The Sicilian's Bought Cinderella

It disturbed him how much he’d resented having to let go of her hand.

This was an act they were performing. They were passing themselves off as a couple so madly in love they were going to marry. Holding hands in these circumstances was a must, but he could not understand why it felt so damn good.

The staff member behind whom they walked came to a stop and checked the clipboard in her arms. ‘This is your room.’

‘Mine or Aislin’s?’ he asked.

She looked again. ‘Mr Dante Moncada and Miss Aislin O’Reilly,’ she read, then put her hand in her pocket and removed a large set of keys, from which she carefully selected one, unlocked the door and walked in. ‘Do you require a maid to unpack for you?’ She indicated their suitcases set side by side by the four-poster bed.

Dante caught Aislin’s furrowed, silently alarmed gaze.

‘No, thank you. We will manage.’

‘Where’s my room?’ Aislin asked the moment the woman shut the door behind her.

He closed his eyes and swallowed back the thuds of his rampaging heart. ‘This is it. We’ve been put together.’

CHAPTER NINE

‘WHAT?’ AISLIN’S SHOCKED voice echoed in his thumping head. ‘We have to share? But you said...’

‘That we would be given separate rooms?’ He laughed morosely. ‘I thought we would be.’

He heard her take a long inhalation. ‘Maybe all the other guest rooms were taken, seeing it was such short notice.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be.’ Her own laugh was equally morose. ‘Cristina probably thinks she’s doing us a favour. I’ll sleep on the chaise longue.’

‘No.’

‘Well you can’t sleep on it—you’ll never fit with those long legs.’

‘I’ll take the floor.’

‘And get a bad back?’ She opened the oak wardrobe then began opening all the drawers of the dresser.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Looking for spare bedding.’ She muttered something that sounded like a curse then rose to her full height and raised her shoulders before facing him. ‘There isn’t any. We can’t ask the staff for some in case it gets out and the other guests start gossiping that we don’t sleep together, which will defeat every purpose of me being here. We’ll just have to share the bed.’

She said it in a blasé fashion but her movements had become stiff, her gait awkward. She lifted her suitcase and put it on the bed. ‘Did you want to use the bathroom before I get changed?’

Immediately his mind careered to imagining her tugging those jeans down her thighs and stepping out of them...

He replied through teeth he’d clamped together. ‘No, go ahead. We’ve time for you to have a shower or a bath if you want.’

She shook her head violently. ‘The steam will frizz my hair up and I haven’t time to de-frizz it. The stylist gave me a load of stuff to put into it but I’m sure it’ll take me ages to do.’ She pulled out a deep red dress with pretty navy flowers patterned over it and gave it a shake, then unfolded three further outfits still encased in their protective wrapping. ‘Hopefully these won’t be too creased, but if they are I’m sure housekeeping will have an iron I can use.’

He had never heard her talk so quickly or avoid his gaze so much.

Aislin, he realised, was more rattled than he was about the sleeping arrangements.

Her skittishness had the effect of calming his own heightened emotions.

‘If your clothes need pressing then housekeeping will do that for you.’ He took the outfits from her. While he hung them in the wardrobe, she scooped a handful of lacy underwear and shoved them in a drawer, then scurried into their private bathroom with her selected dress and a large bag.

He heard the door lock and muttered a curse that he suspected was much stronger than the one she had used.