Tempted by Trouble

by Michelle Smart

The muscles in his arms were bulging, the veins running through them visible.

  “If you want to send me home, then do it. Turn the car round and take me back to the airport.” Right at that moment, she wanted nothing more than to get out of this car and away from him. Luckily, sense overcame pride. If she were to get out and start walking, she wouldn’t make it more than a hundred meters, not in her condition.

  His chest rose as he took a deep breath. When he spoke, his voice was terse but controlled. “Pippa, I made my mother a promise that you could stay in my home for a fortnight and I will honor that promise, but I am not going to pretend I’m happy about it. Far too much water has passed under the bridge. However, my home is large enough that our paths need rarely cross.”

  “Fine. That suits me perfectly,” she said, the ice in her voice at complete odds with the raging fire burning beneath her skin.

  Finally, he looked at her, his judgment and loathing reverberating off him. “Have you a driver’s license?”

  She closed her eyes, as if the act could dull all the hate she felt from the beam of his glare. “Yes.”

  “Is it clean?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I’ve put a car aside for you.”

  She peered at him with suspicion. “Thank you.”

  “It will save you the bother of stealing one.”

  She should have known there had to be a disparaging comment in there somewhere. “I may be many things, but I am not a thief.”

  “Really?” The inflection in his tone could not have been more withering. “That’s funny, because I distinctly recall you stealing your father’s Land Rover when you only had a provisional license. You were lucky not to kill yourself.”

  She straightened her spine, fed up to the back teeth with his relentless digs. Twenty minutes in his company and she was ready to pull her hair out. Ignoring the pain the movement caused in her ribs, she said, “That car was mine. My father gave it to me on my seventeenth birthday. He just hadn’t got around to changing the ownership with the authorities. Besides, I had been driving on the estate since I was ten—I was hardly a novice driver.”

  “Do they not have trees on the estate, then?” he mocked. “I can only assume that’s the reason you drove into one.”

  “It was foggy.” She winced at the memory. “I can only put it down to a moment of never-to-be-repeated madness.” One of many, she acknowledged grimly. She had been lucky not to be prosecuted, escaping only with a caution. Unfortunately, that had not stopped the press from finding out about that particular escapade. Or any of the subsequent ones.

  “Your excuses are wasted on me, Pippa. As I said, there is a car at your disposal—make use of it.”

  “In other words, you want me to stay out of your way.”

  He shrugged, a gesture so achingly familiar, her chest constricted.

  “Personally, I could not care less what you do while you’re here as long as you keep out of trouble—can you do that?”

  “You obviously don’t think so,” she said, not bothering to hide her resentment at his cynicism. “But don’t worry—I would be happier spending a fortnight with a nest of vipers than spending any more time than necessary in your company.”

  “Excellent. Then we know where we stand.”

  Chapter Two

  Marco turned the engine back on, disconcerted to find his hands shaking.

  He accelerated, not trusting himself to say another word. While Pippa had matured physically—and how she had matured—she had failed spectacularly to develop a conscience or display any remorse.

  Not that she’d ever had a conscience.

  He chanced a glance and saw her head tilted back, her eyes closed. She could be sleeping.

  His chest constricted.

  The adolescent he remembered, who had hidden her face behind a bucketload of makeup, had blossomed into a full-blown swan. Even after a fourteen-hour flight, her long, silky white-blond hair bedraggled and her clothes crumpled, she looked as sexy as hell. Still slender, at some point in the intervening years she had developed soft, womanly curves…

  It made no difference how beautifully she had matured on the outside. Inside, she was rotten to the core.

  Even so, the thought of her languishing in some cold prison sent needles prickling through his skin.

  She’d put a man in hospital, he reminded himself. She was lucky her father had bailed her out, lucky she hadn’t been left to rot in custody.

  Even so, he found it hard to imagine her striking or attacking anyone. The picture simply refused to form.

