The Good, the Bad and the Wild Page 9

Damn, how could he have forgotten how direct she was? And how much he enjoyed that about her?

  He let his gaze drift over her, and enjoyed the view too. While the buttoned-up two-piece suit should have made her look a lot less appealing, somehow it didn’t. She’d tied her riotous hair back in a ruthless bun, but those big baby blue eyes, full kissable lips and petal-soft skin were as exquisite as he remembered them, belying her attempts to disguise her beauty.

  Had she disguised herself especially for his benefit? The thought gave him a nice little ego-boost and confirmed the decision he’d come to on the plane.

  He was through feeling guilty about the way he’d lost his temper with Eva the morning after their night together. He’d got Eva her job back—and was submitting to being judged like a prize stallion by a man he’d never met before, plus he was travelling all the way to Italy for the privilege. So as far as he was concerned, his conscience was now clear on that score.

  Which had rather neatly paved the way for the second decision he’d come to a split second ago, as his libido had rioted right back into overdrive at the sight of her. He hadn’t been able to forget her in two whole weeks now. And he was through trying. They were going to be stuck together in Italy for a fortnight. And he for one couldn’t see the harm any more in making the most of it. Especially given that flush of arousal turning her pale cheeks a rosy pink.

  ‘Now that sounds like a challenge,’ he teased.

  Her eyebrows lifted all the way to her neatly brushed fringe. ‘It’s not,’ she said swiftly, but the firm words were contradicted by the tiny tremble of her bottom lip.

  ‘If you say so, Eva,’ he replied, his eyes drawn to her full breasts, which quivered deliciously under the prim shirt she wore.

  Heat punched his groin. He wanted to feel the weight of her breasts again. Wanted her straining against him and begging for his touch the way she had a fortnight ago.

  That could take a while, he acknowledged, as his thought processes finally kicked in, certainly longer than the first time, given that she didn’t seem entirely pleased to see him.

  Good thing they had more than one night.

  ‘We have to get to Terminal One,’ she said, glancing at her wristwatch and avoiding his eyes. ‘The flight to Milan leaves in less than two hours.’

  ‘I’m all yours,’ he said, his voice husky with innuendo.

  The colour in her cheeks hit critical mass, but she only sent him a wary glance, before shooting off towards the terminal entrance. He followed at a more leisurely pace, easily keeping up with her short strides. And wondered if she realised the tailored skirt did nothing to disguise the seductive sway of her hips.

  He was playing some sort of game with her. That had to be it, Eva thought as she stared out of the aeroplane’s small window and the puzzled frown on her face reflected in the perspex.

  But she didn’t have a clue what game. Why did he keep sending her those long, smouldering looks? And what was with the husky tone of voice? The sexy teasing? Had she imagined it, simply because she was so relieved that he was being cooperative instead of cruel?

  She cast a look over her shoulder, to find him lifting his bag into the overhead locker. His T-shirt rose up his waist, to reveal a narrow strip of lean, tanned belly, dusted with dark hair. Her eyes traced the jagged white scar that defined the hollow of his hipbone. And the moisture dried in her mouth, and gushed elsewhere. His arms dropped and the tantalising glimpse disappeared. She squeezed her knees together and jerked her gaze back to the window.

  But then her hearing became impossibly acute. She listened to the muffed thump as he sat down, then the creak of the seatback as he adjusted his long legs in the business class seat and finally heard the deafening metallic click of his seat belt fastening.

  She stared out at the dull, concrete terminal building, rolled her lip under her teeth.

  What was going on? Why was he being so reasonable? He hadn’t raised a single objection as she’d rushed them over to Terminal One, dealt with the check-in and then directed him straight to the queue to get through Security.

  He’d stood in line behind her for what felt like several millennia but had only actually been about twenty minutes. She’d made some pointless attempts at small talk, until nerves at the penetrating looks he kept sending her had forced her to shut up.

  But despite his silence, he hadn’t been disdainful, or even annoyed. He’d been relaxed, amused even.

