No. This was what she wanted.
She’d decided that she wasn’t going back to England until she’d got the evidence she needed to convict him or clear him. And she wasn’t going to find that alone in a hotel room. She might not have exactly planned this little turn of events, but rum-fuelled logic and Dutch courage told her it was actually quite a stroke of luck.
Of course that was the reason she felt compelled to stay. It was nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that her fingers itched with the insane compulsion to touch the long, muscular thigh next to hers, to entwine themselves in his ruffled black hair, smoothing back the lock that fell over his face before.
Get over it! Biting her lip to prevent it trembling, she shrank further away from him, ashamed and afraid of the blatant longing that thrummed painfully inside her.
As he started the ignition with a deafening roar Raphael glanced sideways at her, taking in the quivering lip and huge, frightened eyes. A flash of irritation swept through him.
He was used to issuing orders and having them obeyed, but something had warned him that Eve Middlemiss would go out of her way to do the opposite of what she was told. Kissing her had been the only way of getting her into the car and away from Luca. He’d had no choice, he reassured himself.
So why did he feel like some kind of monster all of a sudden? Because he’d enjoyed kissing her? This was the twenty-first century—surely he could kiss someone without feeling as if he was guilty of some kind of violation? Especially when his motivation was purely her own good.
Purely? a little voice in his head taunted, forcing him to confront the reason for his guilt. Perhaps not. He had kissed her because he didn’t have time to argue with her, and because standing there, with her green eyes flashing fire and brimstone, she had been almost impossible to resist. And that was the thing that irked him. He wanted her, and for a whole host of very good reasons he didn’t want to want her.
Beside him, Eve surreptitiously checked in her bag. At least she had her phone. And her pink penknife.
It had been a birthday present from Lou: a joke, because it contained all the necessary tools for survival—a nail file, a miniature mirror, and most importantly a corkscrew. There was a blade on there too, but it remained stiff from lack of use—unlike the corkscrew—and Eve doubted whether she could get it out quickly enough in a moment of crisis. Oh, well, in that case she would just have to screw his brains out.
She let out a gurgle of laughter.
Raphael threw her a sharp glance.
‘Something amusing?’
‘Yes, I …’ But the mental image, conjured by accident or Freudian design, wouldn’t leave her. The laughter died on her lips as another wave of lust swept through her with the ruthless inevitability of a tidal-bore. She turned her face to look out of the window.
‘Where are you staying?’
‘Well, as of this afternoon, nowhere,’ she muttered, trying to redirect her thoughts. ‘I checked out of the hotel this morning.’
Raphael gritted his teeth. ‘So what were you going to do?’
‘Luca very kindly offered me a bed—no strings—and if it hadn’t been for this stupid pretence that we’re in—’ She had been about to say in love but stumbled on the words and changed it at the last minute. ‘Involved, I would be taking him up on it.’
No strings? Knowing Luca, it would be chains and handcuffs instead. How could she be so trusting? Exasperated, Raphael pushed his hair back from his forehead and shot her a sideways glance. Sitting with the glossy Lazaro goody bag clasped in her hands, twisting its silken rope handle around one slender finger, she looked incredibly young and frighteningly vulnerable. The thought of her on the streets or, much worse, in Luca’s lair made him feel dizzy. He sucked in a breath and tried to keep his voice even.
‘Stay with me.’ It came out as a harsh rasp. What was the matter with him? He wouldn’t blame her for refusing.
For a second she was very still, then she turned and gave him a small, brave smile.
‘Really? Thanks.’
It was easy to see which of the narrow Florentine townhouses was Raphael’s. It was the one with the crowd of paparazzi outside.
‘Damn,’ growled Raphael, accelerating past them. ‘Quick. Get down.’
A shout went up from the pavement as one of the journalists spotted the car and gave chase. Eve caught a fleeting glimpse of the blonde from the press conference before Raphael’s hand clasped the back of her neck and pulled her head down.
