Читать книгу Modern Romance Collection: November 2017 Books 1 - 4 - Эбби Грин, Julia James - Страница 16

CHAPTER SIX

GOLDEN SUNLIGHT DANCED on her closed eyelids and warmed her skin as Keira nestled back into the comfortable lounger. The only sounds she could hear were birdsong and the buzz of bees and, in the far distance, the crowing of a cock—even though it was the middle of the day. Hard to believe she’d left behind a rain-washed English autumn to arrive in a country where it was still warm enough to sit outside in October. And even harder to believe that she was at Matteo Valenti’s Umbrian estate, with its acres of olive groves, award-winning vineyards and breathtaking views over mountains and lake. In his private jet, he’d announced he was bringing her here, to his holiday home, to ‘acclimatise’ herself before he introduced her to his real life in Rome. She hadn’t been sure what he meant by that but she’d been too exhausted to raise any objections. She’d been here a week and much of that time had been spent asleep, or making sure that Santino was content. It felt like being transplanted to a luxury spa cleverly hidden within a rustic setting—with countless people working quietly in the background to maintain the estate’s smooth running.

At first she’d been too preoccupied with the practical elements of settling in with her baby to worry about the emotional repercussions of being there. She’d worried about the little things, like how Matteo would react when he discovered she wasn’t feeding Santino herself. Whether he would judge her negatively, as the whole world seemed to do if a woman couldn’t manage to breastfeed. Was that why, in a rare moment of candour, she’d found herself explaining how ill she’d been after the birth—which meant breastfeeding hadn’t been possible? She thought she’d glimpsed a brief softening of the granite-like features before his rugged features resumed their usual implacable mask.

‘It will be easier that way,’ he’d said, with a shrug. ‘Easier for the nursery nurse.’

How cold he could be, she thought. Even if he was right. Because despite her earlier resistance, she was now hugely appreciative of the nursery nurse they’d employed. The very day after they’d arrived, he had produced three candidates for her to interview—top-notch women who had graduated from Italy’s finest training establishment and who all spoke fluent English. After asking them about a million questions—but more importantly watching to see how well they interacted with her baby—Keira had chosen Claudia, a serene woman in her mid-thirties whom she instinctively trusted. It meant Keira got all the best bits of being a mother—cuddling and bathing her adorable son and making goo-goo noises at him as she walked him around the huge estate—while Claudia took over the dreaded three o’clock morning feed.

Which meant she could catch up with the sleep she so badly needed. She’d felt like a complete zombie when she arrived—a fact not helped by the disorientating experience of being flown to Italy on Matteo’s luxury jet then being picked up by the kind of limousine which only a year ago she would have been chauffeuring. The drive to his Umbrian property had passed in a blur and Keira remembered thinking that the only time emotion had entered Matteo’s voice was when they drove through the ancient gates and he began to point out centuries-old landmarks, with an unmistakable sense of pride and affection.

She almost wished Santino had been a little older so he could have appreciated the silvery ripple of olive trees, heavy with fruit and ready for harvest, and the golden pomegranates which hung from the branches like Christmas baubles. She remembered being greeted by a homely housekeeper named Paola and the delicious hot bath she took once the baby had been settled. There had been the blissful sensation of sliding between crisp, clean sheets and laying her head on a pillow of goose-down, followed by her first full night’s sleep since before the birth. And that was pretty much how she’d spent the last seven days, feeling her vitality and strength returning with each hour that passed.

‘You’re smiling,’ came a richly accented voice from above her as a shadow suddenly blotted out the sun.

Shielding her eyes with the edge of her hand, Keira peered up to see Matteo towering over her and her smile instantly felt as if it had become frozen. She could feel her heart picking up speed and the tug of silken hunger in the base of her belly and silently she cursed the instinctive reaction of her body. Because as her strength had returned, so too had her desire for Matteo—a man who she couldn’t quite decide was her jailer or her saviour. Or both.

Their paths hadn’t crossed much because he’d spent much of the time working in a distant part of the enormous farmhouse. It was as if he’d unconsciously marked out different territories for them, with clear demarcation lines which couldn’t be crossed. But what she’d noted above all else was the fact that he’d kept away from the nursery, using the excuse that his son needed to settle in before getting used to too many new people. Because that was what it had sounded like. An excuse. A reason not to touch the son he had insisted should come here.

She’d seen him, of course. Glimpses in passing, which had unsettled her. Matteo looking brooding and muscular in faded denims and a shirt as he strode about the enormous estate, conversing in rapid Italian with his workers—or wearing a knockout charcoal suit just before driving to Rome for the day and returning long after she’d gone to bed.

