Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper

‘Speak for yourself,’ muttered Sarah disgustedly under her breath, dragging over one of the patio chairs so she could stand on it. Clamping the torch between her teeth, she used the drainpipe to hoist herself onto the low roof.

The tiles were rough beneath her bare knees, but they felt firm enough. Cautiously, shaking dripping hair from her eyes, she stood up, freeing her hands to hold the torch again. The roof sloped gently upwards to the main part of the house, and she carefully climbed higher, the dim beam of light wobbling erratically over the glistening terracotta tiles in front of her. They were uneven and bumpy but none seemed to be missing. Sarah directed the torch to the highest point, where the kitchen roof joined the wall. There seemed to be a gap…

At that moment she heard voices below and the wet blackness was suddenly flooded with blinding white light. Sarah gave a gasp of shock and, lifting her hands to shield her eyes from the glare, she accidentally let the torch slip from her grasp. She heard it clattering down the roof as she struggled to keep her balance on the slippery tiles.

‘Bloody hell!’

‘Stay there. Don’t move.’

The light was shining right up at her, making it impossible to see anything beyond the silver streams of rain in its dazzling arc. Staggering backwards, she squinted into its beam, instinctively trying to see the owner of the deep, gravelly Italian voice while simultaneously peeling the soaking shirt from her wet thighs and bending her knees in an attempt to make it cover as much of her as possible.

‘I said, keep still. Unless, of course, you want to kill yourself.’

‘Right now I’m tempted,’ Sarah muttered grimly, ‘given that

I’m half-naked and you’re shining a spotlight on me. Could you possibly just turn that light off?’

‘And if I do that, how are you going to see to get down from there?’ He didn’t have to raise his voice above the noise of the rain. It was rich and deep enough to need no projection.

‘I was managing all right until you came.’

‘Meaning you hadn’t broken your neck yet. What the hell did you think you were doing, going up there in this weather?’

Sarah gave a snort of exasperation. ‘God, you sound just like my mother. Can I just point out that I wouldn’t be up here in any other kind of weather, since I’m trying to find out where the water’s coming in. Up there I think I can see a—’

‘On second thoughts, I don’t really want to know,’ he interrupted, and Sarah clearly heard the exasperation in his tone. ‘I just want you to come very slowly towards the edge of the roof.’

‘Are you mad?’ She pushed dripping tendrils of hair back from her wet face. ‘Why?’

‘Because I know there’ll be a joist there that will support your weight.’

‘Oh, thanks a lot! Would this be a special steel-reinforced—?’

‘Sarah, just do it.’

Hearing him say her name detonated a tiny explosion of shock in her abdomen that stopped her dead for a moment. Her mouth opened, though it was a couple of seconds before she was actually able to speak.

‘How do I know I can trust you?’ she said sulkily, squinting into the dazzling light, wishing she could see him. ‘You could be anyone.’

‘You don’t, and I could, but now’s not really the time for lengthy introductions. Let’s just say that my name is Lorenzo, and right now I’m all that’s standing between you and a very nasty fall.’

His voice was doing things to her. Inconvenient things, given her position. Irritation fizzed inside her. ‘I don’t mean to be rude when we’ve only just met, Lorenzo, but you’re building your part up just a little bit. I’m not stupid, you know—I did check before I got up here that it was safe. The roof hardly slopes at all and the tiles are fixed down properly—’

Sarah took a step towards the edge and as she did so felt the tile beneath her foot crack and give way suddenly. She let out a sharp cry of anguish, her arms windmilling madly as she tried to keep her balance.

Suddenly she was afraid.

‘It’s OK. You’re all right.’

‘That’s easy for you to say,’ she gasped with a slightly wild laugh. ‘You’re not the one who’s about to crash through the roof and end up on the kitchen table.’ She closed her eyes for a second, waiting for the adrenaline that was pumping through her and making her feel shaky and unsteady to subside.

‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I’m not going to let it.’ The beam of light swung away from her and she shivered in the sudden darkness. But a moment later he spoke again, and his voice was closer now.

‘I can’t do this and hold the torch, so you’re going to have to listen very carefully and do what I say. OK?’

