‘Pronto.’
‘Hi. It’s...um...me.’
She still sounded uncertain when she spoke to him, which he found troubling. He wanted—neededher to be comfortable around him. For some strange reason it seemed imperative.
‘Hello, me. How may I assist?’
She laughed, a musical tinkle of sound that caused warmth to kindle in his chest.
‘I’ve tried following your directions to the music room, but I’m lost. I need some help.’
Her request for assistance touched him in a way he found hard to explain. He glanced at the open email again. Another contact, another phone call to make during which the person on the other end of the line would lie, whine, and then beg to be allowed to keep what wasn’t theirs.
‘Stefano?’
He shook himself out of his inertia. The call could wait. Helping Lucy would be a welcome break, since he’d been sitting behind this desk for hours.
‘I’ll find you and take you there. Can you tell me what you’re near?’
‘Well... I opened a door and it seems to be a room full of boars’ heads. Tusks and all.’
‘Ah. I won’t be long.’
He shut down his computer and jogged to where she described. She stood outside the door of one of the many unused rooms here.
Today she cursed him by wearing active wear for her exploration of the castle: form-fitting leggings that peeked out from underneath her coat and clung to her body, shaping her firm thighs and the swell of her calves. Heaven save him, he couldn’t take his eyes from her, and the way he looked at her body was not polite.
She gave him a tentative smile as he approached and he focussed on her soft rose lips, gleaming with a slick of gloss. It wasn’t much better.
‘There was no need to run. I’m fine so long as I don’t open that door again.’
‘I should have warned you. My father had a penchant for hunting boar. His trophies aren’t to my taste, but I didn’t want the boars to have perished in vain, so they now have a room to themselves.’
‘You’ve made them their own shrine. That’s kind of sweet, but also kind of creepy.’
‘It is my life’s aim to do “sweet and creepy” well.’
She threw back her head and laughed.
It was as if sunshine had broken out in the gloomy hall, bright and beautiful.
‘Well, you’re better at that than in your directions. Where is this mythical music room?’
‘Follow me. You aren’t far from it.’
He walked ahead and she blew out her breath in a huff, disturbing fine wisps of hair and sending them drifting over her face as she followed.
‘You should have given me instructions like,Turn right at the boars’ heads, then proceed straight past the hall of disapproving ancestors and go left at the room of lethal weapons—’
‘You found the armoury as well? Youhavehad an adventure today.’
‘I suppose I have—though itwasrather unnerving. What have you been doing?’
Stefano’s shoulders dropped, the mere thought of the tasks ahead causing another wave of exhaustion to flood over him. ‘More work.’
‘I admire your commitment to your job. Do you actually have a life?’
The hot bite of something like anger burned in his gut. He’d had a life once. And status. He’d had everything. But those words came back to haunt him.