Книга - One Christmas Night In…: A Night in the Palace / A Christmas Night to Remember / Texas Tycoon’s Christmas Fiancée

One Christmas Night In...: A Night in the Palace / A Christmas Night to Remember / Texas Tycoon's Christmas Fiancée
HELEN BROOKS

Sara Orwig

Carole Mortimer


One Christmas Night… At the Palazzo… When Giselle Barton arrives in Rome, she’s whisked off in a limo to a beautiful palace and greeted by her brother's boss, the magnificent Count Dmitri Scarletti! But when Giselle's brother elopes with the count's sister, Dmitri insists Giselle can’t leave till morning. . . In Snowy London…On Christmas Eve, Melody James leaves hospital to start life anew without her charismatic, powerful husband Zeke. So she is shocked when he sweeps her off to a stunning hotel suite intent on seduction. What will Christmas morning bring Melody? On the Tycoon’s Yacht…Dallas oil mogul Nick Rafford had to get his black sheep brother’s baby back. Grace, the child’s guardian, was not immune to him, yet seduction would only get him so far. Nick had to make the single mum an offer she couldn’t refuse…










One Christmas Night In…

A Night in the Palace

Carole Mortimer

A Christmas Night to Remember

Helen Brooks

Texas Tycoon’s Christmas Fiancée

Sara Orwig








www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


We all dream of being swept off our

feet by an attractive, successful and

charismatic man; getting swept away

to an exciting, exotic location.



Spend

ONE

Christmas NIGHT IN …

Italy, London or

on the American tycoon’s yacht!

Three new, irresistible, festive romances

from bestselling, beloved authors

CAROLE MORTIMER,

HELEN BROOKS & SARA ORWIG


A Night in the Palace

Carole Mortimer




About the Author


CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978 and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon


. Carole has six sons, Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’

Look for exciting new novels from Carole Mortimer available from Mills & Boon


Modern™ romance and Historical romance.




CHAPTER ONE


‘THIS is an urgent announcement for Ms Giselle Barton, travelling on the thirteen-thirty flight to Rome. Please come immediately to desk number six in the departure terminal. Ms Giselle Barton—go immediately to desk number six.’

Lily Barton—no one but her dearly missed mother had ever called her Giselle!—had struggled all the way through the airport terminal, dragging her wayward case behind her to desk number fifty-two to join the long queue of people waiting to book in for the flight to Rome. She now gave a disbelieving groan at the realisation that desk number six had to be all the way back where she had originally started from.

So far on this cold December morning, only two days before Christmas, Lily’s taxi had been late picking her up from her apartment, and the freezing temperatures and the snow that had been falling for most of the night had made the journey to the airport both slow and treacherous—ensuring that Lily was likely to be the very last passenger to join the queue checking in for Rome. As a consequence she would probably be allocated a lousy seat on the plane. No doubt squashed between two overweight businessmen who would spend the whole flight trying to look down the scooped neckline of her blue sweater once she had removed the heavy jacket she had worn against the freezing English weather outside!

To add to her misery, one of the wheels had decided to drop off her suitcase—an old and battered one of her mother’s—as the taxi driver pulled it out of the boot of the car outside the airport. It had then refused to be fixed back into place, meaning that Lily now carried a superfluous wheel in her over-large shoulder bag—which had already weighed a ton even before the addition of the metal wheel—and the suitcase now had a tendency to veer off to the left as she attempted to drag it along behind her.

If, for some reason, she was now going to be bumped off the flight to Rome—which was highly likely considering how late she had booked her ticket and the fact that most flights tended to be overbooked at this time of year—she was just going to sit down and howl! It really would be the last straw in an already disastrous day.

‘Ms Giselle Barton—please come immediately to desk number six in the departure terminal.’

‘All right, all right, all right!’ Lily muttered as the announcement was repeated, grabbing the handle of her suitcase to walk back to where she had started. The announcement had sounded more imperious this time, she noted, which probably meant she was definitely going to get bumped off the flight. No doubt with an offer to rebook her onto one leaving after Christmas.

Damn, damn, damn.

It had been a last-minute decision to spend Christmas in Rome with her brother—Felix had moved over there to work as PA to Count Dmitri Scarletti three months ago—when Lily’s original plans for the holidays had fallen through. She should have known better than to think that Danny, the man she had been dating for the past couple of months, would abandon his divorced mother—with whom he still lived—in order to spend Christmas with her after Miriam had made it clear she had no intention of inviting Lily to join them. The perfect time, Lily had decided ruefully, to end that particular going-nowhere relationship.

Thank goodness her emotions hadn’t been seriously involved; Danny, a fellow teacher at the secondary school where they both worked, had been fun to go out to the cinema or dinner with, but his domineering and demanding mother was a definite turn off!

Once her decision to go to Rome for Christmas had been made, Lily had felt her excitement start to grow. She had never been to Rome—or anywhere out of England, as it happened—and it would be lovely to see her brother again after all these months apart. Their parents had both died eight years ago, bringing brother and sister closer than ever, and emails and phone calls just weren’t the same as actually spending time with the irrepressible Felix.

Well … it would have been exciting to spend Christmas in Rome with her brother, after Danny had proved to be such a disappointment, but as Lily was about to be bumped off the flight she might just have to settle for a turkey meal for one in front of the television in England. Wonderful. She didn’t think!

The heating in the terminal seemed to be on full, ensuring that Lily was hot as well as bothered by the time she reached the other end of the building—only to stand in the middle of the cavernous and crowded terminal for several disorientated minutes as she endeavoured to locate desk six.

There didn’t appear to be a desk six. Desk five, yes. And a desk seven. But no desk six—

‘Miss Barton?’

Lily turned abruptly, almost falling over her own suitcase as it remained solidly in place behind her without the benefit of that second wheel. Lily blew several tendrils of platinum blond hair out of her eyes before focusing on the beautiful dark-haired flight attendant who stood up from behind an unmarked desk and towered over Lily’s five feet two inches in height as she moved to join her. ‘I’m Lily Barton, yes …’

The other woman eyed her uncertainly. ‘Lily? But—’

‘Don’t worry about it—it’s a family thing.’ Lily had absolutely no interest in explaining that as a young child her brother, unable to get his tongue around the name Giselle, had instead called her Lelly, which had eventually become Lily. And stuck fast. Thank goodness; Giselle sounded like someone’s elderly aunt. And whilst she might one day become exactly that, at only twenty-six she preferred to stick with Lily! ‘See.’ She fished her passport out of the zip pocket of her bag and held it in front of the other woman’s beautifully straight nose.

Not the most flattering photograph ever taken of her, Lily acknowledged ruefully. Oh, her long and completely straight—and completely natural—platinum-blond hair was tidy enough, but her blue eyes had widened as soon as the flash went off, giving her a slightly startled appearance. As she hadn’t been allowed to smile her face looked slightly woebegone, and her neck appeared almost too slender to support that heavy mane of hair.

‘If you’re about to tell me that I can’t fly to Rome today after all—’ she started, stashing the passport back in the pocket of her shoulder bag, ‘then I think I should first warn you that if anything else goes wrong today I’m likely to start screaming hysterically.’

The other woman’s cool demeanour softened slightly. ‘Tough morning?’

Lily raised her eyes heavenwards. ‘Let’s not even go there.’

The flight attendant’s brisk, businesslike air left her completely as she chuckled softly. ‘Then I’m glad I’m not about to make it any more difficult for you.’

‘You aren’t?’ Now it was Lily’s turn to look uncertain. As well as hopeful.

‘Not at all. Here—let me take that for you.’ The other woman took possession of the handle of Lily’s suitcase before turning to walk away, somehow managing to pull the damaged suitcase smoothly along behind her as she did so. Of course!

‘Hey!’ Lily quickly caught up with the other woman and grasped her by the arm. ‘Where are you going with my case?’

She smiled patiently. ‘I’ll check it in for you, and then take you through to the private lounge.’

Lily looked taken aback, then shook her head. ‘I think there’s been some sort of mistake.’ Although it was hard to believe there could possibly be two women called Giselle Barton—let alone both booked on today’s flight to Rome! ‘I’m booked into an economy seat, which I think entitles me—if I’m lucky—to find a seat in the crowded main departure lounge.’ She smiled ruefully.

The ebony-haired beauty returned that smile. ‘I believe your booking was changed earlier this morning.’

‘Changed?’ Lily eyed her pleadingly. ‘Please don’t tell me I’m now flying to Norway, or somewhere else guaranteed to be even colder than England is right now?’

The flight attendant gave another chuckle. ‘No, you aren’t flying to Norway.’

‘Iceland? Or perhaps Siberia?’ She gave a pained grimace. December had been a particularly cold month in England this year, and although Lily appreciated the temperatures wouldn’t be in the twenties in Rome, it should at least be warmer than snow-covered England.

‘You aren’t flying to either of those two places.’ She grinned openly now. ‘You’re still booked on the flight to Rome due to depart in two hours’ time.’

‘Thank goodness for that!’ Lily frowned. ‘Look, I realise I must seem like a country bumpkin, what with the wonky suitcase and my hot and bothered appearance, but I’m really not in need of special assistance. It’s just the first time that I’ve ever flown—and I’m obviously making a complete mess of organising myself.’

The flight attendant chewed on her bottom lip in an obvious effort to stop herself from laughing again. ‘Which is why I intend checking in for you.’

‘Before taking me to a private lounge?’ Lily repeated slowly.

‘Yes. If you would just like to come this way … ?’

Lily shook her head as she stood her ground. ‘I really think there’s been some sort of a mix-up. I am Giselle Barton, yes. And I’m booked on the flight to Rome. But I have an economy seat—’

‘Not any more,’ the other woman assured her briskly. ‘Count Scarletti called the airline himself this morning and changed your booking to a first class seat, as well as giving instructions that you are to be given every personal care and consideration—before and during the flight.’

Count Scarletti?

Count Dmitri Scarletti?

The same wealthy and influential man, of mixed Russian/Italian ancestry, for whom Felix was currently working in Rome? Well, there couldn’t possibly be two of them, could there? So it must be!

‘I believe there will also be a car waiting to meet you at Leonardo da Vinci airport,’ the flight attendant added enviously.

Felix was supposed to be meeting Lily at Rome airport …

Unless Count Scarletti had needed Felix to remain in his office today, rather than meeting Lily as planned, and this was the other man’s way of making up for that change in their plans?

No doubt Felix would explain everything once she arrived at the apartment he rented in the city …

Lily was feeling slightly dazed from all the ‘care and consideration’ she had received ‘before and during the flight’ by the time she disembarked the plane at Leonardo da Vinci airport several hours later.

Sonia, the original flight attendant, had duly booked in Lily’s suitcase, before escorting her to a completely private lounge set aside for VIPs. Which—upgraded or not—Lily certainly wasn’t!

Once in the lounge she’d been plied with drinks and food by yet more attendants, before being personally escorted onto the plane by one of them only minutes before the flight was due to take off. She’d been shown to her first class seat—with not an overweight businessman in sight!—and then given champagne and canapés until she couldn’t eat or drink any more. The result being that she had dropped off to sleep after her third glass of champagne, and hadn’t woken up again until the plane had landed.

And if she had thought her personal—and, she admitted, slightly embarrassing—service to be over once she was outside, then she was sadly mistaken. As soon as she stepped out into the arrivals terminal she saw her name written on a card being held up by a tall and heavily muscled man dressed in a chauffeur’s uniform—a man who looked more like a bodyguard than a chauffeur!

After introducing himself only as Marco, and ensuring that she was indeed Giselle Barton, he then proceeded to lift her heavy and broken suitcase as if it weighed nothing at all, before carrying it outside to a limousine parked in the ‘No Parking’ zone, leaving Lily with no choice but to follow him.

Her attempts to ask him questions, in a mixture of very bad Italian and English, didn’t go well. Only the mention of Felix’s name and Count Scarletti’s received a terse ‘si’ of response as Marco ensured Lily was comfortably seated in the back of the limousine before slamming the door firmly behind her and moving to place her case in the cavernous boot of the car.

All of this was being watched by several dozen pairs of curious eyes, as people obviously wondered if the woman with the long silver-coloured hair, dressed in faded blue denims and a heavy black jacket, was some sort of celebrity. Obviously a celebrity who bought her clothes from a thrift shop!

By the time Marco slid in behind the wheel of the long black car to drive smoothly away from the kerb and enter the stream of traffic, Lily was flushed with embarrassment, and the glass partition separating the front and the back of the limousine wasn’t conducive to any further attempts to question the chauffeur, either.

Left with no other choice, Lily chose to sit back in her leather seat and enjoy the scenery outside as the car sped towards the centre of Rome; if she was going to wake up from this Cinderella-like transformation any time soon then she might as well enjoy what was left of it!

She had been right about the temperature: it wasn’t exactly T-shirt weather outside, but it was definitely ten or so degrees warmer than England, with no snow in sight. And the sun was shining too, which made everything look so much brighter and warmer. Lily was so enthralled by the city of Rome that after the first couple of near misses with other cars, as drivers honked and gesticulated, only to be completely ignored by the stoic Marco, she decided it might be best to return her attention to the amazing scenery outside the window.

Every street corner seemed to have statuary, a fountain or a nativity scene—it was almost Christmas, after all—along with imposing museums that easily rivalled the history of the sludge-covered London Lily had left behind her only hours ago. Many of the outside cafés were open for business too—even if the patrons had to wear coats and scarves in order to keep warm.

No wonder Felix had so obviously fallen in love with the city. And not only the city, apparently; he had informed Lily weeks ago that he was going out with a young Italian girl named Dee, whom he wanted to introduce to her at the earliest opportunity.

Rome appeared to be a city where it would be all too easy to fall in love …

Lily frowned her confusion when, half an hour or so after leaving the airport, Marco didn’t stop the car outside an apartment building at all, but instead parked outside two imposing wooden doors, at least fifteen foot high. They slowly opened, and Marco then drove the car into the courtyard of a magnificent building that must surely once have been a royal palace.

The tall wooden doors had closed firmly behind them by the time Marco got out of the car and opened the back door for Lily.

Despite the teeming rush and bustle of the city outside, it was strangely silent inside these four walls as she slowly stepped out into the shadowed courtyard. Silent and intimidating. Eerily so.

Lily pulled her jacket more tightly about her as she turned to the chauffeur. ‘Mi scusi, signor—parla inglese?’

‘No,’ he answered abruptly, before moving to the back of the car to remove her case from the boot.

Obviously not the talkative type, she acknowledged ruefully. Which was of absolutely no help to her at all!

She realised that all the attention at the airport in England, and on the plane earlier, had lulled her into a false sense of security. She had, in fact, left Leonardo da Vinci airport with a man she didn’t know and who had hardly spoken a word to her after telling her his name. And it was she who’d mentioned Felix and the Count’s names, not Marco! Added to which, Lily had now been delivered to a building that looked as if it might once have been a palace but could just as easily have been a brothel! An expensive and exclusive brothel, obviously, but a brothel nonetheless.

Pictures flashed inside Lily’s mind of newspaper articles she had read over the years on the lucrative slave trade in blond-haired, blue-eyed young women. Women who to all intents and purposes had simply disappeared into the ether, but who had actually been whisked off somewhere and kept locked behind closed doors, their bodies used and abused, until they were no longer young enough to attract the attention of the wealthy customers. When they were either disposed of or placed in yet another brothel—one whose customers weren’t so fastidious regarding the age of the women they paid to bed.

She really was the country bumpkin she had described herself as being earlier! Shouldn’t be allowed out on her own … Certainly shouldn’t have attempted to fly to Rome on her own …

Slightly frightened now, she turned back to the chauffeur as he placed her suitcase on the cobbled stones of the courtyard. ‘Signor, I really must—’

‘That will be all, thank you, Marco.’

Lily froze for the fraction of a second it took for an icy shiver to run down the length of her spine just at the sound of that husky and yet authoritative voice, before turning sharply to look up at the gallery above. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw there was a man standing in the shadows, looking down into the courtyard from the first floor. Even squinting hard into the depths of those shadows, Lily couldn’t make out the man’s features—was aware only of an impression of height and leashed power.

The brothel master, maybe?

Oh, good grief, Lily, she instantly admonished herself. Of course he wasn’t the brothel master—because this wasn’t a brothel. There would be a perfectly sensible explanation for her having been brought here. One the man on the gallery above could obviously give her, considering that just now he had spoken in perfect, and only slightly accented English.

She turned back to thank Marco for his assistance—only for her apprehension to return with a vengeance when she realised that the chauffeur had disappeared silently into the bowels of the house while she’d stared up, mesmerised by the presence of the man in the gallery.

Which had perhaps been the intention all along? Distracting her attention, allowing Marco to disappear, and so leaving her completely alone and at the mercy of this other man?

She turned to glare up at the man on the gallery. Damn it, she was twenty-six years old, a British citizen and a teacher, with a mortgage on her small London flat and all the responsibilities that went along with those things; she certainly wasn’t going to allow herself to be intimidated by a man who was too afraid even to show his face.

‘Oh. My. Lord!’ Lily gasped softly as the man, as if sensing at least some of her tumultuous thoughts, finally stepped out of the shadows to stand against the balustrade, looking down at her.

She had been correct about the height: the man stood at least a foot taller than her own five feet two inches. And about the leashed power—even wearing an expensive designer label suit over a pristine white shirt and meticulously knotted grey silk tie, the man managed to exude an aura of barely restrained strength. His shoulders were incredibly wide beneath the jacket of that suit, his waist tapered and his long, long legs were encased in perfectly tailored trousers.

But it was the face beneath that midnight black haircut, quite frankly, in a Roman style—that held Lily completely mesmerised. It was a harshly hewn olive-skinned face, dominated by light coloured eyes above a straight slash of a nose and sculptured unsmiling lips. His chin was square and starkly masculine in those arrogantly chiselled features.

He looked like something from one of Lily’s wilder fantasies—the sort of man every woman wanted to tame and claim for her own.

He raised one black and perfectly etched brow, and those sculptured lips curved in hard amusement as he responded to her earlier gasped exclamation. ‘Not even close, I am afraid, Miss Barton.’

He knew her name! ‘I’m afraid you have the advantage over me, signor.’

He gave a terse inclination of his head before walking towards the staircase leading down from the gallery into the courtyard. ‘If you will just wait there, I will come down and introduce myself—’

‘No!’

He came to an abrupt halt at the top of the stairs, that dark and arrogant brow arched higher than before. ‘No?’

‘No.’ Lily stood her ground, shoulders tensed, booted feet braced slightly apart on the cobbles. She refused to back down by so much as the flicker of an eyelid as she met that pale gaze in open challenge. ‘You can tell me exactly who and what you are from right there.’

‘Exactly who and what I am?’ he repeated, in a soft and yet slightly menacing voice.

‘Exactly.’ Lily nodded stubbornly.

He tilted his head to one side as his eyes—blue, maybe? Or green? Or possibly grey?—raked over her mercilessly, from the top of her silver head to her small booted feet, amusement glinting as he slowly moved his gaze back up to her now slightly blushing face. ‘Who do you think I am?’ he finally murmured slowly. ‘Exactly?’

Lily was glad that this man couldn’t possibly hear her heart beating twice as fast as normal from where he stood. It was bad enough that she knew how nervous she was, without him being aware of it too. Her mouth firmed. ‘Well, if I knew that I wouldn’t have needed to ask!’

The man appeared completely relaxed as he continued to stand at the top of the staircase. ‘Let me see … At the airport you climbed into a car with a man you did not know, allowing him to drive you to an unknown destination before abandoning you there—and you did all this without any knowledge as to what or who would be waiting for you at the end of that journey?’ Those pale eyes had taken on contemptuous gleam now.

Lily felt the burn of increased warmth in her cheeks; she had already realised exactly what she had done, and certainly didn’t need some arrogant and dangerously attractive—emphasis on the dangerous—Italian pointing it out to her so succinctly!

She scowled. ‘I assumed the driver was taking me to my brother’s apartment. Obviously I should have behaved with a little more caution—’

‘A little more?’ he replied disapprovingly, those dark brows low over narrowed eyes, those sculptured lips a thin and uncompromising line. ‘If you do not mind my saying so, you have been naïve in the extreme.’

‘As a matter of fact I do mind you saying so.’ Lily glared her annoyance at him. ‘And if you’ve brought me here with some idea of asking my family to pay a ransom before releasing me, then I think I should tell you that my brother—my only living relative—is as poor as I am!’

‘Indeed?’ Those sculptured features had taken on a harsh and intimidating expression.

‘Yes,’ Lily said with satisfaction. ‘Now, just tell me who you are, and what it is you want.’

He gave a slow, disbelieving shake of his head. ‘You really do not have any idea, do you?’

‘I know one thing—which is that I’m becoming increasingly irritated at your delaying tactics.’ Her hands were tightly clenched at her sides. ‘I also know I have every intention of going to the police and reporting this incident as soon as I’m released from here.’

His eyebrows quirked. ‘Then it would seem not to be in my best interests to release you, wouldn’t it?’

