“Get off me!”
Fear streaked through Charlie as one man snatched the sketch pad she had been working on, while another man hauled her to her feet. A third man—the man she had been sketching—remained motionless, his proud Latin profile etched against a washed-out Canaletto sky.
Artists had always gathered on the banks of the canals in Venice to capture the local scene, and she was just one more, so why the drama?
Her eyes were blazing fire by the time his men brought her in front of him.
“Explain yourself!” The man’s voice was cold in contrast to his red-hot Latin looks.
“Explain myself?” For all her bravado, Charlie shivered inwardly; she was half his size. “How dare you set your men on me?”
“How dare you,” he countered, “invade my privacy.”
He held up the sketch she had been working on, a caricature that exaggerated his features, capturing the essence of the man and revealing a hard individual. She had sketched a good likeness, Charlie thought grimly.
“Take her.” He turned and started walking.
“Come back here!” Charlie”s voice tore into the tranquil scene, but the man ignored her and strode away.
She tried to struggle and escape, but his bodyguards soon recaptured her arms. Could this be the same magical city where her best friend, Nell Foster, had met a handsome Venetian? Dottore Luca Barbaro must be a very different breed of man to this one, Charlie concluded, as her captor’s henchmen marched her along.
She was surprised when they brought her to the side door of the hotel where she was staying. Was she was being deported? Had they brought her back to pick up her things?
The bodyguards refused to answer her questions and stared ahead as the steel doors of the elevator slid shut.
When they opened again, it was on another world, a world where even the six-star hotel situated immediately below them seemed tacky and tasteless by comparison.
A horrible realization crept up on Charlie as she walked across priceless rugs. The fabulous apartment could belong to only one man, and he was waiting for her just inside the door.
In spite of her determination not to be intimidated, she started shaking. She knew she was innocent, but she had offended Orlando Rossi, a man she had only dealt with over the Internet and by letter, previously; a man who owned not just the building they were standing in, but half of Venice and that city’s treasures, too. The man she had come to Venice to meet.
This was the worst possible outcome to what should have been a successful business trip. She was a highly respected British art conservator, and she’d hoped to develop her career internationally. That didn’t look likely now! Professionally she was finished, her reputation lay in tatters at his feet.
But as Charlie met the man’s dark, watchful gaze, a different kind of response raced through her.
It was a heated situation, and she was upset, Charlie reasoned.
And aroused.
“My name is Orlando Rossi, and I own this hotel….”
For once Orlando Rossi was being modest. Charlie had known who he was from the moment his bodyguards had frog-marched her into his apartment.
And all for sketching a caricature of their boss, a drawing, Charlie noticed now, that had a place of pride in the center of his desk.
The man couldn’t be anyone else. Who else in Venice possessed such arrogance, such striking good looks? Who else was as cursed as this man with a coldness that chilled her to the marrow?
Did this young woman really think she could steal his image without his authority? He guessed her next move would be to approach some tawdry journal and sell it.
How the financial papers would love that! Billionaire property developer Orlando Rossi reduced to a cartoon. He’d be a laughingstock!
At first it pleased him to see her tremble. So she should. There were more than enough scam artists and pickpockets in Venice waiting to fleece an unwary tourist, and he had relished the opportunity to bring at least one of them to book. But before he decided her punishment, he would find out more about her; whatever else he was, he wasn’t a bully.
The anger inside him was battling with a more primitive desire to protect and defend. Why? Because he was accustomed to sophisticated women who cruised the glamorous world he inhabited like sharks looking for their next meal, and this girl was little more than an urchin in her cutoff jeans and flimsy top.
But though he might be revising his opinion that she was just another gold digger, he noticed with interest that her green eyes held defiance, plus the set of her chin and that luscious red hair promised fireworks.
She wasn’t as young as he’d first thought. Probably late twenties. And though her build was slight, her breasts were full, which gave him an instant tug of arousal.
“Sit down,” he instructed.
He resented the preliminaries and wanted them over with so he could take her to bed. When he drank her excited cries into his mouth, she would lose that defiant look. “Tell me your name,” he spoke more gently to prepare the ground.
“Charlie,” she answered him, scowling.
“Charlie?” He angled his head, waiting for the surname, thinking of the moment when he would stroke and pleasure her in preparation for sinking deep.
“Charlie Bennett,” she told him, tight-lipped. “And I want to call the British Embassy right now! You can’t—”
“What did you say?” he interrupted.
“You can’t hold me here—”
“Not that—your name?”
“You heard me.”
Her recovery was so rapid it astounded him. “Is this some sort of joke?”
Her jaw firmed as she looked at him. “No joke, Signor Rossi. We’ve been in contact for some time. My name is Charlie Bennett, and I work as an art conservator in—”
He cut her off with an impatient gesture. “Don’t be ridiculous! You can’t be Charlie Bennett. That’s impossible!”
“You can’t be Charlie Bennett!” Orlando Rossi repeated.
“I can assure you I am,” Charlie said, holding the contemptuous Latin’s gaze.
She had been quietly sketching on the Rialto Bridge in Venice when his bodyguards had dragged her in front of him, and now the sparks were flying between them. It was a little late, here in his fabulous apartment, to curse the impetuous nature that had prompted her to join the other artists on the bridge.
“Charlie Bennett is an experienced conservator of important works of art!” he scoffed.
True. After six years of training, and three in the field, there wasn’t much she didn’t know about art. “You have already approved my qualifications, Signor Rossi—”
“Assurdita!”
Charlie had to tilt her chin to confront that blaze of fury, but she stood her ground.
Orlando Rossi, Italian billionaire and avid collector of old masters, was no stranger to Charlie by reputation. She had come to Venice at his express request to view his latest acquisition, a famous painting for which he had paid millions at auction. When it was restored, he intended to hang it in the lobby of his hotel, where she had been staying up to now at his invitation. But not for much longer, Charlie suspected, as Orlando gave a contemptuous shrug.
