Vettori's Damsel in Distress (Harlequin Romance Large Print) (3 page)

‘Il bagno...’
she said brightly, making an effort to think in Italian as she followed him. Making an effort to think.

His
bagno
would, in estate agent speak, have been described as a ‘roomy vintage-style’ bathroom. In this case she was pretty certain the fittings—a stately roll-top bath with claw feet and gleaming brass taps, a loo with a high tank and a wide, deep washbasin—were the real deal.

‘I’ll shut the door so that you can put the kitten down,’ he said, and the roominess shrank in direct proportion to the width of his shoulders as he shut the door. ‘He can’t escape.’

‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ she said as, carefully unhooking the creature’s claws from the front of her dress, she set it down in the bath. ‘And if it went under the
bagno
...’ She left him to imagine what fun it would be trying to tempt him out.

Dante glanced down as the kitten, a tiny front paw resting against the steep side of the bath, protested at this indignity. ‘Smart thinking.’

‘When you’ve taken a room apart looking for a kitten that’s managed to squeeze through a crack in the skirting board,’ she told him, ‘you learn to keep them confined.’

‘You live an interesting life, Angelica Amery,’ he said, watching as she attempted to slip the buttons at her wrist without getting blood on her dress.

‘Isn’t that a curse in China?’ she asked.

‘I believe that would be “May you live in interesting times”,’ he said, ‘but you’ll forgive me if I say that you don’t dress like a woman in search of a quiet life.’

‘Well, you know what they say,’ she replied. ‘Life is short. Eat ice cream every day.’

A smile deepened the lines bracketing his mouth, fanned out from his eyes. ‘What “they” would that be?’

‘More of an “it”, actually. It’s Rosie, our vintage ice cream van. In her
Little Book of Ice Cream
.’ He looked confused—who wouldn’t? ‘Of course she has a vested interest.’

‘Right...’

‘It’s the sentiment that matters, Dante. You can substitute whatever lifts your spirits. Chocolate? Cherries?’ No response. ‘Cheese?’ she offered, hoping to make him laugh. Or at least smile.

‘Permesso?’
He indicated her continuing struggle with shaky fingers and fiddly buttons.

Okay, it wasn’t that funny and, giving up on the buttons, she surrendered her hand.
‘Prego.’

He carefully unfastened the loops holding the cuff together, folded the sleeve back out of the way, then, taking hold of her wrist, he pumped a little liquid soap into her palm.

Her heart rate, which was already going well over the speed limit, accelerated and, on the point of telling him that she could handle it from here, she took her own advice. Okay, it wasn’t ice cream or even chocolate, but how often was a seriously scrumptious man going to take her hand between his and—?

‘Coraggio,’
he murmured as his thumb brushed her palm and a tiny whimper escaped her lips.

‘Mmm...’

He turned to look at her, the edge of his faintly stubbled jaw an enticing whisper away from her lips. ‘Does that sting?’

‘No...’ She shook her head. ‘That’s not...stinging.’

She was feeling no pain as he gently massaged the soap between her fingers, around her thumb, wrist and into her palm. All sensation was centred much lower as he rinsed off the soap, pulled a thick white towel from a pile and carefully dried her hand.

‘Va bene?’
he asked.

‘Va bene,’
she repeated. Very, very
bene
indeed. He was so deliciously gentle. So very
thorough
.

‘Hold on. This
will
sting,’ he warned as he took a box of antiseptic wipes from the cupboard over the sink and opened a pouch.

‘I’ll try not to scream,’ she said but, taking no chances—her knees were in a pitifully weak state—she did as she was told and, putting her other hand on his shoulder, hung on.

She’d feel such a fool if she collapsed at his feet.

Really.

His shoulder felt wonderfully solid beneath the soft wool shirt. He was so close that she was breathing in the scent of coffee, warm male skin and, as his hair slid in a thick silky wedge over his forehead, she took a hit of the herby shampoo he used. It completely obliterated the sharp smell of antiseptic.

He opened a dressing and applied it carefully to the soft mound of flesh beneath her thumb.

‘All done.’

‘No...’

Dante looked up, a silent query buckling the space between his brows and her mouth dried. He’d been right about the need to hang on. The word had slipped through her lips while her brain was fully occupied in keeping her vertical.

‘There’s something else?’ he asked.

‘Yes... No...’ She hadn’t been criticising his first aid skills; she just hadn’t wanted him to stop. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘Tell me,’ he pressed her, all concern.

What on earth could she say? The answer that instantly popped into her mind was totally outrageous but Dante was waiting and she managed a careless little shrug and waited for him to catch on.