Lily had realised that as soon as the threat left her lips! ‘I don’t think my request for you to tell me who you are and where I am is unreasonable.’

‘Not at all,’ he drawled. ‘I am Count Dmitri Scarletti, Miss Barton.’ The darkness of his hair shone blue-black as he gave a terse nod of greeting. ‘And you are currently standing in the courtyard of the Palazzo Scarletti.’ Oh.

Her brother’s employer.

The same man who’d arranged for her to be looked after so well up until now.

And Lily had just repaid him by hurling accusations of kidnap and threats of arrest at him!




CHAPTER TWO


IF the circumstances had been any different then Dmitri might have been amused by the stunned dismay on Giselle Barton’s delicately lovely face as she digested what he had just revealed to her. As it was, the present circumstances were such that he couldn’t find any humour in anything a single member of the Barton family did or said. Even one as unexpectedly lovely as Giselle had proved to be …

Dmitri didn’t take his gaze off her as he descended the staircase, sure that he had never seen hair of quite that colour and silky texture before—so pale a blond that it shimmered silver in the sunlight, and of such a length and thickness that it would tempt a man into winding it about his fingers as he pulled her ever closer …

Her eyes, stormy at the moment, were nevertheless the colour of the sky on a clear summer’s day, her nose was small and straight above a perfect bow of a mouth that had surely been designed for a man to kiss and savour, and her chin was small and stubbornly pointed as she frowned at him.

He couldn’t see her figure properly beneath the bulky jacket she wore over a blue sweater, but her legs were slender and yet shapely in the fitted and faded jeans, and her feet appeared small even in those unbecoming boots she was wearing. Yes, Giselle Barton was far lovelier than Dmitri had anticipated. Or particularly wished for.

At thirty-six years of age he knew that over the years he had acquired something of a reputation—both in business and in his personal life. He was a man, in fact, who publicly always had a beautiful woman clinging to his arm. A man who, under different circumstances, would have found this woman’s ethereal beauty and air of independence something of a challenge. As it was, he had far more important things to concern himself with than her surprising and delicate loveliness. Indeed, her undoubted beauty was a complication he could well have done without!

The slenderness of her throat moved as she swallowed before speaking. ‘I— You— It would seem that I owe you an apology, Count Scarletti.’ The blush on her cheeks was obviously caused by embarrassment now. ‘I simply had no idea—your chauffeur gave me no explanation—’

‘He was instructed not to do so,’ Dmitri interjected.

Those sky-blue eyes widened as she looked up at him uncertainly. He stood only feet away from her now, and the top of her silver-blond head didn’t even reach up to his wide shoulders.

‘He was?’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed as bent down to pick up her battered suitcase before straightening and walking towards the palazzo. ‘If you would like to follow me, I have some hot refreshment waiting for you inside.’

No doubt this seriously attractive man could crook a finger and she would follow him anywhere, Lily acknowledged disgustedly. Except he hadn’t even attempted to do that; he just expected—no, demanded—that Lily follow him inside.

Having already made something of a fool of herself today, Lily had no intention of continuing to do so. She made no effort to follow him, but instead made a demand of her own. ‘Where’s Felix?’

Those broad shoulders stiffened beneath that perfectly tailored jacket as the Count came to an abrupt halt in the doorway. He slowly turned to look at her, heavy lids narrowed over the eyes Lily had discovered only seconds ago were, in fact, a pale and unfathomable green. A pale and mesmerising green, actually. As mesmerising, in fact, as the rest of him.

Up close—if not personal!—Lily could see that he was younger than she had first thought—probably aged somewhere in his mid to late thirties—with a ruthless cast to those wickedly handsome features that must make him formidable in the business world, and pretty scary in his personal life too. She certainly wouldn’t like to find herself on the wrong side of him …

He looked down the long length of his aristocratic nose at her. ‘That is an interesting question.’

Lily gave a start. ‘It is?’ A frown appeared between her eyes. ‘Has something happened to him?’ She walked quickly across the courtyard to look questioningly into Count Scarletti’s face. ‘Please don’t say he’s been involved in a accident!’ As she had already discovered, driving in Italy could be seriously hazardous to your health!

Dark brows rose over those cold and narrowed eyes. ‘The answer to your questions would appear to be, I have no idea and not yet,’ he rasped, with a chilling softness that sent a shiver of apprehension down her spine.

‘But—I don’t understand!’ Lily had to take two steps to one of his much longer strides as he stepped into the cool hallway of the palazzo.

She faltered slightly, totally overwhelmed by her surroundings as she took in the magnificence of the marble floor and cut-glass chandelier hanging down from a cavernous ceiling overhead, the antique furnishings and obviously original paintings on the walls adding to the air of wealth and grandeur.

And it was so quiet—not a sound to be heard except the echo of their footsteps as Lily belatedly followed the Count as he walked down the marble hallway before disappearing into a room at the end of the long corridor.

Admittedly this was a huge house—palace!—and as far as Lily knew only Count Scarletti and his sister, Claudia, lived here, but even so surely there should be a feeling of there being other people in the house? Servants to keep such a huge house clean and dust-free? Others preparing this evening’s dinner for their padrone and his young sister? Instead there was just a hollow, eerie silence …

Lily hurried to follow the Count down the hallway, and into the room—only to come to an abrupt halt just inside the door as she found herself in a room so elegantly beautiful it made her gasp softly in awe. The walls were gleaming white, with gold—real gold leaf?—picking out the intricacies of the cornices and scrollwork, and another beautiful glass chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling. A deep blue Aubusson carpet covered most of the marble floor space, and the furniture was obviously from the early nineteenth century—delicate and lovely, with numerous expensive china figurines adorning it. Yet more original paintings were on the walls, and huge, almost floor-length windows looked out onto the magnificence of Rome’s skyline.

And in the midst of all this elegance stood Count Scarletti, very tall and imposing, beside an ornate fireplace in which a fire crackled and flamed, adding a warmth to this beautiful room that Lily felt was singularly lacking in its master.

She huddled into her jacket as she felt another chill run down the length of her spine. ‘You were about to explain why Felix didn’t meet me at the airport as planned.’

He slowly quirked one dark and arrogant brow. ‘Was I?’

Lily looked puzzled. From the little Felix had told her of his employer she’d gained the impression Dmitri Scarletti was a hard taskmaster but a fair one, expecting no more of his employees than he did of himself. In fact, she had got the distinct feeling that her brother’s boss worked as hard as he was reputed to play. Certainly Felix had said nothing about the other man being cold and withdrawn and less than helpful!

She drew in a sharp breath. ‘You—’

‘Perhaps you would care to pour the tea before we continue our conversation?’ He indicated a silver tray on the low, ornate white coffee table on which a teapot and cups had been arranged.

No, Lily would not care to pour the tea; she wanted to know where Felix was, and why he hadn’t met her at the airport—and she wanted to know now! Except good manners—and her brother’s employment by this man—dictated that she not be so obviously rude to him. Especially as the Count had taken the trouble to upgrade her to first class on the flight over here, as well as sending his own chauffeur to meet her at the airport!

Dmitri might almost have smiled at the battle for good manners so obviously going on inside Giselle Barton’s beautiful head. Almost. But until he had ascertained exactly how much she knew about her brother’s present behaviour he intended to treat her with the same suspicion with which he now regarded Felix.

‘I am sure you must be in need of refreshment after your flight, Miss Barton.’

‘Not really. I had more than enough champagne to drink on the plane,’ she admitted ruefully.

‘Indeed?’ Dmitri drawled with obvious distaste.

Colour warmed those pale cheeks as she shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. ‘Courtesy of your kindness in upgrading my seat.’

‘It was the least I could do,’ Dmitri said curtly.

‘Yes. Well. I appreciate the kindness.’

She looked awkward, as if she were unaccustomed to such attentions. Which she probably was; Dmitri knew from his conversations with Felix these past few months that his parents were dead and his only sister lived alone in London.

‘Now, I’m sure I’ve taken up enough of your time, so if you wouldn’t mind arranging for a taxi to take me to Felix’s apartment?’

‘Later, perhaps.’ Dmitri moved with the intention of sitting in one of the wing-backed armchairs beside the fire, and became instantly aware of the way she took a wary step backwards. Perhaps he deserved that; normally a man of cool and rigid self-control, he realised at the moment he was only barely managing to hold his inner feelings of anger in check.

An anger Giselle obviously sensed even if she didn’t know the reason for it …

If indeed she truly didn’t know the reason for it …

At the moment the two of them were playing a cat and mouse game, neither revealing to the other what they knew of this situation, but instead using the dictates of good manners as a shield to what they were really thinking and feeling.

Whatever the outcome of this conversation, she would not be leaving Palazzo Scarletti until Dmitri had decided she would.

He sat down, eyeing her mockingly as he crossed one elegant knee over the other. ‘Even if you would not like one, perhaps you would not mind pouring a cup of tea for me?’

‘I— Yes, of course.’ She dropped her shoulder bag awkwardly to the accompaniment of the muffled sound of a metal clunk as it hit the carpeted floor. ‘The wheel that dropped off my suitcase earlier this morning,’ she explained with an embarrassed grimace.

Dmitri stood up smoothly. ‘If you would care to give it to me … ?’

Lily stared down at that lean and elegant hand for several seconds, imagining how that olive hue to his skin would look against her much paler—

Her cheeks began to burn as she realised exactly what she was doing. This was Count Dmitri Scarletti, for goodness’ sake! A mega-rich and successful man, reputed to escort only beautiful and successful women. Lily—only passably pretty and a mere schoolteacher—would be of no interest to him, so any fantasies she had were a complete waste of her time!

She bent her head to hide her blushes, before sitting down on her haunches beside her bag. ‘It’s completely broken, I’m afraid.’ Nevertheless, she held the wheel out to him; he possessed such a compelling arrogance it was impossible for her not to do so.

It was a compelling arrogance she realised was totally merited as he tilted her suitcase to one side before reattaching the wheel with a mere sideways twist and then a click.

She felt totally inadequate. Damn it, she had struggled all day with that suitcase, and in only a matter of seconds he had fixed it! ‘Thank you,’ she murmured as she moved to pour the tea, at the same time completely aware of his every move as he strolled across the room to resume his seat by the fire.

‘You’re welcome,’ he answered softly.

Lily avoided his penetrating gaze as she handed him the cup of tea she had just poured—careful not to so much as touch his long and elegant fingers as he took the saucer from her. She was already completely aware of this man, without the need to physically touch him.

Although she would think that plenty of women had enjoyed indulging that need …

Those spectacular good-looks aside, there was an aloofness to Dmitri Scarletti—an emotional distance that would challenge women as well as tempt them. Not Lily, of course; she could behave impetuously—as this sudden decision to spend Christmas in Rome with Felix proved—but she wasn’t stupid. Men like this one, indecently rich and dangerously handsome, weren’t attracted to lowly teachers from England. Except maybe as a casual bed partner, of course, and she had always preferred not to involve herself in meaningless physical relationships.

What on earth was she doing?

Lily sat down abruptly in the armchair on the opposite side of the fireplace to Dmitri Scarletti, still avoiding looking at him, slightly dazed by the continuation of her wild imaginings about him.

Best she stayed only long enough find out exactly where Felix was before leaving for her brother’s apartment—with or without Dmitri Scarletti calling her a taxi—and then hopefully there would be no reason for seeing the Count ever again. Lily certainly shouldn’t be allowing herself the indulgence of finding such a totally unattainable man in the least attractive!

She straightened. ‘I really do appreciate your kindness earlier today, Count Scarletti—’

‘Dmitri. I would like for you to call me Dmitri if I may be allowed to call you Giselle?’ he expanded.

Lily looked across at him blankly. ‘No! I mean—’ She waved her hand as she hastened to explain. ‘Everyone calls me Lily.’

‘Indeed?’ Once again those midnight-black brows rose to his hairline. ‘Why?’

‘It’s a long and boring story, and really one not worth wasting your time hearing,’ Lily dismissed.

‘I have no other commitments today,’ he drawled softly. ‘And surely it is for the listener to decide whether or not a story is worth hearing?’

‘By which time they’ve already been bored silly.’ Lily grimaced as she sat forward to pour herself a cup of tea after all; if the Count was in no hurry to finish this conversation—and he obviously wasn’t—then she might just as well drink some tea too. It might also help to stop her hands shaking …

Intimidated was only one way of describing how this compellingly handsome man made her feel. And from a woman used to dealing with a self-opinionated headmaster and condescending male colleagues, that was quite an admission.

But as well as the man’s obvious wealth and confidence there was a—a— The only way Lily could think to describe it was a waiting quality about this man—almost like that of a large and stealthily confident predator watching his small and decidedly vulnerable prey.

Well, she might be small in comparison to him—in comparison to most men, actually—but she certainly wasn’t vulnerable. She was a woman used to keeping a classroom full of sixteen to eighteen-year-old boys and girls in check, and Lily couldn’t allow herself to show any such weakness!

‘Please continue,’ the Count invited smoothly.

‘It really isn’t very interesting,’ Lily insisted.

He shrugged those powerful shoulders. ‘As I said, I have no other commitments today.’

That was hardly the point, now, was it? Lily just wanted to see Felix, so that they could go off and spend Christmas together. Talking of which … There wasn’t a single decoration, let alone a Christmas tree, in this elegantly beautiful room to show that Christmas Day was only two days away. Didn’t they celebrate Christmas in Italy? But of course they did—they just called Father Christmas Babbo Natale instead. So maybe it was Count Dmitri Scarletti who didn’t celebrate Christmas?

And maybe Lily was just allowing her thoughts to wander in this haphazard way because she really had no inclination to share any personal details about herself with this arrogantly aloof man?

‘Fine,’ she bit out tersely, glad she hadn’t bothered to explain the name thing to the flight attendant earlier; twice in one day was just too much! ‘My mother named me Giselle after her favourite ballet, but it soon became obvious that the name was too difficult for Felix to get his tongue around. His version of it came out as Lelly, later shortened to Lily. I’ve been known as Lily ever since. Which is probably just as well, because after only two ballet lessons at the age of six it became perfectly obvious that I have two left feet! All the grace of a charging elephant,’ Lily explained ruefully at the Count’s questioning look.

If Dmitri had met Lily at a dinner party or other social occasion then he knew he would have found himself highly entertained by her conversation. As it was, he was far too preoccupied by other considerations at this moment to allow himself to be in the least amused by her.

‘I find that very hard to believe,’ he said.

‘Oh, I assure you it’s true.’

Dmitri slowly sat forward to place his empty cup back on the silver tray. ‘Might I ask if you have heard from Felix today?’

Lily suddenly felt herself speared—yes, speared definitely described it!—by the intensity of that pale green gaze. Eyes that he must have inherited from his Russian grandmother, along with the sharply sculptured angles of his face and that incredible and imposing height.

Whatever, Lily felt herself pinned into place like that prey she had thought of earlier—a rabbit or a deer, caught in the headlights of an approaching car. ‘I— No. Why should I have done? Our arrangements were for him to meet me at the airport.’

‘Arrangements he obviously did not keep.’ Dmitri coldly stated the obvious.

‘Well … no. But I assumed that was because you had needed him for something else.’ Lily’s earlier feelings of unease returned with a vengeance.

That silent drive from the airport, which had ended in her being brought to Palazzo Scarletti rather than her brother’s apartment … The sudden disappearance of the chauffeur, Marco, once his employer had shown himself on the gallery … Dmitri’s less than helpful answers to her questions … The strange and eerie silence of the palazzo, as if she and Dmitri were the only ones here …

Lily tensed. ‘Have you even seen my brother today?’

His mouth thinned. ‘Unfortunately not.’

There was an unmistakably cold and angry edge to that denial that only increased her wariness. ‘Then where is he?’

‘I wish I knew.’ His mouth was suddenly a thin, uncompromising line, his pale green eyes becoming glacial. ‘You are sure you have not heard from or spoken to Felix today?’

‘Of course I’m sure!’ Lily’s patience was starting to wear a little thin now. ‘I think I would know if I had spoken to my own brother!’

He breathed noisily down his nose, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘No text messages? Nothing at all?’

‘Well, of course no—’ Lily became suddenly still. ‘Obviously I haven’t had the chance to check for text message or calls since I arrived in Rome.’

She frowned and stood up once again to root around inside her cavernous shoulder bag for her mobile—not an easy task when it also contained her purse, a couple of paperback books, her make-up, lip salve, a pen, sweeteners and several tubes of mints! ‘If you would just tell me what all this is about,’ She finally found her mobile and took it out of the bag. ‘Perhaps I could—’ She broke off abruptly as Dmitri suddenly surged to his feet to tower over her, before deftly taking the phone from her hand. ‘Hey!’ Lily protested indignantly as she once again allowed her bag to fall to the floor. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘There appear to be two messages,’ he said, ignoring her obvious indignation as he looked intently at the screen of her mobile.

‘Messages that are obviously meant for me!’ Lily swiftly plucked the phone back out of Dmitri’s long and elegant fingers.

That nerve once again pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw as his eyes glittered down at her in warning. ‘You are not helping this situation by being deliberately obstructive.’

‘Maybe if you were to explain what “this situation” is then I wouldn’t feel the need to be obstructive!’ Lily glared up at him challengingly.

Dmitri drew in a deep and controlling breath, aware that he was behaving unlike his normal cool self. His only excuse was that it had already been a long and difficult morning, and consequently he was not in any sort of mood to deal with the stubbornly unhelpful Lily Barton! ‘Listen to your messages and then tell me what they say,’ he instructed harshly.

Blond brows rose in surprise at his tone. ‘If I feel they’re anything you need to know, then perhaps I will!’

Dmitri looked at her coldly as he fought down the inclination he felt to shake this particular young woman until her teeth rattled in her beautiful head. ‘Just check them, please,’ he finally grated, hands clenching at his sides.

Lily swallowed convulsively before dragging her gaze from Dmitri’s to place the mobile to her ear and listen to her messages. ‘The first one is private,’ she informed him resentfully. It was Danny, belatedly wishing her a good time in Rome. No doubt with some idea of the two of them getting together again after Christmas. Some hopes! ‘The second one is …’

Lily’s voice trailed off as she realised the second message was from Felix, and had been left at nine o’clock this morning, English time. Before Lily had even left home for the airport. Except at the time she had been standing outside on the pavement in front of her apartment building, waiting for the late arrival of her taxi, with no thought of checking to see if she had any voicemail messages …

She felt herself start to tremble as she heard the urgency in Felix’s tone as she listened to his message. ‘Don’t come to Rome, after all, sis,’ he warned forcefully. ‘I’ll explain everything when I see you again, but just don’t—don’t!—come to Rome!’

‘What the—?’ Lily looked up dazedly as the broodingly silent Dmitri, standing close beside her, took the phone from her unprotesting hand and listened to this second message for himself. ‘Why didn’t Felix want me to come to Rome after all?’ she breathed softly, uncertainly, as she saw and recognised the dangerous glitter in those pale green eyes as he glowered at her. ‘Where is he?’

Dmitri snapped the mobile shut with a resounding click, his jaw tightly clenched. ‘As I said earlier, that is an interesting question …’

‘Then I demand that this time you answer it!’ Lily insisted, glaring at him accusingly as she snatched the phone back out of his hand.

Dmitri couldn’t help noticing—to his own annoyance—that her blue eyes were now the colour of sapphires. There was a slight flush to the pale delicacy of her cheeks, and the perfect bow of her lips was set in a stubborn line.

‘You obviously know what’s going on—otherwise you wouldn’t have taken the trouble to upgrade my seat on the plane, or sent your car to collect me from the airport!’

Intelligent as well as beautiful, Dmitri acknowledged, recalling his relief when he had received the telephone call informing him that Giselle Barton was at the airport in England and was booked onto the flight to Rome. For several hours before that Dmitri had been afraid that Felix might have contacted his sister and warned her not to come here.

As it was …

‘No, I would not,’ he accepted abruptly as he moved to stand beside the fireplace. ‘As to where your brother is at this precise moment— I have absolutely no idea.’ If he knew that then he would not be wasting his time talking to the man’s less than helpful sister. But, as things now stood, unfortunately she was Dmitri’s only possible means of locating Felix. ‘But I assure you that when I do know, I have every intention of ensuring that your brother leaves Italy immediately and is never allowed to return.’

Lily became suddenly still, her confusion of emotions nothing in comparison to the frightening chill of anger she could feel coming off Dmitri Scarletti in waves. Towards her as well as Felix.

What on earth had her brother done to incur this man’s cold and no doubt deadly wrath?

Whatever it was, she had no intention of standing meekly by while this man attacked her brother—either verbally or physically. ‘You don’t scare me, Count Scarletti,’ she informed him, grinding her teeth together as amusement glittered briefly in the pale green gaze sweeping over her obvious slenderness and lack of height. ‘Don’t be fooled by appearances. I’m very proficient in kick-boxing—and I’m not afraid to use it!’

Grudging respect briefly lit his eyes and he nodded. ‘When this is all over I would be happy for you to demonstrate your skill. However,’ he continued ruthlessly when Lily would have spoken, ‘at this moment I am more concerned in locating your brother and returning my sister to her home and family without scandal than I am in any threats you may care to make!’

