Читать книгу Champagne Summer: At the Argentinean Billionaire's Bidding / Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper - India Grey - Страница 6

TAMSIN paused in front of the mirror, the lipstick held in one hand and the magazine article on ‘How to seduce the man of your dreams’ in the other.

Subtlety, the article said, is just another word for failure. But, even so, her stomach gave a nervous dip as she realised she hardly recognised the heavy-lidded, glittering eyes, the sharply defined cheekbones and sultry, pouting mouth as her own.

That was a good thing, right? Because three years of adoring Alejandro D’Arienzo from afar had taught her that there wasn’t much chance of getting beyond ‘hello’ with the man of her dreams without some drastic action.

There was a quiet knock at the door, and then Serena’s blonde head appeared. ‘Tam, you’ve been ages, surely you must be ready by—’ There was a pause. ‘Oh my God. What in hell’s name have you done to yourself?’

Tamsin waved the magazine at her sister. ‘It says here I shouldn’t leave anything to chance.’

Serena advanced slowly into the room. ‘Does it specify you shouldn’t leave much to the imagination, either?’ she croaked. ‘Where did you get that outrageous dress? It’s completely see-through.’

‘I altered my Leaver’s Ball dress a bit, that’s all,’ said Tamsin defensively.

‘That’s your ball dress?’ Serena gasped. ‘Blimey, Tamsin, if Mama finds out she’ll go mental—you haven’t altered it, you’ve butchered it.’

Shrugging, Tamsin tossed back her dark-blonde hair and, holding out the thigh-skimming layers of black net, executed an insouciant twirl. ‘So? I just took the silk overskirt off, that’s all.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Well, I shortened the net petticoat a bit, too. Looks much better, doesn’t it?’

‘It certainly looks different,’ said Serena faintly. The strapless, laced bodice of the dress, which had looked reasonably demure when paired with a full, ankle-length skirt, suddenly took on an outrageous bondage vibe when combined with above-the-knee net, black stockings, and the cropped black cardigan her sister was now putting on over the top.

‘Good,’ said Tamsin firmly. ‘Because tonight I do not want to be the coach’s pathetic teenage daughter, fresh out of boarding school and never been kissed. Tonight I want to be …’ She broke off to read from the magazine. ‘“Mysterious yet direct, sophisticated yet sexy”.’

From downstairs they could hear the muffled din of laughter and loud voices, and distant music wound its way through Harcourt Manor’s draughty stone passages. The party to announce the official England international team for the new rugby season was already underway, and Alejandro was there somewhere. Just knowing he was in the same building made Tamsin’s stomach tighten and her heart pound.

‘Be careful, Tam,’ Serena warned quietly. ‘Alejandro’s gorgeous, but he’s also …’

She faltered, glancing round at the pictures that covered Tamsin’s walls, as if for inspiration. Mostly cut from the sports pages of newspapers and from old England rugby programmes, they showed Alejandro D’Arienzo’s dark, brooding beauty from every angle. Serena shivered. Gorgeous certainly, but ruthless too.

‘What, out of my league? You don’t think this is going to work, do you?’ said Tamsin with an edge of despair. ‘You don’t think he’s going to fancy me at all.’

Serena looked down into her sister’s face. Tamsin’s green eyes glowed as if lit by some internal sunlight and her cheeks were flushed with nervous excitement.

‘That’s not it at all. Of course he’ll fancy you.’ She sighed. ‘And that’s exactly what’s bothering me.’

Above the majestic carved fireplace in the entrance hall of Harcourt Manor was a portrait of some seventeenth-century Calthorpe, smiling smugly against a backdrop of galleons on a stormy sea. Across the top, in flamboyantly embellished script, was written: God blew and they were scattered.

