At The Sicilian Count's Command
For one thing, after living with two sisters and then sharing a house with three other girls while at university, it was lovely to at last have some space of her own. And she enjoyed her job far too much to even think about giving it up.
Just because she stayed with Stephen some weekends, it didn’t mean she had to be kept by him, too.
‘You’ve been a charming and attentive hostess this evening, darling. Thank you.’ The warmth of Stephen’s smile took away some of the sting of Wolf Gambrelli’s recent conversation.
‘You’re welcome.’ Angelica returned his smile, relieved that the evening was obviously coming to an end. ‘I think I’ll go up to bed now—if no one minds…?’
‘Not at all, darling,’ Stephen assured her. ‘I could do with an early night myself.’
She instantly frowned her concern. ‘Are you—?’
‘I’m fine, Angel. Just a little tired, that’s all,’ Stephen dismissed easily. ‘I hope you don’t mind the two of us making an early night of it, Wolf?’ he added ruefully to the other man.
Wolf’s elbows were resting on the table-top, his laced fingers having clenched tightly together as he listened to their conversation. At the same time he knew it was utterly ridiculous for him to take exception to the fact that Stephen and Angelica obviously couldn’t wait to be alone together.
Even if the vivid images that thought brought to his own mind were guaranteed to ensure that Wolf’s own night would be a sleepless one!
‘I’m not as young as I thought I was,’ Stephen added wryly.
‘None of us are,’ Wolf bit out tautly, sure that sharing a bed with the beautiful and sensuous Angelica couldn’t be in the least restful.
‘Goodnight, Wolf,’ Angelica murmured as she stood up. ‘I hope you sleep well.’
His eyes narrowed with suspicion as he searched the beauty of her face for some sign of mockery—some indication that she knew there was no way he was going to sleep at all tonight, when his mind would be full of images of her long silky legs wrapped around another man’s body as he took her to the heights of ecstasy.
Those misty grey eyes returned his gaze with steady regard, giving away none of Angelica Harper’s inner thoughts, and he could find no sign of mockery in the polite smile that curved the sensuality of her lips.
Which wasn’t to say there wasn’t any—Angelica Harper might just be a consummate actress!
‘I’m sure that I shall,’ he returned dryly. ‘It has been a—pleasure meeting you, Angelica,’ he added throatily, before he could stop himself.
She continued to look at him keenly for several seconds, before giving a slight inclination of her head. ‘Thank you. Coming, Stephen…?’ She turned to invite softly.
‘I’ll be right behind you,’ he promised warmly.
Wolf’s gaze remained intently on Angelica as he watched her leave, her long dark hair moving silkily down the length of her spine, emphasising the soft curve of her bottom as her hips moved gracefully, her legs smooth and shapely…
‘How much of a pleasure was it meeting Angel, Wolf…?’ Stephen murmured.
Wolf’s gaze returned sharply to the older man as Angelica closed the dining room door softly behind her, taking most of the warmth in the room with her. Wolf immediately masked his expression as he saw the searching curiosity in Stephen’s eyes.
‘As you said earlier, Stephen, Angelica is very beautiful,’ he replied tersely. ‘Where on earth did you find her?’ he prompted conversationally.
The older man shrugged. ‘I didn’t find her. She found me,’ he explained ruefully. ‘My lucky day, hmm?’ he added.
‘Indeed,’ Wolf acknowledged noncommittally.
‘I had better go up now, otherwise Angel will only worry,’ Stephen told him with an affectionate grimace. ‘But we’ll talk tomorrow, Wolf?’
Wolf’s brows quirked. ‘About your ulterior motive for inviting me here, perhaps…?’ he said speculatively, knowing he was no more in the mood for a business discussion now than Stephen obviously was.
Having always put his business life first and his personal life second, Wolf was very aware that his mind had been full of thoughts of Angelica Harper this evening—that images of her in Stephen’s bed later this evening had kept intruding. As they still were!
Did she sleep naked? Or did she perhaps wear something satiny and alluring with which to tempt her ageing lover?
Just thinking of that long swathe of silky dark hair being the only covering to those uptilted breasts, leaving her slender waist and curvaceous thighs bare, was enough to drive every other thought from Wolf’s mind.
