Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

About the author

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

“I see you’ve made up your mind,” Tessa stated.

“Made up my mind?”

“Yes—to amuse yourself at my expense.”

“Wouldn’t it have been a mutual amusement?” Sandro enquired.

“For your information, I go in for slightly more conventional ways of getting to know men than leaping into bed with them,” Tessa informed him icily.

“Grow up, Tessa,” Sandro snapped. “I’m experienced enough to know when I’ve a responsive woman in my arms.”

KATE PROCTOR is part Irish and part Welsh, though she spent most of her childhood in England and several years of her adult life in Central Africa. Now divorced, she lives just outside London with her two cats, Florence and Minnie, presented to her by her two daughters who live fairly close by. Having given up her career as a teacher on her return to England, Kate now devotes most of her time to writing. Her hobbies include crossword puzzles, bridge and, at the moment, learning Spanish.

A Passionate Deceit
Kate Proctor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

‘I THOUGHT you said the film crew would already be here,’ said Tessa Conway, her wide-spaced blue eyes scanning the luxury of her almost deserted surroundings before returning to the petite figure of her cousin in the armchair beside her.

‘They’re here all right,’ Babs Morgan assured her. ‘In fact, they’ve already started filming on the beach just below here.’ She smiled indulgently as her cousin leapt excitedly to her feet and raced to one of the several tall windows overlooking the sea in the hotel lounge. ‘Tess, if you’re going to behave like a demented groupie I’ll take you straight back to London with me tomorrow!’

Tessa returned to her chair, an impish grin dancing across her strikingly attractive features. ‘What, and let the wardrobe take care of itself?’ she teased.

‘I’m sure Carla, the production secretary, would be quite happy to help out should the need arise,’ murmured Babs with arch innocence.

‘You’re not being fair, expecting me to be as blasé as you are,’ laughed Tessa. ‘OK, so your job brings you into constant contact with film legends and their talented offspring, but you have to remember that despite all the times you’ve let me help with wardrobe work I’ve never been within a mile of a film set’

‘Tess, I know—and I’m eternally grateful that you were able to help me out like this,’ said Babs, then gave her a wicked grin. ‘But, as I’ve already explained, all the real filming’s finished—so I’m afraid there won’t be any stars around for you to gawp at.’

‘Babs, you know I’m not the gawping type!’ exclaimed Tessa indignantly. ‘And I promise to be on my best behavior in the presence of anyone even remotely connected with the crew.’

‘I’m only teasing, love,’ murmured Babs, her expression affectionate. ‘In fact, I was hoping that this little experience might start you thinking about coming to work for us permanently,’ she added tentatively.

‘I—that’s sweet, of you,’ stammered Tessa, reeling from the feelings of guilt suddenly bombarding her. ‘But it’s still journalism for me.’

‘Tess, why can’t you just accept that your stepfather’s too powerful a man for you to waste your life trying to prove him wrong?’ sighed Babs.

‘Charles is wrong! Just because he owns Conway Press and has a stake in several daily papers, it doesn’t mean he’s infallible! All I need is a break.’

‘You know, Tess,’ sighed Babs, ‘I sometimes get the feeling that the only thing that makes you so keen on journalism is the fact that Charles is against it.’

‘Against it? He won’t even discuss it with me,’ protested Tessa, ‘yet he puts every obstacle he can in my way—’ She broke off, guilt flaring once more in her as she realised how intently she was being scrutinised. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked defensively.

‘I knew there was something odd with you!’ exclaimed Babs, grinning. ‘You look about twelve. For heaven’s sake, Tess, what have you done to your hair?’

Tessa’s hands rose to the bunches into which she had tied her shoulder-length, dark blonde hair, her look of uncertainty as she did so making her indeed look extremely young.

‘I—it’s easier to manage like this,’ she stammered, then gave a diffident shrug. ‘Actually, I hadn’t the faintest idea what sort of things people wear around a film set—I mean, they can hardly flit around the place dolled up to the nines—and you’d already left for here by the time I got around to thinking about it.’

‘An Irish beach in the middle of winter is hardly the place for anyone to be dolled up to the nines!’ observed Babs, then leaned back in her chair, giggling weakly. ‘Tess, you haven’t by any chance been reading what the gossip columnists have to say about a certain film director by the name of Sandro Lambert, have you?’

‘What on earth is that supposed to mean?’

‘Because, according to them, he has a gargantuan appetite for women,’ laughed Babs. ‘But I’m sure they’d tell you that pigtails won’t help you—that he’d gobble little girls like you up for breakfast, if he felt so inclined.’

‘Ha, ha,’ muttered Tessa, now suddenly not in the least sure that her decision to play down her looks had not subconsciously had something to do with what she had read of Sandro Lambert’s infamous reputation.

‘You needn’t worry, love,’ teased Babs, rising to her feet and strolling over to one of the windows. ‘Rumour has it that Sandro’s off women with a vengeance at the moment—or, at least, that he was when filming finished a few weeks ago.’

Tessa rose and joined her, a sigh of awed disbelief escaping her as she looked out over the hotel grounds and down on to the turbulent majesty of the sea below.

‘It’s so incredibly wild and beautiful here,’ she sighed. ‘I’ve never been to Ireland before, but I’d love to—Babs, who’s that?’ she exclaimed as a tall, dark-haired woman appeared round the side of the building. ‘Wow, she certainly matches the scenery for beauty!’

‘Good heavens, it’s Angelica Bellini!’ gasped Babs, her neck craning as the woman disappeared from view.

‘Is she a film star?’

Babs shook her head dismissively. ‘Her brother, Umberto, often works with Sandro. He’s quite a famous cameraman—you might have heard of him. There was a terrible accident on the set of Sandro’s last film and Umberto was badly injured. Oh, look—here come the crew now.’

Tessa leaned forward, peering intently through the window as a group of men, laden with equipment, appeared from the shrubbed path leading up from the beach and walked across the lawn. ‘Which one is Sandro Lambert?’ she demanded, feeling a sudden twinge of excitement even though none of the men she could see seemed to bear any resemblance to the photographs she had seen of the fêted film director.

‘He doesn’t appear to be with them,’ muttered Babs. ‘Oh, yes—there he is now.’

Tessa watched the tall figure of a man stride from the path and across the lawn. He was dressed in what she took to be ski-wear—a sensible choice, she decided, given the piercing cold of the January wind now whipping its way through the curling blackness of his hair—his broad shoulders hunched against the elements and his hands rammed deep into his pockets. The photographs she had seen of him, she now realised, had given little indication of the true size of the man, or of the virile strength almost radiating from that purposefully striding figure. It was when he drew close enough for his features to become clearly visible that she heard her own gasp of disbelief.

‘He’s not exactly what you’d call photogenic, is he?’ she breathed. ‘Babs, he’s…he’s absolutely gorgeous!’

‘This is all I need!’ groaned Babs, hauling her away from the window and back to where they had been sitting. ‘It’s bad enough Angelica turning up here, but if you start drooling over him, my girl, he’ll make mincemeat out of you—I mean it, Tess.’

‘For heaven’s sake!’ exclaimed Tessa indignantly. ‘I wasn’t drooling! And why is it bad that Angelica’s turned up?’