Her cheek was pressed against the hardness of his thigh, and she could feel his muscles flexing as he changed up a gear. His arm covered her, the scent of him filled her head, and the world outside the window was upside down.
‘Wh-what are you doing?’
‘Unless you want your picture all over the gossip columns, stay there,’ he hissed. ‘We have some bloody fool on a motorbike following us.’
She closed her eyes and breathed him in, feeling oddly safe and protected, like when she was a child and she and Ellie would curl up together on the back seat on the way back from some concert or gala performance in which their mother had been singing. The denim beneath her cheek had been washed to faded softness, and it smelled clean and comforting, and the rocking motion of the car as Raphael wove expertly through the back-streets soothed her. Really, that passionfruit whatever had been very nice, but it had made her feel quite sleepy.
Negotiating a labyrinthine path through the ancient narrow streets around the Piazza della Signoria, Raphael tried to keep his mind on the paparazzo motorcyclist and off the tousled golden head in his lap.
Impossible.
He could feel the warmth of her breath against his thigh, in a place where the caress of a woman’s breath should mean one thing and one thing only.
Don’t go there! Gripping the steering wheel, he cast around desperately for something deeply boring and unerotic to think about, to counter the inevitable effect she was having on him. Railway timetables. Exchange rates. International time zones.
Just when he feared his self-control might snap, he realised the motorcyclist was no longer on his tail. Glancing round to make sure he was nowhere to be seen, Raphael let out an exhalation of relief.
‘It’s OK—you can get up now.’
She shifted slightly, bringing her hand up to her face and letting it come to rest on his knee, the fingers curling delicately upwards. Hardly daring to breathe, Raphael gently brushed the hair off her face, knowing already what he would find.
Dark lashes swept down over flushed cheeks, mouth pressed into a perfect cupid’s bow—she was asleep.
A sharp kick of desire knocked the air from his lungs and an involuntary moan from his lips. The traffic in front of him slowed to a near standstill and, waiting in the queue, he took both hands off the steering wheel and thrust them savagely through his hair, as if in an effort to prevent himself from touching her.
She looked like a child, she behaved like a rebellious teenager, she exasperated him beyond measure and she was causing him an inordinate amount of trouble. But at that moment he wanted Eve Middlemiss so much he couldn’t think straight.
She awoke as he turned the engine off. Struggling to sit up, she widened her eyes with horror as she realised where she was.
‘Oh … oh, no … What did I …?’
Raphael’s face was completely expressionless. ‘You fell asleep.’
She gave a little moan of distress. ‘Sorry. I can’t think what came over me.’
‘I can,’ he said sardonically. ‘At least four disgusting rumbased cocktails, courtesy of my dear half-brother.’
‘Rum?’ she whimpered. ‘But he said they were almost nonalcoholic!’
‘That figures,’ said Raphael bitterly, getting out of the car.
Eve followed. ‘Where are we?’ she asked, looking up at the imposing façade of the building with a mixture of anxiety and awe. Four storeys of mellow golden stone towered above her, graced by delicate wrought-iron balconies at the
long first- and second-floor windows. A double flight of stone steps led to the front door.
‘My father’s house,’ he replied curtly.
‘Won’t he mind?’ Eve followed him, trying not to gaze too hungrily on the broad shoulders beneath the cornflower-blue linen shirt. She still felt slow with sleep, and dazed by conflicting emotions. If he was a potential drug-pushing sadist, why did she just want to curl up on his knee again?
Over his shoulder, he shot her a stony look. ‘I realise that the finer points of this morning’s press conference may have gone over your head, Eve, but I thought that even you had managed to follow the general gist. Antonio is in hospital. But,’ he continued, opening the door into a beautifully proportioned domed hallway, ‘he has a housekeeper who will be only too glad to have someone to fuss over while he is away.’
Eve stopped in the middle of the shining marble floor and looked around her. It was like stepping onto the set of one of the glamorous 1950s movies her mother had loved so much. In front of her a staircase with an ornately embellished wrought-iron balustrade rose to a gallery above, and on the ceiling cherubs cavorted around ample-figured goddesses holding strategically-placed garlands.