‘Yes,’ Stephen confirmed with a sigh, now looking as weary as he had claimed he felt. ‘I’m sorry to keep putting it off like this, but I—’ He shook his head. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow,’ he promised.
Wolf was too restless to even bother undressing when he reached his own room a few minutes later, let alone attempting to go to bed, and decided to go back downstairs to the library and pour himself a glass of the brandy he would find in a decanter there. He might even get a little drunk. Anything to stop him from thinking of Angelica Harper in Stephen’s bed.
Not very likely, he acknowledged grimly as, quietly leaving his bedroom, he saw Angelica leaving a bedroom further down the hallway. Stephen’s bedroom? Wolf wondered as he stood transfixed. If so, she hadn’t stayed long with her lover, both men having come upstairs only ten minutes or so ago.
He had an almost immediate answer to his curiosity as Angelica, wearing a pale grey silk wrap that clung to the curves of her stunning body, paused outside a bedroom door across the hallway from the one she had just left, knocking softly.
Stephen opened the door almost instantly at the sound of that knock, had Angelica slipped past him into the bedroom before Stephen closed the door behind her.
Wolf’s breath left his lungs in a shaky sigh as he leant back against the wall, instantly tormented by thoughts of what was happening in Stephen’s bedroom, of Angelica in the other man’s arms.
And he knew that, brandy or not, there wasn’t a hope in hell that he would be able to sleep tonight!
CHAPTER TWO
‘AND to think I had stopped believing in mermaids long ago!’
Angelica gave a surprised start at the sound of that taunting voice—that familiar taunting voice. She instantly moved to tread water so she could turn and look at Wolf Gambrelli, who was standing by the edge of the swimming pool, looking down at her with broodingly dark eyes.
The luxury of having Stephen’s indoor pool to come down to at six-thirty in the morning had been one she hadn’t been able to resist when she’s begun staying here with him. An early-morning swim was part of her weekend daily routine now.
A swim that had always remained solitary until today. Stephen was usually already busy in his study at this time of the day, dealing with any e-mails or faxes that might have come in overnight.
The fact that she was only wearing a red bikini and her hair was slicked back wetly from her make-upless face after swimming her usual fifty lengths of the pool only increased her feelings of disadvantage. Wolf Gambrelli was dressed in a short-sleeved black shirt and tailored black trousers that did nothing to hide the powerful width of his shoulders, his tapered waist and long legs.
‘Count Gambrelli,’ she greeted politely.
‘Angel,’ he returned, the expression in those dark brown eyes unreadable.
Angelica’s cheeks flushed slightly at his easy use of Stephen’s name for her. ‘If you’re looking for Stephen—’
‘I’m not,’ he rasped dismissively.
Then what was he doing here? The fact that he was fully dressed didn’t seemed to indicate he had come down for a swim…
‘Breakfast is being served in the dining room if you’re—’
‘I’m not hungry, either, Angel,’ Wolf Gambrelli interrupted, coming down on his haunches at the poolside to hold out a hand to her. ‘At least, not for food…’ he added enigmatically.
Angelica frowned as she looked at that hand: his fingers were long and tapered. She wasn’t sure she wanted to get out of the water and reveal herself in her skimpy bikini—and she was very sure she didn’t want to put her hand in Wolf Gambrelli’s!
Which was pretty ridiculous; all she had to do was remember that Wolf Gambrelli was exactly the sort of man she had no intention of ever being attracted to, and that should be enough to completely nullify these feelings of physical awareness.
She reached out and took his hand, and noticed the muscles moving in his shoulders as he pulled her effortlessly out of the water to stand beside him.
Too close beside him, she instantly realised, her breath catching in her throat as his deep brown eyes darkened appreciatively and his gaze moved slowly down the length of her body, lingering on the creaminess of her breasts before going down to the hollow curve of her stomach and the gentle swell of her hips.
Angelica swallowed hard, knowing that telling herself this man was everything she didn’t want in her life—a playboy and a womaniser—hadn’t worked. She was so very aware of the heat of his body, of the leashed power in his wide shoulders—of the fact that her own body had become warm from the appreciative caress in his eyes as he unabashedly looked his fill of her.
