Olivia Gates - One Night In…

Halfway down she steeled herself to glance down at him and had to grip the banister to stop herself from falling. There was a roaring of blood in her ears and a dizzying surge of adrenalin flooded her body.

The man who stood at the foot of the stairs was her fantasy made flesh. For a moment time seemed to stand still and the years melt away, until she could have easily believed that she was ten years old again, a ragged bouquet of forget-me-nots and roses clasped in her hands, sweeping down the stairs to meet her hero. He was there, just as she had imagined him so many times.

Only his silver-blue eyes weren’t filled with adoration.

They were icy cold.

‘Gesù, who the hell are you?’

Angelo Emiliani was aware of the hostility in his tone and didn’t bother to try and disguise it.

Arundel-Ducasse may be one of the longest established estate agents in the business, with offices in all the major European cities, but in his dealings with them over the past couple of weeks they had hardly stunned him with their efficiency. Now it seemed they’d not only got the time of his appointment wrong, so thwarting his plan to look around the château on his own first, but they’d also sent some juvenile delinquent office girl.

And, unfortunately for her, patience was not his strong point.

She stopped on the third step from the bottom, where her eyes were just about level with his, looking both nervous and defiant. In spite of his irritation, Angelo felt a vague, instinctive stirring inside him.

‘Maybe I should ask you the same question,’ she snapped.

‘Oh, dear.’ His tone was languid and mocking as he turned and walked into the centre of the hallway, his eyes travelling speculatively around the room. ‘Am I to assume that the entire Nice office of Arundel-Ducasse have been struck down with the Black Death or something equally debilitating? I cannot imagine any other circumstances in which it would be necessary to send the girl who does the photocopying on a major viewing such as this.’

Behind him she gave a little gasp.

‘Angelo Emiliani.’

Something in her voice jolted him out of his preoccupied irritation and he glanced sharply at her, noticing her properly for the first time.

At first he had assumed that the rainbow streaks in her hair were caused by the light from the stained-glass dome above them, but now he could see that there were indeed jagged blazes of shocking pink beneath the dark silk that was drawn back from her delicate heart-shaped face. His gaze travelled over her slowly, taking in the smoky kohl-rimmed eyes and the short black dress, the oddly defiant set of her small chin. Realization slotted into his brain like a well-oiled bolt sliding home. Of course. He’d spotted the protesters’ camp through the trees as he’d approached the château. He gave a slow smile.

‘Correct, signorina. And your name is…?’

Her hesitation was almost unnoticeable, then, with a little jangle of silver bracelets, she thrust out a slender hand and spoke in confident cut-glass tones.

‘Forgive me, Signor Emiliani, you caught me off guard. I’m Felicity from the London office of Arundel-Ducasse. I’ve been liaising with the Marquess of Ifford over the sale of the château. I’m on holiday in Cannes, so I thought I’d come and see it for myself.’

That was pretty quick thinking. He had to hand it to her—she was a vast improvement on the usual spotty, dreadlocked eco-warriors that picketed his development sites and protested outside his offices in Rome and London.

‘I see.’ He looked down at the grimy limestone floor and tried to suppress a smile. Protester-baiting was one of his favourite sports and this time there was an added piquancy thanks to the unprecedented lusciousness of the quarry. The urge to play along with her little charade was irresistible. ‘Well, I’m very glad that you did, Felicity.’ He took a step towards her and watched with satisfaction as a shadow passed across her extraordinary wide-set eyes. ‘Very glad indeed. As you’ll have gathered, your colleague from the far less efficient Nice office hasn’t appeared and due to unwelcome … developments … I’m very keen to get this deal sorted out today.’

‘Developments?’

He sighed. ‘Our little group of campers in the woods. I saw them as I came up the drive and the sooner my name is on the deeds for this property, the sooner I can send them on their way to spend their time doing something worthwhile. I hate to see idealistic young people wasting their time on a lost cause.’

Anna clenched her fists so that the fingernails dug painfully into her palms. Until this moment she wouldn’t honestly have been able to list ‘self-control’ as being one of her personal strong points, but it seemed she certainly had more of it than she thought. How else was she managing to restrain herself from throwing herself at Angelo hot-shot Emiliani and raking her nails down his arrogant, self-satisfied, obscenely handsome face?

He took a step towards her, his eyes fixed on hers. ‘So it’s your lucky day, Felicity. As you’ll be the one to show me the property, you’ll be the one who gets the commission on the sale.’

Anna felt the blood drain from her face. She felt like Judas taking his thirty pieces of silver. The thought of walking through each familiar room of her beloved château in the company of the man who intended to take it from her made her feel dizzy with horror.

He was still looking at her, his narrow blue eyes glittering with ice.

‘That won’t be a problem, will it, signorina? You are an employee of the estate agency that is supposed to be selling this property, are you not?’

‘Yes, of course, as I said I …’

‘Good. And you said you’ve been handling its marketing in the London office, in which case you should know your way around?’

She met his gaze with a steadiness that surprised him. ‘Yes.’

‘Then let’s not waste any more time.’ He smiled suddenly and it lit up his exquisite features and carved perfectly symmetrical brackets on each side of his generous mouth. ‘I’ve scheduled the first of my contractors to be on site here next week, so as you can see I can’t afford to hang around.’

‘Isn’t that a little presumptuous? Until the contracts are signed, nothing is certain.’

‘Not presumptuous. Realistic. I always get what I want. Now, are you going to show me around or do I have to phone the Nice office and get someone out here who knows what they’re doing?’

She looked up at him and gave him her sweetest smile.

‘Where would you like to start?’

His eyes flickered downwards for a second, causing her stomach to tighten convulsively and a gasp to rise in her throat.

‘How about the master bedroom?’

Breathe in … Hold … And out …

It was no good. The surge of white-hot tingling fury that was currently coursing through her veins wasn’t going to be calmed down with yoga. She needed tranquillisers at the very least. Or a general anaesthetic.

The trouble was, she admitted disgustedly to herself, it wasn’t just anger that was making her knees shake so much that she had to lean on the banisters for support. Waiting on the landing outside what used to be her grandmother’s room, Anna cursed her own stupidity and the pathetic weakness that had made her hormones sing in response to his blatant flirting.

How could she have told such a ridiculous lie? Fliss would kill her when she found out she had ‘borrowed’ her identity. Oh, God—supposing Emiliani complained to her boss and she got into terrible trouble? Anna felt panic surge through her.

She’d just have to be very, very nice to the obnoxious Signor Emiliani and make sure that he had no cause to complain, but jeez, that wasn’t going to be easy. How could he be so complacent—so sure of himself—to have already scheduled contractors to start destroying her beloved château when the sale was far from assured? She felt a fresh wave of indignation crash through her at the thought.