The Virgin's Sicilian Protector
She had woken a few minutes ago and her long, curling lashes had swept upwards as she’d surveyed him with her big brown eyes flecked with gold. He told himself he must have imagined he had glimpsed a haunting vulnerability in her gaze. The sulky pout of her mouth was too sensual, too provocative, for her to be anything other than the brazen temptress beloved by the tabloids and gossip columns.
Santino rubbed his hand around the back of his neck to ease a knot of tension in his muscles. His fingers automatically slipped beneath his shirt collar and traced the ten-inch scar from a bullet wound he’d received while he’d been serving in Afghanistan. The bullet had entered just below his shoulder blade and ripped open his body before exiting his neck at the base of his skull. It was incredible that he had survived, and, like the images in his mind of war, the scar would never completely fade. Nor would his guilt.
Eight years ago he had come close to death on a dusty, blood-spattered desert road. His life had been saved by his best friend and fellow SAS member, Mac Wilson, who had dragged him out of the line of fire. But that act of immense bravery had cost Mac his legs when an IED had exploded beneath him.
Restlessly, Santino stood up and walked across the terrace, aware that Arianna’s gaze followed him. His thoughts flew back to six months ago when Mac had requested his help to bring down a gang of drug smugglers believed to be responsible for his sister’s death. Mac was determined to bring Laura’s Italian boyfriend to justice but he had no proof that the man, Enzo, had supplied her with the cocaine which had killed her. Mac had asked Santino to infiltrate the gang who had links to the Calabrian mafia, known as the ’Ndrangheta. He had not needed to remind Santino that he was unable to do so himself because he was confined to a wheelchair.
Working undercover, Santino had discovered that, as well as drug smuggling, the gang had carried out several high-profile kidnappings and been paid millions of pounds of ransom money. Their next target was the English heiress Arianna Fitzgerald. The kidnappers had kept her under surveillance for some time and knew that she spent the summer at her father’s villa on the Amalfi coast. Santino had alerted the Italian police, but they had been unable to contact Arianna, so had warned her father of the threat to his daughter.
Santino recalled his meeting with Randolph Fitzgerald a week ago at the billionaire’s Kensington home Lyle House.
‘You are the best person to protect my daughter when she returns from Australia, Mr Vasari. Name your price. What will it take to persuade you to accept the job of Arianna’s bodyguard?’
Santino had been irritated by the other man’s arrogant assumption that everything could be bought and everyone had a price, but he guessed that those things were probably true for one of the richest men in England. ‘I am not a CPO,’ Santino had reminded Randolph. ‘I have given you the names of several security agencies who can provide close protection officers and will arrange for your daughter to receive round-the-clock protection.’
‘Your training and experience with the SAS gives me confidence that you will be able to keep Arianna safe. After all, it was you who found out that a mafia gang are planning to snatch her from my villa in Positano and demand a multi-million-pound ransom for her release. The Italian police are hunting for the gang but, until they are arrested, the threat to Arianna remains.’
It was true that the in-depth knowledge Santino had amassed about the gang members while he had pretended to be one of them meant he knew how they operated and could be one step ahead of them. But it was also true that he had no desire to babysit a spoilt socialite who, by her own father’s admission, was headstrong and difficult.
Even if only a fraction of the reports about Arianna Fitzgerald’s party lifestyle were true, she had earned her reputation as a good-time girl. For years her face and her stunning body—invariably poured into figure-hugging dresses—had regularly appeared on the front pages of the tabloids. One social commentator had sarcastically observed that Arianna would turn up to the opening of an envelope if it gave her an opportunity to pose for the cameras.
‘I left the army a long time ago and since then I have established a successful career. I don’t need a job,’ Santino had told her father bluntly. ‘It could be months before all the gang members involved in the kidnap plot are apprehended. I can’t take that amount of time away from my business interests.’
Randolph nodded. ‘I believe your chain of delicatessens under the brand name of Toni’s Deli has outlets across the UK and in many European cities. You sold the business eighteen months ago and since then you have concentrated on growing your investment portfolio.’
