Lorenzo gave a sigh of relief as he gazed around his spacious hotel suite. After so many intensive, if stimulating business meetings in Zurich and Bonn, he was now looking forward to spending a more relaxing time in London.
Feeling hot and sticky, he slipped off the jacket of his dark suit, loosening his tie and stretching his long rangy body as he decided that, before having a shower, what he really needed was a stiff drink.
Even when travelling first-class, air travel these days was becoming increasingly tedious. It was ridiculous to be forced to spend so many long, boring hours in various terminals—especially when the flights themselves took hardly any time at all. With his company’s business expanding so fast nowadays, maybe it was about time he acquired a private jet?
Luckily, he had only one meeting scheduled here in London, with a large private merchant bank, mainly concerning the funding of a new factory in the north of England. Which meant that he would have plenty of time to see his friends, and also visit his young niece, currently attending a language school in Cambridge.
But first of all, he reminded himself grimly, he was going to have to sort out this stupid business of being forced to put up with a bodyguard.
In regular touch with his office in Milan, he’d been informed by his secretary that the insurance company seemed to have pulled out all the stops. Not only had they appointed someone from a top security agency to look after him here in England, but they’d apparently sent his office a fax, demanding exhaustive details of his personal life.
Admittedly, some of the requests—a photocopy of his passport; his blood group; his height and weight and the name and address of his doctor in Milan—could possibly be regarded as sensible. Especially if he was likely to be in any danger—which, of course, he wasn’t.
However, he deeply resented some of the other questions, such as: ‘Does he have any aliases?’ and ‘Is he on a known hit list? Or affiliated with any political group?’
Who on earth did they think he was…James Bond?
In fact, Lorenzo told himself, slowly sipping his whisky and staring moodily out of the large, floor-to-ceiling windows at the traffic swirling around Hyde Park Corner, the whole business was obviously becoming a total farce.
And if this bodyguard…what was his name? He turned to pick up the message from Worldwide Security Inc., which he’d been handed on his arrival at the hotel. If this man, Tony Simpson, thought that Lorenzo was prepared to meekly accept being closely shadowed day and night, he was very much mistaken!
He’d had time, over the past few days, to give the matter some thought, and it looked as if his best solution to the problem would be to simply outbid the insurance company, by offering to double or even treble Mr Simpson’s salary—provided he would leave Lorenzo alone. A decision, he told himself, which had the great virtue of both simplicity—and a way in which to satisfy the needs of everyone concerned.
Some time later, after deciding to forgo a shower in favour of a long, leisurely bath, Lorenzo found himself feeling a good deal more cheerful.
He’d obviously been in danger of allowing himself to become far too obsessed about having to put up with a bodyguard, he told himself ruefully as his long, tanned fingers quickly knotted his black bow-tie.
In fact, he’d do better to concentrate on the pleasure of renewing his acquaintance, this evening, with some old friends—who’d been kind enough to invite him to join them at the Albert Hall for a gala performance of excerpts from Verdi’s opera Otello.
While he was smiling at the idea of an Italian travelling hundreds of miles to attend a performance of one of his own country’s famous composers, Lorenzo’s thoughts were sharply interrupted by the sound of a loud knock on the door of his suite.
Walking over to open the door, and fully expecting to see a member of the hotel staff—or the chauffeur of the limousine which had been placed at his disposal during his visit to London—Lorenzo was surprised to find himself staring down into the cool grey eyes of a tall, slim young woman.
‘Signor Foscari?’
‘Sì,’ he responded, before quickly realising that the female standing in front of him was clearly English. ‘Yes…yes, I am Lorenzo Foscari. Can I be of any assistance?’ he added politely.
‘Well…I think that it’s probably the other way round,’ she said with a quick smile, before putting out her hand towards him. ‘I’m Antonia Simpson. I believe you are expecting me.’
Momentarily confused by the fact that she obviously knew his name, Lorenzo found himself automatically shaking the proffered hand, his puzzlement increasing as she gave him another brief smile, before moving swiftly past his tall figure and entering the large sitting room.
‘This is all very comfortable,’ she commented, quickly scanning the room with its deep sofas and large armchairs, whose pale cream upholstery matched the off-white raw silk curtains surrounding the tall windows. ‘And you’ve got a great view of both Aspley House and Hyde Park Corner, haven’t you?’ she added, moving over to gaze out of the tall windows.
‘Yes, it seems I have,’ he murmured, leaning casually against the architrave of the open doorway of the sitting room, and regarding his unknown visitor with some amusement.
Lorenzo had travelled widely around the world on business over the past few years. Which was why his first, instinctive reaction to the sudden appearance of a strange female at the door of his suite had been to immediately assume that she was up to no good. Mainly, of course, because loose women frequently plied their trade in the world’s top hotels—despite all attempts by respectable hoteliers to keep them well away from their premises.
However, after a long, searching glance at the slim, well-dressed figure in front of him, he swiftly discarded that notion.
With a mother and two much older sisters—not to mention a considerable number of sophisticated girlfriends—he knew enough about women’s apparel to immediately recognise the hallmark design of a very expensive handbag, hanging from her shoulder on its thin gold chain. Moreover, the scoop-necked, sleeveless black silk cocktail dress—expertly cut to skim lightly over the curves of her tall, athletic body—clearly hadn’t come cheap, either.
In fact, from the tips of her toes in those high-heeled shoes, up to the discreet sparkle of small diamond earrings, half hidden behind her shoulder-length blonde hair, this young woman was clearly a class act. So…what on earth was she doing here?
Standing across the room and taking a good, hard look at her new client, Antonia found herself feeling both surprised and slightly taken aback. Not merely because this man seemed to have an almost perfect command of the English language, with only a slight accent betraying his country of origin. Or the fact that he was so tall—most Italians of her acquaintance being far shorter and more rotund.
It was just…well…there hadn’t been time for the agency to send her a photograph, of course. However, while she wouldn’t have described him as classically handsome—not with that long aquiline nose and those high cheekbones—there was no doubt that Signor Foscari was a quite amazingly attractive man.
Maybe it was something to do with the hint of laughter glinting from beneath his heavy eyelids, thickly fringed with long black lashes? Or the warm, amused curve of his lips? But, even on the other side of this large room, she was almost physically aware of the highly potent, heady attraction of rampant sex appeal, which
