The Sicilian's Innocent Mistress

Fun! The word Luc had used for today echoed mockingly in Darci’s brain.

She wasn’t having fun! She was so tense, what with her complete awareness of Luc, so churned-up inside, that she couldn’t breathe properly, let alone think. She certainly wasn’t having fun!

And now Luc had turned the car off into a forest area miles from anywhere. Certainly nowhere near a restaurant.

Had she been a fool? Had the suggestion of going out to lunch been just a ruse on Luc’s part? Perhaps he had brought her here with the intention of making her his lunch…?

‘Your suppositions are not flattering.’ The harshness of his voice cut into her rapidly escalating thoughts. ‘Either to yourself or to me!’ he added hardly as he turned the car into a deserted car park about half a mile into the forest, before turning to look at her, those finely chiselled features as harsh as his voice. ‘If I had asked you out today with the intention of making love to you then, believe me, I would have chosen somewhere more comfortable than a forest floor littered with pine-cones!’

Darci stared at him for several seconds, biting her top lip in an effort to control the smile this image brought to mind. No doubt the intrusion of pine-cones and needles at the wrong moment could play havoc with seduction—even Luc’s!

‘Better.’ Luc grimaced as he saw the laughter gleaming in those moss-green eyes. ‘Have a little faith, hmm, Darci?’ He sighed before turning to get out of the car and go round and open the boot, giving Darci those few minutes to sit and consider the mistake she had made concerning his intentions.

Not completely, of course.

He did not intend going back to London today without kissing Darci. Maybe a little more than kissing her. But he really would prefer the comfort of a bed when he held her completely naked in his arms and worshipped that beautiful body from the top of her fiery head to the tips of her slender toes.

Of course it wasn’t helping his self-control that she looked so stunningly beautiful in a fitted black T-shirt and an above-the-knee-length white skirt that clung to the rounded contours of her bottom. Those long legs were bare and her elegant feet were thrust into cork sandals.

No, there was no way he was going to be able to resist at least kissing and caressing Darci today!

When she finally climbed out of the car to join Luc, Darci was no nearer to knowing what they were doing in the middle of a deserted forest than she had been a few minutes ago.

The wicker basket he carried in one hand and the blanket tucked under his other arm gave her the answer she had been looking for….

‘A picnic?’ Her face lit up. ‘Luc, are we going to have a picnic?’ she added, as her pleasure grew.

She hadn’t been on a picnic in years—not since she was a child with her family, in fact.

But she would never, ever have thought that Luc Gambrelli, mega-rich sophisticated film producer, who probably ate at exclusive restaurants like Garstang’s every night of the week, would enjoy eating his meal alfresco….

‘You’re letting your unflattering thoughts show again, Darci,’ he reproved dryly, before turning to look around them. ‘Over that way, I think.’ He nodded in the direction of a well-worn path.

‘Can I carry anything?’ she offered, as an apology for what he had guessed were her less than flattering thoughts about him.

‘The blanket.’ He handed it to her. ‘That way we both have a hand free,’ he observed with satisfaction, and he reached out with his own free hand to lace his fingers intimately with hers.

Completely throwing Darci’s equilibrium off-balance again as she realised that, although this park might be busy at the weekends, with urbanites escaping the city, on a Tuesday lunchtime it was virtually deserted. The only other people around were another couple who had arrived in separate cars as Luc was locking the Porsche, who Darci suspected of a romantic tryst. A suspicion they seemed to confirm when, after one furtive glance around them, they scooted off in the opposite direction to the one Luc and Darci were taking!

‘You’re making assumptions again, Darci,’ Luc said as he strode towards the pathway. ‘Probably correct ones this time, though,’ he conceded. ‘But I make it a point of principle never to pass judgement on other people’s actions.’