Phantom Marriage

‘I guess not.’

‘By the way, the Hotel Fabrizzi is fully booked for tonight. With a group from America. I hate the noise, so I might have to throw myself on the mercy of one of my neighbours.’

Veronica’s heart flipped over, but she managed to keep a poker face, determined not to let this devil know how excited she was by the thought of having him stay with her the whole night.

‘Oh?’ she said in a superbly nonchalant tone. ‘Which neighbour were you thinking of asking?’

‘There is only one who has a suitably large guest bedroom.’

‘Will everyone on Capri know that you stayed at my place?’ she asked him quietly, so that the driver couldn’t hear.

‘Not everyone. But Mamma certainly will.’

‘Will that cause you problems?’

Leonardo shrugged. ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

Veronica didn’t doubt it.

‘Let it be on your head, then, Leonardo,’ she told him. ‘Don’t come crying to me when your parents mistakenly think your intentions towards me are serious.’

‘Who says they aren’t?’ he asked with a look that she couldn’t decipher.

It rattled her, that look. His dark eyes fairly smouldered at her from under half-lowered lids. She was still wondering what it meant when his tautly held lips split into a wide smile.

‘Got you,’ he said with a nudge against her ribs.

‘You are a wicked man, Leonardo Fabrizzi,’ she said, both annoyed and flustered that she would think, even for a moment, that Leonardo was anything other than a highly accomplished playboy.

Leonardo grinned. ‘She says I am a wicked man, Ricardo. Is she right?’

‘You, Leonardo?’ Ricardo threw a shocked glance over his shoulder. ‘No, no. Leonardo—he is a good man. When my Louisa got sick, he pay for her to go to the best doctors in Rome. The best hospital. He always do things like that. We all love Leonardo on Capri.’ And he glared at Veronica in the rear-view mirror.

‘I was only joking,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Tell him, Leonardo.’ She poked him in the ribs.

‘She was only joking, Ricardo,’ he reassured the taxi driver. ‘She loves me too, don’t you, Veronica?’

Lord, but he was incorrigible. She rolled her eyes at him. ‘But of course, Leonardo. How could I not?’

‘I have no idea,’ he retorted, his expression one of barely controlled amusement.

Her palm itched to smack him. The man was a devil, wicked to the core. Or so she wanted to believe. But some inner instinct told Veronica that his wickedness was only skin-deep, that he had a genuinely warm heart. His love for his family and his friends spoke of a different man from the callous playboy who flitted from woman to woman, using them for his pleasure without care or commitment. Without love.

It seemed odd to her, now that she thought about it more deeply, for an Italian man of Leonardo’s family background not to want to get married and have a family of his own. She wondered what it was in his past that stopped him from settling down. She doubted it was that close call with the unwanted pregnancy. Perhaps it had something to do with his early retirement from the sport he’d been so passionate about. She might have asked him, if she’d imagined for a moment he would tell her the truth. But Veronica knew instinctively that he would not discuss his innermost feelings, certainly not with a woman who was just a ship passing in the night.

This last thought bothered her for a few seconds, until common sense came to the rescue. She was just a ship passing in the night. That didn’t mean their brief encounter couldn’t be both memorable and enjoyable. Veronica was determined not to complicate the weekend with qualms about what she was doing with Leonardo. She was an adult. She was entitled to a sex life, entitled to have some fun for a change. Even her mother thought so.

So why was she feeling as though she was running a risk in spending more time with this man? Why did the thought of his making love to her again bring a measure of anxiety along with the inevitable excitement? It annoyed her, this waffling in her head. He wasn’t worried. Just look at him sitting there, totally relaxed in her company.

Their arrival at the helipad might have been a welcome distraction from her mental to-ing and fro-ing. Unfortunately, the sight of the helicopter brought new worries. She’d forgotten, for a moment, how frightened she was of flying in one.

‘Oh, dear,’ she said, her stomach somersaulting as she stared at the fragile-looking craft. It wasn’t the large one Leonardo had arrived in yesterday. This was just a glass bubble with blades attached.

‘What is it?’ Leonardo asked straight away. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘That helicopter,’ she blurted out, pointing at it as they both climbed out of the taxi. ‘Is that the one we’re going up in?’

‘Yes. Why?’