Читать книгу Heiress's Pregnancy Scandal - Julia James - Страница 10

THE CONFERENCE WAS wrapping up, with the panel of plenary speakers paying courteous tribute to each other.

Fran flexed her tired fingers, having taken copious notes throughout. Her thoughts were uncertain. She was scheduled to fly back to the West Coast with her colleagues that afternoon, but was conscious that she was reluctant to do so. She’d meant what she’d said about wanting to take advantage of the hotel’s amenities, and why shouldn’t she? She hadn’t taken any holiday time for a year—she was overdue for a break. So why not here and now?

And whether that hunky security guy chatting her up last night had anything to do with her decision, she would not consider. He’d been a catalyst for it, that was all.

The sense of restlessness that had started to well up in her again subsided, her decision made. She said as much to her colleagues, telling them that she would be staying on for a few days at the hotel.

Grinning, they informed her they were off to hit Vegas and see if their luck at the tables was holding out. Fran wished them well and waved them off. Las Vegas was one place she did not want to go to.

No, if she went anywhere it would be to see something of the western desert—maybe even, she pondered, as she headed for the reception desk to keep her room on, take one of the hotel’s tours to the Grand Canyon.

She made enquiries, took away the tour brochure, and headed into the poolside bistro to have a light lunch and go through her notes. Her mind felt wiped out from all the heavy-duty presentations, and she realised she was looking forward to a few days off.

As she tucked into her salad she found herself wondering if she would see that hunky security guy again. But if he’d been on duty the night before maybe he wasn’t around in the daytime? Or if he was maybe he wouldn’t show any further interest in her anyway? Or maybe—

‘Hi—so, conference all finished?’

The deep, gravelled voice sounded behind her, and Fran turned her head. Felt something quiver inside her as she set her eyes on his powerful body again. This time he was not in a tux, but in a dark burgundy polo shirt bearing the hotel’s logo—the words Falcone, Nevada, with a golden falcon, wings outstretched, above—that stretched across his broad, muscled chest in a way that made her want to study the contours minutely.

That internal quiver came again, and a quickening of her heart rate. She felt something lift inside her...a sense of lightness.

‘All done,’ she acknowledged. ‘Just the notes to go through.’ She gestured at the pile of papers in the folder.

He glanced at them, and then at her. ‘May I?’ He indicated the free seat at her table.

He was asking her—courteously—if he could continue their slight acquaintance. Fran saw it and registered the courtesy, the request.

She knew she was entirely free to say something like, Oh, I’m sorry, but I really do need to go through my notes straight away while they’re fresh in my head, and he would simply accept it, give her a regretful smile and stroll away. Accept her rejection.

But those words of polite rejection never came. Instead she heard her voice say, just as courteously, ‘Of course,’ and she smiled.

She felt that lift again inside her—in her body, in her spirits. Seeing him again was reinforcing the extraordinary reaction she’d had to him last night—confirming it for her. Whatever was going on, something different was happening to her.

And she would let it happen. Mentally, the decision had been made. And as he lowered his powerful frame on to the chair, with a grace and ease that she found pleasing to the eye, she knew she would let him continue with his move on her.

For a move it was—that was obvious. Inexperienced she might be, compared with many of her contemporaries, but she knew when a man was making a play for her. And this one was. Quite decidedly.

So his next words came as no surprise.

‘You’ve decided not to check out yet—I’m glad.’

She threw him an old-fashioned look. Clearly he’d had a word with the staff at the reception desk, discovered she’d extended her booking.

Nic returned her look with a bland expression. He was deliberately wearing the staff polo shirt today, to confirm the impression he guessed she had that he was one of his own employees. That suited him fine.

‘Glad?’ she queried. Challenged.

The bland expression did not falter. ‘Glad you’ll have a chance to enjoy the hotel’s leisure amenities—and maybe take one of the tours as well?’

His glance now went to the hotel tour brochure. It was extensive—part of the offering the resort made to visitors. It included personalised tours to anywhere in the US West they might want to visit. Far or near.

