Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire (2 page)

‘I live with my godmother,' she explained.

‘No parents?'

‘Both dead.'

‘My condolences.'

‘It was a long time ago.'

Almost eighteen years, Cass realised with shock. She'd been so young she'd hardly known how to grieve for them. She hadn't really known them. She'd had one carer after another while they'd been on the road with her father's band. Her emotions had died along with her parents, until her godmother had arrived to sweep Cass up in a hug. She'd taken Cass home to her modest cottage in the Lake District where the only drug was the scenery and her godmother's beautiful garden. Cass had lived there ever since, confident in her godmother's love and safe in a well-ordered life.

Maybe part of her had hidden in this security, she reflected now. That would account for a personality as compelling as Marco di Fivizzano giving her such a jolt. After her turbulent childhood, she had welcomed her godmother's cocoon of love, but increasingly had come to realise that something was missing from her life. Challenge. That was why she was here in Tuscany. This job was out of her comfort zone, and never more so than now.

‘You are lucky to have a godmother to live with,' Marco di Fivizzano observed as he strode ahead of her.

‘Yes. I am,' she agreed, chasing after him.

The warmth and strength of her godmother's love had never wavered, and when the day had come when Cass had been ready to fly the nest, she had helped her to get the job here in Tuscany.

She stood back when they arrived at the front door.

‘Come into the house,' Fivizzano instructed when she hesitated.

She'd never been beyond the kitchen. She'd never entered the house through the front door. Her room was in an annex across the courtyard. The house was grand. She was not. She was covered in mud and she knew how hard Maria worked to keep the place spotless.

But the real reason for her hesitation was that she didn't want to be alone in the house with
him
.

‘It's Giuseppe and Maria's day off,' she explained, still hovering outside the door.

‘And?' he demanded impatiently.

‘I'm sure if they had expected you—'

‘I don't pay my staff to
expect
.'

She flinched when he added, ‘Do you have a problem with that?'

Yes. She had a problem. She had never met a man so rude or so insensitive. Giuseppe and Maria would do
anything
for him. Did he know that? And she was definitely not going inside the house. ‘I'm sure Maria must have left something in the fridge for you to eat—'

His expression blackened. ‘I beg your pardon?'

She had to remind herself that she loved this job, and that it would help to pay for her godmother's trip to Australia, and therefore she should say nothing and just get on with it.

‘As Maria isn't here, you'll have to do,' he said, giving her a scathing appraisal. ‘Clean yourself up and fix lunch.'

Her face blazed red beneath the arrogant stare. She had to remind herself that she had dealt with plenty of difficult customers at the supermarket. Sucking in a steadying breath, she told herself that for all his immense wealth Marco di Fivizzano was just another man.

Just another man?

She would have to remind herself of that several times a day, Cass guessed wryly, but she couldn't deny that if there was one thing she loved it was a challenge.

‘My cooking isn't up to much,' she admitted, kicking off her boots.

‘Do what you can.'

Senna pods in his omelette sprang to mind.

Stepping inside the beautiful old house, she was silenced for a moment. Overwhelmed by its beauty, she stared around in awe. This had to be the most beautiful hallway outside a palace. It was square and elegant...beautifully proportioned, with a high, vaulted ceiling. It was decorated with burnished antiques, as well as the most exquisite rugs—rugs Marco di Fivizzano was simply striding over in his outdoor shoes on his way to the foot of an impressive mahogany staircase.

‘You can clean yourself up in the back kitchen,' he instructed, as if she were a latter-day Cinderella. ‘An omelette shouldn't be beyond you.'

‘I'll pick some fresh herbs—'

Her suggestion was wasted. He was already halfway up the stairs.

So much for that challenge she'd been looking forward to!

Her first assessment of Marco di Fivizzano had been correct. He was insufferably rude and incredibly insensitive. She didn't even register on his radar. He was hungry and he expected to be fed.

