His For Christmas: Christmas in Da Conti's Bed / His Until Midnight / The Most Expensive Night of Her Life

‘Of course you are.’ She laughed, in spite of herself. ‘Describing you as a regular guy would be like calling a thirty-carat diamond a trinket.’

‘Oh, come on, Alannah,’ he urged softly. ‘One dinner between a boss and his employee. What’s the harm in that?’

Alannah could think of at least ten answers, but the trouble was that when he asked her like that, with those black eyes blazing into her, all her reservations slipped right out of her mind. Which was how she found herself in the back of a big black limousine later that evening, heading for central London. She was sitting as far away from Niccolò as possible but even so—her palms were still clammy with nerves and her heart racing with excitement.

‘So where are we going?’ she questioned, looking at the burly set of the driver’s shoulders through the tinted glass screen which divided them.

‘The Vinoly,’ Niccolò said. ‘Do you know it?’

She shook her head. She’d heard about it, of course. Currently London’s most fashionable venue, it was famous for being impossible to get a table though Niccolò was greeted with the kind of delight which suggested that he might be a regular.

The affluence of the place was undeniable. The women wore designer and diamonds while the men seemed to have at least three mobile phones lined up neatly beside their bread plates and their gazes kept straying to them.

Alannah told herself she wasn’t going to be intimidated even though she still couldn’t quite believe she’d agreed to come. As she’d got ready she had tried to convince herself that exposure to Niccolò’s arrogance might be enough to kill her desire for him, once and for all.

But the reality was turning out to be nothing like she’d imagined. Why hadn’t she taken into account his charisma—or at least prepared herself for a great onslaught of it? Because suddenly there seemed nothing in her armoury to help her withstand it.

She had never been with a man who commanded quite so much attention. She saw the pianist nodding to him, with a smile. She saw other diners casting surreptitious glances at him, even though they were pretending not to. But it was more than his obvious wealth which drew people’s gaze, like a magnet. Beneath the sophisticated exterior, he radiated a raw masculinity which radiated from his powerful body like a dark aura.

They sat down at a discreet table but suddenly the complex menu seemed too rich for a stomach which was sick with nerves. Alannah found herself wishing she were eating an omelette at her own kitchen table rather than subjecting herself to a maelstrom of emotions which were making her feel most peculiar.

‘What are you going to have?’ asked Niccolò as the waiter appeared.

The words on the menu had blurred into incomprehensible lines and she lifted her gaze to him. ‘I don’t know. You order for me,’ she said recklessly.

He raised his eyebrows before giving their order but once the waiter had gone he turned to study her, his black eyes thoughtful. ‘Are you usually quite so accommodating?’

‘Not usually, no.’ She smoothed her napkin. ‘But then, this isn’t what you’d call usual, is it?’

‘In what way?’

‘Well.’ She shrugged. ‘You made it sound like a working dinner, but it feels a bit like a date.’

‘And what if we pretended it was a date—would that help you relax a little more?’

‘To be honest, it’s been so long since I’ve been on a date that I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like,’ she said slowly.

He took a sip of water which didn’t quite disguise the sudden cynicism of his smile. ‘I find that very difficult to believe.’

She laughed. ‘I’m sure you do—given your apparent love of stereotypes. What’s the matter, Niccolò—doesn’t that fit in with your image of me? You think that because I once took off my clothes for the camera, that I have men queuing up outside the bedroom door?’

‘Do you?’

‘Not half as many as you, I bet,’ she said drily.

They were staring at one another across the table, their eyes locked in silent battle, when suddenly he leaned towards her, his words so low that only she could hear them.

‘Why did you do it, Alannah?’ he questioned roughly. ‘Wasn’t it bad enough that you were kicked out of school for smoking dope and playing truant? Why the hell did you cheapen yourself by stripping off?’

The waiter chose precisely that moment to light the small candle at the centre of the table. And that short gap provided Alannah with enough time for rebellion to flare into life inside her.

‘Why do you think I did it?’ she demanded. ‘Why do people usually do jobs like that? Because I needed the money.’

