The Sicilian Surrender

She reached for the door and he slapped the car again. Luigi, ever obedient, discreetly activated the door locks and floored the gas pedal.

The car shot away from the curb.

Stefano strode into the terminal, got halfway through it and stopped. What the hell was he doing? He cursed under his breath, an eloquent, earthy string of Sicilian that would have made his grandfather proud as he took his cell phone from his pocket and called his pilot.

“Change of plans,” he said briskly. “We’re not going anywhere today. In fact, you might as well take the next few days off. I’ll be staying in Sicily for a while.”

Of course he’d stay, he thought grimly as he hurried back to the taxi stand. What had he been thinking, to risk leaving the castello while Carla and her people were there?

She had instructions. So did his house staff. None of the Bridal Dreams people were to be permitted past the door. Carla had been upset; where would she put her little crew? she’d said. She’d already told them they’d be staying in the castle.

Untell them, he’d said coldly.

For all he gave a damn, she could put them in sleeping bags on the rocky beach, but there was an inn a few miles away and that was where she’d arranged they’d spend the week.

He’d checked to make sure she’d really made the reservations, and he’d pushed up the installation of a full security system for the castello by a couple of months. He’d even gone a step further and arranged for around-the-clock security people to patrol the grounds.

“Taxi, signore?”

Stefano nodded, handed over a few bills and climbed into the cab.

“Il Castello Lucchesi,” he said.

Still, how could he be sure his orders were followed unless he was there?

He’d been stupid to leave his home while strangers were on the property. Going back was the only way to safeguard his privacy.

An image flashed before him of the woman he’d just met, her eyes wide and mysterious, her mouth warm and sensual. For an instant, he thought he could smell her scent, an innocent breath of vanilla that only accentuated the lushness of her beauty.

Stefano’s mouth thinned.

He wasn’t doing this because of Fallon O’Connell. He was doing it because it was logical.

There was no other reason.

None at all.

CHAPTER THREE

A TRAVEL magazine would have dubbed the Lucchesi Estate magnificent.

The setting was spectacular. Tall cypresses flanked the ancient ruins that had once been a medieval castle. It backed against a cliff that fell away to the deep blue Mediterranean, and faced the slumbering volcano called Mount Etna.

On the same plateau, probably where the ancient outbuildings of the castle had once sprawled, stood a modern castle, a structure that was all cool smoked glass and native stone. There was a terrace behind it, a garden surrounding that, and off by itself, a free-form pool with an infinity edge that made it seem as if the water in the pool fell straight down the cliff, into the sea.

Beautiful, all of it…and after almost a week, Fallon hoped to God she’d never set eyes on the place again.

The sun was merciless, blazing down like golden fire from a sky so blue it seemed artificial. Shooting on the terrace hour after hour, with the sea at her back, meant she spent most of her time staring at the castle and all that dark glass. It was like looking at someone wearing mirrored sunglasses. Were they watching you, or was it your imagination? It was always impossible to tell.

Filming in the pool was better, but Maurice thought that setting too tame. He preferred the beach, and that was hell.

The beach was rocky, the stones hot and sharp beneath her bare feet, and even when Maurice motioned her into the surf, the water was tepid against her ankles and calves rather than cooling.

The last day of the shoot seemed endless. Maurice was barking out orders, as usual.

“Angle toward me! Get that arm back! Think sexy!”

Think sexy? All she could think was thirsty, but she moistened her lips, turned a half smile to the camera and clung to the thought that they’d be finished in just another few minutes.

She was hot; her feet were raw from the rocks and her skin was itchy under its layer of sunscreen. Andy had used waterproof makeup on her face and it felt like a mask, and the hairdresser—Carla had brought along more than the three people she’d promised—the hairdresser had sprayed so much gunk at her head that she felt like she was wearing a wig.

“Let’s go, O’Connell! This time, run into the surf. Look like you’re having a good time. Give me lots of splash.”

The only thing she wanted to give him was a sock in the jaw. But she was a pro; she knew how to do her job. And she was trying to do it, she really was. It was just that she’d come here expecting to love this place.

Instead, she hated it.

“Smile. Yes. That’s it. Another one, over your shoulder this time.”

The sun, reflecting off the sea in sparkling flashes, was too bright. She had a headache from it by the end of each day. The beach was impossible to walk on, all those stones cutting into the tender soles of her feet.

“Okay, honey. Drape yourself over the big rock. You know what I want, babe. Lean back on your hands. Nice. Very nice. Bigger smile. Yeah, like that. Good, fine—except turn your head. Give me the look. You know the one. That’s it. Nice. Very nice. Now you’re cookin’.”

