smile of disbelief slowly curved Cristiano’s mouth. She was priceless! This was the woman who, while staying below his roof as his latest squeeze, had eloped with another man. This was also the woman who stood accused of defrauding a charity of almost a quarter of a million pounds. Furthermore, loath as he was to recall the fact—for he was famous for his astute intelligence—when he had first known her he had actually been very impressed by that sweet-little-country-girl act of hers. She had been a natural at pretending to be what she was not. If he’d been a tree-hugging, weepy type of guy he would have got all choked up when she walked barefoot through the grass in his roof garden and confided that every day she was in the city she pined for the countryside. She was a real box of tricks, Cristiano reflected grimly.
‘I’ll arrange for you to be picked up and flown to London early tomorrow. Pack light. I’ll be buying you new clothes. And lock up well and say your goodbyes locally,’ Cristiano advised in the same even tone. ‘If we achieve agreement, you won’t be returning for some time.’
Bright blue eyes wide, Lydia shook her head. ‘Whatever happens, I have to come back here. I rent this place. I’ll need to sort that out, organise storage—’
‘My staff will take care of the boring stuff for you.’
‘But I have relatives here…and if I’m going away, I want to see them before I leave.’
‘I’ll give you one week after tomorrow, and that’s it.’
Lydia sucked in a sustaining breath. The entire dialogue felt unreal to her. If she told him how much she hated him he would naturally want to know why. After all, on the face of it, she had walked out on him for another man. As far as Cristiano was concerned she had no particular reason to dislike him. He, on the other hand, would feel he had ample justification for despising her.
‘I can’t believe that this is what you want…you have to hate me,’ Lydia reasoned tautly.
‘How I feel is my business.’
His cool intonation made Lydia feel as cold as though a chip of ice had lodged in her tummy. She shivered in her damp clothes. He wanted revenge. What else could he want? When she had walked out of his superb country house with Mort Stevens, she had quite deliberately set out to make a fool of him. Now it seemed payback time had arrived.
At seven the next morning she was collected and driven to a private airfield several miles outside town. There she boarded a helicopter ornamented with the blue and gold logo of the Andreotti empire. A couple of hours later, she was being escorted from the helipad located on the roof of a contemporary glass and steel office block in London and ushered straight into a large empty office on its top floor. She smoothed down a ruck in the sleeve of the fitted black jacket she had teamed with a white T-shirt and a braided skirt.
‘Mr Andreotti is in a meeting,’ she was informed by a clean-cut young man in a business suit.
When his PA slipped back in with a shaken nod of confirmation, and rather pink about the ears, Cristiano knew Lydia had arrived and was exercising her usual stunning effect on the male sex. He was very busy. She would have to wait. Of course, she was only on time because he had had charge of her travelling arrangements, he mused, recalling how her unpunctuality had once infuriated him. He did not like to be kept waiting. Even on their first dinner date she had made a late showing. On arrival, however, she had electrified the restaurant with her beauty, approaching him with a wide, engaging smile of apology in a manner that had magically dispelled his exasperation.
In the act of listening to his whiz-kid executives trade facts and figures with a speed and precision which had never before failed to hold the attention of his mathematical mind, Cristiano found himself wondering what Lydia would be wearing. A split second later he sprang upright, called a break, and strode out of the boardroom into the adjoining office.
Sunlight glistening over her silvery fair hair, which she had confined with a clip, Lydia turned from the window that stretched the entire length of one wall. Her face, with its wide cheekbones and ripe pink mouth, was dominated by eyes as bright a blue as a midsummer sky. She focused on Cristiano’s sudden entry, her heart thudding like crazy. Her tension rose as though a pressure gauge had been turned up too high. Beneath the current of apprehension lurked an edge of excitement that shocked her. When she had been seeing him, she had often found her responses to him so strong they scared her, and the reminder of that reality was unwelcome.
Sheathed in a stylish business suit that outlined his broad shoulders, narrow hips and long, lean legs in the finest mohair and silk blend wool, Cristiano looked spectacular. He was fantastically handsome, always superbly dressed and immaculate, always intimidating. His dark eyes glinted gold in the bright light. He really did have the most beautiful eyes, she acknowledged grudgingly, and a tiny pulse began to flicker below her collarbone.
The silence pounded and she couldn’t bear it. Tossing back her head, so that a few silver-gilt strands of hair fell free of the clip, she lifted her chin. ‘So here I am…as ordered.’
‘Yes,’ Cristiano rasped softly. ‘It feels good to have you here.’
She had hoped to discomfit him with her comment, but he betrayed no unease whatsoever. Indeed, something in his rich, dark intonation sent the blood climbing below her fair skin. She had the horrendous suspicion that he was enjoying the situation. Furthermore, he was watching her with the incisive attention of a hunting hawk. When that narrowed golden gaze travelled over her, she was suddenly disturbingly aware of every pulse point in her body. Cupped in a fine cotton bra, her breasts stirred beneath her T-shirt, the tender peaks swelling.
‘I can’t believe you really mean to go through with this!’ she told him breathlessly.
A sinfully attractive smile slashed his well-shaped masculine mouth. ‘Every time I look at you I know I’m going to go through with it.’
‘But it doesn’t make sense—’
‘Makes perfect sense to me, bella mia,’ Cristiano confided. ‘I want you—’
‘But I don’t want you, or this, and I can’t pretend otherwise!’ she blistered back at him.
His shimmering gaze intent, Cristiano strolled closer. ‘If I believed that, you wouldn’t be here.’
‘B-believe it!’ she snapped, infuriated by the way she tripped over the word, standing her ground with difficulty, for her every defence mechanism was trying to drive her into retreat.
‘Since I’m the only rescue option you’ve got, shouldn’t you be trying to persuade me that you’re exactly what I want and need?’
He was so glaringly right on that score that she was seized by a combustible mix of fear and annoyance. He was her only hope. Suppose he took offence? Suppose he changed his mind? Where would her mother be then?
‘Lydia…’
‘What…?’
Cristiano was so close that she could have stretched out an arm and touched him, so close that she was alarmingly conscious of his sheer height and breadth. Her concentration was gone. There was the faintest tang of some exotic masculine cologne in the air and her heart was beating so fast she could hardly breathe.
Cristiano caught her to him with strong hands and drew her unresisting body into his arms. ‘This is why you’re being rescued,’ he intoned huskily.
The most delicious tension tautened her every muscle. She knew it was wicked, but when she studied his lean, darkly handsome face, something wild leapt through her and made nonsense of her resistance. He curved long brown fingers to her cheekbone and let his hungry mouth taste hers with a sweet, savouring sensuality that tantalised her. The hand at her hip pressed her into the hard, muscular embrace of his powerful masculine frame, and she gasped beneath the probing exploration of his tongue. A dam of hot dark pleasure overflowed and roared through her in response. Suddenly her legs were like jelly and her breathing was rapid, and she was hanging on to him to stay upright.
Cristiano lifted her off her feet and brought her down on top of his desk. He