Nothing...

For heaven’s sake, everyone knew what you did when someone hurt themselves. Did she have to spell it out for him?

‘Un bacio?’
she prompted.

‘A kiss?’ he repeated, no doubt wondering if she had the least clue what she was saying.

‘Sì...’
It was in an Italian phrasebook that her middle sister, Sorrel, had bought her. Under ‘People’, sub-section ‘Getting Intimate’, which she’d found far more engrossing than the section on buying a train ticket.

Posso baciarti?
—
Can I kiss you?
—was there, along with other such useful phrases as
Can I buy you a drink?
,
Let’s go somewhere quieter
and
Stop bothering me!

There hadn’t been a phrase for kissing it better. Perhaps it was in the ‘Health’ section.

‘This is considered beneficial?’ Dante asked.

He was regarding her with such earnestness that Geli wished the floor would just open up and swallow her. Then the flicker of a muscle at the corner of his mouth betrayed him and she knew that Dante Vettori had been teasing her. That he’d known exactly what she meant. That it was going to be all right. Better than all right—the man wasn’t just fabulous to look at; he had a sense of humour.

‘Not just beneficial,’ she assured him. ‘It’s absolutely essential.’

‘Forgive me. I couldn’t have been paying attention when this was covered in first aid,’ he said, the muscle working overtime to contain the smile fighting to break out. ‘You may have to show me.’

Show him? Excitement rippled through her at the thought. It was outrageous but a woman in search of an interesting life had to seize the day. Lick the ice cream—

Coraggio, Geli—

‘It’s very simple, Dante. You just put your lips together—’

‘Like this?’

She caught her breath as he raised her hand and, never taking his eyes from hers, touched his lips to the soft mound of her palm, just below the dressing he’d applied with such care.

‘Exactly like that,’ she managed through a throat that felt as if it had been stuffed with silk chiffon. ‘I’m not sure why it works—’

‘I imagine it’s to do with the application of heat,’ he said, his voice as soft as the second warm kiss he breathed into her palm. Her knees turned to water and her hand slid from his shoulder to clutch a handful of shirt. Beneath it, she could feel the thud of his heartbeat—a slow, steady counterpoint to her own racing pulse. ‘Is that hot enough?’

Was he still teasing? The threatened smile had never appeared but his mouth was closer. Much closer.

‘The more heat,’ she murmured, her words little more than a whisper, ‘the more effective the cure.’

‘How hot do you want it to be, Angelica?’ His voice trickled over her skin like warm honey and his eyes were asking the question that had been there since he’d turned and looked at her. Since he’d put his hand on hers and moved it across the map.

His hand was at her back now, supporting her, his breath soft against her lips and her answer was to lift the hand he’d kissed, slide her fingers through his dark silky hair. This close, she could see that the velvet dark of his irises was shot through with tiny gold sparks, sparks that arced between them, igniting some primitive part of her brain.

‘Hot,’ she murmured.
‘Molto, molto caldo...’
And she touched his luscious lower lip with her mouth, her tongue, sucking in the taste of rich dark coffee that lingered there. Maybe it was the caffeine—on her tongue on his—but, as she closed her eyes and he angled his mouth to deepen the kiss, cradled her head, she felt a zingy hyper-tingle of heat lick through her veins, seep into her skin, warming her, giving her life.

‘Hello?’ Lisa’s voice filtered through the golden mist. ‘Everything okay?’ she called, just feet from the bathroom door and, from the urgency with which she said it, Geli suspected that it wasn’t the first time she’d asked.

Geli opened her eyes as Dante raised his head, took a step back, steadying her as a cold space opened up between them where before there had been closeness, heat.

‘Don’t open the door or the kitten will escape,’ he warned sharply.

‘Right... I just meant to tell you that there are antiseptic wipes in the cabinet.’

‘I found them.’ His hand slid from her shoulder and he reached for the door handle. ‘We’re all done.’

Noooo...
But he’d already opened the door and stepped through it, closing it behind him. Leaving her alone to catch her breath, put some stiffeners in her knees and recover what little dignity remained after she’d flung herself at a total stranger.

Okay, there had been some heavy-duty flirting going on, but most of it had been on her side. Dante, realising that she was in a mess, had tried to sit her down and quietly explain about the apartment while she had put on a display that wouldn’t have disgraced a burlesque dancer. One minute she’d been struggling with her glove and the next...

Where on earth had that performance come from? She wasn’t that woman.

