'Excuse me?' she snapped.
'Why?' Raul said. 'What did you do?'
'I mean you're rude to insinuate that there might be something else going on!'
'I know that's what you meant.'
He remained annoyingly calm, and more annoyingly he didn't back down.
'And I'm not insinuating anything-I'm telling you that unless you hold the deeds to the castle, or are to be a major player in the renovations, or some such, there is no reason for this Bastiano to insist on your company tonight. '
'He isn't insisting.'
'Good.' Raul shrugged. 'Then don't go.'
'I don't have any excuse not to.'
'You don't need one.'
It was Lydia who gave a shrug now.
A tense one.
She was still cross at his insinuation.
Or rather she was cross that Raul might be right-that he could see what she had spent weeks frantically trying not to.
'Lydia, can I tell you something?'
She didn't answer.
'Some free advice.'
'Why would I take advice from a stranger?'
'I'm no longer a stranger.'
He wasn't. She had told him more than she had told many people who were in her day-to-day life.
'Can I?' Raul checked.
She liked it that he did not give advice unrequested, and when she met his eyes they were patient and awaiting her answer.
'Yes.'
'You can walk away from anyone you choose to, and you don't have to come up with a reason.'
'I know that.'
She had walked off from breakfast with Maurice, after all.
It wasn't enough, though-Lydia knew that. And though Raul's words made perfect sense, they just did not apply to her world.
'So why don't you tell your stepfather that you can't make it tonight because you're catching up with a friend?'
'I already have.'
'But you don't like Arabella,' Raul pointed out. 'So why don't you meet me instead?'
She laughed a black laugh. 'You're not a friend.'
He wasn't.
'No,' he answered honestly. 'I'm not.'
She was about to take a sip of her coffee when he added something else.
'I could be for tonight, though.'
'I don't think so.' Lydia gave a small laugh, not really getting what he had just said-or rather not really thinking he meant it.
'Do you have many friends?' she asked, replacing her cup. Perhaps her question was a little invasive, but she'd told him rather a lot and was curious to know about him.
'Some.'
'Close friends?' Lydia pushed.
'No one whose birthday I need to remember.'
'No one?'
He shook his head.
'I guess it saves shopping for presents.'
'Not really.'
Raul decided to take things to another level and tell her how things could be. In sex, at least, he was up front.
'I like to give a present the morning after.'
Lydia got what he meant this time.
She didn't blush. If anything Lydia felt a shiver, as if the sun had slipped behind a cloud.
It hadn't.
He was dark, he was dangerous, and he was as sexy as hell. Absolutely she was out of her depth.
'I'm here to sightsee, Raul.'
'Then you need an expert.'
Lydia stared coolly back at this man who was certainly that. She wondered at his reaction if she told him just how inexperienced she was-that in fact he would be her first.
Not that it was going to happen!
But what a first, Lydia thought.
She went to reach for water but decided against it, unsure she could manage the simple feat when the air thrummed with an energy that was foreign to her.
He was potent, and Lydia was tempted in a way she had never been.
She glanced down to his hand, and that was beautiful too-olive-skinned and long-fingered with very neat nails. And it was happening again, because now she imagined them inside her.
Oh!
She was sitting at breakfast, imagining those very fingers in the filthiest of thoughts, and she dared not look up at him for she felt he could read her mind.
'So what are your plans for today?' Raul asked.
His voice seemed to be coming from a distance, and yet he was so prominent in her mind.
She could take his hand, Lydia was certain, and be led to his bed.
Oh, what was happening to her?
'I told you-sightseeing, and then I'm shopping for a dress.'
'I wish I could be there to see that.'
'I thought men didn't like shopping.'
'I don't, usually.'
His eyes flicked to the row of buttons at the front of her dress and then to the thick nipples that ached, just ached for his touch, for his mouth. And then they moved back to her face.
'I have to go,' Raul told her, and she sat still as he stood. With good reason: her legs simply refused to move. Standing would be difficult...walking back over to the hotel would prove a completely impossible feat.
