Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper

That was what did it—what tore through his iron selfcontrol. That shiver of sensual awareness seemed to reverberate through his own body and galvanise him into actions he couldn’t control. Suddenly he was pulling her against him as their mouths met and their lips parted, and he was running his slippery hands over her bare back beneath her hot, vanilla-scented hair, dripping cold water on her burning skin.

The kiss was hungry, devouring, urgent. She moved round so that she was leaning with her back against the sink, her fingers grasping his shoulders. Lorenzo could feel the jut of her hipbones against his, rising, pressing against his thudding body. His arousal was so sudden, so intense, it was almost painful. He fumbled for the bow at the back of her apron, stretched to breaking point as his fingers moved across her bare, satin-smooth back. He wanted to have her now, standing up against the sink…

As if she’d read his mind she shifted slightly, tearing her lips from his for a moment as she hoisted herself upwards so that she was half sitting on the edge of the worktop. The movement made a little space between them, and without the bewitching ecstasy of her mouth on his, her hot body pressed against him, Lorenzo was pierced through with sudden chilling awareness.

What the hell was he doing?

A self-confessed romance junkie, India Grey was just thirteen years old when she first sent off for the Mills & Boon® Writers’ Guidelines. She can still recall the thrill of getting the large brown envelope with its distinctive logo through the letterbox, and subsequently whiled away many a dull school day staring out of the window and dreaming of the perfect hero. She kept those guidelines with her for the next ten years, tucking them carefully inside the cover of each new diary in January, and beginning every list of New Year’s Resolutions with the words Start Novel. In the meantime she gained a degree in English Literature and Language from Manchester University, and in a stroke of genius on the part of the gods of Romance met her gorgeous future husband on the very last night of their three years there. The last fifteen years have been spent blissfully buried in domesticity and heaps of pink washing, generated by three small daughters, but she has never really stopped daydreaming about romance. She’s just profoundly grateful to have finally got an excuse to do it legitimately!

Powerful

Italian,

Penniless

Housekeeper

By India Grey

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Debbie and Alyson,

without whose wit, wisdom and daily conferences

in the school car park

this book would have been written much more quickly

(but at further risk to my sanity).

CHAPTER ONE

ELIGIBLE bachelor.

Sarah came to a standstill in the middle of the car park, her fist tightening around the envelope in her hand.

She had to find an eligible bachelor. As an item in a scavenger hunt.

Since she’d conspicuously failed to find one of those in real life, her chances of success tonight seemed slim.

Beyond the rows of shiny Mercedes and BMWs parked outside Oxfordshire’s trendiest dining pub, the fields and streams and woodland coppices she had grown up amongst lay golden and peaceful in the low summer sun. She gazed out across them, the envelope still clutched in her hand as adrenaline fizzed through her bloodstream and her mind raced.

She didn’t have to go in there; didn’t have to take part in this stupid scavenger hunt for her sister’s hen weekend; didn’t have to be the butt of everyone’s jokes all the time—Sarah, nearly thirty and on the shelf. No, she knew these fields like the back of her hand, and could remember loads of good hiding places.

Thrusting a hand through her tangled curls, she sighed. Hiding up a tree might be considerably more appealing than going into a pub and having to find an eligible bachelor, but at the age of twenty-nine it was slightly less socially acceptable. And she couldn’t really spend the rest of her life hiding. Everyone said she had to get back out there and face it all again, for Lottie’s sake. Children needed two parents, didn’t they? Girls needed fathers. Sooner or later she should at least try to find someone to fill the rather sudden vacancy left by Rupert.

The prospect made her feel cold inside.

Later. Definitely later, rather than sooner. Right now she was going to—

The doors to the bar opened and a group of city types spilled out, laughing and slapping each other on the back in an excess of beery camaraderie. They barely glanced at her as they walked past, but almost as an afterthought the last one dutifully held the door open for her.

Hell. There was no way she could not go in now. They’d think she was some kind of weirdo whose idea of a good night out was hanging around in a pub car park. Stammering her thanks, she slipped into the dim interior of the bar, shoving the envelope into the back pocket of her jeans with a shaking hand.