‘I…oh, forget it,’ muttered Babs. ‘Look, they’ll be here any moment now and I forgot to warn you not to mention your connection with Conway Press. Sandro’s become a bit paranoid about the Press of late—and that’s putting it mildly.’

Tessa felt her entire body tense. ‘Conway Press is hardly the gutter press,’ she muttered, her tone verging on defensive. ‘But, if it makes you feel better, you can introduce me as Tessa Morgan.’ The instant she had made the suggestion she was sickened by her own duplicity and suddenly she was no longer sure that this fortuitous trip to Ireland would turn out to be the brilliant career move it had so recently seemed.

‘Actually, that’s not a bad idea!’ exclaimed Babs. ‘It can be your professional name,’ she teased.

Realising that she couldn’t bring herself to deceive her cousin like this, Tessa opened her mouth to protest, then closed it with a silent groan of frustration as a group of men burst into the room, all talking at the tops of their voices in a baffling assortment of languages.

‘Ciao, Babs!’ called out one of them, a thick-set, craggily attractive man who made his way over to them with a broad grin of delight. ‘This Ireland!’ he groaned through a heavy Italian accent. ‘So beautiful, but so wet and cold!’

‘Paolo, I’d like you to meet my cousin, Tessa—Tessa Morgan,’ said Babs, once she had extricated herself from his bear-hug of a greeting, her laughing emphasis of the surname leaving Tessa once again awash with feelings of guilt. ‘She’s standing in for my assistant who, like everyone else, has come down with the flu.’

‘More of this terrible flu,’ murmured Paolo with a doleful shake of his head as he and Tessa shook hands. ‘We’ll all die here,’ he added dramatically, kneeling down in front of the huge, open fire and spreading his arms as though about to hurl himself into its flames. ‘I tell Sandro the film is perfect, is finished—but he don’t listen. He brings us here to freeze to death while we film footage we don’t even need.’

‘Paolo’s the director of photography and just about the most brilliant cameraman around,’ Babs confided in a loud stage whisper, ‘but he’s also an unremitting pessimist’

As the rest of the group gradually joined them by the fire, Tessa felt a glow of exhilaration as she was drawn into their boisterous, multi-lingual banter, and decided that, even if her plan to break into journalism by means of a covert profile on Sandro Lambert came to nothing, at least she was going to enjoy these few days in this easygoing, cosmopolitan company.

‘What we are now about to have is an Irish tea.’

Tessa turned her head at the sound of those words, attracted by their fascinatingly husky tones and the faintest trace of an accent so elusive she wasn’t certain it actually existed. The first thing to catch her eye was a five-tier trolley being wheeled in by one of the hotel maids, its lower tiers laden with a lavish assortment of sandwiches, home-baked fruit breads and cream cakes, its upper ones with tea and coffee, silverware, cutlery and crockery. Her gaze then moved along to the man who had spoken and who was now conducting a conversation in Italian with Paolo and another of the men.

He had changed, she noted, completely oblivious of the intensity of her gaze as her eyes moved up from the long, perfectly shaped legs, now encased in denim so faded it was almost white, to the heavy navy fisherman’s sweater adorning an athletic, broad-shouldered torso. When her gaze finally alighted on Sandro Lambert’s face, the thought that again crossed her mind was that he really wasn’t in the least photogenic. True, any pictures she had seen of him had portrayed an extremely good-looking man, but not one of them had managed to capture anything of the extraordinary vitality he exuded—a powerful, almost animal magnetism that seemed to radiate from him.

Tessa’s eyes were still engrossed in their inspection when he broke off his conversation with the two men.

‘I’m sure we can manage to serve ourselves,’ she heard him tell the maid, a hint of laughter further warming the husky attractiveness of his voice.

So this was what was meant by charisma, thought Tessa, utterly fascinated and so lost in her leisurely inspection of this phenomenon possessing it that she hadn’t noticed the point at which he switched from Italian to French, her whole attention caught up in the husky softness of the sounds emanating with such fluid ease from a large, expressive and sensuously full-lipped mouth that parted every now and then to display teeth of stunningly white perfection.

She would no doubt have indulged herself in an equally leisurely inspection of the strong, classical lines of his nose had her gaze not been drawn, as though by command, to a pair of eyes trained implacably on her own. The eyes she encountered were a startling blend of velvety brown and topaz, but it wasn’t their unusual colour that startled her, nor was it the fact that he was still holding an animated conversation with one of the French members of his crew even while his eyes held hers in their mesmerising gaze. It was the unmitigated hostility with which she was being observed that startled her into a flustered awareness of how blatantly she had been staring.

The sensation of hot colour flaring to her cheeks only adding to her feelings of utter mortification, Tessa hastily transferred her gaze to the trolley the maid had wheeled round to the side of the sofa.

‘Right, there’s tea or coffee,’ announced Babs. ‘Which one of you is going to pour?’

There were six men in the room: Sandro Lambert standing, Paolo crouched by the hearth and practically in the fire, two sprawled along a sofa and the remaining two draped across armchairs—to a man they were looking at Babs as though she had suggested something faintly indecent.

‘Just look at them, will you?’ groaned Babs, trying unsuccessfully to hide her amusement. ‘They’re useless! Mind you, I blame Carla—Sandro’s production secretary—she mothers them as though they were all three-year-olds! By the way, where is Carla?’ she asked, addressing the director. ‘I thought she was due here this morning.’

‘She was,’ sighed Sandro, approaching the trolley with the air of one condemned. ‘But she’s gone down with this wretched flu—as have Gina and Andy, half the grips and our continuity clerk, to mention but a few.’ He gingerly lifted the lid of the hot-water jug and swore as he burned his fingers. ‘Who’s for tea and who’s for coffee?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, let me do it!’ exclaimed Babs, shaking her head but grinning broadly as she got to her feet ‘And while we’re on the subject of being short-handed, you know I have to leave tomorrow and that one of my assistants was to take charge.’

‘Was to take charge?’ enquired the director, glancing cursorily in Tessa’s direction.

‘Yes, was,’ said Babs. ‘She’s also been stricken by this flu, which is why I’ve had to rope in my cousin. The trouble is that she’s had no experience on set, so I was relying on Carla keeping an eye on things—especially the crowd scenes.’

‘Your cousin?’ muttered Sandro, this time not even giving Tessa a cursory look.

‘Yes—Tessa Morgan,’ stated Babs, again with emphasis, as she busied herself at the trolley.

‘I’m resigned to the fact that things will be chaotic here without Carla,’ stated Sandro gloomily, not so much by a flicker of an eyelid acknowledging Tessa’s presence, ‘and that our being so short-handed will only make a bad situation worse. Paolo’s due to start something in Florence in ten days and anyway my schedule’s too tight for any changes…so it looks as though I’ll have to scrap the additional medieval crowd sequences.’

‘So much for the trailer arriving any minute now, with costumes for two or three hundred,’ chuckled Babs, handing him two cups of coffee. ‘But at least Tess shouldn’t have any problem coping with the rest.’

‘The only wardrobe we’ll need will be for the scenes with the old man and his sons,’ said Sandro, looking down at the cups in his hands as though uncertain what to do with them. He glanced behind him and promptly handed one of them to the man nearest him, then removed himself to the chair Babs had just vacated and began drinking from the second.

