Chapter Three #3
‘Alina speaks Spanish, Sandrine spoke Italian. I’m practically bilingual.
It was English I struggled with when I first worked,’ Zia parried, wondering when she would take the opportunity to tell him about that theft charge that she had suffered back in London.
It wouldn’t be over dinner with an audience, but perhaps when they went sightseeing she would get him alone for a few minutes.
She would need to speak to him but she, certainly, wasn’t looking forward to it.
Suppose that he didn’t believe that she was innocent?
Suppose that he suspected that she was an actual thief?
She watched Orazio chatting. He truly was a devastatingly handsome male, the blonder strands in his caramel hair glinting pure gold below the lights, his green eyes framed by lush black lashes twinkling with amusement, his mouth curling into his easy grin.
Feeling her skin heat beneath Allie’s steady scrutiny, she turned her head away, not wanting her attraction to Orazio to be obvious.
A little while later, she faked a yawn and said it was time for her to turn in, especially as Orazio had mentioned a very early departure in the morning.
Comfortably clad in linen cropped trousers and a vintage band shirt of her own teamed with trainers, Zia had a light breakfast in her cabin and joined the others in the saloon in perfect time to troop down to the launch that would take them to shore.
Orazio looked almost unrecognisable in a baseball cap, a loose white linen shirt and khaki chinos.
Accompanied by a four-strong security presence, they climbed into an air-conditioned luxury people-carrier and got on the road.
In the hills they climbed a rough track up to the early city of Amos and saw the watchtowers and the city gates before standing on the cliffs to admire the view of Kumlubuk Bay and the silvery olive groves surrounding them.
‘I’m not very fit,’ Zia said, still out of breath from the climb.
‘You’ll get there.’
‘You’re not even out of breath,’ she complained.
‘I’m in the gym at five every morning for a workout,’ Raz murmured with amusement. ‘It’s my routine and the only way I keep up.’
They broke the drive in a village where they sat under an ancient plane tree and drank cold apple tea.
And then it was on to Ephesus in the baking heat, their guide awaiting them at the entrance and accompanying them, showing them the points of interest. Orazio, naturally, had visited it all before and answered her every question as they wandered round the Great Theatre where St Paul had once preached.
After that visit, they arrived at the hotel in the mountains and it was a revelation for Zia.
She had never seen a property that rejoiced in that level of opulence before—no, not even after working for years in an exclusive London hotel.
They were ushered to their suites like the most important visitors on the planet.
‘Well, you are,’ Allie pointed out in a helpful aside. ‘This place belongs to Raz. He has many diversified interests and this hotel is his and used only by VIPs. We’re being treated to a fabulous spa session here too this evening. I’ve been here once before as his guest and I absolutely loved it.’
They dined in the owners’ suite before Zia and Allie returned to their rooms to don towelling robes and swimsuits for the spa in the basement.
There they were plunged into the kind of immersive experience that Zia had never had before.
A Turkish bath complete with soaping and pummelling and massaging was the first step, followed by waxing, which Zia was less keen on but which Allie cajoled her into tolerating.
Every treatment available in the beauty sphere was on offer but Zia had already been through endless beauty sessions on the yacht and the concept of hair oils and head massages now left her cold.
Been there. Done that, didn’t long for it again, particularly not after the waxing repeat.
Leaving the blonde to her luxury hair experience, she walked down the stairs into the basement bathing pools and was instantly filled with wonder at the seemingly natural beauty of her surroundings.
They were modelled on Roman baths and built in genuine caves but decorated with contemporary tastes in mind, glowing lights softly illuminating secluded alcoves while water streamed down over marble walls.
It was atmospheric and magical and she descended the steps into the thermal heat of the water with a breathy sigh of pleasure, feeling the heat of the day and the tiredness of all the activity drop away from her.
Orazio watched her emerge from the shadows and his jawline clenched.
He didn’t need to see the Princess in a bathing costume that highlighted every magnificent curve of her perfect hourglass figure.
He had endured a long day, striving not to flirt or react in any specific way to the Princess of Upper Mandovia.
Fiero had warned him off but Allie had been even more blunt.
‘Don’t play with her,’ his friend’s fiancée had warned him.
‘She’s not one of your amoral yes beauty queens.
I don’t think she’s very sophisticated. Keep your distance because you can’t have a fling with her. ’
Solid good sense but, in truth, Princess Annunziata should’ve come with a health warning, Raz reckoned, because he found her unbelievably tempting.
She was pretty as a picture and utterly unspoiled, noticeably different from the type of women with whom Raz usually amused himself.
That natural quality and her lively personality drew him, even though he knew he shouldn’t be reacting that way.
Her honesty was even more hugely attractive to a male unaccustomed to receiving candour from any woman, up to and including his own mother, who had always lied when it had suited her to do so.
He wasn’t ready to get married yet, but Zia was absolutely the type of woman a man married.
A for-ever kind of woman, he reflected uneasily.
‘Raz…’ Zia muttered, taken aback by his appearance and his half-naked state, a pair of swim shorts hanging low on his lean hips showcasing an eight-pack torso that would not have looked out of place on a Hollywood movie star.
She was dumbstruck, staring, watching water droplets roll down his hard muscular pecs, noticing the furrow of dark golden hair leading down over his flat stomach to disappear into the waistband of his shorts and the masculine fullness lower down.
Her mouth ran dry, her breathing shortening in her tight lungs. ‘I didn’t know you were down here.’
‘It’s been a long, hot day. I didn’t think I could sleep without a dip to cool off,’ he murmured smoothly, watching water bead across the pillowy slopes of her full breasts in what was undeniably a very modest suit but which her wonderful shape overfilled in the best way possible.
His desire, his immediate urge to touch, was instantaneous.
It was not at all what he wanted to feel, but that he felt it and that his body was reacting regardless were indisputable facts.