About the Author

SANDRA MARTON wrote her first novel while she was still in primary school. Her doting parents told her she’d be a writer some day, and Sandra believed them. In secondary school and college she wrote dark poetry nobody but her boyfriend understood—though, looking back, she suspects he was just being kind. As a wife and mother she wrote murky short stories in what little spare time she could manage, but not even her boyfriend-turned-husband could pretend to understand those. Sandra tried her hand at other things, among them teaching and serving on the Board of Education in her home town, but the dream of becoming a writer was always in her heart.

At last Sandra realised she wanted to write books about what all women hope to find: love with that one special man, love that’s rich with fire and passion, love that lasts for ever. She wrote a novel, her very first, and sold it to Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance. Since then she’s written more than sixty books, all of them featuring sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life heroes. A four-time RITA® award finalist, she’s also received five RT Book Reviews magazine awards, and has been honoured with RT’s Career Achievement Award for Series Romance. Sandra lives with her very own sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life hero in a sun-filled house on a quiet country lane in the north-eastern United States.

Recent titles by the same author:

THE ICE PRINCE

(linked to THE REAL RIO D’AQUILA) NOT FOR SALE

Did you know these are also available as eBooks?

Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader

Have you fallen in love with the Orsini brothers? Raffaele, Dante, Falco and Nicolo are the sexy sons of Cesare Orsini. You were with them as they fell in love with the women who would change their lives for ever.

And then you wrote to me, in extraordinary numbers, asking me to tell the stories of the Orsini sisters, Anna and Isabella.

I was happy to bring you Anna’s story in July. Now, Isabella wants to share her story with you.

Isabella is a gardener. She’s sweet and unsophisticated—meaning she’s no match for gorgeous Rio D’Aquila.

She’s also no match for the equally gorgeous Matteo Rossi.

Matteo sees Isabella, wants her, and seduces her into his bed.

The problem is that Rio and Matteo are the same man …

A fact Isabella doesn’t know until it’s far, far too late.

With love

Sandra

The Real Rio D’Aquila
Sandra Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

RIO D’Aquila was known for many things.

He was wealthy beyond most people’s measure, feared by those who had reason to fear him and as ruggedly good-looking as any man could hope to be.

Not that Rio gave a damn about his looks.

Who he was or, rather, who he had become, was what mattered.

He had been born to poverty, not in Brazil, despite his name, but on the meanest possible streets of Naples, Italy.

At seventeen, he’d stowed away on a rusting Brazilian freighter. The crew had dubbed him “Rio” because that was the ship’s destination; they’d tagged on the “Aquila” because he’d responded with the fierceness of an eagle to their taunting.

The name had suited him much more than Matteo Rossi, which was what the sisters at the orphanage where he’d been raised had called him. “Rossi” was pretty much the Italian equivalent of “Smith.” “Matteo,” they’d said with gentle piety, meant a gift from God.

Rio had always known he was hardly that, so he took the name Rio D’Aquila and made it his own.

He was thirty-two now, and the boy he’d been was a distant memory.

Rio inhabited a world in which money and power were the lingua franca, and often as not handed down as an absolute right from father to son.

Rio’s father, or maybe his mother, had given him nothing but midnight-black hair, dark blue eyes, a handsome if rugged face and a leanly muscled, six-foot-three-inch body.

Everything else he owned—the homes, the cars, the planes, the corporate giant known as Eagle Enterprises—he had acquired for himself.

There was nothing wrong with that. Starting life without any baggage, getting to the top on your own, was all the sweeter. If there was one drawback, it was that his kind of success attracted attention.

At first, he’d enjoyed it. Picking up the Times in the morning, seeing his name or his photo in the financial section had made him feel, well, successful.

Inevitably, he’d not only wearied of it, he’d realized how meaningless it was.

The simple truth was that a man who ranked in the top ten on the Forbes list made news just by existing. And when that man was a bachelor inevitably described as “eligible,” meaning he had not yet been snared by some calculating female who wanted his name, his status and his money …

When that happened, a man lost all privacy.

Rio valued his privacy as much as he despised being a topic of conversation.

Not that Rio cared much what people said, whether it was that he was brilliant and tough. Or brilliant and heartless. He was who he was, and all that mattered was his adherence to his own code of ethics.

He believed in honesty, determination, intensity of focus, logic—and emotional control. Emotional control was everything.

Still, on this hot August afternoon, cicadas droning in the fields behind him, the hiss of the surf beating against the shore, he was ready to admit that logic and control were fast slipping from his grasp.

He was, to put it bluntly, angry as hell.

In Manhattan, when a business deal drove him to the point of rage, he headed for his gym and the ring in its center for a couple of rounds with a sparring partner, but he wasn’t in New York. He was as far east of the city as a man could get without putting his feet in the Atlantic.

He was in the town of Southampton, on Long Island’s exclusive South Shore. He was here in search of that increasingly elusive thing called privacy and, goddamnit, he was not going to let some fool named Izzy Orsini spoil the day for him.

For the past hour, Rio had taken his temper out on a shovel.

If any of his business associates could have seen him now, they’d have been stunned. Rio D’Aquila, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and work boots? Rio D’Aquila, standing in a trench and shoveling dirt?

Impossible.

But Rio had dug ditches before, not that anyone in his world knew it. And though he sure as hell hadn’t expected to be doing any digging today, it was better than standing around and getting more ticked off by the minute.

Especially when, until a couple of hours ago, he’d had a damned good day.

He’d flown in early, piloting his own plane to the small airport at Easthampton where he’d picked up the black Chevy Silverado his property manager had left for him. Then he’d driven the short distance to Southampton.

The town was small, picturesque and quiet early on a Friday morning. Rio had parked, gone into a small café where he’d had breakfast with the guy who was putting in the infinity pool at the house he’d recently had built. The pool would extend over the dunes from the second floor terrace, and they’d talked about its size and the view he’d have. The conversation had been pleasant, almost as pleasant as being able to sit in a restaurant without being the unwilling center of attention.

That was part of the reason he’d decided to build a weekend home here, on six outrageously expensive acres of land that overlooked the ocean.

For the most part—and there were always exceptions to the rule, of course—nobody bothered celebrities in these small eastern Long Island villages. And Rio, God help him, was a celebrity, according to the crazy media.

Here, he could be himself. Have a meal. Take a walk. It was like an unwritten code. Build here, become, for the most part, invisible.

For a man who sometimes had to travel with a phalanx of bodyguards or with a limo crawling along at the curb so he could duck into it, fast, and be whisked away, it was a minor miracle.

So Rio had enjoyed his bacon and eggs, strolled the streets for a while, even checked the hardware store as if he really were going to need to buy hammers and saws.

