Читать онлайн книгу «The Flaw in His Diamond» автора Susan Stephens
The Flaw in His Diamond
Susan Stephens
What a woman wants…Ultimate Italian playboy Count Roman Quisvada has more notches on his bedpost than…well, bedpost! So when no-nonsense Eva Skavanga arrives on his Mediterranean island with a business arrangement, Roman’s much more interested in the pleasure her smart mouth can bring him.He’s not the sort of man a tender virgin would seek out for her first time, but tomboy Eva is starting to enjoy his attention – it makes her feel like a real woman. Perhaps Roman can help her with more than just securing her family’s diamond mine…? But only if she can keep her heart off the table!‘No-one does feisty like Susan Stephens! Sizzling, sexy stories!’– Sue, 53, Solihullwww.susanstephens.net
‘What do you want most, Eva?’
She exhaled shakily at the sound of Roman’s voice and had to bring herself back to a reality that had expanded beyond her wildest imaginings.
‘I hardly know what I want,’ she admitted honestly. ‘I don’t even know what I can have.’
‘Try to tell me,’ Roman coaxed. ‘Search your deepest fantasies and tell me what you’d like me to do.’
They were standing by the bed. Roman was holding her with his chin resting lightly on her head.
‘You have to spell it out, Eva.’
‘You like to hear it?’ she guessed.
‘Maybe,’ he admitted.
‘Touch me,’ she whispered.
‘I am touching you, Eva.’
Yes, and her bones were melting. But it wasn’t enough. Roman knew that—just as she knew there was more … if she could only bring herself to ask. But for once in her headstrong, outspoken life she couldn’t find the words.
SUSAN STEPHENS was a professional singer before meeting her husband on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. In true Mills & Boon
Modern™ Romance style they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday, and were married three months after that. Almost thirty years and three children later, they are still in love. (Susan does not advise her children to return home one day with a similar story, as she may not take the news with the same fortitude as her own mother!)
Susan had written several non-fiction books when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an after-dinner auction. One of the lots, ‘Spend a Day with an Author’, had been donated by Mills & Boon
author Penny Jordan. Susan’s husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend but a wonderful mentor, who encouraged Susan to write romance.
Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel, and going to the theatre. She reads, cooks, and plays the piano to relax, and can occasionally be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside.
Visit Susan’s website at www.susanstephens.net—she loves to hear from her readers all around the world!
Recent titles by the same author:
DIAMOND IN THE DESERT* (#ulink_6dffe511-ce9d-5211-a62c-969448cc2a0b) TAMING THE LAST ACOSTA** (#ulink_6dffe511-ce9d-5211-a62c-969448cc2a0b) THE MAN FROM HER WAYWARD PAST** (#ulink_6dffe511-ce9d-5211-a62c-969448cc2a0b) A TASTE OF THE UNTAMED** (#ulink_6dffe511-ce9d-5211-a62c-969448cc2a0b)
* (#ulink_d3f6d477-4af8-5b1c-9297-d733b9d40caf)linked to the Skavanga family. Visit their website at: http://www.susanstephens.com/skavanga/index.html ** (#ulink_d3f6d477-4af8-5b1c-9297-d733b9d40caf) all linked to the Acosta family.
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
The Flaw in His Diamond
Susan Stephens
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To everyone in the wonderful team at Harlequin Mills and Boon who make writing so much fun
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#u1e0863d1-73e8-5ba0-b4d1-013c0317f095)
CHAPTER TWO (#udda6948a-4366-5580-9dd4-5a85ae545b1a)
CHAPTER THREE (#u60b601f5-9ed6-5c17-b467-1475e273b6ee)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u8ec97109-9be6-5716-ad5a-a409ef2a0d7a)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
EXCERPT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
‘SO. WHAT DO we know about him?’ Leaning her hands, palms flat, on her no-nonsense scrubbed pine table, Eva glared, first at her older, married sister, Britt, and then at her younger sister, Leila.
