Mills & Boon Christmas Set

‘Have you met anyone up here?’ he asked. ‘Made friends?’

‘A few people down in Troina.’

‘That’s something, I suppose. What do you do for fun up here?’

Emma shrugged. ‘Walk. Swim. Read. I’m easily entertained, fortunately.’

‘Yes.’ He gazed out at the mountains and Emma had the sense he was thinking about something else, something painful.

‘But it’s not the kind of job you’d stay in for ever,’ he said at last.

‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’ she asked lightly. She’d meant it as a joke but Larenzo took the question seriously.

‘No, definitely not. But if something were to happen...’ He trailed off, his gaze still on the hills, and Emma set down her wine glass.

‘Larenzo, are you thinking of selling this place?’

‘Not selling it, no.’

‘But something,’ she pressed. ‘What’s going on, really? Do I need to start looking for another job?’

He let out a long, low breath and raked his hands through his hair. ‘Whatever happens, I’ll make sure to give you a good reference.’

‘What are you talking about, whatever happens?’ Emma shook her head. ‘I don’t understand you.’

‘I know, and I don’t want to explain it now. It will all become clear soon enough.’ He nodded towards the pool. ‘How about a swim?’

‘A swim?’ Emma glanced at the pool, the water glimmering in the moonlight. ‘It’s a bit cold for me.’

‘Not for me,’ he said, and she watched in amazement as he stripped off his shirt and jeans and, clad only in his boxer shorts, dived into the pool.

The splash echoed through the still air and Emma watched, shivering slightly, as Larenzo swam the length of the pool before surfacing and slicking back the wet hair from his face.

‘Come in,’ he called. ‘The water’s lovely.’

Emma shook her head. ‘I only just turned the heating on. It’s got to be freezing.’

‘Even so.’ He arched an eyebrow, his mouth curling in a smile that was pure temptation. Emma’s gaze was inexorably drawn to his bare chest, all lean, rippling muscle, his bronzed skin beaded with water. ‘Dare you.’

Emma hadn’t thought this evening could get any more surreal. But swimming with her boss in a freezing pool?

‘Come on, Emma.’ He held out his hand. ‘Just jump in.’ Heat simmered in his eyes and she felt an answering stab of lust through her middle.

This was so foolish, so dangerous, and yet...the sight of Larenzo in the pool, nearly naked with moonlight streaming over his body and droplets of water twinkling like diamonds on his bronzed skin, was hard to resist. And already this evening felt separate from reality, a time apart.

‘Chicken?’ he taunted, his eyes and teeth glinting in the darkness, and Emma laughed.

‘You really want to get me in that pool.’

‘I want someone to swim with.’

Excitement licked through her veins. She didn’t think Larenzo was coming on to her; he never had before. And yet...

‘Fine,’ she said, and, shrugging off her sweater, she dived fully clothed into the deep end.

She surfaced, sucking in a hard breath, because the water really was cold. ‘And now I’m getting out,’ she told him as she trod water. ‘It’s as freezing as I thought it would be.’

‘I didn’t think you’d do it,’ he said, laughter threading his voice, and Emma was glad that she’d managed to distract him from whatever had been bothering him, even if she got hypothermia in the process.

‘You thought wrong,’ she said, and swam towards the edge of the pool. With her wet clothes weighing her down it was hard to haul herself up on the pool’s edge.

And then she felt Larenzo behind her, his hands on her shoulders, the strength and heat of him just inches from her back. She sucked in a shocked breath as he slid his hands to her waist and helped her up.

She flopped inelegantly on the side of the pool and then scrambled to her knees, amazed at how much that one little touch had affected her. She shivered, for with her soaked clothes the night air now felt icy.

‘Here.’ Larenzo hauled himself up and went to the heated cupboard for several towels. ‘Wrap yourself up.’

‘I should really change,’ she said. She glanced down at herself and saw that her T-shirt was sticking to her skin, revealing even the floral pattern on her bra, her nipples peaked from the cold. ‘Thanks,’ she muttered, and clutched the towel to her chest.

Larenzo’s gaze hadn’t dropped to her chest, but his mouth curved all the same and again Emma felt another kick of excitement. She retreated back to the table, the towel still clutched to her chest.

‘I should go to bed.’

