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“You think anyone could kidnap me?” His tone was sceptical.
She dragged her gaze over his figure, all six and a half feet of spectacularly muscled him, and shook her head. “I suppose not.” Her bangles made a wind chime noise as she moved her hands around. “But you know what I mean. I would have thought you’d have bodyguard upon bodyguard.”
“I have some security measures.” Something shifted in his expression and she understood it. He wished he didn’t need to. He wasn’t a man who willingly submitted to anyone’s protection. “A few guards who do regular perimeter checks of my place here, and state of the art security monitoring systems at my other homes.”
“Other homes? Where else do you live?” She leaned in, propping her elbows on the table top and watching him from wide eyes. “I spend a lot of time in Rome, but I oversee our North American operations which requires me to travel to New York frequently. Then there’s Aspen, Lo
ndon, Paris, Doha.”
Her smile was one of disbelief. “You must feel discombobulated a lot of the time.”
He lifted his shoulders. “Every house is set up to be almost identical. Same clothes, crockery, similar layout. It helps.”
“I can’t even imagine.”
“Why not?”
“I guess because I’m a home body.”
“A home body?”
“You know, I’m at my happiest when I’m at home.”
“Ah. And yet you’re here?”
It was the wrong thing for him to say, because it brought her sharply back to her reasons for escaping to Italy, for escaping her home.
“Here is home, for now.” She turned to look out towards the sea, thinking of England, of London, of the flat where Michael had lived, and she knew she didn’t want to be anywhere else. Nor did she want to be with anyone else – for the moment, sitting in a cave with Nico Montebello was Maddie’s idea of bliss.
Chapter 6
“NOW YOU’RE JUST SHOWING off.” She arched a brow as she turned to look at Nico, but her mouth went dry at the sheer sight of him. He was wearing a pair of pale blue board shorts, and nothing else. Beyond him, the Mediterranean sparkled almost the exact same shade of blue, and the depth of his tan was in stark contrast to the gleaming white of his yacht.
“You don’t like it?” He walked towards her with a slow, sensual purpose and her pulse began to race.
“On the contrary, I think I could get used to this.” She lifted her arms above her head, her cheeks glowing pink at the way his eyes dropped to survey her body. She was wearing a simple, flowing dress, crisp white, but that didn’t stop his possessive, obsessive inspection. “But who wouldn’t?” She added, shrugging her shoulders as she dropped her arms. He brought his body directly in front of hers and heat flared in her belly.
It was a week since they’d shared dinner at the waterfront cave and she’d truly thought that night was the last word in sublime perfection. That was before they’d gone back to her place on his motorbike, before they’d made love all night only this time, he’d still been there in the morning so they’d shared a long, slow breakfast and revelled in one another’s bodies until the early evening when he’d left, explaining that he had to go to Rome for a few days and would be back soon.
She didn’t want to admit how tempting it had been to think of him while he was gone – nor how often her mind did actually stray to him. She hadn’t come to Ondechiara to lose her head to some other guy, no matter how gorgeous and great in bed he happened to be. Nico was good fun, but that was all.
She propped her elbows on the railing of the boat, looking back to the Italian coastline. “It really is so beautiful.”
“Yes,” but she felt his eyes on her and her skin flushed warm. “I look forward to coming here.”
“Do you ever think of moving?”
“To live permanently in Ondechiara?”
She nodded.
“Sometimes,” he lifted his shoulders and his whole body rippled. “It’s not particularly practical. My business is in Rome, my family too.”
“Do you see much of them?”
He nodded. “We generally dine together once a week, at Villa Fortune – the home we grew up in.” He pronounced it in the Italian fashion, ‘fortun-eh’. “Yaya expects it of us and –,” a frown marred his handsome face.
She pressed a hand to his forearm. “And?”