‘If you’ll excuse me, I usually have a soak in the hot Jacuzzi after my swim.’ She turned abruptly away to pick up her towel from the lounger, wiping the pool water from her face before wrapping the towel toga-style about her body.
‘Go ahead,’ Wolf drawled, having been unable to resist joining her when he’d returned from strolling in the garden before breakfast and seen Angelica Harper alone in the pool.
Wolf had noted the statuary when he’d entered the warmth of the poolhouse—goddesses, mostly—but none of them compared in beauty to Angelica Harper. He’d stood and watched her swim the length of the pool, her skin alabaster, the beauty of her face unadorned by make-up and dominated by those misty grey eyes surrounded by thick dark lashes.
If anything, completely stripped of any sophisticated adornment, she looked more beautiful this morning than she had last night!
He walked several feet behind her now as, after one more frowning glance up at him, she walked down the poolside to where steam rose invitingly from the ten-foot circular Jacuzzi Wolf had passed on his way in, a cascade of greenery shielding the tub from any prying eyes outside the poolhouse.
Wolf’s mouth tightened as he easily imagined Angelica and Stephen lazing naked in the steaming water before getting out and making love together.
In fact, his imagination had been working overtime since he’d first set eyes on Angelica Harper!
As his sleepless night testified, he acknowledged self-derisively.
Not that one sleepless night was a problem. No, it was the fact that he found Angelica Harper just as sensually disturbing this morning as he had last night that was the problem.
Because, after witnessing Angelica going to Stephen’s bedroom last night, there was no doubting the intimacy of their relationship!
‘Mmm,’ Angelica murmured appreciatively as she sank beneath the waves of bubbling water, sitting down on one of the underwater tiled benches and resting her head back against the side to look up at the broodingly silent Wolf Gambrelli. ‘You really should go for a swim and then come for a dip in here, Wolf,’ she told him brightly as she luxuriated in the Jacuzzi. ‘It’s absolutely wonderful!’
‘I prefer to watch you,’ he assured her, and again he got down on his haunches to pick up a strand of the long dark hair she had lifted out of the water and draped over the side.
Bringing him close, Angelica noted nervously.
Too dangerously close, she acknowledged, as her breathing suddenly felt constricted, and her gaze was caught and held by the caress of those long fingers on the thick strand of her hair.
‘Do you love him?’
She raised startled eyes to Wolf Gambrelli’s face. The harshness of his tone was matched by the hard glitter in his dark eyes and the tight clenching of his jaw. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she replied uncertainly.
His hand tightened on the thick strand of her hair and he twisted it around his long fingers. Repeatedly. So that Angelica was forced to lift her head, which brought her face so close to his she could now see the flecks of gold amongst the brown in his shrewd eyes.
‘I asked if you love Stephen,’ Wolf Gambrelli repeated. ‘Surely that’s a simple enough question to answer?’ he prompted at her silence. ‘Either a yes or no will do,’ he added, when she still didn’t answer.
Well, no…no, it wouldn’t. Her relationship with Stephen was much more complex than that. They were still getting to know each other. And while she might care for Stephen, she wasn’t sure she understood the life he had led these last thirty years.
Wolf’s jaw clenched as she continued not to reply to his question, his eyes becoming glacial, his hand tightening on the silkiness of her hair. His scrutiny moved down as he caused her throat to arch and her breasts to thrust forward, her hardened nipples clearly outlined against the soft material of the red bikini top.
He knew a sudden hunger to see those breasts bared, to know whether her nipples were a dark, tempting brown or a dusky, inviting pink, to touch and taste them until he heard her throaty groans of pleasure.
‘Count Gambrelli, you’re hurting me!’ Her surprised protest broke into his erotic imaginings.
Wolf frowned darkly as he looked down at her, his frown deepening as he realized he had tightened his hand in her hair and twisted her head back.
He gave a self-disgusted snort as he unravelled that silky tress from his fingers before straightening, thrusting his hands into his trouser pockets as he looked down at her, dark storminess in his eyes now. ‘Stephen is obviously besotted with you—’
‘I don’t believe that is any of your business, Count Gambrelli.’
‘I find it…surprising that a young and beautiful woman like you would give herself to a man for his money,’ he opined.
Angelica stopped rubbing the sore area of her scalp. ‘“Give” myself?’ she repeated slowly.
