The Ice Prince (12 page)

“
Bellissima?
Why such a shocked look on that beautiful face?”

She took a deep breath.

“Nothing. Well, I mean—I mean, it’s terribly late. I—I should get back to the hotel.”

“Anna.” He came toward her slowly, his eyes locked to hers. “What are you talking about?”

“The time. How late it is. And—”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

Anna grabbed the robe from his hands, stood up and quickly slipped it on. She didn’t want to be naked. As it was, she felt—she felt totally, terrifyingly exposed.

“Well, but it isn’t up to you, is it?” Her voice was brittle. She hated the sound, hated the way he was looking at her, the way she felt, confused and desperate, and there was this unpleasant, leaden feeling in her heart … “It’s up to me if I want to leave, and—”

She gasped as Draco pulled her into his arms.

“I would not have thought the Orsini
consigliere
would be a coward.”

“I’m not a coward. And I told you, I’m not a
consigliere.
I hate my father and what he stands for, and the only
famiglia
I’m part of is the one made up of my four brothers and my sister, and if you don’t let go of me, Draco Valenti, I’ll—I’ll—”

Draco muttered a rough phrase in Italian, hauled her to her toes and kissed her. Anna fought the kiss.

No. Not the kiss. She fought what she felt, the floodgate of emotion opening in her heart.

She trembled as Draco took his lips from hers and drew her close.

“Lo so, tesoro,”
he whispered. “I know. You don’t understand this. Neither do I.” He stroked her hair, pressed his lips
to her temple. “Something different,
sì?
This—this feeling. This emotion …”

She gave a watery laugh.

“Pasta and philosophy. What more could one ask for in the middle of the night?”

He laughed, too, and gathered her to him.

She could feel his heart beating. He could feel hers.

They stood that way for a long time. Then Anna leaned back in her lover’s arms.

“Draco,” she said softly.

“Anna,” he said just as softly.

They smiled, both thinking, again, of that first night together and how he had said her name and she had said his.

He cupped her face. Kissed her so tenderly she felt tears in her eyes.

After a long time he stepped back. Tied the sash of the robe at her waist. Looked at her, from the tips of her bare toes to the top of her tousled curls.

His smile lit her heart.

“Sei cosi bella,”
he said softly.

He took her hand and kissed it. Then, fingers entwined, he led her through the still-dark villa to the kitchen.

D
RACO
had told the truth.

Almost.

He wasn’t a world-class chef, but he made world-class espresso. Anna pronounced it amazing as they sat drinking it at a small marble-topped table in the garden just off the kitchen.

“Not even my mother makes better coffee,” she told him.

“That,” he said solemnly, “has to be a world-class compliment.”

She grinned. “You’d better believe it.”

The sun was rising, shedding streaks of gold through the garden and the pines that surrounded it.

Anna sighed. “It’s lovely here,” she said softly. “The only thing missing is music.”

“The Pines of Rome,”
Draco said.

Anna looked at him over her coffee cup. “Yes, exactly.” She smiled. “And here I thought I was the only person in the world who loved Respighi.”

“Got to admit,” Draco said solemnly, “for me, it’s a toss-up between Respighi and Mick Jagger.”

She laughed. He loved to watch her laugh. There was nothing delicate or false about it, the way there was with so many women.

“Well, heck,” she said, “why not? I mean, they’re both golden oldies.”

Draco grinned. And then, because it seemed the most natural thing in the world, he leaned across the table and kissed her.

“Nice,” he said. He kissed her again. Her lips parted, clung gently to his. “Very nice. The best possible way to get sugar with my espresso.”

Anna’s lips curved against his. “Flattery will get you everywhere. But I guess you know that, huh?”

“Me?” Draco said, with such innocence that she giggled.

He grinned, tugged her from her chair and drew her into his lap. They kissed again. And again. His hand slipped inside her robe. She moaned as he caressed her breast, and then she grabbed his hand and clasped it firmly in both of hers.

“We need food, remember?” she said sternly. “Sustenance, Valenti. You said so yourself.” She got to her feet. He rose, too, collected their cups and followed her into the kitchen, where an enormous pot of sauce simmered on the stove.

It had turned out that he was not only a world-class maker of coffee, he was also a world-class slicer and dicer of onions, garlic, celery, tomatoes—all the stuff they’d pilfered from the fridge and pantry and combined in a pot.

It had been simmering for an hour. Now Draco took a deep, deep breath.

“Wow.”

Anna nodded. “Wow, indeed.”

“It smells wonderful.”

“That’s ’cause I’m the chef,” she said smugly, plucking a big wooden spoon from the top of the stove and stirring the sauce. “Maybe not world class, but my-mother’s-kitchen class, anyway.”

“Hey,” he said, “we’re both Italian.
Ragù
is in our genes.”

“
Ragù,
as in the brand of gravy in a jar?”

“
Ragù,
as in that’s the word for … Gravy? What gravy?”