‘OK.’ Her voice sounded small and quiet. But perhaps it was just because her heart was suddenly beating very loudly, making the blood pound in her ears. The torch was on the ground far below, its powerful beam cutting through the indigo darkness and turning the rain on Angelica and Hugh’s limestone patio into pools of mercury. Up here it seemed very dark.

‘Come carefully towards the edge of the roof and stop when I tell you.’

Sarah did as he said, letting out another whimper of fear as she felt another tile crack. Rain was running down her face, making her eyes sting. She closed them.

‘That’s it. Stop there,’ he ordered, and although his voice was harsh there was a peculiar intimacy to it. ‘Now, reach out your arms. I’m going to lift you down.’

‘No! You can’t! I’m too heavy, I’ll…’

But the rest of her protest was lost as she felt one arm circle her waist, and then she was being pulled against his body.

Through the thin layer of their wet clothes she could feel the warmth of his skin, his hard-muscled chest. Instinctively her hands found his shoulders, and even through her shock and fear she was aware of their power. Heat suddenly erupted inside her, tingling through her chilled body.

‘Thank you,’ she muttered, trying to pull quickly away from him as her feet made contact with something solid. Instantly the world tilted and her stomach gave a sickening lurch as she felt herself falling and realised she had just stepped off the edge of the table they were standing on. He grabbed her again, pulling her back into the safety of his arms.

‘I’m beginning to think you have a death wish,’ he said grimly, sweeping her legs from under her and holding her against him as he climbed down from the table in one fluid movement.

‘If I did I could think of more elegant ways to end it all than falling off a roof while wearing nothing but my nightie. Now, please, put me down.’

‘The gravel is sharp and you’ve got no shoes on.’

‘I’m fine. I can manage. Please…’ she said, miserably aware that by now his back was probably groaning with bearing the weight of her. Although he certainly showed no sign of noticing that she was heavier than your average feather pillow. Against her ear his breathing was perfectly slow and steady, and his pace easy. It didn’t slow at all at her words either, she noticed with a thud of alarm and helpless excitement as they rounded the corner of the house and he made straight for the hulking shape of a large 4x4 that loomed out of the darkness. ‘Where are you taking me, anyway?’

‘Home.’

‘Look, stop, please. And let me go!’

He sighed. ‘If that’s really what you want…’

Unreasonable disappointment shafted through her as he set her down on the wet gravel and stood back. She wobbled slightly as the sharp stones cut into her feet. Out of the warmth of his arms, she realised how cold she was.

‘It is,’ she said and hoped that the sudden feeling of uncertainty about that wasn’t evident in her voice. ‘Look, it’s very kind of you to help, but we’ll be fine here until morning. We’ve never even met before and there are five of us here, so—’

‘Actually, you’re wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, for a start, your family are already there, at Castellaccio.’

‘What? But they can’t…we can’t…possibly descend on you. It’s out of the question-we’ll manage fine here.’

‘Funny. That wasn’t what your sister said. Or her friend— Fenella, was it?’

Bloody Fenella. Her words from earlier echoed mockingly around Sarah’s head. He sounds delish. I wouldn’t mind getting on the right side of him…Of course, never in a million years would she pass up the opportunity to get a foot in the door of a film director’s luxury palazzo. Limping as quickly as she could after Lorenzo Cavalleri, it wasn’t just the sharp gravel beneath Sarah’s bare feet that made her wince.

He reached the car and pulled open the door. A small light inside went on and she felt her heart stop, and then start again with a painful thump as she caught a fleeting glimpse of hard cheekbone and sharp jawline darkened with stubble before he melted back into the darkness and went around to the other side of the car.

For a moment he had reminded her of the man in the pub that night. The man who had kissed her. But of course that was ridiculous; he was Italian, and male—that was where the coincidence ended. Getting into the car, she quickly did up her seat belt and, as he got into the driver’s seat beside her, deliberately turned her head and looked out into the wet night.

She could hardly remember what he looked like anyway, she told herself crossly. Because it was unimportant. He was unimportant.

‘First thing tomorrow I’ll get a decent local builder to come and have a look at the roof and then hopefully we can get it sorted out,’ she said stiffly as he started the engine.

‘You know many decent local builders?’

‘No, but I’m guessing that any local builder would be better than the idiots that Hugh and Angelica brought over from London. God knows what they’ve done.’

‘My guess is they’ve put the tiles on upside down. Tuscan roof tiles curve slightly, and it appears they’ve laid them so that the water flows right down between the gaps. If I’m right the whole roof will need redoing.’

