Far From Perfect (5 page)

Nick’s fingers were like five burning points against the skin of her cheek, and they curved slightly as if coaxing her closer. “I have my sources.” His voice was a low, thrilling whisper, and his eyes were fixed on her mouth. To her consternation, Anna imagined she could actually feel the scrutiny, a tingling sensation that made her lips more sensitive, redder and more enticing.

Don’t be mental. You’re imagining things. Just back away and make a dignified break for the party. Do it now!

But it was as if she was trapped in some kind of warm, delicious and infinitely pleasant-feeling glue. Her body was immobilized, her senses intoxicated. Nick’s own mouth tempted her like chocolate or some luscious tropical fruit, primal and sinful.

“Is that how thrilling he is?” Nick breathed, “Five minutes with me and you completely forget he exists?”

“No! That’s not true.”

The words were hollow and she hardly had the strength to get them out. Nick was so close they were sharing the same oxygen, and his spicy cologne invaded her mind like dark alchemy.

“Oh, it is,
tesoro mio
, it surely is.” His words faded to a sultry murmur as he angled his gilded head and brought his lips down slowly and with complete confidence on hers.

The pressure was so gentle, like velvet gliding over her lips. His taste was so sweet—as mind-altering as the smell of him—and it compelled her to succumb. In one last defensive gesture, she put up a hand, fingers spread against his chest with the intention of pushing him away. But a moment later both her hands were sliding around his back of their own volition to hold on tightly to him as if her very life depended on it.

And all the time his eyes were open, intent on hers, darkened to the intense midnight hue of a moonless night. Stunned by their power, Anna let her own lids flutter closed.

And when his mobile, questing tongue sought entrance into her mouth, it was as if all the interminable years apart had disappeared, counting for nothing. She was back with him in his bed, naked and free, their bodies pressed together inch for inch. In a weird confluence of past and present, she seemed to feel every contour of his musculature, the very heat of his satin skin, the fierce insistence of his erection against her belly.

Which was no fantasy.

Anna’s eyes flew open and she jerked, but Nick slid his arms around her and held her closer than ever. Bizarrely, the firm hold soothed her sudden panic and it was easy, oh so easy to succumb to him.

Their tongues darted against each other, playing and challenging, Anna giving back now as good as she got, reveling in the thrills. She heard—and felt—Nick laugh deep in his throat, but the kisses were so delicious that she couldn’t be bothered to get angry with him. Couldn’t be bothered to do anything other than what came perfectly naturally, which was to circle her belly against his loins, hungry and wanton.

“Anna,” he groaned, wrenching his lips from hers and burying them in her hair, “I’ve spent four whole years wondering if you’d still feel like this.” His fingers massaged her spine, then slid lower, compelling her sex closer to his.

Anna’s eyes prickled. Her name sounded so different on his lips when he was aroused. The way he spoke normally was almost completely accentless and English, but when he muttered, “Anna” again, it sounded as Latin and romantic as high opera, and at the same time, tender and intimate.

Her softly breathed name had been on his lips as he’d entered her body. She remembered the fleeting jolt of pain, his moment of hesitation, and then the awesome sensation of being filled and possessed by him, at last. Reaching up to touch his face, she urged his mouth back down on hers, then wound her fingers into his thick, damp hair, relishing its silkiness and the wild way it curled.

Holding him, savoring the taste of his mouth and the feel of his lean, potent body against her, Anna wanted the kiss to go on forever. Like this, there were no issues between them, no problems, no history. They were just male and female, meant for each other, perfectly matched.

Then the creak of the library door and an exaggerated stage cough snapped the spell, and everything was pretty much wrong again. Anna shot away from Nick and whirled around to see her father standing in the doorway, his jolly, jowly face pink above his bow tie and dress shirt and a pleased-as-punch grin plastered across it.

“Nick! How good to see you, my boy,” Clive Felgate exclaimed, striding forward. “I’m so glad you could make it.” He grabbed Nick’s hand and pumped it for dear life, slapping the younger man on the arm as if he’d just scored a winning goal or come first in a marathon. “I hope this means that Carlo is doing much better?”