Leila’s cheeks flushed pink, though she was used to Eva ranting. Leila’s middle sister was strong. And that was a polite way of putting it. Eva was also one hell of a pain in the neck when she was in one of her campaigning moods as she was now. Leila adored both her sisters, though she sometimes wished Eva could find a man and move out of the family home, taking her emotional pyrotechnics with her. How tranquil would life be then? Leila could only dream. But would anyone take Eva on? Both Leila and Britt had tried to interest the available men in Skavanga in Eva by extolling the many virtues of their firebrand sister, but none of the men had been interested in taking Eva anywhere, unless it was for a game of pool or darts. They had countered Leila and Britt’s glowing recommendations by reminding them about Eva’s famous temper and how loud she could shout, before turning their attention to quieter, more amenable companions.
‘Come on!’ Eva rapped, standing straight and planting her hands on her hips. ‘I need answers here. It’s all right for you, Britt—married to the Black Sheikh, one of the leading lights in the consortium. I don’t expect you to compromise your loyalties by having an opinion. But you, Leila? Shame. On. You. I’m surprised you can’t see that, if we allow them to, the consortium will happily rampage over our polar landscape and then move on. And don’t tell me I’m overreacting. That’s what will happen if one of us doesn’t make a stand.’
That was the thing about Eva, Leila mused as she removed herself to a quiet place in her head. Eva could have an argument all by herself without anyone else even taking part.
‘I won’t let the consortium have everything its own way, even if you will,’ Eva continued heatedly, ‘and before you say a word, Britt, let me make this quite clear. I might have seen our family business stolen from under our noses by three unscrupulous men but, unlike you, I have no intention of sleeping with one of them to make me feel better—’
‘That’s enough,’ Leila cut in with unusual fire. ‘Have you forgotten your sister is married to Sheikh Sharif?’
Shaking her head, Leila smiled an apology on behalf of Eva to Britt, who shrugged. Both sisters were accustomed to Eva’s tirades. What Eva needed was a curb on that temper. Her heart was in the right place, but their sister rarely thought before she spoke—or acted. And that was far more worrying, as far as Leila was concerned.
‘Well, you two are utterly useless,’ Eva exploded as her sisters continued sipping their coffee and reading their newspapers, and generally concentrating on other things as they waited for Eva’s tirade to burn itself out.
Tossing back her flame-red explosion of waist-length curls, Eva picked up the newspaper, her frown deepening as she scanned the latest developments at the mine, spearheaded by the man she had had her knife into since her nemesis, Roman Quisvada, had first shocked her into silence at Britt’s wedding with his swarthy good looks and inflexible manner.
‘Count Roman Quisvada?’ she intoned scathingly. ‘Well, that’s a ridiculous name to begin with.’
‘He’s Italian, Eva,’ Britt murmured patiently as she carried on reading her newspaper. ‘And he’s a bona fide count. It’s an ancient title—’
‘Count? My foot!’ Eva scoffed. ‘He can count how many pickets I’m going to assemble at the mine. That should keep him busy counting!’
‘And I believe he’s quite strong-minded,’ Britt observed mildly, flashing a glance at Leila.
‘He’s the same guy I slammed the door on at your wedding?’ Eva peered at Roman’s image in the press. ‘As I remember it, he didn’t take much scaring off on that occasion.’
‘You can stop rubbing your hands with glee at the thought of taking him on again,’ Leila warned. ‘When you met him at the wedding, it was the door to the bridal suite you shut in his face, so you could hardly expect him to stick his foot in and demand entry.’
‘Anyone would think he’d made an impression on you, Eva,’ Britt remarked as she laid down her newspaper. ‘We’re certainly wasting a lot of time and energy on him if he didn’t.’
Eva gave a scornful huff. ‘I just can’t bear being pushed around, that’s all.’
‘We need the money, Eva,’ Britt calmly pointed out. ‘We must keep the consortium on board. We cannot afford to upset this man. The mine would have gone down without the consortium’s investment, throwing hundreds of people out of work. Is that what you want?’
‘Of course not,’ Eva protested. ‘But there has to be another way—a slower way, a careful way. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve asked this wretched man to meet with me so we can discuss my concerns about the speed of his drilling programme?’
‘Discuss? Or lay down the law?’ Britt demanded, cocking her chin to give her sister a look. Neither Britt nor Leila was frightened of Eva’s outbursts, though, like Leila, Britt did dream of the day when Eva found a man who could provide an alternative channel for her passionate nature.
