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Still staring straight ahead and desperate to at least appear cool and calm, she cleared her throat. ‘I’ll walk you out.’ His gaze was burning her skin and, turning, her heart shivered as her eyes collided with his.
He nodded slowly. ‘Then I won’t charge you for the loan of my jacket.’ Her eyes widened and he grinned. ‘I’m kidding. Look. I can find my own way out—’
She rolled her eyes. ‘No you can’t. Come on. It’ll only take a few minutes.’
It took seven. Giorgio was waiting at the entrance. He glanced anxiously at their faces. ‘Ah, there you are. There you both are—’
Massimo interrupted him smoothly. ‘Giorgio. I don’t believe you’ve met Miss Golding. Miss Golding, this is my chief legal advisor, Giorgio Caselli. Our business is done here, Giorgio. I’ll see you back at the helicopter.’
Looking both astonished and respectful, the lawyer nodded. ‘It is? Excellent. Wonderful. It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Golding.’
Flora stared after him, a sense of foreboding creeping over her skin. Was that it, then? After all these months of harassment, was he just going to give up and walk away?
She turned to face him. ‘I don’t understand. Are you saying I can stay? Or is this some game? Because I don’t know how to play.’
His mouth curved at the edges. ‘This isn’t a game.’
‘But it doesn’t make any sense,’ she replied fiercely. ‘One minute you’re jack-booting around like some crazed dictator on a rampage, and now you’re being—’ She stopped.
‘What? What am I being?’
His blue eyes were fixed on her animated features and she frowned. ‘I don’t know—reasonable, nice!’
He winced. ‘Reasonable! Nice? I don’t think anyone has ever accused me of being that before!’ His tone was teasing.
‘I don’t suppose they have,’ she said cautiously.
He grinned, his handsome face softening. ‘It’s a low blow! Arrogant, ruthless, crazed...I can handle. Niceness, though... That’s dangerous! Whoever heard of a nice CEO?’
She bit her lip.
He frowned. ‘I’m serious. You have to promise me: what happens in the maze, stays in the maze. I can’t have my reputation as a “bullying, greedy monster” ruined.’
Recognising her words, Flora blushed. ‘You were a bit bullying,’ she said carefully. ‘But I suppose that doesn’t matter now.’
He was watching her thoughtfully. ‘I’d like to think it doesn’t.’ Pausing, he glanced across the lawn. ‘Are there more gardens over there?’
Surprised by the change of subject, she nodded.
‘I’d like to see them. Will you show me?’ he asked simply.
Breathing in the drifting scents of blossom and warm earth, Massimo was surprised—impressed, even—by the scale and diversity of the gardens. He was no horticulturist, but even he could see that in stark contrast to the palazzo it looked as though someone was taking care of them.
Between narrow gravel-filled paths edged with meticulously trimmed bay hedges, the neat, square beds were filled with lavender, thyme, rosemary and sage, while espaliered fruit trees mingled with climbing roses, jasmine, honeysuckle and wisteria on the walls and arches.
Massimo ran his hand lightly over a topiary spiral. No doubt Bassani had taken up gardening when his career as an artist had begun to fade. Squinting into the sunlight, his face tightened. It was pretty, but gardening—like all hobbies—seemed a complete waste of time to him. He worked out with a personal trainer five mornings a week, but work fulfilled all his needs except rest and relaxation, which was why, in his leisure time, he liked to sleep and have sex.
His lip curled—although not necessarily in that order.
‘It’s beautiful,’ he said finally. ‘I didn’t know Bassani was such a keen horticulturist.’
Flora looked up at him, her mouth curving into a pout, and he felt his groin tighten almost imperceptibly. How to describe those lips? Not red, not pink— He smiled grimly as the words came to him from school art lessons: rose madder. He stared at her critically. A tiny scar just above her eyebrow and a sprinkling of freckles over her nose and cheeks contrasted with the classical symmetry of her face and saved her from being just another pretty girl. But that mouth was a work of art: a mixture of challenge and seduction, determination and—surrender.
An image of Flora, soft-eyed, her body melting against his, those lips parting, exploded inside his head.
Struggling to keep himself from touching the plump cushion of her lower lip, he gestured offhandedly towards a cluster of dark red peonies. ‘Did he choose everything?’
