Sophie and the Scorching Sicilian (12 page)

He took a deep breath; this had to stop. He was distracted and it was affecting his work—tonight's successful business deal should have been clinched last night.

The choice was clear; he had faced similar choices before. He had weighed the advantages of having sex with a woman he was attracted to and either he'd followed through or walked away.

This was not rocket science.

For guidance he used a few simple rules, the most important being to avoid anything that pointed in the direction of emotional fireworks, and he had become quite good at spotting women who could not separate emotion from sex.

Nothing had changed; he had weighed the pros and cons in this case. In fact, he had actually weighed them several times but each time the result was the same: becoming involved with Sophie Balfour at a sexual level was a non-starter.

And yet here he was.

‘What?' she asked, folding her arms across her chest and angling a cool, clear look of defiance at his face. ‘Why are you staring at me like that?' A shiver moved through her body as he carried on staring. ‘What do you want to do?'

A number of replies to this question crossed Marco's mind. He voiced none but that didn't stop his body reacting to the images in his head with all the restraint of an adolescent boy in the grip of hormone overload.

Maybe he should tell her—then she'd run, which would solve his problem. Or maybe she wouldn't… The chemistry was not, he was sure, one-sided.

‘Well, if you do want to sack me you'll have to say it because I'm not walking.'

He ground his teeth. Why did this woman feel the need to constantly challenge him? She was incapable of compromise; she was pig-headed… As he opened his mouth to inform her that, although not fired, she was infuriating, there was a crunching sound. A small piece of debris from the platform above, dislodged by Sophie's speedy departure, hit the ground almost at his feet. The plaster almost immediately disintegrated, spraying him liberally with powdery residue.

Sophie stepped forward and began to pat ineffectually at the front of his jacket, her efforts succeeded in grinding the dust into the expensive fabric and making her painfully aware of the hardness of his lean body; his torso had as much give as a rock face.

She took a step back, not looking at him. ‘Sorry.' She was guiltily aware that she had continued to pat long after it became clear her efforts were not improving matters.

She was trying not to think about the addictive quality of the stolen moments of physical contact—my God, how pathetic does that make me—when he caught her wrist. Turning it over he looked at her dusty palm, displaying what seemed to her a
bizarre fascination with her fingers and her unpolished, neatly trimmed nails.

I'm like my manicure,
she thought,
not decorative but suitable to purpose, and practical.
She had often told herself that she much preferred to be useful rather than decorative and in this moment she recognised what a total sham that was!

Breathing hard, Sophie finally looked up from the brown fingers curled around her narrow bones to his face. She watched the emotions flicker across his dark face, and recalled an article she had read during her research that had said never play poker with Marco Speranza. The man has no emotions to hide; he is cold ice.

Well, the ice seemed very close to melting.

S
HE
had never imagined that it was possible to literally ache for someone's touch. Even when they clashed—actually collided—it seemed as if there was a connection there. Why wouldn't he stop looking at her? Did he feel something too? Was there something more to this than she'd thought?

‘No! It's just physical.' It's only sex and it will go away when he does, which hopefully will be soon.

She cut short the inner dialogue because he was looking at her strangely.

‘What is just physical?'

She froze, her eyes widening in horror.
Oh, my God. I said it out loud!

His eyes narrowed and his expression became suspicious. Sophie's heart sank to somewhere below her knees. This is what you get when you let your imagination run away with you.

‘You are injured?'

She expelled a shaky relieved sigh. ‘No, I'm fine.' As fine as someone who is in danger of getting fantasy and reality horribly confused can be.

‘The work the stonemasons do…it's incredibly physical. They're real craftsmen you know,' she babbled nervously, because of the way he was staring at her…
hungrily
? No, surely that was her imagination. ‘I couldn't sleep…too much caffeine.'
Too much thinking about the meaning of life and the fact it was possible she could die a virgin, which up until recently had not seemed such a terrible thing. ‘And the scaffold will be down tomorrow, so tonight was my last opportunity—'

‘To put yourself in danger?'

Sophie winced at the corrosive sarcasm in his voice. ‘To see the relief work up close—'

‘You were utterly reckless!'

The accusation made Sophie's jaw drop; if he'd accused her of being cautious or careful or even boring she could have seen where he was coming from, but reckless!

‘Me?' The image of herself as some sort of wild child made Sophie smile.

The smile made his fragile control snap. ‘You find this funny?' he thundered, making her jump. ‘If I had not come when I did you could have…'

Too angry at being spoken to as if she was a naughty child, Sophie failed to notice the dramatic pallor that had robbed his vibrant skin of colour.

