‘Can I be called Bella now?’ she asked Maria, who giggled in that delightfully girlish way Bella remembered.
‘Sì. But is it allowed, now you are rich and famous?’
Bella gave her a look of mock reproach. ‘If you start that nonsense I will have to speak to your employer. Which reminds me, where is Sergio? Is he here yet?’
‘Sì. He is helping Carlo with the garden and the pool. We did not know Sergio was to come here till later in July, so things have been a bit...what you say...neglectful? He said to tell you to go find him after you arrive.’
Bella smiled. She loved the way Maria spoke. Loved her Italian accent. Loved her little mistakes with English words. It was charming. She was charming. This whole place was charming.
‘Oh, Maria!’ she said with a deeply contented sigh. ‘You’ve no idea how happy I am to be here.’
‘Not as happy as Sergio. He is most...excited.’
Bella suspected Maria hadn’t got that word right. Sergio was not the excitable type. Never had been. As much as she admired his self-contained persona, Bella found his tendency to be slightly straitlaced a touch irritating. Bella had never forgotten the night of her sixteenth birthday when she’d boldly asked him to kiss her. Bold for her, since she wasn’t at all bold when it came to the opposite sex. But all the girls from her class had been there at the party. Several of them had even drooled over Sergio, who’d turned up looking very hot and hunky compared to the boys at school. One of the girls had actually dared her to go and kiss him, so she had. And what had he done? Stiffened all over then given her a one-second peck which had been both humiliating and rather hurtful, considering she’d thought she looked quite hot herself that night.
No, Sergio was not the excitable type. He certainly wasn’t a typical hot-blooded Italian male. A good man, though, as the driver said.
‘I might freshen up before I go find him,’ Bella said, linking arms with Maria and steering her inside out of the heat. She’d forgotten how hot it could get here in the summer. ‘What room have you put me in?’
‘Sergio said you were to have one of the rooms next to his. He is in the master bedroom.’
Of course, Bella thought. He was master of the house now.
In the old days all children—even Sergio—had slept on the top floor of the villa, in bedrooms which didn’t have the size or the luxury of the bedrooms on the middle floor, where all three rooms had en-suite bathrooms and French doors that opened out onto a wide, cool balcony. The master bedroom, which was central to the three, was extra large with a king-sized four-poster bed and the most decadent bathroom Bella had ever seen. All black marble and a huge sunken spa bath.
‘Do I have a choice of which bedroom?’ she asked as they mounted the stone staircase that led up to the first floor.
Maria shrugged. ‘It is no matter. They have both been freshly cleaned. You choose.’
‘Perhaps the one with the gold bedspread, then.’
Which was how Bella came to be unpacking in the room where her mother and Alberto had once slept when they had stayed there all those years ago, a delightful room whose décor was cream and gold and which Bella had always admired. It hadn’t changed over the years, she thought as she dispensed with her too-hot jeans and pulled out a cool wrap-around dress made in the softest silk. The lovely antique furniture was the same, as was the gold-embossed wallpaper and the semi-transparent curtains that blew softly in the breeze from the lake. The bathroom was just as beautiful, Bella thought as she put her hair up in a loose knot and had a quick shower, the floor and walls covered in a cream marble with gold veins running through it. The fittings were all gold, the cream towels thick and soft. Once dried and dressed, Bella decided not to bother with make-up. Or with any further titivating. She was on holiday, after all. And the paparazzi had no idea she was here.
She might have lain down for a sleep—the big soft bed beckoned—but politeness insisted she find Sergio and tell him of her arrival. Maria had said that Sergio hadn’t been expecting her for another hour or two yet. Understandable. When her plane had set down in Rome Bella had been told that the flight to Milan had been delayed an hour, with her text to Sergio informing him of the fact. But the plane had actually taken off only half an hour late with the pilot making up good time with favourable winds. So she’d arrived at the villa earlier than the mid-afternoon Sergio would have anticipated.
