The Good, the Bad and the Wild

by Heidi Rice

  He pushed the drawer shut, a little too heavily, and steeled himself against the tinge of guilt when her eyes fluttered open.

  It was nearly eleven. He needed to get going. He had a lot to do today. Especially if he was going to meet her for that appointment he’d promised. Which, now he thought about it, he wished he hadn’t. Seeing her again probably wasn’t the smartest idea.

  She scrambled upright, her dazed expression finally focusing on him. The robe fell off one shoulder and she clutched the lapels together, covering herself too late to stop the shot of arousal hitting his crotch. He shoved his hands into the pockets of the sweatpants.

  She pushed the hair out of her face with an unsteady hand. ‘I-I’m sorry, I overslept,’ she stammered, her voice smoky with sleep. ‘I should…’ She glanced around, disorientated. ‘I should get going.’

  The apologetic tone kicked off his temper—which wasn’t in the best of conditions anyway. He’d had a total of four hours’ sleep and his body still seemed to have a mind of its own, despite the ice-cold shower he’d treated it to. ‘Stop apologising.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  He propped his butt against the dresser, braced his hands against the surface as he studied her. ‘You just did it again.’

  ‘Did what?’ she asked, chewing on her full bottom lip, and making him want to chew on it too.

  ‘Said sorry.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I see. I’m sor—’ She stopped.

  ‘See what I mean,’ he said sharply, irritated by the flicker of vulnerability and confusion in her eyes. ‘Why do you keep apologising?’

  ‘I’ve outstayed my welcome,’ she said at last, which was hardly an answer. She lifted the duvet and he got a good look at her slim calves as she put her bare feet on the floor, reminding him how naked she was under his robe. ‘I’ll get my clothes, then get out of your way.’

  ‘They’re over there.’ He nodded towards the window seat in the bay.

  He’d headed straight to the kitchen after waking up, to gulp down a gallon of water—but his throat had dried right up again when he’d spotted her clothing, draped across the living area. It had been hard as hell not to fantasise about taking the skimpy bit of lace and the heavy velvet gown off her as he’d gathered them off the floor and dumped them in the bedroom.

  Hence the freezing shower.

  ‘Thank you.’ She crossed the room to the bay. ‘Do you mind if I use your bathroom? I promise not to hog it this time.’

  As she bent to pick up the clothes the robe gaped, and he spotted her nipple, before she covered it hastily.

  ‘Sure,’ he murmured, determined not to ask the question making his head hurt or give in to the desire to tug the robe off, and make the ripe peak harden against his tongue.

  But then she walked past him and his hand shot out to grasp her forearm as the fresh sultry scent of her filled his nostrils. ‘Why me?’ he demanded.

  She jerked to a halt, her violet eyes huge. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Stop apolo—’ He cut off the surly command, seeing her flinch. ‘What made you pick me?’

  Her long lashes hit her cheeks as her gaze dropped away, but she didn’t answer.

  ‘To be your first?’ he prompted, although he was pretty sure from the nuclear blush fanning out across her chest and spreading up her throat she had understood the question.

  ‘I don’t…’ She hesitated, her chin still tucked against her chest. ‘When you looked at me that first time, it made me feel…’ She addressed her toes, the words trailing into silence.

  It made her feel what? But then he recalled how she had writhed in his arms when he’d undressed her, and figured he knew.

  Her chin lifted. ‘I think, possibly, on an entirely subconscious level, when I researched you, I must have decided you would be a good choice. Because you’re so assured, sexually. And I’m not.’

  When I researched you.

  He released her. Okay, that was intrusive.

  ‘Right.’ He dug his fists back into his pockets, trying to muster the required anger at what she’d revealed. Because if he’d understood her right—and, given his sleep deprivation and the fact that all of his blood had drained out of his head, that was debatable—she’d just told him she’d dug into his private life so she could engineer a meeting with him. But she sounded so earnest and sincere, those Bambi eyes were doing funny things to his equilibrium.