“Look at you!” he snarled.
She would admit that dressed in her off-duty clothes she hardly looked the part. Cutoff jeans and a casual top couldn’t compare with the neat suit and court shoes she generally wore for work. But unfortunately, those were in her hotel closet several floors below them.
“You’re an opportunist who thought to sketch me and sell your work for profit!” Snatching up her half-finished work, he held it in front of her face. “And you insult me in the bargain!”
The real problem, Charlie guessed, was that Orlando Rossi couldn’t conceive that a woman could be an expert in anything, let alone art, an area in which he considered himself an authority. “If you won’t believe me, why don’t you call reception and ask to see my passport?” she suggested.
“I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t I test your expertise?”
As he brushed past her on his way to the door a charge flashed between them. But did he feel it? Charlie hoped not. She wasn’t used to trembling with awareness when she worked, and could only see it as a threat to good judgment.
“Why are you hesitating?” Orlando demanded crushingly. “Are you frightened I’ll expose you as a fraud?”
“There’s not a chance of that,” Charlie retorted, stung by the insult.
“Perhaps it’s me you’re having difficulty with?” His eyes narrowed speculatively as he stared at her.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Signor Rossi. My only purpose in coming to Venice is to examine your painting. You don’t interest me at all—”
“Is that so,” he murmured, raising all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck as she walked by.
How had she got herself into this?
As Orlando Rossi led the way out of his fabulous penthouse, Charlie could only rage inwardly as his bodyguards urged her after him.
They had seized her, along with the caricature of him she had been making, and had brought her to him as if she were some criminal to be judged.
Her only crime had been to make a lighthearted sketch of the most vital man she’d seen on the Rialto Bridge that morning. How was she supposed to know that certain things in Venice were out-of-bounds, and that Orlando Rossi was one of them?
As the steel doors of his private elevator slid open and his bodyguards muscled in between her and Rossi she felt like screaming. What did they think she was going to do? Attack him? She was an expert in art from London who had come to Venice to give her opinion on an old masterpiece he’d bought and nothing more.
But Orlando Rossi refused to believe she was that expert and now intended putting her to the test. She was so angry, her heart was practically beating its way out of her chest.
And there was another reason for her agitation. In the quiet world in which she worked, Orlando Rossi’s brazen masculinity had come as a violent shock to her, and the pulses of sensation it had induced were hardly the best aid to concentration!
Was Orlando Rossi going to allow himself to be fooled by some chit of a girl?
He dismissed this thought in an instant. As a property developer and leading hotelier in Italy, he was accustomed to reading features about himself in the financial papers, but he had no intention of migrating to the social pages of some down-market journal thanks to a clumsy scam attempted by this young woman. A young woman who professed to be an expert in art!
He would have laughed in her face had he not formed a better plan. He would expose her as a fraud, and then enjoy his triumph in the fullest sense.
They both would. Her darkening eyes and the swiftness of the pulse throbbing in her neck all promised an enjoyable conclusion to a regrettable event.
As if agreeing with his thoughts she gasped when the elevator slowed abruptly, and she swayed toward him. His waved off his bodyguards. Fraud or not, her scent enthralled him—wild flowers, innocence and unslaked desire.
As he took in the cascade of copper-gold hair, the gamin face and slender frame, he briefly regretted that experience had made him cynical. How different this moment might have been if countless women before her hadn’t found inventive ways to gate-crash his life.
It was time to put such thoughts out of his mind. He would put her to the test, as he had first intended. He was an expert, too, in his way, and though her chin remained firm, her wayward body was telling him another story.
Orlando drove Charlie in a sleek black Lamborghini to a ravishing house overlooking a lake. They didn’t speak until he came around to open her door, and then it was merely a brisk acknowledgement on Charlie’s part that he had found some manners at last.
Her heart was pumping furiously as they crunched over the gravel and climbed the sweeping steps. She had never been in a situation like this before. Charlie Bennett, art expert, lived quietly alone and never grew emotionally attached to her wealthy clients, let alone allowed herself to be kidnapped by them.
For what else could you call this? From the moment the Italian billionaire Orlando Rossi had taken offence at the caricature she’d sketched of him, her life had been turned upside down. Refusing to believe she was the expert he had been dealing with over the Internet, he intended keeping her close until he could put her to the test!
After a lengthy journey alone with Orlando in the intimate cabin of his throbbing Lamborghini she knew she'd fail the test. Instead of blocking out the sweet sensations the ride induced, she had enjoyed them, and now her mind was completely preoccupied by the man who could arouse her with only a glance. She would never be able to concentrate on the painting in this state.
As his butler opened the door and stood back to let them in, Charlie thought she must be entering Aladdin’s cave. She had never seen such a wonderful collection of art in a private home before.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked with suspicion, as Orlando dismissed the man and started up the stairs.
“To my bedroom…” He paused briefly to look down at her from the curve of the magnificent marble staircase, and the look in his eyes made her tremble.
“No, Signor Rossi,” Charlie said firmly.
“You’ll do as I say,” he snapped as if to remind her she was in his world now. “If you want to start exercising that expertise of yours, then that is where you must begin—”
“I must do nothing,” Charlie called up the stairs, making no attempt to follow.
“But the masterpiece you came to see is hanging in my bedroom.”
“In that case, you must have it brought downstairs….”
His hand tightened on the silky hardness of the mahogany banister, the only sign that he had never encountered such defiance before. And from a girl whose first consideration should be holding on to her career—in the unlikely event she turned out to be who she said she was!
“Shall I ask your manservant to show me to a room where I can wait, Signor Rossi?”
They would play out this charade on his terms. But his legendary control eluded him as his mind filled with images of losing control inside her until that measured voice found release in cries of ecstasy.