Flora shook her head slowly. ‘Umberto didn’t have anything to do with the gardens—’ She checked herself. ‘He liked sitting in them, of course, but he knew absolutely nothing about plants.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘He couldn’t tell a weed from a wallflower!’
Watching her eyes mist over as she talked about her lover, Massimo felt something twist inside him. The thought of Flora and Umberto together, her bewitching young body pressed against the older man’s, made him want to snap the heads off the flowers—
Her voice broke into his thoughts. ‘He sometimes helped me with the planting, though. Not the actual digging, but he always knew what plant should go where. I think that’s because he was an artist; he had a wonderful eye for colour and composition.’
Massimo nodded. ‘I know even less about colour and composition than I do plants. But I have a couple of properties on the mainland,’ he said idly. ‘I could do with a capable gardener.’ His blue eyes gleamed. ‘Maybe I could poach yours.’
She burst out laughing. He was impossible. Incorrigible. Infuriating. And for one bizarre moment, it actually felt like they liked each other. Biting her lip, she met his gaze. ‘So now that you can’t have my home, you want my gardener?’
Amusement lit up his eyes. ‘I hadn’t thought of it like that but—yes. It seems only fair.’
The gentle, mocking tone of his voice made her heart beat faster. He was still her enemy, she told herself frantically. He was a devil in disguise and she shouldn’t let her guard down just because his eyes were like woodland pools and his voice was as sweet and silken as wild honey.
‘That’s not going to happen,’ she said carefully, hoping that her face revealed nothing of her thoughts. ‘Looking after these gardens—’ she frowned ‘Well, it’s not just a job. It’s more complicated than that.’
His eyes were dark and teasing. ‘Compared to that maze nothing is complicated! Don’t look so worried, cara, I’m not going to kidnap your gardener. I can see you don’t want to lose his services.’
Their eyes met, and she felt her skin grow warm and tingling beneath his lingering gaze. His eyes were a beautiful, deep, dark blue of a forget-me-not, and she felt a sudden sharp heat inside as she stared at his lean jawline and the full, passionate mouth. He would be impossible to forget even if his eyes didn’t demand that he be remembered: his lean, muscular body, the compelling purposefulness of his gaze and the intensity of his masculinity set him apart from every other man she’d ever met. And his smile— She felt a rush of longing. What woman wouldn’t want to be the cause of that smile?
And then, as though the sun had gone behind a cloud, his smile faded. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said slowly. ‘It must be the heat or something. I’m usually a little quicker on the uptake.’ He frowned. ‘You don’t have to explain. I get it.’
‘Get what?’ The hair on the nape of her neck rose at the sudden tension between them.
‘Obviously, he’s a “friend” of yours.’
She stared at him, confused. ‘Who?’
‘Your gardener.’
The expression on his face was hard to define, but she could almost see him retreating, and she felt a rush of panic. ‘He’s not a friend of mine. I mean, he can’t be. He doesn’t exist,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I do the gardening. Me. On my own.’
There was a moment’s silence as he studied her face and then he smiled slowly, and once again she felt her nerves flutter into life and her skin grow warm. ‘Is that so? You really are full of surprises, Miss Golding. No wonder Bassani was so smitten with you!’
There was nothing new in his words. She had heard them said in so many ways, so many times before. Normally she let them wash over her, but for some reason she didn’t want this man to think that they were true.
‘No—it wasn’t like—’ she began but her words stopped in her throat as he reached out and gently took her hand in his. Turning it over, he ran his fingers lightly over the hard calluses on her palm, and she felt her breath snag in her throat; felt heat flare low in her pelvis. Her heart was racing. She knew she should tell him to stop, should pull her hand away, but she couldn’t speak or move.
Finally, he let go of her hand and said softly, ‘So. This is why you want to stay.’
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway. ‘Yes. Partly.’
She looked up at him hesitantly. She never talked to anyone about her real work. Most people on the island simply assumed that she was Umberto’s muse, and it was true—she had often posed for Umberto. But she’d only modelled for him as a favour. Her real passion, ever since she was a little girl, was flowers, although not many people took her seriously when she told them—probably because they were too busy pointing out the fact that her name was Flora and she liked flowers: a joke which had stopped being funny years ago.
