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A small, dark-haired woman with twinkling eyes was standing in the inner hallway, waiting for them.
'Ah, Dolores. You got my message about Ms Carlisle?'
'Yes, and I have prepared a guest suite for her. You had a good journey, I hope, Ms Carlisle?'
'Yes, indeed—and do please call me Carly.'
'You go with Dolores; she will show you to your suite,' Ricardo told Carly, before continuing, 'What time is dinner planned for, Dolores?'
'Eight-thirty, if that is okay with you? And Rafael— he said that you will want an early lunch tomorrow, before you fly to the Hamptons?'
'Yes, that's right. I'd better warn you that Ms Carlisle may not make it to the dinner table tonight. It may be three in the afternoon here, but for her it's eight in the evening.'
'Oh, my goodness! You would perhaps like some thing to eat now, then?' Dolores asked Carly.
'No, I'm fine,' Carly assured her.
She would have to make contact with the New York agency who were sharing the organization of the Hamptons event with them, and she had hoped to have time to fit in a bit of sightseeing. She was also planning to ask Dolores if she could recommend somewhere Carly might find clothes that would be within her budget. Jeans might be the universal uniform, accept able everywhere, but she could hardly turn up at the glitzy events she was overseeing wearing them. And unfortunately Mariella's cast-offs—designer label or not—were simply not the kind of clothes she would ever feel comfortable wearing.
'So, you will sleep here, in this guest suite, and you will have a lovely view over the park. Come and see, please.'
Dutifully Carly followed Dolores through the door she had just opened.
The room she walked into was huge, its windows, as Dolores had stated, overlooking the greenery of the park.
'Here there is a desk, and you can plug in your computer,' Dolores told her. Carly nodded her head.
'And here there is a television.' She folded back what Carly had assumed was wall paneling to reveal a large flatscreen TV hidden behind it, along with shelves of DVDs and books. 'See—the TV, it pulls out so you can watch it from your bed,' Dolores told Carly, proudly displaying this extra function. 'The dressing room and your bathroom are through here. Mr Salvatore, he have everything ripped out when he moved in here, and it's all new. Even in our rooms as well.'
The dressing room was lined with mirror-fronted wardrobes and contained a small sofa, whilst the bathroom was almost a luxury mini-spa. Carly was unable to stop herself from comparing it with the rather more basic bathroom in the lat she shared with Jules.
'It's all wonderful,' she told Dolores truthfully.
'Yes. Mr Salvatore, he is a very good man. Very kind—especially to the children. When he hear that there is an orphanage in our old home town that has no money, he goes there to see it and then he writes one big cheque!' Dolores beamed.
Carly phoned Lucy and then the New York event organizer who was co-running the event. Everything seemed to be in hand, she thought as she stifled a yawn.
The bed looked very tempting, and she was tired. Perhaps an hour's sleep might do her good. It was only five o'clock New York time—more than three hours yet before dinner.
She was too tired to shower, and so, after removing her shoes and folding back the bedspread, she simply lay on top of the bed. Sleep claimed her the moment she closed her eyes.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was the small sound of a door clicking closed that woke her. At first she struggled to remember exactly where she was, reluctant to be dragged out of her sleeping fantasy of lying naked in Ricardo's arms whist he caressed her.
She sat up and then swung her feet onto the floor, all too aware of the pulsing ache in her lower body. She could hear someone moving about in the dressing room.
Ricardo? Her heart bumped against her ribs, excitement spiked with anticipation heating her body. If it was—if he wasn't going to give her the chance to say that she wanted him but intended instead to simply overwhelm her with the reality of her desire for him— there was no way she was going to be able to reject him, she admitted to herself, and she hurried across the room, pushing open the dressing room door.
Dolores was just closing one of the wardrobe doors. She turned towards Carly with a warm smile.
The deep-rooted sensual ache she had begun to learn to live with turned into a fierce pang of anguished need. How could just a few hours in his company have turned her body into this sexually eager collection of erotically aroused nerve endings and hotly responsive flesh? Her whole body ached, hungering for his touch and his pos session. It was being consumed by a fever of longing and arousal. Virtually all she could think about was how long she would have to wait. The question driving her thoughts now wasn't 'if but 'when'.
