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And that was it for Ellie. He wouldn’t move from the door and he wouldn’t shut up and frustration made her temper spontaneously combust inside her and shoot up through her like a rocket. ‘If you don’t get out of here, I’m going to call the police!’ she screamed at him.
Rio flicked an imaginary speck of fluff from the sleeve her tight grip had creased infinitesimally. ‘Fortunately the polizia locale are unlikely to arrest a native for making a pass at a beautiful woman—’
‘I don’t care!’ Ellie lashed back at him, all patience and restraint stripped from her. ‘I hate you... I want you out of my room...now!’
‘When you tell me what you really want from Beppe I’ll leave,’ Rio bargained softly. ‘I want the truth.’
‘It’s private and it’s none of your business and I won’t allow you to bully me!’ Ellie retorted angrily. ‘Does your godfather even know that you’re here tormenting me?’
Rio fell very still, reluctantly recognising that he was dealing with a quarry worthy of his mettle. Beppe was an old-fashioned gentleman and particularly protective of the female sex and he would be shocked by Rio’s interference.
‘I didn’t think he did,’ Ellie declared in the telling silence. ‘The letter he sent me was kind and friendly. So back off, Rio, or I’ll—’
‘Or you’ll what?’ Rio growled in raw interruption. ‘You think that you can threaten me?’
‘Unlike you I’m not in the habit of threatening people,’ Ellie countered, lifting her chin, her green eyes deeply troubled.
‘Well, then let us reach an agreement here and now,’ Rio suggested silkily. ‘I could approach Beppe with the results of the investigative report I’ve had done on you and, if I did so, you would be turned away from the door tomorrow because there are enough dynamite allegations against you in that report to make him very wary.’
Ellie took an uncertain step backwards, hugely disconcerted by that accusation coming out of nowhere at her. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, so I can’t imagine what you’re talking about—’
‘Of course you’re going to say that,’ Rio parried, unimpressed. ‘But the point is that serious allegations have been made against you and by more than one person.’
Ellie fell silent because, although she was innocent of any wrongdoing and had been cleared during an internal enquiry, a serious allegation had been lodged against her, which could have had a most negative impact on her career as a doctor. Fortunately for her, she was protected by National Health Service rules there to safeguard staff in such situations and the allegation had been withdrawn and the complaint dismissed. Tears stung the backs of her eyes because that same allegation had caused Ellie a great deal of stress and many sleepless nights before it had been settled and she had viewed her Italian holiday as a much-needed period of rest and recuperation. To have that unpleasant business, in which she had been truly blameless, flung in her teeth by Rio Benedetti was seriously offensive.
‘Those allegations were dismissed a week before I flew out here,’ she spelt out curtly, struggling to control the wobble in her voice. ‘And what were you doing getting an investigative report done on me, for goodness’ sake?’
‘I will always protect Beppe from anyone who could take advantage of him and I don’t trust you or the coincidence that brings you here,’ Rio stated grimly, noting the sheen in her eyes, wondering if it was fake, deciding not to be impressed because tears in a woman’s eyes were nothing new to his experience. Virtually every woman he had ever been with had done the crying thing at some stage and all it had ever done was chase him off faster.
‘That’s not my problem,’ Ellie traded with an unapologetic little sniff that strangely enough impressed Rio much more than the hint of tears. ‘And why would it even occur to you that I would try to take advantage of Beppe? Obviously you don’t believe it but I’m not a dishonest person—’
At that claim, Rio quirked a sardonic ebony brow and thought about the diamond brooch she had somehow prevented her uncle from inheriting. ‘Aren’t you? Even though you can’t even bring yourself to admit that you want me—’
‘You know why—because nothing is going to happen between us,’ Ellie told him piously, superiority ringing in every syllable. ‘Why acknowledge it?’
And there it was again, that intonation that made Rio want to do or say something totally outrageous. It shot him straight back to his misspent youth when he had been regularly carpeted for his sins in Sister Teresa’s school office. There was something so incredibly frustrating about Ellie’s blanket ban on normal sexual behaviour, he reasoned angrily. He could not understand why a woman with so much pent-up passion should repeatedly strive to ignore the sizzle in the air between them. As if attraction was a weakness? Or a risk she wasn’t prepared to take?