In fact, there’d been a time he’d owned such tools and used them to earn his daily bread. A little wistfully, he thought about maybe putting in some shelves in his new house, if he could find a place in it that needed them. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe that working with your hands gave you special moral status but there was something to be said about leading a simpler life.

At midmorning, he met with the security specialist who’d installed an ultrasophisticated system in and around the house. They sat at a table on the flagstone patio of a little ice cream shop, the sun blocked by a big blue umbrella.

Rio tried to remember the last time he’d had a strawberry ice cream sundae and couldn’t.

He felt … what? Lazy. Content. He almost had to force himself to pay attention to the conversation.

There was a malfunction of the security system at the gate. The intercom wasn’t working right. His caretaker had told him voices coming over the intercom were almost indecipherably drowned in static, and the gate’s locking mechanism didn’t always work.

The area was pleasant, there was nothing but a discreet plaque on the gate that said Eagle’s Nest, but Rio wasn’t a fool. A man like him needed security.

“Not to worry,” the security guy assured him. “I’ll come out Monday morning and deal with it, first thing.”

At noon, Rio had driven to his house. The long driveway had not yet been finished and the tires bounced along over small stones and deep ruts but nothing could dim the pleasure he already took in the place.

The house was just as he’d wanted it. Light wood. Lots of glass. It would be his retreat from the dog-eat-dog world he inhabited 24/7.

The guy he’d hired as his contractor was waiting. They had some things to discuss, nothing major, and then, together, they’d interview three applicants for the job of landscaping the rear terrace and two decks.

No. Not three applicants. Four. Damned if he didn’t keep forgetting that. Rio had some definite ideas about what he wanted. Whomever he hired would have to understand that he’d be an active participant in the plans he drew up, just as he’d been an active participant in the design of the house.

The caretaker was there, too, but just leaving. He told Rio he’d taken the liberty of filling the freezer and fridge with a few things.

“Breakfast stuff. You know, eggs, bacon, bread. And steaks, some local corn and tomatoes, even a couple of bottles of wine. Just in case you decide to spend the night.”

Rio thanked him, though he had no plans to spend the night. As it was, he’d canceled a couple of meetings so he could get here but it had turned out to be the only chance for all three landscaping candidates to show up for interviews on the same day.

Four. Four candidates. How come he couldn’t keep that in his head?

Probably because he wasn’t hot on interviewing that fourth one, he thought, and gave a mental sigh. It was never a good idea to mix friendship and business, but when one of your pals asked you to at least talk to his cousin or uncle, or whatever in hell somebody named Izzy Orsini was to Dante Orsini, well, you bent the rules and did it.

After a few minutes, Rio took a picnic hamper from the Silverado’s cab. His housekeeper in Manhattan had packed lunch at his request. It turned out to be an elegant one. Thinly sliced cold roast beef on French baguettes, a chunk of properly aged Vermont cheddar, a bottle of chilled prosecco, fresh strawberries and tiny butter pastries.

Plus, of course, linen napkins, stemware and china mugs.

Rio and the contractor grinned at each other. They were both wearing jeans, sitting on a pair of overturned buckets on the unfinished terrace, their meal arranged on a plank laid over a sawhorse.

Cold beer and a couple of ham and cheese on rye might have been more in keeping with things, but the lunch was good and they finished every mouthful.

The landscapers started arriving not long after that. They showed up one at a time, exactly as scheduled, Rio buzzing them in through the gate, which seemed to be working perfectly. They were local men, each efficient and businesslike and politely eager to win what would be a substantial contract.

All of them came equipped with glossy folders filled with computerized designs, suggested layouts, sketches, photos of prior projects and spreadsheets of mind-numbing detail.

Each listened carefully as Rio explained what they already knew. He wanted the perimeter of the terrace planted in as natural a manner as possible. The decks, as well. Greenery. Shrubs. Flowers, maybe. Or flowering shrubs. Rio was willing to admit what he knew about gardening could fit into a teaspoon with room left over, but he made it clear that he knew the overall effect he was going for.

“What I want,” he told each applicant, “is to have the terrace seem to flow out of the fields behind the house. Does that make sense to you?”

Each man nodded earnestly; each roughed out some quick ideas on a sketchpad and though none of the sketches had been exactly what Rio intended, he’d known instantly that he could choose any of the three guys and, ultimately, be satisfied.

Three excellent landscapers.

But, of course, there was a fourth.

The contractor said he understood. A friend of a friend. He knew how that was. The friend of a friend was late but the two men settled in to wait.

And wait.

After a while, Rio frowned.

“The guy should know better than to be late,” he said.

The contractor agreed. “Maybe he had a flat. Or something.”

“Or something,” Rio said.

Another ten minutes went by. Damnit, Rio thought, if only he hadn’t gone to that party, he wouldn’t be waiting to interview another landscaper at all.

The party had taken place a few weeks ago. Dante Orsini and his wife, Gabriella, had invited some people to their penthouse for a charity bash. Rio had gone with a date, a woman he’d been seeing for a couple of months.

She went off to the powder room.

The “little girls’ room” she’d called it, and Dante had rolled his eyes at Rio, put a drink in his hand and led him out to the terrace, where it was quieter and less crowded.

“The little girls’ room, huh?”

Rio had grinned. “All good things come to an end,” he’d answered, and Dante had grinned, too, because he still remembered his bachelor days.

The friends had touched glasses, drunk some of their bourbon. Then, Dante had cleared his throat.

“So, we hear you’re building a place in the Hamptons.”

Rio had nodded. Word got around. Nothing new to that. New York was a big city but people like he and Dante moved in relatively small circles.

“Southampton,” he’d said. “I visited a friend there one weekend last summer. Lucas Viera. You know him? Anyway, Viera has a house on the beach. Very private, very quiet. I liked what I saw, and now—”

“And now,” Gabriella Orsini had said, smiling as she joined the men and slipped her arm through her husband’s, “you need a landscaper.” Her smile broadened. “You do, don’t you?”

Rio had shrugged. “Well, sure, but—”

“We just happen to know a very good one.”

To Rio’s amazement, Dante had blushed.

“Izzy,” Gabriella had said. She’d nodded toward the lush plantings along the borders of the terrace. “That’s Izzy’s work. Spectacular, don’t you think?”

Rio had looked at the plantings. Not spectacular, but nice. Natural-looking, which could not have been easy to accomplish when the setting was a three-level penthouse in the sky.

“Uh,” Dante had said, “see, Izzy is sort of trying to branch out, and—”

“And,” Gabriella had said sweetly, “we’re not above a bit of nepotism. Are we, darling?”

The penny had finally dropped.

His friend, actually, his friend’s wife, was hustling the work of one of her husband’s relatives. A cousin, maybe an uncle, because there were only four Orsini brothers. Rio had met them all and not one was named Izzy.

Whatever, it didn’t matter.

