Pride And The Italian's Proposal (Mills & Boon Modern) Read online

  And if he’d kissed her it would have been either to toy with her or mock her, not out of genuine desire. Of that she was sure. He liked her even less than she did him, and worse, he made her feel so small, and she hated that most of all. She had vowed never to feel like that again, and yet here she was.

  ‘You’ll meet them all at dinner, anyway,’ Jenna said. ‘And then you can see for yourself.’

  ‘Do you have anything I can wear? This dress belongs to Chaz’s sister, and I really don’t feel like turning up in it.’

  ‘I only brought one dress,’ Jenna said apologetically. ‘And I think it’s going to pale in comparison to what everyone else is wearing. They’re all millionaires, Liza. They all went to the same private schools, and know the same small group of people. Some of them have such toffee-nosed accents I can barely understand them.’

  ‘Oh, deah,’ Liza mocked, putting on a drawling aristocratic accent as she planted one hand on her hip. ‘Howevah will we manage?’

  Jenna smiled and then let out a giggle, and Liza rolled her eyes. ‘Honestly, I think these people are ridiculous, looking down their noses at us just for being normal. They’re the odd ones, really.’ She gestured to the enormous bedroom with its sumptuous silk hangings and ornate furniture. ‘Who really lives like this any more?’ She wasn’t going to be cowed by all the money. She didn’t care about it. And she certainly wasn’t going to let Fausto Danti think she or her sister were gold-diggers...not that she could do anything about that, unfortunately.

  ‘They do, obviously.’ Jenna narrowed her eyes as she regarded her shrewdly. ‘These people,’ she repeated, ‘or just one man in particular?’

  Liza stilled, willing herself not to blush, but she did anyway. ‘I don’t like Fausto Danti,’ she said frankly as she turned away to focus on her hair, and hide her flushed face from her sister. ‘He’s an arrogant snob.’

  ‘A gorgeous arrogant snob. When we came into the study, it almost looked as if he was about to kiss you.’

  ‘He wasn’t!’ Liza exclaimed, her face ever hotter. She scrunched her curls with firm, hard hands. ‘We were just looking at the chessboard. I’d checkmated him.’

  ‘That’s no surprise,’ Jenna answered. ‘I can’t remember the last time you lost a game.’

  ‘He’s annoying,’ Liza declared. ‘I suspect he thinks we’re here as gold-diggers or something like that.’

  ‘Gold-diggers!’ Jenna sounded horrified at the prospect. ‘He didn’t actually say that, did he?’

  Liza decided not to mention the comment she’d heard last week at the cocktail bar. She knew it would only distress her sister. ‘He didn’t have to.’

  ‘Oh, Liza.’ Jenna shook her head. ‘Sometimes I think you’re as snobby as him, only in reverse.’

  ‘I’m not,’ Liza insisted. ‘I just want to take people as they truly are.’ Not, she thought darkly, as someone like Fausto Danti saw them. She didn’t judge the way he did, and she wasn’t nearly as proud. She wasn’t proud at all. In fact, quite the reverse. She knew she struggled with her self-esteem, not that she’d ever apprise Fausto of that fact.

  ‘Well, take them as they are in an hour,’ Jenna said with a sigh. ‘We’ll have to face everyone at dinner and even though I feel better now I’m glad you’re with me. It’s like going into the lion’s den sometimes.’

  Just as she’d felt with Fausto. Liza continued to fluff her hair as she met her sister’s gaze in the mirror and smiled with determination. ‘I’m glad I’m here too,’ she said, and she hoped she meant it.

  Fausto sipped the pre-dinner sherry one of Netherhall’s staff had served as he observed the other guests circulating in the drawing room before dinner was called. Chaz was talking to Oliver, one of his rather bumbling friends from prep school, a keen cricketer who had far more money than sense. Chaz’s sister Kerry was whispering with her friend Chelsea, a hotel heiress in a slippery gold sheath dress. Both of them kept shooting him coquettish looks which Fausto chose to ignore. Where were Jenna and Liza? It was three minutes past eight. They were late.