His mouth twisted derisively. ‘I saw you go to Stephen’s bedroom last night, so I think it is a little late for you to attempt to play the outraged virgin!’
He had seen her?
‘And just how did you see me, Count Gambrelli?’ she demanded, having not seen him in the hallway the previous night. ‘Did you stand in the shadows and spy on us?’ she scoffed, and she surged up on a wave of bubbles in the Jacuzzi, then stood up to wade across and climb out of the tub. She grabbed up her towel to wrap it around herself before turning to face him, her cheeks flushed with anger and her eyes glittering with the same emotion. ‘Well?’ she challenged furiously.
What on earth was he doing? Wolf wondered with inward self disgust.
Had his heated response to this woman’s sensual beauty made him forget all discretion?
‘No, of course I was not spying on you,’ he denied coldly. ‘I decided to go back downstairs for a brandy—’
‘And by pure coincidence it happened to be at the time I went to Stephen’s bedroom?’ she concluded. She gave a disgusted shake of her head. ‘I don’t believe my relationship with Stephen is any of your business, Count Gambrelli.’
‘Stephen is my friend—’
‘I don’t believe friends spy on each other!’ Angelica challenged him again.
‘I have told you I was not spying—’
‘I don’t believe you,’ she said flatly.
Wolf stiffened at this denial, nostrils flaring. ‘Do you really think that I would willingly make myself a witness to Stephen’s infatuation with you?’ he refuted.
The angry flush deepened in her cheeks. ‘Stephen’s feelings for me, and mine for him, are absolutely none of your concern—’
‘Not even if I believe he is making a fool of himself over a woman young enough to be his daughter?’ Wolf came back swiftly.
Angelica became very still, lowering her lashes as a shield to the shock she knew would be in her eyes.
Because, without realising it, Wolf Gambrelli had inadvertently hit on exactly what her relationship was to Stephen. She was his daughter. His illegitimate daughter. Born to Kathleen Singer eight months after her affair with the married Stephen Foxwood had ended.
Angelica had always known that her mother’s husband, Neil Harper, wasn’t her real father—she had been a precocious five years old when Neil and her mother were married. But it had never mattered. Neil had always treated Angelica exactly the same as his own daughters by Kathleen—Saffron and Rosemary.
Although Kathleen had told Angelica the name of her real father when, aged twelve, she had asked about him, Angelica’s curiosity hadn’t been strong enough at the time for her to want to trace him. Especially when, at eighteen and a little more curious, she had discovered that Stephen was still married to Grace.
But a year ago she had seen Grace’s obituary in the newspaper—had learnt that Stephen and Grace’s thirty-year marriage had been childless, which had reawakened Angelica’s own curiosity about the father she had never known.
A curiosity she had discussed with her mother and Neil before she had even attempted to see Stephen Foxwood. As she had known they would be, both Neil and Kathleen had been completely supportive of her decision to at least make contact with her real father and let him know that he did have a child after all—a daughter.
That first meeting between father and daughter had been extremely emotional…
It had been followed by further meetings, and by Angelica agreeing six months later to start occasionally staying with Stephen at weekends, so that they could get to know each other better.
They were still getting to know each other…
And now this man—this Wolf Gambrelli, this arrogant Sicilian count—had come along and passed judgement on a relationship he knew absolutely nothing about!
She and Stephen had agreed from the onset that for the foreseeable future their relationship would remain private between the two of them. A secret that Stephen had obviously kept even from his close friend Wolf Gambrelli. Resulting in this supercilious man making assumptions about their relationship—insulting assumptions.
Angelica didn’t believe for a moment that Wolf Gambrelli’s comments about their assumed relationship were out of concern for Stephen. She had seen the searing way Wolf Gambrelli had watched her every movement last night. And again, this morning, she’d seen the desire in his eyes when he looked at her, and had known that he was pursuing self-interest rather than concern for his friend.
A self-interest that was going nowhere as far as she was concerned. Wolf Gambrelli was just a younger version of Stephen. And while she might forgive Stephen all his past indiscretions—simply because he was her father and she was growing to love him for that alone—she certainly wasn’t stupid enough to become involved with a man who was just as emotionally unreliable!
‘Do you have nothing to say in your defence?’ Wolf Gambrelli broke into the lengthy silence.
