a look of hatred because she deeply resented being forced to tell him anything personal.
‘Don’t look at me like that when it’s a lie,’ Rio urged with staggering abruptness, fiery sparks illuminating his stunning eyes to smouldering gold.
The sudden apparent change of subject disconcerted Ellie. ‘What’s a lie?’
‘You looking at me with dislike when you would really much prefer to rip my clothes off me!’ Rio contended without an ounce of doubt in his dark deep drawl.
‘Is that how you get women?’ Ellie asked drily even while the betraying colour of mortification was creeping up her throat in a hot, seething tide. ‘You tell them that they want you?’
‘No, I only need to see you blush like a tomato to know I’ve hit pay dirt,’ Rio countered with satisfaction. ‘I don’t do pretences, principessa.’
Even while betraying red climbed her face, the absolute curse of her fair colouring, Ellie stared back at him in genuine fascination. ‘You honestly think I’m here for you and that my letter to your godfather is just some silly excuse to see you again? Oh, my word, Rio, how did you get through the door with an ego that big?’
‘I hate the way you beat all around the bush instead of just coming to the point. It is a very simple point, after all,’ Rio told her impatiently, wondering how the hell his dialogue with her had suddenly turned personal but somehow unable to stop it in its tracks.
‘We’re not having this conversation,’ Ellie responded icily.
‘You’re not my teacher or my doctor, so you can drop the haughty chilling tone,’ Rio advised, lounging back against the bedroom door, his sudden slumberous relaxation screaming sex and the kind of bad-boy attitude that set Ellie on fire with fury and curled her fingers into claws.
‘We were talking about Beppe,’ she reminded him in desperation.
‘No. I was talking about us having angry sex—’
Ellie reddened again, her green eyes luminous with disbelief. ‘You did not just say that to me—’
Rio laughed with unholy amusement. ‘I did. Why wrap it up like a dirty secret? We may not like each other but, per meraviglia, with the chemistry we’ve got we would set the bed on fire—’
Ellie focussed on him because she refused to let her gaze drop, lest he take it as a coy invitation. But it was a mistake to meet those stunning dark golden eyes of his, a mistake to be close enough to note the luxuriant curling length of his black lashes and the hint of stubble accentuating the shape of his full-modelled mouth. Rio Benedetti made her think of sex. It was instinctual, utterly brazen and when she collided with his eyes it was as if he were operating a gravitational pull on her. Ellie’s body turned so rigid that her muscles hurt but even that reality couldn’t block the tide of physical awareness flooding her every skin cell. With deep bitter chagrin, she felt the pulse at the aching heart of her thighs and the swollen sensitivity of her breasts.
‘Angry sex could be a lot of fun, principessa. It would loosen you up. You are very, very tense and I know exactly how to take care of that,’ Rio purred, cool as ice water, his pride soothed by her dilated pupils and revealing flush. After all, if he had to tolerate being constantly aroused around her, why shouldn’t she have to suffer the same? But in contrast to him why couldn’t she be practical and honest about it? Did she still expect and demand the fake flowers-and-diamonds approach from the men in her life?
‘That’s enough.’ Ellie lifted her chin and closed a hand into his sleeve to yank him off the door so that she could reach for the handle, but it was like trying to move a very large and heavy boulder and he didn’t budge an inch.
‘You really do enjoy getting physical with me in other ways, don’t you?’ Rio derided huskily, looking down at her from his intimidating height, wicked amusement dancing in his beautiful dark eyes. ‘Is that a hint about your preferences? I’m not into bondage but I can definitely picture you in one of those dominatrix outfits, twirling a whip—’
And that was it for Ellie. He wouldn’t move from the door and he wouldn’t shut up and frustration made her temper spontaneously combust inside her and shoot up through her like a rocket. ‘If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to call the police!’ she screamed at him.
Rio flicked an imaginary speck of fluff from the sleeve her tight grip had creased infinitesimally. ‘Fortunately the polizia locale are unlikely to arrest a native for making a pass at a beautiful woman—’
‘I don’t care!’ Ellie lashed back at him, all patience and restraint stripped from her. ‘I hate you… I want you out of my room…now!’
‘When you tell me what you really want from Beppe I’ll leave,’ Rio bargained softly. ‘I want the truth.’
‘It’s private and it’s none of your business and I won’t allow you to bully me!’ Ellie retorted angrily. ‘Does your godfather even know that you’re here tormenting me?’
Rio fell very still, reluctantly recognising that he was dealing with a quarry worthy of his mettle. Beppe was an old-fashioned gentleman and particularly protective of the female sex and he would be shocked by Rio’s interference.
‘I didn’t think he did,’ Ellie declared in the telling silence. ‘The letter he sent me was kind and friendly. So back off, Rio, or I’ll—’
‘Or you’ll what?’ Rio growled in raw interruption. ‘You think that you can threaten me?’
