‘Don’t,’ she gasped, and pushed against his chest with her hand while his mouth seared up her slender neck. ‘Let go of me, you great brute. I hate you,’ she flung at him savagely.
‘No, you don’t.’ His head came up. His eyes were black in his hard, masculine face, and Lucy could not control the slight tremor in her limbs. ‘You want me. But then women like you can’t help themselves,’ he said contemptuously.
She punched his chest with a curled fist, but it was like hitting a brick wall. She lifted her knee and suddenly he whirled her round, making her head spin. Before she could draw breath, let alone find her feet, his head lowered, and she moaned in protest as his mouth came down hard and ruthless against her lips, forcibly parting them, demanding her surrender.
For a moment she made herself stay rigid in his arms, but then her mouth trembled in helpless response and she succumbed to the powerful passion of his kiss. When he finally released her she stumbled back and deliberately wiped her hand across her mouth, but to her shame she could not wipe away so easily the warring sensations inside her.
‘You should not have done that, Mr Zanelli,’ she snapped.
Lorenzo stared down at her, his broad shoulders tense, his face expressionless. ‘Maybe not, but you provoked me—and if I have succeeded in shutting you up long enough to listen it was well worth it. And you can drop the “Mr Zanelli”—you know my name and you have used it too intimately to pretend otherwise. Now, we can go up to your apartment and I’ll tell you why I am here.’
Lucy looked at him warily, silently conceding it was a bit childish calling him Mr Zanelli. Her real problem was that she didn’t trust him, but short of throwing him out—which was a physical impossibility—she hadn’t much choice but to listen to what he had to say.
‘And it isn’t what you are thinking,’ he drawled, with a sardonic lift of one ebony brow. Though his body was telling him different …
‘I’ll listen, but not here,’ Lucy conceded. ‘I usually go into town on Saturday evening to eat. You can come with me.’ She wanted Lorenzo out of her home and among other people—simply because her own innate honesty forced her to admit she didn’t trust herself alone with him.
‘My car or yours?’ Lorenzo asked as, after locking up the gallery, they walked out into the front yard that doubled as a car park.
‘Neither.’ Lucy flicked a glance up at him. ‘We can walk down the hill—it is not far.’
Stepping onto the grass verge that ran down the side of the road and Lorenzo joined her, but didn’t look too comfortable when a Jeep whizzed past with a group of four young men on board.
‘Hi, Lucy!’ they all yelled, and waved. Lucy waved back.
‘Friends of yours?’ Lorenzo asked.
‘Yes—students in my weekly art class at the high school. Now, why don’t you start talking? I’m listening.’
Another car went by and tooted its horn, and Lucy waved again.
‘No. I’d prefer to wait until we reach the restaurant,’ Lorenzo said, adding, ‘Less interruptions.’ And more time for him to regain his self-control.
He’d had no idea she taught art—but then he did not really know her except in the biblical sense. And he didn’t want to. Lucy Steadman infuriated him, enraged him and aroused him, and he did not like it—did not like her. But he did need her silence, and in his experience the best way to get anything from a woman was to humour her for a while—let her think she was in control.
Lucy hid a smile. He was in for a rude awakening if he was expecting a restaurant.
Lorenzo looked around with interest when they reached the main road. Set in a narrow valley, Looe was very picturesque, with a stone bridge that spanned the tidal river to the other side of town. Lucy led him down the main street that wound its way alongside the harbour and the river to the beach. He couldn’t believe the number of tourists around, or the amount of people that Lucy knew. Every few yards someone stopped her to say hello.
He wasn’t really surprised. With her long hair flowing over her shoulders, the feather-laden earring fluttering in the breeze and her brilliant smile she looked like some rare exotic butterfly. But there was no mistaking she was a woman, and the pressure in his groin that had plagued him from the minute he set eyes on her was becoming a problem again.
Ten minutes later, sitting on the harbour wall, Lorenzo glanced warily down at the box Lucy handed him, and then at her.
‘I got you pizza because you’re Italian. The fish and chip shop sells all sorts,’ she said, opening the carton containing her fish and chips.
‘Thanks.’ Lorenzo opened the box. ‘I think … ‘ he drawled, eyeing what passed for a pizza in an English holiday town with some trepidation. He didn’t want to know what the assorted toppings and cheeses were, but it was nothing like any pizza he had ever seen.
‘I am ready to listen, so fire away,’ Lucy said, shooting Lorenzo a sidelong glance, secretly amused. He was eyeing the pizza as if it was going to jump up and bite him, not the other way around. How were the mighty fallen … He must want something from her pretty badly to lower himself to sitting on a harbour wall and eating a takeaway pizza.
‘We have a problem, Lucy.’
There is no we were the words that sprang to mind, but Lucy resisted the urge to taunt him with the words he had used the last time they were together. Let him hang himself, she thought. There was something immensely satisfying in knowing that whatever Lorenzo was after he was not going to get it. Instead she picked up a chip and ate it.
‘We do?’ she queried. Stringing the superior devil along was going to be fun. Breaking off a piece of battered cod, she popped it in her mouth and glanced up at him with fake concern, licking her lips.
‘Yes.’ Lorenzo tore his gaze away from the small pink tongue running along her top lip. ‘Remember the wedding?’ She arched a delicate brow in his direction. Stupid question—of course she did. ‘Unfortunately Teresa Lanza called in to my mother to fill her in about the wedding—including the fact that Lucy Steadman was the bridesmaid. Then she showed her the photographs she had taken—quite a few of you and I.’
‘Is this story going anywhere?’ Lucy cut in. She had finished her fish and chips, and she had finished with Lorenzo, but sitting close to him on the wall, with the brush of his thigh against her own, was testing her resolve to the limit. Stringing him along had lost its appeal.
‘The upshot is that my mother wants me to invite you to visit her in Italy. She also wants to commission a portrait of Antonio. Obviously I don’t want you anywhere near her. I can put her off for a while, but unfortunately she is determined lady. If I don’t ask you she says she will ask you herself. If she does, you are to refuse any offer she makes.’
‘Don’t worry—I will. I’m not a masochist. Listening to you denigrating my brother and I was more than enough,’ Lucy said and, standing up, walked along the harbour to the nearest littler bin and deposited the carton in it.
Lorenzo followed her. She noted he hadn’t eaten even half the pizza as he tipped it in the bin, and wasn’t surprised. But she was surprised he had come all this way to tell her not to speak to his mother. That hurt. As if she needed telling again how low he thought her.
She walked on.
‘Wait, Lucy.’ He grasped her upper arm. ‘I have not finished.’
‘I have,’ she said flatly, glancing up at him and doing her best to ignore the warmth of his hand