‘You think I need the money.’ The realisation seemed for some reason to amuse him.
Her eyes slid from his.
‘Don’t worry, I’m a modern man, my male pride can take your pity. Tell you what—how about a compromise?’
‘What sort of compromise?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘You buy me dinner.’
‘Dinner!’ Her startled eyes flew to his.
He nodded. ‘Yes, dinner, at a place of my choice. That’s settled, then.’
‘Settled? I didn’t say yes.’
‘And you didn’t say no. I’ll be in touch about our date.’
‘It’s not a date,’ she protested weakly.
‘Look, I don’t mean to hurry you, but I think I’m about to be thrown out.’ He leaned past her and opened the door. He was so close that she could smell the shampoo he used. She closed her eyes as a rush of hormones made her head spin.
When she opened them his face was still close. Their eyes locked and Erin felt things that were way too complicated to be explained by hormones alone.
‘Yes,’ she whispered in a voice that seemed to be coming from a long way off. ‘Yes, I will buy you dinner.’
Taking her chin in his hand, he brushed his lips against hers. The contact was so soft that she barely felt it, but she melted inside.
‘My name, cara, is Francesco, and I’ll be in touch very soon.’ He nudged the door so that it swung open and leaned back in his seat.
Conscious of his eyes, Erin fumbled with her belt and jumped out, her knees trembling as she walked towards the building.
He’s going to forget you exist the moment he drives away, said the voice in her head.
In retrospect it would have been better that he had.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE minor road Francesco now found himself on was narrow and congested. It was fifteen minutes and several miles later before he found a convenient spot to pull over, a bus stop just on the edge of a village.
There was no breeze and without the air-conditioning running the heat inside the car began to build. Ironically it had been hotter in London when he’d landed than it had been in Rome when he had left. He shrugged off his jacket and wound down the window of the car. It was the first spot of fresh air he’d got since disembarking from his private jet.
Flexing his broad shoulders to relieve the tension that had crept into the muscles, he ran a hand down the curve of his angular jaw, frowning as he felt the dark growth that already cast a visible dusky shadow over his lower face.
As his long brown fingers tugged at the knot of his silk tie he withdrew the phone from his pocket, but before he had flicked it open his attention was captured by raucous cries outside.
He turned his head automatically in the direction of the noise; his dark, curling lashes brushed against perfectly sculpted cheekbones against which his olive-toned skin pulled taut.
His dark glance was disinterested as he looked across to the bus shelter, where a trio of youths were gathered around a girl.
From where he sat Francesco could not see her face, but he could see that she had red hair, the fiery copper-type red that looked like burnished gold in sunlight.
He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring in self-derision as he recognised his total inability to control the flood of images that invaded his head. Vivid images that drew his thoughts inexorably backwards until the world around him became less real than that searing kiss. His breath deepened and slowed as the memories took hold.
Erin’s soft body was in his arms again, warm, pliant and supple. It was so real he could smell her hair and feel the thud of her heart through the hand he cupped over one small but perfect breast.
Her half-closed passion-glazed eyes, drowning blue and filled with total surrender as she looked up at him, her parted lips a seductive invitation as, warm and sweet-smelling, her breath fluttered against his mouth.
Their date was not going well. During the preceding hours he had thought about kissing her, but not like this! This unpremeditated kiss had been generated partly from sheer frustration. His plan, if such a crazy idea could be couched in those terms, was unravelling before him and, instead of reacting like nine out of ten women, Erin had laughed and acted as though the whole situation were some kind of joke.