He took a step forward, his expression suddenly hard and threatening.
‘Be careful, Antonia!’ he growled. ‘As you undoubtedly realised, I was merely enjoying a joke with you. However, I really don’t care to be talked to in such a disrespectful manner.’
‘Tough!’ she retorted, suddenly deciding that she’d had quite enough of this unbelievably tiresome Italian for one day.
‘Although, believe me, if I was in frantic need of a man,’ she added with another, high-pitched laugh, ‘I sure as hell wouldn’t waste any time chasing after an uptight male chauvinist such as yourself!’
In the dead silence which followed, she was aware of Lorenzo Foscari’s quick, sharp inhalation of breath, a dark flush sweeping over his cheeks.
‘Oh, really?’ he muttered savagely. His blue eyes, like chips of tungsten steel, bore down into hers as his hands came down on her shoulders.
‘OK let’s cool it, huh?’ she muttered, quickly pulling herself together. What on earth was she doing, quarrelling with a client like this? Even if the gentleman concerned was enough to try the patience of a saint, her behaviour was well out of order.
But, as Antonia discovered for the second time that evening, she was guilty of seriously underestimating an opponent.
Despite always priding herself on her quick reactions, she realised that she’d been completely outclassed and outgunned, as Lorenzo suddenly moved at what seemed to be the speed of light. A nanosecond later, she found herself firmly clasped by one steely, unyielding arm to his hard, tall body, while he placed his other hand firmly beneath her chin.
Tilting her face up towards him, she barely had time to become aware of his blue eyes glittering down at her before his dark head was descending swiftly towards her—his mouth possessing her lips in a kiss of devastating intensity.
CHAPTER THREE
SHOCKED and stunned by the totally unexpected swiftness of Lorenzo’s action, Antonia took a second or two to begin trying to struggle free from his strong arms.
Bitterly ashamed of being such an idiot, and having stupidly underestimated both this man’s strength and his likely speed of movement, she gradually realised that the hand firmly placed on her back was now beginning to slide slowly and seductively down over her body.
The hardening muscles of his strong thighs, clasped so tightly to her own, suddenly prompted a fierce clench of sexual awareness deep in the pit of her stomach, which left her feeling weak and trembling.
She had no idea of what was happening to her. But it was clear that they were now both in a high state of arousal. As he ruthlessly forced her lips apart, the moistly erotic heat of his tongue, savagely exploring the sweet, inner softness of her mouth, was driving her almost wild with excitement.
As if he sensed her bewilderment and confusion, her inability to cope with the sudden flash-flood of hot desire scorching through her veins, his mouth relaxed its hard pressure as his hands travelled slowly and erotically over the soft curves of her body. She was dimly conscious of the rapid, deep thudding of his heartbeat, of her nostrils filled with the musky scent of his cologne, and the warmth of his mouth, now moving softly and seductively over her quivering lips.
It was as if time was standing still and she, hopelessly trapped by her own emotions, was utterly powerless. She seemed to have no choice, but to respond to the increasingly fiery tide of sensual excitement and sheer naked lust pounding and rampaging through her trembling body.
Only when she became aware that he was unzipping her dress, her bare flesh quivering with delight beneath the soft, warm touch of the fingers trailing down her spine to undo her bra strap, did harsh reality begin to break through the thick mist of overwhelming desire clouding her mind.
Oh, my God... what on earth was she doing? This... this man was a client, for heaven’s sake!
It seemed to take the most enormous effort. But at last she managed to force herself to make a serious, determined attempt to break out of his embrace. Struggling free, she raised her hands to push him away as, at the same time, she threw herself sharply backwards. Only to have the breath almost knocked out of her trembling, shaking body as her spine jarred painfully up against the wall by the door.
‘Ouch!’ she gasped, wincing as she fought to regain her breath for a moment.
He frowned, taking a step forward. ‘Are you all right?’
