She was almost asleep by the time Niccolò returned, carrying a tray of camomile tea. Her eyelashes fluttered open as he sat down and the bed sank beneath his weight.
‘This will help you sleep,’ he said.
She didn’t think she needed any help, but she drank the flower-filled brew anyway and then settled back down against the bank of pillows while Niccolò gently stroked her hair.
She wriggled her bare toes and stretched out her body and at that precise moment she didn’t think she’d ever felt quite so blissfully content. Until a dark memory flickered into her mind like an evil imp—reinforcing the disturbing thought that they hadn’t remembered to use protection….
‘ANYONE WOULD THINK,’ said Niccolò slowly, ‘that you were trying to avoid me.’
Alannah looked up to find herself caught in the spotlight of a pair of ebony eyes, which cut into her like dark twin lasers. Winter light was flooding into the main reception room of the still bare Sarantos apartment, emphasising its vast and elegant dimensions. She had been there all morning, sitting on the newly upholstered window seat and sewing tassels onto a cushion, but the sight of the Sicilian standing in the doorway made her suspend her needle in mid-air.
She tried to compose herself and to say the right thing. Just as she’d been trying to do the right thing, ever since she’d crazily decided to have sex with him. She needed to treat what had happened as a one-off, and keeping their relationship on a purely professional footing was the only sane solution.
For both of them.
She put the needle down and pushed her empty coffee mug along the floor with the tip of her sneaker. ‘Of course I’m not trying to avoid you,’ she said lightly. ‘You’re my boss—I wouldn’t dare.’
‘Is that so?’ He walked towards her. ‘So why wouldn’t you have dinner with me last night?’
‘I explained that,’ she protested. ‘I had to travel to Somerset to buy some paintings and the man who owned the shop was just about to close up for the holidays, so it was the only day I could go. And then on the way back, there were loads of leaves on the line so the train was delayed. Didn’t you get my voicemail message?’
‘Oh, yes, I got your voicemail message,’ he said impatiently. He stood looking down at her, feeling perplexed and more than a little frustrated. This had never happened to him before. Usually he had to barricade his bedroom once a woman had been granted access to it—he couldn’t remember a lover ever being so reluctant to return. His mouth tightened. ‘But the fact remains that on Tuesday we had sex and I’ve barely seen you since.’
She shrugged. ‘That’s just the way it’s worked out. You’re employing me to get this apartment done in a hurry and that’s what I’m trying to do. That’s my primary role, isn’t it? You’re not paying me to keep appearing at your office door and haunting you.’
Niccolò felt his mouth dry. He wouldn’t mind her appearing at his office door. She was making him think of a few very creative uses for his desk… He swallowed. ‘Am I going to see you later?’
Alannah sucked in a breath, trying not to be flattered at his persistence, but it wasn’t easy. Because she had been dreading this meeting. Dreading and yet longing for it, all at the same time. Ever since she’d slipped out of his Mayfair apartment on Tuesday she’d told herself that it would be safer to stay away from Niccolò and not pursue the affair any further. She liked him. She liked him way more than was sensible for what she was sure he’d only ever intended to be a casual hook-up. And she didn’t do casual. Just as she didn’t do the kind of affair which would end up with her getting her heart smashed into a hundred little pieces.
‘You’re my boss, Niccolò,’ she said.
‘I haven’t lost sight of that fact, mia tentatrice. But what does that have to do with anything?’
‘You know very well. It’s…unprofessional.’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘You don’t think we might already have crossed that boundary when you lay gasping underneath me for most of the night?’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘And on top of me at one point, if my memory serves me well.’
‘Stop it,’ she whispered, feeling colour flooding into her cheeks. ‘That’s exactly what I’m talking about. It blurs the lines and confuses things. I’m trying to concentrate on my work and I can’t when you—’
‘Can’t stop wanting a rerun?’
‘A rerun is what you do with movies. And it’s a bad idea.’
‘Why?’
She sighed. ‘What happened last week was…’ Her words tailed off. How best to describe it? The most amazing sex she’d ever had? Well, yes. She had certainly never realised it could be so intense, or so powerful. But there had been another blissful side to that night which was far more worrying. She’d realised that she could get used to waking up with Niccolò lying asleep beside her, his arms wrapped tightly around her. Just as she could get used to thinking about him at odd moments of the day and wishing he were there to kiss her. And those kind of daydreams would get her nowhere.
Because where would that leave her when the whole thing imploded? She’d just be another heartbroken woman crying into her gin and tonic, trying to resist the urge to send him a ‘casual’ late-night text. She would run the risk of making herself vulnerable and she wasn’t going to let that happen. She felt a new resolve steal over her. ‘A mistake,’ she said.
‘A mistake,’ he repeated.
‘Maybe that’s a bad way to put it. It was obviously very enjoyable.’ She pushed the cushion away and forced herself to face the truth, no matter how unpalatable it was. ‘But the fact remains that you don’t really like me. You told me that.’
He smiled. ‘I like you a lot more now.’
‘You described what you felt for me as, and I quote—“a wildness”. You made me sound like a mild version of the bubonic plague.’
‘I don’t think any plague feels quite like this—except maybe for the fever in my blood when I close my eyes at night and find it impossible to sleep because I can’t get you out of my mind.’ His eyes gleamed. ‘And you look incredibly beautiful when you’re being defiant. Do you do it because you know how much it turns me on?’
‘It’s not defiance for the sake of it,’ she said. ‘It’s defiance for a reason. I’m not doing it to try to entice you.’ She forced herself to say it. To put the words out there instead of having them nagging away inside her. ‘This relationship isn’t going anywhere. We both know that.’
‘So you’re not pregnant?’
His words completely shattered her fragile façade and she stared at him, her heart pounding. During the day, when she was busy working, it was easy to push that thought to the back of her mind. It was at night-time when it became impossible. That was when the fear flooded through her body as she tried to imagine just how she would cope with having Niccolò da Conti’s baby. That was when she had to fight to stop herself imagining a downy little black head, glugging away contentedly at her breast.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s too early to do a test.’
‘Which means we may be about to be parents together, sì? I think that constitutes some sort of relationship, don’t you?’
‘Not the best kind,’ she said.
‘Maybe not. But I need to know that if you are pregnant—if you are—whether I am the only man in the frame who could be the father.’ His black eyes burned into her, but he must have seen her flinch because his voice softened by a fraction.