Excerpt

‘Fortunately, I am prepared to do the decent thing.’

Bethany swung round to look at him in surprise. ‘Do the decent thing? What are you talking about?’

‘You are pregnant with my baby and I am a man of honour—a man who takes his responsibilities seriously. Naturally I have no other option but to marry you.’

‘Marry me? Have you completely lost your mind?’ Bethany gave a snort of laughter. Did he really expect her to leap at his generous offer because he was a man of honour, who took his responsibilities seriously and would therefore rise to the occasion by putting a ring on her finger because there was no option?

‘What are you saying?’ With one hand, Cristiano reached to the side of the bed and flipped on the light. Immediately the tiny area around them was thrown into relief. He hoisted himself up on one elbow and looked down at her with a cold frown of incomprehension.

‘I’m saying that I’m not going to marry you!’

Cathy Williams is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband, Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction, and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!

The Italian’s One-Night Love-Child

By

Cathy Williams

MILLS & BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

COCOONED in the pleasantly cold confines of his black Mercedes, Cristiano De Angelis surveyed the hustle and bustle of the scorchingly hot streets around him from behind a pair of dark designer sunglasses. This part of Rome was as familiar to him as his own penthouse apartment in London where he lived for most of the year, occasionally taking time out to visit his family in Italy. He had grown up here, had gone to school here, had enjoyed the gilded life of a member of the Italian elite, only spreading his wings when he had flown off to go to university in England. It was both comforting and a little claustrophobic to be back, even for a week, and it would be something of a relief to return to the relative anonymity granted him in the streets of London.

He frowned, thinking back to the conversation he had just had with his mother and his grandfather, who had conspired to remind him, over a sumptuous lunch served with unnecessary formality in the opulent dining room of his grandfather’s house, of the passage of time, in so far as it affected him and the pitter patter of small De Angelis feet which they were both, it seemed, desperate to hear.

It had been a dual assault of military precision with his mother on the one side, virtually wringing her hands as she elaborated on her maternal desire that he settle down, be happy, stop playing the field, while his grandfather chipped in with guilt-inducing asides about his declining health and old age, as though he was a decrepit centenarian and not the sprightly seventy-eight-year-old man who could still command attention without uttering a word.

‘There’s a very nice girl…’ his mother had begun, assessing whether that casual piece of information might have landed on fertile ground, but Cristiano had not been having it. While he acknowledged that he would, indeed, one day get married to someone suitable, that time had not quite arrived. He had been firm on the point and, of course, it had been regrettable that he had been forced to witness their crestfallen faces, but the pair of them, given half a chance, would have proved more unstoppable than a freight train at full speed. Any hint of softening on his part and they would have been lining up prospective candidates within minutes.

A reluctant smile of wry amusement curved his mouth and he removed his shades, dangling them from one finger as he looked at the hordes of shoppers who swarmed the elegant designer shop-lined streets, for all the world as though the words credit crunch were not part of their vocabulary.

Without giving himself time to change his mind, he tapped on the glass partition separating him from his driver and leaned forward to tell Enrico that he could let him out here.

‘Take the car back to my place,’ Cristiano said, grimacing at the prospect of having to brave the sweltering summer sun but recognising that if he didn’t do it then he would be stuck in traffic for the foreseeable future and, comfortable though it was inside the Mercedes, he couldn’t afford to waste time sitting in it for the next hour or so. ‘I have to deliver this for my mother and it will be quicker for me to take to the back streets than for you to drive me there. I’ll get a taxi back.’

‘But sir, the sun…’

Enrico, who had been the family driver for as long as Cristiano could remember, looked faint at the thought of his passenger stepping out into the sweltering heat, and Cristiano grinned.

‘I’m not a swooning Victorian maiden, Enrico,’ he said drily. ‘I think I’ll be able to withstand half an hour out there. After all, look at the shoppers. No one seems to be collapsing from heat exhaustion.’

‘But sir, those are women. They are built to shop in all weather without being affected…’

Cristiano was still grinning as he strode out into the blistering sun, sunglasses firmly back in place. He was aware, and chose to ignore, the sidelong glances of women as he walked past. He was pretty sure that if he slowed his pace it wouldn’t be long before some long-legged, dark-haired, pedigreed beauty approached him. Even though he no longer resided in the city, his face was well known in certain circles. Visits to Rome were seldom free from glittering invitations from women who courted his company, usually without success because, despite his mother’s accusations, he was discerning in his choices. Which, as he began leaving the crowded shopping quarter, brought him right back to thinking about her matchmaking designs. He had had no scarring emotional involvements with any woman. He had nothing against the institution of marriage, per se. Nor did he envisage a life without children, despite the manner in which he had earlier brushed aside the subject with an indolent wave of his hand. Cristiano could only think that he had been thoroughly ruined by his parents’ happy marriage. Was that possible? Wasn’t it supposed to work the other way around? They had been childhood sweethearts, perfectly matched in every way and, as if plucked from a fairy story, had lived perfectly happy lives until his father had died five years previously. His mother still wore black, carried pictures of him in her handbag and frequently referred to him in the present tense.

In an age of quickie divorces, money-grabbing gold-diggers and women with an eye to the main chance, what hope in hell did he have of a comparable marriage?

It took him a little over twenty minutes before he was standing in front of the gracious block of apartments where he had been instructed to hand deliver a very delicate orchid to one of the women who had helped out two weeks previously on a charity fund-raiser, a belated thank you present for her contribution. His mother was leaving for their country house and the orchid, she told him, would not wait until she returned. Nor would she trust any old courier service to deliver it because those ragamuffin boys were useless when it came to delivering anything of a fragile nature.

Privately, Cristiano figured that it was her way of expressing her pique at his casual dismissal of whatever suitable candidate she had had lined up her sleeve for his perusal, but running the errand had been a small price to pay for making good his escape.

Nor had the walk been half as uncomfortable as he had imagined. He very rarely walked anywhere, he realised. His life was cushioned by the luxury of a full-time driver in London and, besides, walking for the sake of walking was a time-consuming business in a life that seemed to have little spare time as it was.

The block of opulent apartments was portered and he was pointed in the direction of the lift without question. Even dressed in casual clothes, Cristiano exuded the sort of wealth, power and confidence that ensured entry anywhere. The porter had asked for no identification and Cristiano would have been outraged had his movements been questioned.

Rather than take the lift, though, he decided to climb the three flights up to the apartment. This was no dingy staircase. Rich turquoise carpeting ran its length and the wallpaper was cool and sophisticated. He assumed the apartment would be more of the same. In all events, several rings on the doorbell elicited no response. Nor did his mother’s mobile when he called to inform her that his mission had been a waste of time.

What the hell was he to do, stranded with an overpriced hothouse plant in search of a home?

Cursing under his breath for having allowed himself to be virtually blackmailed into running the ridiculous errand, he finally resorted to banging on the door. Like every single mega-expensive apartment building on the face of the earth, there was an eerie silence in the hall. He knew from his own personal experience that rich people rarely emerged to chew the fat and pass the time of day with the people living in the apartments next to them. He, frankly, had no time for useless chatter on stairwells or in elevators and happily was spared such inconvenience by having a private lift to his penthouse apartment.

He banged on the door again, this time very loudly, and was rewarded with the sound of scurrying feet.

