She stared at Rio Zaccarelli, the epitome of male sophistication, and felt her face grow scarlet.
Her grandfather definitely would have classed him as a real man.
It was the ultimate irony, she thought, to have been caught naked with him.
As if—
‘So you don’t have a lover at the moment.’ His slumberous gaze rested on her mouth. ‘That’s good.’
‘Well, that depends on where you’re standing,’ Evie muttered, wishing she wasn’t standing quite so close to him. She was getting hotter and hotter. ‘If you must know, I was supposed to be getting married yesterday but my fiancé dumped me. If that hadn’t happened I’d be in Bali now, not London. I wouldn’t have lost my job and my flat and generally had a completely awful six weeks and there might have been the smallest, remotest chance that my grandfather might be bouncing a baby on his knee next Christmas. As it is, there’s no chance. None. I don’t expect you to understand. You look like the sort of person whose life always goes according to plan.’
‘My plan,’ he said tightly, ‘wasn’t to find a strange woman lying naked in my bed. Fortunately, I’ve always considered adaptability to be an asset. I can turn this situation around.’
‘You can?’ Evie’s gaze drifted to the neck of his shirt. Dark hairs tangled at the base of his throat and disappeared inside the snowy-white shirt. She imagined the hair hazing his chest and narrowing over his abdomen, which was no doubt as muscular as the rest of him. Shocked by her own thoughts, she lifted her eyes back to his and discovered that he was watching her with an unsettling degree of sexual interest.
‘Why did he dump you?’
‘Why does it matter?’ Was she supposed to read him a list? Evie chewed the corner of her fingernail and then gave an embarrassed shrug. ‘Because he met someone more exciting. Because I’m the girl next door and he’s known me since I was three years old. Because I was taller than him and I made him feel less of a man—’ She stared at him with exasperation, wondering why she was having to spell this out. ‘Because I’m me. He sent me a text, dumping me.’
His lips thinned with disapproval. ‘That’s bad.’
‘Hypocrite. Are you seriously trying to tell me you’ve never dumped a woman?’
‘I wouldn’t use the word “dumped”. I’ve ended plenty of relationships, but always in person. I’ve never sent a text. That’s cowardly.’
‘I suppose it’s human nature to avoid a difficult conversation.’
‘Difficult conversations are part of my daily existence.’
Evie had no trouble believing that. ‘Jeff is nothing like you.’ A wimp, her grandfather had called him. ‘Perhaps he was sensible. After all the lies he told, I would have blacked his eye if he’d told me in person.’
His eyes lingered on her hair. ‘A true redhead with a temper to match.’
Reminded of the embarrassing fact that he knew she was a true redhead, Evie ploughed on. ‘What this boils down to is that my grandfather isn’t going to be impressed to see me naked with another man. He’s very old-fashioned. I don’t want him to think I’m like that. I’m not like that! I don’t flit from one man to another.’
‘Unless the other man was someone important to you.’ Rio spoke under his breath and she had a feeling that he was thinking aloud.
That thought was confirmed when she muttered, ‘Sorry?’ and received no response.
‘If it was someone you’d been secretly seeing. A rebound relationship that turned into something special—’ He paced the length of the bedroom and then turned to look at her, his eyes burning dark. ‘Wholesome.’
‘You make me sound like a breakfast cereal,’ she said irritably. ‘Why do you keep saying that?’
‘Never mind. How long ago did you start working here?’
‘I don’t know…I…’
‘Think!’
‘Don’t shout at me! I can’t concentrate when people shout!’
Rio sucked in a breath. ‘I’m not shouting. I just want an answer. When?’
‘About six weeks ago. I came down after Jeff dumped me. I started as a receptionist. I thought it was my big break.’
‘Six weeks—’ Before the words had left his lips, his
BlackBerry was in his hand and he was checking something. ‘I was staying in the Penthouse six weeks ago. I spent one night here on my way to New York. I need you to find out if you were working here then.’