Читать книгу The Italian's Christmas Proposition / Christmas Baby For The Greek - Cathy Williams - Страница 14

ROSIE COULD ONLY concede the truth behind that statement. Matteo was sinfully good-looking but he wasn’t her type. Take away the dark good looks and the perfectly honed, intensely masculine physique, and what you had was your basic businessman, the sort of guy to appeal to her entire family but not to her.

It was true that she had never met any businessman quite in this one’s league but he was still nothing like the free-spirited adventurers towards whom she always gravitated. She shouldn’t be attracted to him at all but she was.

But then, he wasn’t exactly Mr Typical Business Tycoon, was he?

That background in foster care…

Not exactly your run-of-the mill CEO…

And those cool, cool eyes…seeing everything and revealing nothing…also not typical.

And that thread-like scar…where had that come from? Surely not filling out profit and loss columns with his fountain pen?

‘She took it for granted, your sister,’ Matteo said conversationally. ‘That it was okay to break the news about us in a group family chat without asking whether you might have preferred to do the news-breaking yourself. That par for the course? Because, if it is, then you did well to put her in her place.’ He settled his gaze on her.

‘I know,’ Rosie said simply. She didn’t add that his presence had given her backbone. ‘The problem is that Candice wouldn’t have relayed the information the way I would have.’

‘Explain.’

‘You heard her. She thinks this is some great romance and that’s what she would have told everyone. I would have been a little more realistic. I would have prepared them for the fact that there was a chance this wasn’t going to work out. It feels as though things are getting more and more difficult to control.’

‘That’s the problem when a lie begins to spiral out of control.’

She was hovering.

Things had taken an unexpected turn and he could see that she was uncomfortable with the situation. Her edginess was apparent in the way her gaze was flicking towards him, then flicking away…in the way her whole body seemed alive with restlessness even though she wasn’t actually moving around. Underneath the feisty, open exterior, real apprehension was creeping in. The consequences of that little white lie were dawning on her.

‘It’s also the problem with acting on impulse but, if you think you’ve been inconvenienced, then I should tell you that the last thing I’d banked on doing was remaining here for longer than strictly necessary.’

‘I’m sure you have commitments. It’s Christmas.’

‘I don’t do Christmas. The only reason I’m here at this time of year was because of the timing on this deal. My only commitment was to retreat to my villa outside Venice and escape the madness.’

‘Escape? Escape?’ Distracted, she angled her bright, blue-eyed gaze in his direction.

‘Don’t look so bewildered.’ Matteo’s eyebrows winged up. ‘Not everyone is in love with the festive season.’

‘You have no family…’ Rosie said slowly.

‘Don’t go there,’ Matteo told her, voice dropping by several degrees.

Rosie frowned. ‘It must be a lonely time of year for you,’ she said simply and Matteo vaulted to his feet and frustratedly raked hands through his hair.

‘What is it about stay out of my private life that you don’t get?’

Rosie didn’t apologise. Her mind was busy with images of him in foster care. He had given her a sketchy description of what it had been like but she knew that it probably would have been far more soul-destroying. He had expressly set up No Trespass signs and he had made it clear that the only reason he had said anything at all was because he’d felt it necessary.

Except…her heart went out to him. She knew that she was going where no doubt angels feared to tread, but there was a generosity of spirit inside her that found it difficult to leave the subject alone.

‘Everyone needs to talk to somebody about the distressing things that happen in their lives.’

‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this! I don’t think you quite understood…’

‘You don’t want to talk about it.’ She shrugged but her clear blue eyes were stubbornly fixed on his face as he towered over her, looking down, expression forbidding.

‘No,’ Matteo said with angry force. ‘I don’t.’

‘Which says a lot.’

Matteo leant over her, hands on either side of her, depressing the soft sofa cushions and caging her in. His face was dark with enraged incredulity that someone had dared cross the boundary lines he had laid down. Did the woman have no limits when it came to saying what was on her mind? Matteo was accustomed to people editing their behaviour around him. Her lack of interest in following those rules left him practically speechless. From the second she had appeared in his life, normal rules of behaviour had been suspended.