Under normal circumstances, Bethany, hearing those three ridiculously loud and incredibly rude bangs would have flown to the door, prepared to give her unwanted caller a piece of her mind, but as it was these weren’t exactly normal circumstances.

In fact…

She glanced down at what she was wearing and broke out in a fine film of nervous perspiration. The dress, which must have set its owner back the price of a small car, clung lovingly to her body, graceful, floaty and as utterly, utterly beautiful on as it had been hanging in the wardrobe fifteen minutes earlier.

Oh, God, why, why, why had she given in to the temptation to just try it on? What had possessed her? She had managed to resist the urge for the past three days, so why now? Because, she thought frantically, it had been so hot outside and she had come back to the apartment and had a long, luxurious bubbly bath in the splendid marbled bathroom and then she had strolled into the dressing room, which was three times the size of the poky room she had been renting at university, and she had run her hands along the magnificent gowns and dresses and jackets and coats and had stopped at this particular creation and had just not been able to resist the wicked impulse.

Now, having ignored the doorbell, there was some persistent visitor banging like mad on the door and she knew for a fact that it wouldn’t be Amy, who had gone to Florence for the weekend with her boyfriend. Nor would it be a salesman because they weren’t allowed to set foot into the hallowed halls of the building. Which just left…a resident or, worse yet, a friend.

The fourth bang snapped her out of her merciless daydream, which involved first and foremost losing her job as house-sitter, which was a laugh considering Amy should have been the one doing it, followed rapidly by angry Italian policemen and a stint in a cell somewhere.

She stood behind the door and opened it very, very slowly, making sure that none of her body in its borrowed garb was revealed. Her eyes travelled from the ground upwards. And upwards. From expensive tan loafers and cream trousers towards a similarly cream collared polo shirt, taking in the tanned arms, the dark hair curling round the dull silver of a very expensive make of watch, up to…the most amazing face she had ever set eyes on in her entire life. In fact, the stranger standing outside the front door was so sensationally handsome that, for a few seconds, Bethany felt literally winded.

Then reality kicked in and she remembered where she was. In an apartment that wasn’t hers and decked out in clothes that weren’t hers. She edged further behind the safety of the heavy door.

‘Yes? May I help you?’ She didn’t want to stare, but she found that it was practically impossible not to. It wasn’t just the man’s height, and he must be over six foot, nor was it the perfection of his features or the sculpted muscularity of his body. It was the aura of power and incredible self-assurance that invested him with a potent, suffocating sex appeal.

Cristiano, initially taken aback by the woman who had answered the door, a girl when he had been expecting an ageing dowager, was now busy taking in the delicate lines of her heart-shaped face, the full mouth, the slanting green eyes and the mass of copper hair that tumbled down, almost to her waist.

‘Are you hiding?’ he asked and was fascinated as a tide of pale pink coloured her cheeks. Nor was she responding as women usually did at his presence, with smiles and lowered lashes and all those coy signals that indicated interest.

‘Hiding?’ His voice matched his looks. Deep, lazy, confident. ‘I’m not hiding.’ Bethany sidled a little further along so that the wretched dress was not at all visible. She didn’t know who this man was but if he lived here, if he was a friend, he would know that she certainly wasn’t the Amelia Doni who owned the apartment and who was in her mid forties. He might, however, know that the outrageously expensive dress would not belong to a twenty-one-year-old girl who happened to be house-sitting. ‘I’m just a little surprised…to have a visitor…I’m sorry, I don’t know your name…’

‘Cristiano De Angelis.’ He waited for a glimmer of recognition because any woman who owned this apartment would have heard of the De Angelis family. He wondered how it was that he had not met her before at one of the high society events that he invariably attended when he came to Rome to spend time with his family. This was a face he certainly would have remembered. She was not the usual Italian beauty, although her Italian was fluent. She looked…It suddenly dawned on him why he might not have met her in the past and he smiled slowly, switching effortlessly from Italian to English.

‘And now that I have introduced myself, perhaps you’d like to tell me if I’m at the right apartment…Signora Doni?’

‘I’m sorry. You haven’t told me what you’re doing here.’

Cristiano produced the orchid, the existence of which he had temporarily forgotten. ‘From my mother.’

Bethany stared blankly at him and, as the cogs in her brain began whirring back into life, she realised that he didn’t know who she was. He was a man on an errand and had no idea what Amelia Doni looked like. Ergo, he would not be rounding on her for having sneakily taken advantage of her second-hand house-sitting to don some fancy clothing. She relaxed slightly and stuck her hand out for the plant.

‘Great. Thanks.’

Great? Thanks? Shouldn’t she be inviting him in? At least showing some semblance of interest in getting to know who he was?

‘It’s a little ridiculous to be having a conversation like this,’ Cristiano drawled. ‘Why don’t you invite me in? After all, I’ve just spent the past twenty-five minutes in baking sun to walk over here and deliver a potted plant. I could really do with something cold to drink.’ He was a little incredulous that she actually spent a few seconds mentally debating whether or not she should open the door and let him in.

‘You may not have heard of me, but let me assure you that the De Angelis are a well known family in Italy. There’s no need to fear for your life or your possessions.’ Since when did he give long spiels about his background to anyone? In fact, when was the last time he had ever found himself in the company of a woman who looked at him as though he might leap out and attack her at any moment? In a word, never.

‘I don’t.’ She breathed a little easier. ‘I’ve been brought up never to talk to strangers.’

‘I introduced myself. I’m therefore no longer a stranger. You also know my mother, if only casually…’ He smiled and Bethany’s entire nervous system seemed to go into immediate meltdown. Her skin tingled, her throat went dry and her breasts felt suddenly hyper-sensitive, her nipples hardening and aching at the same time.

This was not a familiar response for Bethany. In fact, she had always been comfortable around the opposite sex. She could chat with them, tease them, even assess them without this sensation of drowning. Sandwiched between her intellectually gifted older sister and a younger sister whose radiant beauty had had boys banging on the front door from the age of eleven, Bethany had happily occupied the middle ground, content with being reasonably clever and averagely, in her eyes, attractive. From her comfortable background position, she had been able to watch Shania, wrapped up in her elitist world of books and heavily intellectual boyfriends, and Melanie, prancing from one dishy guy to another and changing them with the sort of regularity that other women changed outfits. She had learnt to chat to both sets of boyfriends without treading on either of her sisters’ toes. She was therefore a little shocked and taken aback by the way this tall, dark, lean and staggeringly good-looking stranger was managing to throw her into turmoil.

‘Okay. I guess you can come in for a moment,’ she conceded nervously. ‘It’s really hot out there. I can get you a glass of water, if you like…’ She pulled open the door and stood aside to let him sweep past her. Looking down, she spied the dainty strappy sandals on her feet. It now seemed highly unfortunate that the absentee owner of the apartment was roughly her size.

‘Nice place.’ Cristiano gave the apartment a cursory onceover. He had been brought up in palatial surroundings. Other people’s displays of wealth had always failed to impress him. ‘How long have you lived here?’ He had swivelled back round to look at her and her impact on him was such that for a millisecond time seemed to stand still. Her eyes had to be the clearest green he had ever seen and her tumble of copper hair was a stunning contrast to the creamy paleness of her skin. The sprinkling of freckles, paradoxically, added a freshness to her beauty, rescued her from being just another attractive face. And he had no idea why she had been so keen to hide away behind the door when she had first opened it. Her body was magnificent. Slender but full breasted and, judging from the dress, this was a lady who had taste.