‘Maybe,’ he went on, his expression still bland, but belied by a glint in those incredibly blue dark-lashed eyes that was telling Fran something not bland in the slightest, ‘you might like to start with the Sunset Drive this evening?’

Fran’s heart gave a little unconscious skip but she frowned slightly—her first glance at the brochure hadn’t listed such a tour.

‘It’s one of the personalised ones.’ On cue came the answer to her unspoken question. His voice was as bland as his expression. ‘It sets off from here late afternoon, going to a viewing spot for the sunset. It’s only a couple of hours. You’ll be back in time for dinner.’

He smiled. Not the desert wolf smile, but a bland smile, his long dark lashes dipping over his blue, blue eyes.

Fran considered it. Carefully analysed it for all the pros and cons for all of five seconds. Then gave her answer.

‘Sounds good,’ she said, and smiled a bland smile in return.

‘Great,’ he said.

Satisfaction was in his voice. Mission accomplished. Fran heard it, and it amused her. Nothing about this man was putting her off. He was being open about his intentions—conspiratorial, even. And yet she realised she still didn’t actually know whether this Sunset Drive was really part of the hotel’s offering to guests or was a particularly personalised tour, customised for herself alone.

That he would turn out to be the driver for this Sunset Drive, and she the sole passenger, she had little doubt at all.

And no reservations either.

He got to his feet—again, remarkably smoothly and easily for a man with his powerful frame—and smiled down at her again. His expression was just a touch less bland. A touch more openly appreciative.

‘I’ll fix it,’ he said, and lifted a hand in casual farewell and strolled away.

As he went Fran’s eyes went after him, saw how he paused to say something to one of the waitresses—a young woman whose expression as he talked to her told Fran that she was not the only female susceptible to that unforced, laid-back charm, those powerful good looks. Whatever the man had to draw women to him he had it in spades.

She gave a little sigh that turned into a good-humoured wry smile. She’d felt restless, mentally wiped from the conference—as if she were surfacing after a long, intensely focussed cerebral engagement that had lasted a whole year since she’d realised that making her life with Cesare was not what she wanted to do after all.

And now suddenly, out of nowhere, the future was beckoning to her. A future that was her own—that held more than her career. That held adventure—

And if that adventure, for now, happened to include a man who was making it very clear that she was pleasing to his eye—a man who was pleasing her eye in a way that was as totally unexpected as it was unpredicted—well, she would go for that.

She felt that lift inside her come again, that heady quickening of her pulse.

And welcomed it.

* * *

‘Hi, let me help you up.’

Nic handed Fran up into the SUV he’d commandeered and parked on the hotel forecourt, before vaulting into the driver’s seat. He’d changed into a western shirt, jeans and boots, and saw that for her part she’d sensibly put on firmer footwear, a loose shirt and long cotton trousers.

‘One Sunset Drive coming up,’ he said, casting his wolf-like smile at her, making Fran glad she was wearing sunglasses. Making her glad she was taking a chance for a change.

He fired the engine, easing the SUV down the hotel drive on to the main highway, then turning to her as he settled into a cruising speed. ‘So, did you enjoy your leisurely afternoon, Dr Ristori?’

It was an amiable, courteous enquiry, and she answered in kind, accepting that he must know her name from the hotel register. ‘Yes, I wrote up my notes then got in a swim and flopped on a lounger poolside. Totally lazy.’

‘Well, why not?’ he answered easily. ‘Your vacation—your choice.’

He glanced at her—a throwaway glance that was hidden by his aviator sunglasses, accompanied by a smile indenting around his mouth. It was a friendly, open smile, yet one that acknowledged that behind the word ‘choice’ there was more than whether or not she had had a lazy afternoon.

A lot more might be hers to choose.

She answered with a flickering smile and looked away, down the dusty road stretching through the desert landscape like something out of a Western movie.

He didn’t talk any more as he drove, and after some miles he turned off up an unmade track, along the edge of a bluff that terminated in a rocky col overlooking a valley beyond, where he parked.

As they got out the heat and the silence enveloped them. Nic jammed a wide-brimmed hat on his head, offering her one for herself, which she dutifully donned against the glare of the lowering sun. He then helped himself to a backpack holding twin water bottles and the mandatory emergency kit.