Lily was totally confused now. What did Claudia Scarletti have to do with all this? ‘Your sister?’

Dmitri eyed her scathingly. ‘I wish I could be sure you are as innocent in this matter as you sound, Miss Barton,’ he rasped harshly.

‘But I am innocent! At least … if you count ignorance as innocence.’ She frowned. ‘I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘I am talking of my sister and your brother’s elopement earlier today!’ he thundered, his patience obviously completely at an end.

Lily blinked.

Elopement?

Felix?

And Claudia Scarletti?




CHAPTER THREE


‘NO!’ Lily protested. ‘You have it all wrong,’ she continued confidently. ‘If your sister has gone missing then I’m sure it must be very worrying for you. But I assure you Felix has nothing to do with her disappearance. I know for a fact that he’s in love with a young lady named Dee. In fact, he’s done nothing but sing her praises this past two months.’

In all of Felix’s text messages and telephone calls during that time he had talked of nothing but the young lady he had met and fallen in love with since coming to Italy.

‘Perhaps he had trouble getting his tongue around the name Claudia too?’ Dmitri muttered morosely.

Lily blanched. ‘I’m sorry?’

Those chiselled lips twisted scornfully. ‘Dee is, apparently, what he calls my sister.’

Lily gasped even as she fell back a step, her hand moving up disbelievingly to her throat. What Dmitri was saying couldn’t be right. Could it? Felix would surely have told her if he had fallen in love with his boss’s sister. Wouldn’t he?

Or would he?

If Felix had once mentioned the full name of the woman he was seeing then he and Lily both knew she would have warned him against getting involved. Told him it was insane!

Claudia Scarletti! The young and beautiful sister of one of the most powerful and wealthy men in Italy. It was insane. Utterly and completely. Yet, while Felix might have done some less than sensible things in his life, surely he wasn’t stupid enough to have eloped with Count Dmitri Scarletti’s little sister?

Only Dmitri certainly seemed to think that he was …

Lily felt her face turn deathly pale. ‘Are you absolutely sure about this?’

‘Positive,’ Dmitri said tersely, reaching into the breast pocket of his dark tailored jacket to bring out a folded piece of paper. ‘My sister left this for me.’ His mouth compressed into an angry line. ‘In the mistaken hope, perhaps, that I would not attempt to look for her if I knew that she was with her lover.’

Lily’s hand visibly shook as she took the sheet of paper he held out to her, before unfolding it awkwardly to look blankly down at it for several seconds before handing it back to him with a grimace. ‘I’m afraid I don’t read Italian.’ She had, however, clearly recognised the name ‘Felix’ written several times in the text. Oh, God!

She took a step back to sit down heavily in the armchair, her pleasure at the thought of spending Christmas in Rome with Felix now replaced by feelings of apprehension as she accepted that Dmitri Scarletti might just be right about Felix’s involvement with his sister, after all.

Which was no doubt the reason the Count had more or less had her watched and herded from the airport in England to his palazzo here in Rome. Simply out of his desire to know if she’d had any idea of her brother’s plans? Or for some other reason?

Dmitri saw to the second the moment when Lily realised that his motive for having her brought to the Palazzo Scarletti might not, after all, be out of consideration for the sister of an employee, but something else entirely. As far as he was concerned, an entirely necessary something else!

He grimly recalled the frantic knocking on the door of his suite of rooms early that morning, waking him from the deep slumber he had fallen into after returning only hours earlier from a less than satisfactory evening spent with the woman who until six weeks ago had been his mistress. She still, unfortunately, had hopes of reviving his interest in her.

It had been an unpleasant as well as difficult evening. Dmitri had tried hard not to be cruel in his rejection, but ultimately had had no choice when Lucia had all but tried to seduce him at the dinner table. Very undignified. Very messy. And Dmitri was not a man who enjoyed having situations like that one in his life.

Learning that Claudia had eloped during the night with his English PA had put all thoughts of Lucia out of his mind as he’d begun a thorough, if necessarily discreet search for his young sister. The note she had left for him, explaining her reasons for leaving and with whom, had filled him with cold dread, and it had been after several hours of fruitless questioning of Claudia’s friends when his sister’s car had been located, parked at Leonardo da Vinci airport.

The location of Claudia’s abandoned car had at least allowed Dmitri to remember that Felix had requested the afternoon off work today, in order to meet his own sister when she arrived at the airport later …

Several phone calls later, and Dmitri had not only ascertained the woman’s flight number but had also arranged things so that when—if—she arrived at the airport in England, she would effectively be completely under his protection until safely delivered to the Palazzo Scarletti.

His mouth thinned now as he looked at her from between narrowed lids. ‘It would appear that the pair have been secretly seeing each other for some months, and have now decided to run away together,’ he bit out.

Lily was still trying to absorb everything this man had just told her. Even Lily could see the relationship was totally unsuitable—so heaven only knew what Dmitri Scarletti thought about it! Although that wasn’t too difficult to guess, when he was glowering down at her with such cold and brooding intensity.

Felix was certainly handsome enough to have attracted Claudia Scarletti’s interest, and there was no doubting that he was fun too, but everything else about him was totally wrong for such a wealthy, aristocratic girl.

Felix had no money to speak of—except the wage he earned working for the Count. He hadn’t attempted to buy a house or apartment when he’d lived in England, but had rented one instead. He had even sold his old wreck of a car before moving to Italy three months ago, and used public transport in Rome to get anywhere he needed to go. His family connections consisted of Lily. Admittedly she was a teacher, but at the same time she was struggling financially just as he was.

In short, Felix was totally unsuitable for Claudia—and that was obviously an opinion her older brother shared!

A frown suddenly creased the pallor of Lily’s brow. ‘Why secretly?’

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘What?’

This time Lily managed to suppress the cold shiver that threatened to run down the length of her spine. ‘Why did Felix and Claudia feel the need to meet in secret these past two months?’

Those dark brows once again rose to his midnight black hairline. ‘Perhaps because Claudia knew I would never approve of her dating my English PA?’ he suggested.

Perhaps … ‘Is that the only reason?’

‘Is that not reason enough?’ he asked coldly.

Maybe. But then again, maybe not … ‘I don’t know. Is it?’ Lily looked up at him challengingly. ‘I accept that Felix wouldn’t be your first choice as a boyfriend for your sister—’

‘Or my last.’ His top lip curled back disdainfully. ‘There’s no need to be insulting!’ Lily felt a flush of resentment warm her cheeks.

‘No?’

‘At least he isn’t a criminal or a drug addict!’

‘Your argument no doubt being that I should thank God for that small mercy?’ He began a restless pacing of the room. Much like a big cat confined to a cage. A big cat who might lash out with lethal claws at any moment.

And at the moment Lily was the only one within striking distance …

She tried to remember the things Felix had told her about the young woman he had met and fallen in love with—apart, that was, from how ‘wonderful, fantastic and innocent’ she was! By innocent, had Felix meant in the physical sense or—? Good Lord! ‘How old is Claudia?’

Dmitri stopped his pacing long enough to look down at her. ‘As it happens, my sister will be twenty-one tomorrow.’

‘Twenty-one?’ Lily repeated incredulously as she stood up. ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake. I thought from the way you were behaving that she must be about sixteen or so instead of a grown woman!’ At twenty-one Lily had already worked to support herself through her university degree and had been embarking on a course for her teaching certificate. ‘Obviously she has a mind of her own.’ Not surprising, if she was anything like her arrogant older brother! ‘And she’s definitely old enough to have decided for herself whether or not she’s in love. With Felix or anyone else.’

Dmitri looked at her disdainfully. ‘She has merely become … infatuated with his Englishness.’ He scowled darkly. ‘Felix is blond haired and blue-eyed, and—’

‘My twin.’

‘What?’ Dmitri stared at her uncomprehendingly. Lily gave a rueful smile. ‘Felix and I are twins. Born only five minutes apart.’

Dmitri closed his eyes briefly. ‘Which of you is the elder?’

‘I am,’ she announced.

Obviously, the two could not be identical, but Dmitri could see certain similarities in their colouring and the shape of their faces. And he had to acknowledge that at twenty-six years old Lily Barton was as beautiful as her brother was handsome …

He turned away from that fragile beauty to stare out of the window, searching for the soothing calm he always felt when looking at the majestic skyline of his beloved Roma. It was a calm that completely eluded him today, though, and he knew he would know no peace again until Claudia had been returned safely to him.

Dmitri had been fifteen years old when his mother had died giving birth to Claudia, but he had always adored his much younger sister—so much so that when their father had died of a heart attack, six years later, Dmitri had gladly accepted guardianship of her. It had not always been easy, and much of his time had been spent ensuring that her childhood was a happy and contented one—to the extent that he had put aside any ideas of marriage or a family of his own until Claudia’s own future was settled.

He realised now that perhaps he should not have done so. That a wife might perhaps have helped guard him against spoiling Claudia, of indulging her as much as he obviously had.

None of which was in the least helpful in this present situation!

‘Count Scarletti … er … Dmitri?’

His shoulders tensed at the husky softness of Lily’s voice before he slowly turned to look at her bleakly.

She took a deep breath before speaking. ‘If, as you claim, Felix has eloped with your sister, then I am sure that his intentions are honourable.’

At least Lily sincerely hoped that they were! Certainly Felix had never done anything as stupid as this before …

Crashed his motorbike when he was eighteen, yes. Dropped out of university during his first year to backpack around the world instead, yes. Telephoned Lily from Australia only three months later to ask for the fare home, yes. He had paid her back as soon as he had saved enough money from his winter season as a ski-instructor in France, though. Felix might be many things, but he was not a sponger.

Nevertheless, she had breathed a sigh of relief when, three years ago, Felix had finally seemed to shake the wanderlust from his system and settled down to take a business course before working his way up the corporate ladder to become PA to the managing director of a company in England. In turn, that had led to him coming to Rome three months ago to be PA to Count Scarletti.

Lily had always been the responsible twin—the sensible one. Always there to pick up the pieces from whatever scrape Felix had got himself into.

From the murderous expression now on Dmitri’s face, just at the mention of her brother’s honourable intentions, Lily realised there might not be any pieces of Felix left for her to pick up this time!

His mouth thinned ominously. ‘Your brother’s intentions are irrelevant when my sister is already promised in marriage to someone else.’

‘What?’ Lily felt a sinking sensation in her stomach.

He nodded. ‘Or at least she will be. Her betrothal to Francesco Giordano was to be announced at Claudia’s birthday celebrations tomorrow, at our home in Venice.’

Instead of which, she’d run off with another man! ‘Could that possibly be the reason she and Felix chose to elope today?’

Dmitri drew in a sharp breath. ‘Possibly.’

‘Which seems to imply that Claudia isn’t in love with this Francesco Giordano,’ Lily pointed out.

Those pale green eyes narrowed to glittering slits. ‘The betrothal has been arranged since Claudia’s sixteenth birthday.’

Lily shrugged. ‘Obviously she’s changed her mind since meeting Felix. And as the betrothal hasn’t yet been announced there’s no real harm done.’

‘The Giordanos and the Scarlettis have neighbouring vineyards in the hills above Venice,’ he grated harshly.

Lily’s brow cleared and she eyed him scathingly. ‘How romantic—a marriage made in the boardroom!’ She pursed her lips. ‘I simply can’t imagine why Claudia would prefer to elope with a handsome Englishman who’s in love with her rather than agree to an arranged marriage with your next door neighbour,’ she said sarcastically.

Dmitri looked annoyed. ‘You do not understand these things.’

‘I understand enough!’ There was no mistaking the disgust in her expression; those blue eyes glittered, her cheeks flushed and her top lip curled back in a slight sneer.

‘Obviously the vineyard is not Francesco’s only interest in her.’ He found himself defending the arrangement—much to his own annoyance.

‘I don’t see anything “obvious” about it,’ she challenged. ‘In fact, I find it pretty obscene that you intend marrying your only sister off to some man who’s probably old enough to be her father.’

‘Francesco is the only son of Franco Giordano, and is twenty-five years of age. He and Claudia have been friends since childhood!’ Dmitri’s patience—what little he had left after the shocking events of this morning—was fading fast in the face of this young woman’s insults.

‘Doesn’t he have an older or younger sister that you could marry to cement the business merger instead of Claudia?’ she asked pertly.

Dmitri’s nostrils flared at the obvious derision in her tone. Never, in all of his thirty-six years, had anyone ever spoken to him in the way she now did. ‘Francesco is an only child,’ he ground out through clenched teeth.

‘Pity,’ she said dryly.

‘Claudia gave no indication that she was unhappy with the betrothal,’ he insisted.

‘I think eloping with another man the day before her engagement is to be announced might be a hint in that direction, don’t you?’ She arched a mocking brow.

Dmitri clenched his hands together behind his back, knowing that if he didn’t he was seriously in danger of putting his hands about this outspoken young lady’s throat and throttling her!

‘Just out of interest, how have you explained Claudia’s present … absence to Francesco and his family?’ she now asked curiously.

Yes, perhaps a good shake was in order—even if he couldn’t strangle her! ‘Not that it is any of your business, but I have cancelled both the party and the announcement of the betrothal tomorrow evening with the excuse that Claudia has contracted … I believe in England you call it the mumps?’

‘Very clever.’ Lily eyed him admiringly. ‘Not only would that make Claudia highly contagious, and so prevent Francesco from visiting, but her swollen glands would also mean she won’t be able to speak to him on the telephone for several days.’

‘I am pleased it meets with your approval.’

Lily looked thoughtful. ‘You realise that excuse is only going to work for a limited time?’

‘By which time I will have ensured my sister’s safe return to her home and family.’

Lily quirked a mocking brow. ‘Ever heard the saying “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink”, Dmitri? My implication being—’

‘I am well aware of your implication, Miss Barton—’

‘Oh, Lily, please,’ she cut in pointedly. ‘After all, we’re almost related.’

Almost being the relevant part of that statement, she acknowledged. His anger was now such that he looked in danger of blowing smoke out of his ears. Or rather icy vapour, of course. Dmitri was too cold, too controlled, ever to really lose his temper in the way most people did and end up shouting at her.

Which made Lily’s baiting him like this dangerous in the extreme. Except she couldn’t seem to help herself. There was just something so—so arrogantly superior about this man—such an air of certainty that he was right—that she couldn’t seem to prevent herself from antagonising him even further.

Sculptured lips tightened in annoyance. ‘Claudia will see the error of her actions once she has returned and we have had a chance to speak together.’

‘I can see it now—big, scary and dominating older brother bullying his much younger and sweetly innocent sister,’ she mused naughtily.

Dark brows shot up. ‘I am not sure that I appreciate being described as scary and dominating.’

‘Too late,’ Lily quipped, knowing she found his cold determination completely intimidating!

Dmitri’s mouth thinned at the insult. ‘I also believe that minutes ago you described Claudia as being a grown woman, old enough to make her own decisions?’

‘Which doesn’t preclude her from being sweetly innocent.’

‘You obviously have not met my sister!’ He eyed her with mocking amusement.

She frowned. ‘Felix assured me that Dee is very sweet and innocent.’

‘Innocent, certainly,’ Dmitri agreed—hoping fervently that was still true. ‘Sweet may be something of an exaggeration, however.’

‘Claudia isn’t sweet?’

He gave a hard smile. ‘As syrup—until she does not get her own way.’

‘Oh, dear.’ Somehow Lily doubted that even-tempered and fun-loving Felix was aware of that side of the young woman he had supposedly eloped with.

‘Indeed.’ Dmitri gave a humourless smile. ‘I should also inform you that until Claudia reaches the age of twenty-five it is perfectly within my power to disinherit her,’ he explained.

Lily looked at him searchingly, realising from the coldness in those pale green eyes, and the sharp, uncompromising angles of his harshly handsome face, that Dmitri Scarletti was capable of doing exactly that. It was unlikely that there was ever an occasion on which this arrogant man didn’t mean exactly what he said.

His gaze was mocking. ‘Is your brother in a position to keep Claudia in the life of wealth and indulgence which she has so far enjoyed?’

Lily’s cheeks felt warm. ‘You know he isn’t.’

‘Yes,’ he confirmed, without apology for his obvious insult. ‘And once that becomes apparent to Claudia I have no doubt she will become disenchanted with her Englishman.’

If Claudia Scarletti really was the spoilt little rich girl that her brother described, then Lily thought that would be the case too. If Claudia and Felix were already married, it would be disastrous!

‘And he will likely become disenchanted with her once he realises that she is no longer an heiress,’ Dmitiri continued softly.

‘I believe I’ve listened to your insults for long enough.’ Lily picked up her shoulder bag from where she had dropped it earlier. ‘If you will excuse me, I believe it’s time I got in a taxi and found myself a hotel for the night.’

‘No.’

She stilled and once again eyed him warily, not in the least reassured by the expression of implacability on his face. She moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘What do you mean, no?’

He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘You are a young lady, alone in Italy for the first time, and in the absence of your brother I feel, as Felix’s employer, that it is my duty to offer you both my protection and the hospitality of the Palazzo Scarletti.’

Lily felt a nervous fluttering of butterfly wings in the pit of her stomach. ‘And I assure you that at twenty-six years of age I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.’

Dmitri gave a scornful laugh. ‘I did not see any evidence of that earlier at the airport, when you allowed yourself to be put in the back of a car by a complete stranger without even knowing where he was taking you.’

Considering Lily had realised exactly the same thing on her arrival here, she had to agree with that assessment. Inwardly. Outwardly it was a different matter entirely. ‘Marco behaved like a perfect gentleman on the drive here. In fact, since my arrival in Italy, the only person from whom I seem to need protection is you!’

Dmitri frowned. ‘You are insulting.’

‘I haven’t even started!’ she snapped back. ‘You had me brought here under false pretences, then proceeded to hurl accusations about my brother—and insulted me in the process. And now you expect me to be grateful for your offer of protection and hospitality?’ She gave a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘I may have been a little naïve earlier, but don’t ever think that I’m stupid!’

No, Dmitri would never make that mistake where this fiery young woman was concerned. He was far too aware of the intelligence in her deep blue eyes and the authority in her tone ever to underestimate her determination of will. ‘It was not merely my suggestion that you stay here, Lily,’ he murmured softly. ‘It was an order.’

She looked aghast. ‘Sorry?’

Dmitri moved impatiently. ‘Along with her letter Claudia left her mobile phone—no doubt so that I could not telephone her and order her back home,’ he acknowledged grimly. ‘And unfortunately, after her car was found at the airport and searched, this was found down the side of the passenger seat.’ He produced a second mobile phone from the pocket of his tailored jacket.

Lily stared at the small black-and-silver phone. ‘It’s Felix’s …’

The Count’s gaze sharpened. ‘You are absolutely sure?’

She nodded numbly. ‘I bought it for him three months ago. As a going-away present.’ It had been more a way of ensuring that Felix kept in touch with her while he was in Italy. ‘If you would return it to me—’

‘I think not.’ He slipped the mobile phone back into his pocket.

Lily felt a return of those butterflies in her stomach, those wings beating harder this time. ‘What are you doing?’ Her cheeks had paled a ghostly white.

‘It is quite simple, Lily,’ he said harshly. ‘At the present time the only means of communication that Claudia or Felix have with either of us is by landline or your own mobile.’

‘Only Felix will try calling me in England. And when he keeps receiving the answer phone message he’ll put two and two together and realise I must have come to Rome, after all.’

‘Felix is certainly intelligent enough to eventually work out that his first message must have arrived too late,’ Dmitri agreed. ‘And as I have Claudia’s letter, and no reason to believe she will telephone me until she is ready, we are left only with the possibility of Felix contacting you on your mobile.’ He shrugged. ‘I do not suppose you are prepared to leave your mobile phone with me if you leave here?’

‘Certainly not!’ Lily bristled indignantly.

‘As I thought,’ he said blandly. ‘Then it would seem that, as my sister is at this moment completely at the mercy of your brother’s “honourable intentions”, I should return the favour in regard to his sister!’

Lily stared up at him, not sure if she was understanding him correctly. Not sure she wanted to understand him if he was saying what she thought he was! ‘Would you just spit out exactly what you mean?’ she said nervously.

‘Of course.’ He bared even white teeth in a hard and humourless smile. ‘Until your brother returns my sister to me, you will stay here, at Palazzo Scarletti, as my personal guest.’

Exactly what Lily had thought he meant!




CHAPTER FOUR


‘YOU’RE mad!’

Quite possibly, Dmitri accepted heavily. It had been a day of shocks and frustrations. And receiving the letter from Claudia, informing him of her elopement had only been the start of the nightmare.

What had followed had been a desperate search of the palazzo, and then the even more futile questioning of those of Claudia’s friends he was aware of. After that her car had been located at the airport, along with that damn mobile found down the side of the passenger seat—a mobile Lily Barton had just confirmed was indeed her brother’s. Dmitri’s telephone calls to several business acquaintances had revealed that the pair had not booked with any of the airlines flying out of Rome that day, nor did the car hire companies have any record of providing them with a replacement vehicle.

