The Italian's Christmas Proposition

His levels of anger bordered on volcanic. Of key importance was to take this scene away from Bob and his wife and sort out the consequences later. Damage limitation was essential. He wanted this deal and he was going to do whatever it took to seal it.

And the only thing he could think of doing right now was to follow the lead of the pink-faced girl still looking at him and play along, much as he didn’t want to.

He smiled and Rosie went a shade pinker.

‘Rosie,’ he murmured, spinning her round and edging them both back to the group, who had fallen silent during their whispered tête-à-tête, including the screeching sister. ‘You know we talked about this…’

He looked at Bob and Margaret with a self-deprecating smile and anchored the fiery little blonde closer to him so that she was nestled against his side. ‘She’s gone off the rails because she thinks I’m going to be one of those fly-by-night guys…’ He shook his head, leant down and brushed his mouth against her cheek. ‘How can I convince you, my darling, that this isn’t just a fling for me?’

Rosie looked at him. Her skin burned where he had brushed it with his mouth. His arm, hooked around her waist, was doing all sorts of things to her body, making her squirm.

In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t quite appreciated just how stunning the guy was. Raven-black hair, bronzed skin and eyes as dark as midnight. She knew that she was breathing quickly, just as she knew that she wasn’t thinking straight. She was conscious of her femininity in ways she hadn’t thought possible.

‘Um…’

‘This feels like the start of something big, Bob,’ Matteo said in a darkly persuasive voice. ‘I would have mentioned it to you but I didn’t want to jinx it.’

‘So romantic,’ Margaret was saying with approval.

‘Isn’t it?’ Matteo commented neutrally. He tightened his hand on Rosie’s waist and gave her the tiniest of squeezes, nudging her ever closer, thigh against thigh, his arm resting just below her breast now.

Rosie felt the tightening of her nipples. She had no intention of catching her sister’s eye but she could feel Candice looking at the pair of them and heaven only knew what was going through her head. Candice was astute but it had to be said that this dark stranger, dragged into a charade not of his making, was doing a fine job of pulling it off and her only question was why?

‘You should head back to your hotel.’ Matteo’s primary objective at this point was to put distance between Bob, Margaret and the combustible situation unfolding in front of them. ‘Long day tomorrow finalising our deal.’

‘You’re getting a good man in this one,’ Bob said warmly, moving in to shake Rosie’s hand. ‘Glad everything’s sorted, lad. Misunderstandings can get out of control! Nice to see you’ve got the makings of a family man within you. A good woman is always the making of any man.’ He chuckled and gave his wife a hug.

Matteo thought it best to speed things along. He had no idea what was going on but the threat of it all blowing up was a distinct possibility and one he intended to divert with everything at his disposal. He mentally bid a temporary farewell to his Venetian villa that was waiting for him the following evening. It wasn’t going to happen.

‘So they say,’ he murmured as he thought ahead to how he intended to squash whatever machinations were afoot. ‘Comprehensively’ was the word that sprang to mind.

‘Hope we get to spend some time with the two of you before we head back to Yorkshire. Family is everything, like I say, and I wouldn’t mind raising a glass or two to celebrate young love.’

Matteo murmured, nodded, half-smiled, brushed his lips against Rosie’s hair… He exerted every ounce of charm to smooth over the sudden, alarming pot holes that had surfaced on the very smooth road. He walked them to the glass door, where they were waiting to be met, the little blonde still by his side because question time was about to begin.

Rosie watched with mounting dread as Matteo disposed of her sister with ruthless speed. He was the essence of charm, even though his hand on her waist carried the hint of a threat that sent shivers racing up and down her spine. She could hardly blame him. She listened in mutely as he smoothed over Candice’s doubts, laying it on thick until Candice was smiling and telling him how relieved she was that things were back on track, apologising for the fuss and then, somehow, laughingly blaming Rosie for having given her the wrong impression.

