The Sicilian's Passion

‘Yes, I know.’ Lucy gave a wistful smile. ‘The French call it a coup de foudre.’

Kate shook her head. ‘That would imply that it was mutual.’

‘And wasn’t it?’

Kate thought about it. There had been an undeniable fizzle between them, yes, but… but… ‘He looked at me as though he didn’t really like what he saw.’

‘Or what he felt perhaps,’ said Lucy perceptively.

Kate looked at her sister. Two years older and the most beautiful woman she had ever seen, with her dark copper hair and thick-fringed green eyes.

Lucy had been born with looks to burn and a certain irresistibility to the opposite sex. But in the end she had fallen for her boss, unwilling and unable to stop the relationship even when the powers-that-be had threatened her with the sack if she did not.

Lucy had duly lost her job, and although Jack had not he had left anyway, using the opportunity to work for himself at long last. But at least they had stayed together, thought Kate, even if Jack now spent the majority of his life abroad. And Kate had been able to offer her sister a job as her assistant at just the right time. That was the pay-off for being neighbours as well as workmates, she realised. As sisters, she and Lucy looked out for one another.

She looked around Lucy’s flat, which, with Jack helping to pay for it, was much larger and more opulent than her own.

‘How’s things?’ she asked absently, still unable to get Giovanni out of her head.

Lucy stared at her. ‘Tell me about him,’ she said suddenly. ‘This man who’s making you tremble like that.’

Kate looked down with surprise at her unsteady hands. What could she say? That he had the coldest, proudest and most beautiful face she had ever seen? And eyes so startlingly blue that the summer sky would have paled in comparison? She shrugged, but her shoulders felt unusually heavy. ‘There’s nothing to tell. Like I said, I don’t know him. I’ve barely exchanged half a dozen words with him. He’s Lady St John’s godson—’

‘Mmm. So, he’s well-connected, then?’ murmured Lucy.

‘Oh, yes. And he’s Italian—or, rather, he’s Sicilian.’

‘There’s a difference?’

‘That’s exactly what I said! And apparently there is. A huge difference.’ Kate thought of his quietly furious response to her innocent question. ‘His family owns the Calverri silver factory. You must have heard of them.’

Lucy’s eyes widened. ‘You are kidding?’

‘No, I’m not. He’s rich. He’s handsome.’ Kate shut her eyes and forced herself to see facts rather than fantasy. He is curiously unsmiling and there is an impenetrable barrier between him and the rest of the world, she thought with an instinct which seemed to come from nowhere.

‘He sounds perfect.’

‘I’m sure he is,’ said Kate lightly. ‘For someone who doesn’t mind a man who looks arrogantly down his beautifully patrician nose at you!’

‘Hmm! So you’ve got it bad!’

‘Not really. A passing fancy,’ answered Kate tightly. ‘And anyway—I’ll never see him again. Why should I?’

Never. It sounded so brutally final. Oh, what magic had he woven during that tense, short meeting? she wondered despairingly.

She had gathered up all her belongings and left the house in an unseemly rush, driven by some self-protective instinct which was quite alien to her. She had just known that if she didn’t get out of the St John mansion quickly she risked making a very great fool of herself.

Because for one brief, mad moment as he and his godmother had accompanied her into the hall she had actually thought about asking him out!

Oh, not in the kind of ‘would you like to go out with me?’ way which was perfectly acceptable nowadays. Some of her more liberated girlfriends wouldn’t have hesitated.

No, Kate would have been more subtle than that.

She could have said that she would be interested to see the latest Calverri silver catalogue on behalf of one of her clients. And that wouldn’t have been a lie—she could think of at least half a dozen people who would doubtless love to choose something lavish and expensive from the latest glossy Calverri brochure.

But she had recognised in him a steely intelligence—and an innate ability to see what might lie behind a request such as that. He wasn’t stupid. Women must react to him like that all the time—hence the contempt for her, which he had barely bothered trying to conceal.

So she had shaken his hand and given him a cool smile, and hoped that her body language hadn’t betrayed the shimmering thrill of pleasure she felt to have his fingers closing around her hand.

She frowned as Lucy went to make some coffee, walking over to the window where the Thames glittered by in tantalisingly close proximity.

Flats like this didn’t come cheap. Her own had been bought with the proceeds of her work after her salary had started surpassing even her wildest dreams. And everyone knew that you should put money into property.

She had the perfect job. The perfect home. And the perfect life.

So stay away from him, she told herself fiercely, and then she remembered that their paths were never going to cross again.

Thank God. Because she wasn’t sure just how strong her will to resist him would be if they were to meet again.

Crazy.

Crazy to think that a man could arouse that amount of passion in a woman who was normally so self-controlled.

She turned to smile as Lucy carried in the tray of coffee and put him out of her mind with an effort.

Giovanni’s mouth tightened imperceptibly as he put his foot down hard on the accelerator, and behind the smooth, dark curve of his sunglasses, the blue eyes glittered with irritation.

Damn!

And damn Kate Connors! Damn all women with eyes which invited so blatantly, and bodies just made to commit sin with.

He shook his head in denial, as if that could dispel the unmistakable ache of desire that had kept him teetering close to the hot edge of excitement since he had first seen the blaze of her fiery hair.

He wanted nothing more to do with her! And yet, even now he was speeding towards her flat. So why in the name of God was he carrying out his reluctant mission?

Because his godmother had asked him to, that was why. And all because the witch had left her Filofax behind. Again his mouth tightened. It was a laughably obvious ploy! She might as well have dropped her handkerchief to the ground in front of him. Or her panties, he found himself thinking and was cruelly rewarded with the hot, sharp stab of desire.

She must have known that his godmother would insist on his returning it, even though he had shaken his head unequivocably when she had first asked him.

‘I cannot, Elisabeth,’ he had told her.

‘But, Giovanni, the poor girl will be lost without it! It’s the size of an encyclopaedia!’

‘Then why not post it to her?’ he had suggested evenly.

‘Because she’ll need it,’ said Lady St John with all the stubbornness of a woman who had spent her whole life getting her own way. ‘And you virtually have to drive past her flat on your way back to the hotel, don’t you? What time is your flight tonight?’

‘At eight,’ he admitted, resigning himself to the fact that he respected his godmother’s wishes enough to back down on this. Though if any of his business colleagues had been there, they would have been very surprised to see him without his usual ruthless streak of determination.