Cooking was the word. This place could pass for hell’s anteroom. Had it been this hot last time she was in Sicily?

“Go a little farther into the water. Good. Push your hair back. Use both hands—I want to see those tits lift! That’s it. Perfect. Now wet your lips and smile.

“O’Connell? Turn around. Try one hand on your hip. Give me a pout. Let your lashes droop. Look at me. You’re a bride, you’re on your honeymoon, and you’re looking at your groom with sex on the brain and nothing else. Pretend you’re going to get out of the water soon, go up to that castle and jump his bones. Good. Better. We’re getting there.”

Go up to that castle? No way. The closest she’d come to it was the day she’d arrived.

The driver had taken her through an imposing gate, past a couple of men with ice for eyes who looked as if they should have been wearing camo and combat boots instead of suits, past security cameras tucked high in the trees, toward a soaring edifice of stone and glass.

“Il castello,” the driver said, his voice as solemn as if he were in one of the ancient churches they’d passed on the way.

That he said anything at all startled her. He hadn’t spoken a word since they’d left the airport. He didn’t understand English, he’d indicated with a lift of his shoulders, but it was a lie.

He’d understood every bloody word his arrogant feudal lord had spoken. It was only when Fallon demanded he let her out of the car that the man suddenly turned mute. She’d ended up shouting at him; she’d come close to reaching over the seat and pummeling his shoulders with frustration.

That wasn’t going to happen again.

“How nice,” she said coolly.

The truth was, nice didn’t come close.

She’d been expecting a medieval structure, cold, gloomy and desolate. This was a soaring mansion that somehow bridged the distance between the past and the present. She craned her neck and stared as they drove past it, until the car came to a gliding stop.

Fallon looked around as the driver got out and opened her door.

They’d stopped beside—

A tent?

“Signorina.”

Confused, she looked up at the man. “Are you sure we’re in the right place?”

“Si.”

She stepped from the car. It was a tent, all right. A big one, true, the kind she’d seen at garden parties in the Hamptons, but a tent just the same.

The driver reached in for her suitcase and at that moment the Bridal Dreams crew ran out of the tent to greet her. She hugged Andy and Maurice, exchanged air-kisses with Carla, shook hands with the others and asked the obvious question.

Why were they all hanging around in a tent when there was that big old house just a couple of hundred yards away?

Off-limits, Carla said with a patently false smile. “The owner’s eccentric. He doesn’t want us using it.”

The tent would be their office and dressing room. She’d made catering arrangements for lunch and had a portable john installed in a little cove on the beach.

‘It’s as if we’re camping in the wilderness,’ Carla said with a gaiety anyone could see was false.

“Don’t tell me we’re camping here at night, too,” Fallon muttered, and Carla laughed and laughed.

“Of course not, darling. We all have rooms at an inn just up the coast. It’s a charming little place.”

The others, who’d already seen the inn, groaned so that Fallon knew “charming” was a happy euphemism for not enough hot water, lumpy mattresses and threadbare linens.

Carla was the only smart one. She went back to New York on the second day.

Of course, it made for problems, not having Carla onsite. The stylist or the designer’s rep or somebody else was almost always clutching a cell phone, talking to New York, asking questions, getting things clarified.

Nobody could figure out why Carla had left. It certainly wasn’t the most practical thing to have done but that second morning, Carla’s cell phone had rung, she’d answered it, turned white, glanced up in the direction of the big house on the cliff and the next anyone knew, she was gone.

“Important business in New York,” she’d said, but Fallon didn’t buy it. It just didn’t sound right.

Fallon sighed.

Thank goodness the week was almost over.

Tomorrow morning they’d all fly back to the States, and not a moment too soon. Why she’d ever imagined she’d enjoy being on this godforsaken island was a mystery. She’d had enough of the heat, the rocks, the house or mansion or castello or whatever it was called looming way up there on the cliff.

She didn’t like this place. Nothing about it seemed right, starting on day one when she’d mistaken that big black car at the airport for the one that was supposed to meet her.

That car. That man. Stefano Lucchesi, with the dark and dangerous eyes, the slow smile, the husky, sexy voice.

Ridiculous, how an obnoxious stranger had lodged himself in her mind. She knew the reason: she had zero tolerance for men who thought they owned the world. She’d spent most of the past decade dealing with jerks like that. You damn near tripped over them in every capital on every continent, men who thought that beautiful women were useless and self-indulgent, and that they could be bought or, at least, coerced.

“O’Connell, are you deaf? I said to turn around. Thank you. It’s nice to know you’re still with us.”