Please go, Lydia thought, because she felt drunk on lust and was trying not to let him see.
He summoned the waiter, and though he spoke in Italian he spoke slowly enough that she could just make out what was being said.
Hold this table for tonight at six.
And then he turned to where she sat, now with her back to him, and lowered his head. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her.
He did not.
His breath was warm on her cheek and his scent was like a delicious invasion. His glossy black hair was so close that she fought not to reach out and feel it, fought not to turn and lick his face.
And then he spoke.
'Hold that thought till six.'
Lydia blinked and tried to pretend that she still felt normal, that this was simply breakfast and she was somehow in control.
'I already told you-I can't make it tonight.'
Then he offered but one word.
'Choose.'
CHAPTER THREE
WHAT THE HELL was happening to her?
Lydia watched him walk across the street and then disappear inside the hotel.
He did not turn around. He didn't walk with haste.
She wanted him to hurry, to disappear, just so that she could clear her mind-because in fact she wanted him to turn around.
One crook of his finger and she knew she would rise and run to him-and that was so not her. She kept her distance from people-not just physically but emotionally too.
Her father's death had rocked every aspect of her world, and the aftermath had been hell. Watching her mother selling off heirlooms and precious memories one by one, in a permanent attempt to keep up appearances, and then marrying that frightful man. Finding her friends had all been fair-weather ones had also hurt Lydia to the core. And so she held back-from family, from friends and, yes, from men.
She was guarded, and possibly the assumption made by others that she was cold was a correct one.
But not now-not this morning.
She felt as if she had been scalded, as if every nerve was heated and raw, and all he had done was buy her breakfast.
She sat alone at the table. There was nothing to indicate romance-no candles or champagne-and no favourable dusk to soften the view. Just the brightness of morning.
There had been no romance.
Raul had offered her one night and a present the following morning. She should have damn well slapped him for the insult!
Yet he'd left her on a slightly giddy high that she couldn't quite come down from.
* * *
Sightseeing as such didn't happen.
When she should have been sorting out what to do about tonight she wandered around, thinking about this morning.
But finally she shopped, and accepted the assistant's advice, and stood in the changing room with various options.
The black did not match her mood.
The caramel felt rather safe.
But as for the red!
The rich fabric caressed her skin and gave curves where she had few. It was ruched across her stomach and her hand went to smooth it before she realised that was the desired effect-it drew the eye lower.
Lydia slipped on the heels that stood in the corner and looked at her reflection from behind. And then she looked from the front.
She felt sexy, and for the first time beautiful and just a touch wild as she lifted her hair and imagined it piled up in curls. And his reaction.
It wasn't Bastiano's reaction she was envisaging-it was the reaction of the man who had invited her out this evening.
Only that wasn't quite right.
He hadn't asked her out on a date.
Raul had invited her to a night in his bed.
'Bellisima...'
Lydia spun around as the assistant came in, and her cheeks matched the fabric as if she had been caught stealing.
'That dress is perfect on you...' the assistant said.
'Well, I prefer this one.'
She could see the assistant's confusion as she plucked the closest dress to hand and passed it to her.
Caramel-or rather a dark shade of beige.
Safe.
* * *
Bastiano was not a safe option.
Raul knew that as fact.
'I trust you were comfortable last night?' Sultan Alim asked when they met.
Raul had met the Sultan once before, but that had been in the Middle East and then Alim had been dressed in traditional robes. Today he wore a deep navy suit.
'Extremely comfortable,' Raul agreed. 'Your staff are excellent.'
'We have a rigorous recruiting process for all levels.' Alim nodded. 'Few make it through the interviews, and not many past the three-month trial. We retain only the best.'
Raul had seen that for himself.
Alim was unhurried as he took Raul behind the scenes of his iconic hotel. 'I have had four serious expressions of interest,' Alim went on to explain. 'Two I know have the means-one I doubt. The other...' He held his hand flat and waved it to indicate he was uncertain.
'So I have one definite rival?' Raul said, and watched as Alim gave a conceding smile.
Both knew Raul was a serious contender.