‘Sí.’ The word resonated with something spicy and mysterious and, despite the fact it was now raining, she was reminded of the day’s sunshine and warmth.
She needed to focus. Why was he here?
‘What’s your name?’
‘Antonio Herrera,’ he said, and Amelia frowned, her eyes sweeping shut for a moment.
She felt his gaze, heavy and intent on her face, and her skin goosebumped once more. There was something in her mind, a memory, but it was distant and when she tried to grab it, to focus on it, the thing slipped away from her, like trying to catch a piece of soap that had been dropped into the bath.
‘I know that name.’
‘Do you?’ he murmured, the words throaty.
He held his wine glass to hers, a salute, and she completed it on autopilot. Only their fingertips brushed together and it was as though Amelia had been thrown from an aeroplane. Her stomach twisted in a billion knots and she was in freefall, everything shifting and pulling and nothing making sense. The world was over-bright and her senses jangling. His eyes were merciless, pinning her to the spot, and from grey to black they went once more. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move.
‘Why do I know your name?’ she asked when the answer hadn’t come to her. Then, like a bolt of lightning, she remembered. ‘Oh! Of course!’
Did his shoulders tighten? Or was she imagining it? ‘Yes?’
Hadn’t she realised he was a man used to being in command? A figure of dominance and assertiveness?
‘You’re that guy,’ she said, clicking her fingers together. ‘I read about you a while ago. You bought that airline and saved all those people from getting fired.’
‘Being made redundant,’ he clarified. ‘And that’s not why I bought the airline.’
‘No?’
‘It was going for a song.’ He shrugged.
‘I see,’ she said thoughtfully, wondering why he was downplaying the altruism of the purchase. He didn’t really care about twenty thousand people poised to be out of work if the airline went bust? Or did he want her to think he didn’t care?
Her eyes narrowed speculatively. ‘And you invest in schools in eastern Europe. And hospitals.’
He arched a brow. ‘You seem to know quite a bit about me.’
‘It was a long opinion piece,’ she explained, her cheeks heating. ‘And I like to read the paper. From cover to cover.’ She was babbling a little. When she’d moved to her father’s home, she’d been surrounded by men like this. Well, not precisely like this; he was somewhat unique. But men who were just a little too much of everything. Too handsome, too sharp, too rich.
And she’d never felt overawed by those qualities before. Having seen her mother fall under their spell time and time again, she’d always been determined to remain immune to those charms.
Then again, she supposed it was a little like the aquarium effect.
‘The aquarium effect?’ he prompted, and Amelia was mortified to realise she’d been speaking out loud.
She turned away from him, walking unsteadily towards an armchair and sitting in it, then immediately wishing she hadn’t when their height disadvantage became even more apparent.
‘Please, take a seat.’ She gestured towards the sofa.
‘Sure. If you’ll elaborate,’ he drawled. ‘I should like to see if you are comparing me to a shark or a seal.’
Her laugh was spontaneous. She watched covertly as he sat—not on the sofa but in the armchair across from hers, his long legs stretched out and dangerously close to her own legs.
‘I didn’t mean that,’ she promised, sipping her wine. ‘It’s only that when you go to an aquarium you’re expecting to see myriad fish, so that even the most beautiful tropical fish or the fluffiest penguin fail to have much of an impact. But if I were walking along the Thames and a beautiful penguin happened to cross my path I’d be basically breathless.’
‘Speechless too, I should think, at finding a penguin in central London.’
She nodded, glad he hadn’t taken her metaphor the vital step further. Because he was that spectacular piece of wildlife which, when surrounded by men of his ilk, might have left her cold. But here, like this, in her tiny cottage on the outskirts of a small village, smiling at her as though he found her fascinating and unique, how could Amelia fail to be breathless, speechless and hopelessly attracted?
‘Have you lived here long?’ he asked and she relaxed further as the conversation moved onto far safer ground.
She looked around the lounge, her heart warming at the comfort and beauty of this little room.
‘I moved here straight out of University,’ she said with a small nod. ‘I thought I’d stay only a year or so, but then the cottage came on the market and, what can I say, it was love at first sight,’ she said, looking fondly around the small lounge, with its low ceiling and unevenly rendered walls.
‘I can see why,’ he drawled cynically and she laughed.
‘You sound just like my brother!’
Carlo had been just as scathing about the ‘relic’. ‘Why don’t you buy some land and build something bigger? You’re a diSalvo, cara, and this place isn’t fit for a mangy dog.’
‘In what way?’
‘Oh, only in so much as he didn’t really like Bumblebee Cottage. He’s far more into luxury and glamour.’
‘And you’re not?’ Antonio enquired.
‘What do you think?’ she asked with a lifted brow and a half-smile, gesturing around the room.
‘I think the house is charming,’ he supplied, leaning forward a little, and his ankle brushed hers, probably by accident, but the effect was the same as if it had been intentional. She sat up straighter, her eyes finding his, a plea and a question in them. ‘And so is the occupant,’ he added, and now the charge of electricity that flared between them was unmistakably mutual.
She swallowed past the lump in her throat, her eyes round like saucers. His foot brushed hers and now she knew it wasn’t an accident she told herself she should pull away. Remove her legs from his reach. Do something, anything, to show him she didn’t welcome his presumptuous advances.
But oh, how she welcomed them. How she welcomed him.
‘Thank you.’
It was hard to think straight in that moment. Her body was charged, her senses in complete disarray, and she was left wondering at the bizarre circumstances that had brought this billionaire tycoon to her door right at the moment when she’d been at risk of sinking into thoughts of loneliness and the pervasive emptiness that came with being alone.
‘Well, Antonio—’ his name made husky by her too-dry throat ‘—perhaps you should tell me why you’re here?’
* * *
He had come to Bumblebee Cottage expecting to hate her. She was a diSalvo; it was written in the stars that he would hate her. Only he didn’t.
And not only did he not hate her; he was actually enjoying himself. He was finding it hard to keep his mind to himself, to concentrate on business when she was smiling at him and joking with him, and when her huge blue eyes kept dropping to his chest, roaming over his breadth as though she were starving and he the only meal around for miles.
And what would she say when he told her the truth of their relationship? What would she say when he explained what he needed from her?
Would