Still reeling from the kiss, Anna hung away from the two of them, relieved to be ignored for a second or two. She needed breathing space to compose herself. Nick, she noted, didn’t appear to need time out. He’d segued instantly into comfortable bonhomie with her father, as easily if Clive had found them discussing the weather. Smiling and relaxed, he chatted easily about Carlo and congratulated Clive on his birthday.

“I have a gift from Carlo and myself, but it’s slightly too large to have brought it along tonight.” Despite the fact that Nick infuriated her, Anna had to admit to a genuine gratitude as he told her father about the gift, a watercolor by one of his favorite artists. The way Clive’s face lit up was enough for her to cut Nick a fair bit of slack. Her father’s recent money problems, which he’d refused to discuss with her, had suppressed his naturally cheerful nature, so it warmed her heart to see him smiling and excited like this. Nick’s gift—both extravagant and thoughtfully chosen—had lifted his spirits no end.

But was it just the watercolor? She suspected not, shuddering at implications that alarmed her. Clive had had been grinning like a loon already when he’d happened upon them. The wink and the encouraging look her father flashed her over Nick’s shoulder only confirmed her worst fears.

Oh no! You haven’t said anything to my dad already, have you, Nick Lisitano? Please don’t tell me you’ve told him you’re proposing…

To Clive it didn’t matter she’d been seeing Martin. Her father adored Nick, and always had done, and without being overtly hostile, he’d made it plain he wasn’t impressed with Martin and thought him dull.

“Thank you, my boy. You’re far too generous,” Clive went on, shaking Nick’s hand anew, then suddenly laughing and shrugging and giving him the sort of bear hug he’d definitely give a prospective son-in-law. Nick was the son Clive had never had, and, even though Anna knew he loved her unstintingly, had always wanted. It warmed her heart to see the fondness between the two men, but at the same time, she felt doubly angry with Nick for raising her dad’s hopes with his blatantly false charade.

Oh, this is such a mess. It’ll end in tears.
She manufactured a smile as Clive gestured for her to join them.
And maybe not just mine, by the look of it.

If a party could be judged to be both roaring success and an unmitigated disaster, this was it, Anna decided a while later as she circulated, clutching an untouched glass of champagne in her hand like a fragile lifebelt.

The volume of conversation and civilized laughter was bouncing cheerfully off the walls and the supplies of hors d’ouvres, champagne and cocktails were holding up well despite the arrival of several more guests than had been expected for the sit-down dinner to follow.

With a fake grin, Anna stared across the room, where the one guest she still wished hadn’t arrived was holding forth to a couple of adoring, simpering older women. Nick looked like a Renaissance prince with his own personal court of cooing matrons, she observed grimly. He was just shameless. He clearly couldn’t resist turning the charm on full beam.

You really think you’re God’s gift to womanhood, don’t you?

Hurling a quiver of silent daggers at him, she flushed pink when he glanced back at her, his knowing smirk suggesting he might have heard her thoughts.

You arrogant monster!
She only just stopped herself mouthing the words when he flashed her a hint of a wink.

“They don’t call him The Golden Italian for nothing, do they?” said a voice in her ear, and she turned to find Lydia, her aunt, also studying the sight of Nick and his impromptu mini-harem. “Lord, if I were twenty years younger I’d take a crack at him myself,” Lydia sighed, quaffing quickly from her glass of champagne. “Not that he’d even look at me… He has other interests,” she intoned, tapping the side of her nose.

“What, you mean shagging half the actresses and most of the supermodels in Europe?” snipped Anna, turning her back on the source of her ire to give Lydia her full attention. “Hey, I’ve got a bone to pick with you. Himself over there seems to know all about me and Martin and he says he’s got ‘sources’. What have you been telling him? How come he’s so
au fait
with my love life all of a sudden?”

“What love life?” said Lydia dismissively. “You don’t count that uptight little mummy’s boy Martin as a love life, do you? Because if you do, you should seriously rethink your idea of what constitutes a lover, my sweet.”

Lydia paused to wave to Nick across the room, champagne sloshing dangerously as she did. “
That’s
what a lover should look like, pet. And the sooner you realize that the better.”