His own convoluted and uncharacteristic thoughts on that score exasperated him as much as they had in Dharia. The evening of her sister’s wedding had been a washout but that hadn’t been his fault, had it been? Ellie had been totally unreasonable and unjust when she’d blamed him for that episode. He had been honest with her, as well, too honest, and where had that got him? A slap on the face and a shedload of insults. They would never have worked anyway, he told himself impatiently, not with a woman seemingly hardwired to be touchy, angry and super judgemental.
‘Non c’è problema... Don’t worry about it,’ Rio advised drily as he swung round and pulled open the door. ‘But when you fall, I’ll still be the one to catch you.’
‘I won’t be falling. Can I hope this is the last I’ll be seeing of you?’ Ellie dared as he strode out into the corridor and involuntarily she too stepped over the threshold.
‘You have nothing to fear from me unless you distress or damage Beppe in some way,’ Rio warned, his voice roughening at the mere thought of any harm coming to the older man. ‘I don’t know why you’re being so secretive anyway. Beppe will eventually tell me what this was all about.’
Pretending sublime indifference to that prospect, Ellie shrugged a slight shoulder. ‘Why would I care?’ she said breezily, keen to discourage his suspicions that she was hiding anything of a serious nature.
But she did care. Rio could see it in her unusually expressive and anxious gaze. He realised that there was definitely a secret of some sort that connected Ellie to his godfather and that disturbed him because for the life of him he could not imagine any likely connection. Beppe, for one thing, had never travelled outside Italy and was very much a home bird. It occurred to him for the first time that perhaps he should have investigated the mother rather than the daughter, but unwisely he had overlooked that option because Ellie inspired greater curiosity.
‘You do care,’ Rio traded softly, moving slightly closer.
In a skittish move, Ellie backed up against the door of her room. ‘I’m a very private person,’ she stated in a stubborn refusal to admit even the smallest weakness, because Rio was 100 per cent shark and she knew the blood in the water would be hers if she gave so much as an inch.
‘Not always,’ Rio disagreed, suddenly right there in front of her, eating her alive with his black-lashed smouldering eyes. A lean brown forefinger trailed gently down the side of her hot face.
She felt every tiny second of that fleeting caress like a brand burning right through to the centre of her body. She wasn’t used to being touched, she told herself bracingly, should’ve been dating more, should’ve been less of a perfectionist, should’ve been less sensible. His eyes above hers flamed gold and she recalled a moment exactly like that on the dance floor in Dharia, and in a clumsy movement she tried to peel herself off the door into her room and safety but it was too late, way too late when Rio’s beautifully shaped mouth came crashing down on hers.
And that kiss was something between a car crash and a shot of adrenalin in her veins. Her body came alive with a great whoosh of physical response and her hands flew up into his hair, touching, shaping, clutching the springy strands. And she wanted him as a dehydrated woman wanted water, as if he were the only thing that stood between her and death. That ferocious, screaming shout of need that instantly controlled her absolutely terrified her. The spear of his tongue in her mouth electrified her beyond all thought and the flick against the roof of her mouth was pure licking temptation by a maestro of sensation. He knew how to kiss, he knew how to do all the stuff she didn’t and that drew her helplessly, that and the merciless craving making her heart beat too fast, making her body tremble and her legs weak.
‘Inferno, Ellie...’ Rio growled against her swollen mouth, rocking his hips ever so slightly against her.
And she could feel him through their clothing, long and hard and urgent with the same need that had already overwhelmed her and she shuddered, fighting for control against all the odds and without words, knowing that no, whatever happened, she just couldn’t do this with him.
But Rio, womaniser that he was, kissed her again and again; being Rio, he had upped his game. Slow and tormenting had become rawly passionate and demanding and every skin cell in her body lit up in neon as if she had met her perfect match. The pulsing damp heat between her thighs was coalescing into a generalised burning ache that tortured and tempted and screamed. The sound of a metal bucket scraping across tiles was almost deafening and Rio sprang back from her at the same instant that Ellie literally forced her hands down to his shoulders to push him away.
