Inherited by Ferranti

It didn’t matter. She had a keepsake to remind her of her mother, and that was all she’d wanted.

Quickly, Sierra slipped out of her wet clothes and took a short, scaldingly hot shower. She dressed in a soft grey T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms of Marco’s; it felt bizarrely intimate to wear his clothes, and they swam on her. She used one of his belts to keep the bottoms from sliding right off her hips, and combed her hair with her fingers, leaving it hanging damply down her back.

Then, hesitantly, she went downstairs. She would have rather hidden upstairs away from Marco until the storm passed but, knowing him, he’d most likely come and find her. Perhaps it would be better to deal with the past, get that initial awful conversation out of the way, and then they could declare a silent truce and ignore each other until she was able to leave.

She found him in the sitting room, crouched in front of the fire he was fanning into crackling flame. He’d changed into jeans and a black T-shirt and the clothes fitted him snugly, emphasising his powerful chest and long legs, every inch of him radiating sexual power and virility.

Sierra stood in the doorway, conscious of a thousand things: how Marco’s damp hair had started to curl at the nape of his neck, how the soft cotton of the T-shirt she wore—his T-shirt—rubbed against her bare breasts. She felt a tingling flare of what could only be desire and tried to squelch it. He hated her now, and in any case she knew what kind of man he was. How could she possibly desire him?

He glanced back at her as she came into the room, and with a shivery thrill she saw an answering flare of awareness in his own eyes. He straightened, the denim of his jeans stretching across his powerful thighs, and Sierra’s gaze was drawn to the movement, to the long, fluid length of his legs, the powerful breadth of his shoulders. Once he would have been hers, a thought that had filled her with apprehension and even fear. Now she felt a flicker of curiosity and even loss for what might have been, and she quickly brushed it aside.

The man was handsome. Sexy. She’d always known that. It didn’t change who he was, or why she’d had to leave.

‘Come and get warm.’ Marco’s voice was low, husky. He gestured her forward and Sierra came slowly, reluctant to get any closer to him. Shadows danced across the stone hearth and her bare feet sank into the thick, luxuriously piled carpet.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured without looking at him. The tension in the room was thick and palpable, a thousand unspoken words and thoughts between them. Sierra stared at the dancing flames, having no idea how to break the silence, or whether she wanted to. Perhaps it would be better to act as if the past had never happened.

‘When do you return to London?’ Marco asked. His voice was cool, polite, the question that of an acquaintance or stranger.

Sierra released the breath she’d bottled in her lungs without realising. Maybe he would make this easy for her. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘Did you not think you’d have affairs to manage here?’

She glanced at him, startled, saw how his silvery eyes had narrowed to iron slits, his mouth twisted mockingly. His questions sounded innocuous, but she could see and feel the latent anger underneath the thin veneer of politeness.

‘No. I didn’t expect my father to leave me anything in his will.’

‘You didn’t?’ Now he sounded nonplussed, and Sierra shrugged.

‘Why would he? We’ve neither spoken nor seen each other in seven years.’

‘That was your choice.’

‘Yes.’

They were both silent, the only sound the crackling of the fire, the settling of logs in the grate. Sierra had wondered how much Marco guessed of her father’s abuse and cruelty. How much he would have sanctioned. The odd slap? The heaping of insults and emotional abuse? Did it even matter?

She’d realised, that night she’d left, that she could not risk it. She’d been foolish to think she could, that she could entrust herself to any man. Leaving Marco had been as much about her as about him.

‘Why did you come back here, to this villa?’ Marco asked abruptly, and Sierra looked up from her contemplation of the fire.

‘I told you—’

‘To pay your respects. To what? To whom?’

‘To my mother. Her grave is in the family plot on the estate.’

He cocked his head, his silvery gaze sweeping coldly over her. ‘And yet you didn’t return when your mother was ill. You didn’t even send a letter.’

Because she hadn’t known. But would she have come back, even if she had known? Could she have risked her father’s wrath, being under his hand once more? Sierra swallowed and looked away.