The terrace plantings had looked good. And, what the hell, Rio liked Dante and Gabriella, who happened to have been born in Brazil, his adopted country. So when it came time to deal with the landscaping, Rio gave Izzy Orsini’s name and email address to his contractor, who’d made the contact and set up the time and date of the meeting.

A meeting for which Izzy Orsini had not showed.

Time had passed, with the contractor trying hard not to look at his watch until, finally, Rio had thought, basta. Enough. He’d told the contractor he was free to leave.

“I’m sure you have better things to do than wait around for some guy who’s going to be a no-show.”

“You sure, Mr. D’Aquila? ‘Cause if you want, I can—”

“It’s Rio, remember? And it’s not a problem. I’ll hang around for a while, just in case.”

Which, Rio thought grimly as he dug the shovel into the soil in the trench, brought things straight to the present.

To two bloody hours, waiting for Izzy Orsini to put in an appearance.

“Merda,” he muttered, and stabbed the shovel blade into the earth again.

His temper was rising in inverse proportion to the depth of the trench which would ultimately be the foundation for a low stone wall but at the rate he was going, he was liable to dig his way to China.

He’d run out of excuses for Dante’s cousin.

Rio leaned on the shovel handle, wiped sweat from his eyes with a tightly muscled forearm.

Maybe Orsini got the time wrong. Maybe he’d had a flat. Maybe his great-aunt had come down with an attack of ague, or whatever it was great-aunts came down with, assuming he had a great-aunt at all.

Any of those things could have been explained by a phone call, but Orsini had not called.

Rio’s lips thinned.

Okay. He’d wasted enough time on this. It would be sticky, telling Dante and Gabriella what had happened, but he’d had it.

A shadow passed overhead. Rio looked up, tilted his head back, watched a squadron of pelicans soar overhead, aiming for the ocean. The cool, refreshing ocean.

That did it.

He yanked the shovel free of the soil and put it back where he’d found it.

He’d bought this place as somewhere he could relax. Well, he damned well wasn’t relaxing now. Thinking about an idiot who’d let a chance at a job like this slip through his fingers made his blood boil.

Back when he was just starting out, he’d never have let something so important get away. He’d have walked, crawled, done whatever it took to snag even a chance at a job that would pay well and could lead to something even better.

No wonder Gabriella was hustling this Orsini jerk. The fool couldn’t do anything on his own.

Rio stretched and rotated his shoulders. His muscles ached. He’d skinned a couple of knuckles and there was dirt under his usually well-manicured fingernails.

The truth was, he’d enjoyed a couple of hours of work. Real work, physical work just as he enjoyed being in the ring at his gym. But enough was enough.

Sweat dripped off the end of his nose. He yanked his T-shirt over his head and used it to mop his face.

The sun was starting to drop lower in the sky. The day was coming to an end. He hated to leave. The city would be hot and noisy …

Rio made a quick decision.

He’d take that swim. Then, instead of flying back to Manhattan, he’d spend the night here. Hell, why not? Most of the furniture he’d ordered was in. Thanks to his property manager, he had steaks, fresh corn, even wine. The more he thought about it, the better it—

Bzzzz.

What the hell was that? A bee? A wasp? No. It was the intercom at the gate.

He wasn’t expecting anyone …

Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

Orsini. It had to be. The fool had shown up after all, except he was three hours late.

Rio almost laughed. The guy had cojones, he had to give him that, but that was all he had. No way was he going to buzz him in. The business of the day was over. This was his own time. His quiet time. His—

Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

Rio folded his arms. Stood his ground.

The damned thing buzzed again.

Cristo! What would it take to get rid of the guy?

More buzzing. Rio narrowed his eyes, marched to the intercom and depressed the button.

“What?” he snarled.

A blast of static roared from the speaker.

Rio cursed, slapped the button. No good. Orsini had to be leaning on the button at his end, or maybe the freaking thing wasn’t working again. Nothing but static was coming through.

Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

His jaw tightened. If Orsini wanted in, then “in” and a lesson on courtesy and punctuality was what he’d get. And he was in the mood to give it to him.

Rio balled up his T-shirt and tossed it aside, yanked open the glass French doors that led into the great room, marched through the house to the entry foyer, his work boots leaving muddy prints on the Carrara marble floors.

“Damnit,” he roared, as he flung open the front door—

And stopped.

A figure was coming toward him, hurrying up the long, unfinished driveway. Trying to hurry, at any rate, but how fast could a person go on that uneven, pitted, rocky surface in—in—

Were those stiletto heels?

His visitor was not Izzy Orsini.

It was a woman.

Damn the malfunctioning intercom and gate!

He’d been this route one time before. A woman had decided he was her true love. He’d never talked to her, never heard her name, never seen her in his life but he’d turned out to be a fixture in her mental landscape. She’d sent him letters. Emails. She’d sent him gifts and cards. She’d stalked him without letup, settled in on the corner near his Manhattan condo, which was when he’d finally, if reluctantly, pressed charges.

Was this her again?

No. His stalker had been fiftyish, short and rotund. This woman was young. Mid-twenties. Tall and slender, and dressed as if she were on her way to a board meeting: the stilettos, a white blouse showing under the suit jacket, dark hair pulled severely back from her face. She didn’t look like a crazy stalker or like a nosy reporter, though in Rio’s book, the two could easily be one and the same, but who gave a damn?

She had no business here and that was all that mattered.

“Hold it right there,” Rio barked, but his command didn’t stop her and he trotted down the steps, eyes narrowed. “I said—”

“Mr. D’Aquila expects me.”

Not a reporter or a crazy, at least not one looking for him if she didn’t recognize him, even shirtless, in jeans and work boots, but clearly a liar with an agenda all her own.

Rio gave a thin smile.

“I assure you, madam, that would be news to him.”

There were only a couple of feet between them now. Close up, he could see that there was a rip in her skirt, dirt on those stiletto heels and a smudge on her blouse. Her hair wasn’t quite as neatly drawn back as he’d at first thought; tendrils of it, dark and curling, were coming loose around her face.

It was an interesting face. Triangular. High cheekbones. Big green eyes. Feline, he thought.

Not that it mattered, but if she’d been in some kind of accident he supposed he could, at least, offer to—

“It is your attitude that would be news to him,” Isabella Orsini said, hoping her voice would not tremble because everything inside her was bouncing around like an unset bowl of gelatin and after all she’d gone through today, there wasn’t a way in hell she was going to permit this half-naked, good-looking-if-you-were-foolish-enough-to-like-the-type flunky of a too rich, too powerful, too full-of-himself ape to stop her now.

There was a moment’s silence. Then Mr. Half-Naked raised one dark eyebrow.

“Really.”

His tone was soft but it made Izzy’s heart thump. To hell with thumping hearts, she thought, and lifted her chin.

