The Italian Next Door

Praise For Anna Cleary

‘Simply outstanding! Liberally spiced with wonderful

characterisation, wicked repartee, spicy love scenes,

brilliant dialogue and a believable conflict.’

—www.cataromance.com on

At the Boss’s Beck and Call

‘Ms Cleary has created characters

who give tons of emotion and a story as mysterious

and compelling as watching a romantic movie.

Thoroughly enjoyable and highly entertaining.’

—www.cataromance.com on

Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

About the Author

About Anna Cleary

As a child, ANNA CLEARY loved reading so much that during the midnight hours she was forced to read with a torch under the bedcovers, to lull the suspicions of her sleep-obsessed parents. From an early age she dreamed of writing her own books. She saw herself in a stone cottage by the sea, wearing a velvet smoking jacket and sipping sherry, like Somerset Maugham.

In real life she became a schoolteacher, where her greatest pleasure was teaching children to write beautiful stories.

A little while ago, she and one of her friends made a pact to each write the first chapter of a romance novel in their holidays. From writing her very first line Anna was hooked, and she gave up teaching to become a full-time writer. She now lives in Queensland, with a deeply sensitive and intelligent cat. She prefers champagne to sherry, and loves music, books, four-legged people, trees, movies and restaurants.

Also by Anna Cleary

Do Not Disturb

Wedding Night with a Stranger

At the Boss’s Beck and Call

Untamed Billionaire, Undressed Virgin

Taken by the Maverick Millionaire

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Italian Next Door

Anna Cleary

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Bess, Jan and Liz, three of the dearest sisters on the planet.

Also, I extend the most grateful thanks to Maria Elisabetta Forrest for her kind and generous assistance with my Italian grammar.

CHAPTER ONE

PASSION was the last thing on Pia Renfern’s mind when she approached the row of car-hire booths at Rome’s Fiumicino airport preparing to take a massive risk and drive on the wrong side of the road. But sometimes, in a foreign land, things happened beyond the control of the most careful people.

Da Vinci Auto looked the most likely of the hire places. Parking her baggage trolley by the counter, Pia assumed a bright, breezy smile for the clerk. ‘Mi scusi, signora, can you tell me the cost of hiring a car for the day?’

The woman’s shrewd gaze appraised Pia right through to her tender Australian conscience, which had only known the left hand side of any road it had ever travelled.

‘For one day, signorina?’

‘Yes, I only need it for the one. Just to get me to Positano.’ The clerk’s eyebrows arched high, and Pia felt obliged to explain. ‘You see, my flight was late and I’ve missed the bus I was booked on. I’d have caught a train, but with the train strike …’ She made a rueful gesture. She tried a smile, but after the stresses of a twenty-four-hour flight, it was a little wobbly. ‘I’ve tried taxis but none of the drivers will agree to take me that far.’

The woman examined all five feet four of Pia from her blonde short cut, down to her blue suede jacket, travel-weary jeans and ankle boots.

‘May I see your passport, signorina? And your driving authority?’

Pia sensed a presence loom up behind her like a brooding shadow. As she handed over her documents she noticed the clerk’s glance flit to somewhere above and beyond her head. For the first time the woman’s face burst into beaming smiles. ‘Ah, signore. Saro con Lei fra poco.’

Pia glanced behind. An Italian man was standing there, leaning negligently on the towing handle of his suitcase. He was at least six feet tall, probably seven, with thick brows and intelligent dark eyes that connected at once with hers and gleamed with a disturbing boldness that zinged through her like a chemical infusion.

Pia turned sharply back to the woman. She shouldn’t have looked. If there was one thing she wasn’t ready for, it was big, lean and hungry and packed with testosterone, however handsome it might appear.

Valentino Silvestri, on the other hand, just flown in from Tunis after co-ordinating Interpol’s latest gruelling assault on the narcotics trade, felt a strange frisson prickle the nape of his neck and shiver down his spine.