Modeling was a strange business. It was full of men like Maurice, all ego and temperament, and ones like Andy, who were gentle and kind.

And on the periphery were the predators.

Handsome men. Wealthy, powerful men. Men who prowled the clubs where the models danced and drank and relaxed after a day’s hard work, who wanted the pleasure that came of wearing stunning arm-candy.

It was, of course, a reciprocal arrangement. The predators got the arm-candy; the girls got the attention, the gifts, the publicity.

Not Fallon. Not since she’d tumbled, hard, for a so-called captain of industry when she was seventeen. She’d given him her heart and her virginity; he’d given her a diamond bracelet and promises, lots of them.

Only the diamond had stood the test of time.

She’d been cautious after that but still, four years later, she’d ended up in a replay of that first relationship. Her lover had been good-looking, rich, notoriously sexy…and he’d given her up when someone new came along.

“O’Connell? Babe, put your hands on your hips, okay? Great. Hold that…”

Her few liaisons since then had been with nice, down-to-earth guys. No I-Am-In-Command egos to deal with. No hunky powerhouses. Nobody to start her pulse pounding excitement at the sight of him, the way it had in that car at the airport when she saw Stefano Lucchesi, saw that beautiful fallen angel’s face…

A tremor raced down her spine.

She was definitely glad this project was almost finished. What she needed was the noise and energy of New York. She could deal with the crowds, the traffic, the weather that was always either too hot, too cold or too wet a lot better than she could deal with this place.

She was thinking crazy things, plus her senses were playing tricks on her. For instance, she kept having this feeling someone was watching her.

She knew about the crazies who stalked celebrities. A friend had suffered that kind of unwanted attention from a fan without a life. The experience, even viewed from the outside, was spooky and frightening.

This was different.

The first time, she’d been on the cliff posing for Maurice with her back to the sea. Suddenly a door in the castle opened and a man stepped into the garden.

Nothing unusual in that. A place like this would employ a gardener. Half a dozen of them, for all she knew.

He’d walked slowly to the low wall that surrounded the garden, tucked his hands into his pockets and just stood there. Watching her. Or maybe watching the mechanics of the shoot. That was what she’d told herself, when he’d remained motionless for the next five or six minutes. People always gathered to watch when you did a shoot on a street corner or at a resort.

Later the same afternoon, the Bridal Dreams bunch had all been down on the beach, Maurice photographing her in the bridal gown, some moody shot he’d print in blacks and grays, with her standing so that the lacy hem of the gown trailed in the water. She’d been posing, smiling, pouting, whatever felt right or whatever Maurice demanded…

And she’d felt it again. Eyes, watching her.

A figure stood on the cliff. A man. Tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped, standing with his legs slightly apart, his arms folded across his chest and the wind blowing his dark hair back from his face. The distance was too great for her to make out his features.

The sight of him was intriguing. That hard-looking body. The jeans that fit him like a glove, the black T-shirt, black-lensed sunglasses.

Who was he? Why did the sight of him make her breath catch?

She knew he was watching her, just as she knew he wasn’t a crazy, some guy who’d fallen in love with her photo and wanted to tell her that they came from neighboring galaxies. She knew it in the most scientific way possible.

Her instincts told her so.

Fallon rolled her eyes, just thinking it, and Maurice’s voice pulled her into the present.

“I don’t want smirks, I want pensive,” he shouted.

She nodded, took some deep breaths and gave him pensive.

The man always stayed at a distance, watching her as if he wanted to absorb her into his skin. At the same time he wanted to turn his back and forget he’d ever seen her.

Another scientific deduction. Besides, even if it was true, it made no sense.

The evidence all pointed to his watching not her but the entire group. He was surely one of the security guards that patrolled the place, and if she hadn’t noticed him right away, that was just because he was good at blending into the scenery.

And if her sun-baked brain gave him more depth than that, painted him as almost cruelly masculine and incredibly sexy, that was her fault, not his.

Fallon blew the hair back from her forehead. Without question, the heat was playing games with her mind.

“Maurice?” She swung toward the photographer, hands on her hips. “Listen, Maurice, enough is enough. I’m melting. My makeup’s running, my scalp’s crawling with sweat.”

“You want me to tell you you still look gorgeous? ’Cause you do.”

“Yeah, right. That’s wonderful, but I’ve had it.”

“Ten minutes more, that’s all. Lift your chin like so.”

“You said ten minutes an hour ago.”

Maurice lifted his chin. Fallon left hers where it was.

“Maurice,” she said firmly, “everybody else has gone. They’re all sitting in the tent, out of the sun, drinking something cold and waiting for you so they can take the van back to the inn.”

