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But then in an instant the awful memory of the crash came back, slamming into her brain. The colour drained from her face as a vivid picture of the rain-slicked night and that car coming straight for them re-ran like a horror movie in her head, along with her inability to stop it, to call out in time to warn Cormac. And even if she had… Cara’s hands gripped the counter so tight her knuckles were white. Pain surged anew and twisted inside her, so acute that she had to put a hand to her belly.
She looked down. How could she have forgotten for a second the catastrophic events of just days ago? When she’d walked away from the wreckage of an accident so awful that the paramedics at the scene had declared it a miracle that she’d survived.
Enzo. Her heart stopped and started again. He’d made her forget for a brief moment. He was making her forget right now. Cara looked at herself again sternly, ignoring the glitter of her too-bright eyes. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was gone when she went back. She knew his type all too well. He wouldn’t wait around for someone like her. The men who frequented this club were mostly ambitious city men, out to see who could order the most expensive champagne, who could pull the most beautiful women.
Yet, Cara had to be honest with herself, this man hadn’t given that impression. He seemed far too sophisticated for that. Undoubtedly he was rich—she could tell that from a mile away—and that thought alone put him in a place that made her shudder. She’d had enough of millionaires to last her a lifetime, having grown to despise the power they desired and wielded, the lifestyles they craved. She contemplated asking one of the staff to get her things for her, so as to avoid seeing him again, but then shook off the silly fear. She could handle it if he was still there, or if he was gone…
When Cara walked back into the VIP section, though, all her recent words and self-avowals flew out of the window.
He was gone.
Even though she’d half expected it, the disappointment that ripped through her left her swaying unsteadily. She was still trying to come to terms with the crushing feeling and what it meant when one of the barmen, Joe, handed her a note. She opened the piece of paper, it was from Rob, hastily written.
Sweetie, I’ve had to go—a domestic crisis with Simon has come up. Call you tomorrow before you go! Robbie X.
Cara shook her head wryly, even as she had to admit that the pounding of her heart told her she’d hoped that the note might be from Enzo. Which was ridiculous. They’d spoken for mere minutes.
Just as she was turning to go she spotted her phone on the bar and went to retrieve it, grabbing her coat too.
A sound came from behind Cara, then a cool familiar voice. ‘Am I too late to ask if you’d share another drink with me?’
Intense relief rushed through her. He hadn’t gone! Cara turned around and looked up into that face. He was even taller than she had imagined, holding his coat casually over one arm. A zing of sensation rippled through her, stronger than before, making her forget her vow to leave. All she knew in that moment, as irrational as it was, was that she didn’t want him to walk away again. That feeling of relief was too strong to ignore.
All she could manage was to shake her head. She was sinking into those fascinating eyes again, mesmerised by the harsh beauty of his face. A couple of people came in, jostling past them, chattering. Leaving them in their own little bubble. She flushed at how needy she felt, how unsure and at sea with all these sensations and achings he was causing within her. How had she ever thought for a second that she’d be able to walk away?
Enzo’s eyes glittered with some intent that made her feel weak. ‘Good. I’ve organised a private booth and a bottle of champagne.’
Liquid heat seemed to pool in Cara’s groin. She was unable to respond with any coherence, and Enzo took her by the arm and led her over to where one of the waitresses was showing them into a plush velvet booth, half hidden by a thick ornate drape. Cara could only breathe in a jerky sigh of relief when Enzo took one side of the booth, leaving her to occupy the other side. He sat back and stretched out an arm across the back of the seat, causing his shirt to tighten across his chest. Hard flat nipples stood out against the material and Cara squirmed on her seat.
‘So…’ he drawled. ‘Here we are.’
A sudden tension spiked the air. She couldn’t understand why, even as she nodded warily. He leant forward then, his face coming into the soft light thrown by a hanging lamp over their heads. He truly was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen. Her insides clenched.
‘Tell me, do you come here often?’
The words, usually such a cliché uttered by hapless men, sounded completely different when he said them.