Then she remembered with a little pulse of interest that Marco di Fivizzano was always hungry, according to the scandal sheets—and she doubted they were talking about food. He was also a spectacular lover, according to the same magazines...

She definitely needed that wash down in cold water before she saw him again.

Having cleaned herself up, she went back into the garden and, selecting a clump of herbs, she slashed them with her knife.

No supressed emotions to deal with at all, Cass concluded with amusement.

As she walked back to the house she glanced at the upstairs windows. She could just imagine all that brute force naked beneath the shower. She'd always had a down-to-earth attitude when it came to men and sex, though living in the remote beauty of the Lake District with her godmother had hardly provided her with a wide pool of men to choose from. And when she had chosen, she'd got it wrong. She'd had one or two unsuccessful attempts to make a go of a relationship, but the men had disappointed her in a way she couldn't really explain. There had been nothing wrong with them. They just hadn't fired her imagination, and she had always dreamed of being swept away.

One thing was sure, nothing could have prepared her poor frustrated body for the arrival of a force of nature like Marco di Fivizzano.

Sheathing her knife, she wiped a hand across the back of her neck. Would he need a cold shower after meeting her? Somehow she doubted it. She guessed she was more of a wasp he'd like to swat than a beautiful butterfly he'd like to do other things with. Sex radiated from him. Even clothed in what had to be the most expensive tailoring known to man, there was something primal about him—something dark and hidden at his core—an animal energy that suggested he would consider any woman fair game.

But not this woman.

Because she had more sense?

It was time to stop daydreaming and get on with making his meal.

* * *

He took an ice-cold shower. His senses had received an unexpected jolt thanks to a most unlikely woman. He smiled grimly as he soaped himself down, imagining the type of chaos she would be creating in Maria's pristine kitchen round about now. He could only hope she'd washed her hands. He didn't care for soil in his food.

He shook his head and sent water droplets flying. Stepping out of the shower, he grabbed a towel. He felt refreshed—reinvigorated. Food followed by a few hours of vigorous sex would suit him perfectly, but it would take more than an untried girl to tempt his jaded palate. Pausing by the window, he stared out. His eyes narrowed with interest. Maybe he'd written her off too soon. She was sheathing a knife like a female Indiana Jones, and her capable, no-nonsense manner fired his senses.

* * *

She beat the living daylight out of the eggs. She had to do something to calm herself down before Genghis Khan arrived. It didn't help that all sorts of wicked thoughts were parading through her head—some including a spatula and a pair of iron-hard buttocks.

What was wrong with her?

She cleaned off the egg spatter from the wall, only for her thoughts to wander off in a new direction—to the day when she had made her first omelette. She'd been six years old and hungry. She knew now that the eggs needed watching or they'd catch and become bitter and inedible. Her first omelette had been black but she'd eaten it. She'd been hungry enough to eat the pan as well. She'd seen enough domestic disruption to last her a lifetime, and had her godmother to thank for knowing her way around a kitchen now. Anyone as sensible and good-humoured as Cass could learn to cook, her godmother had insisted when Cass had expressed doubts.

Cass had lost confidence when her parents' lives had descended into drug-fuelled chaos, but her godmother had rebuilt her brick by brick; cooking and gardening, nurturing and caring, providing the cure. These activities that were at the root of everything good, her godmother had explained, and the rewards were not only plentiful but you could eat them as well.

That had been the start of Cass finding pleasure in watching things grow. And that was why she knew she could deal with Marco di Fivizzano. Nothing he could throw at her could compare with Cass's life before she'd lived with her godmother. There were no whirlwinds in her life now, only well-ordered certainty, and that was how it was going to stay.

Tipping out a perfectly cooked omelette, she put the plate on a tray with a bowl of freshly picked salad, timing her delivery to perfection as he walked through the door.