  “Is it an important video conference? The one you’re attending?”

  So she wasn’t asleep.

  He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “Yes.”

  “Are you going to make it in time?”

  He thought of the lawyers waiting for him in San Francisco, ready to iron out wrinkles in the licensing agreement for the launch of the Capello 300 software program. “They’ll wait.”

  “That’s good of them.” Her clipped English tones were as precise as they had always been but with a more languid cadence than he had remembered, a hue that evoked thoughts of long, hot summer nights…

  “I pay them enough,” he said curtly.

  Silence again reigned between them.

  He drove through dense foliage onto the gravel driveway and caught a glimpse of his secluded white-washed beach house. Tucked in a private bay, it had been designed to blend into the surrounding forest, designed for privacy and comfort. Usually, the first sight of it would be enough to soothe any tension of the day. Not today.

  What he needed was to get into his gym. He needed to spar, to do something, anything, to expel the raging torrents careering through his veins. He would hit his gym as soon as his video conference was wrapped up. Then, when he had finished purging himself of all the burning emotion, he would take a beautiful lady on a date and forget all about his troublesome houseguest.

  Yet, buried under all his anger and antagonism lay a real ache that clung to him as it always did whenever he allowed himself to recall all his attempts to save Pippa from herself.

  Could he have tried harder?

  Would it have made any difference if he had?

  He’d had to walk away, he reminded himself. After what she had done and, more especially, what she had failed to do to put things right, he’d had no choice.

  Evening was falling rapidly. The humidity was less intense now, a slight breeze coming off the sea tempering it somewhat.

  He drove slowly down a slope that led under the house and slid the car between a Ferrari and a Mini, the latter to which he pointed. “You can use the Mini during your stay here. Joycy, my housekeeper, will give you the keys.”

  He leaned over to remove the rucksack from between her legs and caught a light whiff of honey-scented fragrance. He was close enough that her breath whispered through the hairs on his head.

  Almost as if it were an involuntary reaction, his loins heated.

  Clenching his jaw, he strengthened his grip on the rucksack and pulled it out, taking great care not to touch her, let alone look at her.

  Nonetheless, he couldn’t help notice she’d pressed back into her seat as if trying to disappear into it, her face white and pinched, her hands fisted into tight balls.

  She looked tired.

  “Let’s get you inside,” he muttered, not wanting to feel sorry for her.

  He led the way into the basement of his house, taking her through a door that led to his gym. His well-battered punching bag hung from the ceiling. He pointed to another door. “There’s a shower room through there for when you’ve been to the beach.”

  Climbing the stairs, they walked into the kitchen. His housekeeper, a rotund, elderly woman with dark, leathery skin, and peppery hair, wearing a black and white checked apron, was emptying the dishwasher. She flashed him a beaming grin.

  “Joycy, please let me introduce you to Pippa Rowantree,” he said. “I’m going to take her l
uggage up to her room. Can I leave you to show her around?”

  The old woman nodded. He could see her weighing Pippa up. He hadn’t told her much about their guest other than to warn her not to take any nonsense. “Of course,” she said in her heavy Creole accent. “While you’re here, Marco, my health insurance renewal forms arrived today. I’ve put them on your desk.”

  “I’ll get to them shortly,” he promised.

  Under normal circumstances he would have done it straight away, but these were not normal circumstances, not by any stretch of the imagination.

  Seeing Pippa again was worse than he had imagined, so many memories assailing him, memories that were as fresh as they had been seven years ago.

  …

  Pippa expelled a breath of relief when Marco left the kitchen. She’d thought the journey in the car with her father had been tense. Compared to the drive with Marco, it had been a barrel of riotous laughter.

  Joycy smiled at her, but it was a cautious smile. “Would you like a drink, Miss Rowantree?”

  “Please, call me Pippa,” she beseeched. “I don’t suppose you have any tea?”

  “I can make you a pot of Earl Grey. Marco sent me out to get you some today.”