Cara smiled a small, wry smile. ‘It’s like my second home.’ She heard her words and saw immediately how they might be misconstrued. She hurried to clarify. ‘That is, of course, because I—’
At that moment the waitress returned with the champagne, stopping Cara’s explanation that she worked there. And by the time Enzo had dismissed the girl and filled their glasses Cara had forgotten what he’d asked her.
‘Let’s drink to this evening.’
Cara frowned lightly, but clinked her glass to his. It felt cool in her hand, the vintage wine sparkling in the light with a thousand bubbles. ‘Why this evening?’
He took a sip of wine, and Cara was aware of the strong column of his throat as it worked. ‘Because I think it will prove…cathartic.’
What an odd thing to drink to, Cara thought, and took a sip of her own wine, savouring the bubbles as they burst down her throat. She couldn’t quite believe that she was sitting here, in her work clothes, sipping champagne with this enigmatic man. In all her time working here she’d never met anyone with even an nth of his dynamism—and some of the wealthiest men in the world came into this exclusive club. It had been her brother’s favourite haunt—that was how she’d got her job.
At least her dress was adequate enough, simple and black. Her only gripe was that it was far too short, but Simon, the manager, Rob’s boyfriend, insisted on her looking the part as the main hostess of the club. And with Barney there to protect her from unwanted attention she generally avoided lecherous situations. Something Simon had been aware of when he’d hired her, as he’d felt she was too young at the time to work in the club proper. In the end, he’d kept her on the door.
‘Tell me about yourself, Cara.’
He was doing it again, that subtle inflection, changing the pronunciation of her name. Something about his expression caught her for a moment, some sense of familiarity or déjà vu, but she couldn’t catch it. She was so tempted to do exactly what Rob had advocated—lose herself a little, allow this stranger to help her forget her pain and sorrow.
There would be time for that in spades when she went home and tried to start over. At the thought of that, the threat from last night crashed back into her head. For a second she almost felt overwhelmed with it all, and had to struggle valiantly to bury the fear again. But just for now, surely she could pretend with this man that everything was okay—couldn’t she?
Enzo’s eyebrows rose. ‘You did a degree in business and accountancy?’
Cara nodded, still inordinately proud of the degree she’d finally obtained in recent weeks after a long, hard slog, not sure why he sounded so incredulous. Perhaps he was one of these men who didn’t believe that women should get qualifications and work? Yet he didn’t seem like that kind of man. The champagne bottle stood half empty. She had a delightfully light feeling in her head. She felt as if she’d been living in some sort of haze all her life and now everything was crystal-clear. Despite the fact that she’d only just met Enzo, she’d found him easy to talk to—and that was a revelation when she’d never done this with anyone before.
‘But you didn’t go to college?’
Cara frowned, she’d been intent on Enzo’s mouth and now she blushed—which she seemed to be doing every two minutes in his company. ‘Did I say that?’ That was funny. She couldn’t remember telling him about studying from home.
‘You’re right, I didn’t.’ She was wondering how they’d got onto this subject when a beep came from nearby. He excused himself and reached into the pocket of the jacket beside him to pull out his phone, answering the incoming call with an apologetic smile, saying something about an ill father. Cara shooed away his apology and signalled that she would leave, to give him privacy, but his hand snaked out and caught her wrist, pulling her back.
As he spoke in rapid Italian he kept his eyes on hers, and his thumb started moving in little circles on the underside of her wrist. Cara had to stop herself from groaning out loud. Did the man have any idea what he was doing to her? But she couldn’t take her eyes away from his either. As she watched, a hard expression came into them. His hand tightened on hers fractionally, but he didn’t stop that seductive motion with his thumb. Cara knew she could have pulled away if she’d wanted to, but for the life of her she couldn’t. Was that giving him some tacit signal? To her shame, she knew that she hoped it was. What was this madness?
He ended his conversation and slipped the phone back into his jacket. He let go of her hand, dropping it abruptly, almost as if he regretted holding it. Cara’s heart went out to him as she guessed it must have to do with his father, and she asked hesitantly, ‘Is everything okay?’
