A Passionate Deceit

‘Babs, you know I wouldn’t dream of writing anything like that,’ protested Tessa hoarsely.

‘Yes, I do,’ sighed Babs, tossing aside the file. ‘Which is why I’m certain that, even if you succeed in writing up some surreptitious article on Sandro, you haven’t a chance in hell of having it printed.’

‘Why?’ demanded Tessa hotly. ‘Because my allpowerful stepfather will make sure I don’t?’

‘Grow up, Tessa,’ sighed Babs, rising. ‘You never had any real interest in becoming a journalist until you discovered Charles was so against it. For as long as anyone can remember, all you ever wanted was to be a nurse. I know how hard it was on you having to give it up and how difficult it must be having to think in terms of a different career—but are you really certain that journalism is that career?’ She walked over to Tessa and gave her an affectionate hug. ‘I’m off to pack and have a shower,’ she said. ‘I’ll see you for supper…Oh, yes, and I’ll let you have that book I was telling you about—I’ve finished it.’

Tessa flopped down on to the bed once the door had closed behind Babs, gazing dejectedly around the beautiful, wood-panelled room that had earlier so enchanted her. The thought of her own duplicity had racked her with guilt, she admitted to herself, but, even having confessed, she didn’t feel any better. Babs was right—right about everything! Her only ambition had been to become a nurse, and she had sailed through her written exams and had high hopes of doing the same in her practical training until the antiseptics she was coming into increasing contact with had triggered off an allergic reaction in her hands. And Babs was right about her having ogled Sandro Lambert! It was round about the time that her unfortunate tendency towards allergy had manifested itself that so too had her equally unfortunate tendency towards being attracted to completely the wrong sort of man. After the first two—lame, but dauntingly tenacious ducks—it was those dangerously attractive and often virtually unattainable men on whom she had invariably set her sights. Men like Sandro Lambert, she thought with a sudden prickle of apprehension…well, not exactly like him, she corrected herself as it occurred to her that she had never in her life met a man with the presence, the almost palpable animal magnetism that this man possessed.

She gave an exasperated shake of her head. There was only one word to describe a woman who could feel as strongly attracted as she had towards a man who hadn’t even bothered to acknowledge her existence, let alone exchange a civil word with her—and that word was stupid! Yet nothing she had done warranted the way he had behaved, so why on earth should she feel any guilt? If Sandro Lambert was to be her stepping-stone into journalism, she intended stepping without a qualm!

‘It’s still open,’ she called out at the sound of a knock on the door. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking,’ she announced as the door opened.

‘Is that so?’

The words, and the appearance of Sandro Lambert in the doorway, brought a shriek of horror from her.

‘I thought you were Babs!’ she accused, leaping from the bed.

‘I can’t think why,’ he murmured, a look of amusement flitting over his otherwise coolly expressionless face. ‘There’s something I’d like to discuss with you,’ he continued. ‘I’m in the Donegal suite at the end of the corridor—I use the sitting-room as my office.’

‘I’d be useless as a secretary, if that’s what you want to discuss,’ she called after him as he turned to leave. What on earth was she saying? she asked herself incredulously the instant the words were out—what more could she have possibly asked for, as far as her proposed article was concerned, than to observe him at work from virtually by his side?

‘How refreshingly modest of you,’ he drawled, ‘especially when you haven’t the slightest idea what would be required of you.’

She bit back a groan of frustration as the door closed behind him, then hesitated for only the briefest of moments before dragging it open and racing down the corridor after him.

‘It’s just that I don’t know anything about film work,’ she excused herself breathlessly when she had caught up with him.

‘A point we had already established,’ he observed drily, unlocking the door to the suite and holding it open for her with a mocking bow.

She entered the small hallway and on through the doorway before her into the sitting-room, her eyes discounting the clutter littering just about every available surface. It was a beautiful, high-ceilinged room, its exquisite furnishings matching the same high standards she had noticed throughout the hotel.

‘It’s a lovely place,’ she blurted out, the breathlessness in her words betraying her stifling lack of ease. ‘The hotel, I mean…and its surroundings.’

‘Ireland is a very beautiful country,’ he murmured, flashing her a slightly startled look before clearing the debris from one of the chairs and motioning her to be seated. ‘Do you know the country?’

