Her breaths were still coming fast from the kiss as she looked up into his dark eyes, full of recrimination.
“You kissed me.” She had meant it as an accusation, but her voice had taken on a husky tone that made this statement sound more like an invitation. She should hate this man for whatever game he was playing or manipulation he was trying, but her gaze flicked down to his lips again, and a shudder of pleasure ran through her. He saw it, too, and he released her and stepped away, as if she were made of fire and he had just been burnt.
“We will save this discussion for later, when you can be more rational about this,” he said darkly.
This last sentence seemed perfectly designed to spark her temper, despite all the years of perfecting the art of holding it in. It was yet more evidence that he had mistaken a quiet, media-shy daughter for an obedient ornament. But just because she didn’t love attention didn’t mean she lacked a will of her own. It didn’t make her an unformed piece of clay to mold into whatever shape he chose.
She had to get away from him before she made any further mistakes—because the kiss had, in fact, been a mistake. But Catarina was better at dodging problems rather than confronting them head-on. It was how she had ended up in this mess in the first place. She had run from her father instead of confronting him about the marriage arrangement. But it was too late for regrets in that department. She needed a better plan. She needed space to cool down and think.
“Why don’t I show you to a room,” she said, then added, “You can attend to some of yourimportantbusiness.”
He was watching her in that calculating way he had, as if assessing her motives. Before he could say anything more, she took a deep breath and forced a long-practiced calm she didn’t feel into her voice. “We are stuck here for the foreseeable future. The house is big enough for us to stay out of each other’s way, and the generator should keep us warm for a while.”
His eyes narrowed, and she answered with a placid smile, then turned away and started for the staircase. At the top of the steps, the hallway spread out in two directions. She turned to the right and walked the length of the hall to the end. Next to her, Massimo loomed. She wasn’t even facing him, and yet Catarina had never been so aware of another man.
Turning the handle, the door swung open and Catarina walked into the bright room, lit with the fall of the snow. “Everything you need should be here.”
A king-size bed in rough-hewn wood was the centerpiece of the large room, and it was surrounded by a dresser, small tables and a rocking chair in the same wood. Over the bed hung a large painting of their fjord, the deep blues of the water and sky contrasting with the peaks of the forest of pine trees and stark gray rock. In the middle of the wooden floor was a soft white carpet.
Catarina had not entered the guest room in years, and as her gaze swept across the room, she caught a glimpse of the single framed photo on the rough-hewn wooden table next to the rocking chair. It was of Catarina and her mother, sitting on a stretch of bare rock at the top of a mountain not far from the house. Catarina’s aunt and two cousins had visited from Oslo the summer before her mother’s diagnosis, and the five of them had wandered up paths and stopped for a picnic lunch to take in the panoramic views. Her aunt had meant to capture the stark beauty of the landscape, but what the photo captured for Catarina was a sense ofbefore, a time that sometimes felt like it no longer belonged to her.
Massimo’s gaze was on the photo, too. Then he looked at her with an expression that she couldn’t read.
“I trust you to make yourself at home,” she said quickly and turned for the door.
“If I need anything, I’ll find you,” he said, and his voice stirred inside her, sending a hot lick of desire through her body that echoed far too long.
Chapter Five
SHE REALLYSHOULDcheck on him, Catarina thought as she laid her book on the side table, the one she had been staring at unproductively for too long. Instead of reading, she had found herself thinking about how silent it had been in Massimo’s room. Her mind flitted to her previous worry that the accident had caused a concussion. The right thing to do was to check on him, she told herself. For his own good. Not because of this desire he sparked in her. Not because of the memory of his fingers against her scalp as he wove them through her hair and then the startling heat of his mouth as he took hers. The wordtookwas the only way to describe what he did with his hands and his mouth. Catarina had thought she’d known the meaning of that word, but his kiss had destroyed her old understanding and rebuilt it into something new, something that enticed her as much as it made her wary. Because she had wanted him to take more.
