His eyes were dark and teasing. ‘Compared to that maze nothing is complicated! Don’t look so worried, cara, I’m not going to kidnap your gardener. I can see you don’t want to lose his services.’
Their eyes met, and she felt her skin grow warm and tingling beneath his lingering gaze. His eyes were a beautiful, deep, dark blue of a forget-me-not, and she felt a sudden sharp heat inside as she stared at his lean jawline and the full, passionate mouth. He would be impossible to forget even if his eyes didn’t demand that he be remembered: his lean, muscular body, the compelling purposefulness of his gaze and the intensity of his masculinity set him apart from every other man she’d ever met. And his smile— She felt a rush of longing. What woman wouldn’t want to be the cause of that smile?
And then, as though the sun had gone behind a cloud, his smile faded. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said slowly. ‘It must be the heat or something. I’m usually a little quicker on the uptake.’ He frowned. ‘You don’t have to explain. I get it.’
‘Get what?’ The hair on the nape of her neck rose at the sudden tension between them.
‘Obviously, he’s a “friend” of yours.’
She stared at him, confused. ‘Who?’
‘Your gardener.’
The expression on his face was hard to define, but she could almost see him retreating, and she felt a rush of panic. ‘He’s not a friend of mine. I mean, he can’t be. He doesn’t exist,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I do the gardening. Me. On my own.’
There was a moment’s silence as he studied her face and then he smiled slowly, and once again she felt her nerves flutter into life and her skin grow warm. ‘Is that so? You really are full of surprises, Miss Golding. No wonder Bassani was so smitten with you!’
There was nothing new in his words. She had heard them said in so many ways, so many times before. Normally she let them wash over her, but for some reason she didn’t want this man to think that they were true.
‘No—it wasn’t like—’ she began but her words stopped in her throat as he reached out and gently took her hand in his. Turning it over, he ran his fingers lightly over the hard calluses on her palm, and she felt her breath snag in her throat; felt heat flare low in her pelvis. Her heart was racing. She knew she should tell him to stop, should pull her hand away, but she couldn’t speak or move.
Finally, he let go of her hand and said softly, ‘So. This is why you want to stay.’
It wasn’t a question, but she nodded anyway. ‘Yes. Partly.’
She looked up at him hesitantly. She never talked to anyone about her real work. Most people on the island simply assumed that she was Umberto’s muse, and it was true—she had often posed for Umberto. But she’d only modelled for him as a favour. Her real passion, ever since she was a little girl, was flowers, although not many people took her seriously when she told them—probably because they were too busy pointing out the fact that her name was Flora and she liked flowers: a joke which had stopped being funny years ago.
She took a deep breath. ‘I’m actually writing a thesis on orchids. The island’s home to some very rare species. That’s why I came here in the first place.’ Feeling suddenly a little shy, she gave him a small tight smile. ‘I didn’t even know about the palazzo or Umberto before I arrived. I just bumped into him in a café in Cagliari.’
Massimo studied her assessingly. She made it sound so innocent, so unplanned. As though her relationship with Bassani had been a matter of chance. His face hardened. Yet here she was with her name on the tenancy agreement. He gritted his teeth. However she spun the story, he knew she had been looking for some sort of sugar daddy, and in Sardinia there was only one man who fitted the bill.
A muscle flickered in his jaw. Women like Flora Golding did their homework. Nothing was left to chance. Because if their efforts succeeded then, like his stepmother Alida, they need never work again—although spending his father’s money had pretty much been a full-time job for her. His body stilled as he allowed himself a brief memory of his stepmother’s icy disdain, and then he gazed coolly at Flora.
No doubt she’d found out where Bassani had liked to drink and set the whole thing up. He could well imagine the older man’s greedy excitement on discovering this beautiful young girl sipping cappuccino in some shabby little bar. And then all she’d had to do was pose for him. Naked. At the thought of Flora slipping out of her faded sundress, her eyes dark and shiny with triumph, he felt almost giddy with envy and lust.
For a moment he lost all sense of time and place, and then he breathed out slowly. ‘How fortuitous,’ he said smoothly. ‘To find your own blank canvas here at this palazzo—the very place you have chosen to make your home.’
He stared broodingly across the garden, blind to its beauty. He should have been satisfied by this final proof that she was as disingenuous and manipulative as he’d suspected, but beneath the satisfaction was an odd sense of disappointment, of betrayal. And of anger with himself for responding to her obvious physical charms.
His jaw tightened. But wasn’t it always so with women? Especially women like Flora Golding, who had duplicitous charms ingrained in them from an early age. Flora. It was a name that seemed to suggest a honeyed sweetness and an unsullied purity. And yet it tasted bitter on his tongue.
His gaze sharpened as she looked up at him, her light brown eyebrows arching in puzzlement at the shift in his voice. ‘I do love the gardens, but it’s more of a hobby than anything else. My real work is my dissertation and if I’m going to finish my thesis I need peace and quiet. And that’s what I get living here.’
Massimo smiled. Her tone was conversational, her words unremarkable, but she had unwittingly given him the means to her end.
They had reached the front of the palazzo. Abruptly he turned to face her. ‘It’s been an enlightening visit, Miss Golding. Don’t worry—we won’t be contacting you anymore. And there certainly won’t be any more financial incentives. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you’re not motivated by money, and I respect that.’
Flora blinked in the sunlight. Even though the day was now suffocatingly hot, she felt a chill run down her spine. His voice sounded different again—almost like a sneer or a taunt. But nothing had changed. Maybe it was just the heat playing with her senses...
‘Good,’ she said quickly, trying to ignore the uneasiness in her stomach. ‘I’m just sorry you had to make a personal trip to understand how I feel.’
He stepped forward, and she felt a spurt of shock and fear for this time there could be no confusion. His face was cold and set.
‘Don’t be. I always like to meet my enemies face to face. It makes closing a deal on my terms so much easier.’
It took a moment for the implication of his words to sink in. ‘Wh-what deal?’ she stammered. The word echoed ominously inside her head. ‘There is no deal,’ she said hoarsely. ‘You said so. You said you wouldn’t be contacting me or offering me money again.’
He smiled coolly, a contemplative gleam in his blue eyes. ‘I won’t. You won’t be getting a penny of my money. Not now. Not ever.’
She stared at him, chilled by the undisguised hostility of his gaze. ‘I don’t understand...’ she began, but her words died in her throat as he shook his head.
‘No. I don’t suppose you do. So let me make it clear for you. Like I said earlier, cara, I always get what I want.’ His face seemed to be no longer made of flesh and blood, but cold stone. ‘And I want you out of here. Normally I’d pay, but as money’s not an option I’m going to have to use some other method to get what I want. But believe me I will get it. And by the time I’ve finished with you, you’ll be begging to sign any contract I put in front of you for free.’