He saw her pale as if she had read his mind. Holding her gaze he walked slowly downstairs again.
“You will regret making an enemy of me, Ms. Bennett.”
Orlando Rossi put just enough emphasis on her name to warn Charlie he would never believe she was the Charlie Bennett, the art expert he had been expecting to call on him in Venice.
“I have no intention of making either an enemy or a friend of you, Signor Rossi,” Charlie assured him. “As far as I’m concerned, this is strictly business.”
So why was she here, inside Orlando Rossi’s sumptuous pleasure palace in the foothills of the mountains surrounding Venice? Was it because he drew her like a moth to an erotic flame?
She could hardly pretend it was business that had brought her to his country estate, when Orlando’s eyes called her a liar, and her own heart did, too, thundering so loud she was sure he must hear it.
To date all the dealings between them had been by letter and over the Internet, and nothing could have prepared her for meeting Orlando Rossi in the flesh. And now that she was here, it was one thing proving she knew what she was talking about where art was concerned, but another agreeing to view Orlando’s priceless painting in his bedroom.
“You must have it brought downstairs for me to see,” she told him. “Or I might as well leave now.”
She was so young, so naive and so desirable, and as she tilted her chin to issue her demands, he wanted her there and then against the wall at the foot of the stairs. Art could wait. He had other pleasures on his mind, like meshing his fingers through that thick red-gold hair. Like taming her.
He might forgive her everything then, even her deception and the outrageous sketch she’d made of him that his men had seized on the banks of the Grand Canal.
She gasped as his arm shot out to block her escape, but then, just as he expected, her eyes darkened. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, and there seemed no point in denying themselves. “It’s time you learned some respect,” he murmured, threatening delicious punishment with a look.
“It’s time you learned some, too!” she retorted.
As she tried to slip past him, he dragged her close. “Are you going somewhere?” he said huskily against her lips. When she didn’t try to pull away he added, “I don’t think that’s what you want, is it?”
The truth was, all she wanted was to have Orlando Rossi make love to her. The urge to touch and taste him and to be stroked by him intimately in return was seething inside her…
“Let me go!” She struggled fruitlessly, rejoicing in the fact that he was so much stronger than she was. “Kiss me if you dare!” she provoked furiously against his mouth.
“All right,” he said, running his hands down her arms until she shuddered with desire. “I will…”
She melted in his arms. She could fight him, but she couldn’t fight herself. She had wanted Orlando Rossi from the first moment they’d met.
No, even sooner than that, Charlie admitted silently. She had wanted him when she first saw him silhouetted against a watery sky on a bridge in Venice….
The Rialto Bridge had been crowded, but she had seen only one man and had started sketching him right away with fast, sure strokes to create a lasting image to enjoy at leisure.
Since then, all she could think about was being kissed by him, held by him, and she had imagined the scent of his cologne, which she now knew was sandalwood laced with amber.
“Why, cara, you are whimpering and nuzzling me like a kitten wanting more…. Do you want more, carissima? Do you want me to pleasure you?”
She was too aroused to answer, and could only manage to sigh and writhe against him. She had anticipated how hard his body would feel beneath her searching fingers, but it was even stronger than she had imagined. Her intuition told her he would know everything a man needed to know about lovemaking, but his eyes promised even more.
She had dreamed of this moment since their first fiery encounter. And Orlando was right; she needed this. She had lived without passion for far too long. When he held her in his arms and looked deep into her eyes, she felt sure she had been wrong about him. The passion he aroused insisted she was wrong.
She wanted him. Why deny it? And yes, while Orlando was rasping words against her lips in his own language that promised all types of erotic pleasure, she was prepared to believe anything.
“You’re such an innocent,” he murmured, sounding pleased as he swung her into his arms.
She wanted to please him and relaxed against him with a sigh as he carried her up the stairs to his room. He set her down carefully on a fabulous Persian rug, and when she looked up, she saw the bed took center stage in the room. It was on a platform, and was sumptuously dressed with a crimson quilt decorated with gold thread.
It was the perfect setting for seduction, and as Orlando brought her close, holding her so that the soft swell of her buttocks pressed against his hardness, she arched back against him, longing for his kiss.
“Do you like it?” he said.
“Oh, yes,” she murmured, lost in an erotic trance.
“Then tell me what it is,” Orlando ordered, his voice hardening. “Tell me about my painting—”
She came to and saw it then, hanging over the bed. Orlando was every bit as bad as she’d thought him. He had deceived her into coming upstairs with him. “You tricked me!” she accused, stiffening with humiliation
“As I said, you’re an innocent,” Orlando mocked. “Now tell me what you know about my painting, or get out of my house!”
“You’re a heartless man!” Charlie was furious with herself knowing she had almost allowed Orlando Rossi to make love to her—though of course it wasn’t love. Anything but!
Her mind was in turmoil as she searched for possible explanations for her behavior. She had only dealt with the Italian entrepreneur in writing before and could never have predicted the erotic power he exuded.
This was her first, and hopefully her last, brush with an alpha male. She was an expert in art, a conservator; her world was quiet and circumspect, and people knew how to behave. They didn’t kidnap one another on the Rialto Bridge in Venice, or bring them to a fabulous lakeside home and attempt to seduce them.
Not that she would have taken much seducing, though Orlando’s henchmen had seized the sketch she’d made of him and dragged her before him against her will.
And now she was in his bedroom, where Orlando had wanted her to be—not to make love to her as she’d thought, but to expose her as a fraud when she attempted to assess the priceless painting hanging on his wall.
“Take your time,” he said without a shred of tenderness. “Take all the time you need.”
To fail?
Orlando fully expected her to fail, and why should he think any better of her when she was still throbbing from his touch? “I can’t concentrate with you standing at my shoulder,” she told him firmly, needing space.