‘Don’t go quite yet,’ Larenzo answered. He slung the towel over his shoulders and sat down across from her, pouring them both more wine. Emma eyed the full glass and Larenzo’s bare chest, his perfectly formed pecs flexing as he moved, and felt as if she’d just jumped into the deep end of an entirely different kind of pool.

‘I’m freezing—’ she began and he nodded towards the cupboard.

‘There are towelling robes in there. Change out of your wet things. I don’t want you catching cold.’

‘Larenzo...’ Emma began, although she didn’t know what she was going to say. Why was she protesting so much, anyway? Chatting in the moonlight with a devastatingly attractive man was no hardship. And it wasn’t as if Larenzo was going to make a move. He might have dared her to jump in the pool, but she was pretty sure her boss didn’t mix business with pleasure.

Even if she wanted him to...

‘Fine,’ she said, and retreated to the towelling cupboard. With the door serving as a screen between her and Larenzo, she tugged off her wet clothes and wrapped herself in the heated dressing gown. The sleeves hung past her hands and the sash trailed the ground, but at least she was warm again. She doubted she’d provide any sort of temptation to Larenzo now.

‘Tell me your favourite place you lived in as a child,’ Larenzo commanded as she sat down across from him and picked up her wine glass—he’d filled it again, while she’d been changing.

Emma considered for a moment. Answering questions, at least, kept her from gawping at Larenzo’s chest. Why on earth she was feeling this unwelcome attraction for him now, she had no idea. Perhaps it was simply the strangeness of the evening, his unexpected arrival, his demand for her company. ‘Krakow, I suppose,’ she said finally. ‘I spent two years there when I was ten. It’s a beautiful city.’ And those years had been the last ones where she’d felt part of a family, before her mother had announced her decision to leave. But she didn’t want to think, much less talk, about that. ‘Where did you grow up?’ she asked, and Larenzo swirled the wine in his glass, his expression hardening slightly as he gazed down into its ruby depths.

‘Palermo.’

‘Hence the villa in Sicily, I suppose.’

‘It is my home.’

‘But you live most of the time in Rome.’

‘Cavelli Enterprises is headquartered there.’ He paused, his shuttered gaze on the darkened mountains, the moon casting a lambent glow over the wooded hills. ‘In any case, I never much liked Palermo.’

‘Why not?’

He pressed his lips together. ‘Too many hard memories.’

He didn’t seem inclined to say anything more, and Emma eyed him curiously, wondering at this enigmatic man who clearly had secrets she’d never even guessed at before.

Larenzo gazed round the terrace, the patio furniture now no more than shadowy shapes in the darkness, and then turned to look once more at the mountains. ‘I’ll miss it here,’ he said, so quietly Emma almost didn’t hear him.

‘So you are thinking of leaving,’ she said, and Larenzo didn’t answer for a long moment.

‘Not thinking of it, no,’ he said, and then seemed to shake off his weary mood, his gaze snapping back to her. ‘Thank you, Emma, for the food and also for your company. You’ve done more for me than you could possibly know.’

Emma stared at him helplessly. ‘If there’s anything else I can do...’

To her shock he touched her cheek with his hand, his fingers cool against her flushed face. ‘Bellissima,’ he whispered, and the endearment stole right through her. ‘No,’ he said, and dropped his hand from her face. ‘You’ve done enough. Thank you.’ And then, taking his plate and his glass, he rose from his chair and left her sitting on the terrace alone.

Emma sat there for a few moments, shivering a little in the chilly air despite the dressing gown. She wished she could have comforted Larenzo somehow, but she had no idea what was going on, and she wasn’t sure he’d welcome her sympathy anyway. He was a proud, hard man, caught in a moment of weakness. He’d probably regret their whole conversation tomorrow.

Sighing, she took the wine bottle and glasses from the table and headed inside. Larenzo had already gone upstairs; the lights were off, the house locked up. After rinsing out the dishes and switching on the dishwasher Emma went upstairs as well.

She paused for a moment on the landing; Larenzo’s master bedroom was to the right, her own smaller room the last on the left. She heard nothing but the wind high up in the trees, and she couldn’t see any light underneath Larenzo’s doorway. Even so she had a mad urge to knock on his door, to say something. But what? They didn’t have that kind of relationship, not remotely, and knocking on Larenzo’s bedroom door, seeing him answer it with his hair rumpled and damp, his chest still bare...

