One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents (79 page)

Falling? No! They had never spoken about falling anywhere, had never once mentioned the word love.

‘Red hair can be a bit tricky for a man to pull off,' she said, skirting around his question. ‘You might have been bullied at school…' A less likely scenario she would have been hard pressed to imagine.

‘You think so?' Angelo shot her a devilishly amused look from under his lashes. ‘Can you imagine me being bullied?'

‘No,' she said honestly. ‘You're too scary.'

‘You find me scary?'

‘
I
don't, but I can see why some people might.'

‘Why is that?' He caught the tail-end of her sandwich and took a bite from it.

‘Don't tell me you don't intimidate people sometimes, Angelo. When you're doing one of these great deals of yours? When you're out to win something and someone's standing in your way?'

‘I prefer to call it persuasion with intent.' He grinned at her. Extraordinary to imagine the freedoms she took with him. She had trampled all over his boundaries from the very start and she still did it, and he didn't care. That was the extraordinary thing. He had become cavalier with his cherished privacy and he didn't mind.

He thought about later, lying in bed, telling her what he had to tell her, picturing her face.

‘Is that right?' Francesca said dryly. ‘And I call eating this very fattening bread and cheese
flirting with a few calories
. When I put on vast amounts of weight and can no longer do my job, I shall blame you.' She stood up and headed towards the bathroom, chatting to him as she walked, knowing that he would be grinning as he looked at her from behind, appreciating every line of her body, which he refused to accept was anything but perfect.

In her quiet moments, she often thought of the price she had paid for her so-called perfection. Small lies she had told, cowardly lies that told him things she knew he wanted to hear, little images built up of her over time that bore no resemblance to the unsavoury truth. How had all those little lies become an avalanche? Francesca tried never to think about it. The temporary nature of their relationship made it easy.

‘You'll have to give it up one day,' he said suddenly.

‘Where did
that
come from?' Francesca turned to him, leaning lightly against the bathroom door, and raised her eyebrows in a question.

‘A model's life is a short one by its very nature,' Angelo pointed out, pausing as he brushed past her to plant a quick kiss on her parted mouth. ‘You know what they say about beauty. Here today, gone tomorrow.'

‘You do know how to make a girl feel old.'

‘And what will you do then?' He sat on the edge of the big free-standing bath with its clawed feet and switched on the taps, testing the water with his hands until the temperature was just right, before tipping in a liberal amount of bath foam.

The smile faded from her lips. For the first time since she had met him, he seemed different today. His mood was odd, swinging from teasing to gravity in the space of seconds, and it was disconcerting. Was she supposed to answer his question seriously? Or was she misreading him? Maybe he was tired. Exhaustion could do weird things and, face it, he had been on several long-haul flights over the past few weeks, barely leaving himself sufficient time to draw breath in between.

‘Oh, I don't know,' she answered lightly, ignoring the shift in atmosphere. ‘Maybe I'll start a new line of Francesca Hayley cosmetics. Isn't that what all ex-models do? Or I
could
go into acting…'

‘Acting? I would never allow it.'

‘I didn't realise that you would have a say.' She folded her arms and looked at him steadily, sure now that something was going on but uncertain as to what it could be.

‘You're my woman. Of course I would have a say.'

‘Whoa! All that arrogance! Your Italian ancestry is showing again.'

‘You love it. Admit it.'

Love.
There it went again. Francesca stepped into the bathroom and pretended to concentrate on the water, bending over to swirl her hand through it. ‘Anyway, it's a crazy thought,' she said. ‘I would never go into acting. I can't think of anything worse. All that falseness.' She shuddered and then it struck her that she was the last person who had any right to look down on people who spent their lives pretending. ‘Tell me what you're working on in New York,' she said, changing the subject. ‘Still that deal to buy property in Greenwich Village?'

‘Wrapped that one up. I'm working on a joint venture with people in New York and London.' He switched off the taps and seemed to be lost in thought as he stared down at the water.

‘Top secret deal?' Francesca teased, stepping into the bath and lying back with her eyes closed. ‘Honestly, Angelo, I've told you before, only undercover secret agents have a right to be secretive about what they do.'

‘You, my dearest, have no idea how the world of business operates. One wrong word in the wrong ear and bang, a deal can be flushed down the drain before you have time to draw breath.'

Francesca smiled, eyes still shut. ‘You make it sound very exciting.'

‘It is.'

‘But you'll have to give it up some day, Angelo. You know what they say about stressful jobs and high blood pressure.' She opened her eyes and gazed at him with burning appreciation as he lowered himself into the bath opposite her. ‘And you're not getting any younger. What will you do then? Perhaps you could consider a more restful career in your own line of cosmetics for men? The Angelo Falcone range of moisturisers?'

Angelo burst out laughing and, distracted for a few moments, he leaned towards her, ordering her to swivel around, which she did with some awkwardness, then he began to wash her hair. He did a very efficient scalp massage. She relaxed utterly, enjoying the feel of his fingers as he tipped shampoo into her hair and began working it up to a lather. It was way too late to be doing this, having her hair washed. She would never have the time to do a thorough job blow-drying it, but she didn't care. No work for the next few days. She could actually luxuriate in the blissful freedom of not caring how she looked.

‘Hmm. That's a thought. Not sure I would be very good at it…'

‘Why not?'

‘Too much of a man,' he stated, using the attachment to begin rinsing the shampoo away.

‘Oh, I see. Of course. Why didn't I think of that?'