‘For what?’ His lips curled. ‘To end up in a poky apartment in one of the tougher ends of town?’

‘Oh, you’re so quick to judge, aren’t you, Niccolò? So eager to take the moral high ground, when you don’t have a clue what was going on in my life and you never did! Did you know that when my mother handed in her notice, she never found another job to match that one—probably because the reference the school gave her was so grudging. Did you know that they got all their clever lawyers to pick over her contract and that she lost all her rights?’

His eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of rights?’

‘There was no pension provision made for her and the salary she got in lieu of notice was soon swallowed up by the cost of settling back in England. She couldn’t find another live-in job, so she became an agency nurse—with no fixed contract. I had to go to a local sixth-form college to take my exams and at first, I hated it. But we were just beginning to pick ourselves up again when…’

Her voice tailed off and his words broke into the silence.

‘What happened?’ he demanded.

She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does.’

Alannah hesitated, not wanting to appear vulnerable—because vulnerability made you weak. But wasn’t anything better than having him look at her with that look of utter condemnation on his face? Shouldn’t Niccolò da Conti learn that it was wise to discover all the facts before you condemned someone outright?

‘She got cancer,’ she said baldly. ‘She’d actually had it for quite a long time but she’d been ignoring the symptoms so she didn’t have to take any unnecessary time off work. By the time she went to see the doctor, the disease was advanced and she was scared,’ she said, swallowing down the sudden lump in her throat. They’d both been scared. ‘There was nobody but me and her. She was only a relatively young woman and she didn’t want…’ The lump seemed to have grown bigger. ‘She didn’t want to die.’

‘Alannah—’

But she shook her head, because she didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t need his sympathy.

‘Our doctor told us about an experimental drug trial which was being done in the States,’ she said. ‘And early indications were that the treatment was looking hopeful, but it was prohibitively expensive and impossible to get funding for it.’

And suddenly Niccolò understood. Against the snowy tablecloth, he clenched his hands into tight fists. ‘Bedda matri!’ he said raggedly. ‘You did those photos to pay for your mother to go to America?’

‘Bravo,’ she said shakily. ‘Now do you see? It gave me power—the power to help her. The thought of all that money was beyond my wildest dreams and there was no way I could have turned it down.’ No matter how many men had leered in her face afterwards. No matter that people like Niccolò judged her and looked down their noses at her or thought that she’d be up for easy sex because of it. ‘My unique selling point was that I’d left one of the most exclusive Swiss finishing schools under rather ignominious circumstances and I guess I can’t blame them for wanting to capitalise on that. They told me that plenty of men were turned on by girls in school uniform, and they were right. That’s why that issue became their best-seller.’

Alarmed by the sudden whiteness of her face, he pushed the wine glass towards her, but she shook her head.

‘It wasn’t narcissism which motivated me, Niccolò—or a desire to flash my breasts like the exhibitionist you accused me of being. I did it because it’s the only way I could raise the money. I did it even though I sometimes felt sick to the stomach with all those men perving over me. But I hid my feelings because I wanted to bring a miracle to my mother, only the miracle never happened.’ Her voice wavered and it took a moment or two before she could steady it enough to speak. ‘She died the following spring.’

She did pick up her glass then, swilling down a generous mouthful of red wine and choking a little. But when she put the glass back down, she had to lace her fingers together on the table-top, because she couldn’t seem to stop them from trembling.

‘Alannah—’

‘It’s history,’ she said, with a brisk shake of her head. ‘None of it matters now. I’m just telling you what happened. I used the rest of the money to put myself through art school and to put down a deposit on a home. But property is expensive in London. That’s why I live where I do. That’s why I chose to live in one of the “tougher” parts of London.’

Niccolò put his glass down with a hand which was uncharacteristically unsteady as a powerful wave of remorse washed over him. It was as if he was seeing her clearly for the first time—without the distortion of his own bigotry. He had judged her unfairly. He saw how she must have fought against the odds to free herself from a trap from which there had been no escaping. He’d fought against the odds himself, hadn’t he? Though he realised now that his own choices had been far less stark than hers. And although he hated the solution she had chosen, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from wanting to comfort her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said huskily. ‘For what happened and for the choices you had to make.’

