Читать книгу His For Christmas - Amy Andrews - Страница 13
ОглавлениеEVERY TIME NICCOLÒ closed his eyes he could imagine those lips lingering on a certain part of his anatomy. He could picture it with a clarity which was like a prolonged and exquisite torture. He gave a groan of frustration and slammed his fist into the pillow. Was Alannah Collins aware that she was driving him crazy with need?
Turning onto his back, he stared up at the ceiling. Of course she was. Her profession—if you could call it that—had been pandering to male fantasy. She must have learnt that men were turned on by stockings—and socks. By tousled hair and little-girl pouts. By big blue eyes and beautiful breasts.
Had she subsequently learnt as she’d grown older that teasing and concealment could be almost as much of a turn-on? That to a man used to having everything he wanted, even the idea of a woman refusing sex was enough to make his body burn with a hunger which was pretty close to unbearable. Did she often let men caress the bare and silky skin of her thigh and then push them away just when they were in tantalising reach of far more intimate contact?
Frustratedly running his fingers through his hair, he got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.
If she hadn’t been such a damned hypocrite when she’d slammed her way out of his car last night, then he wouldn’t be feeling this way. If she’d been honest enough to admit what she really wanted, he wouldn’t have woken up feeling aching and empty. She could have invited him in and turned those denim-blue eyes on him and let nature take its course. They could have spent the night together and he would have got her out of his system, once and for all.
He turned on the shower, welcoming the icy water which lashed over his heated skin.
True, her home hadn’t looked particularly inviting. It didn’t look big enough to accommodate much more than a single bed, let alone any degree of comfort. But that was okay. His mouth hardened. Mightn’t the sheer ordinariness of the environment have added a piquant layer of excitement to a situation he resented himself for wanting?
Agitatedly, he rubbed shampoo into his hair, thinking that she made him want to break every rule in the book and he didn’t like it. The women he dated were chosen as carefully as his suits and he didn’t do bad girls. His taste tended towards corporate bankers. Or lawyers. He liked them blonde and he liked them cool. He liked the kind of woman who never sweated…
Not like Alannah Collins. He swallowed as the water sluiced down over his heated skin. He could imagine her sweating. He closed his eyes and imagined her riding him—her long black hair damp with exertion as it swung around her luscious breasts. He turned off the shower, trying to convince himself that the experience would be fleeting and shallow. It would be like eating fast food after you’d been on a health kick. The first greasy mouthful would taste like heaven but by the time you’d eaten the last crumb, you’d be longing for something pure and simple.
So why not forget her?
He got ready for the office and spent the rest of the week trying to do just that. He didn’t go near Alekto’s apartment, just listened to daily progress reports from Kirsty. He kept himself busy, successfully bidding for a new-build a few blocks from the Pembroke in New York. He held a series of back-to-back meetings about his beach development in Uruguay; he lunched with a group of developers who were over from the Middle East—then took them to a nightclub until the early hours. Then he flew to Paris and had dinner with a beautiful Australian model he’d met at last year’s Melbourne Cup.
But Paris didn’t work and neither did the model. For once the magic of the city failed to cast its spell on him. Overnight it had surrendered to the monster which was Christmas and spread its glittering tentacles everywhere. The golden lights which were strung in the trees along the Champs Élysées seemed garish. The decorated tree in his hotel seemed like a giant monument to bad taste and the pile of faux-presents which rested at its base made his mouth harden with disdain. Even the famous shops were stuffed with seasonal reminders of reindeer and Santa, which marred their usual elegance.
And all this was underpinned by the disturbing fact that nothing was working; he couldn’t seem to get Alannah out of his mind. Even now. He realised that something about her was making him act out of character. There were plenty of other people whose style he liked, yet he had hired her without reference and only the most cursory of glances at her work. Governed by a need to possess her, he had ignored all reason and common sense and done something he’d sworn never to do.
He had taken a gamble on her.
He felt the icy finger of fear whispering over his spine.
He had taken a gamble on her and he never gambled.
He ordered his driver to take him to the towering block which rose up over Hyde Park. But for once he didn’t take pride in the futuristic building which had been his brainchild, and which had won all kinds of awards since its inception. All he could think about was the slow build of hunger which was burning away inside him and which was now refusing to be silenced.