To all intents and purposes Claudia and Felix had simply disappeared.

Lily and her mobile were the only glimmers of hope he had. Felix might at least contact his sister again in the next couple of days.

Which was why Dmitri felt he had no choice but to keep her—and her mobile phone—exactly where he could see and hear them.

He wasn’t in the least proud of his decision to keep her as an unwilling guest, but he was determined to find his sister and bring her home before she did something even more reckless than she already had. Before—as Lily had suggested so succinctly only minutes ago—the two of them found themselves related through Claudia’s marriage to Felix!

If Dmitri found her quickly enough then he might be able to avert a complete scandal by hushing up the elopement. But a totally unsuitable marriage would be another matter entirely …

‘I assure you I am not mad, Lily,’ he said. ‘Merely desperate.’

Lily eyed him in disbelief, still shocked by his announcement that he intended her to stay here at the Palazzo Scarletti with him—and even more surprised to hear him admit that the situation was beyond his control. The man was arrogance personified. Which meant Dmitri was either as concerned for his sister’s welfare as he claimed to be or that he was as concerned for his business merger with the Giordanos as Lily had accused him of being. Only time would reveal which of those things was the true reason for his present feelings of frustration.

‘I realise that in Italy you’re probably considered a powerful man, but I don’t believe that exonerates you from abiding by the law,’ she announced.

He quirked one dark brow. ‘Only probably considered?’

Lily’s fingers tightened on the strap of her shoulder bag. ‘Okay, I know you’re a powerful man. In Italy and elsewhere. But even a man as powerful as you can’t get away with kidnapping an English tourist.’

He appeared completely unmoved by her accusation. In fact, if anything, he looked amused by it. Lily was certain she could see laughter lurking in those pale green eyes as he answered her.

‘You are not a child, Lily. Besides which, I prefer to think of you as a reluctant guest.’

‘You can prefer all you like,’ she shot back heatedly. ‘But the truth of the matter is that if I’m forced to stay here it will be completely against my will. Something that I definitely intend to scream at the top of my lungs to the nearest policeman as soon as I get out of here,’ she assured him.

The amusement faded from the pale green eyes as Dmitri looked down the length of his aristocratic nose at her. ‘That would be ill-advised, Lily.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you threatening me?’

‘Not in the least,’ he answered smoothly. ‘I am merely advising against your drawing unnecessary attention to this delicate situation. Especially as I would have to countermand your own accusation towards me by levelling a similar one against your brother in regard to Claudia. Tell me, Lily, who do you think the authorities would believe if that were to happen?’

She became very still. ‘Claudia would deny your accusation,’ she whispered.

‘Perhaps,’ he said, unable to completely hide his impatience with his rebellious sister. ‘But you cannot be sure of that, can you?’

Knowing absolutely nothing about Claudia other than what Felix had chosen to tell her—and today’s events had shown that contained huge omissions—Lily couldn’t be sure of anything. Least of all whether, if it came down to a choice, Claudia’s loyalties would ultimately lie with her brother or with Felix, the man she’d claimed to have fallen in love with.

Dmitri easily read the dismay and uncertainty on her expressive face. Emotions he deeply regretted causing. But until Claudia was returned to him—hopefully unmarried—he could not afford to allow those feelings to shake his resolve. ‘Cheer up, Lily,’ he said gently. ‘I mean you no personal harm, and I am sure that you will find the Palazzo Scarletti a far more comfortable accommodation than your brother’s apartment.’

Her eyes flashed deeply blue. ‘A gilded cage is still a cage!’

Dmitri sighed his frustration with her continued stubbornness. ‘Why do you persist in fighting me like this?’

She shrugged slender shoulders. ‘Probably because I resent your unbelievable arrogance.’

He winced at her continued honesty. Nor did he have any defence against the accusation; he was arrogant.

He had been only twenty-one years of age when he’d inherited the title of Count Scarletti, with all the responsibilities that accompanied it—the Scarletti business empire, the numerous properties and the servants necessary for the upkeep of them—as well as guardianship of his much younger sister.

Obviously his father had tried to prepare Dmitri for that eventuality, but neither of them had expected that day to come as soon as it had—and a twenty-one-year-old as head of the Scarletti family and its business empire had been an obvious target for business rivals, as well as for criticism from the older members of his own family. At the time, Dmitri’s only means of defence had been to adopt the arrogant hauteur with which his father had previously dealt with such threats. It was a lesson that he had learnt well. Perhaps too well. But that arrogance of purpose was the only way he had known in which to ensure that the Scarletti business empire and its properties would remain firmly in his possession.

As a consequence he was unused to explaining himself or his actions to anyone—and he certainly never apologised for any of them. Business rivals and family alike would only see that as a sign of weakness on his part. Which left him with no choice now but to allow Lily to go on resenting him.

He straightened. ‘Perhaps you would care to see your suite of rooms?’

Lily wanted to tell him exactly what he could do with his suite of rooms! Except it would ultimately make no difference what she said to this man: Dmitri Scarletti had decided she was to remain here at the palazzo as his ‘guest’, and she already knew him well enough to know that was exactly what was going to happen.

Nevertheless she raised her chin in challenge. ‘I could just open one of the windows in my bedroom once I’m alone and scream bloody murder.’

‘You could,’ he drawled. ‘Except all the windows in the palazzo are locked at this time of year, in order to conserve the central heating, and the glass is of a special thickness designed to eliminate the sounds from inside as well as out.’

Which explained some of that eerie feeling of being completely removed from the rush and bustle that was Rome. ‘And I suppose the door inset into those huge wooden doors at the front of the palazzo is the only way in or out of here, and you need to put in a security number to open it?’ Lily scorned. Her scorn turned to uncertainty as Dmitri made no reply but just continued to look at her with those pale green eyes. ‘It is … ?’

He shrugged. ‘The palazzo was built in the sixteenth century. At the time those fortifications were designed to keep invaders out, but I am sure they will work equally as well in reverse,’ he added unapologetically.

Unbelievable! Absolutely unbelievable!

Lily shook head. ‘What about the servants here? Aren’t you going to find it a little difficult explaining my presence to them once I make it perfectly obvious that I’m not staying here by choice?’

He quirked one dark brow. ‘I am sure I have already mentioned to you that Claudia and I were expected to leave for our home near Venice today.’

‘Yes. So?’

He gave another shrug of those impossibly wide shoulders. ‘It is our custom to leave Rome at this time of year, which frees the staff at Palazzo Scarletti to depart and spend Christmas with their own families. Which they have already done …’

Which would further account for the silence she had experienced earlier when she’d first stepped inside the palazzo! ‘What about Marco?’

‘Marco has also left to be with his family, now that you have been safely delivered to the palazzo.’

‘Are you saying we’re completely alone here?’

He eyed her quizzically. ‘You have a problem with that?’

Yes, of course she had a problem with it! Being an unwilling guest here was bad enough, but now it transpired that she was completely alone here with the dark and dangerous Dmitri!

Those earlier butterflies in her stomach began to do a tap dance. ‘It’s not exactly an acceptable arrangement, is it?’ she quavered.

‘In what way is it not acceptable?’

Apart from her own feelings in the matter?

Had he been quite this close to her a minute ago? Lily wondered nervously as she suddenly found herself gazing up into eyes that were now only inches above her own, allowing her to see the darker green shards of colour that fanned out from the black of the iris, and the incredibly long length of his dark lashes. Being this close to him, she also couldn’t help noticing the sexy five o’clock shadow that darkened the squared strength of his jaw, and smell the light freshness of the cologne that he wore. He possessed an earthy maleness that even now was curling insidiously into Lily’s bloodstream, warming her, and at the same time making her totally aware of just how devastatingly attractive he was.

Lily was unable to look away from his compelling gaze as she moistened suddenly dry lips. ‘Some people might … misinterpret the two of us being here alone together,’ she murmured.

‘Like who?’ Dmitri slowly raised one of his hands to lightly cup one of her cheeks.

‘Stop being deliberately obtuse, Count Scarletti,’ she snapped, unable to move while at the same time unnerved by his touch.

‘I have already invited you to call me Dmitri,’ he said. ‘It would please me if you did so.’

‘Strange as it might seem, I’m not particularly interested in pleasing you,’ she said sarcastically. ‘I’m sure there must be some woman in your life who might take exception to you being alone here with me.’

‘Some woman?’

Lily’s mouth tightened at the mockery in his tone. ‘You’re perfectly well aware of what I mean!’

‘Yes, I am.’ He gave a slow smile. ‘And there are no women in my life at present, Lily.’ He lifted a silky strand of her hair before slowly allowing it to glide across his fingers. ‘But perhaps there is a man in England who would not approve of you being alone here with me?’

Lily thought briefly of Danny, and just as instantly dismissed him; despite his belated good wishes for the holidays she knew that relationship was well and truly over. ‘I’m the one who doesn’t approve of being alone with you!’ she said.

‘Is this colour natural?’ Dmitri’s gaze followed the path of his fingers as they combed lightly through the hair at her temple.

It was the very lightest of caresses, and yet it was enough to cause her breath to catch in her throat. ‘What do you mean?’

He gave a slight shake of his head. ‘I have never seen hair quite this colour before. Like sunlight caught in moonbeams.’

‘Very poetic,’ Lily muttered dryly, unnerved in spite of herself. ‘And, yes, of course it’s natural.’

‘It is beautiful,’ he breathed softly.

Lily’s blood pounded hotly through her veins just at the touch of his gentle fingers. She was fully aware of both the heat and power of his body as he stood so close to her, and the aching of her nipples as they hardened against the soft material of her bra.

‘Stop this right now.’ Lily backed away from his disturbing touch, the air rushing back into her lungs evidence that she had actually stopped breathing for those few brief minutes of physical closeness to him. ‘I have no intention of becoming some sort of—of plaything to help you while away the hours until your sister and Felix return,’ she said shakily, her fingers now gripping the strap of her bag so tightly that her knuckles showed white under her skin.

To make matters worse, Dmitri appeared completely unaffected by their recent closeness as he allowed the hand that had caressed her temple only seconds ago to drop casually back to his side. ‘Pity,’ he murmured.

Lily felt colour warm her cheeks. ‘Could you show me to my room now?’

Dmitri looked down at her admiringly. Possibly only five feet two inches tall, and likely weighing only half as much as he did, she nevertheless had absolutely no qualms whatsoever in challenging him at every opportunity. Telling him more clearly than anything else could have done that, no matter what she might say to the contrary, Lily did not feel in the least physically threatened in his presence. Not in a violent way, at least …

Dmitri had been involved with far too many women not to recognise her physical response to him; her breath had hitched in her throat, her skin had become flushed and her nipples had become a hard temptation beneath the soft material of her sweater. Oh, yes, on a physical level Lily was certainly aware of him.

Just as Dmitri was completely aware of her—much to his own surprise.

His taste had always tended towards tall and dark-haired women, with curvaceous bodies. Lily was none of those things, being petite with silver-blond hair, and possessed of a slenderness that would have tended towards boyishness if not for the firm swell of her breasts.

And yet her skin had felt like warm velvet beneath his fingertips, and her hair smelled of lemons and cinnamon—no doubt from the shampoo that she used. Her eyes were so deep a blue they were like huge lakes that a man might drown in. As for her mouth … Dmitri had never before seen a mouth quite as sensually full and perfect for kissing, the top lip slightly fuller than the bottom, and both so perfectly curved he’d briefly become lost in thoughts of having the fullness of those lips wrapped hotly about his—

Basta!

Even having such thoughts proved he was behaving just like a man in need of a ‘plaything’—as she had accused him of being only minutes ago!

Except Dmitri knew that under different circumstances he would have enjoyed kissing Lily as intimately as he could easily imagine her kissing him, seeking her heated centre and drinking his fill as he tasted her with his lips and tongue and brought her to the pinnacle of pleasure.

Definitely enough!

Lily appeared to be completely ignorant of her brother’s plans with regard to Claudia. In fact, her only crime seemed to be that she was Felix’s sister. As such, it would be totally wrong of Dmitri to even think about taking advantage of the fact that they were completely alone together now.

He ran a hand through his short hair and sucked in a frustrated breath. ‘If you will come with me …’

Lily followed slowly along behind the Count as he walked from the room, pulling her now-obedient suitcase—the traitor!—behind him. Whatever he had been thinking these past few minutes, the hard glitter of his eyes and grimly set jaw showed her that it hadn’t been pleasant.

But then neither had her own recent thoughts been, concerning her recent reaction to the merest touch of his fingers.

What had all that been about, anyway? Oh, admittedly the man was sinfully, wickedly handsome—temptation on legs, in fact—but the reasons for her being here with him were hardly conducive to her becoming aroused by him!

All other thoughts flew out of her head, however, as he stopped in the hallway to hold a door open so that Lily could enter ahead of him. She came to an abrupt halt in the centre of the room as she found herself in a sitting room almost as big and certainly as elegant as the one she had just left. Was this room to be her own private sitting room?

Apparently so, as Dmitri was taking her suitcase into the adjoining bedroom and placing it on the stand at the bottom of a four-poster bed that looked big enough for six people to sleep in comfortably. A slightly dazed Lily was given no time to admire the very feminine room as he opened another connecting door, turned on the light and revealed the most decadently appointed bathroom she had ever set eyes on.

The floor and walls were tiled in cream and terracotta coloured marble, with a shower unit in smoky glass in one corner of the room that also looked as if it would accommodate half a dozen people. But most exquisite of all was the huge sunken bath surrounded by potted plants, the jets along its sides making it look as if it was also a hot tub.

A gilded cage, indeed …

But still a cage, Lily reminded herself heavily, and she turned away from that decadent luxury, brushed past Dmitri and walked back into the bedroom. She sat down on the side of the bed, uncaring that everything spilled out of her handbag beside her as she dropped it on the bed.

She had been so looking forward to seeing Felix again—to spending Christmas with him, exploring the beauties of Rome with him and Dee. And instead there was no Felix, no Dee—only this man and the opulent splendour of the Palazzo Scarletti.

Oh, Lily didn’t blame Felix in the least for this mess. No, in her eyes Dmitri was the one responsible for everything that had happened today. Lily hadn’t known him for very long—only a hour or so—but if his overbearing behaviour towards her was an indication of the way he treated his sister, then she didn’t believe Claudia had dared tell him she didn’t want to become engaged to Francesco Giordano tomorrow, let alone that she was in love with someone else. He had left Claudia and Felix with no choice but to run away together today.

The whole concept of an arranged marriage in order to unite two powerful families was barbaric, as far as Lily was concerned, and now she had met Dmitri Scarletti, in all his arrogant implacability, the fleeing couple had her complete sympathy.

Yet Lily could have broken down and cried with disappointment. She’d so wanted to explore the Rome she had only glimpsed on the drive here …

‘Lily?’

Her eyes glittered brightly with unshed tears as she looked across the room at Dmitri. ‘Would you just go away and leave me alone now?’ she asked huskily. ‘I’d like to take a bath and then maybe a nap.’ Possibly for the whole week of her intended stay in Rome! Or at least for however long it was going to be until this present nightmare was over!

‘You—’

‘Will you please just go?’ Lily stood up and glared at him.

Dmitri chose to ignore the aggression in her tone as he returned her gaze. Lily was very pale now, her eyes appearing over-bright in contrast to her pallor. With anger? Or something else? Unshed tears, perhaps?

No doubt it had been something of a shock to find that her brother was not in Rome to meet her, let alone to find herself an unwilling guest of her brother’s employer. Well, ex-employer. Felix’s employment with Dmitri had come to an end the moment he had learnt the other man had secretly been seeing Claudia these past two months!

Yes, Dmitri mused, the past few hours had definitely been a nasty shock for her …

‘Of course.’ He nodded, preparing to leave. ‘We will eat dinner at eight o’clock, if that suits you?’

She roused herself enough to eye him scathingly. ‘I hope, in view of the fact that all your household staff have now departed for the Christmas holiday, that you aren’t expecting me to cook it?’

Whatever her emotions might or might not have been a few minutes ago, she was obviously now back in true fighting form! ‘No, I am not expecting you to cook dinner,’ Dmitri assured her dryly.

‘Nor breakfast and lunch, either.’

He gave a rueful smile. ‘Do not worry, Lily, I assure you I am perfectly capable of preparing food for both of us for the length of your stay here.’

‘Really?’ she asked sceptically.

‘Yes, really,’ Dmitri drawled. ‘I cooked for myself for the three years I attended Oxford University.’

Her eyes widened. ‘You went to university in England?’

He quirked one dark and mocking brow. ‘You sound surprised?’

Lily was surprised. She had assumed—obviously wrongly—that his archaic attitude was partly due to his having spent all his life growing up in Italy. But if Dmitri had spent three years in England then he had no excuse for not realising that things were generally done differently there. That there weren’t usually arranged marriages for business purposes, for one thing. That kidnapping unsuspecting females and incarcerating them in palaces was equally frowned on, for another!

But learning that he had spent three years at university in England certainly explained why he spoke such good English. Even if Lily didn’t like anything he had to say!

She looked at him coldly. ‘I’m still waiting for you to leave, Count Scarletti.’

So that she could take a bath and a nap, Dmitri recalled—and was instantly assailed with imaginings of how Lily would look as she lazed in the depths of a perfumed bubble bath, the heavy curtain of that silver-blond hair no doubt secured on top of her head, and revealing the long, slender column of her bared throat and silky shoulders, the firmness of her breasts swelling tantalisingly above the bubbles—

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Lily lost all patience with Dmitri’s delay in leaving, knowing that if he didn’t leave soon—very soon!—she was going to humiliate herself completely by bursting into tears in front of him. And she didn’t intend giving him that satisfaction. ‘Just close the door behind you on your way out!’ She hurriedly crossed the room to step into that decadently opulent bathroom, before slamming and then locking the door securely behind her.

Only to lean weakly back against it as the tears began to fall hotly down her cheeks …




CHAPTER FIVE


‘COULD I have my mobile phone back now?’

Dmitri raised dark brows as he turned from attending to a pan on the cooker hob and saw Lily standing in the kitchen doorway, obviously now completely refreshed after her journey. Her eyes were a clear bright blue, she’d slicked a pale lip gloss on those pouting lips and her beautiful, silky platinum-coloured hair fell straight and heavy over her shoulders and down the slenderness of her back. She was wearing a thin black sweater with tailored black trousers that fitted the smooth curves of her hips and bottom as though they’d been specially made for her.

Lily’s cheeks became slightly flushed under the hooded intensity of Dmitri’s gaze. ‘I believe you took my mobile with you when you left my bedroom earlier, and I’d now like it back,’ she repeated.

He gave a lazily unconcerned smile as he reached into the breast pocket of his casual white shirt and pulled out the slender black-and-chrome mobile before handing it to her. ‘Don’t worry, you haven’t missed any calls or text messages.’

‘I wasn’t worried.’ Lily dropped the phone back inside her shoulder bag.

‘No?’

‘No!’ she reiterated, not knowing whether that was the truth or not. She was worried about Felix, obviously, and longed to speak to him—either on the phone or in person—but at the same time she didn’t relish the thought of Dmitri being able to intercede in such a call.

She had enjoyed soaking herself in a scented bath for an hour or so earlier, finally relaxing as she’d got out to wrap a towel about herself before wandering barefoot through to the bedroom. Which was when she had realised that she couldn’t find her mobile phone amongst the other things that had fallen out of her bag earlier onto the bed. A search amongst the slightly ruffled bedclothes, and then under the bed itself, had shown it wasn’t there. Leading Lily to only one conclusion: Dmitri had to have taken the mobile with him when he’d left the bedroom!

The fact that he had just calmly handed it back to her, without so much as an apology for taking it in the first place, didn’t improve her temper in the slightest. Which was probably as well, now that she once again found herself alone in the disturbing Dmitri Scarletti’s company …

The kitchen wasn’t at all what Lily had been expecting when she had followed the aroma of cooking food. It was far less opulent and more homely than the rest of the palazzo, with dried herbs hanging from the thick wooden beams in the ceiling amongst an array of copper pots and pans, and mellowed oak cabinets scarred with age. The large table and chairs standing on worn flagstones in the middle of the room looked equally as well-used.

But most disturbing of all was the man in front of her. Dmitri appeared completely relaxed as he stood in front of the old-fashioned range, stirring the reason for those delicious smells, with an open bottle of red wine on the worktop beside him, along with a half-full glass of the ruby liquid, showing that he had been enjoying taking sips of wine as he cooked.

He was dressed far less formally now, in a loose white shirt unbuttoned at the throat and with the sleeves turned up almost to his elbows, and a pair of faded jeans that fitted low on his lean waist and clung lovingly to his muscled thighs. The darkness of his hair was still damp from the shower he had obviously taken. He somehow looked younger, even sexier, and far less intimidating than he had earlier.

Damn it!