Alejandro D’Arienzo felt his face set in an expression of sardonic amusement as he looked into the cold, hooded eyes of Henry Calthorpe’s forebear. There was no discernible resemblance between the two men, although they obviously shared a mutual hatred of the Spanish. Alejandro could just remember his father’s stories, as a child in Argentina, of how their distant ancestors had been amongst the original conquistadors who had sailed from Spain to the New World. Those stories were one of the few tiny fragments of family identity that he had.

Moving restlessly away from the portrait, he ran a finger inside the stiff collar of his shirt and looked around at the impressive hallway, with its miles of intricate plasterwork ceiling and acres of polished wooden panelling. His team-mates stood in groups, laughing and drinking with dignitaries from the Rugby Football Union and the few sports journalists lucky enough to make the guest list, while the same assortment of blonde, well-bred rugby groupies circulated amongst them, flirting and flattering.

Henry Calthorpe, the England rugby coach, had made a big deal about holding the party to announce the new squad at his stunning ancestral home, claiming it showed that they were a team, a unit, a family. Remembering this now, Alejandro couldn’t stop his lips curling into a sneer of savage, cynical amusement.

Everything about Harcourt Manor could have been specifically designed to emphasise exactly how much of an outsider Alejandro was. And he was damned sure that Henry Calthorpe had reckoned on that very thing.

At first Alejandro had thought he was being overly sensitive, that years in the English public school system had made him too quick to be on the defensive against bullying and victimization—but lately the coach’s animosity had become too obvious to ignore. Alejandro was playing better than he’d ever done, too well to be dropped from the team without reason, but the fact was that Calthorpe wanted him out. He was just waiting for Alejandro to slip up.

Alejandro hoped Calthorpe was a patient man, because he had no intention of obliging. He was at the top of his game and he planned to stay there.

Draining the champagne in one go, he put the glass down on a particularly expensive-looking carved chest and glanced disdainfully around the room. There was not a single person he wanted to talk to, he thought wearily. The girls were identikit blondes with cut-glass accents and Riviera suntans, whose conversation ranged from clothes to the hilarious exploits of people they’d gone to school with, and whom they assumed Alejandro would know. Several times at parties like these he’d ended up sleeping with one just to shut her up.

But tonight it all seemed too much effort. The England tie felt like a noose around his neck, and suddenly he needed to be outside in the cool air, out of this suffocating atmosphere of complacency and privilege. Adrenalin pounded through him as he pushed his way impatiently through the groups of people towards the door.

And that was when he saw her.

She was standing in the doorway, her head lowered slightly, one hand gripping the doorframe for support, giving her an air of shyness and uncertainty that was totally at odds with her short black dress and very high heels. But he didn’t notice the details of what she was wearing. It was her eyes that held him.

They were beautiful—green perhaps, almond shaped, slanting—but that was almost incidental. What made the breath catch in his throat was the laser-beam intensity of her gaze, which he could feel even from this distance.

His footsteps slowed as he got closer to her, but her gaze didn’t waver. She straightened slightly, as if she had been waiting for him, and her hand fell from the doorframe and smoothed down her short skirt.

‘You’re not leaving?’

Her voice was so low and hesitant, and her words halfway between a question and a statement. He gave a twisted smile.

‘I think it would be best if I did.’

He made to push past her. Close up, he could see that behind the smoky eye make up and the shiny inviting lip gloss she was younger than he’d at first thought. Her skin was clear and golden, and he noticed the frantic jump of the pulse in her throat. She was trembling slightly.

‘No,’ she said fiercely. ‘Please. Don’t leave.’

Interest flared up inside him, sudden and hot. He stopped, looking down at her sexy, rebellious dress, and then let his gaze move slowly back up to her face. Her cheeks were lightly stained with pink, and the eyes that looked up at him from under a fan of long, black lashes were dark and glittering. Seductive, but pleading.

‘Why not?’

Lowering her chin, she kept them fixed on his, while she took his hand and stepped backwards, pulling him with her. Her hand felt small in his, and her touch sent a small shower of shooting stars up his arm.

‘Because I want you.’ She smiled shyly, dropping her gaze. ‘I want you to stay.’