The Virgin's Sicilian Protector

This time he did push her away from him, so forcefully that she would have stumbled if he had not tightened his grip on her shoulders, and she feared her bones might snap.

‘So, what is your plan, Arianna?’ he drawled, no sign in his voice or his sardonic smile of the tumultuous passion that had exploded between them seconds earlier. ‘I suppose you think you can accuse me of sexual harassment to give you a legitimate reason to fire me? But it won’t wash, princess. It will be your word against mine.’

She sensed the suggestion in his scathing tone that his testimony would hold more credence than hers. After all, she was the darling of the tabloids, renowned for her outrageous behaviour with a string of celebrity lovers. It took every ounce of her willpower not to let him see how much his jibe had hurt, or how vulnerable she felt, still reeling from the kiss that patently had not affected him.

‘Of course I wouldn’t make a false allegation,’ she said stiffly. ‘It would be a terrible thing to do when too many women genuinely suffer sexual harassment.’

He looked at her curiously, as if she had surprised him, but then he shrugged. ‘So why did you come on to me? I am under no illusions about you, Arianna. I warned you not to play games and I meant it. Your father hired me to be your bodyguard and I will not allow you to distract me. Nor, I should make it clear, do my duties include keeping you entertained with sex. So, if that is what you were hoping for when you kissed me, you’re out of luck.’

Arianna wished that the ground would open up and swallow her, but pride came to her rescue and she gave a tinkling laugh as brittle as thin ice on a frozen pond. ‘I can hardly bear the disappointment,’ she said with a theatrical pout. ‘At least you don’t need to worry about drowning in the pool, Mr Vasari. That over-inflated ego of yours should help to keep you afloat.’

* * *

Santino dropped his hands down to his sides and clenched them into fists as Arianna spun away from him and marched across the terrace. Well done, he congratulated himself sarcastically. It was crucial that he gained her trust but all he had succeeded in doing was alienating her.

If he had any sense he would tear his gaze away from the perfect, peachy roundness of her bottom cheeks sassily displayed by her daring choice of swimwear. But his common sense, like his self-control, had gone up in flames when she had put her mouth on his. It occurred to him as he stared at her delectable derriere that it was unlikely she would actually swim in that miniscule bikini and that its purpose instead was to allow her to flaunt her incredible body.

She stepped through the open glass doors into the house and only when she had disappeared from view did he realise that he had been holding his breath. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, but even though she was no longer standing in front of him the lingering scent of her perfume—an intriguing blend of exotic floral notes and something spicier and boldly sensual—inflamed his senses.

Why the hell had he kissed her? Telling himself that technically she had kissed him first did nothing to appease his conscience. He should have pulled his mouth away from hers, but there had been something curiously innocent about the tentative brush of her lips over his that had surprised him. Because he knew all about Arianna Fitzgerald—and ‘innocent’ was not a word ever associated with her.

The truth, Santino acknowledged grimly, was that his usual, logical thought process had deserted him the instant he’d set eyes on her and he’d felt a jolt of lust in his groin so intense that it had hurt. It had felt like a punch, as though he’d been winded and he couldn’t catch his breath.

His reaction puzzled him. He was no stranger to beautiful women and he enjoyed an active sex life uncomplicated by emotional entanglements. The women he dated were intelligent professionals—elegant, discreet and unlikely to be plastered over the gutter press half-undressed, he thought, glancing with distaste at the picture of Arianna on the front of the newspaper.

Everything he had heard about her reinforced his belief that she had been over-indulged by her long-suffering father. Every picture of her when she was actually dressed showed that she had expensive tastes in designer clothes, shoes, handbags and fabulous jewellery—presumably all paid for by her doting daddy. In short, Arianna was the kind of woman he despised, but frustratingly his libido did not care that she was a spoilt socialite and his erection was uncomfortably hard pressing against the zip of his jeans.

The turquoise pool looked inviting with sun glinting on the surface. Earlier he’d pulled on a pair of swim-shorts beneath his clothes, thinking there would be time for him to swim while he waited for Arianna to wake up. His jaw clenched as he remembered her remark that she liked to sunbathe naked. Knowing that Arianna was a flirtatious tease did nothing to ease the throb of his arousal. Cursing himself for his weakness, he stripped off his clothes and dived into the pool. He swam as if his life depended on it—thirty lengths, fifty—until his shoulders ached and his chest burned and his rampant libido was subdued.