In the years since she’d moved away from Oxfordshire The Rose and Crown had transformed itself from a tiny rural pub with swirly-patterned carpets and faded hunting prints on the nicotinestained walls to a temple of good taste, with reclaimed-oak floors, exposed brickwork and a background soundtrack of achingly trendy ‘mood music’ obviously intended to help the clientele of stockbrokers and barristers feel instantly ‘chilled out’.

It made Sarah feel instantly on edge. And about ninety years old.

She was about to turn round and walk straight out again when some latent sense of pride stopped her. It was ridiculous, she thought impatiently; she was used to doing things on her own. She put up shelves on her own. She did her income-tax form without help. She brought up her daughter completely singlehandedly. She could surely walk into a bar and get herself a drink.

Murmuring apologies, she slipped through the press of bodies into a space by the bar and glanced nervously around. The doors were open onto the terrace and she could see Angelica and her friends gathered round a big table in the centre. It would have been impossible to miss them. Even in this place, theirs was easily the noisiest, most glamorous group and was clearly attracting the attention of every single male within eyeing-up distance. They were all wearing T-shirts provided by Angelica’s chief bridesmaid, a gazelle-like girl called Fenella, who worked in PR and who was also responsible for the scavenger-hunt idea. The T-shirts had ‘Angelica’s final fling’ emblazoned across the front in pink letters, and Fenella had only had them made in a size ‘small’.

Sarah tugged at hers surreptitiously, desperately trying to make it cover the strip of bare flesh above the waistband of her too-tight jeans. Perhaps if she’d actually stuck to her New Year diet she’d be out there now, laughing, tossing back cocktails and shiny hair and collecting eligible bachelors with the best of them. Hell, if she was a stone lighter perhaps she wouldn’t even need an eligible bachelor because maybe then Rupert wouldn’t have felt the need to get engaged to a glacial blonde Systems Analyst called Julia. But too many nights spent on the sofa while Lottie was asleep, with nothing but a bottle of cheap wine and the biscuit tin for company, had meant she’d failed to lose even a couple of pounds.

She’d definitely try extra-hard between now and the wedding, she vowed silently, trying to make her way to the bar. It was taking place in the ruined farmhouse Angelica and Hugh had bought in Tuscany and were currently having lavishly done up, and Sarah had a sudden mental image of Angelica’s friends floating around the newly landscaped garden in their delicious little silken dresses, while she lurked in the kitchen, covering her bulk with an apron.

Fenella passed her now, on the way back from the bar with a handful of multicoloured drinks sprouting umbrellas and cherries. She eyed Sarah with cool amusement. ‘There you are! We’d almost given up on you. What are you drinking?’

‘Oh—er—I’m just going to have a dry white wine,’ said Sarah. She should really opt for a slimline tonic, but hell, she needed something to get her through the rest of the evening.

Fenella laughed—throwing her head back and producing a rich, throaty sound that had every man in the vicinity craning round to look. ‘Nice try, but I don’t think so. Look in your envelope—it’s the next challenge,’ she smirked, sliding through the crowd towards the door.

With her heart sinking faster than the Titanic, Sarah slid the envelope from her pocket and pulled out the next instruction.

She gave a moan of dismay.

The beautiful, lithe youth behind the bar flickered a glance in her direction and gave a barely perceptible jerk of his head, which she took as a grudging invitation to order. Her heart was hammering uncomfortably against her ribs and she could feel the heat begin to rise to her cheeks as she opened her mouth.

‘I’d like a Screaming Orgasm, please.’

The voice that came from her dry throat was low and cracked, but sadly not in a good way. The youth lifted a scornful eyebrow.

‘A what?’

‘A Screaming Orgasm,’ Sarah repeated miserably. She could feel the press of bodies behind her as other people jostled for a place at the bar. Her cheeks were burning now, and there was an uncomfortable prickling sensation rippling down the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. Which, of course, she was, she thought despairingly. Every one of Angelica’s friends had temporarily suspended their own professional flirtation operations and was peering in through the open doors, suppressing their collective mirth.

