Sharon Kendrik - The Sicilian's Passion

The floor-to-ceiling windows were filled with the image of sea and sky—a breathtaking view and one with which the room had needed to compete so that it didn’t fade into complete insignificance.

Kate had chosen the colours carefully, and now the walls were bright with an unusual shade of blue. A deep and stunning and startling blue, and one which made the most of the Gothic mouldings which adorned the cornices.

And if she said so herself—it did look pretty good!

‘Kate?’

She turned around to find Lady St John walking into the room, in a cashmere cardigan and matching ankle-skimming skirt.

‘Hello, Lady St John! Almost my last visit to you, sadly! And I… I…’ Kate’s words faltered and then died completely, stuck in her throat like an insult one had thought better of saying.

For Lady St John was not alone, and insult was the very last word you would associate with the man who had quietly entered the room behind her. For who could possibly criticise pure perfection on two such long, muscular legs? This must be the owner of the car, she realised, and her heart began to race. Had she thought that only dull little men drove cars like that? Because she had been totally and foolishly wrong.

Lady St John performed a seamless introduction, waving her hand in the direction of the man who stood like a dark, silent statue behind her. ‘Kate—this is my godson.’

‘Your godson ?’ echoed Kate, in breathless bemusement.

Lady St John smiled. ‘Mmm! I met his mother on my youthful travels to Europe and she became one of my closest friends. I’d like you to meet Giovanni Calverri.’ She turned to the man at her side. ‘Giovanni, this is Kate Connors, who has just been turning her rather spectacular talents to this room.’

As he glanced around the room, Kate couldn’t take her eyes off him. His name implied Latin blood, as did the jet-dark hair, though the eyes were—rather disconcertingly—a bright, dazzling blue. But the term Latin implied warmth and passion, and wasn’t there something awfully cold and aloof about this tall, striking man who was eyeing her with a face that was closed and shuttered?

She matched his look with one of her own. Men in suits that looked as if they had only just left the designer’s showroom the previous day were simply not her type.

‘Hello,’ she said coolly.

Giovanni froze. He had never seen a woman quite so tall or so slim, nor with hair of such a bright, beaten fire—and her very unexpectedness beat a deep, inevitable path into his consciousness. He felt the muscles of his thighs clench, as if his body was instinctively telling him that he wanted to… wanted to… His mouth hardened as he acknowledged the rampant flurry of his thoughts.

He forced himself to make his introduction as bland as possible, although the moist gleam of her mouth filled him with an overwhelming urge to crush its soft pinkness beneath his.

‘Giovanni?’ prompted his godmother, looking at the forbidding set of his shoulders in mild perplexity.

He pulled himself together. ‘I am delighted to meet you,’ he said, in the most beautiful accent Kate had ever heard—rich and dark and overlaid with the slightest and sexiest transatlantic drawl.

Say that again like you meant it, thought Kate indignantly. But she didn’t stop staring, because, even though he was not her type, he was still remarkable, and men who looked like this one were few and far between. Even in the rarefied circles in which she mixed.

Olive skin, an aquiline nose and a hard, sensual mouth. Combine those attributes with a body which was tall and lithe and didn’t possess even the tiniest bit of excess flesh, and you had a man who was most women’s fantasy come true in living, breathing form.

‘Delighted to meet you, too,’ she murmured, tempted to echo his own lack of enthusiasm, but good manners brought her up short and she gave him a polite smile. ‘You’re Italian, are you?’

‘Italian?’ His mouth twisted with a derision which made it look very sexy indeed, and Kate felt her heart race again. What on earth had she said to make him glare at her so?

‘ Diu Mio !’ he uttered softly, a warning glitter lighting up the depths of his blue eyes, as if she had inflicted some silent blow on him. ‘I am a Sicilian, not an Italian!’

He made the claim as if he owned the world itself! ‘You mean there’s a difference?’ she questioned lightly and batted her eyelashes playfully at him.

‘Oh, dear,’ murmured Lady St John.

Giovanni felt his muscles tense once more as he met the flirtatious challenge which had suddenly made her eyes look very green indeed. Eyes which were almost on a level with his own. It was a new and unsettling sensation not to be looking down on a woman—from a purely physical point of view. Disturbingly, he found himself wondering how their bodies would feel if they were touching head to toe, horizontal. Naked . He swallowed the thought down and sublimated his desire, preferring instead to dwell on her ignorance.

‘You mean you don’t know the difference between Sicily and Italy?’ he demanded.

‘I wouldn’t have to ask if I knew , would I?’ she returned, though his rudeness was doing nothing to dampen down the heat in her blood.

Giovanni bit back his irritation, for why should this pale and unknown Englishwoman know anything about the deep, secret place which was his home? The place in love with its own silence, which shaped the impenetrable character of all Sicilians.

‘The difference is almost incalculable,’ he told her coldly. ‘And would take far more time to explain than I have at my disposal.’

‘I see,’ said Kate faintly, thinking how well he spoke English—whilst at the same time acknowledging that she could not ever remember anyone being quite so rude to her!

‘Giovanni!’ said Lady St John, with a mild air of reproval. ‘Much more of that severity and you’ll have Kate leaving!’

He turned then, and a sudden brief flash of warmth transformed the chilly face as he looked down at his godmother. ‘Forgive me,’ he murmured, ‘but it has been a very long week. You must make allowances for me if I am not up to giving a history of Sicily this close to lunch!’

Kate was furious. Was he going out of his way to make her feel as though she was something he had found squashed beneath the sole of his delicious, handmade shoe?

‘Oh, don’t worry about me, Lady St John,’ she declared airily. ‘It would take a lot more than that to make me cut and run!’

Giovanni observed the fire which was spitting from eyes as perfectly shaped as bay leaves. For a brief moment he wondered what it would be like to see those same eyes sleepy and satiated in the aftermath of passion, and then hardened his heart against their emerald appeal, astonished to find his body stubbornly attempting to disobey his will.

And yet he had had a lifetime’s practice of seeing beautiful, intelligent women looking at him with open invitation in their eyes. It happened with such monotonous regularity that he was nothing more than bored by it. Usually.

He told himself that she was a predator—that she must put out for every man she wanted, in just this way—and thankfully the fire began to leave his loins.

Confused, Kate turned away from that beautiful, condemning face and tried to pretend that he wasn’t there. ‘I have the curtains in the van, Lady St John,’ she said, gleaming a small smile of pleasure at her client. ‘And I’d like to begin hanging them, if I may.’

‘I can’t wait to see them!’ enthused Lady St John. ‘Shall we ask Giovanni to help you carry them in? They must be very heavy indeed.’

Ask for help from the cold-faced man who had been so rude to her? Like hell! Kate shook her head, and the red hair shimmered like a windblown wheat-field all the way down her back. ‘That won’t be necessary!’ She gave him a defiant smile. ‘I’m used to managing on my own!’