‘We need to get out of here, cara mia.’ Santino lifted his mouth from hers and whispered the words in her ear before he nipped her earlobe with his teeth.
She shivered with pleasure, but the spell he had cast on her broke, and reality hit like a sharp slap. It was bad enough knowing that his husky endearment was a lie and she was not his darling. But, worse still, they had been all over each other like a pair of teenagers while they’d been on the dance floor, in full view of four hundred or so party guests. Once again she was the centre of attention and it was a small mercy that the paparazzi were not around to snap pictures of her shameful behaviour. It was that thought that made her stiffen and pull out of Santino’s arms.
‘Aren’t you worried that some of the other guests might post pictures of us on social media?’ She was pleased that she managed to inject a note of mocking amusement into her voice to disguise the shame and hurt that coiled through her like a poisonous serpent. ‘And if the tabloids got hold of the photos I’m sure my father wouldn’t be too impressed, as he is paying you to keep me out of the limelight.’
Santino frowned. ‘Arianna...’
‘Leave me alone.’ Tears stung her eyes and she blinked hard. She would rather die than let him see that if he cut her she would bleed the same as any other mortal. She heard him swear, but she’d already spun away from him and was weaving a path through the crowded dance floor, heading for the exit.
Outside the front of the club the paparazzi had dispersed. Behind her she heard Santino say urgently, ‘Arianna, wait...’ But she ignored him and hurried away from the brightly lit street.
Humiliated and desperate to be alone, she headed past the harbour, which at the height of the summer was full of yachts and motor cruisers. As she walked farther away from the town, the clinking sound of the yachts’ rigging was a strangely mournful sound. A figure detached from the shadow of a doorway and walked past Arianna. She caught sight of the man’s face in the light from the street lamp and had an odd feeling that she had seen him before somewhere.
When she reached the little beach area at the far end of the harbour, she took off her high-heeled sandals and walked along the shoreline, where the waves rippled over her feet. Her lips were still stinging from Santino’s kiss and her insides squirmed as she recalled her wanton response to him. She hated him, she thought angrily, and she didn’t understand why he affected her so much.
‘Signorina, per favore, you have a light for my cigarette?’
The voice that came out of the darkness was strangely familiar. She whirled round to see the man who had passed her on the street a few moments ago. Now she recognised him as the jet-skier who had caused the accident the previous day. With him was a second man, and as the moon slid out from behind a cloud she realised that he was the steward from Jonny’s yacht who had made her feel uncomfortable.
‘No, I don’t smoke,’ she said loudly, hoping that there might be other people nearby who would hear her. The two men did not move away and Arianna’s heart beat a frantic rhythm in her chest with the realisation that she was alone on the dark, deserted beach. She stumbled as the waves swirled around the hem of her ball gown. The men were both stockily built and rough-looking, and when they moved menacingly towards her she took another step backwards into the sea. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded fearfully.
CHAPTER SIX
SANTINO’S FEET POUNDED on the road, echoing the pounding of his heart as he raced towards the harbour. He hadn’t seen which way Arianna had gone when she’d left the club, but he had been alerted by her scream, and as he ran he cursed himself for allowing her out of his sight. Again.
‘Arianna, where the hell are you?’
In the moonlight he saw her tearing across the beach and relief hit him like a punch in his gut. He jumped down onto the sand and ran towards her, catching her when she threw herself into his arms. Her breath came in harsh gasps and her slender body shook as she burrowed into his shirt front.
‘Cara, what happened?’ He slid his hand beneath her chin and tilted her face up. The shimmer of tears in her eyes tugged on emotions he’d buried inside him when he had stood at his mother’s graveside and vowed never to allow himself to care so deeply ever again.
She struggled to draw a breath. ‘Two men approached me, and one of them grabbed my arm, but I managed to get away. I hid behind some boats on the beach, and the men must have heard you shouting my name, and they ran off. He tore my dress.’ Arianna’s voice wobbled and Santino saw that the shoulder strap on her dress was hanging by a thread. Violent anger surged through him but he ruthlessly controlled it and stroked his hand over her hair as if he were soothing a frightened colt.