She was so busy taking it all in that at first she didn’t notice a stout woman with greying hair scraped into a bun appear in the doorway at the end of the hall.
‘Raphael!’
‘Ciao, Fiora. Come stai?’
He stepped forward to embrace her, and they talked in rapid Italian for a minute or two before Eve became aware that they had both turned to look at her. Raphael switched back into English for her benefit.
‘Eve, this is Fiora—my father’s invaluable, irreplaceable housekeeper.’
Eve smiled shyly under the older woman’s curious scrutiny, and wondered what Raphael had said about her.
‘Fiora doesn’t speak much English, I’m afraid, but I’m sure the two of you will manage to get along.’ Picking up his keys from a marble-topped console table, he began to walk back towards the door.
Eve was assailed by sudden panic. He couldn’t mean to just leave her here—could he?
‘Raphael …’
He turned, one dark eyebrow raised in silent question as his eyes met hers. She wanted to run to him and feel the reassuring strength of his arms around her, to beg him not to leave her, to take her with him, but she was rooted to the spot and the words wouldn’t come.
‘Don’t go,’ she managed huskily, feeling a deep blush suffuse her cheeks.
For a second she thought she saw the ghost of a smile at the corner of his mouth before he turned away and strode towards the door.
‘I’m just going to collect your things from the hotel,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you’ll be OK with Fiora for half an hour.’
Scarlet with humiliation, Eve followed Fiora up the wide staircase.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHERE on earth had that come from?
Trailing despondently behind Fiora, Eve gritted her teeth and kept her eyes fixed on the floor. Don’t go … she heard herself saying, the words sounding pathetically girly and weak as they echoed around her head. What the hell had come over her? The man had just virtually kidnapped her, and she was practically falling over herself to thank him. It would be funny if it wasn’t quite so appalling.
Well, one thing was certain. She wouldn’t be caught off guard again.
Make that two things. She wouldn’t be touching another passionfruit daiquiri any time soon either.
Fiora came to a halt outside one of the doors along the impossibly grand corridor and pushed it open, standing aside to let Eve go through.
Entering hesitantly, she had to stop herself from gasping out loud.
The room was like something out of a fairy tale. In its centre stood a huge bed, dressed in beautiful vintage linen and topped with an antique gilded corona from which acres of white muslin were romantically draped. A small sofa and two dainty chairs upholstered in soft duck-egg blue linen were arranged around a low table on which a tray with a coffee pot and two elegant china espresso cups were laid.
It made the plush hotel she’d been staying in look like a youth hostel.
Resisting the urge to throw herself onto the bed and nestle into the pile of silk cushions Eve walked over to one of the floor-length windows and found herself looking out over a walled garden at the back of the villa. The windows opened onto a small terrace, from which one could enjoy the delicate fragrance of lilies and orange blossom that drifted up from the terraced garden below.
Behind her, humming quietly, Fiora bustled about, plumping up pillows and carefully moving some of the silk cushions. Then she disappeared into an adjoining room, which Eve guessed was an en-suite bathroom. A moment later she heard the sound of running water.
Returning to collect an armful of thick, snowy towels from the armoire, Fiora caught sight of Eve’s bewildered expression. The humming stopped and her face creased into lines of kindness.
‘Bagno … Bath?’
‘Thank you, but.’
‘Signor Raphael—he say you … molto stanco …?’
Eve gave a little cry of fury. ‘How dare he? Anyway,’ she muttered sulkily, ‘it’s not my fault. It’s that horrible perfume from the launch.’
Fiora looked shocked, then upset. ‘Sorry, signorina … molto stanco … how you say?’ She put her head to one side and closed her eyes.
‘Asleep?’ suggested Eve doubtfully.
‘Si! He say you very sleepy! He say you rest, but I think maybe after bagno you feel better?’
Feeling suddenly foolish and ungrateful, Eve managed a smile. ‘Yes. Thank you, Fiora. You are very kind.’
