Happy Mother's Day! (16 page)

T
HE
minor road Francesco now found himself on was narrow and congested. It was fifteen minutes and several miles later before he found a convenient spot to pull over, a bus stop just on the edge of a village.

There was no breeze and without the air-conditioning running the heat inside the car began to build. Ironically it had been hotter in London when he’d landed than it had been in Rome when he had left. He shrugged off his jacket and wound down the window of the car. It was the first spot of fresh air he’d got since disembarking from his private jet.

Flexing his broad shoulders to relieve the tension that had crept into the muscles, he ran a hand down the curve of his angular jaw, frowning as he felt the dark growth that already cast a visible dusky shadow over his lower face.

As his long brown fingers tugged at the knot of his silk tie he withdrew the phone from his pocket, but before he had flicked it open his attention was captured by raucous cries outside.

He turned his head automatically in the direction of the noise; his dark, curling lashes brushed against perfectly sculpted cheekbones against which his olive-toned skin pulled taut.

His dark glance was disinterested as he looked across to the bus shelter, where a trio of youths were gathered around a girl.

From where he sat Francesco could not see her face, but he could see that she had red hair, the fiery copper-type red that looked like burnished gold in sunlight.

He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring in self-derision as he recognised his total inability to control the flood of images that invaded his head. Vivid images that drew his thoughts inexorably backwards until the world around him became less real than that searing kiss. His breath deepened and slowed as the memories took hold.

Erin’s soft body was in his arms again, warm, pliant and supple. It was so real he could smell her hair and feel the thud of her heart through the hand he cupped over one small but perfect breast.

Her half-closed passion-glazed eyes, drowning blue and filled with total surrender as she looked up at him, her parted lips a seductive invitation as, warm and sweet-smelling, her breath fluttered against his mouth.

Their date was not going well. During the preceding hours he had thought about kissing her, but not like this! This unpremeditated kiss had been generated partly from sheer frustration. His plan, if such a crazy idea could be couched in those terms, was unravelling before him and, instead of reacting like nine out of ten women, Erin had laughed and acted as though the whole situation were some kind of joke.

Hysteria he could have risen above, but not the infectious giggles that had emerged from her lovely lips as she’d watched him resort to kicking the tyres of the truck.

He had wrenched open the door, furious beyond reason. ‘You’re a jinx!’ he accused, thinking longingly of the Mercedes he had driven out of the city only the previous week.

Francesco was seriously beginning to regret suggesting
the temporary exchange with Ramon, who would be enjoying the benefits of the air-conditioned luxury of that top-of-therange model.

Considering the situation he now found himself in, Francesco was forced to ask himself if the man who cared for his string of thoroughbred Arabian horses had not had a point when he had questioned his employer’s sanity … He could think of several people in the financial circles he moved in who, if they’d been able to see him now, would have had no doubts about it.

Francesco Romanelli, they would have declared, has finally lost it! The only person he could imagine applauding his crazy actions was Rafe, his twin, who, had he still been alive, would have said—
About time!
Though even he might have raised an eyebrow at the extent to which his twin had embraced his new image.

His harsh accusation made Erin stop laughing. ‘And you’re about as much fun as earache,’ she told him frankly.

It took a few moments before he recovered from the shock of being spoken to this way, with none of the respect he automatically took as his due, before he responded.

And that was when he kissed her.

He slid into the driver’s seat, leaned across and took her face between his hands. ‘You want fun? Fine!’ And he lowered his mouth to hers.

The moment their lips touched he lost all control. Nothing that had gone before had prepared him for the searing heat that exploded inside him like a fireball, spreading and consuming him, wiping away every vestige of rational thought and leaving only primal need and hunger.

Nothing that had gone before had prepared him for Erin Foyle!

He could hear her voice in his head, huskily erotic. She said his name as it was wrenched from deep in the heart of her … repeating it over and over, making the syllables sound like a throaty plea as she wound her fingers into his hair, her head thrown back as he kissed the curve of her pale throat.

When they broke apart, both breathing hard, she looked like someone in a trance, her incredible blue eyes glazed and dilated as she looked up at him.