And for once, Rio didn’t have anything super smart to say, she noted with only the smallest amount of satisfaction because she had nothing to boast about either. Rio dealt her a scorchingly angry glance and swung away.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said grittily.
‘Not if I see you coming first,’ Ellie quipped weakly, ducking back into her room under the curious appraisal of the cleaner and closing the door on legs that felt as limp as cotton wool. But no, she was not going to do that thing she usually did when she did something wrong. She wasn’t going to dwell on it and go over it endlessly. She had made a mistake and it was already behind her and that was all the brooding Rio Benedetti deserved. No more self-loathing, no more regret, she told herself squarely. He was like a cup of poison that tasted sweet, created only to tempt and destroy. Paranoiac...much, she asked herself then.
CHAPTER THREE (#u3f68242a-190f-5eb8-8d18-9d46759ed260)
THAT MORNING, ELLIE explored the village, bought a small gift for a colleague and walked in the glorious sunshine through the piazza to the café to take a seat. She was beginning to enjoy herself, starting to recognise that beating herself up about Rio was counterproductive because it kept him in the forefront of her mind. One kiss... What was a kiss? Nothing! Well, unless it made your knees go weak and threw your brain into la-la land—then it was a threat.
While she sipped her coffee, crossly policing her thoughts, she watched an opulent cream sports car park. The driver, who had a little dog with him, hailed several locals seated outside the café and his attention lingered on Ellie before he strode across the piazza to enter the shop there. The dog, however, a bouncy little Yorkshire terrier, hurtled straight across to Ellie and bounced up against her legs, craving attention.
The dog’s owner shouted what sounded like, ‘Bambi!’ in an exasperated voice but the dog wouldn’t budge from Ellie’s feet and, with an audible groan and a wave that promised his return, the young man went on ahead into the shop.
‘You’re not the most obedient dog,’ Ellie scolded softly a few minutes later as pleading little round eyes appealed to her from knee height. ‘No, you can’t get up on my lap. I’m not a doggy person—’
‘You could’ve fooled me,’ the owner remarked from beside her and she glanced up and laughed.
‘Well, I suspect your dog’s not very fussy,’ she teased.
‘Bambi belongs to my mother and I’m looking after the dog all week.’ He rolled his eyes in speaking suffering. ‘She hasn’t been trained and prefers women.’
‘But that’s not her fault,’ Ellie pointed out, scratching a blissed-out Bambi behind one flyaway ear.
‘I’m Bruno Nigrelli.’ He extended a friendly hand. ‘Join me for a glass of wine—’
‘A little early,’ Ellie began before she recalled that she was on holiday and not on duty. ‘No, that’s a good idea,’ she told him with a sudden smile. Loosen up, she told herself irritably.
Bruno stayed with her for about half an hour, making easy comfortable conversation, and it was so relaxing after the emotional angst of dealing with Rio, Ellie acknowledged ruefully. Bruno was a contracts lawyer based in Florence and he was currently staying at his mother’s home to look after it while she was away. When he asked her to dine with him the following evening, Ellie agreed. Polly’s voice was ringing loudly in her ears. ‘Attractive man—tick. Employed—tick. Good manners—tick. Stop looking for what’s wrong with every man you meet!’ Polly had told her that the reason she rarely dated was that she was far too fussy. But Ellie didn’t think that was fair because when it came to men, Polly had proved equally hard to impress.
The following morning, Ellie drove her little hire car to Beppe’s impressive palazzo. The huge gates stood wide in readiness for her arrival. She drove slowly through the elaborate gravelled gardens that fronted the big house and parked, climbing out, smoothing damp palms down over the casual white skirt she had teamed with a navy-and-white tee and canvas espadrilles. She walked up the shallow steps to the front door and a youthful manservant in a very correct black jacket opened it before she could even reach for the bell.
‘Ellie Dixon for Mr Sorrentino,’ she said helpfully.
‘Yes,’ he said gruffly in English. ‘He waits for you.’
Ellie was a mass of nerves and trying not to show it. Could Beppe be her...? No, she refused to think about that because it wasn’t very likely when Beppe had been married at the time. The more likely scenario would be Beppe telling her that he hadn’t known her mother well enough to give her any useful information as to who her father might be.
