In the Italian's Sights by Helen Brooks Read Free Book Online Page A

controlled as he led her out of the water, letting go of her hand immediately once she was standing safely on the hot marble slabs surrounding the pool area and turning to the housekeeper who was waiting for them. ‘ Grazie , Margherita,’ he said, taking the tray holding two large fluted cocktail glasses and little bowls of nuts and other nibbles from the other woman. ‘Sophia is not joining us?’
    The housekeeper answered in Italian, and whatever she said caused Vittorio to shrug. ‘Then we will see her at dinner. You will make this clear to her. I will have no more sulking in her room, pleading she is feeling unwell. Not now we have a guest.’
    ‘Oh, please, don’t make her come and eat dinner on my account,’ Cherry said hastily, wondering how quickly she could get to her sarong and cover herself. She had never felt so embarrassed in her life. Why hadn’t she realised before how positively indecent the swimming costume became when wet? But then Vittorio Carella hadn’t been around before.
    Vittorio ignored her as though she hadn’t spoken. ‘You will make it clear,’ he repeated to his housekeeper, who stood stiff and impassive in the golden sunshine like a large black crow. Glancing at Cherry, whose cheeks were scarlet, he nodded in the direction of the hammock and sun-lounger they’d vacated. ‘Shall we?’
    He let her precede him, and it was the hardest thing she’d ever done to walk in front of him. She knew his eyes were on her bottom, she could feel their heat burning into her skin, but it was better than if he was facing her because the air on her wet costume had turned her nipples into hard peaks pressing against the thin fabric. She felt as though she was in a porn movie.
    It seemed like for ever before she reached the hammock and grabbed the sarong, wrapping it round her and tying it firmly over the top of her breasts so she was covered to her knees.
    Vittorio set the tray on a table next to his sun-lounger, his voice lazy when he murmured, ‘Better?’ and glanced at her.
    Her colour had just begun to subside. Now it flared into brighter life again at the knowledge he’d sensed her embarrassment and the reason for it. ‘I’m sorry?’ she said icily.
    ‘You are feeling better now you are out of the glare of the sun and under the shade of the trees?’ he drawled softly. ‘The English skin is sensitive, si ? It burns easily.’
    It wasn’t what he had meant, and he knew that she knew it. She could tell from the wicked amusement in his eyes. Struggling for composure, she told herself not to rise to his bait. ‘I’ve been in Italy for a few days now. My skin is beginning to acclimatise. Besides which I’m fortunate in that I go brown very easily and rarely burn.’
    ‘This is good.’ He patted the sun-lounger next to his. ‘Come and enjoy your cocktail and relax before you change for dinner.’
    Relaxing so wasn’t an option. Not with acres of hard male flesh causing difficulty with her breathing. And Vittorio was so very much at ease with his body, which didn’t help. He made her feel gauche in the extreme. No doubt the women he’d spoken of earlier would have been quite in command of themselves and the situation, and more than willing to flaunt themselves.
    Somehow she found the aplomb to walk over to the sun-lounger and sit down with a certain grace, a polite smile on her face as she accepted the cocktail he handedher. In any other circumstances, with any other man, she would be enjoying this brief interlude out of real life, she thought regretfully, as she took a sip of her drink.
    ‘Wow!’ As the cocktail hit her tastebuds she gasped. ‘Whatever’s this?’ It was delicious but lethal.
    ‘It is called “Love in the Afternoon”,’ said Vittorio, deadpan. ‘Do you like it?’
    She stared at him suspiciously. ‘Is it really called that?’
    ‘But of course.’ He smiled. ‘It is one of my own concoctions for lazy summer afternoons like this one.’
    That explained it.