The Italian Next Door

He reached to change the air setting, and his eyes were all at once screened by his luxuriant black lashes. ‘I work for a multi-national company. We do many things … communications, data collection and analysis … We liaise with local companies to help them maximise the success of their operations.’

Whatever that meant. There was something smooth about the words, as if he’d said them exactly the same way a hundred times. Pia eyed him. He was so fit and athletic, he exuded the coiled energy of an action man rather than some desk jockey.

‘In an office, you mean?’

His reply was immediate. ‘Sometimes. Mostly I’m required to travel.’

‘Where are you based?’

‘Lyon, though it changes. Milano, Roma, Athens. What did you say is the part-time work you do?’

Back to that. He wasn’t just gorgeous, he was tenacious. And there she’d been, hoping he wouldn’t besiege her with questions. ‘Oh, you know. Office work, restaurants when I have the need for extra cash. You—you must spend a lot of time away from home. Don’t you miss Positano?’

‘Every day. I wish I could be there more. Though perhaps I enjoy it the more because I see so little of it.’ He glanced at her, his dark disturbing gaze caressing her face. ‘It is a pity to tire yourself of something you love, don’t you think?’

She sighed. ‘That’s not how life works for me. I always throw myself into the things I love to the max.’ Overboard, some people had accused her of being. No doubt it was true. She always had to love things too much. People. Loving them. Trusting them. Believing they loved her. At least, that was how she used to be. Before the bank incident.

‘Usually, that is,’ she amended, not wanting to give a false impression of her current state.

‘Ah. The best kind of woman.’ His eyes met hers, sensual, teasing. ‘What are they, then? Your passions?’

She took a moment to think, then counted them off on her fingers. ‘Beauty. Art. Music.’ She shrugged. ‘Friendship, of course.’

He grinned. ‘Add food and wine to the list and you’ll be talking like an Italian.’

She laughed, carried along by his good humour and with the sudden hopeful conviction that passion must still survive intact somewhere, in some part of her.

‘And you, Valentino? Tell me yours.’

His thick lashes flickered and he inclined his head a little. ‘Beauty, certainly. Honesty. Integrity in public life. Ah, let me think. The sea.’

‘The sea?’

‘Sì.’ He gestured. ‘I was a carabiniere attached to the navy before … what I am doing now.’

She glanced at him in surprise. ‘Isn’t the Carabinieri the police?’

‘It is and it isn’t. It is a—military service in its own right. Have you heard of the US marines?’

She nodded. ‘Of course.’

‘Well, some carabinieri are a part of the military forces—similar to the marines. I was with the navy. At heart I am a sailor.’

Wow. She could see why he was built like an athlete. In spite of her inclination to only admire gentle, more artistic men from now on she couldn’t help feeling impressed. The very name carabinieri had such a swashbuckling ring to it.

‘A simple sailor.’ She flashed him a smile.

‘Very simple.’ The glance he flashed back was anything but simple. Sophisticated, perhaps. Experienced. Steeped in the seductive arts, definitely. But simple? No.

All at once she was finding it hard to breathe, but in a pleasant way. An exhilarated way. She reflected that pre-bank she’d always enjoyed a flirty conversation with a lovely guy. It was one of the pleasures of life, sussing out the romantic attitudes of the other species. But post-bank …

It was as if that part of her had closed down, the flirty part that loved playing the game of advance and retreat in the war of the sexes. With a sudden surge of excitement she realised that today she was reacting quite like her old self. The old Pia Renfern was alive and well, though maybe a little dusty from disuse. Perhaps it just needed a certain kind of stimulus to activate it.

The sort who kept the adrenaline charge in her bloodstream and made her toes curl up.

The fantastic realisation she was back to normal, she was actually enjoying a man’s company and feeling like a sexual being again at long, long last, might have gone to her head. She couldn’t deny feeling pleasantly dizzy and powerfully feminine. She wanted to stretch all her muscles and purr like a cat. How gorgeous was it to be a woman?

‘Are you so passionate, then, Pia?’ He didn’t look at her, his eyes were on the road, but the velvet challenge in his voice told her what their expression was likely to be.

‘When I truly want something.’ She half lowered her lashes. ‘And you?’