No. That was taking this strange evening a step too far.

Still she hesitated, glancing towards his doorway, and then with a sigh she turned and went to her own bedroom, closing the door behind her.

CHAPTER TWO

HE COULDN’T SLEEP. Hardly a surprise, considering all that had happened in the last few days. Larenzo stared gritty-eyed at the ceiling before, with a sigh, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed.

All around him the house was still and silent. It was nearly two in the morning, and he wondered how long he had left. Would they come for him at dawn, or would they wait for the more civilised hour of eight or nine o’clock in the morning? Either way, it wouldn’t be long. Bertrano had made sure of that.

Letting out another sigh at the thought of the man he’d considered as good as a father, Larenzo slipped from the bedroom and walked downstairs. The rooms of the villa were silent, dark, and empty, and he was loath to turn on a light and disturb the peacefulness. He could have stayed in Rome, but he’d hated the thought of simply waiting for the end, and he’d wanted to have a final farewell for the only place he could call a home. Bertrano would tell them where to find him; the police in Palermo had most likely already been alerted. He had a few hours at most.

And for those few hours he wanted simply to savour what he had. What Bertrano Raguso had given him, although Larenzo had worked hard for it. Ironic, really, that the man who had saved him would also destroy him. Fitting, perhaps.

He ran his hand along the silky-smooth ebony of the grand piano in the music room; he’d bought it because he loved music, but he’d never found the time to learn to play. Now he never would. He played a few discordant notes, the sound echoing through the silent villa, before he moved onto the sitting room, stopping in front of the chessboard on a table by the window, its marble pieces set up for a game he would never play.

He picked up the king, fingering the smooth marble before he laid it down again. Bertrano had taught him how to play chess, and Larenzo had savoured the evenings they’d spent together, heads bent over a chessboard. Why had the man who had treated him like a son turned on him so suddenly? Betrayed him? Had it been a moment’s panicked weakness? But no, it had gone on longer than that, perhaps even months, for Bertrano to lay the paper trail. How had Larenzo not known? Not even guessed?

He glanced at the pawns neatly lined up. In the end he’d served no more purpose than they did. With a sudden burst of helpless rage he struck the pawns, scattering them across the board with a clatter.

The realisation of all he was about to lose hit him then, with sickening force, and he dropped his face in his hands, driving his fingers through his hair, as a single sob racked his body.

Bertrano, how could you do this to me? I loved you. I thought of you as my father.

‘Larenzo?’

He stiffened at the sound of Emma’s uncertain voice, and then he lifted his face from his hands, turning to see her standing in the doorway of the sitting room. She was in her pyjamas, nothing more than boy shorts and a very thin T-shirt; Larenzo could see the outline of her small breasts and he felt an entirely inappropriate stab of lust, just as he had when he’d seen her soaked and dripping in the pool. He hadn’t spared much thought for his housekeeper before tonight, but now he envied her freedom, her ease.

‘Couldn’t you sleep?’ she asked as she came into the room. She glanced at the scattered chess pieces, a silent question in her eyes.

‘No, I couldn’t.’ He turned to the fireplace, where the kindling and logs were already laid for a fire. ‘It’s cold in here,’ he said, and reached for a match to start the blaze. From behind him he could hear Emma righting the chess pieces.

When the fire was cheerily crackling in the hearth he turned to face her; she was touching the pawns he’d knocked over, her head bent, her hair swinging down to hide her face.

‘Fancy a game?’

She looked up in surprise. ‘What?’

He nodded towards the chessboard. ‘Do you play?’

‘I know the rules.’

‘Well, then. It appears neither of us can sleep. Shall we play?’

‘All right,’ she said after a pause, and she sat down in one of the chairs as Larenzo sat in the other.

‘White goes first,’ he told her and she bit her lip, studying the board with a concentration so intense he found it endearing. Again he felt the powerful thrust of attraction. These few hours of enjoyment would be the last pleasure he had for a long while.

Finally she moved her piece, her slender fingers curling around the figure. She glanced up at him, a smile lurking in her eyes, playing with her lips. ‘Why do I have a feeling you’re going to crush me?’

‘You can always live in hope,’ he answered lightly, and moved his pawn.

