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‘See that you do,’ he said, laying down his cutlery. ‘You’re far too thin.’
Apart from the fact that she had never once been called thin—she loved her food, and wasn’t prepared to sacrifice a tasty meal for the sake of wearing jeans a size smaller—he was completely out of order, making personal comments like that.
You love this job—remember?
Heaving a calming breath, she held her tongue.
The girl kept his attention, and though she wasn’t pristine, as he expected his women in Rome to be—even after cleaning herself up she had mud on her neck and more smears on her arms—at least she wasn’t a simpering fool. Neither could she be grouped with the career women with whom he sometimes had a mutually satisfactory arrangement. Cassandra was unique—and not everything on his Tuscan estate was pristine, he reminded himself. He had always thought his estate better for its quirkiness.
‘You’re enjoying the omelette?’ she guessed as he forked up the last mouthful.
‘Very much,’ he admitted.
He hadn’t realised how hungry he was until he’d sat down to eat—or how different this kitchen was from his sleek, steel and black granite, largely untouched kitchen in Rome.
And he wouldn’t change a thing, he mused as he stared around. His critical stare returned to Cassandra. ‘How did you get this job?’
‘A friend of my godmother’s recommended me—she’s another keen gardener.’
‘Who employed you?’ he asked, frowning.
‘You did— I mean your...’ Cass was stumped. Her knowledge of office hierarchy was non-existent.
‘My PA?’ he offered. ‘She’s the only one with the authority to hire my personal staff.’
‘Must have been,’ Cass agreed. She didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. One piercing stare from those compelling eyes and her mind had been wiped clean.
‘I haven’t seen your CV yet,’ he pressed, holding her pinned in his stare. ‘What are your qualifications for this job?’
She had none, other than her passion for the plants she nurtured and the earth she turned. ‘I’m self-taught,’ she admitted. Her knowledge came largely from gardening books and, of course, her favourite book, The Secret Garden.
‘And your previous job?’
She watched Marco—as she must somehow learn to think of him—push his plate away before she spoke. ‘I worked the tills in my local supermarket—when I wasn’t stacking shelves.’
‘Education?’ he prompted, the furrows on his brow deepening.
The derision directed at her by the teachers at her very expensive school had led Cass to contribute little in class, and even less when she’d sat down to take an examination. She didn’t have a clutch of brilliant exam results to crow about.
‘I have no formal qualifications,’ she admitted, upping the tempo on her dish-clearing technique in the hope of avoiding more uncomfortable questions.
She assumed that he hadn’t made the connection between the scandal of her parents’ death and her surname—not yet. And why should she tell him anything more, when he revealed nothing about himself? She could understand that having his idyll trespassed on by a stranger must be an irritation for him, but a powerful, wealthy man like Marco di Fivizzano only had to make a phone call to find out everything about her. Let him do that, if he was so interested.
Calm down, she cautioned herself.
It was all very well telling herself to calm down, but she could just imagine what a man like Marco di Fivizzano would make of her past. The media had gone to town on the story of a small child wandering about in a house full of drug paraphernalia while her parents had floated dead in the swimming pool. If he knew that, then, just like everyone else, he’d make the assumption that she was tainted, when nothing could be further from the truth. She only wished she could reach back into the past as an adult to help her parents.
She sprang to attention when he got up from the table. Having him prowl around made her feel vulnerable, but he left the kitchen without a backward glance or a word of thanks.
‘Rude man.’ Staring out of the window, she watched him cross the yard. But he was beautiful. That easy stride...that incredible body.
Her summer had changed irrevocably now Marco di Fivizzano had arrived and only one thing was certain: her fantasies had moved on from The Secret Garden.
* * *
He’d had a lousy night’s sleep.
He’d had no sleep. Why try to dress it up?
Dragging on his jeans, he scowled as he prowled the room. He should have had the house to himself but now she was in a room across the courtyard.
Lust surged in his veins at the thought that Cassandra’s window was directly opposite his. He’d surfed the internet and had found out everything about her. He’d been right to recognise the name. Cassandra was the only child of the notorious rock legend Jackson Rich and his broken doll of a wife, Alexa Monroe.