‘Miss Dixon...’ A small man near her own height greeted her at the door of a book-lined room with a warm smile. ‘Come in and sit down. Adriano will bring us morning coffee.’
With a soft sound of pleasure she sat down in the chair overlooking the beautiful garden. ‘This is such a comfortable room,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘All these books and bits and pieces are fascinating and when you throw the view in, as well—’
‘I’m a lifelong collector and passionate gardener,’ Beppe admitted as he sat down opposite her.
‘Thank you for being willing to see me like this,’ Ellie said a little awkwardly. ‘I can only hope that I’m not about to say anything that may make you regret it—’
‘I don’t take offence easily,’ Beppe reassured her. ‘But I confess that I’m very curious about your mother. What happened to her after she left Italy?’
‘I didn’t even know for sure that she had been in Italy, although it was a fairly obvious assumption,’ Ellie admitted, opting for complete honesty as she dug into her bag and extracted the emerald ring. ‘My mother left me this ring...’
Beppe paled, his easy smile slipping for an instant. He scooped up the ring at the same time as the door opened and Adriano brought in a tray. He spoke to the young man with a couple of hand signals. ‘Adriano’s deaf,’ he muttered absently, his attention still fixedly focussed on the emerald.
‘He’s a great lip-reader,’ Ellie remarked.
‘He’s had a lot of training over the years. Once he’s acquired the necessary experience working here, he hopes to find a more exciting position abroad,’ Beppe told her and he leant forward to deposit the ring back on the table beside her cup. ‘I gave your mother this ring. It once belonged to my mother,’ he added heavily.
‘Okay.’ Taken aback by that admission, Ellie nodded acceptance. ‘So you knew her well?’
‘Better than I should have done in the circumstances,’ Beppe confided in a weighted undertone of discomfiture. ‘Annabel spent that summer working for an English family who had a holiday home not far from here. My brother, Vincenzo, met her first and they got engaged before I even met her. I think you would call it a whirlwind romance because they had only known each other for a few weeks.’
Ellie sighed, thinking of what she had learned about her mother from her sister Polly. ‘What year was that?’
Beppe told her and the timing dovetailed in Ellie’s mind. Her older sister would only have been a toddler when Annabel came to work in Italy.
‘How do I describe Annabel to you...her daughter?’ Beppe sighed. ‘She was full of life and tremendous fun to be with but she was a little impulsive when it came to love.’
‘Yes,’ Ellie agreed, wondering what was coming next.
‘I was married to a wife who was disabled. That is not an excuse. There can be no excuse for what happened,’ Beppe continued with unconcealed regret. ‘I learned that I was not the man I believed I was. I fell head over heels in love with your mother and it was the same for her. I was thirty-five then, hardly an impressionable boy, and I fully believed that I loved my wife. Amalia was a wonderful wife. It was not an unhappy marriage yet I broke her heart and my brother’s. But mercifully, generously my brother did not choose to publicly accuse me of what I had done and my wife was not humiliated. Together, Amalia and I concentrated on restoring our marriage, locked away that secret affair and moved on.’
‘I honestly don’t know what I can say to what you’ve just told me because I know none of the people involved,’ Ellie said carefully. ‘But I am sorry to hear that other people were injured by my mother’s actions.’
‘Annabel injured herself most of all. She could’ve had a good life with my brother but she gave him up because she met me,’ Beppe admitted with remorse. ‘Vincenzo was still estranged from me when he died. It was a horrible mess for all of us—’
‘I’m very sorry,’ Ellie breathed, feeling inadequate in the face of such honesty and a very personal story, which she had never expected to hear told.
‘The last time I saw your mother she was very angry with me,’ Beppe confessed unhappily. ‘I had told her from the outset of our affair that I would not leave my wife but she refused to accept that. My love for my wife was a different kind of love but no less real to me. Although I was an unfaithful husband, Amalia forgave me and we stayed together and we were blessed by many more happy years before she passed away...’
‘My goodness... I genuinely didn’t come here to cause you distress, but I can see that I’ve done nothing but rake up disastrous memories!’ Ellie exclaimed guiltily, seeing the tears that shone in Beppe’s dark eyes. ‘Unfortunately, I came here with a very different angle, Beppe. I’m trying to find out who my father is—’
‘In Italy?’ he cut in, his surprise unconcealed. ‘Surely you are far too young to believe you were conceived here? When were you born?’
