CAROL MARINELLI - Her Passionate Italian - The Passion Bargain / A Sicilian Husband / The Italian's Marriage Bargain

But it wasn’t true. She hadn’t seen Angelo the night before he went to Milan. Because of the early time of his flight he’d told her he was going to get an early night.

‘We cannot afford to offend a man like Carlo Carlucci. His business is too important to us,’ Mr Batiste went on, his attention back on the road ahead so he didn’t see the way Francesca’s face went from hot to pale at the mention of Carlo Carlucci’s name. ‘Being stuck in Milan while Carlo puts him through business hoops is a better punishment than to have Carlo take his business somewhere else.’

Mrs Batiste demanded her husband’s attention then, with a comment that was spoken too low for Francesca to hear. It didn’t matter because she had stopped listening anyway. She was thinking about Carlo Carlucci and that awful morning she had met him at a set of traffic lights. He must have been on his way to meet with Angelo at the airport yet he hadn’t bothered to mention it—nor had it stopped him from making a play for her.

She shifted restlessly again, feeling the same hostile prickles attacking her skin as she replayed the ease with which he’d conducted that little scene.

What made the man tick that he felt he could do that to her, knowing what he knew? Arrogance? A supreme belief in his right to toy with another man’s woman simply because it had amused him to do so? If she’d said yes to the coffee thing, would he have just laughed in her face and driven off, having got all the kicks he’d been looking for from the interlude by successfully seducing another man’s woman? Or would he have been willing to miss his flight in favour of coffee with her at Café Milan?

Oh, don’t go there, she told herself, frowning out of the car window as something low in her abdomen began to stir.

What about Angelo? She considered, firmly fixing her attention on what should be important here. Why hadn’t he told her that he was stuck in Milan because he’d overslept and annoyed an important business client? Did he think that confessing he’d messed up would lose him his hero status with her?

A smile touched her mouth, amusement softening the frown from her face. He ought to know that nothing could do that. He was and always would be the wildly handsome superhero to her.

They arrived at their destination, driving between a colonnade of tall cypress trees towards the stunning white and gold frontage of Villa Batiste. It wasn’t a big house by Castelli Romani standards but, standing as it did on its own raised plateau, neither the house nor its amazing gardens skimped on a single detail when it came to Renaissance extravagance.

As they climbed out of the car at the bottom of wide white marbled steps, Francesca could almost feel the Batistes filling with pride of ownership and wondered wryly—not for the first time—how that pride really dealt with Angelo wanting to marry a little nobody like her. He would inherit all of this one day, which would make her its chatelaine and her children its future heirs.

The house was already under the occupation of an army of professional caterers. A quick cup of coffee after their journey was all they had time for before they were busily helping out. Mr Batiste went off to check his wine cellar. Mrs Batiste made for the kitchen. Francesca became a willing dogsbody, helping out wherever she could. By two o’clock there was nothing more for her to do that she could see. Angelo was still stuck in Milan and his parents were resting before the next wave of activity began.

On a sudden impulse, she decided to write a note to her great-uncle then go and deliver it. You never know, she told herself as she set off, she might just catch him at a weak moment.

Her walk took her along narrow, winding country lanes with blossom trees shedding petals on the ground and the golden sunlight dappling through their gently waving branches. It was a beautiful place and she took her time, taking in the hills and the rolling wine-growing countryside that gave such a classic postcard image of Italy.

Half an hour later and she was standing by a pair of rustic old gates, gazing on a house and a garden that would make Angelo’s mother shudder in dismay. There was nothing formal or neat about her great-uncle’s garden, she mused with a smile. The whole thing seemed to merge in a rambling mix of untended creepers with the old palazzo struggling to hang on to some pride as its ochre-painted face peeled and its roof sagged.

She lingered for a few minutes, just looking at it all like a child forbidden to enter. She didn’t think of opening the gate and stepping inside. She never intruded past this point when she came here because she knew it was only right that she respect her uncle’s wishes. After a little while she heaved out a sigh then took her sealed note out of her jacket pocket and fed it into the rusted metal letter slot set into one of the stone pillars that supported the gates. As she listened to it drop she had the sorry image of the note landing on top of all the others she’d posted and a sad little smile touched the corners of her mouth as she turned slowly away.

Head down, shoulders hunched inside her fitted little denim jacket that matched the jeans she was wearing, she was about to begin the walk back to Villa Batiste when a flash of bright red caught her eye. Her chin came up then all movement was stalled on a stifled gasp of surprise and undisguised dismay when she saw an all too familiar red sports car parked up on the other side of the lane with its driver leaning casually against shiny red bodywork.

Oh, no, not him, was her first gut response as they stared at each other across the few metres of tarmac.

He was dressed in dark blue denims and cloud-blue cashmere that skimmed his tapered body like a second skin. The way he had arms folded across his chest ruched up the lip of the long-sleeved, round-necked sweater, exposing the bronze button that held his jeans in place and almost—almost—offered her a glimpse of the lean flesh beneath.

On a sharp flick of shock as to where her thoughts were taking her she dragged her eyes upwards to look at his face. He was smiling—or allowing his attractive mouth to adopt a sardonic lift. His chin was slightly lowered, his eyelashes glossing those chiselled bones in his cheeks. And he was checking her out in much the same way that she was guilty of checking him out, viewing the length of her legs encased in faded denim, then the fitted denim jacket and finally her face.

’ Ciao ,’ he greeted softly— intimately —causing her next response to him, which was a shower of prickly resentment that raced across her skin.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, not even trying to sound polite.

‘We do seem to meet in the oddest of places,’ he mused drily. ‘Do you think, cara ,’ he added thoughtfully, ‘that we might be the victims of fate?’

CHAPTER THREE

FATE, Francesca repeated to herself. She knew about the power of fate. Fate was what Angelo maintained had brought them together. She refused to accept that this… force she was being hit with here had any familiarity with Angelo’s fate.

It was then that she remembered tonight’s party and that this man had been invited. She’d even written the invitation herself. Carlo Carlucci and Guest , she’d scribed in Italian.

Which brought up another thought that sent her eyes slewing sideways to glance inside the open-top car expecting to see some raving dark beauty sitting in the passenger seat. To think of Carlo Carlucci without his usual female appendage was impossible, so she was puzzled to discover the seat was empty.

When she looked back at him he’d lifted those lashes higher and was watching her. ‘I do travel light on occasion,’ he said lazily, reading her like a gauche open book.