He’ll protect her with his life...

...and worship her with his body!

Hired to keep heiress Arianna Fitzgerald safe, wealthy bodyguard Santino Vasari was expecting to meet a pampered princess. Yet beautiful Arianna intrigues him with her hidden vulnerability, and captivates him with her spirit! Alone in Santino’s secluded Sicilian farmhouse, they find their simmering sexual tension is electric. And when Santino discovers just how innocent Arianna is, resisting her temptation becomes an impossible challenge...

Meet the ultimate hero in this bodyguard romance!

CHANTELLE SHAW lives on the Kent coast and thinks up her stories while walking on the beach. She has been married for over thirty years and has six children. Her love affair with reading and writing Mills & Boon stories began as a teenager, and her first book was published in 2006. She likes strong-willed, slightly unusual characters. Chantelle also loves gardening, walking and wine!

Also by Chantelle Shaw

Acquired by Her Greek Boss

Hired for Romano’s Pleasure

Wed for His Secret Heir

The Howard Sisters miniseries

Sheikh’s Forbidden Conquest

A Bride Worth Millions

Bought by the Brazilian miniseries

Mistress of His Revenge

Master of Her Innocence

The Saunderson Legacy miniseries

The Secret He Must Claim

The Throne He Must Take

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Virgin’s Sicilian Protector

Chantelle Shaw

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07284-7

THE VIRGIN’S SICILIAN PROTECTOR

© 2018 Chantelle Shaw

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For Rosie and Rob.

You are both amazing.

Just keep swimming!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Extrac

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

THE PICTURE SPLASHED across the front page of the newspaper was damning. Arianna focused her bleary gaze on the photograph of herself, almost spilling out of a tiny bikini top and swigging champagne from a bottle, and shuddered.

Once she would not have given a damn that she’d made the headlines yet again. But that had been before she’d had an epiphany on her twenty-fourth birthday, just over a year ago, and realised that nothing she did would make her father take any notice of her. The only thing he was interested in, besides making money, was controlling her, as he had controlled her mother.

Arianna regularly spent the summer at the family villa in Positano and, although she’d never bothered to learn the language properly, she’d picked up enough Italian to be able to translate the paragraph beneath the newspaper picture.

The return of the Brat Pack!

Once again the offspring of many of Europe’s wealthiest families have flocked to the Amalfi coast to spend the summer partying.

Heiress Arianna Fitzgerald was clearly enjoying herself with close friend, reality television star Jonny Monaghan, aboard his luxury yacht.

Arianna is the daughter of billionaire fashion designer Randolph Fitzgerald and has been famously described in the British press as ‘the most privileged and pointless person on the planet’.

That particular comment had been reprinted so often that Arianna was bored of reading it. She dropped the newspaper down on the patio tiles, feeling too disorientated to wonder who had left it where she was bound to see it, and rolled over onto her back, trying to remember why she had spent the night on a sun lounger by the pool. Her head was thumping and her mouth was parched. She had no recollection of how she had come to be on Jonny’s boat, or how she had arrived at Villa Cadenza. Nor could she remember tying a sarong around her to cover up the miniscule gold bikini that had been a regrettable impulse buy when she had been in Australia.

God, she felt awful. But it couldn’t be a hangover because she’d barely drunk any alcohol. She wondered if someone could have spiked the bottle of champagne she’d taken a sip out of. Jonny and his crowd—who had once been her crowd—used cocaine and other so-called recreational substances to alleviate their terminal boredom. But, although Arianna had partied as hard and as frequently as her peers, she’d never taken drugs, because she had seen the devastating effects they’d had on some of her friends.

As she lay there trying to summon the energy to get up off the lounger and go into the house, she heard footsteps on the marble tiles, and the aroma of coffee assailed her senses. Good old Filippo. The butler had been kind to Arianna when she’d been a child—unlike most of the temporary nannies her father had employed to look after her during the school holidays. She had attended an exclusive English boarding school but her refusal to accept any kind of authority had led to her being expelled when she’d been fifteen.

Filippo was one of the few people who had not seemed to disapprove of her when she’d been a surly pre-teen and then a rebellious young adult. She could also testify that the butler’s secret recipe for a hangover cure worked. But what she craved right now was strong black coffee.

The footsteps halted and Arianna frowned. It was true she had never paid any attention to Filippo’s footwear before, but she was sure he did not usually wear heavy-duty black leather boots. Or faded denim jeans. She lifted her gaze and discovered that the waistband of the jeans sat low on a pair of lean hips, above which was a black T-shirt stretched tight over a flat stomach and a broad, impressively muscular chest.

The man, who was definitely too tall to be Filippo, was carrying a tray. Had her father employed a new butler? She craned her neck so that her gaze reached the man’s face and her heart crashed against her ribs.

‘Who are you? And where’s Filippo?’ Her voice sounded husky because her throat was dry, not because the stranger’s stunning good looks had taken her breath away, she assured herself.

‘My name is Santino Vasari. I’m your new bodyguard.’ The deep rumble of his voice, as sensuous as dark molasses, had a peculiar effect on Arianna’s insides. ‘Your father said he would let you know that he had hired me.’

‘Oh, yes.’ The fog around her brain was clearing and she remembered the text she’d received from her father yesterday when she had arrived in London on a long-haul flight from Sydney. Stupidly, her heart had leapt when she’d seen Randolph’s name flash up on her phone’s screen. She’d wondered if he’d missed her while she had been in Australia for six months. But the message had simply said that a bodyguard would meet her at Villa Cadenza, and that Santino Vasari was an ex-soldier who had turned to private protection work after he’d left the army.

His incredible physique certainly suggested that he had been in the armed forces. Arianna licked her dry lips with the tip of her tongue and flushed when his gaze focused on her mouth. She felt at a disadvantage sprawled on the sun bed while his eyes roamed over the silk sarong that had become bunched up around her thighs before he continued a leisurely inspection of her bare legs. She was used to attracting attention. Indeed, she had spent much of the past decade seeking notoriety and scandal. But something about Santino Vasari and her unexpected reaction to him made her sit up and swing her legs over the side of the lounger.

