by Kim Lawrence
With no Angel, second best would have to do.
Second best. She was willing to bet this term was not one that was generally applied to Cesare Urquart—the man had winner written all over him. Some people might find that attractive. Personally Anna found little to admire in men driven to prove they were the best at everything, the sort of men that people looked to for leadership. Well, she for one liked to make her own decisions, though in this instance she was glad this was not her call.
‘I’m thirsty.’
Anna picked up the empty glass on the bedside table and went to the kitchen to fill it.
‘Just sips,’ she warned as she held it up to the fretful youngster’s lips. ‘Just wet your lips...better?’
Jasmine nodded and Anna kissed the little girl’s forehead.
‘I want Mummy.’ The sniff and the trembling lip completed a totally heartbreaking scene. If Angel had been able to see her daughter at that moment Anna had no doubt that contract or not, she would have been on the first plane home, and by then of course Jas would have forgotten she’d ever been ill!
‘I know, sweetheart. How about if I fetch Uncle Cesare?’
Jasmine nodded. ‘Yes, I want Uncle Cesare.’
Don’t we all? chimed Anna’s subconscious.
‘I won’t be long. You just snuggle down and I’ll...’ Drag your uncle from his warm bed. From his lover’s arms. My, aren’t I going to be the popular one? She breathed through a wave of nausea and wondered if she might have a dose of what afflicted Jasmine. ‘Back in two ticks,’ she promised.
When the housekeeper at Angel’s request, had given her a tour on that first day, Anna had paid attention. She remembered Mrs Mack pointing out the staircase she now ran up, emphasising sternly it led to Mr Urquart’s private quarters and was strictly off limits.
She had stopped short of saying so was the man himself, but the underlying message was clear. The poor woman obviously considered her boss a man irresistible to women and she had taken on the job of protecting him.
Somehow Anna had kept a straight face while being lectured on the strict hierarchy within the castle. A hierarchy that made it not the done thing to approach Cesare Urquart directly. There were channels, the housekeeper had informed her sternly.
Anna hadn’t asked what the channels were. It was all she could do to stop herself from informing the woman that approaching her precious boss was not something she was likely to be doing in a hurry.
Pity the woman hadn’t told the man himself about the rules, though at three a.m., rules became a little blurred.
Jas’s uncle would blame her. Fairness didn’t come into it; reasonable was not in his vocabulary. He had been waiting for her to screw up and he’d probably be delighted to have a reason.
Not true, said the voice in her head, and you know it. Anna gave a reluctant sigh of acknowledgement. Whatever his faults, and he had many, not being protective or caring for his niece was not among them. There was no way he would have the child suffer to prove a point.
Poor little Jas. The thought of the girl made Anna almost philosophical about the blast of chilly contempt coming her way. He’d find some way of making this her fault, and maybe, she mused, he wasn’t so wrong. She had noticed Jasmine’s flushed cheeks at bedtime and instead of taking her temperature she’d put it down to the warm bath.
Angel might have said she was in charge, but she knew that in a situation like this she would not expect Anna to make a unilateral decision. The bottom line was she was just—what had he called her? A glorified babysitter. He’d meant it as an insult, but essentially it was an accurate description of her role.
It was Angel’s brother who was the appropriate person to decide the correct course of action, and if ever a man was equipped to make decisions it was Jas’s uncle.
It wasn’t as if he’d waste time agonising over it. A crooked smile briefly twisted her soft lips as an image of the incumbent of the castle floated before her eyes. Somehow she didn’t think indecision was his style! Just tall, snooty blondes with endless legs.
At the top of the spiral staircase there were doors leading off a wide corridor. Four in total, but only one had light coming from underneath it. There were sounds of music, something bluesy, coming from behind the big door and a tiny sliver of light shining under. The pucker between her brows deepened. Did he not sleep? Or did he suffer from insomnia? When the explanation came to her she felt stupid. He wasn’t sleeping, he was...they were... She shook her head to clear the images crowding in and pressed a hand to her stomach. Whatever Cesare and the beautiful Louise were doing could stay behind closed doors—she didn’t want to know.
Taking a deep breath, Anna grabbed her courage in both hands and knocked. She waited, counting the seconds, shifting her weight from one bare foot to the other on the cold stone floor.
* * *
Louise had not been serious when she had suggested tongue in cheek that under the circumstances Cesare might prefer it if she didn’t share his room that night.
‘Though, of course, darling, if you’re suggesting a threesome, I’m always up for anything new.’
She had been visibly taken aback, and yes annoyed, when he had said that actually he did have some work to do so maybe it might be better if she took a guest suite for the night. And now, because he’d had a sense of humour bypass, he was here awake at three a.m. with no prospect of him falling asleep any time soon.
His strong features clenched as he switched off the shower and muttered, ‘That damned redhead!’
Having that woman under his roof was taking years off his life and throwing his rigid schedule totally out of kilter.
As he stepped out of the shower Cesare heard the knock. Grabbing a towel from the stack on a hamper, he wound it around his waist as he moved in the direction of the bedroom door. He was not a man who assumed the worst but no one would disturb him at this hour for something that was not an emergency.
