Bound to the Tuscan Billionaire (4 page)

He laughed as he jogged up the stairs. There were so few surprises left in life, he almost welcomed her arrival into his remote, complex world.

So few surprises?

He was about to get the surprise of his life. He stopped dead on the threshold of his room. His window was closed, but his shutters were open and Cassandra's light was on.

* * *

She would never know what made her do it, other than to say she had seen pictures in magazines and films, as well as images in her head, of the type of sophisticated temptress a man like Marco would most likely be attracted to. That woman would be a minx, a siren, a temptress—all the things that capable Cass, as they had called her at the supermarket, most certainly wasn't. But there was nothing to stop her playing out her fantasy.

Perhaps it was the warmth of the evening and having a man like Marco close by and yet at a safe distance that had made exploring her own sexuality not just irresistible but an imperative. She'd missed having fun, but Tuscany seemed to have released something in her.

Working side by side with Marco had certainly released something in her, Cass reflected mischievously—and that was her excuse for dancing around the room while she waited for her bath to fill. In her dreams, she was dancing for him—and Marco was drooling, of course.

In reality, he wouldn't want his gardener, but what fun were bare facts? Her job here would end soon and he would be out of her life, but for now...let the dream continue!

Taking a breather, she went to peer out of the window. Marco's lights were safely off and his room was empty. Thank goodness! For a moment she had felt a rush of concern, wondering if he was watching her from the shadows. But no. It was just her and the moonlight, and she was safe to continue with part two of the show, dancing on her imaginary stage, beneath the moon, her imaginary spotlight...

* * *

He stood transfixed as Cassandra started to undress. She had her back to him, and was performing a slow and rather skilful striptease. When the top came over her head and he caught a glimpse of the ripe swell of her breasts, he was disappointed that the angle at which she was standing prevented him from seeing more. His imagination lost no time supplying the detail, and he groaned at the prospect of another night without sleep.

Allowing her top to drop to the floor, she removed the band from her ponytail and let her hair flow free in a shimmering cascade down her back. Running her fingers through it, she shivered a little as it fell around her shoulders, as if the touch of her hair on her naked skin aroused her. Still moving with a tantalising lack of haste, she freed the fastening at the waistband of her jeans, and reaching her hands behind her back she slipped her fingers beneath the denim, pushing it down over the swell of her hips. When she arched her back, it was almost as if she was presenting her buttocks for his approval. He did approve.

He went still as she stepped out of the jeans. Many women had tried to seduce him, and a good few had succeeded, but no one had made him feel as hungry as this. He was transfixed by the sight of Cassandra running her fingertips lightly over her breasts, her hands lingering, as if she appreciated the pertness of her nipples as much as he did. His senses roared as she pinched them. She appeared to cry out softly at the pain. Rolling her head back, she cupped her breasts and drew them forward as if inviting him to suckle. He would go mad if this went on for much longer.

He tensed as her hands travelled down over the swell of her belly. She had reached another place he would like to take his time exploring. She traced the swell lightly with her fingertips before delving deeper, and when she withdrew her hand he sucked in a noisy breath, only to realise that for the past few seconds he hadn't breathed at all. Cassandra had seemed so innocent, and yet these were the actions of a very sensual woman, who knew exactly how to torment a man. For all her physical strength and forthright manner, Cassandra was as lush and womanly as he could wish for. And, in the biggest surprise of the night, she had turned out to be the most erotically provocative female he'd ever met. He wondered if her pleasure was always self-administered. Her right arm was undulating lazily. Was she touching herself intimately? He had never been so aroused by the sight of a woman doing that. He was in agony.

* * *

What was she doing?
Cass asked herself in shock, bringing a sudden halt to her performance.

She should be curled up safely in bed. She could only put her behaviour down to a release of tension now the storm had passed, and the old house she was coming to love had survived, because this was way over the top, and she had to stop doing it right now.

Had she lost her mind completely? She hadn't even closed the windows—

Grabbing the towel she'd laid ready for her bath, she secured it around her body, and then turned around to check that she hadn't been seen.

Marco's shutters were firmly closed, thank goodness.

Closed? Had they been closed before?

She couldn't remember. She could only remember thinking that his room had been in darkness. Maybe they had been closed. They must have been closed, she reassured herself sensibly.

CHAPTER FOUR

H
E
WAS
TENSE
at breakfast for obvious reasons. Cassandra, on the other hand, appeared to be totally relaxed, and was her customary rosy-cheeked self. After her assertiveness during the storm, and her astonishing striptease performance afterwards, she appeared to be as cool, calm and collected as ever.

‘Sorry—didn't you want eggs again?' she asked him as he groaned out loud, thinking back to her dance in the moonlight.

‘Eggs are good—eggs are fine. Thank you.' He sat back in his chair and tried to not to think about Cassandra and her night-time activities.

‘My cooking skills are pretty basic,' she added, as she busied herself at the business end of the kitchen. ‘Maria should get back today, so tomorrow you'll have better food.'

And then she bent down to put a pan away and her faded denim shorts clung tightly to the outline of her bottom. The urge to join her—to stand behind her and press his body into hers—to map her buttocks with one hand holding her in place, while he pleasured her with the other—

‘More bread? Eggs? Coffee?' she called out.

‘No. Thank you.'

When she turned to face him, his thoughts were not of breakfast but of slowly sinking into her welcoming body and sheathing himself to the hilt. Her long, slender legs would wrap around his waist, and she would move with him. Her soft cries of need would urge him on, as he worked steadily to bring her release—multiple releases, he amended. He sat up as she put a hand to her forehead. ‘Something wrong?'

‘Dishwasher tablets!'

He blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?'

‘We're out of them,' she explained, frowning.

So much for his fatal charm! Though, far from being discouraged, her quirky ways had only fuelled his hunger for her.

* * *

Marco di Fivizzano was driving her crazy. He was about to start clearing the garden after the storm as she set out to go shopping, and he was stripped to the waist with an axe in his hand, looking like every one of her fantasies come true. But who was he, really? Her boss was so wealthy and powerful he could keep his backstory under wraps. That didn't stop her wondering about him. He made her curious. Everyone had an interesting backstory, once she had scraped the surface, but Marco didn't allow anyone to get close enough to tickle his back, let alone scrape his surface.

She wouldn't mind tickling his back... She wouldn't mind digging her fingers into those impressive shoulder muscles—

The spell broke abruptly as Maria came bustling out of the house. There had obviously been a call for Marco. Burying the axe in the tree stump, he led the way back into the house.

Sometimes life was so unfair, Cass mused wryly as Marco and his delightful body disappeared inside the house. But there was always a next time...

She spent the afternoon in the village, where it was tranquil and cool after the storm. She still had some work to do in the garden to make sure everything was straight again, so she set off back to the house as soon as she could, and was surprised to find Marco pacing the kitchen, waiting for her.

‘Leave that now,' he said, as she started to put away the shopping.

‘What's wrong?' She frowned as she straightened up.

‘We need to talk.'

She felt a frisson of alarm, and couldn't help wondering if she was about to lose her job. She couldn't bear to lose this job. It was perfect for her. It was her first step out of the shadows without having to confront a complex world. She had shunned the spotlight since escaping the tarnished glitter of her childhood, and here in Tuscany she was taking her first step back into the light.

‘Come into my study,' Marco instructed.

His tone was stern, adding to her apprehension. She glanced around, thinking to learn something of him from this inner sanctum, but there was no clutter or ornament...no softening touches anywhere, as far as she could tell. There were no plants sunning on the windowsill, or papers left lying casually about. The room was still, and preternaturally tidy. It was also very expensively fitted out. He didn't invite her to sit down. She wouldn't have felt comfortable if he had.

He launched straight in. ‘I've got a problem.'

‘A problem?' For a moment her brain refused to compute the idea that Marco di Fivizzano could have any problem he couldn't solve, let alone a problem he was about to share with her.

‘I need your help, Cassandra,' he elaborated, spearing her with one of his hard looks.

‘What can I do for you?' Unless he was seeking advice on root propagation, or wanted to discuss soil management in a country that was basically a long piece of rock with almost unworkable clay loam soil, she couldn't think how she could help him. And she somehow doubted he'd brought her in here to talk about gardening.

‘I've been let down.'

‘Oh. I'm sorry.' Had she let him down? Was her dream job here about to shatter into a shower of tiny pieces?

‘Not you,' he snapped impatiently.

Coming around to the front of his desk, he leaned back against it and folded his arms.

Narrowing his eyes, he looked down at her as if she were a cup cake amongst many in a cake shop window and he was trying to decide if she would do.

She didn't like that look in his eyes one bit, so she decided to seize the initiative. ‘What can I do for you?'

Marco took his time replying, which gave her the chance to study him. Did he ever shave while he was in Tuscany? He really relaxed here. As she did.

She quivered with awareness, realising that his stare had dropped to her lips. She now realised that she had pursed them in an unintentionally sexy way. Quickly chewing the pout out of them, she straightened up and adopted a more businesslike manner.

‘I need you in Rome.'

‘In Rome?' She was jolted out of her trance in an instant. Rome—bustling, glittering, sophisticated. She couldn't go to Rome! But then another, far more calming thought came to her. ‘You have a garden there?' Her heart soared at the thought of tending a city garden. It would be very different from here. She could imagine it would be enclosed and quiet, and an entirely different challenge from Tuscany. But a garden...that was something she could handle for him.

‘It's nothing to do with gardens,' he rapped impatiently. ‘I have a charity event I host each year.'

‘I see,' she murmured, frowning. She didn't see at all. In fact, her mind was a blank canvas on which he could paint pretty much anything.

‘It's a dinner,' he explained, as if she should know all about it. ‘And I need a plus one, or there will be an empty space next to me.'

And that would be unthinkable, she silently supplied.

‘The organiser of the charity was supposed to be my dinner partner,' he elaborated with an impatient gesture, ‘but a family emergency has prevented that.'

‘So, you'll have an empty seat next to you,' she said, frowning as if such things were a mystery to her.

‘No. I won't,' Marco assured her, ‘because you will be sitting in it.'

‘Me?' Horror filled her. This was everything she had spent her adult life avoiding, and she had no intention of going to some glitzy party.

‘I don't know why you sound so shocked,' Marco countered. ‘I'm only inviting you to join me at a party.'

What the hell was wrong with her? Other women would be falling over themselves to accept this invitation, but not Cassandra. Oh, no. She was looking at him as if he had suggested some extreme and arcane form of torture—that, or a Roman orgy.

‘A charity event in Rome? A dinner?' she confirmed, paling as she continued to frown.

‘I don't know what's so hard for you to understand. Just say yes. I'll provide the clothes, the hairdresser, the manicurist. You'll have beauticians and stylists on tap—whatever you need.'

Her eyes widened, and then, to his astonishment, she said, ‘You are joking?'

‘I'm being perfectly serious.' Her reaction baffled him. ‘I have just invited you to join me at the event of the year.'

‘Well, I can't,' she insisted. ‘I just couldn't do it. I couldn't pull it off,' she insisted, when he stared at her with incredulity. ‘I'd be falling over the hem of my gown, knocking into people—'

‘Hopefully not,' he said wearily.

‘You are serious,' she added quietly, as if he had been speaking in a foreign language and she had only just worked it out. ‘You want me at your side, at the top table at a charity event in Rome?'

‘Yes. I do,' he confirmed. How many more times did he have to say it?

She shook her head. ‘I'm really sorry, Marco, but the idea of me all tricked out in a gown and on my best behaviour is about as likely as you getting down and dirty in the garden.'

‘But I do get down and dirty in the garden,' he reminded her, all out of patience now. ‘Of course, if you're not up to this...'

Her heart was hammering in her chest. Marco had to be crazy—or desperate, asking her to do this. ‘Thing is, I function best in a garden,' she explained firmly. ‘I don't function at all at a...function.'

‘I'd pay you for your trouble.'

That stopped her. ‘You'd pay me? How much?' she said faintly, thinking of her godmother now.

Marco named a sum that drained the blood from her cheeks.

As he had expected, the mention of a large sum of money turned the tide. Every woman had her price. But then Cassandra started stuttering something that sounded dangerously like no—and no was not an answer he could accept.

He turned up the pressure to put her back on track.

‘What are you going to do when you leave here and go back to England? Will you work at the supermarket, stacking shelves?'

‘Why not?' she demanded, showing no reaction to his scorn. ‘It's honest work, and I've made some very good friends at the supermarket.'

‘And you can make some very good friends in Rome,' he said, seething with frustration. ‘Friends with fabulous gardens that need a lot of care and attention. You can network at the party, if nothing else.'

She blinked and appeared to reconsider. ‘You'd introduce me round?'

He balked at that. ‘Well, my people would. You'd get your money, and you'd get the chance to network. I don't see much wrong with that.'

And neither did she, from the look on Cassandra's face. His senses sharpened as she bit down on the full swell of her bottom lip while she considered his suggestion.

‘I suppose—'

‘You'll do it,' he said.

‘I suppose if it will help—'

‘It will help.'

‘But I've only brought one dress with me—'

‘I've told you,' he said, forcing patience into his tone. ‘I will provide a dress for you to wear.'

‘I'll pay you back.'

‘The dress and all the other expenses will form part of your payment. You may keep the dress afterwards,' he added as a generous afterthought.

She hummed and frowned.

‘You'll have everything you need,' he promised. ‘I'll see to that.'

‘And you're quite serious about this?'

‘Cassandra, I never say anything I don't mean.'

He sat back, confident that this time she'd say yes.

‘I need more time to think about it.'

‘No,' he said flatly. ‘You give me your answer now. Yes? Or no?'

* * *

She couldn't pretend she wasn't anxious at the thought of making a return to a shallow world of sophistication that had proved so damaging in her youth, but when she weighed that against the fact that the money Marco had offered would help to pay for her godmother's ticket to Australia. She knew it was a golden opportunity, and one that might never come around again.

She had to remind herself of this as she walked self-consciously into one of the most exclusive hotels in Rome. At the back of her mind she still had this nagging suspicion that Marco had bought her. But at least she could comfort herself with the thought that he had got the raw end of the deal. She was a gardener, not a socialite, and no number of designer gowns would change that.

But it was too late to worry about it now. She was here, with one of Marco's
people
shepherding her through the lobby.

She tensed as the hotel manager approached. The memories of her childhood had faded, but she was sure she had stayed in a place like this when she'd been a little girl. She couldn't remember her mother being around, but there had always been women. Her father had used women like commodities, and according to the press had possessed an animal magnetism that had made him irresistible.
Much like Marco.
In her father's case, this had led to serial infidelities that had broken her mother's heart.

She had vowed to stay away from this world, and yet here she was.

Cass swallowed convulsively as the manager bowed over her hand and smiled. She had to remind herself that this was all in a good cause, and that it would enable her to buy the ticket to Australia for her godmother.

‘I hope you will be very happy here,
signorina
,' the hotel manager said with practised charm.

‘I'm sure I will be,' she lied, for his sake. This was his hotel, and it was very beautiful. Located on one of the main streets in Rome, it was as discreetly labelled as the dress size of a couture gown. She knew quite a lot about couture gowns now, since her first stop of the day had been to the
atelier
of a designer who specialised in ‘the style of gown Signor di Fivizzano favoured', according to Marco's
people
, who had arrived in a squad to take her in hand.

Atelier was a posh word for a workshop with a rather uncomfortable sitting room attached, she had discovered, as the designer measured every inch of her so he could prepare a toile, or pattern, from which any number of
visions
, as he called a frock, could be created.