Another image was burnt vividly into her mind, too. She’d overslept one morning and gone straight to the nursery to find Claudia cradling Santino by the window and telling him to watch ‘Papa’ going down the drive. Papa. It was a significant word. It emphasised Matteo’s importance in their lives yet brought home how little she really knew about the cold-hearted billionaire. Yet that hadn’t stopped her heart from missing a beat as he’d speeded out of the estate in his gleaming scarlet sports car, had it?

‘It makes me realise how rarely I see you smile,’ observed Matteo, still looking down at her as he stood silhouetted by the rich October sun.

‘Maybe that’s because we’ve hardly seen one another,’ said Keira, flipping on the sunglasses which had been perched on top of her head, grateful for the way they kept her expression hidden. Not for the first time, she found it almost impossible to look at the man in front of her with any degree of impartiality, but she disguised it with a cool look. ‘And you’re a fine one to talk about smiling. You don’t exactly go around the place grinning from ear to ear, do you?’

‘Perhaps our forthcoming trip to Rome might bring a smile to both our faces,’ he suggested silkily.

Ah yes, the trip to Rome. Keira felt the anxious slam of her heart. She licked her lips. ‘I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Do we really have to go?’

In a movement which distractingly emphasised the jut of his narrow hips, he leaned against the sun-baked wall of the farmhouse. ‘We’ve agreed to this, Keira. You need to see the other side of my life, not just this rural idyll. And I’m mainly based in Rome.’

‘And the difference is what?’

‘It’s a high-octane city and nothing like as relaxed as here. When I’m there I go to restaurants and theatres. I have friends there and get invited to parties—and as the mother of my baby, I will be taking you with me.’

She sat up on the lounger, anxiety making her heart thud even harder against her ribcage. ‘Why bother? Why not just leave me somewhere in the background and concentrate on forming a relationship with your son?’

‘I think we have to examine all the possibilities,’ he said carefully. ‘And number one on that list is to work out whether we could have some kind of life together.’ He lifted his brows. ‘It would certainly make things a whole lot easier.’

‘And you’re saying I’ll let you down in my current state, is that it?’

He shrugged his broad shoulders with a carelessness which wasn’t very convincing. ‘I think we’re both aware that you don’t have a suitable wardrobe for that kind of lifestyle. You can’t wear jeans all the time and Paola mentioned that you only seem to have one pair of boots.’

‘So Paola’s been spying on me, has she?’ Keira questioned, her voice dipping with disappointment that the genial housekeeper seemed to have been taking her inventory.

‘Don’t be absurd. She was going to clean them for you and couldn’t find any others you could wear in the meantime.’

Keira scrambled up off the lounger and stared into his hard and beautiful features. He really came from a totally different planet, didn’t he? One which was doubtless inhabited by women who had boots in every colour of the rainbow and not just a rather scuffed brown pair she’d bought in the sales. ‘So don’t take me with you,’ she said flippantly. ‘Leave me behind while you go out to all your fancy places and I can stay home and look after Santino, wearing my solitary pair of boots.’

A flicker of a smile touched the corners of his lips, but just as quickly it was gone. ‘That isn’t an option, I’m afraid,’ he said smoothly. ‘You’re going to have to meet people. Not just my friends and the people who work for me, but my father and stepmother at some point. And my stepbrother,’ he finished, his mouth twisting before his gaze fixed her with its ebony blaze. ‘The way you look at the moment means you won’t fit in. Not anywhere,’ he continued brutally. ‘And there’s the chance that people will talk about you if you behave like some kind of hermit, which won’t make things easy for you. Apart from anything else, we need to learn more about each other.’ He hesitated. ‘We are parents, with a child and a future to consider. We need to discuss the options open to us and that won’t be possible if we continue to be strangers to one another.’

‘You haven’t bothered coming near me since we got here,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve been keeping your distance, haven’t you?’

‘Can you blame me? You were almost on your knees with exhaustion when you arrived.’ He paused as his eyes swept over her again. ‘But you look like a different person now.’

Keira was taken aback by the way her body responded to that slow scrutiny, wondering how he could make her feel so many different things, simply by looking at her. And if that was the case, shouldn’t she be protecting herself from his persuasive power over her, instead of going on a falsely intimate trip to Rome?

‘I told you. I don’t want to leave the baby,’ she said stubbornly.

‘Is that what’s known as playing your trump card?’ he questioned softly. ‘Making me out to be some cruel tyrant who’s dragging you away from your child?’

‘He’s only little! Not that you’d know, of course.’ She paused and lifted her chin. ‘You’ve hardly gone near him.’

