was why he’d been frankly bewildered at his reaction to Sunny.
Except...
It seemed some of his assumptions had been wildly off target.
Her long, long hair flowed over her shoulders and down her narrow spine in a tide of unruly but utterly sexy curls, and the outfit...
He broke out in a fine film of perspiration. What happened to the girl who dressed to hide? Where the hell had she gone? Stefano was almost outraged at the appearance of this sex siren to whom his body was responding with rampant enthusiasm.
He scowled at Eric, who caught his eye, reddened and stepped back just as Sunny turned towards him, all long, long legs and long, long hair, and flashing green eyes.
She should have looked tacky in such a short skirt but the casual denim jacket brought the whole temperature of the outfit down, as did the functional backpack carelessly slung over her shoulder.
Flora was staring at her, mouth open, as though an alien had suddenly leaped out of the woodwork. Stefano was on her page.
‘Did you forget to finish getting dressed?’ he heard himself say, moving forward.
It was hardly the sort of compliment she had been expecting and she stiffened, annoyed with herself for having expected any sort of compliment at all.
She belatedly wondered whether he was looking at the skimpy outfit and wondering what sort of example was being set for Flora.
She swallowed down the urge to tell him that this wasn’t her sort of dress code at all. Then she remembered what he thought of her, that she was dull, the sort of all-work-and-no-play sort of young woman who had no boyfriend and never went anywhere.
She tilted her chin at a defiant angle and smiled a challenge. ‘Not at all,’ she chirruped.
‘I love it,’ Flora piped up with gratifying enthusiasm.
‘Thank you very much, Flora!’ He might have been sarcastic but she could feel his eyes on her and that dark, intense gaze went to her head like a powerful shot of incense.
‘There’s not much there to love,’ Stefano grated. ‘A few square inches of stretchy cloth. I’m surprised you find it comfortable to sit down.’
Actually, she didn’t but she wasn’t about to tell him that. ‘It’s...er...what everyone’s wearing these days to...er...go out...clubbing...’
‘I had no idea you were a clubber,’ Stefano muttered disapprovingly, sotto voce, as Flora hopped into the back seat of the car, immediately plugging in her headphones and scrolling through her playlist on her phone.
He was leaning into the car now, his breath warm on her cheek, his dark eyes cool and inscrutable.
‘I try and get out whenever I can.’ Sunny was beginning to feel horribly uncomfortable in the skimpy outfit, under his accusatory gaze.
What business was it of his anyway? she thought defiantly.
Stefano didn’t say anything but he shot a sideways glance at Eric as he slid into the front seat.
He could hardly blame his driver for looking. The outfit was an eye-catcher! She wouldn’t be able to walk five steps without drawing stares. Should he revisit his choice of restaurant? Perhaps stay at the house and have one of the caterers he used come in and do the honours? He’d thought of the restaurant in question because it often attracted minor celebrities and he’d thought that might be fun for Flora. Now he had visions of tacky minor celebrities ogling Sunny, maybe trying to slip her their number.
He couldn’t even kid himself that he was taking an avuncular interest in her well-being, protecting her from male attention she didn’t like. No. He didn’t want men staring at her and thinking about making passes because he wanted her for himself. Didn’t matter how hard he fought it, that was the base line, wasn’t it? He wanted her.
They covered the short distance to the restaurant in silence. Sunny stared through the window while next to her Flora was in a world of her own, listening to music.
When she glanced down, she could see way too much thigh exposed because the skirt had ridden up. He’d seen her in a bikini, had already seen a lot more of her body than was on show now, but this felt different.
Not that he was looking. Except in a derogatory way.
She was unusually quiet over the meal, only interacting when pulled into the conversation. The food was delicious and the crowd was interesting. Flora, for once showing her age, got a little excited and bright-eyed at seeing a boy who was, she whispered, the lead singer in a boy band, the name of which neither she nor Stefano recognised.
Wearing this outfit had been a crazy idea. She’d wanted to prove something and the only thing she’d proved was that she had it in her to be just like her mother. Her mother used to dress like this—worse, tiny little clothes that left nothing to the imagination and attracted all the wrong attention from all the wrong men.
The more she thought of that, the worse she felt. Instead of seeing her in a different light, Stefano would now see her as someone cheap and easy, someone who stopped being a lawyer the second she could wriggle out of her suit. She worked so hard to project the image she wanted the world to see that it was horrible suspecting that one impulsive decision might have left him with the wrong impression of her.
They stayed at the restaurant far longer than she had expected. Flora, animated and excited at seeing the very young-looking boy band member, dragged her meal out for as long as she could and then insisted on having dessert.
‘Why don’t you stay the night?’ Stefano suggested, turning to look at her from the front seat.
An exhausted Flora had ended up half asleep on Sunny’s shoulder but she roused herself sufficiently to sleepily agree with the suggestion.
‘It’s Sunday tomorrow so, unless you have plans, stay over and have another day out here. It’s far nicer than being in London and you can try your hand at swimming again, if you haven’t been scared off...’
‘Thank you,’ Sunny said politely, ‘but I couldn’t possibly.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because...’ There were a lot of reasons to choose from. How about, she wanted to say, because you make me feel uncomfortable and just the thought of being under the same roof as you overnight sends shivers down my spine? How about the fact that I don’t have a change of clothes and I’ll die if I have to spend another day in these? And his suggestion that she try her hand at swimming again? Well, Sunny wanted to laugh out loud at that because there was no way that she was going to parade in her bikini in front of him.
‘You heard Flora. She’d like it. Wouldn’t you, Flora?’
‘I don’t think it’s very fair to try and coerce your daughter into siding with you.’
‘I can play dirty if the occasion demands... Think about it.’ He turned back around and within minutes the car was pulling through the stone pillars that heralded the long drive up to the house.
Flora was dead on her feet and was in bed within half an hour and, since it seemed rude to disappear without thanking him properly for the meal, Sunny hovered, feeling more and more conspicuous in the wretched outfit.
‘Well? What’s your decision to be?’ He’d reappeared through one of the side doors, having obviously gone somewhere else after he had dropped his daughter to her bedroom.
Sunny feasted her eyes on him. He hadn’t dressed formally for the meal and was wearing a simple pair of black trousers and a cream linen shirt which highlighted his wildly exotic bronzed skin tone. All at once several thoughts raced through her head, clamouring for attention.
‘I have a lot to do tomorrow,’ she began backtracking but in her head all she could think about was...those fabulous dark eyes coolly assessing her in her borrowed clothes, coolly making judgements, coolly sneering at