He swung himself off the bed and pulled on his shorts, hardening his heart against her stricken expression. When had his heart got involved? he wondered blackly, feeling a beat of fear. He had decided a long time ago when his mother had died and his father had become a broken man that he was better off alone.
‘A few minutes ago you wanted to make love to me.’ Arianna’s voice pulled him from the past. ‘I didn’t think you would realise it was my first time, but I hadn’t expected it to hurt as much as it did,’ she admitted wryly.
Truly, she was going to kill him. ‘I don’t do love,’ he told her bluntly. ‘I wanted to have sex with you, and why wouldn’t I? You are beautiful, and I thought you were experienced.’ He tried to ignore his conscience that reminded him that he’d sensed an innocence about her that had baffled him.
He bent down to retrieve his shirt from the floor and pulled it on. When he turned back to face her he was relieved that she had tugged the sheet around her, hiding the temptation of her gorgeous body from his eyes, although nothing could erase the memory of how she had felt beneath him, so soft and pliant. Cursing silently, he strode across to the door.
‘I understand what has happened,’ he told her curtly. ‘It’s not uncommon for a client to develop a crush on the bodyguard assigned to protect them. It is my responsibility to take care of you until the kidnap threat is over. But you have a romanticised view of our relationship. Hopefully the situation will be resolved soon. I received an update from the Italian police that they are closing in on the gang, and when you leave here and return to your old life you will forget about me.’
‘Do you really believe that, Santino?’ From the other side of the room the gold flecks in Arianna’s eyes flashed fiery bright. She knelt up on the bed and lowered the sheet, baring her breasts. Tossing her hair back over her shoulders, she put her hands on her hips, and the sheet slipped down to reveal her slim thighs and the sexy triangle of tight curls that hid her femininity. ‘I know you want me.’
Despite himself, and his determination to resist her, Santino could not take his eyes from her. ‘Beautiful’ did not come near to describing her lush curves and the brazen, seductive promise of her exquisite body. But, as with everything to do with Arianna, that promise was a lie. She was innocent—or she had been, until he had taken her virginity, he thought grimly. Dio, she was something else for him to feel guilty about.
His muscles ached with tension as he fought an internal battle with himself. He could cross the room in four strides and pull her into his arms, finish what he had started. Temptation pulsed hard and hot in his blood but he fought it. It was his duty to protect her. From herself if necessary, and especially from him, because, whatever Arianna was looking for, Santino knew he could not give it to her.
‘You’re wrong,’ he told her impassively. ‘I want a woman who understands the concept of sex without strings. Not someone who is needy and immature and who is looking for some sort of father figure to give her the attention she craves.’ She blanched and he reminded himself that he was being cruel to be kind. The quicker he disabused Arianna of the idea that he was a heroic figure, the better for both of them. He stepped into the corridor and spoke to her over his shoulder. ‘I suggest you put your clothes on and we will forget that any of this ever happened.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE WAS SUCH an idiot! Fiery colour scorched Arianna’s cheeks, making her feel even hotter than she already was, squashed into the overcrowded carriage on the Tube. It was more than four months since Santino had rejected her and decimated her pride. It had taken a long time for her to scrape herself off the floor, and she still had regular flashbacks to how she had wanted to die of embarrassment when she’d dragged a sheet around her naked body after he had turned her down.
A few moments ago, the sight of a tall, dark-haired man standing on the station platform had made her heart lurch, until he had turned around, and her stomach had swooped with disappointment that it wasn’t Santino. She searched for his ruggedly handsome face everywhere, even though she knew it was pointless to look for him in London. Presumably he was at his villa in Sicily, or in Devon, where he had owned a delicatessen shop. He hadn’t told her what he did for a living since he’d sold the shop but maybe he had taken over his grandparents’ farm.
Her heart gave a pang as she remembered his sexy grin when he’d confessed that he hadn’t enjoyed milking cows. She had smiled back at him, her heart soaring because he’d shared something of himself with her, something that perhaps he had never told any of those women with whom he enjoyed sex without strings. She had stored every snippet of information she had learned about him in her mind, like a magpie hiding golden treasure in its nest. And at night her imagination ran riot as she pictured Santino’s naked body, a masterpiece of powerful muscles and satiny, olive-gold skin, his broad chest covered with whorls of dark hairs that arrowed over his flat stomach and grew thickly around the base of his manhood.
The train pulled into the underground station and Arianna was glad to escape from the carriage before the heat inside her made her combust. But she could not stop her mind flitting back to the awful, awkward days at Casa Uliveto when she had been desperate to avoid Santino. Forgetting what had happened between them was impossible.
In the past, when her friends had talked about sex, she had tried to imagine a scenario when she finally lost her virginity. Ever the romantic, she had dreamed of giving herself to a man she trusted, and she’d thought she had found that person. But Santino’s cruel rejection had blown apart her fantasy that he felt something for her. That he cared about her. He had reminded her that it was his job to protect her, and insisted that what she felt for him was a crush, as if she’d been a silly teenager mooning over pictures of her favourite pop star.
