Virgin: Wedded At The Italian's Convenience

When Penny, as she’d named herself, had opened the door and listened to her request with evident sympathy, Lily’s confidence had soared. Especially when Penny informed her in a whisper that she believed her boss was indeed unlikely to want to keep the contents of the house, and one good turn deserved another so she’d see what she could do.

Lily could see he was impatient. That sensual mouth had compressed above a rock-solid jaw. He probably didn’t do patience either!

She answered belatedly, but as firmly as she could. ‘My great-aunt started Life Begins ten years ago. I help.’ Encouraged by the way Penny gave her elbow a squeeze, she ploughed on. ‘We help old people locally. Practical stuff, like shopping, cleaning, helping them stay in their own homes if they fall outside the social security net, driving—’

‘Basta! Enough.’ He slashed through the increasingly confident spiel. She had amazing eyes. Clear. Innocent. Honest. And the quickest way to get back to serious matters was to just let her have what she wanted. ‘Wait in the hall. When she is free, Miss Fleming will help you decide what’s suitable.’

Dismissed from The Presence. Heartfelt words of thanks tripped from her widely smiling mouth as she backed out of the room. But he wasn’t listening—was already turning to answer the phone that had begun to ring. Telling herself that she didn’t care, didn’t mind being got rid of as if she were a really insignificant and annoying irritant, Lily waited as directed. She had got what she’d come for. His permission to walk away with the sort of stuff that would persuade the punters to part with their hard-earned cash and put Life Begins in a slightly more viable financial position.

His eyes haunted, Paolo ended the call, ignored Penny Fleming’s ‘Are you all right, sir?’ and strode from the study, his mind made up.

There was only one thing to do. As always, when presented with a problem, his agile brain came up with the solution at the speed of light.

The consultant’s call had confirmed his worst fears—fears that gripped his heart in an icy fist. His mother didn’t have long to live. That had been the underlying message he’d picked up from behind the medical jargon. He would make her last hours on this earth happy. It was the least he could do.

And that scruffy charity worker would be stupid to turn down a decent donation in return for helping him out.

CHAPTER TWO

HAD he changed his mind? Lily questioned uneasily as, with her elbow held in a grip of steel, she was as good as frogmarched back into the study.

Had he suddenly decided she was up to no good, intent on emptying his house and making off with the proceeds in the name of some fictitious charity?

She certainly felt uncomfortably like a criminal as he curtly dismissed his PA and commanded her to ‘Sit!’ as if he were training a disobedient dog.

Lily’s face flushed scarlet. Who did he think he was? ‘Now, look here—’

But one killing flash of those golden eyes silenced her, had her obeying, perching on the edge of the chair in front of the huge desk. As if satisfied by her compliance, he strode to the other side, but didn’t sit. Just loomed.

He was looking at her as if she were some previously undiscovered life form. Lily squirmed.

‘Are you trustworthy?’

Taken aback, Lily gaped. So she was right—he thought she was a conwoman!

‘Well?’

Of all the nasty, ill-tempered, suspicious—! Affronted now, she lifted her pointed chin, her eyes cooling to glacial grey, and gave him a dignified reply. ‘Of course I’m trustworthy. I’ll only take what Penny says I may. And if you want to check my credentials—’

A slashing movement of one lean, long-fingered hand effectively silenced her again. ‘Take what you like. This isn’t about that. I want to know if, in return for a sizeable donation to your charity, you will allow me to use your name and keep silent about the transaction—now and in the future.’

Lily’s eyes widened in astonishment, her soft mouth dropping open. ‘Use my name?’ Staring at the forceful set of his jaw, those mesmerisingly beautiful eyes, the harsh slant of his cheekbones and the way his sensual mouth was clamped in irritation, she could only imagine he’d either gone mad or was embroiled in some dodgy scheme or other.

Whichever, she wanted no part of it! ‘What on earth for?’ she demanded, unconsciously aping her great-aunt’s stentorian tone—the tone used to great effect on the rare occasions when the forthright old lady was displeased.

One sable eyebrow rose in amazement that such imperious volume could issue from such a scrawny scrap of a thing. A disarming hint of a smile appeared, and two hands were expressively spread.

‘I don’t have time to go into detail. But last night my mother collapsed. Hospital tests reveal she has a brain tumour. The operation takes place the day after tomorrow. The prognosis isn’t good. In fact, it couldn’t be much worse,’ he announced heavily, the glittering gold of his magnificent eyes now shadowed by thickly fringed black lashes, deep lines scored on either side of his handsome mouth.

Lily got to her feet, instinctively leaning towards him, her voice soft, her huge eyes brimming with sympathy, seeking his. ‘Oh—poor you! You must be so worried! No wonder you’re in such a bad mood,’ she declared forgivingly. ‘But it’s amazing what surgeons can do these days. You mustn’t give up hope! Really you mustn’t!’