CHAPTER TWO

I
N
SPITE
OF
his determination to treat her like any other member of staff, the sight of Cassandra Rich leaning over the kitchen sink as she scrubbed a pan thrust his basest of needs into overdrive. The swell of her hips was so perfectly displayed, though, disappointingly, she had changed her clothes—the ripped and mud-smeared singlet having been replaced by a neatly pressed T-shirt. Though a streak of mud on the side of her neck was just begging to be licked off.

‘I hope you enjoy the omelette,' she said with apparent sincerity.

He dragged his attention away from one potential feast to glance at the surprisingly appetising meal she had laid out on the table. ‘It looks good,' he said approvingly, ‘but, where's the bread?'

He noted the flash of fire in her eyes, more typical of the way she had behaved in the garden, but then she said meekly, ‘I'll get it for you, sir.'

For some reason her unusually compliant manner annoyed him too.

‘For goodness' sake, call me Marco.'

He couldn't be sure if she was mocking him or not, he realised, though his best guess was yes, and blood pounded through his veins as he accepted the challenge.

‘It's only a simple meal,' she explained as he grunted his thanks and sat down.

Her attempt to take out her frustration on the eggs had failed completely, Cass concluded. On second viewing, Marco di Fivizzano was even more improbably attractive than the first time she had seen him. Glancing down to make sure her top wasn't clinging to her breasts, she found her nipples were practically saluting him. In a tailor-made suit, garnished with a crisp white shirt and grey silk tie, her boss had been staggeringly attractive, but in snug-fitting jeans—she had unavoidably scanned his outline beneath them—together with a tight-fitting black top that revealed his banded muscle in more than enough detail he was an incredible sight—

‘Bread?' he reminded her sharply.

He was also the rudest man she'd ever met.

She hacked at the bread with a vicious stab. The large, country kitchen seemed to be closing around her—no wonder with his arrogant animal magnetism taking up all the space.

‘Have you eaten yet, Cassandra?'

She was surprised by the question but had no intention of sitting down to eat with him.

‘I'm not hungry.' She was always hungry after working in the open air. ‘I'll have something later.'

‘See that you do,' he said, laying down his cutlery. ‘You're far too thin.'

Apart from the fact that she had never once been called thin—she loved her food, and wasn't prepared to sacrifice a tasty meal for the sake of wearing jeans a size smaller—he was completely out of order, making personal comments like that.

You love this job—remember?

Heaving a calming breath, she held her tongue.

The girl kept his attention, and though she wasn't pristine, as he expected his women in Rome to be—even after cleaning herself up she had mud on her neck and more smears on her arms—at least she wasn't a simpering fool. Neither could she be grouped with the career women with whom he sometimes had a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Cassandra was unique—and not everything on his Tuscan estate was pristine, he reminded himself. He had always thought his estate better for its quirkiness.

‘You're enjoying the omelette?' she guessed as he forked up the last mouthful.

‘Very much,' he admitted.

He hadn't realised how hungry he was until he'd sat down to eat—or how different this kitchen was from his sleek, steel and black granite, largely untouched kitchen in Rome.

And he wouldn't change a thing, he mused as he stared around. His critical stare returned to Cassandra. ‘How did you get this job?'

‘A friend of my godmother's recommended me—she's another keen gardener.'

‘Who employed you?' he asked, frowning.

‘You did— I mean your...' Cass was stumped. Her knowledge of office hierarchy was non-existent.

‘My PA?' he offered. ‘She's the only one with the authority to hire my personal staff.'

‘Must have been,' Cass agreed. She didn't have a clue what she was talking about. One piercing stare from those compelling eyes and her mind had been wiped clean.

‘I haven't seen your CV yet,' he pressed, holding her pinned in his stare. ‘What are your qualifications for this job?'

She had none, other than her passion for the plants she nurtured and the earth she turned. ‘I'm self-taught,' she admitted. Her knowledge came largely from gardening books and, of course, her favourite book,
The Secret Garden
.

‘And your previous job?'

