His face took on a grim cast, and Amanda thought he sent a frown in her direction before he answered his sister. “Carita has had a small accident, cara mia. She will be home soon, so you must not fret.”
“Is it … is it bad?” The girl’s eyes widened until they were huge while her face became pasty white, almost green. “I want Carita. I want her now.
Amanda didn’t stay to listen. She was not a member of the family, and it would undoubtedly be best if she was not present while Nico explained. Let him handle the problem, she thought, since it was of his making and he had so much experience at calming Carisa.
The day had turned sultry, with a heavy feeling in the air. The villa drowsed in the heat, the warm currents of air in its cavernous rooms scented with furniture polish and flowers. Nothing moved in this hour of midday rest. The maids who came for the morning were long gone. Nonna and Aunt Filomena, and even Erminia, were likely resting in their rooms. Carisa would soon be napping, as well, though without Yolanda nearby as it was her day off. None of them would reappear for hours.
Sleep was the last thing on Amanda’s mind. Her nerves twanged with tension that needed to be released. She thought of the pool at the bottom of the garden. It had appeared so cool and inviting, but she had no bathing suit with her.
There were two or three in the collection of clothing delivered to her room. None of them had a lot of fabric, but were mere triangles held together by ribbons and chains of beads. The least revealing was turquoise and lavender with mother-of-pearl accents and a matching sarong.
The suit she used now and then in the gym pool after work was a two-piece, but nothing like these. Yet she longed for the coolness of a swim and its promise of mindless exercise.
She could, just possibly, unbend enough to use a bikini. It was only a small thing, after all — literally. The change would certainly be welcome. She would not give her host the satisfaction of knowing it, but she was heartily sick of her navy skirt and white blouses.
Reaching out almost against her will, she ran a hand over the other garments hanging in the wardrobe. They made a rainbow of color in natural fabrics suited to the climate. Their style was simple yet with a casual elegance that was infinitely appealing.
As ridiculous as it might be, she almost wished Nico had chosen the clothing for her instead of merely giving orders to a personal shopper. It would have been interesting to see what he might have selected, mostly as an indication of how he saw her. Not that she cared, of course, but he had such a well-defined style of his own that it could have been instructive.
Any hope of relaxation vanished as she neared the pool. Nico was already in the water. He was doing laps from the look of it, gliding up and down at such a swift pace it exhausted her to look at him.
As she drew nearer he caught sight of her, for he swirled to a stop. Treading water, he raked his hair back with one hand. “I would have waited for you if I had known you would join me,” he called. “Come, dive in.”
She wanted to accept his invitation but hesitated, horribly conscious of the inadequacy of the bikini under the sarong that she had tied around her like a strapless dress. He was probably used to women parading before him in even less, but she wasn’t that bold. She hoped he would return to his laps, but he seemed uninterested. And the longer she waited, the more obvious her reluctance to strip off to near nakedness in front of him must appear.
Turning away, she dropped the beach towel she carried and unfastened the knot between her breasts that held the sarong closed. She slid it from around her and tossed it at a nearby lounge chair. Moving swiftly to the pool’s edge, she launched into a fast, flat dive.
~ ~ ~
Nico ceased treading water. He stopped so completely that he sank like a stone and had to kick his way back to the surface again.
He had held Amanda Davies in his arms, had touched her as intimately as possible without completing the act of love, but still had no idea of the natural perfection of her body. She was not some anorexic sylph but a woman with curves in all the right places, as pale and wholesome as fresh milk and just as without artifice. She had not been enhanced and tucked to fit some cosmetic surgeon’s artificial idea of beauty, but was beauty incarnate.
Nor had she strutted before him, displaying what she had for his inspection. It suited him, that lack of vanity, while a part of him recognized a fierce need to be the only man who ever gazed upon her. Primitive instinct, of course, and completely unreasonable in this modern age, but he could not deny it. And in that moment he wanted her with an ache that sliced so deep he thought it might be a mortal wound.
Dio, but he was losing it. It had been far too long since he had been with a woman. If he wasn’t to fall upon his house guest like a raving fiend, he needed to call one of the socialites he knew then plan to spend a night away from the villa.
The problem was that no other woman he could bring to mind had the least appeal.
It would be best if he did a few laps, or maybe few hundred. The exercise should help return his unruly body to a decent state. That was, of course, if the water didn’t start boiling around him.
His house guest was a competent swimmer, he saw as he put his plan into action, not showy but with good form and steady strength. He wondered how many hotel pools she had plowed up and down while traveling with her father from one international race track to another, how many summer camps she might have attended as she was shuttled out of the way.
That she had joined him in the water was a point in her favor. Too many females of his acquaintance would have chosen to stretch out on one of the lounges in a seductive pose while working on their tans, or else avoided the sun under a protective umbrella.
Amanda was not used to constant pool exercise, however. After only a few laps, she headed to the underwater steps and mounted them. Her chest rose and fell as if she was trying to catch her breath as she leaned to pick up the towel she had left on the paving. Seating herself on the pool’s edge, she slicked back her hair from her face and dried her face and arms.
Watching her so minutely was precious little help in controlling his hot urges. Nico realized. Without conscious thought, he swam to where she sat and heaved himself up onto the pool curbing beside her.
“Better?” He slanted a glance at her set face as he borrowed one end of her big beach towel to wipe his face.
“Than what?”
“Than before,” he said on a wry laugh for her stiff reply. “Cooler, perhaps.”
“You should know.”
The glance she gave him skimmed his neck to his knees, and seemed to scorch wherever it touched. How could she do this to him without the least sign of effort? Yes and when no one else had ever come close?
“At least it persuaded you to make some use of the things provided you.”
She busied herself drying the back of her neck under her hair. “I should thank whoever thought to add bathing suits.”
He flicked a quick glance over her and could not prevent a smile. “What you have on looks just as I thought it would — and is exactly what I’d have expected you to choose from what was sent.”
She paused, meeting his gaze with a lifted brow. “You chose this bikini?”
“I told the buyer what I thought would be suitable, rather, and she described it.”
“And the rest?”
“Much the same.” He lifted a brow in near affront. “Is something wrong? Do you dislike what was selected?”
“No, no,” she said at once. “I just didn’t realize you had gone to so much trouble, didn’t expect it when I’m no one, certainly not one of your—”
The wild color that flooded her face was a secret delight. “One of my women, you meant to say?”
“Your family, rather, your aunt, your grandmother, Carita or Carisa,” she said hastily.
“Of course,” he took her up at once, his tone saying the exact opposite. That she knew it was plain from the sparks that went off like fireworks in her eyes. “But I assure you it was no trouble at all.”
“You—”
“Si?” he said in soft challenge as she paused.
“Nothing.” She looked away. “Speaking of Carisa, I hope she wasn’t too upset.”
“Not on the surface, but I fear she may be brooding about it.”
“You can hardly blame her.”
He lifted a shoulder as he frowned at the far side of the pool. “I thought to spare her the worry.”
“At least she won’t feel left in the dark.”
“No.”
“If you brought her photos of Carita—”
“That’s been arranged for some point in the next few days, when she finally wakes from her coma. Her doctors feel it’s only a matter of time.”
Nico wondered briefly if Amanda had any idea what a concession it was, his bowing to her suggestion, her judgment. She seemed to have an affinity for Carisa, a better understanding than most. She was also female, and he trusted it might give her an edge in knowing what was best for his sister. He had no other reason. Certainly not.
“Now that Carisa is aware of what’s going on, will you have Carita brought here?”
“Here, to the villa?”
“Not right away, of course, but later, for her convalescence, when they are positive she’s out of danger.”
“She’s well looked after where she is.”