скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Is that likely to delay my arrival at the Albert Hall?’ he asked quietly.
‘No.’ She shook her head, relieved to discover that her client now appeared to have calmed down. ‘We should still be in plenty of time for you to have a drink with your friends, before taking your seat for the opera.’
‘I’m glad to hear it!’ he murmured, giving her a surprisingly friendly grin, before querying the system she was using to communicate with her operatives.
‘I can understand the reasons why you need to be in touch with the vehicle in front of us. But I fail to see why, when you want to say something to our chauffeur, you cannot just slide apart that partition,’ he added, nodding towards the glass barrier between themselves and the men in front.
‘While you have a bodyguard in here with you, that glass partition is always kept firmly closed,’ she told him. ‘It’s made of bullet-proof glass—as are all the other windows in this vehicle. So, if anything should happen to the driver…’
‘Like getting shot?’
‘Well…er…something along those lines,’ she murmured, before adding quickly, ‘Although that’s very unlikely, of course. I mean, there’s no need for you to worry about details like that.’
‘Oh, I’m not at all worried, Miss Simpson,’ he drawled, turning his dark head to give her a warm, charming smile. ‘To tell you the truth,’ he added, ‘I’ve never believed that these so-called threats against my life were anything other than total nonsense.’
‘Once someone has issued threats, there’s always a risk that they will try and carry them out,’ she pointed out, finding it surprisingly hard to resist the almost beguiling warmth and charm of the man sitting beside her. Not to mention that low, positively toe-curling, sexy Italian accent of his—which appeared to be having a very strange effect on her whole nervous system.
‘You are, of course, quite right,’ he agreed with a heavy sigh. ‘In fact…’ he hesitated for a moment ‘…I now realise that I was, perhaps, guilty of behaving badly, back at the hotel. I was, of course, obviously tired…possibly the effect of jet lag…? You know how it is?’ he added, with a casual shrug of his broad shoulders.
‘Yes, well…’
‘Which is why, my dear Miss Simpson, I do hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive my lapse of bad manners?’
Phew! Talk about a volte face! Antonia told herself, almost reeling from the devastating impact of yet another warmly caressing, almost intimate smile.
Well! At least one thing was now as clear as daylight. This guy hadn’t just decided to be reasonable—he was obviously intent on mounting a full-scale charm offensive! And unfortunately, if the way she was suddenly having difficulty with her breathing, was anything to go by, it was proving highly effective.
‘I quite understand. There’s no need to apologise,’ she muttered, making an effort to pull herself together.
Which was surprisingly difficult. Especially as her mind, for some extraordinary reason, seemed to be temporarily out of order. But maybe that had something to do with the highly-disturbing sensual atmosphere which seemed to be rapidly filling the confined space of the vehicle.
Trying to ignore the tall, dark figure sitting beside her, Antonia tried to work out what the damned man was up to. Because there was definitely no ‘perhaps’ about his bad behaviour back at the hotel. He’d been an absolute swine—and well he knew it!
Her thoughts were sharply interrupted as the car in front abruptly slammed on its brakes. Leaning forward in her seat, she saw that its progress was being impeded by a group of young teenagers on roller-blades.
Swiftly scanning the area of the park through which they were travelling—which contained only a few courting couples, either sitting on the grass or strolling quietly amongst the trees—she quickly lifted her handset.
‘Relax…the kids are just having a bit of fun, and enjoying themselves. Ignore them—they’ll soon get bored and leave us alone,’ she instructed, almost envying the ability of the youths to control their thin steel blades as they swooped and dived between the two vehicles.
Her quick assessment of the situation proved to be correct, with the teenagers quickly growing tired of the game, and racing off down the road in search of new victims.
As the two limousines resumed their journey, Antonia leaned back in her seat, her eyes following the young kids as she wondered if she was too old—or, possibly, far too sensible—to take up the sport herself.
