A Wedding At The Italian's Demand

He was a stranger... For one awful split second she’d thought Callum... It wasn’t, of course. The local boy made good, thanks to an ability to kick a ball and increase the sales of everything from breakfast cereal to cars by smiling into the camera, lived in Spain—or was it Japan?—these days, and anyway there was no real resemblance beyond the impression of height, athletic muscularity, the dark hair and her imagination.

If it had been Callum she might have pushed him back out into the storm, but the man who hadn’t broken her heart didn’t look pushable!

He stood for a moment framed in the doorway, the top of his bare head touching the door frame, his broad shoulders filling the space as the long drover’s-style overcoat he wore, caught by the wind, flared out behind him dramatically.

If this wild elemental storm had taken human form it would have looked like him.

Before her dazed brain could take in any more details he reached out, pulling the heavy door closed being him, making the effort of competing against the gale-force wind look effortless.

The deafening roar was instantly reduced to a dull distant moan and the fire, which had briefly flared to life with the influx of oxygen, died down as it blew out a cloud of acrid eye-stinging smoke, which under normal circumstances would have made Flora think about the damage it would inflict on the fresh white paintwork.

But she wasn’t thinking about paintwork or actually anything else much. The adrenalin surge that held every muscle in her body taut to quivering point had thrown her nervous system directly into flight-or-fight mode, though neither would have done her much good against this man who, now the door was closed, seemed even taller.

He stood there for what felt like hours but might have been seconds, long enough at any rate for the details of his face to imprint themselves in her memory. The moisture that slicked his short dark hair against his skull trembled in droplets on the end of his dark, ludicrously long lashes and covered his face, making the olive-toned skin glow gold in the subdued lighting. Even if you had taken the incredible mouth and the dark deep-set eyes from the equation, the combination of hard planes and fascinating angles, emphasised by the shadow on his square jaw and hollow cheeks, was overtly sensual and overpoweringly male.

Refusing to acknowledge the hot sensation in her stomach as sexual awareness, she tried to kick free of the oddly hypnotic, cold, heavy-lidded eyes that held her own.

‘Who are you?’ she blurted when her vocal cords started working. Her voice lacked the welcoming Highland warmth that happy tourists frequently mentioned in their five-star reviews of the establishment, but, in her defence, she was in shock...or something?

She swallowed and brought her lashes down. Despite the protective sweep she continued to be conscious of those dark eyes with the glittering, deeply disturbing gold lights.

Oh, yes, she thought, grateful for the layers of clothing that muffled the sound of her heart hammering against her ribcage, this was definitely something. Not a big, significant something, just an ‘opening of the door to find the most good-looking man she had ever seen or even dreamt existed standing there’ something.

Was this a good time to discover that you still had a built-in weak spot for a pretty face? No, Callum had been pretty, this man was more...was beautiful. Too big a word...?

No, it wasn’t, she decided, studying the perfect bone structure of his strongly carved face with its high carved cheekbones, square jawline and aquiline nose, her stomach dipping uncomfortably when she reached the sensual outline of his wide mouth.

Though actually what had really thrown her was the shock wave of overt sexuality his large presence in the low-ceilinged room created. The surface of her skin prickled with it and her knees were shaking.

Great! Just what she needed!

Fate decided losing her dearest sister and brother-in-law, inheriting their business and their baby son was not enough! Mr Dark and Brooding had to turn up on her doorstep and kick into life the embers of her dormant libido!

Admittedly, not dark and brooding’s fault, but she struggled to view the intruder who, as supplying the last straw, she felt might just make her fold, with any objectivity.

Mouth closed might be a move in the right direction, Flora.

‘I booked a room.’

His very low, deep voice had an almost tactile quality and held an intriguing almost accent. A wave of deep sadness tightened her throat—much deeper and harsher, but it reminded her a little of her late brother-in-law, Bruno. But Bruno’s voice had been warm and filled with laughter; the stranger’s voice held about the same amount of warmth as his cold dark eyes as he waited for her to respond.

