Captivated by Her Innocence

Cesare felt a jolt of shock as the woman that he had mentally been cursing emerged from the shadows. Against the stone wall her face was a pale oval, the hair that had been a subject of unwilling fascination for him yesterday today hung loose and untamed, the rippling, richly coloured Pre-Raphaelite waves falling down her narrow back. Gone also was the professional suit, replaced today by a pair of faded jeans that clung to the slight feminine curve of her hips. Tucked into the belt cinched across her hips, the blue striped top echoed the cobalt colour of her eyes.

As he read the mixture of wariness and defiance in their jewelled depths along with the heat flash that consolidated in his aching groin he felt a fresh stab of belated empathy for his friend who had been unable to resist the lure of her lush mouth. Mingled in with the empathy was something that felt suspiciously like envy.

Anna attributed the acute and unpleasant dizziness that made her grip the rail of the gallery high above the baronial hall to vertigo.

Objectively she recognised that Cesare Urquart himself might cause many women to feel light-headed, but her only response was a prickle of antagonism and a relapse of the stuttering she had conquered years ago. She moistened her lips and struggled not to look like someone compounding trespass with eavesdropping. ‘I’m not sure where I should be?’

In my bed.

For a split second the involuntary thought almost made it out of his mouth. His darkened eyes shuttered and the muscles in his brown throat worked hard as he fought to control the surge of testosterone-fuelled lust that continued to lick like a flame through his body.

The weakness irritated him. ‘Where do you want to be?’ he snapped.

Anywhere but here, she thought, wondering how she had ever allowed herself to be manoeuvred into taking this job. She should be back home looking for a proper job, getting herself signed up for relief work as a short-term measure. As for living under the same roof as a man who despised her almost as much as she despised him, what had she been thinking?

Her eyes slid across the strong bones of his dark patrician face. She might loathe him but that didn’t make him any less attractive. Damn the man!

Anna knew she had to pull herself together.

If she’d vanished meekly, tail between her legs, she’d have been doing exactly what he wanted—also exactly what she wanted, but that wasn’t the point.

So what was the point?

She wanted to help Angel, and why should the single mother trying to do a good job suffer because of who her brother was? She’d do this job so well, even if it killed her, that even Cesare would have to admit he had misjudged her. All at once her sense of realism intruded on this attractive flight of fancy.

In an alternate universe maybe Cesare Urquart would be overcome with remorse and regret when he realised that because of him the community had lost out on an exceptional head teacher, but in the real world the man was never ever going to admit he was wrong, even if his life depended on it.

She dragged her eyes, which had drifted down his body, up to face level. ‘I was trying to find the door where I came in.’

One dark brow lifted, the eyes stayed dark and hostile. The aloof disdain she could only assume was permanent. ‘You are leaving already?’

Don’t get your hopes up, mate, she thought. ‘When I commit to something I see it through.’

A spasm of annoyance crossed his lean face. ‘How admirable, always supposing that something isn’t another woman’s husband. I can only presume that you took this job as some sort of petty revenge to annoy me.’

‘No, that wasn’t the reason, but it is a plus,’ she admitted, and had the satisfaction of seeing his jaw clench. ‘I hate to break this to you but not everything is about you.’ She bit her lip, regretting the words, not because of the flash of astonished anger in his face, but because there was no point winding him up while she was here. ‘I took this job because...’

Good question.

Why had she taken this job?

* * *

‘Well, how could I pass up the opportunity to see you every day and have one of our delightful discussions?’

From somewhere the memory surfaced of Rosie, months after the end of her affair, describing the physical craving she still felt to hear her lover’s voice, to catch a glimpse of him even after all he had done to her. Made uneasy by the mental connection and wondering if wrapped up inside the layers of sarcasm there was even a thread of truth in her comment, Anna almost tipped over into outright panic...

She took a calming breath. She wasn’t the craving kind, and if she was going to crave anyone or anything it wouldn’t be this man!