Fiora dismissed her words with a wave of her hand. ‘Per niente. A dopo, signorina.’
When the door had closed quietly behind her, Eve pressed her burning cheek against the cool windowpane. The temptation to climb down the balcony and escape over the garden wall was suddenly pretty strong.
OK, so—as any one of her friends would testify—she was hardly a winner in the ice-cool grace and sophistication stakes, but she wasn’t usually so totally inept. What was it about Raphael Di Lazaro that had turned her into a dizzy blonde with an IQ lower than her bra size and a head full of marshmallow?
She had a degree from a top British university, for crying out loud, a good job and a clean driving licence. And yet in the twenty-four hours since she’d laid eyes on Raphael di Lazaro she had been behaving like a gawky schoolgirl on her first foreign exchange visit.
If she couldn’t snap out of it and take control of the situation she might as well go home now.
The fact that he was horribly attractive was inconvenient, but she was an intelligent and mature woman, and it wasn’t as if she’d never seen a good-looking male before. Admittedly the Department of Renaissance Poetry wasn’t exactly heaving with them, but that was no excuse for dissolving into a puddle of hormones every time Raphael Di Lazaro glanced at her.
No. The problem wasn’t what he looked like, it was the man himself.
Last night when he had kissed her she had had a tantalising insight into what she believed was the real man beneath that iron self-control and breathtaking arrogance. And the real Raphael wasn’t anything like the monster she had come here expecting to find.
Suddenly the spark of an idea flickered into life in her head, momentarily illuminating her gloomy thoughts. Reflected in the glass of the windowpane her eyes were wide and dark as her mind raced over the plan that was forming there.
If she was going to find out whether he was capable of the crime she suspected him of, she needed to see that side of him again. More closely. Flirt with him. Seduce him. Peel away the layers until the man she had glimpsed last night was naked before her. Then she’d see who he really was.
She wandered thoughtfully over to her bag and slipped a little photograph of herself and Ellie out of her purse. In it she was sitting down, a small smile on her face. Ellie stood behind her, her arms wrapped around Eve’s should
ers, her head thrown back in laughter. Looking at it now, what struck Eve more forcefully than ever before was not how similar they looked, but how different had been their whole approach to life. She had always prided herself on her sense and steadiness, disapproving of Ellie’s total abandonment and limitless capacity for fun. Suddenly she saw how blinkered she’d been, and deep inside her she felt the stirrings of anticipation. It was time to live a little more dangerously.
Operation Seduction started here. Make or break.
A shiver rippled through her and she realised that for the first time since she had left England she was properly frightened.
Partly because of what she might find.
But mainly because of what she might lose in the process.
Raphael put down the bag and hesitated before knocking quietly on the door to Eve’s room.
He had intended to ask Fiora to bring Eve’s things up to her, but had found her up to her elbows in flour in the kitchen. Had he imagined the twinkle in her dark eyes as she had given him a tall glass of iced elderflower cordial to take up to Eve, along with instructions to tell her that dinner was almost ready?
It would have been petty and ungracious to refuse. He had brought Eve here, after all.
He pressed his ear to the heavy wood and knocked again. This time, very faintly, he heard Eve call out—something which he couldn’t be sure was ‘come in’, but definitely wasn’t angry enough to be ‘go away’—or worse.
Entering her room, he was immediately hit by the delicate, dizzying floral scent of Lazaro perfume. The concealed sound system was playing the bit from Madame Butterfly to which Eve had walked down the runway at the retrospective, but the room was empty.
From through the open door of the bathroom came the unmistakable trickle of water.
She was in the bath.
Closing her eyes, Eve sank back beneath the bubbles and felt all the stress of the day evaporate.
The first stars were beginning to appear in the hazy violet sky thorough the open French doors, but not a breath of wind disturbed the steadily burning candles in the deliciously over-the-top gothic-style candelabras that flanked them.
Latin Lovers: Italian Playboys Page 39