‘It’s about a ten-minute hike now,’ Nic said, and set off up a trail that led higher among the rugged outcrops.

Fran followed nimbly, and as they gained height saw the valley beyond fill with deep golden light, the azure sky arching above. It seemed very far from anywhere, with only the wind keening in her ears. Eventually they reached a flat outcrop affording a ringside view of the sight they had come to see and they settled down, backs against the warm rock behind them.

‘Now we wait,’ Nic said.

He passed her a water bottle and Fran drank thirstily. So did he. Before their eyes the sun was starting to lower into the horizon, turning deep bronze as it did so. Fran gazed, mesmerised, glad of her sunglasses as the sun seemed to fuse with the earth, flushing the azure sky with a halo of deep crimson until finally it slipped beyond the rim of the ever-turning globe and the sky began to darken.

She slid the dark glasses from her face, and saw him do likewise. Then he turned to her.

‘Worth it?’ he asked laconically.

She nodded. ‘Oh, yes,’ she breathed.

Her eyes met his, held, and for a moment—just a moment—something was exchanged between them. Something that seemed to go with this slow, unhurried landscape, desolate but with a beauty of its own, lonely but intensely special.

A thought occurred to her, and she heard herself give voice to it.

‘I don’t know your name,’ she said. She said it with a little frown, as if it were strange to have shared this moment with him not knowing it.

He gave her his slow smile, holding out his strong, large hand.

‘Nic,’ he said. ‘Nic Rossi.’

He gave his birth name quite deliberately. He didn’t want complications—he wanted things to be very, very simple.

She took his hand, felt its strength and warmth. Felt more than its strength and warmth.

‘Fran,’ she said. Her smile met his. Her eyes met his. Acknowledging something that needed to be acknowledged between them. The fact that, whatever was going on, from this moment she was no longer a hotel guest and he was not part of the security team, or whatever his role was.

That this was something between them—only between them.

‘Doc Fran,’ Nic murmured contemplatively, his eyes working over her. He nodded. ‘It suits you.’

He didn’t release her hand, only drew her upright as he climbed to his feet as well.

‘We need to head down before the light goes,’ he told her, and carefully they made their way back to the SUV. ‘Hungry?’ Nic asked. He kept his question studiedly casual. ‘Because if you don’t want to head back to the hotel yet I know a diner nearby...’

He let the suggestion hang, let her choose to answer it as she wanted.

She gave her flickering smile—the one that told him she was hovering between holding back and not holding back.

‘That sounds good,’ she answered. ‘A change from the hotel.’

He gunned the engine and they headed off, headlights cutting through the desert dusk that had turned to night by the time they drew up in the car park of a roadside diner.

It was a typical western diner, with a friendly, laid-back atmosphere and staff in the customary western outfits that went with the setting.

They ate at a table overlooking the desert, making themselves comfortable on the padded banquettes. Fran stuck to iced tea, but Nic had a beer, and they both ordered steak.

Hers was so massive she cut off a third, placing it on Nic’s plate. ‘You need to feed your muscles,’ she told him with a smile, refusing to let herself think that it was a strangely intimate gesture.

He laughed. ‘I’ll trade you my salad,’ he said, and pushed the bowl towards her.

‘Salad’s good for you!’ she protested, and pushed it back.

His hand was still on the bowl. Did her fingers brush against his hand? She didn’t know. Knew only that she pulled her hand away and that as she did so she felt it tingle, as though, maybe, she had made contact. Electrical contact...

She started to eat her steak. Made some remark about its tenderness. Any remark.

What am I doing?

The question framed itself. Rhetorical. Unnecessary. She knew what she was doing—knew perfectly well.

I’m on a date. Not official. Not announced. Not planned. But a date, all the same. We’ve watched the sun go down together, and now we’re eating together.

And what would they do next together?

She didn’t answer that one. Didn’t want to. Not yet. Not now.

Instead she asked a question—something about the desert. After all, he worked in this region—he must know more about it than she did. And, whatever Italian-American locality he came from originally, right now he was way more a native here than she was.

