Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire (3 page)

So it fell on poor saps like me, Cass reflected wryly as she thrust her spade vigorously into the moistly yielding earth.

* * *

She was doing it again—driving him crazy with that ripe, mud-streaked body. No other woman had ever come close to affecting him the way she did. He doubted any of them had ever held a spade. They certainly didn't possess Cassandra's nonchalance when it came to using her body to the fullest. She was a very physical woman...and complex. How could she be otherwise with her past? He'd read every newspaper article he could find detailing the horrific tragedy. He knew how badly she'd been neglected until her godmother had adopted her. The media had speculated, as he was bound to, on how her parents' debauched lifestyle might have affected a young girl. His need for caution when it came to women was heading for overdrive where his new young gardener was concerned.

But since when had he been a cautious man?

Gunning the engine of his Lamborghini, he glanced across the garden to where Cassandra was swinging her spade. Her top looked as if it had shrunk in the wash and revealed inches of taut, tanned belly. He imagined dropping kisses on that smooth, silky skin and then working his way down—or up. Either way would be a pleasure for him.

He powered out of the gates, trying to distract himself from thoughts of Cassandra by thinking about all the other women he could have—maybe should have—brought along to entertain him while he was in Tuscany. Women were always eager to share his Tuscan bed, because they knew it was his private retreat, which gave it added mystery. He could think of several cute women who made him laugh—until he tired of their endless quips. There were clever women who challenged him—and gave him earache, he remembered, and beautiful women who could capture his attention and hold it for a night, but no longer. They all wanted the same thing—that his power would rub off on them, and, after that, money and sex. He had even identified a few women who would make ideal wives, but he doubted they could dig a trench, let alone turn that horticultural activity into a pornographic work of art.

Casandra's bare limbs gleamed with effort as they would after sex, and his groin tightened at he watched her thrusting her spade into the soil. She was giving it everything she'd got, as he imagined she would in bed.

* * *

Why was Marco staring at her? Cass wondered as he sped away in a storm of dust and gravel.

Why was she staring at him?

He was probably just checking she was doing her work, she reasoned sensibly. And she wouldn't look at him ever again.

That was what you said the last time.

But she meant it this time.

Did she? Marco only had to look at her for lust to stab clean through her.

That was her imagination working overtime—hopefully—she concluded as Marco's bright red Lamborghini powered away down the road. Lots of perfectly decent women lusted after the most inappropriate men, and in most cases nothing came of it—and if it did in this case, she'd run a mile. Marco di Fivizzano was one fantasy too far, she told herself sternly as his car roared away to the accompaniment of a low roll of thunder.

CHAPTER THREE

M
YSTERY
SOLVED
. M
ARCO
HAD
gone to have lunch with the mayor. Should she feel quite so relieved when Maria told her this? Was she
jealous
?

Crazy girl! Get back out in the garden where things made sense!

Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she rammed on her cap after offering to clear up, so Maria and Giuseppe could get straight off to the fiesta in town.

‘Don't get caught in the rain.' She glanced up at the darkening sky.

She waved off her friends and then contemplated the happy state of having the whole afternoon to work uninterrupted in the garden. The happy state didn't last very long. She should have listened to her own advice, Cass concluded as a flash of lightning stabbed the ground just a few feet away from her. It wasn't safe to be outdoors, but there was plenty she could do to help Maria in the kitchen.

It had quickly turned dark, and the air was as heavy as if nature was stuck in a cupboard with a headache. As the first fat spots of rain hit her in the face she collected up her tools and beat a hasty retreat. Making a dash for the kitchen door, she launched herself through it, already soaked through. There would just be time to check the windows were closed before the storm hit full force.

She raced up stairs, by which time the storm had arrived. It was like all the fiends of hell roaring around the house, testing its defences. Slapping her hands over her ears as a thunderclap shocked her out of her skin, she shrieked with alarm as lightning flashed repeatedly, and did a little dance on the spot to reassure herself that the house was still standing.

Pull yourself together! Things need to be done.

She switched on the lights and felt better immediately, but on her way downstairs they all went out again. Now the power was down. She huddled against a door in the dark, and then told herself to get over it. Finding a light switch, she flicked it on and off, more in hope than expectation. It was dead. She reached for her phone. The line was dead too. There was a house phone on the landing—

Dead.

Feeling her way carefully down the stairs, she screamed as she stepped into icy-cold water. Leaping back onto the stairs, she clung to the banister like a limpet, trying to think what to do. She told herself calmly that the house had stood for centuries, and Marco had renovated it to the nth degree, so even if the river had changed its course, the house was hardly likely to leave its foundations and float away. She was safe, and she was confident that any damage could be dealt with. If there had been similar storms in the past, Marco would have prepared for bad weather. And if the river had flooded its banks and the road from the village was closed, she was cut off, so it was up to her to sort it out.

