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The pool had been warm when Paloma had started swimming. She’d powered through the water, completing lap after lap while she focused on her breathing to block out her chaotic thoughts. Now, though, she was tired, and the water felt chilly. There had been several other hotel guests swimming or sitting on the poolside when she’d arrived. But when she looked around, she discovered that they had gone, and she was alone.
The pool area was surrounded by trees and shrubs, and the darkness preyed on Paloma’s imagination. Was Daniele right, and the men who had seized her in Mali were working for some unknown person who wanted to prevent her from claiming her inheritance?Be logical, she told herself sternly. Daniele had said that no one knew she was staying at the hotel in Tunisia. There were not hordes of kidnappers lurking in the shadows.
All the same, she wished she’d told him she was going to the pool. After dinner she had fled to her room, reeling from his shocking marriage proposition. But she’d felt restless and had decided to go for a swim. There had been a swimsuit among the clothes that Daniele had ordered from the hotel’s boutique. Paloma had heard him talking on his phone when she’d slipped out of the suite.
Her teeth were chattering when she swam to the edge of the pool. But as she was about to climb up the steps, she heard a rustling noise from the bushes, and she froze. The memory of the terrifying moment when the gunmen had burst into the classroom in Mali stretched her overwrought emotions to breaking point. Was someone aiming a gun at her, his finger on the trigger as he waited for her to climb out of the pool? The leaves on the bushes shook, even though there was no breeze. Heart pounding in her chest, Paloma opened her mouth and screamed.
Immediately she heard footsteps running across the terrace and saw Daniele’s reassuringly big and powerful figure charging towards the pool. He halted next to the steps and his eyes glittered in the darkness. ‘What happened? Are you hurt?’
‘There’s someone in the bushes over there.’ She was shivering so badly with a mixture of cold and fear that she could barely get the words out. The story Daniele had told her of how he had foiled a Mafia plot to kidnap her grandfather had stuck in her mind. Nonno’s death meant that she was now incredibly rich and a target for criminals who might try to snatch her and demand a ransom for her release. ‘Be careful,’ she urged Daniele in a shaky whisper as he strode towards the shadowy area at the edge of the terrace.
‘Who is there?’ he demanded. Paloma held her breath when there was more movement from the bushes. Daniele let out a low laugh as a cat leapt out and landed on its four paws on the tiles. ‘There’s your culprit. Stray cats are a problem around the hotel complex.’ The cat gave them a disdainful look and stalked away indignantly.
Relief surged through Paloma. Her emotions were on a knife-edge and something inside her cracked. She climbed out of the pool and buried her face in her hands as sobs shook her slender frame. Once again, Daniele had put himself in potential danger to protect her. He hadn’t known that it was a cat, not a gunman, concealed in the bushes. Daniele was the only person she could trust, and she did not resist when he placed his arm across her shoulders and drew her against his muscular body.
‘Va bene, cara,’he murmured. ‘You are safe.’
She felt safe with him. Paloma made a choked sound of protest when Daniele moved away from her, but he returned almost instantly to drape a towel around her shoulders and began to rub her dry.
‘Are you feeling warmer?’ he asked after a couple of minutes of brisk rubbing.
‘A bit.’ Her skin was tingling from his ministrations with the towel. She ought to object that he was treating her like a child, but when he pulled her into the circle of his arms once more, she sank against him, feeling the warmth of his body through his shirt transfer to her. He smelled divinely of sandalwood cologne, and she heard the strong thud of his heart beneath her ear when she rested her head on his chest.
‘You have been through a lot recently. The events in Mali and the sudden loss of your grandfather. You’re in a state of shock.’ Daniele’s deep voice rumbled through Paloma, and she was soothed by the light touch of his hand as he stroked her hair back from her face.
Nonno was the only person who had made her feel cherished. Her mother led a busy life socialising with her jet-set friends, and as a child Paloma had mostly been left in the care of nannies or sent away to boarding school. Visits to her father had been marred by his jealous mistresses who had resented any attention he had shown his daughter. Paloma had learned to be self-sufficient at a young age, but the truth was she had been lonely all her life. A poor little rich girl was how the tabloids had described her when speculation about the size of the divorce settlement she’d given Calum had made the headlines.
