Valtieri's Bride

Praise for

Caroline Anderson

“This lovely reunion romance is rich with emotion and humour, and all of the characters are exquisitely rendered.”

—RT Book Reviews on Mother of the Bride

“Multifaceted characters, a credible conflict and a heart-tugging ending are the highlights of this sweet story, one that’s hard to forget.”

—RT Book Reviews on Their Christmas Family Miracle

“Caroline Anderson’s novel, For Christmas, For Always, is a bittersweet romance sure to evoke both tears and smiles before the last page is turned.”

—RT Book Reviews on For Christmas, For Always

“I can help you,” he said before he could let himself think about it, and he thrust out his hand. “Massimo Valtieri. If you’re ready to go, I can give you a lift to Siena now.”

He pronounced it Mah-see-mo, long and slow and drawn out, his Italian accent coming over loud and clear as he said his name, and she felt a shiver of something primeval down her spine. Or maybe it was just the cold. She smiled at her self-appointed knight in shining armour and held out her hand.

“I’m Lydia Fletcher—and if you can get us there before the others I’ll love you for ever.”

His warm, strong and surprisingly slightly calloused fingers closed firmly round hers, and she felt the world shift a little under her feet. And not just hers, apparently. She saw the shockwave hit his eyes, felt the recognition of something momentous passing between them, and in that crazy and insane instant she wondered if anything would ever be the same again …

About the Author

CAROLINE ANDERSON has the mind of a butterfly. She’s been a nurse, a secretary, a teacher, run her own soft furnishing business, and now she’s settled on writing. She says, ‘I was looking for that elusive something. I finally realised it was variety, and now I have it in abundance. Every book brings new horizons and new friends, and in between books I have learned to be a juggler. My teacher husband John and I have two beautiful and talented daughters, Sarah and Hannah, umpteen pets, and several acres of Suffolk that nature tries to reclaim every time we turn our backs!’ Caroline also writes for the Mills & Boon® Medical Romance™ series.

Valtieri’s Bride

Caroline Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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CHAPTER ONE

WHAT on earth was she doing?

As the taxi pulled up in front of the Jet Centre at London City Airport, he paused, wallet in hand, and stared spellbound across the drop-off point.

Wow. She was gorgeous.

Even in the crazy fancy-dress outfit, her beauty shone out like a beacon. Her curves—soft, feminine curves—were in all the right places, and her face was alight with laughter, the skin pale and clear, her cheeks tinged pink by the long blonde curls whipping round her face in the cutting wind. She looked bright and alive and impossibly lovely, and he felt something squeeze in his chest.

Something that had been dormant for a very long time.

As he watched she anchored the curls absently with one hand, the other gesturing expressively as she smiled and talked to the man she’d stopped at the entrance. She was obviously selling something. Goodness knows what, he couldn’t read the piece of card she was brandishing from this distance, but the man laughed and raised a hand in refusal and backed away, entering the building with a chuckle.

Her smile fading, she turned to her companion, more sensibly dressed in jeans and a little jacket. Massimo flicked his eyes over her, but she didn’t hold his attention. Not like the blonde, and he found his eyes drawn back to her against his will.

Dio, she was exquisite. By rights she should have looked an utter tramp but somehow, even in the tacky low-cut dress and a gaudy plastic tiara, she was, quite simply, riveting. There was something about her that transcended all of that, and he felt himself inexplicably drawn to her.

He paid the taxi driver, hoisted his flight bag over his shoulder and headed for the entrance. She was busy again, talking to another man, and as the doors opened he caught her eye and she flashed a hopeful smile at him.

He didn’t have time to pause, whatever she was selling, he thought regretfully, but the smile hit him in the solar plexus, and he set his bag down on the floor by the desk once he was inside, momentarily winded.

‘Morning, Mr Valtieri. Welcome back to the Jet Centre. The rest of your party have arrived.’

‘Thank you.’ He cleared his throat and glanced over his shoulder at the woman. ‘Is that some kind of publicity stunt?’

