Billionaire's Secret. Chantelle Shaw

in the spicy tang of his aftershave. It was a bold, intensely masculine fragrance that evoked an ache of longing in the pit of her stomach. Nicolo was the sexiest man she had ever met and she was shocked by her reaction to his potent masculinity. ‘You were having a nightmare,’ she insisted. ‘I was trying to wake you. What other possible reason would I have for coming to your room in the middle of the night?’

      She flung out a hand and by lucky chance found the switch on the bedside lamp. Nicolo blinked in the sudden brightness and his brows lifted in surprise when he saw the pewter vase in her other hand.

      ‘Were you were planning to do some flower arranging, or knock me out with that thing?’

      Sophie flushed, wondering how she had forgotten she was holding the vase. ‘I thought you were being attacked by a burglar,’ she muttered.

      ‘And you came to defend me? I’m touched.’

      The mockery in his voice was the last straw. Using all her strength, she jerked out of his grasp and slid off him.

      Nicolo sat up, and the sheet slipped down his body. His sardonic smile faded when he heard her swiftly indrawn breath, and following her gaze he glanced down at his chest covered in mottled red scars that ran from his hip up to his neck.

      His eyes narrowed as he saw Sophie recoil from him. ‘I apologise if my appearance revolts you,’ he said harshly. ‘Perhaps you’ll think twice in future about stealing into a stranger’s bedroom without invitation.’

      She swallowed, desperately trying to disguise her shocked reaction to the sight of the terrible scarring that covered the left side of his torso and the whole of his arm.

      ‘I didn’t steal in here. I heard you shout out in your sleep and was concerned and came to wake you.’

      He gave a grim laugh. ‘And you discovered a monster. I hope the sight of my ugliness doesn’t give you nightmares.’

      ‘You’re not a monster,’ Sophie said shakily. ‘I’m not revolted by your scars. But I hadn’t realised the extent of your injuries. You must have been in agony in the aftermath of the fire.’

      Nicolo instinctively rejected the sympathy he could see in her hazel eyes. He despised pity. In the almost two decades since he had been burned, countless women had seen him naked. He had grown used to witnessing the horror in their eyes when they saw his scars and he told himself he did not give a damn that Sophie looked sickened by the sight of his damaged body.

      ‘I don’t want your concern,’ he growled. ‘I suggest you get out of my room before the sight of you in your very fetching night attire makes me forget that I’m a gentleman.’

      His mocking taunt reminded Sophie that she was only wearing a peach satin nightdress. Her nightwear was not especially revealing, but the gleam in Nicolo’s eyes made her feel as if she’d shimmied into his room wearing nipple tassels and a thong! Flushing, she crossed her arms defensively over her breasts.

      ‘If you were a gentleman you wouldn’t have thrown me out of the house like a bag of rubbish,’ she said tightly. She marched over to the door, but the memory of his desperate groans during his nightmare made her hesitate. ‘Do you need anything to help you sleep?’

      His low, sexy laugh sent a frisson of awareness through Sophie. ‘What did you have in mind, Miss Ashdown?’

      ‘A mallet,’ she said through gritted teeth, and stalked out of the room before she gave in to temptation and hit him over the head with the pewter vase.

      After Sophie had gone Nicolo switched off the bedside lamp and stared into the darkness, trying to clear his mind of the remnants of his dream. His nightmares were not so frequent now, unlike the months and years following the fire when he had suffered almost nightly flashbacks.

      Sophie had been right to guess that his injuries had been agonising. It was impossible to explain the intense pain of third-degree burns that turned flesh into raw, weeping wounds, or the gut-wrenching agony of surgical dressings being changed. He had been in hospital for months and had undergone several skin grafts. Even after he had been allowed home he’d had to wear compression bandages and take high doses of antibiotics to prevent his burns becoming infected, as had happened to his friend Michael.

      Nicolo closed his eyes and pictured the smiling face of the young man who had been a fellow patient at the specialist burns unit. Michael Morris had been amazingly cheerful, despite having suffered burns to eighty per cent of his body. He had been Nicolo’s inspiration. But Michael had developed an infection and septicaemia and his sudden, shocking death had plunged the thirteen-year-old Nicolo into the depths of despair. He had cried like a baby when one of the nurses had told him that Michael had died.

      Muttering a curse, Nicolo sat up, switched the lamp back on and picked up a book from the bedside table. Goddamn Sophie Ashdown, he thought grimly. Her arrival had unsettled him and her curiosity about the fire had opened a door in his mind that he usually kept bolted shut.