She laughed, shaking her head. ‘That would be foolish in the extreme.’

‘Perhaps.’ He liked watching her, seeing the way the firelight played over her golden skin, how humour lit her golden-green eyes. He stretched out his legs and his foot brushed her ankle, sending another throb of desire through him.

He thought she felt something too, for her eyes widened and her body tensed briefly before she moved another piece on the board.

They played in silence for a few minutes, the tension spooling out between them. Larenzo brushed her foot again with his own, enjoying the silky slide of her skin. She sucked in a quick breath, her fingers trembling as she moved her rook.

‘I’m four moves away from checkmate,’ he told her, and she let out a shaky laugh.

‘I knew this was going to happen.’ She glanced up at him wryly and he held her gaze, felt the force of the attraction between them. He’d never considered his housekeeper as an object of desire before; employees had always been off limits, and he’d seen her so rarely. But tonight he craved that human connection, the last one that might ever be offered to him. To touch a woman, to give and receive pleasure...

Setting his jaw, Larenzo turned back towards the board. Making love with Emma tonight would be an entirely selfish act. He couldn’t drag her down with him. It was bad enough that he was here at all.

He moved his bishop, and then stilled as he felt Emma’s hand on his own, her skin cool and soft.

‘Larenzo, I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.’ He didn’t answer, simply stared at her fingers on his. He stroked her palm with his thumb and she shivered in response but did not remove her hand.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said in a low voice, and stroked her palm again. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it, and it’s my own fault anyway.’ For trusting someone he’d loved. For believing someone could have pure motives. For being so bloody naive. So damn stupid.

‘Are you sure I can’t help?’ Emma asked softly. She squeezed his fingers and Larenzo closed his eyes. Her touch was the sweetest torture he’d ever known. He thought of telling her the one way she could help, the one way she could make him forget what dawn would bring. He resisted. He could not be that selfish, not even on the threshold of his own destruction.

‘No, I’m afraid not. No one can.’

Her gaze searched his face and then she rose from her chair. ‘Perhaps I should leave you alone, then.’

‘Wait.’ The single word was wrenched from him. ‘Don’t go.’

He felt her surprise as the silence stretched on. She didn’t move, either backwards or forwards. He bowed his head.

‘I don’t want to be alone tonight,’ he confessed, his voice low, and then she took a step forward, laid her hand on his shoulder once more.

‘You aren’t,’ she said simply.

* * *

Emma didn’t know whether it was Larenzo’s obvious pain or the attraction that had snapped through the air that had compelled her to stay. Perhaps both. She wanted to comfort him, but she couldn’t deny the yearning she had felt uncoil through her body when Larenzo had looked at her with such blatant desire in his eyes. No man had ever looked at her like that before, and it had thrilled her to her core.

The moment stretched on between them as she stood there with her hand still on his shoulder, his head bowed. His skin was warm and smooth underneath her palm, and slowly Larenzo reached up and covered her hand with his own, his fingers twining with hers. The intimacy of the gesture rocked her, sent heat and need and something even deeper and more important spiralling through her. They were simply holding hands, and yet it felt like a pure form of communication, the most intimate thing she’d ever done.

Finally Larenzo broke the moment. He took his hand from hers and turned. Emma could feel the heat rolling off him, inhaled the tangy scent of his aftershave, and desire crashed through her once more. This man was more than a work of art. He was a living, breathing, virile male, and he was close enough for her to touch him. To kiss him. Which she wanted to do, very much.

‘Do you have family, Emma?’ he asked, startling her out of her haze of desire.

‘Y-y-y-yes.’

‘Are you close to them?’ He gazed at her, his silvery eyes searching her, looking for answers. ‘You must not see them very often, living here.’

‘I...’ How to answer that seemingly innocent question? ‘I see my father sometimes. He’s currently posted in Budapest, and we’ve met up occasionally.’

‘And your mother?’

Why was he asking her all these questions? She didn’t want to talk about her family, and certainly not her mother, yet in the darkened intimacy of the room, of the moment, she knew she would answer. ‘No, I’m not close to my mother. My parents divorced when I was twelve, and I didn’t see her much after that.’

‘That must have been hard.’

A small shrug was all she’d allow on that subject, but Larenzo nodded as if she’d said something important and revealing. ‘And siblings? Do you have any sisters or brothers?’