'I have hung everything up for you, so that they don't get too crushed. I can pack them again before you leave tomorrow. So you have any laundry you want me to do?'
Everything? What everything? What did Dolores mean?
There was an unfamiliar case on the dressing room floor—a Louis Vuitton case, Carly realized with horrified fascination—and a matching vanity case placed right next to it. And there was a mound of neatly folded tissue paper on the pretty daybed-cum-sofa, and some shoeboxes placed beneath it.
'Dolores, I think there must be some mistake,' she began faintly. 'Those cases aren't mine.'
Dolores looked confused.
'But, yes, they are. Rafael fetched them from the jet himself. Just as Mr Salvatore instructed him to do. So that they will not be lost.'
A horrible sense of disbelief mixed with anger was filling Carly. Unsteadily she went over to the nearest wardrobe and pulled back the door.
The clothes hanging in it were totally unfamiliar. She lifted down one of the skirts and checked the label, her hands trembling.
It was certainly her size, and her color.
She put the skirt back and went over the sofa, kneeling on the floor as she opened one of the shoeboxes.
The delicate strappy sandals inside were her size too.
'There is something wrong?' Dolores asked her worriedly
Carly replaced the sandal in its box and stood up. 'No, Dolores. Everything is fine,' she told her. But of course she was lying.
She went slowly through all the clothes hanging in the wardrobes. Expensive, elegant, beautiful designer clothes, in wonderful fabrics and a palette of her favorite colors: creams, chocolate-browns, black. She touched the fringed hem of a jacket in Chanel's signature pastel tweed—warm cream threaded with tiny silky strands of brilliant jewel colors. She had seen exactly the same jacket in Chanel's Sloane Street store and had stood mutely gazing at it, almost transfixed by its beauty. It would go perfectly with the toning heavy silk satin trousers hanging next to it. She knew exactly how much the jacket would have cost because she had been foolish enough to go into the store and ask. More than she would ever spend on clothes in a whole year, never mind on one single item. She stepped back from the wardrobe and closed the door firmly.
Did he really think she would allow him to do this to her? After what he had said to her? After what he had thought of her? Oh, yes, he had claimed it was a mistake and he had apologized, but...
Inside her head, from another lifetime, she could hear a flustered nervous voice insisting, 'Say thank you to the nice lady for the lovely clothes she's bought for you, Carly. Aren't you a lucky, lucky girl? And such a very pretty dress. I'm sure she'll be ever so grateful once she realizes how lucky she is...won't you, Carly?'
Grateful? She had sworn on her eighteenth birthday that never, ever again was she going to have to be grateful for someone else's charity. That she would support herself, by herself, and that was exactly what she had done.
She had financed her own way through university via a variety of low-paid, physically hard jobs—bar work, cleaning, working as a nursing aide in an old people's home—determinedly ignoring the allowance being paid into her bank account. The first thing she had done
when her adoptive parents had broken the news to her of their financial ruin had been to give that money back to them.
'Dolores, I need to speak with Ricardo. Can you tell me where I will find him, please?'
'He is in his office. But he does not like to be disturbed when he is in there.'
He didn't like being disturbed? Well, he was about to discover that neither did she. And what he had done had disturbed her. It had disturbed her...and it had infuriated her—a very great deal!
Dolores didn't want to give her directions for the office, but Carly insisted. She knocked briefly on the door and then, without waiting, turned the handle and went in.
Ricardo was seated behind a desk on the opposite side of the room from the door. The evening sunlight coming in from the two high windows behind dazzled her whilst leaving his face cloaked in shadow.
'Dolores has filled the wardrobes in my room with clothes which she believes are mine.'
'Ah. Yes, I'm glad you reminded me; I had almost forgotten. I've spoken to the manager at Barneys and arranged a temporary account there for you so that you can get something suitable for the French do. I didn't want to risk picking out something myself. You'll have time to go over there tomorrow morning. It's right be hind the Pierre Hotel—'
'No!' Carly stopped him angrily.
'No what?' Ricardo demanded, pushing back his chair and standing up.