And she told him and his face became very sombre. ‘I believed you were several years younger, but it is certainly a possibility that I could be the man you seek. Dio mio, that could explain why your mother told me that I would live to regret not leaving my wife for her.’
Ellie fell silent, disturbed by the harsh nature of what she was learning about the mother she had never known.
‘We will have to look into this more. With tests? That is how it is done, is it not?’
‘Are you willing to do that?’
‘Certamente... Of course,’ Beppe responded. ‘Now perhaps we should discuss something less challenging while we consider what we have both learned.’
Ellie’s hand shook a little as she lifted her cup because she was marvelling at his calm manner.
Beppe chuckled. ‘I must be on my very best behaviour now in case you turn out to be a relative.’
And Ellie’s hopes soared, that he was the man, that he would turn out to be her father and that a lifetime of frustrating speculation would be ended. They parted an hour later with Beppe promising to contact a doctor he was friendly with, who would advise them discreetly on their quest. Tears rolled down Ellie’s cheeks as she drove back to her hotel. She was in a daze and she was praying that Beppe would be the man she sought because she had really, really liked him and it would be beyond wonderful to discover a father she could actually connect with as a person.
Rio, however, had a very different experience when he joined his godfather for lunch. After what transpired there, bitter anger consumed him and when he left he headed straight to Ellie’s hotel, determined to confront her. Learning that she had gone for a walk to a local landmark, he set off to follow her in his car.
Ellie paused halfway up the very steep hill and wiped the perspiration from her brow, registering that in such sultry heat, she had tackled a challenge too great for her fitness level. Hearing the sound of an approaching vehicle, she stepped back onto the verge. She was disconcerted to see Rio at the wheel of a very racy scarlet sports car. He braked and leant across to open the passenger door. ‘Get in!’ he told her uninvitingly.
‘No, thanks,’ Ellie responded. Her day had been demanding enough without adding him into it.
Without a word, Rio shot her an intimidating glance from molten gold eyes and sprang out of the car, stalked round the bonnet, and before she could even guess his intention he had scooped her off her startled feet and dropped her into the passenger seat, slamming the door after her.
‘What the heck do you think you’re playing at?’ Ellie yelled at him in disbelief as she struggled to open the door to get out again and failed because he had already engaged the child lock to prevent her from doing exactly that.
Rio shot back behind the wheel, his lean, darkly handsome face granite hard. ‘We have to talk—’
‘No, we don’t. I have nothing to say to you!’ Ellie proclaimed vehemently. ‘Let me out of this car—’
‘Put your seat belt on!’ Rio growled at her as if she hadn’t spoken.
‘No, I won’t. I refuse to go anywhere with you!’ Ellie yelled back at him.
Rio leant across her to wrench the seat belt round her and she was so taken aback by the second act enforced against her wishes that she studied him in shock. ‘This is kidnapping and assault,’ she informed him furiously. ‘I will go to the police and make an official complaint about you!’
‘Go ahead!’ Rio bit out rawly.
‘You are out of control,’ Ellie informed him. ‘You’re not thinking about what you’re doing!’
‘Sì... If I’d thought about it, I would have come armed with a gag!’ Rio slung at her wrathfully.
‘Much good that would do you. I’m a judo black belt,’ Ellie countered. ‘Had I known you were planning to kidnap me, I would have defended myself to stop you grabbing me.’
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ Rio practically spat at her as he raked the car on up the hill she had been struggling to climb. ‘If you were assaulted, you would be far too busy assessing the pros and cons of acting aggressively to take action quickly enough to defend yourself!’
And Ellie was stunned by that eerily accurate reading of her character. Rio was the single exception to her abhorrence of violence in all its forms and even when it came to him she didn’t want to actually hurt him, just hold him at bay or make him go away. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘Somewhere we can talk in peace,’ he grated.
Ellie skimmed an infuriated glance at his set profile, noting the classic slope of his nose, the definition lent by his perfect cheekbones, the outrageous sweep of his black lashes. ‘You’re driving too fast—’
