curtains glided back and the first model strolled out, looking
impossibly haughty and
superior until she espied Rio and flashed up a seductive smile instead.
From that first moment Holly was entranced. She had never been to a
fashion show before and the knowledge that the display was being put on
for an audience of two just blew her mind. The descriptions of the
various outfits were double Dutch to her, but every item struck her as
the ultimate in colour and design. She was totally undiscriminating, for
she could not imagine actually wearing such elaborate garments. She was
learning what women who had pots of money and little to do but look good
wore and it was an education.
'You enjoyed that...' Rio was watching her intently as the curtains
finally glided shut.
'Yes...thanks,' she sighed, her slow smile breaking out like sudden
sunlight.
'So now you go and try on all the selections I made.'
'But why? I'm never going to wear stuff like that in my life!' Holly
protested in honest bemusement. 'I'm much more downmarket than that and
quite happy to be. Where on earth would I wear suits and long dresses?'
Disregarding that argument, Rio lifted her down from the stool and sent
her in the direction of the saleswoman awaiting her. She was taken into
a room where she became the centre of a throng of eager helpers. A whole
selection of shoes and handbags were already standing by. She was
whisked into outfit after outfit and marched out onto the catwalk.
At first she was self-conscious and she stood there like a plum with Rio
telling her to move about, but then someone put on background music with
a dance beat and Holly got into the spirit of the occasion. She began to
pose, eyes wide in a pretence of haughtiness, shoulders thrown back in
what she hoped was a model-like manner. Every time
58
he laughed she clowned a little more, answering amusement sparkling in
her eyes, but her greatest pleasure derived from his.
'Put on the green dress,' Rio told her when her own personal show was at
an end.
He could buy her one outfit. That was OK, Holly thought in considerable
relief. He really wasn't a very practical bloke. A couple of skirts and
tops and new trousers from a chain store would have been much more
sensible, and heaven only knew what even just one designer 'ensemble',
as the saleswomen called them, cost in such a fancy place!
The dress bared her shoulders and rejoiced in a fabulous boned velvet
bodice and a flirty skirt that came to her knees. She absolutely loved
it. In the mirror, she saw a fashionable stranger, a young woman who
just might have been a high-society party girl without a care in the
world. It was just an illusion, she knew that, but it had been so much
fun and she would never, ever forget the experience. She walked out to
rejoin him, conscious of the unfamiliar height of the heels on her
shoes, and with her entire attention pinned as though magnetised to his
darkly handsome face.
'You look gorgeous, cara.' Rio lifted something furry from a nearby
chair and draped it round her shoulders. 'And now you look like a queen.'
There were mirrors everywhere. Now she studied their twinned reflection,
the impossibly smooth and rich pale blonde fake-fur falling to mid-calf,
the raised collar providing a glamorous contrast to the vivid fall of
her hair. His proud head above her own, his tall, dark, powerful figure
backing her slighter build. 'Do you flog dreams for a living?' she asked
unsteadily, shaken by that view of them together, committing it to
memory, knowing that dreams didn't last. 'You ought to.'
'The day's not over yet.'
But it was already evening. She had not realised how late it had got
until they were ushered from the building and she saw the fading light.
'Does that place always stay open to this time?'
"They stayed open just for us,' Rio informed her lazily. 'We'll dine now.'
Ezio Farretti straightened from his lounging position against the bonnet
of the limo. He stared at Holly and his whole face tightened and he
turned away.
'Why did Ezio look at me like that?' she whispered in dismay.
'Ezio shouldn't be looking at you in any particular way,' Rio
pronounced, a cool, hard edge to his dark, deep voice that made her tense.
He took her to a restaurant which appeared to be the very last word in
exclusivity. The head waiter surged to greet Rio. He took the attention
as his due and it was obvious that he was a regular customer. As Rio
strolled between the tables the low buzz of conversation died and a kind
of unearthly hush fell. Every head in the room seemed to be swivelling
in their direction. Several people addressed Rio, but, with only a word
of acknowledgement or a cool inclination of his dark head Rio kept on
moving.
Holly dropped down into the seat spun out for her occupation by an
attentive waiter. 'Why do I get the feeling that everyone's staring at us?'
Rio lifted one broad shoulder in a slight fluid shrug that was the very
essence of supreme cool. 'They're staring at you-'
'Me?' Holly exclaimed in lively astonishment.
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'Speculating on your identity. You do look incredible in that dress.'
