‘Those candles have gone out again,’ she shouted as she backed into the hall. ‘Can you close the door and light them for me?’
‘Leave that!’ He swore viciously as he tore off his jacket. He was at her side in an instant. ‘You light the candles. I’ll take the sandbag.’
She shook him off. The brief contact between them was electrifying.
‘If you want to help me, grab another bag!’ she yelled. ‘The river must have burst its banks—’
‘Clearly,’ he said dryly, wrestling the sandbag from her grasp. He laid it down on top of the others. That was why he’d been unable to get in—and now she was rolling up his Persian carpets.
‘Help me,’ she insisted impatiently. ‘It will be faster if the two of us do it.’
‘Have you lit those candles yet?’ he pressed, frowning.
‘Have you got any manners?’ she fired back with a scowl twice as deep as his.
He straightened up with surprise. No one had ever talked to him this way before.
‘Thank you would be a start,’ she told him sharply.
An almighty thunder crash brought an end to their discussion. As lightning flashed repeatedly he could see the wide-eyed shock on her face.
‘You’re safe,’ he insisted, when nature paused to take a breath.
‘If it doesn’t stop raining soon, we’ll be sunk—quite literally,’ she said. ‘Here—catch this.’
She tossed him a towel to mop up the water leaking through her barricade. Far from cowering in a corner, waiting for her white knight to arrive, Signorina Rich was firmly in control. He surprised himself by liking that. But, then, he liked her. He couldn’t help himself. He admired her grit.
‘Well? Are you going to help me to roll up these rugs or not?’ she demanded, glancing back at him as she lit the candles on the hall table.
There were plenty of things he would like to help Signorina Rich with, and rolling rugs wasn’t at the top of his list.
It was all going well for her until she crossed the room in the half-light and caught her foot under a rug. As she stumbled he caught her close. It only took an instant to absorb how good she felt beneath his hands. Candlelight mapped the changes in her eyes from blue to black. She held her breath, almost as if she thought he was going to kiss her. Would she fight him? Would she yield hungrily? It was irrelevant to him. He might want to kiss her, he might even ache to kiss her, but he would never be so self-indulgent.
Delay was the servant of pleasure, he mused dryly as he steadied her.
‘Be careful you don’t trip up again.’
The look she gave him suggested that tripping up over a rug, or anything else for that matter, was the last thing on her mind.
‘Shall we carry on?’ she suggested. ‘The rugs?’ she added pointedly.
She got more brownie points for effort, and his senses got a second jolt when she brushed past him. She’d keep, he reassured his aching flesh. She wasn’t going anywhere.
Having been forced to work together, Cass was surprised to discover how well they could read each other’s intentions—to her surprise, they made a great team. It was certainly a pleasure watching Marco wielding his immense physical strength.
‘I’ll move things out of the way so you can take that rug into the dining room,’ she told him, holding her breath as Marco shouldered the weight of the wool rug as if it were a bag of feathers. Opening the door wide, she cleared a space for him, only to find him breathing down her neck. Their hands brushed. Their bodies touched. Their breath mingled as he turned around. They were just too dangerously close—
‘Great job,’ she said, stepping back. Now she realised that in her hurry to get away from him she had made it sound as if their positions in life had been reversed and Marco was her assistant. Oh, well. There was nothing she could do about that now. Ducking beneath his arm, she slipped away.
‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
‘To my bed.’ She turned and shrugged. ‘We’ve done all we can tonight. I’m going to have a bath first—try to warm up. The power may be off but the water should still be warm in the reserve tank—and I promise I won’t use it all.’
‘A bath in the dark?’ he queried.
‘I’ll manage—I’ll take some candles.’ She glanced at his fist on the door. Was he going to try and stop her leaving? The tension between them had suddenly roared off the scale.
‘You’re in a hurry to get away.’