Lily had spent the past half an hour, as she’d dried her hair and then dressed, building herself up to a quiet fury—but one look at this relaxed, smiling Dmitri and she was once again aware of everything about him. The way his hair fell silkily onto his brow. The fact that there was no longer any shadow darkening that square and determined chin—evidence that he must have shaved. The unbuttoned shirt allowed her to see the start of the dark curling hair that no doubt covered most of his chest before dipping down below the waistband of his—

‘Would you care for some red wine?’

Lily gave a startled blink as she realised she had been staring so intently at the utterly gorgeous man in front of her that she had completely forgotten he was probably using that time to stare right back at her—thereby allowing him to see how her cheeks had become flushed, her lips moist and slightly parted, even as her gaze hungrily devoured everything about him.

Double damn it!

This man held the key to her gilded cage, and as such was not a man she should be drooling over, she told herself firmly.

Lily closed her eyes briefly before opening them again. ‘Thank you,’ she accepted huskily as she stepped farther into the kitchen. ‘The food smells good,’ she excused herself uncomfortably when her stomach gave an audible growl as a reminder that she hadn’t eaten anything since those snacks on the plane.

‘Let’s hope that it tastes good too.’ Dmitri took a second glass from the cupboard and poured some wine from the open bottle, handing it to her before topping up his own glass.

Lily took a welcome sip of the red wine, not in the least surprised at its delicious smoothness. She doubted a man as rich as Dmitri was reputed to be would ever have anything but the best wines in his cellar, and the finer the wine the smoother on the palate.

‘Am I allowed to ask whereabouts in Rome we are?’ Lily frowned, having become totally disorientated earlier, during her drive through the city.

‘Of course.’ He nodded, leaning back against one of the kitchen units, heavy lids lowered over piercing green eyes as he slowly sipped his own wine.

‘Well?’ she prompted impatiently, when he added nothing further.

He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘You have not asked yet.’

Lily drew in an impatient breath. ‘I’m asking now,’ she grated between gritted teeth.

‘We are in the area of Parioli. It’s—’

‘I know where it is.’ She also knew what it was—the most prestigious and exclusive residential area in Rome! But then, where else would he live?

Lily had bought several books on Rome once her ticket was booked, and had enjoyed poring over all the different areas and historical attractions of Rome in order to decide which places she wanted to visit while she was there. The area containing most of the homes of the wealthy and privileged inhabitants of Rome hadn’t been one of them.

Dmitri eyed her from beneath dark lashes. ‘You don’t sound as if you approve.’

‘It’s not for me to approve or disapprove. It is what it is.’ She gave a dismissive lift of her shoulders and avoided meeting his perceptive gaze. ‘What are we having for dinner?’ she asked as she looked down into the simmering cooking pots rather than at him.

‘Spaghetti alla carbonara. It’s—’

‘I know what it is, Dmitri. We’re quite cosmopolitan in England nowadays, you know,’ she added snippily. ‘We even eat with knives and forks on special days and holidays!’

Dmitri had been hoping that they might be able to spend a relaxing evening together—maybe enjoy some light conversation as they ate the meal he had cooked, and in the process dispel some of her antagonism towards him. Yet, after only a few minutes spent in her company, he knew she was spoiling for another fight rather than relaxed conversation!

Admittedly he should not have taken her mobile phone earlier, without first telling her what he was doing. Except by the time he had seen it lying on the bed, amongst her purse, a lipstick and a couple of paperback books, she had already locked herself in the bathroom, with the sound of running bathwater precluding any further conversation.

He sighed his impatience with her continued hostility. ‘I remember eating in some very acceptable Italian restaurants during the years I lived in England.’

‘I trust you passed that on to the proprietors? What a coup—to have a personal recommendation from Count Dmitri Scarletti!’

Yes, Dmitri acknowledged wearily, this promised to be a very long evening indeed. ‘I was not Count Scarletti at the time, Lily,’ he informed her quietly. ‘My father did not die until the summer after I had left Oxford.’

Well, that had completely knocked the wind from her sails, she acknowledged a little guiltily, as she saw the pain he still felt at his father’s death reflected in the grimness of his expression.

She winced. ‘I’m sorry …’

‘You are?’ He looked surprised. ‘I would have thought you might enjoy my obvious discomfort at the loss.’

‘Really?’ Lily bristled. Being angry with Dmitri on a personal level was one thing, but using the pain of his father’s death as a means of hitting back at him would hardly have been fair. Admittedly this situation was decidedly odd, but she had never been a vindictive person—nor was she about to become one now. ‘My own parents died in a car accident when Felix and I were only eighteen, so I’m hardly likely to relish hearing of someone else having suffered the same loss at an early age.’

‘Even me?’ Dmitri finished dryly.

‘Even you,’ Lily muttered. ‘You must have been quite young when your father died,’ she realised with a frown.

He nodded. ‘My mother died when I was fifteen and my father when I was twenty-one.’

Lily thought of what she’d been doing when she was twenty-one. She had already worked her way through her degree course and had been preparing to embark on a student teacher course. It had been tough going, admittedly, but she’d only had herself to think about—bar the odd occasion when she’d had to bail her irresponsible brother out of trouble! But those things were nothing in comparison with the responsibilities Dmitri must have taken on at that tender age.

Oh, for goodness’ sake, Lily, she instantly admonished herself. He’s a multi-multi-millionaire—how tough could it have been?

Tough, she conceded ruefully. Money might have helped to cushion the situation for him, but Dmitri would still have been responsible for his much younger sister, and for all of the people who worked and lived under the Scarletti umbrella—either in the numerous companies he owned or on the family estates.

Oh, great—now she was starting to feel admiration for the man!

‘Can we eat now?’ she asked brusquely. ‘I’m starving.’

Conversation over, Dmitri acknowledged ruefully. The subject of the conversation hadn’t been exactly pleasant, but at least it had been conversation of a sort. ‘Would you prefer to eat in here or upstairs in the formal dining room?’

A crease appeared on her creamy brow. ‘Would that be the room I passed at the end of the hallway, just before the stairs down here?’

‘Yes.’

Her nose wrinkled. ‘Then I’d rather eat here—if that’s okay with you.’

‘Perfectly okay.’ Dmitri turned back to the stove to tip savoury pasta into a warmed serving bowl. ‘And, if you would not consider it cooking, perhaps you would you care to get the garlic bread out of the warming oven?’ he suggested with a teasing smile as he carried the steaming bowl of spaghetti to the table.

‘I think I can do that, yes,’ she came back pertly.

Dmitri turned back from the table in time to see Lily pick up an oven cloth before bending down to open the lower oven, so giving him a perfect view of her shapely bottom. Something guaranteed to turn his thoughts from food to another appetite entirely!

She really did have the most delectable bottom. Firm, with just enough roundness that a man would enjoy curling a hand about as he—

‘More wine?’ Dmitri prompted gruffly, and he moved to collect the bottle from the worktop, his expression strained as he took the spoons and forks from the drawer beside the oven.

‘Er—yes. Thanks.’ Lily straightened slowly, biting her lip as she carried the bowl of garlic bread over to the table, obviously slightly confused at the sudden change in his tone. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind eating down here?’ She hesitated about sitting down on the chair Dmitri had pulled back for her.

No—in light of his previous thoughts about her bottom he wasn’t at all sure about continuing to remain in the informal intimacy of the kitchen! His only concern at the moment should be ensuring Claudia’s safe return. Certainly not imagining how he would enjoy clasping Lily’s bottom as he took her on the dining table!

‘Very sure,’ he clipped, pushing her chair in as she finally sat down, then moving around the table to occupy the chair opposite as he felt himself drawn to the now-familiar apple-and-cinnamon scents of her hair. Only to look up and find himself the focus her huge and puzzled blue eyes …

Beautiful eyes, Dmitri conceded. In fact, she was beautiful all over—from her silver-blond hair to the creamy smoothness of her pale skin. And as for the sensual allure of the pouting fullness of her lips—

Again, that was quite enough of that, he cautioned himself determinedly. Being kept here against her will as she was, Lily had absolutely no reason to like or trust him without him adding another layer to that distrust by allowing his increasing physical awareness of her to become an issue.

‘Eat,’ he instructed tersely, and he placed a large serving of pasta into her bowl before serving himself.

Lily raised mocking brows. ‘Does that tone of voice usually work for you?’

Dmitri closed his eyes briefly in self-disgust, before looking across the table at her. ‘I apologise. Circumstances are such that I am not … my usual self today.’

‘And is your usual self better or worse than the self you are today?’ she asked curiously.

‘I would hope that he is at least more polite than I was just now,’ he admitted ruefully.

‘In that case, perhaps you would like to try again?’ she suggested sweetly.

Dmitri relaxed back in his chair. ‘Please eat before the food gets cold, Lily.’

‘Much better,’ she said with approval, and she picked up her fork to twine some of the spaghetti onto its tines before twirling it round. Only to have it fall off again before she could get it to her mouth. ‘Damn,’ she muttered, and tried again.

He chuckled softly. ‘You do it like this.’ He sat forward to pick up his fork and his spoon to demonstrate how the spoon should be placed on the end of the tines of the fork to keep the pasta in place.

‘See?’ He popped the pasta into his mouth.

Lily saw just fine—in fact, her gaze had been transfixed on his sensually wicked mouth the whole time. She just wasn’t having any success in doing it herself, and forkful after forkful of the slippery pasta fell back into the bowl before making it as far as her mouth. But she was not about to give in and simply chop the spaghetti up and use her spoon to eat it, as she had so often seen other English people do.

‘I could just starve to death with my current success rate!’ she muttered, as yet another forkful of pasta fell back into the bowl. ‘Maybe I should stick to the garlic bread!’ She picked up a slice and took a healthy bite.

‘Here—let me show you how.’ He was still chuckling as he stood up to come round to her side of the table and bend over beside her, taking the spoon and fork from her unresisting fingers.

Mistake, Lily realised, tensing as every nerve ending in her body suddenly went on alert at his close proximity. Nor did it help that he looked so much younger, so much more approachable and so much more attractive, when he laughed. Almost boyishly handsome, in fact. Except there was absolutely nothing in the least boyish about Dmitri Scarletti!

A fact she was only too aware of now, as he stood far too close to her, the warm line of his arm brushing lightly against her shoulder, the loose white shirt falling forward and allowing her to see clearly the firm muscles of his chest and stomach, and the dark hair that lightly covered the whole of his chest before disappearing in a tantalising vee beneath the waistband of his jeans.

He smelled really good too—of spicy aftershave and hot, earthy male.

Oh, good Lord!

‘Open your mouth, Lily,’ he encouraged.

She raised startled lids. And then wished she hadn’t as she realised his face was on a level with her own as he bent down beside her. Those pale green eyes were darkening to emerald as she looked at him, his breath a warm caress as she ran her tongue nervously across her slightly parted lips.

Her mesmerised gaze was transfixed on Dmitri’s lips as he huskily repeated his earlier request. ‘Open your mouth.’ Lily couldn’t drag her gaze away from his as her lips slowly parted—only to have all the tastebuds in her mouth explode in pleasure as he neatly placed a forkful of the pasta carbonara onto her tongue.

‘Oh, my God!’ she breathed shakily once she was able to talk at all. ‘That is so good!’ She opened her eyes to look up at him appreciatively. ‘You should open your own restaurant—no, of course you couldn’t do that.’ Lily grimaced as she immediately realised how ridiculous it was even to suggest that Count Scarletti become the chef of his own restaurant.

Dmitri had been held completely transfixed by the expression of pure ecstasy on her face as she ate the forkful of pasta, his shaft hardening as he was instantly bombarded by thoughts of how she would look exactly that same way in the throes of physical pleasure. Eyes closed. Throat arched. A dreamy smile upon her lips as she became completely lost to that ecstasy …

His gaze was still riveted on those slightly parted lips as she breathed softly, and his own breath caught in his throat as the pink moistness of her tongue flicked out to lick a tiny smear of the carbonara sauce from her bottom lip.

Dmitri groaned softly in his throat as the throb of his shaft became almost painful as it grew harder, more swollen, with each rapid beat of his heart. As he imagined his own tongue flicking across the pouting sensuality of Lily’s mouth. Licking. Tasting.

‘I think I can manage on my own now, thank you, Dmitri.’

Lily’s voice shattered those disturbingly sensuous images. He placed the fork and spoon down in her bowl and moved quickly round to the other side of the table, resuming his own seat. Before Lily could become aware of the throbbing evidence of his very obvious arousal.

This had never happened to him before, Dmitri realised with a frown. This sudden and complete awareness of a woman. And not just any woman, but one specific woman.

Oh, his relationships had been numerous over the years—brief, businesslike arrangements for the main part, that satisfied the woman’s physical requirements as well as his own, while at the same time demanding nothing from him except the occasional expensive bauble as an added sign of his interest.

Dmitri had only known Lily a matter of hours, but he already knew her well enough to realise she was the type of woman who would throw any expensive bauble in a man’s face if it was given to her under such circumstances!

Add into that equation the fact that he was keeping her here against her will—a prisoner in a gilded cage, as she put it so eloquently—and his sudden desire to kiss her, to caress and pleasure her, was the very madness she had accused him of earlier!

‘Dmitri?’

‘Yes?’ He scowled darkly as he looked across the table at her from between narrowed lids.

Lily sat back slightly and eyed him warily, not altogether sure what to make of yet another sudden change in his mood. One moment he had been teasing her, the next seeming as if he might actually kiss her and then he had retreated so suddenly it was as if she carried some sort of contagious disease.

Which was perhaps how he thought of her, believing as he did that her brother was nothing but a fortune-hunter.

And of course the attractive, the rich, the titled Count Dmitri Scarletti hadn’t been about to kiss her! What on earth was she thinking of? He’d only been being kind when he’d offered to teach her how to eat the pasta properly. The rest of it was purely in her own imagination. She would be wise to put such thoughts completely from her mind when she was the very last woman he would ever allow himself to be attracted to.

As Lily was attracted to him?

It would be useless even to try to fool herself into thinking otherwise. How could she possibly attempt to deny the attraction when she was so totally aware of every single thing about the man?

In fact, she was dangerously close to being infatuated with everything about him—the way he looked, the way he talked, the graceful way he moved, even the way he smelt. She physically ached with the effort of trying to resist her feelings.

Oh, hell …




CHAPTER SIX


THANKFULLY, by the time they had eaten the pasta and garlic bread, and loaded the bowls into the dishwasher, Lily had her wandering imagination back under control. It had been helped along by being able to relax as Dmitri related some of the more amusing stories of his time as a student in England. Designed, no doubt, to put Lily at ease.

It also didn’t hurt that along the way they’d managed to empty one bottle of red wine and open another.

In fact, Lily was now so relaxed that she had almost forgotten her reasons for being here with him by the time they sat back down at the table to eat a selection of cheeses and sliced fruit.

‘So, what made you decide to take up kick-boxing?’ Dmitri prompted curiously.

Lily shot him a wry look. ‘The fact that I’m five-foot-two-inches tall and weigh a puny seven-and-a-half stone.’

‘I see.’ He smiled. ‘And no doubt such a skill would also be useful if you were ever to find yourself the reluctant guest of an Italian count! ‘

Lily met his gaze steadily. ‘I didn’t have quite this situation in mind at the time, but yes, no doubt it would. Kick-boxing isn’t about size or weight but ability.’ She shrugged.

Dmitri frowned. ‘I trust you know that I meant it earlier when I said I do not have any intention of harming you in any way? My quarrel is not with you but with your brother.’ His expression hardened.

‘And I trust you know that I meant it when I said I’m not worried?’ she insisted.

‘Yes.’ He laughed. ‘Obviously you are a young lady well accustomed to taking care of yourself.’

Lily frowned, sensing an implied criticism of her brother in his comment. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Exactly as it sounded.’ Dmitri gave another shrug of those incredibly wide, muscular, biteable—

Okay, so maybe she had drunk a little too much of that deliciously smooth wine with her meal—because she had definitely started drooling again!

‘As you’re well aware, we do things differently in England, Dmitri.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m twenty-six years old, and I certainly don’t need a man—especially my little brother—to take care of me, thank you very much.’ She winced as she realised exactly what she had just said. ‘Not that I’m faulting you for being protective of Claudia. Not at all. The situation is completely different, and obviously you’ve been responsible for her for a long time—’ She broke off as he began to laugh. ‘Am I overdoing the apology?’

‘Just a little.’ He smiled across at her—a smile that made her stomach turn somersaults.

Oh, good Lord … ! It really was time she made her excuses and went upstairs to bed.

‘It occurs to me that we have not had any dessert with our meal,’ Dmitri said.

Lily looked surprised. ‘Cheese and fruit don’t count?’

‘Not when the best ice cream in the world is available a short walk away, cara,’ he replied.

Lily felt warmth enter her cheeks as she recognised that casual endearment—cara was the Italian equivalent of the English ‘dear’, wasn’t it? Perhaps she wasn’t the only one who had imbibed a little too much of that delicious red wine?

Was her imagination playing tricks on her, or had Dmitri just said the best ice cream in the world was a short walk away? Why would he have said that if she was supposed to be his prisoner? ‘Are you suggesting that we go outside for a walk?’

Dmitri winced slightly. ‘You really do consider yourself a prisoner here, don’t you?’

‘Maybe that’s because I am?’ Lily said bluntly.

‘I had not—’ Dmitri stopped, and then took a deep breath. ‘Perhaps I was a little heavy-handed with you earlier.’

‘Perhaps?’ she said incredulously.

Dmitri continued to look across at her for several long minutes, appreciative of the things she had revealed about herself as they’d chatted over dinner—things that she was not perhaps even aware of. Such as the fact that she had obviously taken her role as the eldest of the twins very seriously since the death of her parents. That she had not taken a holiday in several years, and even then it had been in England. That she missed her brother very much. And, most importantly of all, perhaps, that this holiday in Italy was unexpected and something she could ill afford on a teacher’s salary.

She had been looking forward to it with excited anticipation. Only to arrive in Rome and find herself then incarcerated without having seen her brother or a single one of the historic attractions she had obviously so looked forward to exploring.

Because Dmitri had decreed it should be so. Because, out of concern for his sister and anger towards Felix, he had decided to punish the only person who was available to him.

‘There is no question of it. I was unreasonable with you on your arrival in Rome,’ he acknowledged heavily.

Lily’s eyes widened. ‘Are you sure this isn’t just the wine talking?’

Those sculptured lips curved into a teasing smile. ‘Wine is like mother’s milk to an Italian, Lily.’

‘Really?’ His lips on a woman’s breast was an image that did absolutely nothing for Lily’s earlier resolve to stop her imagination running away with her—and not just any woman’s breast, either, but her own.

Okay, it was definitely time she excused herself and went to bed!

Past time, if her fantasies about this man were going to become so explicit she had actually felt a sharp spike of arousal—from the tingling of her breasts to the rapidly increasing dampness between her thighs …

‘Where would you like to go?’ Dmitri asked.

Bed probably wasn’t the answer she should give right now! ‘In all the guidebooks I read it said that the Trevi Fountain is particularly spectacular at night.’

‘It is,’ he confirmed, rising to his feet and coming around the table with the obvious intention of pulling her chair back for her. ‘And, luckily for us, the best ice cream in Rome is just around the corner from it.’

She looked up at him uncertainly. ‘At this time of night?’

‘Of course. Roma is a city that never sleeps, Lily.’

‘Like New York?’

Dmitri shook his head. ‘In my experience New York is frenetic and Roma is romantic,’ he corrected.

Oh, yes—a romantic walk in the moonlight with this devastatingly handsome man was just what she needed when her defences already felt like mush!

‘Why have you suddenly become so … accommodating, Dmitri?’ she asked awkwardly.

Those pale green eyes darkened with what looked like regret. ‘Perhaps because I now realise exactly how … unaccommodating I have been up till now?’

Lily stood up slowly, not sure that she altogether trusted Dmitri in this relaxed and charming mood. Definitely not sure she trusted herself in his company when he was in this almost playful mood!

Much as she welcomed the possibility of leaving the palazzo, if only for a short time, this collapse of her defences surely made it a recipe for disaster? Moonlight. Delicious ice cream. The Trevi Fountain. Dmitri Scarletti. Most especially the latter …

She turned, with the intention of telling him that it had been a long day and she thought it better if she went to bed now, only to tense as she realised how close he was now standing. He made no effort to step away from the back of her chair. So close Lily could once again feel the heat emanating from his body. Smell the aftershave that mingled so appealingly with hot, virile male. And see the dark shadow of stubble once more on his chin.

She could actually see the way the iris of his eyes had once again darkened to emerald as his gaze became fixed, apparently captivated by her slightly parted lips …

She couldn’t breathe, and was pretty sure she couldn’t have moved even if someone had shouted Fire! In fact, she felt unable to break away from his compelling gaze, her body actually starting to tremble as Dmitri continued to look deeply into her eyes.

Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed. ‘It’s pretty late, Dmitri—’ Lily didn’t get any further in excusing herself as his arm moved firmly about her waist and he pulled her in close against him.

‘You’re right, Lily.’ His voice was a low, husky growl. ‘I am afraid it is far too late.’

His head moved down slowly and he captured her mouth with his own.

