Far From Perfect (3 page)

“He’s doing well… Being a pain in the hindquarters, as usual, so yes, definitely improved.”

Nick seemed very still somehow. It was a quality he sometimes possessed, and in the narrow confines of the hall it was amplified and bizarrely felt almost energetic. The impact of his body just inches away from hers buffeted Anna’s senses and sent flight-or-fight instinct racing through her. But she stomped it down ruthlessly and focused on more tangible matters. “Uncle” Carlo had always been extravagantly kind to her and news of his heart attack and major surgery had been a horrible shock. She’d wanted to visit, despite the fact she’d almost certainly run into Nick, but the medics had insisted on quiet and only the very immediate family as visitors.

“He was most insistent on me coming here to represent him,” Nick went on with a wry smile that made Anna’s stomach flutter. “Especially with Sofia too heavily pregnant to leave Rome,” he added, referring to his happily married sister, “And Pietro, naturally, wanting to stay close to her.”

“Of course. And are they well too?” she enquired.

Pleasantries, polite social niceties, family chit-chat. Was this what they were eternally reduced to? She felt awkward and somehow despairing as Nick nodded in reply.

“Look, come on through, Dad will be thrilled to see you.”

“So you’re playing quite the little hostess tonight, eh?” observed Nick, still not moving, his blue, unblinking eyes pinning her to the tiled floor.

“I
am
the hostess, and I’m not little.”

The words were out of her lips almost before she’d thought them and she could have kicked herself for losing it with him so quickly.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to sound derogatory. I was just making small talk and it came out wrong.”

The apology rang true as a bell, and she knew it was honestly tendered, but at the same time there was an infinite fieriness in Nick’s blue eyes, a quality both combative and intoxicating. Their four years of cordial, manufactured smiles and unspoken distance keeping suddenly fell away like a sheet of shattered glass. “I cannot think of anyone other than you that I’d prefer to welcome me to this party,” he added softly.

What are you up to? We agreed “that night” never happened. So there’s no need for us to dance around each other like cats spoiling for a fight.

“Sorry,” she backtracked, “I’m a bit nervous about everything going right tonight, that’s all.” She gestured towards the open door of the reception room beyond and the sound of laughing voices and conversation. The sound of sanctuary. “Please, come on…Dad will be wondering where I’ve got to and who’s arrived.”

But as she took a step, Nick caught her by the arm, his hand like a gauntlet of fire gripping her bare skin. Sensation rocketed through her, activating…everything. Another first in all the truce years. Long suppressed physical responses switched instantaneously into high gear. Only an effort of pure will stopped her wrenching herself away from him.

Either that or throwing herself forward into his arms.

“
Tra un momento
.”

Nick’s usually accentless voice sounded all Latin, and the fact he’d lapsed momentarily into his native tongue was disquieting. “There’s something I need to discuss with you.” His fingers tightened on her arm, the very subtlety of the hold more disquieting than any amount of force or coercion. “In private. In the library?” He nodded towards the door that led to Clive’s cozy book-filled sanctum, the hall light glinting on his gilded hair with the slight motion. He might be all dark Italian fire inside, but he’d inherited the full effect of his English mother’s blonde beauty. His looks were the very embodiment of the head-on clash of passion and emotion between his parents. He was a mythical beast forged in a caldron of joy and pain.

“Right now?” she enquired, dragging herself back from past Lisitano dramas to the present one that faced her.

“Right now.”

The core of steel in the two words made her blood run cold, and then very, very hot.

Without further protest, she allowed herself to be led.

“I’ll get straight down to business,” Nick announced the moment they were in the room, closing the door with an ominous click. Like an imperious potentate, he bade her sit, then strode across the room, lithe and purposeful.

In front of a tall bookcase he turned swiftly, the fluid tailoring of his jacket causing the light fabric to flare and reveal his body beneath. He looked fit and powerful, maybe leaner than when she’d last seen him, and the dark clothing he so often wore only highlighted his relentless yet elegant sexuality.

Get a grip, Anna! Don’t let him turn you into a giant, idiotic hormone with his gorgeousness. He
knows
he’s doing it.