‘Don’t make me regret having told you what I did.’

‘Why would you regret it?’

‘Are you hearing a word I’m saying?’

She held his outraged stare. ‘You’re accustomed to everyone doing what you tell them to do, aren’t you?’

Matteo stood up but remained standing in front of her.

‘Yes, I am!’

‘Okay. You win! I won’t ask and you don’t have to tell me anything. Would you like something to eat? Drink?’ She stood up and swerved around him, heading to the kitchen and straight to the fridge to peer inside.

As always it was crammed with food. A lot of optimistically healthy options that were probably past their sell-by date. She had been staying at the chalet since the season had begun and she was an impulse shopper. Things in attractive jars always held so much promise but often it was the easiest way she ended up taking.

He was still scowling when she looked at him quizzically. ‘Well?’ she snapped. ‘You don’t want to talk to me about anything of any importance, so we can talk about food options instead. I know you’ll think it’s safer. What do you want? I can make you something.’

Matteo wasn’t into women cooking for him. In fact, he actively discouraged it, just as he always made sure that a night of pleasure never turned into breakfast together the following morning.

‘I usually just eat stuff that comes out of boxes or cans but I don’t suppose you do.’

‘I don’t,’ Matteo said flatly. He paused. ‘You ask a lot of questions.’

‘So do you.’ Her azure eyes were innocent and her voice was sincere because she meant it.

‘Show me the rest of your house.’

Rosie shook herself back to earth, hesitating and on the cusp of barrelling past his Keep Out sign but reluctantly accepting that, if he wasn’t into sharing, then he wasn’t into sharing. They meant nothing to one another and she would have to put her curiosity to bed because it wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

She gave a perfunctory tour: open-plan living area with a huge, modern fireplace and lots of comfy chairs, perfect for settling in for the long haul—just her, a book and the fall of silent snow outside. The kitchen, which was the hub of the house, and a study in which her father occasionally worked, although now that he had retired those instances were few and far between. He had forgone offers of consultancy jobs and opted for quality time with his family instead.

Wooden stairs led to the floor above: six bedrooms all leading onto a broad landing that overlooked the space below. Next to her, Matteo’s silence was oppressive, and she wondered what was going through his head.

She found out soon enough.

‘So where is our bedroom?’

About to head back downstairs, head still buzzing with unanswered questions, Rosie spun around on her heels and stared at him with consternation.

‘You can choose which bedroom you’d like,’ she told him politely. ‘Mine…’ she nodded in the direction of the bedroom at the end of the long, broad landing ‘…is down there.’

‘Well, I suppose that’s where I’ll be dumping my bags.’

He headed down at pace towards her bedroom and, as he flung open the door, she was right behind him.

She’d waved an arm to indicate the bedroom floor, only opening the first door and standing back while he’d looked inside like a prospective buyer doing a tour of a house. Now, with him standing in her bedroom, her personal space, she felt invaded. She was on show here, with all the little pieces of her childhood for him to see. A framed photo of her on her first horse, with her dad proudly standing next to her. The ridiculous chair in the shape of a big, pink heart which had been her favourite when she’d been about eight, and which her parents had stashed away in their attic, shipping it over when they’d bought the chalet years before. Pictures of her family over the years.

‘You’re not staying in my bedroom,’ She folded her arms and watched, tight-lipped, as he strolled through the bedroom, peering at this and that and ignoring her. He had dumped his bag on the ground like a declaration of intent that sent a chill of forbidden excitement racing up and down her spine.

He commanded the space around him. He was so tall…so muscular…so there.

‘Oh.’ He spun round and stared right back at her. ‘This is exactly where I’ll be staying.’ As if to confirm what he’d said, he picked up the designer bag and flung it on the mattress of her four-poster bed.

It landed with a soft thud and then sat there, challenging her to remove it.