‘I’m sure the man who grabbed me was the jet-skier who ran into me and Hugo,’ she said shakily. ‘The other man works as a steward on Jonny’s yacht. I noticed yesterday that he kept staring at me.’
Santino peered across the dark beach. A storm was brewing and the moon had disappeared behind clouds. Luckily Arianna had managed to hide from the men. But the scar on the back of his neck prickled and his instincts warned him that her safety was still threatened. He held her tighter when he felt a shudder run through her.
‘Thank goodness you arrived when you did.’ She managed a faint smile and Santino was struck by her courage. He would have expected her to be hysterical, but although clearly shaken she remained calm. ‘It’s the second time in two days that you’ve rescued me. Maybe I do need a bodyguard to keep me out of trouble after all,’ she said ruefully.
His jaw clenched. He had promised Arianna’s father that he would not tell her about the plot to kidnap her, but he had compromised her safety. He could not risk taking her back to Villa Cadenza—and he was grimly aware that his lack of control when he had kissed her had sent her running out of the nightclub and into danger.
Pulling his phone from his jacket, Santino made a brief call to Paolo, an old friend from his childhood. Earlier in the day he had arranged for Paolo to bring his boat across to the Amalfi coast from Sicily in case the kidnap threat escalated and he needed to get Arianna away quickly. That scenario had just become a reality, and once again he was furious that he had allowed himself to be distracted from his duty of protecting her.
‘Come on, we should go,’ he told her, trying to hide his concern that the two men—maybe there were more of them—could be close by.
‘I left my shoes on the sand.’ She resisted his attempt to lead her away from the beach. ‘They’re designer and cost a fortune. Why can’t I go and find them? The men have gone, and I don’t suppose they meant any harm. I allowed my imagination to run away with me,’ Arianna argued when he clamped his arm around her waist and half-carried her along the jetty, past the boats moored on either side.
Behind him Santino heard the screech of tyres on the road, and when he looked back over his shoulder he saw four men jump out of a car and sweep a powerful flashlight over the boats in the harbour. He swore. ‘Forget the damned shoes. We need to go now.’
‘Go where?’ Arianna’s eyes were huge in her pale face when he halted next to a motor cruiser. ‘Santino, what is going on? I’m not getting on a boat. I want to go back to Villa Cadenza.’
‘It’s too dangerous for you to return to the villa.’ He heard footsteps walking fast along the jetty and realised he had no choice but to act. ‘Cara, you have to trust me,’ he said before he scooped her off her feet and leapt aboard the cruiser with her in his arms. Paolo had already untied the ropes that secured the boat to the jetty and was waiting in the cockpit with the engine running. Santino called to him, and moments later the boat headed towards the harbour exit.
‘Put me down!’ Arianna thumped her fists on his chest when he carried her down the steps into the salon. He swore as he deposited her on the sofa.
‘Take it easy, you little wildcat.’
The gold flecks in her eyes gleamed with temper. ‘What do you mean
“take it easy”? This evening I have been physically assaulted by two strangers and kidnapped by my bodyguard.’
Santino dragged his gaze from the jerky rise and fall of her breasts framed so perfectly by her gold dress. ‘I’m not kidnapping you,’ he said gruffly. ‘I’m taking you to my home in Sicily where I will be better able to protect you from the mafia gang who are determined to kidnap you and demand a multi-million-pound ransom from your father for your release.’
She stared at him, the disbelief on her face turning to something warier when he held her gaze. ‘That story sounds very far-fetched.’
‘Why? Your father is immensely wealthy and your regular appearances in the tabloids made it easy for the gang to track your whereabouts. They have watched you for more than a year and know that you spend every summer in Positano. They know who your friends are, and one of the gang applied for a job as a steward on your friend Jonny’s yacht. When you went out on the jet-ski yesterday, the steward alerted the other gang members, who were on a boat near to where the Sun Princess had dropped anchor.’