Sarah groaned. ‘Oh, God, but the wedding’s the day after tomorrow. I’ll have to think of something.’

There was a slight pause, and then he said quietly, ‘Why is it your responsibility?’

Sarah stared through the silvery lines of rain on the window.

‘You’ve met Angelica and my mother. They’re each as hopeless as the other, and we can’t wait until Hugh and Guy get here if it’s going to be sorted out before the wedding.’

‘Hugh I’ve met, but who’s Guy?’

The windscreen wipers beat a steady tattoo, like a heartbeat in the womb-like interior of the car, and warm air from the heater curled around her, making her chilled skin tingle. She felt suddenly very, very tired and leaned her head back against the soft leather seat, closing her eyes. ‘Guy’s my stepfather. Angelica’s father. He’s the kind of person who makes things happen and gets things done—especially for Angelica, but I suspect that re-roofing an entire house in under twenty-four hours is beyond even his capability.’

‘You don’t get on with him?’

‘Oh, I do. You couldn’t not. He’s charming, witty, extremely generous…’

‘But?’

She was dimly aware that the car had come to a standstill, but he didn’t turn the engine off. Below the throb of the engine she could hear the rain pattering on the roof, and it made her feel oddly safe and protected. Or maybe it was this man that made her feel like that—this stranger, Lorenzo Cavalleri. For a moment she thought back to how it had felt to be in his arms when he had rescued her from the roof. The strength that she had sensed in him, that was more than just a matter of hard muscle…

She sat up abruptly and opened her eyes, feeling for the door handle.

Rescued her.

Uh-uh. She didn’t need to be rescued. She didn’t ask for it and she didn’t want it. She could cope perfectly well without a man, and she wasn’t going to make the mistake of letting her hormones rule her head again. Not after Rupert. Not after the man in The Rose and Crown that night. Perhaps she should ring Italian Accents Anonymous.

‘He’s not my father, that’s all,’ she said abruptly, pushing the door open and getting out of the car. The shock of the cold rain on her newly warmed skin was almost a relief.

Small world, thought Lorenzo, getting out of the car and walking round to where she waited by the palazzo’s double front doors. He felt a smile touch his mouth as he looked at her. She was standing perfectly still, perfectly straight, almost as if she was oblivious to the rain that was plastering her hair to her head and running down her face. Most women he knew would be horrified at the idea of being so thoroughly drenched—like her sister, for example, who had insisted on an umbrella being found before she would even make a dash for the car back at the farmhouse.

‘The door’s not locked. Please, go in.’

She didn’t move. ‘Look, I’m sorry about this,’ she said as Lorenzo moved past her, pushing open the door. ‘Really. It doesn’t seem right. We don’t even know you. Maybe we should just go and—’

The light from the hallway spilled out into the wet night. Standing back to let her go ahead of him, he saw her blink in the sudden brightness, and then watched her eyes widen, her lips part in silent shock as realisation hit her.

Her hand flew to her mouth, colour blooming in her rainshiny cheeks as she took a couple of steps backwards into the darkness. Lorenzo reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her into the hallway.

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ he said softly. ‘Not this time.’

CHAPTER FOUR

‘THIS time.’

Pressing herself back against the closed door, oblivious to the grandeur of the enormous room in which she found herself, for a moment the only words Sarah’s shocked brain could come up with were a numb echo of his. ‘This time? So you knew? All this time I’ve been out there making a complete and utter spectacle of myself, you knew it was me.’ Horror crept over her as her mind replayed the events of the past hour in this new, humiliating light. ‘You could have said.’

‘And if I had?’

‘I would have stayed up on the roof.’

She closed her eyes, hot shame flooding her as she thought about what she must have looked like from below in her skimpy shirt. How she must have felt when he’d lifted her down.

Oh, God.

Having to surrender your scantily clad self—all too-many stones of it—to the arms of a stranger was bad enough, but discovering that he wasn’t entirely a stranger was infinitely worse. The man who had been shining a torch up her soaked-to-transparency shirt, the man who had lifted her considerable weight down from the roof, was the same man who had kissed her as a joke on her sister’s hen night. It was almost more than she could bear.

‘Exactly,’ he said gravely.

