Staring down at her as she slept, her face as pale as the pillow in the moonlight, her hair spread on the sheet, her lips swollen from his attention, her shoulders bruised from his kisses, he knew he was as weak as he was hard.
He had sworn he wouldn’t go back—yet here he was.
Sciocco.
No! Lazzaro’s jaw tightened—he was still in control, was wise to her games, was one step ahead. He would trip her up on her lies some time soon…but for now…Pulling her, soft and warm, into his body, he felt her hair tickling his chest as his arm wrapped around her. He stared at the ceiling as the word taunted him again.
Sciocco.
Perhaps a little, Lazzaro conceded, but he could handle it—wouldn’t let himself forget for a moment that he was living in a fool’s paradise.
‘To be the best…’ Lazzaro gave her a black smile as they sat in his room on Saturday and for the second time he sent back his food with complaints to the chef ‘…you have to give the best—every time.’
‘Well, my lunch is perfect,’ Caitlyn said defiantly—because it was!
She’d been taking notes since eight a.m., a pounding headache her companion as Lazzaro bombarded her with his findings, snapping his fingers as he had the night they’d first met as—not quickly enough for his impatient liking—she retrieved reams and reams of figures from her laptop. She had been grateful, so grateful, when lunch had appeared—and, unlike at the peninsular resort, in-room dining at Ranaldi’s Roma was a slice of heaven. A trolley as vast as her dinner table at home had been wheeled in, groaning under the weight of a sumptuous spread of cold meats and pastries, syruped fruits and cannolis, and coffee as thick as treacle had cleared her thumping head—yet still he found something to complain about.
Taking a bite of her cannoli, tasting the sugared creamed cheese, ignoring the inevitable icing sugar moustache, Caitlyn was insistent. ‘It’s heavenly, in fact.’
‘Because you know no better!’
God, he was poisonous at times. The man she shared her bed with, shared herself with at night, was unrecognisable against the man she barely tolerated by day.
‘Tonight we check out the competition.’
‘I thought it was Signor Mancini’s party tonight.’
‘It is—he is still the competition, and I am his. I can guarantee everything will be perfect—as it should be here. You need to get ready for tonight—your hair is…’He gave her a curious look that inflamed her.
‘I didn’t wash it this morning,’ Caitlyn hissed, ‘because I’m having it put up for the party! You-don’t-wash-your-hair-the-day-you-get-it-put-up-or-it-comes-down!’
‘Thank you for telling me.’ He gave her a very on-off smile. ‘I was just going to say that you will stand out tonight—there are not many natural blondes in Rome.’
‘Oh!’ She was jolly well sure he hadn’t been about to say that, but, given she’d so spectacularly jumped the gun, she’d never know. ‘I’ve chosen one from the dresses you had sent over—don’t worry, I won’t let you down. So, what are we doing for the rest of the day?’
‘I’ve told you—you are getting your hair and make-up done.’
‘It’s one p.m.,’ Caitlyn pointed out. ‘I don’t take six hours to get ready!’
He frowned over at her. ‘Your eyebrows need doing too…’
‘Excuse me?’ Caitlyn blushed in anger at yet another rude observation. ‘How rude!’
‘Tonight you are going to be mingling with Rome’s most rich, most beautiful. So I suggest you go and start to prepare. I am just letting you know—’
‘Well, don’t!’ Caitlyn snapped. Her heavenly lunch was sitting like lead in her stomach, and not for the first time she wondered if she was up to this—wondered if her mother’s mortgage was really worth the humiliation. She consoled herself that at least the rose-coloured glasses she’d worn over the years were well and truly starting to clear. ‘And if we’re being personal…’ She stared over at him, wishing he wasn’t so damn perfect, trying to find a fault to pick. When there wasn’t, annoyed at herself for being so childish, she made one up. ‘You’ve got something on your teeth!’