Anna’s knocks got louder and the gaps between them correspondingly shorter. She was at the point of considering opening the door and yelling when it opened.
She squared her shoulders, mentally prepared. Only it turned out she wasn’t!
Who could be, faced with the figure framed in the doorway?
A total sexist pig he might be, but she couldn’t imagine anyone, including herself, arguing that Cesare was the sexiest man on the planet. Always effortlessly elegant and immaculate, with water droplets gleaming on his bronzed skin and naked but for a strip of towelling around his narrow hips, Cesare was an image that made her forget why she was here. Hell, at that second she’d have been hard put to remember her name!
He looked down at her with a fierce, almost unfocused expression. His glittering stare had a bone-stripping, soul-baring intensity, but bizarrely it felt as though he wasn’t seeing her. He couldn’t be; men didn’t look at her that way.
‘I’m...’ She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you.’
The odd choking sound that emerged from his throat cut her off, then, without a word, he stepped towards her and grabbing her by the waist, he hauled her into him.
Anna was unable to deal with something that couldn’t happen again outside her darkest fantasies; something in her brain clicked into off position. She felt an explosion somewhere in her tight chest and stopped breathing. Shock held her immobile. The immobility lasted seconds until her body reacted to the impact of her softness hitting solid bone and muscle—she melted, released a small lost cry into his warm mouth, opening her mouth under the erotic pressure.
Conscious thought vanished, intruding briefly into her world of touch and smell and glorious male hardness. When her shoulder blades ground into the stone wall it hurt but not enough to make her want this to stop. It was enough to enable her to register that she was standing against the wall opposite his op
en door.
She was sinking and falling into a black hole, into him. Waves of knee-trembling sensation were washing over her, back and forth until they became seamless on a deep, dark maelstrom of wanting.
In a few moments she wouldn’t be able to so she had to do it now. From somewhere Anna dredged up enough strength to push him away, hands flat on his chest. She shook her head. How could something so wrong on so many levels feel so damned...so incredibly, gloriously right?
‘No.’ Once more with feeling, and this time, Anna, say it like you mean it. ‘No, I need...’ She gasped as his hand slid down her right thigh, then up under the hem of her nightgown.
His glittering eyes swept her face and he smiled. ‘I know what you need.’
She shuddered as the words cut like a surgical knife through the layers of pretence. The awful, terrifying part was he did know. He seemed to know exactly what she needed, or at least what she craved. She struggled against his sensual dominance, knowing the moment she accepted it, the moment she gave herself up to the waves of pleasure, it was all over.
Hands flat on his chest, from somewhere she managed to summon up some superhuman strength to push him away one last time.
Cesare’s hands went to her elbows as he immediately, casually jerked her back, bringing her body in knee-sagging contact with his lean, hard length. Her vision blurred. His lips were a whisper away from reclaiming hers; she had raised herself up on her toes to meet him halfway. She blurted through lips that didn’t feel as if they belonged to her, lips swollen from his kisses, lips that wanted to beg ‘don’t stop’...
‘Jasmine, she’s ill...come...you...’
There was a few seconds’ delay before he reacted to her inarticulate plea. Cesare blinked and shook his head like someone waking from a dream. His massive chest lifted as he inhaled and he released her.
‘Why didn’t you say so sooner?’ he demanded harshly.
Her jaw dropped at the reprimand.
How was it possible for someone to kiss like that? Touch like that so hotly she could still feel the streaks of fire on her skin, and then sound so terribly cold?
She levered her back from the wall, trying to grab the ties of her robe, but, finding her hands were shaking too much, she settled instead for wrapping her arms around herself. ‘You didn’t give me much chance.’
The irony seemed wasted on Cesare as he continued to rap out questions. ‘Are you sure she was ill? When she’s distressed, she has nightmares—’
Arms crossed tightly over her chest, she rubbed her hands vigorously enough over her upper arms to cause a static crackle. She was shaking, her entire body racked by intermittent fine tremors.
Nightmares? Jas wasn’t the only one, Anna thought, her voice sharper than normal as she cut across him. ‘I’m sure.’
It seemed utterly surreal that they were talking like this. There was absolutely nothing in his behaviour to suggest that moments before he had been about to drag her to his bed. If they’d have got that far. Her heavy-lidded glance slid to her feet, to the floor. She let out a gasp of shame; she would have let him.
Hit by an aftershock tremor stronger than the others, she dug her teeth into her full lower lip and felt a strong surge of self-disgust. Strong, but not strong enough to cancel out the illicit excitement still swirling in her veins like champagne bubbles.
Was that really me?
Cesare dragged a hand through his dark hair and pinned her with an accusing glare. ‘Jas is ill and you left her alone?’ And appeared at his door at exactly the wrong moment looking like that!
His gaze swept upwards over her bare calves, moving over the kimono-style silky robe that had been belted loosely around her middle and now hung open to reveal an oversized nightshirt that should not have been provocative but was, even if the top button hadn’t popped to reveal the promising swell of her satiny smooth, lightly freckled breasts and the shadowy suggestion of cleavage. Even if it had been buttoned up to the neck he would have had no control over the desire that twisted like a molten metal fist in his belly.
