One Christmas Night In...: A Night in the Palace / A Christmas Night to Remember / Texas Tycoon's Christmas Fiancée

And what was this man Danny to Lily? A friend, she had said. But what sort of friend? A friend who just happened to be male? Or was the other man more than that? Surely a man who was just a friend wouldn’t have called her quite so late at night? And long distance, at that.

Fifty-three.

Yet why should it matter to him who or what this man Danny had been, or still was, in Lily’s life? It did not, obviously. Except she had given him the impression she did not have a man currently in her life …

Fifty-four.

It should not matter to him one way or the other whether Lily had lied to him earlier. It did not matter to him! Why should it? Lily meant nothing to him. Except as the annoying sister of the man who had eloped with Dmitri’s own sister.

Fifty-fi—

Dmitri stilled as the flashing of red lights caught and held his attention and he stared up at the security panel on the wall beside the door into the swimming complex. The lights only flashed like that when an intruder was trying to break into the palazzo.

Or when someone was trying to break out …

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘WHAT did you think you were doing?’ Dmitri growled, concentrating on wrapping a bandage about the cut on Lily’s hand as she sat in front of him on one of the kitchen chairs.

She gave a pained wince. Not because of the discomfort from the cut to her hand, but because of the obvious disgust in Dmitri’s tone as he asked her why she had broken a small window in the kitchen in an effort to try and get out of the palazzo.

Obviously with hindsight—and the arrival of four hefty employees of the security company who monitored the system installed in the palazzo, along with several local police officers—it hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.

Lily had cleared away in the kitchen before going upstairs to her bedroom. Where she had instantly felt the sharp edge of her confinement. That, and also the full force of her embarrassment at her behaviour in the kitchen earlier. No—nothing so mild as embarrassment. She had been totally devastated as she was bombarded with memories of her own lack of inhibition.

She just didn’t behave in that way. With any man. Let alone one who was keeping her a virtual prisoner—albeit a pampered one—in his home. And the thought of having to face him across the breakfast table in the morning had simply been too mortifying for her even to contemplate.

The obvious solution to her dilemma had seemed to be to remove herself from the palazzo and the temptation its dangerously attractive owner represented to her still shaky defences.

Great in theory—not so good in practice!

Oh, dragging a chair over and climbing up to break the small window above the sink in the kitchen hadn’t proved too much of a problem. It had been easy, in fact. Too easy, Lily had realised belatedly …

She had never even seen a sophisticated security system like the one installed in the palazzo before. She’d had no idea, for instance, that instead of the loud ringing of alarm bells she might have expected when she broke the window—and at the time had been grateful not to hear—an alarm actually went off in the offices of the security company itself, which in turn then sent a call through to the local police.

Lily had barely had the chance to move the sharp remnants of glass from the shattered window out of her way, cutting her hand in the process, before she was pounced upon by half a dozen excessively muscled men—four from the security company and two policemen!

Trying to explain that she was trying to get out of the palazzo rather than into it had proved virtually impossible when none of the men spoke English and Lily spoke hardly any Italian. It had been left to Dmitri, wearing only a towel draped about his waist and with his hair wet and tousled, to explain the situation to the security company and the police. Although again, not speaking anything but rudimentary Italian, Lily wasn’t quite sure what that explanation had entailed.

How on earth did any man go about explaining that a woman was trying to break out of his home and not into it? Especially when that man was only wearing a towel about his waist to cover his own nakedness!

And he was still only wearing a towel—a fact she was only too well aware of as he stood in front of her, bandaging her cut hand …

If she had thought she’d felt embarrassed earlier it was nothing to the humiliation she felt now. The police, and finally the men from the security company, after putting a temporary cover over the broken window, had gone, and she was once again left alone with Dmitri.

‘Well?’ he rasped impatiently as he secured the end of the bandage before stepping slightly away from her.

Allowing Lily to breathe again at last. Well … sort of. She was still aware of the fact that Dmitri had probably been taking a shower or something when the alarm went off; his hair was still slightly damp even now, and of course he only wore that towel draped about his waist. Leaving the broad expanse of his chest and his long muscled legs completely bare …

‘Well, what?’ She looked anywhere but directly at him.

Dmitri snorted, not knowing if he wanted to shake her or just walk away in disgust—before he did something much more disturbing to her.

He scowled down at her. ‘Did it not occur to you that breaking a window would breach the security system?’

The stubborn jutting of her chin did nothing to alleviate her sudden impression of vulnerability; she looked about sixteen years old, dressed in faded jeans along with the black sweater she had worn earlier, and with her hair secured in a loose plait down her back. ‘Of course it occurred to me—I just thought I would have time to get safely away before anyone responded. And I would have done too, if I hadn’t been delayed by getting something to wrap around my hand,’ she added, looking annoyed.

Dmitri gave a sigh of frustration as he turned away to run one of his own hands impatiently through his rapidly drying hair; he had paused only long enough earlier to pick up a towel before hurrying from the pool complex to the west wing. Probably as well—otherwise he might have needed to actually go to the police station in order to have her released from a prison cell. He’d wanted to get there quickly in case the outspoken Lily said or did something to cause the police to arrest her, anyway!

He shake his head. ‘Safely away where? Lily, there is nowhere in Rome that I could not find you if I wished to do so,’ he explained as she frowned up at him.

‘Oh.’ She looked nonplussed, but didn’t question his claim—probably because his expression alone was enough to tell her that he meant what he said. ‘Oh, come on, Dmitri.’ She grimaced as he continued to frown. ‘You can’t blame a girl for trying!’

‘Yes, I can—when I end up having to lie to the police!’ Dmitri snarled.

Lily eyed him curiously. ‘In what way did you lie to them?’

He scowled darkly. ‘I told them we had had a lovers’ spat—that I walked out of the kitchen and left you to it, after which you threw something at the window in a temper and broke it.’

Those sky-blue eyes widened. ‘I don’t have a temper!’

‘Fortunately they did not know that.’

‘And they actually believed you?’

‘Probably not,’ he accepted.

‘I would say definitely not,’ Lily scoffed. ‘If we had argued, and I really had been angry enough to throw something, then I would have made sure it was at you—not a window!’

‘I am well aware of that,’ Dmitri rasped. ‘Fortunately the police and the men from the security company were not, and wisely decided to accept my romanticised version of what took place.’

Which explained the reason for the knowing smiles and winks of the security men before they’d left. ‘No doubt you all had a good laugh at the little lady’s expense?’ She stood up abruptly.

Dmitri skewered her with that piercing green gaze. ‘I assure you that so far I have not found anything in the least amusing about this situation.’

‘That makes two of us!’ she retorted.

Dmitri wondered if anything could succeed in shaking this woman’s independence of will.

Yes, of course it could. Obviously what had happened between them after dinner had disturbed her enough for her to try and break out of the palazzo.

Dmitri still flinched inwardly when he recalled entering the kitchen to see a vulnerable Lily surrounded by a threatening group of men, and with blood dripping down her hand and onto the tiled floor from where she had cut herself.

Because she had wanted to get away from him.

Because she had been so traumatised by the depth of the intimacies they had shared she did not wish to remain here and risk having them repeated.

Admittedly the circumstances of finding themselves alone here together were unusual, and their lovemaking had been unwise to say the least, but Dmitri could never remember a woman being so desperate to escape his attentions that she had attempted to flee into the night as if pursued by the devil himself!