When Bella emerged from the bathroom, she headed out onto the balcony, which gave an excellent view, not just of the lake, but the villa’s lovely garden and grounds. Glancing down and around in search of Sergio, her eyes immediately landed on a man who was vacuuming the pool. He was tall and dark-haired, wearing nothing but a pair of brief swimming trunks, showing off an impressive physique.
Dear heaven, she thought as she ogled the way his back muscles moved underneath his gorgeous skin. Not fair skin like her own, but beautifully bronzed in the way only men of Mediterranean genes achieved without using artificial methods. He was beautiful all over, she thought, with broad shoulders and a nicely shaped head, crowned with thick black hair that gleamed in the sunshine. She could not stop staring down at him, her lonely heart envying Maria for ensnaring herself such a hunky husband. For this had to be Carlo.
But no sooner had this thought entered her head than Carlo lifted his head and looked straight up at her, his very familiar eyes bringing a gasp to her lips.
For it wasn’t Carlo but Sergio; the supposedly strait-laced, coolly contained Sergio, looking every inch the hot-blooded Italian his heritage demanded he be, his hair longer than she remembered, his chin covered with a dark stubble that looked very macho on him. Very...sexy.
‘What are you doing here this early?’ he said, smiling up at her.
Bella struggled to put aside her shock, both at Sergio’s near-naked beauty, plus her reaction to it. She didn’t want to be attracted to Sergio; didn’t want that kind of distraction, or complication. She’d come here for some much-needed rest. The last thing she needed was to be plagued by awkward feelings that were both unexpected and unwanted.
Damn it all, I do not want this, Bella thought with a burst of true frustration.
Hopefully, once Sergio put some clothes back on, she would be able to look at him and feel nothing but what she’d always felt for him, which was admiration and affection. Not sexual attraction.
Yet it was very much sexual attraction that was at this moment rattling her composure. She couldn’t stop staring at him, her heartbeat picking up its pace as it did just before she went on stage some nights. When her face began to flush with an embarrassing heat, Bella harnessed every ounce of willpower she owned and returned his smile.
‘The pilot put his foot down between Rome and Milan,’ she told him, her casual tone amazing her. Maybe she was as good an actress as Charlie said she was.
‘I see,’ Sergio replied. ‘Look, I’m almost finished here, which is just as well,’ he added ruefully. ‘I haven’t been this hot in living memory. Go down to the kitchen and get Maria to open a bottle of my favourite Chablis, will you? She knows the one. We can share it down here on the terrace. I’ll just have a quick swim first,’ he added and walked down to the far end of the pool, where he stood there with his legs slightly apart and his arms by his sides before glancing up at her again. ‘I’d suggest you join me in the pool but I imagine you’re feeling jet-lagged after such a long flight.’
‘I am tired,’ she managed to reply, thinking she hadn’t felt this hot in living memory either. Or ever, for that matter.
Despite her knowing she should stop ogling Sergio, her gaze kept roving over his near-naked body, marvelling at how utterly gorgeous he was without clothes on. Better looking than any man she’d ever been to bed with. He was perfectly shaped, his broad-shouldered chest tapering down into a slim waist, a tight butt and long, strong legs. He also had just the right amount of muscle. Whatever Sergio had been doing over the years he hadn’t become a couch potato. Which begged the question of what had he been doing with himself since their parents’ divorce? She doubted he’d been working in the family firm if he was living in London. The Morelli business was in Milan. Unless, of course, Alberto had given Sergio charge of a London branch, the way his father had sent him to Sydney all those years ago.
This train of thought momentarily distracted Bella from her embarrassing ogling, curiosity over what Sergio did for a living making her agree to go in search of Maria, and that bottle of wine. At least, she told herself it was curiosity. It couldn’t possibly be because she wanted to see him up closer, or wanted to find out, not so much about his career path, but about his personal life.
By the time Bella settled herself at the table on the terrace, however, she admitted to herself that that was exactly what she wanted to find out. But to what end, Bella? she asked herself as she surreptitiously watched Sergio surging through the water with effortless ease. You’ve come here to Lake Como for peace and quiet, not to have an affair with your long-lost stepbrother. Which is what might happen if you start flirting with him. Bella knew men found her desirable. Some claimed to find her irresistible.