Читать книгу One Night In… - Кейт Хьюит, Оливия Гейтс - Страница 39

‘BETTER?’ asked Fliss with a grin as Anna emerged, pink-cheeked and wrapped in a towel, from her en suite bathroom.

‘Much. The facilities in the Belle-Eden pinewoods aren’t exactly five star,’ Anna replied, vigorously towelling her hair. ‘I’ve spent the last week hallucinating about hot baths and scented oils.’

Fliss opened the mini-bar and took out a couple of tiny bottles of Chablis. ‘I’m so glad you decided to come tonight,’ she said, unscrewing the tops and handing one to Anna before raising hers and taking a swig. ‘Here’s to Angelo Emiliani and whatever he did to make you change your mind.’ Picking up a paperback and a bathrobe, she headed towards the bathroom and waved a hand airily around the room before she disappeared. ‘Help yourself. Make-up, clothes, whatever—although I do have a dress in mind for you. I bought it because it was so lovely I couldn’t leave it in the shop, but in all honesty it makes my boobs look like over-inflated balloons.’

‘That’s a bad thing?’

‘Yep. Believe me. On you it’ll look sensational.’ Blowing a kiss, she vanished into the steam and shut the door.

Left alone, Anna sank on to the enormous bed and thought about what Fliss had just said.

Here’s to Angelo Emiliani and whatever he did to make you change your mind.

But that was just it. He hadn’t had to do anything. Just his presence down there in the lobby had been enough, and she had to admit that even his absence was pretty potent too. Throwing herself backwards on to the bed with a hungry moan, she gave in to the thoughts that had flitted distractingly though her head all evening, conjuring his face in her mind’s eye, hearing the low rasp of his voice. Her body, still hot and damp from the bath, throbbed, reminding her of her forbidden feelings with devastating honesty. Trailing trembling, hesitant fingers down over her midriff, she imagined his touch …

There was a knock at the door.

Guiltily she snatched her hand away. Leaping up, she ran across the room, re-wrapping the towel tightly around herself and dragging a shaking hand through her damp hair. Breathlessly, aware of the blush creeping up her throat, she pulled the door open.

‘Yes? Oh! Oh. You.’

He was leaning against the door-frame, casually, menacingly. Smiling, but there was a dark glitter in his eyes that made her take a step backwards.

Dimly she heard Fliss’s voice drifting out from behind the closed door of the bathroom. ‘Who is it?’

‘It’s OK,’ she called back shakily, ‘I’ve got it.’

He made no move, but raised an eyebrow. ‘Am I disturbing anything?’

Yes! How about my sanity and my sense of self-respect for a start?

‘No. What do you want?’

Oh, God. Did that sound how she thought it sounded? As if she might as well have said, Would you like to have sex with me? He shifted position slightly, straightening up, dipping his head, looking at her from under his long eyelashes in a way that made her feel the towel had just dissolved.

‘Well. There are a number of answers to that question. The politest would be “dinner”.’

‘I can’t. I told you. I’m going out. How did you find me?’

‘I asked for your room number at Reception.’

Anna felt her heart plummet. Oh, help. She had a lot of explaining to do to Fliss. Or to him. Should she just come clean now?

But he had already turned and, slinging his jacket over one shoulder, started walking away along the corridor. Spinning back to face her, he shrugged and gave her a half-smile.

‘Oh, well. It was worth one more try.’

Don’t go! she wanted to shout, as the blood sang in her veins and her hormones cried out for her to follow him. He didn’t turn back. She watched him disappear around the corner and then, shutting the door, slumped against it.

He was the man who was supposed to get everything he wanted, she thought despairingly—so why hadn’t he persisted?

She let out a small cry of frustration. Because he hadn’t wanted her enough.

Rounding the corner Angelo felt his hands harden into fists at his sides.

It seemed she had been telling the truth after all, and his instincts had been wrong. She was Felicity Hanson-Brooks, and she was staying in one of the most over-priced hotels on the Riviera, which was hardly the kind of accommodation one would associate with a committed eco-warrior.

He gave a small shrug. At least he’d found out now rather than taking any further trouble over her. Now he could forget all about her and get on with the deal.

‘It’s just as well we’ve been best friends since the dawn of time.’ Fliss sighed enviously. ‘If not I’d hate you. I knew it would look great on you—I just didn’t realize how great.’