She winced as the movement exacerbated her pounding headache and the smirk on Santino’s lips sent a sizzle of temper through her.

‘I did not ask for a bodyguard. You have had a wasted journey here,’ she said abruptly. Her cut-glass English accent was as sharp as a razor. ‘I don’t want you, Mr Vasari.’

‘Is that a fact?’ There was disbelief in his lazy drawl. An arrogant, almost cocky confidence that every woman who laid eyes on him wanted him. His self-assurance was probably not misplaced, Arianna acknowledged. ‘Handsome’ did not come close to describing the ruggedly masculine beauty of his chiselled features: the slashing lines of his cheekbones that emphasised the harsh angles of his face and the square, worryingly determined jaw, covered with dark stubble the same colour as the almost black hair that curled rebelliously over his collar.

Santino Vasari did not appear to be fazed by her frosty attitude. He strolled towards her, moving with a loose-limbed grace that reminded Arianna of a prowling lion—silent, purposeful and decidedly dangerous. His manner was relaxed but his eyes—startlingly green eyes that gleamed as brightly as peridots—were watchful and unsettlingly perceptive.

Her heart gave another hard kick in her chest when he dropped his gaze to the swell of her breasts. Heat surged through her. She felt her nipples pucker but managed to resist the urge to glance down to see if they were visible through her bikini top. No other man had ever had such a potent effect on her. Not one. She’d come to the conclusion some time ago that she had a low sex drive—or maybe she was frigid, as an ex-boyfriend had told her when she had refused to have sex with him.

Arianna lifted her chin and forced herself to meet Santino’s mocking look with cool indifference. But when he placed the tray on a low table, before he pulled a chair up close to her sun bed and sat down, her heartbeat accelerated. Her senses seemed more acute and she breathed in the spicy sandalwood scent of his aftershave carried on the warm, early morning air.

‘You see, Arianna...’ he murmured, and she quickly tore her gaze from his mouth. ‘May I call you Arianna? “Miss Fitzgerald” is frankly a bit of a mouthful when we are going to be spending a lot of time together.’

‘The hell we are!’

He ignored her angry outburst. ‘Whether you like it or not your father has hired me to be your protection officer, which means that I will accompany you every time you leave the house.’

She drummed her long, perfectly manicured nails on the arm of the sun lounger. ‘Why has Randolph developed a sudden urge to protect me when he has never shown any concern for me before? And why does he think I need protecting while I’m here? Positano has a low crime rate, and I’m well known in the area. I’ve been coming here every summer since I was a child.’

‘You certainly announced your arrival in Amalfi,’ Santino said in a dry tone. He picked up the newspaper. ‘You were still asleep when I brought you a copy of today’s paper. The picture of you fooling around with your sailor boyfriend made the front page of many of the English and European tabloids, as well as the local press here on the Amalfi Coast. Anyone who wants to find you won’t have to look very hard.’

Arianna shrugged to hide her discomfiture that she’d been unaware of his presence while she’d slept. It made her feel vulnerable, somehow, knowing that he was the only man who had ever seen her asleep. ‘I don’t suppose anyone will be looking for me. Most of my friends are aware that I spend the summer in Positano.’

She wondered why Santino had sounded terse, but as she stared at the newspaper she suddenly understood. ‘I’m not stupid, Mr Vasari. I am aware of the reason why my father hired you.’

She thought that he tensed, although she couldn’t be sure. His eyes narrowed on her face but his tone bordered on uninterested as he murmured, ‘And what reason is that?’

‘Randolph employed you to make sure that I keep out of trouble and out of the papers, didn’t he?’

‘You have a well-documented history of getting into trouble.’ Santino flicked his gaze back to the newspaper photo, and the look of contempt that crossed his hard features filled Arianna with an emotion that she was startled to realise was shame.

She had never cared what other people thought of her, or at least that was what she had tried to convince herself. The scathing words of the headmistress who had expelled her from her school—that she would amount to nothing in life unless she changed her attitude—still stung ten years later. But, Arianna assured herself, she absolutely did not care what a man who made a living from looking menacing, and who was probably all brawn and no brains, thought of her.

‘Drinking yourself to oblivion and flaunting your body like a hooker seems like pretty stupid behaviour in my opinion,’ Santino Vasari said, and something in his tone made her feel as small and insignificant as she’d felt all those years ago in the headmistress’s office.

Her jaw dropped. No one had ever spoken to her quite so bluntly before, and the thought struck her that if her father had criticised her just once it would have been an indication that he cared about her. But Randolph’s lack of interest had led to her running wild throughout her teenage years and she’d behaved like the spoilt brat that the tabloids, and the odious man who was sitting too close to her and invading her personal space, believed she was.

‘I did not ask for, nor am I the least bit interested in, your opinion,’ she informed Santino icily.

The glitter in his green eyes sent a frisson of excitement through her when she realised that he was struggling to control his temper. At least she made him feel something—which she had never achieved with her father.

‘I expected you to arrive at Naples airport on a flight from London yesterday. But, when I went to meet you, you didn’t show up,’ he said curtly. ‘How did you get to Positano?’

She shrugged. ‘At Heathrow I bumped into a friend, Davina, who was about to fly to Amalfi on her father’s company jet and she invited me to go with her.’ It was all coming back to Arianna now. The private jet had landed at an airfield near to the Amalfi coast and Davina had arranged to join Jonny and a group of friends on his yacht Sun Princess.

By then it had been something like thirty-nine hours since Arianna had left Sydney and she had hardly eaten or drunk anything in that time. She’d been too tired to argue when Jonny had pulled her onto the yacht, saying that he would take her along the coast to Positano. All she had wanted to do was sleep, but with a party in full swing it had been impossible. At least sunbathing on the deck had allowed her to close her eyes, and she had worn the gold bikini for the first time without realising how inadequately the tiny triangles of material covered her breasts.

When someone had passed her a bottle of champagne, she’d taken a sip to quench her thirst. It was bad luck that just then a speedboat had raced alongside the yacht and the paparazzi on board had taken the photograph which had made it onto the front page of the newspapers.