‘Unlike you I’m not in the habit of threatening people,’ Ellie countered, lifting her chin, her green eyes deeply troubled.
‘Well, then let us reach an agreement here and now,’ Rio suggested silkily. ‘I could approach Beppe with the results of the investigative report I’ve had done on you and, if I did so, you would be turned away from the door tomorrow because there are enough dynamite allegations against you in that report to make him very wary.’
Ellie took an uncertain step backwards, hugely disconcerted by that accusation coming out of nowhere at her. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, so I can’t imagine what you’re talking about—’
‘Of course you’re going to say that,’ Rio parried, unimpressed. ‘But the point is that serious allegations have been made against you and by more than one person.’
Ellie fell silent because,
although she was innocent of any wrongdoing and had been cleared during an internal enquiry, a serious allegation had been lodged against her, which could have had a most negative impact on her career as a doctor. Fortunately for her, she was protected by National Health Service rules there to safeguard staff in such situations and the allegation had been withdrawn and the complaint dismissed. Tears stung the backs of her eyes because that same allegation had caused Ellie a great deal of stress and many sleepless nights before it had been settled and she had viewed her Italian holiday as a much-needed period of rest and recuperation. To have that unpleasant business, in which she had been truly blameless, flung in her teeth by Rio Benedetti was seriously offensive.
‘Those allegations were dismissed a week before I flew out here,’ she spelt out curtly, struggling to control the wobble in her voice. ‘And what were you doing getting an investigative report done on me, for goodness’ sake?’
‘I will always protect Beppe from anyone who could take advantage of him and I don’t trust you or the coincidence that brings you here,’ Rio stated grimly, noting the sheen in her eyes, wondering if it was fake, deciding not to be impressed because tears in a woman’s eyes were nothing new to his experience. Virtually every woman he had ever been with had done the crying thing at some stage and all it had ever done was chase him off faster.
‘That’s not my problem,’ Ellie traded with an unapologetic little sniff that strangely enough impressed Rio much more than the hint of tears. ‘And why would it even occur to you that I would try to take advantage of Beppe? Obviously you don’t believe it but I’m not a dishonest person—’
At that claim, Rio quirked a sardonic ebony brow and thought about the diamond brooch she had somehow prevented her uncle from inheriting. ‘Aren’t you? Even though you can’t even bring yourself to admit that you want me—’
‘You know why—because nothing is going to happen between us,’ Ellie told him piously, superiority ringing in every syllable. ‘Why acknowledge it?’
And there it was again, that intonation that made Rio want to do or say something totally outrageous. It shot him straight back to his misspent youth when he had been regularly carpeted for his sins in Sister Teresa’s school office. There was something so incredibly frustrating about Ellie’s blanket ban on normal sexual behaviour, he reasoned angrily. He could not understand why a woman with so much pent-up passion should repeatedly strive to ignore the sizzle in the air between them. As if attraction was a weakness? Or a risk she wasn’t prepared to take?
His own convoluted and uncharacteristic thoughts on that score exasperated him as much as they had in Dharia. The evening of her sister’s wedding had been a washout but that hadn’t been his fault, had it been? Ellie had been totally unreasonable and unjust when she’d blamed him for that episode. He had been honest with her, as well, too honest, and where had that got him? A slap on the face and a shedload of insults. They would never have worked anyway, he told himself impatiently, not with a woman seemingly hardwired to be touchy, angry and super judgemental.
‘Non c’è problema… Don’t worry about it,’ Rio advised drily as he swung round and pulled open the door. ‘But when you fall, I’ll still be the one to catch you.’
‘I won’t be falling. Can I hope this is the last I’ll be seeing of you?’ Ellie dared as he strode out into the corridor and involuntarily she too stepped over the threshold.
‘You have nothing to fear from me unless you distress or damage Beppe in some way,’ Rio warned, his voice roughening at the mere thought of any harm coming to the older man. ‘I don’t know why you’re being so secretive anyway. Beppe will eventually tell me what this was all about.’
Pretending sublime indifference to that prospect, Ellie shrugged a slight shoulder. ‘Why would I care?’ she said breezily, keen to discourage his suspicions that she was hiding anything of a serious nature.
But she did care. Rio could see it in her unusually expressive and anxious gaze. He realised that there was definitely a secret of some sort that connected Ellie to his godfather and that disturbed him because for the life of him he could not imagine any likely connection. Beppe, for one thing, had never travelled outside Italy and was very much a home bird. It occurred to him for the first time that perhaps he should have investigated the mother rather than the daughter, but unwisely he had overlooked that option because Ellie inspired greater curiosity.
‘You do care,’ Rio traded softly, moving slightly closer.
In a skittish move, Ellie backed up against the door of her room. ‘I’m a very private person,’ she stated in a stubborn refusal to admit even the smallest weakness, because Rio was 100 per cent shark and she knew the blood in the water would be hers if she gave so much as an inch.