‘Come and get it!’ called out Babs, flashing the unconcerned director a murderous look before picking up two cups of tea and handing one to Tessa. ‘You don’t mind if I perch here, do you?’ she asked, her pointed words bringing no discernible reaction from the man at whom their sarcastic content had been directed as she sat herself down on the arm of Tessa’s chair.

‘Would you like me to hand round the food?’ offered Tessa, once the men had helped themselves to drinks.

‘Over my dead body,’ growled Babs, then began chuckling to herself as two of the younger men stirred themselves and started passing the laden plates around.

‘You see,’ murmured Sandro after a while, amusement glinting in those extraordinary eyes of his as they homed in on Babs, ‘we’re not completely helpless without Carla.’ Then he added with a morose sigh, ‘At least, not as far as handing around a few plates goes.’

‘Surely you can learn to cope without her for the short while you’ll be here!’ exclaimed Babs unsympathetically.

‘You know perfectly well how invaluable she is to me,’ he protested. ‘It’s like losing my right hand!’

As he went on to extol his missing production secretary in lavish terms, Tessa listened with only half an ear, her ego reeling from the completeness with which she had been ignored…and was still being ignored! Though that was a bit like wanting to have it both ways, she admitted reluctantly to herself. She was the first to complain when, as frequently happened, she found herself on the receiving end of far too enthusiastic interest from men she barely knew. In fact, she reminded herself with a squirm of embarrassment, there had been times when she had treated ogling strangers in pretty much the same way as Sandro Lambert was now treating her!

‘For heaven’s sake, Sandro, you can’t start importing secretaries!’ exclaimed Babs, her incredulous laughter distracting Tessa from her discomfiting thoughts. ‘Why don’t you try roping in Angelica? I’m sure she’d be only too pleased to be able to help.’

‘This isn’t a joking matter,’ snapped Sandro. ‘How am I supposed—?’ He broke off as the hotel porter approached.

‘Miss Morgan?’

‘Yes?’ said Babs, turning.

‘The trailer’s arrived with your costumes.’

‘Thanks, I’ll be right out,’ she replied, draining her cup as she rose. ‘Come along, Tess, duty calls.’

Tessa rose and returned her cup and saucer to the trolley, then she followed her cousin to the door.

‘Heck, why didn’t I think of it?’ exclaimed Babs, leaning over to peer round her approaching cousin as she called out to the director who was staring morosely down into the contents of his cup. ‘Sandro, I suggest you try talking nicely to Tess…she’s a whiz-kid when it comes to shorthand and typing!’

Tessa gave her cousin a look of stunned incredulity.

‘Is that true?’ demanded Sandro, appearing as though by magic at her side and now interest personified as he gazed down at her, a megawatt smile adorning his hand-some features.

‘Sandro, not now,’ groaned Babs, grabbing Tessa by the arm and pulling her through the door. ‘I have to show Tess exactly what you’ll be needing from the trailer, otherwise you’ll have even more problems than you already have.’

‘And what, exactly, was all that about?’ hissed Tessa as she followed in her cousin’s rushed wake through the rear of the hotel and out to the car park housing the equipment trailers.

‘Sandro’s fretting because he won’t have Carla to tie his shoe-laces for him,’ retorted Babs with a laugh. ‘Though, as Carla never stops taking notes while he’s on set, he probably does need secretarial assistance of some sort—and I’d jump at it, if I were you.’ She opened up one of the trailers and motioned Tessa to follow her inside.

‘I wouldn’t have the faintest idea what a production secretary does,’ protested Tessa.

‘I’m sure Sandro’s perfectly capable of explaining what he needs,’ chuckled Babs, turning on a light and casting a critical eye around the neatly packed interior. ‘It’s just that getting three men costumed up isn’t exactly going to occupy much time and I know for a fact that Sandro would pay you top rates if you stood in for Carla.’ She turned and gave Tessa a reassuring smile. ‘At least give it some thought while we root out what you’ll need from this lot’

* * *

‘So, have you had any thoughts?’ asked Babs as they ascended the main staircase to their rooms an hour later.

‘It’s not as though I’ve been offered anything yet,’ stalled Tessa—but if she were, it would be a golden opportunity, she thought with an inevitable pang of guilt.

‘Look, Tess, you’re obviously aware how fond I am of Sandro,’ said Babs gently. ‘This is the third of his films I’ve been involved with and I’ve nothing but admiration for his incredible talent and also his professionalism.’

‘But?’ demanded Tessa wryly as they reached the door of her room.

‘But he can be extremely difficult where women are concerned.’

‘Babs, I’m perfectly aware of his reputation.’

‘I wasn’t necessarily referring to his allegedly lousy behaviour towards women,’ retorted Babs. ‘It’s just that I’ve seen the other side of the picture—the way women subject him to every bit of adulation as they do the male stars in his films.’

‘My heart bleeds for the poor man,’ retorted Tessa waspishly.

‘Tess, that’s not fair! He’s a director, not a film star, and he plainly loathes the way those women slaver over him. Not that I’m saying that’s quite what you did when he came into the lounge, but he didn’t take too kindly to your being so obviously bowled over by him.’

‘I wasn’t in the least bowled over by him!’ exclaimed Tessa indignantly. ‘He’s simply the first real celebrity I’ve ever met and I was a bit—well, overawed,’ she added lamely. ‘I—oh, what’s the use?’ She opened the door of her room, grabbed her cousin by the arm and pulled her inside.

‘Tess, I want to go and have a shower,’ protested Babs.

‘Just sit down—there’s something I want to show you,’ muttered Tessa, opening one of the dressing-table drawers and taking out a file. ‘You’re going to hate me for this,’ she muttered, handing her cousin the file.

Babs sat down on the bed, her face expressionless as she glanced through the couple of pages of notes, then turned to the pocket at the back of the file and removed a wodge of press cuttings.

‘Who put you up to this, Tess?’ she asked quietly.

‘I was talking to Ray Linton a couple of months ago——asking him for a job, actually. He mentioned the names of some celebrities and said that if I could come up with a profile on someone of that calibre he’d be prepared to look at my work. Sandro Lambert was one of those names, so when you mentioned helping you out here…’ She shook her head miserably as her words petered out. ‘It was despicable of me even to think of using you in such a way.’

‘You know the sort of paper Ray Linton edits!’ exclaimed Babs harshly. ‘Profile, my eye! All he’s interested in is muck—the more the better!’

‘Babs, you know I wouldn’t dream of writing anything like that,’ protested Tessa hoarsely.

‘Yes, I do,’ sighed Babs, tossing aside the file. ‘Which is why I’m certain that, even if you succeed in writing up some surreptitious article on Sandro, you haven’t a chance in hell of having it printed.’

‘Why?’ demanded Tessa hotly. ‘Because my allpowerful stepfather will make sure I don’t?’

‘Grow up, Tessa,’ sighed Babs, rising. ‘You never had any real interest in becoming a journalist until you discovered Charles was so against it. For as long as anyone can remember, all you ever wanted was to be a nurse. I know how hard it was on you having to give it up and how difficult it must be having to think in terms of a different career—but are you really certain that journalism is that career?’ She walked over to Tessa and gave her an affectionate hug. ‘I’m off to pack and have a shower,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you for supper…Oh, yes, and I’ll let you have that book I was telling you about—I’ve finished it.’