She did not want to think about her ex-husband’s cruel deception, or the promises he’d made so glibly but had never intended to keep. She could not bear to think of her darling Nonno, the only person who had valued her for who she was, rather than how much she was worth. Standing in the shelter of Daniele’s arms, Paloma closed her eyes and allowed her senses to take over from her conscious thoughts.
The call of the cicadas was a noisy chorus in the still night air, and the fragrance of jasmine growing in pots on the terrace was sweetly sultry. Paloma became aware of a subtle change in Daniele’s breathing and felt the quickening of his heartbeat. She was conscious of how much taller than her he was, and of the latent strength of his muscular physique.
In contrast, she felt small and weak like a kitten. Of course she wasn’t weak. Her great-uncle Franco and the other board members would discover that she was determined to claim her place at the head of the company she had inherited. But that fight would happen tomorrow. Right now it was bliss to be in Daniele’s arms while he threaded his fingers through her long hair.
In a flash, Paloma’s dreamy state of relaxation disappeared, replaced with an intense awareness of the man who had featured in every one of her adolescent romantic fantasies. The tiny hairs on her skin prickled and the ache low in her pelvis urged her to press herself closer to Daniele. Her breasts felt heavy, and she wondered if he could feel the hard tips of her nipples through the clingy material of her swimsuit. She tilted her head so that she could look at his face and her heart missed a beat when their eyes met and held. A nerve flickered in his cheek and his dark brows met above his glittering amber gaze.
‘Paloma...’ There was a warning in his gruff voice, but she could not look away from him or break the connection that throbbed between them. Three years ago, she had made the first move and pressed her lips against his, only for him to spurn her. Now she watched Daniele’s dark head descend and her pulse leapt when it seemed that he was about to kiss her. His warm breath whispered over her lips. She could not move, could hardly breathe. Her lashes swept down to hide the longing she was sure he would see in her eyes.
He swore, his voice low and harsh, and abruptly dropped his arms down to his sides so that she swayed on her feet when he stepped back from her. Daniele raked his hand through his hair. ‘Go inside. Quickly.’ He bit out the command.
Paloma hugged the towel tightly around her. She could not control the tremors that racked her body as reaction to what had happened—or nearly happened—set in. Self-recrimination churned in her stomach.Idiot!Why had she stared at Daniele like a lovesick teenager, hoping he would kiss her? He had made it clear that his marriage proposition was so he could fulfil his promise to her grandfather to take care of her. He saw her as his responsibility, nothing more.
He frowned when she did not move. ‘For God’s sake, go back to the hotel—now. And, Paloma,’ he said curtly when she turned away from him. ‘What just happened. It was nothing. We are both in shock and grieving for Marcello. It’s hardly surprising that our emotions are running high.’
Daniele watched Paloma run back to the hotel and was tempted to follow her to make sure she reached the penthouse safely. But he had a more pressing need to discover who had been spying on them. He hadn’t imagined the sudden glare of a camera flashbulb from the shadowy area next to the pool. At least it had jolted him to his senses, he thought grimly.
What the hell had he been thinking when he’d pulled Paloma into his arms? But in fairness, when she had broken down and sobbed heartbrokenly, her vulnerability had tugged on something inside him, and his only thought had been to comfort her. He hadn’t counted on the fact that Paloma had been a threat to his peace of mind for years. His libido had responded to her softly curvaceous body and her small breasts pressed against his chest. The temptation to kiss her had made him forget the promise he had made her grandfather. Worse, he had momentarily forgotten that Paloma was in danger.
Silently cursing his lack of control, Daniele pulled his phone from his pocket and called the hotel’s owner, Enrique, before he made a thorough search among the bushes and trees surrounding the pool terrace. As he’d expected, whoever had been hiding there had gone. Minutes later, he heard a voice behind him.
‘Paloma has returned to the penthouse. I have assigned a security guard to patrol the corridor outside the suite,’ Enrique told him. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Someone knows she is here.’
‘I don’t see how that is possible. You were both checked into the hotel under false names. Do you think one of the other guests recognised Paloma?’
‘The only time she left the suite was tonight when she came down to the pool.’ Daniele’s jaw clenched. He would have tried to stop her if he’d known she planned to swim. Fear had cramped in his stomach when he’d discovered that Paloma was not in her room.
‘I’ve stepped up security around the hotel,’ Enrique said. ‘Do you still believe that one or more of the trustees of her grandfather’s company want Paloma out of the way?’
