The Italian Inheritance (5 page)

Rafael was awakened by a soft, scraping sound. He lay in bed and listened.

There it was again.

Slowly he drew back the sheets
,
and without turning on the light, climbed out of bed and made his way across the room to the bedroom window. Staring at the expanse of lawn
,
he thought he detected a dark shape against the white wall surrounding the property. He strained his eyes. Yes, someone was actually climbing over the wall.

Rafael pulled on some trousers and within seconds was at the front door. Opening it silently, he stepped out into the night. By the slight incandescence of the sky he
guessed
 
it
was around five o’clock in the morning. In an hour the sun would be up. Hardly the best time to attempt a break in.

The shadowy figure dropped with a small grunt into a bush of geraniums which flanked the inside of the wall. Rafael watched silently as the intruder tiptoed across the lawn and around the left side of the house. He followed, his body flush with the side of the house, protected by the shadows. The intruder didn’t look very large and Rafael decided that he could probably take him. It must be a youth, or a very small man.

He glanced back at the intruder’s point of entry to make sure there was no accomplice and set off around the side of the house in silent pursuit. The intruder moved slowly, cautiously, stopping only when he stumbled into a bush of wild roses by mistake. Rafael heard a muffled “ouch” as the intruder bent down to free himself.

What kind of criminal breaks into a house and then gets tangled in a rose bush? Not a very good one. This must be an amateur job.

Stealthily Rafael approached from behind. The intruder had no idea he was being followed. One advantage of growing up on the streets of Naples, Rafael thought wryly to himself, was the ability to dissolve into the shadows. The other was street fighting, a skill he may have to put into practice in a few moments
,
too.

In
one
seamless move
,
Rafael pounced from the shadows,
a
well placed arm going around the intruder’s neck, the other pinning his hands behind his back. There was a short gasp of surprise.

“Hold still and no one needs to get hurt,” Rafael said coldly
in Italian
, holding the man in a vice-like grip. Damned if he didn’t stop wriggling.

Suddenly a foot came down very painfully on his toes and the figure spun around and kneed him in the groin.

“
Ah!
” he exclaimed as the intruder sped off into the dark extremities of the garden. He didn’t get very far before Rafael was on him, crushing him to the ground under his solid weight.

“That’s it. Put your hands behi
nd you right now and don’t move,
”
he ordered, once again in his native tongue.

“I can’t
...
” came the muffled reply.

“What?” Rafael said, surprised. The voice was decidedly feminine.

“I
can’t understand you
,” came the muffled response.
“I don’t speak Italian.”

Rafael shifted his weight and rolled his captive over so he could see her face. Not prepared to give her room to escape, he straddled her, his knees either side of her hips, her arms pinned above her head. He didn’t make mistakes twice.

The intruder was wearing a dark balaclava-type hood covering her head and he pulled it off none too gently. Half a meter of white blonde hair cascaded down over his hands.

“You!”

A
fruity, floral scent
rose from her overheated body. He recognised it from his office
that morning. It was fresh yet
at the same time alluring.

Rafael
was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was
lying
on top of her
in nothing but light cotton trousers.
The heat from her body was
surprising
in its intensity.
It absorbed into his
loins, his stomach and his
chest, tempting his muscles to relax and mould to hers.
He forced himself to remain taut.

To make matters worse, his captive
was scarcely more appropriately dressed in thin, Lycra leggings and a tight black top.

“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Rafael asked
, angry at his sudden awkwardness and the fact that he had been caught unawares
. “I could have hurt you.”

“
Yes, you could have,”
gasped
Anna
, bucking gently beneath him
. “Do you mind moving off
me
?
I can’t
breath
e
.”

Rafael
frowned
,
but
adjusted his weight.
“Better?”

She nodded
,
but her chest still rose and fell erratically.

Why was he
negotiating with a
burglar
?
  What did it matter if she was comfortable or not?
He
must
get a grip on the situation. She was
watching him
expectantly. Her eyes
were
wide and overly bright, probably from the adrenalin
as a result
of her attempted break-in
.

“You didn’t answer my question?” he prompted, flexing his shoulder muscles to stop
his torso from dropping any lower onto hers.

“I can explain,” she said eagerly. “If you’ll just get off me, we can talk about this like civil human beings.”

“You will remain where you are until I hear an explanation,” he growled.
“You may not be aware of this, but breaking and entering is a criminal offence.
You’d better give me a
damn
good reason why you’re on my property or I’m calling the police.
”

His captive paled visibly. “
No.
D
on’t do that,” she said quickly. “
I wasn’t breaking and entering
. N
ot really. I was just having a look around. I meant no harm.”