Wrong moment!
There was not going to be a right moment for this provocative little witch to appear half dressed at his door. His mistake was attempting to rationalise the attraction that existed. You could not rationalise insanity and that was what this was.
She actually had the nerve to turn those big stricken blue eyes on him like some virginal innocent he’d just defiled. ‘Get back to Jas. I’ll be there as soon as I get some clothes on.’
And not a moment too soon, Anna thought as he whisked back into the bedroom. Still shaking, she took a deep breath and made some massive allowances for his awfulness. Whatever his faults, he loved his niece. Some people hit out when they were worried. He might be one of them—he might also be a heartless womaniser.
Seconds later he appeared at her side, ‘There’s no need to panic,’ she soothed. ‘I don’t think it’s serious.’
The understanding as much as the suggestion made him see red. ‘And what was your medical qualification again?’
She responded through clenched teeth and began to trot to keep up with his long-legged stride. ‘By all means blame me if it makes you feel any better, but it is just possible that this is not anyone’s fault. Children get tummy aches, they get temperatures, they need a cuddle and six seconds later they get better.’
‘Blame you? How could I do that? You’re just the innocent victim things happen to. Things like falling into affairs with married men—’
‘That’s right,’ she mumbled. ‘Pick out all the high points in my life.’ She paused and felt uneasy. If there was such a thing as immersing yourself too deeply in a role, she was guilty of it.
It was legitimate to feel protective of Rosie, but not when she allowed herself to become the victim when she’d only been a helpless observer to what had happened to her cousin.
She was not the one who had lost a baby and very nearly her own life. That was Rosie. That she needed to remind herself of this proved that she had gone way too deep undercover.
‘Enough!’ Hand on the door leading into Jas’s bedroom, Anna stopped and turned around. Pushing her head back against the panelled oak, she tilted it upwards to level her flashing blue eyes on the man whose shoulder she barely reached.
‘It’s not my fault you’ve had a row with your girlfriend. Don’t take it out on me and don’t use me as some sort of substitute. I don’t know why and I don’t want to,’ she declared with a shudder of distaste. ‘But I resent being used that way just because I was there.’
‘You did not appear to resent it at the time.’
‘You didn’t give me much chance to do anything, you just...just... I definitely don’t want to interview for the job of substitute.’ She narrowed her eyes and warned, ‘So if you lay a finger on me again I’ll...’ He’d laid more than a finger and she hadn’t wanted him to stop; she’d wanted more. She’d wanted it all. ‘Just don’t!’ she snapped.
Rather to her surprise, after a moment he tilted his head in a jerky motion of assent and retorted, ‘Don’t turn up at my door half dressed.’
Anna laid her hands on her hot cheeks and schooled her expression into something approaching composure before following him into the room.
Cesare was already at the bedside looking down at his niece. ‘So what have you been up to, Angel’s little angel?’
‘I want Mummy.’
The plaintive note was heartbreaking and Anna could see from Cesare’s face that he was not immune. ‘I know that, sweetheart. So how are you feeling? Better?’
The little girl thought about it and nodded. ‘It was Anna’s magic flannel. She wiped my head with it and I felt better. Do you have a magic flannel?’
‘All out of magic.’
‘A song...the lully song...?’ She patted the bed beside her.
His expression as their glances connected dared her to comment. ‘Pink is your colour.’
Constrained by the presence of his niece, Cesare framed a neutral response. ‘If you want anything you know where I am.’
It was a dismissal and one Anna was only too happy to respond to. With a smile for Jasmine and a cold glare for the uncle, she turned to go.
‘No, I want you to stay too, Anna.’ Jasmine pouted.
Anna turned back with a sigh. ‘I don’t think there’s room. I’ll just go and—’
‘Here!’ Jasmine patted the spot to her right that was not occupied by her uncle. When Anna didn’t respond to the imperious direction the childish lips began to quiver. Anna broke at the first tear.
‘All right, until you fall asleep I’ll just lie here.’
I’m sharing a bed with Cesare Urquart. I bet not many twenty-something virgins can say that! She wondered what he’d say if he knew. Her ex-boyfriend Mark had been astonished and Anna suspected it had been the sheer novelty value of the prospect of having a virgin bride that had made him stop pressuring her for sex.
And she’d been relieved.
When he’d dumped her Mark had made several references to her frigidity in justification and Anna had not thought his comments unfair.
Then Cesare had kissed her.
‘No, don’t go, don’t leave me. Promise?’
Anna, lying rigid, conscious in every cell of her body of the man lying feet away, sighed. ‘I promise.’
Jasmine gave a little grunt of satisfaction and looked from her left to her right. ‘This is fun.’
Over the child’s head the two adults exchanged glances. The gleam of humour she saw in Cesare’s drew a reluctant half-smile from Anna before she realised what she was doing and lowered her eyelids and compressed her lips into a straight line. The last thing she wanted to feel for Cesare was a rapport of any sort. It was essential for her to see him, and think of him, as the enemy.