She watched Marco—as she must somehow learn to think of him—push his plate away before she spoke. ‘I worked the tills in my local supermarket—when I wasn't stacking shelves.'

‘Education?' he prompted, the furrows on his brow deepening.

The derision directed at her by the teachers at her very expensive school had led Cass to contribute little in class, and even less when she'd sat down to take an examination. She didn't have a clutch of brilliant exam results to crow about.

‘I have no formal qualifications,' she admitted, upping the tempo on her dish-clearing technique in the hope of avoiding more uncomfortable questions.

She assumed that he hadn't made the connection between the scandal of her parents' death and her surname—not yet. And why should she tell him anything more, when he revealed nothing about himself? She could understand that having his idyll trespassed on by a stranger must be an irritation for him, but a powerful, wealthy man like Marco di Fivizzano only had to make a phone call to find out everything about her. Let him do that, if he was so interested.

Calm down
, she cautioned herself.

It was all very well telling herself to calm down, but she could just imagine what a man like Marco di Fivizzano would make of her past. The media had gone to town on the story of a small child wandering about in a house full of drug paraphernalia while her parents had floated dead in the swimming pool. If he knew that, then, just like everyone else, he'd make the assumption that she was tainted, when nothing could be further from the truth. She only wished she could reach back into the past as an adult to help her parents.

She sprang to attention when he got up from the table. Having him prowl around made her feel vulnerable, but he left the kitchen without a backward glance or a word of thanks.

‘Rude man.' Staring out of the window, she watched him cross the yard. But he was beautiful. That easy stride...that incredible body.

Her summer had changed irrevocably now Marco di Fivizzano had arrived and only one thing was certain: her fantasies had moved on from
The Secret Garden
.

* * *

He'd had a lousy night's sleep.

He'd had no sleep. Why try to dress it up?

Dragging on his jeans, he scowled as he prowled the room. He should have had the house to himself but now
she
was in a room across the courtyard.

Lust surged in his veins at the thought that Cassandra's window was directly opposite his. He'd surfed the internet and had found out everything about her. He'd been right to recognise the name. Cassandra was the only child of the notorious rock legend Jackson Rich and his broken doll of a wife, Alexa Monroe.

So why was she working as a gardener? What had happened to all the money? Jackson Rich had been phenomenally successful. Was it possible he'd spent it all? Cassandra didn't seem to have a penny to scratch her backside with. He could only concluded that Rich's hangers-on and numerous drug-pushers had spent it for him. He had no sympathy. He'd been forced to fight every step of the way, and had had no one to rely on but himself. Rich must have been swept up in ego and success, making him an easy target. He had probably been happy to put up with the hangers-on if it had meant scoring his next fix.

For now he would give Cassandra the benefit of the doubt. It didn't follow that she had inherited her parents' weakness. If she was a yet another gold-digger, she was destined for disappointment. He didn't have a vacancy for a mud-daubed mistress in Rome. The women in Rome knew how to dress, how to talk, and how to behave—both in bed and out of it. He doubted Cassandra would be interested in acquiring any of those skills—with the possible exception of the last of them, he reflected dryly.

It was time to remind himself that he avoided complications like the plague. His childhood had proved that women couldn't be trusted, and he'd had no reason to change his mind. Cassandra Rich might be quirky and appealing, but she was no more than that.

* * *

She'd overslept! Catapulting out of bed, Cass gazed around blankly, trying to get her bearings. The simple courtyard room was the same...the house was the same...the scent of blossom coming in through the open window was the same...even the birds carolling in the crisp morning air was reassuringly the same. But everything had changed, because of Marco.

Forget the boss! She should be up and out, and working in the garden by now.

Forget him?

She would forget him, Cass determined—until she threw off the bedclothes, leapt out of bed, and rushed across to the widow, looking for
him
. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Tall, dark strangers with bodies made for sin had never once flown into her life in a sinister black helicopter, demanding that she feed them.