‘Why did you come?' she interrupted, folding her arms across her chest and aiming a look of simmering dislike at his face.

‘I'm here…' He stopped and dragged a hand through his dark hair. ‘I was working late.'

‘And it seemed a good idea to drive out here at, what, two in the morning…?' She raised her brows and dug her hands in the pockets of her jeans. ‘Oh, sure, that sounds
really
likely.'

He didn't even bother denying it and the tacit admission that he was checking up on her, that she didn't have his trust, hurt her on a level that was personal, not professional.

‘You obviously don't trust me.'

Marco, who had trust issues of his own—could he trust his control to withstand the overwhelming desire to silence her by kissing those tormenting lips?—remained silent. To bring his mouth down…to taste…

‘At least you've got the grace to look guilty.'

‘I am not guilty! And I do not need to explain myself to—'

‘A mere employee,' she cut in, with a laugh that hid another quite irrational stab of hurt. ‘Don't worry, I'm in no danger of forgetting my position.' But she was, that was the problem.

‘Just in danger of breaking your neck.'

Exasperated by his apparent fixation and exhausted by the constant effort of trying to behave normally around him, she lashed out.

‘You want me to fail! You don't like me!' In the act of pacing like a caged tiger in the opposite direction he stopped dead and spun back.

And small wonder! The mortified colour flew to her cheeks. ‘Not that you have to like me,' she inserted quickly. ‘But,' she mused, ‘most people do.'

‘I'm sure they do,' he said, thinking of the faceless men who had seen through her disguise, men who had been tempted by her soft feminine curves and lush lips. He pressed his fingers to the pounding in his temples and continued to pace.

Sophie read scepticism in his taut response and snapped, ‘They do—I'm
nice
Sophie.' A bitter note entered her voice as she added sarcastically, ‘I'm
helpful
Sophie, and I never cause a scene, or disagree or say no, even if I don't particularly—' She stopped as she reached mid-tirade and at the shrill limit of her vocal range, a look of horror spreading across her face.

‘So you say, yet you appear to have acquired the knack of scene making very easily. And, no, I don't
like
you—you make my life…' The blue iridescent sheen of unshed tears halted his outpouring and filled him with a sudden and urgent need to gather her in his arms.

Refusing to recognise the emotion swelling in his chest as tenderness he inhaled deeply and, pulling his crumpled tie from his pocket, began to loop it around his throat, in a slightly belated attempt to keep things on a business footing.

‘This is my home. I think you'll find it is in my best interests that you don't fail. Or, for that matter, break your neck while you're on the payroll.'

‘For goodness' sake! I'm not going to break my neck.' Do not cry, do not cry. So he didn't like you; it wasn't exactly news. ‘It's totally safe.' She glanced towards the scaffold and surreptitiously brushed a tear from her cheek. ‘It fully complies with every safety standard. Men work up there every day.'

‘Men work up there with safety harnesses, and they know what they are doing.'

Sophie's chin went up. ‘And I don't…?'

His eyes narrowed on her flushed face. ‘You're only trying to start an argument because you know you're in the wrong and you can't admit it.'

There was just enough truth in this claim to make Sophie very angry. She dodged his interrogative glare and shrugged. ‘I was only up there for five minutes. And don't worry, I'll sign a waver if you're concerned about me suing you.'

He muttered something under his breath and took a step forward. The action had none of the lazy grace she associated with him; the tension rolled off him in waves.

Sophie swallowed. She had seen Marco look angry before—he wasn't the most patient man on the planet and she seemed to have a knack of irritating him—but this was the first time she had seen that anger raw and naked without the veneer of urbanity.

Her eyes riveted on his lean face, she nibbled nervously on her full lower lip.

This, she thought, must be how a small fluffy animal feels caught in the headlights of an oncoming juggernaut, except even the dimmest fluffy animal wouldn't be crazy enough to admire the vehicle's paintwork!

She was stupid, but my God, he really was awesome!

He looked down at her, his eyes a green glitter through the dense mesh of his sooty lashes.

In an attempt to forestall the explosion, Sophie squeaked quickly, ‘Just because you have had a bad day, don't take it out on me.'

‘It just so happens I have had a very good day.'

Sophie took the silent addition
until now
as read.

He inhaled and shook his head before taking another step towards her.

Sophie, who got a neat blast of the unidentifiable tension emanating from him, took a step backwards, but he carried on advancing and then her feet were not moving backwards but forwards to meet him, until they stood toe to toe.