His heart was thudding as he took the elevator up to the penthouse, his key-card quietly clicking the door open. Silently, he walked through the bare apartment, which smelt strongly of paint, and into the main reception room where he found Alannah perched on a stepladder, a tape measure in her hand.
His heart skipped a beat. She wore a loose, checked shirt and her hair was caught back in a ponytail. He didn’t know what he’d been planning to say but before he had a chance to say anything she turned round and saw him. The stepladder swayed and he walked across the room to steady it and some insane part of him wished it would topple properly, so that he could catch her in his arms and feel the soft crush of her breasts against him.
‘N-Niccolò,’ she said, her fingers curling around one of the ladder’s rungs.
‘Me,’ he agreed.
She licked her lips. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’
‘Should I have rung to make an appointment?’
‘Of…of course not,’ she said stiffly. ‘What can I do for you?’
His eyes narrowed. She was acting as if they were strangers—like two people who’d met briefly at a party. Had she forgotten the last time he’d seen her, when their mouths had been hot and hungry and they’d been itching to get inside each other’s clothes? Judging from the look on her face, it might as well have been a figment of his imagination. He forced himself to look around the room—as if he were remotely interested in what she was doing with it. ‘I thought I’d better see how work is progressing.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She began to clamber down the ladder, stuffing the tape measure into the pocket of her jeans. ‘I know it doesn’t look like very much at the moment, but it will all come together when everything’s in place. That…’ Her finger was shaking a little as she pointed. ‘That charcoal shade is a perfect backdrop for some of the paintings which Alekto is having shipped over from Greece.’
‘Good. What else?’ He began to walk through the apartment and she followed him, her canvas shoes squeaking a little on the polished wooden floors.
‘Here, in the study, I’ve used Aegean Almond as a colour base,’ she said. ‘I thought it was kind of appropriate.’
‘Aegean Almond?’ he echoed. ‘What kind of lunatic comes up with a name like that?’
‘You’d better not go into the bathroom, then,’ she warned, her lips twitching. ‘Because you’ll find Cigarette Smoke everywhere.’
‘There’s really a paint called Cigarette Smoke?’
‘I’m afraid there is.’
He started to laugh and Alannah found herself joining in, before hurriedly clamping her mouth shut. Because humour was dangerous and just because he’d been amused by something she’d said it didn’t mean he’d suddenly undergone a personality transplant. He had an agenda. A selfish agenda, which didn’t take any of her wishes into account and that was because he was a selfish man. Niccolò got what Niccolò wanted and it was vital she didn’t allow herself to be added to his long list of acquisitions.
She realised he was still looking at her.
‘So everything’s running according to schedule?’ he said.
She nodded. ‘I’ve ordered velvet sofas and sourced lamps and smaller pieces of furniture.’
‘Good.’
Was that enough? she wondered. How much detail did he need to know to be convinced she was doing a good job? Because no matter what he thought about her past, he needed to know she wasn’t going to let him down. She cleared her throat. ‘And I’ve picked up some gorgeous stuff on the King’s Road.’
‘You’ve obviously got everything under control.’
‘I hope so. That is what you’re paying me for.’
Niccolò walked over to the window and stared out at the uninterrupted view of Hyde Park. The wintry trees were bare and the pewter sky seemed heavy with the threat of snow. It seemed as if his hunch about her ability had been right. It seemed she was talented, as well as beautiful.
And suddenly he realised he couldn’t keep taking his anger out on her. Who cared what kind of life she’d led? Who cared about anything except possessing her? Composing his face into the kind of expression which was usually guaranteed to get him exactly what he wanted, Niccolò smiled.
‘It looks perfect,’ he said. ‘You must let me buy you dinner.’
She shook her head. ‘Honestly, you don’t have to do that.’
‘No?’ He raised his eyebrows in mocking question. ‘The other night you seemed to imply you felt short-changed because I’d made a pass at you without jumping through the necessary social hoops first.’
‘That was different.’
‘How?’
She lifted her hand to fiddle unnecessarily with her ponytail. ‘I made the comment in response to a situation.’
‘A situation which won’t seem to go away.’ His black eyes lanced into her. ‘Unless something has changed and you’re going to deny that you want me?’
She sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m a good enough actress to do that, Niccolò. But wanting you doesn’t automatically mean that I’m going to do anything about it. You must have women wanting you every day of the week.’