Anna laughed. “If you grow up in Little Italy, this red stuff is gravy.”

“Ah.” Draco took the spoon and stirred the simmering sauce.

“Ah, what?”

“Nothing. I just—oof! Darn it, woman, that is a very sharp elbow.”

“Did you just make a disparaging comment about my ancestry?”

He gave her a look of abject innocence.

“Would I say anything disparaging about a woman who can make a pasta sauce this good? Here,” he said, holding out the spoon. “Take a taste.”

“From that spoon straight to my hips.”

“Your hips are perfect.”

“Liar,” she said, trying not to smile.

“They’re curvy. Feminine. Sexy. In other words, perfect. Now, come on, lady lawyer. Taste.”

Anna rolled her eyes. “That is so-o-o sexist.”

“Stop complaining and taste the … What did you call it? Taste the gravy.”

Smiling, she leaned toward him. Draco whisked the spoon away and captured her mouth with his.

“Mmm,” he said softly.

“Mmm, indeed.”

Draco swept his arms around her. “
Mmm
is becoming my favorite word.”

She reached up and brushed a dark lock of hair off his forehead. “Mine, too.”

“In that case …”

He kissed her again. And again.

Anna laid her hand against his jaw, felt the roughness of early-morning stubble beneath the tips of her fingers. So sexy.
So masculine. It felt that way, too. Against her hand. And, God, against her breasts. Her belly. Her thighs.

Had she really thought she didn’t like that sensation? That, and coming awake in a man’s arms. Why had that always seemed as if it would surely be something to avoid?

Turned out it wasn’t.

In fact, there were definite benefits.

Morning sex. Something she’d never thought was all that movies and books made it out to be. But it was. It was lovely. Absolutely lovely when the man was Draco.

“Such deep, deep thoughts,
bellissima.
”

She blinked. Draco was watching her with the kind of all-or-nothing intensity that was one of the first things she’d noticed about him.

Liked about him.

Liked very much. Very, very much …

“Anna.” He set the spoon aside, gathered her into his arms. “What is it,
cara?
”

She swallowed hard, worked up a smile.

“I was just thinking that this is the first time, the very first time in my life, I’m going to have pasta for breakfast.”

Draco watched as she busied herself with the
ragù.
He took the pot he assumed his housekeeper used for pasta from a cupboard, brought it to the sink and filled it with water.

Was that really what she’d been thinking? Pasta for breakfast? A first for him, too …

There were more firsts for him this morning than pasta.

Early-morning conversation with a woman. Breakfast with her. No thought at all of business. That alone was inconceivable, that he should have awakened as he had, his thoughts not on the day’s business agenda or how the New York market would open but on, of all things, a woman.

And what, exactly, did that mean?

The water began to boil.

Draco lowered the flame and wished he could lower the boiling point of whatever it was that was happening inside him.

A muscle knotted in his jaw.

Anna was still at the stove, concentrating on stirring the sauce as if her life depended on it.

Was she as confused as he was?

Yesterday he’d told her that something was happening. The question was, what? He needed time and space to clear his head.

“Draco.”

He looked at Anna. Her face was pale.

“I have to leave.”

He didn’t answer.

“Go back to New York, I mean.”

Still he didn’t respond. Anna expelled a breath.

“I came to do a job and I’ve done it.” She gave a little laugh. “I mean, I came to do a job and now I know there’s no job to do. The land is absolutely yours. I don’t even know how my father came up with that story, but—”

“I understand,” he said politely … and then he looked at her, really looked at her, and felt himself growing angry. At her. At him. At them both. He moved toward her, clasped her shoulders, pulled her to her toes and glowered. “Goddamnit, Anna, you’re not going anywhere!”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I have to.”

“What you have to do is stay here. With me.”

“No.” Her voice took on a panicked edge. “I can’t. My work—”

“I have work, too. Call your office, as I will call mine. Tell them you won’t be in for a week.”

“Draco. I can’t simp—”

He kissed her. Again and again, his arms hard around
her, until she was hanging on to him to keep her knees from buckling.

“Stop,” she whispered. “I can’t think when you—”

“I am not asking you to think. I am asking you to do.”

Oh, he was so sure of himself! So arrogant. So demanding. So certain that because he was a man, he could bend her to his will.

“I have a job,” she said. “A life. I have commitments …”

Dark fire flashed in his eyes. “To a man?”

“No! Never. See? You don’t know anything about me or you’d never have asked me a thing like—”

“What I know,” he said, “is that we aren’t done with this.”

“Done with what?” Anna gathered herself together. “Look. It’s been—it’s been—”

“Sì,”
he said in a low voice, “it has. But it isn’t over.” He let go of her, reached for the phone, held it out. “Call your office. Call whoever needs to be called. Tell them you’ll be gone a week.”

Anna looked at her lover. At the phone in his outstretched hand.
Arrogant
wasn’t the word to describe him. It didn’t even come close. No one had told her what to do since she’d turned eighteen. Hell, she’d stopped listening to those who’d tried long before that.