A silent spectator to the brief interruption of their progress, Lorenzo couldn’t prevent his lips twitching with amusement, having no problem in accurately guessing the thoughts going through her mind.
And why not? he mused. With her tall, athletic figure, she would undoubtedly master the art of roller-blading—just as smoothly and efficiently as she appeared to do everything else.
As soon as he’d entered this limousine, a few moments’ reflection had led him to realise that losing his temper with this imperturbable woman had achieved precisely nothing. However, he hadn’t climbed swiftly up the corporate ladder of the business world without learning a thing or two, he’d reminded himself grimly. And one of the chief lessons had been the need for flexibility.
Which was precisely why he’d swiftly come to the conclusion that, of all the options open to him, an attempt to drown the highly irritating young woman in honey might prove to be a better choice of tactics.
However, despite her apparent agreement to forget and forgive his loss of temper, back at the hotel, he’d been well aware of the cautious, wary glint in her smoky-grey eyes.
So…although he couldn’t recall ever having a problem in charming a woman out of her mind, it didn’t look as if he’d even got to first base with Miss Antonia Simpson.
Unfortunately, he knew absolutely nothing about her. Which placed him at a considerable disadvantage. Because, when dealing with a business opponent, it was information on the other man’s background, and his likely response to any pressure, which had always proved an invaluable tool in any negotiation.
In the present case, he had nothing to go on. No idea of what made this woman ‘tick’. Nor, indeed, what on earth had persuaded her to take up such an extraordinarily bizarre occupation.
As the limousine began gathering speed, and they continued their progress through Hyde Park, Lorenzo leaned back in his seat, giving him a better view of the tall, slim figure of the blonde sitting beside him.
She was definitely not his type, he told himself firmly. He had never been attracted to this sort of arrogant, domineering female, who clearly considered herself the equal of any man.
In fact, almost without exception, his girlfriends had always been dark, slender and petite, with an enchanting air of delicate fragility. And, while it was true that some had been tiresome—either totally self-absorbed, or given to amazing displays of temperament—they had never, under any circumstances, made the mistake of trying to push him around. Nor would they have dreamed of trying to tell him what he could and could not do!
On the other hand…if he hadn’t been so annoyed with her, he might be prepared to admit that Antonia Simpson was a highly attractive, good-looking woman. He’d certainly thought so when she’d first marched into his suite, earlier this evening.
Allowing his gaze to sweep over the firm breasts, clearly outlined as she raised a hand to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear, and the short skirt of her dress, displaying long, slim legs encased in sheer black silk stockings, merely confirmed his first impression.
However, by the time their vehicle was finally approaching the Albert Hall, Lorenzo had abruptly changed his mind again.
Neither the use of as much charm as he could summon up under the circumstances nor—as a desperate last resort—his frank offer of bribery and corruption had in any way managed to dent the cool self-possession of this extraordinary young woman.
‘Relax, Signor Foscari!’ she’d told him with a wide, unusually enchanting smile, which suddenly had the effect of making her appear almost beautiful. ‘Believe me, I really appreciate that Italian charm of yours! But unfortunately trying to sweet-talk me into abandoning the job I’ve been hired to do is a pure waste of your time.
‘And I’m afraid that offering me a great deal of money to get out of your life won’t work either,’ she’d added, with another broad, ironic grin. ‘Unfortunately, I have a contract with your insurance company. And, until they dismiss me, I’m afraid that you and I will just have to put up with one another. Capisce?’
He probably deserved that last, verbal slap in the face, Lorenzo told himself grimly. And, while he might actively dislike the girl sitting next to him, he had to admit that she was proving to be a quite impressive adversary.
However, the situation in which he found himself was still utterly intolerable. And he certainly had no intention of putting up with her appointment—or of allowing himself to be swayed by that enchanting smile—one moment longer than he had to.
But even as he rallied his forces—pointing out that he could not gain admittance to the concert hall without a ticket, which he’d unfortunately left behind in his hotel room—the damned woman merely gave a brief shrug of her slim shoulders.