He willed the pretty blonde to turn around again for another glimpse of her arresting blue eyes. Deprived of the face, he allowed his appreciative gaze to wander further.

Below the hem of her jacket, her blue jeans cupped a luscious little behind as sweetly rounded as an apricot. His mouth watered. Dio, how he yearned for a woman.

Pia held her breath while the clerk perused the passport with a frown while at the same time assaulting her keyboard with swift staccato fingers.

The woman glanced up. ‘Were you hoping for a large car, signorina, or small?’

Relieved the woman was unconcerned about sides of roads, Pia ignored the dark eyes burning through the back of her neck. ‘Oh, small. Small will be fine. Grazie.’

Her optimism rose. With a bit of luck she could reach her safe haven well before nightfall. Things were starting to look promising, though she had to admit to a few qualms about actually taking the car on the roads once she had it in her possession. Lucky she’d had the forethought to obtain an international licence before she left home just in case of emergencies like this, though her mother had pleaded with her never to use it.

But she was no longer the bundle of nerves she’d been a few months ago when she’d had the post-traumatic stress disorder. If there was one affliction Pia Renfern was now officially free and clear of, it was PTSD in all its insidious, debilitating, creepy manifestations. She was over it, and courage was now her middle name. Just let anyone try to contradict her.

Anyway, driving on the other side of the road couldn’t be so hard. Other people did it. Lauren, her cousin, drove all over Italy without mishap. Pia was certain she could manage it if she avoided the super highways and used less popular byways.

Her driving record was pretty good, apart from a few minor parking violations. There was that time she’d had her licence suspended for frequent and incorrigible speeding, but that was ages ago when she’d just passed her test. Lucky the international licence showed nothing of her reckless past.

The woman looked up. ‘Where are you wishing to return the car, Miss Renfern?’

‘Do you have an office in Positano?’

‘No, signorina.’ The woman’s face grew serious. ‘Positano has very few spaces for cars. You may perhaps drive to our office in Sorrento then take the bus. Are you familiar with the area?’

‘Not exactly. Won’t the car have sat nav?’

There was a sudden movement behind her. ‘Scusi, signorina.’

Pia glanced around in surprise. ‘Sorry?’

The man stepped forward, his dark eyes glinting with an intent light. Pia’s throat dried and a fluttery sensation inhabited her chest. He really was handsome, with cheekbones and shadow on his firm, chiselled jaw. His eyebrows bristled with purpose. They were the most stirring she’d ever laid eyes on, while the casual elegance of his black leather jacket, white open-necked shirt and jeans did nothing to diminish the pleasing athleticism of his lean, powerful build.

He was at least a millimetre too close, bearing down on her and sending all her alarm sensors into total chaos. She took a step backwards from those compelling dark eyes and found herself pressed up against the counter.

‘I couldn’t help overhearing, signorina. You are travelling to Positano?’ His voice was deep and appealingly accented, despite the seriousness of his tone.

‘Yes?’

‘Are you aware that the roads near Sorrento are very narrow and built on the edges of cliffs?’ His dark eyes scanned her face like a searchlight.

‘Well, yes, I suppose. So …?’ She could feel her resistance rising to this intrusion. So the roads were narrow. Was he suggesting she wasn’t capable? She felt her neck grow hot, conscious of the car-hire woman listening to every word with close attention. A stillness seemed to fall on the neighbouring booths, as if their staff, their customers, the entire airport had all paused to listen.

In an effort to dampen the guy’s damned cheek, Pia zapped him with a cool smile. ‘What’s your point, signore?’

‘The traffic along those roads is heavy and dangerous. Even very experienced drivers from the locality find it so.’ His intelligent dark eyes were serious, his hands eloquent. ‘Permit me, signorina, but I notice that you speak like an Australian. Have you ever before driven a car in a right-hand-traffic situation?’

Guilt crept up Pia’s spine. Her entire body warmed, then blazed with it as she felt the car-hire woman’s eyes drill a hole through the side of her head. If only she could have lied, but she’d never been good at it, not even to save her life.