‘But…’

‘No buts. You got me into this mess and, now I’m in it, for better or for worse you’re just going to have to suffer the consequences. We’re supposed to be an item. Hot off the press, so to speak. Your sister is going to be extremely suspicious if she thinks that we’re not sharing a bedroom. Particularly given the fact that she probably assumes that you’ve been sharing my suite at the hotel while we’ve been conducting our torrid affair.’ He glanced at his watch then back to her, where she had remained hovering at the doorway to her own bedroom, almost as though, having asserted his authority, she was now the guest in her own space.

‘I can tell her that we’re in separate rooms here out of respect for Mum and Dad.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘You don’t know my parents!’

‘Are you telling me that you would be exiled to the Arctic wastes if they discovered that we were sleeping together?’ He pinned his eyes to her reddening face. ‘Right. Enough said on the subject.’

Rosie’s face was a picture of dawning dismay. Their love-at-first-sight scenario invited enough questions without those questions reaching fever pitch because they were in separate bedrooms, like a Victorian couple.

‘Now,’ Matteo declared, jettisoning the subject as if suddenly bored with the whole thing, ‘I would come down and have something out of a box or a can with you, but right now I want a shower, and I have a stack of emails to get through, so I’ll have to forfeit the feast.’

He reached for the button on his trousers and Rosie stared open-mouthed for a few seconds before gathering her wits.

‘I hadn’t banked on this,’ she said tightly and he stared at her with disbelieving eyes.

‘And I hadn’t banked on it either,’ he informed her coolly. ‘Right about now, I should have been getting in touch with my housekeeper and readying her for my arrival. Instead…’

Instead, she mentally filled in, here you are, sharing a room with a woman you don’t know, who keeps getting on your nerves with her constant questions, caught up in a crazy game of make-believe.

‘If you’re sure you’re not hungry…’ she muttered, inching a couple of steps back, eyes still fixed on him. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help feverishly wondering what he looked like underneath the expensive clothes. Bronzed and sinewy, she imagined, every cord and muscle defined. She felt faint thinking about it and, when she contemplated the prospect of sharing her bedroom with him, she went into a positive mental tailspin. She eyed the chaise longue by the window.

‘You can make that up.’ She nodded in the direction of the chaise longue. ‘It’s very comfortable.’

Matteo didn’t say anything. He glanced at it, his hooded silver eyes revealing nothing. ‘Like I said,’ he drawled, ‘I’ll do without the food. Now, unless you have no objection to seeing me strip off in front of you…?’

Colour high in her cheeks, Rosie fled, shutting the door behind her.

In the quiet of the kitchen, she hastily prepared some pasta for herself, making good use of a number of tins. Comfort eating. Her head was full of the ramifications of her very small, practically invisible little white lie. Everything had snowballed and now here she was, with the sexiest man on the planet upstairs in her bedroom. Her nerves were shredded. When she thought of Matteo, everything inside her went into meltdown. Physically, she felt faint when she closed her eyes and pictured him in all his over-the-top sexiness. He was just so breathtakingly beautiful.

But it wasn’t just confined to the way he looked. If that had been the sum total of it, then she could have steeled herself against the impact, because a good-looking guy without personality was just a cardboard cut-out to be admired without any threat of him getting under your skin.

No. Matteo’s extraordinary effect on her was all wrapped up in the power of his personality, his air of command, and now that she had eked out a couple of personal details the fallibility she could sense underneath the cloak of arrogant self-assurance.

He posed questions, he ignited her imagination, he stirred depths of curiosity she’d never known she possessed.

Absorbed in hectic speculation, she ate without thinking—the pasta, some salad that looked dangerously close to needing last rites performed then a slab of chocolate dessert that was just the thing to settle her mind.

She was startled when she heard the sound of the door opening and then there was Candice, shedding outer layers of snow-covered gear as she breezed into the kitchen, pink-faced and smiling.

‘I really miss the little monsters.’ She headed straight to the fridge to pull out a bottle of mineral water. ‘But—’ she looked at Rosie with a grin ‘—some time out is a wonderful thing. Had a ball. So nice to catch up with that crew. Where’s Matteo?’

‘He’s…um…working.’

