Vettori's Damsel in Distress (Harlequin Romance Large Print) Read online

  There were tribal rugs from North Africa on the broad planks of a timber floor gleaming with the patina of age, splashes of brilliantly coloured modern art on the walls, shelves crammed with books. There was the warm glow and welcoming scent of logs burning in a wood stove and an enormous old leather sofa pulled up invitingly in front of it. The kind with big rounded arms—perfect for curling up against—and thick squashy cushions.

  ‘You live here,’ she said stupidly.

  ‘Yes.’ His face was expressionless as he tossed her bag onto the sofa. ‘I’m told that it’s very lower middle class to live over the shop but it suits me.’

  ‘Well, that’s just a load of tosh.’

  ‘Tosh?’ he repeated, as if he’d never heard the word before. Maybe he hadn’t but it hardly needed explaining. It was all there in the sound.

  ‘Total tosh. One day I’m going to live in a house exactly like this,’ she said, turning around so that she could take in every detail. ‘The top floor for me, workshops on the floor below me and a showroom on the ground floor—’ she came to halt, facing him ‘—and my great-grandfather was the younger son of an earl.’

  ‘An earl?’

  Realising just how pompous that must have sounded, Geli said, ‘Of course my grandmother defied her father and married beneath her, so we’re not on His Lordship’s Christmas card list, which may very well prove the point. Not that they’re on ours,’ she added.

  ‘They disowned her?’

  She shrugged. ‘Apparently they had other, more obedient children.’

  And that was more personal information than she’d shared with anyone, ever, but she didn’t want him to think any of them gave a fig for their aristocratic relations. Even in extremis they’d never turned to them for help.

  ‘The family, narrow-minded and full of secrets, is the source of all our discontents,’ Dante replied, clearly quoting someone.

  ‘Who said that?’ she asked.

  ‘I just did.’

  ‘No, I meant...’ She shook her head. He knew exactly what she meant. ‘I have a great family.’ For years it had just been the four of them. Her sisters, Elle and Sorrel, and their grandmother. They’d been solid. A tight-knit unit standing against the world. That had all changed the day a stranger had arrived on the doorstep with an ice cream van. Now her sisters were not only successful businesswomen, but married and producing babies as if they were going out of fashion, while Great-Uncle Basil—who’d sent the van—and Grandma were warming their old bones in the south of France.

  ‘You are very fortunate.’

  ‘Yes...’ If you ignored the empty space left by her mother. By an unknown father. By the legions of aunts, uncles, cousins that she didn’t know. Who didn’t know her.

  ‘The bathroom is through here,’ Dante said, opening a door to an inner hall.

  ‘Il bagno...’ she said brightly, making an effort to think in Italian as she followed him. Making an effort to think.

  His bagno would, in estate agent speak, have been described as a ‘roomy vintage-style’ bathroom. In this case she was pretty certain the fittings—a stately roll-top bath with claw feet and gleaming brass taps, a loo with a high tank and a wide, deep washbasin—were the real deal.

  ‘I’ll shut the door so that you can put the kitten down,’ he said, and the roominess shrank in direct proportion to the width of his shoulders as he shut the door. ‘He can’t escape.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ she said as, carefully unhooking the creature’s claws from the front of her dress, she set it down in the bath. ‘And if it went under the bagno...’ She left him to imagine what fun it would be trying to tempt him out.

  Dante glanced down as the kitten, a tiny front paw resting against the steep side of the bath, protested at this indignity. ‘Smart thinking.’

  ‘When you’ve taken a room apart looking for a kitten that’s managed to squeeze through a crack in the skirting board,’ she told him, ‘you learn to keep them confined.’

  ‘You live an interesting life, Angelica Amery,’ he said, watching as she attempted to slip the buttons at her wrist without getting blood on her dress.

  ‘Isn’t that a curse in China?’ she asked.

  ‘I believe that would be “May you live in interesting times”,’ he said, ‘but you’ll forgive me if I say that you don’t dress like a woman in search of a quiet life.’

  ‘Well, you know what they say,’ she replied. ‘Life is short. Eat ice cream every day.’