She shrugged. ‘Like I said, it’s history.’

‘Your mother was lucky to have a daughter like you, fighting for her like that,’ he said suddenly. He found himself thinking that anyone would be glad to have her in their corner.

Her head was bent. ‘Don’t say any more,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’

He stared down at the plateful of cooling risotto which lay before him. ‘Alannah?’

‘What?’

Reluctantly, she lifted her head and he could see that her eyes were unnaturally bright. He thought how pale and wan she looked as he picked up his fork and scooped up some rice before guiding it towards her mouth. ‘Open,’ he instructed softly.

She shook her head. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Open,’ he said again.

‘Niccolò—’

‘You need to eat something,’ he said fiercely. ‘Trust me. The food will make you feel better. Now eat the risotto.’

And although Alannah was reluctant, she was no match for his determination. She let him feed her that first forkful—all warm and buttery and fragrant with herbs—and then another. She felt some of the tension seep away from her, and then a little more. She ate in silence with his black eyes fixed on her and it felt like a curiously intimate thing for him to do, to feed her like that. Almost tender. Almost protective. And she needed to remember it was neither. It was just Niccolò appeasing his conscience. Maybe he’d finally realised that he’d been unnecessarily harsh towards her. This was probably just as much about repairing his image, as much as trying to brush over his own misjudgement.

And he was right about the food. Of course he was. It did make her feel much better. She could feel warmth creeping through her veins and the comforting flush of colour in her cheeks. She even smiled as he swopped plates and ate some himself while she sat back and watched him.

He dabbed at his lips with a napkin. ‘Feel better now?’

‘Yes.’

‘But probably not in the mood to sit here and make small talk or to decide whether or not your waistline can cope with dessert?’

‘You’ve got it in one,’ she said.

‘Then why don’t I get the check, and we’ll go?’

She’d assumed he would take her straight back to Acton but once they were back in the car he made the driver wait. Outside, fairy lights twinkled in the two bay trees on either side of the restaurant door, but inside the car it was dark and shadowy. He turned to study her and all she could see was the gleam of his eyes as his gaze flickered over her face.

‘I could take you home now,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want the evening to end this way. It still feels…unfinished.’

‘I’m not in the mood for a nightcap.’

‘Neither am I.’ He lifted his hand to her face and pushed back a thick strand of hair. ‘I’m in the mood to touch you, but that seems unavoidable whenever you’re near me.’

‘Niccolò—’

‘Don’t,’ he said unsteadily. ‘Don’t say a word.’

And stupidly, she didn’t. She just sat there as he began to stroke her cheek and for some crazy reason she found that almost as reassuring as the way he’d fed her dinner. Was she so hungry for human comfort that she would take anything from a man she suspected could offer nothing but heartbreak?

‘Niccolò—’

This time he silenced her protest with the touch of his lips against hers. A barely-there kiss which started her senses quivering. She realised that he was teasing her. Playing with her and tantalising her. And it was working. Oh, yes, it was working. She had to fight to keep her hands in her lap and not cling onto him like someone who’d found themselves a handy rock in a rough sea.

He drew away and looked into her face and Alannah realised that this was a Niccolò she’d never seen before. His face was grave, almost…assessing. She imagined this was how he might look in the boardroom, before making a big decision.

‘Now we could pretend that nothing’s happening,’ he said, as calmly as if he were discussing the markets. ‘Or we could decide to be very grown-up about this thing between us—’

‘Thing?’ she put in indignantly, but his fingers were still on her face and she was shivering. And now the pad of his thumb had begun to trace a line across her lower lip and that was shivering, too.

‘Desire. Lust. Whatever you want to call it. Maybe I just want to lay to rest a ghost which has haunted me for ten long years, and maybe you do, too.’