Noticing Santino’s surprise, Randolph had added drily, ‘I did my homework about you, Mr Vasari, and I have a proposition that might interest you.’
Despite himself, Santino had been curious. ‘I’m guessing that your proposition is dependent on my agreement to protect Arianna?’
‘Preparations are underway to float Fitzgerald Design on the stock market and a price has been set at thirty-five pounds per share.’ The fashion designer handed Santino a piece of paper. ‘The top figure is the valuation of the company, and the figure beneath it is the number of shares I am prepared to give you in return for you taking on the role of my daughter’s bodyguard until the kidnap threat is over.’
Santino lifted his brows when he looked at the figures. ‘It would cost you a lot less to employ a CPO through a security agency.’
‘As I have already stated, I believe you are the best man for the job.’ Randolph leaned back in his chair. ‘You are no doubt aware that my daughter frequently appears on the front pages of a certain type of newspaper. For some reason Arianna seems to enjoy courting notoriety, but the publicity surrounding her is likely to have brought her to the attention of the gang who intend to kidnap her. An important element of your job will be to shield her from the paparazzi and keep her out of the headlines.’
Randolph was clearly confident that the offer of a significant number of shares in Fitzgerald Design would persuade him to agree to be Arianna’s bodyguard, Santino had mused. Why shouldn’t he accept the shares as payment for protecting a pampered young woman who, quite frankly, sounded as if she was a pain in the backside?
Originally, he had set aside some time to try and help Mac gain justice—in some form or another—for his sister’s death. But Arianna Fitzgerald was being threatened by people who had no respect for life. The ’Ndrangheta were ruthless and Santino did not like to think what they might do to her if they seized her.
Randolph leaned across the desk and, as if he’d read Santino’s mind, said, ‘I have faith that your SAS training makes you the ideal person to protect my daughter. What do you say?’
There was only one thing that Santino could say. ‘All right, I will be Arianna’s bodyguard until the gang members have been caught.’
‘There is one problem.’ Randolph hesitated. ‘Arianna must not be told the real reason why I have hired you to be her protection officer.’
When Santino frowned the billionaire quickly continued, ‘My daughter is prone to volatile emotions. She has seen various experts—psychologists and so forth.’ He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘I don’t pretend to understand the reason for Arianna’s histrionics but a year ago she overdosed and spent several weeks in hospital. I am concerned about how she might react to the news that a mafia gang are planning to kidnap her. For the sake of her emotional stability it will be better if the gravity of the situation is kept from her.’
‘I will find it a lot harder to protect Arianna if she is unaware of the danger she is in,’ Santino had argued.
‘That is why I chose you for the job,’ Randolph replied slickly. ‘I suggest you allow her to think that the reason I hired you is because the launch of Fitzgerald Design as a public company will attract a huge amount of publicity. I trust that you will keep my daughter safe, Mr Vasari.’
Santino pulled his thoughts back to the present and cursed beneath his breath as he stared at Arianna’s scantily clad figure sprawled on the sun bed. His fantasy of undressing her and cradling her pert breasts in his hands would have to remain in his imagination. When he had been in the army a sense of duty and honour had been ingrained in him. Arianna’s father had put his faith in him, which meant that the delectable Miss Fitzgerald was definitely off-limits.
CHAPTER TWO
‘I’M AFRAID YOU can’t dismiss Mr Vasari,’ Randolph’s PA said in her calm, slightly patronising manner which Arianna found intensely irritating. ‘I have his employment contract which both he and your father signed here on my desk.’
‘I don’t care about any wretched contract.’ Too agitated to sit still, Arianna jumped up from the lounger. ‘This is intolerable. I don’t want a bodyguard. Randolph can’t force me to have one.’
‘Your father told me to inform you that if you do not accept Mr Vasari’s protection services then your monthly allowance will be stopped,’ the PA said crisply. ‘While you are in Positano, Mr Vasari will stay at Villa Cadenza and he will accompany you at all times when you go out.’
