Claimed by the Italian: Virgin: Wedded at the Italian's Convenience / Count Giovanni's Virgin / The Italian's Unwilling Wife

Cutting into a pause for breath at the other end of the line, she said, ‘Look after yourself, Aunt. And I’ll see you soon.’

At least she devoutly hoped so.

Paolo swung the car onto the long curving drive up to the villa. He was running late. He would be hard-pressed to shower and change before dinner, taken at the earlier hour of seven as a concession to his mother’s recuperation. His meetings had run on for longer than he’d expected, and for some reason he’d been anxious to get home, so he hadn’t been his usual incisive self. His mind had been elsewhere.

Because he wanted to see Lily? Be with her? The thought flickered briefly, unwelcomely, across his mind. Of course not! Or if he did then it would only be to check things out, reassure himself that she hadn’t, without his presence, his guidance, done or said something to give the game away.

His strong jaw tightened. He gave thanks hourly for his mother’s recovery. That it had been hugely helped along by his fictitious engagement gave him pause. But he hadn’t expected her to jump on the wedding band wagon with such spritely agility! Only yesterday she had been pestering him to seek an appointment with the priest, fix a date for as soon as possible after her final appointment with her surgeon.

When he told her, as he would have to, that there was to be a lengthy postponement she would be disappointed. He knew that. But she would understand the importance of a sudden—invented—crisis. A need for him to travel to his headquarters in New York, Madrid, London or wherever. His need to clear business before he could settle down to married life. She had been married to the head of a world-renowned mercantile bank for long enough to know that the sound running of the business came before personal considerations. Another bending of the truth. Distasteful but necessary.

Removing Lily, whom she had confessed happily that she’d taken to her heart, would pose a different problem. The excuse that she was needed back in England to work with the charity wouldn’t wash because his mother knew he had intervened and thus made Lily redundant.

But he had the problem solved. Her great-aunt was elderly. Needed her. His mother would understand that—understand that depriving an old lady of the company and care of the great-niece she had adopted as a small baby, loved as if she were her own child, would be unkind. Thus, the engagement would stretch and stretch, until some time in the future he could say that long engagements didn’t work and the wedding was off.

Hopefully by that time his mother would be much stronger, more able to handle the disappointment. There would be recriminations coming his way, but his shoulders were broad. That his thinking was devious, to put it mildly, was in no way a pleasure to him. Normally direct, he found deceit left a bad taste in his mouth. But in this case the ends—his beloved mother’s return to good health—justified the means.

He would have to explain all this to Lily. His jaw relaxed. Put her out of her misery! Though, to do her credit, she had acted the part he’d assigned her more convincingly than he’d expected.

Her role as a woman who was deeply in love couldn’t be faulted. Nothing personal—she knew the financial viability of her charity depended on her co-operation—but the way she looked at him, her eyes dreamy, her cheeks flushing with pleasure when he smiled at her, silver lights sparkling in the clear depths of her eyes was completely convincing. And when he touched her, took her hand, slipped an arm around her tiny waist to draw her forward to join the conversation between himself and Mamma, he would hear the catch of her breath, watch as the pulse-beat at the base of her slender neck quickened and see those lush lips part. He was hard put to see a flaw in her performance. She had a totally unexpected acting ability.

Such kissable lips, too, as he’d discovered. Had her response been play-acting, too? Somehow he didn’t think so. Unconsciously, a softly sensual smile curved his long mouth. Who would have believed that the muddy scrap of his initial acquaintance could have been transformed into such a delicate, bewitching beauty?

Sexily responsive, too. Heat rolled through him and his body surged at the memory, and, unbidden, the aching need to hold her again, take that generous mouth, and take things further, much further, gripped him with driven savagery.

Basta! Enough! Braking the powerful car in a shower of gravel, he exited, shutting the door with enough force to shatter the silence. Having sex with Lily Frome, no matter how irritatingly tempting the prospect seemed, was a road he was not going to travel! Quite apart from the fact that she was temporarily his employee, and therefore strictly out of bounds, she was not his type.

His type. A heavy frown scored his forehead. Tall, blonde, leggy, polished. He’d been briefly engaged to one and almost as briefly married to another. That was before he’d learned the hard way that commitment was for fools. And now the blondes—when he could be bothered—were still tall, eye-worthy, polished and clued-up, taking a casual, sophisticated affair in their leggy stride. Cool, knowing the rules of the game.

Ergo, Lily Frome was not his type! She was tiny. But perfectly formed. She had hair the colour of a toffee apple. She was sweet, caring, not afraid to answer back, open and honest, so disturbed by what he had as good as coerced her into doing that she probably had nightmares every time she went to bed.

Went to bed—He strode into the villa by a side door, slipped up to the first storey by the staff staircase, to avoid meeting anyone, and tried to push the connection between Lily and bed right out of his mind. Mention a casual affair to her and she’d run a mile. Screaming!

Or hit him with the nearest heavy object!

And he, for one, wouldn’t blame her. She was gorgeous, warm-hearted, intrinsically good, and she deserved far, far better than that. She deserved someone who would love her, value and treasure her.

Lily knew she was running around like a headless chicken. A naked headless chicken!

She’d put off having a shower and changing for dinner in the hope of waylaying Paolo on his return. Because she’d known she would explode if she didn’t corner him and make him do something about his poor deluded mother and her talk of weddings!

But half an hour before the appointed time for the formal dinner en famille that Fiora enjoyed so much he still hadn’t arrived. Giving up hope, she’d sprinted into the shower and out again in record time, then scuttled around, pulling on fresh underwear, plucking something in a lovely smoky blue colour out of the wardrobe and dragging it on—only to find that though the front of the dress was modest enough it left most of her back bare down to her waist, leaving her bra straps exposed. And the skirt was as bad—it sort of clipped her bottom before flaring down to her ankles, showing a glaringly obvious panty line.

