get back out there, talk to Vito and—
‘Oh, no!’
Her thoughts trailed off on a yelp of shock and horror as she confronted her image in the mirror and recoiled from what she saw.
She looked a fright.
The wet, grubby clothes she had been prepared for, and the sodden hair. She hadn’t been wearing any make-up—the need to escape, get away as fast as she could had meant that she hadn’t even paused to smooth on her usual tinted moisturiser and add a slick of mascara to darken her fair lashes—but even so the pallor of her skin was shocking. And her hair!
Some of it still hung in rats’ tails around her face, clinging to her skin and dripping cold, wet drops onto her cheeks. The rest had already started to dry and was bunched into salt-crusted lumps, sticking out at right angles to her head.
Suddenly the need to be in the shower sprang from more than wanting to warm up. Scrambling out of her clothes, she flung them into a corner, turned on the shower, switching the control to ‘Hot’.
It was only when she was under the shower rose, with the water pounding down on her head, that she let herself relax enough to think again.
She’d looked like that and Vito had still kissed her!
Grabbing a bottle of shampoo from the side of the bath, Emily poured some into her hand and began to rub it over her hair.
Mark had always been so quick to point out her shortcomings, and to criticise if she had been looking anything but her best. He had always insisted that she was smart, elegant and beautifully groomed. Several times he had sent her back to their room to change if she had appeared in some outfit that didn’t meet with his approval. He would have burst a blood vessel in fury if she had ever appeared in public looking like this!
Vito had seen her looking at her worst, hair a ragged mess, face pale—and he’d still kissed her! She could hardly believe it.
But she could remember it.
And as the warmth of the shower seeped into her chilled body she felt those memories flooding back along with it. If she closed her eyes then the fingers massaging her scalp weren’t hers but Vito’s hard, strong fingers that had closed in her hair, cradling her head as his mouth plundered hers. The warmth of the water playing over her skin was his touch, his caresses moving over her body, his hands soaping her breasts, sliding down her stomach…lower.
The pine-scented shower gel that was the only thing she had available filled her nostrils, making her feel that she was inhaling his scent, the personal signature of his skin. Her senses heated in a way that had nothing to do with the returning warmth to her body, her mind swimming in heady reaction. And in her ears the sound of the water was the crashing of the waves onto the shore, waves that seemed to underline rather than drown out the sound of a husky, softly accented voice speaking her name in a very special, totally unique way.
Emilia…Emilia…
Emily spluttered as she realised that she had actually sighed, swallowing some more water—warm this time. She snapped her eyes open, struggling to focus for a moment.
What was she doing?
Fantasising about Vito Corsentino—a man she had known for barely an hour!
Switching off the water in a rush, she reached for a towel. The single one available was far from generous and, once she had rubbed the worst of the moisture from her hair, she had to struggle to knot it around even her slender figure.
Perhaps there was another one or perhaps a robe in the bedroom. Cautiously she opened the door, peering round it nervously.
‘Emilia…’
It was the voice she had heard inside her head. The same husky tones, the same beautiful accent. But this time it was not her imagination that formed the sound. This time the tall, devastating form of Vito Corsentino was standing right in front of her, in the middle of the room, the towel she needed in his hand. He’d discarded his T-shirt somewhere so that the taut, muscled lines of his chest and ribcage and the gleaming bronzed skin lightly hazed with crisp black hairs were exposed to her hungry gaze, and those deep dark eyes of his were fixed on her as she hovered in the doorway.
And the look that burned in their black depths told her that she was in real trouble.
Vito had determined that he would stay well away from the bathroom. He would make the hot drink he had suggested, and concentrate on that. Take the opportunity to get his thoughts—and his libido—back under control. So he wanted this woman—that didn’t mean he was going to rush into this like some horny adolescent who’d just discovered what girls were about.
He had her here; that was what mattered. She’d almost got away from him, so much so that he’d had to call her bluff, but now she was in his home and going nowhere for a while. He could afford to relax and start to enjoy this.
He surveyed the damp patch Emily had left behind on the carpet, a wry smile curling his lips. If there was any damage it wouldn’t show, he reflected cynically. The whole carpet was so drab and old that a little more fading, another mark here or there would hardly matter. And if it did, he would buy the landlord a brand-new carpet—for the whole of the flat. It needed it.
The smile twisted into a grimace as he surveyed the small, shabby room with its old-fashioned furniture. It was a far cry from the large, white-painted Villa Limoneto he owned back home in Sicily, and the one time that his brother Guido had seen this flat he’d been stunned and disbelieving.
‘You live here? Surely you could have found somewhere more comfortable—a little more spacious.’
‘I don’t need spacious,’ Vito had laughed. ‘There’s only me. And I like being so close to the sea. Besides, there’s the yard at the back where I can work on carving.’
It was the way he’d wanted to spend this year. The year that was supposed to be his gift to himself. The gift that he and his brother had agreed on to mark their thirtieth year—twelve months of freedom to be themselves. Twelve months away from the pressures and discipline of running the huge Corsentino Marine and Leisure, the company they had built up between them. Guido had spent his year in America, working as a photographer, indulging his interest in that skill; Vito had spent the last eight months in England.
So now, trying to see the small apartment through Emily’s eyes, he knew that it reflected nothing of the truth about him. And that was something that gave him a great deal of satisfaction. Just the way that out there, on the beach, he had appreciated the way that she had simply accepted his name, and he hadn’t needed to fill her in on anything more. So now he found he liked the thought that she would only respond to him as a man and not as someone with a fortune and an international reputation behind him.
That had been Loretta’s only concern, he recalled, scowling now as he pulled off the T-shirt that had become uncomfortably cold and clinging, tossing it in the washing machine in the small kitchen before heading to the sink to fill the kettle with water. It had been that reputation, that fortune she had been interested in. He had a whole new sense of release knowing that this time, for now at least, it didn’t matter.
From the bathroom he could hear the sound of running water and knew that Emily had finally got into the shower. That was something that wasn’t so great about the flat being so small. He didn’t want to think of her standing in the shower, stripped naked, with the hot water sluicing through the fine blonde hair, pounding down on her skin, turning that creamy pale flesh pink with warmth as the heat flooded through it.
‘Dannazione!’
He swore savagely as the coffee he had been aiming for the cafetière missed the glass jug completely and spilled all over the kitchen worktop. He didn’t want to think about that!
But of course, having started imagining, there was no way he could force himself to stop. The erotic images flooded his head, swirling around in a way that made him grit his teeth against the temptation that burned up his body, twisted in his groin.
All he