‘No, this is my first visit,’ replied Tessa, her mental state approaching that of a nervous pupil about to be interrogated by the headmaster as she sat down.

‘Tell me, Tessa,’ he murmured, removing a bundle of papers from the armchair opposite hers before sitting down on it, ‘what do you do?’

‘Do?’ she echoed, suddenly distracted by the memory of pictures she had seen of Leona Carlotti, the extraordinarily beautiful Italian actress who was his mother, and wondering why she hadn’t spotted the obvious family resemblance until this very moment.

‘Yes—do,’ he snapped, then made a visible effort to curb his impatience. ‘Babs mentioned your having stepped in to help her out at the last minute—so I take it you’re not in the costume design business?’

‘No—I was made redundant just after Christmas,’ she said, her own reason warning her only a fraction after his angrily tensing jaw had that she hadn’t actually answered his question.

‘But you can do shorthand and typing,’ he stated in tones that revealed how little used he was to curbing his impatience.

Tessa nodded, her jittery state of mind not in the least helped by sudden thoughts of her present love-hate relationship with her infuriating stepfather. It had been Charles who had suggested a secretarial course once she had been forced to abandon nursing, unblushingly hinting that such skills would be invaluable in the journalism in which she had begun showing an interest and to which, even then, he had probably already decided to block her entry.

‘Well, as you may have gathered, there won’t be nearly as much wardrobe work as originally anticipated,’ continued Sandro, hooking one long, denim-clad leg over an arm of the chair and drumming tanned fingers impatiently against the other.

She could almost sympathise with his irritation, she thought wretchedly, knowing how she would have felt if obliged to contend with the monosyllabic half-wit she must appear to be.

‘So, you’ll have quite a bit of time on your hands,’ he continued, the strain of the unfamiliar control he was exercising over himself grating in his tone.

‘I’d be happy to help you in whatever way I can,’ Tessa blurted out, marginally succeeding in her battle to get a grip on herself. ‘But you’ll have to bear in mind my complete ignorance of filming…and all the technical terms associated with it.’

‘I’ll keep that uppermost in my mind,’ he murmured, exasperation, relief and amusement mingling in his tone. ‘Perhaps it would help if I gave you a brief summary of the film and explained my reasons for coming here to shoot the finishing touches?’

‘Yes—I’m sure it would!’ exclaimed Tessa, a little of her customary confidence returning as relief inexplicably flooded her.

He hadn’t really got an accent, she decided some time later, when her ears had become more attuned to that attractively husky voice; it was more that he would now and then express himself in a way that wasn’t typically English, despite his flawless command of the language. As she listened she found her mind sifting back through the details she had hurriedly researched on his background. Needless to say, it was his famous mother who was most written about in connection with him. His English father, she vaguely remembered, was something to do with international law and appeared to shun publicity. Perhaps it was the fact that he had been brought up in Italy that accounted for those slight, though most appealing irregularities in his use of English.

‘We used the studios for the flashbacks to the central character’s medieval ancestor,’ he was saying. ‘We’d virtually completed shooting when I had to come over here for a couple of days in connection with my next film. I stayed in this hotel and it wasn’t until I took a walk along the beach that it hit me I’d found something I wasn’t even looking for—the exact location in which to place the flashback scenes.’

‘What do you mean by “place” them?’ asked Tessa, puzzled. ‘If you’ve already filmed it all and have no cast here—’

‘I don’t need the cast,’ he laughed. ‘Well, no more than the three Irish stage actors I’m using. What I want is to capture the brooding magnificence of a landscape virtually untouched by time and link it in with what we’ve put together in the studio.’ The unguarded look on Tessa’s face brought an almost teasing smile to his lips. ‘You didn’t think that what comes up on the screen is filmed in step by step sequence, did you?’

‘Of course not,’ she muttered, while a panic-stricken voice from within demanded to know how she expected to compile a clandestine, professionally detached appraisal of the working habits of a man whose voice brought her out in goose-bumps and whose smile had the power to turn her legs to jelly. ‘It’s a shame you won’t be able to do all you wanted to,’ she said, striving to sound relaxed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘All those costumes that Babs had sent over—you’re not using them now.’