She took a deep breath. ‘I’m actually writing a thesis on orchids. The island’s home to some very rare species. That’s why I came here in the first place.’ Feeling suddenly a little shy, she gave him a small tight smile. ‘I didn’t even know about the palazzo or Umberto before I arrived. I just bumped into him in a café in Cagliari.’
Massimo studied her assessingly. She made it sound so innocent, so unplanned. As though her relationship with Bassani had been a matter of chance. His face hardened. Yet here she was with her name on the tenancy agreement. He gritted his teeth. However she spun the story, he knew she had been looking for some sort of sugar daddy, and in Sardinia there was only one man who fitted the bill.
A muscle flickered in his jaw. Women like Flora Golding did their homework. Nothing was left to chance. Because if their efforts succeeded then, like his stepmother Alida, they need never work again—although spending his father’s money had pretty much been a full-time job for her. His body stilled as he allowed himself a brief memory of his stepmother’s icy disdain, and then he gazed coolly at Flora.
No doubt she’d found out where Bassani had liked to drink and set the whole thing up. He could well imagine the older man’s greedy excitement on discovering this beautiful young girl sipping cappuccino in some shabby little bar. And then all she’d had to do was pose for him. Naked. At the thought of Flora slipping out of her faded sundress, her eyes dark and shiny with triumph, he felt almost giddy with envy and lust.
For a moment he lost all sense of time and place, and then he breathed out slowly. ‘How fortuitous,’ he said smoothly. ‘To find your own blank canvas here at this palazzo—the very place you have chosen to make your home.’
He stared broodingly across the garden, blind to its beauty. He should have been satisfied by this final proof that she was as disingenuous and manipulative as he’d suspected, but beneath the satisfaction was an odd sense of disappointment, of betrayal. And of anger with himself for responding to her obvious physical charms.
His jaw tightened. But wasn’t it always so with women? Especially women like Flora Golding, who had duplicitous charms ingrained in them from an early age. Flora. It was a name that seemed to suggest a honeyed sweetness and an unsullied purity. And yet it tasted bitter on his tongue.
His gaze sharpened as she looked up at him, her light brown eyebrows arching in puzzlement at the shift in his voice. ‘I do love the gardens, but it’s more of a hobby than anything else. My real work is my dissertation and if I’m going to finish my thesis I need peace and quiet. And that’s what I get living here.’
Massimo smiled. Her tone was conversational, her words unremarkable, but she had unwittingly given him the means to her end.
They had reached the front of the palazzo. Abruptly he turned to face her. ‘It’s been an enlightening visit, Miss Golding. Don’t worry—we won’t be contacting you anymore. And there certainly won’t be any more financial incentives. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you’re not motivated by money, and I respect that.’
Flora blinked in the sunlight. Even though the day was now suffocatingly hot, she felt a chill run down her spine. His voice sounded different again—almost like a sneer or a taunt. But nothing had changed. Maybe it was just the heat playing with her senses...
‘Good,’ she said quickly, trying to ignore the uneasiness in her stomach. ‘I’m just sorry you had to make a personal trip to understand how I feel.’
He stepped forward, and she felt a spurt of shock and fear for this time there could be no confusion. His face was cold and set.
‘Don’t be. I always like to meet my enemies face to face. It makes closing a deal on my terms so much easier.’
It took a moment for the implication of his words to sink in. ‘Wh-what deal?’ she stammered. The word echoed ominously inside her head. ‘There is no deal,’ she said hoarsely. ‘You said so. You said you wouldn’t be contacting me or offering me money again.’
He smiled coolly, a contemplative gleam in his blue eyes. ‘I won’t. You won’t be getting a penny of my money. Not now. Not ever.’
She stared at him, chilled by the undisguised hostility of his gaze. ‘I don’t understand...’ she began, but her words died in her throat as he shook his head.
‘No. I don’t suppose you do. So let me make it clear for you. Like I said earlier, cara, I always get what I want.’ His face seemed to be no longer made of flesh and blood, but cold stone. ‘And I want you out of here. Normally I’d pay, but as money’s not an option I’m going to have to use some other method to get what I want. But believe me I will get it. And by the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll be begging to sign any contract I put in front of you for free.’
She stared at him, her heart pounding against her ribs. ‘What do you mean?’ But already he had begun walking down the drive. ‘Y-you’re wrong! Y-you can’t do anything!’ she called after him. ‘This is my home!’
