Invitation from the Venetian Billionaire

by Lucy King

  ‘Until today.’

  Not even today, in all honesty. But the Finn-lined walls of his house in the Venice lagoon had been closing in on him and he hadn’t been able to stand the not knowing any longer. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So, having spent three months recovering from an accident that must have been pretty severe if it did that much damage, you travelled to Finn’s house with the intention of meeting him and then you left, without actually having done so.’

  ‘Yes.’

  She tilted her head and her gaze turned probing. ‘A bit strange, after going to all that effort, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, feeling a flicker of unease spring to life in his gut. ‘Simply a change of plan.’

  ‘Aren’t you at all curious about him?’

  Yes, very, was the answer that immediately came to mind before he shoved it back in the cupboard in his head where it belonged. ‘No.’

  ‘He’s a good man.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’

  ‘So why aren’t you interested?’

  ‘I don’t really have the time.’

  ‘Even if that was true, you should make time for family.’

  ‘Do you make time for yours?’

  ‘We’re not talking about mine,’ she countered swiftly, and he could practically see the barriers flying up.

  ‘I’ll take that as a no.’

  ‘You can take it any way you like,’ she said with a defensiveness that suggested he’d hit the nail on the head.

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘Not in the slightest.’ She leaned forward and regarded him shrewdly. ‘And you know what? I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you’d have made such an arduous journey the minute you could just to confirm a suspicion. If that was all you wanted to do you could have called. Or even emailed.’

  ‘I employ a driver and own a plane,’ he said in a deliberate attempt to draw her attention away from her more disconcerting observations while the discomfort inside him grew. ‘It wasn’t that arduous.’

  ‘What happened between me leaving you in Finn’s study and you deciding to simply walk out? Was it something I said?’

  It was what she’d said and the photos, the occasion and the relatives. The sudden, stomach-curdling feeling that if he stuck around his life might irrevocably change, and quite possibly for the worse. That was what had happened. But Rico didn’t want to rehash the events of earlier. He didn’t even want to have to think about them. And he’d had enough of this interrogation.

  He’d changed his mind about Carla’s suitability as a lover, he thought darkly, ignoring the stab of disappointment that struck him in the gut and focusing on the rapid beat of his pulse and fine cold sweat now coating him instead. When he’d first laid eyes on her, he hadn’t given much thought to her personality. He’d been too blown away by her looks and then too focused on distracting himself to properly acknowledge the dry, clever bite to her words.

  However, now there was no denying that she was far more perceptive and tenacious than he’d anticipated, and that was way more dangerous than it was intriguing. She had the potential to see too much. Demand too much. And she’d use every weapon in her no doubt considerable arsenal to get it. No matter how intensely he set about seducing her, she wouldn’t let up with the questions. If he showed any sign of succumbing to a moment of weakness she’d slip beneath his guard and have him revealing every secret he held, which simply could not happen.

  However much he wanted her, he’d never put himself in a position that would leave him defenceless and exposed and vulnerable to attack. He hated the thought of being manipulated and, even worse, being unaware of it. It had happened once before, when he’d been young and desperate and an easily exploitable target, and he had no intention of allowing it to happen again.

  So he’d feed her and deposit her at her hotel, bidding her goodnight instead of following her up as had been his original plan, and that really would put an end to today.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ he muttered as he picked up and scoured a menu that he knew off by heart. ‘We should order.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HAH...

  Carla sat back, not falling for the relaxed demeanour or the dazzling yet practised smiles for a moment. Rico was hiding something. She knew it. His tells were tiny and no doubt invisible to anyone whose job wasn’t all about perception and seeking out the truth behind the facade, but she’d caught the odd moment of tension that gripped his big, lean frame and the occasional flare of wariness in the depths of his eyes.

  She hadn’t missed the way he’d brushed off his accident as if it had been nothing more than a mild inconvenience when it had to have been anything but. Or how when she’d suggested he ought to make time for family he’d neatly turned it back on her. And the fact that he’d left unanswered her question about exactly what had made him leave Finn’s study had not gone unnoticed.

  He was no more an open book than she was and she may not understand why, but she did recognise what he was doing. Deflection and dissembling and carefully curating responses were tactics she deployed herself. She shared nothing of significance with the few men she dated. No details of her past, no hopes and dreams for the future and certainly no emotion. With information came power. With emotion came vulnerability, and the idea of giving a man that kind of control over her made her stomach roll. Could it be that Rico was protecting himself too?

  It was none of her concern. What was of concern was that she badly needed to know what hidden depths lay beneath the charming exterior and the dry words, and it looked as though his armour might be harder to penetrate than she’d assumed.

  But that didn’t mean she was going to give up. Oh, no. If she concentrated on what was at stake tonight—Finn and Georgie and their happiness—she would get what she wanted. She usually did in the end. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Rico she believed it was all about manipulation. She knew first-hand how powerful a tactic that could be and how easy it was to shape and mould people’s beliefs and behaviours, and she wasn’t unaware of the irony of having made a career out of it.

