Page 17 of Married by Arrangement

Antonio was immediately aware that he was staring. With her blonde hair in damp disarray, her fair skin pink and only a towel screening her slim curves between breast and knee, she looked incredibly appealing. ‘No…I’m here to dine with you.’

Sophie stared back at him in surprise.

‘If we’re hoping to pretend that this is a normal relationship, we can’t spend our wedding night in different rooms,’ Antonio pointed out.

‘Oh, right…yeah,’ Sophie mumbled, appreciating that he was only joining her because he had no choice in the matter. That meant that his presence was nothing to get thrilled about. ‘I’d better get dressed, then.’

Antonio resisted a schoolboyish urge to tell her that he thought she looked great just as she was and countered with studied casualness, ‘A robe will do.’

‘I don’t have one and it’s too warm for my jeans. I don’t have much else yet—’

‘Just stay as you are,’ Antonio suggested huskily.

The simmering tension in the air danced along her nerve endings. He had changed as well, into black chinos, which accentuated his long, powerful legs, and a casual but very elegant blue open-necked shirt. He managed to look impossibly sophisticated and gorgeous.

‘You don’t look as stuffy as you usually do!’ Sophie exclaimed before she could think better of such frankness.

Faint colour demarcated the spectacular cheekbones that gave his lean bronzed face such intense power and beauty of line. Stuffy? His keen intellect threw up every possible meaning and none was complimentary. It was a word he associated with some of his more stodgy relatives, the ones boringly trapped in convention and habit. Was that how he seemed to her? Stuffy? She was seven years younger than he was. Was it such a gap?

‘We should eat,’ Antonio murmured flatly, determined not to react to what he knew had been a thoughtless remark.

Sophie knew she had offended. ‘It’s just the way you talk and the suits… I’m not used to businessmen and I guess all of them wear suits—’

‘What way do I talk?’ Antonio discovered that he could not silence that question as he spun out a chair for her to sit down.

‘I really didn’t mean to suggest anything critical,’ Sophie muttered anxiously, sitting down on the very edge of the upholstered antique dining chair. ‘You’ve got fantastic manners and of course you can’t help being formal… I mean you’re a marquis—’

‘And stuffy,’ Antonio breathed and shrugged, the ultimate gesture of Mediterranean cool, but that word she had used had been etched like acid into his soul. ‘Let’s eat.’

Sophie leapt up to examine the contents of the trolley and exclaimed in delight at the sight of the barbecued ribs, pizza and French fries. A multitude of other options was also available. ‘You have an in-house take-away?’

‘I wanted you to have food you felt comfortable with.’

‘I eat loads of more healthy things too, but Norah wouldn’t have had a clue about that. To be honest, Norah and Matt eat stuff like this most of the time. I only like it occasionally.’ As she spoke Sophie was scooping up cushions and throws and piling them on the carpet in an untidy heap. Then she flung open the balcony doors on the cooling night air.

In a trice the superbly elegant room became disorganised and yet more full of life. It dawned on Antonio that sitting at a table when the hard wooden floor was available might be deemed stuffy. While Sophie emptied the trolley and knelt down among the cushions to arrange containers and plates in the style of an impromptu indoor picnic, he uncorked the champagne and filled the flutes. She ate without cutlery, licking her fingertips clean like a delicate cat. She tore a strip off the pizza, tipped her head back and bit off tiny pieces. Never until that moment had it occurred to him that watching a woman eat could be a sensual experience. He was absolutely fascinated.

‘What would you like to talk about?’ she asked cheerfully, flopping back against the piled-up pillows to finish her champagne.

‘My stuffy good manners prevented me from asking how you and your sister came to have different fathers,’ Antonio admitted.

Sophie tensed, but tried to laugh off her discomfiture. ‘Oh, that’s no big deal. Belinda’s father was married to our mother, Isabel. He was an oil executive and he wasn’t home much. Isabel met my father when he was painting their house—’

‘He was an artist?’

‘He painted walls, not pictures,’ Sophie told him thinly. ‘Well, he got her pregnant with me and she left her husband for him…’

‘And?’ Antonio prompted as the silence dragged.

‘My father was no great catch and Isabel soon realised her mistake. When I was a month old, she went back to her husband and left me behind with Dad.’

‘That must have been hard for your father—’

‘Dad would do just about anything for money and Isabel sent him money every month until I was sixteen. She never visited me. Apart from the handouts, she just blanked out the whole affair like it and I never happened.’ Sophie tipped up her chin, a defiant glint in her expressive green eyes.

‘She was probably ashamed of what she had done,’ Antonio murmured gently, seeing the pain that she was struggling to hide. Reaching over, he linked his fingers with hers in a comforting gesture that was as instinctive as it was unusual for him. ‘You did very well without her, querida.’

‘You really think so?’ Antonio was so close that Sophie could hardly catch her breath.

‘You bend but you don’t break,’ Antonio breathed a little thickly, leaning over her to let a soothing fingertip score the soft pink fullness of her lower lip in a touch as light as silk.

The faintest suspicion of a breeze was ruffling the curls against her shoulder. She was very still, heart pumping like crazy below the towel. Her breasts felt tight and confined and a restive energy was filtering through her. Her whole focus was on him. If he didn’t kiss her she thought she might die from the cruel disappointment of it.

A masculine thumb brushed against a springy blonde loop of hair in a movement so subtle she wasn’t quite sure it had happened. His scorching golden eyes collided with hers and the knot of tension deep down inside her tightened. ‘I love your hair…it has a life of its own.’

‘Antonio…’ she whispered, stretching back against the pillows, letting her head fall back, bright corkscrew curls spilling out and catching the light of the sinking sun. She felt shameless but she was being driven by a craving much stronger than she was.

His breath fanned her cheek. He took his time and let his mouth toy with hers. Longing snaked through her in a fierce, almost frightening surge. Without even knowing what she was about to do she pulled him down to her. He resisted and laughed huskily, gazed down at her with shimmering dark golden eyes full of satisfaction.

‘I don’t respond well to the whip and chair approach,’ he mocked.

She felt foolish and exposed and temper leapt into the chasm. In a split second she had rolled away and sat up. ‘I’m not a joke!’

Stunned by the immediacy of her rejection, Antonio sprang up in concert. ‘Por dios, I was teasing—’

‘No, you weren’t…you were crowing!’ Sophie accused tempestuously. ‘Well, before you get carried away with the idea that I’m too enthusiastic—’

Antonio reached out and tugged her straight back into his arms. ‘You firebrand…you could never be too enthusiastic for me. You turn me on so hard and so fast that I can’t think this close to you,’ he admitted in a roughened undertone.

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