She saw his jaw clench slightly. He seemed to be wrestling with something. He looked at her then, and the intensity in his eyes pinned her to the spot. And then he said, ‘It’s time to get out of here.’
There was an unmistakable edge to his voice this time, and for a second Cara fooled herself into thinking that he’d said it in such a way as to mean for them both to get out of there. And then mortification raced through her. Why on earth would a man like him have meant that? He only meant that he had to leave. And so did she.
But, disturbingly, a shaft of pain went through her. She forced herself to say lightly, as she avoided his eye and gathered her things, ‘I have a busy day tomorrow. I’d better go too. Thanks for the drinks.’
Enzo had paid already, brushing aside her attempt to give him something. It was somewhat of a relief, even though she hated being paid for, as in reality she barely had enough in her purse to get her home. Rob had left before he’d had a chance to give her her tips, and it would be a couple of weeks before she got her final cheque.
She let Enzo guide her out through the now busy VIP area and back through the club. Cara shivered slightly. She wasn’t sorry to be saying goodbye to the place. It was Barney the main doorman’s night off, and his replacement was new, so she just said a perfunctory goodnight as they left.
In seconds the club was behind them and they were out in the darkness and the cool early spring air. It was almost midnight. Cara shivered lightly as Enzo helped her into her coat. He caught her long hair and pulled it free, his hands brushing against her bare neck. Cara’s insides melted. It felt like the most intimate gesture. Just then her name was called by someone in the queue, and Enzo dropped his hands, leaving her feeling ridiculously bereft. She looked to see an actress waving energetically. She was a regular. Cara waved back half-heartedly and watched as she disappeared into the club with her entourage, sending up silent thanks that she’d never have to help carry her out again.
‘A friend of yours?’
Cara turned to face Enzo looking up. Her heart was beating so hard she felt constricted. She smiled awkwardly. ‘Not exactly.’ She stepped back and away, finding it harder than she cared to admit to walk away from him. ‘Look, thanks for everything—and the drinks… It was nice talking to you.’
With hands stuck deep in his pockets he just looked down at her. ‘Do you really want to go?’
Cara’s brain froze. Her heart tripped. ‘What did you say?’
‘Come back to my hotel with me.’
It was shocking, and it wasn’t a question. It was an imperative. A calling that set her blood racing and heart beating fast again. Lord knew she wasn’t ready for this, on this week of all weeks. Who was she kidding? She wouldn’t be ready for a man as virile as Enzo in a million years. And yet even as she thought that, newly awakened awareness flooded her body, making her believe that he was the only man she could make love to in the world.
Confused by how strong this feeling was, she backed away, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t—’ Do that sort of thing because I’ve never done it before. Her voice failed and the words resounded in her head. She shook her head again. No matter what her body might be saying, her head was warning her to run fast in the opposite direction.
Enzo stood under the streetlight, his shoulders huge, his frame lean and awe-inspiring, his face dark and sinful. Everything about him was sinful. Rob’s words came back to Cara. Could this man make her forget? For one night? Even as she was thinking this, her thoughts and belly in turmoil at what she was walking away from, he shrugged nonchalantly and stepped back too. The moment was gone. Of course he wouldn’t insist. It had been a complete mystery to her what he had seen in her at all in the first place. However, disappointment was crushing, mocking her.
‘Allora, buonanotte, Cara.’
Her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth as she realised that she’d never in her life see this man again. And she suddenly wondered desperately how it would feel to kiss him. But she reiterated to herself sternly that this was the realm of fantasy. He was not in her league and she wouldn’t even want him to be. Didn’t she despise the kind of men who went into that club? And yet, prompted a voice, didn’t you think he was different?
As if in accord with the rebellious voice, her newly awakened body was screaming to walk up to him and say, Wait—yes. I’ll take what you’re offering. Even though he’d displayed his own indifference to her answer. Patently he didn’t care. All he had to do was snap his fingers and women would be tripping over themselves to be with him. She had to focus on that. There was nothing special going on here.