‘How long have I lived here?’ Bethany repeated, parrot fashion. ‘Not long.’ Literally. ‘I’ll get you some water. If you just want to…um…stay right here. Won’t be long…’

‘You look as though you’re dressed to go out. Have I caught you at a bad time?’ He looked at her with gleaming eyes, sidelining his curiosity at her bizarre behaviour in favour of playing with the thought that he might be tempted to turn this casual meeting into something a little more rewarding. It wasn’t often that he was put in the position of pursuit. It was even less often that his initial response to a woman was so immediate. He found that he was enjoying both experiences.

‘Dressed to go out?’ Bethany made a big effort and dragged her eyes away from him so that she could teeter in her borrowed heels towards the kitchen.

‘Are you always this jumpy?’

Bethany, in the process of getting some bottled water from the fridge, invested his passing remark with bullseye accuracy as she, on cue, jumped, because she hadn’t been aware of him following her into the kitchen.

‘Would you mind not creeping around like that?’ she said tersely. ‘Here. Water.’ She shoved the glass out to him and, once relieved of it, folded her arms.

‘Do you have a first name, Miss Doni?’ Getting anything out of this woman was like pulling teeth. His own white ones gritted together with irritation.

‘Why would you want to know my name?’ A trail of possible consequences crawled into her mind with poisonous clarity. The house-sitting job had originally fallen to one of the owner’s relatives, who happened to be a friend of Amy’s. Bethany wasn’t too sure why the girl had handed over the responsibility to Amy, but Amy had then delegated it to Bethany because she had landed herself a boyfriend and wasn’t happy about committing a month of her summer holiday to being cooped up in Rome. Bethany had been overjoyed at the arrangement. She would get to practise her Italian in the most beautiful city in the world and, furthermore, would have free accommodation in the sort of place she would never have clapped eyes on, never mind lived in, in a million years. And she would be paid for her trouble! Revealing her identity would be step one to landing her in a great deal of difficulty and, worse than that, would land Amy and her friend in even more trouble. She felt faint and half closed her eyes and leaned heavily against the kitchen counter.

‘Are you all right?’

Bethany opened her eyes to find him standing disconcertingly close to her, which made her feel flustered and breathless, but she kept her voice even when she replied. ‘Fine. I’m fine.’ She shifted a bit and Cristiano frowned, irritated by that small gesture of flight.

‘You don’t look fine. Your colour’s up. Maybe it’s the heat out there. You’re very fair. Italian women are accustomed to the heat in Rome over the summer months, but then you’re not Italian, are you? Despite the fact that you speak the language fluently. Is this…’ he looked around at the superbly kitted kitchen, which bore all the hallmarks of somewhere that was underused ‘…a holiday place?’

Bethany could only stare. Did people have holiday places that looked like this? Marble everywhere? Paintings on the walls that cost the earth? A dressing room stuffed to overflowing with fabulous designer clothes?

He settled that score by adding, ‘I myself have several.’

‘Do you?’ She sidestepped the question and was relieved when he broke the hold he had on her with his eyes by tipping his head back to swallow some water.

Cristiano shrugged. ‘Here. Paris. New York. Barbados. Of course, Paris and New York are largely used when I’m over there on business. It’s useful not having to book hotels whenever I’m abroad.’ He dumped the glass on the counter, determined to bring the conversation back to her. ‘So your name…’

‘Amelia,’ Bethany told him miserably, crossing her fingers behind her back.

‘And where do you permanently reside, Amelia Doni?’

‘London.’

‘You’re not a very forthcoming person, are you, Miss Amelia Doni? I take it you are a miss…? I don’t notice a wedding ring on your hand.’

‘If you’re finished with that water…’

Far from sounding flattered at his interest, she seemed even more keen to shepherd him out of the apartment, and it set his teeth on edge with rampant irritation.

‘How long are you over here?’ Cristiano asked because, perversely, the more disinterested she seemed, the more determined he became to break through her invisible silent barrier.

Bethany shrugged and muttered something along the lines of not very long.

‘But presumably you were here long enough to get involved in the charity fund-raiser?’

‘Charity fund-raiser?’

‘The orchid? The one currently languishing on a table in the hall? It’s a thank you present from my mother. You must know how much she contributes to charity and I gather the last fund-raiser was particularly successful. She would have delivered it to you herself but she’s leaving for the country this evening and won’t be back for a while.’

‘Leaving for the country…’ Bethany repeated, aware that she was beginning to sound like someone mentally challenged.

‘We have a country house,’ Cristiano elaborated, bemused by her complete lack of interest in anything he had to say. ‘It’s far cooler in the hills than it is in the city…’

‘Yes, yes, I expect it would be. You must thank her for the…um…plant…’

‘What was your role in the fund-raiser?’

‘Ah…well…actually, I prefer not to hark back to things that have happened in the past. I’m a live for today kind of person…’

‘My kind of woman. I’m not scheduled to return to London until tomorrow. Have dinner with me tonight.’

‘What? No! No, no, no…!’ Bethany was alternately appalled at the thought of being caught out and stunned by the realisation that she wanted to accept his invitation. She didn’t know whether it was because she was in Italy and removed from her familiar comfort zone, but everything she was feeling and doing was horrendously out of character. ‘You have to go,’ she said in an agony of urgency.

‘Why? Are you expecting someone? A man? Are you involved with anyone?’

‘No.’ She began walking towards the front door. Lying did not come naturally to her and she knew that it would be just a matter of time before she tripped herself up.

‘So let’s get this straight. You’re not involved with anyone. You’re not waiting for anyone. Why the reluctance to have dinner with me?’

‘I…I…um…I think it’s a bit rude for you to come here on an errand and then ask me out to dinner…’

‘You mean you’re not flattered?’

‘I mean I don’t know you…’

‘So dinner would be the perfect opportunity to rectify that situation!’ He noticed that he had somehow been manoeuvred towards the front door and her small, pale hand was very firmly round the door handle. He watched in disbelief as she began turning the knob. He had, literally, been shown the door!

‘I don’t think so, but thanks for the invitation anyway. And…for the plant as well. I’ll make sure that I look after it, although I’ve never been very good with plants.’

‘Funny. Nor have I.’ He leaned indolently against the door, making it impossible for her to open it. ‘Already we have one thing in common.’

‘Do you do this a lot?’ Bethany asked, heart beating like a hammer inside her because something about him was sending her nervous system into overdrive. ‘Pop in to random strangers’ houses and ask them out to dinner? Okay, so it’s not rude as such, but you have to admit that it’s a bit strange. I mean…’ she tested the water ‘…you don’t know me from Adam. Goodness, I could be anyone!’

‘Yes,’ Cristiano said thoughtfully, ‘you could be anyone. Axe-murderer, psychopath…’ He shot her a curling smile that made her catch her breath. ‘Worse than that, scheming gold-digger after my money…However, you do have certain credentials, namely your connection with my mother and…’ he looked briefly around him, then back to her ‘…the fact that you own a place like this. Axe-murderers, psychopaths and gold-diggers probably wouldn’t be into charity fundraising or have holiday apartments in one of the best postcodes in Rome. So my fears are put to rest.’

