Chapter Five #2
He sucked in a deep breath and glanced heavenward as if summoning patience. ‘I see why you and Adele get on so well,’ he sneered. ‘By the time I recompense all your travel fees, it’ll work out around the same. The last taxi alone—’
‘You weren’t around for me to ask,’ she interrupted, not wanting to think about what the running tab must be on that taxi by now.
‘If you’d bothered to answer your phone, then you could have told me that the stupid thing isn’t that important and I’d have just left it on your desk for the next time you felt like cos-playing CEO. ’
A startled look entered his eyes, then he laughed. Which shocked Mia all over again. She stared—hit by his appalling gorgeousness. When he laughed he was all perfect teeth, bunched muscles, gleaming eyes and sexy-as-hell tousled hair—
It was the last straw. She’d busted her gut to get this stupid package to him and he didn’t give a damn. He hadn’t snatched it up and torn it open like she’d expected. He simply didn’t care. All her effort had been a complete waste of time.
Speechless, she stomped down the stairs and began the route march down the infuriatingly long driveway. His lack of gratitude—or even interest—was humiliating. She wasn’t staying a second longer. She’d truly thought she’d been doing the right thing but why had she wanted to do a good job for him?
‘Mia.’
Yeah, no, she wasn’t listening to anything he had to say.
She was getting back to that exorbitantly expensive taxi, which was only that expensive because his ridiculously beautiful palazzo was miles away from anywhere so everything about this mess was all his fault.
She bit the inside of her lip, holding back her vitriolic mutter because the driveway was long and she had a hotspot on the back of her heel that was going to be a blister any moment and she hated him.
‘Mia!’
The day truly couldn’t get worse. That driver better still be waiting—
‘Mia!’ Sante grabbed her arm and stopped her by way of standing right in front of her.
Which meant she got another eyeful of his beautiful body. She forced herself to glare at the tree to the left of him. ‘I’ve not got time to talk. I’ve got a plane to catch.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘You can’t stop me.’
‘Maybe I can’t,’ he huffed. ‘But a storm can.’
‘What storm?’ There was no storm, it was hot and—
‘Looked up lately?’
No, she could barely look away from his stunning form.
She met his fiery gaze just as a fat raindrop hit her arm.
She glanced at it just as another landed.
Then another. Okay, the day could get much worse.
Rain like this was going to soak her in seconds.
Glancing up she saw dark grey and deep purple clouds rapidly descending.
‘That’s why I was outside securing anything that can move. There’s going to be high wind, heavy rain, power outages. It’s not safe to be out—’
‘I’m not going to be,’ she growled. ‘I’m getting my taxi.’ But though she rose on tiptoe, she couldn’t see the car waiting on the other side of those gates.
‘He’d have left the moment he dropped you,’ Sante advised bluntly. ‘He’d have seen the clouds and fled. It’s hitting sooner than they forecast.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She was not going back to that palazzo with him. Only now the rain hit harder.
‘You’re going to walk fifty kilometres to the nearest village?’ he asked sarcastically. ‘You need to come inside.’
No. But the wind lifted and the tumbling rain became more than torrential.
He gestured impatiently at the rapidly darkening sky. ‘How wet do you want to get?’
‘I’m not going to your house.’
‘Too bad. We don’t have time to argue.’ He suddenly launched forward, grabbing her low and so hard her shriek was knocked from her chest before she could release it. Next thing she knew she was upside down over his shoulder and it was—
‘What are you doing?’ she yelled, even though it was ridiculously obvious. ‘Put me down!’
‘No.’ He tightened his arm around the backs of her thighs and actually sounded happy. ‘You probably have blisters from walking up the drive in those shoes already.’
She wasn’t admitting to that. ‘I’m too heavy for you to carry all the way to the house.’
‘I was a dockworker for years. I think I can handle you,’ he yelled back. ‘You’re nothing.’
She was hardly nothing. ‘You just want to prove yourself,’ she muttered—not expecting him to hear.
‘That’s right. It’s the alpha male in me. Isn’t that what you’d say?’ His burst of laughter was such a shocking sound that it silenced her.
She tried not to be mortified, tried not to like this a little too much—but she completely failed on all fronts. She had the most amazing view of his legs, not to mention an intimate appreciation of his incredible strength.
He didn’t climb the steps to the grand entrance of the palazzo but went through one of the arches to the sheltered space beneath.
Once there he finally bent, carefully sliding her down his body until she was back on her feet.
