The Italian's One-Night Love-Child. Cathy Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ there’s a large ancestral manor house…’Years ago, she could remember her mother doing a cleaning stint there to get some extra cash for Christmas. It was a great grey mansion with turrets and a forbidding, desolate appearance.

      ‘So you must be half Italian…Which half?’

      Bethany gave a self-conscious laugh. ‘Are you always so interested in dinner companions you ask out on the spur of the moment?’

      ‘No. But, then again, I don’t usually have to drag information out of my dinner companions. It’s a fact that most women love nothing more than talking about themselves.’

      ‘You mean they try to impress you.’

      ‘Do you want the truth or shall I treat you to a phoney spectacle of false modesty?’

      ‘You have a very big ego, don’t you?’

      ‘I prefer to call it a keen sense of reality.’ Cristiano was enjoying this banter. He had had to work to get her to this place, on a date with him and, having got her here, was discovering her to be skittish and unpredictable company. It made a change from the doe-eyed beauties who were always eager to oblige his every whim. ‘Don’t you feel the need to impress me?’ he murmured, his words cloaked in a languorous, sexy intimacy that sent shivers racing up and down her spine.

      ‘Why should I?’ A frisson of danger rippled through her. This was no simple, exciting night out with a stranger. She felt as though he was walking round her soul, opening doors she hadn’t known existed.

      ‘Because I feel the weirdest desire to impress you.’ He also had the weirdest desire to find out more about her. Weird because getting to know her had not been remotely on the agenda when he had asked her out to dinner. He had seen her, had been curiously attracted to her, had thought nothing of entertaining himself with a one-night stand. It wasn’t usually his scene but, then again, he would have been a complete hypocrite if he had tried to dredge up a bunch of reasons why he should not indulge in a night of passion with a woman he would probably never see again. It wasn’t as though his goal in life, thus far, was to recruit a love interest for a permanent place in his life.

      ‘Why don’t you tell me what it would take…?’

      His voice was like a caress, as was the lazy, amused, speculative expression in his eyes, although she noticed that he was keeping his distance, half leaning against the door, his long legs eating into the free space between them. She had not started the evening in the anticipation that it would end up in bed and had he tried to invade her space she would have pulled back at a rate of knots, but there was something wildly erotic about his self-restraint. It was a sobering thought to know that he would probably be repelled had he known her modest background. He might consider himself a man of the world, and he undoubtedly was a man of the world, a sleek, highly groomed, fantastically sophisticated animal who was the master of all he surveyed. Except there was quite a bit that he didn’t survey, wasn’t there?

      ‘We could walk…’ she said. ‘Rome is full of so many exciting, wonderful sights. And then we could go somewhere simple and cheerful to eat. A pizzeria. I happen to know an excellent one not a million miles away from the Colosseum.’

      ‘Sure. Why not? I haven’t eaten in that part of the city since I was a teenager. In fact, I think I know the place you’re talking about. Red and white striped awning outside? Dark interior? Empty wine bottles on the tables with candles, sixties style? Overweight proprietor with a handlebar moustache?’

      ‘He must have lost weight over the years—’ Bethany laughed ‘—but the moustache is still there. You used to go there? With your friends?’

      ‘Before real life took over,’ Cristiano said wryly.

      ‘What do you mean by real life?’

      ‘University and then stepping into my father’s shoes. Pizzerias don’t have much of a role to play in the life of an empire-builder.’ He grinned, enjoying her forthright manner. It was refreshing to meet a woman so upfront. Those games women played could get a little tiresome after a while.

      ‘So now you only go to fancy restaurants.’

      ‘Where pizza is never on the menu.’

      ‘Poor Cristiano.’ Bethany laughed and their eyes tangled. She felt a rush of blood to her head because she could sense the sexual invitation in his slumberous, amused dark gaze.

      ‘I know—’ he sighed piteously, his eyes never leaving her face for a second ‘—condemned to a life without pizzas. No wonder you feel sorry for me. Okay, here’s the deal. I’ll do the pizza but I’ll pass on the scenic walking. Enrico is paid far too much, as I keep telling him. What’s the point of paying someone for doing nothing?’

      ‘Who’s Enrico?’

      ‘My mother’s driver, of course. Don’t tell me you don’t have one in London.’

      ‘Several,’ Bethany said, thinking of the numerous bus drivers who serviced the buses between her flat and the university.

      ‘Good. Then that’s settled.’

      Bethany felt like a princess as she slid into the back seat of the sleek black Mercedes. A princess whose clothes didn’t quite match the luxurious leather and gleaming walnut of the car, but what the heck? She had to restrain herself from running her hands along the seat. Presumably she would be accustomed to these levels of mega-luxury.

      Seen from this angle, through the windows of a car that drew glances and had people swivelling around to try and glimpse who was inside, the city felt like her possession. No wonder that sense of ownership sat on this man’s shoulders like an invisible mantle! Fifteen minutes in his car and she was already beginning to feel like royalty!

      Even when they were installed at a table at the back of the buzzing, lively pizzeria, she was still hyper-sensitive to the reality that women were still sneaking sidelong glances at them, trying to figure out who the sexy guy was and his much drabber companion. Cristiano appeared to notice none of it.

      He was busily delivering his verdict on the lack of changes to the pizzeria since he had last been there, which was nearly two decades ago, and she contented herself with arguing with everything he said, finally concluding that he was a snob for daring to inform her that the least the proprietor could have done was change the dated gingham tablecloths which loudly proclaimed a stubborn refusal to move with the times.

      ‘Me? A snob?’ He had been pleasantly invigorated by her arguing, because women didn’t argue with him, and was now vastly amused at her one word summary of his character. She was laughing when she said it, her crystal clear green eyes throwing out all sorts of invitations that had him aching for her.

      ‘Yes, you!’ A bottle of wine had been brought for them and she had already finished one glass. ‘Loads of people flock to this place because the food is simple and hearty and very, very good…’

      ‘And would be improved by a shake up in the decor…’

      ‘You like white linen and fawning waiters, but that doesn’t mean that everyone shares your taste…’

      ‘But most would, given half the chance.’

      ‘I happen to prefer the rustic ambience…’

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