The Sicilian's Passion

‘Well, then—you’ve got hours!’ said his godmother brightly. ‘Please, Giovanni?’

‘Sí, sí, Elisabeth,’ he sighed, and held his immaculately manicured hand out with a rare smile. ‘I will return it to her.’

He should have dropped the damned thing off on the way back to his hotel, but he didn’t. Maybe if he had done that…

But instead he took a long, cool shower and changed from his suit into casual trousers and a fine shirt of purest silk that whispered like a woman’s fingertips over his skin. And he shaved, and touched a musky-lemon scent to the pure, clean line of his jaw, though not for one moment did he ask himself why.

Nor why he went down to the bar and ordered a single malt whisky, then sat gazing at it, untouched, as though it contained poison.

He left for her flat just before six. That would just give him time to drop the Filofax off and then to drive straight to the airport. No time to linger. No time for coffee or the inevitable offer of a drink. Just a wry smile as he handed the Filofax over, a smile which told her that he knew exactly what her game was. And that he was far too experienced to fall for it.

But his pulse was hammering like a piston as he approached the turn off for her flat.

Kate left Lucy’s flat and went upstairs to her own, where for once the glorious colour scheme failed to soothe her jangled senses.

She felt restless as she removed her cotton jacket. Itchy. Like a cat on a hot tin roof. As if there was a gaping hole somewhere deep inside her.

She changed from her hot and itchy clothes into one of her favourite outfits—a tiny green skirt and cashmere vest. It flattered her figure enormously, and as she stared into the mirror she found herself wondering what Giovanni Calverri would think of that!

No! This is just becoming madness, she told herself when she was back in the sitting room. With a shaking hand she poured herself a glass of wine and she had gulped down half of it before staring at the glass in a stupefied way that was completely alien to her.

She never drank on her own! Never!

She put the glass back down, with a hand that was no steadier, and walked through the sitting room into the small study which led directly off it, and sat down at her brand-new computer.

She logged on to the Internet and began tentatively pressing keys, until she reached the site she didn’t even realise she was looking for, and one word flashed up on the screen in front of her, mocking her with memories of his lean, beautiful body.

Sicily.

On the screen in front of her, the island unfolded before her eyes with the aid of the electronic equipment she now took for granted, and she printed out all the information available on the harsh beauty of a land which was known as ‘Persephone’s Island’. And then, with an odd thundering in her heart, and a prickling sense of expectation, she settled down and began to read.

Soon she was lost in tales of a bloody past, discovering the complex and stormy history of the sensual European island which lay so close to North Africa. Sicilians were the heirs of the ancient Greeks, Carthaginians, Arabs and Normans, she read. No wonder that Giovanni looked more spectacularly different from any other man she had ever met.

She was only disturbed by the insistent ringing of the doorbell and she blinked, and put the sheets of paper down.

Lucy, probably. She wasn’t expecting anyone else—and in London no one ever seemed to call on anyone else unexpectedly. In fact, she had planned a quiet night as she always did at the end of a job. The celebration of its successful completion would come at the weekend, when they could lie in until late the next morning. They would go to their local bistro and eat chicken and drink a carafe of French country wine.

The doorbell rang again.

OK, she thought, I’m on my way! And if she hadn’t been sure it was her sister she might have felt mildly irritated as she unplugged the Internet connection, but left the picture of Sicily still on the screen.

The ear-splitting sound had just invaded her ears for the third time, and her frown changed to one of worry. What was all the urgency?

With a wrench she pulled the door open, and her heart very nearly stopped.

It was him. Giovanni Calverri.

There.

On her doorstep, with the blue blaze from his eyes nearly blinding her. Briefly she wondered whether those unbelievable, unusual eyes were a throwback to when the island had been invaded by the Greeks, centuries ago, but she had no time to wonder more, merely note the look of derision which was hardening the luscious mouth.

‘Y-you,’ she breathed in a stunned kind of disbelief.

‘But of course it is,’ he concurred sardonically. ‘Weren’t you waiting for me?’

‘Waiting for you?’ She prayed for logic and some kind of strength to seep into her addled brain, but all she could think about was his beauty. A hard, cold kind of beauty unlike anything she had ever seen in her life. ‘Why should I be waiting for you?’

So she wanted to play games.

And, suddenly, so did he, damn her!

‘Didn’t you forget something?’ he purred.

Right at that moment, she would be hard-pressed to remember her name. She felt a shivering awareness of him as she shook her head distractedly. The lemony, musky scent of him had invaded her nostrils like some kind of raw pheromone and she could sense the warm, male heat radiating off him.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She frowned.

Part of him wanted to ram the accusation home. To tell her that he had no need of women who lacked such subtlety. Predatory women with hungry green eyes. But that part of him seemed to be fast on the wane and some alien emotion was in the ascendancy.

Until he reminded himself that emotion had no place in what was happening between them. He didn’t know her. Or particularly like her. Certainly didn’t respect her. He just wanted her, it was as simple and as complicated as that.

His lips parted to say with soft venom, Oh, yes, you do, but some interloper had stolen the words from his mouth. He raised his dark eyebrows questioningly and the hand which had been partially concealed by the hard shaft of his thigh suddenly withdrew and he held out the overstuffed black leather diary towards her. ‘This is yours, I believe?’

‘My Filofax!’ Kate stared at it in astonishment. Why, she depended on it as she would her lifeblood—and she had been in such a state that she hadn’t even noticed it missing! ‘I didn’t even realise I’d left it behind!’

She was a good actress, he would say that for her! For a moment her surprise looked almost genuine. But her reaction to him told him the true story. Should he taunt her with it? Let her know that he could see through her schoolgirl games? ‘You mean you hadn’t missed it?’ he mocked.

Kate stiffened, and indignation took the place of surprise. ‘You think I left it behind on purpose?’ she asked, her voice rising with incredulity.

He shrugged, and the blue eyes glittered a challenge at her. ‘Didn’t you?’

She raised her eyebrows, scarcely believing what she was hearing. ‘Presumably just so that you would return it, I suppose?’

‘If that was your intention.’ He gave a coolly beautiful smile. ‘Then you have succeeded, mmm, cara?’

She almost laughed aloud at his arrogance. ‘Maybe such a scenario happens to you all the time Mr Calverri—’

‘Giovanni,’ he corrected softly, unable to stop himself even though the distant clamour of his conscience told him not to enter into this delicious game of flirtation.

‘Maybe women do throw themselves at you—’

‘They do,’ he agreed gravely, and was rewarded with a renewed look of outrage, though was unprepared for the stealthy acceleration of his pulse as her sinful lips pursed themselves together.

‘Well, for your information—’ she drew a deep breath, slightly aware of behaving a little hypocritically since she had been sitting here obsessing about him, hadn’t she? ‘—if I was that interested in a man I wouldn’t resort to such transparent tactics, I would… would…’

Dark brows were raised in query as her words tailed off. ‘You would…?’

Well, why not tell him the truth? ‘I would have asked you out,’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice.