The Royals Collection

And it wasn’t just his own sex she had won over at the reception. The women there had liked her as well. She had seen the approving looks they had given her, and the way in which even the most regal of them had unbent whilst talking with her. The Duchess’s invitation was proof of that.

No, he couldn’t deny that she was well versed in her subject, and also able to share her own obvious love for it with others, so that they too became enthused.

If he hadn’t known about her other life, her other self, Marco suspected that he too might have become an admirer of her familiarity with her subject. And an admirer of her too?

No!

He had never believed in mixing work with pleasure, Marco reminded himself. It always led to complications and problems. But his role within this project was a voluntary one, taken on because of his own pleasure and pride in his own heritage.

No! His answer to his own question was still the same.

He did not want her. He could not want her. But neither could he deny the fact that his body found something physically compelling about her. It was an awkward reality he could well have done without.

Marco forced his thoughts back into the channels where they belonged. They had reached the airport, and the driver was turning off for the private part of the airfield, where expensive-looking executive jets awaited their passengers and owners. He checked his watch. They were running slightly late, but he had e-mailed ahead to warn the helicopter pilot to alter their departure slot. He could see the chopper up ahead of them on the runway, the pilot already on board. The driver brought the limousine to a smooth halt a mere handful of yards away from the helicopter and then got out to open the rear passenger door for Lily, whilst one of the waiting attendants removed their cases from the boot.

After a few words with the waiting concierge whilst she stood to one side, Marco indicated that she should board the helicopter. When she hesitated, Marco frowned. He could see her hand was gripping the handrail to the steps, her bones showing through her delicate skin. Her face had lost some of its colour, and she looked like someone screwing up every last bit of her courage to make herself do something that terrified her. Her fear had somehow stripped her features of their maturity, so that instead of a grown woman Marco felt he was looking at a terrified child. A terrified child who was staring blindly into space as though locked away—trapped—in a world of dreadful fear.

Reluctantly, trying to check himself but unable to do so, and against all the urgings of his brain, as though some deep-rooted recognition was overriding his logic, he felt the most extraordinary and unexpected feeling of concern and compassion for that child fill him.

‘You don’t like flying?’ he guessed. ‘There is nothing to worry about if you haven’t flown in a helicopter before. Come…’ Why was he behaving like this? Treating her as though… Before he could stop himself, Marco was holding out his hand to her.

Without thinking Lily placed her own hand within Marco’s. She felt slightly sick and light-headed, and the warmth of his hand wrapping round her own was a reassuring comfort she could feel at a distance, as though she was standing outside herself, observing her own reactions.

It was crazy to let the thought of flying in a helicopter affect her like this just because once before someone had taken her hand, urged her up the steps to a similar machine. Once before a man had smiled at her and reassured her that she would be perfectly safe—before his smile had disappeared in an explosion of anger and a fierce tug on her arm that had dragged her up into the dark interior of a helicopter.

The hand Marco was holding started to tremble, the small vibrations seizing her arm and then her whole body. Perspiration broke out on her skin, bathing her in an uncomfortable wash of anxious heat.

People were waiting…watching… She must get a grip.

‘There is nothing to be afraid of,’ Marco repeated. ‘But if you prefer—if it makes you feel more comfortable—we can travel by road.’

His voice was calm, his grip on her hand loosening slightly as he stroked his thumb over her frantically racing pulse.

Lily turned her head and looked at him. His eyes were topaz-gold, not pale blue, and nor were they filled with a look of greedy desire that filled her with fear and revulsion. His stance was still and patient, his manner towards her soothingly reassuring, as though…as though he understood. She took a deep breath.

‘No. It’s all right. I’ll be all right now.’

A small tug of her hand freed it from his grip, and an equally small nod of his head gave her the courage to make her way up the steps, to be helped into the machine by the uniformed co-pilot who introduced himself to her and then escorted her to her seat, showing her how to fasten herself properly into it before telling her cheerfully. ‘We’ll have you up at Lake Como and Villa d’Este in no time at all.’