The official gave a quiet, mildly exasperated sigh and smiled wryly.

‘No, sir. I understand she’s trying to get a flight to Italy.’

Massimo felt his right eyebrow hike. ‘In a wedding dress?’

He gave a slight chuckle. ‘Apparently so. Some competition to win a wedding.’

He felt a curious sense of disappointment. Not that it made the slightest bit of difference that she was getting married; she was nothing to him and never would be, but nevertheless …

‘We asked her to leave the building, but short of escorting her right back to the main road, there’s little more we can do to get rid of her and she seems harmless enough. Our clients seem to be finding her quite entertaining, anyway.’

He could understand that. He was entertained himself—mesmerised, if he was honest. And intrigued—

‘Whereabouts in Italy?’ he asked casually, although the tightness in his gut was far from casual.

‘I think I heard her mention Siena—but, Mr Valtieri, you really don’t want to get involved,’ he warned, looking troubled. ‘I think she’s a little …’

‘Crazy?’ he said drily, and the man’s mouth twitched.

‘Your word, sir, not mine.’

As they watched, the other man walked away and she gave her companion a wry little smile. She said something, shrugged her slender shoulders in that ridiculous meringue of a dress, then rubbed her arms briskly. She must be freezing! September was a strange month, and today there wasn’t a trace of sunshine and a biting wind was whipping up the Thames estuary.

No! It was none of his business if she hadn’t had the sense to dress for the weather, he told himself firmly, but then he saw another man approach the doors, saw the woman straighten her spine and go up to him, her face wreathed in smiles as she launched into a fresh charm offensive, and he felt his gut clench.

He knew the man slightly, more by reputation than anything else, and he was absolutely the last person this enchanting and slightly eccentric young woman needed to get involved with. And he would be flying to his private airfield, about an hour’s drive from Siena. Close enough, if you were desperate …

He couldn’t let it happen. He had more than enough on his conscience.

The doors parted with a hiss as he strode up to them, and he gave the other man a look he had no trouble reading. He told him—in Italian, and succinctly—to back off, and Nico shrugged and took his advice, smiling regretfully at the woman before moving away from her, and Massimo gave him a curt nod and turned to the woman, meeting her eyes again—vivid, startling blue eyes that didn’t look at all happy with what he’d just done. There was no smile this time, just those eyes like blue ice-chips skewering him as he stood there.

Stunning eyes, framed by long, dark lashes. Her mouth, even without the smile, was soft and full and kissable—No! He sucked in a breath, and found himself drawing a delicate and haunting fragrance into his lungs.

It rocked him for a second, took away his senses, and when they came back they all came back, slamming into him with the force of an express train and leaving him wanting in a way he hadn’t wanted for years. Maybe ever—

‘What did you say to him?’ Lydia asked furiously, hardly able to believe the way he’d dismissed that man with a few choice words—not that she’d understood one of them, of course, but there was more to language than vocabulary and he’d been pretty explicit, she was sure. But she’d been so close to success and she was really, really cross and frustrated now. ‘He’d just offered me a seat in his plane!’

‘Believe me, you don’t want to go on his plane.’

‘Believe me, I do!’ she retorted, but he shook his head.

‘No. I’m sorry, I can’t let you do it, it just isn’t safe,’ he said, a little crisply, and she dropped her head back and gave a sharp sigh.

Damn. He must be airport security, and a higher authority than the nice young man who’d shifted them outside. She sensed there’d be no arguing with him. There was a quiet implacability about him that reminded her of her father, and she knew when she was beaten. She met his eyes again, and tried not to notice that they were the colour of dark, bitter chocolate, warm and rich and really rather gorgeous.

And unyielding.

She gave up.

‘I would have been perfectly safe, I’ve got a minder and I’m no threat to anyone and nobody’s complained, as far as I know, but you can call the dogs off, I’m going.’

To her surprise he smiled, those amazing eyes softening and turning her bones to mush.

‘Relax, I’m nothing to do with Security, I just have a social conscience. I believe you need to go to Siena?’