  While she felt as if she were on a knife-edge. Why was she so unbearably aware of his physical presence? Maybe it was simply his height, that imposing physique. She hadn’t really noticed how much taller than her he was, until now. That had to be why he seemed to tower over her, why it felt as if he were standing too close. When he really wasn’t.

  But that hardly accounted for the sudden attack of paranoia. Every time she looked away, she could have sworn she could feel him watching her. The fine hairs on the back of her neck were prickling alarmingly, even now, as if she were being shocked with static electricity. Her brow creased some more in the perspex. She was being ridiculous. A look could not possibly have a physical manifestation. She had to be imagining it.

  Soft hairs brushed against her forearm on the arm rest and she jumped. She laid her arm across her lap, and sent him a tight smile to disguise her skittish reaction. ‘It’s only a two-hour flight. I hope your jet lag’s not too bad.’

  He sent her a steady look. ‘I’ll survive.’

  ‘The duca is sending a car to pick us up at the airport. His social secretary said in her email that the drive to his home is about two hours, apparently.’

  ‘Fine,’ he said, sounding indifferent.

  ‘What made you change your mind about meeting with the duca?’ she asked, on impulse.

  His eyebrows lowered slightly, but he didn’t reply.

  ‘You didn’t seem inclined to pursue your inheritance, before,’ she said, trying not to wince at the memory of exactly how disinclined to pursue it he’d been.

  ‘My possible inheritance,’ he said carefully. ‘There’s no conclusive evidence that we’re related. And I’m not taking a DNA test.’

  The reply was deliberately evasive, and only made his decision more confusing. If he had no intention of pursuing this, why was he even going to Italy? ‘I doubt the duca will insist on a DNA test,’ she remarked.

  ‘Of course he will,’ he said, dismissively. ‘He’ll want proof.’

  ‘He won’t need proof once he sees you.’

  ‘Why not?’ he said, the hint of irritation surprising her. It was almost as if he didn’t want to be related to the duca…

  ‘Your resemblance to his son is uncanny.’

  His eyebrows rose fractionally but then his mouth flattened into a thin line. ‘I see.’ He hissed the words under his breath, just as the steward announced the details of the in-flight services.

  ‘I have a photo of your father, if you’d like to see it?’

  * * *

  Nick looked at Eva blankly. ‘My father?’ he asked, momentarily confused. Was she planning to whip out the newspaper clipping of Carmine Delisantro? Then he realised who she was talking about, and he had to stifle the renewed stab of annoyance. ‘You mean Leonardo De Rossi?’

  She blinked. ‘Yes, I’m sorry, I meant your biological father. I should have clarified that. I realise this must be hard to—’

  ‘He’s not my father,’ he interrupted her sharply, not liking the way her features softened.

  I don’t have a father, he almost added, but didn’t. Instead he grabbed the in-flight magazine out of the seat pocket, flipped a few pages to find something to read. But when she took the hint and didn’t say anything more on the subject, he began to feel churlish, like a sulky child. Plus biting her head off for no good reason probably wasn’t the best way to persuade her he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

  He stuffed the magazine back in the pocket. Turned to find her switching off her mobile.

  ‘As far as I’m concerned De Ro
ssi’s a sperm donor,’ he clarified, careful to hide the bitterness in his voice. ‘He means nothing to me. And neither does this inheritance.’ He wasn’t about to admit that the main reason he’d agreed to come was to see her again, so he added, ‘I’m just a bit curious to find out what kind of man could make my mother forget her marriage vows.’

  She said nothing for a long time, but he had the strangest sensation she could see right past his show of indifference. The truth was he was more than a little curious about the duca and his son, and why his mother had betrayed his father, or the man he had always thought of as his father, all those years ago.

  He felt the unfamiliar flush of colour rise up his neck under her unwavering gaze, then her fingers touched his arm.

  ‘You seem to have a lot of unresolved anger towards your mother.’

  ‘What?’ he croaked. Where had that come from?

  ‘Your mother,’ she said softly. ‘You seem to have a lot of unresolved anger towards her.’

  That was what he thought she’d said. He gave a half-laugh. ‘Is this a joke?’