‘How do you know all this?’ Arianna bit her lip, drawing Santino’s attention to her mouth, and he remembered how soft it had felt beneath his when he’d kissed her. Adrenalin was still pumping through his body, heightening his senses and inflaming his desire for her.
Cursing silently, he stripped off his jacket and loosened his bow tie before he crossed the salon to the bar. ‘I don’t know about you but I could do with a drink.’ Alcohol might anaesthetise him to her sensual allure.
She shook her head when he held up a bottle of whisky. ‘Could I have some water, please?’
He took a bottle of water from the fridge, poured himself a large whisky and walked back to sit down next to her on the sofa that ran along one wall of the salon. The single malt was smoky and mellow, and he took a long sip.
‘I found out about the plot to kidnap you while I was working undercover to infiltrate a gang of drug smugglers in southern Italy. The authorities were unable to contact you to warn you of the threat, so they alerted your father, and Randolph subsequently hired me as your bodyguard. The Italian police are doing their best to hunt down the gang members and arrest them, but until that happens you are in danger.’ He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘The best way I can protect you is to hide you in Sicily where the kidnappers won’t think of looking for you.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ She looked stunned, but almost immediately her chin came up and she glared at him. ‘You had no right to keep that information a secret from me.’
‘Your father thought it best that you did not know. He was concerned about how you would cope with the kidnap threat because he thinks you are emotionally fragile following the drug overdose you took a year ago.’
‘I did not take an overdose,’ she said sharply. ‘At least, not the way my father implied.’ The gold flecks in her eyes flashed again. ‘I accidentally took too much of a strong flu remedy and was admitted to hospital after the housekeeper found me unconscious. I ended up in intensive care when I developed pneumonia. I was in hospital for five weeks, including for my birthday, but Randolph didn’t visit or phone me once. I doubt he was even aware of how ill I was.’
The tremor in her voice tugged on something deep inside Santino that he was determined to ignore. He tore his gaze away from Arianna’s mouth and drained his glass before he stood up and went to pour himself another drink.
‘My father’s indifference was proof, if I’d needed it, that he doesn’t care about me,’ she said dully.
‘If that was true, why did he hire me to be your bodyguard?’
‘If I was kidnapped it would create negative publicity likely to affect the value of Fitzgerald Design’s shares when the company is floated on the stock market. Also, my father would loathe having to pay a ransom. Money is the only thing he cares about.’ Her mouth trembled and she quickly pressed her lips together. ‘I’m not even certain that he would pay the kidnappers to secure my release.’
‘Of course he would,’ Santino said roughly. ‘Your father is not an ogre.’
‘I recently discovered that he had bribed my mother not to seek custody of me after my parents divorced. Not because he wanted me, but because he is obsessively controlling.’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Randolph can be charming when he wants something. It would certainly suit him to hire an ex-SAS serviceman to foil a plot to kidnap the daughter he regards as a nuisance.’ Her expression became speculative. ‘I would be interested to know just how my father persuaded you to take the job of my bodyguard.’
She jumped to her feet and her temper exploded. Even the gossamer layers of her gold dress seemed to shimmer with fury. ‘You should have told me the truth instead of treating me like a child.’
‘You behaved like a child,’ he countered harshly, trying to ignore the stab of guilt in his gut that she was right. ‘You were determined to defy me.’
‘Because I believed you had been sent by my father to control me. And maybe that is the truth here. I only have your word that a mafia gang are plotting to kidnap me.’
‘What do you think the men on the beach wanted, Arianna?’
She paled, and guilt corkscrewed through him again. She had been through enough tonight, and he didn’t know why he felt an overwhelming need to take her in his arms and comfort her. ‘I can show you the email I received earlier this evening from the Italian police,’ he said. ‘I thought I recognised one of the stewards on Jonny’s yacht. The police ran a check on him and confirmed that he is one of the gang members.’