And yet her body seemed to sizzle as if he’d flung her on a griddle. “I wish you would,” she said, keeping her voice level and pleasant. Even managing a
faux
relaxed smile.

“I have a proposition for you, Anna.” He fixed her with a scrutiny so intense the world faded away around them. “I want your help, if you’re prepared to give it. In fact, I need it.”

For a moment he hesitated, which was so unlike him, flipping back the panels of his suit jacket and thrusting his hands into his pockets. The action showcased his narrow hips and the general area of his groin in a way that made Anna blink and go light-headed.

“I’m listening.” Her cleverly constructed calmness was rocking on the inside, but externally she almost sounded normal.

“Good. That’s what I want. That you should listen to everything I have to say, absorb it carefully, and not interrupt.”

“And then you’ll take questions from the floor afterwards?”

Nick merely quirked his brow at her but Anna could see the Italian macho male in him shaking his head. He would never act impatient or throw his weight about, but he had a million subtle, barely detectable ways of showing displeasure.

“Right, sorry, I am listening,” she shot back, offering another tight smile. He infuriated her, and he always had done—even if mostly in a playful way up until four years ago—but there was nothing to be gained by picking fights.

“As you know, my father’s ill. He’s undergone major surgery and has a hill of recovery to climb.”

The tell-tails of strain passed across Nick’s face again, and despite their differences and barriers and complications, Anna wanted to hold him and offer comfort, offer solace. He must be in an agony of worry over Carlo. She couldn’t begin to imagine how she’d feel if the same thing had happened to her father.

“He’s out of critical danger now and he’s making progress. But not as fast as the doctors—and I—really want him to. And sometimes, it almost seems he’s not trying.” Nick started to pace back and forth in front of the bookcase, which shocked Anna, given his special, predatory stillness. “I think he needs something to fix his hopes on. Something to cherish and look forward to.”

Nick halted in his perambulations and suddenly turned towards Anna, “Goals have always worked for him in the past and they will again.” Without warning, he threw himself down on the leather chesterfield beside her, the impact almost catapulting her towards him. As it was, the gap between them was just a perilous inch or two. “I’ve done all I can on the business front. Not even the fact that we’re still thriving and growing in such a tough economic climate can excite him.”

Anna pictured Nick presenting examples of his phenomenal business acumen like gifts in an attempt to cheer Carlo up. He wouldn’t show anxiety. Like most men of his culture, the elder Lisitano valued strength above all qualities in Italian manhood, and as he’d exhibited only moments ago, Nick could wear the world’s most unrevealing poker face when it suited him. But that anxiety would be there because of the love the two men shared.

“No, it has to be something personal…something
family
, if you will, to really lift him.”

Was Nick closer than ever now? He hadn’t moved again since he’d flung himself down, but his proximity was like pressure all over her skin, and his unique cologne—fresh, yet exotic and spicy—was filtering into her brain and acting on both pleasure centers and areas of higher judgment.

“But surely he’s thrilled about Sofia’s baby?” Alarm and wild messages shot up and down a million nerve pathways, urging Anna to incline towards him until she tumbled into his arms. The gap was narrowing and the temptation to touch him made the tips of her fingers itch and prickle.

“Naturally, he is.” Nick seemed unaware of the madness he was inciting, but then again, it was often hard to tell what was going on with him. “But Sofi has always been a good girl, a dutiful daughter in every way. The prospect of a grandchild delights Carlo, of course, but it’s just what he’s always expected of her.”

Leaning back in the upholstered seat, Nick glanced away for a moment, looking down, then smoothing an imaginary wrinkle from the tailored perfection of his trouser knee. Momentarily unobserved, Anna bit her lip. His profile was hard and male, classic yet almost angelic, and the lushness and length of his surprisingly dark lashes veiled his eyes.

Nick’s sudden sigh was strangely heartfelt. “No, nothing short of a grand gesture from
me
will give him the boost he needs.” He looked up again and gave her a slanted, almost testing glance that invited her to second-guess the nature of that gesture.

Anna gasped. In the space of one thud of her racing heart, the weight of slight clues and long-cherished expectations reached critical mass.