Tessa flopped down on to the bed once the door had closed behind Babs, gazing dejectedly around the beautiful, wood-panelled room that had earlier so enchanted her. The thought of her own duplicity had racked her with guilt, she admitted to herself, but, even having confessed, she didn’t feel any better. Babs was right—right about everything! Her only ambition had been to become a nurse, and she had sailed through her written exams and had high hopes of doing the same in her practical training until the antiseptics she was coming into increasing contact with had triggered off an allergic reaction in her hands. And Babs was right about her having ogled Sandro Lambert! It was round about the time that her unfortunate tendency towards allergy had manifested itself that so too had her equally unfortunate tendency towards being attracted to completely the wrong sort of man. After the first two—lame, but dauntingly tenacious ducks—it was those dangerously attractive and often virtually unattainable men on whom she had invariably set her sights. Men like Sandro Lambert, she thought with a sudden prickle of apprehension…well, not exactly like him, she corrected herself as it occurred to her that she had never in her life met a man with the presence, the almost palpable animal magnetism that this man possessed.

She gave an exasperated shake of her head. There was only one word to describe a woman who could feel as strongly attracted as she had towards a man who hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge her existence, let alone exchange a civil word with her—and that word was stupid! Yet nothing she had done warranted the way he had behaved, so why on earth should she feel any guilt? If Sandro Lambert was to be her stepping-stone into journalism, she intended stepping without a qualm!

‘It’s still open,’ she called out at the sound of a knock on the door. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking,’ she announced as the door opened.

‘Is that so?’

The words, and the appearance of Sandro Lambert in the doorway, brought a shriek of horror from her.

‘I thought you were Babs!’ she accused, leaping from the bed.

‘I can’t think why,’ he murmured, a look of amusement flitting over his otherwise coolly expressionless face. ‘There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,’ he continued. ‘I’m in the Donegal suite at the end of the corridor—I use the sitting-room as my office.’

‘I’d be useless as a secretary, if that’s what you want to discuss,’ she called after him as he turned to leave. What on earth was she saying? she asked herself incredulously the instant the words were out—what more could she have possibly asked for, as far as her proposed article was concerned, than to observe him at work from virtually by his side?

‘How refreshingly modest of you,’ he drawled, ‘especially when you haven’t the slightest idea what would be required of you.’

She bit back a groan of frustration as the door closed behind him, then hesitated for only the briefest of moments before dragging it open and racing down the corridor after him.

‘It’s just that I don’t know anything about film work,’ she excused herself breathlessly when she had caught up with him.

‘A point we had already established,’ he observed drily, unlocking the door to the suite and holding it open for her with a mocking bow.

She entered the small hallway and on through the doorway before her into the sitting-room, her eyes discounting the clutter littering just about every available surface. It was a beautiful, high-ceilinged room, its exquisite furnishings matching the same high standards she had noticed throughout the hotel.

‘It’s a lovely place,’ she blurted out, the breathlessness in her words betraying her stifling lack of ease. ‘The hotel, I mean…and its surroundings.’

‘Ireland is a very beautiful country,’ he murmured, flashing her a slightly startled look before clearing the debris from one of the chairs and motioning her to be seated. ‘Do you know the country?’

‘No, this is my first visit,’ replied Tessa, her mental state approaching that of a nervous pupil about to be interrogated by the headmaster as she sat down.

‘Tell me, Tessa,’ he murmured, removing a bundle of papers from the armchair opposite hers before sitting down on it, ‘what do you do?’

‘Do?’ she echoed, suddenly distracted by the memory of pictures she had seen of Leona Carlotti, the extraordinarily beautiful Italian actress who was his mother, and wondering why she hadn’t spotted the obvious family resemblance until this very moment.

‘Yes—do,’ he snapped, then made a visible effort to curb his impatience. ‘Babs mentioned your having stepped in to help her out at the last minute—so I take it you’re not in the costume design business?’

‘No—I was made redundant just after Christmas,’ she said, her own reason warning her only a fraction after his angrily tensing jaw had that she hadn’t actually answered his question.

‘But you can do shorthand and typing,’ he stated in tones that revealed how little used he was to curbing his impatience.

Tessa nodded, her jittery state of mind not in the least helped by sudden thoughts of her present love-hate relationship with her infuriating stepfather. It had been Charles who had suggested a secretarial course once she had been forced to abandon nursing, unblushingly hinting that such skills would be invaluable in the journalism in which she had begun showing an interest and to which, even then, he had probably already decided to block her entry.

‘Well, as you may have gathered, there won’t be nearly as much wardrobe work as originally anticipated,’ continued Sandro, hooking one long, denim-clad leg over an arm of the chair and drumming tanned fingers impatiently against the other.

She could almost sympathise with his irritation, she thought wretchedly, knowing how she would have felt if obliged to contend with the monosyllabic half-wit she must appear to be.

‘So, you’ll have quite a bit of time on your hands,’ he continued, the strain of the unfamiliar control he was exercising over himself grating in his tone.

‘I’d be happy to help you in whatever way I can,’ Tessa blurted out, marginally succeeding in her battle to get a grip on herself. ‘But you’ll have to bear in mind my complete ignorance of filming…and all the technical terms associated with it.’

‘I’ll keep that uppermost in my mind,’ he murmured, exasperation, relief and amusement mingling in his tone. ‘Perhaps it would help if I gave you a brief summary of the film and explained my reasons for coming here to shoot the finishing touches?’

‘Yes—I’m sure it would!’ exclaimed Tessa, a little of her customary confidence returning as relief inexplicably flooded her.

He hadn’t really got an accent, she decided some time later, when her ears had become more attuned to that attractively husky voice; it was more that he would now and then express himself in a way that wasn’t typically English, despite his flawless command of the language. As she listened she found her mind sifting back through the details she had hurriedly researched on his background. Needless to say, it was his famous mother who was most written about in connection with him. His English father, she vaguely remembered, was something to do with international law and appeared to shun publicity. Perhaps it was the fact that he had been brought up in Italy that accounted for those slight, though most appealing irregularities in his use of English.

‘We used the studios for the flashbacks to the central character’s medieval ancestor,’ he was saying. ‘We’d virtually completed shooting when I had to come over here for a couple of days in connection with my next film. I stayed in this hotel and it wasn’t until I took a walk along the beach that it hit me I’d found something I wasn’t even looking for—the exact location in which to place the flashback scenes.’

‘What do you mean by “place” them?’ asked Tessa, puzzled. ‘If you’ve already filmed it all and have no cast here—’

‘I don’t need the cast,’ he laughed. ‘Well, no more than the three Irish stage actors I’m using. What I want is to capture the brooding magnificence of a landscape virtually untouched by time and link it in with what we’ve put together in the studio.’ The unguarded look on Tessa’s face brought an almost teasing smile to his lips. ‘You didn’t think that what comes up on the screen is filmed in step by step sequence, did you?’

‘Of course not,’ she muttered, while a panic-stricken voice from within demanded to know how she expected to compile a clandestine, professionally detached appraisal of the working habits of a man whose voice brought her out in goose-bumps and whose smile had the power to turn her legs to jelly. ‘It’s a shame you won’t be able to do all you wanted to,’ she said, striving to sound relaxed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘All those costumes that Babs had sent over—you’re not using them now.’

