remark cut through the haze of desire that had engulfed her, innate apprehension gripping her. Do what? Suddenly she was aware again, conscious that her legs were pinned round him and that her skirt had to be somewhere up round her waist. Shock reverberated through her like a hard wakening slap on the face. ‘Put me down!’ she exclaimed in horror. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this!’
Dante lowered her slowly, reluctantly, back down to the tiles while with frantic hands she yanked down her skirt to cover her exposed thighs. She was appalled by her own loss of control and the false message of availability she had no doubt given him by responding to him in such a way. She didn’t play around and she didn’t tease men either, and as her stomach brushed against his hard, taut length on the passage back to standing on her own feet again she knew he was in no mood to be teased. He was aroused, fully aroused, and a wave of discomfited pink engulfed her heart-shaped face. Her brain told her it had only been a kiss, but no kiss, no man’s touch had ever had that explosive an effect on Topsy before, and even as she stole a glance up at him she knew she wanted to drag him back into her arms and have him do it again. Hands unsteady, she reached for the shoulder bag that had fallen on the patio and anchored it round her shoulder again.
‘Is that a “no” in Topsy land or simply a prudent “not here, not now”?’ Dante enquired with terrifyingly smooth assurance.
‘It’s a no, never. I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened. I work for your mother. I don’t think she would like me—’
‘I assure you that it is many, many years since my mother worried about who I take to my bed,’ Dante sliced in very drily.
Flustered and intensely ill at ease, Topsy walked away from him on stiff legs to the edge of the patio, perspiration beading her upper lip as the hot sun beat down on her. Drowning in mortification and consternation at the passion that had exploded between them, Topsy breathed in jerkily. ‘But in the circumstances it’s not a good idea, let’s face it,’ she reasoned steadily. ‘I’ve no intention of going to bed with you anyway so there’s no point starting something that won’t go to the finish that you expect.’
‘I’ll take you into Florence this evening...we’ll dine out,’ Dante declared as though she hadn’t spoken.
Topsy froze, registering that she had made a mistake that would bring punishment home to her fast. ‘I’ve already got a date tonight.’
Ashamed as she was of her behaviour, Topsy could not resist looking at him again and the astonishment that briefly flashed across his handsome features in reaction to that admission only increased her embarrassment.
‘I don’t share—cancel him,’ Dante advised, taken aback by her statement while wondering if she was reluctant to dally with him because she already had Vittore in her sights. Certainly she could not hope to keep two men in the same household interested.
‘No, I won’t do that, not when this was a mistake...but for your information, it’s a first date. I haven’t cheated on anyone,’ she confided on a driven note of pride. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’
Dante shrugged a broad shoulder as if such restraints had no meaning for him and she was even less impressed by that attitude. ‘We’re both single. I want you and you want me—’
‘For a moment of madness,’ Topsy quipped. ‘But I’m glad it didn’t go any further.’
‘Liar...’ Dante murmured soft and low.
That fast she wanted to slap him so hard that her palm tingled and she flashed him a flaring look of such seething anger that he looked taken aback. But if Topsy was furious with him, she was equally furious with herself. She had come to Italy with a real purpose and, while she had certainly planned to enjoy the freedom of meeting men without family supervision, a fleeting affair with her employer’s son would be as inappropriate as it was humiliating. Her stubborn chin came up just as Gaetano strolled out to join them, flicking her a curious glance as if he had picked up on the tension in the air.
‘Anything I can help you with?’ he prompted Dante. ‘Do you want to see the upper floor?’
‘Another time,’ Dante deferred with no expression at all. He had known the Massaro family all his life and he was well aware that Gaetano would be out of his depth and drowning with a little schemer like Topsy. Was Gaetano being used as cover for the girl’s interest in Vittore? If his marriage crashed and burned, Vittore would be a wealthy divorcee well worth pursuing. But if money was Topsy’s goal, and what else could it be, why was she turning down Dante, who was a much more lucrative target? His face set into forbidding lines. Of course Vittore would be easier meat, he reasoned, and some women preferred older men. That suspicion still rankled with a male who had not, in living memory, been turned down by a woman.
Topsy settled back into the Pagani sports car and strove to rigorously ignore the thunderous undertones in the atmosphere. She had said no and he wasn’t pleased that she had but she had made the right decision; she knew she had. Getting involved with Dante would be disastrous even though she wasn’t foolish enough to imagine that he was considering anything more than a brief sexually entertaining fling. Although she had no doubt that he would be seriously disappointed by her lack of bedroom expertise. She knew that rich international bankers didn’t seriously date humble employees unless said humble employee was possessed of extraordinary beauty. The only exception to the rule was her sister Emmie, who had ended up marrying her Greek billionaire boss, Bastian Christou.
While Saffy, Zahir’s adored queen, and her twin Emmie could stop traffic with their looks, Topsy had long since resigned herself to being the plain one of the family, having inherited neither the height, the flawless features nor the blonde manes bestowed by their mother’s genes. Kat was a redhead and stunning as well. At an early age, Topsy had grasped that her own most notable talent was her powerful intellect but that being cleverer than most of the people around her was not so much a gift as a curse. It certainly didn’t make you popular, she reflected, thinking of the brutal bullying she had endured at primary school. Being different from the norm could entail paying a high price.
Her mobile phone rang in her bag and she dug it out to answer it.
‘It’s Mikhail. I’m in Milan and you’re not where you’re supposed to be,’ her brother-in-law told her succinctly, making her lose colour and freeze in dismay at her end of the phone, quite unprepared to deal with the bombshell that her cover story had blown up in her face when she least expected it.
‘I had no idea you were coming to Italy,’ she muttered, nervous tension gripping her for Mikhail, Kat’s husband, was not a man she felt she could lie to with impunity.
‘And unfortunately for you your school friend, Gabrielle, decided to confess and admitted that you were actually staying in Tuscany. We’ll meet in Florence tomorrow for lunch and you’ll explain then fully what’s going on,’ he decreed without an ounce of hesitation, making her feel like one of his many minions who leapt to do his bidding and fulfil his every request.
‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible,’ Topsy said stiffly.
‘Make it possible,’ her Russian brother-in-law advised in a grim tone that brooked no argument. ‘I’ll send a limo to pick you up at noon.’
‘That won’t be necessary. I’ll meet you if you tell me where to go.’
‘I decide what’s necessary and don’t feed your sisters any more nonsense or tell my wife anything that might worry her,’ he told her sternly.
Topsy