‘Goodnight, Enzo.’ He hadn’t even told her his second name.
She turned abruptly and walked away, her breath coming fast, her heart thumping so hard that she feared it might burst from her chest. And, ridiculously, at that moment she felt more alone than she had at any point in her life to date. And that was saying a lot. Silly tears pricked the back of her eyes and she told herself it had to be the result of her fraught and emotional week. Not the amazing evening that had come out of nowhere.
As she passed the queue of people waiting to get into the club she overheard one girl say loudly, ‘Look at him…she must be crazy to walk away from him…’
Cara stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around. Enzo was not looking at her any more, and if anything that should have made it easier for her to put this whole night down to some crazy experience brought on and heightened by grief and shock. But she couldn’t move. She watched as he said something to one of the other doormen, who whistled, obviously calling his car round. All Cara could see was his broad shoulders, that inky black hair, the sheer masculine beauty of his build. The latent power in his tall proud stance. Something within her was calling out to be obeyed. Some deep, primal need to forge a connection. The thought of never seeing him again was causing a panicky fluttering in her chest.
Cara was unaware of her feet carrying her in one inevitable direction: back to him. And then she was standing behind him and feeling as though the world had come back to rest on its axis again. With her heart in her mouth she tentatively touched his back. Immediately he tensed and turned around, dark brows coming together over tawny eyes that sliced down into hers, seeing right through her in an instant.
‘Changed your mind?’
The sardonic arrogance, the something cynical in his expression, couldn’t impinge on the pathetic weakness that had led her back to him. She couldn’t answer straight away. She’d never done anything so rash and impulsive in her life, but the thought suddenly struck her that she’d never wanted anything or anyone with such a deep visceral need before. There was protection in knowing that this was it. One night. With this beautiful man. And then she would allow all the pain and hurt and grief back in. But just for this night, these few hours that stretched ahead, she could be someone else. Not the girl orphaned at sixteen; not the little sister bullied by her older brother, hoping pathetically that he might change; not the girl working day and night to obtain a degree. And not the girl who had been involved in a horrific car crash in which she’d been the only one to walk away without a scratch.
His jaw was clenching again, a muscle working under the skin, and Cara had the strongest desire to reach up and press her lips there. She wanted to grasp at this moment in which she could lose herself in him with a passion that made her shake. Finally she did seize the moment, and nodded and said huskily, ‘Yes. I’d like to come to your hotel with you.’
CHAPTER TWO
THE journey to the hotel was made in silence. A chaffeurdriven car whisked them away from the club. Cara had tensed immediately on sitting in the car, unable to stop her reflex action, the crash still being so vivid. But Enzo had looked at her sharply and she’d forced herself to relax, although her hands were still clenched under her thighs and a light sweat had broken out on her brow. A taut, expectant silence enveloped them within the luxurious confines. Cara didn’t look at Enzo. She couldn’t. And yet somehow—and she couldn’t understand it—to be here with him…it felt right. As the car moved smoothly and slowly through the traffic, her own sense of panic dissipated a little. She felt safe.
She was so acutely aware of the man beside her that she could feel the latent heat and power in his body reach out to envelop her. At that moment the car pulled up outside one of London’s most discreetly exclusive hotels. It added even more to Enzo’s mystique, as she would have assumed he’d be staying somewhere more flashy. This hotel was renowned for the way it protected its famous and wealthy customers.
Enzo got out of the car and reached a hand in for Cara. She looked at it for a long moment and took a deep breath, her pulse beating heavy and slow in her veins. Closing her eyes in a ridiculously superstitious moment, she reached out and found her hand instantly encased in his huge one, not a second of hesitation in finding it, as if she’d tested her body to prove to her that this was meant to be.
He led her in through the front doors of the hotel. The night concierge greeted Enzo deferentially in Italian. They stepped into the lift, and still not a word had been spoken, barely a glance exchanged. A fierce burning was starting low in Cara’s belly, getting higher and higher. She could feel the tips of her breasts hardening against the material of her dress.
