Picture of Innocence by Jacqueline Baird Read Free Book Online

noticing he’d hadno shortage of dance partners all night. Not that she had been looking! And now he had caught up with her.
    Lorenzo slipped the hanky in his jacket pocket and, taking her hand in his, said, ‘Walk with me, Lucy. I don’t feel like returning to the party just yet, and as Samantha’s friend you must know these gardens well. You can lead me around.’
    In more ways than one, Lorenzo acknowledged wryly. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been so physically attracted to a woman he’d had to make a determined effort to prevent his body betraying him every time he looked at her.
    Lucy was about to refuse when suddenly she remembered he had held out some hope for Steadman Industrial Plastics and agreed. Maybe she could talk to him sensibly and get him to agree to keep the factory open. The only slight problem with that idea was she simply had to look at Lorenzo for every sensible thought in her head to vanish. And the warmth of his hand holding hers seemed so right, so natural, she had no desire or will to break free.
    They strolled down to where the garden ended at the cliff-edge, and looked out over the sea. The sun was just beginning to set over the far side of the bay.
    ‘Do you realise the twenty-first of June is the longest and lightest day of the year in the northern hemisphere—the ideal day for a wedding? And at midnight there is going to be a magnificent fireworks display.’ She was babbling, but Lorenzo made her nervous—and a lot of other things she wasn’t ready to face just yet.
    She didn’t like the man. He was arrogant and rude, and a staid, boring banker was not high on her checklist of what she looked for in a man. Then again, she had never found
any
man who ticked her boxes … Infact after her one attempt at sex she had decided she was probably frigid and could happily stay celibate. But somehow Lorenzo Zanelli had the power to drive her senseless with only a kiss. She had dated a few men, but none had turned her legs to jelly the way Lorenzo did by simply holding her, and it frightened her.
    ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were an artist when we met?’
    ‘You never asked.’
    ‘I did ask why you were at the Contessa’s—you could have told me then.’
    ‘I could—but as you had just tried to have me thrown out of the building and called me a plump, brainless, badly dressed and mousy woman the day before, I didn’t think you deserved an answer.’
    ‘I’m sorry. I want to apologise for that day in my office. My comment was totally uncalled-for. I had a picture of you in my mind from the first time I saw you at my brother’s apartment in London. You were a schoolgirl in a baggy sweater and pigtails, and I didn’t really look past that.’
    ‘I
thought
there was something familiar about you!’ Lucy exclaimed, a long-forgotten memory surfacing of a big, dark frowning man in a dark suit once arriving at Antonio’s apartment as she was leaving.
    ‘Yes, well—now I know my view of you was totally false,’ he said, with a self-derisory smile. ‘But you caught me on a really bad day. My business lunch had gone on for far longer than it should have and I was badly delayed. I was running hopelessly late—unheard of for me. I’m not usually so.’
    ‘Insufferably arrogant? Opinionated? Superior?’ she offered cheekily. ‘I may not be a whiz with numbers,like you, but when it comes to physical figures I am really good.’
    One look at her walking down the aisle of the church had told Lorenzo
that,
but he bit back the sexual innuendo that sprang to mind. ‘I really am sorry for my boorish behaviour.’ He gently squeezed her hand. ‘Please can we forget our first meeting and begin again?’
    It was the
please
that did it. His apology sounded genuine, and Lucy glanced back up at him and was lost in the warmth of the sincerity in his deep brown eyes. ‘Yes, okay,’ she agreed, and suddenly shivered.
    ‘Here—take my jacket,’ Lorenzo offered, letting go of her