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‘Where are you taking me?’
‘To Mr Pellegrini’s suite.’
They’d arrived at the designated floor before he finished answering. The bellboy opened the door.
Eva hesitated.
Dining in a private hotel suite had very different connotations to dining in public. Under no sane marker could it be considered sensible to go into a rich man’s suite alone.
The manager looked at her, waiting for her to leave the safety of the elevator and be led into the lion’s den.
All she had to do was say no. That would be the sensible thing. Say no. If Daniele Pellegrini needed to see her so badly that he’d flown to the Caribbean for the sole purpose of talking to her, then he could dine with her in public. She could demand that and he would have no choice but to comply.
But, for all his numerous faults, including being a sex-mad scoundrel with no scruples over who he bedded, her gut told her Daniele was not the sort of man to force a woman into anything she didn’t want. She wasn’t being led into the lion’s den to be served as dinner.
She stepped out of the elevator and followed the manager up the wide corridor to a door on which he rapped sharply.
It was opened immediately by a neat, dapper man dressed in the formal wear of a butler.
‘Good evening, Ms Bergen,’ he said in precise English. ‘Mr Pellegrini is waiting for you on the balcony. Can I get you a drink?’
‘A glass of water, please,’ she said, trying very hard not to be overawed by the splendour of the suite, which was the size of a large apartment.
Having a butler there relieved her a little. It was good to know she would have a chaperone, although she couldn’t fathom why she felt she needed one.
The manager bade her a good evening and left, and Eva was taken through a door into a light and airy room, then led out onto a huge balcony that had the most spectacular view of the Caribbean Sea, dark now, the stars twinkling down and illuminating it. To the left was a private oval swimming pool, to the right a table that could comfortably seat a dozen people but was currently set for two. One of those seats was taken by the tall, dynamic figure of Daniele Pellegrini.
He got to his feet and strolled to her, his hand outstretched.
‘Eva, it is great to see you,’ he said, a wide grin on his face that was in complete contrast to the set fury that had been on it three days ago when he’d demanded she fix his nose.
Not having much choice, she reached her own hand out to accept his. Rather than the brisk handshake she expected, he wrapped his fingers around hers and pulled her to him, then kissed her on both cheeks.
Her belly did a little swoop at the sensation of his lips on her skin, diving again to inhale his fresh scent, which her senses so absurdly danced to.
As much as she hated herself for the vanity of it, she was thankful she’d so recently showered. Daniele looked and smelled too good, his easy, stomach-melting smile back in its place. And he was clean, his dark grey trousers and white shirt immaculately pressed. Everything here in this hotel, including the guests, was spotless. Standing before this beautifully smelling, impossibly handsome man made her feel, again, like a ragged urchin. No matter how hard she tried to keep herself presentable, living in a refugee camp where dust and mud were prevalent made it an impossible task.
She was even more thankful when he let her go, and had to stop herself wiping her hand on her jeans in an attempt to banish the tingles from where his fingers had wrapped around hers.
‘Your nose looks like it’s healing well,’ she said, for want of something to say to break the fluttering beneath her ribs. The swelling had gone down substantially and her vanity flickered again to see the butterfly stitches she’d applied were still perfectly in place. There was slight bruising around his left eye but that was the only other indication he’d been in a fight. Her curiosity still itched to know who his opponent had been. One of Caballeros’s corrupt officials? A jealous boyfriend?
‘You did a good job.’
She managed the smallest of smiles. ‘Did you see a doctor?’
He made a dismissive noise in his throat. ‘No need.’
The butler, who she hadn’t noticed leave the terrace, returned with a tray containing two tall glasses and two bottles of water.
‘I didn’t know if you’d prefer still or sparkling so I brought you both,’ he said, laying them on the table. ‘Can I get you anything else before I serve dinner?’
‘Not for me, thank you,’ she said.
‘Another Scotch for me,’ Daniele requested. ‘Bring the bottle in.’
‘As you wish.’
Alone again, Daniele indicated the table. ‘Take a seat. To save time, I’ve ordered for both of us. If you don’t like it, the chef will cook you something else.’
Eva bristled. She wasn’t a fussy eater—with her job she couldn’t be—but his presumption was another black mark against him. ‘What have you ordered?’
‘Broccoli and Stilton soup, followed by beef Wellington.’ He flashed his smile again as he took his seat. ‘I thought you’d be homesick for English food.’
Bemused, she took the place laid out opposite him. ‘Homesick for English food? But I’m from the Netherlands.’
‘You’re Dutch?’