‘Very passionate,’ he said, his voice deepening while the hot gleam in his dark eyes melted her to her ankles. ‘Molto molto appassionato.’

The music of his rich musical Italiano oozed down inside her like an aphrodisiac. Heat washed through her along with sudden thrilling visions of being wrapped in his powerful arms on some lamplit bed, his sleek bronzed body locked with hers, hot, hard and virile.

In chaos she turned her face away, breathless, her heart thumping. She mustn’t get carried away. What if she inadvertently encouraged him to expect something?

He said casually, ‘Do you have connections in Positano, apart from your cousin?’

‘Not really. Oh, there are some friends of Lauren’s who live on Capri who might look me up, if they remember. It would be lovely if they did. Capri.’ She gave a little shiver. To think she might meet actual residents of that fabled island. ‘Is it as lovely as they say?’

He hesitated, and his brows lowered slightly. ‘It is—bella, certainly.’

He didn’t sound overwhelmed, but then where in the world did people truly appreciate the treasures in their own back yard?

Her glance fell on his olive-tanned hands, unsullied by any wedding band. ‘Do you have family in Positano besides your aunt and uncle?’

He nodded, ‘My grandfather. He’s a sweet old guy.’ He smiled and gestured. ‘We are—simpatico.’

His voice softened and she warmed to the honest affection in his tone. Family ties were important signals about a man. Obviously there was no woman keeping the home fires burning. Not in Positano anyway. Not that it had anything to do with her. But it couldn’t hurt to find out if he had one somewhere else.

She’d always enjoyed delving into a life, glimpsing the man behind the face she sought to portray. Her father had always said it was the most important part of a portraitist’s arsenal. But Valentino Silvestri didn’t give her the chance to dig far. He kept turning the spotlight neatly around to her.

‘Tell me about you, Pia. Who is in your life? A beautiful girl like you?’

Beautiful, was he kidding? If she was beautiful, then beauty didn’t count for a row of beans. It was coolness, calm and strength that mattered or people walked away. Well, that was her experience.

‘For instance,’ he said smoothly, ‘have you ever been married?’

Pia glanced at him in some surprise. ‘How old do you think I am? Ask me that in thirty years’ time. I’ll start to think about it then.’

A smile touched his sexy mouth and lingered there. ‘And in the meantime …?’

As she drank in the strong, chiselled bones of his face it came to her with a thrill of excitement that if she’d had some charcoal handy she could have taken down those bones in a flash. Almost unconsciously she angled her body more his way.

‘You know what I think, Valentino?’

‘What do you think?’ The corners of his mouth edged up further. He sent her a warm, piercing glance and the air grew heady.

‘You’re a very nosy guy.’

His eyes were amused, sensual. ‘Too curious?’

‘Way too curious. But since you’re interested, I take life as I find it. And for your information I come from an ordinary background of wonderful people. I have a mother, a brother and a sister. Uncles, aunts, cousins, the whole thing.’

‘No boyfriend? Fiancé?’

‘Tsk, tsk.’ She shook her head. ‘Haven’t you noticed?’ She waved her ringless left hand at him. ‘What sort of a detective are you?’

He laughed. ‘Clearly not very good. So you might as well tell me everything. Let me think. Start with the month and year of your birth.’

Pia stared incredulously at him. ‘Honestly. You are relentless. All right, I’m a Virgo and I’m twenty-six. Satisfied? On the shelf, you might say.’ She smiled. ‘And I’m guessing you’re a much older man of the world than that. Molto.’

‘Molto,’ he agreed, smiling. ‘A whole thirty-five.’ She waited for him to expand on his partner status, but he said nothing. A few more moments ticked by while she racked her brains for a way to ask without sounding madly interested, then he shot her a teasing, sensual glance. ‘You aren’t interested to know if I am on the shelf?’

‘Should I be?’

‘Then you’re not.’ He made it sound like a statement, though his voice was silken.

‘Well, I am now.’ She let her lashes flutter down. ‘But only because you brought it up.’

He laughed. ‘Ah, it’s so sexy talking to a clever woman.’ He hesitated a second, then said, ‘Grazie a Dio at this moment in time I’m a single man and my conscience is clear.’