‘Keep away from me!’ she ground out, turning away to frantically adjust her bra and zip up her dress, before swiftly turning back to confront the man, standing only a foot or so away from her shaken figure.
‘What ...what do you think you were doing?’ she demanded, glaring at Lorenzo Foscari, who was now gazing enigmatically down at her through his half-closed, heavy eyelids.
But, as her breathless voice seemed to echo around the large room, the foul man merely gave a low rumble of sardonic laughter.
‘I think you have a slight problem with your English grammar,’ he drawled coolly. ‘Surely, that question should have been phrased “What do we think we’ve been doing”?’
‘Singular or plural—who cares?’ she snapped, not only very angry with him, but also raging at her own stupidity, in having responded so blindly and helplessly to this man’s overwhelming attraction.
‘And I note that you haven’t even had the grace to apologise for your disgusting behaviour!’ she added, almost beside herself with fury. Because, while she was still having trouble trying to pull herself together, the rotten man was coolly standing there without a hair out of place.
‘Apologise?’ He raised a dark, quizzical eyebrow. ‘My dear Antonia, why on earth should I apologise for that delightful kiss? In fact, I was entranced by your enthusiastic response to my embrace. Are you quite sure, that you don’t want to guard my body, tonight?’
‘Oh—shut up!’ she ground out through clenched teeth, having no problem in noting that his blue eyes were gleaming with mockery and laughter. However, there was clearly no point in prolonging this embarrassing scene one minute longer than she had to.
‘I’m now going to walk out of here,’ she told him coldly as she turned to leave the room. ‘And, if I do not receive your unreserved apology by nine o’clock tomorrow morning I will regard our contract as having been terminated.’
Unfortunately, what should have been a dignified exit was spoiled as, for some unaccountable reason, her coordination seemed to have been shot to pieces.
Fumbling with the handle, as she struggled to open the door leading out of the room, she could feel her face burning with shame and humiliation at the low rumble of his sardonic laughter—which was still echoing loudly in her ears long after she’d slammed the front door of his suite of rooms behind her.
Antonia gave a heavy sigh. It was no good. After spending two hours tossing and turning in the darkness of her luxurious bedroom, it was clearly time she gave up the unequal fight to seek oblivion in sleep.
After turning over to switch on her bedroom light, she threw back the bedclothes before slipping on a light dressing gown and padding barefoot across the thick-pile carpet towards the large sitting room of the suite—a mirror image of that occupied by her client next door.
No one could accuse his insurance company of being cheeseparing, she thought, gazing around the large room as she lifted the phone to order a large pot of soothing tea.
Lorenzo Foscari must be a very important client if they were prepared to spend this sort of money on a bedroom suite for his bodyguard. In fact, the only difference between her suite and Lorenzo’s was that her sitting room was now fitted out like an office, designed for use as a communications centre during daylight hours.
Since she was still wide awake at this unearthly hour, it might be a good idea to check the situation with one of the guards whom she’d stationed outside Lorenzo’s suite.
‘No problems, Tony,’ the man confirmed, his voice sounding tinny and ghost-like through the ear-piece of her walkie-talkie. ‘It’s as quiet as the grave o
ut here.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. Oh, by the way,’ she added quickly, ‘I’ve just ordered a pot of tea from Room Service. So a waiter will be coming along the corridor any minute now. OK?’
‘Yeah, no problem. But you’d better try and get some sleep,’ he warned her. ‘A lack of shut-eye isn’t good news in our business.’
‘Tell me about it!’ she muttered grimly, before switching off her handset.
Her colleague had been quite right, Antonia told herself some time later as she poured herself a cup of hot, sweet tea.
Spending a large part of the night wide awake was definitely a bad move. Especially for someone who was expected to be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and fully alert the following day. In fact, she’d never before had a problem in immediately falling asleep, just as soon as her head hit the pillow.