  Her eyes widened as if she was surprised even at the suggestion. ‘No, not at all.’

  He chuckled, but the sound was hollow. He’d admit to curiosity, but anything else was ludicrous. He propped his elbow on the arm rest to study her. ‘My mother died of breast cancer when I was still a kid. Believe me any anger I had towards her for what she did—unresolved or otherwise—is long gone.’ He leaned closer, skimmed his thumb across her cheek and watched her eyes darken delightfully. ‘Let’s talk about something else.’

  Her eyes flickered away for a moment, then flicked back to his, the determination in them more than a little unsettling. ‘Leonardo wrote a journal, the duca discovered it a year after his death and read it. That’s how he found out his son had fathered a child. You should read it,’ she said, the earnest tone as disturbing as the sympathy in her eyes.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘It’s written in Italian, but I have an English translation if you need—’

  ‘My Italian’s fine. I don’t want to read it,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘But don’t you want to know what actually happened?’ she murmured, the pads of her fingertips touching his arm again. ‘If you read the journal you’ll see that your mother wasn’t to blame for…’

  ‘I don’t care what happened between them.’ He tugged his arm off the seat divider. Taking a calming breath, he kept his voice low and even. ‘And I never have.’

  It wasn’t strictly speaking true. He’d cared a lot when he was a teenager, tortured by the thought that his father was not the man he loved, the man he had always tried to emulate, and live up to, but actually some slick Italian playboy who his mother had screwed and then lied about for years.

  But he didn’t care about it any more. And he certainly didn’t want to read about their illicit affair in the playboy’s journal. That would just open up all the old bitterness and anger that had followed him around like a bad smell throughout his teens and early twenties, making him do stupid things, take pointless risks—and hurt the only people who had ever really cared about him. He’d finally managed to outrun the anger, finally calmed down enough to make a success out of his life and put all the mistakes behind him—but he’d never be able to apologise to Carmine Delisantro.

  The last thing he wanted was to drag any of that guilt up again. Fine, he could admit to mild curiosity about the duca and the man who had impregnated his mother. But he had no intention of playing happy families.

  And if that meant he had some unresolved anger, well then maybe he did. But he could live with it just fine. ‘Listen, Eva I’m all grown up now, and I couldn’t care less about what happened a generation ago between De Rossi and my mother.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, nodding carefully. ‘I just thought you might be interested in—’

  ‘I’m much more interested in talking about you,’ he cut in, the sudden desire to change the subject almost as acute as the need to wrestle back control of the conversation—and her.

  He didn’t want to talk about the duca, or his son, or his own past. He was much more fascinated by the woman sitting beside him. And the unprecedented effect she still had on him. Which seemed to have become more acute since their first night. Instead of less.

  Even while she’d been asking those intrusive questions, he’d felt the residual hum of arousal at the provocative tilt of her chin, and the softening in her gaze. The small patch of skin where her fingers had touched his arm still sizzled. He’d never been this aware of a woman before.

  ‘What do you want to know?’ she asked warily.

  Reaching towards her, he drew his thumb across the little indent under her bottom lip, heard her sharp intake of breath. ‘Let’s start with how you got that tiny scar on your belly?’

  As expected the intimate enquiry had hot colour firing across her cheekbones, but her gaze didn’t falter. ‘It’s an appendix scar,’ she said, both direct and delightfully flustered.

  He leaned close, whispered: ‘Want me to kiss it better?’

  She didn’t reply, but stunned arousal darkened her irises to a rich cobalt as her eyes flew wide.

  He closed the gap, caught that full bottom lip between his teeth and gave a soft nip before sliding his tongue across it.

  She jerked back, thudding against the aeroplane wall. ‘No, I don’t,’ she said, more breathless than outraged.

  ‘That’s a shame.’ He chuckled, noting the frantic rise and fall of her breathing, the pink flush on her neck. She fascinated him all right. And what fascinated him most of all was the way she responded to him. And how much her instant, untutored response turned him on.

  Even when she was trying really hard not to.