“Really,” she said, with all the hauteur she could muster.

Mr. Half-Naked gave another of those thin smiles and motioned toward the door.

“In that case,” he said, in a voice that was almost a purr, “you had better come in.”

CHAPTER TWO

A NAKED man.

A house in the middle of nowhere.

An open door, and an invitation to step through it.

Izzy swallowed hard.

Did she truly want to do that? She was not into taking risks. Everyone knew that about her, even her father, who didn’t actually know anything about any of his children.

I have heard that you are considering taking on a new client, Isabella, Cesare Orsini had said during one of the inevitable Sunday command performance dinners at the Orsini mansion. But you will not.

“Excuse me?” Izzy had said.

Her father had given her what she’d always thought of as one of his “I am the head of this family” glares except, of course, his glares as don of the East Coast’s most powerful famiglia had more impact on those who feared him than they did on his sons and daughters.

To them, he was not the head of anything. He was just a shame to be borne for the sake of their mother.

“Do I not speak English as well as you? I said, you are not to work for Rio D’Aquila.”

“And you say this because …?”

“I know of him and I do not like what I know. Therefore, accepting a position that will make you his servant is out of the question.”

Isabella would have laughed had her father’s view of what she did for a living not been such an old argument.

“I am not a servant, Father, I am a horticulturist with a degree from the University of Connecticut.”

“You are a gardener.”

“I certainly am. And what if I were what you call a servant? There’s nothing dishonorable in being a maid or a cook.”

“Orsinis do not bow their heads or bend their knees to anyone, Isabella. Is that clear?”

Nothing had been clear, starting with how her father had learned she’d been invited to bid on a job for a billionaire she’d never even heard of until a couple of weeks ago, going straight through to how Cesare could have imagined she would take orders from him.

If anything, his certainty that she would click her heels and obey him was what had convinced her to give serious consideration to the offer, something she really had not intended until then.

Now here she was, in Southampton, a place that might as well have been Mars for all she knew about it, hours late for an important interview, her car in a ditch, her suit and her shoes absolute disasters.

No. She was not going to think about that now. It would be self-defeating … and hadn’t she had enough of that?

It was enough to wonder at the crazed logic of moving past an all-but-naked man, a gorgeous all-but-naked man, to step inside a house that was, conservatively speaking, the size of an airplane hangar.

“Well? Are you coming inside, or have you changed your mind about Mr. D’Aquila expecting you?”

Izzy blinked. The caretaker, or whatever he was, was watching her with amusement. Forget amusement. That expression on his face was a smirk.

How lovely to be the day’s entertainment, Isabella thought, and drew herself to her full five foot seven.

“I am not in the habit of changing my mind about anything,” she said, and almost winced.

Such a stupid thing to say.

Too late.

She’d said it and now her feet, which seemingly had only a tenuous connection to her brain, propelled her past him, up a set of wide steps, through a massive door and into the house. She jumped as the door slammed shut behind her.

She wanted to think it was with the sound of doom but the truth was, it was the sound of a door slamming, nothing more, nothing less …

And ohmygod, the entry foyer was so big! It was huge!

“Yes. It is, isn’t it?”

She spun around. Mr. Half-Naked was standing right in back of her, arms folded across his chest. A very impressive chest, all muscle and golden skin and dark curls.

Her gaze skimmed lower.

A six-pack, she thought, sucking in her breath. Those bands of muscle really did exist, neatly bisected by silky-looking hair that arrowed down and down and …

“The foyer,” he said, his voice not just amused but smoky. Her gaze flew to his. “You were thinking it was big. Huge, in fact.” A smile tilted the corner of his lips. “That was what you were referring to, wasn’t it?”

She felt her face heat. Had she spoken aloud? She must have, but she’d certainly never meant to infer …

Isabella narrowed her eyes. Damn the man!

He was playing games at her expense.

Still, she could hardly blame him.

He might be only half-dressed but she—

She was a mess.

Everything she had on was stained, torn or smudged. A few hours ago, she’d looked perfect. Well, as perfect as she could ever look. She’d taken more time preparing for this meeting than she’d ever prepared for anything in her life.

Actually, she hadn’t done a thing.

Anna had done it all.

A suit instead of her usual jeans. A wool suit, hot as blazes on a day like this but, Anna had said, The Proper Thing for such an important interview. A silk blouse instead of a T-shirt. Shoes rather than sandals, and with heels so ridiculously high she could hardly walk in them, especially the million miles she’d had to plod after that rabbit had somehow materialized in the middle of the road and her car had taken a nosedive into that miserable ditch.

All of it was Anna’s, of course. The suit, the blouse, the shoes.

The car.

Oh, God, the car!

Forget that for now.

She had to concentrate on what lay ahead, the all-important chance to transform Growing Wild from a shoe-box operation in a cheap storefront on what was most definitely not a trendy street near the Gowanus Canal to an elegant shop—an elegant shoppe, Anna had joked—in SoHo. Or in the Village. Or on the Upper East Side.

No.

She’d never go that far.

The truth was, she liked the neighborhood she was in, seedy as it was, but she had to admit the growth of her little landscaping business was dependent on location and on landing a couple of really important clients. Aside from the admitted pleasure of defying her father, that was why she’d agreed to the interview with Rio D’Aquila, a man the papers called a removed, cold, heartless multibillionaire.

Heaven knew she was familiar enough with the type.

Izzy’s work was skilled and imaginative; she used only the most beautiful flowers and greenery. That made her services costly. It made them the province of the very rich.

And dealing with them was sometimes unpleasant. It was sometimes downright horrible. The very rich could be totally self-serving, completely selfish, uncaring of others …

“They’re not all like that,” Anna had said.

Well, no. Her brothers were very rich. So was Anna’s husband. But—

“But,” Anna had said, with incontrovertible logic, “if you’re going to have to like a person before you take him as a client, Isabella, you’re never going to make Growing Wild a success.”

True enough. And when you coupled that simple wisdom with the fact that the offer was important enough for Anna to refer to her as Isabella …

Well, that had convinced her.

Unfortunately, Izzy was here, not Anna.

Sophisticated Anna would have known how to handle the situation. She would not have gotten lost or crashed the car. She certainly would not have turned up hours late for this appointment.

And she absolutely would not have let a man like this intimidate her. She’d have known how to handle the half-dressed muscleman who was having such fun at her expense.

That smirk was still on his face.

It infuriated her. After the day she’d had, Izzy was in no mood to be laughed at, certainly not by him.

She knew his type.

Good-looking. Glib-tongued. Full of himself, especially when it came to women, because women, the silly fools, undoubtedly threw themselves at his feet with all the grace of—of salmon throwing themselves upstream.

Okay, a bad metaphor. The point was, she was not a woman to be intimidated by an empty-headed stud. She was a self-sufficient businesswoman, never mind that she wasn’t self-sufficient enough to be wearing her own clothes or driving her own car.

