Pregnant by the Desert King

Her jaw dropped. No one had ever spoken to her quite so bluntly before, and the thought struck her that if her father had criticised her just once it would have been an indication that he cared about her. But Randolph’s lack of interest had led to her running wild throughout her teenage years and she’d behaved like the spoilt brat that the tabloids, and the odious man who was sitting too close to her and invading her personal space, believed she was.

‘I did not ask for, nor am I the least bit interested in, your opinion,’ she informed Santino icily.

The glitter in his green eyes sent a frisson of excitement through her when she realised that he was struggling to control his temper. At least she made him feel something—which she had never achieved with her father.

‘I expected you to arrive at Naples airport on a flight from London yesterday. But, when I went to meet you, you didn’t show up,’ he said curtly. ‘How did you get to Positano?’

She shrugged. ‘At Heathrow I bumped into a friend, Davina, who was about to fly to Amalfi on her father’s company jet and she invited me to go with her.’ It was all coming back to Arianna now. The private jet had landed at an airfield near to the Amalfi coast and Davina had arranged to join Jonny and a group of friends on his yacht Sun Princess.

By then it had been something like thirty-nine hours since Arianna had left Sydney and she had hardly eaten or drunk anything in that time. She’d been too tired to argue when Jonny had pulled her onto the yacht, saying that he would take her along the coast to Positano. All she had wanted to do was sleep, but with a party in full swing it had been impossible. At least sunbathing on the deck had allowed her to close her eyes, and she had worn the gold bikini for the first time without realising how inadequately the tiny triangles of material covered her breasts.

When someone had passed her a bottle of champagne, she’d taken a sip to quench her thirst. It was bad luck that just then a speedboat had raced alongside the yacht and the paparazzi on board had taken the photograph which had made it onto the front page of the newspapers.

She glanced at Santino’s arresting face. He was not handsome in a pretty sense, unlike some of the male models with whom she had worked on fashion shoots. Featuring on the front covers of upmarket glossy magazines was her only claim to a career, she acknowledged ruefully.

Santino’s hard-boned features and powerfully muscular physique exuded a raw masculinity and brooding sensuality that evoked a visceral longing deep in Arianna’s pelvis. Her reaction shocked her. For all of her adult life she had flirted and acted the role of a siren, tempting men with her beauty. But she’d never felt desire or chemistry, or whatever this wild heat in her blood was called.

Inexplicably she found herself tempted to explain the true version of what had happened on the yacht. Even more oddly, she considered telling him the truth about herself: that she had finally grown up and wanted to make something good out of her life. But he probably wouldn’t believe her, and he would not care anyway. No one ever had. Not her business-obsessed father or her mother who, when Arianna had been a child, had abandoned her for a lover and a new life on the other side of the world.

She watched Santino press the plunger down on the cafetière and pour coffee into the single cup on the tray. Eagerly she reached out her hand to take the cup but he lifted it to his lips and took a long sip.

‘It’s good coffee,’ he murmured appreciatively. ‘I suggest you go and get yourself some. You look as though you could do with a dose of caffeine.’

She flushed, wondering if she looked as bad as he had implied. She ran her fingers through her tangled hair and guessed she looked a wreck after she’d travelled from one time zone to another. Her body clock had gone haywire and she wasn’t suffering from a hangover but severe dehydration. ‘I assumed that Filippo had asked you to deliver the coffee to me,’ she said sharply.

‘The butler was whizzing up a concoction of what looked like raw eggs and spinach in a blender.’ Santino gave a shrug. ‘Filippo told me he usually makes the smoothie to cure your hangover after you’ve had a heavy night of partying.’

He removed the cover from a plate to reveal Arianna’s favourite breakfast that the cook, Ida, always prepared for her of freshly baked rolls and thin slices of ham. Her stomach growled with hunger as she watched him pick up a roll and bite into it. With any luck he would choke, she thought sourly.

‘The cook told me she is preparing agnello arrosto con fagioli bianco for dinner—roast lamb with white beans,’ he said after he had polished off a second roll. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms above his head, causing the hem of his T-shirt to ride up, revealing a strip of his bronzed torso and a sprinkling of black hairs that disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans. ‘I can see I’m going to enjoy staying at Villa Cadenza.’

The glimpse of his taut, tanned abdomen had a strange effect on Arianna’s insides and she felt hot all over imagining where his body hair grew more thickly beneath the zip of his jeans. She knew she was blushing, and when she dragged her gaze away from Santino’s crotch up to his face the gleam of amusement in his eyes added fuel to her simmering temper.

‘You won’t be staying here,’ she told him furiously. ‘I’m going to call my father and put an end to this ridiculous situation.’

Arianna spied her handbag and suitcase on the floor close to the sun bed. Vaguely she remembered that one of the crew on Jonny’s yacht had brought her and her luggage to the villa in the early hours of the morning. The front door had been locked and she hadn’t wanted to wake the butler so she had slept on a sun bed for the rest of the night.

