Sophie and the Scorching Sicilian (9 page)

‘This is Alberto and Natalia.' Marco's smile was warm and carried no hidden agenda.

‘They,' he said, ‘are here if you need them. This is Miss Balfour.'

‘Sophie,' she corrected him, smiling at the couple, the man lean and angular, the woman soft and round.

‘I will see you later and you can tell me what you are going to do to bring our palazzo back to life.'

She wrinkled her nose at his choice of words. ‘It doesn't look dead to me.'

‘Looks can be deceptive,
cara
. Its heart,' he said clamping a hand to his own chest, ‘is quite dead.' And a man could walk and talk, function, even laugh, and be quite dead at his heart.

Sophie was still puzzling over this extraordinary statement when he strode away without a backward glance. Marco Speranza, with his combustible combination of Sicilian pride
and passion, was a deeply troubling man. Or was that troubled? she wondered.

Marco's home was an incredible building, filled with treasures that one rarely saw outside a museum. In fact, the place reminded Sophie more of a museum—the old-fashioned musty variety—than a home, and there was a pervasive air of neglect that was dispiriting.

Sophie tried to be tactful, but when faced with a bucket situated below a dark stain in the ceiling she could not hide her disapproval.

‘One storm and that whole ceiling will be down!'

The upkeep on a place like this might be a financial burden for some but not Marco.

‘It was not always like this, but since the divorce he could not bear to come here. She was a bad one, the one he married. There were men,' Natalia told her darkly. ‘Many men and drink and still the
marchese
let her do anything she wanted.'

‘Marchese?'

The older woman shrugged and gave a puzzled frown. ‘Of course, there was no other son, or daughter—it is very sad. This place needs the sound of children's laughter. Are you perhaps…?' She looked Sophie up and down as though assessing her child-bearing hip potential.

Sophie gave a strained laugh. ‘Good God, no, I'm just here to decorate.'

‘You don't like children either?'

‘I love children but not here…his…' She trailed off. How did she explain to this nice woman that the man she clearly adored did not date women who looked like her? Instead she turned the subject to the painting behind her that looked suspiciously like a Titian.

As she wandered later through the warren of rooms upstairs Sophie's thoughts returned to this extraordinary conversation. It was very hard to imagine the arrogant, proud man she had met allowing his wife to humiliate him.

It seemed safe to assume that Marco must have been totally besotted with Allegra to put up with it, but finally she had pushed him too far.

M
ARCO
spent several hours with his estate manager, Juan. Horseback was still the best way to explore the more inaccessible corners of the sprawling Speranza estate and together he and Juan rode to the area of ancient woodland, some of which Juan had suggested it would be more profitable to fell.

‘I have the figures and it really does look like a no-brainer. We could cut a road straight through to the vineyards—it would save miles—and we could plant…'

Marco, riding a few feet ahead, listened to the enthusiastic plans in silence. Sophie Balfour's face, her blue eyes raised in reverential awe to the palazzo, kept flashing into his head at intervals.

The intervals were getting shorter.

It was inexplicable. What was it about this girl—for no one could call her a woman—that dominated his thoughts?

She was far from the type of woman he went for. Sophie Balfour was high maintenance…yet… Was he attracted to her?

Well, if you don't know
…Marco mocked the voice in his head.

They reached a point where the trees cleared and the ground fell away to a sheer precipice that gave a view all the way to the sea in the west.

‘I can let you have the figures…'

Marco tore his eyes from the view. ‘That won't be necessary.'

The other man smiled in satisfaction. ‘Then can I set things in motion?'

‘No. I'm sure your figures add up and it makes financial sense, but this land…' He breathed deeply, inhaling the forest air, as his eyes swept the breathtaking vista before them. ‘It is not all about balance sheets. I do not wish to stand here one day and describe to my children what the ancient Nebrodi fir once looked like.'

Always supposing he had children.

The manager looked disappointed but recognised defeat in his employer's non-negotiable tone and a change of mood in his stony set expression.

He gave a philosophical shrug and suggested that Marco might like to see the progress they had made with the marsh area that had been set aside for conservation.

Marco, already wheeling his mount around, shook his head. ‘No, I must get back.'

 

There was a brooding expression on Marco's lean face as he left the stables and re-entered the palazzo. There was no sign of Sophie. He walked from room to room, calling her name and getting increasingly irritated when there was no response.

Speaking to Juan of continuity and family had resurrected memories that were even now raw and humiliating.

He stood at the bottom of the sweeping marble staircase that Allegra had had wanted covered in gold leaf and bellowed, ‘Sophie!' He paused, waiting. Again there was no response. ‘This is what you get when you employ amateurs.' And this, he thought, looking around his unloved home, is what you get when you're young and idealistic and you equate great sex with love and get married.