‘There’s no problem. I picked it up from the hall table before we left your suite,’ she said, clearly enjoying his discomfiture as she removed the ticket from her handbag.
‘And what about you?’ he demanded, through gritted teeth, as their vehicle drew to a halt outside the concert hall. ‘Exactly how are you planning to spend the evening? Standing outside my friends’ box for three hours, until the end of the performance, doesn’t sound much fun.’
‘I’m not being paid a great deal of money just to have fun,’ she retorted dismissively, before opening the car door, and he found himself being swiftly escorted inside the large dome of the Albert Hall.
‘Hi, there! We were just beginning to wonder if you’d make it here tonight,’ Giles Harding called out, hurrying through the crowd towards him.
‘O, ye of little faith.’ Lorenzo grinned at his old friend, before turning to greet Giles’s wife, Susie Harding.
Busy chatting to Susie, and catching up with their family’s news, he just about managed to temporarily forget Antonia. However, if he’d hoped to have seen the last of her—for a few hours, at least—he was doomed to disappointment.
‘Aha! You lucky dog! I might have known that you’d turn up with a gorgeous girlfriend in tow,’ Giles murmured with a grin, giving him a sharp dig in the ribs as he spotted the tall girl standing behind the tall Italian.
‘I’m so glad you could join us,’ Giles said, taking her arm with a beaming smile, before Lorenzo had a chance to explain that Miss Simpson was most definitely not his girlfriend.
‘There’s no problem with seats, since two of our guests had to cancel at the last minute,’ Giles added, handing her a drink, before quickly introducing her to his wife.
Chatting idly with his friends’ guests—a rather boring banker and his wife—amidst the noise of loud voices and laughter in the large bar, Lorenzo realised that there was virtually nothing he could do about the situation.
It placed him in an awkward position, of course. On the other hand, he certainly didn’t want to have to go into long, tedious explanations of why he apparently needed protection. Especially as he was almost certain that his old friends would find the highly embarrassing, humiliating fact that he was being forced to put up with a female bodyguard absolutely hilarious.
Initially surprised to find herself being greeted as his girlfriend, Antonia had glanced enquiringly at Lorenzo, indicating her willingness to go along with the scenario.
In her job, she’d frequently been called upon to act the part of a devoted wife or loving fiancée—especially when engaged in undercover work, such as trailing a suspect. So assuming the role of Lorenzo’s girlfriend wasn’t likely to be too difficult.
And maybe…maybe, if he’d made even the slightest effort to act his part, she might not have lost her temper with the foul man. But, after clearly deciding to let Giles Harding believe that she was his latest popsy, Lorenzo had proceeded to totally ignore her, turning his back and chatting to his friends and their guests as if he’d never even heard of her existence.
Goodness knows, she’d already had to put up with quite enough of his nonsense this evening. Besides, she wasn’t stupid. She could easily understand why he hadn’t corrected his friend’s mistake. But there was no excuse for him to behave in such a boorish fashion.
In fact, it was the way he was trying to have his cake—and eat it too—which finally tipped her over the edge.
As the bell rang, signalling that the performance was about to start, and the crowd began moving out of the bar towards the auditorium, she adroitly moved up behind Lorenzo’s tall figure, before casually slipping her arm through his.
‘Sweetie! You weren’t thinking of leaving me behind, were you?’ she exclaimed with a light ripple of laughter, before raising her head to give him a wide, beaming smile.
Rewarded by the sudden tensing of his tall body, and the brief look of horror flickering over his handsome, tanned face, Antonia turned to smile at the Hardings and their guests.
‘I’m so pleased that darling Lorenzo brought me here tonight. I’ve been longing to see this opera for ages. Such a treat!’ she told them, with another warm, happy smile, maintaining a firm grip on his arm as they entered the box.