When the man then fastened himself into the seat next to her, Lily was surprised—until he explained with another smile, ‘The boss will be taking the co-pilot’s seat up-front. He’s a fully qualified pilot, although on this trip he’ll just be playing a watching role.’

Somehow she wasn’t surprised that Marco was a pilot. He had all the necessary skills, and she could easily imagine him remaining calm and focused, no matter what kind of crisis he was obliged to face.

The last time she had flown in a helicopter she had been fourteen years old. Lily’s stomach muscles clenched. It was memories of that trip that had sparked off her reaction to boarding this machine now, but somehow or other Marco had found a way to break through her fear and bring her back to the present. Lily suspected that he would be anything but pleased to know that her senses had decided to recognise him as their protector and saviour. She found it hard to understand herself, given his hostility towards her.

When the shape of his body briefly obscured the light coming in through the glass nose of the machine Lily’s heart jerked as though someone had deliberately pulled on its strings. She recognised that seeing him there now, on board the helicopter, was somehow extraordinarily comforting. How could that be when there was such conflict between them? Lily didn’t know. She only knew that something deep inside her followed its own path and saw something in him that represented a safe haven.

A safe haven. For so many years of her life she had longed for that—for a presence, a person, who would take her side and protect her. But she had learned then that for her there was no such presence or person, and that she would have to provide her own protection and places of safety.

Now, cruelly, there was every bit as much danger for her in listening to that insistent instinct that was filling her subconscious with powerful images of safety and protection in the form of Marco di Lucchesi. That was because another instinct, every bit as powerful and demanding, was filling her senses and her body with a very different kind of awareness—the awareness of Marco as a man with the power to arouse her sexuality.

Safety and danger forged together in a complete and exact reversal of what she normally thought of as safety and danger.

Until now, until Marco, for her safety had been her own determined separation of herself from her sexuality, her sacrifice of it in order to protect herself from the danger of repeating the errors of her parents’ hedonistic lifestyles. Until now and Marco she had been the one who was in charge of her security. Now without her being able to do a thing about it, control of her sexuality and her security had transferred itself from her into the hold of a man who despised and disliked her. How could that be? Lily didn’t know. What she did know, though, was that she was not likely to be in any danger from her growing sensual and sexual responsiveness to Marco—at least not from him. She might not have known him for very long, but she knew instinctively that he would not allow himself to give in to any desire he felt for a woman he did not like.

She looked out of the window and down at the land beneath them. It was too dark for her to see anything other than the lights from the homes and roads below them.

‘Soon be there now.’ The co-pilot’s voice was kind, but it lacked Marco’s note of authority and safety which struck such a strong deep chord inside her. Just being held by him, even when he was angry with her, made her feel… Lily could feel her face beginning to burn as she felt a sudden fierce ache of pure female sexual desire stab through her. She wanted Marco. Oh, the irony of that! An irony that only she would ever know and understand.

They were coming in to land. Lily had imposed a steel band of rejection over what she was feeling, but it melted like snow in the full glare of a midsummer sun when Marco turned round to look at her. If only things were different. If only they were coming here as lovers. If only…

How could such preposterously foolish thoughts have managed to put down roots inside her emotions? Lily didn’t know. She was just thankful that Marco di Lucchesi couldn’t see them. Very thankful indeed.

CHAPTER FOUR

THEIR flight had been smooth and uneventful—and, given both that and the nature of his perfectly understandable feelings of distrust and contempt for Lily Wrightington, Marco was at a loss to explain to himself just why he found it necessary to hang back now that they could disembark from the helicopter, just so that he could keep a watch over her. Just as hard to explain was the concern he had felt for her during the short flight—to the point where he had had to actively restrain himself from turning round in his seat to check that she was all right.