  Not, Fausto told himself as he tasted the sweet sherry with a slight grimace, that he was eagerly awaiting their arrival. Of course he wasn’t. The afternoon with Liza had been surprisingly pleasant, and he’d spent the intervening hours thinking far too much about her—from that electric almost-kiss that had been, in its own way, a more satisfying and passionate experience than the last time he’d actually been with a woman—to the fact that she’d trounced him in chess in just a few short minutes. She was, he admitted reluctantly, a superior sort of woman. Sadly, that still didn’t make her suitable for a man in his position, with his responsibilities, his expectations. His past.

  ‘Jenna!’ Chaz sprang away from his friend as the sisters came into the drawing room. Jenna was wearing a rather worn-looking black dress, the kind a hostess at a restaurant might wear, and Liza was still in the cranberry knit dress Fausto had given her, although at least she’d found a pair of flats and styled her hair into a loose knot. Compared to the other women in their designer cocktail dresses and stiletto heels, the Benton sisters looked woefully underdressed, and yet he still found he preferred Liza’s unadorned simplicity to the other women’s obvious attempts.

  Chaz had put his arm around Jenna as he ushered her into the room, and Liza came in behind them, head held high, gaze averted from Fausto’s in what he suspected was a deliberate snub, a fact which both amused and annoyed him.

  ‘Goodness,’ Kerry remarked in a clipped, carrying voice. ‘You aren’t wearing my dress, are you?’ She let out a tinkling little laugh, like the breaking of glass.

  Liza flushed and lifted her chin another inch; any further and she’d be staring at the ceiling. ‘I think I probably am,’ she admitted with stiff dignity. ‘I’m afraid I arrived without a change of clothes, and I was caught in the rain.’

  ‘I gave it to her, Kerry,’ Fausto interjected in a deliberately bored drawl. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’

  Kerry could hardly say she did mind, and so she contented herself with merely raising her eyebrows and giving Chelsea a disbelieving look. Chelsea tittered, and Liza flushed harder but to her credit said nothing. Fausto realised afresh how much he disliked Chaz’s sister.

  ‘Perhaps you should consider giving it to her,’ he remarked. ‘I think it suits her colouring far more than yours.’

  ‘I’m sure it doesn’t,’ Liza intervened quickly. ‘But thank you, Kerry, it’s very kind of you to lend your clothes to a stranger.’

  ‘We’re not strangers now,’ Chaz insisted in a jolly voice. ‘Since we’re spending the rest of the weekend together. Now that we’re all here, let’s eat!’

  The dinner was, as Fausto had expected, quite interminable, save for the pleasure of looking upon Liza when he could. She’d purposely seated herself as far from him as possible, which again gave him that push-pull sensation of both annoyance and amusement. Was she putting herself out of the way of temptation, or did she really dislike him that much? What he knew she didn’t feel was indifference, and that knowledge satisfied in a deep and primal way.

  The chatter and gossip during the meal bored him completely, however, and he stayed silent through it all, despite Kerry’s obvious attempts to engage him in flirtatious conversation. He hoped his silence was discouragement enough, but he suspected with a woman like Kerry it would not be. Still, that was a problem for another day.

  As for Liza...she ate her meal quietly, gaze lowered and yet alert, and he sensed she was listening to every word and finding it all as tedious as he was, a thought that gave him unexpected pleasure.

  After dinner they all retired to the house’s high-tech media room, where Chaz put on music and Kerry mixed cocktails. Chelsea draped herself over a leather sofa as artfully as possible, and Oliver sprawled on another as he scrolled through his phone. Jenna was chatting to Chaz, and Liza sat alone, looking serenely
composed. Fausto walked over to her.

  ‘How are you finding the company?’ he asked, and she looked up at him, hazel eyes wide and clear, her mouth curving into a slight smile.

  ‘I find them as I see them.’

  ‘A scathing indictment, then.’

  ‘Actually, I’ve found the whole evening quite entertaining. You all live in your cosy little world, don’t you?’

  Fausto drew back at that matter-of-fact remark. ‘What is that supposed to mean, exactly?’

  Liza shrugged slim shoulders. ‘Only that this is quite a rarefied way of living. You don’t seem to have any of the paltry concerns most people do.’

  ‘Is that a criticism?’