He answered the question readily, and all her other questions, but sometimes he shrugged and said he didn’t know. So they asked the diners at another table, obviously locals, who assumed they were tourists.

Fran did not enlighten them.

They also assumed they were a couple.

Fran did not enlighten them on that either.

Supposing we were.

The thought was in her head. Tantalising. Making her wonder. Speculate. Was that why she was sharing dinner with him now? Because she was accepting that she was willing to take things further between them?

But just how far?

She felt her mind thinking ahead. An affair? No, maybe not even that. A—a fling. That was more like it. Something out of the ordinary in her life...something that wouldn’t happen twice—because he was from a world different from her, as she was from him.

But that doesn’t matter.

Her eyes went to his face again, slid down over his strong, muscled body. The flicker of electricity came again—a kind of current flowing between them, strengthening, or so it seemed to her, with every circuit that it made. She didn’t know why...knew only that it was powerful and enticing.

Why not? Why not take this opportunity if it comes? I need to move on from Cesare. I need something...different. It would be good for me—mark a new chapter in my life.

Would Nic Rossi—so entirely different from any man she’d known before, so rawly, powerfully attractive to her—be it?

The question circled in her head. They’d finished eating—steaks demolished, side orders too—and now Nic was leaning back in his chair, letting his weight tilt it back, easing his broad shoulders. Relaxed, leonine, powerful.

Sexy as hell.

The phrase forced its way into her head. It was not one she’d ever used about a man. Not a phrase that had fitted any man she’d ever known. Not even Cesare. Her lips twisted. Cesare would have loathed any woman calling him that. Nic, she suspected, with another twist of her lips, but this time with humour in it, would simply take it as his due.

He knows he can pull. It’s in him, in every cell of his body. It’s part of him. It isn’t arrogance or conceit—it’s just... Well, it just is, that’s all. And he’d be glad I’m thinking it.

She didn’t need to spell it out. Didn’t need to think about it. Didn’t need to analyse it or wonder about it or speculate about it. All she needed to do right now was answer the question he was asking her as he picked up the menu, flicked it over to the dessert list.

‘Ice cream?’ he asked.

Fran smiled. That was one decision that was easy to make.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘Definitely.’

* * *

They drove back to the hotel, the moon rising to the east, the night ablaze with stars. Nic had seen Fran glance upwards as they got back into the SUV and an idea had struck him. As they drove he gave voice to it.

‘Would you have any interest,’ he opened, glancing at her briefly, then back to the ink-dark road, ‘in maybe taking off to see the South-West Array tomorrow?’

She turned her head. ‘Could we do it in a day?’ she asked. Unconsciously, she had used the word ‘we’, and it registered a moment later. But she didn’t mind that she had. It seemed right that she had.

‘If we make an early start,’ Nic said. He paused. ‘So, how about it?’

‘Oh, yes!’ Fran answered, enthusiasm in her voice. ‘You know,’ she mused, ‘as a theoretical physicist I simply use the data that the observational physicists provide for me, to test my theories—but to actually see where they get that data is always a privilege. The South-West Array is only just coming on-stream—’

She fished in her bag for her phone, looked it up. Her face brightened.

‘Nic, could we? I can message them tonight, see if I can get in touch with one of the onsite guys tomorrow...’ She paused. ‘It might be boring for you, though,’ she warned.

Then she wondered whether she should have said that. Maybe this was just another tour laid on by the hotel, with her own personal chauffeur? But she didn’t think that—not now. Not any longer. Not after sharing steak and ice-cream at a roadside diner.

This isn’t about his job, or even mine. This is about us.

She felt the now familiar skip of her heart rate, telling her she was glad—glad that that was what it was about. Then she realised Nic was speaking again.

‘You can give me another physics tutorial on the way there,’ he said. ‘The elementary version, that is.’

There was a smile in his voice, and in hers as she answered. ‘Physics is usually simple—it’s just the maths that’s hard!’