She glanced at Santino’s arresting face. He was not handsome in a pretty sense, unlike some of the male models with whom she had worked on fashion shoots. Featuring on the front covers of upmarket glossy magazines was her only claim to a career, she acknowledged ruefully.

Santino’s hard-boned features and powerfully muscular physique exuded a raw masculinity and brooding sensuality that evoked a visceral longing deep in Arianna’s pelvis. Her reaction shocked her. For all of her adult life she had flirted and acted the role of a siren, tempting men with her beauty. But she’d never felt desire or chemistry, or whatever this wild heat in her blood was called.

Inexplicably she found herself tempted to explain the true version of what had happened on the yacht. Even more oddly, she considered telling him the truth about herself: that she had finally grown up and wanted to make something good out of her life. But he probably wouldn’t believe her, and he would not care anyway. No one ever had. Not her business-obsessed father or her mother who, when Arianna had been a child, had abandoned her for a lover and a new life on the other side of the world.

She watched Santino press the plunger down on the cafetière and pour coffee into the single cup on the tray. Eagerly she reached out her hand to take the cup but he lifted it to his lips and took a long sip.

‘It’s good coffee,’ he murmured appreciatively. ‘I suggest you go and get yourself some. You look as though you could do with a dose of caffeine.’

She flushed, wondering if she looked as bad as he had implied. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair and guessed she looked a wreck after she’d travelled from one time zone to another. Her body clock had gone haywire and she wasn’t suffering from a hangover but severe dehydration. ‘I assumed that Filippo had asked you to deliver the coffee to me,’ she said sharply.

‘The butler was whizzing up a concoction of what looked like raw eggs and spinach in a blender.’ Santino gave a shrug. ‘Filippo told me he usually makes the smoothie to cure your hangover after you’ve had a heavy night of partying.’

He removed the cover from a plate to reveal Arianna’s favourite breakfast that the cook, Ida, always prepared for her of freshly baked rolls and thin slices of ham. Her stomach growled with hunger as she watched him pick up a roll and bite into it. With any luck he would choke, she thought sourly.

‘The cook told me she is preparing agnello arrosto con fagioli bianco for dinner—roast lamb with white beans,’ he said after he had polished off a second roll. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms above his head, causing the hem of his T-shirt to ride up, revealing a strip of his bronzed torso and a sprinkling of black hairs that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans. ‘I can see I’m going to enjoy staying at Villa Cadenza.’

The glimpse of his taut, tanned abdomen had a strange effect on Arianna’s insides and she felt hot all over imagining where his body hair grew more thickly beneath the zip of his jeans. She knew she was blushing, and when she dragged her gaze away from Santino’s crotch up to his face the gleam of amusement in his eyes added fuel to her simmering temper.

‘You won’t be staying here,’ she told him furiously. ‘I’m going to call my father and put an end to this ridiculous situation.’

Arianna spied her handbag and suitcase on the floor close to the sun bed. Vaguely she remembered that one of the crew on Jonny’s yacht had brought her and her luggage to the villa in the early hours of the morning. The front door had been locked and she hadn’t wanted to wake the butler so she had slept on a sun bed for the rest of the night.

She dug out her phone and called her father’s private number. But inevitably it was his personal assistant, Monica, who answered and gave the usual excuse that Randolph was busy and did not want to be disturbed. ‘I’ll tell him you phoned and I’m sure he’ll be in touch when he has time,’ the PA said smoothly, although she must know that Randolph had never in living memory returned one of his daughter’s calls.

‘I’d like to leave a message for him.’ Arianna watched Santino pour out the last of the coffee from the cafetière and gulp it down, and her blood boiled. ‘Will you tell my father that I have no need of a bodyguard and I have fired Mr Vasari?’ She gave Santino a haughty look. ‘He will be leaving Villa Cadenza immediately.’

* * *

Santino let his eyes roam over Arianna as she leaned back on the sun bed while she talked on her phone. Her long, tanned legs went on for ever and the silk sarong tied around her body did not hide the fullness of her breasts. Desire spiked sharp and urgent in his groin and he was thankful that the newspaper on his lap hid the betraying bulge beneath his jeans. He had known before he’d agreed to be her bodyguard that she was beautiful, but he had been unprepared for the hunger she aroused in him, the white-hot lust that surged through his veins.

She had recently starred in an advertising campaign for a famous perfume brand and pictures of her on billboards wearing sexy, black lace underwear had ignited a fire inside him. Sex was used indiscriminately by advertisers to sell products, and no doubt every red-blooded male who looked at the photos of Arianna wanted to run their hands over her lush curves and kiss her sensual mouth that was both an invitation and a challenge. But it was a challenge he must ignore, Santino reminded himself.

When he had found her asleep on the sun lounger earlier he’d realised that a camera could not capture the true essence of her beauty. Fine-boned and slender, she’d looked as fragile as a porcelain figurine, and she was quite the loveliest thing he had ever seen. It was those exquisite cheekbones and the delicate perfection of her elfin features, he thought broodily. Photographs did not do justice to the luminosity of her English rose complexion.

She had woken a few minutes ago and her long, curling lashes had swept upwards as she’d surveyed him with her big brown eyes flecked with gold. He told himself he must have imagined he had glimpsed a haunting vulnerability in her gaze. The sulky pout of her mouth was too sensual, too provocative, for her to be anything other than the brazen temptress beloved by the tabloids and gossip columns.

Santino rubbed his hand around the back of his neck to ease a knot of tension in his muscles. His fingers automatically slipped beneath his shirt collar and traced the ten-inch scar from a bullet wound he’d received while he’d been serving in Afghanistan. The bullet had entered just below his shoulder blade and ripped open his body before exiting his neck at the base of his skull. It was incredible that he had survived, and, like the images in his mind of war, the scar would never completely fade. Nor would his guilt.

Eight years ago he had come close to death on a dusty, blood-spattered desert road. His life had been saved by his best friend and fellow SAS member, Mac Wilson, who had dragged him out of the line of fire. But that act of immense bravery had cost Mac his legs when an IED had exploded beneath him.

