Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper

They both jumped as the huge plasma screen above the fireplace flickered into life, displaying a close-up image of a woman’s bare midriff—as smooth and brown and endless as a stretch of desert sand. The camera travelled upwards, lingering lovingly on the hollow between her incredibly firm, neat breasts, the ridges of her collarbones and the sharp jut of her jaw as she stretched her head back and opened her mouth in a breathless cry of pleasure…

Sarah’s mouth dropped open too, although it was a look she couldn’t carry off half as sexily as Tia de Luca.

Because there was no mistaking that was who it was. No mistaking those slanting eyes, as cool and green as apples, or the famous pillow-plump lips, which were now quivering with anticipation as the hero’s mouth moved up the column of her throat towards them…

Sarah’s sharp, high gasp matched Tia de Luca’s as Lorenzo’s hand slid beneath her thigh. The next moment the screen was black and empty again.

Whipping her head round, she looked at him. He was standing perfectly still, the remote control held in his hand. For a second Sarah glimpsed a blaze of some unidentifiable emotion in his eyes, but then it was gone; replaced once more by an expressionless mask.

He threw the remote control down onto the low table in front of the fire.

‘You sat on it,’ he said shortly.

Sarah stumbled to her feet. ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry.’

Lorenzo shrugged impatiently. ‘No problem.’ She shook her head. ‘No, not for sitting on the stupid remote. For saying that before, about you not knowing what it’s like. To be left. I was forgetting. I mean, I don’t know anything about it, but Angelica and Fenella were talking earlier about your wife and—’

‘I’m sure you’re tired,’ he interrupted coldly. ‘Perhaps I could show you to your room now.’

Sarah ducked her head, pushing back the trailing sleeves of her shirt as she prepared to pick Lottie up. ‘Of course. Yes. Sorry.’

‘Here. Let me take her. You’re soaking.’

‘So are you.’

‘Yes, but I can take this off.’ He was already undoing the buttons of his shirt, impatiently, with a kind of resignation that told her that he just wanted to get rid of her, with as little fuss as possible. And, of course, she didn’t blame him. He must have been watching the film when Angelica interrupted him, asking for help. That explained why he was still awake, still dressed in the small hours of the morning…

It also explained the sadness she had sensed behind the mask. And probably it accounted for why he’d kissed her that night too, she thought with a wrenching sensation in her chest. When your heart was broken you’d do anything, use anyone to blot out the hurt and loneliness for a while.

Lorenzo didn’t bother undoing all the buttons, pulling the shirt quickly over his head and throwing it hastily on top of the pile of books and papers on the table in front of the sofa.

‘This way.’

Following him across the hallway and up the wide, sweeping staircase, she kept her eyes fixed determinedly on Lottie’s head, resting against his upper arm. It was important not to allow herself to look at the wide shoulders or the way the muscles rippled beneath his olive skin, because then she might start making disloyal comparisons with Rupert’s English pallor; his square, stocky frame that was showing the beginnings of a paunch.

There wasn’t an ounce of spare flesh on Lorenzo Cavalleri. Sarah could see shadows between the ridges of his ribs, and his hip bones jutted above the top of his jeans. For all his strength, he was too thin, she thought with a twist of unexpected compassion.

‘This is it.’

He stopped so suddenly in front of a closed door that Sarah, lost in forbidden thought, walked straight into him. Muttering apologies, she instantly leapt away. He opened the door and went into the room, but she stayed where she was in the dimly lit corridor, pressing herself against the wall and waiting for her breathing to steady. Looking around her, back along the corridor through which they’d just come, she realised guiltily that she hadn’t taken in a single detail of her surroundings as she’d followed him through the palazzo, which was amazing considering that, from the little she could see now, it was pretty damned impressive.

Just not as impressive as Lorenzo Cavalleri’s body.

She closed her eyes, tipping her head back against the panelling and trying to bring her wayward thoughts under control. Or her wayward hormones. It had been a long time since she and Rupert had—

‘She’s all yours.’

She opened her eyes, which was a bit of a mistake. He was standing in front of her, the low light from further along the passageway gleaming on the bare skin of his collarbone, the curve of his shoulder.

‘Thanks,’ she croaked ducking her head and sliding along the wall towards the bedroom doorway. ‘For everything. And sorry.’

As she went into the bedroom she heard him say something in reply, but was so busy cursing her own gaucheness that she didn’t catch what it was. Too late; through the halfopen door she could hear his footsteps already dying away on the landing outside, and anyway a moment later all thoughts dissolved in her head as she turned to look around at the room.