Well, at least they were finding this amusing. The youth flicked back his blond fringe and regarded her with dead eyes. ‘What’s one of those?’ he said tonelessly.

‘I don’t know.’ Sarah raised her chin and smiled sweetly, masking her growing desperation. ‘I’ve never had one.’

‘Never had a Screaming Orgasm? Then please, allow me…’

The voice came from just behind her, close to her ear, and was a million miles from the hearty, public-school bray of The Rose and Crown’s usual clientele. As deep and rich as oak-aged cognac, it was infused with an accent Sarah couldn’t immediately place, and the slightest tang of dry amusement.

Her head whipped round. In the crush at the bar it was impossible to get a proper look at the man who had spoken. He was standing close behind her and was so tall that her eyes were on a level with the open neck of his shirt, the triangle of olive skin at his throat.

She felt an unfamiliar lurch in the pit of her stomach as he leaned forward in one fluid movement, towering over her as he spoke to the youth behind the bar.

‘One shot each of vodka, Kahlua, Amaretto…’

His voice really was something else. Italian. She could tell by the way he said ‘Amaretto’, as if it were an intimate promise. Her nipples sprang to life beneath the tiny T-shirt.

God, what was she doing? Sarah Halliday didn’t let strange men buy her cocktails in pubs. She was a grown woman with a five-year-old daughter and the stretch marks to prove it. She’d been madly in love with the same man for nearly seven years. Lusting after strangers in bars wasn’t her style.

‘Thanks for your help,’ she mumbled, ‘but I can get this myself.’

She glanced up at him again and felt her chest tighten. The evening sun was coming from behind him but Sarah had an impression of dark hair, angular features, a strong jaw shadowed with several days of stubble. The exact opposite of Rupert’s English, golden-boy good looks, she thought with a shiver. Compelling rather than handsome.

And then he turned and looked back at her.

It felt as if he’d reached out and pulled her into the warmth of his body. His narrowed eyes were so dark that even this close she couldn’t see where the irises ended and the pupils began, and they travelled over her face lazily for a second before slipping downwards.

‘I’d like to get it for you.’

He said it simply, emotionlessly, as a statement of fact, but there was something about his voice that made the blood throb in her ears, her chest, her too-tight jeans.

‘No, really, I can…’

With shaking hands she opened her purse and peered inside, but the chemical reaction that had just taken place in the region of her knickers was making it difficult to see clearly or think straight.

Apart from a handful of small change her purse was virtually empty, and with a rush of dismay she remembered handing over her last five-pound note to Lottie for the swear box. Lottie’s policy on swearing was draconian and—since she’d introduced a system of fines—extremely lucrative. Clearly her killer business instinct had come from Rupert. The frustrations of the scavenger hunt this afternoon had cost Sarah dearly.

Now she looked up in panic and met the deadpan stare of the barman.

‘Nine pounds fifty,’ he said flatly.

Nine pounds fifty? She’d ordered a drink, not a three-course meal—she and Lottie could live for a week on that. Faint with horror, she looked down into her purse again while her numb brain raced. When she raised her head again it was to see the stranger hand a note over to the blond youth and pick up the ridiculous drink.

He moved away from the bar, and the crowd through which she’d had to fight a passage fell away for him, like the Red Sea before Moses. Unthinkingly she found herself following him, and couldn’t help her gaze from lingering on the breadth of his shoulders beneath the faded blue shirt he wore. He seemed to dwarf every other man in the packed room.

He stopped in the doorway to the terrace and held out the drink to her. It was white and frothy, like a milkshake. A very expensive milkshake.

‘Your first Screaming Orgasm. I hope you enjoy it.’

His face was expressionless, his tone dutifully courteous, but as she took the glass from him their fingers touched and Sarah felt electricity crackle up her arm.

She snatched her hand away so sharply that some of the cocktail splashed onto her wrist. ‘I doubt it,’ she snapped.