At that moment they were interrupted by a familiar voice from the doorway. ‘Oh, there you are, darling! Honestly, talk about drowned rat!’ Sarah felt the colour deepen in her glowing cheeks as her mother advanced towards them, still in her nightdress and coat but now with a large drink in one hand, as if she were at a slightly bohemian cocktail party. ‘Come through and get a towel, darling—we’re all drying out in front of a lovely fire and warming up with some of Signor Cavalleri’s excellent brandy.’ She batted her eyelashes in Lorenzo’s direction. ‘He’s been so kind, I can’t tell you.’

Sarah gritted her teeth, feeling the way she had when she was at school and Martha and Guy used to turn up at her sports day in the open-topped Rolls-Royce, and loudly uncork bottles of vintage champagne while everyone else was opening flasks of tea. ‘Mum, please,’ she hissed, following her across the inlaidmarble floor and through a doorway on the right. ‘I really don’t think we can…’

She stopped. The room she found herself in had the same majestic proportions, the same ornate plaster panelling as the hall, but here the stately impact was lessened by the fact that it was incredibly untidy. Papers covered every surface, from the vast antique desk that stood between the windows, to the low table in front of the fire and the deep leather chesterfield sofa. Or the bits of it that weren’t taken up with Angelica, Fenella, Lottie and a large grey dog.

‘Lottie’s fast asleep already, bless her,’ Martha continued, peering down at her small pyjama-clad form. ‘Isn’t she sweet? Signor Cavalleri, I really must thank you for taking pity on us in our hour of need. Now we’re all here, please let’s introduce ourselves properly.’

Standing shivering in her wet shirt, Sarah gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘I don’t think there’s any need for that. I believe that Angelica and Signor Cavalleri already know each other.’

Angelica blinked and shook back her silky blonde hair.

‘Oh, no, I don’t think so, but I believe you’ve met my fiancé, Hugh? You were kind enough to come and offer your advice on—’

Beside her Fenella nudged her and murmured something inaudible, glancing at Sarah. Angelica’s blue eyes widened. ‘Oh, my goodness, yes! You were in the pub that night, weren’t you? The Rose and Crown, on my hen night.’

Sarah felt as if there were something wrapped tightly around her neck as Lorenzo gave a curt nod.

‘Oh, gosh—I don’t believe it! What an amazing coincidence, isn’t it, Fenella?’

‘Amazing,’ smirked Fenella, unfolding herself from the sofa in one elegant movement and letting the long cashmere cardigan she was wearing fall open to reveal little shorts and a vest top beneath it. ‘Of course, if we’d had the chance to talk we might have discovered the coincidence sooner but, as I recall, Sarah rather naughtily monopolised you. You both disappeared rather suddenly too.’

Sarah snatched up a towel and began vigorously rubbing her hair, which was the only way she could stop herself from taking Fenella’s elegant neck in her hands and wringing it. It also provided her with a diversion as she struggled to fit this new and unexpected information into the mental slot marked ‘Bastard’ she had created for the Screaming Orgasm man.

If Angelica and Fenella hadn’t set him up that night, then why the hell had he kissed her?

From behind the towel she watched as he briefly shook the hand Fenella held out. ‘As I recall,’ he said casually, turning away, ‘you were monopolising the rest of the males in the vicinity, so I’m sure it was no loss.’

‘Well, how astonishing that you should find yourself in our very sleepy corner of darkest Oxfordshire,’ Martha interjected hastily. ‘I’m Martha, by the way. Martha Halliday.’

Lorenzo stopped, tensing into complete stillness for a second. Then he turned round again, his narrow eyes very dark.

‘Not so sleepy, Signora Halliday.’ Sarah noticed the slight emphasis he placed on her mother’s surname. ‘Certainly not on the night I was there. Have you lived there for long?’

‘Since I was nineteen and I fell in love for the first time. You’re right—it’s nothing like it used to be,’ Clearly eager to steer the conversation back into harmless waters, Martha was at her most chatty and expansive. ‘I grew up in suburbia and it was like being dropped into the middle of a Thomas Hardy novel. Wildly romantic in theory, but the reality was harsh. In those days The Rose and Crown was a tiny little country inn where regulars used to help themselves from behind the bar and put the money in a box. Francis—that was my first husband—spent more of our married life in there than at home. He used to sit at a table in the corner by the inglenook and write. Said it was the only place he could keep warm enough to think in winter.’