  A smile deepened the lines bracketing his mouth, fanned out from his eyes. ‘What “they” would that be?’

  ‘More of an “it”, actually. It’s Rosie, our vintage ice cream van. In her Little Book of Ice Cream.’ He looked confused—who wouldn’t? ‘Of course she has a vested interest.’

  ‘Right...’

  ‘It’s the sentiment that matters, Dante. You can substitute whatever lifts your spirits. Chocolate? Cherries?’ No response. ‘Cheese?’ she offered, hoping to make him laugh. Or at least smile.

  ‘Permesso?’ He indicated her continuing struggle with shaky fingers and fiddly buttons.

  Okay, it wasn’t that funny and, giving up on the buttons, she surrendered her hand. ‘Prego.’

  He carefully unfastened the loops holding the cuff together, folded the sleeve back out of the way, then, taking hold of her wrist, he pumped a little liquid soap into her palm.

  Her heart rate, which was already going well over the speed limit, accelerated and, on the point of telling him that she could handle it from here, she took her own advice. Okay, it wasn’t ice cream or even chocolate, but how often was a seriously scrumptious man going to take her hand between his and—?

  ‘Coraggio,’ he murmured as his thumb brushed her palm and a tiny whimper escaped her lips.

  ‘Mmm...’

  He turned to look at her, the edge of his faintly stubbled jaw an enticing whisper away from her lips. ‘Does that sting?’

  ‘No...’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not...stinging.’

  She was feeling no pain as he gently massaged the soap between her fingers, around her thumb, wrist and into her palm. All sensation was centred much lower as he rinsed off the soap, pulled a thick white towel from a pile and carefully dried her hand.

  ‘Va bene?’ he asked.

  ‘Va bene,’ she repeated. Very, very bene indeed. He was so deliciously gentle. So very thorough.

  ‘Hold on. This will sting,’ he warned as he took a box of antiseptic wipes from the cupboard over the sink and opened a pouch.

  ‘I’ll try not to scream,’ she said but, taking no chances—her knees were in a pitifully weak state—she did as she was told and, putting her other hand on his shoulder, hung on.

  She’d feel such a fool if she collapsed at his feet.

  Really.

  His shoulder felt wonderfully solid beneath the soft wool shirt. He was so close that she was breathing in the scent of coffee, warm male skin and, as his hair slid in a thick silky wedge over his forehead, she took a hit of the herby shampoo he used. It completely obliterated the sharp smell of antiseptic.

  He opened a dressing and applied it carefully to the soft mound of flesh beneath her thumb.

  ‘All done.’

  ‘No...’

  Dante looked up, a silent query buckling the space between his brows and her mouth dried. He’d been right about the need to hang on. The word had slipped through her lips while her brain was fully occupied in keeping her vertical.

  ‘There’s something else?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes... No...’ She hadn’t been criticising his first aid skills; she just hadn’t wanted him to stop. ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Tell me,’ he pressed her, all concern.

  What on earth could she say? The answer that instantly popped into her mind was totally outrageous but Dante was waiting and she managed a careless little shrug and waited for him to catch on.

  Nothing...

  For heaven’s sake, everyone knew what you did when
someone hurt themselves. Did she have to spell it out for him?

  ‘Un bacio?’ she prompted.

  ‘A kiss?’ he repeated, no doubt wondering if she had the least clue what she was saying.

  ‘Sì...’ It was in an Italian phrasebook that her middle sister, Sorrel, had bought her. Under ‘People’, sub-section ‘Getting Intimate’, which she’d found far more engrossing than the section on buying a train ticket.

  Posso baciarti?—Can I kiss you?—was there, along with other such useful phrases as Can I buy you a drink?, Let’s go somewhere quieter and Stop bothering me!

  There hadn’t been a phrase for kissing it better. Perhaps it was in the ‘Health’ section.

  ‘This is considered beneficial?’ Dante asked.

  He was regarding her with such earnestness that Geli wished the floor would just open up and swallow her. Then the flicker of a muscle at the corner of his mouth betrayed him and she knew that Dante Vettori had been teasing her. That he’d known exactly what she meant. That it was going to be all right. Better than all right—the man wasn’t just fabulous to look at; he had a sense of humour.