Muttering something that would have had her great-aunt telling her to wash her mouth out with soap and water, she stripped off to her skin, started to pull the dress on again, then threw it onto the bed, diving for the well-stocked cupboard and throwing garments out, looking for something that wouldn’t show all her underwear.

‘Lily …’ The words that would have had him asking how her day had gone flew out of his head. If there’d been problems then suddenly they weren’t important. He’d walked into her room unannounced, as if he had the right. To find her naked, flushed. Bewildered?

His breath caught. A hard tight knot in his chest. He should apologise, retreat.

He found himself moving forward instead, closing the door behind him. Tugged towards her as if he had no will of his own. She was exquisite. A surge of sexual need swamped him. He stopped breathing.

She should be backing away. Angry. But she wasn’t.

Her tiny bare feet seemed rooted to the carpet. Did she feel, as he did, that this was meant? Fated? That there was nothing either of them could do about it? Always in charge of his own destiny, this was a first for him.

Closer. His eyes found hers and held. Her clear wide gaze made his heart turn over. Her soft lips were parted in unconscious invitation. The delicate pink crests of her perfect creamy breasts peaked in betrayal. Did she burn for him as he burned for her?

One touch of his hand, his unsteady hand, his skin against her skin and there would be no turning back. As he knew his own name he knew that. Her slender body was a siren call. Irresistible.

He dragged a breath into his oxygen-starved lungs. Lily was an innocent. Not his type, not the usual blonde sophisticate who saw good sex as a fair exchange for a few weeks of his attention, fancy restaurants, weekends in Paris, St Tropez, Rome, taking a parting gift of some costly jewel or other with no regrets.

The feeling that he would die before harming Lily, hurting her, overwhelmed him.

Turning, he reached for the control he’d almost lost during the handful of minutes that had passed since he’d walked in on her, reached for a robe flung carelessly over the back of a chair and enclosed her in it as she looked up at him in a way that turned his insides to water.

The backs of his fingers drifted over the warm skin that covered her delicate collarbone as he closed the fabric, and it was almost his undoing. His voice was thicker, more brusque than he’d intended, as he stepped away, putting much needed distance between them, and gave his belated apology, ‘Forgive me. Walking in without your invitation to enter was crass.’ He gave a cursory glance at his wristwatch. ‘Dinner in five minutes. Mamma will be waiting.’ And he left before he could succumb to the heartbreaking confusion in her beautiful eyes.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘I HAVE a lovely surprise for you!’

Fiora had waited until the sea bass had been served by the now silently departing Donatella, and Lily noted with a sinking feeling that her eyes were sparking with excitement.

‘We are to have an engagement party on Friday!’ she announced. ‘The first social gathering we have hosted in over a year! This afternoon I have arranged everything on the telephone.’

‘Have you, now?’ Carla, exotic in a deep scarlet flowing gown that suited her ample figure, patrician features and glossy black hair put in repressively. ‘While my back was turned?’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you don’t think you should have waited until you are strong enough to cope with such excitement and busyness?’

‘Mamma?’ Paolo echoed the companion’s question, and for the first time since entering the dining room Lily looked directly at him, willing him to veto his mother’s insane idea.

In his white dinner jacket he looked exactly what he was—sophisticated, urbane, perfectly at home in his exquisite surroundings. White on white. White walls, long windows where gauzy white drapes fluttered, tall white candles on the table drawing gleaming reflections from the antique silverware, Venetian glass and sparkling china. White blooms in a creamy porcelain bowl gracing the centre of the table.

Lily’s lashes swiftly screened her tortured eyes. Watching him idly toy with the stem of his wine glass, relaxed, his sensual mouth softening even as he raised one strongly marked eyebrow in the direction of his mother, she felt as if someone had kicked her in the stomach.

She didn’t think she would ever, ever be able to face him alone again! A raging blush burned her face. The way she’d just stood there, for the second time caught as naked as a newborn, stunned, immobile, watching the slow drift of his golden eyes as he moved towards her, trapped by a fierce sexual tension. It must have seemed to him that she was blatantly inviting him to touch her, make love to her!

Which was exactly what she had been doing, she recognised with searingly painful honesty. She had wanted him so very desperately that her normal sense of modesty and self-respect had departed without a single trace!

But he couldn’t have made his lack of interest any plainer. Apologising for his intrusion and covering her up with that robe. And leaving. A definite thanks, but no thanks! She had never felt so humiliated, so deeply ashamed of herself in her life!

It had taken more courage than she had imagined she possessed to pull on the most sober garment she could find and appear for dinner. Now, she belatedly wished she had taken the coward’s way out—pleaded a headache and buried herself deep beneath the bedclothes, refusing to come out until this nightmare had gone away.

‘Don’t fuss, Paolo!’ Fiora forked a little of the delicious fish. ‘It is to be a small affair only—to mark your betrothal, as is proper. Just your cousins—I know you have no time for them, but I want to show Lily off to what little remains of our family.’ She laid down her cutlery after clearing her plate, welcome evidence of her returning appetite. ‘As for the extra work—what are staff for? It will give me great pleasure to sit back and simply direct operations!’

Once again Lily steeled herself to raise her eyes in Paolo’s direction, swallowing shakily as the impact of his lean male beauty hit her. Tightening her soft pink mouth as her heart clattered against her ribs, she waited for him to put a halt to it all—rule out any idea of an engagement party. After all, he was king of the roost. This was his home, his fake engagement.