She wasn’t a vulnerable child, no matter what emotive mental images his head had produced to that effect. She was a fully grown woman. A deceitful, amoral, not-to-be trusted woman, who preyed on the vulnerabilities of others. But still he descended from the helicopter behind her, silently checking her safety. It was because of the mess it would make of all his carefully constructed plans should she for any reason become unable to complete her part in their planned tour. This concern for her welfare had nothing whatsoever to do with her in any personal sense. Nothing at all.

A chauffeur-driven car was waiting to drive them the short distance from the helicopter landing pad to the hotel.

Naturally Lily had read up on the place, knowing that they would be staying there, but there were no words or photographs that could do real justice to the sparkling elegance of the rich interior of the hotel foyer, with its crystal chandelier, smooth marble surfaces and gilt furniture that seemed to give everything within it a rich golden glow.

There was no necessity for them to check in. An immaculately dressed receptionist wearing a uniform that looked to Lily as though it might have been tailored by one of Italy’s foremost designers asked them to follow her, whisking them upwards and then along several corridors, faithfully decorated in keeping with the villa’s history, before coming to a halt outside one of several doors in the corridor.

‘We have given your guest a suite overlooking the lake, just as you requested, Your Highness,’ the receptionist told Marco, opening the door and then turning back to him to ask, ‘If you would like to see the suite…’

Marco shook his head, and then told Lily, ‘I’ll meet you downstairs in the bar in half an hour. We can run through tomorrow’s schedule over dinner.’

Lily nodded her head.

‘The porter will be here shortly with your luggage,’ the receptionist informed Lily. ‘If you require any information about anything, please ask him.’

‘Thank you.’ The girl had switched on the lights in the room, and although she stepped into it, Lily stayed in the open doorway, watching as the receptionist led Marco to another door at the far end of the corridor. It was crazy of her to feel so alone and abandoned—as though for some reason she needed to know where Marco di Lucchesi was in case she needed him.

She heard the click of his door closing as Marco stepped into his own room. The receptionist disappeared through a pair of doors that led to the stairs. There was nothing to keep her standing in the entrance to her own room now.

No, not merely a room, Lily reminded herself as she closed the door and went to explore her surroundings. Her suite was the size of a small apartment, and consisted of a large bedroom, a sitting room and two bathrooms. The furniture was reproduction Georgian, and the suite was decorated in toning shades of dark plum and pale grey-blue, with the bed dressed in the current boutique hotel fashion with neat piles of cushions and a carefully folded deep plum silk throw at the bottom of a padded cream bedcover. Tall glass doors opened from both the bedroom and the sitting room onto a narrow balcony just wide enough for a table and two chairs. Although she couldn’t see it now that it was dark, Lily guessed that the view over the lake would be stupendous. As it was, the sight of the moonlight reflecting on the dark waters, and the myriad dancing lights from craft on the lake and buildings on its banks created an almost magical picture.

A discreet ring on the bell to her room announced the arrival of the porter with her small case. After thanking him and tipping him, Lily lifted her case onto the bed and opened it. She’d packed very carefully for this tour. For the evening she’d brought with her a fine black jersey tube-shaped skirt, which could be worn long from the waist, ruched up to make a shorter skirt, or worn as a short strapless dress. To go with it she’d brought a matching black jersey body, with three-quarter sleeves and a boat-shaped neckline, a softly draped long-line black cardigan, and a cream silk blouse. Between them she hoped that these items and the costume jewellery she had also brought with her would cover every kind of event she would be expected to attend.

For daytime she had a pair of slimline black Capri pants, a pair of jeans, and several interchangeable tops—along with her trench coat just in case.

For dinner tonight she intended to put the caramel-coloured dress back on and wear it with a black pashmina. Since her hair had already started to escape from its knot, and given the fact that she only had half an hour before she had to meet Marco, it made sense to simply leave it down on her shoulders.

In the bar Marco was just about to sit down to check through their itinerary for the first day of their tour, when he saw Lily approaching the entrance to the room.