Oh no! Not that. He couldn’t expect something like that, surely?

Another clue dripped as he reached for her hand and enclosed her fingers in his, calm and cool and strong. After a four-year drought of touch between them, the impact was monumental, almost heart-stopping.

Almost as much as what she suspected was coming.

“I think you know what I want, don’t you?” His eyes, like twin blue stars, were hypnotic. She couldn’t look away, even though it would have made life so much easier if she could have done, and she experienced anew the sudden wild urge to throw herself at him and kiss him senseless, just to avoid hearing what he had to say. Well, not just for that reason, but it would certainly distract him. And her.

“No, I’ve no idea,” she stalled, knowing he didn’t believe her.

His blond eyebrow lifted again, impatiently, and the small gesture irked her just enough to release her from his spell. “Enlighten me,” she said, letting her hand rest still in his, even though it was an effort.

Nick gave the slightest of shrugs. “Okay.”

He sounded both resigned and wary. Braced, waiting for the bombshell. Just as she was. “Carlo has always wanted you and I to marry. So has Clive. They’ve been scheming for it to happen for years, even despite the gap in our ages.” He paused, his long thumb moving delicately against the back of her hand, as if he were a trainer soothing a skittish, highly-strung animal. “So I’ve come here to see if we can at least
appear
to grant them their fondest wish.” The thumb stilled, and so did the thick, tension-laden air in the room. Maybe even time itself had come to a halt.

“So, will you put aside our…well, shall we say our
difficulties
and become engaged to me?”

Chapter Two

“You are joking, right?”

Panic flared in Anna’s eyes for perhaps a quarter of a second, only to be extinguished almost immediately with a cool, suspicious frown. Nick hadn’t expected his idea to be an easy sell, but against the odds, he’d fantasized about an immediate positive reaction.

Which obviously, he wasn’t going to get.
Maledizione!
She was so poised and in control nowadays. Far more buttoned up than she once was. He wondered sourly if associating with dull, safe men had suppressed her natural wild streak as well as her sometimes fiery temper.

If so, it was high time he rescued her from that, even if only for the duration of a temporary arrangement.

“On the contrary, I’m completely serious.” He allowed Anna to extricate her hand from his, half fearing that she might wipe her fingers on her fetching silky dress to wipe his touch away. She didn’t, but her eyes were still wary. “I’ve never been more serious in my life,” he added.

Those green eyes, once so hot and full of passion, narrowed. “Well, in that case, I think you’re completely mad.”

Feeling the stirrings of anger and frustration, Nick still had to admire her measured, even tone. Her control, and the way she skirted around derision but didn’t descend to it, had a startling and very visceral effect on him. He imagined what it would be like to crack such control, in bed, and make her moan.

Careful. Stay cool. Maintain your own control, man.

It was hellishly difficult though, when suddenly and painfully, he wanted her more than he’d ever done before.

“Why would you say that?”

Projecting nonchalance he wasn’t feeling, he lounged back against the upholstery, the thinking part of his mind trying the time-honored trick of focusing on figures, balance sheets, fiscal projections. Anything rather than fly back to that night at the Villa Rosa and the heat and scent of their coupling in his bedroom.

Which would make him hard again.

Anna laughed. Nervously? Feeling perverse, Nick hoped so.

“We’ve barely seen each other for four years, Nick. Isn’t it going to look a bit peculiar if we’re suddenly engaged?” She seemed calm, but at the same time, she was rubbing obsessively at the edge of one of her fingernails, as if intent on a flaw in her shimmering rosy nail lacquer. “Not to mention the fact we’ve both been seeing other people.” She paused, pursed her lips for a moment. “Quite a few other people in your case.” Impatiently, she abandoned the fingernail as if she’d just realized she was exhibiting a poker tell. “And as I remember the last time we were actually alone together, in what could generally be termed an intimate situation, we didn’t part all that well, if you remember?”

“How could I forget?”

Base machismo surged in his gut, slipping its leash. She was fraying around the edges just a bit, he could tell, and suddenly a deep, pain-soaked part of him was glad of a reaction in her rather than the cool self-possession.