by Lynne Graham
Wrapped in a towel, she peered round the edge of the door. It was Ezio
Farretti and he had a large cotton sack in his arms.
'Where are the radiators?' she queried.
'There aren't any. The heating is under the floor.'
'Oh...'
'This bag is full of clothes left behind by other guests,' Ezio
continued. 'There might be something which will fit you or Timmie.'
'I can't wear someone else's things...they'd be furious-'
'These are very rich people. They don't miss what they overlook; they
just buy more,' the older man told her gently. 'I'll leave the bag
outside the door.'
There was a horrid thickness in her throat. 'Thanks, Ezio.'
'No problem.' He cleared his throat. 'But, if you don't mind a spot of
advice, give the boss a wide berth. Off the
record, he's just not himself right now and you don't want to get your
feelings hurt.'
Not just himself? Her feelings hurt? What on earth was that supposed to
mean? Holly's face burned up scarlet. Oh, my goodness, had Ezio noticed
her blushing and getting on like a teenybopper with a bad crush around
Rio Lombardi? Was he warning her off? What else could he possibly be doing?
41
'Holly's doing...what?' Rio ground out with rampant incredulity.
'Almost finished cleaning the kitchen floor, boss,' Ezio repeated with
reluctance. 'She's been dusting and scrubbing and polishing all day and,
short of physically restraining her, there was nothing I could do about
it. She's got a lot of grit but she's on the brink of a collapse-'
'The kitchen floor...' Rio seethed, striding through the door that led
down to the basement where all the household utilities were situated.
His mood was not improved when he went through the wrong door on the
lower floor and found himself in some sort of boiler room because it had
been a very long time since he had visited the kitchen quarters.
When he finally located his own kitchen, the first sight that met his
eyes was Timmie strapped into a high chair, slumped over fast asleep,
curly dark head down on the tray, a feeding cup dangling from one tiny
hand. He looked rather like a miniature drunken sailor, his little legs
and feet clad in white...tights'} And what was that frilly thing round
his almost non-existent neck? Dio mio, Timmie was wearing a little
girl's woollen dress with a lace collar! Rio was truly appalled by that
discovery.
He strode round the protruding unit to gaze down the length of a kitchen
that stretched more than forty feet in depth. He settled his outraged
gaze on the female behind weaving from side to side as Holly knelt on
the floor with her
Bucket and scrubbed like a Victorian housemaid. He stilled, attention
entrapped by the wholly feminine fullness of that derriere, every line
defined by the fine fabric shaping its delicious curves.
Without warning, an attack of such powerful lust assailed Rio that his
every muscle clenched in shaken resistance. Four weeks without sex and
he was turning into an animal, ready to jump anything female, he decided
in even darker fury. His lean hands clenched into fists as he willed the
throb of his aching sex to dwindle to manageable proportions.
'Get the hell up off that floor!' Rio launched with wrathful bite.
Dredged from her concentrated efforts to deny her exhaustion until she
had completed her work, Holly swivelled round on her knees in fright,
collided with the bucket and tipped it noisily over. Her soft mouth
opening in dismay, she gasped strickenly, 'Now look what you've made me do!'
'How dare you come here and start cleaning my floors?' Rio demanded with
savage censure.
Very slowly, Holly picked herself up, the over-large green dress with
its wide neckline lurching off one bare white shoulder. But that shade
was incredible against that fair skin of hers, Rio noted before he
registered that she was swaying and literally grey with pallor.
Holly focused on him, butterflies breaking loose in her tummy. Snatching
in a stark breath, she met his stunning golden eyes and felt the burn of
reaction deep down in her pelvis, an enervating sensation that made her
weld her slender thighs together in fierce embarrassment. 'I'm sorry, I
thought-'
Rio strode through the grimy flood that had spilled from the bucket and
lifted her off her feet before she fainted in
42
front of him. 'How could you be so foolish? Do you think I invited you
here to slave for me?'
'I only wanted to make myself useful...' Holly drank in the scent of him
that clung to the jacket beneath her cheekbone, her nostrils flaring
with helpless eagerness on that fresh familiarity.
Holding her that close was doing nothing for Rio's rampant arousal. He
was furious with himself, furious with her. Lack of control was not a
sensation he was accustomed to suffering around a woman. But he was
hugely tempted to tell her that if she wanted to make herself useful he
had a whole catalogue of undomestic distractions to offer, not one of
which, he was ashamed to admit, would have been thwarted by a wet floor,
a child within hearing distance or even a fire alarm. He had seen her
susceptibility in her eyes, in the way she held her slender, shapely
body and in the mood he was in, a don't-give-a-damn-about-anything mood
of intense bitterness, that awareness inflamed his libido even more.