‘Don't know. You should have. It is not as if you don't know me. In fact, I would say that you know me better than any woman ever has before…'

‘Is that a good thing, I wonder? Don't you think it's impossible to ever really know someone?'

For just a few heady, dangerous seconds she wondered how he would react if she told him how much he didn't know about her. The temptation didn't last long. Not when she conjured up the consequences. No more Angelo, and the thought of that sickened her even though she knew that there was no future between them. None at all. That was a bridge she wasn't going to cross just yet.

‘Anyway, let's not be serious,' she coaxed, sliding back towards him and guiding his hands to her breasts. ‘You promised me a lovely, pampering bath. You know we models have to be pampered.'

He pampered her. He doubted she could have enjoyed it as much as he did. He loved running his hands along her wet, slippery body, soaping every inch of her, taking his time. Then, when they were on the point of shrivelling from over-exposure to water, he towelled her dry very slowly and very carefully and absolutely forbade her to put on any pyjamas, even though over time he had chosen every single item of nightwear she owned. From the stunning model who was never seen in anything but the finest of designer clothes yet harboured an array of oversized tee shirts in which she slept, she had become the possessor of fabulously sexy nighties, flimsy things that barely skirted her beautifully proportioned body.

Tonight, though, he wanted to feel her nakedness next to him, wanted to be able to touch her at any time of the night without his fingers having to come into contact with material, however little of it there might have been.

‘Are you happy, Francesca?' he asked in a low voice, when they were finally in bed and facing one another.

She looked at him, startled and unsettled by the question.

‘What do you mean?'

‘I mean,' Angelo said softly, stroking back her hair and running his thumb along the side of her face, ‘we meet like ships in the night. I live out of a suitcase and so do you. It isn't satisfactory…'

‘It's just the way it is. There's nothing we can do about it.' Her heart was beginning to beat faster. She could feel a fine film of perspiration break out as she frantically tried to think of ways to change the subject. Pointless. Angelo was persistent. She knew him well and she knew that he could be like a dog with a bone, the type of man who saw his goal in the distance and proceeded to get there whatever the obstacles presented on the way.

‘Why do you say that?'

‘You know why. Because my work involves a lot of travel. As does yours. Angelo. Do we have to talk about this right now? I'm exhausted. Honestly. It's late.'

‘No time like the present.'

‘Let's just leave things the way they are. You asked me whether I was happy and yes, I am. Very.' She smiled at him and closed her mind to the thought of what lay ahead. Over the past months she had become an expert at living in the present. It was such a good place to be.

‘Happy seeing me now and again? Happy getting diaries out so that we can work out schedules and arrange our meetings like business partners trying to find a convenient date to see one another?'

‘Whatever. Happy being with you when we do meet. It's good enough for me.'
Please, let's drop this.

‘There's no need for you to be based in Paris…'

‘I have to be based
somewhere
and Paris is the most convenient place. I mean, my work is all in France or Italy, aside from shoots in the Far East.'

‘Which is slightly odd, considering you are from England.'

Francesca went very still, but he didn't pursue that line of speculation. Instead he murmured gently, ‘You must have some hankering to return to your roots. I know you've told me in the past that the only time to be adventurous is when you are young, but you could shift your base to London and continue to be adventurous.'

Francesca released her breath on a sigh. ‘London, Paris—where's the difference? You're still all over the place, Angelo, and I accept that. I'm not one of these women who wants to pin you down. You know you'd hate that, hate feeling as though you've been put in a trap—how many times have you told me that as soon as a woman starts smelling the aroma of permanence, you start getting restless?' She tried to lighten the atmosphere with a gentle smile. ‘Maybe I prefer you to be with me now and again and wanting it rather than risk having you around more often, with the danger of you losing interest…'

‘And maybe there is another option.' Angelo felt the sudden, overwhelming buzz of stepping off the side of a precipice. It was a more terrifying feeling than waiting on the edge of any big deal he had ever done in his life before. And to think that he had always considered himself a man who had gone beyond ever feeling that basic, gut-wrenching emotion called fear!

Francesca's eyes widened.

‘I'm going to be setting up some pretty big ventures in London. Property. A couple of small architectural firms I want to get involved in. I've kept myself to America and Italy and now I intend to move to London, base myself there. Come with me.'

The world seemed suddenly to have tilted on its axis. Francesca sat up abruptly and drew her knees up, clasping her arms around them and leaning her head down in the posture of someone trying to fight off a sudden attack of violent nausea. She could feel the desperate thudding of her heart beneath her ribs, like a train that had shot its tracks and was gathering momentum in its free fall.

Eventually, she turned her head so that she was looking across at him.

‘My work…' she ventured weakly.

‘Could be done there. You no longer need to confine yourself to catwalks in Italy. You can go into the magazine side of things. Don't tell me that's not a hell of a lot more lucrative. You can have lots more money to squirrel away.'

She heard the smile in his voice as he spoke and caressed her spine with one long finger.

‘And there would be more time for us. Less travel for me…Who knows, you might find your homeland more tempting to your wandering soul if I were there, hmm? And things between us would no longer be this clandestine. We meet in this apartment in Venice or else in hotel rooms in various parts of Europe, and I weary of it after this length of time.'

‘You're not meant to settle, Angelo. You said so! You have a wandering soul. Just like me.'

Angelo picked up the thread of panic in her voice and dismissed it. He was offering her something he had never offered any other woman in his life before, had never come close to offering! She was afraid that he would tire of her if they saw too much of one another, if they removed the breathless excitement of the clandestine. It was, he told himself, understandable.