All that mattered was that she was here. And time was wasting. The sun would set soon, and then what?

Then what, indeed?

The caretaker was leaning against a table, hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans. She had a choice of views. His incredible face. His incredible chest. The tight fit of those faded jeans—

Stop it, she told herself sternly, and set her gaze squarely on his chin.

“Look,” she said, “I really don’t have time for this.”

“For what?”

Was the man dense?

“Where is your boss?”

That won her a shrug. “He’s around.”

The answer, the lazy lift of those shoulders, those amazingly broad shoulders, infuriated her. All that macho. That attitude. That testosterone.

That naked chest.

Damnit, she was back to that and it was his fault. She’d have bet it was deliberate.

Izzy narrowed her eyes.

“Do you think you could possibly muster up enough ambition to find him and tell him I’m here?”

Mr. Half-Naked didn’t move. Not a muscle. Well, that wasn’t true. He did move a muscle; one corner of his mouth lifted, either in question or in another bout of hilarity at her expense.

Could you actually feel your blood pressure rising?

“One problem,” he said lazily. “I’m still waiting for you to tell me why you’re here.”

The simplest thing would be to do exactly that. Just say, I’m here to meet with Mr. D’Aquila and talk about landscaping this property.

It was certainly not a secret.

The problem was, she didn’t like Mr. All Brawn and No Brains’s attitude.

Okay. That wasn’t fair.

Just because he looked like he’d stepped off one of those calendars her roommate used to drool over in her college-dorm days didn’t mean he was stupid.

It only meant he was so beautiful that looking at him made her heart do a little two-step, and that was surely ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as this silly power game they were playing.

Who cared if it was silly? She was entitled to win at something today!

“What are you?” she said sarcastically. “His appointment secretary?”

One dark eyebrow rose again. “Maybe I’m his butler.”

She stared at him for a long minute. Then she laughed.

Rio grinned.

He was really getting to her. Good. Fine. It was a lot more rewarding to take his pent-up irritation out on the woman, whoever she was, than on a trench.

“His butler, huh?” Her chin went up. “One thing’s for sure, mister. I guarantee you’re going to be looking for another job two minutes after I meet your employer.”

Rio folded his arms over his chest.

The lady was losing her temper. Let her lose it. Let her get ticked off. Let her see how it felt to be frustrated enough to want Izzy Orsini to finally show up if only so that he could deck the jerk. If that was unfair—

Hey, life was unfair. Besides, the lady wasn’t exactly behaving like a lady.

Well, yeah, she was.

Her clothes were a mess, but they were expensive.

So was her attitude.

He was the peasant, she was the princess. Only one problem in that little scenario.

The princess had no idea he held all the cards.

Well, not quite all. He still didn’t know what had brought her here. The only certainty was that her presence could not possibly have anything to do with him.

Maybe she sold magazines door to door.

Maybe Southampton had designated her its Fruitcake of the Month.

Whoever she was, whatever she was, she was a welcome diversion. This little farce was fast becoming the best part of his long and irritating afternoon.

She was also very easy on the eyes, now that he’d had the chance to get a longer look at her.

The made-for-midwinter suit was rumpled, torn and a little dirty, but he was pretty sure it hid a made-for-midsummer-bikini body. Wool or no wool, he could make out the thrust of high breasts, the indentation of a feminine waist, the curve of rounded hips.

Rio frowned.

What the hell had put that into his head?

She was a woman, and women were not on his current agenda. He’d just ended an affair—women called them “relationships” but men knew better—and, as always, getting out of it had been a lot more difficult than getting in. Women were creatures of baffling complexity and despite what they all said, they inevitably ended up wanting something he could not, would not, give.

Commitment. Marriage.

Chains.

Rio moved fast. He intended to keep moving fast, to climb to the absolute top of every mountain that caught his interest. Why be handicapped by things he didn’t want or need? Why anchor himself to one woman and inevitably tire of her?

He had to admit, though, some women were more intriguing than others.

This one, for instance.

She was tough. Or brave. Maybe that was the better word for her.

Standing up to him took courage at the best of times. Right now, looking as he did, half-naked, unkempt, hell, downright scruffy—he hadn’t even shaved this morning, now that he thought about it—took colhões. Or cojones. The point was the same, in Portuguese or in Italian. Facing him down took courage. No, he didn’t look like Jack the Ripper but he sure as hell didn’t look like he’d stepped out of GQ, which was surely the kind of guy she normally dealt with.

This was, after all, the weekend haunt of the rich and famous. The I-Want-to-Be-Alone rich and famous, but that didn’t change the fact that he wasn’t usually the kind of guy who met you at the front door.

Given all that, he supposed you could call her foolish instead of brave. A woman who went toe-to-toe with a stranger, who walked into a house with a man she’d never seen before …

Foolish, sure.

But determined. Gutsy.

It was clear she wasn’t going to give ground until she met Rio D’Aquila.

A gentleman would have made it easy. I’m Rio D’Aquila, a gentleman would have said, right up-front, or if he’d let things go on for a while, he’d smile at her now, apologize for any confusion and introduce himself.

A muscle flickered in Rio’s jaw.

Yes, but he had not always been a gentleman. And right now, suddenly turning into one held no appeal.

The truth was, as soon as Rio D’Aquila appeared, all this would stop.

The bantering. The courage. Probably even the little blushes she tried to conceal each time she reminded herself that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

He liked it. All of it. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman blush, or the last time one had stood up to him.

It had been at least a decade on both counts, right around the time he’d made his first million.

The truth was, he was enjoying himself, playing at being someone he had once been. A man, not a name or a corporation or, even worse, a line in a gossip column.

Hell, there was nothing wrong with the game he was playing. It was just an extension of what had prompted him to buy the land and put up a house here in the first place.

He was being himself.

Rio frowned. And faced facts, because all that entire bit of justification was pure, unadulterated crap.

This was not who he was.

He didn’t dig ditches. He didn’t walk around half-dressed unless he was alone or unless he’d just been to bed with a woman, and what did that have to do with anything happening right now?

The point was, he was honest with people. Even with women, and that was occasionally difficult. No matter the situation, he never played games at a woman’s expense.

It was just that this particular woman was a puzzle, and he had always liked puzzles.

Why was she dressed for winter when it was summer? Why was there a rip in her skirt, dirt on those come-and-get-me stilettos, a smudge on her blouse?

Now that he took a better look, there was a streak of dirt on her cheek, too.

It was an elegant cheek. Highly arched. Rose hued. And, he was certain, silken to the touch.

Her hair looked as if it would feel that way, too. It was dark. Lustrous. She’d yanked it back, secured it at the nape of her neck, but it refused to stay confined.

Tendrils were coming loose.