The stranger’s dark eyebrows rose in sardonic enquiry.

‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry,’ Sarah said, horrified by her own crassness. ‘That sounds so ungrateful after you paid for it. It’s just that it’s not a drink I’d usually choose, but I’m sure it’ll be delicious.’ And account for about three days’ calorie allowance, she thought, taking a large gulp and forcing herself to look appreciative. ‘Mmm…lovely.’

His eyes held her, dark and steady. ‘Why did you ask for it if it’s not your kind of thing?’

Sarah gave a half-hearted smile. ‘I have nothing against screaming orgasms in theory, but,’ she held up the envelope, ‘it’s a scavenger hunt. You have to collect different items on a list. It’s my sister’s hen weekend, you see…’

Half-sister. She probably should have explained. Right now he was no doubt wondering which one of the beautiful thoroughbred babes out there she could possibly share a full set of genes with.

‘So I gathered.’ He glanced down at her T-shirt and then out into the warm evening, where Angelica and Fenella and their friends had collected a veritable crowd of eligible bachelors and were cavorting conspicuously with them. ‘You don’t seem to be enjoying it quite as much as the others.’

‘Oh, no, I’m having a great time.’ Sarah made a big effort to sound convincing. One of Angelica’s friends was a holistic counsellor and had told her at lunchtime that she had a ‘negative aura’. She took another mouthful of the disgusting cocktail and tried not to gag.

Gently he took the glass from her and put it on the table behind them. ‘You are one of the worst actresses that I’ve come across in a long time.’

‘Thanks,’ she mumbled. ‘There goes my promising career as a Hollywood screen goddess.’

‘Believe me, it was a compliment.’

She looked up quickly, wondering if he was teasing her, but his expression was utterly serious. For a moment their eyes locked. The bolt of pure, stinging desire that shot through her took her completely by surprise and she felt the blood surge up to her face.

‘So what else is on your list of things to find?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know yet.’ She tore her gaze away from his and looked down at the envelope in her hand. ‘It’s all in here. As you get each item you open up the next envelope.’

‘How many have you got so far?’

‘One.’

His long, downturned mouth quirked into half a smile, but Sarah noticed that it didn’t chase the shadows from his eyes. ‘The drink was the first?’

‘Actually it was the second. But I gave up on the first.’

‘Which was?’

She shook her head, deliberately letting her hair fall over her face. ‘It’s not important.’

His fingers closed around the envelope in her hand and gently he took it from her. For a second she tried to snatch it back but he was too strong for her and she looked away in embarrassment as he unfolded the paper and read what was written there.

She looked past him into the blue summer evening. Out on the terrace, Fenella was watching her, and Sarah saw her nudge Angelica and smirk as she nodded in Sarah’s direction.

‘Dio mio,’ said the man beside her, his husky Italian voice tinged with distaste. ‘You have to “collect” an eligible bachelor?’

‘Yes. Not exactly my forte.’ Angrily Sarah turned away from the curious glances from the terrace and gave a short, bitter laugh. ‘I don’t suppose you’re one, are you?’

The moment she’d spoken she felt her face freeze with embarrassment as she realised how it had sounded. As if she was desperate. And as if she was coming on to him. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Let’s just pretend that I never asked that—’

‘No,’ he said tersely.

‘Please…‘ she ducked her head, staring down at the fashionably worn wooden floorboards ‘…forget it. You don’t have to answer.’

‘I just did. The answer’s no. I am neither a bachelor nor remotely eligible,’ he said gravely, reaching out and lifting her chin with his finger, so that she was left with no choice but to look up into his face. His eyes were black and impossible to read. ‘But they don’t know that,’ he murmured as he moved his lips to hers.

As ideas went, it probably wasn’t his most sensible, Lorenzo thought as he tilted her face up. He saw her dark eyes widen in shock as he brought his mouth down to hers.

But he was bored. Bored and disillusioned and frustrated, and this was as good a way as any of escaping those feelings for a while. Her lips were as soft and sweet as he’d imagined they would be, and as he kissed her with deliberate gentleness he breathed in the clean, artless smell of soap and washing powder.

