The Valtieri Marriage Deal (6 page)

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Dio!
He wanted to put his fist through the wall, slam doors, hurl something good and heavy through the nearest sheet of glass.

Instead he went into the office, shut the door with exaggerated care and threw himself down in the chair.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

He closed his eyes and made himself breathe slowly and deeply. She didn’t mean it, of course. She was just being defensive, because of whatever it was in her past that she wouldn’t give him access to. And she was angry with him for finding her. But she wasn’t indifferent. He knew that, knew it in his bones, and slowly the anger dissipated.

She was just saying those things to Sarah. She didn’t mean it, didn’t believe it. It
had
been out of the ordinary—so out of the ordinary that it had made him throw away all his plans for the future and fly back to London on a wild goose chase to find her.

Nothing out of the ordinary?

No. Isabelle was trying to ignore her reaction to him, but she was very, very far from indifferent—and that gave him hope. Oh, it wouldn’t be easy, he was under no illusions about that. But he’d get there. Especially if he could ever get her to tell him her story.

And now he had that out of the way, he was suddenly starving. Maybe there was some toast left in the kitchen…

‘Right, time to go home.’

She sighed and glared at him. ‘Are we going to have this fiasco every single night?’ she asked crossly, but he just gave her that lazy smile and shrugged.

‘I don’t know. Are we? I hope not. You’ve had a long, busy day and you’re late, which I suspect is not unusual. And I know you haven’t eaten anything remotely like a veg
etable all day, so I’ve made you supper, and then afterwards I’ll run you home.’

‘You’ve—I said no!’ she protested, but he wasn’t listening, just tucked his hand into her elbow and steered her to the lift.

‘No arguments. You’re no use to anyone hungry and exhausted, and besides, I’ve gone to a lot of effort.’

‘Well, I could have saved you all of that. All you had to do was listen to me a little harder.’

He grinned. ‘I have problems with my hearing sometimes.’

‘Evidently. You need to learn to lip-read. I—said—no!’ she mouthed, but he just laughed and shut his eyes, and she found herself smiling.

Not that it mattered, because his eyes were shut—or so she thought. But then she caught the gleam of an eye through his lashes, and realised he was laughing at her.

‘Crazy woman,’ he murmured, his hand tightening on her arm in an affectionate squeeze. ‘Come on, it’ll be overcooked.’

‘What is it?’

‘Pasta with chicken and roasted Mediterranean vegetables in tomato sauce.’

‘Bottled?’

He looked shocked. ‘Shh! Not so loud. My mother would be appalled. And you need to know I’m frightened of my mother.’

That made her laugh. The very idea of Luca being frightened of anyone, not least his mother, was ludicrous. And she was absolutely starving.

‘Where’s your car?’ she asked, looking round as they emerged through the door.

‘At my house. It’s just round the corner. It’s quicker to walk.’

‘Oh! You live really close,’ she said as he stopped just two
streets away and opened a garden gate in front of a tall modern townhouse.

‘Yes—it’s handy. I hate commuting, so I bought it.’

She stared at him blankly. ‘For a few weeks?’

He gave a short laugh and explained. ‘No. I bought it four years ago, when I worked here, and I’ve used it as a base ever since. Come on in.’

And, opening the door, he ushered her inside.

Isabelle looked around, taking in the soft earth tones and the sense of light and space, conscious of a sense of order and quietness that pervaded the house. ‘It’s very tranquil.’

‘It is. I love it. It’s my favourite place. Well, except my family home in Tuscany. That’ll always be top of the list, but this is mine, and that makes it special. Can I get you a drink? Coffee? Tea? Wine?’

‘Have you got any juice?’

‘Sure. Apple and mango?’

‘Lovely.’

She followed him through to the kitchen and sniffed appreciatively. ‘Oh, it smells really good.’

‘Of course. Did you really think I’d be allowed out into the world without knowing how to fend for myself? Even if it is out of a bottle,’ he added in a stage whisper.

She tried not to smile, but not well enough because he winked at her, took a bowl of salad from the fridge and pulled a dish from the oven, bubbling with cheese and tomato sauce and smelling utterly fabulous.