Lily heard herself groan low in her throat as his skilful lips opened hers, sipping, tasting, his tongue hot and demanding, while his arms tightened about her, crushing her breasts against the hard muscles of his chest. His hands moved down the slope of her back to cup her bottom and pull her in hard against him, and her legs began to tremble as she felt the pulsing evidence of his arousal against the softness of her stomach.

Her fingers dug into his broad shoulders as his mouth moved to trace the long column of her throat, his lips hot against her skin as she arched her neck to allow him freer access. Her legs felt so shaky now she was afraid that if she didn’t cling on to him she might actually collapse at his feet.

She was being bombarded with sensations. Her senses were assaulted by his heat and overpowering strength, and at the same time she wanted to push even the thin barrier of his shirt out of her way, so that she could touch the skin beneath. Not just touch. But caress. Kiss. Taste. God, how badly she wanted to taste him—all of him.

What was Dmitri doing to her? How was he doing it to her?

She didn’t behave like this. Had never felt like this with any of the men she had dated over the past ten years. She’d never wanted to rip anyone’s clothes off before throwing off her own clothes and begging him to take her. Right here. On the table. Amongst the debris of their meal.

Dmitri could be her dessert! Lily instinctively knew he would taste rich and creamy and totally decadent. Sinful, in fact …

Not giving herself time to think, to regret, she unfastened the buttons on his shirt, her breathing ragged, fevered as she pulled it apart and gazed hungrily at his bared muscled chest before touching him tentatively, her fingers a light caress. He gave a low groan as she explored, touching him where he was most sensitive, holding his fevered gaze with her own as she ran the soft pad of her thumb experimentally across his skin and saw for herself the effect it had on Dmitri. His eyes glittered, and there was a slight flush now to those sculptured cheekbones.

‘Lily … ?’ Dmitri hadn’t planned on kissing her, let alone having her touch him like this.

He had been totally aware of her throughout their meal. Her smile. Her wistfulness. Her occasional sadness. A sadness he had longed to dispel. He had felt himself unwillingly drawn to her. To her beauty. Her heat. The musk of her arousal beneath the soft floral of the perfume she wore. And now that he had tasted the fullness of her lips, he wanted more …

‘I am not sure I can stop this, cara,’ he warned her gently, even as he rubbed the throb of his arousal against her yielding softness.

She seemed not to hear him as she lowered her head and placed her lips against his skin, her tongue feeling like the rasp of a cat’s against his sensitised flesh, sending shock-waves of pleasure straight to the pulsing hardness of his shaft.

Dmitri buried his face in her throat as he surged hard and demanding against her, his hands tightly gripping her bottom now.

It was a perfect fit in his hands, just as he had imagined it would be, and he lifted her up until he felt himself nestled against the heat between her legs. He heard her soft groan as he began to move against her most sensitive part.

Dmitri cursed the layers of material that separated them, knowing that if they weren’t there he would not be able to stop himself from burying himself inside her, as deep as he could go, and that once he had entered her heat he really would lose all control.

He lifted Lily to sit on the tabletop and his hands moved to the bottom of her sweater. He slowly lifted the woollen garment and his gaze became riveted on the fullness of her breasts, cupped in black lace, the nipples hard and deeply rose against that wispy material.

He wanted to taste them—needed to taste them—to take those rosy buds into his mouth and—

Too impatient to waste time locating the fastening of her bra, Dmitri simply pulled the lace down until the nipples popped over the top of those silky cups, full and hard and surrounded by darkly flushed areolae.

Lily gasped as he stepped in between her parted legs, his arousal a pulsing caress against her even through their clothes, his hair a silky brush against her skin as he lowered his head to her breast. Her initial gasp turned to a whimper, and her fingers dug into his shoulders as his lips fastened onto her nipple and he began to suck. Softly at first, and then harder, drawing her hungrily into his mouth. Her fingers became entangled in the thick darkness of his hair as she held him to her, lost in the pleasure that coursed through her body.

There was a soft sound as his lips released her breast. One of his hands was now cupping her there, clever fingers capturing the swollen nipple before pulling gently, rhythmically, as he turned the attention of his mouth to her other breast. The soft rasp of his tongue across the nipple, and the caress of his fingers against its twin caused a trembling through her body that seemed to begin at her toes and fingers and slowly work its way upwards and inwards, until it became centralised in a low, demanding throb between her thighs. Wave after wave of heated pleasure was building, ever building, until Lily felt as if she might shatter into a million pieces.

‘Touch me, Lily!’ Dmitri released her nipple to groan, the heat of his breath a tantalising caress against the dampness of her flesh. ‘Dio mio, Lily, I need your hands on me …’ he entreated, as he took one of her hands and placed it on his jeans, over the hardness of him.

Lily felt it surge, pulse, as her palm pressed against him in a slow and rhythmic caress. Her own pleasure spiralled out of control as she looked down and watched as he once again drew her nipple into his mouth, his teeth grazing sensually against that sensitive bud.

Just as she had imagined there was something erotic, almost primitive, in seeing his much swarthier complexion against the paleness of her skin, his lashes a dark shadow against the flush of his cheeks, his tousled hair falling across his brow.

‘What the—?’

Lily gave a protesting groan as Dmitri froze against her breast, taking several seconds to realise why. And then Lily heard it too. Mozart. Faint. But recognisably Mozart.

The ringtone she had chosen for her mobile!

It was like a having a bucket of ice cold water thrown over her. Over both of them.

Dmitri’s arms fell back to his sides and he stepped back, a dark scowl on his brow as he looked down at her with hot green eyes.

Lily suddenly became uncomfortably aware of how wanton she must look, with her legs parted to accommodate him standing between her thighs, her black sweater pushed up and her breasts bared and swollen as they spilled over the cups of her bra.

Oh, help!

Dmitri watched from between hooded lids as Lily moved hastily off the table to turn away from him and straighten her clothing. Then she quickly searched inside her shoulder bag for the ringing mobile, the heavy curtain of her silver-blond hair falling forward to hide her flushed face, still slightly tangled from the caress of Dmitri’s fingers.

What had just happened? Why had it happened?

Admittedly she was a stunningly beautiful woman, but she was also Felix Barton’s sister—the one woman in the world Dmitri should not have made love to!

He looked down at his own unbuttoned shirt, at once assailed with the memory of how Lily had pulled those buttons apart, how her bold lips had felt against his flesh. How her hands had—

‘Hello?’

Dmitri’s head came up like a predator that had just scented prey as Lily finally found her mobile and took the call. Felix! It had to be him. Who else would telephone her at this time of night?

‘Hey!’ Lily protested as the phone was plucked out of her fingers before Dmitri placed it against his own ear.

‘Dmitri!’

‘Is that you, Barton?’ He raised his other hand with the obvious intention of silencing her as he listened briefly before speaking again. ‘Who is this?’ he demanded harshly.

‘Obviously not Felix,’ Lily snapped as she retrieved her mobile. ‘Yes. Sorry about that, Danny.’ She shot Dmitri a resentful glance. ‘Oh, just a … a friend of my brother’s. No, he doesn’t sound very friendly, does he?’ She gave a forced laugh and Dmitri glowered across at her as he slowly refastened his shirt. ‘Look, can I call you back tomorrow? Things are a little hectic here right now, and … Yes, of course I’ll be sure and call you back,’ she said lightly. ‘Okay. Bye, Danny.’

A loaded silence filled the kitchen once she had ended the call and put the mobile back in her bag. She felt too stunned by what had just happened and the way her body still tingled in the aftermath of their passion to speak. She wasn’t at all sure why he was suddenly silent.

It could be any number of things. Disappointment that the call hadn’t been from Felix. Or maybe he was just disgusted by what had happened between them. Or perhaps it was a combination of the two; Lily certainly felt less than proud of her own wanton behaviour.

‘Who is Danny?’

She gave Dmitri a startled look. ‘Sorry?’

‘Who is Danny?’ he repeated through gritted teeth. Or there could be a third reason for Dmitri’s accusatory silence …

Not that Lily thought for a moment that he was in the least jealous that she had received a telephone call from another man. It was more likely that he was merely contemptuous of the fact that she had allowed him to make love to her when she obviously already had a man in her life. Except she didn’t …

‘Just a friend,’ she dismissed.

Dmitri raised sceptical brows. ‘And do your male friends usually telephone you at …’ He glanced down at the plain gold watch on his wrist ‘… ten-thirty at night when you are away on your holidays?’

‘Obviously the answer to that is yes—because one just did!’ Lily said, giving an awkward shrug.

Dmitri studied her narrowly. ‘One? How many male friends do you have?’

Lily felt the colour warm her cheeks at the derision in his tone. ‘Dozens, actually,’ she snapped.

‘I see.’ His delicious mouth thinned disapprovingly.

‘Somehow I doubt that,’ she scorned, knowing that each of them meant something entirely different by the term ‘male friends’. But she had no intention of explaining herself to this man when he looked down at her so disdainfully!

He continued that look for several long seconds before turning away. ‘If you will excuse me, I have some papers in my study I need to look through before tomorrow.’

‘I’ll just clear away in here, then, shall I?’ she retorted, not in the least surprised that their romantic stroll in the moonlight now seemed to have been forgotten; apparently they didn’t need the inducement of the moonlight to feel romantic. If that explosion of the senses could be called anything as tame as romantic …

Dmitri glanced at the table where they had just eaten dinner. And where he had just kissed Lily so passionately, so intimately …

One of the wine glasses—thankfully his own empty one—had toppled over onto the plate of cheese, and several pieces of fruit had spilled onto the table. The plates they had been using were in complete disarray.

Unbelievable!

Dmitri closed his eyes briefly to shut out the scene. Such behaviour, such loss of control, was totally out of character for him. His commitments and responsibilities did not allow for such impulsive, highly reckless behaviour. That he had behaved like that with the sister of a man he no longer trusted made his lapse doubly unacceptable to him.

He drew in a deep breath before answering. ‘That would seem only fair, as I cooked the meal.’ He quirked one dark brow in challenge.

There was no arguing with that, Lily acknowledged ruefully; Dmitri had prepared and cooked their delicious meal. So it was a pity that the pasta and garlic bread now seemed to have settled like a heavy weight in the bottom of her stomach. ‘Fine,’ she accepted curtly. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, then.’

He nodded. ‘If you would care for a swim before breakfast there is a heated pool in the east wing of the palazzo.’

The palazzo had its own heated swimming pool?

Why was Lily surprised? The place was big enough to house an indoor football pitch if Dmitri had decided he wanted one! ‘As it’s December, I didn’t bother to bring my bathing costume with me,’ Lily admitted.

‘I have no problem with you skinny dipping …’ Those pale green eyes swept over Lily from her head to the tips of her toes, before settling back on her now slightly flushed face.

‘I have a problem with it!’ Lily said firmly.

Dmitri shrugged as he walked towards the doorway out into the hallway. ‘The offer is there if you should change your mind.’

‘I won’t,’ she stated flatly. She had already behaved in a reckless way with this man, she didn’t need to ask for trouble by swimming in the nude! More trouble, that was …

Heaven only knew what Dmitri thought of her after that wanton display—if it was anything like the things Lily had been thinking about herself then it wasn’t in the least complimentary.

‘Aren’t you going to take my mobile with you this time?’ Lily couldn’t resist calling after him—and then wished she hadn’t as she realised she had just reminded him that her mobile was her only means of contacting anyone outside the palazzo.

His shoulders tensed as he paused in the doorway before turning slowly to look at her speculatively. ‘Would you tell me if you were to receive a telephone call or text from your brother?’

‘Yes, of course I’d tell you.’ Lily didn’t even have to think about her answer. She knew that beneath Dmitri’s arrogance he was genuinely worried about his sister; it would be cruel of her not to tell him if she were to hear from the eloping pair.

He nodded. ‘Then you may keep the mobile.’

‘How kind of you to allow me to!’ Lily felt stung into retaliating.

A brief but humourless smile curved his lips. ‘I thought so, yes. Goodnight, Lily.’

‘Night, Dmitri,’ she mumbled in reply, waiting until she was sure he had definitely gone before sinking slowly down onto one of the kitchen chairs, her heated cheeks buried in her hands, as she was instantly bombarded with memories of every arousing moment of being in his arms …

Forty-eight.

Dmitri continued to count the number of lengths of the pool he had swum so far as he pushed away from the side and once again struck out powerfully for the opposite end.

Forty-nine.

Neither the exercise nor the refreshingly warm water had done anything to cool his ardour from an hour ago, when he had left Lily in the kitchen and, instead of going to his study as planned, decided to take up his own suggestion of going for a swim. Secure in the knowledge, of course, that Lily had no intention of taking up the offer; having her here too, with or without a bathing costume, would certainly negate his own reasons for being here! Fifty.

Not that this deliberately punishing exercise had in the least helped him in the least to understand—or accept—his unprecedented response to Lily.

Fifty-one.

She was beautiful, yes. But Dmitri had known and bedded many beautiful woman in his thirty-six years. So what was it about her, specifically, that now made it as impossible to put the touch of the silky softness of her skin from his mind as it had been for him to resist kissing her in the kitchen earlier? Dio mio—in the kitchen, on top of the table where they had just eaten dinner, of all things!

Fifty-two.

And what was this man Danny to Lily? A friend, she had said. But what sort of friend? A friend who just happened to be male? Or was the other man more than that? Surely a man who was just a friend wouldn’t have called her quite so late at night? And long distance, at that.

Fifty-three.

Yet why should it matter to him who or what this man Danny had been, or still was, in Lily’s life? It did not, obviously. Except she had given him the impression she did not have a man currently in her life …

Fifty-four.

It should not matter to him one way or the other whether Lily had lied to him earlier. It did not matter to him! Why should it? Lily meant nothing to him. Except as the annoying sister of the man who had eloped with Dmitri’s own sister.

Fifty-fi—

Dmitri stilled as the flashing of red lights caught and held his attention and he stared up at the security panel on the wall beside the door into the swimming complex. The lights only flashed like that when an intruder was trying to break into the palazzo.

Or when someone was trying to break out …




CHAPTER SEVEN


‘WHAT did you think you were doing?’ Dmitri growled, concentrating on wrapping a bandage about the cut on Lily’s hand as she sat in front of him on one of the kitchen chairs.

She gave a pained wince. Not because of the discomfort from the cut to her hand, but because of the obvious disgust in Dmitri’s tone as he asked her why she had broken a small window in the kitchen in an effort to try and get out of the palazzo.

Obviously with hindsight—and the arrival of four hefty employees of the security company who monitored the system installed in the palazzo, along with several local police officers—it hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.

Lily had cleared away in the kitchen before going upstairs to her bedroom. Where she had instantly felt the sharp edge of her confinement. That, and also the full force of her embarrassment at her behaviour in the kitchen earlier. No—nothing so mild as embarrassment. She had been totally devastated as she was bombarded with memories of her own lack of inhibition.

She just didn’t behave in that way. With any man. Let alone one who was keeping her a virtual prisoner—albeit a pampered one—in his home. And the thought of having to face him across the breakfast table in the morning had simply been too mortifying for her even to contemplate.

The obvious solution to her dilemma had seemed to be to remove herself from the palazzo and the temptation its dangerously attractive owner represented to her still shaky defences.

Great in theory—not so good in practice!

Oh, dragging a chair over and climbing up to break the small window above the sink in the kitchen hadn’t proved too much of a problem. It had been easy, in fact. Too easy, Lily had realised belatedly …

She had never even seen a sophisticated security system like the one installed in the palazzo before. She’d had no idea, for instance, that instead of the loud ringing of alarm bells she might have expected when she broke the window—and at the time had been grateful not to hear—an alarm actually went off in the offices of the security company itself, which in turn then sent a call through to the local police.

Lily had barely had the chance to move the sharp remnants of glass from the shattered window out of her way, cutting her hand in the process, before she was pounced upon by half a dozen excessively muscled men—four from the security company and two policemen!

Trying to explain that she was trying to get out of the palazzo rather than into it had proved virtually impossible when none of the men spoke English and Lily spoke hardly any Italian. It had been left to Dmitri, wearing only a towel draped about his waist and with his hair wet and tousled, to explain the situation to the security company and the police. Although again, not speaking anything but rudimentary Italian, Lily wasn’t quite sure what that explanation had entailed.

How on earth did any man go about explaining that a woman was trying to break out of his home and not into it? Especially when that man was only wearing a towel about his waist to cover his own nakedness!

And he was still only wearing a towel—a fact she was only too well aware of as he stood in front of her, bandaging her cut hand …

If she had thought she’d felt embarrassed earlier it was nothing to the humiliation she felt now. The police, and finally the men from the security company, after putting a temporary cover over the broken window, had gone, and she was once again left alone with Dmitri.

‘Well?’ he rasped impatiently as he secured the end of the bandage before stepping slightly away from her.

Allowing Lily to breathe again at last. Well … sort of. She was still aware of the fact that Dmitri had probably been taking a shower or something when the alarm went off; his hair was still slightly damp even now, and of course he only wore that towel draped about his waist. Leaving the broad expanse of his chest and his long muscled legs completely bare …

‘Well, what?’ She looked anywhere but directly at him.

Dmitri snorted, not knowing if he wanted to shake her or just walk away in disgust—before he did something much more disturbing to her.

He scowled down at her. ‘Did it not occur to you that breaking a window would breach the security system?’

The stubborn jutting of her chin did nothing to alleviate her sudden impression of vulnerability; she looked about sixteen years old, dressed in faded jeans along with the black sweater she had worn earlier, and with her hair secured in a loose plait down her back. ‘Of course it occurred to me—I just thought I would have time to get safely away before anyone responded. And I would have done too, if I hadn’t been delayed by getting something to wrap around my hand,’ she added, looking annoyed.

Dmitri gave a sigh of frustration as he turned away to run one of his own hands impatiently through his rapidly drying hair; he had paused only long enough earlier to pick up a towel before hurrying from the pool complex to the west wing. Probably as well—otherwise he might have needed to actually go to the police station in order to have her released from a prison cell. He’d wanted to get there quickly in case the outspoken Lily said or did something to cause the police to arrest her, anyway!

He shake his head. ‘Safely away where? Lily, there is nowhere in Rome that I could not find you if I wished to do so,’ he explained as she frowned up at him.

‘Oh.’ She looked nonplussed, but didn’t question his claim—probably because his expression alone was enough to tell her that he meant what he said. ‘Oh, come on, Dmitri.’ She grimaced as he continued to frown. ‘You can’t blame a girl for trying!’

‘Yes, I can—when I end up having to lie to the police!’ Dmitri snarled.

Lily eyed him curiously. ‘In what way did you lie to them?’

He scowled darkly. ‘I told them we had had a lovers’ spat—that I walked out of the kitchen and left you to it, after which you threw something at the window in a temper and broke it.’

Those sky-blue eyes widened. ‘I don’t have a temper!’

‘Fortunately they did not know that.’

‘And they actually believed you?’

‘Probably not,’ he accepted.

‘I would say definitely not,’ Lily scoffed. ‘If we had argued, and I really had been angry enough to throw something, then I would have made sure it was at you—not a window!’

‘I am well aware of that,’ Dmitri rasped. ‘Fortunately the police and the men from the security company were not, and wisely decided to accept my romanticised version of what took place.’

Which explained the reason for the knowing smiles and winks of the security men before they’d left. ‘No doubt you all had a good laugh at the little lady’s expense?’ She stood up abruptly.

Dmitri skewered her with that piercing green gaze. ‘I assure you that so far I have not found anything in the least amusing about this situation.’

‘That makes two of us!’ she retorted.

Dmitri wondered if anything could succeed in shaking this woman’s independence of will.

Yes, of course it could. Obviously what had happened between them after dinner had disturbed her enough for her to try and break out of the palazzo.

Dmitri still flinched inwardly when he recalled entering the kitchen to see a vulnerable Lily surrounded by a threatening group of men, and with blood dripping down her hand and onto the tiled floor from where she had cut herself.

Because she had wanted to get away from him.

Because she had been so traumatised by the depth of the intimacies they had shared she did not wish to remain here and risk having them repeated.

Admittedly the circumstances of finding themselves alone here together were unusual, and their lovemaking had been unwise to say the least, but Dmitri could never remember a woman being so desperate to escape his attentions that she had attempted to flee into the night as if pursued by the devil himself!

He looked at her closely. ‘Are you so determined to leave here you would risk injury to yourself in an attempt to do so?’

Lily raised defensive brows. ‘My intention was obviously to get away from here, not to injure myself.’

His nostrils flared. ‘I am still not sure the cut on your hand does not require stitches—’

‘I heal quickly,’ Lily cut in firmly, putting the hand in question behind her back—hoping out of sight would prove to be out of mind. Although, knowing Dmitri, she somehow doubted it would achieve that objective! ‘Can we just go to bed now? I mean—’ She broke off with a self-conscious wince as the embarrassed colour warmed her cheeks. ‘I’m going to bed,’ she amended. ‘Alone. You can do whatever you please.’

‘To quote you from earlier, “How kind of you to allow me to,”’ Dmitri came back dryly.