  However, turning a negative into a positive had been a major factor in getting over what had happened to her. She didn’t feel any pangs of guilt about what she did. Controlling the narrative was key, and all the weapons she had at her disposal to achieve this were entirely compatible with the openness, honesty and transparency that were so important to her.

  But manipulation probably wasn’t going to work here, she reflected, picking up a menu of her own as her stomach gave a rumble and just about managing to decipher it, since pasta was pasta in almost any language. Rico was too sharp, too wary. So maybe she ought to switch tactics. She’d gone for the jugular, hoping to catch him off guard, but perhaps some of that subtlety she’d espoused a moment ago would be more successful.

  As soon as they’d ordered, she’d start with some innocent questions. About his English, perhaps. Where he learned it and how it had got so good. About where he’d been raised and how he’d become involved in hedge funds. Surely he’d have no objection to providing that kind of basic information.

  In the event, however, she didn’t get a chance to find out. Their order was taken and the food arrived with impressive efficiency, and that was pretty much it for conversation. If Rico had been lacking in expansive answers before, he turned positively tight-lipped now. Her questions met with monosyllabic responses that dwindled into mutters, and eventually she gave up in frustrated exasperation.

  She’d never seen anyone so wholly focused on their food. Each bite seemed uniquely important, a moment to be relished and protected. His head-down, methodical approach to eating was intriguing. He was utterly absorbed in the process. He didn’t even notice when someone who’d clearly overdone the chianti bumped into her chair.

  Although, to be fair, she barely did either.
/>   For one thing her spaghetti alla puttanesca was exquisite, an all-encompassing experience of sublimely balanced flavours that exploded her taste buds and made her want to groan in pleasure. For another, with conversation non-existent, she’d found herself giving in to the temptation she’d been fighting all evening and studying him instead.

  Up until now she’d had to keep her wits about her and her mind off his many attractions, but now, unobserved, she could indulge her senses. Just a little and just for a moment, because he really was unbelievably gorgeous. Beneath the white cotton of the shirt he’d changed into at some point his shoulders were wide and strong enough to carry the weight of the world. When she looked at his hands, she could envisage them on her body, sliding over her hot, bare skin and making her tremble with need. Her own hands itched with the urge to ruffle his thick, dark hair and she had to tighten her grip on her fork.

  She badly wanted to know how he’d got the scar that cut a pale, jagged line at his temple and how he’d acquired the bump in his nose, the imperfections which only made him sexier. His easy, practised smile, which never quite made it to his eyes, and which she suspected was designed to both fool and conceal, was nevertheless still blinding enough to do strange things to her stomach, no matter how much she tried to resist.

  For several heady minutes while they ate in silence, Carla’s entire world, her focus and her attention, was reduced to the magnetising, enigmatic man sitting opposite her, so it was little wonder she’d been caught by surprise when that fellow diner had knocked into her chair.

  Little wonder too that she jumped and blinked when Rico’s voice cut across her surprisingly lurid thoughts.

  ‘Are you done?’

  ‘What?’ she managed, her voice strangely husky. ‘Oh. Yes.’

  ‘Would you like anything else?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ she said, mustering up a smile of her own and fighting back a blush at having been caught staring. ‘That was amazing. I’m stuffed.’

  ‘Then I’ll get the bill.’

  What? The bill? That was unexpected. He’d all but promised her a seduction. She’d been braced for it and equally prepared to use it as leverage. If she was being honest, she’d been looking forward to it. To the challenge, naturally. Instead, Rico was catching the eye of a waiter and calling him over with a quick scribble in the air, clearly keen to be rid of her.

  ‘Really?’ she said, unable to prevent the frown she could feel creasing her forehead.

  ‘It’s late.’

  True, but still. ‘So that’s it?’

  ‘What else were you expecting?’

  Good question. She was exhausted. She wasn’t here on a date. She should be glad that the chemistry between them had evaporated and he no longer wanted her in that way. It mattered not one jot why he’d changed his mind. She wasn’t interested in that in the slightest. Yet she was nowhere near achieving her mission. She’d barely even started. ‘You said dinner could prove interesting.’

  ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘I disagree.’

  ‘Too bad.’

  Okay. So that was a bit rude, but he both sounded and looked resolute and she never begged for anything these days. Adaptability and flexibility were key in her line of work and she had both in spades. She also had his number. Her flight was scheduled for tomorrow evening, so she had all day to bombard him with phone calls until he realised that he felt the way about the Finn situation she wanted him to. Now that she’d established contact she wasn’t going to give it up without a fight. Finn and Georgie deserved more than that, and coming all this way was not going to have been for nothing.

  ‘I see,’ she said, pulling herself together and aiming for breezy. ‘Well, then. Thank you for dinner.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ he said, his expression dark and unfathomable. ‘I’ll see you to your hotel.’

  So she could be subjected to further insult along the way? She didn’t think so. ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘I’d like to.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re a tourist and an easy target.’

