Whoever the hell she really was, he was done with her. So why should he care that she was the daughter of a marchese?
The phone on his desk was ringing and he snatched it up.
‘Yes?’
His voice was curt. Who wanted him at this late hour of the evening? He was in no mood to be hospitable. Then, as the receptionist gave the name of his unexpected visitor, his frown cleared. Unexpected she might be, but he should make the most of it.
Hadn’t he been telling himself he’d moved on? Well... His expression changed again. Now he really could. This very evening. Right away. Whatever had brought Lorna here, he would take advantage of it. He would open champagne, make it clear to her that he was interested in more than her skills in garden design and see where it took them.
He wanted her to say yes.
Memory, unwanted but piercing, arrowed through him. Once it had been another woman, with golden hair and a beauty to inflame him, he’d wanted to say yes.
Enough! The same word that he’d silenced her with sliced through his brain now.
‘Tell Ms Linhurst,’ he said to the receptionist, making his voice far less curt, ‘that she is most welcome.’
He hung up. Strode to the climate-controlled drinks cabinet, drawing out a suitable bottle of champagne, setting out two flutes beside it, checking that the lighting created the right ambience for the message he wished to convey to the woman who was going to be his way to move on from the woman he needed to move on from...
There was a soft rap at the door. He crossed towards it, opened it with a welcoming smile.
‘Lorna, this is a most pleasant surprise—’ he began warmly.
Then the welcoming smile was wiped from his face.
* * *
Fran was inside the door before Nic could register it or stop her.
‘What the hell...?’
There was nothing welcoming in his voice now, nothing warm.
She strode past him, the long silk skirts of her gown swishing. ‘Nic, I have to talk to you!’ She slewed round to face him, and as she did so she was burningly conscious of his raw physical presence all over again.
He was still in his tuxedo, but his top shirt button was undone, the black bow tie hanging open either side. In the hours since she’d set eyes on him his jaw had shadowed with the beginning of regrowth, and it gave him a rough, piratical edge that hollowed something out inside her.
How often in their time together, lolling in bed together late at night, or early in the morning, had she run her fingers along that roughened edge, glorying in the sheer masculinity of it until he caught her fingers, hauled her mouth to his and started all over again in his urgent, demanding possession of her?
A word in Italian escaped from him, a crudity that broke on the air, and she blenched. Nic didn’t care that she could understand it—all that was in him now was an open anger that was instantaneous. There was shock too—and more than shock.
Her image had been burning in his head and now it was more than just that. It was her—her presence—just as it had been on the rooftop of the Viscari. As resplendent as it had been then. And he realised there was no way he could move on with Lorna.
His eyes honed in on the couture gown in blue silk, the sapphires snaked around her pale throat, the golden hair piled high on her head. La Donna Francesca in all her aristocratic grandeur.
Then her words registered with him. I have to talk to you!
Anger slashed across his consciousness. No, she did not have to talk to him! He wanted none of it.
His expression closed. Hardened. The way it had in the elevator. ‘There is nothing I wish to hear, Donna Francesca—’ he began, his voice cold.
Something flashed in her eyes, and he realised with a start that it was anger too.
‘Well, tough, Nic—because you’re going to hear it! I will not be treated like this by you!’
It was the wrong thing to say. Immediately his eyes narrowed, his voice icing. ‘Do not throw your aristocratic privileges at me, because they don’t impress me! God knows how you blagged your way in here. But you can leave right now!’
He made to go and open the door, but Fran was there before him.