angry—obviously because he had refused to be taken in by her play-acting. Good.
‘Sadly, excellent though your acting ability is, it was wasted on me as an audience since we both know that you knew exactly what you were doing when you came here last night,’ he told her, determined to make sure that she knew he wasn’t taken in by her. He might have been overwhelmed by his desire for her last night, but there was no way he was going to let her get away with using that weakness against him.
‘What’s the next scenario in this little drama you’re concocting? Ideally, I suppose it should be the arrival of your ex-lover and his realisation that you spent the night in another man’s room.’
The initial shock of opening her eyes and seeing Marco wearing only a towel and standing beside the bed looking down at her, had left Lily too stunned to speak. But now she was fully awake—and fully aware of the events of the previous evening. She had embarrassed herself and infuriated Marco. Things had been bad enough between them before, but her behaviour last night would make a workable business relationship between them virtually impossible. The last thing she wanted was Marco thinking that she was going to make unwanted advances to him. She had to assure him that that wasn’t going to happen, no matter how uncomfortable that would be for her.
‘I’m really sorry about last night.’ she began apologetically, but with firm dignity, sitting up in the bed and making sure that the bedclothes were very firmly wrapped around her. No way did she want Marco thinking that her behaviour was sexually inviting. He had, after all, already made it clear that he did not want her when he had left her last night.
‘My behaviour was totally… It was inappropriate. It shouldn’t have happened. And if possible I’d like you to forget that it did happen, if you can.’
Marco’s gaze narrowed. What kind of game was she playing now? Was she hoping to get him to admit that he had wanted her? Her downcast gaze and her pseudo-humble words were just a pose. That ‘if you can’ was definitely a challenge to him. Did she want to humiliate him with that knowledge, mock him, telling him that he couldn’t resist her?
‘I should have thought you would be more concerned about letting your ex-lover know that you spent the night here than with expressing regrets to me. Why don’t you go and find him now?’
She opened her mouth to refute his accusation, but before she could do so the closed door between the bedroom and the suite’s sitting room opened to reveal a hotel maid, her arms piled high with immaculately folded clean towels, accompanied by an older woman, obviously of more senior status, with clipboard and pen in hand. The older woman broke off speaking to the maid to cast with expert glance round the room, with Lily still in its bed and Marco clad only in a towel, before apologising and then making a swift exit.
Marco exhaled in grim irritation, only realising then that he had failed to use the ‘privacy’ facility for the suite the previous night.
The fact that Lily had flushed a deep pink and was looking acutely mortified and uncomfortable was lost on him as he strode across the sitting room to the suite’s door to rectify his omission, coming back towards her to demand, ‘What? Nothing to say?’
Lily took a deep breath. On the contrary, she had plenty to say—and she intended to say it.
‘I’ve tried to…to apologise for last night, but it seems that rather than accept my apology you prefer to accuse me…to suggest that Anton was…’
As hard as she was trying to behave in an adult, businesslike manner, Lily’s emotions balked at using the word ‘lover’ with regard to Anton, so great was her fear and detestation of him.
‘Was your lover and you now want to make him jealous,’ Marco insisted
‘No. The last thing I want is for Anton to come in search of me.’
‘It’s well known that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. You’ve quarrelled with him and you want to make him regret that and regret the end of your relationship. You want to make him jealous. You want him to go to your room and think when you aren’t there that you’re with someone else—and you are prepared to use any means in order to do so. Isn’t that the truth?’
‘No. I would never stoop to that kind of behaviour,’ she told him, her voice trembling slightly with the force of her feelings. ‘I came here to you for one reason and one reason only, and that was because I was too afraid to stay in my own room.’
‘Why?’ When Lily looked away from him instead of answering him Marco challenged her. ‘If you’re as afraid of this Anton as you expect me to believe there must be a reason.’
There was no reason other than the one he had already suggested, Marco was sure, and that was why she couldn’t answer him.
He had started to turn away from her, he the victor in their exchange and she the vanquished, when she said in a low, tense voice, ‘Very well—yes, there is a reason, and it has nothing to do with me wanting Anton in my life.’ A fierce shudder racked her body. ‘Quite the opposite. But I can’t…I can’t talk about it.’
‘Why not? Surely I deserve an explanation for your behaviour?’
‘Behaviour for which I’ve already apologised.’
Lily had had enough. She could feel her self-control fraying and giving way under the pressure of her emotions. She bent her head, not wanting Marco to realise how close to the edge she was, how afraid she was that her own actions as much as her words might inadvertently give her away.
‘There’s no law that says I have to provide you with an explanation of my…of the reasons for what I did as well,’ she told him fiercely. ‘A…a compassionate man—a man who understands and accepts that other people can sometimes be vulnerable and in need—would know that. But you aren’t that kind of man, are you? You’re the kind of man who wants to think the worst about others.’
‘I’m the kind of man who knows when he’s being lied to, if that’s what you mean,’ Marco agreed acidly, defending himself against the knowledge that he had been far more affected by Lily’s outburst than he should have been.
‘But you are not being lied to,’ Lily insisted. ‘Perhaps I should be the one questioning you about your motives for refusing to believe me rather than the other way around,’ she added perceptively.
Marco felt his heart thud heavily into his chest wall. His glance fell on his watch and his heart gave a surge of relief as he saw his means of escape from what had now become a very dangerous situation.
‘It’s nearly eight o’clock,’ he told her, ignoring her comment, ‘and we’re due to leave at nine.’
Seated in the privately hired hovercraft next to Marco, Lily warned herself that she was here in Italy to work, and that she must put aside the temptation to let the pressure of her secret thoughts and emotions stop her from doing that. Even though Marco’s unjust accusations had hurt her as well as angered her.
After leaving Marco’s suite earlier, she had only just made it downstairs in time for the arrival of their transport, having returned to her own suite first, to shower quickly and then change into jeans and a tee shirt, worn underneath her faithful cardigan.
They’d been driven to the first villa on Marco’s list, where they’d been given a private tour of its art collection. After lunch at a small, elegant restaurant, where Lily had
