lurch as she waited for that intrusive yet strangely compelling image of Niccolò da Conti’s baby to subside.
She waited a minute before typing cute Christmas cottage into her browser. Because cute was exactly what she needed right now, she told herself. Cute stood a chance of making a cynical man melt so you might be able to work out what made him tick. Scrolling down, she stared at the clutch of country cottages which appeared on the screen.
Perfect.
THE FLURRIES WERE getting stronger and Niccolò cursed as he headed along the narrow country lane.
Why could nothing ever be straightforward? Glancing in his rear-view mirror at the swirl of snowflakes which was obscuring his view, he scowled. He’d given Alannah a credit card and told her to book a hotel in town and she’d done the exact opposite—directing him to some godforsaken spot deep in the countryside, while she went on ahead earlier.
Well, in terms of distance he wasn’t actually that far from London but he might as well be in middle of his friend Murat’s Qurhahian desert for all the sense he could make of his bearings. The sudden onset of heavy snow had made the world look like an alien place and it was difficult to get his bearings. Familiar landmarks had disappeared. The main roads were little more than white wastelands and the narrow lanes had begun to resemble twisting snakes of snow.
Glancing at his satnav, he could see he was only four minutes away, but he was damned if he could see any hotel. He’d passed the last chocolate-boxy village some way back and now an arrow was indicating he take the left fork in the road, through an impenetrable-looking line of trees.
Still cursing, he turned off the road, his powerful headlights illuminating the swirling snowflakes and turning them golden. Some people might have considered the scene pretty, but he wasn’t in the mood for pretty scenery. He wanted a drink, a shower and sex in exactly that order and he wanted them now.
Following the moving red arrow, he drove slowly until at last he could see a lighted building in the distance, but it looked too small to be a hotel. His mouth hardened. Something that small could only ever be described as a cottage.
He could see a thatched roof covered with a thick dusting of snow and an old-fashioned lamp lit outside a front door, on which hung a festive wreath of holly and ivy. Through latticed windows a woman was moving around—her fall of raven hair visible, even from this distance. His hands tightened around the steering wheel as he brought the car to a halt and got out—his shoes sinking noiselessly into the soft, virgin carpet.
He rang the bell—one of those old-fashioned bells you only ever saw on ships, or in movies. He could hear the sudden scurrying of movement and footsteps approaching and then the door opened and Alannah stood there, bathed in muted rainbow light.
His body tensing, he stepped inside and the door swung violently shut behind him. His senses were immediately bombarded by the scene in front of him but, even so, the first thing he noticed was her dress. Who could fail to notice a dress like that?
It wasn’t so much the golden silk, which skimmed her curves and made her look like a living treasure, it was the scooped neck showing unfamiliar inches of creamy skin and the soft swell of her breasts. She had even positioned the glittery grasshopper brooch so that it looked poised to hop straight onto her nipple. Had she started to relax enough to stop covering her body up in that old puritanical way? he wondered.
But even this wasn’t enough to hold his attention for long. His gaze moved behind her, where a fire was blazing—with two wing chairs on either side. Sprigs of holly had been placed above the paintings and, yes, there was the inevitable sprig of mistletoe dangling from the ceiling. On a low table a bowl was filled with clementines and in the air he could scent something cooking, rich with the scent of cinnamon and spice. But it was the Christmas tree which jarred most. A fresh fir tree with coloured lights looped all over the fragrant branches from which hung matching baubles of gold.
He flinched, but she didn’t seem to notice as she wound her arms around his neck and positioned her lips over his. ‘Merry Christmas,’ she whispered.
Like a drowning man he fought against her feminine softness and the faint drift of pomegranate which clung to her skin. Disentangling her arms, he took a step back as he felt the clutch of ice around his heart.
‘What’s going on?’ he questioned.
She blinked, as if something in his voice had alerted her to the fact that all was not well. ‘It’s a surprise.’
‘I don’t like surprises.’
Her eyes now held a faint sense of panic. Was she realising just how wrong she’d got it? he wondered grimly. He could see her licking her lips and the anger inside him seemed to bubble and grow.
‘I thought about booking a hotel in London,’ she said quickly. ‘But I thought you’d probably stayed in all those places before, or somewhere like them. And then I thought about creating a real Christmas, right here in the countryside.’
‘A real Christmas,’ he repeated slowly.
‘That’s right.’ She gestured towards a box of truffles on the table, as if the sight of chocolate were going to make him have a sudden change of heart. ‘I went online at Selfridges and ordered a mass of stuff from their food hall. It was still much cheaper than a hotel. That’s a ham you can smell cooking and I’ve bought fish too, because I know in Europe you like to eat fish at Christmas. Oh, and mince pies, of course.’
‘I hate mince pies.’
‘You don’t…’ Her voice faltered, as if she could no longer ignore the harsh note of censure in his voice. ‘You don’t have to eat them.’
‘I hate Christmas, full stop,’ he said viciously. ‘I already told you that, Alannah—so which part of the sentence did you fail to understand?’
Her fingers flew over her lips and, with the silky dress clinging to her curves, she looked so like a medieval damsel in distress that he was momentarily tempted to pull her into his arms and blot out everything with sex.
But only momentarily. Because then he looked up and saw the Christmas angel on top of the tree and something about those gossamer-fine wings made his heart clench with pain. He felt the walls of the tiny cottage closing in on him as a dark tide of unwanted emotion washed over him.
‘Which part, Alannah?’ he repeated.
She held out the palms of her hands in a gesture of appeal. ‘I thought—’
‘What did you think?’ he interrupted savagely. ‘That you could treat me like your tame puppet? Playing happy couples around the Christmas tree and indulging in some happy-ever-after fantasy, just because we’ve had sex and I asked to spend the holidays with you, since we were both at a loose end?’
‘Actually,’ she said, walking over to the blaze of the fire and turning back to stare at him, ‘I thought about how soulless it might be—having a corporate Christmas in some horrible anonymous hotel. I thought that with the kind of life you lead, you might like some home cooking for a change.’
‘But I don’t do home. Don’t you get that?’ he questioned savagely. He saw a small, rectangular present lying