  ‘I need coffee.’ He scrubbed his hands down his face. ‘I’ll call you a cab while you’re in the shower,’ he grunted, not as enthusiastic as he should have been at the thought of getting rid of her.

  ‘A cab would be great, thank you,’ she said, before she hurried away with her clothes.

  He frowned as he headed for the kitchen. He rarely did sleepovers, because he preferred not to deal with the morning after. And the demands on his time that inevitably followed.

  The fact that Eva Redmond hadn’t made a single demand—hadn’t even seemed surprised when he’d offered to call a cab—should have pleased him. It didn’t.

  He’d made a rash decision, and led with his lust instead of his common sense last night. So why was he so tempted to make another one this morning?

  He emptied the coffee pot, started going through the ritual of brewing a fresh pot. Time to mainline caffeine, before he lost his mind completely and invited her to stay for breakfast… So he could bombard her with all the questions that had kept him awake most of the night. And then sweet-talk her back into bed.

  Nick inhaled the first precious sip of scalding black coffee and tried to ignore the buzz of the mobile phone coming from Eva’s bag. He glanced down the corridor to the bedroom door.

  Where the hell was she? He wanted her gone before the last of his will power seeped into his pants. The ringing cut off, then started right back up again.

  He slapped the mug down and grabbed the bag. After rummaging for a few seconds trying to locate the phone, he dumped the contents onto the countertop. An array of female paraphernalia poured out: pens, a make-up case, a roll of antacids, a notebook, a sheath of papers, tissues, a cotton sweater. Finally he spotted the buzzing mobile under a file folder.

  Swiping it up, he clicked the answer button. ‘What?’ he barked into the receiver.

  There was a slight pause, then a succinct female voice asked, ‘Oh, hello. Is that Niccolo Delisantro?’

  ‘The name’s Nick,’ he corrected, but softened his tone, the woman’s precise English accent reminding him of Eva. ‘I take it you’re the busybody friend,’ he added, vaguely recalling the long, skinny girl in the blue dress from the previous evening.

  The woman laughed. ‘Correct. And being a busybody, I’m busy trying to find out where Eva is.’

  Leaning back against the countertop, he lifted his coffee mug to his lips, took another satisfying sip. ‘She’s in my shower,’ he said, the odd feeling of satisfaction coming from nowhere.

  ‘I see.’ The woman didn’t sound particularly surprised at the revelation. ‘Is she spending the day with you, then?’ she asked.

  His heart bumped. ‘No,’ he said, too quickly. ‘She’s leaving once she’s dressed.’

  There was a longer pause, then the woman came back on the line. ‘Could you ask her to give Tess a call?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Excellent. Thanks. It’s been nice talking to you,’ she said crisply.

  ‘Yeah.’ He clicked the phone off, dumped it back on the countertop. And glared at it. What was with the heart bump? He didn’t want to spend the day with Eva. Didn’t want to know her secrets. The sooner she left, the better.

  He contemplated the bedroom door again as he sipped the coffee, not even sure he could convince himself. What was it about her that made her different from all the other women he’d slept with? It had to be the whole virginity business. Somehow he’d got hung up on it. Crossing to the coffee maker, he refilled his cup.

  Snap out of it, Delisantro. You’re not thinking straight.

  This ended here. Now. No more
questions. And no more answers. It would only make her more of a distraction.

  He stared at the debris sprawled across the counter, briefly contemplated looking through her stuff. But then dismissed the thought. He ought to stick her things back in her bag. Snooping would imply a level of interest in her he didn’t have.

  Picking up the file folder, he started to shove it back in her bag, when he spotted the words typed neatly on the label stuck across the top: Delisantro/De Rossi.

  He lowered the mug, his heart beating right into his throat.

  What the…? Why did she have a file on him? And who was De Rossi?

  He flicked up the flap and peered inside, not caring any more about her privacy. Stapled to the top of a sheath of typed pages was an old press clipping. He recognised the grainy black and white photo at the centre of the layout instantly, even though he hadn’t seen it in more than twenty years.