Restlessly, Santino stood up and walked across the terrace, aware that Arianna’s gaze followed him. His thoughts flew back to six months ago when Mac had requested his help to bring down a gang of drug smugglers believed to be responsible for his sister’s death. Mac was determined to bring Laura’s Italian boyfriend to justice but he had no proof that the man, Enzo, had supplied her with the cocaine which had killed her. Mac had asked Santino to infiltrate the gang who had links to the Calabrian mafia, known as the ’Ndrangheta. He had not needed to remind Santino that he was unable to do so himself because he was confined to a wheelchair.

Working undercover, Santino had discovered that, as well as drug smuggling, the gang had carried out several high-profile kidnappings and been paid millions of pounds of ransom money. Their next target was the English heiress Arianna Fitzgerald. The kidnappers had kept her under surveillance for some time and knew that she spent the summer at her father’s villa on the Amalfi coast. Santino had alerted the Italian police, but they had been unable to contact Arianna, so had warned her father of the threat to his daughter.

Santino recalled his meeting with Randolph Fitzgerald a week ago at the billionaire’s Kensington home Lyle House.

‘You are the best person to protect my daughter when she returns from Australia, Mr Vasari. Name your price. What will it take to persuade you to accept the job of Arianna’s bodyguard?’

Santino had been irritated by the other man’s arrogant assumption that everything could be bought and everyone had a price, but he guessed that those things were probably true for one of the richest men in England. ‘I am not a CPO,’ Santino had reminded Randolph. ‘I have given you the names of several security agencies who can provide close protection officers and will arrange for your daughter to receive round-the-clock protection.’

‘Your training and experience with the SAS gives me confidence that you will be able to keep Arianna safe. After all, it was you who found out that a mafia gang are planning to snatch her from my villa in Positano and demand a multi-million-pound ransom for her release. The Italian police are hunting for the gang but, until they are arrested, the threat to Arianna remains.’

It was true that the in-depth knowledge Santino had amassed about the gang members while he had pretended to be one of them meant he knew how they operated and could be one step ahead of them. But it was also true that he had no desire to babysit a spoilt socialite who, by her own father’s admission, was headstrong and difficult.

Even if only a fraction of the reports about Arianna Fitzgerald’s party lifestyle were true, she had earned her reputation as a good-time girl. For years her face and her stunning body—invariably poured into figure-hugging dresses—had regularly appeared on the front pages of the tabloids. One social commentator had sarcastically observed that Arianna would turn up to the opening of an envelope if it gave her an opportunity to pose for the cameras.

‘I left the army a long time ago and since then I have established a successful career. I don’t need a job,’ Santino had told her father bluntly. ‘It could be months before all the gang members involved in the kidnap plot are apprehended. I can’t take that amount of time away from my business interests.’

Randolph nodded. ‘I believe your chain of delicatessens under the brand name of Toni’s Deli has outlets across the UK and in many European cities. You sold the business eighteen months ago and since then you have concentrated on growing your investment portfolio.’

Noticing Santino’s surprise, Randolph had added drily, ‘I did my homework about you, Mr Vasari, and I have a proposition that might interest you.’

Despite himself, Santino had been curious. ‘I’m guessing that your proposition is dependent on my agreement to protect Arianna?’

‘Preparations are underway to float Fitzgerald Design on the stock market and a price has been set at thirty-five pounds per share.’ The fashion designer handed Santino a piece of paper. ‘The top figure is the valuation of the company, and the figure beneath it is the number of shares I am prepared to give you in return for you taking on the role of my daughter’s bodyguard until the kidnap threat is over.’

Santino lifted his brows when he looked at the figures. ‘It would cost you a lot less to employ a CPO through a security agency.’

‘As I have already stated, I believe you are the best man for the job.’ Randolph leaned back in his chair. ‘You are no doubt aware that my daughter frequently appears on the front pages of a certain type of newspaper. For some reason Arianna seems to enjoy courting notoriety, but the publicity surrounding her is likely to have brought her to the attention of the gang who intend to kidnap her. An important element of your job will be to shield her from the paparazzi and keep her out of the headlines.’

Randolph was clearly confident that the offer of a significant number of shares in Fitzgerald Design would persuade him to agree to be Arianna’s bodyguard, Santino had mused. Why shouldn’t he accept the shares as payment for protecting a pampered young woman who, quite frankly, sounded as if she was a pain in the backside?

Originally, he had set aside some time to try and help Mac gain justice—in some form or another—for his sister’s death. But Arianna Fitzgerald was being threatened by people who had no respect for life. The ’Ndrangheta were ruthless and Santino did not like to think what they might do to her if they seized her.

Randolph leaned across the desk and, as if he’d read Santino’s mind, said, ‘I have faith that your SAS training makes you the ideal person to protect my daughter. What do you say?’

There was only one thing that Santino could say. ‘All right, I will be Arianna’s bodyguard until the gang members have been caught.’

‘There is one problem.’ Randolph hesitated. ‘Arianna must not be told the real reason why I have hired you to be her protection officer.’

When Santino frowned the billionaire quickly continued, ‘My daughter is prone to volatile emotions. She has seen various experts—psychologists and so forth.’ He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I don’t pretend to understand the reason for Arianna’s histrionics but a year ago she overdosed and spent several weeks in hospital. I am concerned about how she might react to the news that a mafia gang are planning to kidnap her. For the sake of her emotional stability it will be better if the gravity of the situation is kept from her.’

‘I will find it a lot harder to protect Arianna if she is unaware of the danger she is in,’ Santino had argued.

‘That is why I chose you for the job,’ Randolph replied slickly. ‘I suggest you allow her to think that the reason I hired you is because the launch of Fitzgerald Design as a public company will attract a huge amount of publicity. I trust that you will keep my daughter safe, Mr Vasari.’

Santino pulled his thoughts back to the present and cursed beneath his breath as he stared at Arianna’s scantily clad figure sprawled on the sun bed. His fantasy of undressing her and cradling her pert breasts in his hands would have to remain in his imagination. When he had been in the army a sense of duty and honour had been ingrained in him. Arianna’s father had put his faith in him, which meant that the delectable Miss Fitzgerald was definitely off-limits.