‘One sister, Meghan. She lives in New Jersey, does the whole stay-at-home-mom thing.’ The kind of life she’d deliberately chosen not to pursue or want. ‘We’re close. We Skype.’ She shook her head in confusion. ‘Why are you asking me all this, Larenzo?’

‘Because I never had a real family of my own, and I wondered.’ He turned, his back to her as he gazed at the fire. ‘I wondered how families are. How they’re meant to be.’

‘What happened to your family?’

‘I don’t know. My mother left me to fend for myself when I was young, maybe two or three. An orphanage took me in, run by a convent. Not the nicest place. I ran away when I was eleven. Spent the next few years on the street.’

He recited these facts dispassionately, without any self-pity at all, and somehow that made it all the more terrible. ‘That’s awful. I’m sorry.’ Emma would never have guessed such a past for this man, with his wealth and power and magnetism. ‘Was this in Palermo?’

‘Yes.’

‘Those are hard memories.’

‘Yes.’ He let out a long, low sigh. ‘But let’s not talk about that tonight.’

‘What do you want to talk about?’

‘Anything.’ He sat down on the sheepskin rug in front of the fire, and patted the floor next to him. Emma came to sit across from him, folding her legs underneath her, conscious of the strangeness of this situation: both of them in their pyjamas, the firelight casting pools of light over their skin, and yet of the ease of it too. It felt weirdly natural to sit there with Larenzo, in the dark, with the fire. Surreal and yet somehow right.

‘What do you want to do with your life, Emma?’ he asked as he tossed another log on the fire. ‘I assume you don’t want to be a housekeeper for ever.’

‘Would there be something wrong with that?’

He gave a faint, bemused smile. ‘No, there’s nothing wrong with that. But you are a beautiful, capable young woman, and I imagine you want to see more of the world than a remote Sicilian hilltop.’

‘I like to travel,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve moved around a lot already.’

‘As a diplomat’s kid.’

‘Yes, and since I finished school. Itchy feet, I suppose.’

‘What did you study at school?’

‘I did a photography course just for a year, and then I got a backpack and a rail pass and went to see the world.’ Determined to enjoy everything life had to offer, never to be tied down, never to be hurt.

‘Sounds fun.’ He turned to her, an eyebrow arched. ‘I think I’ve seen you with a camera round the place. Have you taken photos here?’

‘Yes...’

‘May I see them?’

She hesitated, because no one had ever seen her photographs. No one had ever asked. And showing them now to Larenzo felt even more intimate than when they’d held hands. She’d be showing him a part of her soul. ‘Okay,’ she finally said. ‘I’ll go get them.’ She hurried up to her bedroom, and then leafed through several folders of photos before selecting a few of her favourites. She brought them back to Larenzo, handing them to him silently.

He studied each one carefully, a slight frown puckering his forehead as Emma waited, nibbling her lip. She realised she wanted him to like them, to understand them, and she held her breath as she waited for his verdict.

‘They’re not holiday snaps,’ he said finally and she let out a little laugh.

‘No.’ She preferred to take candid shots of people, strangers and sometimes friends caught in an unexpected moment, held in thrall by an emotion, whether it was happiness or sorrow or something else.

‘This one.’ He gestured to a portrait of Rosaria, one of the shopkeepers in Troina. She was sitting on a stool in the back of her bakery, her hands on her thighs, her head thrown back, her face a mass of wrinkles as she let out a deep, belly laugh. ‘That’s joy,’ Larenzo said quietly, and Emma’s heart swelled with the knowledge that he did understand, that he’d seen what she’d been trying to capture.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt that.’ He turned to give her a swift, dark glance. ‘Have you?’

Shock rippled through her at the question, and the answer that slipped from her lips without her even realising she was going to say it. ‘No,’ Emma whispered. ‘I don’t think I have.’ She’d travelled the world, climbed mountains, scuba-dived, done a million and one adventurous and amazing things, had always considered herself a happy person...and yet joy? That kind of deep, abiding, real joy?

It had remained beguilingly elusive. And she hadn’t realised it until Larenzo had asked her the question.

‘You have a skill,’ Larenzo said as he turned back to the photographs. ‘A true talent. You shouldn’t squander it.’