When he had married, Marco had seen his future stretching ahead. A future that included children and growing old with his soulmate.

His bride had shared his dreams, at least until the ring was on her finger. Then Allegra had admitted she had other plans, and those plans did not include children or growing old.

The look of revulsion on her beautiful face when he had brought up the subject of children and the incredulity in her laughter as she had dismissed the idea were etched like acid into his mind.

‘Children would
ruin
my figure…you wouldn't want a fat and ugly wife, would you, Marco?' The idea of children was as repugnant to her as the suggestion of a line on her beautiful face.

Still he hadn't understood. Blinkers firmly in place, he'd thought that all Allegra needed was reassurance that he would still love her.

It was three months later that the scales finally fell from his eyes, three months later when she had had her first affair and laughed and not even attempted to deny it when he challenged her with his discovery.

‘You were away and I was bored. What are you going to do, Marco, divorce me?' She had smiled complacently at her reflection in the mirror. ‘But you won't, will you,' she said, her eyes mocking him, scanning his face to watch her words hit home. ‘Because that isn't the Sicilian way, not the
Speranza
way. You are as romantic and foolish as your father with his ideals! And where did ideals get him? Who cares now what he stood for? He died, and all his pointless principles went with him.'

Marco had not given her the satisfaction of seeing how much her vicious words had hurt. His only defence was to have none, to remain unmoved. He had hidden his feelings but Allegra had never stopped trying. She got some sort of sick kick from turning the knife, pushing him, waiting for him to finally snap.

The woman he had married had been the ultimate hedonist, who had only ever loved the things the Speranza money and name could buy, including fame, which she craved like a drug.

Reaching the top of the staircase Marco took a deep breath
and closed a mental door on the bitter memories. The man he had been then was long dead.

He paused, calling out once more as he decided which direction to take.

Where was the woman?

He began a systematic search of the west wing, about to take a left turn when the sound of a distant voice made Marco veer right. Who was she talking to?

‘Oh, my goodness!'

The exclamation drew Marco to the open door of one of the rooms to his left.

He pushed open the door and stepped inside, mentally preparing himself for the sensory assault of the utterly inappropriate hand-painted black Chinese silk wallpaper that he knew covered the ancient stone walls. Added to the vast waterbed that took pride of place, this shrine to bad taste had been Allegra's room.

Her back turned to him, Sophie Balfour was standing by the bed, her head tilted back and her eyes trained on the mirrored ceiling above it.

He had forgotten the mirror and, until this moment, Allegra's spiteful drunken taunts of the sexual romps she had enjoyed with his best friend in this bed. Not the best of memories but actually not the worst either. By this point in their train wreck of a marriage his ex-wife had no longer had the power to hurt him, only to disgust him.

‘Oh, my goodness!'

The exclamation, hushed and shaky this time, brought his attention back to the figure by the bed. The memories that filled his mouth with a sour taste vanished and Marco was forced to bite back a laugh.

He had never thought he'd laugh in this room.

Guilt and curiosity warred on Sophie's face as she pressed the mattress, then sprang back when it quivered.

Standing in the shadows Marco heard her tell herself, ‘You have led a very sheltered life, Sophie Balfour.'

He was inclined to agree with this assessment, though not being as ignorant of her family history—at least, some of the recent parts—as he had allowed her to think he found this circumstance nothing short of amazing.

Part of him had clung to the belief that the wholesome innocence thing was part of an act, but nobody, he realised now, was that good an actress.

As he watched, she reached out and touched the bed with her hand, in doing so turning a little so that she presented her profile rather than her back to him. At some point since they had parted she had gathered her hair into a haphazard knot on the back of her head, dragging it from her face and revealing a profile that was classically pure.

But it was not her face that Marco's eyes were glued to; it was her body, for her hair was not the only change. The mushroom-coloured shirt that had enveloped her diminutive frame from shoulder to knee was gone.

The jeans underneath were utilitarian rather than fashionable and were also ill fitting—no surprise there. The surprise was that Sophie Balfour had a waist, and one that he could have spanned with his hands.

Had Marco felt inclined to mix business with pleasure it would be a pleasure to explore that body, because if the waist had been a shock the rest of her was a total and utter jaw-dropping revelation. Under her tent-like uniforms his interior designer had been hiding a body that invited sinful speculation.

An hourglass that would put any pin-up to shame. Below the tiny waist her hips flared full and feminine, and above… A silent sigh locked in his throat as his hot gaze moved over the outline of her full breasts, revealed in a skimpy vest affair that left very little to the imagination.

Despite this, his imagination remained active.