Bethany was beginning to feel giddy from the torrent of misconceptions swimming around her. Credentials? Knowing his mother? Owning the apartment?

‘And, admit it, you have to eat.’

‘I…I actually don’t like eating out. I prefer eating in. Cooking. So many wonderful fresh ingredients over here. It’s fun to experiment.’

‘Fine. I’ll come here.’

‘But you can’t.’ She stared up at the dangerously good-looking face gazing right back down at her and was overcome with the unusual sensation of walking on the very edge of a precipice. The view was tremendous, but falling was a real possibility.

‘Of course I can.’ Cristiano shrugged. Blessed with a lethal combination of looks, brains and wealth, he had yet to come across a member of the opposite sex who could resist him, and he refused to credit that the woman standing in front of him would prove to be the exception. ‘I can either come here or I can pick you up at eight.’

‘Why? Why do you want to take me out to dinner? Did your mother ask you to?’

‘Why should she do that?’ Cristiano’s brows knitted into a perplexed frown. ‘My mother has no involvement in my personal life and, in fact, she’ll be very firmly ensconced in the country by the time I come over here later.’ He pushed himself away from the door, not taking his eyes off her face. She really had the most marvellous skin. Translucent. Even without make-up. Not at all like the sultry brunettes he normally favoured. His mother had said very little about her but, then again, why should she have? It would seem that the woman was merely a friend of a friend of a friend who had been sequestered to help out for the charity bash, hence the orchid, which was an expensive but fairly impersonal way of demonstrating appreciation. Anyway, it was a good thing that nothing had been said because it would have been a surefire way of turning him off.

‘All mothers have involvement in their children’s lives,’ Bethany was distracted enough to point out, thinking of her own mother who clucked and fussed and still sent food parcels in the post from Ireland just to make sure that she wasn’t on the brink of starvation.

‘When it comes to women, I keep things strictly to myself.’ He opened the door, not allowing her the chance to become embroiled in a debate on a non-subject which would give her the opportunity to remember that she was busily trying to turn him down. He’d never been turned down. Furthermore, he had highly sensitised antennae and they were picking up her interest in him. He couldn’t understand why she would try and fight something as innocent as a dinner date but, whatever her reasons, that wide-eyed way she kept backing away intrigued him. Of course, she could just be playing hard to get, but he seriously doubted that. She had a face that spoke volumes. In fact, he hadn’t seen such an openly expressive face since…frankly, he couldn’t remember. ‘I should warn you that I usually get what I want,’ he inserted without vanity.

‘And you want dinner with me. Before you leave tomorrow.’

‘Finally!’ He gave her another of those amazing, toe-curling smiles. ‘We have lift-off.’ He took her hand, catching her by surprise, and turned it palm up so that he could press a brief kiss against her soft skin in a gesture that seemed purely, wickedly Italian and thrilled her to the bone.

‘I suppose so. But…but it’ll have to be an early night…’ she said anxiously.

‘You mean back home before the stroke of midnight when you revert to being a pumpkin?’

Bethany went bright red. She honestly couldn’t say what had propelled her to accept the dinner invitation, but there was a trail of treacherous excitement curling inside her, starting at the tips of her toes, going right through her body to her dazed green eyes, which were locked onto his face with nervous fascination. Not even his quip about the pumpkin and midnight could wrench her from her foolhardy fascination and she was still feeling shell-shocked after he had gone.

It was only when she caught sight of herself in the floor to ceiling mirror in the bedroom that reality assaulted her with merciless clarity and she dialled Amy on her mobile phone.

She had to contain an impatient moan of pure frustration as Amy’s excitable voice greeted her on the other end of the line with an enthusiastic rundown of her latest conquest and the fabulous Florentine sights, which they had yet to see because the bed was proving too alluring.

Bethany waited until she had run out of steam and then said hesitantly, ‘Little problem on this end.’ The floaty dress was still in evidence, witness to her moment of madness.

‘Oh, God! Tell me the apartment hasn’t burnt down!’

‘Still in one piece. But there’s been a visitor…and here’s the thing…’ The dress, which had seemed so temptingly beautiful, now stared balefully back at her from the mirror as she proceeded to tell her friend what had recently transpired. She kept getting muddled up because, in her head, all she could see was the stranger’s lean, dark, outrageously sexy face looking at her in a way that was both intrusive and scarily exciting and nothing at all like the way other boys back home had ever looked at her.

‘So you’re going out with him for dinner…Oh, God, let me think…okay, okay…might be for the best…’

‘Because…?’

Half an hour later, Bethany removed the offending dress, laid it on the bed because it would have to be dry-cleaned in the morning, and thought that there was a lot of truth about webs and lies and getting entangled. Catrina, the original house-sitter and cherished godchild of the hapless Amelia Doni, who was on a cruise a thousand miles away from Rome, was in London. In rehab. Very hush-hush, and all hell would break loose should loaded and doting godmother find out. So the task of house-sitting had fallen to Amy, with a code red level of secrecy but, Amy being Amy, Love had reared its head and her house-sitting mission had fallen quickly by the wayside. Thankfully, Bethany had been there, ever reliable and immune to being led astray. The sort of girl who enjoyed reading Italian books at night and thought that three glasses of wine qualified as a binge-drinking fest.

Now, as she stared down at the dress on the bed, Bethany wondered what had happened to Little Miss Reliability. The most daring thing she had done in ages had been to try that wretched dress on because yes, she really did enjoy curling up with a good book most nights and sometimes she even fulfilled that dreariest of clichés by curling up with a good book and a mug of hot chocolate.

But now she had accepted a dinner invitation from a guy who was sinfully sexy and ultra-sophisticated. Moreover, it was just going to be a one-night affair, and if, for once, she acted out of character, if she behaved like the kind of person who might conceivably have a holiday apartment dripping with designer clothes, the kind of woman who thought nothing of hanging around in a dress that cost a small fortune, then why not? She would be helping Amy out because no one, but no one, could get a whiff of Catrina drying out in a clinic in the UK and the last thing anyone needed was for some connected Italian guy to start asking questions.

Bethany felt a kick of excitement stir inside her. Of course, whatever she wore that night she would have dry-cleaned. She wasn’t that irresponsible. She was just going to have a couple of hours of fun…no harm there…

Chapter Two

‘SO…TELL me about yourself…’

It was an inevitable question but it still made Bethany’s nerves jangle because after the initial crazy euphoria of wondering what it would be like to step into someone else’s shoes for a night had come the shattering reality that she was, in actual fact, going to spend a few hours in the company of a sex god under false pretences. Between Cristiano’s departure from the apartment and the sound of his voice four hours later on the intercom when he arrived to collect her, she had had ample time to concede that a man like him—sleek, sophisticated, extraordinarily handsome—would never have looked at a girl like her under normal circumstances. In fact, they would never even have met under normal circumstances.

Bethany, who had managed to fall back on most of her own clothes because leaving the house in someone else’s wardrobe seemed a bit rich, all things considered, wondered how best to answer his question.

She finally settled on a vague, nonsensical answer along the lines of being a free spirit.

