The Sicilian's Innocent Mistress

Oh, well, it was too late now—and she really did intend to stay well away from the Sicilian in future.

She wait until half past eight before telephoning Garstang’s and asking them to pass a message on to Luc Gambrelli that she wasn’t well and so wouldn’t be able to meet him after all, hastily refusing the offer of having Mr Gambrelli brought to the telephone so that she might tell him that herself; she didn’t want to even hear that sexily persuasive voice again!

But that didn’t mean that she hadn’t thought about Luc Gambrelli a lot over the last two days—that she hadn’t remembered the delicious shiver that had run down her spine as his lips had brushed across the back of her hand, and how her body had responded as he’d detailed how he would like to make love to her, while all the time that devilish sense of humour had glinted in his eyes.

And she had guilty thoughts of him right now, as he sat in the restaurant, waiting for her to arrive, probably under the increasingly pitying gazes of the other customers. Thoughts that kept intruding as she tried to watch her favourite film…

It was only the memory of the way Luc Gambrelli had so callously hurt Mellie that made Darci so certain she had been right to carry out her plan to stand him up tonight. The man simply didn’t have the right to go around breaking women’s hearts without even a backward glance. And especially when that woman was a friend of Darci’s.

Then why did she feel so increasingly uncomfortable about what she had done?

It was ridiculous.

Luc Gambrelli deserved everything he got!

When the doorbell rang, a little after nine o’clock, Darci knew she was relieved at the interruption in her tortuous thoughts. She didn’t in the least mind pausing the DVD to go and answer the door—any visitor would be a welcome diversion.

Until she opened the door and found that visitor was Luc Gambrelli…

Darci gaped at him, rendered totally speechless as she took in how suavely handsome he looked, in a black silk shirt and black tailored trousers worn beneath a tan suede jacket. The latter was almost a perfect match for his overlong, burnished gold hair, and the shirt and trousers gave the strong angles of his face and his superbly moulded mouth a slightly saturnine appearance.

All of it succeeded in making Darci feel completely vulnerable, dressed as she was in men’s striped cotton pyjamas, with her face completely bare of make-up, her hair tousled and her feet bare!

Her legs were in danger of buckling beneath her, she discovered, and she quickly put out a hand to clasp tightly onto the door, the panicky palpitations she could feel in her chest bringing a deep blush to her cheeks.

‘I—What—How—’ She was gabbling like an idiot, Darci recognised disgustedly. ‘What are you doing here?’ She finally managed to string a whole sentence together.

Luc took in Darci’s appearance in one sweeping glance: her tumbling hair, her flushed face, fevered green eyes. His gaze narrowed as he noted the men’s pyjamas she wore and wondered to whom they had originally belonged…

He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘I was concerned about you after receiving your message at the restaurant you weren’t well,’ he responded. ‘So I telephoned Grant and asked him for your address.’

Those green eyes widened. ‘And he just gave it to you?’

‘Why would he not?’ Luc replied.

‘Well, because—because—’ She gave an incredulous shake of her head.

‘Once I had explained to him that the two of us should have been having dinner together this evening he was quite happy to be accommodating,’ Luc assured her smoothly. ‘May I come in?’

‘I—Well—Yes, I suppose so,’ she accepted grudgingly as she moved back from the door.

Luc stepped inside, noting the crumpled duvet on the sofa before turning back to look at Darci. ‘The maître d’ at Garstang’s informed me that you have a fever.’

‘Yes,’ Darci confirmed, hoping the warmth she could feel in her cheeks looked convincing.

Because Luc Gambrelli was a totally disturbing presence in what she had always considered her private sanctum!

He seemed so big—he was well over six feet to her five feet nine inches—and he made the sitting-room seem somehow smaller, his steel-muscled body totally dominating and exuding a power, a barely restrained strength, that caused a rivulet of apprehension to skitter down the length of Darci’s spine.