Siena? Nobody, she’d discovered, was flying to Siena but it seemed, incredibly, that he might be, or else why would he be asking? She stifled the little flicker of hope. ‘I thought you said it wasn’t safe?’

‘It wasn’t safe with Nico.’

‘And it’s safe with you?’

‘Safer. My pilot won’t have been drinking, and I—’ He broke off, and watched her eyes widen as her mind filled in the blanks.

‘And you?’ she prompted a little warily, when he left it hanging there.

He sighed sharply and raked a hand through his hair, rumpling the dark strands threaded with silver at the temples. He seemed impatient, as if he was helping her against his better judgement.

‘He has a—reputation,’ he said finally.

She dragged her eyes off his hair. It had flopped forwards, and her fingers itched to smooth it back, to feel the texture …

‘And you don’t?’

‘Let’s just say that I respect women.’ His mouth flickered in a wry smile. ‘If you want a reference, my lawyer and doctor brothers would probably vouch for me, as would my three sisters—failing that, you could phone Carlotta. She’s worked for the family for hundreds of years, and she delivered me and looks after my children.’

He had children? She glanced down and clocked the wedding ring on his finger, and with a sigh of relief, she thrust a laminated sheet at him and dug out her smile again. This time, it was far easier, and she felt a flicker of excitement burst into life.

‘It’s a competition to win a wedding at a hotel near Siena. There are two of us in the final leg, and I have to get to the hotel first to win the prize. This is Claire, she’s from the radio station doing the publicity.’

Massimo gave Claire a cursory smile. He wasn’t in the least interested in Claire. She was obviously the minder, and pretty enough, but this woman with the crazy outfit and sassy mouth …

He scanned the sheet, scanned it again, shook his head in disbelief and handed it back, frankly appalled. ‘You must be mad. You have only a hundred pounds, a wedding dress and a passport, and you have to race to Siena to win this wedding? What on earth is your fiancé thinking of to let you do it?’

‘Not my fiancé. I don’t have a fiancé, and if I did, I wouldn’t need his permission,’ she said crisply, those eyes turning to ice again. ‘It’s for my sister. She had an accident, and they’d planned—oh, it doesn’t matter. Either you can help me or you can’t, and if you can’t, the clock’s ticking and I really have to get on.’

She didn’t have a fiancé? ‘I can help you,’ he said before he could let himself think about it, and he thrust out his hand. ‘Massimo Valtieri. If you’re ready to go, I can give you a lift to Siena now.’

He pronounced it Mah-see-mo, long and slow and drawn out, his Italian accent coming over loud and clear as he said his name, and she felt a shiver of something primeval down her spine. Or maybe it was just the cold. She smiled at her self-appointed knight in shining armour and held out her hand.

‘I’m Lydia Fletcher—and if you can get us there before the others, I’ll love you forever.’

His warm, strong and surprisingly slightly calloused fingers closed firmly round hers, and she felt the world shift a little under her feet. And not just hers, apparently. She saw the shockwave hit his eyes, felt the recognition of something momentous passing between them, and in that crazy and insane instant she wondered if anything would ever be the same again.

The plane was small but, as the saying goes, perfectly formed.

Very perfectly, as far as she was concerned. It had comfortable seats, lots of legroom, a sober pilot and a flight plan that without doubt would win her sister the wedding of her dreams.

Lydia could hardly believe her luck.

She buckled herself in, grabbed Claire’s hand and hung on tight as the plane taxied to the end of the runway. ‘We did it. We got a flight straight there!’ she whispered, and Claire’s face lit up with her smile, her eyes sparkling.

‘I know. Amazing! We’re going to do it. We can’t fail. I just know you’re going to win!’

The engines roared, the small plane shuddering, and then it was off like a slingshot, the force of their acceleration pushing her back hard into the leather seat as the jet tipped and climbed. The Thames was flying past, dropping rapidly below them as they rose into the air over London, and then they were heading out over the Thames estuary towards France, levelling off, and the seat belt light went out.