‘What does that mean?’ Cristiano looked across at her. She intrigued him and he had found himself looking forward to their dinner more than he had looked forward to any date with a woman in a long time. Nor had she disappointed. When the elevator doors had pinged open and she had walked across the marbled foyer towards him, he had literally been stopped in his tracks. She might have had all the money she wanted at her disposal, but she had foregone the diamonds and pearls, the little black dress that screamed designer and the killer stilettos, and instead had dressed down in a pair of jeans and some flat tan loafers with a pale blue wrap over her shoulders. Cristiano liked it. It took a confident woman to go for comfort and it took a sexy one to pull it off.

‘What does that mean?’ Bethany’s natural warmth came out in her smile. Now that she was talking and not just gawping like a star-struck teenager, she could begin to relax a little and to enjoy the stolen moment in time. ‘You sound like someone who’s spent a lifetime living in a bubble.’

‘Living in a bubble…’ Cristiano looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I suppose I did grow up in a bubble of sorts. Coming from a privileged background can have that effect. You’re naturally supposed to do certain things…’

Bethany could only imagine. ‘Like what?’

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t experienced the same sort of thing. A certain lifestyle to which you conform, more or less, from an early age.’

Bethany thought of her own riotous Irish upbringing, the house always full of friends and family, boyfriends in and out, their two dogs and three cats and the general happy chaos that had made up her formative years. Conforming to anything from an early age was an alien concept.

‘I’m more of a non-conformist,’ she said truthfully. ‘I mean, I’m not a wild child or anything like that, but I was never told that I had to be a certain way or do certain things.’

‘Perhaps things work a little differently in your part of the world,’ Cristiano murmured. ‘Here, in Italy, I have always known what my future held in store for me.’ They had drifted outside into a balmy summer evening.

‘That must have been tough.’

‘Tough? Why?’ He was fascinated by the thought of any woman who could apply the adjective tough to any aspect of his life. Even the richest of women he had dated in the past had been impressed to death by the breadth of his power and privilege. ‘Since when is it tough to have the world at your disposal?’

‘No one has the world at their disposal!’ Bethany laughed, as they began walking slowly towards his car, which he had parked, he had explained, in the only free space at the very end of the long road.

‘You’d be surprised.’

Underneath the lazy, sexy timbre of his voice, she could detect the ruthless patina of a man accustomed to getting exactly what he wanted and she shivered. ‘You just think you have the world at your disposal because everyone around you is primed to agree with everything you say,’ she felt compelled to point out. ‘I think it must be one of the downfalls of having too much money…’

‘Too much money? I don’t believe I’ve ever heard that expression cross a woman’s lips.’ He was privately amused that someone of presumably substantial private means could wax lyrical about the pitfalls of wealth but it was refreshing, for once, to find himself in the company of a woman who seemed to have a social conscience.

Bethany decided that if he was a learning curve for her, then why shouldn’t she be a learning curve for him? What did she have to lose? She guessed instinctively that he wasn’t a man who had much experience when it came to having his opinions questioned. The way he had asked her out to dinner, refused to concede that she might turn him down, indicated someone whose belief in the whole world being at his disposal was absolute.

‘What type of women do you mix with?’ Bethany asked, fascinated beyond belief by the wildly exotic creature looking lazily at her. His eyes were as dark as molasses, fringed by the most ridiculously long lashes imaginable, and the way his dark hair curled against the collar of his shirt, a little too long to be entirely conventional but not so long that he looked unkempt, brought her out in goosebumps.

Cristiano laughed and reached out to curl one finger into a strand of her copper hair. ‘Always brunettes,’ he murmured, ‘although I’m beginning to wonder why. Is this the real colour of your hair?’

‘Of course it is!’ Excitement leapt inside her at his casual touch and her green eyes widened. ‘Not everyone gets their hair colour from a bottle!’

‘But quite a few do.’ Her hair felt like silk between his fingers.

‘So, in other words, you only go out with brunettes who dye their hair?’

‘They tend to have other characteristics aside from the dyed hair.’ He had an insane desire to yank her towards him and do what came naturally. Very unlike him. He reluctantly released the strands of hair and stood back just in case primitive instinct got the better of him. ‘Long legs. Exquisite faces. Right background.’

‘Right background?’

Cristiano shrugged. ‘It’s important,’ he admitted. ‘Life can be stressful enough without the added hassle of wondering whether the woman sharing your bed is more interested in your bank balance than in your company.’

Bethany’s stomach gave a nervous flutter but she was reassured by the fact that she knew she definitely wasn’t after his money. ‘Maybe you’re a little insecure.’

‘A little insecure?’ Cristiano looked at her with rampant incredulity. ‘No. Insecurity has never been a problem for me,’ he told her with satisfaction. ‘And please tell me that you aren’t going to spend the evening trying to analyse me.’

‘Where are we going to eat?’ Bethany changed the subject and when he named a restaurant which was as famous for its inflated prices as it was for the quality of its fare she gazed down at her jeans with dismay. Lesson one in how the super-rich operate. With a complete disregard for social convention. Cristiano clearly couldn’t care less whether she was dressed for an expensive night out or not. He, himself, was casually attired in a pair of dark trousers and a white shirt which would have looked average on any other man on the planet but which looked ridiculously sexy on him.

‘I’d rather not go there in a pair of jeans, flat shoes and a wrap,’ Bethany told him tersely. She also suspected that walking into a place like that on the arm of a man like him would make her the cynosure of all eyes and she had never enjoyed basking in the limelight, particularly now, when the limelight would have a very dubious tinge. And what if he introduced her to someone? The rarefied world of the rich and famous was notoriously small. In Rome, it was probably the size of a tennis ball. She would be revealed for the imposter she was in seconds flat.

‘You look…charming.’

‘Not charming enough to go to that particular restaurant.’ Bethany was feverishly cursing herself, yet again, for having succumbed to his invitation to dinner.

‘Don’t worry. I know the owner. Believe me when I tell you that he won’t mind if I bring along a woman dressed in a bin bag.’

‘Because you can get away with something doesn’t give you the right to go ahead and do it,’ Bethany said, making sense to herself though not to him if his expression of bemusement was anything to go by.

‘Why not?’

‘Because it’s important to have respect for other people,’ she told him, repeating the oft held mantra with which she and her sisters had grown up.

Cristiano was looking at her as though she was slowly mutating into a being from another planet and Bethany blushed uncomfortably. She was well aware that she was probably in the process of contravening yet another unspoken dictum of the unbelievably rich, namely that she shouldn’t be blushing like a kid.

‘A socialite with principles,’ he murmured with a slashing smile that made her breath catch in her throat and put paid to all her niggling qualms about what she was doing. ‘I like it. It’s rare in my world to meet a woman who’s prepared to be vocal about her beliefs…’ In truth, the women he went out with generally didn’t give a hoot about what happened outside their own orbits. They were rich, had led, for the most part, pampered lives and their birthright was to accept the adulation of males and the subservience of everyone else.

Not that they would ever have dreamt of setting one foot into Chez Nico unless they were dressed to kill. In actual fact, he doubted whether very many would have dreamt of going anywhere unless dressed to kill because appearance was all.

‘I’m not a socialite,’ Bethany said uncomfortably.