‘There’s a wedding banquet in one of the flashback scenes. I had considered using the townspeople as extras to depict the contrasting poverty between the guests and the medieval villagers, but I’ve decided against it.’

‘You mean this ghastly flu epidemic has decided for you,’ countered Tessa, relieved to hear herself at long last beginning to sound relatively normal.

‘No—I mean that I have decided against it,’ he informed her coolly, swinging his leg from over the side of the chair and rising with a languid grace to his feet ‘Once I make up my mind I want something, I get it—that’s the way I operate.’ For all the honeyed warmth of their colour, there was a coolness to match his tone in the eyes that gazed down at her. ‘I would suggest you retire early tonight—we get started before dawn.’

Only the thought of what she stood to gain preventing her from giving vent to her fury and telling him what he could do with his wretched job, Tessa leapt to her feet.

‘Right, I’ll be there!’ she flung at him, the fact that she hadn’t the slightest idea where ‘there’ was not even occurring to her in her haste to escape.

Her eyes, now almost navy with the anger seething within her, were trained solely on the doorway through which she would soon mercifully pass, which was why she failed to spot the pile of papers he had earlier tossed on the floor and which now sent her catapulting towards him as her foot skidded across them.

His move to catch her was purely reflex, his tall body hurling itself forward at a precarious angle as his arms reached for her.

Having to force her body forward against the momentum of his to prevent them both from toppling over, Tessa clung on to him for dear life, one arm hooking round his neck while the other clutched at his shoulder.

‘Very clumsy,’ he drawled, his arms holding her against him like steel clamps while his body set about regaining its balance.

‘You’re the idiot who littered the floor so dangerously!’ she accused indignantly.

She was conscious of hearing her own gasped intake of breath as she looked up into that grimly unsmiling yet disturbingly attractive face hovering scant inches above her own. Then her only awareness was of the excitement stirring within her, numbing her mind to shocked disbelief with the stark sensuality of what was awakening in her.

‘You surely can’t be complaining—not when it presented you with this opportunity to throw yourself into my arms.’ He altered his hold on her, his fingers biting painfully into her flesh as he grasped her by her upper arms. ‘Well, now that you’re in them,’ he mocked softly, ‘do they live up to your expectations?’

‘Expectations?’ squeaked Tessa, almost speechless with fury. ‘If I were in the habit of throwing myself into the arms of complete strangers—which I’m not—I most certainly wouldn’t have picked on an ill-mannered, swollen-headed, arrogant—’

His mouth silenced the remainder of her tirade and, seconds later, shock was the only excuse her stunned mind could come up with for the ease with which his lips had managed to prise open her own and then coax them into what could only be described as enthusiastic participation in the most disturbingly arousing of kisses she had ever experienced.

The detached manner in which her mind was making no attempt whatever to monitor her actions only struck her as alarming when, with no recollection of when or how it had happened, she discovered her head to be cupped in large, deceptively gentle hands and her freed arms wrapped tenaciously around his body.

‘No!’ she howled, tearing herself free and scrubbing angrily with the back of her hand against her wildly throbbing mouth.

‘Play with fire and you’re bound to get burned,’ he intoned mockingly. ‘Though, I warn you, it will be more than your fingers you’ll get burned if you tangle with me. I could tell you I’m off women at the moment—which I am. I could also tell you that you’re far too young—which you are. And, more to the point, I could tell you that you’re not my type—which you most definitely are not’ His hand snaked out and grasped her by the wrist as she made to turn and run. ‘I hope you’re taking all this in, Tessa,’ he warned with soft menace. ‘Because, despite all those things I could tell you, I have—as I’m sure you’ve heard—an insatiable appetite for women…and I just might decide to amuse myself at your expense.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘JUST stay close by me and if there’s anything I need you to do I’ll let you know,’ said Sandro as Tessa stumbled after him down the winding path to the beach in the virtual dark of the bitterly cold morning.

To think that she had spent half the night tossing in sleepless dread of this encounter, she marvelled disgruntledly, whereas he obviously hadn’t lost any sleep over what had happened between them on their last meeting.

She had been relieved when he hadn’t appeared for dinner the previous evening, but had soon noticed that someone else was also missing.