She glowed inside. Though truly, feeling so fantastically exhilarated by a little conversational skirmish with a man she’d just met who was dripping with sexual possibilities probably meant her conscience should be anything but clear.

But it felt lovely to be admired, to receive hot slumberous glances more intense than the norm, which sometimes included her mouth as well as her eyes, or slid to her throat. It sparked up her blood and made her feel like a desirable woman again, and maybe she flirted a little. Once or twice.

The vegetation had changed. There were fig trees, olive groves and steep hillsides terraced with orchards of lemon and peach, while the warm spring air was scented with the fragrances of wild verbena and basil. The road became increasingly narrow, and soon there were high cliffs on one side and glimpses of sea on the other. So Valentino hadn’t exaggerated the danger, after all. The traffic was constant, interpersed with tourist buses and heavy lorries.

She began to feel deeply thankful not to be driving. Truly, she could have kissed that car-hire woman. While most of her fears had long since retreated, she still wasn’t so good with heights.

‘The road gets even narrower on the other side of Sorrento,’ he said. ‘We call it the Nastro Azzurro, what you would call the Blue Ribbon. You’ll know why when you see it.’ He growled an exclamation. ‘Some of these guys should be locked up. Where are the traffic cops when you need them?’ He took his hands from the wheel to gesticulate at a car pelting towards them, replacing them barely in time to swerve the car to safety. ‘Look.’ He gestured. ‘Vesuvius again.’

‘Fantastic,’ she gasped, her heart all at once in her throat, not daring to look at the views. ‘Does this car have airbags?’

‘I believe so. Though one can never be sure they will work until the moment of impact.’ He smiled and she forced herself to manufacture one for him.

She must try to stop talking to him. It was too dangerous. On every level.

Sorrento was beautiful, the old picturesque town spilling over cliff walls. Every vista was a thrill to Pia’s eye, and she wished they could have lingered there and explored those pretty streets and looked behind the bougainvilleaed walls.

Conversation trickled off once they were out of the town. The road reduced to a narrow ribbon of continuous sharp curves and switchbacks, a mere ledge along a cliff face, and surely not wide enough for two small cars to pass, let alone the tourist buses and trucks lumbering along, though Valentino negotiated the blind hairpins with confidence.

Through Pia’s window the sea called with breathtaking views across the bay, though she was too conscious of the cliff edge and its lack of a reassuring barrier to enjoy it. She could barely permit herself to look.

Admit it, she was scared, but not panicking. She hadn’t panicked for months, and she wouldn’t panic now in front of Valentino Silvestri.

As they passed through tiny villages clinging to the cliff face she sat taut, hands clenched, and concentrated on breathing. ‘… Pia?’

She came to herself with a shock, realising he’d been speaking to her. For how long? She felt a stab of dismay. How much of herself had she betrayed? He glanced at her again, a crease between his brows.

‘Sorry?’ she said. ‘What—what did you say?’

His frown intensified. ‘I was asking if you feel okay?’

‘Oh, I do. Sure. Fine.’ It was just that her breathing often grew shallow when suspended over a couple of thousand feet of cliff in the presence of a sexy man.

Not long afterwards, a bend in the road revealed a lay-by. Valentino swung the car in under some trees and parked. There was a small sharp silence, then he said gently, ‘You can stop clutching the seat now. Come. You need some fresh air. Let me show you the view.’

CHAPTER THREE

HER legs might have been unwilling, but Pia would have made them work even if all their bones had been broken. She dragged herself from the car and walked with Valentino across the leafy grass, barely even faltering when they approached the lookout.

The air was dry, hot in the sun, and aromatic with rosemary and other wild scents.

She gripped the stone balustrade with gratitude, though her throat was dry. The view was indeed spectacular, and when the solidity of cement and earth under her hands and feet had worked to settle her vertigo stole the breath from her lungs. Rugged cliff faces and blue, blue sea, misting into infinite sky. Deeper, more intense blue than the human mind could fathom. Indigo into cobalt, aquamarine and turquoise at the edges.

She could do this, she reasoned with herself. Even though they were up so high at least her feet were on solid ground and she had a big strong man beside her who wasn’t wearing a ski mask.

Oh, God, why think of that now?

