Roel treated her to an appreciative appraisal. ‘Now that, with your quick temper, I can picture.’
Some of her fierce tension ebbed. ‘Why are the maids packing for me? Are we going somewhere?’
‘The Castello Sabatino.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE Castello Sabatino was a medieval castle that stood guard over a remote wooded valley that lay close to the Italian border. A still lake of crystal-clear water lapped the foot of the massive stone walls, acting like a mirror for the bright blue vault of the sky and the snow-capped majesty of the alpine peaks. Both the setting and the building were breathtakingly beautiful and Hilary was not at all surprised that Roel had been prepared to marry her to ensure that he kept his ancestral home.
The helicopter that they had boarded in Geneva landed on a purpose-built helipad. Having lifted her out with easy strength, Roel engulfed her hand in his to walk the last few yards. She watched him frowning into the sun and lowering his proud dark head as though the bright light were a knife.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ she asked worriedly.
‘I’m a little tired, nothing more.’ His dark, deep drawl was brusque, dismissive and laced with all the annoyance of a male unaccustomed to anything less than a full quota of buoyant energy. ‘I went into my office at five this morning—’
Hilary stopped dead. ‘You did…what?’
‘I am the Sabatino Bank. It cannot easily manage without me,’ Roel countered drily. ‘I had to familiarise myself with current events, ensure that business could continue without me and deal with what I did not understand.’
‘I can’t believe that less than twenty-four hours after your doctor told you to rest you went into that wretched bank at the crack of dawn!’ Hilary fired at him in shaken reproof.
‘I did what had to be done.’
She studied his hard jaw line. It might as well have been etched in stone. He was so stubborn she could have screamed. In the unforgiving strong light his olive complexion had an ashen quality. He looked exhausted.
‘You really don’t have any respect for your own health.’
As Roel strode beneath the ancient arched entrance to the Castello Sabatino he shot her a hard-edged impatient glance. ‘Did you imagine that I could simply stage a vanishing act? Were I to absent myself from the bank without an explanation, it could cause a panic that would ultimately damage business.’
‘So what was your explanation?’ Hilary prompted, watching what she was quite certain were lines of pain settle between his pleated ebony brows.
‘I said that the impact of the accident had left me suffering from double vision and that I must rest my eyesight. In that way I was able to access useful information from my executive assistants without creating comment.’
‘Really, really sneaky,’ Hilary conceded in grudging admiration.
‘I added that I would take advantage of the enforced break from work to enjoy a vacation with my wife.’
‘My goodness…were people surprised?’ Hilary asked, dry-mouthed, for Umberto’s dumbfounded response to the news that Roel had a wife had given her the impression that with the exception of his aunt, Bautista, he had indeed kept their marriage a closely guarded secret. So any seemingly casual reference to his suddenly having acquired a wife would certainly have startled his staff at the bank.
‘Their surprise was understandable,’ Roel fielded. ‘I am not in the habit of taking time off. By the way, you should have discussed barring all my phone calls with me.’
Hilary went pink. ‘You would’ve insisted that you could handle them.’
‘In the short term, it was good thinking.’ Acknowledging the respectful greeting of a middle-aged housekeeper whom he addressed as Florenza, Roel stilled at the foot of a mellow stone staircase. ‘But don’t take action again on my behalf without prior consultation,’ he concluded with measured censure.
Stung by that reproof, Hilary opened her mouth on heated words.
Roel pressed a taunting forefinger against her parted lips and she shivered, suddenly achingly conscious of the size and power of his lean, hard physique that close to her own. ‘You know I’m right—’
‘No, I don’t know that you’re right…what’s wrong?’
Roel was staring down at her with brooding concentration. For perhaps a tenth of a second, his lush black lashes swept down and he frowned before lifting them again to focus on her with dazed and questioning force. ‘You ran out into the street after me…’
In the wake of that strange statement, Hilary regarded him with incomprehension. But when he pressed an uncertain hand to his damp brow, she reacted. ‘Roel? For goodness’ sake, come and sit down—’
‘No…’ Roel incised almost roughly and he closed an imprisoning arm round her narrow waist instead. ‘We’ll go upstairs and talk about this in private.’
‘Talk about what?’ she whispered, her nerves leaping about like jumping beans.