She was panting, stuttering, her anger vying with her fear. He was bluffing. He had to be. There was nothing he could do.
But as she watched the helicopter rise up into the sky and slowly disappear from view she knew that it was she who was mistaken. She had thought he had come to the palazzo simply to broker a deal. And maybe it had started out that way. But that had been before she threw his deal back in his face. She felt a rush of nausea. Now there would be no more deals, for his parting words had been a declaration of war. And she knew with absolute certainty that when Massimo Sforza came back next time he would be bringing an army.
CHAPTER THREE
ROLLING OVER IN her large wrought-iron bed, Flora stared miserably out of the window at the cloudless sky. She’d slept badly again. Her night had been filled by images of Massimo Sforza, his eyes darker than his bespoke navy blue suit, beckoning her towards him only for the floor to open up beneath her feet.
Her cheeks grew warm, and she shifted uncomfortably beneath the bedclothes. The nightmares had been horrible, but the dreams were far more unsettling. Dreams of a naked Massimo, his lean, muscular body pressed against hers, those long, supple fingers drifting lazily over her skin and—
And what? Irritably, she sat up. He’d probably take the bed, with her still in it, and push it out to sea—and frankly she’d deserve it.
Gritting her teeth, she pulled on a faded black T-shirt and a pair of sawn-off jeans and stomped downstairs. Holding her breath, she forced herself to look at the letter cage hanging on the back of the door, but there was no heart-stopping white envelope to greet her, and she breathed out slowly.
It had been three weeks since Massimo had turned up at the palazzo, but still she sensed his presence everywhere. The thought that someday she would turn round to find him standing there, watching her, his face rapt and triumphant, made her feel dizzy.
But only until the anger kicked in.
In the kitchen, she took out a plate and a cup and glanced up at the deadbolts she’d fitted to the French windows. As a tenant, she was forbidden from changing the main locks, but there was nothing in her contract about adding additional security so she had bought new solid steel padlocks for all the gates too. Glancing up at the old iron range, she felt the tension inside her ease a little. There was only one key to the huge, solid oak front door and it was hanging there, between the skillet and the espresso coffee pot. Whatever happened, Massimo Sforza was not going to be able to barge his way unannounced into her home again.
* * *
She woke the next morning to the insistent ringing of her mobile phone. ‘Okay, okay,’ she mumbled, fumbling on the bedside table, her eyes still screwed shut. ‘Hello? Hello!’
Opening one eye, she squinted into the sunlight filtering through the gap in the curtains. Who the hell was ringing at this time? And, more importantly, why weren’t they saying anything? She gazed irritably at her phone and then her breath seemed to freeze in her lungs as the ringing began again—from somewhere downstairs.
For a moment she lay gripped with confusion, panic swelling inside her, cold and slippery as a toad. Wishing her heart would stop making so much noise, she strained her ears. Surely she’d imagined it—but there it was again. And then from nowhere came a high-pitched screeching that made her press her hands over her ears.
Still wincing, she rolled out of bed. She wasn’t scared now. Burglars didn’t use drills. She sniffed suspiciously. Or make coffee!
The noise downstairs was even louder than in her bedroom. Edging into the kitchen, she took a deep breath as her mouth fell open in horror. Everywhere she looked, there were people in overalls and boxes piled on top of one another.
Her lips tightening, she tapped the nearest man on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me! What are you doing in my kitchen?’
But before he could answer a woman with a sleek shoulder-length blond bob, wearing a clinging grey jacket and skirt, slid past her, miming apologetically.
Gritting her teeth, Flora gazed furiously in front of her. She might not go shopping much anymore, but she knew a designer suit when she saw one and that little outfit probably cost more than her food bill for a year.
It also answered her question more eloquently than any workman could have done.
Her face twisting with anger, she stormed out onto the terrazza. ‘I knew it,’ she spat. ‘I knew you’d be behind this! You are such a—’ She swore furiously in English at the man lounging at the table, drinking coffee.
He frowned, his handsome face creasing with mock horror. ‘Somebody got out of bed the wrong side.’ His eyes gleamed maliciously. ‘Good morning, Miss Golding! I hardly recognise you with your clothes on!’
‘Ha-ha! Very amusing. Now, will you please tell me what the hell you’re playing at?’