‘Oh, this is so exciting! I’m going to update the diary,’ Claire said, pulling out her little notebook computer, and Lydia turned her head and met Massimo’s eyes across the narrow aisle.

He unclipped his seat belt and shifted his body so he was facing her, his eyes scanning her face. His mouth tipped into a smile, and her stomach turned over—from the steep ascent, or from the warmth of that liquid-chocolate gaze?

‘All right?’

‘Amazing.’ She smiled back, her mouth curving involuntarily in response to his, then turning down as she pulled a face. ‘I don’t know how to thank you. I’m so sorry I was rude.’

His mouth twitched. ‘Don’t worry. You weren’t nearly as rude to me as I was to Nico.’

‘What did you say to him?’ she asked curiously, and he gave a soft laugh.

‘I’m not sure it would translate. Certainly not in mixed company.’

‘I think I got the gist—’

‘I hope not!’

She gave a little laugh. ‘Probably not. I don’t know any street Italian—well, no Italian at all, really. And I feel awful now for biting your head off, but … well, it means a lot to me, to win this wedding.’

‘Yes, I gather. You were telling me about your sister?’ he said.

‘Jennifer. She had an accident a few months ago and she was in a wheelchair, but she’s getting better, she’s on crutches now, but her fiancé had to give up his job to help look after her. They’re living with my parents and Andy’s working with Dad at the moment for their keep. My parents have got a farm—well, not really a farm, more of a smallholding, really, but they get by, and they could always have the wedding there. There’s a vegetable packing barn they could dress up for the wedding reception, but—well, my grandmother lived in Italy for a while and Jen’s always dreamed of getting married there, and now they haven’t got enough money even for a glass of cheap bubbly and a few sandwiches. So when I heard about this competition I just jumped at it, but I never in my wildest dreams imagined we’d get this far, never mind get a flight to exactly the right place. I’m just so grateful I don’t know where to start.’

She was gabbling. She stopped, snapped her mouth shut and gave him a rueful grin. ‘Sorry. I always talk a lot when the adrenaline’s running.’

He smiled and leant back, utterly charmed by her. More than charmed …

‘Relax. I have three sisters and two daughters, so I’m quite used to it, I’ve had a lot of practice.’

‘Gosh, it sounds like it. And you’ve got two brothers as well?’

‘Si. Luca’s the doctor and he’s married to an English girl called Isabelle, and Gio’s the lawyer. I also have a son, and two parents, and a million aunts and uncles and cousins.’

‘So what do you do?’ she asked, irresistibly curious, and he gave her a slightly lopsided grin.

‘You could say I’m a farmer, too. We grow grapes and olives and we make cheese.’

She glanced around at the plane. ‘You must make a heck of a lot of cheese,’ she said drily, and he chuckled, soft and low under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.

The slight huff of his breath made an errant curl drift against her cheek, and it was almost as if his fingertips had brushed lightly against her skin.

‘Not that much,’ he said, his eyes still smiling. ‘Mostly we concentrate on our wine and olive oil—Tuscan olive oil is sharper, tangier than the oil from southern Italy because we harvest the olives younger to avoid the frosts, and it gives it a distinctive and rich peppery flavour. But again, we don’t make a huge amount, we concentrate on quality and aim for the boutique market with limited editions of certified, artisan products. That’s what I was doing in England—I’ve been at a trade fair pushing our oil and wine to restaurateurs and gourmet delicatessens.’

She sat up straighter. ‘Really? Did you take samples with you?’

He laughed. ‘Of course. How else can I convince people that our products are the best? But the timing was bad, because we’re about to harvest the grapes and I’m needed at home. That’s why we chartered the plane, to save time.’

Chartered. So it wasn’t his. That made him more approachable, somehow and, if it was possible, even more attractive. As did the fact that he was a farmer. She knew about farming, about aiming for a niche market and going for quality rather than quantity. It was how she’d been brought up. She relaxed, hitched one foot up under her and hugged her knee under the voluminous skirt.