Experiencing a wave of overwhelming tenderness, he cupped her chin, drawing her face up to his, stroking the curve of her soft cheek with his forefinger. The hunger was still there like a prickle under his skin but at least he had it in check.

‘I didn’t mean to scare you,
cara mia.’
He had done a pretty good job of scaring himself.

She smiled and expelled a shivery little sigh. ‘I’m not scared. I’m …’ Her voice faltered as she gave a shaky laugh and pressed her hand to the one he held against her face.

He looked at her fingers, small and very pale against his darker skin.

‘What are you?’

‘All right, I am a little afraid, but not of you,’ she added quickly. ‘I’m scared of the way you make me feel.’ Her eyes fell from his and she looked embarrassed. ‘God, that is such an over-the-top thing to say to a total stranger.’

‘We’re not total strangers.’

Her feathery brows lifted. ‘I don’t even know your surname.’

‘It is Romanelli.’ He paused, but there was no flicker of recognition on her face. ‘Francesco Luis Romanelli.’

‘Well, Francesco Luis Romanelli, I’m Erin, Erin Foyle. I’ve not the faintest idea what I’m doing here. Why I’m talking to you this way. Why I’m
not
having hysterics because you’ve just told me we’ve run out of petrol.’ She studied his
face as though she expected to find the reason for her aberrant behaviour written there.

After a moment the furrow in her smooth brow relaxed as an impish smile that deepened the dimple in her left cheek spread across her face.

Francesco’s hand fell away as she leaned back in the worn leather seat chuckling softly as she drew her knees up to her chin.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘I was thinking about when you walked into the hotel tonight looking like. I thought that waiter, horrid, stuck-up man, was going to have an apoplexy. “We have a strict dress code, sir.”’ She shook her head. ‘Silly man!’

‘Looking like what?’ he probed, totally hooked by the smile that tugged at the corners of her wide, sweet lips. He hungrily examined the soft contours of her expressive face, finding it hard to believe that twenty-four hours earlier he had never set eyes on her.

‘So modest,’ she mocked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Are you fishing for compliments?’

He shook his head, only half concentrating on her words as he looked at her mouth.

‘You strode in there looking like a dark, enigmatic antihero, who hides his sensitivity under the surly, brooding exterior.’ She laughed at his expression. ‘Of course, I know you don’t have an ounce of sensitivity because you were quite awful to me yesterday.’

‘Yet you are here?’

‘Well, you did rescue me.’

‘From the results of your own stupidity.’

‘Yes, you did touch on the subject of my stupidity yesterday and I agree, in retrospect, that exploring alone that far off
the beaten track might not have been the best idea I ever had. But I’m glad I did.’

‘You are?’ He was amused by her defiance.

She nodded. ‘If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have met you.’

‘Perhaps we were fated to meet?’ He half expected her to laugh at the suggestion, but she didn’t.

‘Perhaps.’

‘So you came with me tonight out of gratitude?’ ‘No, not gratitude,’ she denied huskily. ‘I did promise you a dinner, though I never actually thought I’d see you again.’ ‘But you wanted to?’

Her eyes slid from his. ‘I’m here, aren’t I? Are those
exactly
the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?’

‘This shirt is clean.’ Francesco closed his fingers over her hand and brought it up to his lips. ‘And I’ve showered.’

‘But you smelt quite incredibly good yesterday, too.’

‘Do you always say exactly what you are thinking?’

She looked startled by the question. After a thoughtful pause she shook her head. ‘No, it’s just with you. That’s really strange, don’t you think?’

Not nearly so strange, Francesco thought, as a man who could command a private jet simply by picking up a phone pretending to be the owner of a truck that most people would have been embarrassed to be seen in.

‘This is probably the most irresponsible thing I’ve done in my life,’ she admitted. ‘I suppose you’ve done a lot of irresponsible things?’

‘You sound envious.’

‘A little.’

‘Your friends didn’t look happy when you came with me.’ ‘They weren’t; they think I have lost my mind,’ she admitted frankly. ‘They suspect you prey on silly, impressionable
female tourists like me. They think your intentions are dishonourable.’

