not suggesting a lease, Bailey. Merely that you recharge here before you tackle a plan for tomorrow.”
“No.” But this time she sounded less certain.
“Mama would want you to.” When she hesitated, he persisted. “A few hours rest. I won’t pound on the door and get on your case.”
She glared at him. “Promise?”
“On my life.”
All the energy seemed to fall from her shoulders. He thought she might disarm him with a hint of that ice-melting smile, but she only nodded and grudgingly allowed him to escort her back inside.
After ascending that storybook staircase, Mateo Celeca showed her down the length of a wide paneled hallway to the entrance of a lavish room.
“The suite has an attached bath,” he said as she edged in and looked around. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be downstairs if you need anything.”
Bailey watched the broad ledge of his shoulders roll away down the hall before she closed the heavy door and, feeling more displaced than she had in her life, gravitated toward the center of the vast room. Her own background was well to do. With a tennis court and five bedrooms, her lawyer father’s house in Newport was considered grand to most. Her parents had driven fashionable cars. They’d gone on noteworthy vacations each year.
But, glancing around this lake of snowy carpet with so many matching white and gold draperies, Bailey could admit she’d never known this kind of opulence. Then again, who on earth needed this much? She wasn’t one to covet riches. Surely it was more important to know a sense of belonging … of truly being where and with whom you needed to be. Despite Emilio, irrespective of her father, one day she hoped to know and keep that feeling.
After a long warm shower, she lay down and sleep descended in a swift black cloud.
When she woke some hours later in the dark, her heart was pounding with an impending sense of doom. In her dream, she’d been back in Casa Buona, draped in a modest wedding gown with Emilio beckoning her to join him at the end of a long dark corridor. She shot a glance around the shadowy unfamiliar surrounds and eased out a relieved breath. She was in Sydney. Broke, starting over. In an obstinate near-stranger’s house.
She clapped a palm over her brow and groaned.
Mateo Celeca.
With refined movie-star looks and dark hypnotic eyes, he did all kinds of unnerving things to her equilibrium. One minute she was believing Mama, thinking her grandson was some kind of prince. The next he was being a jerk, accusing her of theft. Then, to really send her reeling, he’d offered her a bed to shake off some of the jet lag. If she’d had anywhere else to go—if she hadn’t felt so suddenly drained—she would never have stayed. She wasn’t about to forgive or forget his comment about her not being a lady.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed at the same time her stomach growled. She cast her thoughts away from the judgmental doctor to a new priority. Food.
After slipping on her jeans, she tiptoed down that stunning staircase and set off to find a kitchen. Inching through someone else’s broad shadow-filled halls in the middle of the night hardly felt right but the alternative was finding a takeout close by or dialing in. Mateo had said to make herself at home. Surely that offer extended to a sandwich.
Soon she’d tracked down a massive room, gleaming with stainless steel and dark granite surfaces. Opening the fridge she found the interior near empty; that made sense given Mateo was meant to be on vacation. But there was a leftover roast, perhaps from his dinner earlier. A slab went between two slices of bread and, after enjoying her first mouthful, Bailey turned and discovered a series of floor-to-ceiling glass panes lining the eastern side of the attached room.
Outside, ghostly garden lights illuminated a divine courtyard where geometrically manicured hedges sectioned off individual classical statues. Beyond those panes, a scene from two thousand years ago beckoned … a passionate time when Rome dominated and emperors ruled half the world. Chewing, she hooked a glance around. No one about. Nothing to stop her. A little fresh air would be nice.
She eased back a door and moved out into the cool night, the soles of her bare feet padding over smooth sandstone paths as she wandered between hedges and those exquisite stone figures that seemed so lifelike. She was on her third bite of sandwich when a sound came from behind—a muted click that vibrated through the night and made the fine hairs on her nape stand up and quiver. Heart lodged in her throat, she angled carefully around. One of those figures was gliding toward her. Masculine. Tall. Naked from the waist up.
From behind a cloud, the full moon edged out and the definition of that outline sharpened … the captivating width of his chest, the subtle ruts of toned abs. Bailey’s gaze inched higher and connected with inquiring onyx eyes as a low familiar voice rumbled out.
“You’re up.”
Bailey let out the breath she’d been holding.
Not a statue come to life, but Mateo Celeca standing before her, wearing nothing but a pair of long white drawstring pants. She’d been so absorbed she’d forgotten where she was, as well as the events that had brought her here. Now, in a hot rush, it all came back. Particularly how annoyingly attractive her host was, tonight, with the moonbeams playing over that hard human physique, dramatically so.
When a kernel of warmth ignited in the lowest point of her belly, Bailey swallowed and clasped her sandwich at her chest.
Mateo Celeca might be beyond hot, but, at this point in her life, she didn’t care to even think about the opposite sex, particularly a critical one. Her only concern lay in getting back on her feet and repaying Mama as soon as possible, whether the doctor believed that or not.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said in a surprisingly even voice that belied how churned up she felt.
“You tripped a silent alarm when you opened that door. The security company called to make sure there’d been no breach. I thought it’d be you, but I came down to check, just in case.”
Bailey kicked herself. She’d seen him fiddling with a security pad when she’d arrived. Heaven knew what this place and its contents were insured for. Of course he’d have a state-of-the-art system switched on and jump when an alert went off.
“I was hungry,” she explained then held up dinner. “I made a sandwich.”
She wasn’t sure, but in the shadows she thought he might have grinned—which was way better than a scowl. If he started on her again now, in the middle of the night, she’d simply grab her bag and find the door. But he seemed far more relaxed than this morning when he’d overreacted about the money Mama had loaned her.
“You usually enjoy a starry stroll with your midnight snack?” He asked as he sauntered nearer.
“It looked so nice out.”
“It is pleasant.”
He studied the topiaries and pristine hedges, and this time she was certain of the smile curving one corner of his mouth as he stretched his arms, one higher than the other, over his head. She wanted to fan herself. And she’d thought the statues were works of art.
“Are you a gardener?” She asked, telling herself