Distractedly Anna fingered the gossamer-fine oyster-coloured silk. She had submitted to Fliss’s ministrations without a murmur, but all the time her head had been elsewhere. With Angelo. Wondering what would have happened if she’d said yes …

Forcing herself reluctantly back to reality, she managed a dazed smile. ‘It’s a fabulous dress. Thanks, Fliss. I’ll just have to try very hard not to think about the millions of silkworms that died to make it.’

Fliss gave her a warning look. ‘Good, because I’m sure that each and every one of them is up in heaven now agreeing that it was worth the sacrifice. Just look at yourself.’

Slowly Anna met her reflection in the full-length mirror. Gone was the smoky-eyed wild child. In her place stood a sophisticated society girl. The dress was short, a sort of baby doll style that managed to look demure while also being almost indecently sexy. The pearly silk fell in softly gathered folds from a yoke that reached just to the top of her breasts, and everything about her gleamed, from the tiny clusters of beads and crystals on the short bodice at the top of the dress to the little sequinned slip of a scarf Fliss had wound around her throat.

How could she look so smooth, so polished while underneath she was on fire?

She breathed out slowly, wondering how long the dizzying cocktail of hormones was going to keep pumping through her body.

Her hair, newly washed and straightened, hung in a dark silken curtain over her shoulders with no sign of the pink streaks beneath. She gave her head a little shake to reassure herself that they were still there, and flicked up the dress to see her denim hotpants underneath.

‘You can’t wear those, Anna! They’ll spoil the line of the dress!’

‘They’re fine. I might go to the beach party later on, and I can hardly wear this there. The GreenPlanet guys wouldn’t recognize me. I don’t recognize me.’

‘Excellent. That was the general idea.’ Going over to the wardrobe, Fliss selected a shoe box from the stack on the floor. ‘Try these.’

Inside was a pair of high-heeled sandals consisting simply of two slim diamanté bands. The room seemed to go very still for a moment as Anna looked down at them. When she lifted her head again her face was bleak.

‘I can’t wear them, Fliss. They’re too high.’

‘Ah. Then we have a problem. You know me and shoes—I don’t do flat. You couldn’t manage just for one evening?’

Anna shook her head. ‘My ankle won’t hold up in that position. The surgeon who operated was pretty clear about that. But thanks anyway.’

For a moment the two of them looked at each other in mute sadness, then Anna managed a watery smile.

‘Oh, well, I’ll just have to go barefoot. It’s exactly the kind of stupid thing people expect me to do. You know how I hate to disappoint.’

They could hear the thud of the music long before they reached the party. As the lift plummeted downwards towards the basement nightclub the hot evening air vibrated with rhythm and with sensual promise, until the lift doors opened and the full impact of the party atmosphere was unleashed.

‘Come on!’ yelled Fliss, dragging her into the mass of sweating bodies. ‘Let’s dance!’

A problem with the bones in her ankle may have put paid to Anna’s ballet career but it hadn’t stopped her from dancing. The music was loud and pulsating, a wailing cacophony of guitar and drum that seeped into her spine and turned her bones to jelly. Smiling into Fliss’s eyes, she tried to lose herself in the noise and movement.

But it was as if he were there with her. Every time she raked her hands into her hair and lifted it from her hot neck, in her head she was inviting the touch of his lips; every thrust of her hips in time to the throb of the music was wishful fantasy …

‘Anna! Anna!’

She opened her eyes, dazed by yearning. Fliss stood in front of her, grinning. ‘I need a drink!’

Anna stumbled after her through the crush, out into the relative quiet of the bar. Fliss came to an abrupt halt and cursed quietly. ‘Uh-oh,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Quick. Turn round.’

Too late.

Coming towards them was a blonde in a tiny silver dress with waist-length platinum hair.

‘Hi, Saskia!’ said Fliss. ‘You look great!’

Saskia inclined her head in silent agreement, but said, ‘Oh, I feel dreadful. I haven’t had a full night’s sleep since we’ve been down here—too many parties. But you look marvellous, darling.’ Kissing the air beside Fliss’s left cheek, Saskia’s eyes slid round to Anna and swept over her coldly. ‘And what’s this? Roberto Cavalli?’

‘You were never the sharpest tool in the box, Saskia, but I’d have thought that even you could remember my name after five years in the same class at school,’ Anna muttered.