CHAPTER TWO

‘I’M AFRAID YOU can’t dismiss Mr Vasari,’ Randolph’s PA said in her calm, slightly patronising manner which Arianna found intensely irritating. ‘I have his employment contract which both he and your father signed here on my desk.’

‘I don’t care about any wretched contract.’ Too agitated to sit still, Arianna jumped up from the lounger. ‘This is intolerable. I don’t want a bodyguard. Randolph can’t force me to have one.’

‘Your father told me to inform you that if you do not accept Mr Vasari’s protection services then your monthly allowance will be stopped,’ the PA said crisply. ‘While you are in Positano, Mr Vasari will stay at Villa Cadenza and he will accompany you at all times when you go out.’

For a few moments shock rendered Arianna speechless. It was not the first time her father had used money to try to control her and anger surged like boiling lava through her veins. A year ago she had resolved to start her own fashion-design business so that she could earn her own money and not be reliant on the—admittedly generous—allowance that arrived in her bank account every month. However, her dream of being independent was as yet unfulfilled. Her lack of business skills and serious doubts that her designs were any good had prevented her from turning her dream into reality. Recently she had taken another step towards her goal, but she would need every penny of the money she had inherited from her grandmother to cover the start-up costs of establishing her business. It meant that she would have to rely on the allowance from her father for a little while longer.

But she would not tolerate having her privacy infringed by the constant presence of a bodyguard. Especially not the arrogantly self-assured man who had resumed his seat close to her sun bed. Santino leaned back in the chair and folded his arms behind his head while he trailed his eyes over her and looked unimpressed.

‘Unimpressed’ was not a reaction Arianna was used to receiving from men. She had attracted male attention since she’d been thirteen, when her body had started to develop from that of a skinny, coltish girl into a curvy young woman with a face and body that men lusted after. At first she had been scared by her power, but as she’d grown older she had learned that she could use feminine wiles to her advantage.

Against her will, her eyes were drawn to Santino’s and she glimpsed a fire in his brilliant green gaze that caused heat to unfurl in the pit of her stomach. But she told herself she must have imagined his predatory look when his eyes narrowed and his expression became unfathomable.

She turned away and spoke into her phone in a low tone, conscious that he was within earshot of her conversation. Monica had worked as her father’s assistant for years and guarded him fiercely. In truth, Arianna had often felt jealous of the close relationship the other woman had with him. ‘Please let me speak to Randolph,’ she muttered, feeling a familiar sense of betrayal at her father’s indifference.

‘I’m sorry. He has meetings for the rest of the day, but I’ll let him know that you want to talk to him,’ Monica said and ended the call before Arianna could respond.

Angrily she chucked her phone down on the sun bed but it bounced off the cushions and landed on the tiles with an ominous clatter. She picked it up and cursed when she saw a crack across the screen.

‘You want to be more careful.’ Santino’s mocking voice was the last straw and Arianna spun round and glared at him.

‘What I want is for you to get out of my house!’ she snapped, aware that she sounded petulant, but her anger was mixed with a growing sense of panic at the realisation that her father was once again trying to exert his influence over her life.

Santino strolled towards her. His steps were unhurried, yet Arianna sensed that if she bolted towards the house he would move with the deadly speed of a big cat pursuing its prey and catch up with her before she’d gone any distance.

‘This isn’t your house. Your father owns the villa, and more to the point he pays my wages,’ he drawled. ‘I have been given instructions from Randolph to stay close to you when you go out shopping or meet your friends in bars or at the beach.’

Santino had not specified that his orders were to monitor her behaviour and prevent her from attracting the paparazzi’s attention, but Arianna was certain that was the reason her father had insisted on her having a bodyguard. She knew that Fitzgerald Design was about to be floated on the stock market, and no doubt Randolph was anxious that she did not create any bad publicity before the launch that might affect the share price.

‘You’re loving this, aren’t you?’ she accused Santino angrily. Her fingers itched to slap the mocking smile off his handsome face.

He gave her an impatient look. ‘I can’t say that I relish the prospect of babysitting a spoilt socialite who has no idea how privileged she is. Your father believes that some of your friends are seriously into the drugs scene and he is concerned about you—’

‘My father,’ she interrupted him, ‘doesn’t give a damn about me and he is only concerned with protecting the Fitzgerald Design brand name. It’s true that I can’t force you to leave, but you will be housed in the staff quarters, and there is no reason for me to have to see you around the villa.’

‘Randolph invited me to enjoy the facilities at Villa Cadenza and make myself comfortable. I’ll be sleeping in the guest suite next door to your room.’ Santino grinned when she glared at him. ‘You’ll soon get used to me being around and who knows? You might even enjoy my company. I was thinking of having a swim in that amazing infinity pool. Do you want to join me?’

‘No,’ she said through gritted teeth. She wanted to scream and shout as she’d done as a teenager—when her temper tantrums had been worse than those of a three-year-old, the governess her father had hired after Arianna had been expelled from school had told her.

‘The truth, my dear,’ Miss Melton had said crisply, ‘is that the more you behave like a spoilt brat the less your father will want to have anything to do with you. Mr Fitzgerald is a very busy man and his time is precious.’

The implication had been that Randolph had more important things to do than pay attention to his difficult daughter. Nothing had changed, Arianna thought angrily. Santino Vasari’s job was not to protect her but to control her.

He had walked over to the pool and was standing with his back to her, perhaps admiring the clever illusion that the water was pouring over the edge of the terrace. Or maybe he was enjoying the view of the azure sea through the huge glass window in the wall, beyond which was the villa’s private beach. There was something so arrogant about his relaxed stance—as if he owned the place—that infuriated her.

Without pausing to think—a trait that had got Arianna into trouble on numerous occasions—she ran up to him and stretched out her hands to shove him into the pool. Her bare feet made no sound on the tiles, yet Santino must have sensed she was behind him, as he leapt out of her path with startling agility for such a big man. With nothing to slow her momentum she teetered on the edge of the pool and let out a yelp as she fell in and the water closed over her head.