He laughed, that low, gravelly sound that she was getting used to sending a little frisson through her—a frisson that she felt again as, gaining the hotel’s rear car park, he helped her step down, retaining her hand just a fraction longer than was necessary. Then he was opening a side door and they were heading down a deserted corridor towards the lobby.

As they did, a service door opened and someone emerged. He glanced at Nic as they headed past.

‘Evening, boss.’

Nic acknowledged him with a brief nod, and as the staff member passed by, Fran murmured, ‘Boss?’

‘He’s on my team,’ Nic answered smoothly.

They arrived at the elevators. Nic was glad that no other members of his staff were around, and without waiting to be invited he stepped inside the lift with her.

‘I’ll see you to your room,’ he said.

Fran made no demur, but suddenly, out of nowhere, she was supremely conscious of the confined space of the elevator, of Nic’s closeness to her, of her own heightened sense of the moment. Would he try and kiss her? She tensed, not knowing whether she wanted him to or not.

He made no move on her, however, just waited until she had opened her room door and was turning to bid him goodnight, finding it hard to take her eyes from him when she was this close to him.

His hand splayed against the doorjamb, enclosing her. ‘Thank you for tonight,’ he said. ‘It’s been good.’

There was a low note in his voice, a huskiness, and a smile—she could hear it, see the slight curve of his mouth, the dip of his long, long lashes over those blue, blue eyes. And then, while she was still gazing up at him, his mouth was lowering to hers.

It was a kiss like none she’d known. Slow, deliberate, and for one purpose only. To tell her what she could have if she chose to.

She gave herself to it, her eyelids fluttering closed, feeling her shoulders sag against the door, her hands slacken as her whole being became focussed on the sensation he was drawing from her.

It was like a kind of silken velvet, moving over her leisurely, tasting, exploring, taking his time. And then, without her even realising, he was deepening the kiss, easing her lips apart. Letting her taste, enjoy his tasting, enjoy what there was between them. What more there could be.

She felt arousal flare within her, more powerful than she had ever felt, more intense, more sensuous, and she yielded her willing mouth to his, feeling the pleasure of it until, it seemed like an age later, he was drawing back from her, gliding his mouth over her, skimming leisurely over her parted lips, a velvet withdrawal.

He lifted his head and her eyes fluttered open, looked into his gaze. So close...so very close to hers. She felt dazed, dizzy. He smiled, seeing her reaction to his kiss, liking it.

He stepped away, giving her a little space. ‘Goodnight, Doc Fran,’ he said, but there was intimacy in the way he said it. ‘Sleep well.’

She gave a reply, and then he was turning away, heading back down the corridor. She watched him reach the elevators. Felt dizziness inside her still.

Knew that whatever this man wanted of her she wanted it too.

* * *

Nic did not sleep well that night in the suite he’d reserved for himself at this, his latest multi-million-dollar acquisition. He lay sleepless, gazing at the shadowed ceiling, one arm crooked behind his head, feeling a mix of restlessness, satisfaction and anticipation.

Dio, but how he’d wanted to stay with her! That kiss had been like dipping his finger into a pot of honey to taste the sweetness, and it had told him she had found it just as pleasurable as he had. But it had also told him, just as every instinct since he’d first set eyes on her had told him, that she was not a woman to be hurried. She was no hedonistic party girl. She was a mature, highly intelligent woman, who would make her decision in her own time, in her own way, about indulging in a romance with him.

And if she did, as he burningly hoped she would, it would not be conducted here at the hotel. He liked it that to her he was not Nicolo Falcone, and if they stayed here it was bound to come out at some point. That encounter in the corridor had been a warning of that inevitability. No, better that they took off to somewhere he was not known, so that he was still simply Nic Rossi to her.

Nic Rossi—his birth name, abandoned so long ago, when he’d first set out to forge his glittering empire, echoed in his mind. It had been strange to use it again. As strange as remembering the way he’d revealed so much of his own deep feelings and his passionate beliefs to her in that very first conversation he’d had with her the previous night. His belief never to accept what life had dumped you with—to make someone new of yourself by effort and dedication and determination.

