The Man Who Risked It All

‘Show me some, then, and take a long step back.’

‘So you can escape?’

‘Yes,’ Lexi nodded. ‘You know I won’t physically make you do it when you’re all bruised like that.’

‘Ah—you are attempting to appeal to my sense of fair play?’

Lexi pressed her lips together and nodded her head again. If there was one thing she knew for absolute certain about Franco it was his sporting sense of fair play.

‘Look at me, then—up here where my eyes are.’ He indicated with the movement of one of his hands. ‘Just one brief eye to eye contact, cara, and I promise I will step back.’

Thinking it was a bit like asking her to strip naked—because making eye contact with Franco had much the same effect on her already edgy senses—Lexi pushed out a short sigh then lifted up her chin.

He dared to smile, with his lips and his eyes—a tender kind of gentle humour that struck like a flaming arrow directly at her heart. ‘I wish you weren’t so handsome,’ she told him wistfully. ‘Why couldn’t you have a bigger nose, or something? Or a fat, ugly mouth?’

‘You know …’ Reaching out to run his hands around her slender waist, he carefully drew her closer. ‘Your open honesty will shame the devil one day.’

‘Are you the devil in question?’ She didn’t even try to stop her progress towards him.

Franco grimaced. ‘Probably … I suppose—yes …’ he admitted. ‘Because I am about to break my promise to you, and …’ He did not bother to finish the sentence; he just closed the gap between their mouths.

It was like taking flight without wings to help her control her take-off, and the worst thing was she didn’t even try to put up a fight. She was just a pathetic pushover, she told herself, moving closer until she felt the tips of her breasts catch hold of the heat emanating from his chest, parting her lips and sighing a helpless little sigh he caught with the sensual dip of his tongue. He kissed her until she melted against him, until she was mimicking his tongue with her own and feeling the rise of desire, tasting it like some rare, delicious fruit you could only obtain from this one source. As she let her hands drift upwards to stroke the firm muscles and smooth skin covering his arms she felt a fine tremor run through him.

Dangerous, she tried to tell herself. This—him—us.

And then she tasted the lipstick. Claudia’s lipstick. It had to be Claudia’s because she wasn’t wearing any. And that, she thought as she pulled her head back, was the reason why being anywhere near Franco was dangerous. He could warm her right through and contrarily chill her to her bone at the same time.

His eyes narrowed at her sudden withdrawal. Lexi feathered down her own eyelashes so he could not pierce into her thoughts.

‘May I go now?’ she requested coolly.

Tension was suddenly flashing between them, like microwaves probing deep into her flesh, and she almost wilted with relief when he recovered his sense of fair play, dropping his arms from her and taking the promised step back.

Mouth dry, heart just an aching squeeze in her chest, without saying another word Lexi stepped around him and walked out of the room.

Watching her depart, Franco was still puzzling over what had turned her off like that when he raised a set of fingers to his kiss warmed mouth. Something made him glance down. He saw the red lipstick he’d forgotten to wipe away after Claudia’s kisses—and let loose a string of soft curses aimed exclusively at himself for being such a thoughtless, insensitive swine.

For the next twenty-four hours Lexi avoided him. She didn’t even go to his room to protest that he’d had her moved to the suite next door to his. Zeta took him meals to tempt his appetite, only to bring them back again barely touched, and she informed Lexi she was worried because he was too exhausted to eat. The housekeeper complained that he was working up there on his laptop and refusing to lie down to rest on his bed. She conveyed her displeasure to Lexi, who spent the evening curled up on a sofa watching television and didn’t seem to care what he was doing.

Lexi was training herself not to care.

When it was time for bed she went to her new room without bothering to go in and check how he was. She just pulled on one of her new silk nighties and slipped between the cool linen sheets, switched off the lights and willed herself to sleep. The next morning she walked several circuits of the lake after breakfast, stopping to coax the resident swans with some bread she’d stolen from the breakfast table. She knew that Franco was standing on the upper terrace watching her; though she didn’t once glimpse his tall figure standing there the couple of times she allowed herself to glance up.

She had her mobile phone tucked into one of the pockets of the flowery dress she’d put on with its fashionably fitted bodice and full skirt.

But he didn’t call her.

It was like a war of attrition. The problem was that Lexi knew she was waging this particular war all by herself. She wanted to avoid him but she wanted him to call her. Where was the sense in that?

She thought he might come down for lunch, but he didn’t. She hoped he would arrive when Zeta served her afternoon tea on the lower terrace overlooking the lake, but was informed by the satisfied housekeeper that at last he was sleeping on his bed and the laptop was shut.

By dinner time Lexi was losing the battle—the part that was supposed to be training her to stop caring about him, anyway—and she knew, just knew, she was about to give in. It came over her like one of those uncontrollable rushes of weakness that made you do nonsensical things. She’d gone up to her room to wash and change before dinner, but found herself hovering outside his door instead.

Zeta had told her he was still sleeping. Taking a quick peek at him while he slept wasn’t the same as going in there cold, so to speak, having to face him with her own weakness, she convinced herself.

But it was just the sam

e, and Lexi knew it even as she twisted the handle and pushed open the door. She knew it as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her, leaning against it and breathing fast, as if she was a naughty child up to mischief. Dusk had fallen and the twin lamps beside the bed cast gentle light across the room. The long windows stood open to the soft evening breeze coming in from the garden, and as she breathed in she caught the clean scent of his soap in her nostrils before she allowed herself to look towards the bed.