The front door was open, Angelo having gone in ahead of her. She walked into the centre of the hallway and turned slowly around, taking in the acres of polished wooden floor and the galleried landing above, from which were suspended vast modern canvases depicting images that reminded Anna of photographs in her biology textbook at school.
‘It’s …’ She hesitated, gazing up at the massive twisted metal chandelier that hung above them, which on closer inspection seemed to be constructed from used car parts. The contrast of the stark interior with the gracious exterior of the building was like a slap in the face.
‘It’s utterly hideous.’
She’d intended to hurt him, she realized, but she was completely unsuccessful. He smiled and, with his hands in his pockets, walked casually across the hallway. ‘I’m inclined to agree. However, that’s not the point.’
‘Not the point? How can you say that? This was a convent—an ancient place of worship and contemplation and devoutness—and you’ve made it look like some soulless New York loft apartment. It’s totally disgusting!’
He’d reached one of the doorways that opened off the hall and paused, leaning nonchalantly against it. ‘There you go again.’
‘What?’
‘Making assumptions.’ His voice was very quiet. ‘Firstly, I didn’t make it look like anything. My brief stopped with the building itself. The interior was entirely the work of the client and her team of lifestyle gurus, interior designers, feng shui experts and spiritual analysts. Secondly, you’re assuming I don’t agree with you. And, thirdly, don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that convents are all places of devoutness.’
There was a savagery in his tone that made her look at him sharply. But his face gave nothing away. ‘I thought you’d be thrilled that the floor is reclaimed hardwood, that all the artwork was commissioned from a local women’s co-operative and shows magnified images of the plant-life on the estate, and the chandelier was made out of recycled industrial parts.’ He smiled sardonically. ‘Come up and I’ll show you the rest.’
He was almost at the top of the stairs now and she had to choose between following him or remaining alone in the hallway. Mutinously she stared up at him, her arms crossed.
‘No, thanks. I think I’ve seen enough.’
‘Suit yourself. But, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a couple of things to attend to. I may be a while, so make yourself comfortable.’
‘I think that’s pretty unlikely in this—’ she said contemptuously, but was interrupted by the ringing of his mobile phone.
He answered impassively, striding away from her along the corridor, out of earshot. Left alone, Anna shivered, hugging her arms around her all too exposed flesh.
She was just about to leave the house and wait for him outside when, with a flash of defiant insight, she realised that by doing so she would be playing right into his hands. The call was obviously one he didn’t want her to overhear, and was maybe information about the château or something to do with Grafton-Tarrant.
She was wasting a golden opportunity with her immaturity and her pathetic inability to rise above his physical attributes. It was stupid and embarrassing. He was beautiful, but he was also the person who was about to rob her of the only place that tied her to a happier past.
Swiftly she made for the stairs and took them two at a time. Up on the galleried landing she paused, listening intently, but there was no sound. The silence played on her senses, making her both nervous and full of anticipation as she strained to hear the deep rumble of his voice.
All she could hear was her own heartbeat.
Fast.
Excited.
Rows of closed doors stretched away from her. Tentatively approaching one, she pressed her ear to the wood—reclaimed, no doubt—not that she could have cared less—and listened.
Nothing.
She slid along to the next door and listened again.
Silence.
In frustration she opened the door and looked inside. It was a bedroom, dominated by the biggest bed she’d ever seen. Sulkily she wandered in, her bare feet practically disappearing into the thick white carpet. It was decorated in the same aggressively modernist style, the huge canvases on the walls depicting unintelligible blobs and shapes which looked vaguely erotic. Anna stopped in front of one that seemed to show the curve of a woman’s breast against the sweep of a male buttock.
Or was she imagining that?
She tried to imagine it hanging in the château, and felt a shiver of distaste ripple down her spine.
Of course it was distaste.
She tore her gaze away abruptly and pushed open the door into an en suite bathroom. Or shower room, she mentally amended, looking round the spartan cell derisively. There was nothing so luxurious and water-wasteful as a bath tub in there. In fact, maybe it wasn’t finished, she thought, taking a step forward. The room was lined in tiny glowing green glass tiles like the scales on a mermaid’s tail, but apart from that it was empty.
Suddenly jets of water exploded on to her bare skin from all sides, soaking her. She screamed and tried to dart out of the way, but the whole room was filled with tiny water outlets and she had moved directly into the firing line for freezing cold jets.
She screamed again. Louder.
Just as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had begun, the water stopped. Dripping, shivering, incoherent with shock and fury, she pushed back her streaming hair from her face and looked up to find Angelo lounging in the doorway.
Laughing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘I SEE you discovered the wet room.’
Anna tried to frame a coherent sentence but found herself able to do nothing more than mouth impotently. The only words that came to mind were too offensive for her to even utter.
‘Pretty impressive, no? Designed to use as little water as possible. All the shower jets incorporate tiny vacuum pumps to aerate the water as it comes out and so increase the pressure.’ He’d been lounging against the door-frame, but now he levered himself upright. ‘That way, you get a very powerful shower while using a minimum amount of water, and the whole thing is operated by sensors.’