And now this man, this impossible, tough-and-tender man thought he could step into her life with orders and demands?

“Anna.” Draco kissed her. Gently. Tenderly.
“Per favore, mio amore,”
he said softly. “I beg you. Stay with me this week.”

Anna stared into his eyes. Took a deep breath. Took the telephone from him.

And made the call.

They ate bowls of delicious pasta. Showered. Then Draco said he wanted to show her his Rome.

“I hate to say it,” he told her, “but it’s time to get dressed.”

Dressed in what?

Anna groaned as she looked at the clothes she’d left on a chair in his bedroom. “Oh no,” she whispered.

Draco, who was zipping up a pair of chino trousers, looked at her.

“What’s wrong,
cara?
”

“If there’s anything worse than wearing the same stuff two days in a row—”

“Ah,” he said. “That.”

“Yes. That. I don’t even have a change of underwear.”

“But you do.”

“I do?”

His smile was as smug as any she’d ever seen.

“
Sì.
Your clothes, your makeup—although why you’d put gunk on such a beautiful face is beyond me—all of that is here.”

Anna stared at him. “Here?”

“Of course. I took care of it.”

“You took—”

“Anna,” Draco said gently, “stop repeating what I say. Yes, I took care of it. I arranged for the hotel to pack for you and my driver to bring your luggage here. My housekeeper put everything in the dressing room. Didn’t you notice?”

“Well, no. But then, I didn’t expect …” She paused. “Let me get this straight. You made all these arrangements without asking me?”

Draco slipped on a white cotton shirt, did up most of the buttons, then folded back the sleeves.

“What was there to ask? I knew you would want your belongings.”

“Did you also know I’d be amenable to staying here instead of at my hotel?”

“Amenable. Lady lawyer talk,” he said, smiling as he reached for her.

Anna stepped back. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t try and—and make fun of what I say.”

“Whoa.” Draco held up his hands. “All I did was—”

“This may surprise you, but I can think for myself.”

His smile fled. “Such a mistake,” he said stiffly. “A man tries to do a good thing for his woman—”

“I am not your woman. I am not anyone’s woman. I am my own …” Anna caught her lip between her teeth.
His woman.
She had to admit there was something special in the words. “Hell,” she said softly. “I’m behaving like a fool.”

Draco hesitated. Then he sighed and reached for her.

“Yes,” he said, “you are.”

She gave a little laugh. “Thanks for agreeing with me. I think.”

Smiling, he put a finger under her chin and tilted her face to his.

“Let me spoil you a little,
bellissima,
okay?”

“I’m just not used to …” She sighed. “It was very sweet of you to do what you did.”

His answering grin was all sexy male arrogance.

“Yes,” he said, and brushed his lips over hers. “It was.”

Anna laughed as he drew her close. Learning to let a man spoil you, especially a man like Draco Valenti, was going to be a challenge.

He said there were five places you had to visit if you wanted to say you had seen Rome.

The Coliseum. The Forum. The Piazza Navona. The Trevi Fountain. And the Spanish Steps.

Today, he said, they would see the Spanish Steps.

Another of his self-assured pronouncements. This time Anna fought her instinctive—and foolish—reaction. Why should he consult her on something so simple? This was Rome, he was Roman, she wasn’t. End of argument.

Besides, the Spanish Steps sounded perfect, and they were.

The stone steps, worn smooth in places by the tread of feet over hundreds of years, climbed from the beautiful Piazza di Spagna to the Piazza Trinità dei Monti. Tourists as well as Romans climbed the steps, stood on them and sat on them, enjoying the sights, the sounds, the balmy weather ….

And cups and cones of cold, creamy
gelato.

Draco took Anna to his favorite
gelateria.

“So many flavors,” she said, looking at the endless list, but it turned out she didn’t have to make a choice. He ordered for them both, no questions asked. One chocolate, one
marrone.
The two best flavors, he said with his arm around her, keeping her close to his side.

What about lemon? she almost said, but didn’t. The day was perfect. So was the man. The truth was, there was something sexy to this me-Tarzan, you-Jane approach that she had so recently laughed at.

As long as it didn’t go too far.

They found places to sit on the steps, one right above the other. Draco took the upper step; Anna took the one beneath it and leaned back against his legs.

She took a long lick of chocolate
gelato.
Draco’s eyes followed the motion of her tongue.

“Now try the
marrone,
” he said softly.

She licked at the chestnut ice cream, caught an almost-spilled drop at the corner of her mouth with the tip of her tongue.

“You,” Draco said in a low voice, “are asking for trouble.”

She looked up at him. “What kind of trouble?” she said with a teasing smile, and he laughed and deposited a quick, ice-cream-sweet kiss on her lips.

Anna sat back again, Draco at her back, the Roman sun on her face, the
gelato
cool in her mouth.
Wonderful,
she thought. All of it. The city. The piazza. The
gelato.