  ‘Merely an observation.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right, in a way,’ Fausto said after a moment. He didn’t know whether he felt glad or irritated that she’d chosen to highlight their differences. It was a needed reminder, in any case. As much as he enjoyed Liza’s company, he could never consider her seriously. His family obligations as well as his own history made sure of that.

  ‘You certainly don’t seem to be enjoying the evening,’ Liza told him with a laugh. ‘I’ve been watching you scowl. Do you find everyone disagreeable, Mr Danti?’

  ‘You should call me Fausto.’

  ‘I’ve been calling you Fausto in my head,’ she admitted blithely, ‘but you seem like the sort of person who would want everyone to address you appropriately.’

  ‘I don’t need people to bow and scrape, if that’s what you mean,’ Fausto said sharply. He might have ideas about his position, and of respect and honour, but he had absolutely no need for people to be servile. The thought was repugnant to him. ‘But if you really do want to get it right, it’s Conte, not Mr.’

  She looked startled, but then her expression cleared and she smiled and nodded. ‘Of course it is,’ she said, and Fausto felt frustratingly inferior for having mentioned his title. He hadn’t intended to; he rarely used it. ‘In future I shall address you as such. Is that Conte Danti, or the Conte of Something-or-Other?’

  ‘Conte di Palmerno,’ he bit out. ‘But, as I said, there is no need. I am not accustomed to being addressed that way and, in any case, it’s a courtesy title only. Officially, nobility was abolished in Italy in 1946.’

  ‘In that case, it’s Fausto all the way,’ Liza quipped, and Fausto gave a tight-lipped smile. He could not help but feel she’d somehow got the better of him in the conversation.

  ‘What I really want to know,’ he said as he stepped closer to her, ‘is how did you get so good at chess?’

  Her eyebrows raised as her smile widened. ‘You weren’t expecting it.’

  ‘You led me to believe you were a beginner.’

  ‘I did not,’ she returned. ‘You assumed it.’

  He paused, and then realised she was right. He had assumed it, but it had seemed like a very justifiable assumption to make. ‘You’re very good,’ he remarked.

  ‘Better than you,’ Liza agreed, her eyes sparkling, and Fausto let out an unwilling laugh.

  ‘Perhaps we should have a rematch.’ He hadn’t meant those words to be so laden with innuendo...had he? Because now he wasn’t thinking about the pieces on the board, but the kiss that had so very nearly happened over it. The kiss he wanted—needed—to happen again.

  This rematch, he realised, was merely a pretext to get her alone, and as Liza looked up at him, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, he thought she must know it.

  ‘Are you sure you’re up for a rematch?’ she asked softly, and there was no mistaking the subtext in the tremble of her voice, the way her gaze lowered and her chocolate-coloured lashes skimmed her cheeks. He ached to touch her.

  ‘Quite sure,’ he said, his low voice husky. ‘Quite, quite sure.’

  ‘What on earth are you two talking about?’ Kerry called from the cocktail bar. ‘You look awfully serious.’

  ‘We were talking about chess,’ Liza called back lightly, although her voice wavered a little. ‘Fausto is insisting on a rematch after I trounced him.’

  ‘You did not trounce,’ Fausto felt compelled to point out.

  She turned back to him with glinting eyes. ‘Oh, no? You thought I’d lost my queen for no good reason.’

  That much was true, and he could not deny it. He inclined his head in acknowledgement instead, and Liza laughed out loud.

  ‘Come have a cocktail, Fausto,’ Kerry said petulantly. ‘I’ve made you a gin sling.’

  ‘I only drink whisky and wine,’ Fausto replied. ‘But thank you anyway.’

  ‘I’ll drink it, if you like,’ Liza offered, and with a challenging spark in her eyes she walked over to the bar, her gaze meeting Fausto’s as she tossed back the cocktail. He watched her, caught between admiration, amusement and an overwhelming, heady desire. He didn’t care whether she was suitable or not. He just wanted to be with her alone.

  ‘Delicious,’ Liza pronounced to Kerry, but she was still looking at Fausto. He nearly groaned aloud at the invitation in her eyes. Did she even know it was there? How did everyone in the room not see and feel what was practically pulsing between them?

  ‘That rematch,’ he said, the words bitten out. ‘Now.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, it’s only chess,’ Chaz interjected with a laugh.