Rosie couldn’t believe the way events had transpired. Who knew that her five-foot-ten, ice-queen sister could let rip with such uncharacteristic drama? Candice was the one who flinched if someone raised their voice slightly too loudly in a restaurant. She moaned about people shouting into their mobile phones in public! She’d once told Emily off, when they had just been kids, for laughing too much.

Candice out of the way, Matteo dropped his hand, stood back and surveyed the blonde coldly.

‘So,’ he said flatly, ‘Let’s find somewhere nice and cosy and private and have a little chat, shall we?’

Rosie quailed. The man was sexy, dangerous…and from the expression on his face in the presence of his quarry.

‘I’m really sorry, I—I know how this must look…’ she stammered, only dimly aware that he was leading her out of the crowded foyer. She found she couldn’t quite meet those wintry eyes.

‘Do you, now?’ Matteo purred.

Where was he taking her? She cast a desperate backward glance behind her, back down to the marbled foyer with the tall Christmas tree. The low buzz of curious voices that had greeted the little scene earlier had died down but there would still be curious eyes looking to see whether it might kick off again.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Somewhere private,’ Matteo murmured, voice as smooth as silk and as razor-sharp as a knife, ‘Where we can have our cosy little chat.’

‘I’ve already apologised…’ Her legs, however, were obeying his command. She stood up and began walking alongside him, hyper-aware of his presence. There was a leashed power to the guy that made her quiver with a combination of apprehension, downright fear and a weird sort of breathless excitement that stemmed from a place she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

He wasn’t saying a word and seemed unaware of the cluster of well-heeled people around him that parted to allow him passage as if in the presence of royalty.

It was extraordinary.

She had no idea where they were going but eventually they reached a door which he slid open, standing back to allow her to brush past him.

She’d never been into this particular inner sanctum, even though she had been coming to this very resort with her parents for as long as she could remember, before they’d bought their own chalet just a bit further up the slopes.

It was a large, square room, richly panelled, with a gleaming wooden floor that was largely covered by an expanse of expensive, silk Persian rug. A cluster of deep, comfortable sofas was positioned here and there and a long bar extended along the back of one panelled wall. Rosie assumed this was the chill-out area for the senior management who ran the resort, somewhere where they could relax and unwind, away from the clamour of what might be going on outside.

She stared around her and, when she settled her eyes back on Matteo, it was to find that he had made himself at home and poured a whisky for himself. Needless to say, there was no offer of any form of refreshment for her.

‘Okay,’ Rosie began. ‘I know what you’re going to say and I’m sorry.’

‘First, you have no idea what I’m going to say, and secondly, if you’re sorry now, then you’re going to be a whole lot sorrier when I’m through with you and your accomplice.’

‘Accomplice?’ She gazed at him, bewildered, and then wished she hadn’t because he seemed to have the most peculiar effect on her. He made her feel as though the room was beginning to spin and if she didn’t sit down fast she would topple to the ground in an undignified heap.

‘The blonde with a voice that could shatter glass. Sit.’

A voice that could shatter glass? That was a first when it came to a description of her sister. Of either of her sisters, for that matter. Both were tall, sophisticated and impossibly beautiful in an ice-queen kind of way. Whereas she was… Rosie: short, way too plump because of the siren call of chocolate and all things sweet, with shoulder-length blonde hair that refused to be tamed, breasts far too abundant to be fashionable…

She recalled the heat of his hand so close to her breast and shivered.

Conscious of each and every one of those downsides, and aware of those cool, cool eyes on her, she haltingly headed for the closest chair and dropped into it, little knowing what was coming but all too ready to take the blame.

‘If that little scene was some half-baked attempt to screw money out of me then you messed with the wrong guy,’ he said flatly. He didn’t raise his voice or move a muscle but for all that the single sentence was imbued with threat and Rosie shivered and licked her lips.

‘I came here to do a deal that means a great deal to me,’ he continued, in the same deathly subdued, almost conversational tone. ‘Which is why I played along with whatever game you fancied you’d set in motion. I’m going to play along just until my deal is done, and then, let’s just say you’ll understand the meaning of regret.’

‘You can’t threaten me,’ Rosie objected weakly. ‘And that woman was my sister, not an accomplice!’