Ezio was positioned by Timmie's sleeping form when Rio strode for the
kitchen exit. 'Bring Timmie upstairs and get him out of that stupid
dress,' he instructed the older man.
'I only put it on him to keep him warm until his own clothes dried. He
doesn't know it's a dress,' Holly protested. 'It was all that was
available-'
'You could be damaging his sexual identity for life!' Rio condemned
fiercely.
'Do you think so?' she questioned, aghast, as Rio carried her into a
lift that she had not known existed until that moment.
He set her down and hit the buttons, choosing not to wait for Ezio. The
door buzzed shut. She slumped back against
the cool wall. 'The floor's in a real mess now,' she lamented. 'I can't
leave it like that.'
'Shut up.' Rio closed his eyes and breathed in deep and slow. He had had
one hell of a day, barring calls from Christabel, putting his social
secretary in charge of cancelling the elaborate wedding arrangements,
watching the slow ripple of awareness pass round his personal staff one
by one, recognising the amazed speculation in the eyes of those too
stupid to hide their curiosity. Rio Lombardi and Christabel Kent, the
golden couple, had broken up. All his life he had been a private
individual, who hated others to breach his reserve. Now he was a mass of
raw emotion and seething bitterness and, to crown his intense sense of
raging humiliation at being put in such a position, all he could think
about was the wild, savage oblivion of sex!
Holly shut up while the silence charged up. Rio opened eyes as bright as
golden sunlight and dazzled her. The atmosphere was fraught, full of
; vibrations that skimmed along her nerve-endings, filling her with the
strangest excitement in spite of her weary bewilderment. He was
smouldering like a powder keg, she registered. She had no idea why but
she had never been so aware of the potent magnetism of powerful masculinity.
In fact, she finally admitted, she was so hopelessly attracted to Rio
Lombardi she could barely think straight, and that was a major shock to
her system and her knowledge of herself. Jeff had never made her tremble
just by looking at her. Jeff had never made her crave his touch. So,
doubtless her ex-boyfriend had had good reason to call her a 'lousy
lay'. That humiliating recollection from the past steadied her and
cooled her as nothing else could have done and made her drop her eyes
from Rio Lombardi's lean, strong face in shame.
44
'I'm sorry I spoke to you like that,' Rio murmured curtly as he stood
back for her to precede him out of the lift.
She nodded with a bowed head.
'Go to bed and rest,' Rio advised harshly, stopping dead on the
threshold of her bedroom but going not one step further. 'I'll have a
supper tray sent up.'
'I'm not hungry,' Holly whispered shakily, no longer able to look at
him. She listened to him walk away, feeling the loss of his vibrant
energy and despising herself for that sensitised awareness.
A bloke like Rio Lombard would never look twice at her, which was just
as well, she conceded dully. She was useless in bed. Frigid as a corpse.
She stilled a shiver of revulsion at that unforgettable description of
her less than adequate performance: Jeff had spelt out exactly why he
had lost interest in her. She might not have enjoyed that single session
of physical intimacy that had none-the-less resulted in Timmie's
conception, but Jeff had made it clear that he had enjoyed it even less.
How could she have actually believed his drunken assertion that she was
the girl he wanted to marry? That had just been a standard line to get
her between the sheets.
'Why the hell didn't you get an abortion, you stupid cow?' Jeff had
railed at her before he'd hit her smack in the face with his fist. He'd
knocked her right off her feet in his rage almost five months back and
had terrified her with his violence. 'If you think I'm forking out my
hard-earned cash to keep you and your little bastard, you'd better think
again! If you try to hang rum round my neck, I'll make you sorry you
were ever born...'
She was sorriest of all that she had been so unforgivably stupid as not
to see through Jeff's superficial charm to the user and abuser of women
that he was. He had slept with
those girls he'd dumped her for twice over. He had lied about that, and
in her heart of hearts she had always suspected that truth but had
blindly refused to face the fact that a man who treated her that way
could have no caring feelings for her. Jeff was the kind of creep whose
ego could not bear female rejection. The instant he had taken her
virginity, he had begun losing interest.
