Mary Lyons - The Italian Seduction

by The Italian Seduction (lit)

  And then, at the feather-light touch of his warm lips on hers, it was as though her whole world was suddenly burst­ing into an explosive display of brilliant fireworks—just as if someone had idly tossed a lighted match into a quiet, still pool of gasoline.

  A fast running stream of liquid fire was flooding through her veins, her stomach muscles tensing into a hard knot of feverish need and desire as she pressed her lips hungrily to his. And, as she trembled in his arms, it seemed as if he, too, had become possessed by the same mad sexual frenzy, his mouth and tongue becoming more demanding, burning hotly as his arms tightened about her, pressing her firmly to his hard, muscled body. And she.. . she had no thought but to yield... to melt helplessly against him in total surren­der.

  Utterly consumed by the devouring force of hunger and passion, Antonia took some moments before she became aware that they were no longer alone.

  ‘Yeah ...I reckon she’ll be all right in here,’ a burly man was saying to his male companion as they peered in through the arched doorway of the church porch.

  With a horrified gasp, Antonia tore herself from Lorenzo’s arms, her cheeks burning with embarrassment as she quickly leapt to her feet.

  ‘Sorry, folks—but this poor old lady isn’t looking too good,’ the man said as he and a younger man helped an elderly, frail-looking woman inside the porch.

  ‘Is ...is there anything I can do?’ Antonia muttered, not daring to glance in Lorenzo’s direction as she hurried over to offer her assistance.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ the man said as she helped them to settle the woman down on a stone seat on the opposite side of the porch to where she and Lorenzo had been sitting.

  ‘No ...you stay where you are,’ Antonia said, avoiding looking directly at Lorenzo’s tall figure as he, too, rose slowly to his feet. ‘I...I’ll go and get help,’ she added quickly, almost running out of the porch in an effort to escape the scene of her totally incomprehensible, utterly shameful behaviour.

  ‘Fire-crackers?’ Lorenzo exclaimed, some considerable time later. ‘Are you seriously telling me that it was only fire-crackers and a few loud stink bombs, let off by some silly students, which are responsible for my being here, in this hospital?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. Although it’s my fault that you re­ceived that bump on your head,’ Antonia reminded him with an apologetic grimace.

  But when he only muttered something unintelligible un­der his breath she turned back to gaze out of the window of the private room which had been temporarily allocated to Lorenzo.

  Despite doing her best to concentrate on looking after her client, she was still having a problem coming to terms with the extraordinary episode which had taken place in the church porch.

  This was the first time they’d been left alone with one another since arriving here at the hospital. Which meant that she still hadn’t a clue how he was likely to react to the incident. Not that she was in a hurry to find out, she assured herself quickly. Lorenzo might have remained si­lent on the subject so far, but she couldn’t help feeling distinctly nervous, whenever she caught his totally enig­matic, inscrutable gaze turned in her direction.

  Anxious to avoid any reference to the highly awkward subject, she said quickly, ‘If it’s any consolation, you’re not the only casualty. At least ten other people have ended up here, suffering from anything from a broken leg to con­cussion. When panic sets in,’ she added, ‘a large crowd of people in a confined space can easily escalate into a very dangerous situation.’

  ‘Thank you for the lecture on personal safety,’ Lorenzo snapped irritably. ‘But I’m far more interested in hearing when they’re going to let me out of here.’

  ‘Yes, well, I...er...I’ll just go and check with the doc­tor...’ she muttered, quickly seizing the opportunity to leave the room.

  How could she have behaved in such an unprofessional manner? Antonia asked herself for the umpteenth time as she hurried down the hospital corridor.

  It must have been the shock of the explosion, she told herself helplessly. There was simply no other explanation which made any kind of sense. And what on earth she was going to say—if or when Lorenzo referred to the incident she had absolutely no idea.