‘He has to hear the truth from someone,’ Eva stormed. ‘And I speak Italian. So he’d got no excuse not to meet with me.’
‘I believe the count speaks six languages,’ Britt murmured mildly, which resulted in a contemptuous huff from Eva.
‘Well, if you two won’t take a stand, I will.’
‘I knew we could rely on you,’ Britt murmured wryly.
‘Fresh coffee, anyone?’ Leila, who always played the peacemaker, offered. She skirted round her middle sister as if Eva were a stick of dynamite waiting to blow.
But Eva wasn’t finished yet. ‘Just look at this,’ she said, spreading out the local newspaper on the table. The centrefold featured a large photograph of Count Roman Quisvada, while the banner headline shrieked: COUNT RESCUES SKAVANGA in extra bold type. ‘It makes it sound as if he saved us from disaster single-handed.’
‘That’s pretty much what he did do,’ Britt observed, lifting her chin to shoot a stare that curbed her sister’s flow. ‘Quisvada, Sharif and the third man, Raffa Leon, have saved Skavanga. And if you can’t see that—’
‘You don’t even get a mention, Britt,’ Eva pointed out. ‘And you’re supposed to be running the mine.’
‘I am running the mine,’ Britt confirmed. ‘And the only reason they’re making a fuss of the count is because they interviewed him when he visited the mine to see for himself how his orders were being carried out—’
‘When he was too busy to see me, do you mean?’ Eva demanded.
‘He was obviously very busy seeing me,’ Britt confirmed with a shrug and a wry glance at Leila.
‘I’m sure the count was far too busy for distractions on that occasion,’ Leila added gently.
‘Oh, well, thanks a lot.’ Eva chewed her lip as she stared at the photograph of her nemesis in the newspaper. ‘Nice to know I qualify as a distraction. From what I can see in this article, the Skavanga family has been written out of the story altogether. All this female journalist wants to write about is Mr High and Mighty, Count Roman Quisvada.’
‘Maybe because she was interviewing him?’ Leila ventured.
‘Maybe because she was in bed with him,’ Eva countered sharply. ‘I really don’t care. To a man like that any woman is just another notch on his bedpost.’
‘You wish,’ Britt murmured.
‘What was that?’ Eva snapped, rounding on her older sister.
Shaking her head, Britt pressed her lips down, adopting an innocent expression as she exchanged a look with Leila, who was careful to show no emotion at all, in case it fuelled Eva’s fire.
‘He’s a dangerous-looking individual, if you ask me,’ Eva remarked, pushing the newspaper aside.
‘Fortunately, we didn’t ask you,’ Britt said mildly.
‘All hair grease and designer clothes, with a good helping of arrogance and entitlement,’ Eva muttered, sliding a disparaging look at the count’s photograph.
‘Definitely no hair grease,’ Britt argued. ‘I would have noticed that. And secondly, if Sharif trusts the count with his life, then so do I.’
Eva narrowed her eyes as she contemplated, the conflict ahead of her. ‘Well, I, for one, can’t wait to meet up with him again.’
‘I’m sure he feels exactly the same way about you,’ Britt commented, tongue in cheek.
‘I’m sure Eva will see sense, and reason with him,’ Leila put in, clearly eager to calm things down.
‘Reason?’ Britt pulled a wry face. ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it. But just before you apply your version of reason to your exchanges with Roman, Eva, may I remind you that without his money and the money from the other two men in the consortium both our mine and the town would have died by now?’
‘I haven’t forgotten anything,’ Eva assured her older sister. ‘I just can’t understand why he hasn’t stayed here to see things through. Oh, I forgot,’ she added acidly. ‘He prefers to swan around on his private island.’
‘He’s on the island for the wedding of his cousin,’ Britt pointed out.
‘He could still have seen me before he went when I asked him to,’ Eva insisted. ‘If he had explained things clearly, perhaps we could all understand what’s happening at the mine.’
‘Perhaps if you had listened instead of protesting,’ Britt suggested, but gently this time, because no one doubted Eva’s genuine concern for the pristine landscape the new drilling was putting under threat. ‘You can’t expect him to drop everything to attend a meeting with you. He has a life, as well as all his other business interests. There are huge sums of money involved—’
‘Oh, yes, it always boils down to money,’ Eva observed with a dismayed shake of her head.
