CATHY WILLIAMS - The Italian's Christmas Proposition

‘I teach skiing here,’ she said stiffly. ‘For the season. I happened to meet your…your friends on the slopes. Pierre was supposed to be giving them a lesson but he went out last night with his girlfriend and he didn’t show up for—’

‘Get to the point!’

‘I’m getting there! Bob and Margaret told me that they were here mixing business with pleasure. They told me your name—Matteo. They said you never left the hotel, then they laughed and said that if they didn’t get to grips with skiing then you were to blame because they were too busy feeling guilty about you being cooped up inside to concentrate on getting their feet in the right place. Obviously I didn’t know it was you at the time, but that’s how I happened to know your name. It was just coincidence that you happened to be where you were when…’

When all hell broke loose.

Matteo gritted his teeth. ‘How much more tortured can this explanation get? I feel as though I’m being made to sample a vision of hell. Are you ever going to get to the point or do I have to bring the police in to question you?’

‘Police? How dare you?’ She glared at him and he stared back at her without batting an eyelid.

‘Just. Get. To. The. Point.’

‘Okay, here’s the point!’ Rosie snapped, leaning forward and gripping the sides of her chair tightly. ‘I had to pretend that I had broken up with someone, because I didn’t want to be condemned to seeing Bertie over Christmas, and I spotted you down there in the foyer with Bob and Margaret and I… I…figured that you were the businessman called Matteo so I lied and told my sister that I’d been seeing you! Is that enough of an explanation for you? I’m really sorry but you were the fall guy!’

THEIR EYES MET. Matteo was beginning to feel a little unsteady. He had never before heard such a garbled non-explanation from anyone in response to any question he had ever posed in his life. Her mouth was parted and she was leaning forward, her body language speaking of an urgency for him to believe what she was saying.

The woman was distracting.

It wasn’t just the breathless, convoluted workings of her brain which he was finding extraordinarily difficult to deal with. It was her, the entire package. The second he had laid eyes on her, something inside him had kick-started and now…staring back into her impossibly turquoise eyes…

He shifted, frowning. There was enough on his plate without losing focus over this nonsense. His eyes roved over her flushed face, subliminally appreciating the satin smoothness of her skin and the juicy fullness of her lips. As he watched, her tongue flicked out, nervously licking her upper lip, and his whole body jack-knifed in sudden, heated response.

A libido which had been dormant for the past six months surged into life with shocking force. He gritted his teeth together but he had to shift position because his erection was rock-hard, pulsing against the zipper of his trousers.

Was she leaning forward like that on purpose? Making sure that those lush, heavy breasts were on tempting show, begging to be fondled?

Matteo had a very particular type of woman. Very tall, very slim and very brunette. He went for the career woman, the woman who challenged him intellectually. He liked the back and forth of informed conversation about politics and the economy. He liked them cool, confident and as driven as he was. He’d fought hard for his place in the world and he appreciated a woman who had battled against the odds as well. An ambitious woman with a career of her own was also not a needy woman, and he disliked needy women. He didn’t want anyone needing him. He operated solo and that was the way he liked it.

So why was he staring at this woman in front of him with the rapt attention of a horny teenager? She was breathy and ultra-feminine and didn’t strike him as the sort who would be winning awards for her thoughts on world finance. She was the antithesis of what he sought in any woman.

Furious with his lack of self-control, he leapt to his feet to prowl through the room, at the same time finishing the glass of whisky he had poured, tempted to help himself to another but resisting the urge.

He had to remove his eyes from the sexy woman on the chair but, when he finally glanced at her again, it was to find that he was still in the grip of whatever ludicrous spell she had temporarily cast on him.

He positioned himself in front of her and then leant down, gripping either side of the chair, caging her in so that she instinctively drew back.

Her breathing was fast and shallow, her breasts heaving.

‘Not going to work,’ he growled.

‘What are you talking about?’ Rosie whispered. ‘I’ve tried to explain what happened.’

‘You expect me to believe that I was just some random target? That you really have no idea as to the reach of my power? And, if that’s the case, why are you coming on to me?’

Rosie’s mouth fell open and she stared.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Don’t think that you’re going to get me into any sort of compromising situation! I wasn’t born yesterday. That garbled nonsense about dragging me into this situation to avoid a guy—unbelievable.’

‘Compromising situation?’

‘You’re a sexy woman but I’m not a fool.’ Matteo gritted his teeth, controlling his hands with extreme difficulty, because what he desperately wanted to do was take what was obviously on offer, starting with those luscious lips and moving on to the even more luscious breasts.

‘You’re telling me that I’m sexy ?’

‘And advertising it isn’t going to work. Where’s your sister? Lurking behind the door? Ready to take an incriminating photo, perhaps?’ He pushed himself away from the chair but his body was still on fire as he strolled through the room, purposefully maintaining distance between them.

Eventually, he sat down. He was still hard, still turned on.

‘I can’t believe you’d imagine that I was coming onto you,’ Rosie said faintly. The thought alone was enough to suffuse her with colour.

Her? She was the one who had drawn the short straw when it came to looks. Her sisters had always been the ones to turn heads. She, Rosie, had been the girl the boys enjoyed hanging out with. She self-consciously folded her arms over her breasts and then realised that, in doing so, she had simply drawn attention to them.

She wondered whether that would lead to another crazy accusation that she was trying to come on to him . Her skin prickled. He had called her sexy and she didn’t think that he’d been kidding.

‘And it wasn’t garbled nonsense,’ she belatedly continued. ‘If you’d just listen! My family…’ Her voice was staccato with suppressed nerves. ‘Well, you’ve met Candice, my sister. They’ve been a bit concerned about me…they think I need to settle down, find a job, a life partner…’

‘A life partner ?’

‘Yes.’ She flushed. Why had she launched into this brutally honest explanation? Why hadn’t she skimmed over the details? The way he was looking at her, frowning in silence with his head tilted to one side, was bringing her out in goose bumps. She should have left him puzzled about the nonsensical reason for her behaviour because now she would have to confess that the last thing she was was sexy. Sexy women didn’t have their entire protective family twitching with concern about their life choices.

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Let’s suspend disbelief for the moment and go along with your story: why are you supposed to have a life partner at the age of twenty-three?’