So why was she working as a gardener? What had happened to all the money? Jackson Rich had been phenomenally successful. Was it possible he’d spent it all? Cassandra didn’t seem to have a penny to scratch her backside with. He could only concluded that Rich’s hangers-on and numerous drug-pushers had spent it for him. He had no sympathy. He’d been forced to fight every step of the way, and had had no one to rely on but himself. Rich must have been swept up in ego and success, making him an easy target. He had probably been happy to put up with the hangers-on if it had meant scoring his next fix.
For now he would give Cassandra the benefit of the doubt. It didn’t follow that she had inherited her parents’ weakness. If she was a yet another gold-digger, she was destined for disappointment. He didn’t have a vacancy for a mud-daubed mistress in Rome. The women in Rome knew how to dress, how to talk, and how to behave—both in bed and out of it. He doubted Cassandra would be interested in acquiring any of those skills—with the possible exception of the last of them, he reflected dryly.
It was time to remind himself that he avoided complications like the plague. His childhood had proved that women couldn’t be trusted, and he’d had no reason to change his mind. Cassandra Rich might be quirky and appealing, but she was no more than that.
* * *
She’d overslept! Catapulting out of bed, Cass gazed around blankly, trying to get her bearings. The simple courtyard room was the same...the house was the same...the scent of blossom coming in through the open window was the same...even the birds carolling in the crisp morning air was reassuringly the same. But everything had changed, because of Marco.
Forget the boss! She should be up and out, and working in the garden by now.
Forget him?
She would forget him, Cass determined—until she threw off the bedclothes, leapt out of bed, and rushed across to the widow, looking for him. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. Tall, dark strangers with bodies made for sin had never once flown into her life in a sinister black helicopter, demanding that she feed them.
He’d demanded and she’d fed him. Would she handle that situation any better today?
Could anyone handle Marco di Fivizzano?
Opening the shutters, she was just in time to see him stride across the courtyard. He looked better each time she saw him—dangerous and more ruthless, more stand-well-back-unless-you-want-your-fingers-burned, in a really serious way. Especially this morning when, like last night, he’d consigned his city look to history. The men in her fantasies were always rugged and tough, but Marco made her imaginary men seem pathetic. His well-packed jeans and heavy-duty belt added fuel to her already overheated fantasies. There wasn’t a spare inch of flesh on him. In jeans and a chequered shirt with the sleeves rolled back to reveal his powerful forearms, he appeared to be made entirely of hard muscle. And she would have to be made of wood not to wonder what it would be like to be in his bed.
She didn’t have time for this!
Just as well, Cass thought, ducking back behind the window as Marco stared up.
Could he feel her looking at him? Were his animal instincts switched to super-alert this morning? She would have to be more discreet if she stood a chance of keeping this job.
Once she was out of the shower and wrapped in towels, she considered her vast selection of clothes. These amounted to one summer dress, ‘just in case’, a couple of pairs of shorts and half a dozen tops. She’d packed two pairs of jeans and a fleece in case the evenings turned cold...
And why was she taking such trouble over the selection of clothes to garden in?
Any other day and she would have grabbed the first thing to hand—shorts and a clean top. She was working with the soil, not auditioning for the role of the next notch on Marco di Fivizzano’s bedpost.
So what underwear should she choose?
She scanned the unpromising heap.
Something comfortable, obviously! Did it matter, so long as she could work all day and not feel as if she was in danger of splitting her difference?
She chose her biggest knickers and a sports bra that supported her full breasts properly.
Maria and Giuseppe were back, so she dropped in a few casual questions over breakfast. They knew about as much as she did about their boss’s plans for the next few days. Giuseppe mentioned something about a visit to the Fivizzano vineyards to choose some wines for an important party in Rome, but that was the only nugget she managed to glean before she went back to work.