So she had got her punishment for being a silly, credulous doormat,
dreaming of white dresses and the 'Bridal March'. What she could not
stand was that her parents, and now Timmie, seemed to be sharing that
ongoing punishment with her. For of course her parents would be missing
her, but she could never go home as long as she had her son and no ring
on her finger. Farming communities were not liberal. An unwed daughter
and fatherless grandchild would shame and mortify her parents.
As Holly slumped down on the bed, slight shoulders sagging, Ezio
appeared in the doorway, clutching Timmie. 'I got his clothes out of the
drier but I'm afraid you'll have to change him.'
'Thanks...' she said chokily, getting up to reclaim her son.
Ezio hovered on the threshold. 'The boss is on a pretty short fuse at
present. I did try to warn you.'
She was just no good at listening. Her stubborn pride had offended Rio
Lombardi. She had slighted the one person who had tried to be kind to
her in countless months of indifference. A rich, good-looking guy of
Rio's calibre could not have any ulterior motive in helping her and she
was ashamed of the reality that she wished that he had, ashamed that she
reacted as she did around him.
The phone ringing by the bed woke her the next morning.
It was Rio. 'I'm taking you shopping and I don't want
46
to hear any arguments. The sight of you running round dressed like a bag
lady embarrasses me.'
Holly was poleaxed. 'But-'
'I've hired a nanny to take care of Timmie. You got to sleep in because
she's already here. He's now getting his morning constitutional in the
garden. As soon as you've had breakfast, I want you downstairs.'
Click went the phone as Rio cut the connection. Even as Holly replaced
the receiver in sleepy, shell-shocked bewilderment, a manservant was
knocking on the door and entering with the promised breakfast. A nanny
had been hired just to take care of her Timmie? For goodness' sake, had
Rio Lombardi gone mad? She could not possibly allow him to buy her
clothes! It was out of the question.
However, hunger made her succumb first to the tempting dishes on the
beautifully arranged bed tray. She explored the bruising at the base of
her skull. The spot was still tender but she felt fine after a really
good night of sleep. As soon as she had eaten she had a quick shower.
Dressing in her clean jeans and shirt, she pulled on the man's sweater
that she had found at the very foot of the pretty-much useless bag of
clothing which Ezio had brought to her.
Her bronze ringlets fanning wildly round her narrow shoulders after a
too vigorous and impatient brushing, she hurried down the stairs. Rio
was pacing the hall floor and her first glimpse of him just took her
breath away. His superb tailored suit in palest grey set off his exotic
darkness and bronzed skin to perfection. His black hair gleamed in the
light coming through the windows and was so temptingly touchable to her
dilated gaze that her fingertips actually tingled.
'I can't let you take me shopping,' she told him unevenly.
A curious expression tensed Rio's darkly handsome features and his
strong jawline hardened, his gorgeous dark golden eyes almost bleak. 'I
need a distraction today. You're it. You'll be doing me a favour.'
So disconcerted was Holly by the roughened sincerity patent in that
unexpected response that she was halfway into the limo before she
recalled that she had not yet seen her son. 'Just two minutes, Rio.' She
said his name for the first time and then reddened with self-consciousness.
The nanny was a really nice young woman and she even wore a uniform. She
looked like the sort of nanny that might be hired by royalty and Timmie,
propped up in an incredibly impractical but imposing coachbuilt pram,
might even have aspired to being a little prince, had it not been for
his shabby clothing.
'Satisfied, cara?' Rio asked as Holly got into the limo.
'Timmie seems happy
enough-'
'You should ditch the Timmie and call him Timothy.' Rio informed her
just as she glimpsed Ezio's unusually grim expression before the older
man turned away to swing into the front passenger seat.
'Why?'
'He's timid. Give him a name he can grow into, not one that makes him
sound like a pet pooch.'
Holly flushed but she said nothing. She was overwhelmed by the sensation
that she was being carried away by a very forceful personality on a trip
she did not understand. 'Is...is there something wrong today? I mean,'
she muttered awkwardly, 'that you feel you need a distraction?'
His lean, powerful face tautened, brilliant eyes veiling. He had the
most extraordinary long, inky dark lashes, Holly noted, studying his
classic profile with helpless fascination.
'Everything's right. Everything is as it ought to be,' Rio
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stated in a cold tone that contrived to chill her to the marrow.
The uneasy silence dragged.
Holly made a frantic effort to redress the apparent damage she had
caused. 'So you're not working today?'
'No.'
'And you taking me out shopping is just a whim...the sort of thing rich
people do when they're bored?'
The taut line of his sensual mouth eased and he flashed her a glittering
glance that sent her heart racing like an express train. 'You could put