‘No? You just own a monstrously big apartment in the centre of Rome which you use as a holiday pad. You do fundraisers. You’re under thirty. Hate to tell you this, but that pretty much qualifies you as a socialite.’

‘I told you, things don’t work quite that way in…um…where I come from.’

‘And where’s that?’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t have heard of it,’ Bethany told him truthfully. ‘It’s a little place in Ireland…um…in the middle of nowhere…’

‘A little place with a large ancestral manor house, by any chance?’

‘Yes, there’s a large ancestral manor house…’Years ago, she could remember her mother doing a cleaning stint there to get some extra cash for Christmas. It was a great grey mansion with turrets and a forbidding, desolate appearance.

‘So you must be half Italian…Which half?’

Bethany gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘Are you always so interested in dinner companions you ask out on the spur of the moment?’

‘No. But, then again, I don’t usually have to drag information out of my dinner companions. It’s a fact that most women love nothing more than talking about themselves.’

‘You mean they try to impress you.’

‘Do you want the truth or shall I treat you to a phoney spectacle of false modesty?’

‘You have a very big ego, don’t you?’

‘I prefer to call it a keen sense of reality.’ Cristiano was enjoying this banter. He had had to work to get her to this place, on a date with him and, having got her here, was discovering her to be skittish and unpredictable company. It made a change from the doe-eyed beauties who were always eager to oblige his every whim. ‘Don’t you feel the need to impress me?’ he murmured, his words cloaked in a languorous, sexy intimacy that sent shivers racing up and down her spine.

‘Why should I?’ A frisson of danger rippled through her. This was no simple, exciting night out with a stranger. She felt as though he was walking round her soul, opening doors she hadn’t known existed.

‘Because I feel the weirdest desire to impress you.’ He also had the weirdest desire to find out more about her. Weird because getting to know her had not been remotely on the agenda when he had asked her out to dinner. He had seen her, had been curiously attracted to her, had thought nothing of entertaining himself with a one-night stand. It wasn’t usually his scene but, then again, he would have been a complete hypocrite if he had tried to dredge up a bunch of reasons why he should not indulge in a night of passion with a woman he would probably never see again. It wasn’t as though his goal in life, thus far, was to recruit a love interest for a permanent place in his life.

‘Why don’t you tell me what it would take…?’

His voice was like a caress, as was the lazy, amused, speculative expression in his eyes, although she noticed that he was keeping his distance, half leaning against the door, his long legs eating into the free space between them. She had not started the evening in the anticipation that it would end up in bed and had he tried to invade her space she would have pulled back at a rate of knots, but there was something wildly erotic about his self-restraint. It was a sobering thought to know that he would probably be repelled had he known her modest background. He might consider himself a man of the world, and he undoubtedly was a man of the world, a sleek, highly groomed, fantastically sophisticated animal who was the master of all he surveyed. Except there was quite a bit that he didn’t survey, wasn’t there?

‘We could walk…’ she said. ‘Rome is full of so many exciting, wonderful sights. And then we could go somewhere simple and cheerful to eat. A pizzeria. I happen to know an excellent one not a million miles away from the Colosseum.’

‘Sure. Why not? I haven’t eaten in that part of the city since I was a teenager. In fact, I think I know the place you’re talking about. Red and white striped awning outside? Dark interior? Empty wine bottles on the tables with candles, sixties style? Overweight proprietor with a handlebar moustache?’

‘He must have lost weight over the years—’ Bethany laughed ‘—but the moustache is still there. You used to go there? With your friends?’

‘Before real life took over,’ Cristiano said wryly.

‘What do you mean by real life?’

‘University and then stepping into my father’s shoes. Pizzerias don’t have much of a role to play in the life of an empire-builder.’ He grinned, enjoying her forthright manner. It was refreshing to meet a woman so upfront. Those games women played could get a little tiresome after a while.

‘So now you only go to fancy restaurants.’

‘Where pizza is never on the menu.’

‘Poor Cristiano.’ Bethany laughed and their eyes tangled. She felt a rush of blood to her head because she could sense the sexual invitation in his slumberous, amused dark gaze.

‘I know—’ he sighed piteously, his eyes never leaving her face for a second ‘—condemned to a life without pizzas. No wonder you feel sorry for me. Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll do the pizza but I’ll pass on the scenic walking. Enrico is paid far too much, as I keep telling him. What’s the point of paying someone for doing nothing?’

‘Who’s Enrico?’

‘My mother’s driver, of course. Don’t tell me you don’t have one in London.’

‘Several,’ Bethany said, thinking of the numerous bus drivers who serviced the buses between her flat and the university.

‘Good. Then that’s settled.’

Bethany felt like a princess as she slid into the back seat of the sleek black Mercedes. A princess whose clothes didn’t quite match the luxurious leather and gleaming walnut of the car, but what the heck? She had to restrain herself from running her hands along the seat. Presumably she would be accustomed to these levels of mega-luxury.

Seen from this angle, through the windows of a car that drew glances and had people swivelling around to try and glimpse who was inside, the city felt like her possession. No wonder that sense of ownership sat on this man’s shoulders like an invisible mantle! Fifteen minutes in his car and she was already beginning to feel like royalty!

Even when they were installed at a table at the back of the buzzing, lively pizzeria, she was still hyper-sensitive to the reality that women were still sneaking sidelong glances at them, trying to figure out who the sexy guy was and his much drabber companion. Cristiano appeared to notice none of it.

He was busily delivering his verdict on the lack of changes to the pizzeria since he had last been there, which was nearly two decades ago, and she contented herself with arguing with everything he said, finally concluding that he was a snob for daring to inform her that the least the proprietor could have done was change the dated gingham tablecloths which loudly proclaimed a stubborn refusal to move with the times.

‘Me? A snob?’ He had been pleasantly invigorated by her arguing, because women didn’t argue with him, and was now vastly amused at her one word summary of his character. She was laughing when she said it, her crystal clear green eyes throwing out all sorts of invitations that had him aching for her.

‘Yes, you!’ A bottle of wine had been brought for them and she had already finished one glass. ‘Loads of people flock to this place because the food is simple and hearty and very, very good…’

‘And would be improved by a shake up in the decor…’

‘You like white linen and fawning waiters, but that doesn’t mean that everyone shares your taste…’

‘But most would, given half the chance.’

‘I happen to prefer the rustic ambience…’

‘How rustic? I’m sure I recognise a couple of those wine bottles stuffed with candles from when I was last here a hundred years ago.’

‘I’m having dinner with an old man!’ Bethany groaned in mock despair while he refilled her glass with some more wine and grinned in open appreciation of her teasing.

‘You’d be surprised at what this old man is still capable of doing,’ Cristiano intoned softly, the smile still playing on his lips as he savoured her flushed face with indolent thoroughness.

‘Such as…?’ Bethany questioned breathlessly. Her skin prickled and she felt quite unlike herself, as if she had stepped into another life, one where the normal rules of behaviour didn’t apply. Which, she admitted to herself, she had. Kind of.

‘Oh, running a business empire that has branches in most major cities in the world. Takes a lot of stamina to do that. Then there are my sporting interests. The usual gym routine, not to mention skiing, polo and very vigorous games of squash once a week.’