She was wearing the same caramel-coloured dress she had worn for the reception, and a black wrap caught up on one shoulder with a gold Maltese cross that picked out the colour of her dress. She looked effortlessly elegant, Marco acknowledged, her hair framing the delicate bone structure of her face in softly styled natural-looking waves.

He wasn’t surprised to see so many of the other occupants of the bar, both male and female, turning to give her a second look. What did surprise him, though, was that she seemed oblivious to their admiration, her manner more hesitant than confident—until she saw him, and then she straightened her back and came towards him with her chin tilted challengingly, like someone ready to do battle, he recognised grimly. No one looking at her now would associate her with that seedy studio and her even more dubious reason for being there.

Marco pushed back his chair and stood up.

‘Would you like a drink or would you prefer to go straight in for dinner?’

‘Straight in for dinner, please,’ Lily answered him

‘Very well.’ A brief inclination of Marco’s head brought the maître d’ over to their table to escort them through into the restaurant

‘What do you think of the place?’ Marco asked her, observing the manner in which she was thoughtfully studying their surroundings.

‘The decor is stunning.’ Lily told him truthfully, ‘but a woman coming here for a romantic tête-à-tête would have to be very careful about what she wore if she didn’t want to end up competing with so much rich adornment.’

‘To the man who desires her the only clothing a woman needs is her own skin. That is far more erotic to him than anything else could be,’ Marco responded.

Lily could feel her face burning from the heat Marco’s words had aroused inside her. The heat and the desire. She was glad to be able to sit down at the table to which the waiter had shown them, glad of the room’s soft lighting and the large menu she had been handed to conceal her hot face.

Behind his own menu Marco was cursing himself for the rawly sensual images their exchange had produced inside his head. His imagination was laying them out before him in loving detail, as though answering a need within him that had demanded them. Lily lying naked against the silk coverlet of his bed, watching him, wanting him. Her skin would be all shimmering translucent perfection, fine and delicate, her nipples a deep rose-pink, her sex covered by soft blonde hair. Her legs would be long and slender, supple enough to wrap tightly around him…

Marco cursed himself silently again—and her. If this had been any other woman—if he had not known what she really was—then he could have dealt with the situation by taking her to bed. She was not, after all, the first woman to arouse him, and nor had he ever been short of eager partners to share his bed, but he had never desired any of them with this kind of intensity. What was happening to him? Why couldn’t he control and banish the sensual hunger she aroused in him?

The discovery that he wasn’t able to do so was like having a deep, unbridgeable chasm open up at his feet, leaving him vulnerable and desperately trying to cling on to what he had believed to be a perfectly safe landscape. The discovery was demanding answers to questions for which there was no logical answer, stirring up things within him he had not even known were there. And he didn’t like it. He didn’t like any of it. Marco liked being able to control his responses, not have them controlling him. He liked dealing in facts and logic, not being forced to endure the uncertainty of illogical emotions. Most of all he hated the fact that Lily confused him by refusing to a stay true to type. He knew what she was, and yet she kept on exhibiting behaviour that suggested she was something else. Or that he had been wrong about her. That was impossible. Wasn’t it?

The only reason he was even being polite to her was for professional reasons—because of the commitment he had made to the trust’s venture. The last thing he wanted to do was spend time in her company. His pride wouldn’t let him back out of accompanying her, though. That would be tantamount to admitting that he was afraid of the way she made him feel.

He put down his menu, meaning to ignore her, but against his will his gaze was drawn to her. The restaurant was full, and there were many beautiful, expensively dressed women amongst the diners, but it seemed to him that Lily had a pure elegance about her that made her stand out head and shoulders above the other women. From out of nowhere the thought formed inside his head that a man would be proud to have such a wife—educated, intelligent, beautiful and elegant. Proud? To be married to a woman he couldn’t trust? A woman who hid what she really was beneath an outward image?

