At His Convenience Bundle (5 page)

S
UZY
could feel her legs trembling as she took a step away from Lucas Soames, her gaze fixed on the path ahead.

Did she really think he was just going to let her walk away? Luke could not credit her woeful lack of reality. He had grabbed her before she had taken more than a few paces, jerking her back towards him.

Suzy only had time to recognise that despite his violent gesture he did not actually hurt her before she was clamped to his side.

‘You'd better get one thing clear,' Luke told her curtly. ‘From now on where I go, you go. And you can take your choice whether it is by my side, two steps ahead of me or two steps behind. But two steps is going to be as far away as I let you get.'

‘You can't do that. You can't make me!' Suzy protested shakily, real fear in her eyes as she looked at him.

‘I can and will do anything and everything I deem necessary in order to protect the interests I am here to protect,' Lucas told her uncompromisingly. ‘Now,' he demanded, ‘where are you staying?'

Mutinously Suzy refused to answer him, compressing her lips and looking away from him. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him shrug.

‘Very well then, we'll go straight to the villa. If you choose to spend the next few weeks with only the clothes you are now wearing, then you may do so!'

Unable to stop herself, Suzy turned towards him.

‘The next few weeks?' she protested in despair. ‘I can't—I…'

‘The name of your hotel?' Luke repeated.

Her lips numb, Suzy told him. Luke watched her in silence.

‘Right, we'll go there now and get your stuff.' He glanced at his watch. ‘It will soon be dinner time, and that will be a perfect opportunity for me to introduce you. Which reminds me—you had better get used to calling me Luke.'

‘Luke?' Suzy checked him, confused. ‘But I thought your name was Lucas?'

‘Officially, it is,' he agreed coolly. ‘Lucas is an old family name, from my father's family, but my mother always called me Luke.' His expression shadowed a little, and against her will Suzy felt an emotional tug on her heartstrings. ‘My friends call me Luke, and as my partner so must you.'

‘As your partner…' Suzy began shakily. Her heart was thumping, and not solely because of the speed with which Luke was forcing her to walk down the hill alongside him.

‘Partner as in living together. Partner as in lovers!' Luke answered calmly.

Lovers? Suzy heart jerked frantically. She couldn't. She wouldn't!

‘I…Will I have my own room?' Suzy could hear the wobble in her voice.

Luke stood still and looked at her. What kind of game was she trying to play now? The Little Miss Innocent nervous act certainly didn't fool him, and he was surprised that she should try it.

‘Of course you will have your own room,' he said silkily.

Suzy began to exhale in a rush.

‘However, it will also be my room,' Luke informed her grimly. ‘And let me warn you right now that I am a very light sleeper, and trained to wake at the slightest sound. If there's one thing I hate it's having my sleep disturbed, so if you were rash enough to try to leave the room during the night I warn you that I am not likely to react with either charity or gentleness. Do I make myself understood?'

Suzy lingered mentally over a handful of biting retorts before reluctantly abandoning in favour of safety and silence.

‘And whilst we are on the subject I might as well point out to you that there are guards posted at every exit from the villa and my men patrol the grounds.

Trying not to look afraid, Suzy demanded, ‘Won't it look odd for me to suddenly turn up at the villa? I mean, you're here on business, and you don't strike me as the kind of man who would allow his partner to just appear and expect…'

He was watching her with a narrow-eyed intensity that unnerved her.

‘We had a quarrel about how much time we have to spend apart before I left London,' Luke told her smoothly. ‘You've realised how idiotic you were being and you've come here to apologise to me.'

‘I was being idiotic?' Suzy stopped him wrathfully, her fear forgotten as she leapt to the defence of her sex. ‘And now I'm apologising…?'

‘Since I'm here on holiday with an old friend and his children—' Luke ignored her outburst ‘—what could be more natural than that you should join us?'

‘You're here on holiday?' Suzy shook her head challengingly. ‘I saw with my own eyes those men and that car and—'

‘
You
may have seen them,' Luke said with cold menace, ‘but I intend to make sure you do not get the opportunity to say so—to anyone. And most especially not to Roy Jarvis!'

‘Why won't you accept that I do not work for the magazine any more?' Suzy demanded in frustration.

‘And as for the men I saw—' She gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I just saw them, that's all.'

‘You just saw them? I saw you photographing them,' Luke reminded her damningly.

‘Because I thought it would make a good photograph to show my friends. They run a holiday company,' Suzie told him in frustration. ‘Look, I can give you their name and phone number and you can ring them and—'

‘Credit me with some intelligence.' Luke stopped her dryly. ‘Of course Jarvis will have set up an alibi for you!'

‘No. You can ring them now. Look, I've got my mobile,' Suzy insisted, putting her hand in her pocket to retrieve it.

Instantly Luke's hand clamped over her own. ‘I'll take that, thank you,' he announced, removing her hand from her pocket and then sliding his own into it to remove the phone.

The sensation of his hand pressing against her hipbone made her whole body burn. Warily, Suzy held her breath, exhaling with relief when Luke removed his hand, along with her phone.

But, to her shock, once he had transferred her mobile into his own possession he reached out and took hold of her hand as they approached the resort.

To anyone else they would look like a couple enjoying the warmth of the Italian sunshine, Suzy recognised. But of course they were no such thing. Experimentally she tried to remove her hand, wincing as she felt the crushing pressure of Luke's imprisoning response.

‘Where is your hotel?' Luke asked.

He might be addressing her, but his gaze was measuring everything and everyone around them, Suzy saw as she glanced up at him. He was scanning the happy crowd of holidaymakers surrounding them.

