From behind the damp tendrils of her hair she watched him nod and lift a hand to sweep the water from his face. ‘I have to go away on business for a couple of days. I’m leaving this afternoon. Will you be all right here with Fiora?’
His casual words came out of the blue and hit her like darts, causing her head to jerk upwards with shock. And pain. Unexpected pain.
‘Of course. I’m not a child. I don’t need you to look after me.’
His eyebrows arched upwards sardonically. ‘No?’
‘No!’
‘That wasn’t how it felt last night.’
She heard the hiss of her own sharply indrawn breath. Humiliation instantly turned to rage, and blotted out everything else in its enveloping red mist. Planting her hands firmly on her hips, Eve lifted her head and glared at him with open hostility. ‘That’s not fair! It was just some stupid dream … I didn’t ask you to—’
She stopped, suddenly realising as he came towards her that in her anger she’d forgotten to cover herself, and was now standing in front of him with not a stitch on, hands on hips, in the manner of a cartoon stripper. All she needed was a pair of high heels and a string of fake pearls to complete the picture.
Brushing past her, he opened a door in the poolhouse and reappeared a moment later with two towels. Draping one round his neck, he held the other one out to her.
But pride was a terrible thing. Naked, hurt, humiliated, at that moment Eve would have rather accepted help from Satan himself than Raphael di Lazaro. Sucking in her stomach, trying desperately to look as if her lack of clothes was a matter of supreme indifference to her, she pushed her shoulders back and eyed him coldly.
‘You can tell Fiora that I won’t be staying, so she’s relieved of babysitting duty in your absence.’
There. That had wiped the mocking, self-satisfied smile off his face.
It also blew all her plans to tiny smithereens.
‘Where are you planning to go?’
She shrugged. ‘I’ll find somewhere in Florence.’
Suddenly his face went very still. ‘It’s August. All the hotels will be full of tourists.’
Her chin shot up another inch. ‘I’ll just have to look at other options, then.’
Throwing him one last haughty glance, she turned round and sauntered slowly back into the poolhouse. It was maybe seven or eight paces, but it felt like miles. And every step was like walking on knives.
* * *
All the way back up to the house he cursed himself. He’d screwed up. Big-time. He just couldn’t stop himself from taking out on her the fact that she’d got under his skin, could he? And now he’d blown it all.
The villa was cool and dim after the fierce midday glare outside, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. In the hallway he could hear Fiora’s voice, the particular formal tone she adopted for the telephone. The next minute she came hurrying through to find him.
‘Oh, Signor Raphael, meno male …!’
She looked stricken. Putting a reassuring hand on her shoulder, Raphael spoke calmly.
‘What is it, Fiora? Is it the hospital?’
‘Ne, signor. Polizia.’
Not a flicker of emotion showed on his face as he picked up the phone, but all the colour had drained from it. ‘Marco? Ciao.’
‘Ciao, Raphael. Look, I’ll get straight to the point. It’s not good news. Our chief witness in the case against Luca has met with a nasty accident.’
Raphael sucked in a breath, but his face remained stony as the detective elaborated on the girl’s untimely end.
‘There must be other witnesses?’ Raphael pressed.
‘Sure—but we can’t exactly hold open interviews for every girl on the modeling scene. The fewer people who know about this the better. Especially if Luca’s guys are going round picking off girls they’re suspicious about.’
A chill spread down Raphael’s spine as Eve’s careless words came back to him ‘I’m going to expose di Lazaro as a sleazy drug pusher.’
‘So, what now?’ he asked the detective.
At the other end of the phone, Marco sighed. ‘We watch him. It’s all we can do until we find someone else who will testify against him—and keep our fingers crossed that it doesn’t take too long.’ Raphael could hear the frustration in his voice. ‘He’s getting more and more unpredictable. My feeling is that he’s going to do something very stupid pretty soon. We just have to wait.’ Bloody, bloody hell.