Repressing a shudder of shame, Arianna joined the queue of rush-hour commuters shuffling towards the escalator at London Bridge station. She checked the time, and her stomach nosedived as she realised that she was in danger of being late for the most important meeting of her life.
Her thoughts flicked back to Sicily. Thankfully her ordeal of living with Santino, and cringing with embarrassment whenever she’d walked into a room and found him there, had only lasted for a week. Early one morning he had knocked on her bedroom door, and she’d despised herself for the way her heart had leapt with hope that he had come to claim her because he could not resist her.
Instead he had informed her in a clipped voice that the Italian police had swooped on the mafia gang and arrested them. The kidnap threat was over, and he had chartered a private jet to take her to Positano or London, whichever she decided. It had been painfully obvious that he couldn’t wait for her to leave, and Arianna had told herself that she’d imagined she’d glimpsed a feral hunger mixed with regret in his eyes before he had turned and walked out of the room.
She snapped back to the present as she emerged from the station and was met by an icy blast of wind that carried a mixture of rain and sleet. December had heralded the start of winter, and her elegant champagne-coloured skirt and jacket and matching four-inch stiletto heels offered no protection against the elements. She regretted that she hadn’t taken a taxi across London, but now that she was living on a tight budget she couldn’t afford luxuries such as taxis.
Fortunately, The Shard was close to the station, and as she hurried towards the building’s entrance she looked up at the iconic skyscraper clad with glass that reflected the sullen grey skies above. Tiger Investments’ offices were on the seventeenth floor, and Arianna took a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves when she exited the lift into the company’s minimalist and very stylish reception area.
‘I have an appointment to see Rachael Martin,’ she told the stylish blonde receptionist after she’d introduced herself.
The young woman smiled. ‘I’ll let Rachael know you have arrived.’
While she waited, Arianna mentally ran through her pre
sentation. She had been contacted by Tiger Investments after she had applied for funding for her fashion business through an angel investor network. She knew that angel investors were essentially private individuals or companies who provided capital for new businesses in return for equity. This was her chance to secure money that she needed to cover the huge costs involved in showing her designs at London Fashion Week.
She wondered how Rachael Martin, who she assumed headed the investment company, had become a successful businesswoman. Not for the first time Arianna was beset by doubts that she could establish her own fashion label in a highly competitive market place. But a stubborn belief that her designs were fresh and innovative meant that she pinned a smile on her lips when she heard her name.
‘Miss Fitzgerald? I’m Rachael. If you would like to come with me, I’ll take you to your meeting.’ The woman who greeted her possessed a self-confidence that Arianna envied. She could do this, she told herself as she followed the other woman along a plush carpeted corridor, lifting a hand nervously to check that her chignon was in place before she stepped into a large room with glass walls and floor-to-ceiling windows. It was like being in a goldfish bowl, and heading straight for her was a predatory shark.
‘What are you doing here?’ Her heart slammed into her ribs as she stared at Santino. He looked different from the bodyguard she had known in Italy but no less handsome. Instead of jeans he wore a charcoal-grey suit, pale-blue shirt and a navy silk tie. The superbly tailored jacket emphasised the width of his shoulders and he was so devastatingly attractive in his formal clothes that she sucked in a sharp breath. ‘Don’t tell me that you work for Tiger Investments? The coincidence would be too ghastly,’ she murmured, striving to sound flippant to disguise her shock.
‘I own Tiger Investments,’ he corrected her coolly.
‘But... I thought that Rachael Martin...’ Arianna glanced over her shoulder and discovered that the other woman had left the room.
‘Rachael is my PA,’ Santino told her. ‘I asked her to arrange your visit because I thought you would refuse to meet me.’
In her mind Arianna pictured the tattoo of a tiger on Santino’s bicep. There had been a clue in the name Tiger Investments, but honestly she had never expected to see him again. Thinking of his tattoo evoked memories of his naked, aroused body, which did nothing to restore her composure.
‘You were right. We have nothing to say to one another.’ Disappointment thickened her voice with the realisation that Santino had brought her here on false pretences. ‘Is this another example of your cruelty—to get my hopes up that you would offer funding for my fashion company?’
His eyes narrowed on her face. ‘You gave yourself to me, cara. Don’t try to make out that you were a martyr,’ he said softly.
She flushed as erotic images swirled in her mind of his whipcord body poised above her and his erection pushing between her legs. Molten heat pooled low in her pelvis and she hastily dropped her gaze from his.
Santino walked over to the sleek black-and-chrome desk that took up the whole of one corner of the office, but instead of sitting behind it he leaned his hip against the top and indicated the chair in front of the desk. ‘Please, sit down—unless you prefer to stand while you give your presentation.’
‘Is there any point?’ Arianna felt a flare of frustration that she’d had a wasted journey. ‘I’m looking for at least five hundred thousand pounds to launch my business, and I doubt that the proceeds from the sale of your delicatessen in Devon would allow you to make that level of investment.’
‘My company, which traded under the brand name of Toni’s Deli, was valued at two hundred and seventy-five million pounds when I sold the business.’
She sank down onto the chair. ‘You owned the Toni’s Deli chain of shops? The brand is huge in the UK and Europe.’
