He shrugged. “What you really want to know is how long you will have to play at being a lady. Not to worry, Caroline. You will be home before lunchtime tomorrow.”
She thought of the shoot lined up for tomorrow morning at Paolo’s, a relatively new design house, and shook her head.
“I must be home tonight,” she said positively. “I’ve an engagement with—”
“That is impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible,” she said tightly. “Haven’t you spent most of the morning proving that?”
“Nonetheless, returning you to Milano before tomorrow would be.”
“You make me sound like a package,” Caroline said angrily as she swung to face him. “Returning me to Milan, indeed! I am perfectly capable of getting home on my own, thank you.” She turned away, folded her hands tightly in her lap, and stared out the window. “Surely there’s a return flight this evening?”
Nicolo frowned. “I took you from Milano. I will return you to it.”
“That’s remarkably noble,” she said with great sarcasm. “But I must be back tonight. I told you, I’ve an engagement with Paolo. And I can’t afford to miss it.”
“Dio Mio! Have you no shame?” He threw her a glowering look. “I have no desire to hear the details of this assignation, I assure you.”
Caroline’s mouth dropped open. “What assignation?”
“And if you are afraid this man will know of me, that he may learn you have spent the night with me—”
“I am certainly not spending the night with you!”
“A figure of speech,” Nicolo said tautly. “The point I make is that you need not worry. Your lover need not know of our little trip.”
“Listen here! Paolo isn’t my lover. I’m talking about a business engagement—”
“I told you, I have no interest in the details, Caroline.” His voice was sharp and cold as ice as he plucked the cellular handset from its receptacle and held it out to her. “Call this Paolo. Tell him there has been a change of plan, that you cannot be with him tonight.”
Caroline glared at him. “I know why your grandmother is ill,” she said. “It’s because she had to deal with you, day after day.”
“Very amusing. Nonetheless, it is your choice. Call him, or stand him down, as you prefer.”
“It’s stand him up, not stand him down. If you’re going to use American idioms when you’re handing out orders, at least get them right.” She grimaced. “Anyway, I can’t phone him. I don’t know his number.”
“Ask the operator.” Nicolo smiled coldly. “I’m sure it will surprise you to hear that Italy is a civilized country. We have such things as directory assistance.”
“Directory assistance can’t help me,” she said, ignoring the taunt. “I don’t know Paolo’s address.”
“All you need is his last name.”
It was, she knew, the moment to clarify things, to explain that Paolo was a company, not a man.
But the chance to make Nicolo Sabatini look like a fool was too good to pass up.
“Actually,” she said sweetly, “I’ve no idea what his last name is.”
Nicolo turned and stared at her. “I see,” he said frostily. “You have an engagement—”
“An appointment. Yes. And—”
“With a man. And yet, you do not even know his full name.” He said something in Italian and even if Caroline didn’t understand the words, the meaning was clear enough.
“No,” she said. She lifted her hand and examined her fingernails with care. “I’m afraid I don’t. I didn’t make this appointment myself, you see. Silvio took care of it for me.”
“Silvio. He makes such—arrangements—on your behalf?”
She shrugged and lay her head back on the seat. “Sure. I suppose I could manage on my own, but—”
“And you are not embarrassed to speak of this?”
“Why should I be? A job’s a job. Besides, I came to Italy to work. Why would I want to do anything that would lessen my chances of making money?”
“And yet,” he said after a moment, in a voice that was almost a whisper, “and yet, last night, when you thought I was interested in you…” He drew a breath. “You made it quite clear you were not interested in me.”
“Absolutely. I’ve always reserved the right to choose who I spend my time with.”
“And I am not such a man.”
Caroline looked straight at him. “No,” she said, with a polite smile, “you certainly are not.”
He said nothing, did nothing, and for a few seconds, she thought she had finally silenced him. Then all at once he grabbed the phone and barked an order into it. The car swung to the right and pulled onto the verge, and he swung towards Caroline, his eyes blazing with such anger that she had to keep from cringing into the corner.
“Listen carefully, signorina,” he growled, “because I have no intention of saying any of this again. I am taking you to my home, into the very bosom of my family. If it were not for my concern for my grandmother, I would—I would put you out of the car right now, I would let you wait beside the road until someone took pity on you and offered to drive you back to Milano.” He drew a deep breath into his lungs. “But I have given my word to la Principessa, I have said I would ask you to come with me, and you have agreed. God only knows why, but you have. And so, as long as you are under my protection—”
“I am here because I choose to be,” she said sharply, despite the rapid race of her pulse. “I can take care of myself. I think we’ll get along much better, once you’ve gotten that through your head. As for being under your protection…” She tossed her head. “If this is what it’s like to be under your protection, I’d bloody well like to know what would happen if I weren’t!”
For a moment, Nicolo simply looked at her. Then he gave her a smile so chill, so filled with cunning, that it drove the blood from her face.
“Disobey me,” he said, very softly, “and perhaps you will find out.”
He leaned forward and pounded his fist on the driver’s compartment. Instantly, the car leaped back onto the roadway. It took long moments before Caroline calmed down enough to remember that she had not sprung the little trap she’d set. Nicolo Sabatini still thought she was a woman who supplemented her income through occasional dalliances with men willing to pay for the pleasure of her company.
She gave him a quick glance from under her lashes. His face was set and hard; except for the muscle knotting in his jaw, he looked as if he’d been sculpted of stone.
Setting him up so he’d look foolish had been ridiculous. What was the point? After today—correction, she thought grimly, after tonight—she’d never see him again anyway. Besides, they were pulling to a stop, outside a chain-link fence. Ahead, a small jet waited like a sleek silver bird beside the runway.
Caroline’s mouth tightened. Let the bastard think whatever he liked.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE JET was sleek, even
more luxurious than the limousine—and it belonged to Nicolo. “Sabatini,” it said, in discreet gold script on the fuselage, above a representation of a lion and a shield. Inside, the same logo appeared again, on the leather headrest of the deep seats, on the breast pocket of the cabin attendant, even on the coffee service that was brought out within minutes of their being airborne.
Caroline declined the coffee but accepted a magazine. Not that she read it; it was just easier to bury her face in its glossy pages than to have to endure Nicolo’s stony-faced silence. The trip was mercifully brief, little more than an hour, and soon they were standing on the tarmac at Ciampino Airport.
“Now what?” she asked stiffly.
Nicolo’s hand closed impersonally on her elbow. “Now,” he said, “we drive.”
She had to almost trot to keep up with his long-legged, impatient stride, which was a novelty considering that usually she had to slow her pace to accommodate others, even men. Slow down, she thought, as her high heels beat a hurried tattoo against the pavement, but she didn’t say it. No matter what the situation, she would not ask Nicolo for mercy. Besides, how far away could his limousine be? Surely there’d be one here, too, a twin to the Mercedes in Milan.
His pace slackened when they entered a lot filled with cars. He led her down a row, then came to a halt.
“What’s the matter?” she said. “Did your driver forget to meet you where he was supposed to?”
Nicolo scowled as he dug a key ring from his pocket.
“Your tongue is sharp, Caroline.” He gave her a little push in the small of her back toward a lean black Ferrari. “Go on, get in. The sooner I get you to my grandmother’s side, the sooner this ends.”
Caroline blinked. A Ferrari? Yes, she thought as she folded her long legs into the car. A Ferrari, just as she’d imagined.
All right, she thought as the car roared to life. So he wasn’t chauffeured about in his native city. So what? And it was interesting that his car was the one she’d envisaged, but what did that mean? She glanced over at his harsh profile. Only that he had more money than he could count, but she knew that already.