* * *
With her body clock finally back on track Carla should have slept beautifully. She should have woken up firing on all cylinders, feeling strong and invincible and raring to go.
Unfortunately, however, the kiss in the kitchen the night before had put paid to any rest she’d been hoping for. The heat...the passion...the wanton yet terrifying lack of control... If she hadn’t been jolted back to reality by the burning garlic she and Rico would have had hot, wild sex right then and there, and that was something she just couldn’t seem to stop imagining.
The sizzling memory of it and the myriad questions she had about the scars on his chest, not to mention the intense emotion that had blazed in his eyes, which she’d never seen before in him but which confirmed her suspicion that still waters ran deep, had kept her tossing and turning in bed for hours. Exhaustion had finally won out in the early hours, and as a result she woke up feeling gritty and on edge, her nerves frayed by desire she just couldn’t shake no matter how hard she tried.
And now they were going to be spending most of the day together.
Petrified of bumping into Rico over breakfast and having to make horrendously awkward chat, Carla waited for the all clear before darting into the kitchen and grabbing a pastry from the fridge while keeping her gaze firmly away from the scene of the crime.
On the dot of eight she arrived at the helipad that was situated a couple of hundred metres from the house. Rico was already there, mirrored sunglasses concealing his eyes, his expression unreadable, the headset he had on thankfully precluding conversation.
Apparently as disinclined to acknowledge what had happened last night as she was, he barely glanced at her as she climbed aboard. He merely handed her a headset of her own and coolly indicated that she should buckle herself in before returning his attention to the dozens of dials and switches in front of him.
Moments later, the engine fired and the rotors started turning, and then they were up and away, soaring above the lagoon, leaving Isola Santa Margherita far behind and heading for the mainland, hurtling through the air in such a tiny contraption at such a great speed that her stomach was in her throat, while she clung on to her seat, her knuckles white.
To her relief, Rico’s concentration on what he was doing, combined with the noise of the helicopter, prevented any further communication. But as the journey continued, the urban sprawl giving way to a patchwork of fields dotted with villages, Lake Garda in the distance and the foothills of the Italian Alps beyond, and her nerves began to ease, she became increasingly aware of him.
The space was naturally confined and he filled it. His masculine scent surrounded her, making her head swim and her mouth water. Every inch of him was within touching distance. His thigh was unsettlingly close to hers. If she moved even a millimetre to the left, her shoulder would brush against his. Focusing on not doing that, when they kept being buffeted about by the wind, was taking every drop of strength she possessed, as was keeping her eyes off him.
It was so hard not to stare at his profile and linger on the scar and the slight bump in his nose which gave him the hint of badness that she found so attractive. So hard not to look at his fingers wrapped around the stick that he was using to fly this thing and not remember them in her hair and on her skin. She’d always had a penchant for competence, and it was even harder not to melt into a puddle of lust at just how skilled he was at the controls.
But not impossible.
Because of far greater importance than any of that was the clock counting down her time in Italy, which was ticking louder and louder with every passing second. Patience while waiting for seeds of suggestion to take root was all very well but in this situation she needed to get a move on.
Last night’s attempts to lull Rico into a false sense of security hadn’t exactly worked, so quid pro quo was how she was going to proceed, she decided, blocking out the infuriatingly unsettling effect his proximity was having on her and focusing. A back and forth of information that she’d start and force him to follow.
This time, she was going to control the conversation and she might have to dig deeper than she’d have ideally liked, but by carefully revealing to him layers of herself no one else apart from Georgie had ever seen she’d show him he had nothing to fear. She certainly didn’t. She had no doubt that Rico wo
uldn’t respond in an emotional sense to whatever she told him. Her revelations would bounce right off the steel-plated armour he surrounded himself with. He didn’t let anyone close and she saw no reason he’d ever decide to make an exception for her. Apart from the sensational chemistry they shared, which this morning he was ignoring in the same way she was trying to but with a greater degree of success, he simply didn’t have a sufficient level of interest to bother. Or any, in fact. Which was totally fine with her.
There was no point in waiting until another monosyllabic meal, she told herself, mentally unlocking the past and bracing herself for the reality of laying it out in front of this man. If she really was going to do this—and for the sake of her best friend she absolutely was—she had to strike while the iron was hot. And that meant implementing her plan as soon as they landed.
* * *
Generally Rico got a massive kick out of flying his helicopter, but as he landed the machine at Linate Airport and switched off the engine he thought he’d never been so glad to see the back of it.
The trip to Milan had been nothing short of torture. He’d been agonisingly aware of Carla sitting beside him, close enough to touch, close enough to pull onto his lap and kiss the living daylights out of again, so damn affecting that he might as well not have bothered with the numerous cold showers he’d taken throughout the very long night.
The tension in his muscles was excruciating. His jaw was so tight it was on the point of shattering. The restraint he was having to exercise, a novel concept he had no intention of repeating ever again once she’d gone, was intolerable.
Why was it so hard to control his response to her? he wondered darkly as he jumped down and then strode around the front to help her alight too. Was this yet another effect of his accident? Another weakening of the defences he’d always considered impregnable?
Whatever it was, he didn’t like it, any more than he liked the strength of his desire for her. He’d experienced need before, many times, but the intensity and the wildness with which he wanted her was new. What was it about her that was different? Why did she and she alone affect him in this way?
Releasing her hand as soon as she was on solid ground as if it were on fire, Rico turned on his heel and made for the car that was waiting for them on the tarmac. With a nod to Marco, his chauffeur in Milan, who was opening the door for Carla, he climbed in and slammed the door shut. Once she was in too it hit him that, since the car was as spacious as the helicopter, the journey to the consulate was going to be equally torturous. Possibly even more so, since now he didn’t have the distraction of flying, which was why he had to stop thinking about both the incredibly passionate way she’d responded to him last night and the astonishingly good feel of her beneath his hands.
‘So,’ she said, making herself comfortable before taking off her sunglasses and turning to face him, something about the set of her jaw and the determined look in her eye raising the hairs on the back of his neck. ‘Milan.’
‘What about it?’ he said, aiming for the cool nonchalance that so often eluded him when she was in his vicinity, and, for once, just about nailing it.
‘It’s where you started on your journey to fund management world domination.’
‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’
‘Then how would you put it?’ she asked. ‘The article I read described you as mysteriously elusive, but a man with the Midas touch, which I guess would explain the island, the private jet and the helicopter.’