She was shaking. Her body was rigid with tension, her mouth stayed tightly closed beneath his. Anger at the women on the terrace, who had obviously given her a hard time, churned inside him, adding to the sour disappointment of the day. Instinctively he raised one hand to cradle her face while the other slid beneath the warm tumble of her silken hair and cupped the back of her head.

Patience was one of the things that made him good at his job. The ability to make women relax and release their inhibitions was another. He held her with infinite care, close enough to make her feel cherished, but not so tightly she felt threatened. Gently his fingers caressed the nape of her neck, the secret dip at the base of her skull as his mouth very languidly explored hers.

Triumph shot through him as a soft moan escaped her and felt the stiffness leave her body. Her plump lips parted, her spine arched towards him and then she was kissing him back, with a tentative passion that was surprisingly exciting.

Lorenzo found he was smiling. For the first time in days…Dio, months, he was actually smiling, smiling against her mouth at the sheer unexpected sweetness of kissing this woman with the glorious auburn curls and the spectacular breasts and the sad, sad eyes.

He had come to Oxfordshire on a sort of desperate pilgrimage; a search for places that had long existed in his head thanks to a tattered paperback by a little-known author, picked up by chance years ago. The landscape described so lucidly in Francis Tate’s beautiful, lyrical novel had haunted him for years, and he had come here in the hope that it might rekindle some spark of the creativity that had died alongside the rest of his emotional life. But the reality of the place was disappointing; a far cry from the gentle, rural paradise Tate depicted in The Oak and the Cypress. Lorenzo had discovered a parody of picturepostcard England, bland and soulless.

This woman was the most real, genuine thing he’d come across since he’d arrived here, and probably long before. Emotions played across her face like shadows on a summer day. She didn’t conceal anything. Couldn’t pretend.

After Tia’s prolonged, sophisticated deception he found that profoundly attractive.

And she was actually as sexy as hell. Beneath that self-deprecating insecurity, this girl had depths of heat and passion. He’d kissed her because he felt sorry for her; because she looked sad; because it would cost nothing and mean nothing…

He hadn’t expected to enjoy it as much as this.

Lorenzo felt his smile widen as his hands moved down to her curvaceous waist and pulled her against him, desire spiralling down through the pit of his stomach as his fingers met the warm, soft flesh beneath the T-shirt…

She froze. Her eyes flew open, and then suddenly she was pushing him away; stumbling backwards. Her mouth was reddened and bee-stung from his kiss, and above it her dark eyes welled with hurt as they darted wildly in the direction of the whooping, clapping girls on the terrace before coming back to him.

For a second she just stared at him, her face stricken, and then she turned and pushed her way through the crush of bodies towards the door.

It was a joke, of course. That was what hen parties were all about. Jokes. Fun. Flirting. It was just part of all of that.

Pushing through a gap in the hedge at the back of the car park, Sarah felt the thorns scrape at her bare arms and angrily scrubbed the tears from her face with the back of her hand. Ouch. It hurt. That was why she was crying. Not because she couldn’t take a joke.

Even one as hurtful and humiliating as being kissed in a pub by a complete stranger who couldn’t even keep a straight face while he was doing it. God, no. She wouldn’t get upset about a silly, harmless thing like that.

Hell, she thought, striding angrily through the waist-high wheat, she was the woman who only a week ago had done the catering for an engagement party and dropped the cake—complete with lighted sparklers—in front of all the guests and the happy couple. One half of which just happened to have been her lover of seven years and the father of her child. Embarrassment and abject shame were old friends of hers. The small matter of being set up to provide hilarious entertainment for her sister’s hen party was nothing to Sarah Halliday: the original poster child for humiliation.

The sun was low, dipping down to the horizon, dazzling her through her tears and turning the field into a shimmering sea of gold. Sarah swiped furiously at the wheat in her path, giving vent to the fury and resentment that buzzed through veins that a few moments ago had been thrumming with desire.