‘That woman we saw earlier—isn’t she staying here?’ she had enquired of Babs.

‘You mean Angelica Bellini,’ her cousin had replied with a grin. ‘And what you’re really asking me is where are she and Sandro.’

‘No, I’m—’

‘And, given what you’re up to,’ Babs had continued relentlessly, plainly enjoying herself, ‘that’s not the sort of question I’m prepared to answer.’

‘You know perfectly well my intention is to do a serious article on his professional habits, not something salacious on his love life.’

‘What, in the hope that Ray Linton will print it?’ Babs had chortled. ‘Who do you think you’re kidding?’

There was no sense to be had from Babs when she was in that irritatingly flippant frame of mind, so she had let the subject drop. But her cousin’s teasingly exaggerated secrecy had left her with the impression that the director could well be romantically involved with the elusive Angelica, which, if true, and given his earlier behaviour, indicated that he more than deserved his infamy as a womaniser.

‘Are you sure you’ll be warm enough dressed like that?’ asked Sandro, eyeing her slim, jeans-clad legs when he turned and waited while she negotiated the last of the rock-hewn steps on a particularly steep and twisting section of the path.

‘Quite sure…Good heavens!’ she gasped as the beach below came into sight—a beach that was a hive of industry, littered with men and equipment of every shape and size and bathed in the illusion of bright sunlight by a blinding array of arc lamps. ‘I’m not sure what I expected,’ she whispered dazedly.

‘But nothing like this,’ he laughed, the indulgence in his tone surprising her almost as much as the sight below. ‘Come on, let’s get you down there and introduced to the grim realities of producing fantasy.’

It was only the bitter cold of the January morning that brought any grimness to the proceedings, she had decided a couple of hours later when, chilled to the marrow, she was taking a mental inventory of the meagre wardrobe she had brought with her. The only answer she could think of, to prevent a repeat of the physical agonies she was experiencing, was to wear everything she had brought in layers next time. But not even the piercing bitterness of the wind, nor the fitful drizzle of rain, could detract from her feelings of exhilaration. She was utterly absorbed in what was going on around her, fascinated beyond her every expectation—even though all she was doing, she realised, was watching them line up the shots they planned taking of the incomparably beautiful scenery.

‘I’m sure you must be finding all this rather boring,’ Sandro called, his broad shoulders hunching against a sudden scurry of wind as he strode back up the beach towards her. ‘But you’ll soon get the hang of what’s going on.’

Tessa smiled and shook her head as he reached her. ‘Of course I’m not bored,’ she protested, then felt her heart skip several beats. The wind dancing through the inky darkness of his uncovered hair lent an air of almost piratical raffishness to the already dramatically exotic figure he cut. ‘I’m finding it all fascinating,’ she added unsteadily, thrown by the overwhelming impact he was suddenly having on her.

‘But we’re not doing anything,’ he laughed with a flash of faultlessly formed white teeth. ‘We’re—’ He broke off, the laughter dying to grimness on his face. ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ he demanded icily.

‘I—I’m sorry,’ she stammered, colour flooding her cheeks. ‘It’s just that I was thinking how like a pirate you looked, walking up the beach—not that I have much idea what a real pirate would look like.’

‘A pirate?’ he enquired, the grimness fading from him. ‘A pirate in designer ski-wear?’

‘I’m sorry—it was rude of me,’ muttered Tessa, limp with embarrassment and feeling only marginally relieved that he had accepted her outlandish excuse for so openly gawping at him.

‘You don’t have to be sorry,’ he laughed. ‘Paolo will love that; he’s convinced pirates must have operated from here in the olden days—’ He broke off and bellowed something in Italian to the man standing behind a camera on the shoreline, receiving only an impatiently dismissive wave of the hand in reply.

‘When I say we’re doing nothing,’ Sandro chuckled, ‘that’s not quite accurate. What’s happening is that Paolo’s artistic temperament is being indulged.’ He smiled as Tessa cast a bemused look in the direction of the cameraman. ‘There’s something ticking away in his head as he’s shooting the bay right now. I’ve little idea what it is, but I’ve told him to get on with it anyway.’

‘But…’ began Tessa, then thought better of it.

‘But what?’

‘It’s just that I thought a director—well, directed, and that everyone else carried out his instructions.’

