Ultimate Temptation

Her hands curled into fists at her sides, her nails grating across the soft palms. She tried to keep her voice level.

‘Companion, signore? I don’t think I understand.’

‘It’s quite simple. You will remain here, signorina, to make reparation for the insult which has been made to my home—my family—by you and your—acquaintances.’

‘I’ll remain?’ She took a startled breath. ‘But that isn’t fair...’

Giulio Falcone shrugged. ‘By your own admission you cannot afford proper recompense for the damage that has been done. However, there are other methods of payment.’ His smile barely touched the corners of his mouth. ‘I believe we can reach a settlement that would be—agreeable to us both.’

‘Then you’re wrong,’ Lucy said furiously. Cold no longer, she was now burning with shame and anger, and an odd sense of disappointment. ‘How dare you even suggest such a thing? Who the hell do you think you are—and what do you take me for?’

‘I am Falcone.’ He threw back his head, the dark face arrogant, brooding. ‘And you are a girl who has twice trembled in my arms. Can you deny it?’

‘I was upset,’ she flung at him defensively. ‘The first time I’d nearly been robbed, and the second I was running away. I thought you realised that—and why...’

‘Ah, yes.’ His voice was reflective. ‘But, in that case, why tempt a man by wearing a dress that begs to be taken from your body and then deny him the pleasure? Your companions, after all, showed no such reticence,’ he added, his mouth curling slightly.

She said shortly, ‘I’m responsible for no one’s conduct but my own, and I don’t play games like that.’

‘Are you a virgin?’

She gasped, the colour deepening to fiery red in her face. ‘You have no right to ask me that.’

‘A simple “no” would have sufficed,’ he said mockingly. ‘Although—’ he sent her a narrow-eyed glance ‘—your eyes do not have the look of a woman who has known all the satisfaction that love can bring.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Lucy said haughtily.

He laughed. ‘I’m quite sure you don’t, but it will be an exquisite pleasure to teach you some day—or some night.’

There was a caress in his voice which shivered down Lucy’s spine and danced in her pulses. She felt the muscles in her throat tauten.

She managed a brief shrug of her own. ‘Fortunately, I shan’t be around that long. As I said, I’m leaving for Pisa.’

‘Ah,’ the count said meditatively. ‘And just how do you propose to get there?’

Lucy paused in the act of locking her case. ‘Why— drive there, of course.’

‘I did not realise you had brought your own vehicle.’

‘Well, I haven’t, but...’ Her voice trailed into silence as she saw his smile deepen mockingly, and the slow negative movement of his dark head.

She said unsteadily, ‘Of course, the car is yours too. I should have realised.’

‘Not mine,’ he corrected her. ‘It belongs to the contessa.’

She was very still for a moment, her thoughts whirling blankly. The idea that he could be married had never even crossed her mind. Not, of course, that it made the slightest difference...

She said brusquely, ‘Then she has my sympathy.’

‘Why?’ His brows lifted enquiringly. ‘Is the car so difficult to drive?’

‘Certainly not,’ Lucy snapped. ‘I meant that I—I pity anyone who’s involved with a—a Lothario like you.’

‘You imagine, perhaps, that Lothario was an Italian.’ Giulio Falcone shook his head again. ‘You are wrong, signorina. He was the invention of an English dramatist. Just as you seem to be inventing me,’ he added, his tone dry.

‘It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination,’ Lucy retorted. ‘Nina was right, after all. You Italian studs are all the same.’

‘The looks of a dove and the tongue of a wasp,’ he said silkily. ‘An intriguing combination.’

‘Not for much longer.’ Lucy swung the case off the bed. ‘Will you loan me your—contessa’s car to drive to Pisa, please?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not.’

She lifted her chin. ‘Right—then I’ll walk there.’ ‘In that dress?’ He surveyed her mockingly. ‘You’d be lucky to get half a kilometre. Even if the police did not stop you first,’ he added, almost casually.

‘I planned to change, given some privacy,’ she said. ‘I don’t think jeans and a shirt would make me liable to arrest.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But there is the matter of trespass, which you seem to have overlooked.’

Fright was building up again, making her stomach churn. Her fingers tightened almost convulsively round the handle of her case.

She said jerkily, ‘You can’t be serious, signore. I—we acted in good faith. We didn’t know this was your house.’

‘That is hardly a defence,’ he said. ‘Especially when added to the acts of vandalism committed against my possessions.’

She couldn’t argue. Her knowledge of Italian law was nil. Perhaps it ws one of those countries where you were guilty until you proved yourself innocent, she thought faintly.

She tried again. ‘But you can’t put all the blame on me. There were others involved.’

‘True,’ he said softly. ‘But they have gone, and you, columbina, are the only one left to make the recompense I require.’

‘You think I’m like them—like Nina and the others.’ Her voice shook. ‘But I’m not—I swear to you.’

‘I believe you.’ He lifted a negligent shoulder. ‘Otherwise I would not want you.’

The amber eyes, hooded, watchful, swept over her, lingering on her breasts, the curve of her hips, the slender line of her thighs.

The dark face was coldly, almost dispassionately absorbed. Like his namesake, the falcon—the ultimate predator—with its prey in sight, and helpless, Lucy thought wildly, her body trembling, her brain teeming with desperation.

She said, ‘You have no right—no right at all to keep me here against my will.’

‘I think, under the circumstances, I have any rights that I choose to assume, Lucia mia.’

‘Don’t call me that.’

Giulio Falcone frowned. ‘I was told it was your name.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t give you permission to use it.’ She stood her ground, glaring at him.