It was his candour which clinched it—the bald truth which was her undoing. He wasn’t dressing up his suggestion with sentimental words which didn’t mean anything. He wasn’t insulting her intelligence by pretending she was the love of his life or that there was some kind of future in what he was proposing. He was saying something which had been on her mind since Michela’s wedding. Because he was right. This thing between them wouldn’t seem to go away. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t stop wanting him.

She wondered if he could read the answer in her eyes. Was that why he leaned forward to tap briefly on the glass which separated them from the driver, before taking her in his arms and starting to kiss her?

And once he had done that, she was left with no choice at all.

CHAPTER SIX

HE DIDN’T OFFER HER a coffee, nor a drink. He didn’t even put the lamps on. Alannah didn’t know whether Niccolò had intended a slow seduction—but it didn’t look as if she was going to get one. Because from the moment the front door of his Mayfair apartment slammed shut on them, he started acting like a man who had lost control.

His hands were in her hair, he was tugging her coat from her shoulders so that it slid unnoticed to the ground and his mouth was pressing down on hers. It was breathless. It was hot. It was…hungry. Alannah gasped as he caught her in his arms. He was burying his mouth in her hair and muttering urgent little words in Sicilian and, although her Italian was good, she didn’t understand any of them. But she didn’t need to. You wouldn’t have to be a linguist to understand what Niccolò was saying to her. The raw, primitive sounds of need were international, weren’t they?

He placed his hands on either side of her hips and drew her closer, so that she could feel the hard cradle of him pressing against her. He kissed her again and as the kiss became deeper and more urgent she felt him moving her, until suddenly she felt the hard surface of the wall pressed against her back and her eyelids flew open.

He drew back, his eyes blazing. ‘I want you,’ he said. ‘I want to eat you. To suck you. To bite you. To lick you.’

She found his blatantly erotic words more than a little intimidating and momentarily she stiffened—wondering if she should confess that she wasn’t very good at this. But now his palms were skating over her dress to mould the outline of her hips and the words simply wouldn’t come. She felt his hand moving over her belly. She heard him suck in a ragged breath of pleasure as he began to ruck up her dress.

‘Niccolò,’ she said uncertainly.

‘I want you,’ he ground out. ‘For ten years I have longed for this moment and now that it is here, I don’t think I can wait a second longer.’

Niccolò closed his eyes as he reached her panties and impatiently pushed the flimsy little panel aside, because she was wet. She was very wet. He could detect the musky aroma of her sex as he slid his fingers against her heated flesh and began to move them against her with practised ease.

‘Niccolò,’ she whispered again.

‘I want to see your breasts,’ he said, moving his shaking fingers to the lapels of her silky dress and beginning to unbutton it. Within seconds two luscious mounds were revealed—their creamy flesh spilling over the edge of her bra. He narrowed his eyes to look at them. ‘Madre di Dio,’ he breathed, his fingertips brushing over the soft skin. ‘In the flesh it is even better. You have the most beautiful body I have ever seen.’

And suddenly he knew he really couldn’t wait a second longer. Besides, she seemed more than ready for him. He felt as if something had taken hold of him and made him into someone he didn’t recognise. As if this wasn’t him at all but an imposter who’d entered his body. Unsteadily, he unzipped himself and he wanted to explode even before he positioned himself against her honeyed warmth.

She went very still as he entered her and for a moment he paused, afraid that he might come straight away—and when had that ever happened? But somehow he managed to keep it together, drawing in a deep breath and expelling it on another shuddering sigh as he began to move.

One hand was spread over her bare bottom as he hooked her legs around his hips and drove into her as if there were no tomorrow. As if there had been no yesterday. Her nails were digging into his neck as he kissed her, but he barely noticed the discomfort. He tried to hold back—to wait for her orgasm before letting go himself—but suddenly it was impossible and he knew he was going to come.

‘Alannah!’ he said, on a note of disbelief—and suddenly it was too late.