Her eyes flashed deeply blue. ‘I’m tired, I have an aching hand, and I feel slightly embarrassed at having brought the police and security company here—’

‘Only slightly?’ he jeered.

‘Slightly embarrassed,’ Lily reiterated. ‘And I am decidedly cranky. Do you really want to mess with me any more tonight?’ She met his gaze challengingly.

If it hadn’t been entirely inappropriate to the situation Dmitri knew that he would have been tempted to laugh at her manner of speech; she really didn’t allow herself to feel cowed by anyone or anything. As her thwarted attempt to escape from him testified …

He sighed. ‘Once the glazier has replaced the window tomorrow morning I will take you anywhere you wish to go.’

‘You’re suggesting we go out for ice cream and to see the Trevi Fountain?’ Her heavy tone made it sound like some sort of bizarre punishment on Dmitri’s part.

‘No,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I meant I will drive you to a hotel.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Really?’

Dmitri’s irritation deepened at the disbelief in her tone. ‘Really,’ he echoed tersely.

Lily eyed him warily, not altogether sure she completely trusted this about face. ‘What about Claudia and Felix?’

His expression darkened just at the mention of the missing couple. ‘I will have to find some other way of locating them.’

‘How exactly?’

‘I have no idea as yet!’ he said harshly. ‘Only that I will endeavour to do so.’

Because Lily had created an awkward situation for him by trying to break her way out of here? Or because he genuinely felt regret about keeping her confined when she would obviously rather be somewhere else? Either way—

‘Are you cold?’ Lily frowned. She was sure she’d seen him give a slight shiver. Or perhaps it was just a shudder of revulsion at the memory of having his home invaded by the police in the middle of the night!

‘Why on earth would I be cold?’ he said scathingly. ‘It is late December, one o’clock in the morning, my window has been broken and I am wearing only a towel. Why should I be cold?’

‘There’s no need to be sarcastic,’ Lily said indignantly.

‘There is every reason—’ He broke off exasperatedly, breathing hard. ‘Tell me, Lily, does this sort of thing happen to you in England?’

She gave a puzzled frown. ‘What sort of thing?’

Dmitri raised dark brows. ‘Being kidnapped by an Italian count. Made love to on a kitchen table.’ After the discomfort he had suffered for the past hour he felt a certain grim satisfaction as he saw the colour warm Lily’s cheeks. ‘Housebreaking. Being questioned by the police.’

Her cheeks remained flushed. ‘There aren’t an awful lot of Italian counts in England. I was breaking out of the house not into it. And the police could hardly question me when I don’t speak Italian and they don’t speak English. So the answer to your question is no, Dmitri, nothing like this has ever happened to me in England!’

Dmitri noted that she had chosen not to offer even the suggestion of a contradiction over their lovemaking. Because that had happened to her in England? Or because she was embarrassed that it had happened at all?

‘Please just go to bed, Lily,’ he advised, a nerve pulsing in his tightly clenched jaw.

She shook her head. ‘No—you go and put some clothes on and I’ll make you a pot of hot coffee.’ She moved to the coffee percolator on the worktop and filled it up with water, before going to the refrigerator to take out the ground coffee. ‘Although why on earth you were taking a shower at almost one o’clock in the morning is beyond me.’

‘I was not taking a shower,’ Dmitri denied, frowning as she continued to make the coffee; he was used to people doing what he said when he said it—if not sooner!—something Lily either didn’t appreciate or deliberately chose to ignore.

She turned after spooning the coffee into the filter and switching on the machine. ‘Then what were you doing?’

Nor was Dmitri accustomed to people questioning his actions—something else that she felt absolutely no hesitation in doing. He found it extremely irritating, while at the same time strangely refreshing …

For fifteen years Dmitri had said and done exactly as he wished, without criticism or question from anyone. To find himself subjected to the curiosity of a woman who stood only as tall as his shoulder, weighed as little as a pubescent teenage girl—even if she was far from being one—and who had a tongue as sharp as a razor, was something of a shock. A little like living amongst sheep for years only to then find himself confronted by a lioness! ‘Dmitri?’

He felt a brief warmth as she continued to call him by his first name. ‘Yes?’ he answered huskily.

She shot him a pointed look. ‘I asked where you were when the security alarm went off.’

‘In the pool.’ Cooling off. An exercise in futility when he was heating up again rapidly now that he was once again back in her company.

‘Oh.’ She blinked. ‘So you aren’t completely naked under that towel?’

This time Dmitri couldn’t stop the smile that curved his lips. ‘Not completely, no.’

Not too much of a comfort when Lily was pretty sure Dmitri was the sort of man who would wear body-hugging swimming briefs. Possibly in black. The sort that defined more than they hid.

And why not? He certainly had the sort of lean and muscled body that would look—

No—not going there. How he did or didn’t look in a pair of swimming briefs was of absolutely no interest to her.

Liar!

How he looked was of far more interest than was good for her!

She turned away from the mockery she could now see glinting in his eyes. ‘Coffee’s almost ready,’ she announced brightly, after checking the pot.

‘Is that my cue to go and put some clothes on?’ he murmured softly.

It was certainly his cue to go somewhere! Anywhere. As long as it was well away from the confines of this kitchen. ‘Unless you want to continue being cold, yes.’ She affected an uninterested shrug—one that probably didn’t succeed in convincing either of them of her sincerity.

No one man should be allowed to possess the sinful good looks that Dmitri did. That air of haughtiness that in no way disguised the animal magnetism beneath. The hard and muscled body that drew her attention like a moth to a flame.

‘Lily?’

She drew in a deep breath even as she schooled her features into polite query before turning. ‘Yes?’

‘Just so that you know I was telling the truth just now …’ He slowly removed the towel from about the leanness of his waist, revealing that he did indeed wear brief black swimming trunks that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Lily’s imagination, at least!

Had he deliberately removed the towel in an attempt to cause her further embarrassment? Or because he knew the effect his near-nakedness was already having on her?

If he hadn’t known before then he did now, because she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Her cheeks became flushed with her rapidly escalating arousal, her breasts were once again feeling full and tingling, and between her thighs she was starting to ache gently.

Dmitri’s bare shoulders were so very wide and powerful. His muscled chest was covered in that fine dusting of dark hair that only hours ago Lily had caressed. His stomach was flat and lean—he might sit behind a desk in an office most of the time, but he must also work out regularly to achieve that washboard six-pack. As for that telling bulge beneath the thin black material of his bathing trunks …

Lily moved her gaze back almost desperately to the hard, sculptured beauty of his face, glaring at him as she saw the open amusement that he made no effort to hide. ‘Very nice, Dmitri,’ she bit out as she slowly, deliberately, looked him up and down from head to toe. ‘Now, would you mind not being such an exhibitionist and putting some clothes on?’

This time he was unable to quell a laugh as Lily spoke to him and looked at him in that condescending way; she really was the most intriguing woman he had met for a very long time. If ever.

A sobering thought in itself … Becoming intrigued by the beautiful and outspoken Lily Barton was certainly not on Dmitri’s future list of things to do. His immediate list, however, was a different matter altogether …

‘Don’t wait up for me if you would rather go up to bed,’ he said as he squashed that tempting thought by glancing away on the pretext of rewrapping and securing the towel about his waist.

Her brows rose. ‘I’d like to stay and have coffee too—unless you would rather I didn’t?’

Dmitri’s jaw tightened just at the thought of Lily still being there when he returned. Waiting for him … ‘And what possible reason could I have for not wanting you to stay and enjoy a cup of coffee when you were actually the one to make it?’

‘No reason.’ She shrugged. ‘You just seemed … Well, as if you would rather be alone.’

Dmitri was accustomed to being alone. Claudia still lived at the palazzo with him, yes, but she was a late riser and he was an early one, meaning that they rarely ate breakfast together. Claudia also invariably went out in the evenings—latterly with Felix, he now realised!—and Dmitri was usually out at his office for most of the day and early evening. Meaning that brother and sister lived fairly separate lives for the main part.

In fact, Dmitri did not remember the last time he had spent as much time all at once in the company of a person he was not related to or discussing business with.

Even his physical relationships were usually conducted with the least amount of socialising, and Dmitri had always made a point of never spending the whole night with any of those women. Mutual physical gratification was one thing—eating breakfast or spending the day with any of those women was not something he had ever felt the inclination to do.

So this prolonged time spent with Lily was unusual for him. Something he should perhaps have thought of before he’d had her brought here …

‘If it takes you this long to answer then I was obviously right in my deduction,’ Lily drawled ruefully. ‘I’ll just pour myself a cup of coffee and disappear upstairs with it before you come back—’

‘It only took me so long because I considered the question too ridiculous to necessitate a reply at all,’ Dmitri said.

‘Ridiculous?’ Lily repeated slowly, her gaze wary as she waited expectantly for another one of his now familiar set downs. Nor was she disappointed!

He shrugged bare shoulders. ‘Ridiculous in that I see no relevance to me as to whether you choose to drink your coffee down here or upstairs in your bedroom.’

Ouch!

Lily deliberately stood her ground as she raised blond brows. ‘Now who’s getting cranky?’

She watched as Dmitri closed his eyes briefly, as if by doing so he might shut her out of his awareness altogether —or in the hope that she might just have disappeared by the time he opened them again.

No such luck! ‘I’m still here, Dmitri,’ she taunted gently.

Pale green eyes glittered as he raised his lids to glare across the room at her. ‘So I see.’ He breathed deeply. ‘I will return for my coffee shortly.’ He strode from the kitchen, amazingly still managing to look every inch—every delectable, edible inch—the proud and haughty Count Dmitri Scarletti, despite being barefoot and half naked.

Leaving Lily to make the choice as to whether she should go back upstairs or whether she should stay exactly where she was …




CHAPTER EIGHT


‘SO you decided to take your coffee upstairs with you last night, after all, then?’ Dmitri folded his lean length down into the chair opposite Lily’s at the kitchen table, where she sat at seven-thirty the following morning already eating toast and drinking coffee.

Instantly reminding her that she had taken the cowardly way out the previous evening and not waited for Dmitri to return from dressing …

At the time she had decided that caution was probably the better part of valour—which was a polite way of saying she simply hadn’t trusted herself to spend any more time in his provocatively disturbing company last night.

She placed her coffee cup carefully down on the saucer, continuing to look down at that saucer as she answered him. ‘I was tired after all the travelling and—and excitement of yesterday.’

‘That is one way of putting it, I suppose,’ Dmitri drawled.

Lily glowered as she looked at him properly for the first time this morning, her eyes widening slightly as she saw he was wearing faded blue jeans and a black cashmere sweater that emphasised the width and power of his shoulders. The sleeves of the sweater were pushed up to just below his elbows, revealing the strength of his arms and wrists—

Oh, good Lord—she couldn’t be stupid enough to find even his arms and wrists sexy, could she?

She had expected him to be dressed in readiness for going to his office this morning, to continue his search for Claudia and Felix. Once he had seen Lily safely delivered to a hotel, of course. ‘I was referring to the way the police descended on the palazzo last night.’

‘No doubt a thrilling tale for you to tell your friends on your return to England,’ Dmitri said dryly as he sat forward to pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot in the centre of the table.

Lily bristled. ‘If you think I enjoyed even one moment of that—that embarrassing episode, then you are sadly mistaken! In fact, I would prefer never to think of it again.’

Dmitri remained completely unruffled by her vehemence, and he sipped his coffee before replying. ‘Not even as an amusing tale to relate to your grandchildren one day?’

‘Of the night I tried to break out—unsuccessfully, I might add—of an Italian count’s palazzo?’ She eyed him scathingly.

He bared his teeth in a smile. ‘Exactly.’

Lily grimaced. ‘I think I’ll pass, thanks.’ Especially when those grandchildren might then ask what she had been doing locked away in there in the first place! Not only did this situation reflect badly on Felix, but her own behaviour so far had been less than suitable for telling any future children or grandchildren she might have.

Dmitri knew he should not be enjoying Lily’s obvious discomfort, but after the unsatisfactory night’s sleep he’d had he was feeling less than indulgently inclined towards her this morning.

Coming back down the stairs last night and discovering she had taken him at his word and already gone up to bed had been the start of that dissatisfaction. He had then wondered—despite having made the offer to take her to a hotel in the morning—if she had indeed gone to bed or if she was up in her room even now, plotting and planning some other way of leaving the palazzo. Hopefully avoiding detection this time!

Consequently, by the time he’d gone up to his own bedroom he’d been feeling less than sleepy, and had remained awake for some time after that, watching the security panel in his bedroom in case the alarm should go off again. Even once he had fallen into an uneasy sleep he was sure he had still been half listening for the sound of someone moving stealthily through the building!

To come downstairs this morning and find her calmly seated at the kitchen table enjoying her breakfast—and looking completely rested into the bargain—only increased his feelings of irritation at his own lack of sleep. ‘As you wish,’ he said unsympathetically. ‘The glazier should be here shortly, and in the meantime I have some telephone calls to make.’

‘In connection with Felix and Claudia?’ she prompted sharply.

His mouth tightened. ‘As it happens, yes. I take it you have still not heard from your brother?’

‘No.’ If Lily was being honest she was starting to get more than a little annoyed with Felix herself now. Not only had her brother just disappeared, but he hadn’t even bothered to so much as check whether or not Lily had received his message in time to cancel her trip to Rome. None of which was helped by the fact that Lily had realised first thing this morning that today was Christmas Eve.

‘The glazier should not take long to replace the window, and then I will be free to drive you to a hotel—if that is convenient for you?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course it is.’ Lily sat up straighter in her chair as he came straight to the point; obviously idle chit chat was not the order of the day. ‘Obviously I don’t have any other plans for today.’

‘Obviously not,’ he conceded dryly.

‘But I could always get a taxi to a hotel rather than put you to any trouble on my behalf. Any more trouble on my behalf,’ she corrected as Dmitri raised mocking brows.

His smile was strained. ‘It is no trouble, I assure you.’

Lily gave him a small smile. ‘No doubt you’ll just be glad to see the back of me?’

‘No doubt.’

Well, you asked for that one, Lily, she seethed inwardly. Gave him the perfect opening, in fact. ‘Is there anything I can do to help you?’

Dmitri eyed her coolly. ‘Such as?’

‘Make some of the telephone calls for you? No, that isn’t going to work when I don’t speak Italian,’ she acknowledged ruefully. ‘There must be something I can do!’

His mouth twisted into another semblance of a smile. ‘I cannot think of anything.’

Great. Now Lily felt completely superfluous. Which she obviously was.

Was it any surprise that he couldn’t wait to get rid of her when, instead of being a means of contact with Felix, as Dmitri had obviously hoped she would be, she had become nothing more than a liability. A liability who last night had caused him deep embarrassment with his security firm and the police. And she was another inconvenience to him this morning by making him wait at home for a glazier to replace the broken window. No wonder he couldn’t wait to get rid of her!

But was Lily equally eager to leave?

That was an interesting question. And one that she hadn’t been able to answer either last night, as she lay in the warmth and comfort of her four-poster bed, or this morning, when she’d come downstairs to make herself some breakfast in the now-familiar kitchen.

Admittedly she had initially been forced to stay here against her will, and Dmitri’s agreeing to her leaving this morning was what she had been asking for ever since her arrival.

But once she left it was very unlikely that she would ever see him again.

Which was good—wasn’t it?

That was what she was still trying to decide!

She stood up. ‘I’ll just clear away here and then go upstairs and pack my things.’ She once again avoided looking at him as she carried her plate and cup over to the dishwasher.

Dmitri watched Lily as she walked across the kitchen. The blue of her fitted sweater was an exact match in colour for her eyes, and her hair was once again a loose curtain of platinum about her shoulders and down the length of her slender spine. Her black jeans fitted smoothly over the delectable curve of her bottom as she bent over the dishwasher.

Good sense told Dmitri that the sooner he was rid of such a distraction the happier he would be. The now familiar throbbing hardness of his arousal—this time just from his observation of the pertness of Lily’s bottom as she bent over the dishwasher—obviously didn’t agree with him.

Once again he was completely at a loss to understand why he reacted so intensely, so immediately to a schoolteacher from England, when he had escorted—bedded— some of the most beautiful and accomplished women in Italy. It was totally illogical.

He stood up as well. ‘I will be in my study when the glazier arrives.’ He turned away before she was able to see the evidence of his physical reaction to her, irritated that a certain part of his anatomy was wilfully glad to see and be with her!

Lily looked up in time to see Dmitri leaving the kitchen. There was a frown between her eyes as she slowly straightened. Obviously even being in the same room with her was a strain for him this morning.

‘Does the glazier or the representative of the security company have need of me?’

‘No, the glazier is still replacing the window.’ Lily stood hesitantly in the doorway of Dmitri’s study, not in the least encouraged by his slightly hostile greeting or the coldness of his expression as he sat behind the large mahogany desk that dominated the elegant wood-panelled room with its large picture window. ‘I’ve finished my packing.’ It had taken Lily all of ten minutes to replace the few things she had taken from her case the day before. ‘And I wondered if you’d had any luck with your phone calls?’

‘None whatsoever,’ he admitted as he threw down onto the desktop the pen he had been making notes with. ‘None of our friends or acquaintances have seen or heard from Claudia, and there is no record of Felix or Claudia taking a flight from Rome airport in the past twenty-four hours.’

‘Oh.’ Lily grimaced. ‘What about the other airports in Italy?’

He frowned. ‘Sorry?’

She shrugged as she leant against the doorframe. ‘Well, it seems to me that Felix and Claudia are both intelligent enough to have realised you would concentrate your efforts on Rome airport. Especially as they conveniently left Claudia’s car at a Leonardo da Vinci for you to find,’ she added. ‘So I wondered if there’s another airport close by? One they could have taken a taxi to? Where they could then have taken a flight to another part of Italy, perhaps?’

Dmitri’s expression was thoughtful as sat back in his leather chair. ‘Perhaps I should have accepted your offer of help earlier …’

Her eyes widened. ‘You should?’

‘Two heads are obviously much better than one.’ Waves of frustrated energy came off him as he sat forward to pick up the telephone before punching in the appropriate numbers. ‘I should have thought of this earlier … Paolo?’ His attention quickened as his call was obviously answered. ‘Si.’ Dmitri launched into a stream of Italian that Lily didn’t have a hope of understanding. ‘Si, si, si. Grazie, Paolo.’ He slowly replaced the receiver to look dazedly across the room at Lily. ‘Claudia and Felix chartered a plane and pilot and flew from a private airport to Milano yesterday morning.’

Which certainly explained why there had been no record of them flying out of Leonardo da Vinci airport! But Milan? Why on earth would they have flown to Milan? ‘Does Claudia have friends or relatives there?’

‘No.’ Dmitri’s mouth was tight. ‘But my delay in realising what they had done will have given them a twenty-four hour window in which to arrange a flight out of Milano.’

‘To where?’

‘That is what I have yet to find out,’ he bit out tautly.

Lily chewed on her bottom lip as she saw the grimness of Dmitri’s expression as he made another phone call—her little brother was in deep, deep trouble! Probably the biggest trouble he had ever been in in his life. Once Dmitri caught up with him, Felix would be lucky if he was even allowed to remain in Italy—let alone see Claudia again.

And Lily was left standing there like a spare part, not knowing what to do with herself while Dmitri engaged in another rapid-fire conversation in Italian with whomever it was he had telephoned now.

Self-pity wasn’t something that she had ever allowed herself to indulge in—mainly because she had been too busy these past eight years just managing to keep all the balls of her life in the air rather than letting them crash to the ground—but she was definitely starting to feel a little sorry for herself now. It was Christmas Eve, after all, and it looked as if Dmitri was almost ready to leave the palazzo to drive her to a hotel. Where she would no doubt spend the rest of the day alone. And tomorrow too. Really not the way in which Lily had envisaged spending her Christmas Day!

‘Where are you going?’ Dmitri placed his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone in order to talk to Lily as he realised she had turned away, with the obvious intention of leaving him to the privacy of his telephone call.

She gave a small shrug as she looked at him over her shoulder. ‘I thought I would just take my suitcase downstairs so that I’m ready to leave whenever you are.’

So that she was ready to leave …

Dmitri had actually forgotten his offer to drive her to a hotel in these past few minutes, because he finally felt as if he was making progress where Claudia and Felix was concerned. But he remembered it now. It also occurred to him that Lily, once at the hotel, would then be completely alone over the Christmas holiday. Just as Dmitri would. Which had never been a problem for him before.

It was not a problem for him now, either, he told himself harshly. It was Lily of whom he was thinking—not himself. ‘There is no rush, is there?’ Did her expression brighten slightly? Dmitri wasn’t sure.

‘No,’ she answered. ‘No, of course there’s no rush.’ She smiled. ‘I was just going to make some coffee for the men downstairs. Perhaps you would like a cup too?’

‘I would—thank you,’ Dmitri agreed warmly.

Too warmly? What on earth was the matter with him? A short while ago getting Lily out of his home had seemed like a good idea—a wonderful idea, in fact. Yet now he felt only reluctance at the very thought of her leaving.

