The Italian's Wife

track on the whole story, and I would give my right arm to hear every

dirty detail on the fall of Christabel. The rumours are just so intriguing.'

Who was Christabel? Some ex-girlfriend of Rio's? Or possibly just a not

very popular mutual acquaintance, Holly allowed, someone who had

suffered some kind of disappointment. Gritting her teeth, she sat

through the styling session and then through the incredibly tickly and

painstaking experience of having cosmetics professionally applied. She

wasn't able to see herself until the very last moment and then she

simply stared in disbelief at her own transformed appearance.

'I'm the best in my field even though I say it myself,' Sly drawled with

amusement.

Smoky shadow had been smoothed round Holly's eyes, giving them dramatic

depth and enhancing their colour. She had cheekbones now like a model in

a magazine and a mouth as ripe and pink and lush as a peach.

Rio was pacing the waiting area, talking in staccato Italian on his

mobile phone, the cynosure of interest for every female in the vicinity.

He lowered his phone, tawny eyes welding to her with gleaming intensity,

a faint and wicked smile curling at the corners of his beautiful mouth.

'Bella, Fiammetta...' he drawled with lazy amusement.

And in that same moment, Holly knew beyond all doubt that she had fallen

passionately in love. Riveted to the spot by his unashamed appreciation,

she could feel herself glowing inside like a megawatt light bulb

suddenly connected to an electric current. He was the source of the

current. He was redefining her in her own eyes, making her feel good

about herself for the first time in almost two years.

Resting a casual hand on her spine, he urged her back out to the limo.

'Why did you tell Sly that crazy story about me being Italian?' Holly

prompted, trying to muster her former fury but finding it strangely absent.

'She's the biggest gossip in town and not nicknamed ' 'Sly'' for

nothing. She could have bared your soul for you in the first five

minutes,' Rio mocked.

'I couldn't open my mouth! I don't know a single word of Italian!'

'I know. Class act, aren't I?' Rio teased. 'It was as good as gagging

the two of you. Sly was seething with frustration.'

Holly mock-punched him in the ribs and then jerked her hand back, afraid

that she had been too familiar. But he

54

gave her a slanting grin of answering amusement that turned her heart

inside-out. Nobody was ever going to accuse Rio Lombardi of being a

charisma-free zone, Holly thought dizzily in receipt of that smile while

she struggled to get mental feet back safely on the ground again. Only

the ground had vanished. Every time he looked at her she felt as if she

was flying.

The next stop on the shopping trip was a high-fashion outlet of such

size and style that the deeper they got into it the more Holly tried to

hide behind him, cringing at her own shabbiness.

'Who would you like to be here? Daughter of an eccentric billionaire?'

Rio murmured, inclining his dark head down to hers, making her tremble

at his proximity. 'Minor European royalty, travelling incognito?'

'I think I'll just be me, but you get to do all the talking,' Holly said

apprehensively as a smiling, terrifyingly svelte female began to move in

their direction.

'All these people care about is the colour of my money,' Rio breathed,

his dark drawl hard-edged with what sounded remarkably like bitterness.

'And the richer you are, the more they grovel.'

'I wouldn't know a lot about that but I hope you're not going to be

rude,' Holly whispered back worriedly.

Unexpectedly, he laughed.

He sent her off alone to the lingerie department. Ignoring the bountiful

advice of a saleswoman keen to flog her a hundred of every item, not to

mention undergarments that Holly had not until then known even existed,

Holly settled for several sets of bras and briefs. No, she did not need

nightwear. There had been a nightie in Ezio's sack that had done her

fine the night before and she was no spendthrift. What she was doing was

wrong, her conscience warned her. Letting Rio Lombardi spend his money

on her could not

be right. But it was making him smile, it was making him tease her. He

could buy her a series of numbered fertiliser sacks if he liked.

'Now I get in on the act,' Rio announced when she was led back to him to

find him seated on a tall stool at a mini-bar in a spacious room that

contained a small stage and catwalk. 'Champagne?'

With difficulty, she made it up onto the stool beside him and accepted a

moisture-beaded glass. 'What happens in here?'

'The models parade the product. We pick what we like. Then you try it on.'

'You've done this before.' The champagne bubbles tickled her nose but

she didn't laugh. She did not like the idea that he had sat in that

exact same spot with other women but he knew the form too well for her

to doubt it.

'But never before without being asked or set up or cajoled,' Rio

confided darkly.

'If you felt like that, you should just have said no,' Holly muttered

uncomfortably, quite at a loss on how to comment on the behaviour of

women capable of being that bold about their greed. 'I mean...this

wasn't my idea and it doesn't seem to be amusing you any more, so let's

just leave it here...please-'

Lean fingers tugged at a ringlet of her bronze hair, curving her

heart-shaped face round to his. 'But I don't want to leave it. I want to

see you look beautiful...'

Her breath feathered in her throat, her clear blue eyes betraying her

confusion. 'I can't be what I'm not-'

'You can be whatever you want to be, cara.'

She gazed into lustrous eyes shaded with burning gold and her heart was

racing. The sense of caution taught by the hard lessons of recent

experience strove to keep her grounded, though. What he was doing for

her was like a

56

fairy tale but she knew fairy tales didn't happen in real life: there

was always a catch. As she parted her lips to snatch in much needed

oxygen to sustain her, Rio bent his head lower and let his tongue delve

in a subtle flicker into the moist interior of her mouth. It lasted only

a second, but in that second she was electrified by the instantaneous,

stormy response of her own body, the surge of enervating heat that

inflamed her every sense. Indeed, so great was the erotic hit of that

sudden sexual foray she jerked, and if he hadn't shot a steadying

arm

round her she would have fallen off the stool.

'Relax,' Rio urged with husky clarity.

He lounged back from her again in perfect balance, the easy, indolent

grace of his lean, muscular length in striking contrast to her trembling

state of near-devastation.

Holly was in shock, mental shock, sensual, bodily shock. Maybe that had

been a trifling bit of flirtation on his terms, but her quivering body

was on fire with sensations it had never known before and she wanted to

emulate his cool but found it impossible. What did he want from her?

Surely not the obvious? Was he out trawling for a cut-price mistress or

something? What did they have in common? Yes, what did they have in

common? Well, they were both human.

'Sorry...I couldn't resist it,' Rio admitted in his smooth accented drawl.

'I bet you can resist me just fine,' Holly heard herself snap in her

unease at not knowing what was likely to happen next. 'Don't play games

with me!'

'Then stop giving me the green light,' Rio traded quick as a flash,

plunging her into such mortified discomfiture that she went weak with

relief when an older woman took up position at a speaker's stand. The