‘Working?’ She kept her eyes fixed on Rosie’s flushed face as she drank from the bottle before lowering it. ‘Where? In Dad’s office? Surely he can pack in the work for a few days…if he’s head over heels in love with you?’

‘Well, you know how it goes when it comes to men and…er…work.’ Rosie offered vaguely. Her sisters had always had the ability to pin her to the spot with their penetrating blue eyes and she was pinned to the spot now, unable to move forward and incapable of shuffling back.

‘Tell me.’

‘Lucien works all the hours under the sun, or have you forgotten?’

‘He’s a surgeon,’ Candice responded drily. ‘Lives depend on him. It’s early days for you both, Rosie. I would have expected him to have made a little time for you, especially considering the time of year, when most businesses are operating at a much slower pace.’

Rosie remained steadfastly silent. A fierce defensiveness for her so-called boyfriend suddenly kicked into gear allied to the stubborn need to stand her ground. Where had that come from?

‘He isn’t where he is because he’s a slacker, Candice,’ she said without the usual note of apology in her voice. ‘Sometimes work can take over, and not necessarily because lives are at stake. Lucien might save lives on an operating table, but Matteo and how he runs his businesses can affect the livelihoods of lots of people who work for him.’

Candice stared.

‘I consider myself duly told off. Second time for the evening. The only reason I sound nosy…’ She sighed. ‘Okay, I’ve researched the guy,’ she confessed, ‘And he’s big stuff, Rosie. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I recognised the name, but I honestly thought I was mistaken because I couldn’t believe that someone who doesn’t even breathe the same air as we do could…well…’

‘Find me attractive? Thanks very much.’

‘It’s not that at all!’ Candice said quickly. ‘I can’t help being protective of you—he’s out of your league, Rosebud. For a start, the sort of women he dates…’

‘I know. He likes high-powered career women.’

‘So he told you? I’m impressed with his honesty on that front, at least. Of course, Emily’s heard of him, and so has Robert. But, from everything I’ve read and heard, he’s so far up the pecking order that you literally have to be a billionaire to have much personal contact with him at all on the business level.’

Frankly, Rosie couldn’t help thinking, the more Candice elaborated, the less likely it seemed that someone like Matteo would even glance in the direction of someone like her. Not unless they had temporarily taken leave of their senses. Christmas madness. Except, he didn’t do Christmas.

‘But of course,’ Candice continued, flipping open the bin and dumping the plastic bottle into the recycling section, ‘Opposites do attract, I’ll give you that.’

‘They do…’ Rosie smiled to herself, remembering what Matteo had said earlier.

‘There’s no accounting for people when they fall in love.’

Fall in love? Was that the story doing the rounds? And was it spreading like a forest fire beyond the family unit?

‘Well…’ She laughed lightly and managed to galvanise her body into action, walking across to sit opposite her sister, wishing she had opted for a restorative glass of wine, for some Dutch courage would have done wonders right now. ‘I don’t know about falling in love…’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Relationships aren’t all about falling in love,’ she asserted, glancing away.

‘That’s not what you’ve always maintained,’ Candice told her drily. She paused and delivered a searching look to her sister. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt,’ she said quietly. ‘And I’m very much afraid that you will. I just don’t think you’re tough enough to handle a guy like Matteo.’

Into the brief silence came the last voice either of them expected to hear.

‘Maybe that’s what I find so charming about your sister.’

They both looked up to see that Matteo had silently pushed open the kitchen door and was now lounging in the doorframe.

How long had he been there?

Rosie tried to remember if she had said anything incriminating and was certain that she hadn’t.

He’d showered and changed into a pair of faded jeans and an old tee shirt and he looked drop-dead gorgeous—easy, relaxed, wildly sophisticated and with that edge of danger about him that made her whole body go on full alert.

‘Maybe,’ Matteo continued, ‘It’s a breath of fresh air to be with a woman who isn’t as tough as nails and doesn’t want to spend every minute of her time discussing the state of the world and how it should be fixed.’ He strolled towards Rosie and then remained standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders, lightly caressing her neck and feathering shivers of pleasure through her body.

He leant to brush his lips on the nape of her neck and she nearly passed out.

