Olivia Gates - One Night In…

Thank goodness for GreenPlanet. It wasn’t over yet.

She turned. Through the open doorway she could see him standing at the window. He was leaning against the sill, his arms stretched out on either side and his broad shoulders blocking out an unreasonable amount of daylight. No doubt he was planning which parts of the formal parterre would have to be flattened to make way for the helipad and all-weather tennis courts, she thought bitterly, trying not to notice the way his unruly blond hair curled on to the collar of his dark linen suit, or the length of the suntanned fingers resting so lightly on the window sill. Even with his back to her there was something about his slim-hipped, elegant figure that screamed self-assurance and power.

I always get what I want.

GreenPlanet was no match for him, she acknowledged with a mixture of despair and awful, treacherous excitement. He had an aura of quiet, dangerous focus that made her shiver.

Levering himself upright, he turned to her and she experienced a momentary frisson of shock at the youthful beauty of his face. The skin over his elegant cheekbones was taut and bronzed, and his aura of restless energy was like that of an exotic animal in the absolute peak of physical condition. He couldn’t be that much older than she was and yet he seemed as hard and cold and jaded as a man twice his age. What the hell had happened to turn him to stone?

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’ she stuttered, suddenly jolted out of her thoughts and aware that she’d been staring. Although he was no doubt used to that.

He leaned his narrow hips against the window sill and folded his arms. ‘Come on, Felicity, you can do better than that. This is the part where you’re supposed to talk about location and square footage and security. You’re an estate agent, remember?’

His voice was quiet, amused, slightly reproving. Anna gritted her teeth as she recognized that he was testing her, teasing her.

‘Of course. And you’re an internationally renowned property developer, signor,’ she retorted, trying to keep her tone light. ‘I wouldn’t presume to tell you anything about this building or any other, since of the two of us you are so clearly the expert.’

‘Wouldn’t or couldn’t?’

He spoke very softly, the words dropping into the silence like pebbles into a lake. Anna felt the ripples spreading through the still air between them and, despite the warmth of the afternoon, she shivered suddenly.

He was so on to her. And so enjoying it. For the sake of her own pride as well as Fliss’s professional reputation, she had to do a bit better than this.

‘What do you want to know?’ Squaring her shoulders, she walked slowly towards him, slipping again into that clipped upper-crust drawl. ‘As I’m sure you can see for yourself, Château Belle-Eden is a perfect example of the nineteenth century Anglo-Norman style, set in five acres of prime real estate in one of the world’s most desirable locations.’

‘Very impressive.’

‘That was the intention.’ She had reached the window now and stood beside him, unable to meet his eyes. ‘It was built in 1897 for the owner of one of Paris’s most exclusive department stores and no expense was spared on its construction or its furnishings. The walls were covered with silk from—’

‘I wasn’t actually talking about the property.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

He was looking at her steadily. ‘I was referring to your in-depth knowledge of Château Belle-Eden.’

‘I told you, I’ve been responsible for the marketing of this property at the London end,’ she said abruptly, staring straight ahead of her to where the driveway snaked through the pine trees towards the road and the cliffs beyond. ‘As I was saying, this is one of the most sought after locations in the world. Cannes is a mere three kilometres away, the château has its own stretch of private beach, accessed through the pine forest—which you can see over there to your left.’

‘Ah, yes.’ Much to Anna’s relief, he shifted his smoky, searching gaze and looked out of the window to where the GreenPlanet tents and guy-ropes of washing were just about visible above the pine trees. His eyes were narrowed and slightly menacing.

‘Do you intend to keep the château as a private residence, Signor Emiliani?’ she asked, trying to keep her tone casual.

Slowly he turned back to face her with a mocking smile. ‘No. I thought I’d use it as a youth hostel. And maybe establish a permanent camp over there in the woods for hippies and drop-outs. That way maybe I’d be able to get on with my other projects at least without having them constantly on my case.’

She didn’t flinch, he noticed. Not a flicker of emotion passed through those slanting, watchful eyes.

‘It was a genuine enquiry, signor.’

‘I’m sure it was. But if you think I’d be stupid enough to tell you honestly what I plan to do with this building then you’re obviously underestimating me.’

She looked steadily at him. ‘Have you finished here?’

There it was again. She was perfectly polite, perfectly correct, but he picked up that tiny spark of challenge which a man who was less in tune with his instincts would undoubtedly have missed. Angelo Emiliani had not come from an orphanage in Milan to take his place in the international rich lists by behaving as other men did. Instinct was his speciality.

‘For the time being, yes.’

‘Good. Follow me.’

‘My pleasure.’

And it certainly was a pleasure, he thought idly, watching the way the short linen dress cast undulating shadows on to the backs of her slim brown thighs as she sauntered down corridors, opening the doors on an endless succession of vast empty rooms. Despite the perfect respectability of the dress, there was something oddly rebellious about the way she wore it. Maybe it was the way she had teamed it with those slim bangles which made a soft, silvery, musical sound as she moved, or maybe it was the contrast of her long golden legs beneath the sober black.

There was something about this girl that whispered ‘toxic'. She gave the impression that the lightest brush against her would result in chemical burns.

The fact that she was lying to him didn’t disturb Angelo at all. The fact that she was doing it so convincingly bothered him a little more. Environmental protesters were a constant source of irritation and disruption in his business, but he had never considered them to be a serious threat to his plans before. But this girl knew more about this property than a hippy-dippy eco-warrior should do.

It didn’t cross his mind for a second that he might be wrong about her. So what if she had the diction of a minor royal and the lithe movements of a dancer? She was no more some posh airhead office girl than he was. It wasn’t just the pink streaks in her hair that gave her away, but the hostility that crackled around her like static. She might as well have had ‘REBEL’ tattooed on to her skin in inch-high letters.

Maybe she did. Somewhere.

Desire hit him like the lash of a whip, sudden and stinging.

‘In here is a slightly smaller bedroom, but the view of the sea more than makes up for the less sizable proportions …’ She spoke before she’d opened the door, he noticed, but, walking into the room, Angelo’s eyes narrowed as he ascertained that what she had just said was completely spot on.

He felt a cold pulse of adrenalin rush through him along with the realization that the group she belonged to may have some rich benefactor who was planning to put in a rival bid for the château. It wasn’t such a ridiculous idea. There were plenty of stratospherically wealthy Hollywood celebs who would be only too willing to toss a few million in the direction of an environmental charity—especially if it meant acquiring such a gem of a property at the same time as making them feel they were doing their bit to save the planet. With the exception of the charity involved, it wasn’t so very different from what he planned to do with it. And the prospect of having those plans thwarted by a group of tree-huggers was unthinkable.