Stephanie Howard - The Colorado Countess

Feeling a little cowardly, she sat back stiffly in her seat again. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll pay you before you leave.’ That surely shouldn’t be long now, she was silently praying. And there was definitely no danger that she might forget.

There was silence for a moment as Leone sat back and looked at her. The more he discovered about this girl, the more intriguing she became to him. She was different, a type he came across rarely.

‘You’re the independent sort, I see.’ His tone was light as he challenged her. ‘Is this how they teach you to be over in Colorado?’

‘I suppose it must be. It’s certainly how I was taught.’

Carrie wondered if he was laughing at her and decided he probably was. The sort of personal integrity her parents had instilled in her ever since she was very little was something he would find petty and bourgeois and boring. People of his social rank operated differently. They were the sort of people, after all, who went through life thinking nothing of commandeering other people’s restaurant tables!

She tilted her chin at him. ‘I was brought up to respect people, to respect their rights, not to take advantage.’ And as she looked into his eyes she could see quite clearly that he had understood the unspoken message. ‘I was also taught to pay my way and to honour my debts. In short, not to take anything that wasn’t my due.’

Leone regarded her with interest. ‘So, what do you consider to be your due?’

‘What I work for. What I earn by my own efforts.’

She paused and dropped her eyes to her lap for a moment. Was she overdoing it just a little? she wondered, suddenly guilty. She was talking, after all, to one of the idle aristocracy and she had also been taught never to give gratuitous offence.

But Leone did not appear to be offended in the slightest. Instead, he took another bite of his peach and commented, ‘An extremely worthy philosophy of life.’

Not that he meant it, of course, and he could afford to smile indulgently and not care a damn what people like her thought of him. This thought went through Carrie’s head as she looked into the blue eyes, observing to herself what different worlds they came from. Surely neither could ever truly understand the other?

She said, ‘It’s what I was taught and it’s what I believe.’

Leone continued to watch her, the blue eyes oddly unsettling. They had this quality of seeming to pierce beneath her skin. At times he seemed to be laughing at her, at others studying her closely, and somehow the two just didn’t add up.

What was going on in his head and why had he come? For she still wasn’t convinced by the reason he’d given her. But the thing that was making her most uncomfortable of all was the fact that there seemed to be no sign of him leaving!

He crossed his feet at the ankles and tilted his head as he looked at her. ‘So, what are you doing here in decadent old Europe rubbing shoulders with the sort of people I’d have thought you’d run a mile from?’

He was definitely laughing at her now. The blue eyes sparked with devilment. ‘Wouldn’t you have been better off choosing a different subject for your book? Something that kept you safe among the high principles of Colorado?’

Arrogant pig. Carrie looked back at him levelly. ‘Actually, I don’t live in Colorado any more.’

That was just for the record. He didn’t know everything, after all!

‘For the past three years,’ she continued, ‘I’ve lived in New York. So, you see, I have actually ventured out of the safe haven of my home state.’

‘That must have been quite a jolt.’ Leone was still smiling at her amusedly. ‘How on earth do you manage to survive among the sharks of New York?’

‘I just basically put my head down and get on with my job, just as millions of other New Yorkers do. I’ve never had any trouble surviving, as you put it.’ And it was true—she’d made the shift to the Big Apple with no problem. ‘Most New Yorkers, like me, believe in the ethos of hard work.’

‘Back to that old subject again.’ Leone lifted one dark eyebrow. ‘I get the feeling that with you everything comes back to work.’

‘I suppose it does, more or less. Work is a large part of my life.’ And she couldn’t resist adding, whether it offended him or not, ‘No doubt that’s a totally alien concept to you?’

‘Totally.’ Leone took another bite of his peach. ‘I consider my life to be for living.’

Well, she knew what he meant by that! For ‘living’ substitute ‘loving’. In the pursuit of sexual adventures was how Leone Montecrespi spent his time!

She threw him a condescending look. ‘Each to his own, of course. Personally, I prefer a little more substance to my existence.’

‘And who says my life lacks substance? I would say it had substance to spare.’

‘Well, there’s substance and substance, I suppose.’ Carrie shrugged an expressive shrug. ‘As I said before, each to his own.’

‘Each to his own indeed.’ Leone continued to watch her. And though he was smiling there was a dark, probing look in his eyes. ‘Is it really true, then?’ he asked, finishing off his peach and tossing the stone down on the table. ‘Is work the only thing that turns you on?’

Those were not the precise words Carrie herself would have chosen, though she was not at all surprised that he had opted for that wording. It was perfectly clear that he was out to needle her.

She regarded him coolly. ‘I find my work stimulating.’ If he thought he could fluster her, he had another think coming. After three years in New York she didn’t fluster so easily. ‘Most people,’ she added, ‘who have jobs they’re truly involved in would agree, I think, that work gives a lot of satisfaction.’

She didn’t bother to add this time that he no doubt found that an alien concept. It didn’t need saying. They both knew it was true. For though she’d heard he had a job—something to do with Formula One racing cars—it was clearly nothing more than a rich man’s pastime. An undemanding and conveniently part-time pastime that left him plenty of free time for ‘living’.

‘So I’ve heard.’ Leone was enjoying this little skirmish. ‘But a lot of satisfaction is one thing; total satisfaction is quite another. And I’m beginning to suspect that you fall into the latter category.’

‘Are you indeed?’

‘Yes, I am. Am I right?’

Carrie fixed him with a look. Was he asking her about her sex life? Well, she was keeping that to herself—not that there was a great deal to divulge. A couple of mild romances, a few flirtations and not much more. Certainly nothing that would stand comparison with his love life!

She held the deep blue gaze. ‘That’s something you’ll never know.’

‘Top secret, huh?’

‘Just my own private business.’

‘Too bad. I was hoping for some intimate little insight.’

‘Then I’m afraid I must disappoint you.’

‘That’s the worst thing you could do to me.’ He smiled. ‘I can’t bear it when a woman disappoints me.’

Carrie could think of no reply and, really, it was little wonder, for all at once her heart was beating strangely. There was a rapid pulse in her throat and her breathing was fast and shallow. Wrong again, she was thinking. Who said she couldn’t be flustered?

For there’d been an undercurrent in that exchange that had been distinctly sexual and she’d found herself responding with a sudden sense of excitement. But an excitement touched with guilt, for she’d known she shouldn’t be reacting to him like that. Only she’d been unable to stop herself and had had no desire to stop him. As they sat looking at each other now, the air around them seemed to crackle.