  ‘Not just beneficial,’ she assured him. ‘It’s absolutely essential.’

  ‘Forgive me. I couldn’t have been paying attention when this was covered in first aid,’ he said, the muscle working overtime to contain the smile fighting to break out. ‘You may have to show me.’

  Show him? Excitement rippled through her at the thought. It was outrageous but a woman in search of an interesting life had to seize the day. Lick the ice cream—

  Coraggio, Geli—

  ‘It’s very simple, Dante. You just put your lips together—’

  ‘Like this?’

  She caught her breath as he raised her hand and, never taking his eyes from hers, touched his lips to the soft mound of her palm, just below the dressing he’d applied with such care.

  ‘Exactly like that,’ she managed through a throat that felt as if it had been stuffed with silk chiffon. ‘I’m not sure why it works—’

  ‘I imagine it’s to do with the application of heat,’ he said, his voice as soft as the second warm kiss he breathed into her palm. Her knees turned to water and her hand slid from his shoulder to clutch a handful of shirt. Beneath it, she could feel the thud of his heartbeat—a slow, steady counterpoint to her own racing pulse. ‘Is that hot enough?’

  Was he still teasing? The threatened smile had never appeared but his mouth was closer. Much closer.

  ‘The more heat,’ she murmured, her words little more than a whisper, ‘the more effective the cure.’

  ‘How hot do you want it to be, Angelica?’ His voice trickled over her skin like warm honey and his eyes were asking the question that had been there since he’d turned and looked at her. Since he’d put his hand on hers and moved it across the map.

  His hand was at her back now, supporting her, his breath soft against her lips and her answer was to lift the hand he’d kissed, slide her fingers through his dark silky hair. This close, she could see that the velvet dark of his irises was shot through with tiny gold sparks, sparks that arced between them, igniting some primitive part of her brain.

  ‘Hot,’ she murmured. ‘Molto, molto caldo...’ And she touched his luscious lower lip with her mouth, her tongue, sucking in the taste of rich dark coffee that lingered there. Maybe it was the caffeine—on her tongue on his—but, as she closed her eyes and he angled his mouth to deepen the kiss, cradled her head, she felt a zingy hyper-tingle of heat lick through her veins, seep into her skin, warming her, giving her life.

  ‘Hello?’ Lisa’s voice filtered through the golden mist. ‘Everything okay?’ she called, just feet from the bathroom door and, from the urgency with which she said it, Geli suspected that it wasn’t the first time she’d asked.

  Geli opened her eyes as Dante raised his head, took a step back, steadying her as a cold space opened up between them where before there had been closeness, heat.

  ‘Don’t open the door or the kitten will escape,’ he warned sharply.

  ‘Right... I just meant to tell you that there are antiseptic wipes in the cabinet.’

  ‘I found them.’ His hand slid from her shoulder and he reached for the door handle. ‘We’re all done.’

  Noooo... But he’d already opened the door and stepped through it, closing it behind him. Leaving her alone to catch her breath, put some stiffeners in her knees and recover what little dignity remained after she’d flung herself at a total stranger.

  Okay, there had been some heavy-duty flirting going on, but most of it had been on her side. Dante, realising that she was in a mess, had tried to sit her down and quietly explain about the apartment while she had put on a display that wouldn’t have disgraced a burlesque dancer. One minute she’d been struggling with her glove and the next...

  Where on earth had that performance come from? She wasn’t that woman.

  Bad enough, but when he’d told her that she’d been the victim of some Internet con she’d practically thrown herself at him.

  What on earth had she been thinking?

  What on earth must he be thinking?

  Well, that was easy. He had to be thinking that she’d do anything in return for a bed for the night and who could blame him?

  As for her, she hadn’t been thinking at all. She might have been telling herself that she was going to grab every moment, live her mother’s ‘seize the day’ philosophy, but it was like learning how to parachute: you had to make practice jumps first—learn how to fall before you leapt out of a plane or the landing was going to be painful.

  Cheeks burning, her mouth throbbing with heat, she dampened the corner of the towel he’d used to dry her hand and laid it against her hot face before, legs shaking, she sank down onto the side of the bath.