‘I’m afraid it does,’ Britt agreed calmly. ‘We like to keep people in jobs around here.’
‘That’s all I care about,’ Eva assured her sister. ‘But I also care deeply about a land that has remained unchanged for millennia.’
‘Why don’t you talk to Roman face to face instead of discussing it with us?’ Leila suggested.
‘I’ve tried that.’ Eva pulled a face. ‘He won’t see me.’
‘For all the aforementioned reasons,’ Britt said. ‘But there’s nothing to stop you trying again,’ she pointed out, exchanging a hopeful look with Leila once she was sure Eva wasn’t looking. They had both noticed the chemistry between Roman and Eva at the wedding as they fired angry glances at each other from opposite sides of the aisle. ‘You never know, you might even get on better with him when you meet him again.’
‘That’s hardly likely,’ Eva scoffed, tugging angry fingers through her tangle of red-gold hair. ‘He’s about as ready to listen to a woman like me as he is to eat tacks for breakfast.’
‘You’ll never know unless you try,’ Leila pointed out as Britt got up to give Eva a reassuring hug.
‘Come on,’ Britt cajoled as she drew Eva into her arms. ‘Don’t get so upset about everything. Even you can’t save the world single-handed.’
‘But I can try.’
‘That’s right, you can—at least, your tiny bit of it,’ Britt agreed.
‘Then that’s what I’m going to do,’ Eva mumbled, her face buried in the shoulder of her older sister.
‘What are you going to do?’ Britt said suspiciously, holding Eva at arm’s length so she could stare into her sister’s eyes. ‘Should we discuss this first?’
‘No. I don’t think we should,’ Eva said, sniffing loudly as she took a pace back. ‘No more coffee for me, thank you, Leila. I’ve got a trip to make.’
* * *
He never drank. He chose not to lose control. Ever. He had seized the opportunity during the champagne reception following the wedding ceremony to slip away. Everyone would be getting ready for the party in the evening, which gave him a chance to shower and change, and maybe take a refreshing dip in his pool.
He stopped where he always stopped on the cliff path. It was a place of particular significance to him, for it was here on his fourteenth birthday he had contemplated throwing the gold chain he wore around his neck into the sea. And then maybe he would follow, his youthful infuriated self had seethed impotently.
Thankfully, he had proved stronger than that, and had resisted the teenage impulse to vent his grief in a way that would hurt others as much as himself.
It was a hot day for a wedding. Shrugging off his formal jacket, he opened the neck of his shirt. His hand stole to the slim gold chain. His adoptive mother had given him the necklace on his birthday. That was the same day she explained to him haltingly that his real mother had died, and had wanted Roman to have her only decent piece of jewellery.
That was the first time he heard he had a ‘real’ mother. What else was the woman sitting in front of him? He could still remember his shock and the pain. Discovering his father was not his father, any more than the woman he adored was his mother, had been life-changing. His adoptive father had been furious to discover Roman had learned the truth about his birth, but the damage was done by then. His adoptive father had believed Roman would crumble now he knew the facts. His adoptive mother had argued with this, knowing how strong he was. He was her son just as much as he was the son of his blood mother, and she knew him.
He had stood here on the cliff, fierce as a lion on that day, full of the passions of youth, and then he had stormed home and demanded they tell him the truth—all of it. And so he had learned about his blood father, the count, the drunken gambler who had sold his son to the childless wife of a mafia don in settlement of his gambling debts.
‘You’re not blood so you can’t take over the family business,’ his adoptive father had thought it timely to explain while Roman was still reeling from these facts. ‘But I couldn’t love you more if you were my blood and so you will inherit my island and all my property, while your cousin takes over the business after me. Your job is to protect him—’
It was only then Roman had realised how fast he could turn off his emotions. He couldn’t have cared less about owning an island, or inheriting a vast property portfolio. All he cared about was his life up to now having been a lie. He’d changed on that day. His adoptive mother accused him of becoming distant and aloof. Unreachable, his adoptive father had raged with frustration, hating to see his wife devastated by Roman’s treatment of her.