Bad enough, but when he’d told her that she’d been the victim of some Internet con she’d practically thrown herself at him.

What on earth had she been
thinking
?

What on earth must
he
be thinking?

Well, that was easy. He had to be thinking that she’d do anything in return for a bed for the night and who could blame him?

As for her, she hadn’t been thinking at all. She might have been telling herself that she was going to grab every moment, live her mother’s ‘seize the day’ philosophy, but it was like learning how to parachute: you had to make practice jumps first—learn how to fall before you leapt out of a plane or the landing was going to be painful.

Cheeks burning, her mouth throbbing with heat, she dampened the corner of the towel he’d used to dry her hand and laid it against her hot face before, legs shaking, she sank down onto the side of the bath.

‘Mum,’ she whispered, her head on her knees. ‘Help...’

CHAPTER THREE

‘Ice cream is cheaper than therapy and you don’t need an appointment.’

—
from
Rosie’s Little Book of Ice Cream

D
ANTE
WALKED
INTO
the kitchen, filled a glass with ice-cold water from the fridge and downed it in one. The only effect was to make him feel as if he had steam coming out of his ears and, from the way Lisa was looking at him, he very well might have.

Angelica...

Her name suggested something white and gold in a Renaissance painting, but no Renaissance angel ever had a body, legs like that. A mouth that felt like a kiss from across the room. A kiss that obliterated every thought but to possess her.

He hadn’t looked at a woman in that way, touched a woman in that way for over a year but when he’d turned, seen her crimson mouth, the one jolt of colour against the unrelieved black of her clothes, her hair, against skin that looked as if it had never seen the sun, every cell in his body had sat up and begged to go to hell.

Someone must have been listening...

Dark Angel was right.

Aware that Lisa was regarding him with undisguised amusement, brows raised a fraction, he stared right back at her, daring her to say a word. She grinned knowingly then turned away as Angelica finally joined them.

‘How did he do?’ Lisa asked. ‘Has he earned his first aid badge?’

‘Gold star,’ Angelica replied, holding out her hand for inspection. She was doing a good job of matching Lisa’s jokey tone but she wasn’t looking at him and there was a betraying pink flush across her cheekbones.

‘Did you find a box, Lis?’ he asked sharply.

‘I have
this
box,’ she said, ‘thoroughly lined with newspaper.’ She looked down at the deep box she was holding and then up at him, her brows a
got you
millimetre higher and he could have kicked himself. So much for attempting to distract her. ‘Chef gave me some minced chicken for Rattino. I assumed you’d have milk up here.’

‘I have, but it’ll be cold,’ he said, grabbing the excuse to escape. ‘I’ll put a drop in the microwave to take the chill off.’

‘Thank you. That’s very kind,’ Angelica replied quietly as she took the box from Lisa and retreated to the bathroom. He watched her walk away, trying not to think about what her legs were doing to him. What he wanted to do to her legs...

He turned abruptly, opened the fridge door, poured some milk into a saucer and put it in the microwave for a few seconds.

‘Haven’t you got something to do downstairs?’ he asked as, feeling like an idiot with Lisa watching, he put a finger in to test the temperature.

‘It’s snowing hard now. Everyone’s making a move and I’ve told the staff to go home.’ She leaned against the door frame. ‘What are you going to do about Geli?’

‘Do?’

‘If it’s true about her apartment.’

‘It’s true about Via Pepone,’ he said. ‘My father demolished it last year. He’s about to put a glass box in its place.’

‘That’s the place—?’

‘Yes,’ he said, cutting her off before she said any more.

‘Right.’ She waited a moment and then glanced towards the bathroom. ‘So?’

‘So what?’ he snapped.

‘So what are you going to do about Geli?’

‘Why should I do anything?’ he demanded. ‘My father may have demolished the street but he didn’t con her out of rent for an apartment that no longer exists.’ Lisa didn’t say anything but her body language was very loud. ‘What do you expect me to do, Lis? Pick her up and put her in my pocket like one of her strays? Have we got a cardboard box big enough?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘But she’s been travelling all day, it’s late and, in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s snowing out there.’

‘I’d noticed.’ Snowflakes had been clinging to Angelica’s hair and face when she’d arrived. She’d licked one off her upper lip as she’d walked towards him.

‘That’s it?’ Lisa asked. ‘That’s all you’ve got?’

‘Lis...’

‘It’s okay; don’t worry about it.’ She raised a hand in a gesture that was pure Italian. ‘I’ve got a room she can have.’

‘A room?’