‘But we’re not talking about other women. What if I just wanted the opportunity to redeem myself? To show you that I am really just a…what is it you say?’ He lifted his shoulders and his hands in an exaggerated gesture of incomprehension. ‘Ah, yes. A regular guy.’
‘Of course you are.’ She laughed, in spite of herself. ‘Describing you as a regular guy would be like calling a thirty-carat diamond a trinket.’
‘Oh, come on, Alannah,’ he urged softly. ‘One dinner between a boss and his employee. What’s the harm in that?’
Alannah could think of at least ten answers, but the trouble was that when he asked her like that, with those black eyes blazing into her, all her reservations slipped right out of her mind. Which was how she found herself in the back of a big black limousine later that evening, heading for central London. She was sitting as far away from Niccolò as possible but even so—her palms were still clammy with nerves and her heart racing with excitement.
‘So where are we going?’ she questioned, looking at the burly set of the driver’s shoulders through the tinted glass screen which divided them.
‘The Vinoly,’ Niccolò said. ‘Do you know it?’
She shook her head. She’d heard about it, of course. Currently London’s most fashionable venue, it was famous for being impossible to get a table though Niccolò was greeted with the kind of delight which suggested that he might be a regular.
The affluence of the place was undeniable. The women wore designer and diamonds while the men seemed to have at least three mobile phones lined up neatly beside their bread plates and their gazes kept straying to them.
Alannah told herself she wasn’t going to be intimidated even though she still couldn’t quite believe she’d agreed to come. As she’d got ready she had tried to convince herself that exposure to Niccolò’s arrogance might be enough to kill her desire for him, once and for all.
But the reality was turning out to be nothing like she’d imagined. Why hadn’t she taken into account his charisma—or at least prepared herself for a great onslaught of it? Because suddenly there seemed nothing in her armoury to help her withstand it.
She had never been with a man who commanded quite so much attention. She saw the pianist nodding to him, with a smile. She saw other diners casting surreptitious glances at him, even though they were pretending not to. But it was more than his obvious wealth which drew people’s gaze, like a magnet. Beneath the sophisticated exterior, he radiated a raw masculinity which radiated from his powerful body like a dark aura.
They sat down at a discreet table but suddenly the complex menu seemed too rich for a stomach which was sick with nerves. Alannah found herself wishing she were eating an omelette at her own kitchen table rather than subjecting herself to a maelstrom of emotions which were making her feel most peculiar.
‘What are you going to have?’ asked Niccolò as the waiter appeared.
The words on the menu had blurred into incomprehensible lines and she lifted her gaze to him. ‘I don’t know. You order for me,’ she said recklessly.
He raised his eyebrows before giving their order but once the waiter had gone he turned to study her, his black eyes thoughtful. ‘Are you usually quite so accommodating?’
‘Not usually, no.’ She smoothed her napkin. ‘But then, this isn’t what you’d call usual, is it?’
‘In what way?’
‘Well.’ She shrugged. ‘You made it sound like a working dinner, but it feels a bit like a date.’
‘And what if we pretended it was a date—would that help you relax a little more?’
‘To be honest, it’s been so long since I’ve been on a date that I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like,’ she said slowly.
He took a sip of water which didn’t quite disguise the sudden cynicism of his smile. ‘I find that very difficult to believe.’
She laughed. ‘I’m sure you do—given your apparent love of stereotypes. What’s the matter, Niccolò—doesn’t that fit in with your image of me? You think that because I once took off my clothes for the camera, that I have men queuing up outside the bedroom door?’
‘Do you?’
‘Not half as many as you, I bet,’ she said drily.
They were staring at one another across the table, their eyes locked in silent battle, when suddenly he leaned towards her, his words so low that only she could hear them.
‘Why did you do it, Alannah?’ he questioned roughly. ‘Wasn’t it bad enough that you were kicked out of school for smoking dope and playing truant? Why the hell did you cheapen yourself by stripping off?’
The waiter chose precisely that moment to light the small candle at the centre of the table. And that short gap provided Alannah with enough time for rebellion to flare into life inside her.
‘Why do you think I did it?’ she demanded. ‘Why do people usually do jobs like that? Because I needed the money.’
‘For what?’ His lips curled. ‘To end up in a poky apartment in one of the tougher ends of town?’
