The Italian's Perfect Lover (4 page)

“You’re blackmailing me.”

“Me? I’m not doing anything. No, my father
created the conditions of his will. It’s he that wanted the
archaeologist to stay in the villa. Perhaps for sentimental
purposes, perhaps for practical—who knows? But if anyone’s doing
anything, it’s him. But then, he’s not around to do anything about
it. We’re stuck with it. Do you honestly think I want some stranger
in my family home?”

“You’re never there. The place hasn’t been
lived in since your father left.”

“Beside the point. You want this or not?”

“Of course I want it.”

“Then I will make sure my staff make you
comfortable.”

“And the money?”

“It’ll be paid monthly to ensure your
compliance with the terms of the will. I will need to be sure—will
need proof.”

“You’re going to have someone check my room
to make sure I’m sleeping in it?”

“Now, there you have given me an idea. But
who should I trust?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“This is your one and only opportunity to
complete the dig. Take it or leave it.”

“I take it of course.”

Emily had to fight to control her anger.

“For a woman who has just succeeded in her
mission, you appear to be unhappy.”

Emily could feel her whole body trembling
with anger and frustration. And she could see that he didn’t
understand her reaction.

But how could he? He would never have
experienced what she’d gone through—the sort of humiliating and
destructive control that had sworn her off men for life. How was he
to know that she’d worked hard—years of study and research, years
where her only down time was spent with her cat—to make sure that
she could never be hurt again?

And yet here she was, vulnerable once
more.

“I am happy to get the job and to be able to
complete the most beautiful assignment that I shall ever come
across. But you’ve used your power to force me to live away from my
team, on my own, far from the nearest neighbor.
That
does
not make me happy.
That
does not make me comfortable.”

“You will be safe enough. It is a secure
estate. There is nothing to fear.”

“Sure.” She flicked him a brief, tight smile.
“So, that’s it? Nothing else you need to know?”

“You surely don’t expect me to give away
thousands of dollars without seeing where it’s going?”

“You said it wasn’t your thing.”

“Money is my thing. I will see you at the
estate tomorrow. I’ll expect you to show me what progress has been
made.”

“You want to see progress? I can show you
progress. I have photos.” She shook them out of her bag and spread
them in front of him on the table.

He picked up one of the photos, his
expression absorbed. “You’ve worked hard. I haven’t seen these for
over twenty years when they were half buried by overgrown vines,
and so incomplete as to make no sense.”

He looked up at her for the first time with a
respect and interest that disarmed Emily completely, making her
instantly forget the restrictive conditions of the grant.

“How did you know about them in the first
place? Even my father was unaware of them until several years
ago.”

He indicated the chair and she sat without
thinking, her passion for her subject overtaking all thought and
feeling.

“Research—thorough research, both in London
and Rome and the archives in Naples. From the old documents I knew
it existed and roughly where it was. And then I found it. Ah!” she
exhaled quickly, “you should see it, its exquisite. Nothing like it
exists. Even the best at Pompeii has nothing on it. It will cause a
sensation.”

“And make your career, I should imagine.”

She shook her head, his cynicism bringing her
back to earth. How could she expect him—a corporate developer—to
understand?

“I’m not doing it for my career. I have work
lined up for the next decade if I want it. I have a tenured
university position. That isn’t why I’m doing this.”

“Why then?”

Their eyes connected and she moved her mouth
as if to begin to explain. But how could she? She’d hardly
expressed it clearly to herself. There was something about the need
to complete this work of art—to make it whole again—that was so
instinctive that she couldn’t put it in words.

She shrugged. “I just do. I have a
feeling
for it.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

His eyes descended to her arms and she
self-consciously plucked at her short-sleeved dress to cover the
lower edges of her scars. Normally she never worried about them.
But for some reason she didn’t want him to see. Not this man, this
perfect man. He wouldn’t appreciate anything broken. And for some
unknown reason she wanted to be appreciated by him.