“Then I’ll wait over here.” He strolled across the room, completely at ease having left her in shreds.
How was she supposed to think straight while he was loosening his tie and rolling up his sleeves?
“Well?” he snapped, jerking her back to full attention.
“I can’t conduct a proper investigation here. I need the picture taken down and transported to a laboratory where I can study it in detail.”
“Really?” he said skeptically. “Well then, that is exactly what you shall have.”
He thought he was calling her bluff, when in fact she was relieved at the prospect of conducting a proper investigation somewhere other than Orlando’s bedroom.
He had tricked her into coming upstairs with him, and it was hard to believe she had risked everything she had ever worked for just for the promise of a few moments of pleasure. A laboratory was familiar territory, and she would feel much safer on neutral ground. “Do you have a driver who can take me back, or shall I call a taxi?”
“Do what you want.” He flicked his wrist dismissively.
“Where I come from it’s customary for a host to ensure their guest arrives home safely.”
For a moment Charlie thought Orlando might laugh or worse, but he contented himself with a lengthy stare.
“Don’t trouble yourself!” she said, finally losing it. “I can look after myself.”
She turned on her heel and didn’t see him come after her.
Orlando caught Charlie to him and kissed her in spite of her protestations. And the crazy thing was, after all that had happened, she still wanted him.
“Let me go!” She pummeled his chest, but even as she did so her body pressed closer and twisted against him, seeking relief.
Easing her down on the bed Orlando kept his hand between her legs, working it firmly and persuasively. He didn’t pause to remove her cheap cutoff jeans; he didn’t need to. He could feel her moist heat reaching him through them.
She whimpered with excitement as he soothed her in his own language, and it only took him a few well-judged strokes to tip her over the edge. Now he had her where he wanted—temporarily sated but vulnerable because soon she would want more.
As she gasped for breath, struggling between the urge to reach for him or push him away he did nothing to help her. Leaving her on the bed, he allowed time for the powerful waves of pleasure to subside so she could recover her composure.
“Are you ready to evaluate my painting now?” he said then.
It pleased him to see the way she looked at him. The cool, clearheaded art conservator had been caught yet again by the man she believed was cold and calculating. How did she think he had reached the pinnacle of success? By being an emotional fool?
She shook her head as she looked at him incredulously. “You’re a hard man—”
“And you’re a foolish woman,” he observed with satisfaction.
“Not as foolish as a man who spends ten million on a fake—”
“What?” His gaze traveled past her to the painting. Art was his passion, his only love in life, and he never ever made mistakes. “You can’t be right!”
“I know my job, and if you have the painting transported to a laboratory in Venice, I’ll call in a dozen experts and prove it to you.”
It was fortunate Venice was full of museums and experts for Charlie to summon. By late that evening they had all agreed with her assessment, and as they filed out of the door of the laboratory, she flashed a look of triumph at Orlando before following them.
He caught up with her on the cobbled walkway overlooking the Grand Canal. “No one walks out on me—”
“And what will you do if I ignore your warning, Signor Rossi?”
Take her to bed, he thought, as her green eyes flashed fire. His mouth softened in a grim smile. “Take you to dinner,” he amended wisely.
“You must be joking!”
“I can assure you, I’m not. But, of course, if you don’t have the good grace to accept my apology…”
Sexual tension sparked between them, and with any other woman he would have been confident in her reply, but Charlie Bennett was very different from other women, and he could only wait and see what she would say.
“Dinner?” Charlie looked at Orlando suspiciously, remembering how easily she had fallen for his sexual appeal, and how willingly she had lost control in his arms. She had no intention of making another mistake. She was here in Venice on business—his business—and would do better to remember that if she wanted to hang on to her career.
And yet… The idea of resisting Orlando was always so much easier than actually doing it.
She was here to evaluate a work of art he’d purchased, not fall into bed with him, Charlie reminded herself sternly as her body responded on cue to Orlando’s deep, searching glance. She had exposed his painting as a fake, forcing him to acknowledge that she was the expert she said she was. Why would she put her credibility at risk now?
Maybe because his suggestion that they have dinner together to discuss the opportunity to work for him on future projects was hard to resist. And why should she? She had stood toe-to-toe with him before, and the truth was the thought of the battles ahead excited her.
Dinner would be a pleasurable way to make up for doubting her. And the possibility of using Charlie’s expertise in the future was a genuine possibility. His collection of art was constantly expanding, and having an expert on hand would bring undoubted benefits, especially when that expert was Charlie Bennett.
But she was still hesitating, and he wasn’t accustomed to waiting, especially for some scrap of a girl whose crowning virtue was that she was as honest as she was desirable.
He was still stinging from the discovery that the painting he’d paid a king’s ransom for was worthless, but he would swallow the loss. At the end of the day it would hang in the lobby of his hotel on the Grand Canal just as he had planned, and no one would be any the wiser.
“You will have to declare the painting a fake, of course,” Charlie said.
“I beg your pardon?” He looked down at her innocent, earnest face.
“The painting,” she explained. “Brand it a fake so no one’s misled.”
Was she mad? He frowned at her naiveté. He’d paid a fortune for it. “With you to guide me, I’m sure we’ll come to some arrangement…”
“It’s not up to me, Orlando. I’m not on your payroll—”
“Yet.”
“No.” Charlie shook her head. “I’m happy as I am advising you on the occasional project.”
No? Did she know whom she was talking to? Clearly not! But there were more ways than one of getting what he wanted.
“Fake or not, I love that picture,” he said persuasively. “I think it must have been a case of love at first sight— What?” he said, seeing her look. “You don’t think I’m capable of being romantic?”
Of being manipulative and ruthless, yes, Charlie reflected silently, but romantic?
“Why don’t we discuss the concept of love at first sight over dinner?” Orlando suggested.