‘Oh, you’re so quick to judge, aren’t you, Niccolò? So eager to take the moral high ground, when you don’t have a clue what was going on in my life and you never did! Did you know that when my mother handed in her notice, she never found another job to match that one—probably because the reference the school gave her was so grudging. Did you know that they got all their clever lawyers to pick over her contract and that she lost all her rights?’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of rights?’
‘There was no pension provision made for her and the salary she got in lieu of notice was soon swallowed up by the cost of settling back in England. She couldn’t find another live-in job, so she became an agency nurse—with no fixed contract. I had to go to a local sixth-form college to take my exams and at first, I hated it. But we were just beginning to pick ourselves up again when…’
Her voice tailed off and his words broke into the silence.
‘What happened?’ he demanded.
She shook her head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does.’
Alannah hesitated, not wanting to appear vulnerable—because vulnerability made you weak. But wasn’t anything better than having him look at her with that look of utter condemnation on his face? Shouldn’t Niccolò da Conti learn that it was wise to discover all the facts before you condemned someone outright?
‘She got cancer,’ she said baldly. ‘She’d actually had it for quite a long time but she’d been ignoring the symptoms so she didn’t have to take any unnecessary time off work. By the time she went to see the doctor, the disease was advanced and she was scared,’ she said, swallowing down the sudden lump in her throat. They’d both been scared. ‘There was nobody but me and her. She was only a relatively young woman and she didn’t want…’ The lump seemed to have grown bigger. ‘She didn’t want to die.’
‘Alannah—’
But she shook her head, because she didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t need his sympathy.
‘Our doctor told us about an experimental drug trial which was being done in the States,’ she said. ‘And early indications were that the treatment was looking hopeful, but it was prohibitively expensive and impossible to get funding for it.’
And suddenly Niccolò understood. Against the snowy tablecloth, he clenched his hands into tight fists. ‘Bedda matri!’ he said raggedly. ‘You did those photos to pay for your mother to go to America?’
‘Bravo,’ she said shakily. ‘Now do you see? It gave me power—the power to help her. The thought of all that money was beyond my wildest dreams and there was no way I could have turned it down.’ No matter how many men had leered in her face afterwards. No matter that people like Niccolò judged her and looked down their noses at her or thought that she’d be up for easy sex because of it. ‘My unique selling point was that I’d left one of the most exclusive Swiss finishing schools under rather ignominious circumstances and I guess I can’t blame them for wanting to capitalise on that. They told me that plenty of men were turned on by girls in school uniform, and they were right. That’s why that issue became their best-seller.’
Alarmed by the sudden whiteness of her face, he pushed the wine glass towards her, but she shook her head.
‘It wasn’t narcissism which motivated me, Niccolò—or a desire to flash my breasts like the exhibitionist you accused me of being. I did it because it’s the only way I could raise the money. I did it even though I sometimes felt sick to the stomach with all those men perving over me. But I hid my feelings because I wanted to bring a miracle to my mother, only the miracle never happened.’ Her voice wavered and it took a moment or two before she could steady it enough to speak. ‘She died the following spring.’
She did pick up her glass then, swilling down a generous mouthful of red wine and choking a little. But when she put the glass back down, she had to lace her fingers together on the table-top, because she couldn’t seem to stop them from trembling.
‘Alannah—’
‘It’s history,’ she said, with a brisk shake of her head. ‘None of it matters now. I’m just telling you what happened. I used the rest of the money to put myself through art school and to put down a deposit on a home. But property is expensive in London. That’s why I live where I do. That’s why I chose to live in one of the “tougher” parts of London.’
Niccolò put his glass down with a hand which was uncharacteristically unsteady as a powerful wave of remorse washed over him. It was as if he was seeing her clearly for the first time—without the distortion of his own bigotry. He had judged her unfairly. He saw how she must have fought against the odds to free herself from a trap from which there had been no escaping. He’d fought against the odds himself, hadn’t he? Though he realised now that his own choices had been far less stark than hers. And although he hated the solution she had chosen, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from wanting to comfort her.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said huskily. ‘For what happened and for the choices you had to make.’
She shrugged. ‘Like I said, it’s history.’
‘Your mother was lucky to have a daughter like you, fighting for her like that,’ he said suddenly. He found himself thinking that anyone would be glad to have her in their corner.