Wave after wave took him under. His frame was racked with spasms as he gasped out her name, caught up in a feeling so intense that he thought he might die from it. It felt like the first orgasm he’d ever had. He closed his eyes. The only orgasm he’d ever had. And it wasn’t until his body had grown completely still that he noticed how silent and how still she was.

He froze.

Of course she was.

Remorse filled him as she put her hand against his chest and pushed him away. And although withdrawing from her succulent heat was the last thing he felt like doing he could see from the tight expression on her face that she wanted him to. And who could blame her?

There had been no answering cry of fulfilment from her, had there? He had given her no real pleasure.

With a grimace, he eased himself from her sticky warmth, bending to pull up his trousers before carefully zipping them up. ‘Alannah?’

She didn’t answer straight away—she was too busy fastening her dress, her fingers fumbling to slide the buttons back in place. He went to help her, but her voice was sharp.

‘Don’t.’

He waited until she’d finished buttoning and whatever little insect brooch she was wearing was surveying him with baleful eyes, before he lifted her chin with his finger, so that their eyes were locked on a collision course. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘It does.’ He heard the flatness in her voice. ‘I’m not usually so…out of control.’

She gave a wry smile. ‘Don’t worry, Niccolò. I won’t tell anyone. Your reputation is safe with me.’

His mouth hardened and his body tensed. It was her cool response which made something inside him flare into life—a feeling of anger as much as desire. A feeling set off by wounded male pride and an urgent need to put things right. This had never happened to him before. He was usually the master of control. He had always prided himself on his lovemaking skills; his ability to give women physical pleasure—even if he could never satisfy them emotionally.

A shudder of comprehension made his blood run cold.

Did he really want her to walk away thinking of him as a selfish lover? As a man who took, but gave nothing back? Was that how he wanted her to remember him?

‘Let’s hope you don’t have to,’ he said, his voice full of sudden resolution as he bent down to slide his arm behind her knees and then lifted her up.

‘What…what the hell do you think you’re doing?’ she spluttered as he began to carry her along the wide corridor.

‘I’m taking you to bed.’

‘Put me down! I don’t want to go to bed. I want to go home.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said, kicking open his bedroom door and walking over to the vast bed, before setting her down in the centre of the mattress. His knees straddling her hips, he began to unbutton her dress, but she slapped his hand away and he realised that his normal methods of seduction weren’t going to work with her. Come to think of it, nothing felt remotely normal with her—and right now, this felt a million miles away from seduction.

He smoothed the tousled hair away from her face, staring down into the reproachful belligerence of her blue eyes, before slowly lowering his head to kiss her.

It wasn’t a kiss, so much as a duel.

For a few seconds she held back, as if he were kissing some cold, marble statue. She lay there like a human sacrifice. He could sense her anger and frustration, so he forced himself to take it slowly—so slowly that it nearly killed him. He explored her lips with a thoroughness which was new to him—until he felt he knew them almost better than his own. And as she gradually opened them up to him—when she had relaxed enough to let his tongue slide inside her mouth—it felt like one of the most intimate acts he’d ever taken part in.

Her hands reached for his shoulders and he took the opportunity to press his body close to hers, but the shudder of delight as their bodies crushed against each other was entirely new to him. And still he took it slowly—still feasting on her lips until he was certain that her own desire was strong enough to make her wriggle against him with a wordless message of frustration.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t dare. Something told him that she didn’t want him to undress her and he suspected that doing so would shatter a mood which was already dangerously fragile. His hands were trembling as they slid beneath her dress to reacquaint themselves with the hot, moist flesh beneath her panties. He heard her give a little moan—a sound of pleasure and submission—and his heart hammered as he unzipped himself and tugged her panties down over her knees.

He was only vaguely aware of the awkward rumpling of their unfastened clothing, because by then he was caught up with a hunger so powerful that he groaned helplessly as he slid inside her for a second time. It felt… For a moment he didn’t move. It felt out of this world. He looked down to see an unmistakable flare of wonder in her eyes as he filled her, but just as quickly her dark lashes fluttered down to veil them. As if she was reluctantly granting him access to her body—but not to her thoughts.