Locked to the brilliance of his tawny appraisal, she felt her heart race
like crazy behind her ribs and she smiled. She didn't believe that
anybody had the slightest interest in her but she liked the compliment.
However, she went on to study her enormous menu in growing dismay. At
first glance the menu seemed to be in English, but what was a sorbet? A
croustade? A coulis?
When the waiter reappeared, perspiration beaded Holly's short upper lip,
because she was still looking frantically for a dish she could recognise.
'I'd recommend the sorbet,' Rio murmured.
'OK, yes...I'd like that,' Holly hastened to confirm with relief.
Rio was being a very entertaining companion when something that
resembled a pudding in a tall glass was set in front of her. She tried
not to seem surprised and just ignored it, because she couldn't work out
which of the many items of cutlery she was supposed to use to eat it and
Rio had confounded her by ordering soup. She would have loved soup but
she hadn't seen it anywhere on the menu,
'I'm not really that hungry,' she said as the sorbet was borne off, but
in truth her stomach was meeting her backbone and she felt on the brink
of starvation.
'I love salad,' she dared when it came to the next course, and then
inwardly cringed when it seemed that that was actually a special order
and there was such a carry-on about what kind of salad she wanted. Just
shove some lettuce on a plate, she wanted to scream.
She knew she used the wrong knife and fork for the salad because as she
picked them up the waiter was trying to remove them, but she braved it
out as if she hadn't noticed that. At least she got to eat and, although
dining out with
Rio was an enervating challenge, he did not appear to notice her silent
agonies of indecis
ion.
She triumphed, or thought she did, when it came to the dessert course.
'Chocolat' had to be chocolate. But the menu won all over again when her
selection arrived. A sparkly cobweb thing covered a shell containing a
mixture which she couldn't get at and a lot of leaves and tiny red
berries were scattered round the edges. The latter tasted poisonously
bad and put her right off the rest of it.
'You should be eating more,' Rio scolded, ignoring the greenery on his
own plate and heading straight for his mouthwatering meringue concoction
with a fork. A fork?
Suddenly, Holly was very grateful that she had pushed her own plate
away. Hunger was better than public embarrassment, and as soon as
everyone had gone to bed she would raid his kitchen fridge.
At the door, Rio draped the gorgeous coat round her shoulders. That
personal attention made her feel ten feet tall. At the same hour just
two nights back she had been walking the city streets, cold and scared,
and already that seemed a lifetime ago, she conceded, sobered by that
reflection. Yet the world she was now inhabiting felt far less real to
her than the one she had so recently left behind. But then, it was Rio's
world, not hers.
That fleeting kiss that had set her on fire earlier had only been a
tease, Holly told herself. He was a very sexy guy and he had been
flirting with her, that was all. Settling back into the limo, she
thought about her son. Timmie, who was not high-class enough to arm at
being Timothy, was her real world, along with bedsits, creepy landlords
and deadend, boring jobs, she reminded herself doggedly.
But still she found herself watching Rio, storing up images for the
future. It wasn't just his sleek, dark good-looks, his innate elegance
and grace; he had an incredible aura of
62
self-assurance that made her feel safe. It was a challenge to credit
that anything could go wrong while he was around. Was it possible to
fall in love so fast? Well, whether it was or not, she would have to get
over her silly notions. Cocooned in her glorious fake-fur, she took
advantage of the shifting play of light and shadow as the limo travelled
through the quiet streets to study him from all angles in search of a
physical flaw. But he defeated her. He remained drop-dead gorgeous and
no mistake.
'You don't need to restrict yourself to just looking. You can touch as
well, cara? Rio murmured in indolent invitation.
In sharp bewilderment, Holly froze. Agonised hot colour flooded her
face. He might as well have stripped her naked and turned her out in
front of an amused audience. Beneath the appraisal of those glittering
golden eyes that saw far too much for her comfort she felt like a
butterfly caught on a pin. He knew how he could make her feel but she
had never made a physical advance to a man and she was not about to
break that habit, she told herself fiercely, her small hands closing in
on themselves. She had enough problems; she had made enough mistakes.
Diving into bed for a casual one-night stand with Rio Lombardi would be
the ultimate of mistakes. Not only would she fail to deliver what he
expected, but she would also despise herself for being so cheap afterwards.
'Is that why you gave me the fairy-tale day out?' Holly heard herself
accuse.
