‘You have a date?’ Rio pressed in growling disbelief, staring at her as she stood there in the comparative dimness of the hall, a glowing beauty with a sexily tousled mane of vibrant coppery curls, translucent skin and a mouth that would’ve tempted a saint. And he had never been a saint. Even less was he known as a possessive lover, because he didn’t allow himself to become attached: once bitten, twice shy. So why did the very thought of Ellie becoming intimate with another man infuriate him? Disconcerted by that rush of anger, he tamped it down hard and gritted his teeth.
‘A guy I met in the village invited me out to dinner tonight,’ Ellie confided in a rush.
‘His name?’ Rio demanded.
‘Bruno Nigrelli.’
Rio’s nostrils flared. ‘I think he did some work for Beppe once. Lawyer?’
Ellie nodded uncomfortably.
Rio gritted his teeth even harder in the smouldering silence. Was she expecting him to object? Even waiting for him to do so? Wasn’t that how women sucked a man in, by assigning strings and conditions and making him want and demand more?
‘I’m not much in the mood for dinner now, but I don’t like letting people down—’
Rio’s dark eyes flared golden as the sunset. ‘Then cancel him and spend the night here with me instead.’
Ellie froze in bewilderment, green eyes flying over his lean, darkly handsome features. ‘Spend the night?’ she repeated shakily.
‘It would make more sense—’
Ellie dropped her gaze defensively. ‘Nothing about us makes sense—’
‘We make perfect sense. You decided I was a bastardo two years ago and even if I saved the world you wouldn’t budge an inch from that conviction,’ Rio derided.
‘I think a lot of women would think the same after that night at the wedding, but let’s not get into that,’ Ellie counselled heavily as she yanked open the hefty front door. ‘We have enough differences without raking up the past. I can’t stay, Rio—’
‘Ellie... When will you know?’
Ellie dropped her head as she settled into the passenger seat of his sports car. ‘In ten days to two weeks,’ she framed jaggedly. ‘I’ll do a test as soon as I can.’
In the sunlight, Rio stood very still. What would he do if Ellie conceived his child? He recalled his own sordid origins with an inner shudder of recoil, knowing in that instant that there would be no sacrifice too great were it to mean that his child could look back with pride and contentment on his or her early years. Only when Beppe and Amalia took an interest in him had Rio learned what it was to have self-respect. Being cleverer than everyone around him had only attracted the bullies. Being prettier as a boy had also drawn the abusers. His lean, strong face was stamped by the grim lines and hollows of bitter recollection and experience. As an adult, Rio Benedetti might be as rich as the fabled Croesus but he had never forgotten his humble beginnings in that dumpster.
Ellie glanced up to see what was preventing Rio from joining her in the car and ended up staring, because it was a revelation to see that Rio, all lean, mean and magnificent six-foot-plus of him, could look haunted and almost vulnerable. She scolded herself for that imaginative flight as soon as he started up the car but his rebuke about her tendency to judge was still nagging at the back of her mind. Sometimes she was kind of black-and-white about situations, she acknowledged uneasily, but just as she had learned all her life to follow rules she had learned to compromise and understand what motivated people to do the things they did, as well. She supposed she was still holding the events of two years earlier against Rio because his colourful sex life had shocked her. As someone who had never pushed against conventional boundaries, possibly she was a little too conservative for a passionate free spirit like Rio.
Rio pulled the car to a halt in the hotel car park. He shot Ellie a glance, noting the fineness of her delicate bone structure and how clearly it showed beneath her pale skin. She was exhausted and he could see it and he compressed his mouth on the urge to make another comment about Beppe. He refused to think about the dinner date she had. He refused to admit that the idea annoyed him. After all, he wasn’t possessive and he wasn’t jealous. He didn’t ever get attached to a woman—well, at least he hadn’t in almost ten years.
And when Rio had got attached—to Franca—it had been a disaster, he recalled grimly. Treachery laced with infidelity and a woman’s greed. Rio had learned the hard way that loving could be a one-way ticket to hell.
No, he definitely wasn’t jealous. He already knew that Ellie was a gold-digger, he reminded himself resolutely. He would only care about Ellie Dixon’s future if she became pregnant with his child. In the short term his sole interest in her lay in uncovering her mysterious connection to Beppe.
Rio sprang out of the car and strode round to open the passenger door. Disconcerted by that unexpected attention, Ellie climbed out and as she looked up warily into his glitteringly beautiful dark golden eyes, the sunlight hot on her skin, her conscience screamed like a fire alarm. She had been downright nasty about the sex even though he had been considerate and concerned and, bearing in mind that he had given her two climaxes, she had been unjust. Her skin flushed beet red.
‘Che cosa... What?’ Rio pressed in the strained silence.
‘I shouldn’t have said what I said back at your house,’ Ellie gabbled before she could lose her nerve. ‘It was a train wreck... Us, I mean, and me being...well, you know what. But you were good, I mean—’
Rio wanted to laugh but he fought the urge because she was so embarrassed, so utterly different from him in her attitude to sex. ‘Okay...’
‘I’m sorry,’ Ellie said curtly. ‘I was... I was upset.’
And with that apology she spun on her heel and walked into the hotel. Her head had a natural tilt, her hips a shapely sway, the skirt dancing above her long slender legs and, that fast, Rio was hard as a rock again, his hands clenching into fists by his sides. She drove him crazy, he reminded himself unnecessarily. But he had had her now and that should be that, game over. Hit it and quit it, he repeated to himself. He didn’t still want her. Of course he didn’t, so walk away, a little voice in his brain instructed.
Rio swung back into his car. The sound of Ellie moaning as he kissed her engulfed him, the surprised look of ecstasy on her face when she came, the exquisite feel of her soft, satiny skin. He swore vehemently, emptied his mind and dug out his phone. He needed a woman, any woman just as long as she wasn’t Ellie.
* * *
In a daze, Ellie went for a shower. She still ached. There would be no forgetting what she had done. And the incredulous way Rio had looked at her in the car park would stay with her until the day she died. Her face burned afresh. She should have kept quiet, she shouldn’t have said anything, should have left that short-lived intimacy and all memory of it back in his house in the hills where it belonged. A mistaken moment and not an important one in her scheme of things. Only sex. Although it would not be only sex if she fell pregnant, she conceded wretchedly, and refused to think about that angle on the grounds that it was stupid to worry before she knew she actually had something to worry about.
Although for the first time ever, Ellie desperately wanted to confide in someone and she thought about phoning Polly. She didn’t think Polly would tell her husband, Rashad, about that. But how did she know for sure? She covered her face with wet hands, all the stress of the past forty-eight hours piling up on her along with every doubt and insecurity she possessed. She still didn’t know how she had ended up having sex with Rio, but she knew she had wanted it to happen as much as he had. Being unable to put the blame on him stung, as well. He hadn’t sweet-talked her, filled her up with booze or seduced her—my goodness, anything but, she conceded ruefully.
Beppe called her on her mobile and asked her to meet him at a doctor’s surgery on the outskirts of Florence the next