Her stomach rumbled, and he pointed to the breakfast bar, a thick, sleek glass shelf on shiny chrome supports with tall chrome and leather stools tucked in underneath. ‘I thought we could be uncouth and eat in here,’ he said, and she looked
around at the kitchen, with its sleek granite worktops and high-gloss cupboards, thought of her house and how utterly uncouth it was in comparison to this undoubtedly extremely expensive kitchen, and her heart sank.

She’d not given a moment’s thought to his financial status, but one serious look at this kitchen brought it all home to her with a vengeance.

He was so completely out of her league, so overwhelmingly different, and there was no way he would ever be interested in her except as a passing fancy. The only reason he was interested in her at all was because she was playing hard to get. Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen—wasn’t that the saying? Except she wasn’t trying to be mean, and she didn’t want him to be keen, she wanted him to leave her alone, because he was going to break her heart all over again and this time, she knew, it would be so very much worse.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. I’m just really hungry,’ she said, and turned her attention to the food. It wasn’t that hard. She was ravenous, she discovered after the first mouthful, and his cooking, bottled sauce or not, was sheer genius. So she ate, and he talked about breech presentations and cases he’d seen and the research he was doing, and gradually she forgot about his money and remembered only that he was a brilliant doctor, kind and gentle and yet persuasive when he needed to be, and brave enough to take a risk if he felt it was justified.

There were all too few like him, she mused. Far too few. But that didn’t mean she was going to let him lure her into a relationship, and she realised she was getting dangerously close to that. Sitting in his kitchen eating food he’d cooked
for her while she finished her shift was all too cosy, and she had to be mad to do it.

She pushed her plate away, nothing left on it but a touch of the rich tomato sauce, and smiled at him. ‘That was really lovely. Thank you. And now I hate to be rude but I ought to be getting home.’

‘No dessert?’

‘Did you make one?’

He chuckled. ‘No. But I have gelato—proper Italian ice cream, made by my cousin’s family, that will make your toes curl.’

‘What flavour?’ she asked, hating herself for weakening, and as if he knew that, he leant closer and murmured in her ear.

‘Ripe, juicy strawberry with fresh cream, or deep, dark chocolate—irresistible…’

Oh, lord. It was only ice cream!

‘Chocolate,’ she said, but then hesitated.

‘You can have both,’ he said, luring her with a double whammy, and she weakened.

‘A little of each—not too much. And then I really must go.’

It was, as he’d promised, enough to make her toes curl. And she had a sudden picture of him feeding it to her in bed, a sensual image that made her want to whimper. She pushed the bowl away before she actually licked it, and braced her hands on the edge of the glass shelf.

‘Luca, I have to go now.’

‘Of course. Leave this lot, I’ll sort it later. Come on.’

And he ushered her out of the door to his car and drove her home through the hubbub of London at night, until at last they turned into her quiet little street and he pulled up outside her house and cut the engine.

‘I think you owe me coffee,’ he said, a teasing smile playing round his mouth, and she thought, Damn him, he’s going to be charming and he’s hard enough to resist under normal circumstances!

‘I gave you coffee last night.’

‘So you did. It must be a tradition, then, and you can’t mess with tradition.’

He was irrepressible, but she wasn’t falling for it.

‘I need my sleep. I didn’t get enough last night.’

She saw the brow twitch, and tried to glare at him but he wasn’t impressed. Instead he just grinned, and she ignored him and opened the car door.

He was there almost before she’d got out of the car, shutting the door behind her and escorting her down her little path. ‘Just seeing you safely home,’ he murmured as she turned to protest, and she caught the scent of his cologne overlying the raw, male essence that was so much more intoxicating.

‘I’m safe. You can go now. Thank you for my supper.’

‘You’re welcome. When will I see you again?’

Her heart hiccuped, and she reminded herself that he wasn’t asking her for a date and she wasn’t going even if he was asking. ‘I’m back in on Friday,’ she told him, but his nearness was getting to her and she swallowed, and his eyes flicked to her mouth.

‘I want to kiss you,’ he murmured, and she shook her head.