‘Can’t threaten you? No, you’ve got that wrong, I’m afraid. Here’s the thing, whoever the hell you are—whatever scheme you and your sister or whoever she was have concocted, you can bury it, because there’s no money at the end of this particular rainbow.’

‘Money?’

‘Did you really think that you would create a public scene to grab my attention, hurl baseless accusations against me to grab the public’s attention and then somehow manoeuvre me into a place where I would part with hard cash to shut the pair of you up?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t play games with me, miss!’

‘I’m not playing games! I honestly have no idea what you’re getting at! Are you saying that you think my sister and I are out to get money from you? Why would we want to do that?’

Matteo clicked his tongue with blatant incredulity, reached into his pocket and extracted a card from his wallet, which he tossed onto her lap. Then he sat back and crossed his legs.

‘How rude!’ Rosie exploded, her face bright red. ‘Is this how you treat women? How dare you just…just fling something at me?’

‘Spare me the self-righteous outrage,’ he returned smoothly. ‘Why don’t you have a look at the card?’

Still fuming, Rosie looked at the card, which had just a name on it and three telephone numbers. She politely reached forward to return it.

‘I’m sorry but this doesn’t mean anything to me. Well, I guess it’s your name. Matteo Moretti.’ She sighed. He’d taken the card back and was obviously waiting for her to expand. His expression was unreadable and she got the impression that this was a man who knew how to conceal what was in his head and that it was something he was accustomed to doing. He emanated a certain amount of menace but she wondered whether that hint of menace wasn’t amplified by the fact that she was just so conscious of him in a way she had never been conscious of any man in her life before.

Suddenly very much aware of her physical shortcomings, she fidgeted in the chair and tried to get herself into a suitably more elevated, commanding position.

‘I suppose you’re someone important, which is why you think I should recognise your name, but I don’t know who’s who in the world of business. You must be rich, because you think that I’m some kind of master criminal who wants your money, but you’re wrong.’

‘Your sister knew my name,’ Matteo said bluntly. ‘Care to explain?’

‘Her name is Candice.’

‘Irrelevant. Just answer my question. Time is money.’

Sinfully good-looking he might be but Rosie was beginning to think that he was the most odious guy she had ever encountered. Rude didn’t begin to cover it.

‘I teach skiing here,’ she said stiffly. ‘For the season. I happened to meet your…your friends on the slopes. Pierre was supposed to be giving them a lesson but he went out last night with his girlfriend and he didn’t show up for—’

‘Get to the point!’

‘I’m getting there! Bob and Margaret told me that they were here mixing business with pleasure. They told me your name—Matteo. They said you never left the hotel, then they laughed and said that if they didn’t get to grips with skiing then you were to blame because they were too busy feeling guilty about you being cooped up inside to concentrate on getting their feet in the right place. Obviously I didn’t know it was you at the time, but that’s how I happened to know your name. It was just coincidence that you happened to be where you were when…’

When all hell broke loose.

Matteo gritted his teeth. ‘How much more tortured can this explanation get? I feel as though I’m being made to sample a vision of hell. Are you ever going to get to the point or do I have to bring the police in to question you?’

‘Police? How dare you?’ She glared at him and he stared back at her without batting an eyelid.

‘Just. Get. To. The. Point.’

‘Okay, here’s the point!’ Rosie snapped, leaning forward and gripping the sides of her chair tightly. ‘I had to pretend that I had broken up with someone, because I didn’t want to be condemned to seeing Bertie over Christmas, and I spotted you down there in the foyer with Bob and Margaret and I… I…figured that you were the businessman called Matteo so I lied and told my sister that I’d been seeing you! Is that enough of an explanation for you? I’m really sorry but you were the fall guy!’

CHAPTER TWO

THEIR EYES MET. Matteo was beginning to feel a little unsteady. He had never before heard such a garbled non-explanation from anyone in response to any question he had ever posed in his life. Her mouth was parted and she was leaning forward, her body language speaking of an urgency for him to believe what she was saying.