* * *

Later he made a detailed check of the villa’s grounds and was concerned by the lack of security. The butler had explained that he locked the front door at night but that Arianna liked to leave her bedroom window open while she slept. The easy access to Villa Cadenza from the private beach was another problem. It would be feasible for kidnappers to climb over the wall and jump down onto the terrace. They could take Arianna at gunpoint through a door in the wall that led to the beach and force her onto a waiting boat without any of the villa’s staff noticing or raising the alarm.

As Santino walked into the house he heard the sound of a car’s engine. Hurrying back outside, he glimpsed the tail lights of the sports car that he’d seen parked in the garage disappear out of the courtyard. He knew the car belonged to Arianna. Damn her! Her insubordination was infuriating, but he was more furious with himself for not keeping a closer eye on her.

‘Did Arianna say where she was going?’ he asked Filippo.

The butler shook his head. ‘No, but she often visits the beauty salon in the town, and Giovanni’s Bar next to the beach is a popular venue where she meets her friends.’

There was also a four-by-four parked in the garage and fortunately the keys were in the ignition. Santino jumped in and fired the engine. The road outside the villa was not overlooked by any other houses for part of the way down the mountain and he was worried that the kidnappers could be waiting to ambush Arianna as she drove away from Villa Cadenza. Moments later he drove out of the gates and was soon hurtling around the hairpin bends, speeding along the road that wound down to the coast.

Despite his simmering temper he could not fail to appreciate the spectacular scenery. The towering grey cliffs were covered with lemon groves that sloped down to the coast. Dominating the skyline was the azure Tyrrhenian Sea sparkling in the bright summer sunshine. The coastline here was similar to his birthplace and the place he thought of as home, Sicily. The difference was that Positano, the same as most of the other towns on the Amalfi coast, had become a chic and expensive tourist destination favoured by the glitterati.

Rounding another bend, the town was revealed in all its picturesque beauty. Pink, peach and terracotta-coloured houses clung perilously to the cliffs and looked as though they were in danger of tumbling into the sea. At the heart of the town stood the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, with its eye-catching dome made of blue, green and yellow tiles. But Santino’s eyes were fixed firmly on the silver sports car ahead of him on the road. He saw the car’s brake lights flash on as Arianna’s progress was impeded by a bus trundling along in front of her.

There was no possibility of overtaking on the narrow road and it was another five minutes before the bus pulled into a bus stop. After another mile or so Arianna turned up a narrow road and Santino followed her. Most of Positano was a pedestrian zone and tourists had to park in one of the garages on the edge of the town. But she drove down a back street where there was parking for local residents and swung her car into a vacant space.

Santino parked behind the open-top sports car and jumped out of the four-by-four. He strode up to the car, leaned over and snatched the key out of the ignition before Arianna had a chance to stop him.

‘You really are the most tedious man,’ she said languidly, although he sensed the effort it took her to control her temper.

‘That’s not the impression you gave when you kissed me earlier.’ He felt a spurt of satisfaction when she bit her lip, and dismissed the odd idea that her air of vulnerability was not an act.

Her eyes were hidden behind oversized designer sunglasses and he was frustrated that he had no idea what she was thinking. She looked expensively chic in tight white jeans and a blue-and-white-striped Breton top. A red silk scarf kept her long chestnut hair back from her face. Her lips were coated in scarlet gloss and he felt a crazy urge to kiss her until he had removed all traces of lipstick from her mouth.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming into town?’

‘Because I’m going to the beauty salon,’ she told him in a bored tone, nodding towards a shop with the name Lucia’s Salon over the door. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard while I’m having my nails done.’ She threw her hands up in the air. ‘Look around you. There are no paparazzi here to report on my wild behaviour that might embarrass my dear daddy.’

She started to walk towards the salon and glared at him when he fell into step beside her. ‘You can’t come in. If you insist on staying, you can wait outside, but don’t blame me if you get bored, Mr Vasari.’