‘Spare me the platitudes.’ He shot her a look of brusque impatience. ‘Let’s cut to the chase.’

So he couldn’t take sympathy, Lily decided. That figured. He probably couldn’t give it, either. And that reminded her that she still didn’t have a clue what he’d been on about when he’d offered a donation in return for the use of her name. She flopped down again. Why her name, for pity’s sake?

‘My mother’s dearest wish is to see me married and producing an heir to the family wealth. That I show no signs of doing so is a source of deep distress to her and I regret that,’ he supplied flatly, ‘but for reasons which are none of your business marriage is a state I have no desire to enter. However, to make what might well be her last days happy I intend to tell her I’ve fallen in love and am engaged to a woman I met in England.’

For a long moment Lily couldn’t believe her ears. ‘You’d lie to your own mother! How immoral can you get?’

He shot her a look of withering contempt. ‘It doesn’t please me to do it, but it would please her. That, and only that, is the point.’

Those stunning features were riven with pain, and Lily’s soft heart melted. ‘I suppose I can see why you think a white lie’s forgivable in the circumstances,’ she offered falteringly, not quite sure she totally agreed. But the poor man was hurting. He clearly thought the world of his very ill mother, and the awful news had shaken him. He wasn’t thinking straight, hence his crazy plan.

‘Listen, have you considered the possibility that the operation might well be a success?’ she asked softly, pointing out something she was sure couldn’t have occurred to him. ‘Then you’d have to tell more lies, say you’d broken the engagement. She’d want to know why—and she’d be even more upset.’ She noted the ferocious frown line between his eyes, but continued understandingly, ‘I expect you’re in shock after that news, and that’s stopping you from thinking logically.’

Paolo gritted his strong teeth. She was seriously irritating him. Obviously a creature with the attention span of a gad-fly—veering from bristling moral outrage to saccharine triteness in the flicker of her impressively long eyelashes.

When he put forward a proposition he expected the recipient to sit quietly, hear him out and reach a conclusion based on the facts as offered. Most typically his conclusion.

A slash of colour washed his strong cheekbones as he spelled out through gritted teeth, ‘Without the operation she will die. Fact. With it, the chances of her pulling through are slim. Fact. She is seventy years old and not strong at the best of times,’ he imparted grimly. ‘My mind’s made up. All you have to do is agree to my request.’

‘I’m not comfortable with it,’ Lily confided earnestly. ‘If you really do intend to do this couldn’t you invent a name? Any name?’

Resisting the impulse to pick her up and throw her out, he confessed austerely, ‘I deal in facts and figures, not make-believe. A real woman’s name I would remember. A name I made up might slip my memory in the grip of emotion.’ Not something he was overjoyed to admit to even to himself, let alone this hugely annoying creature. He shot a dark look at his watch and demanded lethally, ‘Well?’

Lily took a deep breath. He was clearly set on going through with it. Nothing she’d said had stood a chance of changing his mind. And it had touched her deeply when he’d made that remark about worrying he’d forget a made-up name if he got emotional. His conversations with his mother prior to her operation would be highly emotional for both of them.

Shrugging her slim shoulders resignedly, she gave in. ‘OK. I agree.’

‘And total secrecy?’

‘Of course.’ How could he ask that? ‘It’s not something I’d remotely want to have known!’

‘And?’ Irritated beyond endurance by her holier-than-thou attitude towards what was, after all, a kindness to a desperately ill woman, he grated. ‘Your name? Lily what?’

‘Oh!’ Her face flamed. He must think she was an idiot! ‘It’s Frome. Lily Frome. Shouldn’t you write that down?’ she suggested, as he just stared at her, making her feel ridiculously squirmy inside.

‘No need. As I told you, I never forget facts. How tall are you?’

‘Why?’

‘Because Madre will ask what you look like,’ he grated through his teeth, as if talking to a child with the IQ of a snail.

‘Five foot one and a half,’ Lily muttered, as he withdrew a chequebook from one of the desk drawers and began to write.

He slid the cheque over the desktop, his eyes lifting as he enumerated, ‘Big grey eyes, small nose…’ he drew the line at voicing that, come to think of it, she had a totally luscious pink mouth. ‘Hair the colour of—caramella.’ He almost smiled before inborn practicality and self-possession kicked in. ‘Arrivederci, Lily Frome.’ He extracted car keys from the pocket of his beautifully tailored suit trousers. ‘I have a flight to catch. Miss Fleming’s somewhere around. She will look after you.’

And he was gone. Leaving Lily staring at his cheque for five thousand pounds and wallowing in the sense of unreality which was swamping her, because the happenings of the last twenty minutes were totally weird.