‘Well, no, maybe I haven’t,’ she blustered. ‘But I know I can, and I’m not sure what it has to do with you.’

He shook his head in stern disapproval. ‘This is not good. You mustn’t try to drive on these roads, especially with the traffic as it will be today with the trains not running. This is what I think would be best. I will—’

Before he could go on with his astonishing impertinence, the car-hire woman interjected. ‘Scusi, Miss Renfern. Our apologies, but Da Vinci Auto find we do not have a car for you today.’

‘What?’ Pia spun about and stared at the woman in outrage. ‘Oh, but that’s so unfair. You’ve seen my licence … I’m a qualified driver. This man is a stranger. Don’t listen to him. What is he to do with me?’

‘I am sorry, signorina.’ Briskly, the woman handed back Pia’s credentials. ‘Perhaps another car company will help you. However, Da Vinci Auto says no.’

‘But—’

‘No, and no and no.’ The woman folded her arms and sealed her lips with implacable firmness.

Simmering, Pia replaced her documents and gathered her baggage, pausing to cast a glowering glance at the man before she moved off. ‘Thanks a lot, signore.’ She did her best to lace the word with purest strychnine.

His eyes gleamed. ‘Prego. Your safety is important to every Italian.’

She rarely argued with men these days, especially strangers, but some men needed to be argued with. ‘I would be much safer if I could hire a car.’

Her indignation seemed to amuse the guy. He leaned back against the counter, allowing his thick black lashes to flicker down while his sensual gaze drifted over her with frank appreciation. ‘So, so soft … and yet so fierce.’ His lean hands demonstrated her softness in the air. She had little doubt it had more to do with her breasts than anything. ‘It is a pity,’ he continued with phoney sympathy, ‘but the signora here has made the decision, no doubt for her own reasons.’ He shrugged and spread his hands as if he were absolutely innocent in the matter.

This distortion of reality was too much for Pia, confused as it was with messages from his hot smiling eyes, sexy mouth and tanned, elegant hands that were anything but innocent. Soft, was she?

She said hotly, ‘She made the decision because you sowed seeds of doubt in her mind.’

‘You think?’ His gorgeous brows lifted quizzically. ‘She may have been influenced by some weird desire to save lives. But as it happens I’m driving to Positano. I might be able to fit you in. I’m guessing you won’t take too much room.’ His beautiful hands illustrated just how much room she might take, this time managing to encompass the shape of her hips with what felt to Pia almost like a tangible caress.

She could imagine what he had in mind. He wanted to get her alone in a confined space and run those hard, lean hands all over her body.

If only his voice didn’t seep into her veins like a dark intoxicant. At the same time there was that smile in his eyes inviting her to acknowledge an undertow, a distinctly sexual vibration tugging at her like the moon to the tide.

In spite of herself Pia felt a dangerous stir in her blood, then her heart skittered. Whoa there, girl. Don’t be sucked in by midnight eyes and a lazy smile.

Regrouping her feminine forces, she cast him a crushing look. ‘You wish.’

She strode coolly away, as coolly as it was possible to pushing a trolley laden with a suitcase and a heavy canvas bag stuffed with easels and painting supplies while feeling his scorching-hot gaze follow her every step of the way.

She walked past the other car-hire booths without wasting her time humbling herself before them. Her reputation was shot with them all now, and there was no way she’d give the guy the satisfaction of watching her being turned away yet again.

The nerve of him. He had to be one of the most intrusive, irritating, interfering, annoying people she’d ever met. Just because he knew he was attractive … Of course he knew. A man that sophisticated always knew.

She was seething all over. He should never have looked at her like that, making her feel so—female. In fact, it was amazing he’d triggered those responses. She’d been numb in that department for so long she couldn’t quite believe the sensations were real. It must have been as the doctor had warned. Now that her emotions had come back in full force, every sensation was bound to be stronger, sharper. Sweeter, though she squashed that thought. Nothing she felt about him was sweet.