Swiftly glancing around the red plush interior, which hadn’t changed since the days of Queen Victoria, Antonia quickly identified the perfect position for her client. Letting go of Lorenzo’s arm, she casually edged a nearby chair into a position which would shield him from any possible assassin in the audience—while still allowing him a good sight of the large stage below.
‘Why don’t you sit here, darling?’ she murmured with a soft, winsome smile.
‘No, thank you,’ he retorted through gritted teeth, clearly furious at having to maintain a fixed, pleasant expression on his face, solely for the benefit of his hosts and their guests. ‘I’m sure one of the other ladies would prefer to…’
‘Don’t be silly, darling—I insist that you sit there,’ she told him firmly, accompanying her words with another simpering, entirely false smile. A smile which had those present gazing indulgently at what they, quite mistakenly, assumed to be a loving couple.
As Lorenzo stood glaring down at her, his body taut and rigid with anger at finding himself totally outmanoeuvred, she thought for one, wild moment that he might throw caution to the winds and indulge in a spectacular loss of temper. However, after what appeared to be a massive inner struggle, he finally managed to bring himself under control.
‘Why don’t you go to hell!’ he ground out savagely under his breath as, very reluctantly, he lowered himself into the chair.
‘Only if you lead the way, sweetie!’ she retorted with a grin, before seating herself just behind his tall figure.
As the house lights dimmed and the orchestra began playing the overture, Lorenzo leaned back in his comfortable red plush seat, a bland expression on his face—and murder in his heart!
He’d never, in the whole of his life, been tempted to even think of using violence of any kind against a woman. Which made it all the more shocking to now find himself actively contemplating—with considerable pleasure!—the untimely demise of Miss Antonia Simpson.
Right from the moment that bossy, thoroughly irritating young woman had marched so confidently into his hotel suite, earlier this evening, he’d suspected that she was likely to be up to no good. And how right he’d been. Because the brazen hussy had turned out to be nothing but trouble, with a capital T!
What had he ever done to deserve such a fate? Lorenzo asked himself grimly as, on the stage below the box, the chorus and orchestra wound themselves up for the grand entrance of Otello—returning home to Venice in triumph, after soundly beating the Turkish Navy.
Living most of the year in Milan, he’d regularly visited La Scala—in his opinion, the greatest opera house in the world. And he had, of course, seen many productions of Verdi’s tragic opera, based on the play Othello, by William Shakespeare.
But only now did it occur to him that the story of a man driven out of his mind by external forces and culminating in his murder of his wife, Desdemona, seemed strangely appropriate to his own current predicament.
Don’t be ridiculous! It’s time you got a grip on the situation! Lorenzo lectured himself sternly.
The fact that Antonia Simpson had managed to have everything her own way, so far, was no reason to allow her to push him around for the foreseeable future. Which meant that the sooner he got his act together the better.
Oh, yes! It was about time he taught that domineering, high-handed, so-called ‘bodyguard’ of his a lesson which she wouldn’t forget in a hurry.
For her part, and greatly to her surprise, Antonia found herself enjoying the opera. In fact, she would have found it totally absorbing if she hadn’t been required to be fully alert on behalf of Lorenzo Foscari.
This was definitely the last job she’d ever take on for that ratfink James Riley. Goodness knows, she’d looked after some tiresome people in the past. But this oh, so macho Italian—who clearly should have been strangled at birth—just about took the biscuit!
All the same, maybe it hadn’t been too clever of her to try and score a few points off the swine just now, she told herself. Recalling her impression, earlier in the evening, that he was as tricky and unpredictable as dynamite, she realised it might possibly have been a mistake to have momentarily lost her own temper—simply because she’d considered him guilty of bad manners.
Because, however tempting it might have been to cut the man down to size, it definitely wasn’t the response expected from an experienced and highly capable bodyguard.
She was a professional, Antonia reminded herself firmly. Which was why, despite all provocation, she must strive to maintain an air of cool, calm efficiency and detachment remaining totally aloof and objective at all times. It also meant, she told herself grimly, that she was going to have to find some way of coping with this extraordinarily difficult man.
