A Tainted Beauty. Sharon Kendrick
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Название: A Tainted Beauty
Автор: Sharon Kendrick
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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‘You don’t know?’
‘How would I know, when it seems that I’m the last to know anything?’
There was a pause. ‘I’m planning to turn it into a hotel.’
Lily’s eyes widened. A hotel? ‘You’re going to turn the Grange into a hotel?’ she breathed in horror.
‘It will be a beautiful and tasteful hotel,’ he defended. ‘My hotels always are. Ask around if you don’t believe me.’
But taste was subjective, wasn’t it? Lily imagined the bedrooms turned from their faded familiarity into places with horrible swagged four-poster beds. She thought of corporate beige carpeting and those over-the-top hotel displays of flowers, which always made her think of funeral parlours. ‘And that’s supposed to reassure me?’
He felt like telling her that it was not her place to be reassured, yet he wanted her so much that he was prepared to overlook her impertinence. ‘If it means that you’ll have dinner with me, then, yes—be reassured. Come on, Lily. Just one evening. One dinner. What are you so frightened of?’
She wondered what he’d say if she answered ‘everything’. If she told him that the whole world looked a terrifying place just now. That she was worrying about her brother’s future. About how the two of them were going to adjust to living in that tiny apartment.
But hot on the trail of her fears came the realisation that she was becoming a bit of a hermit. She tried to remember the last time she’d been tempted to go out for dinner with a man. Her broken relationship with Tom had damaged her, yes—but wasn’t she in danger of letting the damage deepen if she locked herself away, like some medieval woman in a tower? When had she last done something really reckless, just for the hell of it? Why shouldn’t she spend the evening with Ciro D’Angelo—unless she really thought herself so spineless that she’d be unable to resist falling into bed with him?
‘I don’t want a late night,’ she warned.
Ciro smiled as a feeling of triumph spread through his veins. ‘What’s your number?’
‘407649,’ she said, noticing that he didn’t bother writing it down as he took a card from his pocket and handed it to her.
‘I’ll call you,’ he said.
A figure appeared at the window—a middle-aged woman carrying jars of jam—and Ciro automatically got up to hold the door open for her, noticing her curious glance as she passed. Stepping outside into the sunlit day, his senses began to fizz with excitement. Because for a moment back then, he’d thought that Lily Scott was going to refuse to have dinner with him. A moment when he had tasted the unfamiliar flavour of uncertainty.
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