‘I don’t imagine domesticity being high on your to-do list, no.’ She took the cup he handed her and shot him a curious look. ‘I expect you have people to cater to your every need.’
‘Si.I do. Aren’t I lucky?’ he questioned sardonically. It had always been that way. He couldn’t remember any differently. There had always been an army of people employed to keep his life running smoothly. First through his parents and after that, through his own endeavours. People who cleaned his luxury apartment and Tuscan castle and cooked him gourmet meals, any time he required them. People who drove his top-of-the-range planes and cars, who fixed them when they broke, or replaced them when they were scarcely more than a year old. People who knew his measurements, who provided him with the finest handmade suits and shirts and shoes, without him ever having to set foot inside a shop. He consumed only the best the world had to offer and was protected within the privileged bubble of his billionaire lifestyle.
But sometimes that bubble felt lonely, he realised suddenly. And the last year had been as lonely as hell. The dark void left by his father’s and brother’s deaths had created a vacuum and into that vacuum had flooded the bitter memories and painful emotions he’d spent years trying to suppress.
‘Is something wrong, Vito?’
Her gentle voice snapping him out of his reverie, Vito found her green-gold eyes fixed on him watchfully. ‘You mean, other than the fact that I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere and have been forced to miss my flight?’ he retorted.
She shook her head, as if determined not to react to his short fuse. ‘Your face. It just looked…’
Instinctively, he tensed. ‘What?’
Did his tone warn her off? Was that why she scrambled to her feet and shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll take my tea with me and see what I can find for supper.’
He watched her go, allowing himself the brief, guilty pleasure of studying her compact curves before tearing his gaze away and trying to convince himself it was better when she was out of sight. Why torture himself with fantasies of the forbidden?
He threw another log on the fire and looked out of the window, where the snow was still falling in slow motion. It was, he conceded reluctantly, very beautiful and very peaceful. For once, the rest of the world and all its troubles seemed a long way away and the only sounds Vito could hear were the beating of his own heart and the spitting of the fire. And somehow those things soothed him. He yawned. Even the Christmas tree, towering over the room like a monstrous green monolith, was exuding the soft coniferous smell of the forest. As a long breath escaped from his lungs, he closed his eyes.
And slept.
When he woke, Vito wasn’t sure where he was, only that it was warm and comfortable and the beating of his heart was much slower than before. He opened his eyes and yawned. Of course. He was marooned in a snowy lodge with his secretary—his escape to Switzerland postponed and his holiday plans put on hold. As someone who loathed being the victim of events outside his control, his current situation should have been enough to rile him. Yet his restlessness seemed to have fled—banished by an unheard-of nap. He glanced at his watch and gave a start of surprise. He’d been asleep for almosttwo hours. And since there was no point in reaching for his cell phone, he threw another log on the fire and went in search of Flora.
He could hear a faint crashing in the distance and followed the sound towards the kitchen, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled the scent of something unfamiliar and delicious. And there was Flora, cooking—looking unfamiliar and delicious herself.
For a moment he just stood there watching her. She had her back to him and was stirring a pot, while whistling something beneath her breath and he remembered the way she’d briefly relaxed during the ceilidh, her cheeks bright and her eyes shining—the tapping of her foot drawing his unwilling attention to her shapely thighs. Was it the bizarre circumstances in which he now found himself that had him observing the kind of everyday domesticity he had firmly banned from his own life?
Past partners had objected to his strict demands, but he didn’t care. He’d learnt the bitter folly of trying to live by other people’s rules and now he lived the way he wanted, without exception. Whenever he had found himself in one of the brief relationships which the press delighted in describing asrare(inevitably accompanied by the wordscommitment-phobe), Vito had a set of demands, which he insisted be adhered to. One was his aversion to being cooked for at home, having realised early on that allowing women into your kitchen was more dangerous than letting them get their hands on his credit card. His mouth hardened with instinctive scorn. Why believe the foolish adage that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach? Didn’t they realise that he had no ‘heart’—certainly not in the romantic sense. He had no intention of going down the traditional route of weddings, or babies. His determination to avoid the cloying intimacy of domesticity occasionally provoked sulking, or failed attempts to seduce him into changing his mind, but Vito always remained unwavering in his resolve.
But it seemed that here he had no choice…
He was stuck with a woman who was tempting him in all kinds of unsuitable ways and she wascookingfor him.
The whistling stopped. She must have heard him, because she turned round—very slowly—as if she were composing herself before she faced him.
Her cheeks were flushed from cooking and her green-gold eyes looked very bright, but he noticed that her lips were pressed together, and tense. ‘You’re awake,’ she said carefully.
‘I see your observational skills haven’t deserted you,’ he noted.
The lips tightened into a rosebud shape. ‘And obviously your sleep hasn’t improved your sense of humour.’
‘I wasn’t aware that my sense of humour needed any improvement,’ he murmured, suddenly aware that it was a long time since he had eaten. ‘What are you cooking?’
Flora was tempted to tell himarsenic, or sheep’s brains, but since he was still technically her boss—though not for much longer—she knew she mustn’t overstep the mark, just because he was making her feel churned-up. Because he was. Big time. And she had only herself to blame.
When he had fallen into that deep sleep (she had been astonished that a workaholic like Vito Monticello was able to relax so instantly)—hadn’t she crept back to the sitting room to ask him some trifling question about his preferred choice of cheese? His long legs had been sprawled out in front of him, his head resting against one of the sofas and he had been out for the count. And so she had stood in the doorway, just watching him. Thinking that he looked like a beautiful, fallen angel—with his black hair gilded by the firelight and those dark lashes shielding the ice-blue glitter of his eyes. In repose his face had appeared uncharacteristically soft. Almosttouchable. The tension around the lips had been ironed out, drawing her attention to their curved and provocative sensuality. He had looked utterly beguiling and Flora had experienced a crazy desire to go over and kiss him, as if she were in some role-reversal fairy tale and could wake him from his slumber.
She’d stopped herself, of course—imagining all too easily the horror on his face if he’d woken up to find Flora Greening drifting her lips all over his sculpted features!
‘Soup,’ she declared solidly. ‘I found some vegetables in the pantry and some pearl barley, so I’ve made us a thick broth. And there’s no need to look so appalled. We have to face facts, Vito, and we really don’t know how long we’ll be here, do we? Or when we might next get some fresh food.’
‘How practical you are,’ he observed mockingly.
No, I’m not, she thought, as his gaze slammed into hers and she removed the pot from the heat.My mouth might be saying the words I know are expected of me, but my head and my body are wishing you’d come over here and put your hand on my hips again. What is happening to me?
‘Perhaps you would like to lay the table?’ she questioned.
‘Lay the table?’ he questioned blankly.