Why had he taunted Eve like that? Now she was leaving—heading, in all probability, for Luca’s flat—and it was entirely his fault. There was no way he could go to Venice now. He’d have to make his apologies to the award ceremony organizers and try to get Eve to stay at the villa, or get her on a flight back to London.
Unless he could persuade her to come with him to Venice …
‘Va bene, Marco. Thanks for letting me know.’
As he replaced the receiver Eve appeared in the doorway. She had put on a long white shirt, but Raphael noticed with a painful clenching of his stomach that the fabric was too sheer to hide the swell of her bare breasts beneath it. In her hand she carried the wet bra.
She too must have been dazzled by the glare from outside, because she didn’t notice him as she crossed the hallway. As he moved out of the shadow of the staircase she started violently, and let out a small scream of terror.
‘You scared me!’
‘Sorry.’ He shook his head and laughed.
‘It’s not bloody funny!’ she screamed. ‘I know you think I’m completely stupid and naïve and ridiculous, but just give me an hour and I’ll be out of your hair for ever. Then you can get back to your glamorous life and your clever, sophisticated friends, unencumbered with such an embarrassing social liability! I didn’t ask you to bring me here!’
Sobbing, she made a run for the stairs, but Raphael caught her before she reached them. For a moment she fought him off, but then found herself cradled in his arms, her cheek pressed against his bare chest while he rocked her and waited for the sobbing to subside.
As soon as she was calmer he disentangled himself as gently as he could and stepped back. Another minute and no amount of railway timetables and international exchange rates would be able to contain the hard evidence of his desire.
‘I’m sorry.’ He gave her a bleak smile. ‘And, before you say anything else, that’s what I was laughing about. It occurred to me that I don’t think I’ve ever apologised to anyone so much in my life before.’ He sighed. ‘Let’s get one thing straight—I’m the one who’s at fault here. Not you. And now I’ve got to go to Venice, so it looks like I won’t have a chance to make it up to you.’
‘It’s fine,’ she mumbled, clumsily scrubbing away the tears with the back of her hand. ‘You don’t owe me anything.’
‘It’s not fine.’ He rubbed his hands over his eyes wearily, and Eve noticed there was a muscle twitching in his cheek. ‘Look, why don’t you come with me? I’ve got to go to the Press Photography Awards tonight, which will be extremely dull, but the dinner and champagne will make up for that a little. After that, I don’t have to be back for a couple of days. I could show you round, maybe make you amend your appalling opinion of me. Have you ever been to Venice before?’
As she shook her head he could see conflicting emotions sweep across her face and he felt a flicker of optimism.
‘Then it’s simple—you have to come. We stay at the palazzo that belonged to my mother’s family. It’s pretty old and run down, but right in the centre of the city …’ With heroic effort he softened his tone. ‘Please. I’d like you to come.’
Slowly, mistrustfully, she looked up at him, as if searching to see whether he was joking or not. Her face was blotchy and red from crying, her lips swollen, but his heart gave a sudden lurch as she nodded.
‘OK.’
Relief surged through him.
‘Great. Go and pack. We need to leave in about an hour.’ Watching her run up the stairs, he felt the tension in the knotte
d muscles of his shoulders and made an effort to relax. At least now he wouldn’t have to worry about Luca getting his hands on her for the next couple of days. He smiled ruefully to himself.
Which left him conveniently free to worry about keeping his own hands off her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘YOU travel very light,’ Raphael remarked drily, taking Eve’s single tattered bag as they walked across the tarmac towards the Lazaro jet.
‘I know. I’m sorry. I’m hopelessly scruffy,’ Eve muttered, miserably aware of the pitiful figure she must cut in comparison with the designer-clad, high-maintenance women Raphael was used to.
Ever since they’d left the villa she’d been unable to meet his eye, frozen by sudden shyness in his presence. She’d accepted his invitation to go to Venice because, as she’d told Lou last night, she had no intention of returning to England without proof of his guilt or otherwise. But she was not yet so deluded that she couldn’t see that it was also because leaving him now would be unbearable.