In the flickering lights, his lean, strong face clenched. 'Of course not.'
'But you got a kick out of dressing me up like some toy doll, trying to
make me fit the blueprint of what presumably you like.' Holly was
fighting so hard to keep the sob rising inside her from surfacing that
her voice shook. 'But I'm
still me, and I may not be anything that special, but if Jeff taught me
anything he taught me that I need to have more respect for myself.'
'Right now, I do not want to hear about your abusive boyfriend,' Rio
responded with sizzling bite. 'But, believe me, I've never had to bribe
a woman into my bed!'
Holly did believe him, but she also knew that if she spoke again she
would start crying and make an even bigger fool of herself. When the
limo arrived at the house she jumped out, practically raced past Ezio
and was indoors and up the stairs most probably before Rio had even made
his own front step. Out of breath she went straight into Timmie's room
and crept over to his cot. Her son was sound asleep, little face flushed
and peaceful. Tomorrow she was going out to look for a job, and she
would tackle the Social Security office again. Tomorrow was the
beginning of another day.
Under the shower, she let her pent-up tears flow. How could she have
been tempted? But then, how could she not have been? She was mesmerised
by Rio Lombardi. It had been a magical day and she shouldn't have taken
offence, for she had not objected to being kissed. Rio was no different
to take advantage of willing women. If only she had had the wit to
respond with a light-hearted negative, rather than getting upset and
preaching and condemning. The memory of her own clumsy lack of tact made
her cringe.
She slid into the silky white nightie she had worn the night before.
Taken from the bag of clothing Ezio had given her, the garment was about
a size too small in the bosom department, and rather revealing, but then
she wasn't planning to walk down the street in it. She got into bed and
tossed and turned for ages while telling herself that it was
64
hunger that was keeping her awake. Then she heard a faint cry from
Timmie's room and scrambled out of bed to check on him.
Timmie was still asleep. She straightened his bedding and assured
herself that he was breathing normally and not too warm. Maybe he had
had a bad dream. Slipping out of his room again, she stopped dead at the
sight of Rio standing in the corridor, wearing only a pair of black
boxer shorts.
65
'I heard Timothy crying...is he OK?' Rio prompted.
'Yes, he's still asleep,' Holly told him in a rush.
His ebony hair was tousled, his strong jawline blue-shadowed and his
eyes were bright in his lean, bronzed face. He looked like a very sexy
buccaneer, all elemental male and rippling muscles. Welded to the spot,
Holly gazed at him, her soft lips parting. If she had found it
impossible not to stare when he was clothed, she was even more
challenged to deny that temptation when he was half-naked. And, although
she knew she should not be looking and she was embarrassed by her own
fascination, she couldn't stop.
Her heartbeat felt as if it was thumping in her constricted throat. He
was magnificent. Her dilated gaze ran from his wide, smooth brown
shoulders down over the black curls liberally sprinkling his muscular
torso to his tight, flat stomach, and about there, where the band of his
boxer shorts encircled his lean hips and challenged all further
curiosity, Holly stopped dead in horror at herself.
Eyes shimmering hot gold, Rio strolled closer and, barefoot as he was,
he made hardly a sound. The quiet had become a silence that buzzed, a
silence alive with dangerous vibrations. Rio dealt her a slow-burning
smile of appreciation. Only then did it occur to Holly that her scanty
nightdress was scarcely adequate covering in which to parade herself
before any red-blooded male. Her cheeks burning fierily, she raised her
arms and began to fold them protectively over herself.
66
'Equal rights, cara.' Rio snapped long fingers round her wrists and held
her still for a lingering physical appraisal.
Her breath snarled up in her throat, for she knew what he was seeing,
her full breasts shamelessly delineated by the sheer, tight bodice. She
felt the burn of her own mortification right down to the soles of her
feet and was duly punished.
Rio made a husky sound low and deep in his throat. He just reached for
her, hauling her up to him, his lean hands curving round her hips to
crush her feminine mound into connection with the full, hard force of
his arousal as he lifted her up against him.
'I hope you're in the mood to satisfy one very hungry guy, bella mia,'
Rio growled before he brought his mouth crashing down on hers with
devouring heat.
It was their first true kiss and it blew Holly away. Crushed to the hard
male strength of his big, powerful physique, she was conscious of his
virility with every fibre of her being. His mouth was hard and hot and
carnal and nobody had ever kissed her that way before. Prying her soft