Just before she turned the corner into the next mall though, she couldn’t resist sneaking a glance back. He was still there, but to her surprise no longer alone. A middle-aged couple with a teenager had joined him and were exclaiming over him, reaching up to kiss and embrace him like long-lost relatives. She saw him bend to kiss the woman on both cheeks. Whew. How must that feel?

Resigned to abandoning his interest in the blonde woman for the moment, Valentino pocketed his car keys and braced himself to field a volley of probing queries about his personal life.

As always his uncle and aunt wanted to know too much. Still embarrassed by his divorced status even after all this time, they were forever on the lookout for signs he was about to risk the marital treadmill again.

As if.

He sometimes had the suspicion that his aunt had dreams of him taking up with Ariana again to wipe away the family shame, as though the bitterness had never happened. As though the divorce had no validity.

No use to explain that the twenty-first century had dawned some time back. In his aunt’s mind his singularity made him a dangerous loose gun who needed to be nailed down and rigidly secured. His uncle’s view appeared slightly different. Possibly tinged with awe, even a little envy.

The old boy winked at him. ‘Still playing the field, eh, Tino?’

‘That’s enough,’ his aunt snapped. ‘When are you coming home to settle down, Tino?’

They didn’t hazard any enquiries about his work. His job as a Criminal Intelligence Officer with Interpol was not an occupation to warm the hearts of family members. They preferred to gloss over it, always slightly on their guards with him for fear he’d be listening to their every word with a view to collecting evidence.

They needn’t have worried. He’d run checks on them all and they were depressingly upright and moral.

His aunt began to regale him with the latest on her eldest daughter. Maria was a shining family example. Decently married, blessedly pregnant, in fact on the very verge of delivering them another grandchild as every good son and daughter should. While the couple argued over all the minor details of Maria’s health, their youngest son scowled and tried to act as if he didn’t belong to them.

Valentino exchanged a sympathetic grin with the boy, musing that, while listening was his speciality, there were times when tuning out was of even more strategic importance.

He was overwhelmed with a sudden longing to escape the grim realities of his life. For a second he allowed himself to imagine how it might have been zooming along the autostrada with the pretty blonde to rest his eyes on, a slim knee to fondle.

His fingers curved into his palm in regret for the silky knee they would never know.

How long had it been since he’d caressed a woman? There must be some left in the world who weren’t set on dragging a man to the altar.

Those serious blue eyes, rosy lips and delicate cheekbones in intriguing contradiction to the sprinkling of freckles across her quite charming nose had potential to enchant a man, for a few days at least. There’d been a chemistry, he felt sure. The trip would have been a perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork for a little vacation romance.

He frowned. No doubt she’d receive other offers before the end of the day, though he hoped she wouldn’t accept any of them. For her sake he hoped she’d choose the bus. With the degrees of human inventiveness for evil he’d witnessed over the years he began to doubt if any woman should travel alone, anywhere.

He scanned the suspects coming and going around him. How many of these innocent-looking pillars of society were engaged in criminal activity?

It weighed a man down, this constant policing. Lately, wherever he looked he saw corruption. Sometimes he wished he could shrug it all off like an unwanted skin. Forget about crime and rid his mind of terrorism threats, narcotics, human trafficking, credit-card fraud and the constant thievery of national treasures. Just relax and enjoy a vacation like anyone else. Enjoy a pretty woman and take her at face value.

And what a face. He sighed.

Waking suddenly to his surroundings, Valentino noticed that the car-hire queue had swelled in number, while even more people were flocking to the neighbouring booths. He tapped his uncle’s elbow to alert him to the rush, but by the time the old boy inserted himself into the line it was too late.

Da Vinci Auto was all out of cars. ‘Per carita,’ his uncle wailed, slapping his forehead. ‘Now it’s a bus strike. First the trains, now the buses. What’s the country coming to? What are we to do?’