She concentrated on breathing in the blue, allowing its healing qualities into her soul until her heart slowed its irrational racing and she felt herself start to relax. Valentino was leaning on the balustrade, his white shirt-opening cutting a bronzed V, his sleeves rolled up a little, forearms naked to the sun, the image of cool, sexy masculinity.

Cool, but if she could have painted him, the colours would have seared the page.

‘You see those little isles out there?’ She followed his gaze to where jagged fingers pointed from the sea, piercing the blue haze. ‘Remember Ulysses and the sirens who lured the sailors?’

‘That’s the place?’ She cleared the croakiness from her throat.

‘Yes. And just poking out from that corner of the cliff you see Capri.’

‘Oh,’ she exclaimed, her voice back to natural. ‘It’s beautiful.’ And she truly meant it. It was beyond beautiful. It was heaven.

He angled himself to gaze at her and the sun found gold and amber glimmers in the depths of his eyes. ‘Better now?’ There was concern in his voice, and the lines of his chiselled, sensuous mouth were grave.

‘I’m fine, truly. I don’t know what happened. You shouldn’t have worried.’ She hardly dared look at him for fear of seeing the curl of contempt she’d once surprised on Euan’s mouth when she’d revealed her nervousness. ‘You were white.’

She shrugged it off. ‘Oh, well, I’m probably overtired. I have been travelling for thirty-six hours. It’s only natural I should be a bit pale.’

His eyes flickered to her mouth. ‘Not that pale. But you’ve improved a little. Now your lips are pink.’ He moved closer, touched them with his knuckle. ‘Like cherries.’

Her heart made a deep lurch in her chest, and he bent and touched her lips with his, a gentle, exploratory friction. It took her by surprise, in truth. Her mad, pounding pulse took off, and she would have stopped the tingling kiss, she really would, except that her lips fell into a sort of divine enchantment. He pulled her close and her hands reached for his shoulders, his ribs, his thick black hair.

Oh, the bliss of being held gently by a hard man. His peppery spice filled her head, and the taste of him, so masculine yet in some way unique, ignited her senses until she was drunk, and for seconds she came close to abandoning herself to his possession.

He gathered her close to his lean solid body and kissed her with a sizzling, sexy, melting heat, titillating the insides of her mouth with his tongue, drugging her brain with the sexual narcotic and razing her to the ground.

She sank into him, stroking him, her body thrilling to his arousing touch.

His smooth hands slid to her breasts and a wild flame of desire flared up in her. Instantly she felt conscious of losing control. At the same time awareness of the implacable power of his big, steel-hard physique sent a choking panic jackknifing through her insides.

She shoved at his powerful chest and broke free from his arms.

‘No, don’t,’ she said hoarsely, panting. ‘Not this.’

‘Cosa?’

He was staring at her with a strange expression, as though seeing something unexpected in her face. It was infuriating, and she hastened to cover up whatever it had been.

‘I—I don’t want to be kissed, do you understand?’ She was breathing fast. Anger and arousal seethed with equal potency in her bloodstream. For God’s sake, what was she doing? Here she was with a perfect stranger on a hellish road in the middle of what looked and smelled like heaven on earth, and for a moment she’d actually come close to getting carried away and letting herself go.

She must have lost her senses.

Blinking as though stunned, he stared at her with eyes that blazed molten. ‘I did not—’ His voice was thicker and deeper than a Gulf Oil gusher. ‘I did not intend … This was just … I wanted to comfort you.’

‘Oh, to comfort me. Please.’

A flush touched his lean cheeks. He said something intense in flowing Italian accompanied by a proud gesture that made it clear he felt stung by her accusation. The trouble was, even in her anger, those lilting, lyrical words, so eloquent of denial, expressed in his deep voice seeped into her bloodstream and threatened to undermine her.

She hardened herself against them and said in a low voice, ‘I don’t need comforting. Anyway, this was not what I’d call comfort. This was a man taking advantage of a woman.’

His head jerked back.

The ferocity of her words surprised even herself. Since the bank incident, she’d taken care to avoid riling members of the opposite sex. As soon as her bold words escaped from her mouth her cowardly heart jumped into her throat and cringed.

He stared at her, frowning, his eyes glittering. ‘I am not the sort of man who takes advantage of a woman.’ All at once his accent was very pronounced. ‘Holding you, kissing you even, seemed like a—a—natural response to your distress. I was intending merely to—soothe you.’