‘The dress. It’s Roberto Cavalli.’ Anna remembered that sly, insinuating tone so well. ‘How kind of Fliss to lend it to you.’

Anna’s chin shot up. ‘How do you know it isn’t mine?’

Saskia laughed. ‘A Cavalli? Out of your league, Delafield. I hear that Ifford Park is having to throw itself open to parties of schoolchildren again this year. Sad, really.’

Noticing the storm clouds gathering in Anna’s eyes, Fliss stepped in quickly.

‘Love the hair, Saskia! It looks astonishingly real.’

Saskia looked smug. ‘It is real. Swedish, apparently. Feel. The Sunday Tribune paid for it. I heard that they asked you to do that article too, Anna. Pity they didn’t devote a bit more of the budget to you. But then—’ she paused, flicking one long, sugary-pink acrylic nail ‘—I suppose you should think yourself pretty lucky you were asked to do it at all as it’s an article about the daughters of the aristocracy. Trade Descriptions Act, and all that.’

The colour drained from Anna’s face and beside her Fliss gave a shocked gasp.

‘Anyway, must go. So many eligible bachelors to dance with, so little time. Enjoy the party, darlings.’ She gave a little smirk as she teetered off and then turned back, her long hair swishing out like a pale vampire’s cloak.

‘Isn’t it your birthday any day soon, Anna? I think I remember that it was pretty close to mine.’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you having a party this year? Do let me know if you are—I’d love to come.’

‘Oh, she is such a cow. Anna! Wait!’

Fliss’s voice reached Anna over the heads of the crowd as she pushed her way through but she didn’t slow down. She knew it was stupid to let Saskia’s barbed comments upset her, but as usual they had flown with unerring accuracy right to her rawest nerve.

She had been stupid to come.

Flinging herself through an unmarked door, she found herself in the merciful quiet of a dimly lit corridor. Heart hammering, she leaned back against the scarlet damask-covered wall and closed her eyes, waiting for the demons that snapped at her heels to retreat.

A moment later Fliss appeared, her face creased with concern.

‘I’m sorry, Anna. I’d forgotten how poisonous she is. Or how jealous of you.’

‘Jealous?’ Anna gave a harsh laugh. ‘I doubt it. She’s mummy and daddy’s little princess, rich and spoiled and pampered. What on earth has she got to be jealous of me for? I’m nothing. Nobody. As she likes to remind me whenever we meet.’

Gently Fliss took her arm. ‘Don’t. Come on. Let’s go and get that drink. We may as well get tipsy at her expense.’

‘No.’ Anna pulled away. ‘I’d rather drink cyanide. And I’m not going back in there either. Sorry, Fliss. I’m going to head back to the château—but I really should go and change out of this dress first.’

Fliss shook her head. ‘It’s fine. Keep it—it was pretty much made for you. Are you sure you’ll be all right?’

‘Absolutely.’ Anna looked around for a way out. Several doors led off the dingy corridor and she made for the nearest one. ‘Get back to the party and I’ll call you soon.’

Without looking back, Anna pushed open the door and slipped through.

The room she found herself standing in was dark and smelled of cigar smoke and maleness spiked with excitement. And danger.

She’d found the casino.

Recklessly she strode forward, any hesitancy driven away by the adrenalin rush of fury and the persistent, painful drumbeat of desire in the cradle of her pelvis.

The beat of the music from the party was just discernible, but in here all was hushed. At the tables men in dinner jackets eyed each other through clouds of cigar smoke and spoke only when necessary. Standing behind them, women in evening dresses looked on, mentally spending the money their partners were winning or watching their plans evaporate in a disappointing hand, a luckless spin of the wheel. Their mask-like painted faces gave nothing away.

The tension in the air matched Anna’s own pent-up feelings. Taking a glass of champagne from the tray held out by a waiter, she walked slowly past the roulette tables, trailing a hand along the backs of the velvet-upholstered chairs. She paused. A croupier was swiftly and impassively raking piles of chips off the emerald baize and Anna watched, fascinated, as the men seated around the table replaced them with more. The numbing warmth of the champagne started to steal down inside her, obliterating the pain of Saskia’s venom.

‘Any more bets?’

There was a further flurry of activity. In the halo of light cast by the Tiffany lamp hanging low over the table Anna could see beads of sweat breaking out on foreheads as men moved innocuous-looking piles of chips around.