  He kissed me. Why did he kiss me?

  Eva rubbed her hand over her mouth, unable to relinquish her fixed stare out of the window.

  And why did I let him?

  She pressed her lips together where the tiny bite still tingled. The jet taxied down the runway, forcing her body into the seat as it tilted into its ascent.

  It hadn’t been much more than a playful little nip, followed by a quick brush of his mouth against hers. It wasn’t a case of letting him or not letting him. It wasn’t that big a deal. She mustn’t overreact. This was all part of the game he was playing.

  But why wouldn’t her lips stop buzzing?

  This was worse than she thought, she realised as she heard the ping of the seat-belt sign switching off and her fingers white-knuckled on the arm rest.

  Not only did she not have a clue what game Nick Delisantro was playing, but she had an awful feeling that whatever game it was, he planned to win.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE chauffeur-driven car wound through the carefully manicured hedgerows of the Alegria estate, the red geraniums splashing vibrant colour into the intense green. The duca must have a small army of gardeners, Eva calculated, to keep the flowers blooming in this heat. She slipped open another button on her blouse, careful to keep her body turned to the window and away from her fellow passenger, who’d folded his long body into the seat next to her over two hours ago and promptly fallen asleep.

  She’d lost her jacket as soon as she’d been positive Nick wasn’t faking sleep to lull her into a false sense of security. Despite the air-conditioning, the sun glaring off the tinted windows, and the overwhelming presence of the man sleeping next to her, had made the interior of the limo stifling. She glanced down at her cleavage, glad to see only the smallest glimpse of flesh and the slight glow of perspiration. She wanted to look as professional as possible when they arrived, and she also didn’t want to give Nick any ideas. He’d taken more than enough liberties already on that score. Although quite why he had, she still hadn’t figured out.

  She risked a look over her shoulder. With his chin tucked into his chest, his arms folded and his long legs crossed at the ankle and stretched out in front of him in the limo’s spacious seat well, he’d hardly budged during th
e journey.

  But how could he have fallen asleep so easily?

  How could he be so apparently uninterested about meeting his grandfather for the first time? He hadn’t asked a single question on the plane about the duca, or her research—or even the estate. In fact, apart from that moment of teasing and the kiss—she pressed her lips together—which she refused to think about again, he’d hardly spoken at all. Instead, he’d opened an expensive laptop not long after take-off and typed at a steady pace, pausing only to order a tomato juice.

  When she thought of how absorbing she found tracing the ancestry of people who had been long dead and who she had no connection with whatsoever, she was even more astonished by his attitude. How could he be so calm and composed about meeting a man he was actually related to?

  But even as the question echoed in her head she recalled his flat refusal to read Leonardo’s journal. To even discuss the man. And the brittle anger in his voice. Maybe he wasn’t indifferent about his past and his heritage at all. Maybe he was simply defensive about it. Because discussing the affair between his mother and Leonardo De Rossi brought back painful memories?

  She watched him, the vulnerability of sleep making his harsh dominant features look almost boyish, and felt the little blip in her heartbeat at the thought of what he might have suffered when he discovered that Carmine Delisantro was not his father.

  The crunch of the car wheels on gravel had Eva blinking back the sentimental thought.

  Stop it—you promised yourself you wouldn’t do this.

  Romanticising Nick’s reactions, and reading an emotional response into this visit that almost certainly wasn’t even there, would only get her into trouble. She should never have probed about his relationship with his mother, but curiosity, and a stupid desire to soothe the anger she’d seen flash in his eyes, had got the better of her. Nick wasn’t a little boy, as he had already pointed out, he was all grown up now. And the secrets of his past were none of her business.

  The car swept out of the hedged driveway and rolled to a stop in front of the Alegria Palazzo. Eva sucked in an awed breath, craning her neck to get a better view. She’d seen photographs of the duca’s estate, but nothing could have prepared her for the size and grandeur of the structure up close. Wide terraces separated the front of the building from the waterfront. The lake lapped against a wooden dock, where a couple of small sailboats were dwarfed by a muscular scarlet power cruiser.