a playboy billionaire, but she had obediently chatted to him about growing up on the farm with her father and stepmother, and her two stepsisters.
‘My parents divorced when I was eight, and when Dad married Linda a few years later she brought her daughters, Hazel and Sarah, to live at the farm.’
‘What about your mother?’ Lanzo asked. ‘Why didn’t you live with her after the divorce?’
‘Dad thought it would be better for me to stay with him. My mother had been having an affair behind my father’s back, and one day I came home from school to find a note saying she had left us for one of the labourers Dad had employed on the farm. Mum never stayed in one place for long, or with one man,’ Gina admitted. ‘I visited her occasionally, but I was happier living with Dad and Linda.’
Witnessing her mother’s chaotic lifestyle and her numerous volatile relationships had made Gina realise that she wanted her future to be very different. Marriage, a happy home and children might not be fashionable goals, but she wasn’t ashamed to admit that they were more important to her than a high-flying career.
Lanzo drove her home several times a week, and she slowly grew more relaxed with him—although her intense awareness of him never lessened. He was always charming, but sometimes she sensed a dark mood beneath his smile. There was a restless tension about him, and an air of deep sadness that puzzled and disturbed her, but he never spoke of his personal life and she was too shy to pry.
‘I find you peaceful company, Gina,’ he told her one night when he stopped the car outside the farm gates.
‘Is that a polite way of saying I’m boring?’ she blurted out, wishing with all her heart that he thought she was gorgeous and sexy. Peaceful made her sound like a nun.
‘Of course not. I don’t find you at all boring,’ he assured her quietly. He turned his head towards her, and the brilliant gleam in his green eyes made Gina’s heart lurch. ‘You are very lovely,’ he murmured deeply, before he brushed his mouth over hers in a kiss that was as soft as thistledown and left her yearning for more.
‘I checked the rota and saw that it’s your day off tomorrow. Would you like to come out with me on my boat? ‘
Would she?
She barely slept that night, and the next day when she heard Lanzo’s car pull up on the drive she dashed out to meet him, her face pink with an excitement that at eighteen she was too young and naïve to try and disguise.
It had been a glorious day, Gina remembered, sliding deeper beneath the bathwater. The sun had shone from a cloudless blue sky as Lanzo had steered the luxurious motor cruiser he had chartered out of the harbour. His dark mood seemed to have disappeared, and he’d been charismatic and mouth-wateringly sexy, his faded jeans sitting low on his hips and his chest bared to reveal an impressive six-pack. Gina had watched him with a hungry yearning in her eyes, and her heart had raced when he had pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
They had cruised along the coast, picnicked in a secluded bay, and later he had made love to her in the cabin below deck. The sound of the waves lapping against the boat and the mewing cry of the gulls had mingled with his low murmurs of pleasure when he had stroked his hands over her trembling, eager body.
There had been one moment when her hesitancy had made him pause. ‘It’s not your first time, is it?’ he had asked with a frown.
‘No,’ she’d lied, terrified that he would stop if she admitted the truth.
But he hadn’t stopped. He had kissed her with a feverish passion that had thrilled her, and caressed her with gentle, probing fingers until she had been so aroused that when he had finally entered her there had been no discomfort, just a wonderful sense of completeness—as if she had been waiting all her life for this moment and this man.
The bathwater had cooled, and Gina shivered as she sat up abruptly and reached for a towel. She had not only give Lanzo her virginity that day, she had given him her heart—naïvely not realising that for him sex was simply a pleasurable experience that meant nothing to him. Now she was older and wiser, and she understood that desire and love were not inextricably entwined.
She would not be so careless with her heart again, she thought as she stared at her smudged reflection in the steamed-up mirror. In fact, since her marriage to Simon had proved to be such a mistake, she had lost all confidence in her judgement and wondered if she would ever fall in love again.
But she was not an over-awed eighteen-year-old with a head full of unrealistic expectations, she reminded herself. She knew Lanzo had desired her tonight, and she could not deny her fierce attraction to him. She could not allow her experiences with Simon to ruin the rest of her life, and perhaps a passionate fling with a drop-dead sexy playboy was just what she needed to restore her self-confidence after her divorce? she mused.
But much later that night, when sleep still eluded her, she acknowledged that only a fool played with fire and did not expect to get burned.
CHAPTER THREE
THE Queen of the East was a sixty-metre-long luxury yacht owned by a wealthy Arab sheikh, and was currently moored in St Peter Port off the island of Guernsey. The yacht was certainly impressive, Lanzo thought as he steered his powerboat alongside, shrugged out of his waterproof jacket and prepared to climb aboard.
‘I’m glad you could make it, my friend,’ Sheikh Rashid bin Zayad Hussain greeted him. ‘Your business call was successful, I hope?’
‘Yes, thank you. But I apologise once again for my lateness,’ Lanzo murmured, accepting a glass of champagne from a waiter and glancing around at the other guests who were milling about the yacht’s breathtakingly opulent salon. ‘The refit is superb, Rashid.’
‘I admit I am impressed with the quality of workmanship and attention to detail by Nautica World. The company is small, but Richard Melton has certainly delivered. That is him over there.’ The Sheikh dipped his head slightly. ‘A pleasant fellow—married with two small children, I believe. He has built his company up from nothing, which is no mean feat in these economic times.’
Lanzo followed the Sheikh’s gaze and stiffened with shock. He had been unable to dismiss Gina from his mind for the past twenty-four hours, which had made a mockery of his decision not to contact her again. He desired her, but it was more than that. He was intrigued by her, and curious to discover why she was so different from the girl he had once known.
‘Is the woman with Melton his wife?’ he demanded tersely.
‘The beautiful brunette in the white dress?’ Sheikh Hussain looked over at the Englishman, whose hand was resting lightly on his female companion’s slender waist. ‘No. He simply introduced her as a friend when they came on board. I have met Mrs Melton once, and I understand that she is expecting another child.’ To the Sheikh’s mind there was only one explanation as to the identity of the mystery woman. ‘It would seem that Richard Melton’s good taste extends to his choice of mistress,’ he murmured.
Lanzo’s jaw hardened as he stared at Gina and her male companion. Last night he had puzzled over why she had seemed so wary of him, and had felt concerned that she had been hurt by an event or a person in her past. But now, as he noted her designer dress and the exquisite pearl necklace around her throat, he was sure he had imagined the air of mystery about her, and cynically wondered if she rejected him in favour of a married lover.
‘So, what do you think