Angelica drew in a controlling breath before raising her lids to look at him scornfully. ‘I’m not on trial, Count Gambrelli.’
‘You are playing with the emotions of a man I consider to be a good friend as well as my business partner—’
‘Stephen is a big boy, Count Gambrelli,’ she told him firmly.
‘I’m sure he doesn’t need you to intercede on his behalf!’
‘Stephen doesn’t seem to see you in the way that I do,’ Wolf grated harshly.
She raised one dark, mocking brow. ‘And just how is that, Count Gambrelli?’
Wolf’s jaw clenched, his frustration with this situation growing. Having spent most of the night thinking of this woman, imagining her naked and wanton in another man’s arms, he should never have come in here when he saw her alone in the pool—certainly should never have begun this present conversation.
He was making his own attraction to Angelica far too obvious.
And that wasn’t a situation that sat comfortably on his usually self-assured, emotionally self-contained shoulders!
‘Admittedly you seem cleverer than most, by keeping your apartment and your job, and maintaining your independence,’ Wolf admitted. ‘But as that only seems to have made Stephen even more besotted with you, I have no doubt that he will very soon insist that you change that arrangement!’
‘Really?’ Angelica Harper came back derisively. ‘Thank you for sharing that information with me, Count Gambrelli.’ She gave a sharp inclination of her head. ‘Now, if you will excuse me…? I find the air in here rather—oppressive!’
Wolf wanted to reach out and stop her from leaving. Wanted to grasp both her arms and shake her. Wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her until she agreed to leave Stephen and come to him…!
This realisation was shocking, totally at odds with his usual casual and unpossessive attitude towards women, and all he could do was stand and watch as Angelica walked away from him.
No doubt with the intention of telling her ‘besotted’ lover exactly how he had just insulted her!
Which meant not only had he made his own interest in Angelica obvious, but he had also probably just completely ruined a friendship and business partnership that had existed for years.
But there was no evidence that Angelica had mentioned the incident to Stephen when the three of them sat down to breakfast together an hour later, the older man seeming just as friendly and relaxed as he always was.
Angelica’s behaviour towards Wolf was a little frosty—understandably so!—but other than that she gave no indication that their conversation in the poolhouse had ever taken place.
Wolf studied her covertly: her long, silky hair had been washed and dried and pulled back in a ponytail, emphasising her high cheekbones and the delicate line of her jaw. Her only make-up appeared to be a lipgloss that matched the colour of the red tee shirt she wore with faded fitted denims, the swell of her breasts temptingly visible above its low neckline…
‘Would you go riding with Angel this morning, Wolf?’
His attention had been so intently focused on Angelica, on those tantalising glimpses of her creamy breasts, that for a moment Wolf found himself completely disorientated, frowning darkly as he turned to Stephen. ‘Sorry?’ he responded distantly.
Stephen raised silver-grey brows at Wolf’s obvious distraction. ‘I was suggesting you might like to go for a ride with Angel…?’
That was what he had thought the other man had said! Except he now realised Stephen had been talking about horses…!
The line Wolf’s thoughts had been following had taken him in another direction entirely!
‘Stephen, I really don’t think—’
‘Oh, come on, Angel.’ The older man cut chidingly through her protest. ‘Unfortunately I have a conference call to deal with this morning, and you know I don’t like you going out alone just yet. Angel has only just learnt to ride,’ he explained to Wolf.
But Wolf Gambrelli was the last person Angelica wanted to accompany her anywhere!
A fact Stephen should have been all too aware of after the conversation they’d had before breakfast, when she’d told him that she believed he ought to explain their real relationship to Wolf—that the Sicilan seemed somewhat confused as to her role in Stephen’s life.
She could have put it more bluntly than that, but was aware that Wolf Gambrelli had been a close friend of Stephen’s for years—that it wasn’t up to her to cast a shadow over that friendship. Stephen had assured her that he had every intention of talking to Wolf about their relationship this weekend. Just not yet, it seemed…
‘I’m sure Count Gambrelli has better things to do this morning than go riding with me.’ She spoke determinedly even as she shot Stephen an appealing glance, not sure she could take any more of Wolf Gambrelli’s insulting remarks without retaliating.