‘Four walls, ceiling, bed—’

‘I wasn’t asking for a definition,’ he said, ‘I was questioning the reality. You and Baldacci live in a one-bedroom flat and Angelica’s legs would hang over the end of your sofa.’ He could picture them. Long legs, short skirt, sexy boots—

‘The sofa is a non-starter,’ she agreed, ‘but the room is here, just along the corridor. Right next to yours.’

That jolted him out of his fantasy. ‘That’s not your room!’

‘No? Whose clothes are hanging in the wardrobe? Whose book is on the bedside table? Nonnina Rosa believes that it’s my room and that, my dear cousin, makes it a fact.’

‘Nonnina Rosa is on the other side of the world.’

‘She’s just a second away in cyber space. You wouldn’t want her to discover that when I selflessly volunteered—’

‘Selflessly?
Madonna!
’

‘—when I selflessly volunteered to come halfway across the world to pick up the pieces and glue you back together, you did nothing to stop me from moving in with a Baldacci?’ She mimed her grandmother spitting at the mention of the hated name. ‘Would you?’

‘The only reason you’re here is because Vanni Baldacci’s father sent him to his Milan office to keep him out of the scheming clutches of a Vettori.’

‘Epic fail. The darling man has just texted me to say he’s on his way with my gumboots and a brolly.’

‘Lisa, please...’

‘Nonnina was desperately worried about you, Dan. She felt responsible—’

‘What happened had nothing to do with her. It was my choice. And you were about as much use as a chocolate teapot,’ he added before she could rerun what had happened. It was over, done with. ‘The only reason I keep you on is because no one else will employ you.’

She lifted her shoulders in a theatrical shrug. ‘Whatever,’ she said, not bothering to challenge him. ‘Of course, if you object so strongly to Geli having my room you could always invite her to share yours.’

‘Go away, Lisa, or I swear I’ll call Nonnina myself. Or maybe I should speak to Nicolo Baldacci.’

‘How long is it, exactly, since you got laid, Dan?’ she asked, not in the least bothered by a threat that they both knew he would never carry out. ‘It’s time to forget Valentina. You need to get back on the horse.’

He picked up the saucer of milk and waited for her to move.

‘I mean it. You’ve been looking at Geli like a starving man who’s been offered hot food ever since she walked through the door,’ she said, staying right where she was. ‘In fact, if I were a betting woman I’d be offering straight odds that you were taking the first mouthful when I interrupted you.’

‘I met her less than an hour ago,’ he reminded her, trying not to think about the feel of Angelica’s tongue on his lip even as he sucked it in to taste her. Coffee, honey, life...

‘An hour can be a lifetime when lightning strikes. I wanted to rip Vanni’s clothes off the minute I set eyes on him,’ she said with the kind of smile that suggested it hadn’t been much longer than that.

‘I’m not about to take advantage of a damsel in distress.’

‘Not even if she wants you to take advantage of her? She looked...interested.’

‘Not even then,’ he said, trying not to think about her crimson lips whispering
‘caldo...’,
her breath against his mouth, the way she’d leaned into him, how her body fitted against his.

‘You are so damned English under that Italian exterior,’ she said. ‘Always the perfect gentleman. Never betraying so much as a quiver of emotion, even when the damsel in question is stomping all over you in her designer stilettos.’

‘Valentina knew what she wanted. I was the one who moved the goalposts.’

‘Don’t be so damned noble. You fall in love with the man, Dan, not some fancy penthouse, the villa at Lake Como, the A-list lifestyle. I’d live in a cave with Vanni.’

‘Then talk to your parents before your secret blows up in your faces.’ Dante had experienced that pain at first-hand... ‘It won’t go away, Lis.’

‘No.’ She pulled a face, muttered, ‘Stupid feud...’ Then she reached out and touched his arm. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Good luck with finding a hotel that’ll take Rattino,’ she said, heading towards the door. She didn’t get more than a couple of steps before she stopped, turned round. ‘I suppose Geli could put him back in her coat pocket and sneak him in—’

‘Are you done?’ he asked, losing patience.

‘—but it will only be a temporary solution. Tonight’s scene in the bar will be the talk of the market tomorrow.’

‘The snow will be the talk of the market tomorrow.’

She shook her head. ‘It snows every year but the combination of a head-turning woman, the rare sound of Dante Vettori laughing and a rat? Now that is something worth talking about.’

‘Lis,’ he warned.

‘Never mind. I’m sure you’ll think of something.’

‘You don’t want to know what I’m thinking.’

