‘Call in sick tomorrow,’ he dared. ‘Spend the day with me. All night. All day.’
He was joking but it was actually so tempting she got angry with herself—but turned it on him. ‘You want me to ditch all my commitments? To drop everything else in my life to meet your sexual needs?’
‘Not just my needs,’ he pointed out, purposefully kissing her neck, apparently already confident of her surrender. ‘You want this too.’
‘I can’t. I have to go,’ she pleaded, but couldn’t help tilting her head to let him have greater access. ‘I can’t let Francesca down. I have work. I can’t just not show up.’
‘Move in with me,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I’ll work from here for a while and then we’ll have all night, every night. At the weekends, you’re mine. You do get weekends off, don’t you?’
She was too busy trying to process his first words to be able to answer that last question. ‘You want me to move in with you?’
He eased back and looked into her eyes. ‘Briefly.’
She half laughed, her suddenly strung-out nerves getting the better of her. ‘Well done on the clarification. Wouldn’t want me getting the wrong idea.’
She so didn’t want to get the wrong idea about this. But she couldn’t believe what he’d just asked.
He grinned. ‘I’ve been reliably informed honesty is the best policy.’
‘Been talking to someone wise?’ She desperately tried to maintain the teasing, but tension knotted her stomach. Staying with him—even briefly—was an alarmingly appealing idea and she instinctively shied from its strength.
‘Someone with a smart mouth.’
He was joking. Surely. She tried to focus on all the practical reasons why she should say no. ‘I start work very, very early.’ And cycling from the villa would mean she’d have to wake even earlier.
‘I’ll drop you there. I’ll have slept better with you beside me.’
Her innards melted at the thought of sleeping beside him night after night, of cuddling and curling close. Of being that intimate with him.
‘Because it’s still all about you,’ she tried to joke, tried to stall, tried to steady her trembling slide towards his too-enticing invitation.
But there was a glint of outrageousness in his eyes and she just couldn’t help warming like wax in his hands.
‘Stay. I promise to make it worth your while.’ He kissed her.
Oh, she didn’t doubt it. What she doubted was her ability to leave again as ‘easily’ as she’d left the other day. Because that had been so difficult she’d had to run as quickly as she could. And she knew the more time she spent here, the harder it would become to leave again. It wasn’t the villa and all its luxuries that posed the problem, but him. He was magnetic and his power over her only increased with exposure.
But she wanted him. She ached for his touch, his company. Her eyes closed as he kissed her again.
She should say no. She should just have the sex she’d said she wanted and escape. But her brain shorted out, refusing to process anything other than the delicious sensations he was pulling from every cell within her. The man knew how to make love. He knew how to make her want more. He knew how to make her say yes. Over and over again.
And that was terrible, because if he kept this up, she’d say yes to everything. And he didn’t want everything, he only wanted this. Only now.
‘You’re incorrigible,’ she admonished breathlessly.
‘But I’m right.’
She quivered. It was more than his touch that tormented her, more than his sensuality and striking looks—it was his interest in all of her, his ability to fascinate her, his ability to make her laugh. If this were just sex, it would be easy. But it was all of him. She liked him, so much that she was in danger...but because he was all that, he was impossible to deny. She couldn’t deny herself.
She sighed, her defences crumbling. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay? Just like that?’ he teased.
Just like that? A helpless little laugh escaped.
‘I’m hoping to get sick of you,’ she admitted frankly, opening her eyes. ‘Perhaps the more time I spend with you, the sooner that will happen.’ She could only dream, right? ‘And I can practise making some of the pastries in your oven if I stay.’
His mouth opened and then closed. Then opened again. ‘You want to practise using my oven? That’s why you want to stay?’
‘It’s one of the reasons.’ She hid a smile. She’d got a tiny hit on him when he constantly overwhelmed her so completely. ‘But I’m not cooking dinner for you,’ she clarified, establishing a smidgeon of assertiveness. ‘You’re not getting a housekeeper as well as a bedmate.’
‘If I wanted a housekeeper, I’d hire one.’ He planted a kiss on her nose. ‘I’m capable of cooking both for me and for you.’
‘Is that so?’
