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'OK. It happened in London. She reversed into my car and then got out and shouted at me. I really appreciate a woman with that much nerve!' Luca divulged playfully, and Darcy's bright head flew up in shock. 'You do every thing behind the wheel at such frantic speed, don't you, cara mia? I wanted to strangle her, and then I wanted to kiss her...'
'Which did you do?' Darcy heard herself prompt, un¬nerved by his sheer inventiveness.
'I believe some things should remain private...' To ac¬company that low-pitched and sensually suggestive mur¬mur, Luca ran a long brown forefinger along her delicate jawbone in a glancing caress.
Darcy gazed up at him, all hot pink and overpowered, every muscle in her slender length tensing. Her tender flesh stung in the wake of that easy touch, leaving her maddeningly, insanely aware of his powerful masculinity.
'To think I used to believe my little stepsister was pain¬fully shy,'
Nina breathed, fascinated against her will by this show of intimacy.
'Hardly, when she's already the mother of a noisy tod¬dler,' Margo put in cuttingly. 'Do you like children, Luca?'
'I adore them,' he drawled, with positive fervour.
'How wonderful,' Margo said rather weakly, having shot her last bitchy bolt and found him impregnable. 'Let me introduce you to our guests, Luca. Don't be so possessive, Darcy. Do let go of the poor man for a second.'
Darcy yanked her hand from Luca's sleeve. She hadn't even realised she had been hanging onto him. Feeling slightly disorientated, she watched as he deftly reached for the glasses of champagne offered by one of the catering staff.
She studied those lean brown hands, the beautifully shaped long fingers and polished nails. She recalled the smoothness of that fingertip dancing along her oversensitive jawbone, sending tiny little tremors down her rigid spine with an innate sensuality that mesmerised. And for the shocking space of one crashing heartbeat, as she met those astonishing dark golden eyes in concert, there had been nobody and nothing else in the room for her.
'You're not making much effort, are you?' Luca gritted in her ear.
'I never challenge Margo if I can help it,' she whispered back. 'She fights back with my most embarrassing mo¬ments. I learnt that lesson years ago.'
'Strange...you didn't strike me as a woman who lies down to get kicked.'
Darcy flinched at that damning retaliation. 'Excuse me,' she muttered, and hurried off into the cool of the less crowded hall.
'You won't hold onto that guy for ten seconds,' a sharp voice forecast nastily from the rear. 'I can't think what he imagines he sees in you, but he'll soon find out he's made a big mistake.'
Darcy swung round to face her stepsister. 'Time will no doubt tell.'
'Luca's not even your type,' Nina snapped resentfully. 'How long do you think you're likely to hold off the op¬position? He doesn't look dirt-poor to me either. I know clothes, and what he's wearing did not come out of any charity shop.'
'Luca likes to dress well.' Darcy shrugged.
'A peacock with a dull little peahen fluttering in his wake?' Nina sneered. 'He'll soon be out looking for more excitement. No, if there's one thing I'm convinced of now that I've seen him, it's that he's playing a double game. It has to be the British passport he's after...why else would he be marrying you?'
Why else? Darcy repeated inwardly as Nina stalked off again. What a huge laugh Margo and Nina would have were they ever to discover that Luca was no more than a some¬what unusual paid employee, prepared to act out a mas¬querade for six months. And every word her stepsister had spoken was painfully true. In the normal way of things a male of Luca's ilk would not have looked at her twice.
'Darcy...' Luca was poised several feet away, a slanting smile for show on his beautiful mouth and exasperation glittering in his deep-set dark eyes. 'I wondered where you had got to.'
He could act. Dear heaven, but he could act, Darcy found herself acknowledging over the next few hours. He kept her beside him, dragged her into the conversation and paid her every possible attention. Yet increasingly Darcy became more occupied in watching and listening to him.
In vain did she strive to recapture the image of the far from chatty male in motorbike leathers. For Luca Raffacani appeared to be a chameleon. With the donning of that din¬ner jacket, he appeared to have slid effortlessly into a new persona.
Now she saw a male possessed of a startling degree of sophistication and supremely at his ease in social company. He was adroit at sidestepping too personal enquiries. He was cool as ice, extremely witty and, she began to think, almost frighteningly clever. And other people were equally impressed. He gathered a crowd. Far from blending in, Luca commanded attention.
At one in the morning, he walked her into the conser¬vatory, where several couples were dancing, and com¬plained, 'You've been incredibly quiet.'