“Dressed like
that
?”
He nodded at her barely-there Lycra clothing.

She shrugged. “I didn’t want to be seen.
This was all I had with me.”

Rafael looked doubtful.
“What were you looking for
?”

She grimaced and said quietly
. “Giovanni.”

Rafael sighed.
“Not this again.”

“I was planning on hiding in the bushes until dawn. I figured if Giovanni lived here he would have to come out of the house at some point during the morning and I’d see him.”

Rafael shook his head incredulously. “Didn’t it occur to you that in the light of day someone might see you crouching amongst the bushes? That you might be mistaken for a burglar and detained?”

“I thought you were lying about
Giovanni
not living here,” she
blustered,
worry causing her smooth forehead to crinkle. “
You were so cagey the other day
. Y
ou wouldn’t let me see
past
the
garden
gate.
I
was convinced
you were hiding something.
And
then
this morning, despite my answering all your questions,
you still didn’t tell me where
Giovanni
was. So I came to see for myself.
I didn’t know what else to do.
”

“
I wasn’t lying,” he said
curt
ly,
feeling her move beneath him and trying to prevent inappropriate thoughts from entering his head.
Her body was so soft, so pliable.
“Giovanni doesn’t live here. I live here and you are trespassing.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking,” she breathed.
“You have to believe me.
I’ve never don
e anything like this before in my life
.”

How
could someone who looked so innocent
be lying?
Her blonde hair spread out around her like a golden halo, mingling with the dark grass. She looked deceptively angelic lying defenceless beneath him.
Yet here she was, dressed
as
a cat burglar, caught red-handed on his property.

Just goes to show... appearances can be
so
deceiving.
You can’t trust anybody.

“Why should I believe you?”

“...Because I’m not
spontaneous at all
,” she explained earnestly
.
“
You can ask
anyone who knows me
. I plan everything to the last detail.
Climbing over that wall
was a ludicrous idea. In fact
,
I can’t believe I even thought of it.
”

“
Neither can I
,” he muttered.

“In fact, coming t
o Italy was probably a bad idea,” she continued,
as if she hadn’t heard him
. “
I don’t know what I was hoping to find.
Certainly not you
.” She sniffed, glaring at him. “T
he lawyer from hell.
”

Lawyer from hell. That was a new one...

Then she was off again
. “Lara was right. This
trip has been a disaster since the get-go
.
I should have known better than to come dashing over here on a whim.
”
She shook her head as if in a daze.
“What was I hoping to find anyway? My father waiting with open arms?” She laughed bitterly.

“What
are
you talking about?” Rafael stared at
her, confounded
.
Nothing she said made any sense to him. Who was Lara?

Her black top
had
bunched around her waist in the struggle and Rafael could see a smidgen of skin, pale and te in the moonlight.
He got an irresistible urge
to touch it, to trace the contours of her body with his fingers.

“I think you’d better come inside so we can talk,” he suggested
. Maybe that way he would get some sense out of her. She was babbling now, obviously stressed.

He rolled off her and stood up in one smooth movement
.
Cool air
flooded
the space between them giving him goose bumps. He saw her shiver, also feeling the loss of his body heat.

Rafael
offered her a ha
nd which she pointedly ignored, getting easily to her feet. She dusted herself off.
“Now that’s the best idea I’
ve heard all day.”

“Come with me.”
Rafael turned towards the house.

Anna
followed
the lawyer
wordlessly across the lawn. They passed dimly lit statues staring vacantly into space, witnes
ses
to her foolish a
ntic
s. S
he
was acutely aware of her narrow escape. She
was
trespassing and
Vialli
would have been well within his rights to call the police. Luckily for her he’d decided not to. The concept of spending time in a foreign jail
did not appeal to her at all.
She could just imagine having to call Lara to come and get her out
with the bail money
.

What the hell
was she
thinking? This sort of erratic behaviour was very unlike her.
It must be the tension of the trip and the frustration yesterday that was causing her to act so out of character
.

She
stared at
Vialli’s
smooth
bare
back as he walked up the meandering path
in front of her
to the house.
It was
all
his
fault for giving her the run-around
. If he hadn’t made her so angry, she probably wouldn’t have resorted to such drastic measures.

Vialli opened the
enormous
wooden front door and stood back to let her enter.
Then he
locked it
deliberately
behind
them
.
Anna obviously wasn’t in the clear
,
yet. She’d
better be careful.