‘Thank you,’ she spat. ‘I think I’d just about worked that bit out for myself.’
The second part of the sentence came out as a dry croak as she watched him unbuttoning his shirt. She took a step backwards, unable to take her eyes off the rippling golden chest that was gradually being revealed.
‘What are you doing?’
He looked up and grinned as he slipped his shirt off. For a fleeting moment she thought she might pass out.
He held out the shirt to her.
‘Here. Put this on.’
‘No, thanks. I’m fine.’
She made to walk past him, but as she did so he caught hold of the tie at the back of her sodden bikini. And pulled.
She breathed in sharply, making a small shivering sound.
In an instant he was behind her and, with swift, capable hands, had drawn the tiny triangles of fabric over her head, in the same seamless movement wrapping his shirt around her. She was aware of nothing but the warm scent of him, imprinted into the whisper-soft linen, the firm pressure of his hands.
‘Now, take off those wet shorts.’
She spun round to face him. ‘No! No—I—’
He took a single step towards her and reached out. She had to bite her lip against the gasp that sprang from her, the flicker of fiery arousal that licked up her belly in anticipation of his touch. But he only took hold of the shirt and started to do up the buttons. Through a mist of agonizing desire, she glanced up at his face.
His eyes gave nothing away.
He had moved upwards and was now buttoning the shirt over her bare breasts. She was aware of the painful thrust of her nipples against the fabric and closed her eyes for a second in blissful submission.
‘There. Perfectly respectable. It almost comes down to your knees, so you’re perfectly safe to take off your shorts. I won’t
look.’
Her eyes fluttered open and she swung blindly away from him, fumbling with the stiff button of the wet denim. But her hands were slow and clumsy with confusion. ‘I—can’t.’
‘Then allow me.’
Gently he drew her towards him. Unable to raise her eyes to meet his, she watched, mesmerized, as his long elegant fingers undid the button of her shorts, aware of the flat plane of his tanned stomach only inches from her own. His thumb brushed the quivering flesh of her midriff, sending a cascade of shooting stars up her spine, almost making her knees give way beneath her. Slowly, he tugged down the short zip and, slowly, deliberately slid the wet denim downwards. Helplessly she felt her hips wriggle beneath his hands, as if they had a mind of their own and were desperate to free themselves of the layers that separated her from him.
He dropped to his knees in front of her and she let her head fall backwards, lifting her hands and instinctively winding them into her wet hair as she fought to keep control of the murmurs of pleasure his touch aroused in her. His warm hand slid down one leg, then the other, stopping at her foot, his fingers tracing a swift arc of fire across her instep before gently picking it up and making her step out of the shorts. Looking down, she saw him bent before her, his tousled dark blond hair contrasting with the paler gold of the skin of his bare shoulders, beneath which the muscles flexed and rippled. Dimly she was aware of her own fingers twisting her hair into knots of desire, and she opened her eyes as he straightened up before her.
His thumb kneaded her parted lips, his fingertips caressing the hollow beneath her jaw, then trailing down the long, exposed column of her throat as she arched her back and pressed her hips to him.
She ached.
His fingers crept into the damp tangle of her hair, supporting the heavy weight of her head as she waited for his lips to meet hers. He brought his head down to brush his mouth against the side of her neck, where the pulse beat frenziedly beneath her damp skin.
‘Time to go,’ he murmured dryly. ‘A-list celebrities can be very touchy about complete strangers having sex in their bedrooms.’
Her eyes flew open as he drew away and bent to scoop her discarded shorts up off the floor. Without looking back, he walked perfectly steadily across the room to the door.
Anna dragged a hand across her burning lips and swore softly.
Striding after him, she caught up with him in the doorway and snatched her clothes from him. Then she ran ahead of him down the stairs and out into the sunlight.
Closing the front door behind him, Angelo paused briefly and rubbed the frown from his forehead.
Careful, he warned himself, but his knuckles were white on the large iron door handle. He needed to get this deal completed and return Anna to the safety of dry land, because if this carried on much longer he knew his resolve wouldn’t hold and he’d have to bed her.
He wanted to, but he’d glimpsed a vulnerability in her that scared him. It was that moment when he’d done the buttons up on the shirt. It had made him think of Lucia.
He shook his head and gave the door a last little push to check that it was closed properly and turned to go down the steps. He could see her walking ahead of him down the path back to the gate that led to the jetty, the tails of his shirt reaching just above her knees. She was sexy as hell, he thought, and she had walked into this situation with her eyes wide open—she must be pretty sure of herself to have done that. As he watched, she dragged a hand through her hair, making the pink streaks flash in the sun. A sardonic smile spread across his face.
She was nothing like that other little girl he had let down all those years ago in the orphanage. Lucia had been a child—a vulnerable child—who had relied on him as her only source of support in a harsh, loveless world, and he would never forgive himself for what had happened to her. But this was different. Anna was strong and spiky and rebellious—she could look after herself. He was just imagining the trembling little girl beneath the surface.
His expression was stony as he set off down the path after her.
He’d ring his PA as soon as they were back on the yacht and see if she’d had any word from Ifford’s people about what the hell was going on at their end. The sooner those papers were signed the better. For his sanity.
