in and join you?’ He put his hand to the first button on his jeans and shot her a questioning look, but the sight of her dark-eyed confusion made him relent just as Rupert came round the corner.
‘Cesare! There you are! Oh, I see you’ve met Sorcha. Hello, little sister—how are you?’
‘Very well,’ she said, biting her lip and dipping down into the water in the hope that its coolness might get rid of her embarrassed flush. ‘Considering that no one came to meet me at the station.’ But she was angry with herself, and with the black-eyed Italian for having made her feel…what?
Desire?
Longing?
She frosted him a look—which wasn’t easy on a boiling hot day when your hair was plastered to your head and your heart was racing so much that it felt as if it was going to leap out of your chest. ‘Cesare?’ she questioned acidly, wondering why the name sounded familiar.
‘Cesare di Arcangelo,’ he said. ‘Rupert and I were at school together.’
‘Remember I told you about the Italian who bowled women down like ninepins?’ laughed Rupert. ‘Owns banks and department stores all over Italy?’
‘No,’ answered Sorcha in a voice of icy repression. ‘I don’t believe I do. Rupert, would you mind handing me my towel?’
‘Please, allow me.’ Cesare had picked up the rather worn beachtowel and was handing it towards her, holding her gaze with his black eyes. Her coolness intrigued him, for he had never experienced it from a woman before, and her lack of eagerness hinted at a pride and self-possession which was all too rare.
‘Forgive me,’ he murmured as he held the towel out. ‘But I couldn’t resist teasing you.’ Yet his mockery had been deliberately sensual, and it had been wrong. He had noted her reluctant, embarrassed response—and now he could have kicked himself for subjecting a beautiful young woman to such an onslaught.
He sighed. Her mouth looked as if it were composed of two folded fragrant rose petals which he would have travelled the world to kiss. And he had behaved like some impacciato idiot.
And she is the sister of your friend—she is out of bounds.
‘Will you forgive me?’ he persisted.
He sounded as if it mattered, and Sorcha found she couldn’t hold out against what seemed to be genuine contrition in his eyes.
‘I might,’ she said tartly. ‘But you’ll have to make it up to me.’
He gave a low laugh. ‘And how will I go about doing that? Any ideas?’ he questioned innocently, and something passed between them at that moment which he had never felt before. The rocket. The thunderbolt. Colpo di fulmine. Some random and overwhelming outside force—a kind of unspoken understanding—which took the universe into the palm of a gigantic hand and began to spin it out of control.
‘I’ll…I’ll think of something,’ said Sorcha breathlessly.
‘Anything,’ he murmured, and at that moment he meant it. ‘And it’s yours.’
There was an odd kind of silence and then Sorcha hauled herself out of the pool in one fluid movement, water streaming down her long legs. Never had she been so conscious of her body as in the presence of this Italian.
‘Cesare’s come to cast his expert eye over the Robinsons’ latest business plan,’ said Rupert. ‘I’m hoping I might be able to persuade him to look at ours!’
The Robinsons were their nearest neighbours—fabulously rich, with four eligible sons—one of whom their sister Emma had been dating since her schooldays.
‘Does that mean I have to be nice to him?’ Sorcha asked.
Black eyes now mocked her. ‘Very.’
But as she draped the towel over her shoulders Cesare averted his eyes from the body which gleamed like a seal in the tight, wet swimsuit. And wasn’t it strange how the smallest courtesy could make you feel safe with a man who was danger personified?
‘Do you ride?’ she asked suddenly.
Cesare smiled. ‘Do I?’
That was how it started. He’d set off for the Robinsons first thing and return about lunchtime, and Sorcha would be waiting for him in the stables. He would saddle up and they would gallop out together over the lush fields. And the way her face lit up when she saw him would stab at his heart in a strange and painful way.
‘Bet Italy is never as green as this,’ she said one afternoon, when they had dismounted and their horses were grazing and she and Cesare were sitting—sweating slightly—beneath the shade of a big oka tree.
‘Umbria is very green,’ he said.
‘Is that where you live?’
‘It is where I consider home,’ he said, trying and failing not to be rapt by the distracting vision of her breasts thrusting against the fine silk of her riding shirt, her slim legs in jodhpurs and those long, sexy leather boots. He stifled a groan and shifted uncomfortably as she lay on her back, looking up at the leaves.
The air was different today. It felt thick and heavy—as if you could cut through it with a knife—and in the distance was the low murmur of approaching thunder. It reminded him of the storms back home, and the warmth of the soil and the pleasures of the flesh. Cesare could feel a rivulet of sweat trickle down his back, and suddenly he longed to feel her tongue tracing its meandering salty path.
‘Really?’ she questioned.
He blinked. Really, what? Oh, yes. The weather in Umbria—just what he wanted to talk about! ‘We have many storms close to Panicale, where I live—but that is why we have such fertile soil.’ Fertile. Now, why the hell was he thinking about that?
‘Have you always lived in Umbria?’ Sorcha persisted, because she wanted to know every single thing about him—what he liked for breakfast and what music he listened to, and where was the most beautiful place he’d ever been—‘Umbria, naturally,’ he had replied gravely.
‘No,’ he sighed, ‘I grew up in Rome.’
‘Tell me,’ she whispered.
What was it about women that made them want to tear your soul apart with their questions? And what was it about Sorcha that made him tell her? But he was spare with his facts—a houseful of servants and ever-changing nannies while his parents lived out their jet-set existence. A childhood he did not care to relive in his memory.
And suddenly he could bear it no longer. ‘You know that I am having difficulty behaving as a house-guest should behave?’ he questioned unsteadily.
Dreamily, Sorcha watched the shimmering canopy of leaves. ‘Oh?’
‘I want to kiss you.’
She sat up, oblivious to the creamy spill of her cleavage, or the effect it was having on him. On her face was an expression of a tight and bursting excitement—like a child who had just been given a big pile of presents to open.
‘Then