  Coffee sloshed over the rim of his mug as his heart punched his larynx. He placed the mug on the countertop.

  The innocuous headline: ‘Family-Run Trattoria Brings Taste of Tuscany to Tufnell Park’ blurred as he stared at the picture of his family below it—or, rather, the people he’d thought were his family—standing outside the tiny Italian restaurant in North London where he’d grown up.

  There was his little sister Ruby, eight years old and already stunningly beautiful, showing off her best Sunday Mass dress while grinning precociously at the camera. He stood to her right, looking lanky and uncomfortable as he tugged at the starched collar and tie threatening to throttle him. And on Ruby’s left stood Carmine Delisantro, with the ready smile spread across his robust features Nick would always remember. A band of emotion tightened around his heart as he blinked, noticing that Carmine’s mane of hair was already thinning in his early thirties, and his head had been level with Nick’s. How could they have been the same height? He’d only been twelve when the photo had been snapped by a local journalist doing an article on the family restaurant. Always in his memory Carmine had seemed like a lion of a man, his warm, vocal presence so much larger than life.

  Dad.

  The word echoed in his head as his thumb touched the faded newsprint. The band squeezed painfully, but just as the guilt and regret threatened to choke him his gaze settled on the woman standing on Carmine’s other side in the far left of the picture, with her arm looped around her husband’s waist and her head tucked on his shoulder. Nick studied her striking face, her statuesque figure, the lush lips, the glorious waves of hair, so like his own, and those dark sultry laughing eyes that had held so many cruel secrets.

  Confusion and anguish washed over him, until the tide of grief turned into a wave of resentment.

  Isabella Delisantro. His mother.

  Eva paused at the entrance to the living room, not sure what to make of the scene before her. Nick stood with his back to her, his head bent. But why was her stuff strewn across the kitchen counter? Had he been going through her things? She tried to feel affronted, but all she could manage was dismay.

  However much she might have researched about him in the last fortnight, and however intimate they had been last night. She didn’t know him. And she knew even less about what to do in this situation.

  Why had he been so surly when she’d woken up? Was he just not much of a morning person? Or had she done something wrong? Something she was unaware of? Was he entitled to look through her stuff, because they’d slept together? Did it give him certain rights she didn’t know about? Because she’d never been in a relationship with anyone before, she didn’t know if the normal rules of privacy still applied.

  She was completely clueless about morning-after etiquette. She crossed her arms over her chest, desperately self-conscious about the plunging neckline of the velvet gown, and her total lack of relationship knowledge.

  ‘Um… Hi,’ she murmured, talking to Nick’s rigid back. ‘Did my bag explode?’

  He spun round, the hard glint in his eyes making her take an involuntary step back.

  ‘What’s this?’ The frigid tone of voice matched the glacial expression on his face. He held up the papers in his hand, and she recognised the contents from the De Rossi file.

  ‘Those are my research notes,’ she replied as the shiver of apprehension shimmered up her spine. If he’d seemed surly in the bedroom, he seemed coldly furious now.

  ‘Your research notes?’ His voice rose to a shout as he emphasised the angry words by slapping the papers down on the counter. She flinched, shocked by the barely suppressed violence in the gesture.

  He braced his palms on the countertop. ‘Who the hell are you? And who’s De Rossi?’

  She tensed. ‘I’m Eva Redmond. I work for Roots Registry.’ She cleared her throat, ashamed at the quiver in her voice. ‘I… I thought you knew. Vincenzo De Rossi, the Duca D’Alegria is our client. I emailed your agent, countless times.’ She’d only given minimal details, had intended to tell Nick the whole story face-to-face, but even so she’d assumed he knew who she was. Why she had wanted the appointment.

  ‘I don’t know any Duca D’Alegria.’

