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Nico had been able to think of nothing worse. Stuck in that damned village, living opposite the in-laws and working all day on the vines.
Aurora had taken it well when he’d told her they would never marry. She had laughed and said something along the lines ofThank God for that.
It had been the sun that had made her eyes sparkle, Nico told himself. She had been sixteen then, and a skinny, slip of a girl. He hadn’t seen her for a few years after that.
Oh, but when he had…
He glanced over to where she stood, looking out towards the Vatican City, and though he wanted to turn back to his computer screen he could not resist a double-take.
There was nothing, Nico thought, more beautiful than a beautiful Sicilian woman.
She was dark-eyed and dark-haired, with voluptuous curves that had never seen a gym let alone a scalpel or silicone. Beneath her full bust in the white crochet dress there was a thin strap of leather, tied in a bow. He could think of no other woman who might look so sexy in such a dress, but she certainly did. He wanted to pull on that bow…he wanted to bare her breasts and pull her onto his knee. To kiss that mouth and properly welcome her to Rome.
His eyes drifted down to her shoes, which were neutral. Her legs, though, were not—their olive skin was bare and her calves were toned. His gaze followed the line of her long limbs until it rested where he knew he would find dark silken curls; he knew, too, the grip of those thighs.
She was fire. And he must do all he could not to let it catch him. For what Nico craved in his life was order.
Aurora could feel his eyes on her and she liked the vague, unsettled feeling that tightened low in her stomach and brought a hot and heavy sensation between her legs.
She had seen him since that fateful night—of course she had. But since the morning after they had never been alone.
Now, for a few precious moments, they were.
Aurora had practised this moment in her head and in the mirror so many times, and had sworn to rein herself in. But what had she gone and done?
Teased and cajoled and tried to draw a reaction from this cold immutable man, who had ruined her for anyone else.
Yet she could not bring herself to regret losing her virginity to him. Aurora would never regret that.
She attempted a more bland conversation. ‘I like Rome…’
‘Good.’
‘Though Iloveit in the early morning. I went exploring this morning…’
Nico looked back to his computer screen.
‘I felt as if I had the city all to myself. Well, not quite…’
She thought of the cafés and markets opening, and the street cleaners she had encountered on her early-morning walk—the walk during which she had promised herself that when she saw Nico later she would be serene and controlled. Sophisticated. Like the slender beauties he dated, whom she read about while bile churned in her stomach.
‘Tonight we’re all going on a bus tour…’ She halted, thinking how touristy and gauche she must sound to him. ‘Are you excited about the Silibri opening?’ she asked, because that seemed safe.
‘I will be glad when it’s done.’
Glad when he would be able to hand it over to his executive and the managers. When it would be up and running and no longer at this intense stage.
Right now, though, the tension was all in his office.
It was a relief when Marianna appeared and, with Aurora observing, they began to go through his schedule.
Nico was to meet with the Silibri hotel staff in fifteen minutes, and after that his day was back-to-back meetings with accountants, financiers and lawyers—and, no, Nico said, he would not be staying at the hotel that night.
‘You have a breakfast meeting at seven and the helicopter is booked for nine…’ Marianna frowned at this slight anomaly. ‘Usually you stay here if you’re flying out.’
‘I’ll be residing at home tonight,’ Nico said. ‘Now, can we check my Silibri schedule? I want to see my father’s doctor as soon as I arrive.’
‘You’re going home…?’ Aurora blinked. ‘Why are you going home when we are allhere?’