One in particular lay against her temple, daring him to reach for it, let it curl around his finger, see if it felt as soft as it looked.

She had great eyes. A nice nose. And she had a lovely mouth.

Pink. Generous but not, he was sure, pumped full of whatever horror it was that turned women into fish-lipped monstrosities.

One thing was certain.

Despite the classic suit, the demure blouse, the pulled back hair, that mouth was made for sin.

For sin, Rio thought, and felt his body stir.

Hell.

He swung away from her, irritated with himself for his unexpected reaction, with her for causing it. She was on his turf and she had no right to be there.

For a man who liked puzzles, the only one that needed solving was figuring out why he hadn’t ended this charade before it began.

Truth time, Rio thought, and he unfolded his arms and took a long breath.

“Okay,” he said, “enough.”

His unwanted guest turned paper-white. Cristo, he thought, and cursed himself for being a fool.

“No,” he said quickly, “I didn’t mean …” He forced a smile. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I’m not afraid,” she said, but, damnit, her voice was shaking.

“You don’t understand.” He went toward her, held out his hand. She stared at it. He did, too, saw the redness of his knuckles, the dirt on his skin and under his nails, drew his hand back and wiped it on his jeans. “I shouldn’t have made things so difficult. You don’t want to tell me who you are until you’re positive Rio D’Aquila is here, that’s fine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly. “I’ll just—I’ll just phone Mr. D’Aquila from the city—”

“Is that where you’re from? New York?”

“Yes—but really, you don’t have to—”

“Obviously,” he said, trying to lighten things, “I’m not the butler.”

He waited. After a few seconds, she gave him a hesitant smile.

“No,” she said, “I didn’t think you were.”

Okay. It was time. He had the feeling she was going to be furious at his subterfuge but it wouldn’t matter.

He’d identify himself as the man she’d come to see, she’d tell him why she was here—something to do with town records, he’d bet, because it suddenly occurred to him that there’d been some sort of paper his lawyer had said he had to sign.

Whatever, they’d introduce themselves, he’d scribble his signature on the document she produced, and that would be the end of it.

“So,” Rio said, “let’s start from scratch.”

He extended his hand again. She looked at it, at him, and then she put her hand in his. It was a small, feminine hand; his all but swallowed it and yet, he could feel calluses on her fingers, which surprised him.

The coolness of her skin surprised him, too. It was a warm day. Was she still nervous about him? It was definitely time to identify himself and set her concerns at ease.

“Hello,” he said, and smiled. “I’m—”

“The handyman.”

He almost laughed. “Well, no. Not exact—”

“The caretaker. Sorry.” She swiped the tip of her tongue over her lips, leaving them pink and delicately moist. “Nice to meet you”

“Yes.” He dragged his gaze from her mouth. “And you are …?”

“Oh. Sorry. I’m the landscaper.”

Maybe he hadn’t heard her right. “Excuse me?”

“Well, not the landscaper. I’m an applicant.” She looked around, then lowered her voice. “I’m late. Terribly late, but—”

“But?” he said carefully.

“But still, where’s your boss? He was expecting me. You know, Isabella Orsini. From Growing Wild?”

“You?” Rio heard his voice rise. Hell, why not? He could feel his eyebrows shooting for his hairline. “You’re Izzy Orsini?”

“That’s me.” She gave a nervous laugh. “And I hope this Rio D’Aquila isn’t, you know, what I heard he was.”

“What you heard he was?” he said, and wondered when in hell he’d turned into a parrot.

“Cold. Ruthless. Bad-tempered.”

Rio cleared his throat. “Well, I suppose some people might say he was simply a—”

“An arrogant tyrant. But you don’t have to like someone to work for them, right? I mean, here you are, Mister—Mister—”

Rio didn’t even hesitate.

“My name is Matteo,” he said. “Matteo Rossi. And you have it right. I’m D’Aquila’s caretaker.”

CHAPTER THREE

MATTEO Rossi still had Izzy’s hand trapped in his.

Well, no. Not trapped. Not exactly.

Just clasped, that was all. The pressure of his fingers over hers wasn’t hard or unpleasant or threatening, it was simply—it was simply—

Masculine. Totally, completely, unquestionably masculine.

Everything about him was masculine, from the drop-dead-gorgeous face to the King-of-the-Centerfolds body, but then a man who did manual labor on an estate of this size wouldn’t have to work up a sweat in a gym.

He was the real thing.

That was why those muscles in his shoulders, his biceps, his chest were so—so well-defined.

Isabella’s mouth went dry.

Her interest, of course, was purely clinical. After all, she did manual labor, too. Planting, weeding, all those things, even when done on Manhattan terraces rather than Southampton estates, made for sweat and muscles. Combine that with what she recalled of college physiology and she could easily conjure up a mental image of him working, sweating …

Except, the images flashing through her head didn’t have a damned thing to do with work. Not work done in a garden, anyway.

Actually, not anything a normal, healthy woman would call “work.”

Or so she’d heard.

God, what was wrong with her? He was sweaty and good-looking. So what? Neither of those things had anything to do with sexual attraction …

Liar, she thought, and she pulled her hand free of his.

“For heaven’s sake,” she snapped, “don’t you own a shirt?”

There was a moment of horrified silence. No, she thought, please no, tell me I didn’t say that …

The caretaker made a choked sound. She jerked her head up, looked at him and, oh, Lord, he was trying not to laugh but his eyes met hers and a guffaw broke from his lips.

Isabella wanted to die. How could she have said such a thing?

Unfortunately, she knew the answer.

When it came to men, good-looking men, there were two Isabellas.

She met handsome men a lot. Her work took her into their homes; she accepted invitations to parties, even though she hated parties where you stood around nibbling on awful little canapés and gagging down overly sweet drinks with umbrellas stuck in them, because networking was the best way to find new clients.

Plus her brothers, gorgeous guys themselves, had recently taken to trying to find, with what they surely thought was subtlety, The Right Man for her.

“Hey,” Dante or Rafe, Falco or Nick would say in the falsely cheerful giveaway tone she’d learned to recognize, “how about coming over for supper Friday evening?” Or Sunday brunch, or whatever was the latest excuse for introducing her to the latest candidate in the Orsini Brothers’ “Let’s Find a Guy for Izzy” plan.

To Isabella’s chagrin, even Anna was getting into it, asking her to stop by and, surprise, surprise, a friend of Anna’s handsome husband would just happen to stop by, too.

Hadn’t any of them figured it out yet?

Put an attractive man in front of her and she either became tongue-tied or just the opposite, a woman whose mouth ran a hundred times faster than her brain.

Hi, a guy would say.

Her response? Silence, and a deer-in-the headlights stare.