They were walking along the cobbled calle above the Grand Canal on their way to a working lunch, with the living museum that was Venice smiling down on them.
“So, do you believe in love at first sight?” Orlando asked Charlie.
When Orlando stopped and turned to look at her, she couldn’t stop staring at his lips and remembering how it felt to be kissed by him. But, of course, he had only kissed her to lead her on, to make her think he wanted to make love to her when nothing could have been further from the truth. Why would a Venetian billionaire want to make love to a penniless art conservator? And a plain one at that!
“Well?” Orlando prompted.
Was he mocking her? She wanted to believe in love so badly, but a man like Orlando loved power, and if he should ever guess how deeply she had fallen in love with him he would only think her naive.
“Shall I repeat the question?” As he spoke, his gaze slipped to her lips.
It was vital to keep reminding herself that this was the man who had refused to believe she was the Charlie Bennett, an expert in art, with whom he had been conversing with via e-mail, and whose bodyguards had seized her and dragged her before him as if she were a criminal for doing nothing more than a lighthearted sketch of him. He was not an ordinary man she could risk flirting with.
“Love at first sight?” he pressed.
Their faces were very close, her senses were full of him. How she yearned for him.
Her body answered before her lips could form the words. Even here in the street her nipples burned for him, and the pulsing at the apex of her thighs was a constant reminder of what could be. It took all she had to drag herself out of the erotic trance and answer him.
“I believe some people are lucky enough to meet their life partner and know it right away, while others are not so fortunate…” She looked away in case he saw the hunger in her eyes.
“And what of us?” he pressed.
“Us?”
Charlie stared incredulously at Orlando. She was a mouse, a nobody, while Orlando Rossi was a lion among men. Even in Venice he stood out with his menacing air and striking good looks. His presence alone made other men seem insignificant by comparison.
“You want me, don’t you?” he murmured.
Her throat constricted. The truth must be written in her eyes, on her face, in every breath she took.
“We’re very close to the hotel,” he pointed out.
There were so many things she should have said, but she remained transfixed and silent.
“Shall I feed you until you fall asleep in my arms?” Orlando suggested.
His dark head was so close his lips were almost touching her mouth. This was the moment she should tell him no…but the truth was she didn’t want to.
Charlie was as fragile as a china doll, which forced Orlando to behave with restraint as he carried her though his apartment in the hotel. He laid her gently on the bed, thinking how delicate, how fragrant…
Straightening, Orlando stripped off his tie and jacket, knowing that what had started out as a cold-blooded seduction designed to bend Charlie Bennett to his will, had turned into something much more.
She had changed him, and he didn’t know if he liked this new eager, softer Orlando; he didn’t know if he could trust him.
It might have been different if he hadn’t married so young, only to have his bride lured away by an older, more successful man. The experience had turned Orlando to ice, but it also accounted for his rapid rise in life. He had vowed never to be at a woman’s mercy again, until Charlie Bennett came along and tempted him to break those rules.
It was becoming harder every moment to remind himself that Charlie was in Venice to provide a service for which he was paying her. She was an art conservator; they were employer and employee, nothing more.
And yet his brother, Santino, had married the hired help and couldn’t have been happier with his choice of bride, which left Orlando in the same quandary as before! The only thing he was sure about was that he wanted Charlie, and that she wanted him.
“Why are you smiling?” Charlie stared into his eyes as he sat down beside her on the bed. Linking her arms around his neck, she looked at him trustingly.
“You make me smile,” he admitted, dropping a kiss on her neck that made her sigh and quiver.
“Is that a good thing?”
“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “You’ll have to help me find out.”
“I want you…” she murmured sweetly, innocently. “That’s all I know.”
“And I want you.” And he would draw back at the first sign that she was trying to lay claim to him.
But neither of them had the power to stop what happened next. They ripped at each other’s clothing, desperate to remove anything that kept them apart.
“Caro Dio! You’re so beautiful,” he exclaimed, seeing her naked for the first time.
“Make love to me, Orlando. Forget everything except this…”
It was an easy promise for him to make.
“I won’t hurt you.”
She kissed his shoulder passionately, not realizing he was talking about taking her gently because he was so big and she was so small.
When they paused at last she touched his face in wonder, forcing him to turn away.
“What you said to me before Orlando, about love at first sight—”
He kissed her because he didn’t want to talk about love. It was something she believed in, and he wasn’t sure he was capable of doing so. She deserved better.
“Don’t you want to make love to me again, Orlando?”
How could he refuse her?
They had parted happily after breakfast, and Charlie had returned to the laboratory where she had first uncovered that fact that her lover’s work of art was a fake.
Her lover… Charlie paused as she worked, hardly able to believe what had happened, and how a cold, hard man had changed into a tender, considerate person, who had lifted her into another realm, another level of consciousness, where all the differences between them melted away.
She was passionate about her career as an art conservator, but now she was passionate about Orlando Rossi, too, and would do anything to make him happy.
Sitting back, she smiled in triumph. It was just as she thought. Orlando was so impatient, he hadn’t given her chance to air her suspicion that there might be another painting beneath the one she had exposed as a fake. And this one was worth a fortune.
“Charlie? What are you doing here?”
“Working on something for you…” Her face softened at the sight of the man she had fallen so deeply in love with, but something in his voice rang an alarm bell in her head.
“I gave instructions the painting must not be touched.”
“But—”
“Your contract is finished. You’ve proved the work a fake, why can’t you let it end there?”
“I haven’t come here to gloat, Orlando.” Ice sluiced through Charlie’s veins as she looked into his eyes and saw the expression in them. “If you will give me chance to explain, I have discovered—”
“What is it?” he said impatiently.
“There is another painting beneath the one you bought. It’s genuine,” she told him, seeking solace in her professional role, “and worth a lot more than you paid for it.”
