A Tainted Beauty

‘You mean home-made soup?’

‘Well, it’s certainly not out of a carton or a tin,’ she said, with a shudder. ‘It’s spinach and lentil, lightly flavoured with coriander. Best served with a dollop of crème fraîche and a hunk of freshly baked bread.’

It sounded like an edible orgasm, Ciro thought irreverently and felt the heaving aching of his groin. ‘Sounds delicious,’ he said unevenly.

‘I am reliably informed that it is delicious. While this—’ she pointed towards a sticky-looking concoction which was sitting cooling on a rack ‘—is your common or garden lemon drizzle cake.’

‘Wow,’ he said softly.

She searched his face for signs of sarcasm but could find none and there was something about his almost wistful expression which made her throw caution to the wind. ‘You could… try some, if you like. It tastes best when it’s warm from the oven. Sit down and I’ll cut you a slice. After all, if you’ve come all the way from Naples—the least I can do is show you a little English hospitality.’

Again, he heard the clamour of his conscience but Ciro blotted it out. Instead, he lowered himself into a solid-looking wooden chair and watched her as she moved around the kitchen. ‘You still haven’t told me your name.’

‘You didn’t ask.’

‘I’m asking now.’

‘It’s Lily.’

His gaze travelled over her face and alighted on the soft curve of her lips. ‘Pretty name.’

Hastily, she turned to take the milk-jug from the fridge, hating the fact that the meaningless compliment was making her blush. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘But I presume you have another name—or is that a state secret?’

‘Very funny.’ She met the glint of mischief in his eyes. ‘It’s Scott.’

‘Scott?’

‘As in great,’ she explained automatically. ‘You know, Great Scott—the explorer.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Ciro said, his mind spinning as he began to work out the implications. She must be related to the vendor. Yet how could that be when she didn’t have a clue that the house had just been sold? When she didn’t even realise that it had been on the market. He frowned, knowing that he had passed the point where he could decently tell her.

Except that wasn’t quite true, was it? If she’d been middle-aged, or male and quite obviously a member of staff—he wouldn’t have had any problem telling her that he was the new owner of this big house. It was her general gorgeousness which was making him hesitate about enlightening her. And surely it wasn’t his place to do so?

He waited until she had poured tea and he’d accepted a slice of delicious-looking cake for which he now had no appetite, before broaching the subject again. ‘So you live here?’

Lily was so busy gazing dreamily at the shadowed slant of his chiselled jaw that she didn’t really stop to think about his question.

‘Of course I live here! Where did you think I…’ And then she saw something in his eyes which made her voice change and she put down the cup which she had been about to raise to her lips. ‘Oh, I see,’ she said slowly. ‘You thought I worked here? That I’m an employee. The cook, perhaps? Or maybe even the housekeeper.’

‘I didn’t—’

‘Please don’t feel you have to deny it—or to apologise.’ She saw the uncomfortable look which had crossed his face and could have kicked herself. There she’d been—drifting around in some crazy dream-world, thinking that he actually fancied her when all the time he was looking on her as the hired help! Well done, Lily, she thought grimly. It seemed that her male radar was as unreliable as ever. She shook her head. ‘I mean, of course someone like me wouldn’t be living in a house like this. It’s much too grand and expensive!’

He winced. ‘I didn’t say that.’

He didn’t have to, thought Lily. And anyway, why deny something which was fundamentally true? She did make cakes for a living and she did dress on a budget—because that was pretty much all she had to live on these days. Didn’t she squirrel away as much of her meagre wages as possible to send to her brother Jonny at boarding school—to stop him from standing out as the poor, scholarship boy he really was?

Yet maybe Ciro D’Angelo had done her a favour. Maybe it was time to recognise that nothing was the same any more. She needed to accept that things had moved on and she needed to move on with them. She was no longer the much-loved daughter of the house—because both her parents were dead. It was as simple as that. Her stepmother wasn’t the evil stereotype beloved of fairy tales. She tolerated her, but she didn’t love her. And since her father had died, Lily had increasingly got the feeling that she was nothing but an encumbrance.

She forced herself to say the words. To maintain her pride, even though she no longer had any legitimate position here. ‘This is my stepmother’s house,’ she said. ‘She isn’t here at the moment, but she’ll be back soon. In fact, very soon. So I think it’s time you were leaving.’