She dug out her phone and called her father’s private number. But inevitably it was his personal assistant, Monica, who answered and gave the usual excuse that Randolph was busy and did not want to be disturbed. ‘I’ll tell him you phoned and I’m sure he’ll be in touch when he has time,’ the PA said smoothly, although she must know that Randolph had never in living memory returned one of his daughter’s calls.

‘I’d like to leave a message for him.’ Arianna watched Santino pour out the last of the coffee from the cafetière and gulp it down, and her blood boiled. ‘Will you tell my father that I have no need of a bodyguard and I have fired Mr Vasari?’ She gave Santino a haughty look. ‘He will be leaving Villa Cadenza immediately.’

* * *

Santino let his eyes roam over Arianna as she leaned back on the sun bed while she talked on her phone. Her long, tanned legs went on for ever and the silk sarong tied around her body did not hide the fullness of her breasts. Desire spiked sharp and urgent in his groin and he was thankful that the newspaper on his lap hid the betraying bulge beneath his jeans. He had known before he’d agreed to be her bodyguard that she was beautiful, but he had been unprepared for the hunger she aroused in him, the white-hot lust that surged through his veins.

She had recently starred in an advertising campaign for a famous perfume brand and pictures of her on billboards wearing sexy, black lace underwear had ignited a fire inside him. Sex was used indiscriminately by advertisers to sell products, and no doubt every red-blooded male who looked at the photos of Arianna wanted to run their hands over her lush curves and kiss her sensual mouth that was both an invitation and a challenge. But it was a challenge he must ignore, Santino reminded himself.

When he had found her asleep on the sun lounger earlier he’d realised that a camera could not capture the true essence of her beauty. Fine-boned and slender, she’d looked as fragile as a porcelain figurine, and she was quite the loveliest thing he had ever seen. It was those exquisite cheekbones and the delicate perfection of her elfin features, he thought broodily. Photographs did not do justice to the luminosity of her English rose complexion.

She had woken a few minutes ago and her long, curling lashes had swept upwards as she’d surveyed him with her big brown eyes flecked with gold. He told himself he must have imagined he had glimpsed a hau

nting vulnerability in her gaze. The sulky pout of her mouth was too sensual, too provocative, for her to be anything other than the brazen temptress beloved by the tabloids and gossip columns.

Santino rubbed his hand around the back of his neck to ease a knot of tension in his muscles. His fingers automatically slipped beneath his shirt collar and traced the ten-inch scar from a bullet wound he’d received while he’d been serving in Afghanistan. The bullet had entered just below his shoulder blade and ripped open his body before exiting his neck at the base of his skull. It was incredible that he had survived, and, like the images in his mind of war, the scar would never completely fade. Nor would his guilt.

Eight years ago he had come close to death on a dusty, blood-spattered desert road. His life had been saved by his best friend and fellow SAS member, Mac Wilson, who had dragged him out of the line of fire. But that act of immense bravery had cost Mac his legs when an IED had exploded beneath him.

Restlessly, Santino stood up and walked across the terrace, aware that Arianna’s gaze followed him. His thoughts flew back to six months ago when Mac had requested his help to bring down a gang of drug smugglers believed to be responsible for his sister’s death. Mac was determined to bring Laura’s Italian boyfriend to justice but he had no proof that the man, Enzo, had supplied her with the cocaine which had killed her. Mac had asked Santino to infiltrate the gang who had links to the Calabrian mafia, known as the ’Ndrangheta. He had not needed to remind Santino that he was unable to do so himself because he was confined to a wheelchair.

Working undercover, Santino had discovered that, as well as drug smuggling, the gang had carried out several high-profile kidnappings and been paid millions of pounds of ransom money. Their next target was the English heiress Arianna Fitzgerald. The kidnappers had kept her under surveillance for some time and knew that she spent the summer at her father’s villa on the Amalfi coast. Santino had alerted the Italian police, but they had been unable to contact Arianna, so had warned her father of the threat to his daughter.

Santino recalled his meeting with Randolph Fitzgerald a week ago at the billionaire’s Kensington home Lyle House.

‘You are the best person to protect my daughter when she returns from Australia, Mr Vasari. Name your price. What will it take to persuade you to accept the job of Arianna’s bodyguard?’

Santino had been irritated by the other man’s arrogant assumption that everything could be bought and everyone had a price, but he guessed that those things were probably true for one of the richest men in England. ‘I am not a CPO,’ Santino had reminded Randolph. ‘I have given you the names of several security agencies who can provide close protection officers and will arrange for your daughter to receive round-the-clock protection.’

‘Your training and experience with the SAS gives me confidence that you will be able to keep Arianna safe. After all, it was you who found out that a mafia gang are planning to snatch her from my villa in Positano and demand a multi-million-pound ransom for her release. The Italian police are hunting for the gang but, until they are arrested, the threat to Arianna remains.’