She gave herself a mental shake, and dug deep into her reserves of professionalism. It wasn’t normally an effort—she’d cut her hospitality teeth working shifts in a bar in Edinburgh when she was working her way through university. Several recent guests had commented online about her ‘friendly efficiency and warmth’.

So why was she standing here like a tongue-tied idiot?

True, to date none of the guests she’d immediately felt at ease with had arrived wearing a suit that screamed designer beneath a long, equally expensive-looking coat that hung off shoulders a mile wide. And none had...no, she decided not to even think about the sexual aura he exuded, hoping that she’d wake up tomorrow after a good night’s sleep and discover it was a sleep-deprivation thing. The odds of this happening were pretty good, because, though her ex-fiancé’s opinion on most things counted for zero with her, on one thing he was probably right—she wasn’t really a sexual person.

* * *

‘Is there a problem?’

Beyond the inescapable fact, Ivo realised, that he had made the mistake of nursing preconceptions, having them challenged made him feel slightly off balance—not something he was accustomed to.

He didn’t intend to get accustomed to it.

He hadn’t even realised until the door had opened that he’d been expecting a tall willowy blonde standing there. He’d not been imagining a petite redhead, a belt holding up her snug-fitting jeans around an impossibly narrow waist.

Ivo dug his hands deep into his pockets as his long brown fingers flexed in response to the mental image of them closing around the circumference. The slight but distinctly feminine sinuous curves above and below the belt sent a fresh slug of scorching heat through his body as he studied them again before he dragged his attention back to her face.

He couldn’t pretend it was a hardship to look at the woman his grandfather had casually suggested he marry.

From nowhere an image of her floating down a church aisle in white came into his head but he pushed it away. The same way he pushed away any thought of marriage. It had seemed like an inevitable prospect, something he owed to the continuation of his name...but the existence of Bruno’s child, the next generation, took the pressure off.

Ivo was here, yes, but not to marry anyone!

Was his alternative plan any less insane? Actually, ‘plan’ might be overstating it—more a play-it-by-ear than actual plan.

So, yes, possibly insane, but less insane than it had seemed around the same time he had seriously contemplated abandoning his car on a section of the road that was underwater about half a mile away.

Ivo didn’t believe in fate, signs or divine intervention, but when you were driving along a road that was rapidly becoming a river a man, even one who prided himself on being rational, did start to wonder: was someone somewhere trying to tell him something?

And it wasn’t the first snag!

Ivo prided himself on being adaptable but today had tested him. Since he’d set out this morning everything that could go wrong had. Engine problems shortly after they had taken off from the private airstrip had forced the pilot to turn back and make an emergency landing in Rome.

When he had finally landed in the replacement jet there had been no driver willing to make the journey up to Skye with weather warnings out advising only essential journeys being made.

Considering that his journey was essential, he had been privately pretty scornful of weather warnings in the British Isles, assuming they’d probably meant heavy drizzle.

His contempt had come back to bite him. He glanced down at his ruined handmade leather shoes—the elderly couple he’d rescued after they’d run off the road had treated him like a hero—not a good fit.

And now he was here and things were still not going to plan. He focused the objectivity he was famed for—some called it coldness—on the heart-shaped face turned up to him.

To suggest that she was not beautiful—even taking into account that his taste in women had never run to petite and fragile—would not have been an objective assessment. He’d met women who were more beautiful, though none had possessed a heart-shaped face framed by wild Pre-Raphaelite curls, the deep titian interwoven with strands of lighter gold.

As unexpected as the vividly pretty heart-shaped face had been was the twist of hard desire he’d experienced when he’d first laid eyes on her.

Setting aside that visceral response, he continued to study the face that had drawn this reaction. It was a face that came complete with tip-tilted nose, a cute, curvy full mouth and wildly sexy and deep kitten-wide pansy-blue eyes framed by spiky, thick, straight lashes. There was the suggestion of a cleft in her pointed, determined small chin.

* * *

In response to his question, Flora lifted her eyes from the relative safety of mid-chest level. His hard stare was disconcerting.

‘You’re wearing a tie.’

She squeezed her eyes closed and thought, Any moment now I’m going to say something that suggests I have more than two brain cells.

Please make it soon!