Ciro rose to his feet, a hot sense of anger beginning to simmer inside him. Why the hell hadn’t her stepmother told her that this house had been sold? That contracts had been exchanged and the deal would be completed within days. By the end of next week, the house would be his and he would begin the process of turning it from a rather neglected family home into a state-of-the-art boutique hotel. He frowned. And what was going to happen to this corn-haired beauty when that happened?

He made one last attempt to get her to stop glaring at him—to try to coax a smile from those beautiful lips or a brief crinkling of her bright blue eyes. He gave an exaggerated shrug of his shoulders, which women always found irresistible—particularly when it was accompanied by such a rueful expression. ‘But I haven’t eaten my cake yet.’

Lily steeled herself against the seductive gleam in his eyes—almost certain it was manipulative. What a poser he was—and how nearly she had been sucked in by his charm! ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll get another opportunity to try some. There’s a tea shop in the village which sells another just like it. You can buy some there any time you like,’ she announced. ‘And now, if you wouldn’t mind excusing me—I’ve got a pie in the oven which needs my attention and I can’t stand around chatting all day. Goodbye, Mr D’Angelo.’

She gestured towards the door, her smile nothing but a cool formality before she closed it firmly behind him—and Ciro found himself standing in the scented garden once more.

Frustratedly, he stared at the honeysuckle which was scrambling around the heavy oak door, because no woman had ever kicked him out before. Nor made him feel as if he would die if he didn’t taste the petal softness of her lips. And no woman had ever looked at him as if she didn’t care whether she never saw him again.

He swallowed as the powerful lust which engulfed him was replaced with a cocktail of feelings he didn’t even want to begin to analyse.

Because he realised he hadn’t thought of Eugenia.

Not once.

CHAPTER TWO (#uca481aa7-6e16-524f-b667-5ccfb9d14c51)

‘I DON’T understand.’ Feeling the blood drain from her face, Lily stared at her stepmother—as if waiting for her to turn round and tell her that was all some sort of sick joke.

‘What’s not to understand?’ Suzy Scott stood beside the large, leaded windows of the drawing room—her expression registering no reaction to her stepdaughter’s obvious distress. ‘It’s very simple, Lily. The house has been sold.’

Lily swallowed, shaking her head in denial. ‘But you can’t do that!’ she whispered.

‘Can’t?’ Suzy’s perfectly plucked eyebrows were elevated into two symmetrical black curves. ‘I’m afraid that I can. And I have. It’s a fait accompli. The contracts have been signed, exchanged and completed. I’m sorry, Lily—but I really had no alternative.’

‘But why? This house has been in my family for—’

‘Yes, I know it has,’ said Suzy tiredly. ‘For hundreds of years. So your father always told me. But that doesn’t really count for much in the cold, harsh light of day, does it? He didn’t leave me with any form of pension, Lily—’

‘He didn’t know he was going to die!’

‘And I really need the money,’ Suzy continued, still without any change of expression. ‘There’s no regular income coming in and I need something to live off.’

Lily pursed her trembling lips together, willing herself not to burst into angry howls of rage. She wanted to suggest that her stepmother find some sort of job—but knew that would be as pointless as suggesting that she stop kitting herself out in top-to-toe designer clothes.

‘But what about me?’ she questioned. ‘And more importantly—what about Jonny?’

Suzy’s smile became tight. ‘You’re very welcome to stay over at my London house sometimes—you know you are. But you also know how cramped it is.’

Yes, Lily knew. But her thoughts and her fears were not for herself, but for her brother. Her darling brother who had already been through so much in his sixteen years. ‘Jonny can’t possibly live at the place in London,’ she said, trying to imagine the gangling teenager let loose on all the ghastly spindly antiques which Suzy loved to keep in her metropolitan home.

Suzy fingered the diamond pendant which hung from a fine golden chain at her throat. ‘There certainly isn’t room for him and his enormous shoes littering up my sweet little mews house, that’s for sure—which is why I’ve arranged for you to carry on living here.’

Lily blinked as a feeling of hope quelled her momentary terror. ‘Here?’ she echoed. ‘You mean in the house?’