‘Yes, that is impressive for a geriatric…’ she said nonchal-antly—at least she was aiming for nonchalance; inside, she was anything but as she experienced a sexual longing she had never felt before with any man. Nor had she ever indulged in sexual banter before. In fact, she had never indulged in sexual anything—at least nothing beyond kissing and the occasional groping. She had never seen the point of tossing her virginity out of the window for no better reason than because everyone else her age had done it. The temptation to do so now, with this man, curled inside her and made her feel as if she was no longer in complete possession of her own body.

‘Then there’s the sex…’ His eyes never left hers. ‘I’ve never had any complaints…’

‘Aargh…’ Colour flamed into her cheeks and she nervously grabbed her glass of wine and downed the contents. ‘We were talking about the fact that you’re a snob…’ she reminded him shakily and he lowered his eyes, obliging her with a tactical retreat.

‘And I was protesting my innocence of any such thing. A less snobbish person it would be hard to find!’ he declared.

Bethany’s nervous system settled a little now that she wasn’t skewered by the naked hunger in his fabulous eyes, which he had made no attempt to conceal.

‘Okay. So do you ever go anywhere inexpensive to eat?’

‘You mean like one of those disgusting fast food places where people eat reconstituted meat drowning in sauce? No.’

‘Cinema?’

Cristiano frowned. ‘Not recently,’ he admitted, surprised to find that it had been literally years since he had been inside one. Surely the last time couldn’t have been at university?

‘But you do go to the theatre? The opera?’

‘Okay.’ He held both hands up in surrender. ‘I’m a crashing snob.’ Their food had been brought to them and he hadn’t even noticed. Nor had she. In fact, although the big bowl of pasta smelled amazing, the food still seemed like an unwelcome intrusion into a conversation that was unexpectedly energising.

‘But, on a serious note—’ he tucked in to the spaghetti, which was nothing like the dainty little portions served in expensive restaurants, usually as an accompaniment to the main dish, but a massively generous helping liberally covered in the finest seafood sauce he had tasted in a long time ‘—are you telling me that it isn’t easy for you to be a feisty left wing radical when you have the comfort of money to support your ideals?’

‘What do you mean?’ For a second there, Bethany had almost forgotten the charade she was meant to be playing. She was reminded of it soon enough when he began to expound.

‘Well, it’s easy to relish the role of the free spirit, not tied to the shallow world of the rich and privileged, when you must know, at the back of your mind, that you could move between the two any time you wanted to. Yes, you come to pizzerias like this but, if you get a little bored, then it’s well within your means to jump into a taxi and head for the nearest Michelin starred restaurant. And let’s not forget the little matter of your apartment. Money can buy you the luxury of pretending to be one of the normal little people without any of the reality that goes with it.’

Bethany opened her mouth to contradict him and closed it just as fast. She could understand the irony of his observation and was powerless to refute it given the circumstances, so she made do with saying lamely, ‘I’m not a left wing radical. Believe me.’

‘And I’m not a snob. Believe me.’ He gave her one of those toe-curling smiles that made her tummy flip over. ‘Good food.’ He raised his fork in appreciative acknowledgement. ‘I might very well come back here again.’

‘Are you sure the type of women you date would be up for this sort of place?’ She found that she didn’t care for the thought of him returning to her favourite haunt in the company of another woman. One of the leggy, glamorous brunettes with the dyed hair which he had previously mentioned. In fact, one of those women to whom he was much more suited, if only he knew it.

‘Maybe not,’ Cristiano conceded. ‘Which makes you so unique.’

‘Hardly. You should see this place some evenings. There’s a queue a mile long to get inside. If I’m unique, then so are the hundreds of people who flock here every day of the year.’

‘You know what I’m talking about.’

She did. ‘You say that you’re not a snob,’ she heard herself say, ‘but would you be sitting here opposite me if I weren’t unique?’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Let’s just say that I was…um…the genuine article. A pretty average girl from a working class background, just like all the girls in here…would you still be sitting where you are?’

It seemed a strange hypothesis but Cristiano was willing to go along for the ride because he had, quite frankly, never met anyone like her before. She was amazingly untouched by her wealth and if her conversation was unpredictable then it was just something else about her that he found so impossibly alluring.

Also, no one had ever raised the issue with him before and he frowned, giving her question thought.

‘Probably not, if I’m to be honest.’

‘Because…?’

‘Because, like I said, a wealthy man can’t be too careful. I would never allow myself to get tied up with a woman who wasn’t financially independent in her own right. Marry in haste and repent at leisure and if you don’t fancy doing the repentance bit, then you might just find yourself dragged through the courts and parting with a sizeable chunk of cash you’ve spent years working hard to attain. But hell, why waste valuable time talking about a situation that’s not relevant?’

‘I can’t agree more,’ Bethany agreed fervently because she had stepped into a princess’s shoes and she wasn’t going to spoil this one glittering night getting embroiled in an argument that was never going to go anywhere. She was Cinderella at the ball and why start beckoning to the pumpkin to come fetch her when it wasn’t yet midnight?

He was entitled to his own opinions and he was entitled to protect his wealth however he saw fit, even if he was cutting himself off from so many experiences.

‘So…’ he kept his eyes on her while he beckoned to a waiter for the bill ‘…are we finished with the soul-searching conversations? Can we move on to something a little lighter? Or, failing that, why don’t we just move on…?’

‘To what? I don’t know any clubs in Rome.’ And probably wouldn’t have the cash to fund a visit even if I did.

‘I was thinking of somewhere a little…cosier. My place is less than ten minutes away.’

His scrutiny was hot and hungry and left her in no doubt that the outcome of the evening would finish in bed. A one-night stand. Her sisters would be shocked. Her parents would be mortified. Her friends would think that she had been taken over by an alien being who looked like her, spoke like her, but lived life in a different lane. Everything she took for granted about herself would be shattered and yet the pull to surrender to this new being was almost irresistible.

He made her feel sexy. Was making her feel sexy now, the way he was staring at her as if she were the only woman on the face of the planet. Her nipples nudged the white lace of her bra.

‘Of course, I can just get Enrico to deliver you back to your apartment,’ Cristiano told her, because he wasn’t into forcing himself upon a reluctant woman, even if all the signals had been in place from the moment he’d picked her up from her apartment.

‘Would you be very angry?’

‘I would be in need of a very cold shower.’

Bethany had an image of him showering, his big, muscular body naked under the fine spray, his beautiful face raised, eyes closed, to the running water. It was an effort to keep her breathing even just thinking about it.

‘Don’t you want to get an early night?’ she ventured tentatively and Cristiano laughed.

‘I don’t do early nights. I need very little sleep, as it happens.’

And that, in turn, made her think of them making love over and over, languishing on some great king-sized bed which probably had sheets of the finest, coolest Egyptian cotton and not the bargain basement stuff she was accustomed to. From calmly standing on the sidelines, she seemed to have morphed into a sexual creature in the space of a few hours. She had never had to fight off urges when it came to the opposite sex so it had been easy to put her celibacy down to her high-minded principles.

‘Well…there’s just one small thing…’

Cristiano could smell polite rejection in the making and, while he acknowledged that it would hardly be the end of the world, he was still surprised to find that his disappointment was much sharper than he had expected. But, then again, the evening had been much more pleasurable than he had anticipated. Usually, female conversation was a dullish background noise to which he paid lip service but essentially little in-depth attention. Tonight, he had found himself taking the time to really talk to her, to enjoy the unexpected pleasure of having a sparring partner who could make him laugh and pepper him with questions which had made him think.

