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‘It’ll be fun,’ she added.
‘I can’t guarantee that.’ Fun was the last word he’d use to describe his life.
‘I can,’ she refuted brightly.
Despite everything, laughter burst out of him, and, finally accepting that this was the path he had to follow for the next year, he raised his glass. ‘To a successful fake marriage.’
Eyes brimming with merriment, she clinked her glass to it. ‘Long may it not continue.’
In unison, they tipped their drinks down their throats.
The deal was sealed.
God help him.
Clara tapped quietly on Marcelo’s bedroom door; quietly in case he was asleep. She’d nearly fallen asleep herself when she’d remembered something and sat bolt upright.
To her relief, the handle turned and the door partially opened. Marcelo’s face appeared in the gap. Straight away she saw he had no top on and found herself in the novel situation of trying to stop her stare from drifting down so she could get a good look at his naked chest.
Her eyes won and she dipped her stare to eye level and caught a glimpse of broad golden shoulders and defined pecs with a healthy smattering of dark hair whorled in the centre.
‘Is something the matter?’ he asked, and she quickly looked back at his face.
Probably it was having only the light from her bedroom illuminating the hallway causing it but he looked even more gorgeous than when she’d wished him a goodnight, so gorgeous that as she gazed into his eyes a warmth spread through her like a steadily creeping flush. Marcelo’s voice sounded more gravelly too. Sexier. For the first time she noticed the hint of an accent in it.
‘Clara? Is something the matter?’ he repeated.
She cleared her throat. ‘Yes,’ she replied quickly, and castigated herself for being distracted by a man with no top on. How silly was that? All the same, with the faint scent of warm male now hitting her senses, she thought it prudent to step back before continuing. ‘Well, it’s something that matters to me. I know I said I didn’t have any further requests but can I keep Bob?’
A faint smile appeared on his shadowed face. ‘I assumed that was a given.’
She put her hand to her chest—Lord, her heart was thumping—and expelled her relief. ‘Thank you. That’s everything.’ She sidestepped away from his door. ‘Sorry for disturbing you.’ Another sidestep nearer to her own door. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Goodnight, Clara.’
She threw herself back into what was no longer a guest room but her room and tried not to slam the door behind her in her haste.
What on earth had just happened?
What had possessed her body to act as if she’d never seen a topless man before? She’d seen plenty of naked male chests in magazines and on social media. Loads. And she was quite sure she’d seen her brother topless once, when she’d been around ten in an exceptionally hot summer, so hot that even Andrew had felt compelled to remove his stuffy tweed suit. Or she might have dreamt that last part. Dream or not, thanks to technology, the male body was no mystery to her, so why she should react in such a way was bizarre.
Climbing back under the sheets, she gazed at the canopy of her bed and breathed deeply. Hopefully lots of air in her lungs would settle her heartbeat. She let her arm drop over the side so Bob could nuzzle back into her hand as he liked to do before he fell asleep. She’d given him a couple of her pillows to use as a bed. Marcelo was taking her shopping tomorrow. She’d ask if he would buy Bob a proper bed.
Who’d have thought she’d end the day with a reminder to herself to ask Prince Marcelo Berruti to buy a dog bed?
What an extraordinary day it had been. She’d woken feeling sick, certain the day was going to end with her death or something worse and here she was now, sleeping in a room every bit as sumptuous as her prison cell but with the door unlocked and no fear in her heart, and that was entirely down to Marcelo. He’d saved her life and the life of her defenceless puppy. He’d put his own life on the line for her—at the time she’d been too caught in the moment to appreciate the inherent danger of his rescue—and the more she thought about it, the more her heart swelled with gratitude that a stranger would go to such lengths for her.
Deep down she hadn’t believed that anyone would care enough to attempt the rescue, and she didn’t care that he’d done it because, by his own admittance, he was bored. She was alone in this bed, unharmed and whole because of him, and for that she would gladly pledge a year of her life to him. He was honest too, a trait Clara valued above everything. He could have spun her a tale about wanting to rescue a damsel in distress because it was the right thing to do or some other such nonsense, but he’d stuck with the truth. Kudos to him. But his rescue of her and failure to see the potential fallout of his actions signified another of his personality traits—impetuousness. She guessed that must be a nature thing because ten years in the military would have taught him to use his brain as well as his brawn.
Being practically twice her height and definitely twice her width, Marcelo had a lot of brawn. She hoped he continued wearing white T-shirts. They looked good on him and really flattered his physique—his pecs were amazing, and even better, as she now knew, in the flesh. The work that must go into maintaining them! There had been a time earlier that evening when they’d been discussing how they were going to handle things over the next few weeks and she’d noticed his nipples through his T-shirt. She’d felt a mad urge to tweak one of them. What was that all about? Weird. Hopefully she wouldn’t get too many mad urges like that in the future. Or that other weird moment when her fingers had tingled to touch the soft bristles of his stubbly beard again. Why that had happened she couldn’t figure out. Her curiosity had already been sated on that score, so why want to touch it again?
When Bob left her hand to curl up on his makeshift bed, Clara lifted her now numb arm and did likewise. Burrowing under the sheets, she continued to think about Marcelo.
When sleep eventually enveloped her, Marcelo’s face was the last thing her conscious mind saw.