How much money was represented on that table? she wondered idly. Enough to secure the future of the château?

She felt horribly restless.

The glass of champagne in her hand was deliciously cool against her feverish skin and she pressed it to her cheek, but it couldn’t damp the fire that seemed to smoulder somewhere deep inside her. The back of her neck fizzed and tingled, each hair seeming to respond to some invisible stimulus, and she turned round.

He was standing a few feet away from her, the bright pool of light from one of the low-hanging lamps over the roulette table falling on his mane of dark blond hair and turning it into a halo of gold. One hand was thrust into his pocket, the other was loosely around the slender waist of an obscenely elegant blonde in a scarlet dress. Completely at ease, squinting through the smoke with narrowed eyes, he looked like a particularly wicked fallen angel—beautiful, but menacing. And utterly compelling. The expensively groomed, formally dressed men around him seemed like shadows, or bit players in the presence of his raw, charismatic sexuality.

She heard her own unsteady breath, felt the panicky race of her heart and the searing wild-fire heat of desire scorching through her veins.

And then he looked up.

Angelo drained his glass of champagne and forced himself to focus on the game.

It was one of those nights when he could do no wrong, and the chips on his side of the table were amassing at a rate that had the other men around the table sweating with fear. But he was bored.

When winning came too easily it was time to look elsewhere for excitement.

The man at the head of the table held up his hands in defeat and moved away as the croupier moved his depleted pile of chips away from him. His departure caused a little ripple of unease to go around the table, and the space he had left was not filled.

Angelo looked down at the table. Everyone else was playing cautiously now, and he idly considered walking away and leaving them while they still had something. But the black dog of his old despair was shadowing him and he knew he would keep going. Keep playing. Keep pushing himself to feel something.

Anything.

‘Place your bets now, gentlemen, please.’

There was a rush of last-minute activity around the table as everyone placed their chips.

The blonde pouted and placed a perfectly manicured hand on one silk lapel. ‘Chéri? Rouge, I think this time, don’t you?’

A smile lifted one corner of Angelo’s mouth, but his narrowed eyes were as blank and expressionless as ever. He looked down, moving a towering pile of chips across the baize, pausing as he reached the solitary green marker. Considering.

Green.

The stack of coloured counters represented several hundreds of thousands of pounds, but around them his hands were perfectly steady. Green. It would be like making a bet with himself that he hadn’t been wrong about her or who she really was. The odds might be outrageously, overwhelmingly against him, but there was a spark in the dark, dark, self-destructive heart of him that urged him onwards. The money was easily dispensable, easily replaceable …

It wasn’t about the money.

It was about the danger. It was about that girl.

For a brief second Angelo closed his eyes and allowed himself to imagine the adrenalin rush of taking such a wild gamble— like a shot of alcohol on an empty stomach—astringent, invigorating, intoxicating. Even to lose would be something. Would make him feel something.

A sting.

Pleasure-pain.

Anything.

Opening his eyes again, he caught a flash of movement at the corner of his eye.

In the space left by the departed player, a shadow had fallen across the table. Cast by the light from the low lamps, it showed a woman’s silhouette—the sweep of her shoulder, the curve and swell of a breast that, even though it was only two-dimensional shades of grey made him want to brush it with his fingers.

Her perfume was infinitely subtle, but he picked it up instinctively, like an animal on the scent of its prey. Or its mate. That scent of darkness vibrated like a low note inside his head, drowning out the shriller, sweeter, more sickly perfume of the blonde girl beside him.

Slowly he lifted his head.

Like heat-seeking missiles his eyes found hers, his gaze searing through the space that separated them. His expression remained absolutely still as his eyes travelled over her, taking in her perfect poise, the elegance of the pearlescent dress, the dark silken fall of her hair, stripping them away to try to find traces of the trembling, rebellious girl he knew lay beneath.

And then he noticed her bare brown feet.

Sensation struck him like a punch in the solar plexus. Sharp, breathtaking. Surprising.

A ripple of impatience went around the table and vaguely he was aware of the other players waiting. The croupier hesitated. ‘Monsieur?’

‘No. I’m out. Settle my account, please.’ The croupier nodded respectfully and Angelo felt the blonde at his elbow wilt with disappointment. He didn’t care.

He was fed up with playing, fed up with winning. He wanted the next challenge.

But when he looked up she was gone.