“Martin is very—” a suitable adjective eluded her, “—very nice.” How half-hearted did that sound? “And of course Nick looks like a lover. He’s a serial womanizer with all the moral fiber of a wild boar in rut. What else would he look like?” She leant forward, trying to get Lydia back on track. “And that still doesn’t answer my question. What have you been telling Nick about me?”

“You mean what has he been asking?” Lydia grew more serious. “I’ve no idea what happened between the two of you four years ago, but I know something did…and ever since then, he’s been coming to me regularly to find out what’s going on with you. I told him not to be an idiot and to ask you himself, but it seems where you and he are concerned, he’s just as ridiculous as you are.”

The room was warm, but still Anna shivered. What was the hell was Nick up to monitoring her like that? He’d made it known in the plainest of terms that night at Villa Rosa he wasn’t interested in her romantically, so why continue to check up on her?

“Nothing happened between us,” she said, tamping down her irritation with Lydia. Her aunt was the most well-meaning person on the face of the earth, and clearly thought she’d been acting in the best of interests. “I think Nick and I have just sort of outgrown each other over the years. I did have a crush on him at one time, but we’ve both found new friends, new interests.”

Was he still watching her? Her body seemed to think so. She had visible goose bumps on her arms, and unless it was due to some unexpected adulterant in the champagne that was affecting them, her lips were still tingling from that kiss.

Lydia snorted and said a rude word. There was no fooling her, even when Anna realized she’d sort of managed to fool herself. Almost… “If he’s outgrown you, why on earth did he—” She stopped short, then bit her lip as Anna focused on her. “Look forget it. Let’s enjoy the party.”

“Why on earth did he what?” Anna demanded. What had Nick done? What on earth had he done?

“Nothing,” persisted Lydia.

“Tell me, Lyd! If it’s to do with me, I’ve a right to know.”

Her aunt had the decency to look shamefaced, but she stopped prevaricating. “Well, he offered to invest in Traditional Temps, that’s what. He knew how important the business is to you, and he wanted to ensure we got off to a good start.”

“Oh, please don’t tell me you accepted and pretended that it was your own money.” Agitation swirled in Anna’s throat. The idea of Nick exerting control over the only thing she considered to be truly hers—the business she and Lydia had started together—was deeply unnerving, almost horrifying. His Machiavellian schemes were extending into all corners of her life, it seemed.

“No, of course not,” said Lydia, shaking her head. “For one thing I wouldn’t be able to fake the sort of funds Nick was offering. And two, I knew you wouldn’t accept it—for some reason best known to yourself—so I declined.” Her eyes brightened. “But he did say the offer would always be on the table if we changed our minds.”

Anna sighed. “I’ll take that under advisement,” she said dryly, then turned around, only to find, of course, that Nick was still watching her closely. His slight, insolent smile only increased her disquiet and made her even more convinced that he’d acquired demonic powers somewhere along the line and could read her mind.

If only she could charge across and have the whole business out with him, here and now. But it was her dad’s party, and the last thing she wanted was a scene. But as dinner was announced, the temptation to confront Nick still simmered in her gut.

Oh, why does this not surprise me?

Lydia had clearly rigged the place settings too. There was no other logical explanation for finding herself sitting next to Nick. Summoning a fair attempt at a carefree, convivial, dinner-party smile, she allowed him to draw out her seat for her, then tuck it neatly behind her knees when she sat. Anticipating a frontal conversation attack, she braced herself, but was saved his individual attention by the guest on his other side. A large, over-dressed, over-made-up, over-perfumed woman, the wife of one of her father’s many friends, engaged Nick in animated conversation and a display of her ample cleavage.

Enjoy!
thought Anna savagely, knowing it was only a matter of time before her turn came.

“So, Anna, is Traditional Temps thriving?”

Nick’s voice was casual, social and warm, but beneath the surface it was loaded and provocative. Ding dong went the warning bell in Anna’s brain.

She turned to look at him and found his beautiful eyes scoping her out, assessing, monitoring. It was blatantly obvious he knew that she knew.

Anna kept her voice even and low, grappling not to reveal any hint of antagonism. “You tell me, Nick,” she observed, “It seems you know more about my life these days than I do. Both business and personal.”