Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals: Seduced into Her Boss's Service / Wearing the De Angelis Ring / The Surprise De Angelis Baby

But this glittering turquoise pool in the calm peace of the countryside was irresistible.

She stayed at the shallow end and watched a different Flora prance around, diving and flipping and swimming underwater like a little darting fish.

Instructions were given, with Flora stepping into the role of stern swimming teacher.

Little by little, Sunny relaxed and began enjoying the weightless feeling of being in the water. It was a very big pool and she tentatively edged away from the shallow end, growing in confidence as she remembered some of the instructions from her brief foray into swimming lessons months before.

Don’t panic and swallow lungfuls of water while trying to scrabble and touch ground...

Brilliant, sensible advice.

Except...

How was she to know that Stefano wouldn’t do as he had promised? Wouldn’t stay out of the house until at least nine in the evening? In other words, how could she have guessed that, daringly halfway across the pool, trying her luck with paddling from one side to the other, she would look up and see him? Standing right there? Looking right back down at her?

All the brilliant, sensible advice flew straight out of her head. She panicked. She gulped down water and panicked more, scrabbling to touch ground but, in her confusion, sinking and flailing.

Flora was the first to dive in, slicing through the water and grasping her under her arms.

Convinced that she was on the verge of drowning, Sunny still wanted to yell to her that she was way too young to be trying a rescue mission on an adult.

But she didn’t have to because Stefano wasn’t far behind his daughter and then bigger, stronger arms were around her, firmly gripping her ribcage and pulling her with consummate ease to the side of the pool, where he heaved her out with no trouble at all.

‘Good job, Flora,’ she heard him say, to which Flora muttered something in reply, but when Sunny opened her eyes and looked at her she was blushing as she turned away for a towel, which she brought to her.

Humiliation washed over her in waves. She could barely look at him and, when she did, he was leaning over her with a concerned expression.

He was soaking wet. He’d kicked his shoes off before diving into the pool but he was dripping.

Sunny squeezed her eyes tightly shut and prayed that she had somehow imagined the whole horrible episode but when she opened them he was even closer to her, kneeling with his big hand propping up her head.

The spluttering was thankfully done but shock was setting in.

‘We need to get you upstairs.’ He’d taken the towel from Flora and sat her up so that he could wrap the towel around her as best he could.

‘No,’ Sunny pleaded. ‘I’m fine.’ She was trembling violently even though she was doing her best not to.

‘Flora—’ he turned to his daughter ‘—do you want to start running a bath for Sunny? And make sure there’s a dry towel there. And Flora...you would make a fine lifeguard, once you’ve grown a little...’ He smiled crookedly and felt a burst of something he had never felt before—sheer pleasure and warmth when she half smiled back at him. ‘Change into some dry clothes before you run the bath,’ he instructed. ‘And then wait for us in the sitting room. We need to do something a little special after this...’

‘Okay. ’Cos she’ll probably be all shaken up.’

‘Exactly.’ He turned back to Sunny as Flora disappeared inside the house. ‘And you,’ he murmured, ‘I don’t want to hear a peep out of you...you’ve had a shock. Just relax and let your breathing return to normal.’

Relax?

When her practically naked body was pressed against him? When his arms were so close to her breasts that one inadvertent shift in position could have him touching her? When her head was against his chest and she could almost hear the beating of his heart under his wet suit?

After this, there was no way she could stay on here...

CHAPTER FOUR (#ubfc19862-7ed4-570d-b85c-1f1a70f41a77)

SUNNY HAD NOT explored this section of the house. She knew where Flora’s room was because she settled her to bed but all the other rooms were always closed off and somehow it would have felt nosy to open doors and peer inside.

So she had no idea where she was being taken and she was far too busy trying to deal with her mortification to give that much thought.

She heard the sound of a bath being run and when she opened her eyes she could instantly see that she was in Stefano’s room. It was massive, with a super-king-sized bed in solid dark wood dominating one side of the wall. Everything in the room was overwhelmingly male, from the dark wood of the bed and the chest of drawers, to the sleek lines of the built-in wardrobes and the lush fall of deep burgundy velvet curtains that had been pulled back to offer spectacular views of the rolling lawns at the back.

Including, she suspected, the treacherous swimming pool, which had glittered so temptingly before subjecting her to this horrendous attack of pure humiliation.

He kicked the door to the en-suite bathroom fully open and deposited her gently on the chair by the window.

Immediately, he began undoing the buttons of his shirt and Sunny nearly leaped out of the chair in horrified consternation.

‘What are you doing?’ she yelped and he shot her a dry look.

‘I’m getting out of my wet clothes to forestall an attack of pneumonia. Where are your dry clothes?’

‘I changed in the bathroom downstairs. They’re...they’re in my backpack. Please, there’s no need for all of this.’

He didn’t answer. Instead, he continued getting out of his clothes as he vanished out of the bathroom and she distantly heard him shouting to Flora to hunt down the backpack and bring it up. When he reappeared, he had changed and the bath was now completely run. Lots of bubbles. Sunny could barely bring herself to look at it.

‘You’re probably in a state of mild shock.’ He tested the water with one hand and just then Flora appeared with the backpack and hovered by the door.

‘I was teaching Sunny how to swim,’ she offered.

Stefano shot her a frowning, questioning look. ‘She doesn’t know how to swim? You’re eight and you swim like a champion... We’re going to have to have a race one of these days. I can’t believe...’

‘I know. It’s silly.’

‘It is a little odd.’

‘Would you two mind not discussing me as though I’m not here?’ Sunny was burning up with embarrassment and even more so when Flora looked at her with an eight-year-old’s sympathy.

‘You were doing really well until...’

‘Yes...well...’ There was no way she was going to get into any conversation about how Stefano’s sudden appearance at the side of the pool had thrown her into a tailspin. ‘If the two of you wouldn’t mind, I’ll have this bath now...’ Not, she wanted to add, that she needed one.

But the bikini, drying on her, was cloying and uncomfortable and she felt horribly exposed in it, her nipples tight from the damp cold, pushing like bullets against the fine, stretchy fabric. When she glanced down she could see her own shadowy cleavage and her bare stomach and her legs.

She wanted to burst into tears but, instead, she stared down at the pale tiled floor and almost collapsed with relief when they both left the bathroom, quietly shutting the door behind them, a door which she made sure to lock.

She sank into the bath, which was blissful because she had been colder than she had thought, and she closed her eyes, letting the warm water wash over her.

What was happening to her? It had been a shock for her to discover, having written off her sexuality, that she could find a man so blindingly attractive. But this wasn’t just any man and she knew that even if she might react to those incidental touches, that sort of reaction was purely on her side.

Stefano Gunn was out of her league. Over the past two years, after she and John had broken up, many men had looked at her, made passes at her, some crude, others more subtle, but she had never been interested. None of them had penetrated the hard outer shell she had taken pains to develop around herself and she still couldn’t understand how it was that Stefano, without even trying, had managed to do so.

She had always considered herself immune to the superficial tug of lust. She had learned lessons from her flawed parent and then, later, having to always be on guard against the covert, greedy glances of her foster father, she had developed an edge of cynicism that had never left her.