Roman still carried the guilt to this day and wondered if his behaviour had hastened her death. He would never know, but sometimes he could still hear her gentle voice in his head, insisting that his blood mother had no choice, and that in those days, in their society, women had no choice but to do what the men told them.
Now he thought of those two women, his mother and his adoptive mother, as sisters beneath the skin, looking down on him. His only desire was to make them happy and proud of him.
An alarm on his phone jolted him back to the present. Scanning the screen, he pressed a key. Watching for a moment, he felt a surge of anger. It would take him half an hour to reach the palazzo from here if he stuck to the path, but not if he took a short cut.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE HAD NEARLY reached her destination and paused for a moment to catch her breath. She could see the count’s magnificent home on the top of the cliff, a citadel of power glittering white and menacing in the heat haze. The steep path she was climbing snaked up a white cliff overlooking an azure sea. It might be someone’s idea of a heavenly walk, but she was hot and sweaty and had to keep her mind firmly fixed on her goal and her reasons for coming here so that anger powered her steps.
Having researched the fastest route from Arctic Skavanga to the count’s island, she had unfortunately given rather less thought to local topography, let alone the climate. And a hill was a hill was a hill, anywhere but here, it seemed, where the path to the count’s eyrie was treacherous and packed with slippery shale.
Throwing herself down on a prickly bank, she threw her arm over her face. The sun was like a flaming torch and she hadn’t even thought to bring a bottle of water with her from the plane. There had been very little forward planning. She had rushed into the trip after a furious row with Britt, during which she told her caring older sister to butt out and mind her own business—something she now felt sick and wretched about. Why did she always shoot off her mouth and then spend the rest of her time regretting it?
She had left without apologising, jumping on the first flight out of Skavanga. She caught a connecting flight to the Italian mainland, and from there a ferry to the count’s private island. It was a ferry packed with exuberant wedding guests, all of whom were in a very different mood from her, though they’d got round her in the end. They were all so happy as they headed for what they described as the wedding of the year. She had ended up playing a round of darts with a group of older men, and had scored the winning double. She was one of the boys, they had assured her, patting her on the back as she glowed with pride.
Now she just glowed. All over.
Getting up, she brushed herself down and started determinedly up the cliff again. The closer she got to the palazzo, the faster her heart was beating. She wasn’t frightened of anything or anyone, but just to herself she would admit she was a little bit scared of the count—mainly because she had never met anyone like him before. He’d towered over her at Britt’s wedding, his face tough and battle-hardened. He was older than she was, and Roman centurion rather than Roman effete. She remembered the lips of a sensualist. She’d thought of little else since. His hair was glorious—too long, too thick, too black. Perfect. And his eyes were keen, dark and dangerous. He had a ridiculous amount of stubble on his swarthy cheeks, considering it couldn’t have been long since he shaved when she met him. But it was that something behind his watchful eyes that had intrigued her, because that had hinted at something hidden and dangerous in his past.
She had to stop this. Was she trying to psyche herself out before she had even confronted him? Think fail and you would fail. That was Eva’s motto. Think success, and at least you stood a chance.
He was strong. She was too. She did stand a chance of convincing him to slow down the drilling programme. Quisvada was also obscenely rich, and, though she disapproved of ostentatious displays of wealth, she couldn’t deny a certain curiosity in seeing how the other half lived. All in all, safe had never been an option for her. She needed a challenge like this. She needed to leave the Arctic Circle and test herself in the wider world, and she cared so passionately about the mine this was her chance to prove it. There was no doubt in her mind. She would make Quisvada listen.
Shifting her backpack into a more comfortable position, she continued on up the path, wondering about the fluttering in her chest. What did she have to worry about? She was in no danger from the count. He was hardly her type—
No man is your type.
Having run out of things to argue with herself for the moment, she stopped again. It didn’t help that she was overdressed. Her hectic decision to come here had ruled out sensible planning, so she was pretty much wearing what she had in Arctic Skavanga: boots, jeans, and the thermal vest she had stripped down to. There was even a heavy parka strapped to her backpack. Great, when what she needed here was a pair of shorts, a flimsy top, and an extra large tub of sunblock.
She wouldn’t have had to come if the count had been more reasonable. And was that the real reason, or was this the last-chance saloon for Eva Skavanga as far as men were concerned?
