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curtains glided back and the first model strolled out, looking
impossibly haughty and
superior until she espied Rio and flashed up a seductive smile instead.
From that first moment Holly was entranced. She had never been to a
fashion show before and the knowledge that the display was being put on
for an audience of two just blew her mind. The descriptions of the
various outfits were double Dutch to her, but every item struck her as
the ultimate in colour and design. She was totally undiscriminating, for
she could not imagine actually wearing such elaborate garments. She was
learning what women who had pots of money and little to do but look good
wore and it was an education.
'You enjoyed that...' Rio was watching her intently as the curtains
finally glided shut.
'Yes...thanks,' she sighed, her slow smile breaking out like sudden
sunlight.
'So now you go and try on all the selections I made.'
'But why? I'm never going to wear stuff like that in my life!' Holly
protested in honest bemusement. 'I'm much more downmarket than that and
quite happy to be. Where on earth would I wear suits and long dresses?'
Disregarding that argument, Rio lifted her down from the stool and sent
her in the direction of the saleswoman awaiting her. She was taken into
a room where she became the centre of a throng of eager helpers. A whole
selection of shoes and handbags were already standing by. She was
whisked into outfit after outfit and marched out onto the catwalk.
At first she was self-conscious and she stood there like a plum with Rio
telling her to move about, but then someone put on background music with
a dance beat and Holly got into the spirit of the occasion. She began to
pose, eyes wide in a pretence of haughtiness, shoulders thrown back in
what she hoped was a model-like manner. Every time
58
he laughed she clowned a little more, answering amusement sparkling in
her eyes, but her greatest pleasure derived from his.
'Put on the green dress,' Rio told her when her own personal show was at
an end.
He could buy her one outfit. That was OK, Holly thought in considerable
relief. He really wasn't a very practical bloke. A couple of skirts and
tops and new trousers from a chain store would have been much more
sensible, and heaven only knew what even just one designer 'ensemble',
as the saleswomen called them, cost in such a fancy place!
The dress bared her shoulders and rejoiced in a fabulous boned velvet
bodice and a flirty skirt that came to her knees. She absolutely loved
it. In the mirror, she saw a fashionable stranger, a young woman who
just might have been a high-society party girl without a care in the
world. It was just an illusion, she knew that, but it had been so much
fun and she would never, ever forget the experience. She walked out to
rejoin him, conscious of the unfamiliar height of the heels on her
shoes, and with her entire attention pinned as though magnetised to his
darkly handsome face.
'You look gorgeous, cara.' Rio lifted something furry from a nearby
chair and draped it round her shoulders. 'And now you look like a queen.'
There were mirrors everywhere. Now she studied their twinned reflection,
the impossibly smooth and rich pale blonde fake-fur falling to mid-calf,
the raised collar providing a glamorous contrast to the vivid fall of
her hair. His proud head above her own, his tall, dark, powerful figure
backing her slighter build. 'Do you flog dreams for a living?' she asked
unsteadily, shaken by that view of them together, committing it to
memory, knowing that dreams didn't last. 'You ought to.'
'The day's not over yet.'
But it was already evening. She had not realised how late it had got
until they were ushered from the building and she saw the fading light.
'Does that place always stay open to this time?'
"They stayed open just for us,' Rio informed her lazily. 'We'll dine now.'
Ezio Farretti straightened from his lounging position against the bonnet
of the limo. He stared at Holly and his whole face tightened and he
turned away.
'Why did Ezio look at me like that?' she whispered in dismay.
'Ezio shouldn't be looking at you in any particular way,' Rio
pronounced, a cool, hard edge to his dark, deep voice that made her tense.
He took her to a restaurant which appeared to be the very last word in
exclusivity. The head waiter surged to greet Rio. He took the attention
as his due and it was obvious that he was a regular customer. As Rio
strolled between the tables the low buzz of conversation died and a kind
of unearthly hush fell. Every head in the room seemed to be swivelling
in their direction. Several people addressed Rio, but, with only a word
of acknowledgement or a cool inclination of his dark head Rio kept on
moving.
Holly dropped down into the seat spun out for her occupation by an
attentive waiter. 'Why do I get the feeling that everyone's staring at us?'
Rio lifted one broad shoulder in a slight fluid shrug that was the very
essence of supreme cool. 'They're staring at you-'
'Me?' Holly exclaimed in lively astonishment.
60
'Speculating on your identity. You do look incredible in that dress.'
Locked to the brilliance of his tawny appraisal, she felt her heart race
like crazy behind her ribs and she smiled. She didn't believe that
anybody had the slightest interest in her but she liked the compliment.
However, she went on to study her enormous menu in growing dismay. At
first glance the menu seemed to be in English, but what was a sorbet? A
croustade? A coulis?
When the waiter reappeared, perspiration beaded Holly's short upper lip,
because she was still looking frantically for a dish she could recognise.
'I'd recommend the sorbet,' Rio murmured.
'OK, yes...I'd like that,' Holly hastened to confirm with relief.
Rio was being a very entertaining companion when something that
resembled a pudding in a tall glass was set in front of her. She tried
not to seem surprised and just ignored it, because she couldn't work out
which of the many items of cutlery she was supposed to use to eat it and
Rio had confounded her by ordering soup. She would have loved soup but
she hadn't seen it anywhere on the menu,
'I'm not really that hungry,' she said as the sorbet was borne off, but
in truth her stomach was meeting her backbone and she felt on the brink
of starvation.
'I love salad,' she dared when it came to the next course, and then
inwardly cringed when it seemed that that was actually a special order
and there was such a carry-on about what kind of salad she wanted. Just
shove some lettuce on a plate, she wanted to scream.
She knew she used the wrong knife and fork for the salad because as she
picked them up the waiter was trying to remove them, but she braved it
out as if she hadn't noticed that. At least she got to eat and, although
dining out with
Rio was an enervating challenge, he did not appear to notice her silent
agonies of indecis
ion.
She triumphed, or thought she did, when it came to the dessert course.
'Chocolat' had to be chocolate. But the menu won all over again when her
selection arrived. A sparkly cobweb thing covered a shell containing a
mixture which she couldn't get at and a lot of leaves and tiny red
berries were scattered round the edges. The latter tasted poisonously
bad and put her right off the rest of it.
'You should be eating more,' Rio scolded, ignoring the greenery on his
own plate and heading straight for his mouthwatering meringue concoction
with a fork. A fork?
Suddenly, Holly was very grateful that she had pushed her own plate
away. Hunger was better than public embarrassment, and as soon as
everyone had gone to bed she would raid his kitchen fridge.
