Angel might have said she was in charge, but she knew that in a situation like this she would not expect Anna to make a unilateral decision. The bottom line was she was just—what had he called her? A glorified babysitter. He’d meant it as an insult, but essentially it was an accurate description of her role.
It was Angel’s brother who was the appropriate person to decide the correct course of action, and if ever a man was equipped to make decisions it was Jas’s uncle.
It wasn’t as if he’d waste time agonising over it. A crooked smile briefly twisted her soft lips as an image of the incumbent of the castle floated before her eyes. Somehow she didn’t think indecision was his style! Just tall, snooty blondes with endless legs.
At the top of the spiral staircase there were doors leading off a wide corridor. Four in total, but only one had light coming from underneath it. There were sounds of music, something bluesy, coming from behind the big door and a tiny sliver of light shining under. The pucker between her brows deepened. Did he not sleep? Or did he suffer from insomnia? When the explanation came to her she felt stupid. He wasn’t sleeping, he was...they were... She shook her head to clear the images crowding in and pressed a hand to her stomach. Whatever Cesare and the beautiful Louise were doing could stay behind closed doors—she didn’t want to know.
Taking a deep breath, Anna grabbed her courage in both hands and knocked. She waited, counting the seconds, shifting her weight from one bare foot to the other on the cold stone floor.
* * *
Louise had not been serious when she had suggested tongue in cheek that under the circumstances Cesare might prefer it if she didn’t share his room that night.
‘Though, of course, darling, if you’re suggesting a threesome, I’m always up for anything new.’
She had been visibly taken aback, and yes annoyed, when he had said that actually he did have some work to do so maybe it might be better if she took a guest suite for the night. And now, because he’d had a sense of humour bypass, he was here awake at three a.m. with no prospect of him falling asleep any time soon.
His strong features clenched as he switched off the shower and muttered, ‘That damned redhead!’
Having that woman under his roof was taking years off his life and throwing his rigid schedule totally out of kilter.
As he stepped out of the shower Cesare heard the knock. Grabbing a towel from the stack on a hamper, he wound it around his waist as he moved in the direction of the bedroom door. He was not a man who assumed the worst but no one would disturb him at this hour for something that was not an emergency.
Anna’s knocks got louder and the gaps between them correspondingly shorter. She was at the point of considering opening the door and yelling when it opened.
She squared her shoulders, mentally prepared. Only it turned out she wasn’t!
Who could be, faced with the figure framed in the doorway?
A total sexist pig he might be, but she couldn’t imagine anyone, including herself, arguing that Cesare was the sexiest man on the planet. Always effortlessly elegant and immaculate, with water droplets gleaming on his bronzed skin and naked but for a strip of towelling around his narrow hips, Cesare was an image that made her forget why she was here. Hell, at that second she’d have been hard put to remember her name!
He looked down at her with a fierce, almost unfocused expression. His glittering stare had a bone-stripping, soul-baring intensity, but bizarrely it felt as though he wasn’t seeing her. He couldn’t be; men didn’t look at her that way.
‘I’m...’ She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you.’
The odd choking sound that emerged from his throat cut her off, then, without a word, he stepped towards her and grabbing her by the waist, he hauled her into him.
Anna was unable to deal with something that couldn’t happen again outside her darkest fantasies; something in her brain clicked into off position. She felt an explosion somewhere in her tight chest and stopped breathing. Shock held her immobile. The immobility lasted seconds until her body reacted to the impact of her softness hitting solid bone and muscle—she melted, released a small lost cry into his warm mouth, opening her mouth under the erotic pressure.
Conscious thought vanished, intruding briefly into her world of touch and smell and glorious male hardness. When her shoulder blades ground into the stone wall it hurt but not enough to make her want this to stop. It was enough to enable her to register that she was standing against the wall opposite his open door.