She came up coughing and spluttering. The water wasn’t cold, but it jolted her to her senses, and for a moment she felt a familiar sense of panic before she realised that she could feel the bottom of the pool beneath her feet. She felt like an idiot for her childish behaviour, and Santino’s laughter told her that he shared her opinion. She waded over to the edge of the pool and clambered up the steps, ignoring the hand he held out to assist her.

‘I see you changed your mind about having a swim,’ he taunted.

Arianna stepped onto the poolside...and discovered that she was no longer wearing the sarong. It must have come loose in the pool and she saw the length of cerise silk floating in the water. ‘Go to hell,’ she snapped.

‘I’ve already been there.’ The amusement had disappeared from his voice. ‘Helmand province was a hell on earth that few people, especially someone as privileged as you, could begin to imagine. When I was in Afghanistan I saw good men, some of them my close friends, die in the line of duty.’

‘I don’t know much about the war in Afghanistan,’ she admitted.

‘No, I don’t suppose you do. Battle reports and casualty figures are not the sort of thing to feature in gossip columns, which I imagine is the only kind of news you read. But I assure you that hell would be a picnic in the park compared to desert warfare.’

Of course he had to be a war hero, Arianna thought, feeling another stab of shame that she had done nothing in her life to be proud of. Being chosen as the face of a perfume advertising campaign was utterly irrelevant compared to Santino risking his life on the battlefield.

She gathered up her long, wet hair in her hands and wrung out some of the water before she flicked it behind her shoulders. Santino made a rough sound, as if he had released his breath slowly, and when Arianna looked at him her gaze was trapped by the hard gleam in his eyes. He was staring at her as if he wanted to devour her and the stark hunger etched on his face evoked something fierce, bright and electrifying inside her.

She was supremely conscious that her body was no longer hidden beneath a sarong and her tiny gold bikini was not much more than three triangles of material held together with narrow ties. The action of pushing her hair back had lifted her breasts and, glancing down, she saw the hard points of her nipples jutting provocatively through the clingy, damp bra top.

There was a pile of freshly laundered towels by the side of the pool. Santino strode over, picked up a towel and returned to offer it to Arianna. ‘Here, you had better cover yourself up. I can see that you’re cold,’ he said, resting his gaze deliberately on the betraying hard points of her nipples. The mockery in his voice was mixed with something darker that prickled across her skin and made her breasts feel heavy.

She felt scorched by his glittering gaze, by the heated desire she saw in those green depths. Triumph swept through her with the realisation that he wanted her but she sensed that he resented the attraction he felt for her.

‘I’m not cold,’ she murmured, ignoring the towel he held out to her. Tipping her head to one side, she regarded him through half-closed lashes, enjoying a sense of feminine power as she gave him a teasing smile, and his jaw hardened. ‘I may as well go in the pool with you now that I’m wet.’

She saw his gaze drift over her body, following the droplets of water that she could feel trickling down her stomach to her thong-style bikini pants.

‘Are you wearing swim-shorts under your clothes? It doesn’t matter if you’re not,’ she said archly. ‘I often sunbathe naked out here on the terrace. I hope that won’t make you feel uncomfortable.’

Santino’s eyes narrowed. ‘I know you like to play games, Arianna, but don’t think you can play them with me.’ His lips curled sardonically when she opened her eyes wide and gave him a look of pure innocence. ‘I’ve read the tabloid stories about your countless affairs with celebrities, and seen the pictures of you falling out of nightclubs and flaunting that incredible body of yours in revealing clothes that would make a whore blush. You can try all the tricks you like but you won’t distract me from doing the job your father hired me to do.’

‘And of course the tabloids always tell the truth,’ she said abruptly. Her voice was sharper than she’d intended. Santino’s scathing tone made her feel grubby and cheap. She had spent the best part of ten years trying to punish her father for his lack of interest in her, and she’d actively encouraged the paparazzi’s attention with the wild behaviour that had earned her the label of ‘spoilt little rich girl’. But the truth was that the only person she had hurt was herself.

There was no reason why the contempt in Santino’s eyes should make her feel as if he had peeled away a layer of her skin, leaving her exposed and raw. What right did he have to judge her? He acted like Mr High and Mighty but she had discovered his weakness. How amusing that she was Santino Vasari’s Achilles’ heel, she thought, hiding her hurt feelings behind a wall of bravado the way she had learned to do since she’d been eleven years old.

She took the towel out of his hand and dropped it onto the floor before she stepped closer to him. A smile played on her lips when he folded his arms across his chest in what could only be described as a defensive gesture, which intrigued her.

‘You sound worried, Santino. How do you think I might distract you?’ she murmured, running her fingers lightly along his forearm. His skin was like warm silk and beneath it she felt the tensile strength of hard sinews and muscles.

His face hardened, the skin drawn taut over the slashing lines of his cheekbones. ‘I’m warning you, Arianna,’ he said harshly. ‘I’m not one of the pretty boys who flock around you. Don’t test my patience too far.’

‘How could I do that, I wonder?’ she purred. Common sense told her that she should walk into the house right now, taking what was left of her pride with her. But the dismissive tone in Santino’s voice clawed at her lifelong sense of insignificance.

Her father had never paid her any attention, but at eighteen she had discovered that the paparazzi swarmed to take pictures of her when she stumbled out of nightclubs looking wild-eyed and the worse for drink. She had been dubbed ‘the party princess’ by the tabloids and, as her notoriety grew, she was invited to all the best parties. Restaurant openings, theatre first nights, art gallery exhibitions: anyone with a new business to promote included Arianna Fitzgerald on the guest list, knowing that her presence would ensure the event received maximum publicity.

She would show Santino that he could not dismiss her as if she was an irrelevance. He would take notice of her. ‘Am I testing your patience now?’ she asked softly as she trailed her fingers up his arm to his shoulder, feeling his bunched muscles beneath his T-shirt.

His breathing slowed and her heart raced as she continued her exploration, running her fingertips over the rough stubble on his jaw before she traced the sensual shape of his mouth. She pressed her body closer to his and tilted her head up to meet his gaze.