  ‘I may not have been to Venice,’ she said a tad archly, ‘but I have travelled extensively, often alone. I am perfectly capable of getting myself to a hotel in a strange city.’

  ‘Humour me. Where are you staying?’

  ‘The first hotel that came up with any availability.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘I don’t remember the name,’ she had to admit, never more regretting that she didn’t have the answer to hand. ‘Unsurprisingly, when I was making plans this afternoon everything was a bit of a rush. The details are on my phone. There wasn’t a lot to choose from. Most places seemed to be fully booked.’

  ‘It’s high season.’

  ‘So I gathered.’

  While Rico paid the waiter, who then started whisking away their empty plates, Carla twisted to unhook her bag from the back of her chair. Her lovely, expensive designer bag that contained her passport, her cards, her cash, her keys and her phone—virtually her entire life.

  Her bag that was no longer there.

  It wasn’t under her chair, she realised, her blood running cold, her heart pounding and the food in her stomach turning to lead. It wasn’t beneath the table. It wasn’t anywhere.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Rico, who sounded as if he were six feet below the surface of a distant canal.

  ‘My bag,’ she said dazedly as her head began to buzz. ‘It’s gone.’

  * * *

  Once Rico settled on a course of action, nothing swayed him from it, and this evening was no different. He’d decided against seducing Carla and from that moment on he just wanted supper over and done with. Her effect on him was too hard to ignore and he was tired of fighting it.

  With every mouthful he’d taken, the usually delicious food tasting strangely of nothing, he’d been aware of her eyes on him, burning right through the layers of clothing and searing his skin. He was so attuned to her frequency he’d even caught the tiny variations in her breathing while she’d been studying him, which was as extraordinary as it was baffling when he’d never before experienced such awareness. But at least he’d had the consolation of soon being able to escape.

  Not so now.

  Fate clearly had other ideas for this evening.

  ‘What do you mean, gone?’ he asked, the unease that had faded with every passing second now slamming back into him with a vengeance.

  ‘Exactly that,’ she said, her face white, the green eyes that met his wide and troubled. ‘My passport, my keys, my money, my phone. Everything. Practically my whole life. Gone.’

  ‘How?’ he said sharply. ‘When?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She ran her hands through her hair, a deep frown creasing her forehead. ‘But someone bumped into my chair earlier, while we were eating. I thought they were drunk. It could have happened then.’

  Rico inwardly tensed, stunned disbelief ricocheting through him as the impact of her words registered. Someone had knocked into her? How the hell had he not noticed that? He, who’d once lived on the streets and still slept with one eye open. Who had razor-sharp instincts and missed nothing. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to be distracted by her focus on him, dannazione. He shouldn’t have been so determined to get through the evening as quickly as possible, to the extent that nothing else mattered.

  ‘Do you remember what they looked like?’ he asked, not liking one little bit the apparent dulling of the wits he’d relied on from the age of twelve.

  ‘Not really. I barely caught a glimpse of him. Or her.’

  ‘No CCTV out here.’

  ‘No... Damn...’ She took a deep breath and grimaced. ‘Look, I really hate having to ask, but could I use your phone? I need to find somewhere else to stay.’

  The reality of her situation—and his—hit him then and his j
aw tightened minutely. The only hotels available were no doubt less than salubrious and who knew how long it would take to find a vacancy? He knew what it was like to spend the night on the streets, cold and alone and afraid, and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Venice was labyrinthine and not all of it was pretty enough to end up on a postcard.

  He couldn’t abandon her, no matter how much he might wish to. Carla was here because of the challenge he’d issued and she was stuck because he’d allowed himself to be distracted and had lowered his guard. There was only one solution, and it didn’t appeal in the slightest, but this was the price he had to pay for both his impulsivity and his carelessness.

  ‘You’d better come home with me.’

  Carla went very still, her gaze jerking to his, the horror he saw there and on her face suggesting she was as keen on the idea as he was. ‘Oh, no, I really don’t think that’s necessary.’

  ‘You’ll be perfectly safe.’

  She shook her head, her blonde hair shimmering beneath the twinkling lights distracting him for a moment. ‘That’s not it.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  ‘I don’t much like being dependent on anyone,’ she said with a slight jut of her chin.

  No, well, he could identify with that. ‘I don’t much like having anyone dependent on me, but we don’t have a choice.’

  She stiffened and something flashed in the depths of her eyes. ‘I always have a choice.’

  ‘As I said, it’s high season. Everywhere decent will be full. There are areas of Venice you do not want to find yourself in, however briefly. It’s nearly midnight and you must be wiped out. I know I am.’ The exertions of today were taking their toll and his muscles were beginning to ache, so perhaps it was just as well he’d decided against seducing her, not that that was remotely relevant right now. ‘But you’re right. It is your choice. Here.’

  Fishing his phone out of his jacket pocket, he put it on the table and pushed it towards her. For several long moments Carla just stared at it warily, as if it might be about to bite, and then she sighed and nudged it back towards him, her shoulders falling as she gave a brief nod.