She tried to pretend it was a show of confidence, just like the challenge she did her best to infuse into her voice. ‘Why were you watching me?’
‘I was curious.’
She swallowed. She’d seen those women standing alone and waiting on the side of the road, and she had one idea why he might be curious about a woman standing by herself in a square.
She looked down at her gown, at the stockinged legs visible beneath the hem of her skirt. She knew she was supposed to look like a courtesan, but... ‘This is a costume. I’m not—you know.’
One side of his mouth lifted—the slightest rearrangement of the hard angles and planes of his face that turned his lips into an almost-smile, a change so dramatic that it took her completely by surprise.
‘This is Carnevale. Nobody is who they seem tonight.’
‘And who are you?’
‘My name is Vittorio. And you are...?’
‘Rosa.’
‘Rosa,’ he said, with the slightest inclination of his head.
It was all she could do not to sway at the way her name sounded in his rich, deep voice. It was the cold, she told herself, the slap of water against the side of the canal and the whisper of the fog against her skin, nothing more.
‘It is a pleasure to meet you.’
He held out one hand and she regarded it warily. It was a big hand, with buckles cuffing sleeves that looked as if they would burst open if he clenched so much as a muscle.
‘I promise it doesn’t bite,’ he said.
She looked up to see that the curve of his lips had moved up a notch and there was a glimmer of warmth in his impossibly blue eyes. And she didn’t mind that he seemed to be laughing at her, because the action had worked some kind of miracle on his face, giving a glimpse of the man beneath the warrior. So he was mortal after all...not some god conjured up by the shifting fog.
Almost reluctantly she put her hand in his, then felt his fingers curl around her hers and heat bloom in her hand. It was a delicious heat that curled seductively into her bloodstream and stirred a response low down in her belly, a feeling so unexpected, so unfamiliar, that it sent alarm bells clanging in her brain.
‘I have to go,’ she said, pulling her hand from his, feeling the loss of his body heat as if it had been suctioned from her flesh.
‘Where do you have to go?’
She looked over her shoulder at the bridge. The crowds were thinning now, most people having arrived at their destinations, and only latecomers were still rushing. If she set off now, at least she’d have a chance of getting herself warm.
‘I’m supposed to be somewhere. A party.’
‘Do you know where this party is?’
‘I’ll find it,’ she said, with a conviction she didn’t feel.
Because she had no idea where she was or where the party was, and because even if she did by some miracle manage to find the party there was the slight matter of an entry ticket no longer in her possession.
‘You haven’t a clue where it is or how to get there.’
She looked back at him, ready to snap a denial, but his eyes had joined with his lips and there was no mistaking that he’d know she was lying.
She pulled her cloak tighter around her and kicked up her chin. ‘What’s it to you?’
‘Nothing. It’s not a crime. Some would say that in Venice getting lost is compulsory.’
She bit her tongue as she shivered under her cloak.
Maybe if you hadn’t dropped more money than you could spare on a ticket, and maybe if you had a phone with working GPS, you wouldn’t mind getting lost in Venice.
‘You’re cold,’ he said, and before she could deny it or protest he had undone the chain at his neck and swung his cloak around her shoulders.
Her first instinct was to protest. New to city life she might be, but in spite of what he’d said she wasn’t naïve enough to believe that this man’s offer of help came without strings. But his cloak was heavy and deliciously warm, the leather supple and infused with a masculine scent. The scent of him. She breathed it in, relishing the blend of leather and man, rich and spiced, and her protest died on her lips. It was so good to feel snug.
‘Grazie,’ she said, warmth enveloping her, spreading to legs that felt as if they’d been chilled for ever. Just for a minute she would take this warmth, use it to defrost her blood and re-energise her deflated body and soul, and then she’d insist she was fine, give his cloak back and try to find her way home.
‘Is there someone you can call?’
‘I don’t have my phone.’ She looked down at the mask in her hands, feeling stupid.
‘Can I call someone for you?’ he asked, pulling a phone from a pouch on his belt.
For a moment Rosa felt a glimmer of hope. But only for a moment. Because Chiara’s phone number was logged in her phone’s memory, but not in her own. She shook her head, the tiny faint hope snuffed out. Her Carnevale was over before it had even begun.
‘I don’t know the number. It’s programmed into my phone, but...’
He dropped the phone back in its pouch. ‘You don’t know where this party is?’
Suddenly she was tired. Worn out by the rollercoaster of emotions, weary of questions that exposed how unprepared and foolish she’d been. This stranger might be trying to help, and he might be right when he assumed she didn’t know where the party was—he was right—but she didn’t need a post-mortem. She just wanted to go back to her apartment and her bed, pull the covers over her head and forget this night had ever happened.
‘Look, thanks for your help. But don’t you have somewhere to be?’
‘I do.’
She cocked an eyebrow at him in challenge. ‘Well, then?’
* * *
A gondola slipped almost silently along the canal behind her. Fog swirled around and between them. The woman must be freezing, the way she was so inadequately dressed. Her arms tightly bunched the paper-thin wrap around her quaking shoulders, but still she wanted to pretend that everything was all right and that she didn’t need help.
‘Come with me,’ he said.
It was impulse that had him uttering the words, but once they were out he realised they made all kinds of sense. She was lost, all alone in Venice, and she was beautiful—even more beautiful than he’d first thought when she’d peeled off her mask. Her brandy-coloured eyes were large and cat-like in her high-cheekboned face, her painted curved lips like an invitation. He remembered the sight of her naked shoulder under the cloak, the cheap satin of the bodice cupping her breast, and a random thought amused him.
Sirena would hate her.
And wasn’t that sufficient reason by itself?
Those cat-like eyes opened wide. ‘Scusa?’
‘Come with me,’ he said again. The seeds of a plan were already germinating—a plan that would benefit them both.
‘You don’t have to say that. You’ve already been too kind.’
‘It’s not about being kind. You would be doing me a favour.’
‘How is that possible? We’d never met until a few moments ago. How can I possibly do you any favour?’
He held out his forearm to her, the leather of his sleeve creaking. ‘Call it serendipity, if you prefer. Because I too have a costume ball to attend and I don’t have a partner for the evening. So if you