‘I enjoy eating so, yes, that’s so,’ he mocked, moving his kisses across her cheek. ‘I’ll cook for you, seeing as you’re going to be my guest for a little while.’
A little while, right. His guest. Not his girlfriend or his live-in lover. She accepted this for what it was, a short-term fling and a risk she was going to make the most of. She’d keep it an indulgence for herself. She’d keep it calm.
‘Perfect.’ She ran her hand up his chest and pretended this wasn’t all that perilous, pretended her heart wasn’t pounding louder than a rocket launch.
But he stopped kissing her, pulling away to look into her eyes.
‘What?’ she queried breathlessly, poised right over the precipice.
‘I hadn’t expected you to agree so easily. I’ve been dreaming up other ways to convince you.’
‘Oh.’ She burned the last of her nerves in the bonfire of sensual anticipation and embraced the humour that bubbled so easily between them. ‘Well, we can’t let those ideas go to waste. I’ve changed my mind. Convince me to stay some more.’
‘Too late,’ he breathed, and pulled her to the edge of the table, a ferociously intense look in his eye. ‘You’re mine now.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘WELL?’ FRANCESCA LOOKED up from a mountain of flour the second Gracie walked into the café.
‘Well, what?’
‘How big is this party?’ Francesca sounded amazed to have to explain. ‘You didn’t give me anywhere near enough information in your text message last night. Are you sure we can handle it? We can’t even make enough pastries to last till closing each day.’
Gracie flushed and quickly turned to hang up her bag. She’d forgotten all about the party. ‘Large but not impossible. It should be fairly straightforward as long as we start early. It’s having enough stock here at the same time for those couple of days leading up to it that’s the problem.’
‘Well, I can always close early then if we have to,’ Francesca mused. ‘Often those clients prefer to get catering in from Milan or even further, I want to show them local is better.’
Which, now she thought about it, had been Rafe’s point when they’d discussed it more late last night. He knew exactly how to play them. He knew how to win. Not that Gracie was complaining.
She worked swiftly. While several trays were baking she organised the small outside tables, putting one of Alex’s roses in each of the small vases. Turning to go back inside, she was startled to see an elderly man staring at the table nearest him. She frowned in surprise—it was very early, there was almost no one else even moving in the village yet. And this old man hadn’t shaved and looked dishevelled. He looked lost.
‘I’m sorry, we’re not open yet,’ she said apologetically. But he didn’t answer. He didn’t stop staring at the rose she’d just put in the vase.
‘Are you okay, sir? Can I help you?’ she tried again.
Again, no reply. But his hands were trembling. He was clearly disoriented.
‘Why
don’t you take a seat and I’ll get you a drink?’ Gracie said gently, lightly putting her hand on his shoulder to guide him. At her touch he looked at her and smiled.
‘Thank you,’ he said very formally with a crisp American accent.
‘Something cool.’ She smiled at him and gestured for him to take a seat. Even though it was early, the morning was warming quickly.
She quickly fetched a glass of the lemonade that Alex favoured and put a pastry on a plate for him as well. ‘It’s a beautiful rose, isn’t it?’ She set the refreshment in front of where he was sitting.
He nodded jerkily, lifting the glass to sip a small amount.
As she turned to go back inside, she saw another man striding along in the distance, looking down the narrow streets, concern carving the lines more deeply into his face.
She stepped forward to intercept him. ‘Excuse me, are you looking—’
Gracie stopped and drew a steadying breath because she suddenly recognised this man. He was from that party the other night. Rafael had said he was his nephew. His much, much older nephew.
‘Oh, there you are, Dad.’ The man brushed past Gracie.
Dad? Gracie stared. If the elder man was the nephew’s father, then he must be Rafael’s half-brother. Her heart pounded. But she saw the confusion in the elder man’s eyes. The lack of awareness, of recognition.
‘I’m sorry he troubled you,’ the nephew said briskly. ‘He gets confused and wanders and I should have...’
He breathed out a harsh sigh and apologised again.
‘It’s okay.’ Gracie smiled to put him at ease. ‘It must be worrying.’ She could see the stress he was under and she truly did understand.