‘There’s a wedding banquet in one of the flashback scenes. I had considered using the townspeople as extras to depict the contrasting poverty between the guests and the medieval villagers, but I’ve decided against it.’

‘You mean this ghastly flu epidemic has decided for you,’ countered Tessa, relieved to hear herself at long last beginning to sound relatively normal.

‘No—I mean that I have decided against it,’ he informed her coolly, swinging his leg from over the side of the chair and rising with a languid grace to his feet ‘Once I make up my mind I want something, I get it—that’s the way I operate.’ For all the honeyed warmth of their colour, there was a coolness to match his tone in the eyes that gazed down at her. ‘I would suggest you retire early tonight—we get started before dawn.’

Only the thought of what she stood to gain preventing her from giving vent to her fury and telling him what he could do with his wretched job, Tessa leapt to her feet.

‘Right, I’ll be there!’ she flung at him, the fact that she hadn’t the slightest idea where ‘there’ was not even occurring to her in her haste to escape.

Her eyes, now almost navy with the anger seething within her, were trained solely on the doorway through which she would soon mercifully pass, which was why she failed to spot the pile of papers he had earlier tossed on the floor and which now sent her catapulting towards him as her foot skidded across them.

His move to catch her was purely reflex, his tall body hurling itself forward at a precarious angle as his arms reached for her.

Having to force her body forward against the momentum of his to prevent them both from toppling over, Tessa clung on to him for dear life, one arm hooking round his neck while the other clutched at his shoulder.

‘Very clumsy,’ he drawled, his arms holding her against him like steel clamps while his body set about regaining its balance.

‘You’re the idiot who littered the floor so dangerously!’ she accused indignantly.

She was conscious of hearing her own gasped intake of breath as she looked up into that grimly unsmiling yet disturbingly attractive face hovering scant inches above her own. Then her only awareness was of the excitement stirring within her, numbing her mind to shocked disbelief with the stark sensuality of what was awakening in her.

‘You surely can’t be complaining—not when it presented you with this opportunity to throw yourself into my arms.’ He altered his hold on her, his fingers biting painfully into her flesh as he grasped her by her upper arms. ‘Well, now that you’re in them,’ he mocked softly, ‘do they live up to your expectations?’

‘Expectations?’ squeaked Tessa, almost speechless with fury. ‘If I were in the habit of throwing myself into the arms of complete strangers—which I’m not—I most certainly wouldn’t have picked on an ill-mannered, swollen-headed, arrogant—’

His mouth silenced the remainder of her tirade and, seconds later, shock was the only excuse her stunned mind could come up with for the ease with which his lips had managed to prise open her own and then coax them into what could only be described as enthusiastic participation in the most disturbingly arousing of kisses she had ever experienced.

The detached manner in which her mind was making no attempt whatever to monitor her actions only struck her as alarming when, with no recollection of when or how it had happened, she discovered her head to be cupped in large, deceptively gentle hands and her freed arms wrapped tenaciously around his body.

‘No!’ she howled, tearing herself free and scrubbing angrily with the back of her hand against her wildly throbbing mouth.

‘Play with fire and you’re bound to get burned,’ he intoned mockingly. ‘Though, I warn you, it will be more than your fingers you’ll get burned if you tangle with me. I could tell you I’m off women at the moment—which I am. I could also tell you that you’re far too young—which you are. And, more to the point, I could tell you that you’re not my type—which you most definitely are not’ His hand snaked out and grasped her by the wrist as she made to turn and run. ‘I hope you’re taking all this in, Tessa,’ he warned with soft menace. ‘Because, despite all those things I could tell you, I have—as I’m sure you’ve heard—an insatiable appetite for women…and I just might decide to amuse myself at your expense.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘JUST stay close by me and if there’s anything I need you to do I’ll let you know,’ said Sandro as Tessa stumbled after him down the winding path to the beach in the virtual dark of the bitterly cold morning.

To think that she had spent half the night tossing in sleepless dread of this encounter, she marvelled disgruntledly, whereas he obviously hadn’t lost any sleep over what had happened between them on their last meeting.

She had been relieved when he hadn’t appeared for dinner the previous evening, but had soon noticed that someone else was also missing.

‘That woman we saw earlier—isn’t she staying here?’ she had enquired of Babs.

‘You mean Angelica Bellini,’ her cousin had replied with a grin. ‘And what you’re really asking me is where are she and Sandro.’

‘No, I’m—’

‘And, given what you’re up to,’ Babs had continued relentlessly, plainly enjoying herself, ‘that’s not the sort of question I’m prepared to answer.’

‘You know perfectly well my intention is to do a serious article on his professional habits, not something salacious on his love life.’

‘What, in the hope that Ray Linton will print it?’ Babs had chortled. ‘Who do you think you’re kidding?’

There was no sense to be had from Babs when she was in that irritatingly flippant frame of mind, so she had let the subject drop. But her cousin’s teasingly exaggerated secrecy had left her with the impression that the director could well be romantically involved with the elusive Angelica, which, if true, and given his earlier behaviour, indicated that he more than deserved his infamy as a womaniser.

‘Are you sure you’ll be warm enough dressed like that?’ asked Sandro, eyeing her slim, jeans-clad legs when he turned and waited while she negotiated the last of the rock-hewn steps on a particularly steep and twisting section of the path.

‘Quite sure…Good heavens!’ she gasped as the beach below came into sight—a beach that was a hive of industry, littered with men and equipment of every shape and size and bathed in the illusion of bright sunlight by a blinding array of arc lamps. ‘I’m not sure what I expected,’ she whispered dazedly.

‘But nothing like this,’ he laughed, the indulgence in his tone surprising her almost as much as the sight below. ‘Come on, let’s get you down there and introduced to the grim realities of producing fantasy.’

It was only the bitter cold of the January morning that brought any grimness to the proceedings, she had decided a couple of hours later when, chilled to the marrow, she was taking a mental inventory of the meagre wardrobe she had brought with her. The only answer she could think of, to prevent a repeat of the physical agonies she was experiencing, was to wear everything she had brought in layers next time. But not even the piercing bitterness of the wind, nor the fitful drizzle of rain, could detract from her feelings of exhilaration. She was utterly absorbed in what was going on around her, fascinated beyond her every expectation—even though all she was doing, she realised, was watching them line up the shots they planned taking of the incomparably beautiful scenery.

‘I’m sure you must be finding all this rather boring,’ Sandro called, his broad shoulders hunching against a sudden scurry of wind as he strode back up the beach towards her. ‘But you’ll soon get the hang of what’s going on.’

Tessa smiled and shook her head as he reached her. ‘Of course I’m not bored,’ she protested, then felt her heart skip several beats. The wind dancing through the inky darkness of his uncovered hair lent an air of almost piratical raffishness to the already dramatically exotic figure he cut. ‘I’m finding it all fascinating,’ she added unsteadily, thrown by the overwhelming impact he was suddenly having on her.

‘But we’re not doing anything,’ he laughed with a flash of faultlessly formed white teeth. ‘We’re—’ He broke off, the laughter dying to grimness on his face. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he demanded icily.

‘I—I’m sorry,’ she stammered, colour flooding her cheeks. ‘It’s just that I was thinking how like a pirate you looked, walking up the beach—not that I have much idea what a real pirate would look like.’

