face was a picture of dawning dismay. Their love-at-first-sight scenario invited enough questions without those questions reaching fever pitch because they were in separate bedrooms, like a Victorian couple.
‘Now,’ Matteo declared, jettisoning the subject as if suddenly bored with the whole thing, ‘I would come down and have something out of a box or a can with you, but right now I want a shower, and I have a stack of emails to get through, so I’ll have to forfeit the feast.’
He reached for the button on his trousers and Rosie stared open-mouthed for a few seconds before gathering her wits.
‘I hadn’t banked on this,’ she said tightly and he stared at her with disbelieving eyes.
‘And I hadn’t banked on it either,’ he informed her coolly. ‘Right about now, I should have been getting in touch with my housekeeper and readying her for my arrival. Instead…’
Instead, she mentally filled in, here you are, sharing a room with a woman you don’t know, who keeps getting on your nerves with her constant questions, caught up in a crazy game of make-believe.
‘If you’re sure you’re not hungry…’ she muttered, inching a couple of steps back, eyes still fixed on him. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help feverishly wondering what he looked like underneath the expensive clothes. Bronzed and sinewy, she imagined, every cord and muscle defined. She felt faint thinking about it and, when she contemplated the prospect of sharing her bedroom with him, she went into a positive mental tailspin. She eyed the chaise longue by the window.
‘You can make that up.’ She nodded in the direction of the chaise longue. ‘It’s very comfortable.’
Matteo didn’t say anything. He glanced at it, his hooded silver eyes revealing nothing. ‘Like I said,’ he drawled, ‘I’ll do without the food. Now, unless you have no objection to seeing me strip off in front of you…?’
Colour high in her cheeks, Rosie fled, shutting the door behind her.
In the quiet of the kitchen, she hastily prepared some pasta for herself, making good use of a number of tins. Comfort eating. Her head was full of the ramifications of her very small, practically invisible little white lie. Everything had snowballed and now here she was, with the sexiest man on the planet upstairs in her bedroom. Her nerves were shredded. When she thought of Matteo, everything inside her went into meltdown. Physically, she felt faint when she closed her eyes and pictured him in all his over-the-top sexiness. He was just so breathtakingly beautiful.
But it wasn’t just confined to the way he looked. If that had been the sum total of it, then she could have steeled herself against the impact, because a good-looking guy without personality was just a cardboard cut-out to be admired without any threat of him getting under your skin.
No. Matteo’s extraordinary effect on her was all wrapped up in the power of his personality, his air of command, and now that she had eked out a couple of personal details the fallibility she could sense underneath the cloak of arrogant self-assurance.
He posed questions, he ignited her imagination, he stirred depths of curiosity she’d never known she possessed.
Absorbed in hectic speculation, she ate without thinking—the pasta, some salad that looked dangerously close to needing last rites performed then a slab of chocolate dessert that was just the thing to settle her mind.
She was startled when she heard the sound of the door opening and then there was Candice, shedding outer layers of snow-covered gear as she breezed into the kitchen, pink-faced and smiling.
‘I really miss the little monsters.’ She headed straight to the fridge to pull out a bottle of mineral water. ‘But—’ she looked at Rosie with a grin ‘—some time out is a wonderful thing. Had a ball. So nice to catch up with that crew. Where’s Matteo?’
‘He’s…um…working.’
‘Working?’ She kept her eyes fixed on Rosie’s flushed face as she drank from the bottle before lowering it. ‘Where? In Dad’s office? Surely he can pack in the work for a few days…if he’s head over heels in love with you?’
‘Well, you know how it goes when it comes to men and…er…work.’ Rosie offered vaguely. Her sisters had always had the ability to pin her to the spot with their penetrating blue eyes and she was pinned to the spot now, unable to move forward and incapable of shuffling back.
‘Tell me.’
‘Lucien works all the hours under the sun, or have you forgotten?’
‘He’s a surgeon,’ Candice responded drily. ‘Lives depend on him. It’s early days for you both, Rosie. I would have expected him to have made a little time for you, especially considering the time of year, when most businesses are operating at a much slower pace.’
Rosie remained steadfastly silent. A fierce defensiveness for her so-called boyfriend suddenly kicked into gear allied to the stubborn need to stand her ground. Where had that come from?
‘He isn’t where he is because he’s a slacker, Candice,’ she said without the usual note of apology in her voice. ‘Sometimes work can take over, and not necessarily because lives are at stake. Lucien might save lives on an operating table, but Matteo and how he runs his businesses can affect the livelihoods of lots of people who work for him.’
Candice stared.
‘I consider myself duly told off. Second time for the evening. The only reason I sound nosy…’ She sighed. ‘Okay, I’ve researched the guy,’ she confessed, ‘And he’s big stuff, Rosie. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I recognised the name, but I honestly thought I was mistaken because I couldn’t believe that someone who doesn’t even breathe the same air as we do could…well…’
‘Find me attractive? Thanks very much.’
‘It’s not that at all!’ Candice said quickly. ‘I can’t help being protective of you—he’s out of your league, Rosebud. For a start, the sort of women he dates…’
‘I know. He likes high-powered career women.’
‘So he told you? I’m impressed with his honesty on that front, at least. Of course, Emily’s heard of him, and so has Robert. But, from everything I’ve read and heard, he’s so far up the pecking order that you literally have to be a billionaire to have much personal contact with him at all on the business level.’
Frankly, Rosie couldn’t help thinking, the more Candice elaborated, the less likely it seemed that someone like Matteo would even glance in the direction of someone like her. Not unless they had temporarily taken leave of their senses. Christmas madness. Except, he didn’t do Christmas.
‘But of course,’ Candice continued, flipping open the bin and dumping the plastic bottle into the recycling section, ‘Opposites do attract, I’ll give you that.’
‘They do…’ Rosie smiled to herself, remembering what Matteo had said earlier.
‘There’s no accounting for people when they fall in love.’
Fall in love? Was that the story doing the rounds? And was it spreading like a forest fire beyond the family unit?
‘Well…’