‘So, these samples—do you have any on the plane that I could try?’

‘Sorry, we’re out of wine,’ he said, but then she laughed and shook her head.

‘That’s not what I meant, although I’m sure it’s very good. I was talking about the olive oil. Professional interest.’

‘You grow olives on your farm in England?’ he asked incredulously, and she laughed again, tightening his gut and sending need arrowing south. It shocked him slightly, and he forced himself to concentrate.

‘No. Of course not. I’ve been living in a flat with a pot of basil on the window sill until recently! But I love food.’

‘You mentioned a professional interest.’

She nodded. ‘I’m a—’ She was going to say chef, but could you be a chef if you didn’t have a restaurant? If your kitchen had been taken away from you and you had nothing left of your promising career? ‘I cook,’ she said, and he got up and went to the rear of the plane and returned with a bottle of oil.

‘Here.’

He opened it and held it out to her, and she sniffed it slowly, drawing the sharp, fruity scent down into her lungs. ‘Oh, that’s gorgeous. May I?’

And taking it from him, she tipped a tiny pool into her hand and dipped her finger into it, sucking the tip and making an appreciative noise. Heat slammed through him, and he recorked the bottle and put it away to give him something to do while he reassembled his brain.

He never, never reacted to a woman like this! What on earth was he thinking of? Apart from the obvious, but he didn’t want to think about that. He hadn’t looked at a woman in that way for years, hadn’t thought about sex in he didn’t know how long. So why now, why this woman?

She wiped up the last drop, sucking her finger again and then licking her palm, leaving a fine sheen of oil on her lips that he really, really badly want to kiss away.

‘Oh, that is so good,’ she said, rubbing her hands together to remove the last trace. ‘It’s a shame we don’t have any bread or balsamic vinegar for dunking.’

He pulled a business card out of his top pocket and handed it to her, pulling his mind back into order and his eyes out of her cleavage. ‘Email me your address when you get home, I’ll send you some of our wine and oil, and also a traditional aceto balsamico made by my cousin in Modena. They only make a little, but it’s the best I’ve ever tasted. We took some with us, but I haven’t got any of that left, either.’

‘Wow. Well, if it’s as good as the olive oil, it must be fabulous!’

‘It is. We’re really proud of it in the family. It’s nearly as good as our olive oil and wine.’

She laughed, as she was meant to, tucking the card into her bag, then she tipped her head on one side. ‘Is it a family business?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, most definitely. We’ve been there for more than three hundred years. We’re very lucky. The soil is perfect, the slopes are all in the right direction, and if we can’t grow one thing on any particular slope, we grow another, or use it for pasture. And then there are the chestnut woods. We export a lot of canned chestnuts, both whole and puréed.’

‘And your wife?’ she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her. ‘Does she help with the business, or do you keep her too busy producing children for you?’

There was a heartbeat of silence before his eyes clouded, and his smile twisted a little as he looked away. ‘Angelina died five years ago,’ he said softly, and she felt a wave of regret that she’d blundered in and brought his grief to life when they’d been having a sensible and intelligent conversation about something she was genuinely interested in.

She reached across the aisle and touched his arm gently. ‘I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have brought it up if …’

‘Don’t apologise. It’s not your fault. Anyway, five years is a long time.’

Long enough that, when confronted by a vivacious, dynamic and delightful woman with beautiful, generous curves and a low-cut dress that gave him a more than adequate view of those curves, he’d almost forgotten his wife …

Guilt lanced through him, and he pulled out his wallet and showed her the photos—him and Angelina on their wedding day, and one with the girls clustered around her and the baby in her arms, all of them laughing. He loved that one. It was the last photograph he had of her, and one of the best. He carried it everywhere.

She looked at them, her lips slightly parted, and he could see the sheen of tears in her eyes.

‘You must miss her so much. Your poor children.’

‘It’s not so bad now, but they missed her at first,’ he said gruffly. And he’d missed her. He’d missed her every single day, but missing her didn’t bring her back, and he’d buried himself in work.