When the lift doors opened they stepped into a plush corridor with one door at the end. Enzo opened the door to his luxury suite and Cara followed him in, her eyes growing huge and round as she took in the darkly decadent splendour. The room was designed like a Victorian library.
Enzo had let go of her hand to shrug off his coat and jacket, and he walked over to a table that held bottles of drinks and glanced back, his features shadowed. Cara looked at him, and that trembling started up again. She took in the way his hair was cut so short and close to his skull, how exquisitely shaped his head was. She couldn’t believe she was here.
‘Would you like a drink?’
She shook her head jerkily and watched as Enzo poured himself a shot of something dark and golden. Like his eyes, she thought. He downed it in one before putting the glass down. The sound was jarring in the silence.
He turned around to face her, and the power in his huge body made Cara’s heart skitter all over again. She had no experience, had barely even kissed a man, and yet she knew on some deep, very sure level that she was meant to be here with this man tonight. It was an assertion that had been growing stronger and stronger since she had made her decision. Without even touching him she felt on some level as if she knew him, had been with him before—which was crazy as of course she hadn’t.
‘Come here.’
And as if in a dream, answering some deep need that had been brought to life within her, she walked over to him, coming to a stop just feet away.
Enzo closed the gap between them and brought his hands to her coat, pulling it open and off her shoulders. It fell to the floor. She looked up into his eyes, suddenly needing to feel reassured, and what she saw there nearly melted her on the spot. They were dark and glowing golden, intent on her face. It wasn’t reassurance, exactly, it was desire. Passion. A vortex of unexplored sensuality had gripped her and was fast hurtling her into this new world.
‘Enzo, I—’
‘Shh.’ He put a finger to her lips, stopping whatever it was she’d been about to say. And it was just as well, thought Cara shakily, as she wasn’t even sure what she was going to say. Her lack of experience seemed irrelevant right now. To speak might break the spell. For some reason this whole evening, with all its enigmatic silences, had had an undercurrent of silent communication running through it. Leading them here. And finally Cara gave herself up to that. She couldn’t question it any more.
Enzo lifted his hands and cradled Cara’s head, his fingers threading through the silky strands of her hair, tangling it. He stepped even closer, so that now their bodies connected, and Cara felt as if she was burning up through the material of her dress where she could feel his lean, hard length. It made her feel weak.
His head descended to hers. She closed her eyes, unable to keep them open any longer. The first touch of his lips to hers was fleeting. She had a sensation of firm contours. Her breath sharpened, coming in rapid bursts, and instinctively her hands came out to steady herself, resting on his waist. His hands fisted in her hair, tugging her head back gently, and her eyes opened, looking straight up into golden pools flecked with green.
Oh, Lord.
Enzo was looking at her assessingly. It made Cara feel nervous, but it was drowned in the proximity of her body to his, the clamour of her pulse. After a long moment his head descended again, but instead of kissing her where she ached most, on her mouth, his lips touched the delicate skin of her temples, trailed fire down her cheeks, and down further, to where the pulse beat rapidly under the skin of her neck. His tongue tasted her skin.
She twisted her head, her mouth searching blindly for his. She wanted to feel him take her, plunder her. Wanted to feel her tongue meshed with his. She wanted it with every cell in her being…but Enzo seemed to have other ideas. Cara suddenly felt bewildered. She was unaware of the soft moan of desperation that came from her mouth.
His hands on her head kept her steady, where he wanted her. Eyes glittered fiercely down, caught on her mouth. She tingled there, in high expectation that now he’d press his mouth to hers, wanting it so badly. But then he brought a hand to her bottom and pulled her in tight against him, and she felt the bulge of his hard arousal. She gasped out loud. Kissing was forgotten as all desire seemed to pool south and centre around her groin.
Wanting to be closer, if it were possible, she slid her hands up Enzo’s back, feeling the taut muscles as they moved under the silk of his shirt. Impatiently she registered that she needed to feel his skin, and scrabbled to pull his shirt out of his trousers, moaning softly when her hands made contact with his warm, smooth back.