‘A pirate?’ he enquired, the grimness fading from him. ‘A pirate in designer ski-wear?’

‘I’m sorry—it was rude of me,’ muttered Tessa, limp with embarrassment and feeling only marginally relieved that he had accepted her outlandish excuse for so openly gawping at him.

‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ he laughed. ‘Paolo will love that; he’s convinced pirates must have operated from here in the olden days—’ He broke off and bellowed something in Italian to the man standing behind a camera on the shoreline, receiving only an impatiently dismissive wave of the hand in reply.

‘When I say we’re doing nothing,’ Sandro chuckled, ‘that’s not quite accurate. What’s happening is that Paolo’s artistic temperament is being indulged.’ He smiled as Tessa cast a bemused look in the direction of the cameraman. ‘There’s something ticking away in his head as he’s shooting the bay right now. I’ve little idea what it is, but I’ve told him to get on with it anyway.’

‘But…’ began Tessa, then thought better of it.

‘But what?’

‘It’s just that I thought a director—well, directed, and that everyone else carried out his instructions.’

‘That’s how it is, for the most part,’ he replied easily. ‘But I’m not given to playing God with crews the calibre of mine. When a man of Paolo’s genius behind the camera has a hunch, it’s more often than not an inspired hunch—I’d be a fool not to indulge him.’

Tessa was mentally nodding as she returned her gaze to the camera. Almost the first thing she had noticed was the atmosphere of relaxed camaraderie in which so many different nationalities interacted. But the apparent effortlessness of such interaction was, she now realised, due to the taut professionalism of the highly skilled men involved and their obvious respect and affection for the man whose creative genius co-ordinated their skills.

‘Do you always work with the same crew?’ she asked.

‘I tend to pick my crews from a fairly narrow circle,’ he replied. ‘Unfortunately there are times when lack of availability forces me to compromise—though where cinematographers are concerned, if Paolo or a guy by the name of Umberto Bellini wasn’t available, I’d probably choose to wait till one or the other was.’

‘Umberto Bellini—wasn’t he the man hurt in an accident on one of your films?’

‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘Poor Umberto—’ He broke off, a guarded expression coming to his face before, to her complete bewilderment, he began speaking in Italian.

It was only when she realised he must be addressing someone else that Tessa turned round, appalled awareness flitting unguardedly through her mind of how ghastly she must look as she saw approaching the tall figure of the woman she had fleetingly glimpsed the previous day.

‘Have you two met?’ asked Sandro, a discernible edge to his tone as he switched back to English.

‘No, we haven’t,’ said the woman, her smile accentuating the striking beauty of her face as she removed a gloved hand from beneath the elegant tartan wrap draped around her. ‘It’s so good to find another woman here,’ she murmured in perfect, slightly American-accented English as she shook hands with Tessa. ‘You must be about the only female crew member not to have succumbed to this dreadful flu.’

‘Tessa isn’t a member of the crew, she’s just kindly agreed to fill in for Carla,’ said Sandro before Tessa had a chance to speak. His mouth tightened to a grim line when Angelica made a teasing-sounding comment to him in Italian. ‘I don’t think Tessa speaks Italian,’ he stated with brusque pointedness.

‘Oh, I am sorry!’ exclaimed Angelica, placing a placating hand on the sleeve of Tessa’s rain-soaked anorak. ‘That was terribly rude of me.’

‘Not at all—’ began Tessa, only to be cut off by Sandro.

‘Tessa was just enquiring after Umberto,’ he said. ‘Did you manage to get through to him last night?’

‘I did, and I’ve lots of messages for you from him—but I can tell you all that later,’ replied Angelica, then turned to Tessa. ‘You’re one of the few friends of my brother’s I haven’t met.’

‘Oh, I don’t know him!’ exclaimed Tessa. ‘It’s just that my cousin told me about the accident he had. I do hope he’s better.’

‘He’s recovering nicely,’ murmured the woman, her eyes returning once more to the man beside them. ‘Darling, isn’t it time you had a break? You look frozen,’ she chided softly.

‘I’m fine,’ he stated abruptly, then glanced at Tessa who was attempting to distract herself by trying to remember what it was like to have feeling in her legs. ‘But you’re not—are you, little one?’ He took her gently by the shoulder and turned her to face him, frowning as he examined her bedraggled appearance. ‘I think it’s about time you returned to the hotel and got yourself thawed out. I shan’t be needing you this afternoon; I’ve a meeting lined up with the actors we’re using.’

‘But I’m fine—honestly,’ protested Tessa, not in the least happy with the idea of being given special treatment. ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t stay on till the rest of you have finished.’

‘I’ve just given you a reason,’ snapped Sandro, ‘so do as you’re told.’

Annoyed by his tone, Tessa was about to make an angry retort when it suddenly hit her how obtuse she was being. Special treatment didn’t come into it—he wanted her out of the way now that Angelica had arrived, and she had been too stupid to take the hint.

‘I…well, this afternoon I’ll go into town and get some notepads and pencils,’ she muttered lamely, then turned to Angelica. ‘It was nice meeting you.’

‘We’ll be running into one another all the time now,’ smiled Angelica. ‘We could have tea later.’

Still smarting from her own stupidity and ignoring the protests coming from her numbed limbs, Tessa changed her mind about going straight back to the hotel and made her way along the beach towards the town.

Only the day before, her first sight of the small town of Rathmullan, nestling sleepily on the shores of Lough Swilly with its magnificent backdrop of heather-hued mountains, had taken her breath away and filled her with an inexpressible joy. Today, feeling miserable and confused as she did, the mist-laden beauty of her surroundings only served to make her feel worse.

There wasn’t anything wrong with what she was doing, she argued with herself; if someone in the public eye chose not to co-operate with the Press, it was common knowledge that slightly underhand methods were often used to satisfy the public’s interest. And by interest she didn’t mean scurrilous curiosity about his private life, she meant the sort of balanced article she intended compiling on his professional life. All right, so she wasn’t yet a bona fide journalist, but she had to start somewhere!

She entered one of the shops in a terrace of small, stone-fronted cottages lining the rain-washed main street and bought notepads, pencils and an English newspaper. Further along she got herself a heavyweight tracksuit that looked as though it might keep her reasonably warm on days as bitterly cold as this particular one.

But as she made her way back to the hotel, along a heavily wooded path running parallel to the shoreline below, she began asking herself why, if she was so sure she was doing nothing wrong, she was still feeling so confused and dejected.

Probably because she still wasn’t one hundred per cent convinced she was right, she answered herself gloomily. Or was she being completely honest with herself? Because she might as well face up to it that, true to form, she was yet again attracted to a man who was completely unsuitable—though unsuitable was hardly the word, she informed herself grimly. Sandro Lambert wasn’t unsuitable in the relatively mundane way one or two other men had been. This time she was way out of her depth; up against a man who not only had looks that many a woman would be reduced to drooling over, but who was also an international celebrity—the sort of man who had women such as the stunning Angelica Bellini virtually at his beck and call!

She felt shame burn through her when she remembered how her juvenile gawping had irritated him. And the only reason he had kissed her was because, as he had so quickly pointed out, she had flung herself into his arms—the fact that she had done so accidentally being neither here nor there.