‘Not always,’ Rio disagreed, suddenly right there in front of her, eating her alive with his black-lashed smouldering eyes. A lean brown forefinger trailed gently down the side of her hot face.
She felt every tiny second of that fleeting caress like a brand burning right through to the centre of her body. She wasn’t used to being touched, she told herself bracingly, should’ve been dating more, should’ve been less of a perfectionist, should’ve been less sensible. His eyes above hers flamed gold and she recalled a moment exactly like that on the dance floor in Dharia, and in a clumsy movement she tried to peel herself off the door into her room and safety but it was too late, way too late when Rio’s beautifully shaped mouth came crashing down on hers.
And that kiss was something between a car crash and a shot of adrenalin in her veins. Her body came alive with a great whoosh of physical response and her hands flew up into his hair, touching, shaping, clutching the springy strands. And she wanted him as a dehydrated woman wanted water, as if he were the only thing that stood between her and death. That ferocious, screaming shout of need that instantly controlled her absolutely terrified her. The spear of his tongue in her mouth electrified her beyond all thought and the flick against the roof of her mouth was pure licking temptation by a maestro of sensation. He knew how to kiss, he knew how to do all the stuff she didn’t and that drew her helplessly, that and the merciless craving making her heart beat too fast, making her body tremble and her legs weak.
‘Inferno, Ellie…’ Rio growled against her swollen mouth, rocking his hips ever so slightly against her.
And she could feel him through their clothing, long and hard and urgent with the same need that had already overwhelmed her and she shuddered, fighting for control against all the odds and without words, knowing that no, whatever happened, she just couldn’t do this with him.
But Rio, womaniser that he was, kissed her again and again; being Rio, he had upped his game. Slow and tormenting had become rawly passionate and demanding and every skin cell in her body lit up in neon as if she had met her perfect match. The pulsing damp heat between her thighs was coalescing into a generalised burning ache that tortured and tempted and screamed. The sound of a metal bucket scraping across tiles was almost deafening and Rio sprang back from her at the same instant that Ellie literally forced her hands down to his shoulders to push him away.
And for once, Rio didn’t have anything super smart to say, she noted with only the smallest amount of satisfaction because she had nothing to boast about either. Rio dealt her a scorchingly angry glance and swung away.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said grittily.
‘Not if I see you coming first,’ Ellie quipped weakly, ducking back into her room under the curious appraisal of the cleaner and closing the door on legs that felt as limp as cotton wool. But no, she was not going to do that thing she usually did when she did something wrong. She wasn’t going to dwell on it and go over it endlessly. She had made a mistake and it was already behind her and that was all the brooding Rio Benedetti deserved. No more self-loathing, no more regret, she told herself squarely. He was like a cup of poison that tasted sweet, created only to tempt and destroy. Paranoiac…much, she asked herself then.
CHAPTER THREE
THAT MORNING, ELLIE explored the village, bought a small gift for a colleague and walked in the glorious sunshine through the piazza to the café to take a seat. She was beginning to enjoy herself, starting to recognise that beating herself up about Rio was counterproductive because it kept him in the forefront of her mind. One kiss… What was a kiss? Nothing! Well, unless it made your knees go weak and threw your brain into la-la land—then it was a threat.
While she sipped her coffee, crossly policing her thoughts, she watched an opulent cream sports car park. The driver, who had a little dog with him, hailed several locals seated outside the café and his attention lingered on Ellie before he strode across the piazza to enter the shop there. The dog, however, a bouncy little Yorkshire terrier, hurtled straight across to Ellie and bounced up against her legs, craving attention.
The dog’s owner shouted what sounded like, ‘Bambi!’ in an exasperated voice but the dog wouldn’t budge from Ellie’s feet and, with an audible groan and a wave that promised his return, the young man went on ahead into the shop.
‘You’re not the most obedient dog,’ Ellie scolded softly a few minutes later as pleading little round eyes appealed to her from knee height. ‘No, you can’t get up on my lap. I’m not a doggy person—’
‘You could’ve fooled me,’ the owner remarked from beside her and she glanced up and laughed.
‘Well, I suspect your dog’s not very fussy,’ she teased.
‘Bambi belongs to my mother and I’m looking after the dog all week.’ He rolled his eyes in speaking suffering. ‘She hasn’t been trained and prefers women.’
‘But that’s not her fault,’ Ellie pointed out, scratching a blissed-out Bambi behind one flyaway ear.
‘I’m Bruno Nigrelli.’ He extended a friendly hand. ‘Join me for a glass of wine—’
‘A little early,’ Ellie began before she recalled that she was on holiday and not on duty. ‘No, that’s a good idea,’ she told him with a sudden smile. Loosen up, she told herself irritably.