At once Valentino’s thoughts switched to the Australiana. What would she do? He felt a twinge of remorse about his intervention, though he’d only acted for the best. It was his duty as a citizen to uphold public safety, surely.

Though if she was stranded he couldn’t help feeling some responsibility. He weighed his car keys in his hand.

Pia received the news like a blow.

The drivers were meeting, the harassed attendant explained earnestly to the small angry crowd before the bus link counter. Everything was on hold.

Exactly what Pia didn’t want to hear. On hold was what her life had been for more than half a year, and she’d come all this way across the world, determined to break out of her security cocoon, plunge back into sweet lovely life and wring from it every last ounce of pleasure and excitement.

None of it could happen until she escaped from the numbing blandness of airport world.

Groaning about what could be a wait of potential days, she collapsed onto a chair and closed her eyes. As usual there was a man at the root of her troubles. She should have been cruising along the Amalfi coastline by now. If only she hadn’t engaged in conversation with the guy. She should have ignored his eyebrows, never even made eye contact.

Maybe it was an omen and she’d made a terrible mistake agreeing to house-sit for Lauren. Then she chided herself for that backsliding thought.

Concentrate on the positive. She’d come a long way from that timid mouse who’d cowered inside her terrace in Balmain day and night, padlocks on the doors and all the lights turned on. Every night the same predictable curry in the microwave. Every night, her lonely bed all to herself.

She’d made great strides since that first conscious decision to grasp life in both hands and plunge in again with a hopeful heart and positive attitude. Her spirits, her confidence had lifted a thousandfold. How else could she have walked onto the plane? She’d even come round to thinking it was time to chance her luck again with the other species, though she’d be more careful this time.

Where she’d gone wrong had been in allowing herself to fall in love and trust the love to last into the future ad infinitum. Big mistake.

It was time for a brand-new paradigm. Love was a madness that ended in tears. Much better to be fond of someone, love them while they were fun, leave them on a high note. And no more of these slick, fast-talking, sport-obsessed guys who loved a woman when she was well and whole, as long as she looked good enough to flash around at friends’ parties.

She’d ensure her next man had a vestige of sensitivity. So he might not be a tall, blond sex-god with rippling muscles. She was prepared, quite prepared, to look for someone less athletic. Big strong men were too domineering, anyway.

Yeah. The more she considered the subject, the more she felt ready for some sweet, gentle guy with a slighter build who didn’t much care for sport. Who needed handsome? Handsome men were only too likely to be arrogant, egotistical narcissists who saw women as prey. Fine for the occasional fling, perhaps, the odd wild weekend of passion, but in the long term on a day-to-day basis she’d be much better off with someone who could understand her. Perhaps someone from the arts who shared the creative temperament. A sculptor. Maybe even a musician.

She picked up a newspaper someone had left on the seat and tried to fathom one of the front-page stories with the remnants of her high-school Italian. From what she could make out, some enterprising thief had stolen another little-known painting from a museum in Cairo. A Monet, this time. There was a photo of the picture, which couldn’t have done it justice. From its grainy quality she could just make out some reeds and a couple of water lilies.

Her sparse Italian wasn’t up to interpreting the finer details, so after a minute she cast the paper aside and lifted her feet to stretch out along the seats with her head on her arm. Closing her eyes, she made herself concentrate on the future.

Beautiful Positano, where no one knew that eleven months ago in the Balmain branch of the Unity Bank a man in a ski mask had shoved a gun into the side of her head and made her believe she was going to die.

Thank heavens for this opportunity to escape to a place where no one would ever dream how for a time that little drama had changed her entire life. What a wimp she’d been for months. One minute there she’d been, swanning through her reckless life with total disregard for what was around the corner, taking pleasure in her man, her friends, her blossoming work, her growing reputation, while the next minute …

Until then she’d never known a thing about stress. It had come as a complete shock to her when, after the incident at the bank, all her mild little anxieties and cautions, the same ones everyone needed to keep themselves alive and well, had crept out of the woodwork and morphed into monstrous great phobias.