Or she’d babble. He’d end up the bewildered recipient of whatever came into her head. Did you know that shrimp you’re tucking into probably came from an uninspected shrimp farm in some godforsaken place in the Far East? Or, How do you feel about the destruction of wetlands?

The result, either way?

Disaster.

It had been the pattern of her life, ever since she’d first noticed that boys were not girls.

The thing was, she wasn’t pretty, or clever, or the kind of woman men lusted after. Not that she wanted to be lusted after …

Okay.

A little lust would be nice.

Anna was the pretty one.

She was a great sister and Izzy adored her, but she had long ago faced facts.

Anna was the Orsini sister boys had always noticed.

She was the one with the blond hair, the one who knew, instinctively, what to say and what to wear, who knew how to charm and flirt and turn the most gorgeous guys to putty.

Izzy had long ago accepted the fact that she didn’t have those attributes, and she could live with that. What she couldn’t live with was turning into a jerk each and every time she found a man attractive.

Speechless or babbling. Those were her choices.

Today’s winner was Izzy the Babbler.

She’d already said more to this guy than she should have about his employer. For all she knew, Mr. Heartbreaker might think Rio D’Aquila walked on water.

And now, this—this outburst about him not wearing a shirt …

She swallowed drily and risked a glance at him.

He’d stopped laughing. More or less. Actually, she was pretty sure he was choking back another guffaw.

“I’m sorry,” she said miserably. “Honestly, I didn’t mean—”

“No, you’re right.” He cleared his throat, rearranged his face until he looked as if he were the one who should do the apologizing. “I was working out back, see, and then I heard the security buzzer go off, and—”

“Really, you don’t owe me an explanation. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“It’s the heat. It makes it hard to think straight.”

He flashed a smile that sent her pulse into overdrive. Had she ever seen blue eyes so dark, lashes so long? A woman could hate a man for having lashes like those.

“And you proved it.”

Isabella blinked. “Proved what?”

“That it’s too hot to think straight. So here’s what I suggest. Instead of standing in the foyer, why don’t we head for the kitchen? On the way, I’ll take a quick detour, grab a clean shirt, and then I’ll get us a couple of cold drinks, and—”

“Really, that’s not necessary,” she said quickly. “You go on. I mean, get yourself something cold. And a shirt.” She blushed. “I mean—I mean, I’ll just wait here while you tell Mr. D’Aquila that I’m …” Her eyebrows rose, even as her heart sank. “What?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

“Can’t do what?”

“I can’t pass on your message.” He paused. “Mr. D’Aquila isn’t here.”

“He isn’t?”

“No,” Rio said, and Isabella Orsini’s face fell.

Well, so what?

He’d been cooling his heels for hours, waiting for her to turn up. Now she was upset that the man she’d come to see wasn’t available.

Tough.

He wasn’t in the mood to conduct an interview now. Besides, only a fool would contract with a workman—a workwoman—Cristo, maybe the sun really was getting to him. The point was, even if she had the necessary credentials—and it was an excellent bet that she didn’t—he would never deal with a contractor who could not adhere to a schedule.

“He left about an hour ago,” he said, and watched as she sank what looked like perfect white teeth into the soft fullness of her bottom lip.

Rio’s gut tightened.

And that was a second excellent reason for not even considering hiring her.

The last thing he needed was to be attracted to a woman who worked for him, although what there was for him to be attracted to was beyond him to comprehend. There were things to like about her he had to admit. She spoke her mind. Those comments about his boss …

Well, no.

Not about his boss. About him. About the powerful, king-of-the-mountain Rio D’Aquila.

And then there was the shirt thing.

He couldn’t think of a woman he’d ever known who’d have been embarrassed by his standing around without a shirt. And she had, indeed, been embarrassed. Stripes of crimson had risen along her sculpted cheeks.

Not that her cheeks, sculpted or otherwise, mattered.

She had a forlorn expression on her face now. Her mouth had taken a downward curve.

That made-for-sin mouth.

That silken-looking mouth.

What would she do if he bent his head and put his lips on hers? If he tasted that rosy-pink softness? If he tasted her.

Rio’s anatomy responded with alarming speed. He swung away from her, feigned bending to pluck a bit of nonexistent dirt from the gleaming marble floor.

The sun had, indeed, fried his brain.

Why else react to her? She was not his type at all. He’d already admitted that once you got past the shapeless suit and pulled back hair she was pretty, he had to give her that, but a pretty face was not enough.

He liked his women sophisticated. Urbane. Sure of themselves. He liked them in silk and satin. He liked them capable of keeping up a conversation, okay, not about anything weighty but a conversation, nevertheless.

Isabella Orsini flunked all those categories. Plus, she’d wasted his afternoon and was well on the way to wasting his evening—but he wasn’t going to let that happen.

He wanted a shower and a cold beer, not necessarily in that order. Then he’d head for Easthampton, fly back to the city and never mind staying overnight here or wanting a break in the endless routine of dinner—theater—clubbing. He’d phone a woman, maybe the blonde he’d met last week at that charity thing, ask her if she was busy tonight even though he knew damned well she wouldn’t be, women never were when it came to interrupting their lives to accommodate him.

As for the lie he’d told Isabella Orsini about himself—it had been childish nonsense. Why had he done it? To get even with her? Whatever, it had been stupid.

Enough, Rio thought, and he turned and looked straight at her.

The woebegone look had been replaced by one of cool determination. Now what? he thought, and decided to not wait for the answer but, instead, to go straight to the truth.

“Ms. Orsini—”

“Izzy.”

“Ms. Orsini,” he said, with cool deliberation, “I haven’t been entirely straightforward with you.” An understatement, but what the hell? “What I said about Rio D’Aquila—”

“I know. You already said he isn’t here.”

“Right. But—”

“When will he be back?”

Aha. That explained the determined expression on her face. She was going to settle in and wait. Well, that wasn’t about to happen.

“I’m going to level with you, Ms. Orsini.”

“Izzy.”

“Izzy. The truth is—”

“He’s not coming back.”

“No. Well, that isn’t exactly what I—”

“He gave up waiting. And I can’t blame him.”

Her voice had fallen to a husky whisper. Damnit, was she going to cry? He couldn’t stand it when women cried. It was always a maneuver to try and get their own way and he was impervious to that time-worn trick.

“I can’t blame him at all.”

Dio, better tears than this low, sad tone.

“Look, Ms. Orsini. I mean, Isabella—”

“It’s Izzy. Nobody ever calls me ‘Isabella.’”

Impossible. She wasn’t an “Izzy.” “Isabella” suited her better. Maybe she wasn’t beautiful but she had a sweet voice, a pretty-enough face …

Rio acted on instinct. He reached out, cupped her chin, raised her face to his.

“Hey,” he said, and suddenly he knew he’d been all wrong, thinking her pretty.

She wasn’t. She wasn’t even beautiful.

She was something more.

