Sara Craven - Ultimate Temptation

Lucy looked down at the floor. ‘I understand now why she didn’t want us here. She seemed very frightened.’

‘I can imagine,’ he said sardonically. ‘Yet it should have been safe. I had no plans to use the villa myself until the time of the vintage. But circumstances intervened.’ He shrugged. ‘You are unfortunate, signorina. You could so easily have enjoyed your holiday uninterrupted and innocently unaware that your occupation was illegal.’

The last word seemed to hang in the air between them, raising all kinds of disturbing implications.

Lucy shivered. She said, ‘I’m not sure enjoyment is the word.’

‘No?’ The amber eyes surveyed her reflectively. ‘Yet you are dressed for an evening of pleasure.’

Lucy gritted her teeth. That damned dress, she thought.

‘A bad mistake,’ she said. ‘Like the entire trip.’ She forced a smile. ‘And being mugged was really the last straw anyway. I didn’t need to be conned as well.’

‘How did you meet Moressi—hear about this place?’ he asked curiously.

‘The others used to visit a pizzeria after their Italian classes. The manager arranged it. He and Tommaso must have been in league with each other.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘I wasn’t sure about him from that first moment in Pisa. And when I saw this house—how beautiful it was, and how old—it seemed even stranger. He didn’t—fit somehow.’

‘He never has.’ His voice was abrupt. There was another silence, then he said, ‘So, what is the alternative to Lussione?’

‘Pisa,’ she said determinedly. ‘And the next flight home.’

‘That could present problems. This is, after all, the holiday season. There will be few spare seats available—if any,’ he added starkly.

Lucy shrugged defensively. ‘Then I’ll find somewhere to stay—go on stand-by,’ she said with more confidence than she actually felt as she did a hasty mental calculation of her available funds.

‘Can you affford that?’ Clearly he wasn’t fooled.

‘I don’t have a choice.’ She gave him a defiant look.

‘How fortunate,’ he said softly, ‘that I was able to read your mind so accurately.’

‘What do you mean?’ Lucy was suddenly very still.

‘Your friends have gone. I told them you would not be accompanying them.’

Lucy stared at him, suddenly, tensely aware of how quiet the house had become.

‘You mean they’ve left me here alone?’ Her voice almost cracked. ‘Without even a word?’

His smile deepened. There was something pagan in the curve of his mouth, she thought, a stir of unbidden excitement warring with the growing apprehension inside her.

He said gently, ‘Not alone, signorina. You forget that I shall be here too. From now on you will be staying as my guest.’ He paused. ‘And also,’ he added softly, ‘as my companion.’

CHAPTER THREE

LUCY stared at him. She was suddenly aware that she was trembling. That all the warmth seemed to have drained from her body, leaving her ice-cold.

There was danger here, all the more shocking because it was totally unforeseen.

Her hands curled into fists at her sides, her nails grating across the soft palms. She tried to keep her voice level.

‘Companion, signore? I don’t think I understand.’

‘It’s quite simple. You will remain here, signorina, to make reparation for the insult which has been made to my home—my family—by you and your—acquaintances.’

‘I’ll remain?’ She took a startled breath. ‘But that isn’t fair...’

Giulio Falcone shrugged. ‘By your own admission you cannot afford proper recompense for the damage that has been done. However, there are other methods of payment.’ His smile barely touched the corners of his mouth. ‘I believe we can reach a settlement that would be—agreeable to us both.’

‘Then you’re wrong,’ Lucy said furiously. Cold no longer, she was now burning with shame and anger, and an odd sense of disappointment. ‘How dare you even suggest such a thing? Who the hell do you think you are—and what do you take me for?’

‘I am Falcone.’ He threw back his head, the dark face arrogant, brooding. ‘And you are a girl who has twice trembled in my arms. Can you deny it?’

‘I was upset,’ she flung at him defensively. ‘The first time I’d nearly been robbed, and the second I was running away. I thought you realised that—and why...’

‘Ah, yes.’ His voice was reflective. ‘But, in that case, why tempt a man by wearing a dress that begs to be taken from your body and then deny him the pleasure? Your companions, after all, showed no such reticence,’ he added, his mouth curling slightly.

She said shortly, ‘I’m responsible for no one’s conduct but my own, and I don’t play games like that.’

‘Are you a virgin?’

She gasped, the colour deepening to fiery red in her face. ‘You have no right to ask me that.’

‘A simple “no” would have sufficed,’ he said mockingly. ‘Although—’ he sent her a narrow-eyed glance ‘—your eyes do not have the look of a woman who has known all the satisfaction that love can bring.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lucy said haughtily.

He laughed. ‘I’m quite sure you don’t, but it will be an exquisite pleasure to teach you some day—or some night.’

There was a caress in his voice which shivered down Lucy’s spine and danced in her pulses. She felt the muscles in her throat tauten.

She managed a brief shrug of her own. ‘Fortunately, I shan’t be around that long. As I said, I’m leaving for Pisa.’

‘Ah,’ the count said meditatively. ‘And just how do you propose to get there?’

Lucy paused in the act of locking her case. ‘Why— drive there, of course.’

‘I did not realise you had brought your own vehicle.’

‘Well, I haven’t, but...’ Her voice trailed into silence as she saw his smile deepen mockingly, and the slow negative movement of his dark head.

She said unsteadily, ‘Of course, the car is yours too. I should have realised.’

‘Not mine,’ he corrected her. ‘It belongs to the contessa.’

She was very still for a moment, her thoughts whirling blankly. The idea that he could be married had never even crossed her mind. Not, of course, that it made the slightest difference...

She said brusquely, ‘Then she has my sympathy.’

‘Why?’ His brows lifted enquiringly. ‘Is the car so difficult to drive?’

‘Certainly not,’ Lucy snapped. ‘I meant that I—I pity anyone who’s involved with a—a Lothario like you.’

‘You imagine, perhaps, that Lothario was an Italian.’ Giulio Falcone shook his head again. ‘You are wrong, signorina. He was the invention of an English dramatist. Just as you seem to be inventing me,’ he added, his tone dry.

‘It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination,’ Lucy retorted. ‘Nina was right, after all. You Italian studs are all the same.’

‘The looks of a dove and the tongue of a wasp,’ he said silkily. ‘An intriguing combination.’

‘Not for much longer.’ Lucy swung the case off the bed. ‘Will you loan me your—contessa’s car to drive to Pisa, please?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not.’

She lifted her chin. ‘Right—then I’ll walk there.’ ‘In that dress?’ He surveyed her mockingly. ‘You’d be lucky to get half a kilometre. Even if the police did not stop you first,’ he added, almost casually.

‘I planned to change, given some privacy,’ she said. ‘I don’t think jeans and a shirt would make me liable to arrest.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But there is the matter of trespass, which you seem to have overlooked.’

Fright was building up again, making her stomach churn. Her fingers tightened almost convulsively round the handle of her case.