Defying Her Billionaire Protector
Nico leaned back in his chair, his phone pressed to his ear. ‘Are you positive?’
‘Yes,’ Bruno said. ‘The guy was in Vienna on business all day Friday. And my gut says it’s not him. He’s settled, content. Devoted to his wife and kid. The wife’s a looker, too.’
Nico ignored that last comment. He ran his hand through his hair, across the back of his neck. A long, restless night had left him edgy. Irritable. ‘Forensics?’
‘Waiting on a DNA profile from the hair strand found in the bedroom.’
‘Chase it up. Today. Then contact those fools from the polizia and check their records for a match.’ He drummed his fingers on his desk, cast a brooding look out of the window. ‘And the neighbours?’
‘One left to interview. Female. In her fifties.’
‘Okay. Bien. Review that list of artists I emailed to you yesterday and get—’ Nico broke off, sat forward, then surged up out of his chair. What the hell? ‘Bruno, I’ll call you back.’
He slammed down the phone, strode through the house and out onto the limestone terrace. Raising a hand to shield his eyes against the midmorning sun, he stared beyond the pool to the cliff’s edge—and felt his heart punch into his throat.
He paused, drew a deep breath and loosed his voice on a furious bellow. ‘Marietta!’
She didn’t hear him—or chose to ignore him. The latter, most likely. Anger spiked and he spat out a curse.
He veered onto a little-used dirt path that meandered through tall grasses and clusters of wild lavender and rosemary. The wheels of her chair had left tracks in the dirt. Tracks that led directly to the edge of the plunging forty-foot cliff.
‘Marietta!’ he shouted again, and knew she’d heard him this time because her shoulders flinched. And yet she didn’t so much as turn her head.
Another few strides and the pump of adrenaline through his veins gave way to relief. She was sitting farther back from the edge than he’d thought. He reached her side, balled his hands lest he curl them over her slender shoulders and shake her.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
She looked up, her expression faintly astonished. ‘Enjoying the scenery,’ she said, her air of calm making his jaw clench.
He jammed his fists in his jeans pockets. ‘Is there something wrong with the view from the terrace?’
‘Of course not. But I sat on your terrace all day yesterday. I need a change or I’ll go mad. Besides...’
She rolled forward and he pulled his hands out of his jeans so fast he heard one of the pockets rip.
‘I’ve been dying to look at the beach down there.’
He stepped in front of her. ‘That’s far enough.’
She huffed out a breath. ‘Seriously, Nico. You’re as bad as my brother. What do you think I’m going to do? Push myself over the edge?’ She craned her neck to peek around him. ‘Are those steps cut into the cliff?’
He ground his molars together. ‘Oui. But they’re extremely old. Probably eroded. Unsafe.’
‘Probably? You mean...you don’t know?’ Her eyebrows arched. ‘As in...you’ve never been down there before?’
He folded his arms over his chest. ‘It’s just a beach.’
‘But it’s your beach...and it’s a beautiful beach. Why would you not go down there?’
A vein throbbed in his temple. Mon Dieu. Had he ever met a woman so infuriating? So unpredictable?
He let his gaze rake over her, from her high glossy ponytail to her sun-kissed shoulders, all the way down to the pink-painted toenails poking out of her strappy white sandals. Her white knee-length shorts left her pale, delicate shins visible and her stretchy pink spaghetti-strap top made her breasts look nothing short of magnificent.
How could a woman look so alluring and be so annoying all at
the same time?
He brought his gaze back to her face. Colour flared over those high cheekbones and a pulse flickered at the base of her throat. Their eyes met and hers widened a fraction—and he wondered if she felt it too. That pulse of heat in the air. That pull of attraction.