He nodded. ‘I built the company up from one poorly performing outlet that my father had opened in Exeter to over two thousand stores in seventeen international locations. I’d dabbled in investing in start-up companies, and eventually sold the delicatessen business so that I could set up Tiger Investments. The question is not whether I have enough money to invest in your business,’ he said sardonically. ‘You will have to prove to me that you have a product and business strategy that I believe will be successful.’
He straightened up, but instead of moving to sit behind his desk he pulled up a chair next to Arianna. She felt a betraying heat spread across her cheeks. Being this close to him made her heart race, and the spicy scent of his aftershave evoked memories of when she had been in his arms and he had kissed her with fierce passion. Seeing Santino again had been shocking enough, and learning that he was a millionaire entrepreneur had completely thrown her.
She fired up her laptop and opened the PowerPoint file containing her pitch deck that Jonny had helped her to create for her fashion label, Anna. ‘You want to give a brief overview of your business model. Ten to fifteen slides that will make a great first impression,’ Jonny had told her. ‘Don’t read from your script or you’ll sound like a robot. And make eye contact with the person you are hoping to impress.’
No doubt it was sound advice, but Arianna’s mind had gone blank. She bit her lip when she accidentally brought up the wrong file. ‘Sorry, just bear with me,’ she muttered. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Santino let alone make eye contact with him. The first slide flashed up on the screen and she dropped her pages of notes on the floor. Flustered, she leaned down to pick them up at the same time as he did, and their hands brushed, sending a sizzle of heat through her.
She had assumed that nothing could be more humiliating than when she had offered her body to Santino only for him to tell her that she was needy and immature. But she had been wrong, Arianna thought miserably fifteen minutes later, when she had finished delivering her presentation and stumbled to answer the questions he fired at her. She was angry with herself for making such a hash of it, and his silence shredded her nerves even more. ‘Well, what do you think?’ she asked nervously.
‘I think that was the worst presentation I’ve ever sat through.’ His blunt reply made her heart sink and, when she forced herself to look at him, she saw impatience glittering in his green eyes. ‘Your marketing skills are, at best, questionable, and you seem to know nothing about PR and creating a brand.’
He leaned back in his chair and hooked his ankle across his other thigh, looking the epitome of a hard-nosed, highly successful entrepreneur. ‘Your only saving grace,’ he said curtly, ‘is that I believe you have a good product. My sister saw your Pre-Fall collection last month at a show arranged by the British Fashion Council to present emerging designers. I think I mentioned that Gina is a senior buyer for a New York department store. She knows the fashion industry, and she was genuinely excited by your designs.’
Arianna’s spirits, which had sunk to the pointed toes of her designer heels, cautiously lifted. ‘Does that mean you will consider investing in Anna?’
* * *
Santino stood up and strode over to the window. The usually spectacular view across the city was shrouded in thick cloud, and the rain beating against the glass made him long for the heat and sun of a Sicilian summer’s day. But his beloved Casa Uliveto was no longer the restful bolthole where he could relax.
After he had sent Arianna away he’d assumed that he would forget about her fairly quickly. But she had constantly been in his thoughts, and at night he’d been kept awake by memories of how she had knelt on the bed—naked and so goddamned beautiful that he ached thinking about her—and offered herself to him. There had always been a danger, when he’d arranged to meet Arianna today, that he would think with a certain part of his anatomy that was as hard as a spike beneath his trousers, rather than with his head, he acknowledged.
Her business plan was laughable, and he should send her packing, but his instincts told him that her fashion label Anna had huge potential.
He had noticed Arianna’s name when he’d reviewed start-up companies on an angel investor network. When his sister had come to London last month he had asked Gina to attend the Pre-Fall shows and give an opinion on Arianna’s designs.
‘She is the most exciting new designer this year, perhaps this decade,’ Gina had assured him. ‘Arianna Fitzgerald has phenomenal talent, which I suppose is not surprising, when you consider that her father is one of the greatest fashion designers in the world.’
Santino swung round from the window and studied Arianna, irritated by his body’s involuntary reaction to her as desire corkscrewed through him. She was even lovelier than he remembered. His eyes were drawn to her long legs encased in sheer tights. Her vertiginous heels added at least four inches to her height. The fitted jacket of her elegant suit emphasised her narrow waist that he remembered he could span with his two hands. She had unfastened the jacket’s buttons, and her breasts were high and firm beneath her silk blouse.
So much for his belief that he had managed to get her out of his system, he thought grimly. One reason for meeting her had been to test his immunity to her sensual allure. The ache of his arousal was mocking proof that he had failed.
‘I don’t understand why your presentation did not include the fact that your father is Randolph Fitzgerald,’ he said abruptly. ‘Or for that matter why you are seeking investment in your business when your father could bankroll your fashion label.’
She stiffened at his mention of her father. ‘I’ve had no contact with Randolph since I returned to London, and he is not involved in any way in my business plans.’
‘Linking your fashion label to Fitzgerald Design would be an excellent way to promote Anna. It doesn’t make sense not to utilise your association with your father.’
‘No.’ Arianna jumped to her feet. ‘Anna is my label. The designs are entirely my work, and if I succeed it will be on my own merits, not because of who my father is.’
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