She grinned. ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking. You and every man in the bar when she arrived in a flurry of snowflakes. How to make an entrance! Tra-la-la...’ Lisa blew on her fingers and then shook them. ‘Seriously, Dan, I don’t know if Geli needs a job but she will need space to show her stuff and having her around will be very good for business.’

‘Are you done now?’

‘As for the other thing, my advice is to get in quickly or you’re going to be at the back of a very long queue.’ She almost made it to the door before she said, ‘You won’t forget that you offered her supper? Have you got anything up here or do you want me to look in the fridge?’

‘Just lock up and go home.’

‘Okay.’ She opened the door, looked back over her shoulder. ‘I’ve brought up Geli’s suitcase, by the way. It’s in her room.’

‘Basta! Andare!’

‘And you have lipstick—’ she pointed to the corner of her own mouth ‘—just here.’

* * *

Geli’s hands were shaking as she scooped out a tiny portion of chicken for the kitten, her whole body trembling as she sank to her knees beside the bath, resting her chin on her arms as she watched him practically inhale it. Trying to decide which was most disturbing—kissing a man she’d only just met or being told that the flat she’d paid good money to rent did not exist.

It should be the flat. Obviously.

Elle was going to be furious with her for being so careless. Her grandmother had lost everything but the roof over their heads to a con man not long after their mother died. Without their big sister putting her own life on hold to take care of them all, she and Sorrel would have ended up in care.

Fortunately, there was the width of France and Switzerland between them. Unless she told them what had happened they would never know that she’d messed up.

Which left the kiss. Which was ridiculous. It wasn’t as if it was her first kiss—her first anything—but for a moment she’d felt as if she’d been on the brink of something rare, something life-changing.

As she leaned against the edge of the bath watching the kitten, she remembered the moment when she’d caught her sister on the point of kissing Sean McElroy. Their closeness, the intensity of their focus on each other, had terrified her. Elle was hers—surrogate mother, surrogate father, big sister, carer—but suddenly there was someone else, this man, a total stranger, getting all her attention.

For a moment, with Dante’s arm around her waist, his lips a millimetre from her own, she’d known how Elle had felt, had wanted it for herself. That was why she was shaking. For a moment she had been utterly defenceless...

‘I’m sorry I took so long to bring the milk. I was arranging with Lisa to lock up for me.’ Dante placed the saucer in the bath but, instead of joining her, he stood back, keeping his distance.

Which was a very good thing, she told herself. Just because she wanted him here, kneeling beside her, didn’t make it a good idea...

‘We’re putting you to a lot of trouble,’ she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the kitten as he stepped in the saucer and lapped clumsily at the milk.

‘He’s looking better already,’ he said, his voice as distant as his body.

‘He’s fluffed up a bit now he’s dry but he hasn’t learned to wash.’ Keep it impersonal. Talk about the cat... ‘He’s much too young to be separated from his mother. I’ll take him back to where I found him tomorrow and see if I can reunite them.’

‘How do you think that will work out?’ he asked.

‘About as well as it usually does.’ She reached out and ran a finger over the kitten’s tiny domed head. ‘About as well as my escape to Isola is working out.’

‘Escape? What are you running away from?’

She looked up. He was frowning, evidently concerned. ‘Just life in a small village,’ she said quickly before he began wondering which asylum she’d broken out of. ‘Conformity. I very nearly succumbed to the temptation to buckle down to reality and become the design director for my sisters’ ice cream parlour franchise.’ She did a little mock shiver. ‘Can you
imagine
? All that
pink
!’

He snorted with laughter.

‘You see? You only met me half an hour ago but even you can see that’s ridiculous.’

‘Let’s just say that I find it unlikely.’

‘Thank you, Dante. You couldn’t have paid me a nicer compliment.’ She hooked her hair behind her ear, stood up and faced him.
Forget the kiss...
‘And thank you for trying to break the news about my apartment gently over supper.’

He shrugged. ‘I wanted more information before I leapt in with the bad news,’ he said, turning away to reach for a towel. ‘You could have made a mistake with the address.’

‘But you didn’t believe I had.’

‘No.’ He stopped looking down at the towel and looked at her. ‘The map you had was out of date. If you had followed the directions you were given, you would have ended up at a construction site.’

‘Which I did,’ she admitted. ‘Lisa was right when she said you know Isola like the back of your hand.’

‘I spent a lot of my childhood here but it’s changing fast. We’re struggling to hang on to what’s left.’

‘You’ll forgive me if I say that I wish you’d struggled a little harder.’ He didn’t exactly flinch but clearly she’d said the wrong thing. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.’