  Kerry was regarding them both with narrowed eyes. ‘Why don’t you bring the board in here?’ she suggested all too sweetly. ‘We can all play, have a tournament.’

  ‘You don’t play, Kerry,’ Chaz pointed out, and Kerry shrugged impatiently.

  ‘I know the rules, at least.’

  Fausto didn’t think Kerry had any interest whatsoever in playing chess, but he wasn’t about to belabour the point. ‘As you wish,’ he said instead, and then he turned to Liza. ‘Will you help me fetch the board and pieces?’

  A flush rose on her cheeks as she nodded. At last they would have a few minutes alone.

  With eyes only for Liza, Fausto left the room, his breath coming out in a relieved rush when she followed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THEY WALKED IN silence from the media room, down a long, plushly carpeted hall towards the study. The house yawned darkly in every direction, silent and empty. Liza wondered if Fausto could hear the thudding of her heart.

  She couldn’t believe how flirtatious she’d seemed, how confident. Something about Fausto’s manner, his undivided attention, had made her sparkle, and she relished the feeling even as she tried to caution herself. Not to read emotions into a conversation where there weren’t any, because heaven knew she’d done that before.

  ‘Why on earth would you think I was interested in you, even for a second?’

  She banished the mocking voice of memory as she focused on the present. She didn’t think she’d been imagining the undercurrent of sexual innuendo in her and Fausto’s conversation. At least, she hoped she wasn’t. Every time Fausto looked at her, her whole body tingled. She felt as if she were electrically charged, as if sparks might fly from her fingers. If Fausto touched her, she’d burn up.

  And yet he had to touch her. She couldn’t bear it if he didn’t. She might dislike the man, but she needed him in a way she had never needed anyone before—elementally, at the core of her being. And he seemed to need her in the same way, at least in this moment. And being needed, even if just for now, just for this, was a powerful aphrodisiac. She wouldn’t let herself think about anything else.

  Finally they were at the study, and Fausto pushed the door open so Liza could step first into the darkened room, her shoulder brushing his chest as she passed him. She heard him inhale sharply, and she thrilled to the sound. She felt dizzy with desire, and yet he hadn’t even touched her yet.

  But he would...wouldn’t he? He had to.

  She walked towards the table in front of the fire where the chessboard lay, Fausto’s king still topple
d from their match. Unthinkingly, she picked it up, the marble cool and smooth in her fingers. She felt Fausto standing behind her, a powerful, looming presence, and then she turned.

  She could barely see him in the shadowy room, but oh, she could feel him. The chess piece fell from her fingers with a clatter as Fausto laid one hand against her cheek. His palm was warm and rough and frankly wonderful.

  For a suspended moment they were both silent and still, his hand on her cheek, his gaze burning into hers. Silently asking her permission. And she gave it, leaning her face into his palm for a millisecond before his lips came down hard on hers. Finally, finally, he was kissing her.

  And what a kiss it was. Hard and soft, demanding and pleading, taking and giving. Liza had never, ever been kissed like this. She backed up against the table, and then Fausto hoisted her right onto the chessboard, scattering the pieces as he deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth and claiming her as his own.

  Her hands fisted in the snowy white folds of his dress shirt as he pressed his hard, powerful body against hers and the kiss went on and on. She tilted her head back as he began to kiss her throat, his hands sliding down her body to fasten on her hips.

  Her breath came out in a shudder as his lips moved lower, to the V-neck of her dress. Everywhere his lips touched her, she burned. Her whole body felt as if it were on fire, as if she had only just finally come wonderfully, twangingly alive.

  And then a voice, as petulant as always, floated down the hall. ‘Fausto? Where are you?’

  They both froze for a millisecond and then Fausto stepped quickly away, pushing his hair back from his forehead as he strove to control his breathing. Liza leapt off the chessboard, humiliatingly conscious of her dishevelled clothes, her flushed face and swollen lips, not to mention the fact that she’d been sprawled across a chessboard of all things, ripe for the taking.

  ‘Forgive me,’ Fausto said in a low voice as he stooped to gather the chess pieces, and Liza realised that wasn’t at all what she’d wanted him to say in such a moment.