His thoughts moved on. Back to the familiar territory of his empire-building. He ran through his latest ambitions to launch a flagship hotel in Manhattan. It wouldn’t be easy, let alone cheap to achieve, but he’d do it in the end. He always did. Always. The determination to succeed in business never left him.

And to succeed on more pleasurable fronts too.

His thoughts went back to the breathtakingly beautiful, entrancing blonde, the oh-so-lovely Doc Fran, alone in her lonely bed—alone for one last night.

He smiled, anticipation filling him again.

* * *

‘Oh, wow!’ Fran breathed, her eyes widening at the sight appearing before them as the SUV gained the low brow of a hill, revealing what was beyond.

It was like something out of a sci-fi film—other-worldly—with a vast matrix of huge dish antennae, angled upwards to catch the faintest radio whisper of distant stars, each one set on rails for moving into precise position.

The whole place was perimeter-fenced, but they drove up to the visitor centre, where Fran identified herself as from her university and promptly got the attention of one of the technical staff to show them around.

Nic was as impressed as anyone would be by the engineering feats achieved, but understood scarcely a word of their erudite exchanges. He was content just to see how the animation in her face, the interest in her keen, intelligent eyes, only enhanced her beauty, her appeal to him.

As they finally left the array she was fulsome in her thanks. He gave her his slashing smile. ‘This morning was your treat—this afternoon is mine. But you’ll enjoy it, I promise you.’

She did, too—though she gasped breathlessly as Nic showed her just why it was his treat.

They drove on another forty miles or so to a reservoir lake with a water resort, where they lunched at a waterfront café. Then Nic led her out along the jetty and hired the leanest, meanest motorboat available.

And hit the accelerator.

Fran’s breath and speech were blown far behind her, her hair streaming, her hands clutching at the rails as the boat flew across the lake, the bow hitting the water’s surface as if it was concrete. Italian words broke from her—and she heard Nic laugh, realised he could understand her expletives, and her description of him as a certifiable maniac who would kill them both.

‘No way! You’re safe as a baby!’ he yelled at her, in the same language, his face alight with laughter.

He bombed across the width of the lake, slewing around in a huge arcing curve of water that caught the sun’s rays in a million rainbows before racing back towards the jetty again.

Within reach of it he slowed and turned to Fran. Her hair was a wild tangle, her eyes alight with laughter. Nic let his arm slide around her shoulder and pulled her against him.

‘Fun?’ he asked.

He didn’t really have to ask. It was visible in her face.

She let her head rest on his shoulder, feeling it strong beneath her cheek. ‘Most fun ever,’ she said.

‘Happy to please you,’ he said, and dropped a kiss on her forehead.

Such a slight gesture, such a slight tightening of his arm around her... They sat beside each other, his other hand on the wheel, guiding the boat lightly on the water as if he were Cesare on one of his thoroughbreds.

Fran’s eyes flickered slightly, and she wondered why, of all things, she was thinking of Cesare now.

Nic saw it, saw her expression change. ‘What is it?’ he asked quietly.

She looked at him, easing away a little, but not freeing herself. ‘I’m thinking of the man I nearly married,’ she said.

Nic stilled. It was impossible to think of her married, or even engaged—taken by another man. Not when he wanted her himself so much.

‘What happened?’ he heard his voice asking. He heard the tension in it, but didn’t know why it was there.

‘I broke it off,’ she said. ‘I’d just been offered a research post out on the West Coast, working with a Nobel Laureate, and I couldn’t resist it. And I was pretty sure,’ she added slowly, ‘that Cesare was involved with someone else anyway.’

‘Then he was nuts,’ said Nic bluntly. ‘Nuts to prefer someone else to you.’

She gave a little laugh. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But he and I...we never—well, you know. It wasn’t an affair that we had. It was a—Well, I guess a kind of expectation. We’d known each other all our lives. It would have worked, him and me.’

‘Cesare?’ mused Nic, registering the Italian name, which she’d pronounced in the Italian way. ‘So—back in the old country?’

‘Very much so,’ she said dryly, thinking of just how sizeable a chunk of ‘the old country’ Cesare’s estates covered.

Nic eased the throttle again. He didn’t want to know any more about the guy that she’d nearly married and hadn’t. Right now he wanted to be the only male in her vision, her thoughts.