‘I’m not playing at anything, cara. This is work.’ His eyes pinned her to the spot. ‘I’m sorry we got you up so early, but not all of us have the luxury of a lie-in.’
He was speaking in English too, and she stared at him mutely, trying to work out why. And then abruptly he stood up and languidly stretched his shoulders and all rational thought went out of her head as her body went on high alert.
‘Don’t mind us,’ he said, stifling a yawn. ‘We can just carry on down here and you can go back up to bed.’
Flora gaped at him. Why was he acting like this? He was being friendly, pleasant. He was making it seem as though this was something she’d agreed to. Glancing round, she felt her skin grow warm as she saw two of the men on his team share a conspiratorial glance.
Did they think she and Massimo were—? She opened her mouth to protest—and then stopped as Massimo smiled malevolently at her outraged expression.
Their eyes met and his smile widened. ‘Actually, I had a very early start. Perhaps I’ll just come up with you—’
She glowered at him. ‘No. You will not—’ And then she jumped violently as a loud thumping started from somewhere further inside the house. ‘What the hell is that noise?’ Turning, she stalked back into the kitchen like an angry cat.
Following her, Massimo shrugged, his face bland and unreadable. ‘I’m not exactly sure.’ He gestured vaguely towards a box of cables. ‘Something to do with improving the internet.’
His eyes picked over the two spots of colour on her cheeks and the pulse throbbing in her neck and something in their considering gleam made her want to take some of the cable and strangle him with it. But instead she gritted her teeth. Knowing him, he was probably hoping she’d do just that so he could exercise some medieval right to remove unstable female tenants.
She took a deep breath. ‘You can’t do this, Mr Sforza—’
‘Call me Massimo,’ he said smoothly. ‘I know I’m your landlord, but there’s really no need to stand on ceremony.’
She bit her lip—he was baiting her. Worse, he was enjoying watching her struggle with her temper. ‘Yes. You are my landlord. Which means that you can’t just walk in here whenever you feel like it.’
‘You know, I thought you’d say that,’ he murmured, reaching into his jacket pocket. ‘So I had one of my staff print off a copy of your tenancy agreement. Here. You can keep it.’ He glanced at the slanting pile of letters stacked against the wall. ‘File it with all your other important documents.’
Staring at him mutinously, she snatched it from him. ‘I don’t need a copy. I know what it says, and it says that you can’t just turn up without warning. You have to give me notice.’
He frowned. ‘Did I not do that? How remiss of me. I can’t imagine how that happened. And there was me, trying to be a good landlord—’
‘You were not,’ she retorted, her resolve to keep her temper hanging by a fibre optic thread. ‘If you were, your men wouldn’t be bashing holes in my walls—they’d be fixing the roof and the plumbing. You’re just doing this to try and make my life difficult. So why don’t you just take your stupid internet cable and all this other rubbish and leave before I call the police?’
He held her angry gaze, and she saw that flecks of silver were dappling his eyes like sea foam. Her heart began to thump painfully.
‘Why bother?’ he said easily, glancing at his watch. ‘I’m meeting the Chief of Police in an hour for lunch. We’re old friends. I can mention your concerns to him, if you like.’
The expression on his face was hard to define, but whatever it was it didn’t improve her temper. ‘Which presumably he’ll then ignore?’ she snapped. Damn him! Pretending he was concerned about her when they both knew the exact opposite was true.
‘There’s no need to get hysterical, cara.’ There was a glint of satisfaction in his eyes. ‘I’m only trying to help you.’
It was the last straw. Her voice rose shrilly. ‘You’re not trying to help anyone but yourself.’
He took a step towards her and held out his hands apologetically, placatingly. ‘I am. Truly. And I’m sorry about all this noise and mess.’ Turning, he barked out a few words in rapid Italian, and as if a switch had been flicked the hammering and drilling stopped and within seconds the kitchen was empty and silent.
She stared at him, confused.
‘Here. Drink this.’ He held out a glass of water and then as she took it, he shook his head and said softly, ‘You see. You’re already starting to wish you’d taken the money, aren’t you?’
For a moment she floundered, shocked by his malice and sheer bloody-mindedness, and then anger, hot and damp like wet earth, rose in her throat. Breathing out slowly, she put the glass on the table. She wanted to kill him.