‘I doubt I could ever get bored around you,’ he said drily. ‘And I thought we had agreed to drop the formality, Arianna.’

She spun round to face him and jabbed her finger into his chest. ‘I didn’t agree to anything, certainly not to my every move being watched by one of my father’s sycophants. I demand that you give me some space.’

Despite his intention to try and win her trust, Santino felt riled by her withering tone. He was tempted to tell her that, far from being her father’s sycophant, Randolph had begged him to be her bodyguard.

‘You’re not really in a position to make demands, are you, Arianna? If I were you I would remember that your father promised to stop your allowance if you refuse my protection. How would you survive?’ he taunted. ‘It’s not as if you have a successful career to fund your extravagant lifestyle. You simply leech off your father.’

‘If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,’ she snapped, jabbing her finger into his chest a second time.

‘Do that again and I guarantee you won’t like the consequences.’

‘What will you do?’ Her husky voice was laced with amusement. ‘Will you put me across your knee and spank me?’

Desire kicked hard in his groin at the erotic images her words evoked. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. ‘Would you like me to? Are those the kinds of games you like to play?’ he drawled, fighting an unbearable temptation to pull her into his arms and cover her sulky mouth with his. She was the most infuriating woman he had ever met, and he could not comprehend why she made him feel more alive than he had felt in years.

He stretched out his hand and removed her sunglasses. She blinked in the bright sunshine and the flecks of gold in her brown eyes gleamed with temper.

‘Give those back immediately.’

He made a tutting sound. ‘Try saying “please”. Didn’t your parents teach you better manners when you were a child?’

Something flickered in her gaze that surely could not be sadness, Santino told himself. Arianna was a beautiful, rich heiress and she wanted for nothing.

‘My mother cleared off to the other side of the world with her lover when I was eleven,’ she told him in a hard voice. ‘My father didn’t know how to deal with my “difficult behaviour” when I cried every night. He was so desperate to send me back to boarding school that he drove me there himself—the first and last time he took any interest in my education. I didn’t see him again for months. Every school holiday, he used to send me out to Villa Cadenza with a nanny.’

She snatched her sunglasses out of Santino’s fingers and replaced them on her nose. ‘The only thing I learned from my parents is to put me first, and look after myself, because no one else gives a damn.’

CHAPTER THREE

ARIANNA WISHED SHE could speak Italian better as she tried to explain to the receptionist in the beauty salon that, if the tall man who was standing in the street came into the salon and asked for her, she was to tell him that Miss Fitzgerald was having her legs waxed in one of the treatment rooms.

‘You have appuntamento?’ the girl asked, studying the appointments book on her desk.

‘No.’ Arianna opened her purse and took out a wad of notes. ‘I haven’t booked any treatments. I just want you to pretend to the man outside that I will be here in the salon for a few hours—per favore,’ she added, remembering Santino’s jibe about her manners.

She handed the confused-looking receptionist the money before she walked to the back of the building and exited into a small courtyard that she had discovered by chance on a previous visit to the salon. A door at the rear of the building adjacent to the beauty salon led to a flight of stairs, and at the top she entered a large workroom. There were several tables with sewing machines and around the room were tailor’s dummies draped with material.

‘So you are here at last. But you are late.’ The woman who greeted Arianna was small and round, with jet-black hair swept into a severe bun and fierce black eyes. ‘If you want to learn to sew from the best seamstress on the Amalfi coast, I expect you to be here at the time we arranged.’

‘I’m sorry...mi dispiace,’ Arianna said meekly.

Rosa handed her a length of muslin. ‘Probably you have forgotten everything I taught you last summer, but we will see. You can begin by showing me that you can construct a French seam.’

Arianna nodded and immediately set to work. For years she had fought against the idea of becoming a fashion designer. She had been determined to distance herself from her father, not follow in his footsteps. But a year ago she had acknowledged that ignoring her creativity was making her unhappy. She had a natural flare for designing and sketching clothes, and she loved playing around with different materials, textures and colours. She knew instinctively when an outfit looked right or wrong, the importance of how a material draped and the need for precision tailoring to create a truly beautiful garment.