“Then forgive me. I should thank you.”
She looked at the hand he put out for her to shake and felt her heart break. “So that’s all I mean to you?” Maybe she should have kept quiet and held on to her pride, but she couldn’t help herself.
“You’re very good at your job, and I’m offering you a compliment.” He seemed bemused.
“But we made love last night-”
“We had sex,” he amended.
“You said you loved me.”
Orlando held her gaze until Charlie realized her mistake.
“I see. You loved me for as long as it took to have sex with me.”
“My driver will take you back to the hotel while I make sure the painting is stored away securely.”
He made her feel like a thief. Walking away, Charlie stopped, resting her hand against the cold steel door. “I feel sorry for you, Orlando.”
He brushed her off dismissively.
“I’ll think of you in your lonely existence, sharing your life with a collection of pictures.”
“Come back, Charlie!”
Her defiance infuriated him. He should be used to it by now, but her quiet strength always took him by surprise.
He wasn’t used to feeling like this; he didn’t know how to handle it.
Damn the woman! He’d have to go after her.
“No, Orlando! You can’t come in here!”
“This is my hotel!” he reminded her. “I could call security and have you thrown out.”
“Are you threatening me? Go away! I’ve got nothing to say to you.”
“But I’ve got plenty to say to you.” He forced his way past her.
“I’ll call the police,” Charlie threatened as Orlando quietly closed the door.
“And say what? That the man who employs you as an art conservator was concerned to discover you were working alone at the laboratory in the maze that is Venice, and wanted to be certain you returned safely to the hotel?”
“We both know that isn’t true. And if it had been, you could have called me on the phone.”
“Let’s move past the niceties to why I’m here—”
“Yes, why are you here, Orlando? You made it pretty clear back at the laboratory how you felt.”
“I’m here because no one walks out on me!” The passion in his Latin soul burned into her eyes. “My employees certainly don’t—”
“But as you were at such pains to point out, Orlando, I no longer work for you. My job’s done! So presumably, I can do as I like— Don’t touch me!” She whipped her face away when he cupped her chin, but he could already feel her melting beneath his touch and knew how quickly her body would respond to him.
“I was wrong, cara mia. I shouldn’t have shouted at you.”
“No, Orlando!” But she was in more danger from herself than from Orlando. She was still broken, weak and vulnerable from discovering he didn’t love her.
She had continued working on Orlando’s painting out of love. She had gone to bed with him out of love. She still wanted to believe they had made love when Orlando didn’t have a clue what love was. What she had to get through her head was that Orlando loved sex—he loved it a lot.
What she needed now more than anything was space to recover. “Go back to your treasures, Orlando, or count your money! I’m sick and tired of—”
“Of what, carissima?”
She hated her body for betraying her. Orlando’s voice was so seductive it made tiny tremors quiver up and down her spine. “Please go, Orlando. We both know this is just a game to you, a game you cannot bear to lose….”
He proved her right, taking hold of her arms so that a sigh escaped her lips.
“Was that a complaint?” he murmured against her love-bruised mouth.
The truth was she welcomed his persuasive warmth, and the heat had already transferred to every part of her.
“Come to bed with me, Charlie…”
Orlando added more words in his own tongue, words she could only guess the meaning of, though she knew they were of pleasure beyond her wildest imagining…
And pain, too.
“Leave me, Orlando. I’m begging you. There’s nothing here for you now.”
“Except you,” he said huskily, swinging her into his arms.
“No, Orlando!” Tears streamed down Charlie’s face as she backed away from the man she loved. They weren’t tears of grief or fear but disillusionment and anger because she had believed Orlando loved her.
Orlando loved sex, Charlie knew that now, and his expertise was such she had found him impossible to resist.
Up to now. But now she had to draw a line beneath their relationship and remember that she worked for him.
Charlie’s work as an art conservator had allowed her to expose Orlando’s most recent purchase as a fake, but by working diligently on little more than a hunch, she had found a second work of art beneath the first.
“Have you come to reward me for the discovery of the masterpiece by taking me to bed?”
“I wouldn’t dream of touching you. I thought I was speaking to an equal, but now I realize I am dealing with a frightened child—”
“Dealing? Speaking? You can call what is between us anything but love, can’t you, Orlando?”
He gave the orders. He always had. He was accustomed to receiving respect, not impassioned criticism, especially from a woman.
“It’s a mistake for you to think me weak, Orlando! I may not have your glamour, wealth and confidence, but I’m no fool, and I won’t be treated as one.”
“I never thought you a fool…” His softer tone brought the pain back to her eyes.
“Please go.” She turned away so he could no longer see the expression in her eyes. “I will return to London tomorrow. You need never see me again.”
That didn’t suit him. He would not live his life according to anyone else’s timetable. “You work for me until I say the work is over. You signed a contract.”
Her mouth had firmed by the time she turned to face him, but she didn’t argue.
“Your professional reputation demands you stay to complete the restoration,” he reminded her.
“My integrity demands that,” she said proudly. “Something I imagine you know little about.”
Latin pride made his dark eyes glitter. “You will stay to work on this new painting.”
The brief light in her eyes jerked a resentful response from him. Far from finding his words a threat, she looked forward to working on the painting. She was passionate about art but not him; he had let that precious passion slip through his fingers.
“If you’re going to be working for me we should at least be talking.”
She hugged herself defensively. “I can’t see a way back from here.”
“Of course you can,” he insisted. They were both made of sterner mettle than that.
“Then what do you suggest?” she said suspiciously.
“Lunch tomorrow.” And when she hesitated, he added, “In a neutral setting of your choice.”
“Agreed.”
She’d caved in sooner than he thought.
“We’ll have a picnic, something well out of your comfort zone.”
“Perfect,” he agreed readily without a flicker of emotion.