The flush on his sculpted cheekbones deepened on those last words, as if he realised himself how lame they sounded.

‘Oh, that’s what they all say.’

His eyes flashed. ‘Mio Dio, what sort of guy do you think I am?’ He made a small move in her direction, and despite her bravado an involuntary lurch in her guts drove her back a step.

Shock smote his tense, handsome face and he held up his hands. ‘Pia … You have no need to feel afraid. I am a civilised man, perdio. I do not assault women. Far from it.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ she said sharply, though in fact her blood was thundering in her ears and she was trembling like an aspen. ‘Just—disappointed, that’s all. I have had a long, long trip. You’re a total stranger and I’m not in any mood to be kissing anyone.’ Her voice wobbled on the last word, to her utter shame.

But his assurances on the assault issue began to sink in. She started to feel less severely threatened, and as her confidence rose the strength of her anger intensified, and her need to express it.

‘You shouldn’t have assumed I wanted to kiss you.’

‘Okay, okay …’ He threw up his hands, muttering in melodic Italiano then switching to English. ‘You don’t need to explain.’

‘I’m not explaining.’ And she wasn’t, not really. It was just that she felt all wound up and needed to vent her feelings. ‘I’m—mortified that you think I’m the sort of woman who would encourage such … such … free and easy.’ She made a wordless gesture.

‘Kissing.’

‘As if any time a man finds a woman on a lonely road he should seize the opportunity. As if this is what I was cut out for. To be kissed by a man. Any man who feels like it, any old tick of the clock. All right, Pia, I like the look of you so I’ll kiss you. As if I should enjoy …’

He’d been listening with close attention, but at that his black lashes swept down to conceal a sudden gleam in his eyes. ‘And yet for a few moments there I had the distinct impression you did enjoy. You were so very, very responsive. When I held you in my arms I could feel the thrill rippling through your vibrant body. I can feel it still, in my arms, all through my body, all the way to my bones.’

It was her turn to flush. Her conscience pricked, and to make matters worse the very nature of the words he’d used were in some way arousing.

‘Oh, rubbish.’ She gave a cool, angry laugh and turned away to hide her burning cheeks. ‘There was no thrill. The only thing rippling through me was anger.’

She started to walk across the clearing towards the car. She felt all raw inside, as if she were in the wrong somehow and had treated him unfairly, when all the time he was the one who had kissed her. She supposed if the case made it to court he’d accuse her of flirting with him on the journey.

But what was flirting, after all? A binding contract?

He caught up with her and said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry to have distressed you, Pia. If I had realised when you were moaning in my arms—’

‘Oh, what, moaning? I was not.’ Blushing furiously, she turned away.

‘Sì, sì, I heard you moan.’ His voice thickened. ‘When you did that it made me so hot for you. Molto molto caldo.’

The words affected her against her will, coursing through her like a hot tingling aphrodisiac, and with a spurt of sudden anger she spun around to face him. ‘Stop this, Valentino. Please. There’s no use talking about it.’ Gazing at his gorgeous face, so dark and intense, so focused on her, all at once she felt breathless, furious, ready to strike. ‘Don’t say another word.’

He threw up his hands. ‘Okay, okay. Don’t be upset. I am not one of these guys who argue and force themselves upon women. You have said no more and no more is how it shall be. Nothing more. Niente.’

She strode on, wishing she weren’t so conscious of him behind her.

‘And don’t think you can arouse me by using Italian words, either,’ she tossed over her shoulder. She turned to reinforce the command with a glare and noticed a dark gleam in his eyes, but it might have been a trick of the sunlight.

With chillingly elaborate courtesy he opened the car door for her. Before she got in, in a last—ditch effort to calm things down, she paused. She drew a long deep breath.

‘Look, Valentino …’

His eyes glinted. ‘Sì?’

‘If for some reason you mistakenly thought …’

‘I thought nothing. You have every right to say no.’ There was a pride and dignity in his bearing that touched her, and she was so relieved to find him civilised and accepting of her rejection, she almost felt a rush of warmth towards him.

‘Oh, look. Thank you for being so …’ Her words dried up and she gestured instead.