Walking beside him, she felt every cell of her body respond to his nearness. It was going to be an uncomfortable trip, she thought in anguish.
‘I thought we made a deal? No more apologies—it’s getting quite ridiculous. Anyway, you have nothing to be sorry about. You may not be at the cutting edge of fashion, but you certainly have style.’ His tone was offhand—slightly bored, even—and he glanced down at her with a faint smile tinged with irony. ‘Perhaps it’s what your magazine would call “minimalist chic”?’
Eve looked down at her beloved but distinctly worn jewelled sandals. ‘I think it’s what any magazine would call “in need of a makeover”.’
‘Well, I’m sure Nico will approve,’ Raphael said, gesturing to the steward, who was coming towards them to relieve them of their small amount of luggage.
Last time Raphael had used Antonio’s jet Catalina had been with him. Catalina and four cases, plus one large trunk containing all her cosmetics. A weekend away with her had always felt a little like embarking on an Edwardian Grand Tour.
‘I haven’t brought anything smart, I’m afraid. To be perfectly honest, I haven’t actually got anything smart.’
‘In that case we’ll just have to go shopping.’
‘No! I couldn’t. I—’
Raphael cut through her objections. ‘After you.’
Eve hesitated for a fraction of a second, then swallowed hard and went up the steps of the plane. In her head she repeated her usual pre-flight mantra. Flying is statistically safer than crossing the road. Adding hastily at the last minute, Therefore I will not give Raphael di Lazaro the satisfaction of seeing me burst into tears on take-off.
As he stood back to allow Eve to climb the steps to the plane ahead of him, Raphael found himself staring at her, drinking in her fresh simplicity. She was wearing yesterday’s faded khaki combat trousers, rolled back to reveal slim, brown ankles, and had changed the damp shirt for a delicately embroidered and pin-tucked Victorian chemise with a low, lace-trimmed neckline that was simultaneously demure and sexy as hell.
Moodily he pushed a hand through his hair. Gone was the overt seductiveness of last night, but the shy self-effacement that had replaced it was having just as powerful an effect on his testosterone levels. Sticking to his resolution wasn’t going to be easy, he realised grimly, barely managing a smile at the pilot who awaited them at the top of the steps.
‘Welcome aboard, signore, signorina.’
‘Thank you for getting everything ready for us at such short notice, Roberto,’ Raphael said in his native tongue.
‘No problemo, Signor Raphael. I am sorry to hear about the ill health of Signor di Lazaro …’ Roberto drew Raphael slightly aside and said quietly, ‘Signor Luca has requested the plane too, but I thought you and the signorina would prefer to fly alone. I hope that is all right?’
Raphael gave him a curt nod of acknowledgment, and the two men exchanged a swift glance of mutual understanding. Roberto had been instructed to monitor Luca’s use of the jet very carefully indeed.
Eve was oblivious to this exchange, her fear temporarily forgotten as she took in her surroundings. She had expected a miniature plane, with rows of seats perhaps upholstered in a particularly plush fabric. In a daze, she found herself laughing at her own naïveté
This was laid out like a sitting room, with a sofa and armchairs at the front of the plane, facing each other around a low coffee table. Where the villa was decorated in perfect country-house style, the jet had obviously allowed Antonio the opportunity to play with contemporary design: the sofa was upholstered in scarlet leather, while the chairs were an assortment of suedes and velvets in various shades of charcoal and biscuit. The floor was covered in a thick cream faux fur rug, and one curved wall was painted with an enormous art-deco style mural depicting a whippet-thin woman reclining on a chaise-longue and sipping a cocktail through scarlet lips.
‘I know,’ Raphael said sardonically, coming to stand beside her. ‘Hideous, isn’t it? I think Luca had a hand in the design, which would explain why it looks like the waiting room in a brothel.’
Eve would have liked to ask him how he knew what a waiting room in a brothel looked like, but she was too shy. The flirtatiousness which had come so naturally last night, when she had still been under the illusion that it was all part of a calculated plan, had utterly deserted her today, leaving an awful stilted awkwardness in its wake.