The woman was distracting.

It wasn’t just the breathless, convoluted workings of her brain which he was finding extraordinarily difficult to deal with. It was her, the entire package. The second he had laid eyes on her, something inside him had kick-started and now…staring back into her impossibly turquoise eyes…

He shifted, frowning. There was enough on his plate without losing focus over this nonsense. His eyes roved over her flushed face, subliminally appreciating the satin smoothness of her skin and the juicy fullness of her lips. As he watched, her tongue flicked out, nervously licking her upper lip, and his whole body jack-knifed in sudden, heated response.

A libido which had been dormant for the past six months surged into life with shocking force. He gritted his teeth together but he had to shift position because his erection was rock-hard, pulsing against the zipper of his trousers.

Was she leaning forward like that on purpose? Making sure that those lush, heavy breasts were on tempting show, begging to be fondled?

Matteo had a very particular type of woman. Very tall, very slim and very brunette. He went for the career woman, the woman who challenged him intellectually. He liked the back and forth of informed conversation about politics and the economy. He liked them cool, confident and as driven as he was. He’d fought hard for his place in the world and he appreciated a woman who had battled against the odds as well. An ambitious woman with a career of her own was also not a needy woman, and he disliked needy women. He didn’t want anyone needing him. He operated solo and that was the way he liked it.

So why was he staring at this woman in front of him with the rapt attention of a horny teenager? She was breathy and ultra-feminine and didn’t strike him as the sort who would be winning awards for her thoughts on world finance. She was the antithesis of what he sought in any woman.

Furious with his lack of self-control, he leapt to his feet to prowl through the room, at the same time finishing the glass of whisky he had poured, tempted to help himself to another but resisting the urge.

He had to remove his eyes from the sexy woman on the chair but, when he finally glanced at her again, it was to find that he was still in the grip of whatever ludicrous spell she had temporarily cast on him.

He positioned himself in front of her and then leant down, gripping either side of the chair, caging her in so that she instinctively drew back.

Her breathing was fast and shallow, her breasts heaving.

‘Not going to work,’ he growled.

‘What are you talking about?’ Rosie whispered. ‘I’ve tried to explain what happened.’

‘You expect me to believe that I was just some random target? That you really have no idea as to the reach of my power? And, if that’s the case, why are you coming on to me?’

Rosie’s mouth fell open and she stared.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Don’t think that you’re going to get me into any sort of compromising situation! I wasn’t born yesterday. That garbled nonsense about dragging me into this situation to avoid a guy—unbelievable.’

‘Compromising situation?’

‘You’re a sexy woman but I’m not a fool.’ Matteo gritted his teeth, controlling his hands with extreme difficulty, because what he desperately wanted to do was take what was obviously on offer, starting with those luscious lips and moving on to the even more luscious breasts.

‘You’re telling me that I’m sexy?’

‘And advertising it isn’t going to work. Where’s your sister? Lurking behind the door? Ready to take an incriminating photo, perhaps?’ He pushed himself away from the chair but his body was still on fire as he strolled through the room, purposefully maintaining distance between them.

Eventually, he sat down. He was still hard, still turned on.

‘I can’t believe you’d imagine that I was coming onto you,’ Rosie said faintly. The thought alone was enough to suffuse her with colour.

Her? She was the one who had drawn the short straw when it came to looks. Her sisters had always been the ones to turn heads. She, Rosie, had been the girl the boys enjoyed hanging out with. She self-consciously folded her arms over her breasts and then realised that, in doing so, she had simply drawn attention to them.

She wondered whether that would lead to another crazy accusation that she was trying to come on to him. Her skin prickled. He had called her sexy and she didn’t think that he’d been kidding.

‘And it wasn’t garbled nonsense,’ she belatedly continued. ‘If you’d just listen! My family…’ Her voice was staccato with suppressed nerves. ‘Well, you’ve met Candice, my sister. They’ve been a bit concerned about me…they think I need to settle down, find a job, a life partner…’

‘A life partner?’