But then, she reminded herself with a heavy sigh, she’d never experienced such difficulties with a client as she had with Lorenzo Foscari. And it was deeply galling to realise that most of the problems had been her own stupid fault.
There was no point in trying to fool herself. It was plain that not only had she behaved in a totally amateurish, unprofessional manner, but she’d also made just about every mistake in the book.
For instance, it had been incredibly foolish of her to even think of deliberately taunting the man. Especially as she already knew that he was both explosive and unpredictable. And then to have allowed herself to be provoked into bluntly telling him where to get off had been the height of folly.
What made the situation far worse was the fact that if she’d really tried Antonia knew that she could have broken free of his embrace. Despite the fact that Lorenzo was clearly very fit and agile, there was no way he could have kept her imprisoned in his arms for very long. Not if she’d been truly determined to escape.
But, despite all her training, and the instinctive knowledge that kneeing him in the groin, while not exactly ladylike, would undoubtedly have proved highly effective, she’d done nothing of the sort.
Giving a low moan of shame and mortification, Antonia slumped weakly back against the soft cushions of the large sofa. Staring blindly up at the ceiling, she desperately tried to make some sort of sense of that appalling, hideously embarrassing episode in Lorenzo’s suite, only a few hours ago.
How could she have become so totally lost to all sense of time and place? How could she have allowed herself to be so easily seduced? Not to mention the shame of being caught completely off guard, and at the mercy of her own dangerous, swirling vortex of emotions...?
However, even while freely admitting her own crass stupidity, she wasn’t prepared to excuse Lorenzo from blame. Even if he had been provoked, she had no idea what had impelled him to take his revenge by kissing her. It seemed such a strange, bizarre decision that she couldn’t seem to make any sense of it.
But she couldn’t spare any time sorting out his psychoiogical problems. Not when there was still her own problem hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles.
What in the heck was she going to do now?
Unfortunately, never having allowed herself to be involved in this sort of disastrous situation before, she wasn’t sure how best to resolve it. Although maybe her ultimatum, issued to Lorenzo in the heat of the moment, had been the right decision, after all? Because until they sorted matters out between them there was no way she and Lorenzo could possibly co-exist in such a close, personal relationship as bodyguard and client.
All in all, it didn’t look as if she had any alternative but to immediately resign from the job. Which, to be honest, could only be a great relief. So, perhaps her best course of action would be to inform James Riley, first thing in the morning, that she was no longer prepared to carry out the assignment.
It was going to be hugely embarrassing, of course. Particularly as Lorenzo Foscari was obviously going to make as much trouble for her as he could, with both his insurance company and the Wordwide agency.
You’ll just have to tough it out, she told herself with a heavy sigh. There wasn’t anything she could do about that. As she’d already decided not to take on any more jobs as a bodyguard, any gossip or scandal wasn’t likely to affect the various training courses she was running through her own private security firm.
She had to regard this assignment as just an unfortunate blip, Antonia told herself firmly. Yes, there was no doubt that she’d behaved like a idiot and badly mishandled the whole situation. But it was now time to draw a line firmly under the whole, unfortunate episode—and look forward to a brighter future.
However, as she rose to her feet and walked slowly back through the large sitting room into her bedroom, she had a nasty feeling that extricating herself from all contact with Lorenzo Foscari wasn’t going to be quite as easy and trouble free as she hoped.
As it turned out, Antonia’s forecast proved to be both right—and wrong.
James Riley was, of course, totally unhelpful and unsympathetic when she contacted him early the next morning. ‘You can’t do this to me, Tony!’ he groaned down the phone.
‘I’m really sorry...’
‘You must know that it’s the busiest time of the year for the agency,’ he grumbled. ‘There’s the tennis at Wimbledon, horse racing at Ascot, the Henley Regatta... you name it, we’ve got clients flying into London from all quarters of the globe. And they all expect a first-class service from us.’
‘Yes, I know, but...’