‘Meaning?’ she flashed out loud, then glanced around guiltily to make sure no one had heard her talking to herself. She really was wound up. Meaning, she reasoned as she plodded on, Count Roman Quisvada threw off the sort of confidence that said he would be very good in in bed... Now she had to take a moment to think about that.
Planting her hands in the small of her back, she was forced to accept that she wouldn’t know too much about being good in bed. She wasn’t completely innocent. She wasn’t exactly experienced, either. She’d had a few fumbles, none of which had encouraged her to try the experience again. She frightened men off. If they weren’t limp to begin with, they certainly were by the time she’d finished with them. And then somehow the time for experimenting passed her by. She got too old for it. She missed the boat. She told herself it didn’t matter. She just wasn’t interested in sex.
Until she met the count.
Allowing her backpack to slide to the ground, she rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Lifting her head, she weighed up the gates guarding his lair. They were big, but not so big she couldn’t climb over them. Chucking her backpack over first, she followed, scrambling up the ornamental ironwork like a monkey. They’d told her in the village that with the big wedding on it was unlikely that anyone would be home, which was great for her purposes. It gave her a chance to have a snoop around before the count returned.
She quickly spotted some cameras, but no alarms went off. Lots of people had cameras, but very few were switched on, she’d heard. Undeterred, she started to march up the broad, impressive drive. Bottle-green cypress trees stood on parade on either side, providing some welcome shade, while the neatly groomed gravel crunched beneath her feet. The palazzo was framed against a brilliant blue sky, and with its towers and crenellations, the count’s island home looked like something from a fairy tale. It certainly wasn’t what she had expected. Festoons of purple bougainvillea softened the walls and hung in swags around the windows, while more fringed the top of the impressive front doors. Colour was mostly grey in Skavanga, but here the blaze of colour was a huge assault on her senses—not unpleasant, though the count’s home was certainly a confident reflection of his power and wealth.
Even she had to admit his gardens were exquisite. Colour blazed at her from every side, and there was such an amazing variety of planting. How many people must he employ? she wondered as she ran her fingertips across the immaculate white wall. The count probably had homes like this across the world, she concluded, and none of them could mean as much to him as the simple log cabin she shared with her sisters on the shore of a frozen lake. That was where they had taken their holidays for as long as she could remember. There weren’t many luxuries, but she didn’t care. Thinking about the symbols that defined her, and those that defined the count, she realised they couldn’t be more different.
Having reached the entrance, she raised the heavy knocker and rapped forcefully on the door.
Silence.
Shading her eyes, she peered through the window. They hadn’t been exaggerating in the village when they said everyone would be at the wedding. The palazzo appeared to be deserted. Untying her neck scarf, she mopped the grit and sweat from her face as she decided what to do next. Maybe there’d be someone round the back...
There wasn’t a soul to be seen, but there was a fabulous pool...
‘Hello?’
‘Hello? Is anyone there?’
The rhythmical chirruping of the cicadas was her only answer. Her gaze returned longingly to the limpid stretch of cool, clear water. She was melting and dead on her feet. Surely, a quick dip in the pool wouldn’t hurt anyone?
Dumping her backpack, she stripped off down to her underwear and padding to the edge of the pool, she performed a perfect swallow dive.
Oh...the sensation...the indescribable bliss...
She stayed underwater for a whole length, and then, because the feeling was just so wonderful, she relaxed into an easy freestyle stroke.
‘What the hell?’
The roar hit her out of nowhere. Barely recovered from inhaling half the pool, she somehow made it to the side, where she pressed herself against the blue tiles, horribly aware that she was almost naked.
‘Eva Skavanga?’ the same angry male voice roared.
It was Roman Quisvada! After months of her doing battle with a name, he was standing at the edge of the pool glaring down at her.
‘Yes?’ she called back, putting some force behind her voice. Clinging to what little dignity remained to her as she choked on a mouthful of chlorinated water, she shot a combative look up.
Dear God, his shirt was open to the waist. She had never seen so many muscles. Her body responded instantly, and without the slightest regard for Eva’s feelings. Her nipples tightened. A pulse beat insistently between her legs. Pool water that had only been cool and refreshing was suddenly titillating against her heated skin. The sun beating down on her shoulders was a warm caress instead of a punishment, and the count looked even better than she remembered.