For a few moments shock rendered Arianna speechless. It was not the first time her father had used money to try to control her and anger surged like boiling lava through her veins. A year ago she had resolved to start her own fashion-design business so that she could earn her own money and not be reliant on the—admittedly generous—allowance that arrived in her bank account every month. However, her dream of being independent was as yet unfulfilled. Her lack of business skills and serious doubts that her designs were any good had prevented her from turning her dream into reality. Recently she had taken another step towards her goal, but she would need every penny of the money she had inherited from her grandmother to cover the start-up costs of establishing her business. It meant that she would have to rely on the allowance from her father for a little while longer.
But she would not tolerate having her privacy infringed by the constant presence of a bodyguard. Especially not the arrogantly self-assured man who had resumed his seat close to her sun bed. Santino leaned back in the chair and folded his arms behind his head while he trailed his eyes over her and looked unimpressed.
‘Unimpressed’ was not a reaction Arianna was used to receiving from men. She had attracted male attention since she’d been thirteen, when her body had started to develop from that of a skinny, coltish girl into a curvy young woman with a face and body that men lusted after. At first she had been scared by her power, but as she’d grown older she had learned that she could use feminine wiles to her advantage.
Against her will, her eyes were drawn to Santino’s and she glimpsed a fire in his brilliant green gaze that caused heat to unfurl in the pit of her stomach. But she told herself she must have imagined his predatory look when his eyes narrowed and his expression became unfathomable.
She turned away and spoke into her phone in a low tone, conscious that he was within earshot of her conversation. Monica had worked as her father’s assistant for years and guarded him fiercely. In truth, Arianna had often felt jealous of the close relationship the other woman had with him. ‘Please let me speak to Randolph,’ she muttered, feeling a familiar sense of betrayal at her father’s indifference.
‘I’m sorry. He has meetings for the rest of the day, but I’ll let him know that you want to talk to him,’ Monica said and ended the call before Arianna could respond.
Angrily she chucked her phone down on the sun bed but it bounced off the cushions and landed on the tiles with an ominous clatter. She picked it up and cursed when she saw a crack across the screen.
‘You want to be more careful.’ Santino’s mocking voice was the last straw and Arianna spun round and glared at him.
‘What I want is for you to get out of my house!’ she snapped, aware that she sounded petulant, but her anger was mixed with a growing sense of panic at the realisation that her father was once again trying to exert his influence over her life.
Santino strolled towards her. His steps were unhurried, yet Arianna sensed that if she bolted towards the house he would move with the deadly speed of a big cat pursuing its prey and catch up with her before she’d gone any distance.
‘This isn’t your house. Your father owns the villa, and more to the point he pays my wages,’ he drawled. ‘I have been given instructions from Randolph to stay close to you when you go out shopping or meet your friends in bars or at the beach.’
Santino had not specified that his orders were to monitor her behaviour and prevent her from attracting the paparazzi’s attention, but Arianna was certain that was the reason her father had insisted on her having a bodyguard. She knew that Fitzgerald Design was about to be floated on the stock market, and no doubt Randolph was anxious that she did not create any bad publicity before the launch that might affect the share price.
‘You’re loving this, aren’t you?’ she accused Santino angrily. Her fingers itched to slap the mocking smile off his handsome face.
He gave her an impatient look. ‘I can’t say that I relish the prospect of babysitting a spoilt socialite who has no idea how privileged she is. Your father believes that some of your friends are seriously into the drugs scene and he is concerned about you—’
‘My father,’ she interrupted him, ‘doesn’t give a damn about me and he is only concerned with protecting the Fitzgerald Design brand name. It’s true that I can’t force you to leave, but you will be housed in the staff quarters, and there is no reason for me to have to see you around the villa.’
‘Randolph invited me to enjoy the facilities at Villa Cadenza and make myself comfortable. I’ll be sleeping in the guest suite next door to your room.’ Santino grinned when she glared at him. ‘You’ll soon get used to me being around and who knows? You might even enjoy my company. I was thinking of having a swim in that amazing infinity pool. Do you want to join me?’
‘No,’ she said through gritted teeth. She wanted to scream and shout as she’d done as a teenager—when her temper tantrums had been worse than those of a three-year-old, the governess her father had hired after Arianna had been expelled from school had told her.