‘I’m not complaining,’ she said taking the glass of prosecco he was holding out to her. ‘It certainly compares quite favourably with the airborne cattle trucks that are my usual mode of transport.’
‘Do you like flying?’
‘Love it,’ she said determinedly. Raphael thought she was immature enough already. There was absolutely no way she was about to admit to being as frightened as a rabbit on a motorway.
‘Have you ever been on a private jet before?’
She attempted a mock-haughty look. ‘Me? With my glamorous lifestyle? What do you think?’
He gave a sudden smile, which lit up his face and made her feel as if he had reached out and caressed her. ‘I think no. It’s completely against my principles, of course, but it’s a great way to travel once in a while.’ He held out his glass. ‘Here’s to the first time.’
She could feel the colour rush to her cheeks, just as the liquid heat was rushing into her pelvis. Glancing up in confusion, she met his gaze, and was unable to interpret the look in his hooded dark eyes. Was he testing her? Quickly she looked away.
‘Here’s to travelling in style,’ she amended shakily.
‘Or not,’ he said, glancing disparagingly round at their opulent surroundings.
One thing that was no different on a luxury private jet from any less impressive aircraft, Eve discovered, was that the whole business of take-off was just as alarming. Try as she might as the plane began to accelerate along the runway, she could never quite get over the embarrassing, irrational fear that disaster was only seconds away, or shake off the suspicion that as the wheels left the tarmac it would probably be her last contact ever with solid ground.
Clutching her wine glass, she shut her eyes. The small plane sped forward, then plunged upwards into nothingness. There was a roaring in her ears as she felt the ground fall away beneath them, and the blackness behind her closed lids swirled and deepened.
The next thing she knew, Raphael was very gently prising her fingers off the glass. Taking it from her, he clasped her hands between his and kept them there, reassuring her with his quiet strength, until the plane had reached altitude and the fog of blind panic had cleared from her head.
Tentatively she opened her eyes, and found herself looking into his. For a second she saw there something dark and unreadable that sent shivers down her spine, but then the shutters came down again. He let go of her hands and leaned back on the scarlet leather upholstery with a look of amusement on his face.
‘So take-off is one of the things you love most about flying, is it, Eve?’
She looked down into her lap and fiddled with a button on one of the many pockets of her trousers. ‘I’m always worried it won’t work.’
‘I see,’ he said gravely. ‘You think that someone might have changed the laws of physics without telling you? Making it impossible under the new regulations for planes to stay up in the air?’
His voice was absolutely serious, but looking up at him from under lowered lids she saw the familiar mocking smile. The colour rose to her cheeks.
If she hadn’t turned away she would have seen his face soften. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘What? And shatter your image of me as a super-cool top international fashion journalist?’ she muttered. ‘It wouldn’t have been fair to disillusion you.’
His lips twitched into a smile.
‘Plus,’ she went on, ‘it’s so stupid and embarrassing.’
‘Don’t be silly. It’s neither stupid nor embarrassing—nor, in your case, particularly surprising.’
‘Of course,’ she said sulkily. ‘It’s completely predictable that I should be the kind of person who would cry on aeroplanes.’ ‘You didn’t cry.’ ‘Not this time.’
‘Anyway, that wasn’t what I meant. I just meant that it’s a basic human instinct to feel that the ground is a safe place and the sky isn’t. And if there’s anyone who lets themselves be governed by their instincts, it’s you.’
She hesitated as the impact of his casual words sank in. Just a week ago, if anyone had said that to her, she would have protested hotly, arguing that she was governed by logic and intellect and good old-fashioned common sense. But she’d discovered things about herself in the last two days that had turned her world upside down.
And the strength of her instincts was one of them.
She looked up at him with troubled turquoise eyes. ‘I just don’t see how it can work.’
He sighed, pushing the hair back from his forehead. ‘Think about it like this. It’s all about forces. The plane’s propellers create a thrust …’
Latin Lovers: Italian Playboys Page 43