Cesare looked so different. Would he shrug off the veneer of cultured sophistication as easily as he might shrug that impeccably tailored jacket over his broad shoulders…?
Well, she wasn’t going to hang around to find out, Sam reminded herself as the image of Cesare in her head began to shed more than his jacket!
‘I’m not here about the job, Mr Brunelli.’ And she wasn’t here to lust after his body. Lusting was what had got her in this mess to begin with!
His incredible eyes, sloe-dark and framed by preposterously long, curling ebony lashes, were trained directly on her face. Sam felt as if that piercing stare were seeing, not just her face, but the thoughts in her head, and as these thoughts involved him wearing very little it was a deeply disturbing feeling.
Cesare stilled, his hands clenching into fists at his sides as the deep little voice with the unique husky resonance hit him like a slap in the face.
He’d searched for her and been unable to find her, the woman who had appeared in his life then quietly vanished leaving only the scent of her body on his bed sheets to show she had not been a dream.
She was here. She had found him. A slow smile curved his lips as anticipation uncurled in his belly. After the accident his sexual appetite had gone into hibernation, but had been re-awoken with a vengeance by the owner of this voice. When she had vanished so, inexplicably, had his desire.
It was back!
Cesare’s deep voice cut through the stretching silence. ‘Leave us, Tim.’
Tim, who was walking across the room to Sam, stopped in his tracks at the curt request. Cesare could feel the other man’s astonished stare, but ignored it.
‘Leave you?’ Tim echoed as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. His glance slid to Sam. ‘With her?’
‘Yes.’ One corner of Cesare’s mouth lifted and he sketched a sardonic smile.
Sam’s sense of insecurity deepened. She had mentally prepared herself to expect one thing, but this wasn’t it! Not only had Cesare’s appearance undergone a transformation, so had his manner.
The Cesare Brunelli in Scotland had been struggling with demons of self-doubt as he came to terms with what had happened to him. He had been angry and frustrated, his manner abrasive and belligerent.
This man, with his air of unstudied authority, looked as if he’d never experienced a moment of self-doubt in his life!
‘I’ll call if I feel in danger, Tim.’
And what will I do if I feel in danger? Sam thought as she drew a deep breath. She already felt in danger—of losing her mind if nothing else.
This is what I wanted, she reminded herself. But suddenly being alone with Cesare Brunelli no longer seemed so desirable.
‘Hold on, Tim,’ Cesare ordered, and Tim paused. ‘What does she look like?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Is she a blue-eyed blonde, a brown-eyed brunette…?’
Cesare already knew that her face was level with his heart, he knew that her figure was correspondingly petite and the skin that covered those delicious slight curves was smooth and silky. It was a shock for him to recognise how often during the intervening weeks he had thought of the face he had traced with his fingers, the face with the small, determined chin, tip-tilted nose and wide, lush mouth. His musing had been frustrated by the inability to put a colour to her eyes or to know the shade of the long silky tresses he had speared his fingers into and smoothed from her brow.
‘She has deep blue eyes—very blue—and auburn hair,’ Tim said, without looking to check the details. He then looked embarrassed and threw Sam a self-conscious and apologetic look. ‘Sorry.’
Sam shook her head. ‘It isn’t you who has no manners.’ Neither did he have an aura of raw sexuality that made it impossible for a person to relax in his company.
The pointed comment drew a hastily cut-off chuckle from Tim, who then quickly vanished.
The door closed with a click and she took a deep breath. ‘I’m…’
Cesare tilted his head to one side. Red hair explained the temper and meshed perfectly with his mental image. ‘I know who you are, cara. You seem to have made quite an impression on Timothy,’ he stated, not looking entirely pleased by this observation. ‘So a blue-eyed redhead…?’
‘I hardly think the colour of my eyes is relevant.’
‘Possibly, but as we are on such intimate terms… Now, I don’t think we were ever formally introduced…Sam…?’
To his mind a boy’s name was entirely inappropriate for the most feminine woman he had ever encountered.
‘How did you know that it was me?’ She shook her head and directed her wary gaze at his face. ‘You couldn’t, you can’t…’ Unless…?
She took a stumbling step backwards as he began to cross the room towards her, moving with confidence as he negotiated his route past several obstacles including a chair that stood in his way.
If she hadn’t known already it would never have crossed her mind that he was blind.
Maybe he wasn’t any longer?
His next mocking words revealed he had read her thoughts.
‘I may be blind, cara, but I’m not stupid.’
But I am, she thought as she stared at his mouth and thought about it on her skin… She shivered and wrapped her arms around herself protectively. She was glad that he could not see the giveaway action.
‘Then how?’
‘Your voice is very distinctive.’ Low and smoky with a sexy little rasp. The muscles along his taut jaw tightened as his resentment stirred. Like an annoying tune, he hadn’t been able to get that husky sound out of his head.
Or her.
Sam’s fingers clenched and she said quickly, ‘A lot of people have a Scottish accent.’
But only one had that voice.
Cesare had not doubted for one second that this was the woman who had spent that night in Scotland with him. ‘And your perfume…’
He swallowed hard, causing a visible wave of contraction beneath the brown skin of his throat. His nostrils flared as his body responded to the warm floral female scent in his nostrils.
‘I don’t use perfume,’ she protested hoarsely.
He had stopped close enough so that all she had to do was reach out and she could touch him, and she felt an almost overwhelming compulsion to do just that.
This was crazy! She hadn’t come here to revisit this insanity, Sam thought as she gulped and tried to tear her eyes from his beautiful face. She failed—the man was totally compelling.