Holding a jacket, slung over his shoulder with his forefinger thrust through the loop, his sharply cut formal trousers clung lovingly to a tight butt and hard-muscled thighs. His shirt was crisp and brilliant white, and he was very big. He was also ridiculously good-looking—if you went for the rugged type. He was ripped. He was tan—
He was madder than hell. She could feel his fury washing over her. And why wouldn’t it, when she’d been a thorn in his side for long enough, and now here she was, swimming in his pool? How the hell was she going to get out of this one?
* * *
The girl in his pool was the troublemaker, Eva Skavanga? Incredible! The alarm at the palazzo was connected to his phone and had warned him of an intruder. The cameras had shown the shadowy figure of a girl climbing over his gates. Reason had discounted the possibility that it could be anyone he knew, let alone Eva. Thank God his instinct had got him back here fast. ‘Get out of my pool now!’
Positioning himself between the slight, pale figure in the pool and the towels left for him to use, he was determined to make her suffer for this intrusion.
‘Could you pass me a towel, please?’ she asked as if he were the pool boy at a hotel.
‘I said get out!’ His voice would have sent grown men scuttling for cover.
Eva just stared at him. ‘I heard you the first time,’ she flared, ‘but I can’t—’
‘Can’t what?’ he rapped. ‘Can’t move? Can’t face me? Can’t think up an excuse for why you’re here?’
Putting her small palms flat on the tiles at the side of the pool, she sprang out lithely. He took in the vibrant, waist-length mermaid hair, the fabulous breasts, the trim figure, long, long legs, and tiny feet.
She stared at him in silence for a moment and then tried to reach past him for a towel.
He stood in her way. ‘When I said I didn’t have time to meet with you, I meant it, Ms Skavanga. What the hell are you doing on my island uninvited? We have nothing to discuss.’
‘That’s your opinion. I’ve come here to change your mind.’
‘I wish you luck with that.’ The water had made her underwear translucent. It left nothing to his imagination where her naked body was concerned. And as she stood confronting him pool water cascaded down her body, highlighting every line and curve. It was even trickling down the crack in her butt, he noticed as she turned away to grind her jaw and tap her foot. Maybe she’d think twice about wearing such a tiny thong next time she planned to invade a stranger’s pool.
‘Please pass me a towel,’ she ground out, turning back to him. ‘They’re just behind you,’ she informed him, tilting her chin at a combative angle.
She could wait. He knew the expression in his eyes offered no reprieve. Eva stared back at him without blinking. Somehow she managed not to fold her arms across her chest during this standoff, though he suspected she dearly wanted to. She needn’t have worried. He wasn’t interested.
Seriously?
As he held her gaze with what was supposed to be disinterest, something unique happened inside him: a slight relaxation of his muscles and a fleeting warmth in his empty heart. He pushed the sensation away, but then the desire to laugh, and not in a cruel way, overcame him. She was just so damn cute.
Until she reminded him icily, ‘A towel? When you’re ready, Count Quisvada.’
‘Certainly, Ms Skavanga.’ He reached for one without breaking eye contact.
Eva Skavanga didn’t have the slightest idea of the effect she was having on him, and long might it remain that way. She was defensive because she thought herself unattractive to men, he concluded. That was why she tried to frighten them off rather than wait for them to push her away. She was a refreshing change. He was used to glamorous, confident women whose sole aim was to insinuate themselves into his life. There was only one thing worse in his opinion, and that was the ambitious parents with a daughter to trade. He was interested in neither option. He would rather live and die a single man than endure some fake arrangement.
‘Thank you,’ she said grudgingly when he finally gave her a towel.
Failure was not an option for Eva Skavanga, and neither was caution, apparently. He had to admit, he liked her style. Maybe he wouldn’t despatch her on the next ferry home, but would keep her here while it suited him. At least while she was here she couldn’t cause trouble at the mine, and by the time he did send her home the work that needed to be done would have been completed.
