The Truth About De Campo(24)

He braced his hands against the railing and looked out over the water. A desert island would be preferable right about now. Instead, he had a manager’s cocktail party to attend with Quinn and Daniel. A head chef and sommelier to win over. Perhaps a good thing since drinking himself into a stupor was no longer an option.

Something else he had banned from his life.

He clenched his hands by his sides. He would do this like he always did. By pretending to the world he didn’t care. By being Matteo the Charming. Matteo who lit up a room when he walked into it. It was like switching on a lightbulb. Declaring it showtime.

The sky was transforming into a potent cocktail of pink and orange as he took the path down to the terrace that overlooked the sea. A small group of exquisitely dressed men and women chosen to enjoy cocktails with the manager sipped champagne in the sultry tropical air that still steamed from the heat of the day, a calypso band lending a distinctly West Indian flavor to the party. He stopped at the edge of the crowd and took in the scene. Daniel Williams was schmoozing the resort’s manager, Thomas Golding, with that same smarmy smile he seemed to have constantly painted across his face.

Margarite, Quinn’s head sommelier from New York, looked cool and elegant in a sleek royal-blue dress as she spoke with Paradis’s head chef, François Marin, Quinn and a tall, distinguished-looking male in his early fifties. The gray-haired man’s attention was riveted on Quinn. Matteo didn’t blame him. Margarite had French chic, but Quinn looked...drool-inducing.

Gone was the conservative style of dress he was used to. In its place was a figure-hugging fuchsia sheath with a slit up the side just far enough to make a man look twice. Spaghetti straps made a mockery of the gravity required to wear the dress, because it was not the straps holding it up, it was the full-on perfection of Quinn’s voluptuous curves that was doing it.

Damn. His mouth went dry. Why choose now, after that kiss, to pull out this new weapon in her arsenal? She’d even left all of that soft, silky hair down, sliding against the bare skin of her back. It took very little imagination to picture it spread across the ivory silk sheets of his suite’s king-size bed. Less still to picture himself picking up where that kiss had left off, indulging the urge to explore every inch of her creamy flesh.

He shut the fantasy down in the middle of its full glory and grabbed a glass of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray. Get a goddamned handle on yourself, De Campo. Tonight was the night he was going to master the devil inside of him. Not let it loose.

Work the room. Get François Marin and Margarite Bellamy on your side. And then get out.



Quinn told herself the dress was absolutely appropriate as she watched Matteo’s jaw hit the ground. She hadn’t had time to shop for the sweltering St. Lucian temperatures before she’d left Chicago, so she’d turned herself over to Manon in the hotel’s boutique to outfit her with a few dresses. Manon had assured her this soft, gorgeous designer dress in the finest silk was perfect for the cocktail party, but Quinn had felt it clung far too much.

She was now sure of it.

She smoothed the silky material over her hips and gave him her most professional smile. Margarite caught the nervous movement, her gaze sweeping over her. “So what’s with the dress? You never wear anything like that.”

“New addition to my wardrobe,” she muttered.

Margarite’s thin mouth quirked upward. “I heard François say it was a definite improvement.”

Quinn bristled. “He did?”

“He’s a French male, Quinn. By the way, he’s right. You should play up your natural assets, not hide them.”

Quinn wasn’t sure what to do with that so she pushed her hair out of her face and directed a glance at the hottest man in the room. “I should introduce you to Matteo.”

“Oh, I don’t need an introduction.” Her blonde, very young, very talented sommelier’s blue eyes glittered. “I met him on the beach earlier. He had the whole place in an uproar. It’s cruel and unusual punishment making me do business with him, Quinn.”

She wasn’t the only one. Quinn had the distinct feeling the sight of Matteo De Campo in swim trunks would be as impossible to eradicate from her memory as that kiss.

“He brought me a bottle of the Brunello,” Margarite crowed. “Too bad I can’t invite him back to my suite to share it with me.”

Quinn shot her a look that told her what she thought of that. Margarite waved a hand at her. “God, you’ve got to loosen up and learn how to take a joke, Quinn.”

She bit down on her lip. Another of Julian’s complaints about her. How dull and uninspiring a wife she’d turned out to be.