the tender, responsive flesh below her collarbone.
‘I didn’t mean to upset you,’ he said, his voice rough, his mouth compressed. His fingers slid upwards, slowly, resting against the long, pure line of her throat. And she felt the tremor take hold of his lean body, ripple through him, and the words she would have said dried again in her throat.
Fluttering, her long lashes drifted upwards, and what she saw in those dark, hooded eyes made her heart stand still. Slowly the tip of her tongue moistened her parched lips, and she saw him close his eyes, heard the raw sound he made deep in his throat, and melted towards him instinctively, her hands splaying against his chest, nudging aside the elegant jacket to feel the warmth of his body beneath the thin covering of crisp linen, feel the heavy beat of his heart. Then she heard the rough intake of his breath as he gently set her aside and said unevenly, ‘We’ll be late for dinner. Come along, now, there’s a good girl.’
And Venetia tilted her head and gave him a long, lancing glance of triumph, gave him her bewitching smile before demurely falling in step beside him. He might treat her as if she were a child. But that wasn’t the way his body reacted to her at all!
And soon, very soon now, she would insinuate herself beneath his guard and make him admit that he wanted her just as much as she wanted him!
CHAPTER TWO
BUT it wasn’t easy. Carlo Rossi had a will of iron. Days passed, and then a full week had gone by, and he had turned down all her sightseeing suggestions with that slight, ironic smile, preferring, obviously, to spend time with her father at head office, returning with him in the evening, leaving Venetia kicking her heels at home, fuming.
And over the long, unhurried dinners that had lasted well into the amethyst evenings he’d kept his conversation with her to a polite minimum, and when he wasn’t discussing business with her father he talked of his homeland, reminding the older man of his forsaken roots.
But Venetia hadn’t given up hope. On a few occasions she’d turned and surprised the hooded, hungry look in his eyes, and known that he was deliberately erecting a wall between them, and set herself the problem of how to break through it.
On some deeply primitive masculine level he did want her, she knew it. She’d seen the need smouldering darkly in his fantastic eyes, catching him unawares, her own need leaping to match his before he’d pulled the shutters down, locking her out with a tiny derisive smile, the hunger masked by a blank indifference that made her want to throw back her head and howl, stamp her feet with frustration.
Because every day that passed, every hour, reinforced her love, her wanting. Nothing else mattered; her need of him had bitten deep into her psyche, expanding until it filled her whole being. And for the first time in her life she was not being given what she wanted!
‘Phone, for you.’ Potty trundled out on to the terrace, where Venetia was kicking her heels, furious because, early as she had risen, pulling on a pair of shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, Carlo had beaten her to it.
Today was Saturday and he wouldn’t be going in to the office with her father, and she’d been determined to persuade him to spend time with her, walking, making use of the swimming-pool, anything.
But when she’d arrived downstairs the housekeeper had told her that Carlo had set out on foot an hour ago to ‘see something of the countryside’, and she’d been out here ever since, cursing herself for sleeping until seven when, if she’d surfaced an hour earlier, she could have set out with him. The man was impossible! How could she break down that wall if he refused to stay still long enough to give her the opportunity to try?
Her mind, as usual, totally preoccupied with thoughts of Carlo Rossi, she took the call in the library, frowning impatiently as Simon said in his light, pleasant voice, ‘Sorry to call you at the crack, but I wanted to confirm the time for tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ Venetia echoed blankly, hooking a strand of long silky hair behind a small, perfectly shaped ear, and Simon reminded amusedly,
‘Your friend’s eighteenth birthday party, remember? What time shall I pick you up?’
‘Oh, that.’ She had forgotten all about Natasha’s coming-of-age celebrations. Normally, she wouldn’t have missed it for a king’s ransom. But circumstances weren’t normal. Nothing could drag her away, no matter how glittering the party, while there was the remotest chance of spending time with Carlo. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said. ‘I’m not going.’ Then, because the silence on the other end of the line was speaking volumes, she tacked on, ‘I’m sorry, I should have let you know earlier. But we have a house guest. I’m fully occupied keeping him entertained...’ Oh, would that that were true! ‘You must have met him. Carlo Rossi...’ Even the sound of his name on her tongue sent hungry yearnings skittering through her, and she went on breathlessly, ‘He’s been following my father to the office each day.’
‘Hardly following.’ Simon gave a short, humourless laugh. ‘Dragging everyone behind him is more like it! He’s turned the distribution network upside-down, gone through the accounts with a magnifying glass, and got everyone working in top gear.’
‘Can he do that?’ Venetia queried, her eyes shining. She didn’t doubt his ability to take complete and total charge wherever he was. His aura of domination, of utter self-assurance, had been one of the many characteristics that had made such an immediate impact on her. But she asked the question all the same because, apart from feasting her eyes on him, talking about him was her favourite occupation.
‘You’d better believe it,’ Simon told her drily. ‘His father handed over his forty-nine per cent of the shares in Ross UK to him, and that gives him a whole lot of clout. But, that apart, he’s a natural top dog; one look at him is enough to make anyone with any sense toe the line! Mind you,’ he added grudgingly, ‘his organisational abilities come out of the top drawer, you can’t argue with that. He sees solutions to problems before the rest of we lesser mortals recognise there’s a problem at all.’
Venetia could have listened to this kind of thing for hours, but Simon had other ideas.
‘Are you sure about tonight? It could be a whole load of fun, and we could go on to a nightclub later, just the two of us,’ he coaxed. ‘The old man doesn’t need to know what time we leave your friend’s birthday party.’
‘Get lost!’ Venetia pulled a face at the receiver before crashing it down.
Simon was getting too uppity. He must know she tolerated his sexual come-ons, parrying them with firm good humour, only because to refuse to have anything more to do with him socially would mean she’d be stuck at home missing out on all the fun until her father came up with a replacement escort he felt he could trust with his precious offspring!
But if he was starting to refer to her father as ‘the old man’ in that disrespectful tone, suggesting they deceive him, then she was prepared to slap him down in no uncertain manner and stay home every night into the foreseeable future!
Besides, she thought as she hunched her shoulders and wandered listlessly out of the room, Carlo was the only man she wanted to be with. The trouble was, he was making it clear that he had no wish to be with her!
And then she stopped right in the middle of the huge hall as the perfect idea hit her. It was so perfect—it couldn’t be faulted!
A smile curved her full lips, her eyes sparkling with the resurgence of the confidence that had gone
