call me that!’ she snapped. ‘And you’re not coming in—’
A brown lean-fingered hand curved round the door in silent threat and he moved forward but Ellie stood her ground. She had faced drunks in A & E, dealt with drug addicts and violent people, and she wasn’t about to be intimidated by Rio Benedetti.
‘I don’t think you want me to say what I have to say out here where I could be overheard,’ Rio murmured sibilantly. ‘It won’t embarrass me—’
‘Nothing embarrasses you!’ Ellie snapped with very real loathing.
‘It’s about Beppe...Beppe Sorrentino,’ Rio extended, watching her face like a hawk.
And Ellie surprised herself by stepping back to let him into the room because she absolutely had to know what he had to say on that subject. She knew he didn’t know the mission she was on in Italy and that she wanted to try to establish her father’s identity. She was convinced that Rashad was far too reserved and protective of his own wife’s privacy to have shared anything but the sketchiest details about Ellie and Polly’s background. But that Rio should even know Beppe’s name disturbed her.
‘You can come in for five minutes...five minutes only,’ Ellie negotiated thinly. ‘And then I want you to go away and forget you ever knew me.’
Rio’s beautiful mouth curled, his whole carriage screaming that he wasn’t convinced by that claim.
‘And I warn you... If you smirk, I will slap you again.’
‘I DO NOT SMIRK,’ Rio retorted very drily.
‘Oh, yes, you do... You always look awfully pleased with yourself!’ Ellie snapped back, her nerves all of a quiver and her brain no longer in control of her tongue because Rio in a confined space was too much for her.
It wasn’t a large room. She had gone for cheap and cheerful in the accommodation stakes because she was planning to stay for an entire month in Italy and a classier room would have swallowed her budget within two weeks. But in a room already crowded with a double bed and a big wardrobe, Rio stole all the available space because he was very tall, at least six foot three and large from his broad shoulders to his lean hips and long, powerful legs. Her momentarily distracted gaze ran over the entirety of his sculpted physique, outlined as it was by a wickedly tailored suit that was sufficiently sophisticated to strike a formal note, but which also sensually delineated his muscular strength with fidelity. Colour flared in her pale face as she suddenly realised what she was doing and glanced away, her mouth running dry, her breathing disrupted and her thoughts overpowered by the stricken fear that he could somehow guess what she felt by the way she looked at him. Guess that she hated him but still thought he was gorgeous and incredibly tempting and incredibly bad for her like too much ice cream...
‘Let’s cut to the chase. What are you doing in Tuscany?’ Rio demanded and it was a demand as only Rio could make it, every accented vowel laced with command and hostility.
‘That’s none of your business,’ Ellie told him flatly.
‘Beppe’s my business... He’s my godfather.’ Lustrous dark eyes landed on her like laser beams, watching her face, keen to construe her expression.
Ellie froze in receipt of the very bad news he had just dropped on her from a height and in a defensive move she lowered her eyes. Rio actually knew Beppe Sorrentino and, even worse, had a familial relationship with the older man.
‘You wrote to him looking for information about some woman he met well over twenty years ago,’ he prompted doggedly, his dismissal of the likelihood of such a request clear in every word.
‘Not some woman, my mother,’ Ellie corrected, seeing no harm in confirming a truth he was already acquainted with. It was quite probable that Rio had already read her very carefully constructed letter to his godfather. Naturally she had mentioned nothing about boyfriends, pregnancies or putative fathers in it. She had been discreet, fearful of ruffling feathers and causing offence, but she did plan to question the older man to establish whether or not he knew anything about her paternity. It might be a long shot but it was the only shot she had. Beppe’s friendly response to her letter had encouraged her and lightened her heart but the discovery that Rio Benedetti could be involved in any way in her very private quest for information infuriated her. Was she never to escape the shadow of that misguided night in Dharia?
‘A mother whom you somehow know nothing about?’ Rio pressed in a disbelieving tone.
‘I was a newborn when my mother placed me in my grandmother’s care. I never knew her,’ Ellie admitted grudgingly, throwing him a look of hatred because she deeply resented being forced to tell him anything personal.
‘Don’t look at me like that when it’s a lie,’ Rio urged with staggering abruptness, fiery sparks illuminating his stunning eyes to smouldering gold.
The sudden apparent change of subject disconcerted Ellie. ‘What’s a lie?’
‘You looking at me with dislike when you would really much prefer to rip my clothes off me!’ Rio contended without an ounce of doubt in his dark deep drawl.
‘Is that how you get women?’ Ellie asked drily even while the betraying colour of mortification was creeping up her throat in a hot, seething tide. ‘You tell them that they want you?’
‘No, I only need to see you blush like a tomato to know I’ve hit pay dirt,’ Rio countered with satisfaction. ‘I don’t do pretences, principessa.’
Even while betraying red climbed her face, the absolute curse of her fair colouring, Ellie stared back at him in genuine fascination. ‘You honestly think I’m here for you and that my letter to your godfather is just some silly excuse to see you again? Oh, my word, Rio, how did you get through the door with an ego that big?’
‘I hate the way you beat all around the bush instead of just coming to the point. It is a very simple point, after all,’ Rio told her impatiently, wondering how the hell his dialogue with her had suddenly turned personal but somehow unable to stop it in its tracks.
‘We’re not having this conversation,’ Ellie responded icily.
‘You’re not my teacher or my doctor, so you can drop the haughty chilling tone,’ Rio advised, lounging back against the bedroom door, his sudden slumberous relaxation screaming sex and the kind of bad-boy attitude that set Ellie on fire with fury and curled her fingers into claws.
‘We were talking about Beppe,’ she reminded him in desperation.
‘No. I was talking about us having angry sex—’
Ellie reddened again, her green eyes luminous with disbelief. ‘You did not just say that to me—’
Rio laughed with unholy amusement. ‘I did. Why wrap it up like a dirty secret? We may not like each other but, per meraviglia, with the chemistry we’ve got we would set the bed on fire—’
Ellie focussed on him because she refused to let her gaze drop, lest he take it as a coy invitation. But it was a mistake to meet those stunning dark golden eyes of his, a mistake to be close enough to note the luxuriant curling length of his black lashes