His surprise almost made her smile with the whole of her mouth but not out of humour, out of irony. They’d spent a whole evening together in which he’d flirted shamelessly with her but not once had he cared to ask anything of substance about her. She’d just been a woman he was attracted to, whom he’d been determined to bed. He’d assumed she’d be so honoured to be singled out by him that she would accompany him to his suite—this suite?—like some kind of fawning groupie and climb into bed with him. ‘Born and raised in Rotterdam.’
A groove appeared in his forehead. ‘I thought you were English.’
‘Many people do.’
‘You have no accent.’
‘English people notice it but you’re Italian so it’s not obvious to your ear.’
The butler brought Daniele’s bottle of Scotch and asked if Eva wanted anything stronger to go with her meal.
She shook her head and fixed her eyes on Daniele. ‘I think it’s best I keep a clear head this evening.’
Daniele smiled grudgingly. He should keep a clear head himself but after the last few days he liked the idea of numbing everything inside him. The Scotch would also help him get through the forthcoming conversation.
‘What other languages do you speak?’ Eva spoke English so precisely and fluently it hadn’t occurred to him that she was any nationality but that. When he’d first met her she’d acted as a translator for him and his now despised cousin Matteo. He had only a rudimentary comprehension of Spanish but her translations between them and the Caballeron officials had sounded faultless.
‘I speak English, Spanish and French with full fluency and passable Italian.’
‘Prove it,’ he said, switching to his own language.
‘Why?’ she retorted, also in Italian. ‘Are you trying to catch me out?’
He shook his head and laughed. ‘You call that passable?’ It had been rapid and delivered with near-perfect inflection.
‘Until I can watch a movie in the host’s tongue without missing any cadence, I don’t consider myself fully fluent,’ she said, switching back to English. ‘I have a long way to go before I reach that with Italian.’
‘Then let us speak Italian now,’ he said. ‘It will help you.’
Her ponytail swished as she shook her head. ‘You said you had important things to discuss with me. Your English is as good as mine and I would prefer to understand everything and not have anything lost in translation that will give you the advantage.’
‘You don’t trust me?’
‘Not in the slightest.’
‘I admire your honesty.’ It was a rare thing in his world. His family were faultlessly honest with him but since he’d really stamped his authority in the architecture world and made his first billion—canny investments alongside his day job had helped with that—he hadn’t met a single outside person who openly disagreed with a word he said or ever said no to him.
The butler returned to the terrace with their first course. He set the bowls out on their placemats and placed a basket of bread rolls between them.
Eva dipped her head to inhale the aroma and nodded approvingly. ‘It smells delicious.’
The butler beamed. ‘The rolls are freshly baked but we have some gluten-free ones if you would prefer.’
‘I’m not gluten-intolerant,’ she said with a smile. ‘But I thank you for the offer.’
Eva was the only woman Daniele had been on a date with in at least three years who hadn’t been gluten-intolerant or on a particular fad diet. It had been refreshing, yet another difference between herself and the other women he’d dated. It showed on her physically. She had curves for a start and heavy breasts that just begged to have a head rested upon them. Eva Bergen was one sexy lady and he couldn’t wait to see what she looked like when wearing feminine clothes. No clothes at all would be even better.
When they were alone again, she helped herself to a bread roll and broke it open with her fingers. ‘What is it you wished to discuss?’
‘Let’s eat first and then talk.’
She put the roll down. ‘No, let’s talk while we eat or I’ll think you’ve brought me here under false pretences again.’
‘There were no false pretences on our last date,’ he countered smoothly.
‘I was very specific that it wasn’t to be a date. You made it one. The questions you asked me about the hospital could have been dealt with over a five-minute coffee.’
‘Where would the fun have been with that?’
‘My work isn’t fun, Mr Pellegrini—’
‘Daniele.’ He must have told her a dozen times not to address him so formally during their date that, according to Eva, wasn’t a date. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would be anything but delighted with his attention. His family name and looks had always been a magnet for the ladies. Once the architectural accolades and money had started rolling in he couldn’t think of a single woman who hadn’t looked at him with fluttering eyelashes, not until he’d met Eva. There had been a spark of interest there, though, a moment when their eyes had locked together for the first time and a zing of electricity had passed between them.
It had been the first real hit of desire he’d experienced since his brother had died. In the two months since Pieta’s death, Daniele had lost all interest in women. The opposite sex had flown so far off his radar that the electricity between him and Eva had been a welcome reminder that he was alive.
After that initial zing her manner had been nothing but calm and professional towards him, which he’d assumed had been a product of the environment they’d been in. He’d also assumed that getting her out of the pit of hell that was Caballeros and into the more picturesque setting of Aguadilla would remove the straitjacket she’d put around herself. He’d certainly got that wrong.