She pulled off her glasses slowly, bit her
lip as she rubbed them desultorily on her dress, before she popped
them, loose, in her bag. She wanted to see his reaction. And, when
she did, she was gratified—and annoyed at the same time.

The slow smile, the darkening appreciation of
his eyes as they looked into hers. She was correct. The perfect man
was only attracted to the perfect woman. Shame he’d gone all blurry
with the removal of her glasses. Ironic really. The only way she
could be appreciated was if she couldn’t appreciate him. Which did
she want most?

The glasses remained in the bag as she rose
and made for the door.

“I’ll show you the rest of the site
tomorrow.”

His eyes all but devoured her, a predator
once more.

“I’ll look forward to it.”

How did he manage to convey so much meaning
in a few innocuous words?

She walked quickly into the outer office,
aware that they were now completely alone.

As he stretched over her shoulder and pressed
the button to the elevator, his body brushed hers. The smell of his
skin, so indefinably warm and male, sent a signal straight to her
gut and she inhaled sharply.

She stared, unseeing, out the window as the
sun dipped below the horizon that fringed the Bay of Naples.

He followed her gaze.

“Vesuvius. So perfect and yet so deadly.”

“Never trust perfection.” She hoped he
couldn’t hear the tremor in her voice.

“Si,
decisamente
.”

She stepped into the elevator and watched him
turn away from her before the doors closed.

Alessandro stood by the window ten floors up
and watched Emily walk swiftly from the building. No taxi for her,
he smiled to himself, as she walked towards the station:
independent, intelligent and extremely interesting.

He sat down, put his feet on the table and
downed a mouthful of whisky.

He’d wondered what his father had been up to
with this particular bequest but he’d been reluctant to investigate
by returning to the estate that held so many memories. The old
rogue. So that was his game.

Lure him back to the old world, entice him
with a beautiful woman—for his father had been quite clear in his
will that the post should be given to only one person, Miss
Carlyle—and do what his father hadn’t been able to do over the past
five years. Make him stand still and remember.

He swirled the amber liquid around in the
glass. He drank too much, he knew. But he didn’t want to remember.
And with Emily as a diversion, surely he wouldn’t have to?

Because there was one small thing that he
hadn’t told Emily about his father’s bequest. He would be spending
more time with her than she thought.

Emily straightened her back slowly, groaned
and pressed a grubby hand to her temple. Trouble was, it wasn’t
just her back that ached. Her head throbbed through the tortuous
arguments that had been raging all day.

She’d never met a man like Alessandro
before.

She’d never wanted a man like Alessandro
before.

And there was no way that she could ever have
Alessandro.

Men like that didn’t want women like her:
women without charm or beauty. Once, she’d believed they did and
she’d been proved spectacularly wrong. Anyway, she hadn’t spent ten
years immersed in her studies, in the past, in shoring up the
defenses around her heart to let them break down now.

She closed her eyes against the crimson
sunset that showered light through the overgrown garden and soaked
up the peace. The quiet of the evening was disturbed only by the
sounds of insects, birds and the water that still flowed through
the Roman watercourse to the fountain: not cracked and broken, like
so many things.

Alone once more. And that was the way she
liked it, she reminded herself.

That way was best.

But the stirrings in her body defied her need
to feel nothing. Damn.

She rubbed her eyes, tired from a day of
straining over tesserae unearthed in the dig. It was difficult to
stop; there was always the tantalizing hope of adding one more
piece to the puzzle that was the Aphrodite Mosaic. Held up against
the waning light, the small shard of amber sparkled like fire, like
the fire depicted in the mosaic. Another piece. She sat back on her
heels, absorbed in the beauty of the sliver of stone, hauled by
oxen from the Baltic Sea over two and a half centuries before.

“All alone? I thought I was paying for a team
of workers.”