How had he missed it? Had he been put off by the game? By his own anger? By her silly outfit?

For the first time, he saw her as she was. The thick, dark lashes. The high cheekbones. That lush mouth. A nose that wasn’t perfect; it had a tiny bump in the middle and, somehow, that made it perfect for her.

And, Cristo, her eyes.

Green. No, blue. Or brown. Or gold. The truth was, they were an amalgam of colors, and suddenly he was eight years old again, a half-starved kid pawing through a Dumpster behind a restaurant, coming across a chunk of strangely shaped glass.

He’d almost tossed it away. He’d had no need for useless things then. He still didn’t, all these years later.

But a ray of sun had hit the glass and the prism—he’d later learned that that was what it was—had flamed to life. The sheer brilliance of the colors had stolen his breath.

The same thing happened now.

Rio looked into Isabella Orsini’s eyes and what he saw made his heartbeat stumble.

He wanted to kiss her.

Hell, he was going to kiss her.

He was going to do something incredibly stupid and illogical and he was not a man who did things that were either stupid or illogical and, damnit, yes, he thought, dropping his hand to his side and taking a step back, he’d had too much sun.

“What you need to know,” he said briskly, “is that Rio D’Aquila and I are—”

“Trust me. I understand. He got tired of waiting and left you to deliver the message. I lost the job. Well, I never had the job but I lost my chance at it, right?”

“Right,” Rio said, “except—”

“I can’t blame him. I’m, what, two hours late?”

“Three, but—”

“What happened was that I got a late start. A client phoned. We had lots of rain overnight and I’d just planted pansies on his terrace.”

“Pansies,” Rio said.

“And the rain soaked them, so I had to head into Manhattan to take a quick look. See, my place is in Brooklyn and the traffic … Anyway, I started a little bit late, and then the traffic on the L.I.E. was a nightmare, even worse than in the city, so—”

“The Long Island Expressway is always crowded,” Rio said, and wondered why in hell he was letting this conversation continue. Maybe it was her eyes, the way they were fixed on his.

“I should have known. Anna warned me.”

“Anna?”

“So did Joey.”

“Joey,” he repeated, in the tones of a man trying desperately to hang on to his sanity.

“The boy who does my deliveries.” Isabella took a breath. “Then I got to Southampton—and I got lost.”

“Surely my—my boss’s people sent you directions.”

“Well, yes. But I forgot to take them with me. The emergency call about those pansies—and then, of course, I was edgy about this interview.”

“Edgy about this interview,” Rio echoed. Dio, he really was turning into a parrot!

“I kept telling myself that I wasn’t excited about it. That’s even what I told Dante.”

At last, a name he recognized.

“And it’s what I told Anna.”

So much for names he recognized.

“And then there was this rabbit in the road—”

Rabbits in the road, Rio thought. Had he stumbled into Wonderland?

“But the truth is, I really, really, really would have loved this commission.” Isabella—he could not possibly think of her as “Izzy”—flung her arms wide, the gesture taking in everything that had drawn him to this place: the sea, the fields, the dunes, the privacy, the clarity of the sky that was rapidly giving up the day with the onset of dusk. “I thought it was worth going after for the money. Well, and the status of doing a job for a hotshot like Rio D’Aquila. I mean, I’m not much for status, but …”

“No,” Rio said with a little smile, “I bet you’re not.”

“But now that I’ve seen the house, the setting …” A smile lit her face. “It would have been a wonderful challenge! So beautiful! So big! I’ll bet the terrace is enormous, too, and I wouldn’t have to think about size constraints, or whether or not rain would drain properly. It would be like—like a painter getting the chance to go from miniatures to—to murals!”

Her face glowed. So did her smile. Neither would win her the job or even an interview. Still—

“Would you like to see the terrace?” he heard himself say.

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip again.

“I shouldn’t—”

Rio had started the day wearing a blue chambray shirt over the T he’d discarded. Now, he grabbed it from the table where he’d left it, slipped it on and started walking. A couple of seconds went by. Then he heard the sound of her heels tap-tapping after him.

“Maybe just a peek,” she said. “I have the dimensions, of course, your employer’s people sent them to me, but to see it, really see it—”

They reached the open terrace doors. Rio motioned her through. She moved past him—and tripped in those ridiculously sexy shoes. His hand shot out automatically; he caught her wrist.

Time stood still.

It was a terrible cliché, but it was precisely what happened.

He heard the catch of her breath. Saw her eyes widen as she looked up at him. The air seemed to shimmer between them.

“It’s—it’s the shoes,” she said unsteadily, “Anna’s shoes …”

Anna’s shoes, he thought, but mostly he thought, to hell with it. He was going to kiss her, just once, and damn the consequences …

Damnit, he thought, and he let go of her, moved past her and stepped outside.

“Here we are,” he said briskly.

“Oh,” Isabella Orsini whispered, “oh, my.”

He swung around. She stood just behind him, hands clasped at her breast.

“Look at the colors,” she whispered reverently. “All those endless shades of gold and green and blue.”

Rio nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s—it’s nice.”

“Nice?” She gave a soft laugh. “It’s perfect. I can see Russian olive all around here, and some rhododendron. And azalea, here and here and here.”

Her face was as bright as the sun, her smile wide and honest.

“Mistral azalea,” she said, and he nodded again as if he knew what she was talking about.

“And some weigela. For the deeper color of the blossoms.”

Slowly, speaking the names of plants and trees and flowers as easily as he’d have dropped the names of cargo ships and stocks, Isabella filled his terrace with plants and trees and flowers made so real by her voice, her words, her smile that he could almost see them.

He couldn’t take his eyes from her.

All that eagerness, that joy, that animation …

She reached the area where he’d been digging, didn’t hesitate, kicked off those dirt-spattered stilettos and stepped, barefoot, into the rich, dark earth.

Or maybe it was nylon-foot, he thought numbly. Not that it mattered. Whatever you called seeing a beautiful woman in an ugly outfit dig her toes into the soil, it finished him.

Rio was lost.

He took a step toward her. She was still talking, the names of plants and shrubs and God-only-knew what tumbling from that sweet-looking mouth.

“Isabella,” he said.

Everything he was thinking was in the way he said her name. He knew she sensed it, too, because she fell silent and swung toward him.

Was she as lost as he?

“Mr. Rossi,” she whispered, and the parting of her lips, the breath she took as he reached for her, was all the answer he needed.

“Don’t call me that,” he said gruffly.

“No,” she said, her voice as husky as his, “you’re right.” They stood an inch apart, her face lifted to his. A little smile curved her lips. “Hello, Matteo.”

“Isabella. You don’t underst—”

She put a finger against his mouth.

“I don’t want to understand,” she said, and Rio gave up the battle, gathered Isabella Orsini into his arms, bent his head and kissed her.

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