‘Write?’

‘Yes. Poetry, mainly, but—’

‘Mum,’ Sarah hissed, ‘it’s three o’clock in the morning. I hardly think this is the time to be discussing literature.’

Especially not the singularly unsuccessful literary efforts of her father. Sarah just knew what Martha had been about to say next— that as well as endless volumes of strenuous, angry poems describing the industrialisation of the rural landscape, the late Francis Tate’s canon also included a book, set in Oxfordshire and Tuscany. The fact that it too had been a complete commercial flop never stopped Martha from talking about it as if it were some work of staggering, underrated genius, much to Sarah’s embarrassment.

‘Sorry. Of course, darling, you’re right,’ Martha laughed, putting down her empty brandy glass. ‘We’ve caused you quite enough disruption already, Signor Cavalleri. It’s not too inconvenient to put us up for the night, I hope?’

‘Not at all,’ Lorenzo said tersely. ‘Although I can’t promise five-star service, I’m afraid. I should explain that I’m here alone at the moment. My housekeeper left a while ago and I haven’t got round to finding a replacement yet, so you’ll have to look after yourselves. You found the rooms all right?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you.’ Martha beamed. ‘You have such a beautiful home, and perhaps tomorrow we can see it properly, but now, girls, I think it’s time we took ourselves out of Signor Cavalleri’s way.’

The dog lifted its head mournfully as Angelica and Fenella got up from the sofa and said their goodnights, but it didn’t move. Sarah eyed it warily as she looked down at Lottie, wondering how best to pick her up without waking her. In the warm glow of the firelight she was curled up tightly, her hands tucked neatly beneath one rosy cheek, like a child in an old-fashioned picture book.

She jumped as a low voice broke the silence. ‘So, you have a daughter.’

Her sudden indrawn breath made a little hiss in the quiet room. Lorenzo was standing on the other side of the sofa, watching her expressionlessly.

‘Yes.’ She wasn’t as good as he was at keeping the emotion from her voice, and the short word bristled with defensiveness.

This was the point at which most men would say something bright and howlingly insincere about how sweet Lottie was, how adorable, whilst mentally calculating the quickest method of exit, but Lorenzo Cavalleri simply nodded. His eyes never left hers. It was as if he was looking right inside her. Sarah felt her stomach tighten with reluctant excitement as heat zigzagged down to her pelvis. And then she remembered that she was wearing nothing but a wet shirt, and that she’d towel-dried her hair so vigorously that she was probably doing a very good impression of Neanderthal woman. Quickly she bent over Lottie, hoping he wouldn’t see that she was blushing.

‘I’ll help you get her to bed,’ Lorenzo said flatly, and she was aware of him moving round the sofa to where she stood.

‘No. It’s fine. I can manage.’

‘How did I know you were going to say that?’ he said, his voice laced with sardonic mockery. ‘Do you ever accept help?’

‘I’m used to doing things myself, that’s all,’ Sarah muttered, wondering how she was going to bend down enough to gather Lottie up without completely exposing herself. Again. She wasn’t sure if the fact he’d pretty much seen it all already made it worse or better. ‘Lottie’s father wasn’t exactly the hands-on type.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘In bed with his ice-blonde, beautiful fiancée, I imagine,’ she said bitterly.

Lorenzo nodded slowly. ‘I see.’

She gave a harsh gust of laughter. ‘I doubt it,’ she snapped, sitting down abruptly on the sofa beside Lottie, bending forward to gather her into her arms from there.

They both jumped as the huge plasma screen above the fireplace flickered into life, displaying a close-up image of a woman’s bare midriff—as smooth and brown and endless as a stretch of desert sand. The camera travelled upwards, lingering lovingly on the hollow between her incredibly firm, neat breasts, the ridges of her collarbones and the sharp jut of her jaw as she stretched her head back and opened her mouth in a breathless cry of pleasure…

Sarah’s mouth dropped open too, although it was a look she couldn’t carry off half as sexily as Tia de Luca.

Because there was no mistaking that was who it was. No mistaking those slanting eyes, as cool and green as apples, or the famous pillow-plump lips, which were now quivering with anticipation as the hero’s mouth moved up the column of her throat towards them…