  ‘Mum,’ she whispered, her head on her knees. ‘Help...’

  CHAPTER THREE

  ‘Ice cream is cheaper than therapy and you don’t need an appointment.’

  —from Rosie’s Little Book of Ice Cream

  DANTE WALKED INTO the kitchen, filled a glass with ice-cold water from the fridge and downed it in one. The only effect was to make him feel as if he had steam coming out of his ears and, from the way Lisa was looking at him, he very well might have.

  Angelica...

  Her name suggested something white and gold in a Renaissance painting, but no Renaissance angel ever had a body, legs like that. A mouth that felt like a kiss from across the room. A kiss that obliterated every thought but to possess her.

  He hadn’t looked at a woman in that way, touched a woman in that way for over a year but when he’d turned, seen her crimson mouth, the one jolt of colour against the unrelieved black of her clothes, her hair, against skin that looked as if it had never seen the sun, every cell in his body had sat up and begged to go to hell.

  Someone must have been listening...

  Dark Angel was right.

  Aware that Lisa was regarding him with undisguised amusement, brows raised a fraction, he stared right back at her, daring her to say a word. She grinned knowingly then turned away as Angelica finally joined them.

  ‘How did he do?’ Lisa asked. ‘Has he earned his first aid badge?’

  ‘Gold star,’ Angelica replied, holding out her hand for inspection. She was doing a good job of matching Lisa’s jokey tone but she wasn’t looking at him and there was a betraying pink flush across her cheekbones.

  ‘Did you find a box, Lis?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘I have this box,’ she said, ‘thoroughly lined with newspaper.’ She looked down at the deep box she was holding and then up at him, her brows a got you millimetre higher and he could have kicked himself. So much for attempting to distract her. ‘Chef gave me some minced chicken for Rattino. I assumed you’d have milk up here.’

  ‘I have, but it’ll be cold,’ he said, grabbing the excuse to escape. ‘I’ll put a drop in the microwave to take the chill off.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s very
kind,’ Angelica replied quietly as she took the box from Lisa and retreated to the bathroom. He watched her walk away, trying not to think about what her legs were doing to him. What he wanted to do to her legs...

  He turned abruptly, opened the fridge door, poured some milk into a saucer and put it in the microwave for a few seconds.

  ‘Haven’t you got something to do downstairs?’ he asked as, feeling like an idiot with Lisa watching, he put a finger in to test the temperature.

  ‘It’s snowing hard now. Everyone’s making a move and I’ve told the staff to go home.’ She leaned against the door frame. ‘What are you going to do about Geli?’

  ‘Do?’

  ‘If it’s true about her apartment.’

  ‘It’s true about Via Pepone,’ he said. ‘My father demolished it last year. He’s about to put a glass box in its place.’

  ‘That’s the place—?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, cutting her off before she said any more.

  ‘Right.’ She waited a moment and then glanced towards the bathroom. ‘So?’

  ‘So what?’ he snapped.

  ‘So what are you going to do about Geli?’

  ‘Why should I do anything?’ he demanded. ‘My father may have demolished the street but he didn’t con her out of rent for an apartment that no longer exists.’ Lisa didn’t say anything but her body language was very loud. ‘What do you expect me to do, Lis? Pick her up and put her in my pocket like one of her strays? Have we got a cardboard box big enough?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘But she’s been travelling all day, it’s late and, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s snowing out there.’

  ‘I’d noticed.’ Snowflakes had been clinging to Angelica’s hair and face when she’d arrived. She’d licked one off her upper lip as she’d walked towards him.

  ‘That’s it?’ Lisa asked. ‘That’s all you’ve got?’

  ‘Lis...’

  ‘It’s okay; don’t worry about it.’ She raised a hand in a gesture that was pure Italian. ‘I’ve got a room she can have.’

  ‘A room?’

  ‘Four walls, ceiling, bed—’

  ‘I wasn’t asking for a definition,’ he said, ‘I was questioning the reality. You and Baldacci live in a one-bedroom flat and Angelica’s legs would hang over the end of your sofa.’ He could picture them. Long legs, short skirt, sexy boots—