‘There’s no way I’m prepared to let you off the hook,’ he continued grimly. ‘We signed a contract, right? And if you even think of trying to wriggle out of it I’ll make certain that your name is mud in this business. Got the picture?’
‘Don’t try and blackmail me, James,’ she retorted angrily. ‘This isn’t just a case of me being petty, or difficult. In fact, and to be entirely blunt, it was a really stupid decision on your part to give this guy a female bodyguard. Believe me, he went completely bananas the first moment he set eyes on me! And, after our final confrontation last night, I can virtually guarantee that he’s going to insist on me being taken off the case.’
‘Oh, yeah...what did happen last night?’
‘That’s none of your business!’ she snapped, only too well aware of James’s long nose twitching at the thought of a delicious bit of gossip with which to regale their mutual colleagues. ‘You can just take it from me that Signor Foscari will be every bit as anxious as I am to terminate my appointment.’
James Riley’s heavy sigh of defeat was clearly audible down the line. ‘OK, Tony. I’ll get on to the insurance company and see what I can work out. I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.’
Still feeling the effects of her sleepless night, Antonia munched a piece of toast as she paced angrily up and down the sitting room.
Unfortunately, as much as she would have liked to, there was no way she could just abandon her job. Until James came up with arrangements for her replacement, there was absolutely nothing she could do. In fact, having checked with her minders outside in the corridor that her client was currently enjoying a large English breakfast in his room, she had no choice but to posse herself in patience and wait for her release from an intolerable situation.
When James did ring her back, half an hour later, she was absolutely dumbfounded to hear that Lorenzo Foscari—far from demanding her instant dismissal—had apparently stated that he was perfectly content to retain her services as his bodyguard.
‘What? What on earth do you mean by “content”?’ she demanded incredulously.
‘I don’t know any more about this business than you do,’ James told her flatly. ‘I merely rang the insurance company and informed them of the situation. They contacted their client, and have just got back to me with his answer. So, as far as I’m concerned, my agency and the insurance company are fulfilling the terms of the contract—and it’s now up to you to do the same.’
‘But I can’t! I mean, the guy’s absolutely impossi
ble to deal with,’ she wailed. ‘And why the foul man wants to continue this stupid charade...’
‘I don’t want to know about your problems, Tony—I’ve got plenty of my own!’ James’s voice cut ruthlessly across her protest. ‘You’ve got a job to do. So get on and do it!’ he added, before putting down the phone.
‘Oh, great!’ she ground out, staring furiously down at the phone in her hand, before slamming it back down. It was all right for dames to wash his hands of the whole affair. But what was she going to do now?
After agitatedly pacing up and down the room a few times, Antonia realised that she was just going to have to bite the bullet.
Totally mystified as to why Lorenzo Foscari was, apparently, still prepared to accept her as his bodyguard, she nevertheless had every intention of laying down some hard, fast ground rules concerning their future relationship. Because if that awful man thought that she was prepared to put up with any more of his nonsense he definitely had another think coming!
Fully expecting to have to cope with the arrogant, sardonic character of last night, Antonia was surprised to be greeted by a cool nod of welcome as she marched determinedly into Lorenzo’s suite a few moments later.
‘Good morning, Miss Simpson,’ he drawled smoothly, putting down his newspaper and regarding her with an inscrutable, bland expression from his seat at the small breakfast table.
‘It’s about time that you and I had a good long talk,’ she announced firmly, having already decided that the sooner she took firm control of the situation the better.
‘Si, d’accordo,’ he murmured, calmly pouring himself a cup of coffee. ‘Yes, I agree. It is clearly time we talked frankly to one another. Have you had breakfast?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ she muttered, walking over to the window and staring blindly out at Hyde Park Corner as she quickly marshalled her thoughts. This might be the only opportunity she had of setting the record straight. So, she was quite determined to make it crystal-clear that she wasn’t prepared to put up with any more of his nonsense.
Mary Lyons - The Italian Seduction Page 5