His fingers flexed and he felt the gush of hot desire tighten in his belly, as in his mind he traced a path over that soft warm skin and sensuous inviting curves.

And why resist the invitation they offered? he asked himself. Why rule out the possibility of enjoying that warm, womanly invitation?

Why?

There was shock in his shadowed emerald eyes as he shook his head, a hard ironic smile of self-mockery tugging the corners of his sensual mouth upwards as he followed her actions with his eyes. Still oblivious to his presence, she angled another guilty glance at the ceiling.

Why?

Why not mix business with pleasure? Why become involved with a woman—no, a
girl
—who probably still believes in the Easter bunny and true love and blushes like a virgin?

That he had been tempted, however briefly, meant he was clearly losing his mind. Mental note, Marco, make more time in your schedule for sex with a woman who understood that sex was physical not spiritual, a pleasure enjoyed and walked away from.

Sophie Balfour, who could only show passion for a colour chart, was clearly not such a woman, though she equally clearly had potential.

It was that potential, that inner untapped core of passion he had glimpsed in her, that had both tempted him and swung his decision.

A man who did ignite the dormant passion that smouldered in those big blue eyes might consider the inevitable complications worth it… He was not such a man.

He turned, his intention to walk away unseen, when she gave a deep little laugh. The husky sound had an earthy tactile quality that stopped Marco in his tracks.

As he watched, her body language changed to a combination of defiance and mischief. She kicked off her shoes and
crawled into the middle of the bed before stretching out on her back. Then, as though overcome by the sheer audacity of her actions, she lay there staring at her reflection, her ribcage rising and falling in tune to the rapid breaths that pushed her breasts against the stretchy fabric of her vest.

 

There was an illicit thrill about lying here in the bed, but the thrill soured when she realised that Marco might have shared it with his beautiful ex-wife.

Her heart beat hard against her breastbone as she lay there, not seeing her own tangled fair hair spread against the black silk, but rich raven lustrous coils spread on the pillow. The two figures, their bodies, one slim, pale and perfect, one golden and hard as coiled steel, were sinuously entwined. It was so real that she could almost hear the gasps of their shared passion.

She pressed a hand to her mouth as the taste of acid rose in her throat.

Did he still love his beautiful wife despite what she had done? Would he have taken her back had his pride allowed it?

It would take a woman like one of the stunning Balfour girls to make him forget that amazing siren, and in the meantime he clearly intended working his way through every beautiful woman that appeared on his radar.

But being a Balfour girl in name only she was safe. She was minus the charm and confidence and drop-dead gorgeous looks; she just had the name, which impressed him not at all.

In some ways this was a plus point; he didn't have a preconceived expectation of what she
ought
to be had the gene pool not decided to have a little joke at her expense. It was liberating not to be crushingly conscious of her Balfour legacy all the time. And as she didn't want to impress, except in the professional sense…

Of course, not wanting to impress him did not stop her wistfully wondering what it would be like to have the ability to
bedazzle him and make him laugh. Her chest hurt; feelings she did not want to own up to were locked like a tight fist at the base of her throat.

Jolted from her miserable reflections by the sudden movement of the bed, Sophie's hand fell away and her eyelashes lifted from her cheeks.

The picture in the mirror now reflected the one in her head with a couple of significant differences—the woman wasn't beautiful and Marco was wearing clothes.

Clothes or not, the real man was a lot harder for her out-of-control hormones to cope with than the imaginary naked image.

Sophie realised she was staring and had been for God knows how long. She tore her eyes away at once. Anything would be preferable to him guessing his plain-Jane decorator was lusting after him. She struggled inelegantly to rise.

‘I'm sorry I just…'

A finger against her breastbone sent her back into the gently undulating mattress.

The finger stayed there and Marco, who had rolled onto his side, showed no immediate sign of removing it as he levelled an emerald-eyed stare at her face.

He seemed comfortable with the silence and the physical contact. Sophie was not.

‘Now this is extremely…not normal. I wasn't sleeping in your bed. It was research… I've never tried out a waterbed…I've not tried out a lot of things…' She compressed her lips to forestall further unnecessary confessions on this subject and added huskily. ‘It's weird.'

‘The bed?'

She shook her head. ‘No, though that,' she admitted, patting it and giving a nervous laugh, ‘is weird too. You're going to ask me weird good or weird bad.' He's going to ask you to shut up, Sophie, so why don't you? ‘The jury is still out,' she admitted, drawing breath before returning to her original
theme. ‘Haven't you ever noticed people are divided into talkers and listeners? I'm a listener—I talk very little. I'm renowned for my reserve, did you know that? Of course you didn't, but since I got here I can't seem to stop talking.'