she didn’t know how long she would be able to hold it back.
“So. Do you hire models for this kind of thing?” he asked carefully.
She shook her head. She knew it was time to stop this. She could hear the intensity building in his voice. The thought of her sketching these nude male images was turning him on in a big way. And an aroused, aggressive man whom she didn’t really know was something she didn’t want to deal with. But she couldn’t resist one last needling.
“Why? Are you offering your services?” She raised an eyebrow and waited to see what he would say.
“That would depend on the compensation,” he said, moving closer, his voice deepening.
She moved a little away, but still asked, “What would you consider a fair price?”
He paused, and for some reason her pulse began to quicken.
“I always say the kindness of a beautiful woman is worth more than gold.”
His voice was low and seductive now and he was moving even closer to her. If his son hadn’t been romping nearby, she was sure he would have made some sort of move by now. Surprisingly, she felt a quick shiver of apprehension. The joke was played out. She had let this go on too long as it was. Once again, as her friends always warned her, she was playing with fire and she was going to get burned if she didn’t put out the flames right away.
CHAPTER TWO
“I’VE never been one to trust much in “the kindness of strangers”,” Elena said quickly, lifting her chin and making sure any hint of teasing was erased from her tone. Instead, she was back to being brisk and dismissive. “And I’m not hiring right now. In fact, if you don’t mind …”
Her words stopped in her throat. He’d leaned very close to her, so close she could feel his warm breath on her cheek.
“But I do mind, beautiful lady,” he said, his voice very quiet, but hard as steel. “And I don’t like being played with.”
He didn’t touch her, but she felt as though he had. Suddenly she was breathless and her heart was hammering in her chest. She wasn’t sure if it was from fear or excitement. Either way, it was something she wasn’t used to. And she wanted it to stop. Had she gone too far this time? Had she walked too close to the edge?
But in the next second, all was confusion as a crowd of tourists appeared on the ruin above the terrace, and Fabio was back, panting happily and pushing his head against her knee, and she sensed the man drawing away. And then he was calling his son and she heard the crunch of crumbled stone in his departure.
On pure reflex, her hand rose and covered the area of her face where his warm breath had seared it. His voice and the sense of his presence had disturbed something in her in a way she’d never felt before. She shivered and hoped fervently she would never come across the man again.
“Hey, are you all right?”
Gino was back. She sighed and smiled at him in relief.
“I’m fine,” she lied, then shivered one last time. “But I think one of my ancestors just walked across my grave.”
“Elena Valerio, you are in big trouble.”
She moaned softly and made a face as she settled back into her chair at the trendy sidewalk café she frequented every morning. She was talking to herself in public again. She had to nip this new bad habit in the bud. People would think she was going mad. Even Fabio had lifted his head questioningly. She could sense it.
“You know you’re in trouble when even your dog turns on you,” she murmured, scratching him behind the ears.
And so she was, though it had nothing to do with Fabio at all. Her trouble was all about a restlessness that had come over her since meeting the child Jeremy and his disturbing father the day before. She felt as though she’d been sleepwalking, living life in a daze, and now, suddenly, the man she’d met had shaken her awake. Awakening was painful. She had to face the fact that she’d been letting herself drift. If she didn’t pull herself together and begin to take charge of her life, she was going to hit the rocks.
Elena had lived in Niroli all her life, and that life had been pleasant and peaceful despite her disability. She’d been raised by her grandmother in a small cottage here in the sleepy town of Monte Speziare, where the old ways were treasured and the new tourist hotels and other developments to the south were looked upon with horror. Her grandmother had recently died, leaving nothing but the little cottage they lived in, and Elena was supporting herself by giving piano lessons and hoping to scrape together enough money to attend a special music therapy training program in New York.
At least, that was what she told herself. And yet, she’d just found out that morning that one of her best students was leaving for Italy. That left her with hardly enough daily fees coming in to feed herself, much less prepare for any sort of future. It was definitely time to start getting serious about things. She needed new revenue.
And she needed to stop thinking about men. Well, not men, actually. One man. One man who had shaken up her emotions at the same time he’d shaken her assumptions. It was strange the way he’d tangled himself into her thoughts. She didn’t like him and yet she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
Suddenly, she felt prickles on the back of her neck. “Oh, no,” she whispered. She didn’t need to see him. She could feel him. He was coming toward her and there was nothing she could do to avoid him.
Well, at least this was a completely public place. Maybe things would go better here. He couldn’t try to intimidate her.
Better yet, maybe they would pass without seeing her. She tried to make herself small in her chair, turned her face toward the stucco wall of the café, held her breath.
And then she heard a familiar voice.
“Hey! Look! It’s Fabio. Come on!”
“Jeremy!”
She slumped in her chair. It would seem that things were just going to get more and more complicated. There was no way out.
Adam saw her at the same time Jeremy did, and he tried, too late, to steer his son toward the other side of the road. Jeremy ran straight for the little street-side café where she was sipping a drink and he followed, reluctantly. The last thing in the world he needed was another run-in with the aggravating lady in the Gucci shades.
He had enough on his mind. He’d barely been in Niroli twenty-four hours and already he was itching to leave. Jeremy was driving him crazy and his first meeting with the counselors at the palace had been less than reassuring. He’d expected to show up, meet his grandfather, King Giorgio, maybe have a lot of people make a big fuss over how glad they were to see him, and then come away with a contract to look over, options to weigh. That was the way things were done in the real world, weren’t they? It should have been cut and dried.
Instead, he’d been received as though no one was quite sure who he was or why he was there wasting their time. He’d been shuffled from one room to another until he’d finally ended up talking to a dour man named Tours who had claimed they’d thought he wasn’t coming until the next week. The truth had finally come out—the royal counselors in charge of this thing were off on holiday and now they expected him to cool his heels until they came