* * *

As day turned into night in the middle of the afternoon, everyone knew that a really bad storm was coming. Making his excuses, Marco left the mayoral reception early, and as he jogged down the steps he noticed that even the stallholders were packing up. They had all sensed the drama in the skies, and the bad weather was sweeping in much faster than expected. Some said it might be as bad as the explosive weather conditions of 2014, and with that in mind he'd called Maria and Giuseppe to warn them to stay in town. It was then they told him that Signorina Rich had never had any intention of joining them at the fiesta.

She was still at the house. And in who knew what sort of danger?

Cassandra Rich was an irritation he didn't need. Was anything straightforward where that woman was concerned? Any other woman he knew would have been drawn like a magpie to the stalls on the market, but not Cassandra. Oh, no. She had to be the one member of his staff left unaccounted for as the storm of the century approached. If the river flooded, the authorities would close the bridge and then he wouldn't get home. There were sandbags lined up outside the kitchen door, if she had the wit to use them, and an emergency generator in case the power went off.

The power would go off, he predicted, glancing again at the sky. Ribbons of lightning were slicing the boiling clouds into ugly black fragments, to a soundscape of earth-shattering thunderclaps. Then, quite suddenly, the noise subsided and it went ominously still.

Just as suddenly, rain started falling in vicious, freezing rods. Jumping into his car, he knew there wasn't a moment to lose if he was going to get across the bridge before the emergency services closed the road.

His was the last car through. Men in uniform warned him to turn back. He thanked them and then ignored them. How he longed for his rugged pick-up. He grimaced at the sound of metal crunching as he rode a bank to avoid a fallen tree. He'd almost certainly wreck the engine and the brakes. Water was rising up the wheels, and the wipers couldn't work fast enough to clear the windscreen.

He pressed on with one thought driving him. Cassandra was alone in the dark, stranded on his estate, and whether or not that was thanks to her own stubbornness, she was a member of his staff and he had a duty of care towards her. He could only imagine her relief when he arrived to save the day.

He had never been so pleased to see the house. He was less pleased to discover that floodwater was lapping around the front step. Parking up, he waded to the front door. Inserting his key, he pushed, but the door wouldn't open. He put his shoulder to it, but that made no difference. The house was in darkness. He glanced across the courtyard and called out. There was no sign of life. Where was she?

‘Cassandra!'

Framing his face with his hands, he peered into one of the windows, but all he could see was blackness beyond. Turning up his collar, he retraced his steps. It brought him a moment's humour to see the ground might be flooded but Cassandra's trench was doing its job in directing the water safely away from her seedlings. He skidded to a halt at the back door. It was wide open. His heart jumped at the thought she might have run out into the night; people had died in similar weather conditions.

‘Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to help me?'

He spun around at the sound of her voice. Moonlight framed her. She was at the far end of the kitchen soaked to the skin, with her hair hanging in straggles down her back as she dragged a sandbag across the floor.

‘Those candles have gone out again,' she shouted as she backed into the hall. ‘Can you close the door and light them for me?'

‘Leave that!' He swore viciously as he tore off his jacket. He was at her side in an instant. ‘You light the candles. I'll take the sandbag.'

She shook him off. The brief contact between them was electrifying.

‘If you want to help me, grab another bag!' she yelled. ‘The river must have burst its banks—'

‘Clearly,' he said dryly, wrestling the sandbag from her grasp. He laid it down on top of the others. That was why he'd been unable to get in—and now she was rolling up his Persian carpets.

‘Help me,' she insisted impatiently. ‘It will be faster if the two of us do it.'

‘Have you lit those candles yet?' he pressed, frowning.

‘Have you got any manners?' she fired back with a scowl twice as deep as his.

He straightened up with surprise. No one had ever talked to him this way before.

‘Thank you would be a start,' she told him sharply.

An almighty thunder crash brought an end to their discussion. As lightning flashed repeatedly he could see the wide-eyed shock on her face.

‘You're safe,' he insisted, when nature paused to take a breath.

‘If it doesn't stop raining soon, we'll be sunk—quite literally,' she said. ‘Here—catch this.'

She tossed him a towel to mop up the water leaking through her barricade. Far from cowering in a corner, waiting for her white knight to arrive, Signorina Rich was firmly in control. He surprised himself by liking that. But, then, he liked her. He couldn't help himself. He admired her grit.

‘Well? Are you going to help me to roll up these rugs or not?' she demanded, glancing back at him as she lit the candles on the hall table.

There were plenty of things he would like to help Signorina Rich with, and rolling rugs wasn't at the top of his list.

It was all going well for her until she crossed the room in the half-light and caught her foot under a rug. As she stumbled he caught her close. It only took an instant to absorb how good she felt beneath his hands. Candlelight mapped the changes in her eyes from blue to black. She held her breath, almost as if she thought he was going to kiss her. Would she fight him? Would she yield hungrily? It was irrelevant to him. He might want to kiss her, he might even ache to kiss her, but he would never be so self-indulgent.