He'd
demanded and
she'd
fed him. Would she handle that situation any better today?

Could anyone handle Marco di Fivizzano?

Opening the shutters, she was just in time to see him stride across the courtyard. He looked better each time she saw him—dangerous and more ruthless, more stand-well-back-unless-you-want-your-fingers-burned, in a really serious way. Especially this morning when, like last night, he'd consigned his city look to history. The men in her fantasies were always rugged and tough, but Marco made her imaginary men seem pathetic. His well-packed jeans and heavy-duty belt added fuel to her already overheated fantasies. There wasn't a spare inch of flesh on him. In jeans and a chequered shirt with the sleeves rolled back to reveal his powerful forearms, he appeared to be made entirely of hard muscle. And she would have to be made of wood not to wonder what it would be like to be in his bed.

She didn't have time for this!

Just as well, Cass thought, ducking back behind the window as Marco stared up.

Could he feel her looking at him? Were his animal instincts switched to super-alert this morning? She would have to be more discreet if she stood a chance of keeping this job.

Once she was out of the shower and wrapped in towels, she considered her vast selection of clothes. These amounted to one summer dress, ‘just in case', a couple of pairs of shorts and half a dozen tops. She'd packed two pairs of jeans and a fleece in case the evenings turned cold...

And why was she taking such trouble over the selection of clothes to garden in?

Any other day and she would have grabbed the first thing to hand—shorts and a clean top. She was working with the soil, not auditioning for the role of the next notch on Marco di Fivizzano's bedpost.

So what underwear should she choose?

She scanned the unpromising heap.

Something comfortable, obviously! Did it matter, so long as she could work all day and not feel as if she was in danger of splitting her difference?

She chose her biggest knickers and a sports bra that supported her full breasts properly.

Maria and Giuseppe were back, so she dropped in a few casual questions over breakfast. They knew about as much as she did about their boss's plans for the next few days. Giuseppe mentioned something about a visit to the Fivizzano vineyards to choose some wines for an important party in Rome, but that was the only nugget she managed to glean before she went back to work.

* * *

A few days passed and then a few days more, and she barely caught a glimpse of The Boss. She kept telling herself that this was great—no pressure—but she was always on the lookout for him. She couldn't help herself. Marco di Fivizzano was a once-in-a-lifetime attraction. She gathered from Maria that he spent a lot of time inspecting his estate. It certainly felt as if she was very much ‘below stairs', while he was the master of the house, whose daily life was none of her business. There was no common ground between them, no reason for them to meet—but she could dream, Cass consoled herself ruefully as she collected up her tools to go to work.

Dreams were free, and dreams were safe—or they were until Marco emerged from the house. He only had to glance her way for her heart to go crazy. He was formally dressed and had brought up the Lamborghini.

Was he going out on a date?

And why should she care?

Because smart chinos and an ice-blue shirt pointed up his pirate tan?

Lame.

But he'd teamed them with a casual, beautifully tailored taupe coloured linen jacket, and if she could just see his face...

Nope. He had lowered his sunglasses and his expression was hidden from her.

Good. Did she want him to think she was interested?

She returned to digging the trench she had started to protect her seedlings if the rains came. And those rains would come. Straightening up, she tested the air like a hound on point.

Maria had told her that although the house and estate seemed ageless and indestructible to Cass, it was, in fact, as vulnerable to the elements as any other ancient structure. The path of the river had changed over the centuries and it now presented a danger to the house. Maria had also said that in the fierce storm of 2014 trees had been uprooted and the river had flooded its banks. It was unusually still today...ominously so. Even the birds had stopped singing. She noticed Marco was also glancing at a sky tinged with acid yellow and streaked with angry clouds. She wondered briefly if he'd remembered an umbrella, and then accepted with a grin that men like Marco di Fivizzano never got wet because divine alchemy would ensure that rainclouds blew away from him.