  On the other hand, there was no doubt that Lorenzo re­ally had been stunned and shocked by the explosion. So, there was a good chance that he might not be able to recall the disastrous incident, Antonia comforted herself as she entered one of the huge bank of elevators. But she had a horrid feeling that she was clutching at a broken straw.

  As Antonia left the room, Lorenzo gave a heavy sigh, throwing himself back on the pillows, and wondering what he’d ever done to deserve such a fate.

  Antonia Simpson might well be good company, and one of the most unusual women he’d ever met. Unfortunately, he had to face the fact that he was finding her far too at­tractive and distracting for his own good. Besides, he had a full, busy life in Milan—and enough romantic compli­cations there, with Gina Lombardi, without needing to add to his current problems.

  Which was why—leaving aside the question of his to­tally inexplicable behaviour—he had no intention of re­peating his mistake of earlier today. A decision he’d come to within minutes of Antonia leaving him in the church porch, while she went to get help for both himself and the old lady.

  Quite how long it had taken her to gain assistance Lorenzo had no way of telling. But it hadn’t seemed long before an ambulance had arrived outside the church, with Antonia clearly in charge of the operation.

  ‘My client—and this old lady too, of course—needs to be taken immediately to hospital,’ she’d announced in a firm voice, brandishing an official-looking card in a plastic wallet, which had clearly impressed the ambulancemen, who’d hurried to do her bidding. It was only much later that he realised that it must have been Antonia who’d also been instrumental in making sure that the ambulance took as many of the other wounded to hospital as possible.

  However, on arrival at the casualty department, Lorenzo had finally managed to pull himself together, and get a grip on the situation.

  Protesting that he was perfectly all right, he’d tried to insist that he had no need of the brain scan which Antonia was so firmly demanding. Unfortunately, it appeared that not only was she responsible for his head wound, which had rendered him momentarily unconscious, but she was quite prepared to cause as much trouble as possible until she got her own way.

  He might have been blind, deaf and dumb for all the notice anyone had taken of him, Lorenzo told himself grimly, recalling how Antonia had kept on insisting that her ‘client’ be checked over from head to toe, until, pos­sibly out of sheer exhaustion, the doctors had caved in and done as she requested. Although, as he could have told them in the first place, there had been nothing at all wrong with him.

  But Antonia had been entirely unrepentant. ‘Better to be safe than to be sorry,’ she’d declared firmly, before grab­bing hold of a young doctor and insisting that Lorenzo’s wrist, which had been slightly strained during his fall, should be firmly strapped up.

  ‘This is ridiculous!’ he’d grumbled angrily. ‘I didn’t no­tice it at the time, and I can hardly feel it now. Besides, how can I cope with my right hand bandaged in this way?T

  ‘Very easily, I imagine,’ Antonia had murmured sardon­ically, grinning over his body at the handsome young doc­tor, before adding, ‘Especially since we both know that you’re left-handed!’

  Now, as he turned sideways to pick up the glass of water from his bedside cabinet, Lorenzo glared down at his right wrist, firmly taped up with some sort of bandage, and held in a sling, close to his chest.

  The fact that the doctor had said he’d probably be able to remove the bandage tomorrow was of little consolation, he told himself grimly. And, even though he’d been given the best private accommodation currently available, it didn’t help to make his enforced sojourn in this place any more acceptable.

  ‘I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do to hurry things alon
g,’ Antonia said as she returned to the room, some minutes later. ‘It seems that the police are insisting on tak­ing a brief statement from you, since they may well be prosecuting the students who let off those explosions.’

  ‘That’s all I need!’ he grumbled, glaring up at the girl standing beside his bed. ‘I hope you realise that this is all your fault!’ he grated. ‘There’s such a thing as being too keen on the job, you know,’ he added with heavy sarcasm.

  ‘Never mind—we should be out of here fairly soon,’ she told him, calmly refusing to rise to the bait. Besides, the man had a point. While the student prank had, of course, been nothing to do with her, there was no doubt that her anxiety to protect him, at all costs, was solely responsible for that nasty bump on his head.