  ‘He’s an Italian duke, the last in the direct line of the house of De Rossi in the province of Alegria.’ She tightened her arms, trying not to be put off by the sharp frown on his face. ‘The duca’s main residence is the Alegria Palazzo on the banks of Lake Garda,’ she babbled on. She should have clarified the situation last night, before she’d got onto his bike. Why hadn’t she? Heat pulsed in her cheeks, swiftly followed by guilt. She knew why. And it had had nothing to do with her job. ‘The family owns sixty-thousand acres, a thriving olive pressing business, two vineyards and several properties in the Tuscan—’

  ‘Stop right there!’ He held up his hand to emphasise the point. ‘What the hell has any of this got to do with me?’

  ‘He’s your…’ She paused, her tongue going numb. He looked so angry. Resentment was rolling off him in waves. She couldn’t tell him the rest. Not like this. Not after what they’d done together. Maybe it hadn’t meant much to him, but it meant something to her. And however little she knew about him, she didn’t want to hurt him.

  He slapped his hand on the counter. ‘He’s my what?’

  ‘We have reason to believe…’ She swallowed, the sick feeling in her stomach surging up her throat. ‘We have reason to believe his son, Conte Leonardo Vittorio Vincenzo De Rossi, may have been your biological father.’ But the truth was there was no maybe about it. Having met the duca, and seen photos of his son, as soon as she’d got a good look at Nick Delisantro she hadn’t had a single doubt about his ancestry. ‘Which would make the duca your grandfather,’ she continued. ‘And you his only direct descendant.’

  She let out a breath, her throat aching at the thought of what might be going through his mind. About the man he had believed to be his biological father. The man he’d spent the first sixteen years of his life with.

  ‘I’m so sorry. I realise this news must come as a shock.’

  But he didn’t look shocked, she realised as his gaze bored into hers. In fact, he was displaying none of the reactions she had prepared herself for—shock, disbelief, confusion or, worse, hurt. Temper flashed once more in his eyes, and then his gaze raked over her. And all she saw was disgust.

  ‘So that’s his name. Leonardo De Rossi. Thanks,’ he said, contempt dripping from every syllable. ‘I’ve always wondered who my mother screwed.’

  Eva drew in a shaky breath. Not sure she’d heard him right. But how could she mistake the bitterness in his tone, or the look of derision now levelled at her?

  ‘And you’re on some kind of commission,’ he asked, but it didn’t sound like a question, ‘to locate me, right?’

  She shook her head. ‘I receive a salary, but the company does get a commission from our client, once he’s satisfied that you’re the baby mentioned in his son’s journal. Leonardo wrote a…’

  He flipped up a palm and she stopped in mid-sentence, the explanation dying on her lips. ‘Spar
e me the details. I’m not interested in the duca, or his son.’ He folded his arms over his chest, propped his butt against the countertop. ‘But I am interested in you.’ He flicked his gaze back over her figure. ‘You’re quite the little operator, aren’t you? I’ve got to admit, the virginity was a nice touch. It threw me off for a while.’ He huffed out a contemptuous laugh. ‘What were you doing? Saving it up for the perfect mark?’

  The lump of emotion swelled in her throat as the heat soared into her cheeks. He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant? That wasn’t possible. This wasn’t the man who had held her last night, whose arms she had slept in. Who had treated her with a care and consideration she knew now she probably hadn’t deserved. She opened her mouth, to explain. Then closed it again. He was looking at her as if she were scum. Worse than scum.

  ‘I don’t…’ She pushed the words out, nerves and guilt and horror writhing in her stomach like venomous snakes. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.’

  ‘Really?’ He laughed again, the harsh sound echoing against the room’s hard surfaces. He strolled easily round the counter. She stepped back as he approached, rubbed her hands over her upper arms, the heat of his temper searing her skin.

  ‘You can stop the innocent act now. I’m wise to it.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  He cupped her cheek, his rough palm cool against her burning skin. ‘Damn, but you’re good.’

  ‘I’m not…’ The denial caught in her throat. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, it isn’t true.’

  He wrapped his arm round her waist, jerked her against him. ‘You know what’s ironic?’ he murmured as his scent filled her senses, the outline of his arousal shocking her almost as much as the melting response at her core.

  She pressed her palms against his chest, tried to push away from him, but he only tugged her closer, buried his head against her neck.