‘I see.’ She sank down onto the sofa as if her legs would not hold her up. Her teeth gnawed her lower lip, making him want to lean forward and soothe the place with his tongue. She had driven him crazy all evening when he’d watched her dance with an endless stream of young men at the party. Popinjays all of them, insulated from the harsh realities of life by wealth and privilege, as Arianna herself was. It was odd, then, his idea that she did not fit in with her crowd of friends. That sense of alienation was something Santino remembered when his family had moved from Sicily to a small Devon village.
He swirled the amber liquid in his glass and asked himself why he was looking for hidden depths to Arianna that might indicate there was more to her than the spoilt party princess and tabloid darling. Why did he even care? He frowned. The insights she’d given about her relationship with her father had been surprising. Could it be that her attention seeking was a deliberate ploy to disguise the vulnerability that he’d glimpsed occasionally?
Annoyed by his train of thought, and more by his damnable fascination with her beautiful body, he stood up. Arianna was searching for something in her evening purse and pulled out a packet of pills.
‘They’re painkillers,’ she explained when his eyes narrowed. ‘I suffer from migraines, often brought on by stress,’ she said pointedly. ‘Do you have any idea how long I’ll have to stay in Sicily?’
He shrugged. ‘It could be a few weeks before the Italian police are able to arrest all the gang members.’
‘Weeks! I assumed it would be a matter of days. It’s crucial that I return to London by the middle of September for Fashion Week.’
‘Your attendance at a fashion show is, of course, crucial,’ he said sardonically. ‘I’ll tell the police they need to work faster so that your hectic social life isn’t disrupted.’
As Santino strode up the steps and onto the deck, he wondered why he had thought that there might be more to Arianna than vanity. She was a beautiful, empty shell, and he couldn’t understand why he was disappointed or what he had hoped for.
He stepped into the motor cruiser’s cockpit and chatted with Paolo. It was good to catch up on news about old friends, and he admitted to himself that he was glad of an excuse to return to Sicily. His family home, Casa Uliveto, was the only thing that he permitted himself to love, apart from his sister.
Santino regarded the first fifteen years of his life as a golden time before everything had changed. His mother had died and his father had sunk into a deep depression. It had scared him when he was a teenager to see how love and grief had destroyed Antonio. In truth the idea that love could have such a powerful effect still scared him far more than when facing his own mortality on the battlefields in Afghanistan.
Restlessly he headed back down to the salon, assuring himself that this need he had to be near Arianna was simply because she was his responsibility. His mouth twisted as he thought how much she would hate that. Her fierce independence surprised him as much as her fiery temper excited him. She was beautiful when she was angry and exquisite when she was asleep. Santino came to an abrupt halt in the doorway of the salon and stared at her slender form stretched out on the sofa.
She was lying on her side and the upper slopes of her breasts were pushed above the neckline of her dress, reminding him of perfect, round peaches that he longed to taste with his tongue. The side split in her long skirt had fallen open to reveal one slender, silky-smooth thigh. Her sensuality called to him like a siren’s song, but the way she slept with her hand tucked beneath her cheek and her lips slightly parted was curiously innocent.
Even while Arianna was asleep she sent out conflicting messages, Santino thought grimly. Was she the shameless It Girl who played to the paparazzi? Or was that the lie, and was the ethereal creature who aroused his protective instincts—and aroused a lot more besides, he acknowledged self-derisively—the real Arianna Fitzgerald?
He looked over at the bar. The single malt offered a tempting escape from the mess inside his head but he resisted. Memories of seeing his father slumped in a chair, surrounded by empty cider cans and too drunk at three o’clock in the afternoon to be able to collect Gina from school, had taught Santino that alcohol did not provide salvation. He picked up his jacket and draped it over Arianna to keep her warm—not to save himself from the temptation of her delectable body.
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