‘No.’

‘You didn’t say no in Florence.’

‘Perhaps I should have done, then we wouldn’t be in this crazy position now.’

‘You think? I don’t agree. We were destined to happen,
cara.’

She shook her head. ‘No. It was just sex, Luca,’ she said, her
heart pounding because of his nearness, because of the scent of his body drifting over her in the cold night air. ‘That was all.’

Nothing out of the ordinary.

Her earlier words came back to taunt him, echoing in his head as they had been all day, and his mouth twisted in a fleeting smile. ‘I don’t think so,’ he murmured. ‘I don’t think there was anything
just
about it. I think it was exceptional.’

‘No.’

‘Yes,’ he said softly, and because he couldn’t resist it, because she looked delectable and there was a trace of chocolate ice cream in the corner of her mouth, he leant in towards her and let his lips brush over hers.

His hands were rammed in his trouser pockets, hers hung by her sides. There was nothing holding them together but the touch of their lips, and as he stroked his tongue against her mouth, her lips parted for him and he was lost.

He freed his hands, tunnelled them through her hair and cradled her head to steady her, and with a tiny whimper she fisted her hands in his shirt and hung on while his mouth plundered hers, the silky glide of her tongue against his driving him wild.

For a second—for one crazy, heat-filled second—he contemplated pushing her inside, kicking the door shut and carrying her upstairs to her bedroom. He could do it. She wouldn’t protest. But she would hate him tomorrow, and that wasn’t part of his plan, so instead he just kissed her until his control was stretched so thin he couldn’t trust himself another moment, and then he lifted his head and stared down into her feverish eyes, his chest heaving.

For a moment she said nothing, but then she stepped back, her hand coming up to cover her glistening, parted mouth, and he could see it was trembling.

‘Why did you do that?’ she whispered.

‘What? That goodnight kiss?’ He smiled a little tightly, his anger coming back now, fuelled by frustration. ‘It was just a kiss—nothing out of the ordinary. Isn’t that what you said to Sarah?’

She swallowed hard, her eyes filling as his words registered. ‘Oh, Luca—I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it—not like that. And I wasn’t talking about us—about that night. I hadn’t told Sarah anything, just that I’d met you. I wasn’t gossiping, I promise. I was trying to stop her getting the wrong idea about us.’

He laughed softly. ‘Don’t you mean the right idea? The idea that we couldn’t leave each other alone in Florence and it’s no better here? Because it isn’t,
bella,
you know that. Even though you want me to go, you couldn’t stop yourself from kissing me back.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Don’t lie,’ he murmured. ‘You were with me all the way.’

‘That isn’t the point!’

‘I would have said it was very much the point,’ he argued softly, but she closed her eyes and made a tiny sound of frustration that just inflamed him further.

‘Please—just go,’ she said, wondering if she would be destined to say this to him every night until either she gave in or he left the country.

Except she wasn’t giving in, even if her legs were like jelly and her heart was thundering against her ribs and her body was aching for him.

And then at last, when she was ready to scream, he took a step back, and then another, and finally he turned without a word, got back into his car and drove away, leaving her standing
on the doorstep wondering how on earth she was going to survive working with him for the next however many weeks.

Luca spent the next few days contemplating his tactics.

If she really meant it, and she wouldn’t see him, he’d have to find some other way to win her round, because he fully intended to do so.

He could easily tell himself that whatever they’d had between them on that mad, crazy night had been a little touch of magic and nothing more, and he could set it aside if necessary and work with her without compromising his professional integrity.

But he didn’t want to, and it wasn’t an option. So what if she said she didn’t want him? He knew she did—he just had to convince her to try it. He’d had a taste of the wild, all-encompassing passion that could exist between a man and a woman, and he would settle for nothing less now. And that meant winning Isabelle.

She’d done him a favour, kick-starting his life again, saving him from a lonely and tedious life when there was so much more out there, and he wasn’t going to walk away from it now, when he’d only just found her again. He’d spent six weeks convincing himself he was over her, and it had been a lie. He wasn’t, and he didn’t want to be.