Storming back into her cabin, Anna slammed the door behind her and threw herself on to the bed.
She wanted to scream, she wanted to tear things up, she wanted to smash Angelo Emiliani’s perfect face to a pulp.
But mostly, she admitted to herself with a low moan, she wanted to have sex with him. Wild, uninhibited, magical, mind-altering sex.
For about twenty-four hours.
She rolled over and buried her face in her arms. The situation was unbearable. She was in the middle of nowhere with the most beautiful man she could imagine and he was playing some kind of sadistic game with her. She remembered her conversation with Fliss—how she’d said that he had a reputation for being icy cool. She hated men like that—the kind who messed with your head—and, Lord knew, there were plenty of them around. Always the best-looking ones, of course, the ones who would pursue you and flatter and flirt until you succumbed and slept with them, and then you wouldn’t see them for dust. Until you spotted them again across a crowded bar, doing exactly the same with someone else.
Roseanna Delafield wasn’t going to be a notch on anyone’s bedpost.
She’d kept herself well clear of all that; packed her heart on ice and buried her desires beneath a thick layer of cynicism and denial. But here she was, stranded at sea with nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide from the feelings he’d unleashed in her.
Bastard.
She sat up, suddenly blindingly, furiously angry. How dared he put her through this, with no concern whatsoever for her feelings? No—worse than that. He wasn’t unconcerned about her feelings—he was actively enjoying watching her squirm. Roughly she shrugged off his shirt and slipped back into her bikini. So what if it was still damp? At least it didn’t carry his scent on it, tantalizing her.
Restlessly she paced the length of her small cabin, her mind racing, trying to think up a plan to get away from him. With no contact with the outside world, she could hardly claim a sudden death in the family or some similar crisis. Besides, she doubted whether Angelo Emiliani would be human enough to let a little thing like that change his plans. Business, maybe, but a personal matter …
She stopped dead.
That was it.
She groaned out loud, cursing her own stupidity. Of course—why hadn’t she realized? He hadn’t brought her here to try to change her mind. He’d brought her to keep her out of the way until the sale had gone through. What he didn’t know was that that wasn’t going to happen without her going to Nice to sign the papers.
That changed everything. She was in no hurry to leave now. Suddenly, unexpectedly, she found she was holding all the aces and the game had started to get a lot more interesting.
At seven o’clock precisely there was a knock at her door. Despising the treacherous leap of excitement in the pit of her stomach, Anna yanked it open.
It was Paulo, the steward.
‘Dinner is served in the saloon, signorina.’
‘Oh. Thank you, Paulo, but I’m not dressed. I don’t have anything else to wear …’
‘It would be no trouble to find something, if you would be more comfortable, signorina?’
‘No,’ she said curtly, ‘I don’t mind, but I thought that maybe Signor Emiliani might object.’
Walking down the corridor in the direction of the saloon, Paulo turned and grinned. ‘I don’t think so, signorina. Here on Lucia we have a pretty laid-back dress code, and the evening is still beautifully warm.’
The sliding doors of the saloon were open and soft orchestral music was pouring out of the sound system into the warm air. Anna could see the table beyond, softly lit against the pastel-hued evening. It was beautiful, but as she approached her heart sank.
‘There’s only one place set, Paulo … Is
Signor Emiliani not dining?’
Paulo didn’t quite meet her eye. ‘I’m sorry, Signorina Field, but he has a lot of work to do. He’s very busy taking calls right now, but he might be able to join you later. In the meantime, please take a seat. Would you like some champagne or is there anything else I can get you? A cocktail?’
‘Champagne is fine, thank you.’
It was irritation that was hardening like cement in her chest, she thought grimly. Not disappointment. Not hurt. She was annoyed by his rudeness, that was all. Yet again he had managed to make her feel about two feet tall, and about as sophisticated as a school kid. There was no way she was sitting down at that ridiculously big table to eat on her own, she thought mutinously, wandering over to the deck rail and looking out over the darkening ocean as uniformed crew brought out numerous dishes and plates arranged with food.
She wasn’t hungry. Or not in a way that could be satisfied by eating.
The evening was a cliché of romantic perfection—the flaming sun just dipping down into the sea, spreading shimmering trails of rose pink across the glassy surface, but its beauty only intensified the yearning inside her. Finishing the glass of champagne, she trailed restlessly back into the saloon, where a nineteen-fifties style jukebox stood against the wall.
She surveyed the selection with a measure of disdain, which quickly turned to grudging respect. Angelo Emiliani had better taste than the average billionaire property tycoon, she thought sourly. Or maybe when you were as rich as he was you had ‘people’ to choose your music for you? She programmed in a few songs she liked, upped the volume and drifted back outside again.
The table stood under a sort of canopy created by the mezzanine floor of the deck above which projected outwards, supported by slim chrome pillars. Passing it, she pulled off an artichoke leaf and trailed it in warm hollandaise before lasciviously sucking it.
Oh, God. Why did everything have to bring her back to the same agonizing place?
One Night In Collection Page 43
