Carole Mortimer - One Christmas Night In...

Those sky-blue eyes widened. ‘I don’t have a temper!’

‘Fortunately they did not know that.’

‘And they actually believed you?’

‘Probably not,’ he accepted.

‘I would say definitely not,’ Lily scoffed. ‘If we had argued, and I really had been angry enough to throw something, then I would have made sure it was at you—not a window!’

‘I am well aware of that,’ Dmitri rasped. ‘Fortunately the police and the men from the security company were not, and wisely decided to accept my romanticised version of what took place.’

Which explained the reason for the knowing smiles and winks of the security men before they’d left. ‘No doubt you all had a good laugh at the little lady’s expense?’ She stood up abruptly.

Dmitri skewered her with that piercing green gaze. ‘I assure you that so far I have not found anything in the least amusing about this situation.’

‘That makes two of us!’ she retorted.

Dmitri wondered if anything could succeed in shaking this woman’s independence of will.

Yes, of course it could. Obviously what had happened between them after dinner had disturbed her enough for her to try and break out of the palazzo.

Dmitri still flinched inwardly when he recalled entering the kitchen to see a vulnerable Lily surrounded by a threatening group of men, and with blood dripping down her hand and onto the tiled floor from where she had cut herself.

Because she had wanted to get away from him.

Because she had been so traumatised by the depth of the intimacies they had shared she did not wish to remain here and risk having them repeated.

Admittedly the circumstances of finding themselves alone here together were unusual, and their lovemaking had been unwise to say the least, but Dmitri could never remember a woman being so desperate to escape his attentions that she had attempted to flee into the night as if pursued by the devil himself!

He looked at her closely. ‘Are you so determined to leave here you would risk injury to yourself in an attempt to do so?’

Lily raised defensive brows. ‘My intention was obviously to get away from here, not to injure myself.’

His nostrils flared. ‘I am still not sure the cut on your hand does not require stitches—’

‘I heal quickly,’ Lily cut in firmly, putting the hand in question behind her back—hoping out of sight would prove to be out of mind. Although, knowing Dmitri, she somehow doubted it would achieve that objective! ‘Can we just go to bed now? I mean—’ She broke off with a self-conscious wince as the embarrassed colour warmed her cheeks. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she amended. ‘Alone. You can do whatever you please.’

‘To quote you from earlier, “How kind of you to allow me to,”’ Dmitri came back dryly.

Her eyes flashed deeply blue. ‘I’m tired, I have an aching hand, and I feel slightly embarrassed at having brought the police and security company here—’

‘Only slightly?’ he jeered.

‘Slightly embarrassed,’ Lily reiterated. ‘And I am decidedly cranky. Do you really want to mess with me any more tonight?’ She met his gaze challengingly.

If it hadn’t been entirely inappropriate to the situation Dmitri knew that he would have been tempted to laugh at her manner of speech; she really didn’t allow herself to feel cowed by anyone or anything. As her thwarted attempt to escape from him testified …

He sighed. ‘Once the glazier has replaced the window tomorrow morning I will take you anywhere you wish to go.’

‘You’re suggesting we go out for ice cream and to see the Trevi Fountain?’ Her heavy tone made it sound like some sort of bizarre punishment on Dmitri’s part.

‘No,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I meant I will drive you to a hotel.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Really?’

Dmitri’s irritation deepened at the disbelief in her tone. ‘Really,’ he echoed tersely.

Lily eyed him warily, not altogether sure she completely trusted this about face. ‘What about Claudia and Felix?’

His expression darkened just at the mention of the missing couple. ‘I will have to find some other way of locating them.’

‘How exactly?’

‘I have no idea as yet!’ he said harshly. ‘Only that I will endeavour to do so.’

Because Lily had created an awkward situation for him by trying to break her way out of here? Or because he genuinely felt regret about keeping her confined when she would obviously rather be somewhere else? Either way—

‘Are you cold?’ Lily frowned. She was sure she’d seen him give a slight shiver. Or perhaps it was just a shudder of revulsion at the memory of having his home invaded by the police in the middle of the night!

‘Why on earth would I be cold?’ he said scathingly. ‘It is late December, one o’clock in the morning, my window has been broken and I am wearing only a towel. Why should I be cold?’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ Lily said indignantly.

‘There is every reason—’ He broke off exasperatedly, breathing hard. ‘Tell me, Lily, does this sort of thing happen to you in England?’

She gave a puzzled frown. ‘What sort of thing?’

Dmitri raised dark brows. ‘Being kidnapped by an Italian count. Made love to on a kitchen table.’ After the discomfort he had suffered for the past hour he felt a certain grim satisfaction as he saw the colour warm Lily’s cheeks. ‘Housebreaking. Being questioned by the police.’

Her cheeks remained flushed. ‘There aren’t an awful lot of Italian counts in England. I was breaking out of the house not into it. And the police could hardly question me when I don’t speak Italian and they don’t speak English. So the answer to your question is no, Dmitri, nothing like this has ever happened to me in England!’

Dmitri noted that she had chosen not to offer even the suggestion of a contradiction over their lovemaking. Because that had happened to her in England? Or because she was embarrassed that it had happened at all?

‘Please just go to bed, Lily,’ he advised, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw.

She shook her head. ‘No—you go and put some clothes on and I’ll make you a pot of hot coffee.’ She moved to the coffee percolator on the worktop and filled it up with water, before going to the refrigerator to take out the ground coffee. ‘Although why on earth you were taking a shower at almost one o’clock in the morning is beyond me.’

‘I was not taking a shower,’ Dmitri denied, frowning as she continued to make the coffee; he was used to people doing what he said when he said it—if not sooner!—something Lily either didn’t appreciate or deliberately chose to ignore.

She turned after spooning the coffee into the filter and switching on the machine. ‘Then what were you doing?’

Nor was Dmitri accustomed to people questioning his actions—something else that she felt absolutely no hesitation in doing. He found it extremely irritating, while at the same time strangely refreshing …

For fifteen years Dmitri had said and done exactly as he wished, without criticism or question from anyone. To find himself subjected to the curiosity of a woman who stood only as tall as his shoulder, weighed as little as a pubescent teenage girl—even if she was far from being one—and who had a tongue as sharp as a razor, was something of a shock. A little like living amongst sheep for years only to then find himself confronted by a lioness! ‘Dmitri?’

He felt a brief warmth as she continued to call him by his first name. ‘Yes?’ he answered huskily.

She shot him a pointed look. ‘I asked where you were when the security alarm went off.’

‘In the pool.’ Cooling off. An exercise in futility when he was heating up again rapidly now that he was once again back in her company.