Vettori's Damsel in Distress

CHAPTER FOUR

‘When things are bad, send ice cream. With hot fudge sauce, sprinkles and mini-marshmallows.’

—from Rosie’s Little Book of Ice Cream

‘MADONNA...’

Dante caught her before she hit the floor and carried her through to the living room. He placed her gently on the sofa, her head flat and her feet propped up on the arm, and knelt beside her until she opened her eyes.

For a moment they were blank as she tried to work out what had happened, where she was.

‘Angelica...’ She blinked, focused, saw him, tried to sit up but he put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Lie still for a moment. Breathe...’

He’d thought she was pale before but now she was white, emphasising the size of those extraordinary silver fox eyes, the splendour of her luscious crimson mouth.

‘What happened?’

‘You fainted.’

She groaned. ‘How unutterably pathetic.’

‘The combination of shock and a lack of food,’ he suggested. Then, as she made an effort to sit up, ‘No. Stay there. I’ll get you some water.’

‘Dante—’ For a moment she challenged him, but then sank back against the cushion. ‘Why do you call me Angelica?’

‘Geli is not a name for a grown woman.’

‘Oh...’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘Right.’

Once he was sure that she was going to stay put, he fetched a glass of water from the kitchen. Angelica had dropped her phone and, as he bent to pick it up, he saw why she’d fainted. The con artists had cleaned her out.

He half expected her to be sitting up, fretting when he returned but she was exactly where he’d left her, flat on her back but with one arm thrown across her eyes. The gesture had pulled up her dress, exposing even more of her thighs, and it was a toss-up whether he gave her the water or threw it over himself.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘take a sip of this.’

She removed her arm, turned her head to look up at him. ‘Your first aid skills are being thoroughly tested this evening.’

‘I may have been a bit slow on the kissing-it-better cure,’ he assured her, ‘but I remembered the head down, feet up recovery position for a faint.’

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