‘I know that. It’s the truth. What sort of women are you drawn to, just out of interest?’
‘Career women,’ he admitted.
‘Of course.’
‘We’re poles apart,’ he reminded her. ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t, under normal circumstances, go for someone like me.’
‘Definitely not.’ Rosie tilted her chin at a mutinous angle, pride coming to her rescue, because it cut to the quick that, whether he found her sexy or not—and she hated herself for dwelling on that stupid, throwaway compliment—he would never have given her the time of day if he hadn’t been dumped into playing out this charade. ‘I’m just shocked at how easily Candice fell for the charade,’ she mused truthfully.
‘People believe what they want to believe,’ Matteo said with a shrug. ‘Human nature. Your family want what they think is best for you and someone rich, powerful and wearing a suit fits the narrative.’ He looked at her. ‘And here’s another reason why no one will question this too deeply…’
Matteo looked at her flushed, pretty face ,but then his eyes drifted down to the tightness of her jumper straining over full breasts and the curve of her hips.
The atmosphere shifted. He could feel it and he knew that she would as well. He was just looking, he thought, because he wasn’t going to encourage any further complication to an already complicated and annoying situation. He was going to be sticking around for a handful of days and then he would be off, leaving her to assert her independence and damn him for the bastard he really wasn’t at all.
‘What’s that?’ Rosie asked breathlessly.
‘The most obvious reason of all. Opposites attract…’
ROSIE COULD ONLY concede the truth behind that statement. Matteo was sinfully good-looking but he wasn’t her type. Take away the dark good looks and the perfectly honed, intensely masculine physique, and what you had was your basic businessman, the sort of guy to appeal to her entire family but not to her.
It was true that she had never met any businessman quite in this one’s league but he was still nothing like the free-spirited adventurers towards whom she always gravitated. She shouldn’t be attracted to him at all but she was.
But then, he wasn’t exactly Mr Typical Business Tycoon, was he?
That background in foster care…
Not exactly your run-of-the mill CEO…
And those cool, cool eyes…seeing everything and revealing nothing…also not typical.
And that thread-like scar…where had that come from? Surely not filling out profit and loss columns with his fountain pen?
‘She took it for granted, your sister,’ Matteo said conversationally. ‘That it was okay to break the news about us in a group family chat without asking whether you might have preferred to do the news-breaking yourself. That par for the course? Because, if it is, then you did well to put her in her place.’ He settled his gaze on her.
‘I know,’ Rosie said simply. She didn’t add that his presence had given her backbone. ‘The problem is that Candice wouldn’t have relayed the information the way I would have.’
‘Explain.’
‘You heard her. She thinks this is some great romance and that’s what she would have told everyone. I would have been a little more realistic. I would have prepared them for the fact that there was a chance this wasn’t going to work out. It feels as though things are getting more and more difficult to control.’
‘That’s the problem when a lie begins to spiral out of control.’
She was hovering.
Things had taken an unexpected turn and he could see that she was uncomfortable with the situation. Her edginess was apparent in the way her gaze was flicking towards him, then flicking away…in the way her whole body seemed alive with restlessness even though she wasn’t actually moving around. Underneath the feisty, open exterior, real apprehension was creeping in. The consequences of that little white lie were dawning on her.
‘It’s also the problem with acting on impulse but, if you think you’ve been inconvenienced, then I should tell you that the last thing I’d banked on doing was remaining here for longer than strictly necessary.’
‘I’m sure you have commitments. It’s Christmas.’
‘I don’t do Christmas. The only reason I’m here at this time of year was because of the timing on this deal. My only commitment was to retreat to my villa outside Venice and escape the madness.’
‘Escape? Escape?’ Distracted, she angled her bright, blue-eyed gaze in his direction.
‘Don’t look so bewildered.’ Matteo’s eyebrows winged up. ‘Not everyone is in love with the festive season.’
‘You have no family…’ Rosie said slowly.
‘Don’t go there,’ Matteo told her, voice dropping by several degrees.
Rosie frowned. ‘It must be a lonely time of year for you,’ she said simply and Matteo vaulted to his feet and frustratedly raked hands through his hair.
‘What is it about stay out of my private life that you don’t get?’
Rosie didn’t apologise. Her mind was busy with images of him in foster care. He had given her a sketchy description of what it had been like but she knew that it probably would have been far more soul-destroying. He had expressly set up No Trespass signs and he had made it clear that the only reason he had said anything at all was because he’d felt it necessary.
Except…her heart went out to him. She knew that she was going where no doubt angels feared to tread, but there was a generosity of spirit inside her that found it difficult to leave the subject alone.
‘Everyone needs to talk to somebody about the distressing things that happen in their lives.’
‘I don’t believe I’m hearing this! I don’t think you quite understood…’
‘You don’t want to talk about it.’ She shrugged but her clear blue eyes were stubbornly fixed on his face as he towered over her, looking down, expression forbidding.
‘No,’ Matteo said with angry force. ‘I don’t.’
‘Which says a lot.’
Matteo leant over her, hands on either side of her, depressing the soft sofa cushions and caging her in. His face was dark with enraged incredulity that someone had dared cross the boundary lines he had laid down. Did the woman have no limits when it came to saying what was on her mind? Matteo was accustomed to people editing their behaviour around him. Her lack of interest in following those rules left him practically speechless. From the second she had appeared in his life, normal rules of behaviour had been suspended.
‘Don’t make me regret having told you what I did.’
‘Why would you regret it?’
‘Are you hearing a word I’m saying?’
She held his outraged stare. ‘You’re accustomed to everyone doing what you tell them to do, aren’t you?’
Matteo stood up but remained standing in front of her.
‘Yes, I am!’
‘Okay. You win! I won’t ask and you don’t have to tell me anything. Would you like something to eat? Drink?’ She stood up and swerved around him, heading to the kitchen and straight to the fridge to peer inside.
As