Matteo acknowledged the unmistakable challenge in her voice and he felt a sudden chill ice his skin, despite the warmth of the October day. How audacious of her to interrogate him about his behaviour when her own had hardly been exemplary. By her keeping Santino’s existence secret he had been presented with a baby, instead of having time to get used to the idea that he was to become a father.

Yet her pointed remark about his lack of interaction struck home, because what she said was true. He had kept his distance from Santino, telling himself that these things could not be rushed and needed time. And she had no right to demand anything of him, he thought bitterly. He would do things according to his agenda, not hers.

‘Rome isn’t far,’ he said coolly. ‘It is exactly two hundred kilometres. And I have a car constantly on standby.’

‘Funnily enough that’s something I do remember—being at your beck and call!’

‘Then you will know there’s no problem,’ he said drily. ‘Particularly as my driver is solid and reliable and not given to taking off to remote areas of the countryside in adverse weather conditions.’

‘Very funny,’ she said.

‘We can be back here in an hour and a half should the need arise. We’ll leave here at ten tomorrow morning—and be back early the next day. Less than twenty-four hours in the eternal city.’ He gave a faintly cynical laugh. ‘Don’t women usually go weak at the knees at the prospect of an unlimited budget to spend on clothes?’

‘Some women, maybe,’ she said. ‘Not me.’

But Keira’s stubbornness was more than her determination not to become a rich man’s doll. She didn’t know about fashion—and the thought of what she might be expected to wear scared her. Perhaps if she’d been less of a tomboy, she might have flicked through glossy magazines like other women her age. She might have had some idea of what did and didn’t suit her and would now be feeling a degree of excitement instead of dread. Fear suddenly became defiance and she glared at him.

‘You are the bossiest man I’ve ever met!’ she declared, pushing a handful of hair over her shoulder.

‘And you are the most difficult woman I’ve ever encountered,’ he countered. ‘A little gratitude might go down well now and again.’

What, gratitude for his high-handedness and for making her feel stuff she’d rather not feel? Keira shook her head in frustration as she tugged her T-shirt down over her straining jeans.

‘I’ll be ready at ten,’ she said, and went off to find Santino.

She put the baby in his smart new buggy to take him for a walk around the estate, slowly becoming aware that the weather had changed. The air had grown heavy and sultry and heavy clouds were beginning to accumulate on the horizon, like gathering troops. When eventually they returned to the farmhouse, Santino took longer than usual to settle for his sleep and Keira was feeling out of sorts when Paola came to ask whether she would be joining Signor Valenti for dinner that evening.

It was the first time she’d received such an invitation and Keira hesitated for a moment before declining. Up until now, she’d eaten her supper alone or with Claudia and she saw no reason to change that routine. She was going to be stuck with Matteo in Rome when clearly they were going to have to address some of the issues confronting them. Why waste conversation during a stilted dinner she had no desire to eat, especially when the atmosphere felt so close and heavy?

Fanning her face with her hand, she showered before bed but her skin still felt clammy, even after she’d towelled herself dry. Peering up into the sky, she thought she saw a distant flash of lightning through the thick curtain of clouds. She closed the shutters and brushed her hair before climbing into bed, but sleep stubbornly eluded her. She wished the occasional growl of thunder would produce the threatened rain and break some of the tension in the atmosphere and was just drifting off into an uneasy sleep when her wish came true. A loud clap of thunder echoed through the room and made her sit bolt upright in bed. There was a loud whoosh and heavy rain began to hurl down outside her window and quickly she got up and crept into Santino’s room but, to her surprise, the baby was sound asleep.

How did he manage to do that? she thought enviously—feeling even more wide awake than before. She sighed as she went back to bed and the minutes ticked by, and all she could think about was how grim she was going to look, with dark shadowed eyes and a pasty face. Another clap of thunder made her decide that a warm drink might help relax her. And wasn’t there a whole stack of herb teas in the kitchen?

To the loud tattoo of drumming rain, she crept downstairs to the kitchen with its big, old-fashioned range and lines of shiny copper pots hanging in a row. She switched on some low lighting and not for the first time found herself wistfully thinking how homely it looked—and how it was unlike any place she had imagined the urbane Matteo Valenti would own.

She had just made herself a cup of camomile tea when she heard a sound behind her and she jumped, her heart hammering as loudly as the rain as she turned to see Matteo standing framed in the doorway. He was wearing nothing but a pair of faded denims, which were clinging almost indecently to his long and muscular thighs. His mouth was unsmiling but there was a gleam in his coal-dark eyes, which made awareness drift uncomfortably over her skin and suddenly Keira began to shiver uncontrollably, her nipples tightening beneath her nightshirt.