But she was checking on him out of concern, she repeated to herself as she headed out of her room and down the long hallway. She knocked on the door, and the sound echoed through the quiet house. He didn’t answer. Catarina knocked again, and when he didn’t answer immediately, she rested her hand on the door handle. But as she turned the knob, the handle was yanked out of her hand.
Catarina’s breath caught in her throat. Massimo was standing so close, and a spark of electric heat shot through her. The stark planes of his face were tight, and his gaze was inscrutable. A bump had formed on his head, and Catarina detected dark shadows under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept well, even though his broad shoulders suggested a kind of power that wouldn’t budge for such worldly obstacles as a car crash. Or a snowstorm. Or a wayward almost-fiancée.
“Yes?” He used that same sultry tone he had in the kitchen, and his deep voice sent another spark of awareness through her.
“I was just checking to see if you were—” she hesitated.Consciousdidn’t seem to be the right way to finish this sentence “—warm enough?” Belatedly, Catarina registered that he was wearing the tacky Christmas jumper she had left for him, along with the socks. He lifted a brow, as if daring her to comment further on his attire.
“Right. You look fine,” she continued quickly. “Also, our cook stocked the refrigerator with food when you are hungry. And if you need anything else…”
“For example?” His voice was so distracting that, for a moment, she wondered if he was…flirting with her? The idea was a spark inside that she knew she should ignore. And yet, she didn’t.
“Perhaps more Christmas attire?” she asked archly.
She could have sworn the corners of his mouth twitched up in amusement. “Very generous offer. I’ll keep that in mind.”
She felt his penetrative gaze bore into her as she walked away.
All afternoon she found herself distracted by this conversation. He couldn’t have been flirting with her, could he? Their first meeting the day before suggested that Massimo Carandini was constitutionally unequipped for such frivolities, and yet that spark inside her wouldn’t go away.
Not even later that night, when she closed her book again. The house was quiet. In fact, she hadn’t heard a sound from Massimo’s side of the hall in a long time. She flashed back to his tall frame in the doorway of his room, the hint of amusement teasing his mouth…and the bandage on his forehead. This man had been in a car accident, she reminded herself, which probably meant she should have checked on him more carefully earlier instead of getting so distracted by, well, everything. He had, of course, appeared to be the pinnacle of health. Still, now that she thought about it, she definitely should see if he was all right, especially considering the warnings she was remembering about head injuries and sleep.
Catarina rose from the soft comfort of her reading chair and crept into the hallway until she reached the door to Massimo’s room. She stopped and gave the door a gentle tap. Just to make sure he was fine, she told herself. The house was still and silent. She tried again, this time more forcefully. Nothing. If he was asleep, then she really should wake him, just to make sure. Catarina knocked one more time and was answered with silence, so she took a deep breath and entered the bedroom.
The snow lit the walls in a silvery glow, and the light from the windows cast shadows that emphasized the cut of his cheekbones, the angle of his jaw. At rest, he looked so much more peaceful. The intensity of his gaze was gone, as was the frown he gave her so often. The glimmer of the snow brightened the white duvet and shimmered on Massimo’s bare skin. So much of his bare skin was exposed. Her heart took off in her chest, sending a wave of tingling desire that settled in her core, racing toward what Catarina had spent too much time pushing away.Don’t get distracted this time, she chided herself as she crossed the room.Just wake him, then exit.
Up close, the silvery light highlighted the curves and shadows of his muscular stomach and chest. He lay on his back, shirtless, with one arm tossed over his head, revealing a patch of silky hair under his arm that somehow made him look both aggressively masculine and also vulnerable. He had another patch of dark hair across his chest and a third trail that invited her gaze down to where the covers began, as if begging her to contemplate what lay beneath. A shiver of desire ran through her, hot and electric.Just a man. A man who could have a head injury, she reminded herself sternly.