“Let them wait. I’m not finished. Look at me, O’Connell. Give me a little more attitude. You’re a bride and your groom’s watching you and you want to show him what you’ve got. Good. Fine.”

Did she want to show the man who watched her what she had? She’d thought about him last night, lying in her narrow, lumpy bed. Imagined his face. Would his eyes be dark? His nose classically Roman? His mouth full, his jaw chiseled?

Would he look like the man at the airport?

The skin on the back of Fallon’s neck tingled. He was up there, watching her again.

She knew it.

She looked back, shading her eyes, making no attempt to be discreet and yes, there he was, standing with his arms folded, his eyes hidden behind those omnipresent dark glasses.

A hot arrow of desire shot through her so quickly, so unexpectedly, that she felt her knees turn to water. She wanted—she wanted—

Out of here. That was what she wanted. Turning, she splashed through the shallows to the beach.

“O’Connell?”

Her sunglasses were on a canvas folding chair. She jabbed them on her nose and shoved her feet into a pair of rubber thongs.

“What’s happening, babe?”

“The session’s over, that’s what’s happening.”

“Yeah, but the light’s changing.” Maurice hurried after her as she headed for the path that wound up the cliff. “Babe,” he whined, “look at the sky. Clouds, see? And the water’s getting choppy. Nice little waves coming in. Moody stuff. I thought we’d try something new—”

“I’ll see you later,” Fallon said, and started up the path. Maurice was a great photographer but he never knew when to stop.

She did, and it was now.

She was out of breath by the time she reached level ground. The stranger was gone, which annoyed her. What kind of man watched a woman without making an effort to meet her? Because yes, he was watching her. Not the others.

Her.

Fallon strode toward the tent, where the Bridal Dreams people were sprawled in a semi-circular arrangement of canvas chairs, their faces tilted up to the sun.

Andy looked up and called out to her. “All done?”

She nodded. He grinned and gave her a thumbs-up. She grinned back, returned the gesture and opened the door of the ancient little red Fiat she’d rented from the innkeeper as soon as she’d realized how isolated this place was.

Her jeans and T-shirt were lying in the back seat. Fallon pulled them on over her bikini, grimacing a little at the feel of the hot cotton against her sticky skin.

She wanted a shower and a cold drink. She wanted to pack her things for tomorrow’s flight home and then, maybe, drive up into the hills for one last look over the sea.

Most of all, she thought as she let out the clutch and floored the gas pedal, most of all, she never wanted to see this cliff and its castello again.

Stefano watched Fallon O’Connell walk toward the tent he’d permitted to be raised on his property.

She seemed to be in a hurry to leave.

Was he the reason? Yes. He probably was.

Stefano opened the concealed minifridge built into the wall behind his desk, took out a bottle of water and raised it to his lips.

The lady thought he was watching her. He’d realized that days ago. The way she stiffened and looked around her whenever he appeared was a dead giveaway.

It didn’t surprise him. Women who looked like her assumed they had the eye of every man who saw them.

She was wrong. He wanted nothing to do with her.

Concern for his privacy had drawn him back, not a woman, and a damned good thing, too. Carla had violated their agreement before he’d even had time to board his plane. She’d brought in more people than she’d said she would, and his housekeeper told him that she’d sought access to the house the instant his back was turned.

Stefano settled into a leather armchair, put his feet up on a hassock and took another drink of cold water.

Of course, he’d sent Carla packing. He’d wanted to toss out the lot of them, her and her hedonistic fashionistas, too, but that dark threat she’d made hung over his head. Instead, he’d done the best he could, told his former mistress to get off his property before he had her thrown off.

Then he’d settled in to get through the week without going crazy from boredom, and that was the only reason he’d taken to observing the Bridal Dreams group.

Fallon had reached the disreputable-looking old car she’d picked up somewhere. Stefano frowned as she opened the door, pulled out jeans and a T-shirt and slipped them on. The shirt was oversize but the jeans clung to her legs. Such impossibly long legs, he thought with lazy appraisal.

Clothed, she was as magnificent as she’d been in the string bikini.

Okay. Maybe he paid more attention to her than to the others. What man wouldn’t? She was stunning, the kind of woman who’d silence a room simply by entering it. A man would have to be blind not to enjoy looking at her.

Tomorrow, there’d be nothing to look at.

This unwanted intrusion in his life was over. This was the last day the photographic crew would be here. Fallon O’Connell was driving away right now. He couldn’t help smiling at the way the little Fiat bucked. She’d probably let the clutch out too fast. She was driving too fast, too, leaving a plume of dust behind.

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