For Lily’s own sake, he assured himself again firmly. Because she was a visitor to his native city, and so far had not received the welcome that Roma extended to all its visitors. Nor was her brother here to spend Christmas with her, as expected. Those had to be the reasons for his current hesitation; what else could it be?

‘Count Scarletti?’

The voice squawking down the earpiece of the telephone reminded Dmitri that he was still in the middle of a call.

‘I will come down to the kitchen shortly,’ he said to Lily, before turning in his chair to look out of the palazzo window while he continued his telephone call.

‘I take it the work is finished?’

Lily turned from laughing at something the glazier had just translated into English for the slightly flirtatious security man, her smile fading as she saw a stony-faced Dmitri standing in the kitchen doorway, observing their conversation. ‘I— No, I don’t think so.’ She shifted uncomfortably, aware that she had been the one distracting the two workmen.

‘Then perhaps they might be allowed to get on with their work?’ Dmitri suggested, as he came farther into the room to look pointedly at the other two men.

A look that obviously needed no translation, as they instantly put down their half drunk cups of coffee and hurried back to attend to the window.

Lily turned back to Dmitri. ‘Wow—can you do that to a whole roomful of people?’

‘Without even trying,’ he drawled dryly as he walked over to the table. ‘Considering I don’t usually enter this part of the palazzo, I seem to be spending a lot of my time in here at the moment.’

She stood up to pour him a cup of coffee. ‘I spend a lot of time sitting in the kitchen in my flat at home.’

‘Sitting? Not cooking?’ He made himself comfortable on one of the chairs around the table.

Lily put the cup down on the table before resuming her seat. ‘Oh, I can cook, Dmitri.’

‘You just choose not to do so while you are here,’ he acknowledged, adding neither cream nor sugar before sipping the hot brew.

Lily looked at him closely, not fooled for a minute by the apparent casualness of this conversation, and knowing that moments ago he had not been in the least happy at finding Lily and the workmen laughing together. Because she was delaying them? Or because of something else?

She gave a shrug. ‘I’m a teacher, not a cook.’

He gave an inclination of his head. ‘And I am sure you are a very good one.’

‘Goodness me!’ Lily’s eyes were wide as she leant back in her chair. ‘Did you just pay me a compliment?’

Dmitri frowned his irritation with her sarcasm. ‘I do not believe any of my insults have been levelled at you.’

‘Not personally, no. But by association, yes.’

And why should he not have expressed his displeasure with her brother, when he and Claudia might be the cause of the biggest scandal to rock the Scarletti family in several hundred years! ‘I do not in the least blame you for your family connections, Lily,’ he stated frostily.

‘You could have fooled me!’ An angry flush darkened her cheeks. ‘And, whatever Felix may or may not have done, he will always be my twin brother, and I love him.’

They were well on their way to having another disagreement, Dmitri recognised impatiently, when all he had meant to do was apologise for his earlier abruptness by paying her a compliment. Added to which, his comment had been sincere; he was certain that her no-nonsense attitude made her an excellent teacher.

He sighed. ‘I am not about to engage in another argument with you, Lily.’

‘The only way that isn’t going to happen is if we don’t speak to each other again before I leave!’ Her eyes flashed her annoyance at him.

A nerve pulsed in his cheek above his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Did you remember to return your telephone call this morning?’

She looked at him blankly. ‘Sorry?’

‘I seem to remember that last night you promised your friend Danny that you would call him back today.’ He raised dark brows.

Lily frowned; if this was his way of avoiding an argument then he was failing miserably. ‘I don’t think that’s any of your business, Dmitri, do you?’ she challenged, having no intention of telling him that she wasn’t going to return Danny’s call—today or any other day. That relationship was definitely over.

‘As the man who was interrupted in the middle of making love to you on this table last night when you received Danny’s telephone call, I think my curiosity is understandable,’ he shot back.

‘Would you keep your voice down?’ Lily seethed across the table at him, very aware of the fact that there were two other men in the room, and that at least one of them understood English. ‘I think the important word in that statement is “interrupted”,’ she continued with hushed fierceness. ‘And it doesn’t give you the right to question me about any of my friends!’

Dmitri dearly wished he had never begun this conversation. He had no idea why he had done so—except that he’d been annoyed, coming down the stairs a few minutes ago, to hear the sound of Lily’s laughter mingled with the two workmen’s. A light and flirtatious laugh that she had never been at ease enough to share with him.

His eyes narrowed. ‘Then what does it give me the right to do?’

‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing,’ she repeated firmly, angry colour high in her cheeks. ‘Now perhaps we could change the subject and you could tell me whether or not you’ve managed to make any progress with your telephone calls?’

He recognised her method of averting the argument by changing the subject back to Claudia and Felix. Sensible, perhaps; it had been a senseless argument in any case—one he had allowed himself to be provoked into inciting because of his curiosity about the man who had telephoned Lily so inconveniently the night before. If they had not been interrupted then Dmitri knew that he would have taken Lily on top of this table without a second thought. Without a first one, in fact.

Which perhaps explained why he was now taking his physical frustration out on her …

Perhaps. But it was not the cool, logical behaviour he usually expected of himself …

‘Dmitri?’

His attention returned to Lily where she sat across the table, looking at him curiously. ‘I managed to find out that Claudia hired a car at Milano airport. After that nothing has been seen of either her or your brother,’ he added grimly.

Lily sighed as she slowly leant back in her chair. ‘Which means they could still be in Milan.’

‘Or not.’

Or not …

Lily was going to personally throttle her little brother when they finally caught up with him! If Dmitri didn’t beat her to it …




CHAPTER NINE


‘I CAN’T possibly afford to stay here!’ Lily squeaked, looking up, aghast, at the obviously exclusive and hideously expensive building outside where Dmitri had parked his sleek black sports car.

The hotel was only a mile or so from his home, but the journey had been long enough to show her that he drove like all the other Italians she had observed—basically without any sense or regard for traffic signals or other drivers, let alone the dozens of people who risked life and limb by travelling about on bikes and motorcycles!

Nevertheless, it was finding herself seated beside him in his expensive-smelling car, outside a hotel where she could see a doorman and several porters dealing with the luggage of chicly dressed guests going in and out of the glass front doors, which now caused the nauseous churning in her stomach—forget butterflies, they had been replaced by giant bats!

‘You don’t need to be able to afford to stay here,’ Dmitri assured her coolly as he opened his door and got out of the car before coming round to Lily’s side and opening the passenger door for her. ‘Obviously you will be staying here as my guest,’ he said as she made no move to get out of the car.

‘There’s no “obviously” about it.’ She gave a stubborn shake of her head. ‘Because I’m not staying here or anywhere else as the guest of Count Scarletti. I pay my own way, thank you very much.’

Dmitri felt some of his irritation drain out of him as he looked down at her stubbornly rebellious face. He was almost tempted to smile at her obvious indignation—if he had not known that any amusement at her expense would only make her more stubborn! ‘At least come inside and look at the room, Lily,’ he cajoled.

‘There’s no point in doing that when I’m not staying.’ She gave another firm shake of her head as she continued to stare at the elegant façade of the hotel. ‘Good Lord, Dmitri, when you said you would drive me to a hotel I didn’t mean for you to take me to Rome’s version of the Ritz!’ She glared up at him.

This time Dmitri was unable to stop himself laughing. Lily looked so much like an indignant little bantam hen at this moment that it was impossible for him not to smile. ‘Let me do this for you, Lily.’ He went down on his haunches beside the open door to take one of her hands in his. ‘As an apology for my boorish behaviour to date,’ he explained.

Lily eyed him frustratedly. It wasn’t fair that he should look so appealing boyish as he gazed at her with those warm green eyes and smiled at her so wistfully. As for that tingling sensation in her fingers and up her arm from the touch of his hands on hers …

‘A verbal apology would have sufficed,’ she muttered.

‘This is my apology,’ he insisted.

‘It’s rather an expensive one.’

‘Just take a look inside, hmm?’

Could any woman resist this man when he looked so appealing? Not her, that was for certain!

She pulled her hand free of his as he stood up and stepped back to allow her to get out of the car. ‘Looking doesn’t mean I’m staying,’ she warned as he moved to take her suitcase from the boot of the car. ‘I just know I wouldn’t be comfortable here.’

‘Comfort is what this particular hotel is known for,’ he assured her as he allowed the porter to take her suitcase from him before disappearing inside the hotel with it, thereby allowing Dmitri to take a firm grasp of her arm.

Lily didn’t doubt that for a moment as she entered the hotel lobby at Dmitri’s side. The marble floors and pillars were very much like those at the Palazzo Scarletti, and there was that same feeling of disembodiment from the rush and bustle of the city of Rome they had left outside.

There were a dozen or so people in the lobby—some at the discreet reception desk, others sitting in comfortable armchairs reading newspapers or looking at maps—but all turned to look as Dmitri strode through their midst, wickedly handsome, very tall for an Italian, and with his air of arrogance—

No, Lily realised slowly as she glanced up at him. Arrogance was, and always had been, the wrong word to use in association with Dmitri; arrogance implied conceit and a scorn for others that she had discovered this past day or so he simply did not possess. He was powerful, yes, and with an air of self-confidence in his own capabilities, but he wasn’t in the least arrogant. Even his aloofness, his holding himself apart from others, no longer seemed to apply in regard to her …

She was becoming far too personally interested in what did and did not make Dmitri Scarletti tick, Lily realised with a feeling of dismay.

Interested enough to resent the covetous glances he was receiving from the half dozen or so women in the lobby—old as well as young.



Far, far too interested!

He was as beyond Lily’s reach as the moon, and if she had been disappointed in Danny when he’d chosen his mother over her then it was going to be nothing compared to how she was going to feel once this man had walked out of her life. Which, as they reached the reception desk, Lily knew was going to happen much sooner than she might have wished.

Beyond the, ‘Buongiorno, signor!’ with which the brightly smiling—and very beautiful—receptionist greeted Dmitri, Lily understood none of the conversation that followed, instead turning away to allow her attention to wander around the lobby.

There was the familiar nativity scene in one corner of the spacious area—Lily had seen several others during their drive from the palazzo—and an eight foot tall Christmas tree in another. Its gold-and-silver decorations and harsh white lights, and several gifts neatly wrapped in silver foil beneath, made Lily long wistfully for the trees she remembered from her own and Felix’s childhood.

They had usually been misshapen trees that had begun to shed their needles within days of being brought into the house by their father, with twinkling lights of different colours, and most of the decorations made during Lily and Felix’s childhood, and of sentimental value only, along with the gingerbread angels and stars that they baked with their mother. The presents beneath had been wrapped untidily in gaudy paper depicting Father Christmases and snowmen, but all had somehow given the trees a much more homely appearance than the cold perfection of the tree that adorned this hotel lobby.

To Lily’s consternation she felt the sharp prick of tears in her eyes just at the thought of those past Christmases with her family. Christmases so at odds with the one she was to spend alone in this impersonal hotel.

Dmitri was scowling slightly as he turned from booking Lily in and acquiring the key card to her room, knowing it was because he was very displeased with the amount of male attention she had attracted as they entered the hotel together. Even when she was dressed casually in jeans, and with a thick jacket over her sweater, her delicate blond-haired beauty was a beacon to every appreciative male gaze.

His scowl faded to concern as he looked down at her profile and saw the tears balanced precariously on her long golden lashes. ‘Lily?’

She turned to look at him. ‘Sorry.’ She sniffed and then prompted brightly, ‘All booked in?’

Dmitri wasn’t fooled for a moment by her forced smile as he nodded and replaced his hand beneath her elbow to guide her across to the lifts. ‘I’m sure Claudia and Felix are perfectly safe wherever they might be,’ he reassured her softly as they stepped inside the mirrored lift together.

‘Oh, I’m not in the least worried about that.’ This time her smile was genuine.

Dmitri looked down at her searchingly. ‘Then what are you worried about?’

What was she worried about? Her own unhappiness at the thought of parting from him, for one thing.

Oh, she was used to being on her own. Had been more or less on her own for the past eight years. She and Felix were close, and had usually got together once a week or so when he’d lived in London too, but nevertheless her brother had always lived his life separately from Lily, following his own star wherever it might lead him. As a consequence she had made her own life, with her own career and her own friends, and although she lived alone she had never felt lonely. Until now …

Because of the man standing beside her. Because in a few minutes they would say goodbye and probably never meet again. Lily very much doubted that Dmitri would allow Felix or Lily anywhere near the Palazzo Scarletti again once his sister had been safely returned to him.

She felt sad just thinking about it.

Which was ridiculous, she instantly rebuked herself impatiently. Her initial opinion of Dmitri, as being an arrogant despot, might have mellowed over the past twenty-four hours, but he was still Count Scarletti—multimillionaire, and the escort of numerous beautiful and accomplished women. She very much doubted that he would give Lily Barton, a schoolteacher from England and the sister of the man he now despised, so much as a second thought once this was all over. He wouldn’t even have noticed her existence at all if not for the present awkward circumstances!

‘Nothing at all,’ Lily denied lightly as the lift came to a halt and they stepped out into the carpeted corridor.

The place even smelt expensive, Lily acknowledged with an inner wince as her booted feet sank into the thick pile carpet and they passed several highly polished and ornate tables as they walked down the hallway. Most of them contained a vase of colourful flowers to perfume the air, and the paintings on the richly papered cream-coloured walls appeared to be originals.

As for the room—correction, suite—that Dmitri ushered her into seconds later …

Lily was overwhelmed by the rich elegance of the sitting room they entered, its furniture obviously antique. Several vases of yellow roses sat on tables and a large sideboard, and a bowl of assorted fruits was placed temptingly on the low coffee table in front of a leather sofa. A cut-glass chandelier hung from the ceiling, and several matching lamps were placed about the room for a more subdued lighting. And through a connecting door she could see a bedroom that was just as opulent.

‘As I said earlier, Dmitri, I simply can’t stay here!’ Lily protested.

‘Come out onto the balcony and look at the view.’ Dmitri encouraged her to cross the room with him before he threw open the doors and waited for her to precede him.

Lily followed obediently, and gasped softly as she stepped out onto the balcony and found what seemed like the whole of Rome spread out before her, in all its historic and majestic beauty. And surely—surely that was St Peter’s Basilica she could see across the River Tiber?

She turned to ask Dmitri if it was, only to find he had stepped back inside the suite and was even now tipping the porter who had arrived with her suitcase.

Lily turned back to the view before her, enchanted by the architecture and the sights and sounds, knowing that in that moment she’d fallen slightly in love with this magnificent city. Just as she was also falling in love with—

No! Definitely not! She would not allow herself to fall in love with the completely unattainable Dmitri Scarletti.

‘Beautiful, is it not, cara?’ he murmured appreciatively as he stepped out onto the balcony, not completely sure whether he spoke of his beloved Roma or the woman standing with her back towards him as she leant against the balcony balustrade, the glow of the platinum-gold of her hair in the sunshine appearing almost like a halo about her head before cascading onto the slenderness of her shoulders.

‘Very beautiful,’ she confirmed huskily without turning.

Dmitri stepped forward to rest his hands lightly on her shoulders, only to remove them again as he instantly felt her tense. ‘But you still do not wish to stay here?’ he guessed easily as he moved to stand beside her.

She turned and looked at him guiltily. ‘Would that be very ungrateful of me?’

Dmitri felt his displeasure evaporate as he saw the uncertainty in her expression. ‘Not at all,’ he assured her. ‘Except it would rob me of the pleasure of knowing that you are safe here, as well as comfortable.’

Her eyes widened. ‘It would?’

He looked down at her from beneath hooded lids. ‘Yes.’

Lily’s breath seemed to have caught in her throat somewhere and it refused to be budged. The lack of oxygen was making her feel slightly light-headed as she continued to gaze up into Dmitri’s pale green eyes. In fact, she wasn’t sure she could have looked away if her very life had depended on it!

Not good. So not good. Dangerous, in fact.

Dmitri’s only reason for being concerned about her welfare had to be because Felix wasn’t here with her as originally planned. Didn’t it?

‘I have some work to do at my office this afternoon, before we close for the Christmas holiday,’ Dmitri continued before Lily could repeat her wish to leave. ‘But I should like to return here at seven o’clock, if you would care to have dinner with me this evening?’

‘What?’ Lily just stared at him now, dumbstruck by his invitation and the possibility it opened up for her not to have to say goodbye to him just yet after all.

Dmitri smiled slightly. ‘I do not believe I have ever before had that reaction to a dinner invitation.’

Probably not, Lily conceded dazedly, but she also doubted that any of the other women Dmitri had invited out to dinner were sisters of a man his own sister had eloped with!

She shook her head. ‘You can’t really want to waste your evening having dinner with me.’

‘I would not consider it a waste of my evening.’ He frowned darkly.

‘I appreciate the offer, Dmitri—’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes. Yes, of course I do,’ Lily repeated firmly, in the face of his obvious scepticism. ‘But I’m sure you must have family—other than Claudia, of course …’

‘Of course.’ His mouth had firmed.

Lily nodded as she hastened on. ‘Family, then—or possibly friends that you would rather spend Christmas Eve with?’

Dmitri shrugged those incredibly wide shoulders. ‘I cannot think of any, no.’

‘But—’

‘Lily, it is, as you said, Christmas Eve, and I see no reason why either of us should spend it alone.’ Dmitri was too irritated to attempt to hide his emotion. With both Lily and himself. Her for her hesitation in accepting his invitation. Himself for having made the invitation at all …

It would have been so much easier to rid himself of all responsibility by leaving her at this hotel and going to spend several hours in his office, before returning home to continue his search and await news of Claudia and Felix.

Easier but not, as it now turned out, what Dmitri wished to do at all.

The covetous interest of those men downstairs in the hotel lobby earlier had seriously annoyed him. Men who would no doubt approach this beautiful woman with the stunning platinum coloured hair if she were to venture downstairs alone this evening. To invite her to join one of them for a drink, perhaps. Or maybe even dinner. Invitations that the now cautious Lily would no doubt refuse, but even so …

Better by far that she have dinner with him, thereby saving her from the awkwardness of having to make those refusals.

Better by far that Dmitri did not sit at home alone this evening tormenting himself with the image of her talking and laughing with any other man!

He straightened. ‘Obviously if you would prefer to be alone—’

‘I didn’t say that,’ Lily cut in quickly, over her shock now, and certain she would prefer to spend the evening with Dmitri than anyone else. And it was Christmas Eve … ‘But I haven’t agreed to stay at this hotel yet,’ she reminded him teasingly.

He quirked one dark brow. ‘But you will?’

‘Well … maybe for one night,’ she agreed reluctantly. ‘But only because I don’t want to delay you any longer by putting you to the trouble of finding a less … opulent one,’ she added firmly.

‘Of course,’ Dmitri said, secretly pleased at her capitulation. ‘Is seven o’clock agreeable to you?’

Lily smiled wryly. ‘I’m pretty sure I don’t have any other engagements this evening.’

‘Good.’ He nodded his satisfaction with her answer.

‘Will we be eating in the hotel or going out to eat?’ Lily was frantically trying to think what she had brought with her that was suitable to wear to have dinner with Dmitri—in or out of the hotel. Nothing very exciting, that was for sure; she had packed with the idea of spending all of her time with Felix, not going out to dinner with gorgeous titled Italians!

Dmitri gave it some thought. ‘I believe, as you have been in Roma for a day and a half now and seen nothing of the city, that we should go out to eat. In which case, I advise that you dress warmly.’

Which meant the little any-occasion black dress Lily had packed at the last minute, on the assumption that Felix would take her out to dinner one evening in order to introduce her to Dee, was out of the question. Or was it? Lily had also packed a warm red—very seasonal—woollen cardigan to wear over the top of it. Besides, so far in their acquaintance Dmitri had only ever seen her in jeans or tailored trousers. It would be nice if he were to realise she actually had legs. And not bad ones at that, according to some of the men she had previously dated.

Dated … ?

This evening with Dmitri wasn’t a date! He just felt sorry for her, being alone in Rome, that was all.

‘Until later, then, cara.’ Dmitri reached out to take one of her hands in his and lift it to his mouth. The firmness of his lips grazed the back of her knuckles, intent green eyes holding hers captive for several seconds before he released her and turned on his heel to go back inside the hotel room. The outer door closed softly behind him only seconds later.

While Lily remained standing on the balcony, no longer looking out at the spectacular scenery but down at her hand, where Dmitri’s lips had just touched her now tingling skin …

‘This is amazing!’ Lily savoured a spoonful of the sharp lemon-flavoured ice cream Dmitri had just purchased for her. In a tub. Because, the vendor had informed them, cones detracted from the flavour of his magnificent ice cream.

Dmitri inclined of his head. ‘I am pleased that you like it.’

Lily had enjoyed everything about this evening so far. The little restaurant where they had eaten dinner had been lovely, and Dmitri had been greeted warmly by name by the rotund proprietor. The company had been amazing and their conversation easy, the food absolutely delicious, and the red wine that accompanied it had brought a warm glow to Lily’s cheeks before they had stepped back out into the enchantment that was Rome on Christmas Eve.





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