* * *
A few days passed and then a few days more, and she barely caught a glimpse of The Boss. She kept telling herself that this was great—no pressure—but she was always on the lookout for him. She couldn’t help herself. Marco di Fivizzano was a once-in-a-lifetime attraction. She gathered from Maria that he spent a lot of time inspecting his estate. It certainly felt as if she was very much ‘below stairs’, while he was the master of the house, whose daily life was none of her business. There was no common ground between them, no reason for them to meet—but she could dream, Cass consoled herself ruefully as she collected up her tools to go to work.
Dreams were free, and dreams were safe—or they were until Marco emerged from the house. He only had to glance her way for her heart to go crazy. He was formally dressed and had brought up the Lamborghini.
Was he going out on a date?
And why should she care?
Because smart chinos and an ice-blue shirt pointed up his pirate tan?
Lame.
But he’d teamed them with a casual, beautifully tailored taupe coloured linen jacket, and if she could just see his face...
Nope. He had lowered his sunglasses and his expression was hidden from her.
Good. Did she want him to think she was interested?
She returned to digging the trench she had started to protect her seedlings if the rains came. And those rains would come. Straightening up, she tested the air like a hound on point.
Maria had told her that although the house and estate seemed ageless and indestructible to Cass, it was, in fact, as vulnerable to the elements as any other ancient structure. The path of the river had changed over the centuries and it now presented a danger to the house. Maria had also said that in the fierce storm of 2014 trees had been uprooted and the river had flooded its banks. It was unusually still today...ominously so. Even the birds had stopped singing. She noticed Marco was also glancing at a sky tinged with acid yellow and streaked with angry clouds. She wondered briefly if he’d remembered an umbrella, and then accepted with a grin that men like Marco di Fivizzano never got wet because divine alchemy would ensure that rainclouds blew away from him.
So it fell on poor saps like me, Cass reflected wryly as she thrust her spade vigorously into the moistly yielding earth.
* * *
She was doing it again—driving him crazy with that ripe, mud-streaked body. No other woman had ever come close to affecting him the way she did. He doubted any of them had ever held a spade. They certainly didn’t possess Cassandra’s nonchalance when it came to using her body to the fullest. She was a very physical woman...and complex. How could she be otherwise with her past? He’d read every newspaper article he could find detailing the horrific tragedy. He knew how badly she’d been neglected until her godmother had adopted her. The media had speculated, as he was bound to, on how her parents’ debauched lifestyle might have affected a young girl. His need for caution when it came to women was heading for overdrive where his new young gardener was concerned.
But since when had he been a cautious man?
Gunning the engine of his Lamborghini, he glanced across the garden to where Cassandra was swinging her spade. Her top looked as if it had shrunk in the wash and revealed inches of taut, tanned belly. He imagined dropping kisses on that smooth, silky skin and then working his way down—or up. Either way would be a pleasure for him.
He powered out of the gates, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Cassandra by thinking about all the other women he could have—maybe should have—brought along to entertain him while he was in Tuscany. Women were always eager to share his Tuscan bed, because they knew it was his private retreat, which gave it added mystery. He could think of several cute women who made him laugh—until he tired of their endless quips. There were clever women who challenged him—and gave him earache, he remembered, and beautiful women who could capture his attention and hold it for a night, but no longer. They all wanted the same thing—that his power would rub off on them, and, after that, money and sex. He had even identified a few women who would make ideal wives, but he doubted they could dig a trench, let alone turn that horticultural activity into a pornographic work of art.
Casandra’s bare limbs gleamed with effort as they would after sex, and his groin tightened at he watched her thrusting her spade into the soil. She was giving it everything she’d got, as he imagined she would in bed.
* * *
Why was Marco staring at her? Cass wondered as he sped away in a storm of dust and gravel.
Why was she staring at him?
He was probably just checking she was doing her work, she reasoned sensibly. And she wouldn’t look at him ever again.
That was what you said the last time.
But she meant it this time.
Did she? Marco only had to look at her for lust to stab clean through her.
That was her imagination working overtime—hopefully—she concluded as Marco’s bright red Lamborghini powered away down the road. Lots of perfectly decent women lusted after the most inappropriate men, and in most cases nothing came of it—and if it did in this case, she’d run a mile. Marco di Fivizzano was one fantasy too far, she told herself sternly as his car roared away to the accompaniment of a low roll of thunder.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_3ef9d390-eeaf-541d-ad29-018de059f276)
MYSTERY SOLVED. MARCO HAD gone to have lunch with the mayor. Should she feel quite so relieved when Maria told her this? Was she jealous?
