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Her normal wardrobe consisted of jeans and tops, with just a couple of flowery skirts for when the weather turned summery. Her mother had said, ‘Charity shop trousers might be all right for slopping around at home but they won’t cut the mustard at an Italian millionaire’s villa! This is the only dress you own; you’ll have to take it.’
Portia wished she’d burned it months ago as Lucenzo advanced. Hanging over his arm, it didn’t look too bad. The fabric was crisp and fresh, a nice saxe-blue dotted with oyster-coloured swirls, but when it was on…
How he would wish he hadn’t forced her to wear it, she decided wickedly, a sudden mutinous gleam in her eyes as she reached for it, her fingers tangling in the folds of material as she turned, heading for the bathroom.
‘No, you don’t,’ Lucenzo breathed, catching her by the shoulders and dragging her round to face him. ‘It takes normal women hours to change so it will probably take you days, out of sheer perversity! Dinner will be served in half an hour and Father wants a private meeting with you beforehand. Already we are keeping him waiting.’
His spectacular eyes were narrowed with impatience and Portia could only stare at him, unwillingly mesmerised by the way the evening sunlight streamed through the many tall windows and glistened on his soft midnight hair, moulding the aesthetic perfection of his intimidatingly masculine features.
She could see the way a lock of his expertly barbered hair tumbled rebelliously over his wide forehead, the tiny frown line between his slashing brows, the thick sweep of dark lashes, the strong line of his patrician nose and the infinitely fascinating and shatteringly sensual curve of his lower lip.
It was such a shame that what went on inside his head and in his heart—if he had one—didn’t match the perfect exterior, she thought mournfully. She unconsciously laved her suddenly parched lips, then gave a feeble yelp of outrage as he took the hem of her T-shirt and dragged it over her head.
‘How dare you?’ Portia wailed as soon as she could retrieve the breath that had seemed to be securely locked in her lungs during the timeless moments when his veiled eyes had travelled over all her exposed flesh.
She was cringingly aware of the shortcomings of her plain white cotton bra. It was too small. She’d put on quite a bit of weight in that department during her pregnancy and she knew she positively billowed…
She made a desperate lunge for the despised and despicable garment still draped over his arm, sniping out, ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing.’
As her head disappeared into the folds she wondered why she should harbour the utterly wanton wish that his hands had followed the quite blatant track of his eyes.
Maybe she’d been born wicked as well as stupid!
Lucenzo sucked a breath through his teeth, backing off a pace and turning quickly away as her flushed face and tousled hair emerged. Her arms flailed as she found the sleeves of this dress that had been hanging between a shabby raincoat and a couple of limp-looking skirts.
‘I am trying to hurry proceedings along,’ he answered, forcing a lazy tone to disguise his sudden feeling of breathlessness. That had been his true intention, but it had been a mistake.
Basta!
She had a truly beautiful body, lush, ripe and tempting, when in his experience women tended to starve themselves into resembling stick insects in the name of fashion. Looking at the bountiful curves that almost seemed to be pleading to be freed of the unnatural constraint of confining white cotton was not enough. He wanted to touch.
He bunched his hands into fists at his side, his nails digging punishingly into the palms. If he could be aroused by a mercenary little tramp then he’d obviously been without a woman for far too long!
He bore the sounds of rustling fabric and little breathy grunts as long as he could before he bit out impatiently, ‘Come. We are already late.’ And he turned to meet a pair of anguished eyes peering through a curtain of tousled silky blonde hair.
She was hopping about on one foot, trying to fasten the buckle of a flat-soled sandal, her full mouth turned down at the corners as if she might burst into tears at any moment, and an incomprehensible wave of compassion surged through him.
In that strange, bunchy dress she looked like a waif. An appealing waif, he amended grudgingly, her throat so vulnerably slender as it rose from the oddly puckered collar, her feet so tiny in those practical, ugly plastic sandals. His lids felt strangely heavy, and his lashes lowered as he watched her plant both feet on the floor and tug at the belted waistline, as if trying to make the clumsily sewn hem hang more evenly.
‘Satisfied?’
She’d hurled the question at him, and that was a confrontational tone if ever he’d heard one. Because he suddenly and inexplicably felt he knew just how awkward she must be feeling, he said with low-voiced gruff humour, ‘You’ll do. At least you’re not inflicting the green frogs on my father.’
Her immediate answering smile made him blink. It was radiant. She had a cute little dimple at one corner of her mouth and those water-clear grey eyes sparkled with silver lights as she confirmed, ‘They’re something else, aren’t they? Betty, my friend, gave them to me, so I had to wear them. It would have been unkind not to. But I would keep tripping over them—they are so huge!’
Lucenzo flattened his mouth as something dangerously akin to empathy flared inside him, then turned and strode to the door, holding it open. Was she really so ingenuous, or was it an act? The latter, most probably.
No woman who deliberately got pregnant by a wealthy married man and wielded the coming child lik
e a weapon could possibly be guileless, he reminded himself. But, seeing the reluctant droop of her slight shoulders as she followed him through the door, he put his distrust of her on hold for the run-up to her first meeting with his father.
‘I didn’t intend this,’ he admitted honestly. ‘I thought it best that you kept to your room and met my father in the morning. But he had other ideas and at the moment I’m humouring him when possible.’
Of course he was! Portia instantly forgave him for dragging her away from the safe cocoon of the nursery and Assunta’s friendly, outgoing company. She straightened her shoulders. It was high time she stopped thinking of her own fears and miseries. ‘Is he very ill?’ she asked with soft sympathy.
Lucenzo turned, glancing down at her upturned face. She was right to care, he thought cynically. Eduardo Verdi was the only ally she had in this household.
‘When he heard of Vittorio’s death he suffered a stroke,’ he offered, his mouth compressed. He ignored the shocked inward tug of her breath. ‘Which was why he was unable to travel to England to attend the funeral. However, it was very slight and he will make a full recovery. In the meantime,’ he warned grimly, ‘my father is not to be upset or worried.’