She walked through the grounds of the hotel, darting round to the back entrance when she saw Sandro in a group of men emerging from the path leading from the beach…he was the last person she felt like facing at that moment.

She was behaving like a lunatic, she remonstrated angrily with herself when she reached her room and began shedding her damp clothing. Spending half the night agonising over the fact that a man she barely knew had kissed her was bad enough; becoming reduced to sneaking round corners to avoid that same man was downright lunacy!

She kept her mind occupied by running over Babs’s wardrobe instructions as she took a long, hot bath and then washed her hair. Later, her hair wrapped in a towel and her body in a snowy white bathrobe, she flopped down on the bed and began glancing through the newspaper she had bought earlier. In its centre pages she came across a light-heartedly written article entitled ‘Unfaithful Heart-Throbs Given their Marching Orders’. The subject matter—women who had broken off their engagements to straying famous men—was of no particular interest to her. It was the apparently effortless, almost throw-away style of the writing that caught her attention and thoroughly depressed her as she realised just how limited her own writing skills were by comparison. It was only at the very end of the article, in a list citing a number of other men in the public eye whose fiancées had abandoned them because of their constant womanising, that she spotted a familiar name.

Rising from the bed, she flung aside the paper and went over to the dressing-table. So Sandro had been engaged to a childhood sweetheart who had decided enough was enough only a few weeks ago, she thought as she switched on the drier and began drying her hair—so what? It was all no doubt covered in those articles on him she had hastily got together before leaving London but hadn’t yet found time to read, she told herself, then gave her entire attention to the drying of her hair when it crossed her mind that she had had plenty of time to read them, including last night…or even right now.

She switched off the drier and was vigorously brushing her gleaming, shoulder-length hair when a tap on the door made her turn.

The door was half-open and Sandro was lounging against its frame with the air of one who had been doing so for some time.

‘I knocked a couple of times, but you probably couldn’t hear me over the noise of your hairdrier,’ he said, closing the door behind him and strolling over to where she sat at the dressing-table. ‘You’ve missed lunch,’ he informed her, stooping to pick up the tortoiseshell-backed brush that had slipped from her hand and placing it on the dressing-table top.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘But you couldn’t have had much in the way of break-fast either.’

‘I’ll eat tonight,’ she muttered, tensing with consternation at the sudden pounding of her heart.

‘Why did you go tearing off into town instead of back to the hotel earlier?’

‘Because I—’ She broke off, furious to find herself actually embarking on answering him. ‘What business is it of yours? Anyone would think you were my father—going on about my skipping meals and not doing as I’m told!’

He leaned over and took her chin in his hand, forcing her to meet his gaze.

‘That’s probably because I’m not sure whether you’re twelve or twenty,’ he replied, both his voice and face confusingly devoid of expression.

‘Which age did you think I was last night?’ she demanded angrily as she twisted free from his hold, and could have bitten off her tongue as soon as she’d said it.

‘I didn’t expect you to take my words quite that literally,’ he informed her in drawling tones, his eyes glowering down into hers. ‘What age are you, anyway?’

‘Why should my age be of any concern to you?’ she demanded before she had time to think better of it.

‘You answer my question first—then I’ll answer yours,’ he mocked, a half-smile flickering across his lips while the scowling darkness remained unaltered in his eyes.

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Yes—I think I can accept that,’ he murmured, ‘now that you’re not sporting your usual infantile hairstyle.’ As he spoke he casually reached out and ran his fingers through the silky luxuriance of her hair.

Tessa wondered, as she drew her head sharply back from the electrifying touch of those trespassing fingers, if there was any way he could have sensed the magnitude of the effect they had had on her, and felt a shiver of horror ripple through her at the very idea.

‘I…weren’t you supposed to answer my question…now that I’ve answered yours?’ she gabbled, then realised she hadn’t the faintest idea what that question was.

‘Why should your age be any concern of mine?’ he mused, mercifully jogging her traumatised memory. ‘Perhaps women do mature much younger than men, but at thirty-one I do really feel I’m a bit old to be getting involved with teenagers.’

It was on the tip of Tessa’s tongue to ask exactly what he meant by ‘involved’; she felt slightly giddy with relief when she succeeded in biting back the words.

‘I’m glad you understand what I mean,’ he murmured.

‘I’m surprised to hear that, considering I know exactly what you mean!’ exploded Tessa, all thought of caution deserting her. ‘Which, to quote you, is that, despite my most definitely not being your type, you’ve decided to amuse yourself at my expense!’

‘As I’ve said before, I wish you wouldn’t take my remarks quite as literally as you appear to,’ he drawled.

‘What am I supposed to do—search your bald utterances for some subtly hidden flattery?’ she demanded scathingly.

‘Forget what I said yesterday,’ he murmured softly, his hands this time reaching out to the lapels of her bathrobe, prising them slowly apart before sliding his hands up to cup the shoulders he had exposed.

Tessa’s own hands rose agitatedly, not in any attempt to remove his, but to clutch her gaping robe over her breasts.

‘But you’re entitled to be flattered by how strongly attracted I am to the strange mixture I find in you of innocence and—’ He broke off, drawing her sharply to her feet.

‘Of innocence and what?’ she croaked, unable to stop herself.

‘You have to understand that English isn’t my first language,’ he whispered, his words baffling her while the glow softening his eyes held her in mesmerised thrall. ‘I express myself far better, in times like these, in Italian.’

His arms had encircled her and his mouth was coaxing open hers before she had even begun querying the sense of his words. She became vaguely aware of her hands, still clutching at her robe and now trapped between their bodies, but there was no way her stunned mind could distinguish whether the violent pounding of heartbeats against them was a product of one heart or two.

There had been men who had managed to stir an awareness in her of the powerful potential of her own latent desire, but it was only in this man’s arms that a once-shadowy awareness erupted into a violent awakening. And it wasn’t simply the sensuous sweetness of the mouth taking such burning advantage of the eager acquiescence of hers that was threatening to demolish the control she had never before had need to exercise, it seemed to be everything about him—the slight graze of his incipient beard against her skin; the aura of explosive virility emanating from that lean, hard body entrapping her own; that hint of fragrance, subtle yet unquestionably masculine, a scent that was exclusively his. For the first time in her life she knew herself to be in the arms of a man capable of stripping her bare of every defence she possessed…and her only reaction was her body’s eager participation in the wonder of its erotic awakening.

‘Hell, Tessa,’ he groaned, tearing his mouth from its passionate exploration of hers and burying his face against her hair, ‘I’m supposed to be meeting those actors this afternoon, not whiling it away making love to you.’ He lowered his head, his mouth searching hotly in the curve of her neck while his hands moved impatiently to the knotted belt of her robe.

By making love, her sluggish mind began warning her, this man meant a good deal more than a passionate exchange of kisses.

‘Shall I put them off till this evening?’ he breathed huskily. ‘Then we’ll be free to spend the afternoon making love and, in between, getting to know one another.’

He couldn’t have expressed it any plainer than that, shrieked out her now almost fully restored mind—and this, remember, was the same man who had so arrogantly informed her that, despite her many shortcomings, he might just decide to amuse himself at her expense!

‘I see you’ve made up your mind,’ she stated, her voice tight with strain.

He responded instantly to what he must have detected in her tone, his head rising as his arms released her.

‘Made up my mind?’