The waiter was hovering, waiting for Lily to give him her order.

‘I’ll have the missoltini to start with,’ she told him, referring to the Lake Como speciality of small sundried fish, ‘and then the risotto.’ Rice had been grown in Northern Italy for centuries, and risotto was very much a dish of the area.

‘I’ll have the same,’ Marco agreed.

When the wine waiter arrived, hot on the heels of the waiter who had taken their food order, Marco glanced at the list and asked Lily, ‘How do you feel about the Valtellina? I know it’s a red, and we’re starting with fish, but…’

Lily laughed a natural trill of laughter for the first time since they had met, unable to conceal her amusement. She liked the fact that Marco was consulting her rather than telling her what he thought they should drink, and she knew perfectly well why he had suggested the Valtellina.

‘Leonardo drank Valtellina. If it was good enough for him then it’s good enough for me,’ she told him.

Marco had suspected that would be her response, which was in part why he had suggested the Valtellina in the first place.

Was that actually a small smile she could see on Marco’s face, as though he was enjoying a private joke? Lily wondered. He had a good smile, warm and masculine, revealing a tantalising hint of a manly cleft in his jaw and strong white teeth. Her heart missed a beat of female appreciation of his maleness, followed by a dull, hollow feeling inside her chest. Because his smile was not for her?

She was glad of the arrival of their wine to distract her from the possible meaning behind her emotional reaction to him.

‘So that’s the itinerary. We’ll start off tomorrow morning with a visit to Villa Balbiannello. I’ve arranged a private tour for you. Most of the villas we’ll be visiting are not fully open to the public, as you know.’

Lily nodded her head. Marco was discussing the arrangements for the morning with her over coffee after their meal, and now he added, ‘Since we’ve got an early start in the morning, and I’ve got some work to do, I’d like to call it a night—unless you want more coffee.’

Was that a stab of disappointment she felt? Of course not. Lily forced herself to shake her head and tell him firmly, ‘I won’t sleep if I have any more coffee.’

She ought to be tired, not strung so tightly with nervous energy. It had been a long and far from easy day, to put it mildly. The truth was that she felt as though she’d been travelling on an alien emotional rollercoaster from the first moment she had set eyes on Marco.

They had dined relatively early, the restaurant was still full and busy as they left. As they drew level with one table the stunning-looking brunette seated there with several other people, called out to Marco in a very pleased voice. ‘Marco, ciao.’

Lily wasn’t surprised to see him stop as the woman stood up to reveal a perfect hourglass figure in a cream designer dress that showed off her figure to perfection. Politely she left them to it after murmuring a brief ‘goodnight’, sensing that the other woman’s delight at seeing Marco did not extend to her. She removed from her evening bag the plastic keycard to her suite, ready to make her way there.

In the ante-room to the restaurant a large group of people were heading towards the restaurant—fashion people from Milan’s fashion week, Lily guessed expertly, easily recognising the mix of expensively suited older men, bone-thin young models, and a handful of very smart women who looked like magazine editors. She had never been comfortable around such people, reminding her as they did of her past. Her stomach was churning anxiously already, her face starting to heat up with nervous dread.

Desperate to get past them as quickly as she could, she started to skirt the group—only to be brought to shocked halt when one of the men stepped out in front of her, blocking her way. Anger, disgust and most shamingly of all stomach-gripping fear washed over her in a nauseating spine-chilling surge. He put his hand on her arm as he smiled his cruel crocodile smile at her, the familiar sour smell of his breath closing her throat against the retching movement of loathing tightening it. Anton Gillman. A man she had every reason to loathe and fear. She wanted to turn and run but she couldn’t.

‘Lily, what a delicious surprise—and looking so grown up as well. It’s been so long. It must be—what? —twelve years?’

It was surely deliberate that he was talking to her in that adult-to-child manner she remembered so well. Because he knew what hearing it would do to her.