Even in casual holiday clothes there was still an aura of command and authority about him. Suzy could see the way women's heads turned towards him, their glances lingering on him.

Had they really been a couple…A quiver of emotion ran through her.

‘Where's your hotel?' Luke repeated, shooting her a cold, impatient look.

Suzy wondered wrathfully how she could allow herself to be vulnerable to a man like this. A man who could not recognise the truth when it and she were standing here beside him!

‘It's here,' Suzy told him reluctantly, nodding in the direction of the drive which led up to the discreetly elegant boutique hotel where she was staying.

‘You're staying here?'

She could see Luke frowning as though he was surprised.

‘Where did you think I'd be staying?' Suzy taunted as they walked through the entrance, their progress noted by the sharp-eyed doorman who seemed instinctively to know who was resident at the hotel without having to check. ‘Somewhere brash and flashy?'

‘Well, that would certainly be more in keeping with your boss's tastes,' Luke agreed coolly.

They had reached the hotel now. Originally a private villa, it had only recently been converted and extended into its present form. A cool tiled hallway led into the reception area and the clerk on duty smiled at Suzy in recognition, reaching for her room key before she had to ask.

‘I'll take that,' Luke announced, ignoring the clerk's uncertain look.

‘Ms Roberts will be checking out as of now,' he informed him. ‘Where's your passport?' he asked Suzy, turning to look at her.

If the clerk had thought originally that she was taking Luke back to her room so that they could make love, and Suzy suspected he must have done, he obviously did not think so now. Suzy saw his manner towards Luke change from uncertainty to respect.

But then there was quite definitely something about Luke that set him apart from other men, Suzy acknowledged grudgingly, angrily aware of his presence behind her as she walked to her room.

Her room—the room originally to have been provided for her friends—was elegant and extremely luxurious, with French doors which led out onto a private balcony large enough for her to have had a tea party on, had she so wished.

‘Expensive,' was Luke's cynical comment as he followed her inside, and then locked the door and leaned against it, pocketing the old-fashioned key. If there had been an ounce of truth in her story that she was unemployed she could never have afforded to stay in a place like this, he acknowledged.

‘But then I'm sure your boss has his own way of making sure he gets value for money.'

Angry heat burned Suzy's face as she started to open the wardrobe doors. Her whole body trembled in reaction to his taunt that she would have sex with a man she loathed! Unable to stop herself, she turned to confront Luke, pride and anger burning red flags in her small face.

‘I know what you're trying to insinuate, but you couldn't be more wrong. You know nothing about me, and yet you think—'

‘On the contrary. I know a good deal about you.' Luke stopped her smoothly. ‘Everyone who attended the Prince's reception was vetted, including you.'

Vetted, yes, but he did not have an in-depth report on her, Luke acknowledged, and made a mental note to inform his staff in London that he required one—if only for formality's sake.

The intensity of her own emotions was exhausting her, and she just did not have the energy to argue with him any more, Suzy decided wearily.

‘How long do you intend to keep me here in Italy?' she demanded as she opened her case and started to fold her clothes neatly.

‘For as long as it takes,' Luke answered her laconically, his eyes narrowing as he focused on the clothes she was packing.

Neat round-necked tee shirts, modest pairs of walking shorts, a couple of long dresses—simple, anonymous clothes of a type he would have expected a conventional, rather cautions young woman to favour, hardly in keeping with the woman he knew her to be.

She had planned for her current role quite well, he acknowledged reluctantly as he watched the way she folded every garment before packing it.

Warily Suzy gave a glance in Luke's direction. He was still leaning against the bedroom door, arms folded, eyelids dropping over his eyes so that she couldn't be sure whether he was watching her or not.

She had packed virtually everything now, except her underwear, and for some ridiculous reason she discovered that she was reluctant to do so with him watching her.

She stole another glance at Luke.

‘Finished?'

‘Er, no…'

‘Perhaps I'd better help you, then.'

Suzy's mouth opened and closed again as he levered his shoulders off the door and came towards her. Automatically she fell back, putting a protective hand on the drawer which contained her underwear.

She was trying to hide something from him, Luke recognised, his gaze narrowing on the betraying movement of her hand. What was it she had in the drawer that she didn't want him to see? He intended to find out.

‘Have you got anything in the bathroom?' he asked casually. ‘Toilet bag? Make-up?'

Unwittingly Suzy took the bait he had offered her. ‘Yes…'

‘You'd better go and get them, then, hadn't you?' Luke told her impatiently, glancing at his watch and informing her, ‘You've got two minutes. After that, anything you haven't packed will have to be left behind.'

Automatically Suzy hurried to the bathroom.

The minute she was out of sight, Luke pulled open the drawer she had been guarding.

Neat piles of clean white underwear greeted his searching gaze.

Quickly and expertly he searched through it, frowning as his senses unwantedly relayed to him the cool, soft feel of the white fabric and its innocent virginal message.

Innocent? Virginal? Suzy Roberts?

She had researched her role well, he reflected, his frown deepening as he recognised that a part of him was reacting to the intimacy of what he was doing in a way that was both unprofessional and totally unfamiliar.

In his hand he held the semi-sheer white lace-trimmed bra he had just removed to check that the underwiring was just that.

He remembered with what ease and lack of any kind of sexual interest or arousal he had removed the TV news reporter's openly sexual underwear from the ‘washing line' she had managed to delude one of the raw recruits into erecting for her. It seemed incomprehensible to him that he should be feeling such a fierce surge of sexual reaction now!