‘The truth, my dear,’ Miss Melton had said crisply, ‘is that the more you behave like a spoilt brat the less your father will want to have anything to do with you. Mr Fitzgerald is a very busy man and his time is precious.’
The implication had been that Randolph had more important things to do than pay attention to his difficult daughter. Nothing had changed, Arianna thought angrily. Santino Vasari’s job was not to protect her but to control her.
He had walked over to the pool and was standing with his back to her, perhaps admiring the clever illusion that the water was pouring over the edge of the terrace. Or maybe he was enjoying the view of the azure sea through the huge glass window in the wall, beyond which was the villa’s private beach. There was something so arrogant about his relaxed stance—as if he owned the place—that infuriated her.
Without pausing to think—a trait that had got Arianna into trouble on numerous occasions—she ran up to him and stretched out her hands to shove him into the pool. Her bare feet made no sound on the tiles, yet Santino must have sensed she was behind him, as he leapt out of her path with startling agility for such a big man. With nothing to slow her momentum she teetered on the edge of the pool and let out a yelp as she fell in and the water closed over her head.
She came up coughing and spluttering. The water wasn’t cold, but it jolted her to her senses, and for a moment she felt a familiar sense of panic before she realised that she could feel the bottom of the pool beneath her feet. She felt like an idiot for her childish behaviour, and Santino’s laughter told her that he shared her opinion. She waded over to the edge of the pool and clambered up the steps, ignoring the hand he held out to assist her.
‘I see you changed your mind about having a swim,’ he taunted.
Arianna stepped onto the poolside...and discovered that she was no longer wearing the sarong. It must have come loose in the pool and she saw the length of cerise silk floating in the water. ‘Go to hell,’ she snapped.
‘I’ve already been there.’ The amusement had disappeared from his voice. ‘Helmand province was a hell on earth that few people, especially someone as privileged as you, could begin to imagine. When I was in Afghanistan I saw good men, some of them my close friends, die in the line of duty.’
‘I don’t know much about the war in Afghanistan,’ she admitted.
‘No, I don’t suppose you do. Battle reports and casualty figures are not the sort of thing to feature in gossip columns, which I imagine is the only kind of news you read. But I assure you that hell would be a picnic in the park compared to desert warfare.’
Of course he had to be a war hero, Arianna thought, feeling another stab of shame that she had done nothing in her life to be proud of. Being chosen as the face of a perfume advertising campaign was utterly irrelevant compared to Santino risking his life on the battlefield.
She gathered up her long, wet hair in her hands and wrung out some of the water before she flicked it behind her shoulders. Santino made a rough sound, as if he had released his breath slowly, and when Arianna looked at him her gaze was trapped by the hard gleam in his eyes. He was staring at her as if he wanted to devour her and the stark hunger etched on his face evoked something fierce, bright and electrifying inside her.
She was supremely conscious that her body was no longer hidden beneath a sarong and her tiny gold bikini was not much more than three triangles of material held together with narrow ties. The action of pushing her hair back had lifted her breasts and, glancing down, she saw the hard points of her nipples jutting provocatively through the clingy, damp bra top.
There was a pile of freshly laundered towels by the side of the pool. Santino strode over, picked up a towel and returned to offer it to Arianna. ‘Here, you had better cover yourself up. I can see that you’re cold,’ he said, resting his gaze deliberately on the betraying hard points of her nipples. The mockery in his voice was mixed with something darker that prickled across her skin and made her breasts feel heavy.
She felt scorched by his glittering gaze, by the heated desire she saw in those green depths. Triumph swept through her with the realisation that he wanted her but she sensed that he resented the attraction he felt for her.
‘I’m not cold,’ she murmured, ignoring the towel he held out to her. Tipping her head to one side, she regarded him through half-closed lashes, enjoying a sense of feminine power as she gave him a teasing smile, and his jaw hardened. ‘I may as well go in the pool with you now that I’m wet.’
She saw his gaze drift over her body, following the droplets of water that she could feel trickling down her stomach to her thong-style bikini pants.