Last summer while she’d been staying in Positano she had commissioned an evening gown from local designer and dressmaker Rosa Cucinotta. Rosa had shown her around her workroom and it had been a defining moment for Arianna, confirming her decision that she wanted a career in fashion design. But although she had good drawing skills she needed to learn how to sew, make patterns and know how to construct a garment.

She had dismissed the idea of applying to study fashion design at a college in England for fear that the press would find out. It was important to keep her hope of one day owning her own fashion label a secret, especially from her father. If she did make a successful career, she wanted it to be on her own, without Randolph’s money or influence.

She had persuaded Rosa to give her sewing lessons, and when she’d returned to London last autumn she had studied with Sylvia Harding, a famous fashion designer who, before she’d retired, had been a couturier to royalty. During the six months that Arianna had spent in Australia, she had worked with a couple of funky young designers in Sydney. For the first time in her life she had had to work hard, and she’d loved it.

For the next hour she concentrated on pinning and cutting the material, before using a sewing machine to make a neat seam that she hoped would be up to Rosa’s high standards. Finally she looked up, feeling reasonably happy with her efforts. She was sitting next to the window that overlooked the street and had a perfect view of Santino seated at a table outside the café opposite the dress shop and the beauty salon next door.

The constant presence of a bodyguard following her around was going to make it difficult to spend a few hours every day at Rosa’s workshop, she thought with a frown. It would be easier if she told Santino that she was having sewing lessons, but she was reluctant to reveal her dream of establishing her own fashion label.

Her stomach squirmed with shame as she remembered how he had called her a leech who relied on her father for money. At the age of twenty-five she knew she should be independent, although many of her peers in her social circle—the offspring of super-rich parents—lived off trust funds and vast inheritances. But she wanted to be her own person—whoever that was, Arianna thought wryly. She had spent her teenage years and early twenties hating her father, but the result was that she’d become someone she did not like or respect.

As she stared at Santino she felt that strange breathless sensation that only he had ever induced in her. His long legs were stretched out in front of him and his impressive biceps showed beneath his short-sleeved T-shirt. She had noticed earlier that he had a tattoo of a snarling tiger on his upper right arm. He glanced at his watch. No doubt he was bored waiting for her but he would have to get used to it. It occurred to Arianna that she would not need to fire Santino—all she had to do was behave so badly that he was bound to resign from his post as her bodyguard.

‘Are you sewing or admiring the scenery?’ Rosa asked drily.

Arianna quickly jerked her head round and felt her face grow warm when the dressmaker moved closer to the window and looked at Santino. ‘Is he your lover?’

‘No! Definitely not.’

‘A pity.’ Rosa shrugged her ample shoulders. ‘He is very handsome.’ She picked up the length of fabric that Arianna had been working on and inspected the neat seam. ‘Eccellente. You have improved a lot since last summer when you began sewing lessons with me. You still have much to learn, of course, but I can see you have a natural skill.’

‘Thank you.’ Arianna blushed again. She was not used to being praised, which was partly her own fault, she acknowledged. As a child she had sought attention from her various nannies by misbehaving, and she’d done the same with her father. At least when Randolph had been angry with her it meant that he’d actually noticed her. But mostly her father had treated her with crucifying indifference on the rare occasions when they met. He travelled extensively for his work, and Arianna had felt the same sense of abandonment that had been so devastating when her mother had left her behind to start a new life in Australia.

Meeting Celine in Sydney after they had not seen each other for more than a decade had been a strange experience, Arianna mused. She had been shocked to discover that she had a half-brother, Jason, who was nearly fifteen. Her mother had explained that she’d been pregnant by her Australian lover when she’d left her husband and daughter. She had wanted to take Arianna to Australia with her, but Randolph had refused to allow it, and he had offered Celine a large amount of money in return for her agreement not to seek custody of Arianna or contact her.

Celine had sacrificed a relationship with her daughter and accepted the pay-off from Randolph, which had allowed her to bring up her son. Arianna understood her mother’s reasons but it hadn’t hurt any less to hear that she had been used as a pawn in her parents’ bitter divorce.

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