She had never seen Candice out of her depth but Matteo unsettled her, Rosie thought. It was his self-assurance, his bone-deep confidence that his opinions carried weight. He didn’t allow anyone to take advantage of him and, before they thought that they could try, he made sure to establish the lines of command.

‘And what makes you think that your sister will be the one to be hurt?’ he enquired coolly.

‘Exactly.’ Rosie finally entered the conversation but her usual spirited response was seriously compromised by the continuing, caressing motion of his fingers on her neck. ‘Candice, please don’t worry about me.’

‘I intend to take very good care of your sister.’ Matteo’s voice was still cool.

‘Really?’ Candice’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I mean, I hope so. We all do.’

‘Why would I say it if I didn’t mean it?’

‘But,’ Rosie interjected, ‘It’s only been a couple of weeks so…we’re taking each day as it comes.’

‘And you were always the impulsive one, Rosie,’ Candice teased. ‘Is love changing you already?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Rosie spluttered. How much deeper could the hole she had dug for herself go?

‘I know it’s not wedding bells yet!’ Candice laughed and stood up, her movements graceful as she strode towards the door. ‘But please don’t forget to give me ample warning so that I can start planning my outfit!’

Rosie managed to stammer out something, grateful that Matteo seemed to be taking it all in his stride, and it was only when the kitchen door was shut and her sister well and truly gone that Rosie looked at him with alarm.

‘You should never have encouraged my sister to think that there was more to this than there is!’ was the first thing she said, leaping to her feet, irritated at Matteo’s composure as he helped himself to a bottle of water from the fridge.

‘We should head up,’ was all he said.

‘Why on earth did you come down here, anyway? I thought you said that you had a mountain of emails to get through!’

‘The prospect of working suddenly didn’t seem quite so enticing.’ He circled her and stared down at her for a few seconds until she reluctantly lifted her eyes to his.

‘I was trying to ease the way to us breaking up,’ she confessed. ‘Until you came along and demolished all my efforts. Why couldn’t you have just taken the lead from me and backed me up when I started insinuating that this was probably just a fling?’

Matteo shrugged. ‘Maybe I’m so arrogant that the thought of being written off as a fling dented my ego.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ Rosie muttered.

‘Maybe…’ he murmured.

Rosie didn’t know what was going through his head, but his expression wasn’t the expression of an arrogant alpha male with a sore ego.

‘Just maybe it got on my nerves hearing your sister assume that a man like me could never look twice at someone like you.’

‘I’m not asking for your pity.’

‘If you don’t assert yourself, you’ll be walked over.’

‘Thank you very much for the words of advice.’

‘You’ve stood up to your sister once. You can do it again. Try it a few times and you might find that it becomes a way of life.’

‘You don’t like me prying into your private life, Matteo, and I don’t like you thinking that you can analyse me.’

‘But you’ve set a precedent. Don’t get me wrong,’ he grated. ‘Your life is none of my business but it affronts something in me when I hear you being treated like a kid who needs other people to look after her. You’re not a kid.’

‘I know that,’ Rosie muttered grudgingly. She sneaked a glance at him from under her lashes. ‘I did actually stick up for you when she told me that it was strange for you to be working when you should be desperate to spend time in my company.’

‘Did you, now?’

Rosie could see the speculation in his eyes at that admission. ‘I thought it might be a good idea to let her know that work came first with you.’

Matteo burst out laughing, his grey eyes darkening with appreciation. ‘More of those foundations being laid down.’

‘It might have been if you had got on board with me instead of branching out and doing your own thing.’

Matteo shrugged, the smile lingering on his lips, and began heading towards the door. ‘I’m hitting the sack. Coming?’

‘I’ll… I think I’ll stay down here and finish tidying the kitchen,’ Rosie told him. For a while she’d forgotten the prospect ahead of sharing her bedroom with him but it was all coming back to her now at great speed. On the spot she decided that she would stay out of harm’s way in the kitchen, at least long enough for him to fall asleep so that when she finally joined him he would be dead to the world.