She jumped as if an electrical charge had
shot through her body. She knew he’d come but had assumed, as the
day faded, that he’d visit the next day—in daylight. She closed her
eyes briefly, took a deep breath and dropped the trowel, using the
seconds it took to shake herself free of the shock that still
thrilled through her body.

“It’s evening. Of course I’m alone. My team’s
gone back for supper.”

“And the boss doesn’t get to eat?”

She turned her head briefly. “The boss always
gets to eat—but later. It’s still light and, well—”

“You couldn’t resist.”

She grimaced to herself, closing her eyes
briefly at the accuracy of his observation and turned around
properly, still focusing on the stone that glowed in her hands,
rather than on Alessandro. It was bad enough hearing his voice,
feeling his closeness, without meeting his eyes.

“True enough. I guess it’s like doing a giant
jigsaw puzzle—one that no-one has done before—it’s hard to
stop.”

“Not for everyone. Jigsaw puzzles never held
any compulsion for me—other than to mix them with water and create
something new.” He scuffed some of the discarded rocks aside with
his foot. “Such things do not interest me.”

“Figures.” She couldn’t draw her eyes away
from him, standing there amidst the overgrown vines and trees. He
should have looked incongruous—with his expensive clothes, his city
ways—but he didn’t. The predator looked at home. “But you found me
OK. It’s not exactly easy to find your way around the
estate—everything is so overgrown.”

He looked up from the ground and his complex
look of ruefulness, as if caught out, flipped her stomach.

“Easy for me. I was raised here, by my
grandparents. This,” he gestured around the wilderness that was,
centuries ago, a formal garden, “was my playground”.

“Must have been magic.”

“For a child maybe. But children find magic
anywhere.” He looked her intently in the eyes, surely a look
practiced for seduction. “I’m sure you did.”

A vision of the concrete forecourt of the
council estate in which she grew up flashed into her mind.

“Why do you think that?”

Somehow he’d come closer to her. He stood
before the setting sun, as it dipped below the bleached hills. The
radiance around his head created a shadow and mystery to his face.
She could feel the warmth of the crimson light on her face and she
blinked, whether at his proximity or the light, she couldn’t have
said.

“You have a strength about you, a light.” His
eyes narrowed, assessingly. “I think your surroundings impact on
you only as much as you want them to. Your reality is what you want
it to be.”

A further vision of raking away the overgrown
grasses that tufted between the cracked pavers of the concrete
playground entered her head. She used to collect treasures she
found there—money, beads, once even a family photo—things that made
up a life. She used to imagine that they were from her real
home—the one where her parents were still alive—not the place she
lived with her foster family. And she’d been looking for that home
her whole life.

“Maybe.” She suddenly felt uncomfortable.
“The trouble with magic, is that it never lasts.”

“It wouldn’t be magic if it did.” He picked
up the trowel that she’d just dropped. “And this is the instrument
of your magic these days?”

“Yes.” He was getting too close. She had to
shift the focus back to him. “I wonder what yours is?”

“Probably this.” He tossed his phone lightly
into the air. “Couldn’t live without it.”

“That’s not magic, that’s work.”

“It creates my world and
that
is not
all work, believe me.”

She did. The sparkle in his eyes spoke
volumes. She felt his hedonistic pleasure in life reach out to her
and try to draw her in. She could almost believe for one moment
that he was here for pleasure, to see her. His eyes certainly gave
that message—warm and interested. And his talk—of her, of her
life—what was that if not flirtation? And it was working. Through
every tiny fiber, every muscle, every nerve of her body, it was
working.

She couldn’t help responding to his slow
smile with one of her own.

He stepped towards her and handed her back
the trowel. “But it’s business I’m here for today, of course.”

She stepped away as if trying to stop a
physical connection.

“Of course.” He wasn’t here for pleasure.
This was business. That was where she came in. “I’ll show you
around.”

“After you.”

Alessandro pulled back a branch of an
overgrown orange tree, its blossom ghostly and its scent
overpowering in the twilight.