Her desires.

At a much slower pace he nosed the boat forward again, keeping his arm around Fran, where he wanted it to be.

‘Let’s see what’s at the far end of the lake,’ he said.

* * *

The sun was lowering by the time they handed the boat in. Nic turned to her. Her hair was still windblown, her skin sun-kissed even with sun-block. She looked effortlessly lovely.

‘What next?’ he asked.

His eyes were light on her, the question in his voice putting the decision in her hands. The choice of what was to happen—or not—between them now.

Fran’s expression flickered. ‘It’s a long way back to the Falcone,’ she observed. ‘Maybe too far?’ Her glance went to the resort motel that was set back on a low bluff.

‘Not in the Falcone league,’ Nic said, ‘but it looks passable.’

He kept his voice neutral, not wanting to show his satisfaction that she was indicating they should stay there together. As he so wanted.

Fran gave a wry smile. ‘There speaks a loyal employee of the famous Falcone chain!’ she answered lightly.

Then she nodded, as if making a silent decision for herself. Maybe thinking about Cesare, talking about him, had confirmed her feelings. Told her that whatever it was that was happening between her and Nic, she wanted it to happen.

‘OK...’ She took a breath. ‘Let’s go for it.’

Even so, she booked separate rooms at Reception—and not just because anything else might have seemed too...obvious. She definitely needed a bathroom and a bedroom entirely to herself—her wind-tangled hair and water-splashed day-worn clothes were a disaster.

Gratefully spotting a small retail outlet, inset into the lobby, she plunged in.

It was a good hour before she was ready to meet Nic in the motel’s bar. As he rose to greet her, she laughed.

‘Snap!’

They had both, it seemed, availed themselves of the retail outlet’s offerings—and not just shampoo and toiletries for her, and a razor for him. They were both now wearing tee shirts bearing the name of the lake, Fran’s in pink and Nic’s in blue.

But where Nic was making do with the chinos he’d been wearing all day, Fran had found a wraparound cotton skirt in white seersucker that floated gracefully to mid-calf to replace her water-stained Bermuda shorts. Her newly washed hair tumbled over her shoulders, and her only make-up was a touch of mascara and lip gloss.

She knew Nic’s eyes were warm upon her.

But then, hers were warm on him, too. He was cleanly shaven, damp hair feathering at the nape of his neck, and the deep blue tee shirt matched his eyes and lovingly moulded his torso. But he was no muscle-bound Adonis. That innate air of Italian style he possessed was overwhelming—the kind of automatic male display that she was used to seeing in her countrymen. It was not vanity, or showing off, but it came instinctively to them.

‘You look so Italian,’ she heard herself say as they took their happy hour cocktails over to a table looking out across the darkening lake. She studied his face consideringly. ‘I wonder where the blue eyes come from? Some Norman ancestor way back...rampaging through the peninsula to make a kingdom for themselves?’

Nic thought about it and liked the idea. He’d made his own kingdom—the Falcone kingdom—deliberately choosing that new name for himself because it made him want to fly high, swoop down on his prey, fly ever higher.

‘What about your grey eyes and blonde hair?’ he asked in return. ‘Are they from your English mother?’

She nodded, not wishing to elaborate about her parentage, aware that she did not want to bring that side of her into what was happening now. Here, with Nic, she was ‘Doc Fran’—she smiled inwardly at his amusedly bestowed moniker—and that was all she wanted to be.

The fact that her mother, Lady Emma, would consider it incomprehensible that her daughter might want to take off as she had with someone who worked in hotel security was irrelevant to her. Her whole other identity, as Donna Francesca, was also irrelevant, as it always was when she was here in the USA, whether it was in her university department, or now, here, with Nic.

And Nic was—well, just Nic. And she didn’t want him any other way. He had a strength to him, a quality to his character that was as evident as his physical strength. It lay beneath the casual, laid-back attitude—a sure knowledge of his own worth, but without any need to display it. She liked him all the more for it.

He was asking her, now, how she had become an astrophysicist, and she answered readily.