Her head was bent. ‘Don’t say any more,’ she whispered. ‘Please.’
He stared down at the plateful of cooling risotto which lay before him. ‘Alannah?’
‘What?’
Reluctantly, she lifted her head and he could see that her eyes were unnaturally bright. He thought how pale and wan she looked as he picked up his fork and scooped up some rice before guiding it towards her mouth. ‘Open,’ he instructed softly.
She shook her head. ‘I’m not hungry.’
‘Open,’ he said again.
‘Niccolò—’
‘You need to eat something,’ he said fiercely. ‘Trust me. The food will make you feel better. Now eat the risotto.’
And although Alannah was reluctant, she was no match for his determination. She let him feed her that first forkful—all warm and buttery and fragrant with herbs—and then another. She felt some of the tension seep away from her, and then a little more. She ate in silence with his black eyes fixed on her and it felt like a curiously intimate thing for him to do, to feed her like that. Almost tender. Almost protective. And she needed to remember it was neither. It was just Niccolò appeasing his conscience. Maybe he’d finally realised that he’d been unnecessarily harsh towards her. This was probably just as much about repairing his image, as much as trying to brush over his own misjudgement.
And he was right about the food. Of course he was. It did make her feel much better. She could feel warmth creeping through her veins and the comforting flush of colour in her cheeks. She even smiled as he swopped plates and ate some himself while she sat back and watched him.
He dabbed at his lips with a napkin. ‘Feel better now?’
‘Yes.’
‘But probably not in the mood to sit here and make small talk or to decide whether or not your waistline can cope with dessert?’
‘You’ve got it in one,’ she said.
‘Then why don’t I get the check, and we’ll go?’
She’d assumed he would take her straight back to Acton but once they were back in the car he made the driver wait. Outside, fairy lights twinkled in the two bay trees on either side of the restaurant door, but inside the car it was dark and shadowy. He turned to study her and all she could see was the gleam of his eyes as his gaze flickered over her face.
‘I could take you home now,’ he said. ‘But I don’t want the evening to end this way. It still feels…unfinished.’
‘I’m not in the mood for a nightcap.’
‘Neither am I.’ He lifted his hand to her face and pushed back a thick strand of hair. ‘I’m in the mood to touch you, but that seems unavoidable whenever you’re near me.’
‘Niccolò—’
‘Don’t,’ he said unsteadily. ‘Don’t say a word.’
And stupidly, she didn’t. She just sat there as he began to stroke her cheek and for some crazy reason she found that almost as reassuring as the way he’d fed her dinner. Was she so hungry for human comfort that she would take anything from a man she suspected could offer nothing but heartbreak?
‘Niccolò—’
This time he silenced her protest with the touch of his lips against hers. A barely-there kiss which started her senses quivering. She realised that he was teasing her. Playing with her and tantalising her. And it was working. Oh, yes, it was working. She had to fight to keep her hands in her lap and not cling onto him like someone who’d found themselves a handy rock in a rough sea.
He drew away and looked into her face and Alannah realised that this was a Niccolò she’d never seen before. His face was grave, almost…assessing. She imagined this was how he might look in the boardroom, before making a big decision.
‘Now we could pretend that nothing’s happening,’ he said, as calmly as if he were discussing the markets. ‘Or we could decide to be very grown-up about this thing between us—’
‘Thing?’ she put in indignantly, but his fingers were still on her face and she was shivering. And now the pad of his thumb had begun to trace a line across her lower lip and that was shivering, too.
‘Desire. Lust. Whatever you want to call it. Maybe I just want to lay to rest a ghost which has haunted me for ten long years, and maybe you do, too.’
It was his candour which clinched it—the bald truth which was her undoing. He wasn’t dressing up his suggestion with sentimental words which didn’t mean anything. He wasn’t insulting her intelligence by pretending she was the love of his life or that there was some kind of future in what he was proposing. He was saying something which had been on her mind since Michela’s wedding. Because he was right. This thing between them wouldn’t seem to go away. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t stop wanting him.
She wondered if he could read the answer in her eyes. Was that why he leaned forward to tap briefly on the glass which separated them from the driver, before taking her in his arms and starting to kiss her?
And once he had done that, she was left with no choice at all.