She couldn’t picture him being dead to the world, though. In fact, she couldn’t imagine him sleeping. More lying still with his eyes closed but primed to leap into action at the sound of a pin dropping.

‘Don’t wait up. There’s linen in the cupboard on the landing for the chaise longue.’

‘Sure.’ He didn’t bother turning around to look at her but left the kitchen, shutting the door behind him, leaving her to take as long as she possibly could filling the dishwasher, wiping the counters and in the end going through the contents of the fridge and binning everything that no longer had any lifespan left whatsoever.

It was after midnight by the time she finally headed up to the bedroom and she was dead on her feet.

So he was going to be in her bedroom. That meant nothing. She was going to be cool and composed because he was right—she wasn’t a kid and she was going to stop behaving like one. She was the only one who could determine the direction of her life and her choices and she was going to remember that.

This felt like a crucial moment for her. She was at a crossroads. She either carried on in no particular direction, escaping her family’s well-intentioned guidance by drifting from one job to another, or else she buckled down and asserted herself. It was odd that a perfect stranger had been the one to bring her to this point.

He told her things that she didn’t want to hear but it was thanks to him that she had actually stood up to Candice instead of backing away. She had always been treated like the baby of the family and she had followed through, fulfilling their expectations, becoming the family member happy to drift through life while other people got on with responsible living and grown-up decision making.

When she stood back and looked at it through objective eyes, she was mortified.

From now on, things were going to change. They already had.

Filled with the rosy glow of assertiveness, Rosie pushed open the bedroom door and there he was on the chaise longue, semi-reclining, and it looked painful. His laptop was open and his legs looked as though they weren’t quite sure where they should go. Over the end of the sofa? Uncomfortable. On the ground? Likewise. He was way too tall and too big for the piece of furniture to which he had been consigned but the fact that he had obeyed orders touched her.

He shifted his big, muscular bulk as she walked in, drawing attention… Forget about the inadequacies of his makeshift bed, the guy was semi-naked.

Low-slung, loose-fitting jogging bottoms. That was it. He was half-naked and she stood by the door, shamelessly gaping for a few seconds, before walking in and shutting the door behind her.

Thank God he hadn’t switched on the overhead light. Instead, he had swivelled the angle-poise lamp by the bed in the direction of the chaise longue. Rosie hoped that in a half-dark room the beetroot red of her cheeks wouldn’t immediately be visible.

‘You took your time,’ Matteo said, now standing up and stretching before dumping the laptop on her dressing table.

Rosie’s vocal cords had dried up. She cleared her throat and stared straight past his spectacular, burnished bronze body to the window just behind him. Seemed a safer option. That said, he still managed to intrude into the entire periphery of her vision. He was so tall, muscles densely packed, the flat lines of his stomach tapering to a narrow waist and spirals of dark hair arrowing down…

‘There was a lot of tidying to do in the kitchen,’ she croaked. ‘You… I see you’ve made yourself comfortable on the chaise longue.’

Matteo glanced over his shoulder and grimaced. ‘I’m not sure that comfortable would be the appropriate word.’

Rosie had expected complaints. Maybe a show of resentful acceptance of the boundaries she had laid down, possibly even fully fledged refusal to accommodate her wishes. But his voice was remarkably even and she felt something…quite different from those waves of taboo attraction. She felt the stirrings of affection.

She glanced at her lovely king-sized bed and Matteo followed the direction of her gaze.

‘I’m in your house,’ he said, walking to the window and back to the sofa, exercising his long limbs. ‘The bed is yours.’

‘I’m half your size.’

‘Rules of the house apply here,’ Matteo drawled drily, flexing his muscles again and then sinking back down onto the chaise longue, his dark eyes pinned to her face as she remained hovering like a visitor in her own bedroom. He grinned. ‘Relax. There’s no need to start thinking about playing the self-sacrificing martyr by giving up your bed for me, Rosie. If the shoe was on the other foot and you were in my house, I’d be sprawled out on the bed and you’d be trying to squeeze into the clothes hamper in the bathroom. It’s late. Forget I’m here and go to sleep.’