  Pippa went crimson with shock. “He did?” The thought of Marco remembering something as trivial as the tea she liked to drink sent a warm, fuzzy feeling through her veins.

  “He’s a good man,” was Joycy’s only comment. She closed the dishwasher and filled the kettle. “Why don’t you go through and explore the ground floor while I clean up in here?”

  As her whole body felt stiff enough to seize up at any moment, Pippa decided this was sound advice. It would be best to keep moving. If she sat down there was a good chance she wouldn’t be able to get up again.

  Wandering through the enormous kitchen, she headed to the main part of the house. She took one step into the high-ceilinged living area and almost ran screaming back to the kitchen.

  Instead, she clamped a hand over her mouth and inhaled deeply, exhaled deeply, in and out, trying to control her ragged breathing.

  The south wall was one long floor-to-ceiling window with a perfect view of the Caribbean. The moon was out and casting light over the calm black sea, illuminating the tiny waves cresting in the distance into the impression of a thousand dancing jewels.

  To Pippa’s eyes, the black sea looked like an enormous flesh-eating monster coming to gobble her up, just as it had her mother…

  No!

  She closed her eyes tightly and counted to ten, willing the image away. It’s just an illusion. In the morning the sun will come up and the sea will just be another benign viewpoint.

  Her legs had turned into dead weights with spaghetti joints. It took every ounce of grim determination for her to put one foot in front of the other and turn her back on the blackness. She headed in the opposite direction, as far from those hateful windows as possible.

  Entering another room, she was momentarily transfixed, all worries of the sea fading away.

  Shutting the door behind her, she exhaled and rubbed her neck, hardly able to believe her eyes. There, in front of her, was the most beautiful grand piano she had ever had the privilege to set eyes on. Even better, if that were possible, the music room had a view of the driveway and gardens with not so much as a hint of black saltwater.

  Unable to resist, she lifted the lid of the Steinway and ran the fingers of her right hand over the keys. Her heart skipped. It was tuned perfectly.

  How strange, she thought, for Marco to have such a beautiful instrument in his home when he couldn’t play. She smiled wistfully at the remembrance that, for all his super-human strength and business acumen, he was tone deaf. She had once overheard him humming, remembered how bemused she had been that someone could sound so tuneless.

  “Your tea’s ready.” Joycy’s voice made her jump. So transfixed had she been by the piano that she hadn’t heard the housekeeper enter the music room.

  She took the steaming mug from her and smiled gratefully. “Thank you.”

  Joycy’s wrinkled lips pursed together. She nodded at the Steinway. “Do you play?”

  Pippa nodded wanly. Right then, she would have loved nothing more than to sit on the bench and purge all her emotions through the music that allowed her to forget who she was, allowed her to just live in that moment.

  Unfortunately, it was impossible to play with a sprained wrist.

  She could feel Joycy’s eyes studying her, assessing her. Everyone had an opinion of her, rarely good. What judgment would the elderly lady make?

  “I’ve made a casserole for you,” Joycy said, her brown eyes softening as she spoke. “It’s keeping warm in the oven. You should eat.”

  “Would you mind if I had some later?” Pippa’s appetite had deserted her. All she really wanted to do was sleep. Yet she didn’t want to offend the woman, not after she had gone to all the trouble of preparing the meal.

  “Of course. Let me know when you want it.”

  “Thank you— but don’t you want to finish for the day? It’s getting late.”

  Joycy leaned her hefty bulk against the wall and stretched a leg out. “I live in. Marco made half the basement into a flat for me. If you dial 111 on your room phone, you can reach me in it. If I am not there, dial 112 for the kitchen…”

  “That really is unnecessary,” Pippa cut in, alarmed. “I can serve the casserole up myself. Surely he doesn’t have you on twenty-four-hour standby?”

  “Not normally, but he did ask me to stick around for you this evening.”