It was unlike Orlando to arrive anywhere early. But in this instance…
“Orlando.” Charlie greeted him at the door of her hotel room.
“I must apologize,” he said as his gaze swept over her. “I can see I’m a little early. I will return when you’re ready—”
“I am ready,” she said coolly. “Shall we go?”
His first impulse was to say, “Not until you’ve changed into something more suitable for an outing with me.”
“Orlando?”
Wisely, he kept his opinion to himself, but did she know what she looked like? His women made more effort. He didn’t expect them to wear a simple sundress and sandals that might have come from a market stall. His driver was outside in the boat launch with a gourmet picnic hamper from the best delicatessen in Venice.
“Here, carry this, will you?” she said.
He gazed in astonishment at the moth-eaten plaid she was handing him. “What’s this for?”
“We have to lay our food on something—”
“You’d better give that to me,” he said impatiently, sensing things were getting away from him as she hefted the strap of a cold bag onto her shoulder. “Why do we need this?”
“For our picnic.”
“But I’ve already ordered food from the best—”
“And I went out shopping at the market early this morning—” she walked past him “—so I can assure you, we won’t go hungry.” As she spoke she gave that same steady stare he was growing used to, and instead of making him angry this time, it made him smile.
“Very well, let’s go. If you’re sure you’ve got everything?”
“I’ve got everything I need,” she told him confidently.
Emotions stirred inside him as they left the hotel. Where had this confidence come from? Was this the same woman whose heart he had supposedly broken, the woman he had mistaken at one point for a scam artist on the Rialto Bridge? It was hard to believe when this beautiful woman now had the composure of a queen.
His lips tugged up as he watched her stride away. She was tiny and vulnerable yet so stubborn and strong. Apparently he had a lot to learn about Charlie Bennett, and the first lesson seemed to be, she was a match for him.
“Come back here,” he said, but this time he spoke softly and with such longing, he felt sure she wouldn’t hear him. But they were more keenly tuned to each other than he knew, and she stopped as if even the sound of his heartbeat was no secret to her.
“No,” she said, turning to face him. “You come here, Orlando.”
“What?” He stared at her in bemusement.
“I said…you come here.” She tipped her chin at the defiant angle that was so much a part of her.
“We’ll walk together,” he said. “And while you’re making a feminist stand, you can carry this.” He held out the rug to her.
She hesitated and then smiled.
She had hired a gondola in his hometown of Venice.
“You needn’t have gone to this expense,” he pointed out, “I have—”
“I know,” she interrupted him. “A private boat. Several, probably. But don’t you think this is more fun? I know I like to experience things I’ve never done before.”
His impulse was to put her over his knee, but they might have enjoyed that a little too much, and with a gondolier watching them… Orlando contented himself with a raised brow.
His mouse of an art conservator had turned into a mischievous imp, which both aroused and amused him. She was full of surprises; he never knew what was coming next. He wasn’t accustomed to women taking the lead. They served one purpose and one purpose only, or they had in the past. He refocused on Charlie as she sighed.
“This is lovely,” she said, turning her freckled face toward the sun. “I shall be so sorry to leave Venice and return to London.”
But not because of him. He felt a stab of jealousy, but knew it was his own fault that Charlie had come to love his city more than him. The city never changed, while he was accustomed to showing one face to the world and keeping another to himself.
“Well. How are we going to pass the time?” she asked him bluntly.
He gave her a sardonic look. That had never been a problem for them before, but then, when she hadn’t been working on his paintings, they’d been in bed.
Conversation saved the day. It was such a simple solution he felt like punching the air. He never listened and discussed, he issued orders and solved problems because that was his role in life, or had been up to now. But Charlie was a good listener, and so was he, he discovered. The paths that both of them had taken to reach this point were fascinating.
“To the point where Orlando Rossi is prepared to eat a simple picnic like any other tourist traveling by gondola on the Grand Canal,” she said.
As she smiled at him his heart soared.
“Pâté?” he invited.
“Chocolate,” she said with a wicked smile.
Their roles were reversed. He was being sensible while Charlie was being self-indulgent, and for some reason that felt like a victory.
Was he falling in love with her? The thought hit him like a thunderbolt.
“We’ve arrived at the hotel,” she said, jolting him back to the present. “I hope you enjoyed the picnic, Orlando.”
She had no idea.
“See you tomorrow at the laboratory.” She had stepped nimbly ashore before he could stop her.
He smiled. The chase was on again. They had been given a second chance, and this time it would be a very different man and woman taking part.
He paid the gondolier double what he asked, feeling it had been worth it. And then, taking his time, he followed Charlie into the hotel.
The phone call from Charlie took Orlando by surprise. She had finished her work on the painting and wanted him to see it now that it was fully restored.
When he arrived at the laboratory he was overwhelmed, both by the skill of the young art conservator with whom he had fallen in love and by the treasure she had revealed.
“It’s priceless,” she told him in a reverent voice.
“And so are you.”
“Even in paint-stained rags?”
“Even in paint-stained rags.” He drew her into his arms.
She came to him like a small boat berthing after a long journey. They had shed a lot of misconceptions about each other along the way. Orlando Rossi, the Italian billionaire who’d never known a tender emotion in his life was a different man. “You’ve changed me,” he murmured against her mouth.
Their kiss deepened and quickly became so much more. It was a passion neither one of them could ignore.
“In the laboratory?” she panted, laughing excitedly as he backed her toward the door.
“Can you wait?”
That question was redundant now that her legs were locked around his waist.
It was the greatest feeling on earth. He held her off the ground, relishing her cries as she gripped his buttocks. She urged him to move faster and the first climax hit them both almost immediately. “I want more,” he said as soon as he could speak.