Crazy girl! Get back out in the garden where things made sense!
Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she rammed on her cap after offering to clear up, so Maria and Giuseppe could get straight off to the fiesta in town.
‘Don’t get caught in the rain.’ She glanced up at the darkening sky.
She waved off her friends and then contemplated the happy state of having the whole afternoon to work uninterrupted in the garden. The happy state didn’t last very long. She should have listened to her own advice, Cass concluded as a flash of lightning stabbed the ground just a few feet away from her. It wasn’t safe to be outdoors, but there was plenty she could do to help Maria in the kitchen.
It had quickly turned dark, and the air was as heavy as if nature was stuck in a cupboard with a headache. As the first fat spots of rain hit her in the face she collected up her tools and beat a hasty retreat. Making a dash for the kitchen door, she launched herself through it, already soaked through. There would just be time to check the windows were closed before the storm hit full force.
She raced up stairs, by which time the storm had arrived. It was like all the fiends of hell roaring around the house, testing its defences. Slapping her hands over her ears as a thunderclap shocked her out of her skin, she shrieked with alarm as lightning flashed repeatedly, and did a little dance on the spot to reassure herself that the house was still standing.
Pull yourself together! Things need to be done.
She switched on the lights and felt better immediately, but on her way downstairs they all went out again. Now the power was down. She huddled against a door in the dark, and then told herself to get over it. Finding a light switch, she flicked it on and off, more in hope than expectation. It was dead. She reached for her phone. The line was dead too. There was a house phone on the landing—
Dead.
Feeling her way carefully down the stairs, she screamed as she stepped into icy-cold water. Leaping back onto the stairs, she clung to the banister like a limpet, trying to think what to do. She told herself calmly that the house had stood for centuries, and Marco had renovated it to the nth degree, so even if the river had changed its course, the house was hardly likely to leave its foundations and float away. She was safe, and she was confident that any damage could be dealt with. If there had been similar storms in the past, Marco would have prepared for bad weather. And if the river had flooded its banks and the road from the village was closed, she was cut off, so it was up to her to sort it out.
* * *
As day turned into night in the middle of the afternoon, everyone knew that a really bad storm was coming. Making his excuses, Marco left the mayoral reception early, and as he jogged down the steps he noticed that even the stallholders were packing up. They had all sensed the drama in the skies, and the bad weather was sweeping in much faster than expected. Some said it might be as bad as the explosive weather conditions of 2014, and with that in mind he’d called Maria and Giuseppe to warn them to stay in town. It was then they told him that Signorina Rich had never had any intention of joining them at the fiesta.
She was still at the house. And in who knew what sort of danger?
Cassandra Rich was an irritation he didn’t need. Was anything straightforward where that woman was concerned? Any other woman he knew would have been drawn like a magpie to the stalls on the market, but not Cassandra. Oh, no. She had to be the one member of his staff left unaccounted for as the storm of the century approached. If the river flooded, the authorities would close the bridge and then he wouldn’t get home. There were sandbags lined up outside the kitchen door, if she had the wit to use them, and an emergency generator in case the power went off.
The power would go off, he predicted, glancing again at the sky. Ribbons of lightning were slicing the boiling clouds into ugly black fragments, to a soundscape of earth-shattering thunderclaps. Then, quite suddenly, the noise subsided and it went ominously still.
Just as suddenly, rain started falling in vicious, freezing rods. Jumping into his car, he knew there wasn’t a moment to lose if he was going to get across the bridge before the emergency services closed the road.
His was the last car through. Men in uniform warned him to turn back. He thanked them and then ignored them. How he longed for his rugged pick-up. He grimaced at the sound of metal crunching as he rode a bank to avoid a fallen tree. He’d almost certainly wreck the engine and the brakes. Water was rising up the wheels, and the wipers couldn’t work fast enough to clear the windscreen.