Despite the zings of electricity that had flown between them that evening, she’d remained cool and poker-faced, his usually winning attempts at flattery being met with stony silence. She’d outright rejected his offer of a nightcap. Not only that, but there had been contempt in her rejection too.
There had been no denying it—Eva Bergen had been looking down her pretty little nose at him. At him.
No one had ever looked at him like that before. It had felt bitter and ugly in his guts and he’d dismissed her without a second thought. Rejection he could deal with but contempt?
It had been too much like the expression he’d seen on his father’s face when the media reported on one or another of Daniele’s dalliances with the opposite sex. His parents had been desperate for him to marry. Pieta had found a woman to settle down with—even though it had taken him six years to actually exchange vows with her—which meant it had been time for Daniele to settle down too.
Daniele had had no intention of ever settling down. His life was fun. He pleased himself, not answerable to anyone. If he wanted a weekend in Vegas, all he had to do was jump on his jet and off he would go, collecting some friends on the way to share the fun with. His perfect brother had never behaved anything but...perfectly, and he’d been held up as the shining beacon for Daniele to emulate. He’d been held up as the shining beacon before Daniele had even been out of nappies.
Well, Daniele had had the last laugh. He’d earned himself a fortune worth more than Pieta’s personal wealth and the estate Pieta would inherit combined.
And then the last laugh had stopped being funny. Pieta had died in a helicopter crash and the man he’d loved and loathed in equal measure, his brother, his rival, was no longer there. He was dead. Gone. Passed. All the terms used to convey a person’s death but none with the true weight of how the loss felt in Daniele’s heart.
‘I take my job very seriously, Mr Pellegrini. I’m not here to have fun.’ Eva said it as if it were a dirty concept. ‘Your flirting was inappropriate and your offer of a nightcap doubly so.’
No doubt his sister would call him a masochist for choosing to marry a woman who openly despised him. Francesca wouldn’t understand how refreshing it was to be with a woman without artifice. She wouldn’t understand the challenge Eva posed, like an experienced mountaineer peering up from the base of Everest, the peak so high it was hidden in the clouds. To reach the top would be dangerous but the thrills would make every minute of danger worthwhile.
The only danger Eva posed was to his ego and he would be the first to admit that his ego could use some knocks. He despised thin-skinned men and looking back to his reaction when Eva had rejected his offer of a nightcap, he could see he’d been as thin-skinned as the worst of them.
‘I would have thought an intimate meal for two in a Michelin-starred restaurant was the most appropriate place to flirt with a beautiful woman.’
The faintest trace of colour appeared on her cheeks. ‘If you flirt with me again I’ll leave.’
‘Without hearing what I wish to discuss first?’
‘That’s up to you. If you can control your natural tendency to flirt and actually get to the point, it won’t be an issue.’ She put a spoonful of soup into her wide, full-lipped mouth.
Daniele took hold of his spoon. ‘In that case I shall get straight to the point. I need a wife and want you to take the role.’
A groove appeared in her forehead, crystal-clear blue eyes flashing at him. ‘That is not funny. What do you really want?’
He sipped at his soup. Eva was right. It was delicious. ‘What I want is to get on my jet and fly away from here, but what I need is a wife, and you, tesoro, are the perfect woman for the job.’
There was a moment of stunned silence before she pushed her chair back and rose to her feet. ‘You are despicable, do you know that? You can keep your mind games to yourself. I don’t want to play. And for the record, I am not your darling.’
Snatching her canvas bag from the foot of her chair, Eva turned to stalk away from the terrace, out of the suite, and far away from this arrogant man who she had no intention of ever seeing again.
She hadn’t taken two paces when the sound of clicking echoed in the air and Daniele said, ‘Before you leave, I have something to show you.’
‘You have nothing I want to see.’
‘Not even a million dollars in cash?’
Against her better judgement—again—Eva turned her head.
There on the table, beside his bowl of soup, lay an open briefcase.
She blinked. How had he moved so fast? What was he? Some kind of magician?
The briefcase was neatly crammed with wads of money.
She blinked again and met his eyes.
‘Do I have your attention now?’ he asked. All his previous good humour, which she had already suspected of being a façade, had been stripped away.
She nodded. Yes. He had her attention, but there was a part of her that thought she had to be dreaming. A briefcase stuffed with cash only existed in dreams or the movies. Not in real life.
Daniele Pellegrini didn’t exist in real life either. He was a billionaire from an old and noble family. His life couldn’t be more different from her reality than if he’d been beamed in from the moon.
‘If you agree to marry me, this money, all one million dollars of it, will be handed to the Blue Train Aid Agency tomorrow morning. And this is only the start.’
‘The start?’ she asked faintly, looking back at all that lovely money.