  Again, his thoughtfulness caught Pippa by surprise. A wistful yearning caught hold of her, which she quickly shrugged off.

  “You look tired, girl. How about I show you to your room?”

  “That would be great, thank you.”

  Pippa somehow managed to drag herself up the stairs without spilling any of her tea.

  She sighed with pleasure at the beauty of her appointed room, taking it all in while Joycy bustled around showing her where everything was.

  “Your dressing room’s through this door,” the housekeeper said, before opening another, “And here’s your en suite.”

  Some quirk of nature must have been on Pippa’s side, because the shutters in the room were all closed. As far as she was concerned, they would be staying closed for the next fortnight.

  When Joycy left the room, she took the last of Pippa’s energy with her. She sank onto the squishy sofa and buried her face in her hands. She was wiped out, physically and mentally.

  If anyone had told her forty-eight hours ago that she would be Marco Capello’s houseguest, she would have laughed in their face.

  But now she was here.

  For an age she sat there staring blankly at the floor, her mind assaulted by a barrage of memories.

  She remembered the first time she met him. It had been at her father and stepmother’s wedding. She had been eight years old and so, so miserable. Only one person had caught her attention that day, Amelia’s eighteen-year-old nephew Marco, the oldest of three teenage boys.

  She had thought he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen and spent the day, when not hiding under a table, shyly following him with her eyes. Even at that young age he had had a presence and arrogance about him. Compared to all the pale English guests, the half-Italian Marco was exotic, with his ebony hair and soulful, expressive eyes. He had come with his family from Rome—his English mother was Amelia’s sister—and when he had asked the shy little bridesmaid to dance in perfect but slightly accented English, she had been delighted, grateful, and terrified all rolled into one.

  Up close, his athletic six-foot-three inch body had towered over her. At her then-tiny height, he’d seemed like a giant. Much to the merriment of the other guests, he had sunk to his knees and narrowed the height gap between them in one fell swoop.

  “You seem sad, little one,” he had commented kindly, taking her tiny hands into his own enormous ones and swinging them gently, the
way her mother had often done. Her fragile heart had soared at that simple gesture.

  Over the years she had never forgotten his words or the kindness he had shown her eight-year-old self that lonely evening. Out of the hundreds of guests at the lavish nuptials, it had taken one young man to bring the scared little bridesmaid out of her shell.

  Pippa snapped herself out of a reverie that evoked feelings of such sweetness and sadness.

  It took all her energy to get back on to her feet. Her head started to spin. She held onto the arm of the sofa and waited for the dizziness to pass, keeping her eyes fixed on the bed as a stabilizer. What she wouldn’t give to clamber into the silken sheets and let oblivion take her.

  First, though, she needed to brush her teeth, wash her face, and take some painkillers.

  When the dizzy spell passed and she was about to go into the bathroom, a glance in the full-length mirror made her stop short. She walked over to it and bit her lip at her dishevelled reflection. Her heart-shaped face was pale, her lips dry, and her hair lank. Dark purple circles lay beneath her blue eyes. In short, she looked awful.

  At least you’re alive, the stubborn voice in the back of her head soothed her.

  Resolve stiffened her spine.

  Once she was over the worst of her injuries and her head wasn’t dulled from the painkillers, she would sort out the mess that was her life. She would find a way to clear her name.

  If worst came to worst and she was prosecuted and found guilty, she would find a way to survive.

  However much the thought of prison terrified her, she knew she could cope. After all, she had survived so much more.

  …

  Marco broke off from the file he was looking over when he heard light footsteps approach the kitchen.

  He reached for his mug and held it tightly, bracing himself for Pippa’s entrance.

  She shuffled into the kitchen, stopping short when she saw him sitting there. For a moment something swirled in her eyes, a spark that made the breath catch in his throat.

  “Nice of you to join the waking world,” he said sardonically, taking a sip of his coffee.

  “I thought you’d gone to work,” she croaked.