  After the visit from a young policeman, which was mer­cifully brief, the young doctor breezed into the room, clearly interested in furthering his brief acquaintance with Antonia—to whom he’d clearly taken a shine.

  ‘Well, it looks as if you got off fairly lightly,’ the man told him in a cheerful, hearty voice. ‘That bodyguard of yours is a really terrific girl, isn’t she? I wouldn’t mind a bit of danger if I could have her looking after me!’ he added with a raucous laugh.

  ‘But, as it turned out, there was no real danger,’ Lorenzo pointed out coldly, his instinctive dislike of this brash young man, whom he’d first met in the casualty department, now deepening into outright animosity.

  ‘Well, I suppose you’re technically right, but I reckon you ought to be damn grateful to have someone not only prepared to save your life, but also willing—by shielding you with her own body—to keep you safe from any harm.’

  Lorenzo realised that there was no point in arguing any further with this truculent young man, who clearly had fallen hook, line and sinker for Antonia.

  More fool him! he thought, closing his eyes and leaning wearily back against the pillows as the other man left the room. That young doctor would soon change his tune if he had to spend more than a few days with that highly irritat­ing woman. Even he wasn’t likely to appreciate someone constantly telling him what to do—morning, noon and night.

  Besides... he didn’t need to have some young whipper­snapper pointing out the obvious. Because he was perfectly well aware that Antonia was basically a very brave woman. Just as he was equally capable of appreciating the fact that, if he had been in any real danger, her actions would un­doubtedly have saved his life. For which he would, of course, have been exceedingly grateful.

  Nevertheless, the fact remained that he was now lying here in this hospital with a bandaged wrist, his body cov­ered in bruises, and a thumping headache, which was get­ting worse by the minute. And he did not, at the moment, feel at all grateful to the woman who—for some extraordinary reason he couldn’t even begin to fathom—appeared to be causing total havoc in his personal, private life.

  However, when Antonia returned to his room and, after taking one look at Lorenzo, rang a bell for a nurse and insisted that he should be given something to help cure his headache, he decided that maybe...just maybe...she had a few good points, after all.

  ‘OK. The doctor says that you can go now,’ Antonia informed him as he swallowed the aspirins.

  ‘Humph!’ Lorenzo grunted, grimacing as he raised him­self up against the pillows. He was feeling tired, sore and generally fed up to the back teeth with life in general—and this woman in particular. So, the prospect of a long journey back to London wasn’t exactly something he was looking forward to.

  ‘I’m afraid this isn’t a brilliant job—but it’s the best I could manage, under the circumstances,’ Antonia told him, taking his suit out of the wardrobe.

  Quite frankly, there hadn’t been much she could do about the state of his clothes. However, one of the nurses had been very kind, helping her to brush the dust and dirt from his trousers, and to steam-press the jacket. So, although Lorenzo—who always appeared totally immaculate, at all times—was now eyeing the garments with a distinctly jaun­diced eye, he was going to be able to walk out of this hospital looking halfway decent, at least.

  She hesitated for a moment before placing the suit on a chair near his bed. ‘Would you like either myself or a nurse to help you put on your trousers?’

  ‘Absolutely not!’ he snapped. ‘I’m perfectly capable of seeing to that sort of thing for myself.’

  ‘OK ...fine...’ She gave a slight shrug, trying not to smile at the look of horror on Lorenzo’s face. Did he really think that she’d never seen a guy’s legs before now? ‘I’ll be just outside, if you need me,’ she added, walking to­wards the door.

  Fairly certain that, in this bad mood of his, her client would have to be utterly desperate to seek her assistance, Antonia leaned against the wall in the corridor, prepared for a long wait.

  She actually felt very sorry for the poor guy, who’d re­ally been put through the mill today. He was the victim of an extremely unfortunate set of circumstances, and it was no wonder that his temper—clearly slightly unstable at the best of times, if her previous experience with that gentle­man was anything to go by!—was now on a shorter fuse than usual.