The feral gleam in his eyes caused her heart to lurch. But she could not back down now without making even more of a fool of herself. Cupping his cheek in her palm, she stretched up on her toes and covered his mouth with hers. He made no response. Not a flicker. His arms were still folded across his chest and he was as solid and unmoving as granite. His lips were unyielding, and it occurred to Arianna that in a lifetime of embarrassing herself Santino’s rejection was her crowning humiliation.

Desperate to elicit some sort of reaction from him, she nipped his lower lip with her teeth. He made no sound but his chest rose and fell swiftly. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he said then, his voice a low growl that resonated through her.

Abruptly he unfolded his arms and clamped his hands on her shoulders. While Arianna was wondering if he intended to push her away from him he jerked her forward so that her soft breasts were pressed up against the hard wall of his chest. His gaze narrowed and she saw fire and fury glinting in his green eyes beneath his thick black lashes. But then his head swooped and he captured her mouth with his in a searing kiss that felt as if he had branded her with his unique potency.

Nothing had prepared her for the devastation he wrought on her mouth or on her soul as he forced her lips apart with the bold flick of his tongue. The heat of his body was dangerously addictive and, when his arms closed around her like bands of steel, trapping her against him, she melted in the inferno.

His kiss was all her fantasies rolled into one. Masterful and merciless, he demanded a response that she was powerless to deny him. She closed her eyes and her senses sang to the slide of his lips over hers and the taste of him on the tip of her tongue. He made her ache everywhere.

Needing to be even closer to him, she pressed her pelvis against his. They fitted together like two pieces of a jigsaw. But, before she had time properly to register the shockingly hard bulge of his arousal beneath his jeans, he lifted his mouth from hers at the same time as he withdrew his arms from around her waist and returned his hands to her shoulders.

This time he did push her away from him, so forcefully that she would have stumbled if he had not tightened his grip on her shoulders, and she feared her bones might snap.

‘So, what is your plan, Arianna?’ he drawled, no sign in his voice or his sardonic smile of the tumultuous passion that had exploded between them seconds earlier. ‘I suppose you think you can accuse me of sexual harassment to give you a legitimate reason to fire me? But it won’t wash, princess. It will be your word against mine.’

She sensed the suggestion in his scathing tone that his testimony would hold more credence than hers. After all, she was the darling of the tabloids, renowned for her outrageous behaviour with a string of celebrity lovers. It took every ounce of her willpower not to let him see how much his jibe had hurt, or how vulnerable she felt, still reeling from the kiss that patently had not affected him.

‘Of course I wouldn’t make a false allegation,’ she said stiffly. ‘It would be a terrible thing to do when too many women genuinely suffer sexual harassment.’

He looked at her curiously, as if she had surprised him, but then he shrugged. ‘So why did you come on to me? I am under no illusions about you, Arianna. I warned you not to play games and I meant it. Your father hired me to be your bodyguard and I will not allow you to distract me. Nor, I should make it clear, do my duties include keeping you entertained with sex. So, if that is what you were hoping for when you kissed me, you’re out of luck.’

Arianna wished that the ground would open up and swallow her, but pride came to her rescue and she gave a tinkling laugh as brittle as thin ice on a frozen pond. ‘I can hardly bear the disappointment,’ she said with a theatrical pout. ‘At least you don’t need to worry about drowning in the pool, Mr Vasari. That over-inflated ego of yours should help to keep you afloat.’

* * *

Santino dropped his hands down to his sides and clenched them into fists as Arianna spun away from him and marched across the terrace. Well done, he congratulated himself sarcastically. It was crucial that he gained her trust but all he had succeeded in doing was alienating her.

If he had any sense he would tear his gaze away from the perfect, peachy roundness of her bottom cheeks sassily displayed by her daring choice of swimwear. But his common sense, like his self-control, had gone up in flames when she had put her mouth on his. It occurred to him as he stared at her delectable derriere that it was unlikely she would actually swim in that miniscule bikini and that its purpose instead was to allow her to flaunt her incredible body.

She stepped through the open glass doors into the house and only when she had disappeared from view did he realise that he had been holding his breath. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, but even though she was no longer standing in front of him the lingering scent of her perfume—an intriguing blend of exotic floral notes and something spicier and boldly sensual—inflamed his senses.

Why the hell had he kissed her? Telling himself that technically she had kissed him first did nothing to appease his conscience. He should have pulled his mouth away from hers, but there had been something curiously innocent about the tentative brush of her lips over his that had surprised him. Because he knew all about Arianna Fitzgerald—and ‘innocent’ was not a word ever associated with her.

The truth, Santino acknowledged grimly, was that his usual, logical thought process had deserted him the instant he’d set eyes on her and he’d felt a jolt of lust in his groin so intense that it had hurt. It had felt like a punch, as though he’d been winded and he couldn’t catch his breath.

His reaction puzzled him. He was no stranger to beautiful women and he enjoyed an active sex life uncomplicated by emotional entanglements. The women he dated were intelligent professionals—elegant, discreet and unlikely to be plastered over the gutter press half-undressed, he thought, glancing with distaste at the picture of Arianna on the front of the newspaper.

Everything he had heard about her reinforced his belief that she had been over-indulged by her long-suffering father. Every picture of her when she was actually dressed showed that she had expensive tastes in designer clothes, shoes, handbags and fabulous jewellery—presumably all paid for by her doting daddy. In short, Arianna was the kind of woman he despised, but frustratingly his libido did not care that she was a spoilt socialite and his erection was uncomfortably hard pressing against the zip of his jeans.

The turquoise pool looked inviting with sun glinting on the surface. Earlier he’d pulled on a pair of swim-shorts beneath his clothes, thinking there would be time for him to swim while he waited for Arianna to wake up. His jaw clenched as he remembered her remark that she liked to sunbathe naked. Knowing that Arianna was a flirtatious tease did nothing to ease the throb of his arousal. Cursing himself for his weakness, he stripped off his clothes and dived into the pool. He swam as if his life depended on it—thirty lengths, fifty—until his shoulders ached and his chest burned and his rampant libido was subdued.

