Sara Craven Tribute Collection

‘She may not talk, mate, but she can yell. Nearly took me eardrums out,’ said a deeper, gruffer voice. ‘Let’s see if we can get her to her feet.’

‘It’s all right.’ Flora raised her head dazedly and looked around her. ‘I can manage.’

‘I don’t think so.’ The first voice again. ‘I believe you must accept a little help, signorina.’

Flora turned unwillingly in the speaker’s direction, to have all her worst fears confirmed.

Seen at close range—and he was kneeling beside her so he could hardly have been any closer—the man from the restaurant was even more devastating. His mouth was set grimly now, but she could imagine how it would soften. And his eyes, she had leisure to note, were green, with tiny gold flecks. A whisper of some expensive male cologne reached her, and, suddenly keen to get out of range of its evocative scent, Flora hauled herself up on to her knees.

‘Ouch.’ Major mistake, she thought, wincing. She’d ripped her tights and grazed her legs when she fell. Her elbows and palms were sore too.

‘Come on, ducks.’ It was Voice Two. A burly arm went round her, lifting her bodily to her feet. ‘Why don’t I pop you in the cab and take you to the nearest casualty department, eh?’

‘Cab?’ Flora repeated. ‘I—I wanted a cab.’

‘Well, I could see that, and I was just pulling over when that bastard jumped you. Then this other gentleman came flying up, and the mugger legged it.’

‘Oh.’ Flora made herself look at the ‘other gentleman’, who stood, smiling faintly, those astonishing eyes trailing over her in a cool and disturbingly thorough assessment. ‘Well—thank you.’

He inclined his head gravely. ‘Your bag is safe? And he took nothing else?’

‘He didn’t really get the chance.’ She gave him a brief, formal smile, then turned to the cabbie. ‘I need to go to Belvedere Row. I’m supposed to be meeting someone there and I’m going to be late.’

‘I hardly think you can keep your appointment like that,’ her rescuer intervened firmly. ‘At the least you require a clothes brush, and your cuts should also be attended to.’

Before she could protest Flora found herself manoeuvred into the back of the cab, with the stranger taking the seat beside her.

‘The Mayfair Tower Hotel, please,’ he directed the driver.

‘I can’t go there.’ Flora shot bolt upright. ‘My appointment’s in the other direction.’

‘And when you are clean and tidy, another cab will take you there.’ An autocratic note could be detected in the level tone. ‘It is a business meeting? Then it is simple. You call on your cellphone and explain why you are delayed.’

‘So what’s it to be, love?’ the driver demanded through the partition. ‘The Mayfair Tower?’

Flora hesitated. ‘Yes—I suppose.’

‘A wise decision,’ her companion applauded smoothly.

She sent him a steely glance. ‘Do you enjoy arranging other people’s lives?’

His answering smile warmed into a grin. ‘Only those that I have saved,’ he drawled.

Deep within her an odd tingle stirred uneasily. She tried to withdraw unobtrusively, further into her corner of the taxi.

‘Isn’t that rather an exaggeration?’

He shrugged powerful shoulders that the elegant lines of his charcoal suit accentuated rather than diminished. The top button of his pale grey silk shirt was undone, Flora noticed, and the knot of his ruby tie loosened. For the rest of him, he was about six feet tall, lean and muscular, with legs that seemed to go on for ever.

He wasn’t merely attractive, she acknowledged unwillingly. He was seriously glamorous.

‘Then let’s say I spared you the inconvenience of losing your credit cards and money. To many people, that would be life and death.’

She smiled constrainedly. ‘And my engagement ring is at the jeweller’s, so really I’ve got off lightly.’

That was clumsily done, she apostrophised herself silently, and saw by his sardonic smile that he thought so too.

She hurried into speech again. ‘Why the Mayfair Tower?’

‘I happen to be staying there.’

There was a silence, then she said, ‘Then you must let me drop you off before I take this cab back to my flat, to clean up and change.’

‘You are afraid I shall make unwelcome advances to you?’ His brows lifted. ‘Allow me to reassure you. I never seduce maidens in distress—unless, of course, they insist.’

Her mouth tightened. ‘I dare say you think this is very amusing…’

‘On the contrary, signorina, I take the whole situation with the utmost seriousness.’ For a moment, there was an odd note in his voice.

Then he added with cool courtesy, ‘You are trying to shrug off what has happened, but you have had a severe shock and that will bring its own reaction. I do not think you should be alone.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Flora said tautly. ‘But I really can’t go with you. You must see that.’

‘I seem to be singularly blind this afternoon.’ He took a slim wallet from an inside pocket of his jacket and extracted a card. ‘Perhaps a formal introduction may convince you of my respectability.’

Flora accepted the card and studied it dubiously. ‘Marco Valante,’ she read. And beneath it ‘Altimazza Inc’. She glanced up. ‘The pharmaceutical company?’

‘You have heard of us?’ His brows lifted.

‘Of course.’ She swallowed. ‘You’re incredibly successful. Whenever your shares are offered my fiancé recommends them to his clients.’

‘He is a broker, perhaps?’ he inquired politely.

‘An independent financial adviser.’

‘Ah, and do you work in the same area?’

‘Oh, no,’ Flora said hastily. ‘I’m a consultant in property sales.’

His brows rose. ‘You sell houses?’

‘Not directly. The agencies hire me to show people how to present their properties to the best advantage when potential buyers are going round. I get them to refurbish tired décor—or tone down strident colour schemes.’

‘I imagine that would not always be easy.’

She smiled reluctantly. ‘No. We have a saying that an Englishman’s home is his castle, and sometimes sellers are inclined to pull up the drawbridge. I have to convince them that their property is no longer a loved home but a commodity which they want to sell at a profit. Sometimes it takes a lot of persuasion.’

He looked at her reflectively. ‘I think,’ he said softly, ‘that you could persuade a monk to abandon his vows, mia cara.’