  However, she knew that if she ever again found herself in the same situation she would still take the necessary action to protect her client. It was obvious that Lorenzo was feeling thoroughly fed up with her—something she could well understand. But, although one hardly expected to find villains running amuck in a relatively peaceful town in East Anglia, far more bizarre things had happened in the past.

  None of which was likely to be of any comfort to Lorenzo, of course. But at least his anger with life in gen­eral—and herself in particular—was preventing any dis­cussion between them regarding that mind-blowing kiss in the church porch, when he...

  Oh, no! She was not going to think about it—ever again! she told herself fiercely, bitterly aware of the flush rising over her cheeks at the fleeting recollection of the soft, warm lips and muscular body, pressed so tightly to her own.

  She had just about managed to pull herself together when Lorenzo finally opened the door and emerged out into the corridor.

  So she’d been quite right in guessing his determination not to ask for help, Antonia thought, gazing at the man who was looking thoroughly annoyed and exasperated.

  Walking slowly down the hospital corridor, she asked him whether he wanted her to inform his niece, Maria, that he’d been involved in the accident.

  ‘It’s sure to feature strongly in the local paper,’ she pointed out. ‘And I suppose it might occur to her that you could have been one of the people who were injured.’

  ‘Definitely not,’ he retorted curtly. ‘There is absolutely no point in worrying the child. Especially as there is nothing ­wrong with me. In fact, I will probably telephone her from London tonight and allow her to tell me all about the incident,’ he added as they took the lift down to the ground floor of the hospital.

  ‘How on earth did that get here?’ he demanded, staring with surprise at the black Porsche parked just outside the main doors of the hospital.

  Antonia shrugged as she held open the passenger door for him.

  ‘While you were having your brain scan, I decided it might be a good move to collect it from the car park at the hotel. So, hop in.’

  ‘I don’t feel like hopping anywhere!’ he said tersely, before gingerly lowering his bruised body into the low­-slung seat. The fact that he had to suffer the further indig­nity of requiring Antonia to help him with his seat belt did nothing to improve his temper.

  Leaning back against the head-rest, Lorenzo closed his eyes and gave a heavy sigh. It was not only pointless, but also unfair to take his general bad temper out on Antonia. She might have been partly responsible for the debacle in which he found himself—but he had to admit that she’d done her best to sort out the mess.

  Quite why he’d allowed himself to become so unusually stressed out he had no idea. And he really didn’t want to think about the extraordinary episode
which had taken place between himself and Antonia earlier in the day. Which was proving extremely difficult, when he was acutely aware of sitting so close to her slim figure.

  After all, he was only going to have to suffer this woman’s attentions for a few more days—if he didn’t sack her, the moment he got back to London!—and then he could return to his normal, well-ordered life in Milan.

  Although, if he were honest, his life hadn’t been partic­ularly restful or tranquil in Milan over the past few months.

  Women! They really were the very devil to cope with­—however beautiful they might be. And there was no doubt that Gina Lombardi was an outstandingly beautiful-looking woman.

  Initially attracted by not only Gina’s looks but also her apparently mild and placid temperament, Lorenzo and she had become an item, with Gina acting as a very gracious hostess whenever he’d felt it necessary to entertain friends in his large apartment in the centre of Milan.

  To be truthful, no one could accuse the lovely girl of being an intellectual giant. But, nevertheless, she’d been a highly decorative companion. And so matters had contin­ued, for the past year.

  Unfortunately, what Lorenzo had always thought of as his fairly restful, tranquil life now appeared to be in danger of being actively disturbed. His lips tightened as he recalled his own stupid, foolish reluctance to resolve what was be­coming a tricky situation.

  Having searched his conscience, he was quite clear in his own mind that he had never, at any point, allowed Gina to believe that she would have a permanent place in his life. In fact, he’d always been very careful to make sure she clearly understood that there was no question of her moving into his bachelor apartment. Because although he’d enjoyed her company, both in and out of bed, there had never been any question of their relationship ending in marriage.