‘Are you wearing swim-shorts under your clothes? It doesn’t matter if you’re not,’ she said archly. ‘I often sunbathe naked out here on the terrace. I hope that won’t make you feel uncomfortable.’
Santino’s eyes narrowed. ‘I know you like to play games, Arianna, but don’t think you can play them with me.’ His lips curled sardonically when she opened her eyes wide and gave him a look of pure innocence. ‘I’ve read the tabloid stories about your countless affairs with celebrities, and seen the pictures of you falling out of nightclubs and flaunting that incredible body of yours in revealing clothes that would make a whore blush. You can try all the tricks you like but you won’t distract me from doing the job your father hired me to do.’
‘And of course the tabloids always tell the truth,’ she said abruptly. Her voice was sharper than she’d intended. Santino’s scathing tone made her feel grubby and cheap. She had spent the best part of ten years trying to punish her father for his lack of interest in her, and she’d actively encouraged the paparazzi’s attention with the wild behaviour that had earned her the label of ‘spoilt little rich girl’. But the truth was that the only person she had hurt was herself.
There was no reason why the contempt in Santino’s eyes should make her feel as if he had peeled away a layer of her skin, leaving her exposed and raw. What right did he have to judge her? He acted like Mr High and Mighty but she had discovered his weakness. How amusing that she was Santino Vasari’s Achilles’ heel, she thought, hiding her hurt feelings behind a wall of bravado the way she had learned to do since she’d been eleven years old.
She took the towel out of his hand and dropped it onto the floor before she stepped closer to him. A smile played on her lips when he folded his arms across his chest in what could only be described as a defensive gesture, which intrigued her.
‘You sound worried, Santino. How do you think I might distract you?’ she murmured, running her fingers lightly along his forearm. His skin was like warm silk and beneath it she felt the tensile strength of hard sinews and muscles.
His face hardened, the skin drawn taut over the slashing lines of his cheekbones. ‘I’m warning you, Arianna,’ he said harshly. ‘I’m not one of the pretty boys who flock around you. Don’t test my patience too far.’
‘How could I do that, I wonder?’ she purred. Common sense told her that she should walk into the house right now, taking what was left of her pride with her. But the dismissive tone in Santino’s voice clawed at her lifelong sense of insignificance.
Her father had never paid her any attention, but at eighteen she had discovered that the paparazzi swarmed to take pictures of her when she stumbled out of nightclubs looking wild-eyed and the worse for drink. She had been dubbed ‘the party princess’ by the tabloids and, as her notoriety grew, she was invited to all the best parties. Restaurant openings, theatre first nights, art gallery exhibitions: anyone with a new business to promote included Arianna Fitzgerald on the guest list, knowing that her presence would ensure the event received maximum publicity.
She would show Santino that he could not dismiss her as if she was an irrelevance. He would take notice of her. ‘Am I testing your patience now?’ she asked softly as she trailed her fingers up his arm to his shoulder, feeling his bunched muscles beneath his T-shirt.
His breathing slowed and her heart raced as she continued her exploration, running her fingertips over the rough stubble on his jaw before she traced the sensual shape of his mouth. She pressed her body closer to his and tilted her head up to meet his gaze.
The feral gleam in his eyes caused her heart to lurch. But she could not back down now without making even more of a fool of herself. Cupping his cheek in her palm, she stretched up on her toes and covered his mouth with hers. He made no response. Not a flicker. His arms were still folded across his chest and he was as solid and unmoving as granite. His lips were unyielding, and it occurred to Arianna that in a lifetime of embarrassing herself Santino’s rejection was her crowning humiliation.
Desperate to elicit some sort of reaction from him, she nipped his lower lip with her teeth. He made no sound but his chest rose and fell swiftly. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ he said then, his voice a low growl that resonated through her.
Abruptly he unfolded his arms and clamped his hands on her shoulders. While Arianna was wondering if he intended to push her away from him he jerked her forward so that her soft breasts were pressed up against the hard wall of his chest. His gaze narrowed and she saw fire and fury glinting in his green eyes beneath his thick black lashes. But then his head swooped and he captured her mouth with his in a searing kiss that felt as if he had branded her with his unique potency.