Delay was the servant of pleasure, he mused dryly as he steadied her.

‘Be careful you don't trip up again.'

The look she gave him suggested that tripping up over a rug, or anything else for that matter, was the last thing on her mind.

‘Shall we carry on?' she suggested. ‘The rugs?' she added pointedly.

She got more brownie points for effort, and his senses got a second jolt when she brushed past him. She'd keep, he reassured his aching flesh. She wasn't going anywhere.

Having been forced to work together, Cass was surprised to discover how well they could read each other's intentions—to her surprise, they made a great team. It was certainly a pleasure watching Marco wielding his immense physical strength.

‘I'll move things out of the way so you can take that rug into the dining room,' she told him, holding her breath as Marco shouldered the weight of the wool rug as if it were a bag of feathers. Opening the door wide, she cleared a space for him, only to find him breathing down her neck. Their hands brushed. Their bodies touched. Their breath mingled as he turned around. They were just too dangerously close—

‘Great job,' she said, stepping back. Now she realised that in her hurry to get away from him she had made it sound as if their positions in life had been reversed and Marco was her assistant. Oh, well. There was nothing she could do about that now. Ducking beneath his arm, she slipped away.

‘Where are you going?' he demanded.

‘To my bed.' She turned and shrugged. ‘We've done all we can tonight. I'm going to have a bath first—try to warm up. The power may be off but the water should still be warm in the reserve tank—and I promise I won't use it all.'

‘A bath in the dark?' he queried.

‘I'll manage—I'll take some candles.' She glanced at his fist on the door. Was he going to try and stop her leaving? The tension between them had suddenly roared off the scale.

‘You're in a hurry to get away.'

His murmur hit her straight between the shoulder blades in a deliciously dangerous quiver of awareness. ‘I'm cold,' she excused herself, hugging her body and acting fragile. She doubted he was convinced, but at least he lifted his hand from the door.

‘You've done well tonight,' he said as he stood back.

‘And now I'm freezing,' she reminded him in a stronger voice. That wasn't so far from the truth. She was soaking wet. ‘If you could get the power back on...' she suggested hopefully.

Marco narrowed his eyes and looked at her. ‘You'd better take that bath,' he said, to her relief. ‘And don't forget to reassure your godmother that you're safe. A storm like this will have made the international news. And anyone else, of course, who might be interested,' he added as an apparent afterthought.

He didn't fool her. ‘There is no one else.' She guessed that was his real question. ‘And I will speak to my godmother as soon as the phone line comes back.'

‘You obviously think a lot of her.'

Passion and gratitude swept over her. ‘My godmother is the most wonderful woman on earth. She took me in—'

‘When your parents were killed,' Marco supplied thoughtfully.

‘Yes.' She firmed her lips, reluctant to say anything more. How much did he know?

‘Why did you leave her to come here to work in Tuscany?'

‘It's a great job,' she said frankly. ‘And I can't just live off her. She found this opportunity for me when I left my last job. She found it through one of her friends, another keen gardener. It would have been churlish of me to turn it down.'

Though maybe she should have done, Cass reflected as Marco continued to stare at her. He was beginning to make her nervous. She decided to give him a little more. ‘I can easily get a job at another supermarket when I go home, and in the meantime this job is perfect for me.'

‘Perfect,' Marco echoed without comment or expression.

He might want to know more, but she wasn't going to discuss her personal life with someone who was practically a stranger.

‘Don't catch cold,' he reminded her.

She didn't need another prompt. She left him and ran across the courtyard without a backward glance. Racing up the steps to her room, she felt as if the devil was on her back.

* * *

He stood in silence when Cassandra left him. She had handled the crisis with impressive calm and now she intrigued him more than ever. Apparently uncomplicated and open, she was, in fact, as much a closed book as he was. He would like to find out more about her. She was hopeless at taking orders, but she was a breath of fresh air. Having worked closely with her, he now felt the lack of her, like a caged lion, penned in with a woman he wanted in his bed. He would be ill-advised to seduce her, he reminded himself firmly. He never slept with his employees.

He eased the physical ache with practicalities, starting up the generator and checking the garden to assess the damage. He huffed dryly to see her seedlings had survived when trees that had stood for centuries were lying broken on the ground. He should give her a long-term contract just to build drainage channels for him.

Having checked the sandbags were doing their job, he marvelled that she could lift them at all. He was trying to exhaust himself, he realised, in an attempt to put Cassandra out of his mind. That didn't stop his body craving her, or his mind from examining every tiny detail he knew about her. Cassandra Rich was the most unsettling woman he'd ever met. She was everything he would usually avoid. She was too young, too naïve, and she had no inkling of their relative positions in life—which was something else he liked about her, he now discovered. There were far too many toadies in his world. Cassandra Rich was real, he concluded with a shrug. If he were stranded in another storm, would he want Cassandra at his side or one of those fragrant types he usually went for? He'd choose Cassandra every time.