Unfortunately, it was becoming clear that Lorenzo Foscari wasn’t just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill client.
He was, of course, extremely arrogant and overbearing. Not to mention his quite extraordinary, old-fashioned, chauvinistic attitude to women. The way he’d gone completely ballistic, at the appointment of a female bodyguard was totally ridiculous in this day and age.
On the other hand…well…there was no denying the fact that he did possess a disturbing aura of rampant sex appeal. And, when he wasn’t busy losing his temper, he appeared to have been born with an equally large quota of overwhelming, almost mesmerising charm. Charm which he was quite prepared to use as a weapon, she reminded herself sharply, recalling his unscrupulous attempts to undermine her contract with his insurance company.
So, the fact that the man was a high-octane, lethal mixture of barely leashed force and aggression, coupled with an almost irresistible warmth and attraction, meant that he wasn’t just a difficult man, but also a highly complex one. There was no doubt that she was going to have to keep her wits about her, at all times, Antonia told herself with a heavy sigh. There was no way she’d be able to relax her guard on this job! A conclusion that was reinforced as she turned to view the man sitting on her left, just slightly in front of her own chair.
Despite the dim light within the box, and with only his sharply etched profile in view, one didn’t need a very high IQ to read Lorenzo Foscari’s body language. And the message it conveyed was not a happy one.
The muscle beating furiously in his tightly clenched jaw, and the rigidly tense, broad shoulders beneath his expensive black dinner jacket provided plenty of evidence that the guy was still very angry. Maybe the wonderful music would help him to calm down?
Rarely attending concerts in the Albert Hall, Antonia had forgotten that the larger boxes surrounding the auditorium also contained a small, individual area at the back—designed for the service of food and drink during the interval.
Since Giles and Susie Harding had been kind enough to include her in their party, she felt the least she could do when the curtain came down for the interval, to give Susie a hand with the light supper—which the older woman had brought with her in a large picnic hamper.
‘I’ve kept it very simple,’ Susie told her, removing various plates from the wicker basket. ‘Just champagne, smoked salmon sandwiches and, to finish the meal, some strawberries and cream.’
‘It sounds absolutely delicious—and not at all simple!’ Antonia said with a slight laugh as the older woman delved into the hamper to extract some icy cold bottles of champagne.
‘Well…I really meant that it took the minimum of effort. Because all I had to do was to make the sandwiches,’ Susie explained with a grin, before handing the champagne to her husband, with a brisk instruction to make sure that everyone had enough to drink.
‘So, tell me,’ Susie enquired as she tipped the strawberries into a large bowl, ‘have you known Lorenzo for long?’
‘No. We…er…we only met fairly recently,’ Antonia murmured, glancing quickly across the room to where Lorenzo appeared to be deep in conversation with the stuffy banker.
‘He and Giles were at school together, so dear Lorenzo is one of our oldest friends,’ Susie explained. ‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he? So attractive, so charming…and so rich. An absolutely lethal combination!’ she added with a grin.
Wondering whether she was being warned off, Antonia was just about to reassure her hostess that she and Lorenzo were definitely not interested in one another, when Susie quickly shook her head.
‘Oh, no—don’t get me wrong. Giles and I are absolutely delighted that Lorenzo has brought you along here tonight,’ she said, placing the sandwiches on some small plates for distribution amongst the guests. ‘We reckon that it’s about time he stopped living life in the fast lane, and settled down with a wife—and lots of bambini too, of course!’ Susie added with a grin. ‘So, if he has finally managed to dump that awful woman, Gina Lombardi, I couldn’t be more happy! In fact,’ she confided with a wink, ‘Giles and I reckon that you and Lorenzo are just made for each other!’
This is getting to be a very heavy scene! Antonia told herself, giving the other woman a brief, noncommittal smile.