‘That’s how it is, for the most part,’ he replied easily. ‘But I’m not given to playing God with crews the calibre of mine. When a man of Paolo’s genius behind the camera has a hunch, it’s more often than not an inspired hunch—I’d be a fool not to indulge him.’

Tessa was mentally nodding as she returned her gaze to the camera. Almost the first thing she had noticed was the atmosphere of relaxed camaraderie in which so many different nationalities interacted. But the apparent effortlessness of such interaction was, she now realised, due to the taut professionalism of the highly skilled men involved and their obvious respect and affection for the man whose creative genius co-ordinated their skills.

‘Do you always work with the same crew?’ she asked.

‘I tend to pick my crews from a fairly narrow circle,’ he replied. ‘Unfortunately there are times when lack of availability forces me to compromise—though where cinematographers are concerned, if Paolo or a guy by the name of Umberto Bellini wasn’t available, I’d probably choose to wait till one or the other was.’

‘Umberto Bellini—wasn’t he the man hurt in an accident on one of your films?’

‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘Poor Umberto—’ He broke off, a guarded expression coming to his face before, to her complete bewilderment, he began speaking in Italian.

It was only when she realised he must be addressing someone else that Tessa turned round, appalled awareness flitting unguardedly through her mind of how ghastly she must look as she saw approaching the tall figure of the woman she had fleetingly glimpsed the previous day.

‘Have you two met?’ asked Sandro, a discernible edge to his tone as he switched back to English.

‘No, we haven’t,’ said the woman, her smile accentuating the striking beauty of her face as she removed a gloved hand from beneath the elegant tartan wrap draped around her. ‘It’s so good to find another woman here,’ she murmured in perfect, slightly American-accented English as she shook hands with Tessa. ‘You must be about the only female crew member not to have succumbed to this dreadful flu.’

‘Tessa isn’t a member of the crew, she’s just kindly agreed to fill in for Carla,’ said Sandro before Tessa had a chance to speak. His mouth tightened to a grim line when Angelica made a teasing-sounding comment to him in Italian. ‘I don’t think Tessa speaks Italian,’ he stated with brusque pointedness.

‘Oh, I am sorry!’ exclaimed Angelica, placing a placating hand on the sleeve of Tessa’s rain-soaked anorak. ‘That was terribly rude of me.’

‘Not at all—’ began Tessa, only to be cut off by Sandro.

‘Tessa was just enquiring after Umberto,’ he said. ‘Did you manage to get through to him last night?’

‘I did, and I’ve lots of messages for you from him—but I can tell you all that later,’ replied Angelica, then turned to Tessa. ‘You’re one of the few friends of my brother’s I haven’t met.’

‘Oh, I don’t know him!’ exclaimed Tessa. ‘It’s just that my cousin told me about the accident he had. I do hope he’s better.’

‘He’s recovering nicely,’ murmured the woman, her eyes returning once more to the man beside them. ‘Darling, isn’t it time you had a break? You look frozen,’ she chided softly.

‘I’m fine,’ he stated abruptly, then glanced at Tessa who was attempting to distract herself by trying to remember what it was like to have feeling in her legs. ‘But you’re not—are you, little one?’ He took her gently by the shoulder and turned her to face him, frowning as he examined her bedraggled appearance. ‘I think it’s about time you returned to the hotel and got yourself thawed out. I shan’t be needing you this afternoon; I’ve a meeting lined up with the actors we’re using.’

‘But I’m fine—honestly,’ protested Tessa, not in the least happy with the idea of being given special treatment. ‘There’s no reason why I shouldn’t stay on till the rest of you have finished.’

‘I’ve just given you a reason,’ snapped Sandro, ‘so do as you’re told.’

Annoyed by his tone, Tessa was about to make an angry retort when it suddenly hit her how obtuse she was being. Special treatment didn’t come into it—he wanted her out of the way now that Angelica had arrived, and she had been too stupid to take the hint.

‘I…well, this afternoon I’ll go into town and get some notepads and pencils,’ she muttered lamely, then turned to Angelica. ‘It was nice meeting you.’

‘We’ll be running into one another all the time now,’ smiled Angelica. ‘We could have tea later.’