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He left her to prepare dinner while he went to unstrap their bags from the back of the motorbike and carry them upstairs to the bedrooms. When he returned to the kitchen, Paloma was serving up mushroom risotto. She had tied her long hair in a ponytail, and her cheeks were flushed from the heat of the range, and perhaps from the wine. Her glass was empty. Daniele opened a second bottle of Chianti. They could both do with loosening up after the fraught past few days.
While they ate, he kept the conversation on neutral topics. The dark smudges beneath Paloma’s eyes were a sign of the strain she had been under recently. She had grown up used to a life of privilege, but there were no airs and graces to her, and she insisted on helping clear up the kitchen. Afterwards, she opted to watch a film in the sitting room. Daniele went to his study to call Enrique, who operated a security and private investigation business from his hotel in Tunisia.
Enrique had no further news on who had been behind Paloma’s kidnapping, but he’d compiled detailed reports on the members of the board of trustees, their families and associates. Daniele skimmed through the information Enrique had emailed to him and frowned when he saw a name he thought he recognised.
‘What do we know about Alberto Facchetti?’
‘He is the son-in-law of one of the trustees, Gianluca Orsi. Facchetti owns a haulage business transporting freight through Europe. Do you want me to dig deeper?’
‘Sì, grazie.’
Returning to the sitting room, Daniele halted in the doorway when he saw Paloma lying on the sofa. Her hair spilled over the cushions and her impossibly long eyelashes made dark fans on her porcelain skin. Her lips were slightly parted, and the steady rise and fall of her breasts beneath her clingy top indicated that she was deeply asleep.
Her intriguing mix of innocence and sensuality sent his pulse haywire. He considered covering her with a blanket and leaving her to spend the night on the sofa. But her neck was at an odd angle and she would be stiff in the morning. Swearing beneath his breath, Daniele lifted her into his arms.
She weighed next to nothing. Her hair felt like silk against his skin, and her perfume—something lightly floral mingled with muskier notes of amber wood and patchouli—evoked a dull throb in his groin. Jaw clenched, he carried her through the house and up the stairs to the second floor. Opposite the master suite was a guest bedroom with en suite bathroom. He shouldered the door and touched the switch on the wall to turn on the bedside lamp before he laid Paloma on the bed.
She had not stirred. Daniele looked at her skintight jeans and frowned. ‘Paloma.’ He gently shook her shoulder. ‘You need to get undressed.’
Her lashes swept upwards, and she regarded him with her startlingly blue eyes. Deep enough for a man to drown in. ‘Is that an invitation?’
‘Of course it isn’t,’ he said curtly. He was furious with himself for his inability to control his body’s response to Paloma’s sleepy, sexy smile.
‘Keep your hat on. I was joking.’ She sat up and ran her fingers through her mass of chestnut hair. ‘I know you are not attracted to me.’
‘You know that, do you?’ Daniele growled, fighting the temptation to show her how wrong she was.
Paloma rubbed her brow. ‘Ow, my head. I think I may have drunk too much wine.’ She tilted her head to one side and fixed her mesmerising gaze on him. ‘If you did find me attractive, you would have kissed me properly today, instead of acting like I have a highly contagious disease.’ She giggled when he scowled. ‘You’ll have to do better to convince everyone that our marriage is real. Maybe you should practise kissing me.’
She would tempt a saint, let alone a mortal man. He tore his gaze from her lush mouth and stepped away from the bed. ‘Tomorrow you will be glad that I would never take advantage of a woman who has had too much to drink,’ Daniele drawled. ‘I’ll bring you some water. If you’re going to be sick, make sure you get to the bathroom in time.’
Down in the kitchen, he opened the back door and dragged the cool night air into his lungs. He had made a promise to Marcello that he would protect Paloma, he reminded himself. This was just another mission. His special forces training had taught him to detach his emotions from a situation and focus on the job. He should not feel a violent urge to rearrange Paloma’s ex-husband’s features with his fist in retribution for how badly the guy had hurt her.
You must want something from me. Everyone always does.
How the hell was he supposed to remain detached after he had seen the wounded expression in Paloma’s eyes? How had his life suddenly become so crazily complicated? Daniele wondered as he filled a jug with water.
When he went back upstairs and knocked on the door before entering her room, he caught a flash of white silk negligee and an expanse of slender, tanned thigh as she leapt into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.
She watched him warily when he placed the jug on the bedside table. ‘Thank you.’
‘Goodnight.’ He switched off the lamp and turned to walk out of the room.
‘Daniele, don’t go.’
He exhaled heavily. ‘You are going to hate yourself in the morning,cara.’
‘I’m scared the kidnappers will break into the house and seize me like they did in Mali.’ Her voice shook, and her vulnerability felt like a knife in his heart.
‘No one knows where you are,’ he said gruffly.
‘You said the same thing in Tunisia.’
The damn photograph. Who had been lurking in the bushes by the pool? A member of the paparazzi who’d got lucky when he’d spotted the Morante heiress? Or was there a more sinister reason why the photographer had been there? With a faint sigh, Daniele lowered himself into the armchair next to Paloma’s bed. ‘I won’t let any harm come to you. Go to sleep,piccola.’
Oh, no!Paloma slowly opened her eyes and decided that death would be preferable to her pounding headache and the cringingly embarrassing memories of her behaviour the previous night. It was bad enough that she had bored Daniele with the humiliating details of her marriage. Thankfully, she hadn’t told him everything. Her self-confidence had not recovered from Calum’s rejection on their wedding night and her secret that she’d never confided to even her closest friend.
But she had confessed to Daniele about those awful photographs. Calum had been manipulative when he’d persuaded her to send him photos of herself in the shower. ‘Sexting is part of a modern relationship,’ he’d told her. ‘Seeing pictures of your sexy body makes me feel closer to you.’ Stupidly, she had believed his lies.