‘I’m all ears.’ He settled the bill, brushing aside her offer to go Dutch, and sat back in the chair, giving her his full, undivided attention. The evening seemed to have been full of firsts, starting with the bizarre way he had invited her to dinner. Being turned down would also be a first.

‘I…I’m not the most…um…you know…experienced person in the world…’

Cristiano sat forward, bewildered by this deviation from what he had been expecting. ‘I don’t get you.’

‘What don’t you get?’ Bethany bristled defensively.

‘I don’t get what you’re trying to tell me.’

‘That’s because you’re not listening hard enough.’ Embarrassment gave a sharp edge to her voice and she sighed. ‘Okay. I know you have a certain idea of the person you think I am…’ expensive apartment in Rome, country house in Ireland, a string of drivers who presumably do nothing else but wait around in fancy cars for me to snap my fingers ‘…but I’m not like all those other women you dated.’ She took a deep breath and for a few seconds contemplated telling him the whole truth. The mix-up with the clothes, the silly little white lie…Would he laugh? Forgive her? No. The answer came before she could voice what was in her head. He would be horrified. He didn’t go near girls like her, girls who didn’t inhabit the same privileged background that he did. And she didn’t want this moment with him to pass her by. She wasn’t sure why she felt so strongly about it, but she did and she wasn’t going to mess up her one snatched night with this guy. He had managed to crawl under her skin and she wanted him there.

‘Here’s the thing,’ she said, spelling it out in black and white. ‘I’m a virgin.’

Chapter Three

‘I’M A virgin…’

Possibly the only three truthful words she had uttered to him as she had played him for a complete and utter fool.

Cristiano, parked in a dark green Land Rover he had rented in Limerick, coldly surveyed his quarry, which was a picture postcard thatched cottage at the end of the road.

It was five months since she had walked out on him without warning and five weeks since he had discovered that she had strung him along with a pack of lies. Amelia Doni was no fresh-faced, copper-haired girl with green eyes and a knack for teasing him that had proved so addictive that he had cancelled his return to London and ended up whisking her off in his private jet to Barbados for two weeks. Amelia Doni, when he’d accidentally bumped into her over Christmas at his mother’s house, was a blonde in her forties who, she’d told him in mind-numbing detail, had been on an extended cruise because she was recovering from a broken heart. She was the epitome of the wealthy owner of a slice of Rome’s most prestigious apartment block and had bored him to death within two minutes. She had also stoked the fires of his simmering anger into a conflagration when he’d learned about her house-sitting arrangement with her darkly beautiful Italian god-daughter and realised the woman he had met had been an imposter. Not only had he been summarily dumped, he had also been well and truly taken on a scenic route up a very winding garden path.

It had taken him a mere week to track down the address of one Bethany Maguire, and a couple more had passed as he sat on the information, telling himself to let it go before finally realising that he wouldn’t rest until he had confronted the woman and given voice to his consuming rage.

He had no idea what he hoped to gain by confronting her and it went absolutely and utterly against the grain of the person he was, a man who had always been able to keep his emotions in check with ease, a man who prided himself on his ferocious self-control. A man, it had to be said, who had never found himself in the position of being left high and dry by any woman or, for that matter, being told barefaced lies and gullibly eating them up.

Without the engine running, it was beginning to get cold in the car and the January light was beginning to fade. Give it ten more minutes and the line of picturesque thatched houses that jostled for space along the broad road with colourfully painted cottages and shop fronts would fade into an indistinct grey blur. There was still time, he knew, to drive right back to the hotel, grab a meal and head back to London first thing in the morning. On the other hand, would that put paid to the bitter, toxic knot that sat in the pit of his stomach like a tumour?

He stepped out of the car and began walking along the pavement, cursorily taking in the fairy tale village setting. Not to his taste. The place looked as though it had been designed by a kid who had been given a blank canvas and told to go mad. He almost expected to bump into a gingerbread house at any moment.

The house at the end of the road was no exception. The trees were bare of leaves and the front garden lacked colour, but he imagined that in summer it would be filled with all the stereotypical stuff straight out of a children’s book. Apple trees out back, flowers running rampant everywhere, the prerequisite stone wall over which neighbours would chat while, presumably, hanging out their washing and whistling a merry tune. He scowled and banked down the rise of bile in his throat as he ignored the doorbell to bang heavily on the front door instead.

Bethany, in the middle of foraging in the fridge for ingredients to make a meal for her parents which she had enthusiastically promised three hours earlier, cursed under her breath because she had left everything to the absolute last minute and couldn’t afford to take time out for a chat. Having spent the past two years in London, she had forgotten how life worked in the small village where she had lived all her life. People stopped by. They chatted. They drank interminable cups of tea. It had been worse in the first couple of months after she had arrived back but, even now, old neighbours would drop in and would be offended if she didn’t sit and chat over tea and biscuits.

She wondered if she could pretend to be out, perhaps duck down under the kitchen table and wait until the coast was clear, but then dismissed the idea because half the village would know that her parents were at the village fund-raiser and would also know that she had skipped it because she had felt ill that morning. That was just life around here, and she was going to have to make the best of it for the foreseeable future.

She dumped her handful of random ingredients on the kitchen counter and raced to the front door to intercept another bang.

In her head, she played over the possibilities of who it could be. Several of her old school friends, ones who had never left the little village in which they had grown up, who had settled down at ridiculously young ages to marry and have families, had looked her up. She had been grateful for their support and had tried very hard not to feel hemmed in and claustrophobic. She missed Shania and Melanie, who had both returned to their respective lives in Dublin after a two week family break over Christmas. Perhaps it was old Mrs Kelly a few houses along, who had become a frequent visitor and was prone to extended visits.

Bethany stifled a groan of near despair as she pulled open the front door and then stared at her visitor in frozen, nauseating disbelief.

She blinked, thinking that she must be hallucinating, but when she opened her eyes he was still there and this was no crazy illusion.

‘You!’ she squeaked in a high-pitched voice which she hardly recognised as her own. ‘What are you doing here?’ She clutched her mouth and swayed.

‘No way are you going to faint on me,’ Cristiano said through gritted teeth. He insinuated his foot over the threshold and pushed the door open wide, letting himself in while she was still gasping in shock and as pliable as a rag doll. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and she looked as though she was on the verge of collapse. Good.

Bethany heard the slam of the front door as he closed it and it resonated with the sound of the executioner’s blade. She was busy trying to get her thoughts together but the sight of him, all six foot two of cold aggression towering in the hallway, had slowed her thought processes down to an unhelpful standstill.

‘Cristiano,’ she finally threaded unevenly. ‘What a surprise.’ Only the wall, against which she had pressed herself, was keeping her from sinking to the ground in an unlovely heap.

‘Life is full of them. As I’ve discovered for myself, firsthand.’

‘What are you doing here?’ she stammered, choosing not to pursue that particular avenue of conversation.

‘Oh, I was just driving by and I thought I’d take time out to pass the time of day with you…Amelia. But it’s not Amelia, is it, Bethany?’

‘I feel faint. I honestly do.’ She put her hand to her head and took a few deep breaths. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’

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