‘Your friends are right—my intentions are entirely dishonourable.’

She blushed a little, but did not drop her gaze from his. ‘I’m relieved to hear it. They were actually green with jealousy.’

‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, playing devil’s advocate, ‘they had your best interests at heart. You know, I didn’t intend it to be like this.’ His frustrated scowl encompassed the borrowed beat-up truck.

‘I feel quite insulted. I thought running out of petrol was some elaborate plan to seduce me,’ she pouted. Behind the teasing words and smile her eyes still held that dazed, bruised quality.

‘I did have a plan to seduce you, but it wasn’t this.’

‘Was your plan nice?’

‘It depends how you feel about candlelight and silk sheets.’ And a meal served by an internationally renowned chef who had been flown in from Paris for the occasion on his private jet.

‘Oh, that was very sweet. Why are you laughing?’

‘I’ve never been called sweet before,’ he admitted.

‘Well, you are
very,
in a wolfish sort of way. You know, there is an upside to this situation.’

‘There is?’

‘I’ve never made love in a car. Actually, I’ve never …’ She stopped and spoiled the bold invitation by giggling nervously as if surprised by her own audacity.

He caught hold of the small hand and pressed her palm to his lips. The shudder that rippled through her body was visible. He imagined how she would respond to a more intimate touch and realised that he was shaking with anticipation as much as she was.

‘This is not a car,’ he said, thinking about how she would taste when he ran his tongue down the valley between her breasts.

‘No, there’s much more room. And you shouldn’t be embarrassed,’ she added, her expression growing earnest. ‘I’m not the sort of girl who’s impressed by flashy cars, Francesco, and what would you need with a flashy car? You work with horses and you couldn’t fit a bale of hay or something in the back of a Porsche.’

‘How do you know I work with horses?’

‘You mean you don’t?’

It was at that point that Francesco chose to lie, telling himself she’d laugh when he revealed the real truth. And it wasn’t as if it were an outright lie—as often as his hectic schedule would allow he tried to spend time training the horses on his estate, which had been in his family since the thirteenth century. He had come there more frequently of late, feeling the need to escape from conversations that stopped abruptly when he walked into a room.

‘Anyway, it’s a well-known fact men who drive those sort of cars have something to compensate for.’

‘Is that so?’ he said, thinking of the several gleaming models, including a Porsche, sitting idly in his own garage.

‘You don’t think I have anything to compensate for? You wouldn’t prefer me if I had money and could afford to take you to a smart hotel?’

There was a long silence while she just gazed up at him. ‘I like you just the way you are.’

Unable to resist any longer, he bent forward, framed her face between his hands and kissed her with the same combustible results!

‘Dio mio!’
he groaned, dragging his head away. ‘We’re here for the world to see!’

Undeterred by the lack of privacy, she continued to press hot, hungry kisses to the damp skin of his throat while her trembling fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt.

‘We should wait.’

‘Just thinking about you makes me ache deep inside,’ she confided huskily.

Francesco groaned. ‘Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me?’

Her breasts strained against the silk of her blouse as she gave a shuddering sigh in response to his throaty confession. ‘Do you know how totally beautiful you are, Francesco?’ She traced a line down his sweat-dampened skin from his throat all the way to the waistband of his trousers. ‘Of course you do, but I’m trying not to think about all the—’

‘We are neither of us thinking.’ The effort of will required to remove the small hand that was tugging at the buckle of his belt made him physically shake like someone in the grip of a fever.

Her searing blue passion-glazed eyes lifted to his face. ‘Did I get it wrong? I thought you said you intended to seduce me.’

‘Dio
mio … I
did … I do … but not here. I wanted it to be special the first time.’

‘“The first time …”’ she echoed, laughing.

Later the laughter had made sense.

‘There was a farm a mile or so back. I will walk back and get petrol.’

‘Is there anything I can do to make you change your mind?’ she asked, shooting him a provocative look from beneath the sweep of her lashes as she began to unfasten the buttons of her blouse.