The temptation to correct him and tell him that it was thirteen years was dangerously strong. She must not let him know that she even remembered, never mind knew to the exact year how long it had been.

Someone bumped into her, jolting her uncomfortably. Her keycard slipped from her hand. Immediately, before she could bend down to retrieve it, Anton released her and did so for her, carefully studying the number of the suite printed on the card before taunting her softly as he held it out to her. ‘If that’s an invitation…’

Horror crawled along her veins.

Almost snatching the keycard from him, she said, half choking on her loathing, ‘No, it isn’t. You know I would never…’ She stopped speaking, not trusting herself to say any more.

The people he was with had moved on into the restaurant. She felt hot and cold, as though she was in the grip of a fever.

But instead of annoying him her rejection seemed only to amuse him, because he laughed and shook his head, shook that mane of dark coiffured hair that curled down his neck just as she remembered it

‘Ah, you should never say never, my dear Lily. After all, there is a great deal of unfinished business between you and I, and it would give me a great deal of satisfaction to bring it to its proper end—especially in such an undeniably sensual setting.’

Even though she knew he would be able to see and feel the shudder that ripped through her, she couldn’t control it. She was fourteen again, and he a grown man, stalking her with one thing on his mind.

‘I’m twenty-seven now,’ she forced herself to point out to him. The past fought inside her with the present, the child she had been with the woman she now was. ‘Far too old to appeal to a man of your tastes.’

He was watching her with amusement, and an open sexual greed that had her only increased her panic. ‘Ah, but you do appeal to me, Lily. You always have. They say there is an extra allure to a lost opportunity. Are you here alone?’

Lily hesitated before saying quickly, ‘No.’

She had waited too long before answering him, Lily knew, and his laughter chilled her with horror. It told her that he knew how she felt.

‘You’re lying to me,’ he told her mock disappointedly, confirming her fear. ‘How delightfully erotic that you still fear me. That will add a divine extra pleasure to my possession of you. And I shall possess you, Lily, because it is what you owe me. How pleasing that you should come back into my life so fortuitously. You are staying in suite number sixteen, I see.’

From the restaurant Marco watched Lily with increasing contempt. It was plain to him that she and the man knew one another very well indeed, from the way in which they were standing so intimately close to one another. The man was mature, at least twenty years older than Lily, and well dressed in a flashy kind of way.

‘Marco,’ Izzie Febretti complained at his elbow, ‘you are not listening to me.’

‘You have a husband who I am sure will be delighted to listen to you, Izzie,’ Marco pointed out, adding, ‘Please excuse me,’ and then walking away from the table. A long time ago he and Izzie had been lovers. Just like Lily and the man with her? Why did that thought stab at him with such vicious fury?

‘Anton,’ called one of the other men from the restaurant, leaving Lily free to make her escape on trembling legs. But there could be no real relief for her now that she knew not only that he was here in the same hotel but also, thanks to her own folly, he knew the number of her suite. He had enjoyed threatening and frightening her tonight, she recognised, just as she remembered him enjoying threatening and frightening the young girls he had pursued and destroyed.

‘An old friend?’

The sound of Marco’s curt voice broke the dark spell of fear at seeing Anton Gillman and she spun her round to look at him.

Unable to reply, she swallowed hard and then told him unsteadily, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m…I’m rather tired…so I’ll say goodnight.’

Without waiting for Marco to respond Lily hurried towards the lift. She was desperate to escape from the surroundings that Anton Gillman had contaminated with his presence. She had been caught off-guard by his presence and foolishly had allowed him to take advantage of her shock. He had deliberately set out to undermine and frighten her, and he had succeeded. She knew she wouldn’t feel safe now until she was locked in her room, Lily admitted.

Marco watched her hurry away. She had been very impatient to go to her suite. Why? Because she had arranged to meet the man he had seen her with there? She hadn’t answered him when he had asked her if he was an old friend. Was he more than merely a friend?