‘Yes.’ She flushed. Why had she launched into this brutally honest explanation? Why hadn’t she skimmed over the details? The way he was looking at her, frowning in silence with his head tilted to one side, was bringing her out in goose bumps. She should have left him puzzled about the nonsensical reason for her behaviour because now she would have to confess that the last thing she was was sexy. Sexy women didn’t have their entire protective family twitching with concern about their life choices.

‘How old are you?’

‘Twenty-three.’

‘Let’s suspend disbelief for the moment and go along with your story: why are you supposed to have a life partner at the age of twenty-three?’

Matteo realised, with frustration, that the woman was doing it again. Distracting him. He raked his fingers through his hair and reminded himself that this was the woman who had probably scuppered his deal, the one deal that mattered even though he had nothing to gain financially from it.

She looked as pure as the driven snow but he knew better than to trust the way people looked. Scratch the surface and there was usual a healthy store of avarice and general unpleasantness to be found.

She was gazing at him with those incredible aquamarine eyes.

Matteo was beginning to think that she wasn’t the Machiavellian character he had first assumed, working in cahoots with a partner in crime. For once, his cynicism might be misplaced. He wasn’t going to give up the notion willingly, but…he was getting there.

Nor was he convinced that she had been trying to come on to him, he grudgingly conceded. She was either an actress of Oscar winning standard or her shock at the accusation had been genuine.

He was so accustomed to women making a play for him, that the idea of one actively horrified at the thought of it was as novel as discovering a fish riding a bike in the centre of Hyde Park.

No ulterior motive, which just left her explanation that she had started an ill-thought-out act of impulse to escape some guy’s advances.

This time, when he looked at her, it was with lazy interest. He was thirty-two years old but his palate was lamentably jaded. This slice of novelty was strangely compelling.

‘Aren’t you a little young to be told that you need to start thinking about settling down?’ He shifted, making a concerted effort not to give in to the urge to stare at her fabulous body. ‘And, conversely, a little old for your family to be the ones giving the lectures?’

Rosie bristled. ‘They care about me. Not that that’s any of your business.’

‘Everything is my business when, thanks to you, the deal I’ve been nurturing for the past eight months will probably come to nothing. Whether what you and your sister did was a deliberate ruse or not, the upshot remains the same.’

‘Bob and Margaret seem very reasonable people, not the sort to jeopardise whatever agreement you reached with them because of a scene in a hotel lobby.’ Rosie flushed as her guilty conscience ate away at her. She couldn’t understand why he needed any deal so badly when it was obvious that he was made of money. Her parents were rich but she suspected that this guy was in a different league altogether.

‘Bob and Margaret are deeply traditional people,’ Matteo informed her coolly. ‘Church goers with an extremely healthy respect for the family unit, as you may have gathered. My integrity has been paramount to winning their trust.’

‘I’m really and truly sorry. I had no idea that my sister would fly down there and let rip. It’s not like her at all. She never makes a fuss. She’s probably at the chalet right now broadcasting our relationship to the entire family.’

‘The chalet?’

‘My parents own a chalet about fifteen minutes from here.’ She stared off into the distance and wondered what the next step was going to be.

Her gaze slid over to where Matteo was still staring at her, his loose-limbed body relaxed and her heart picked up speed. He was so perfect…so stupendously good-looking.

‘You still haven’t properly explained what went on down there,’ Matteo prompted, his voice clipped. ‘Now Cupid has supposedly targeted us, you might as well fill me in on this guy you don’t want to meet and why you’re having to in the first place. I didn’t ask for this but it’s landed on my lap and I’m going to have to make the best of it. I’ll need some personal details about you.’

Rosie looked at him and then found that she couldn’t stop looking and, when she looked, her brain went into overdrive and she started thinking about the way his mouth had felt against her cheek.

‘I…well…as I mentioned, my family think it’s time for me to start settling down—and please don’t tell me that I’m too old to have my sisters and my parents fussing around me. I know that. Fact is, Candice came over to warn me that they were thinking of inviting some family friends to the chalet over Christmas.’ She grimaced. ‘Bertie is their son.’