* * *

Later he made a detailed check of the villa’s grounds and was concerned by the lack of security. The butler had explained that he locked the front door at night but that Arianna liked to leave her bedroom window open while she slept. The easy access to Villa Cadenza from the private beach was another problem. It would be feasible for kidnappers to climb over the wall and jump down onto the terrace. They could take Arianna at gunpoint through a door in the wall that led to the beach and force her onto a waiting boat without any of the villa’s staff noticing or raising the alarm.

As Santino walked into the house he heard the sound of a car’s engine. Hurrying back outside, he glimpsed the tail lights of the sports car that he’d seen parked in the garage disappear out of the courtyard. He knew the car belonged to Arianna. Damn her! Her insubordination was infuriating, but he was more furious with himself for not keeping a closer eye on her.

‘Did Arianna say where she was going?’ he asked Filippo.

The butler shook his head. ‘No, but she often visits the beauty salon in the town, and Giovanni’s Bar next to the beach is a popular venue where she meets her friends.’

There was also a four-by-four parked in the garage and fortunately the keys were in the ignition. Santino jumped in and fired the engine. The road outside the villa was not overlooked by any other houses for part of the way down the mountain and he was worried that the kidnappers could be waiting to ambush Arianna as she drove away from Villa Cadenza. Moments later he drove out of the gates and was soon hurtling around the hairpin bends, speeding along the road that wound down to the coast.

Despite his simmering temper he could not fail to appreciate the spectacular scenery. The towering grey cliffs were covered with lemon groves that sloped down to the coast. Dominating the skyline was the azure Tyrrhenian Sea sparkling in the bright summer sunshine. The coastline here was similar to his birthplace and the place he thought of as home, Sicily. The difference was that Positano, the same as most of the other towns on the Amalfi coast, had become a chic and expensive tourist destination favoured by the glitterati.

Rounding another bend, the town was revealed in all its picturesque beauty. Pink, peach and terracotta-coloured houses clung perilously to the cliffs and looked as though they were in danger of tumbling into the sea. At the heart of the town stood the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, with its eye-catching dome made of blue, green and yellow tiles. But Santino’s eyes were fixed firmly on the silver sports car ahead of him on the road. He saw the car’s brake lights flash on as Arianna’s progress was impeded by a bus trundling along in front of her.

There was no possibility of overtaking on the narrow road and it was another five minutes before the bus pulled into a bus stop. After another mile or so Arianna turned up a narrow road and Santino followed her. Most of Positano was a pedestrian zone and tourists had to park in one of the garages on the edge of the town. But she drove down a back street where there was parking for local residents and swung her car into a vacant space.

Santino parked behind the open-top sports car and jumped out of the four-by-four. He strode up to the car, leaned over and snatched the key out of the ignition before Arianna had a chance to stop him.

‘You really are the most tedious man,’ she said languidly, although he sensed the effort it took her to control her temper.

‘That’s not the impression you gave when you kissed me earlier.’ He felt a spurt of satisfaction when she bit her lip, and dismissed the odd idea that her air of vulnerability was not an act.

Her eyes were hidden behind oversized designer sunglasses and he was frustrated that he had no idea what she was thinking. She looked expensively chic in tight white jeans and a blue-and-white-striped Breton top. A red silk scarf kept her long chestnut hair back from her face. Her lips were coated in scarlet gloss and he felt a crazy urge to kiss her until he had removed all traces of lipstick from her mouth.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming into town?’

‘Because I’m going to the beauty salon,’ she told him in a bored tone, nodding towards a shop with the name Lucia’s Salon over the door. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard while I’m having my nails done.’ She threw her hands up in the air. ‘Look around you. There are no paparazzi here to report on my wild behaviour that might embarrass my dear daddy.’

She started to walk towards the salon and glared at him when he fell into step beside her. ‘You can’t come in. If you insist on staying, you can wait outside, but don’t blame me if you get bored, Mr Vasari.’

‘I doubt I could ever get bored around you,’ he said drily. ‘And I thought we had agreed to drop the formality, Arianna.’

She spun round to face him and jabbed her finger into his chest. ‘I didn’t agree to anything, certainly not to my every move being watched by one of my father’s sycophants. I demand that you give me some space.’

Despite his intention to try and win her trust, Santino felt riled by her withering tone. He was tempted to tell her that, far from being her father’s sycophant, Randolph had begged him to be her bodyguard.

‘You’re not really in a position to make demands, are you, Arianna? If I were you I would remember that your father promised to stop your allowance if you refuse my protection. How would you survive?’ he taunted. ‘It’s not as if you have a successful career to fund your extravagant lifestyle. You simply leech off your father.’

‘If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,’ she snapped, jabbing her finger into his chest a second time.

‘Do that again and I guarantee you won’t like the consequences.’

‘What will you do?’ Her husky voice was laced with amusement. ‘Will you put me across your knee and spank me?’

Desire kicked hard in his groin at the erotic images her words evoked. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. ‘Would you like me to? Are those the kinds of games you like to play?’ he drawled, fighting an unbearable temptation to pull her into his arms and cover her sulky mouth with his. She was the most infuriating woman he had ever met, and he could not comprehend why she made him feel more alive than he had felt in years.

He stretched out his hand and removed her sunglasses. She blinked in the bright sunshine and the flecks of gold in her brown eyes gleamed with temper.

‘Give those back immediately.’

He made a tutting sound. ‘Try saying “please”. Didn’t your parents teach you better manners when you were a child?’

Something flickered in her gaze that surely could not be sadness, Santino told himself. Arianna was a beautiful, rich heiress and she wanted for nothing.

‘My mother cleared off to the other side of the world with her lover when I was eleven,’ she told him in a hard voice. ‘My father didn’t know how to deal with my “difficult behaviour” when I cried every night. He was so desperate to send me back to boarding school that he drove me there himself—the first and last time he took any interest in my education. I didn’t see him again for months. Every school holiday, he used to send me out to Villa Cadenza with a nanny.’

She snatched her sunglasses out of Santino’s fingers and replaced them on her nose. ‘The only thing I learned from my parents is to put me first, and look after myself, because no one else gives a damn.’

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