Now how did that happen? She pressed her hand to her chest as she struggled to catch her breath… Could a person forget how to breathe?

As his hands fell heavy on her shoulders Sophie's head automatically fell backwards, to meet his gaze. Their eyes locked and she swayed towards him, the tug that drew her so strong, so impossible to resist, that she would not have been surprised to see a cord from her chest connected to his, reeling her in.

No, that's your lust.

Ignoring the contribution of the sly voice of her subconscious she tried to break the hypnotic hold of his glittering green eyes, and failed. Did she even want to succeed?

The debate in her head was unresolved. Part of her appeared pre-programmed to lean into his hardness, and it was impossible to think at all when you were being bombarded with so much information—the heat from his body, the warm musky male smell.

The constant nagging ache she had been conscious of over the past weeks became centralised as a tightness in her chest; her breasts felt heavy and tingling.

My God, he is so beautiful, she thought, helplessly dazzled as always by the stark, pure perfection of his dark features. He was lean and hard, all bone, sinew and muscle, the essence of mas
culinity, and, this close, close enough to feel the warmth—no,
heat
—radiating from his skin, utterly devastatingly addictive.

Sophie's heart rate quickened to a rapid thud that vibrated through her body; things shifted and moved inside her as she struggled to break the invisible chains that held her motionless.

‘I…' Something in his glittering emerald stare made her voice dry.

Marco's eyes travelled slowly up the graceful pale curve of her throat. He swallowed, the muscles in his brown throat visibly working as his passion-glazed stare stilled on her lips, the hunger roaring in his blood like a fever, his laboured breath loud in the electrically charged air that separated them.

The coruscating heat in his blood, pumping to every cell in his body, disintegrated the intellectual debate he had used to distance himself from the way Sophie Balfour had burrowed into his head, his thoughts, his mind, and now she had taken control of his body also.

She had awoken feelings that he had fought and was still fighting, because she was not the sort of woman he became involved with, though some might dispute appropriateness of the term
involved
when applied to his relationships with women.

Involvement was what he assiduously avoided. He did not do live-in lovers; he applied the same simple rules to his personal life as he did to business, and it worked.

He had allowed himself to become emotionally entangled once; he had let his heart rule his head…
he
had allowed it. He hadn't fallen into the situation; he had walked into it with his eyes open.

He had deliberately ignored the warning signs. In his book that did not make him a victim but a fool—he had
wanted
to be in love.

He had wanted to create the family he had never had.

And even though Allegra was out of his life, he was still living with the fallout from that decision, the self-contempt and shame.

Allegra had used him to further her ambitions and she had dragged his name through the mud in order to achieve her ends: humiliating him.

He had learnt his lesson; he would never put that sort of power in the hands of a woman again. Emotions were dangerous and unreliable, but God, her mouth was sweet and so were the crazy, unpredictable things she said.

Sophie Balfour refused to be neatly categorized, and no matter what heading he filed her under she continued to be a distraction.

He looked at her mouth, her lips raspberry red, and thought, No, not distraction…
obsession
, and one quite clearly it was illogical to fight.

A man always craved what he was forbidden and the forbidden fruit soon lost its appeal.

‘Dio mio!'
he rasped rawly. ‘I want you.'

She stopped breathing.

The air hummed with an electric expectation; the tension that hung between them was as taut as the corded muscles that stood out in his neck.

He cupped her face between his hands, sliding his fingers into her hair to frame her face. The contact feathered along her nerve endings, making her entire body thrum with desire. Her knees sagged and she caught hold of his shirt.

‘This is…not happening.'

His hand slid down her back, pulling her towards him and she didn't try and stop him.
Why aren't I doing anything? Why aren't I telling him this is not an appropriate action for an employer?

She should never have got on first-name terms with him; it had all gone downhill from there. ‘Mr Speranza,' she croaked.

He gave an incredulous gasp and lowered his head close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath, sweet and fragrant on her skin. When he spoke, she reacted as violently to his voice, a throaty whisper, as if it was a caress.

‘Miss Balfour,'
he said, managing to inject mockery and caressing warmth into her name. ‘You asked me why I came…'

Sophie, her breath coming in gusty little gasps, shook her head and said, ‘You came to check up on me.'

‘No, Sophie, this is why I came….' Marco made the admission as much for his own benefit as hers.

Her eyes widened with shock, then closed as her lips parted under the firm pressure of his mouth. A sigh shuddered through her body and she went as limp as a rag doll in his arms.