He made sure the door was locked, and then, cradling her in his arms, he carried her to the small sofa he’d had put there for her relaxation. He’d never imagined this—making love to her over and over again. He was really making love to her, and she knew it. Her eyes were filled with love for him, which was something he would never forget.
They were basking in the afterglow when he remembered something, and turned to her. “I want you to be part of the ceremony when the picture is hung in the hotel.”
He was so sure she’d be delighted, he wasn’t prepared for her to pull away.
“You can’t be serious.”
The mood between them shattered into a thousand pieces. She dragged on her clothes like a suit of armor, putting distance between them.
“That painting is so important, so valuable, it belongs to the whole world, not just the privileged few. Surely you can see that?”
Frankly no, he couldn’t see that since he’d paid so much for it.
“You can’t hang it in your hotel,” she insisted fiercely. “It must hang in a public gallery—”
“Impossible!”
“What?” She looked at him tensely. “Tell me you don’t mean that, Orlando.”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
The blood drained from her face, taking all the love she felt for him with it. “You said I’d changed you—”
“And so you have.” He reached for her, but she eluded him. “Where are you going?”
“Back to London as I always intended. My work’s done here.”
She restored ancient works of art and believed in idyllic love, the type of love artists captured on canvas. That one perfect moment, Charlie reflected as the plane taking her home to London banked over Venice.
But life was never that simple. She had lost her heart to Orlando Rossi, a man familiar with extreme wealth and power but a stranger to love. She had restored a painting for him that she saw as a legacy for the world, whereas he wanted to hang it in his fabulous hotel where only a privileged few would ever see it.
She and Orlando had parted on bitter terms, though her love for him would never die.
He was right—they came from different worlds, and she should have known better than to expect those worlds to merge and allow them to go forward into the future together.
No one walks out on me! But she had. And now Orlando couldn’t rest.
He called the airfield and told them to expect him.
Orlando entered the lecture hall anonymously, shielded by a horde of students. He felt a rush of pleasure that Charlie could attract such a crowd.
He listened with rapt attention like everyone else as she talked. She was inspirational.
He watched the glowing faces of the students as they left the hall and knew she had fired them up. The only time he got a response from the wealthy and powerful guests who stayed at the hotel was if they had a complaint to lodge against his staff.
The moment he got close enough to attract Charlie’s attention, he told her, “You were wonderful.”
“Orlando…” She paled, and the world shrank around them. The students disappeared, sensing something big was taking place.
“Can we go somewhere?” he asked,
“Yes, of course.”
She took him to a tiny cubbyhole he supposed must serve as her office.
“What brings you here?”
“You,” he said simply.
“Orlando, I—”
He put his finger over her lips. She held his wrist away.
“No, Orlando. If you’ve got another picture for me to restore, I can tell you right away, I’m not interested.” Tilting her chin she stared him directly in the eyes.
This was agony. She wanted him as much as ever. But Orlando’s sole reason for following her to England had to be because he refused to accept defeat, whether that was in business or his personal life. His world was different and there were no bridges.
“Charlie, you’re being selfish.”
That was only the first surprise.
“I changed for you,” he said, “but how have you changed for me? I admit I was shocked when I discovered how much the painting was worth, but if you’d stayed, we might have discussed alternative plans. You never gave me that chance. I’m asking for it now…”
It wasn’t hard to see why this fiercely handsome man enjoyed such success. “You’re a consummate negotiator, Orlando.”
“No, I’m a man in love,” he argued, taking hold of her.
Charlie had missed Orlando so much in the short time they’d been apart. Life was too precious for them to be parted for even a moment.
Orlando took her to a central London park where they stopped on a bridge to watch the river sweeping away toward the sea.
“Orlando Rossi, the man the world sees only as a successful businessman, is a man like any other. He feels,” he said.
Charlie smiled with happiness as Orlando tapped his chest with his clenched fist. There was a time when he would have been incapable of making such a statement.
“I have been thinking about all the things we could do together—”
“Together?” Charlie blushed. All she could think about now was Orlando making love to her.
“Are you listening to me, cara?”
She had to resist the temptation to show the love she felt for Orlando. The one thing Charlie was sure about was that they were worlds apart. But try as she might, she found herself slipping into the easy relationship that had developed after their picnic on the gondola.
“I’m not talking about money or paintings, I’m talking about us,” Orlando explained, “and what you and I can achieve together.” He grasped her arms in his enthusiasm.
She longed to share his dream, but…
“With your help I’m going to build an art collection such as the world has never seen. It will be called the People’s Collection, and it will be housed in one of my palazzos on the Grand Canal in Venice.”
One of his palaces? Didn’t that emphasize the gulf between them? Still, the dream was tempting. “Are you serious, Orlando?”
“I’m certain,” he said with a fierceness that reminded Charlie yet again that nothing was ever done halfway where Orlando was concerned.
“Well?” he demanded, cupping her chin to stare into her eyes. “Will you help me, Charlie? Will you be my partner in life, in work, in everything?”
“That’s quite an offer…”
“If you’re not up to it…” He shrugged expansively—very Latin, very sexy. “I need you, Charlie Bennett,” he said, “every bit as much as you need me.”
“No—”
Orlando stopped her with a kiss. “You don’t have to ask the question—I do believe in love at first sight. How could I not? So tell me. What’s your answer? Will you leave me to my locked rooms of paintings, or will you rescue me?”
“But I’m not rich or beautiful or special in any way.”
“How wrong you are,” Orlando argued. “Marry me, Charlie Bennett, and save me from myself.”
He grinned.“You’re not supposed to start laughing at a moment like this.”
“I can’t help it, I’m so happy.”
“But I haven’t given you my answer yet.”
“But you will.”
Yes, she would, Charlie realized, suddenly overwhelmed by the rightness of it all.
The sun dipped behind the horizon as they left the bridge, and by that time two very different worlds had merged effortlessly into one.
The End