Her skirt was wet through and so thin it slithered up as she slid down.
Which meant she might as well have been naked as she was plastered against his heat and his near nudity.
Breathless, she gazed up at him. She was woozy from being upside down, right?
Not from this hot, wet skin-to-skin contact.
His body suddenly flexed and a bolt of pure electricity shot through her in response.
She quaked—a mini convulsion of excitement that was way too intense and intimate for this moment.
Mortified, she pushed back in the same instant he released her.
Which meant she stumbled. He shot an arm around her waist again immediately.
‘You okay?’
Utterly awkward, she smoothed her skirt down her thighs but it still clung to parts that really didn’t need the exposure. He kept his arm around her as he opened the door and hauled her through. The furious howl of the wind and rain eased as the door slammed behind them.
Mia struggled to regain her breath. It wasn’t right that she was panting when he’d been exerting all the effort.
‘You can let me go now,’ she mumbled.
He looked wired—more virile than ever as his muscles bunched and gleamed in the wet. For a moment she thought he was about to refuse. Instead, he inhaled deeply and stepped away from her.
Good.
Mia shivered—a belated reaction to his impact on her.
‘You’re cold.’ He glowered.
No. She really wasn’t. She reached for an alternate reason. ‘That rain was crazy heavy.’
‘You need to get dry.’ His frown deepened as he stared at her. ‘Where’s your bag? Don’t you have clothes?’
‘I was supposed to go straight back to the airport. I’m on the last flight out.’ So she only had the small purse slung over her body.
‘You’re not making that.’ He shoved his wet hair back from his forehead and spun away from her.
‘I can’t stay here,’ she declared.
‘Not good enough accommodation?’ he muttered.
‘It’s not the accommodation. It’s the company.’
‘I don’t want you here, either, but we don’t have much choice.’
She gritted her teeth. ‘Is that package still out there getting wet?’
‘I don’t care.’
‘I didn’t drag that damn thing all the way here just for you to let it turn to pulp in a rainstorm.’
‘You never needed to drag it here.’
‘How was I supposed to know that when you didn’t tell anyone what you were doing?’
‘You know I frequently work away from the office for a few days at a stretch,’ he said. ‘You didn’t need to come all this way just for me.’
‘It wasn’t for you,’ she retorted. ‘I would go the extra mile for anyone.’
She was not some lap dog leaping to please him.
‘Believe it or not I just want to do a good job,’ she added defensively as he glared at her. ‘I have pride in my work. But you can’t just disappear for days at a time,’ she said, anger still getting the better of her. ‘It’s not fair on your people.’
‘Not fair?’ He looked blank. ‘They know I’m fine.’
‘How do they know that when you don’t bother to communicate with anyone?’
‘Because I always am.’ He cocked his head. ‘Track record.’
‘That’s not good enough,’ she argued. ‘Adele worries about you—’
‘You bothered Adele over this?’ He sounded appalled.
‘Of course not. Paolo gave me a list of ten properties to try after this—’
‘I don’t need you to mother me, Mia. You didn’t need to trouble—’
‘It’s not overstepping for any of us to have concerns about someone’s welfare,’ she argued, losing her shit entirely. ‘It shouldn’t be a Herculean task to let your team know where you’re at. It’s common courtesy!’
It wasn’t okay to just disappear. Her mother had frequently disappeared from her life before her death.
Her father didn’t care enough to even bother.
While Dario had retreated after his accident.
And Oliver had gone silent in his hot and cold games.
But even when there were legitimate reasons, it wasn’t nice to be kept distanced from someone.
Especially with no explanation or notice of when they might return. It was cruel.
Every muscle in Sante’s body flexed but he suddenly stepped back. ‘I’ll go get the parcel.’
Alone, Mia shivered again, thrown by his rapid retreat.
She needed to clear her head but her curiosity mushroomed instead.
She circled, taking in the paintings covering the walls, the intricate tiled flooring, the gleaming furniture.
The room was beautiful. By rights, a suite of uniformed staff ought to appear with everything she could ever want, but she had a fatalistic certainty that she was here alone with Sante.
Not good.
She wasn’t an idiot; she had to stay until the storm passed, but she needed a plan to manage herself around him.
Sante reappeared in the doorway, not holding the parcel but rather a pile of clothes. ‘Follow me.’
She followed, waiting a pace behind as he entered a bathroom and set the pile down before quickly backtracking and carefully avoiding her.