‘Yes—to amuse yourself at my expense.’

‘Wouldn’t it have been a mutual amusement?’ he enquired, the softness of passion in his eyes giving way to the sharpness of ice.

‘For your information, I go in for slightly more conventional ways of getting to know men than leaping into bed with them,’ she informed him icily, moving hurriedly away from him.

‘That didn’t exactly answer my question,’ he drawled. ‘And, for your information, there’s no need for you to put all that space between us; I’m not given to forcing my attentions on women…not that it would be necessary with you.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ exclaimed Tessa, trembling with rage.

‘Grow up, Tessa,’ he snapped. ‘I’m experienced enough to know when I’ve a responsive woman in my arms—no matter how much she chooses to protest once she’s safely out of them.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t let that go to your head if I were you,’ she flung at him angrily. ‘Not with the sort of louse I’m invariably attracted to!’

‘I’d love to stay and continue this delightful conversation, darling,’ he drawled, strolling to the door, ‘but I’ve those actors to meet’

So cool, so completely distanced from the man whose passion had turned her world upside-down only moments before, she thought with numbed bemusement as the door closed behind him. Only the most practised of seducers could have put on a display so calculatedly convincing…and only the most naïve of fools would have been so thoroughly taken in—and then compounded her stupidity by making herself sound little better than a gangster’s moll in her attempts to excuse herself.

CHAPTER THREE

TESSA huddled her slim body against a sand dune as another gust of wind scudded ferociously across the beach. I wish the film crew would stop fiddling around and get on with things, she thought miserably, feeling frozen and redundant She liked to be fully occupied, not left alone and at the mercy of thoughts that would inevitably leave her feeling even more confused and alienated.

Absorbing and exhausting, it was these long hours of work that normally proved her salvation—a shelter into which she could retreat and leave behind the perplexities of a world in which she no longer felt secure. There were even times, when she hadn’t her work to distract her, when she felt pangs of acute homesickness—when she longed for her mother’s gentle humour, the noisy presence of her half-brother, Rupert, and perhaps most of all those long, chatty walks she and her stepfather used to take before her journalistic ambitions had thrown up that invisible barrier between them.

Charles would love it here, she thought wistfully as she gazed down the beach, her eyes dulling with resentment as they came to rest on the tall, slim figure that stood out from the rest. Sandro, too, became another person when at work, she thought, frowning as she found herself having to make a conscious effort not to allow her gaze to linger. There were times when he became oblivious of the fact that it was no longer the paragon Carla he had at his beck and call, but she didn’t really mind that; it was those times when he would forget and call her Carla that she most often felt the closest she ever came to being at ease with him. But outside the safe confines of work he reduced her to a mass of confusion.

He was using her, she told herself bitterly, though she had no idea why. And Angelica—why did she have this unpleasant feeling that Angelica was using her too? Never in a million years would she feel at ease with Angelica…yet Angelica constantly sought her company.

She gave a small shudder as she remembered the feelings that had assailed her that terrible afternoon when, not long after Sandro had left to meet the Irish actors, she had answered the knock on her door and found Angelica standing there. Not once during those moments of madness in Sandro’s arms had any thought of the beautiful Italian woman entered her mind, yet surely not even an out-and-out adulteress could have felt any more guilty and hopeless than she had on opening the door that afternoon.

About the only thing they could claim to have in common was the fact that they were the only two women staying at the hotel, thought Tessa with a sigh, yet whenever she had a free moment there was Angelica at her side…and letting her know, without ever actually uttering a word on the subject, that Sandro was hers and hers alone, no matter what appearances might indicate to the contrary. And what, exactly, did appearances indicate? She hadn’t a clue, she realised with a defeated shake of her head before casting an anxious look along the beach and praying they would start the work in which she could become involved.

Only a woman of supreme confidence could react with the serene lack of concern Angelica always displayed during those ghastly times when Sandro would so blatantly flirt with the only other female guest present He could easily have picked on one of the maids, thought Tessa angrily, but no, he had to pick on her! And even Paolo had objected: though she didn’t speak a word of Italian, she had instinctively known that that was what Paolo had been remonstrating with him over in the bar the other night But, unlike herself, Paolo obviously knew the true nature of Sandro’s relationship with Angelica and whatever it was about it that resulted in another woman being used as an unwitting pawn. And that was exactly how she was being used, she told herself with a shudder of resentment, wondering how it was that she hadn’t instantly sensed those dark currents of intensity pulsating back and forth between the almost detachedly serene Italian woman and the brooding, often volatile director.

If this were a film scenario, she told herself bitterly, Angelica and Sandro would be the stars…and she a bit player plucked for use from the crowd.

‘Tessa!’ Sandro bellowed over to her. ‘Take the yellow mark against the rocks and let Paolo line up on you!’

Like one offered a reprieve, Tessa leapt up, digging in her pocket for her notepad as she raced over to the rocks.

‘It’s quite simple, really,’ he had told her on one of those rare occasions when he had remembered his promise to make allowances for her ignorance and had explained a procedure to her—instead of leaving her to pump a crew member as she usually did. ‘Some directors use markers to guide every step of every scene, but I don’t—I feel it inhibits the natural flow of an actor’s movements. But the three we’re using aren’t experienced in film work, and as we’re short on rehearsal time I’m afraid we’ll have to do quite a bit of choreography. In the studio each actor would be allocated his own colour, and the continuity people would then chalk the movements out in the relevant colours. Obviously chalk won’t be any good on wet sand, so we’ll have to come up with something else.’

Her hands trembling from the bitter cold, Tessa leafed through her pad till she found what she wanted. Using her notes as a guide to where she had placed the wads of Plasticine she had decided on as a substitute for chalk, she let her eyes scan the rocks. Suppressing a slight twinge of alarm when she found nothing, she looked again at her notes. Just the three single markers were involved in this particular scene, she thought frustratedly, one yellow for the father, one red and one blue for each of the sons—they didn’t even have to move, just remain immobile as they gazed out to sea. So simple, she told herself wryly as she felt the stirrings of panic, but it had taken what had seemed like interminable hours of agonising for Sandro and Paolo to work out precisely where each man was to be positioned!

‘Tessa!’

‘Hang on a minute!’ she yelled back, trying desperately to calm herself as she started scanning the rocks further along for the blue marker…the red marker…any marker!

‘For God’s sake, just position yourself in front of that large rock to the left of you!’ roared Sandro. ‘To your left!’ he bellowed when she hesitated a fraction.

Now completely unnerved, Tessa tripped over a piece of half-buried rock and almost went sprawling in her rush to carry out the orders now coming fast and furious from a plainly irate director.

Thoughts of her article had somehow slipped to the back of her mind in the past few days, but one of these days she would produce the definitive article on dictatorial directors, she vowed vengefully to herself as she shivered in the icy wind, not daring to move a muscle while Sandro and Paolo fussed around, jabbering away to one another in Italian and seeking, in their usual, mind-bogglingly pernickety manner, the correct angle for this, the perfect approach shot for that…But she would probably be accused of gross exaggeration, she thought peevishly. For example, anyone witnessing this particular instance of artistic agonising between director and cinematographer would automatically assume that the most crucial scene in the entire film was about to be shot—they would never believe that this was merely a discussion on a few options for tomorrow’s shoot!

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