* * *
This was not what she had planned. This was not what she had planned at all. Being caught red-handed by the count—swimming in his pool, trespassing on his grounds—confronting the man himself, when she might as well have been naked and he was elegantly clothed. It was hardly the surprise encounter she had envisaged when she set off from Skavanga, but of course that was the one where she seized the initiative, while the count was still reeling from his surprise at seeing her. There wasn’t much reeling going on right now.
‘So, Ms Skavanga?’ he demanded. ‘Do you intend to launch a protest at the side of my pool? Or may I continue on into the palazzo, where I can make arrangements for your immediate removal from the island?’
Not reeling. And definitely not in the mood for negotiations. The count was hostile, and embarrassingly unmoved by her all-but-naked body.
‘You can’t have me removed.’
‘I assure you, Ms Skavanga, I can do anything I want to do.’
‘But I’ve come all this way to see you.’ And, damn it, her voice was trembling. She hadn’t expected him to be so aggressive. She had imagined a man with an aristocratic pedigree would soften for a woman. How wrong could she be? ‘Please—’
‘Please, would you forgive me breaking in to your home? Or, please don’t deport me from the island?’ His voice was wholly mocking.
‘Both,’ she managed, angry at his tone.
‘Begging now, Ms Skavanga?’
‘Hardly. I’m merely appealing to your better nature.’ She raised a brow as she spoke, as if to say she realised now how unlikely it would be that he had one.
He might have expected a trespasser to be mortified to have been caught out, or to beseech him with pleading in her voice, and maybe even a few crocodile tears thrown in, all that was reflected in Eva’s face was challenge. So much hung on this meeting with him, according to her, so couldn’t she even manage a climb down this time? Of course she couldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature. And that was half her appeal, he realised. ‘You have a very high opinion of yourself, Ms Skavanga.’
For the first time her gaze flickered. It reinforced his opinion that beneath the braggadocio she was insecure.
* * *
Eva shifted uneasily from foot to foot. In her world she was confident, because people knew her and knew what to expect. She was never intentionally rude to anyone. She was just forceful. At least, that was how she liked to think of it.
Guilt flashed into her mind as she remembered the much-regretted argument with her sister.
And sometimes she was just plain rude, she accepted, but now she must keep the count listening long enough to convince him that the reason she was here overrode anything she might have done to see him. Extracting diamonds from the Skavanga mine at any cost couldn’t be right. But his expression suggested she would have to eat some humble pie, or there’d be no discussion.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to grind out. ‘I realise we’ve made a bad start.’
‘You have,’ he agreed.
CHAPTER THREE
DID THIS MAN get some sort of kick out of humiliating her? Eva wondered as she stood tense and angry by the side of the count’s fabulous pool. She might have learned a lesson in where being reckless led, but she wasn’t about to back down. ‘If it hadn’t been for you accelerating work at the mine, I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Is that what you call recovering the situation, Ms Skavanga? I think you’d better follow me into the house. I’ll decide what to do with you when you’ve had a chance to shower and change into some fresh clothes.’
The last thing she had expected was that he would invite her into his home. ‘Thank you,’ she managed awkwardly.
‘Don’t thank me, Ms Skavanga. Just think of yourself as an inconvenience I don’t intend to suffer much longer. And when I march you out of here, you stay off my property for good. Is that understood?’
Anger flashed through her as the count turned away and started to walk towards the house. She had to stop herself saying something she’d regret. If her concerns for the drilling hadn’t been hanging over her— If the survival of the mine hadn’t been largely dependent on this man—
‘Do you understand?’ he called out.
‘Yes,’ she fired back, scowling.
‘And while you are a guest in my house there will be no door slamming—no temper tantrums of any kind. Do I make myself clear, Ms Skavanga?’
‘Perfectly.’ He was remembering that time at Britt’s wedding when her body had reacted just as violently to him as it was doing now, and because she was so shocked by her response to him she had slammed the door in his face. She’d felt feminine at Britt’s wedding for about five minutes, but the count had changed all that. Fairy-tale bridesmaid into dowdy country bumpkin in no time flat.
‘Please follow me into the house, Ms Skavanga.’
She could play it tough with the guys back home, because they knew her and she knew them, but the count didn’t have the slightest interest in her as a woman, or as a companion. She should be pleased. No. She should be relieved. But being rejected as unfit for purpose wasn’t great.
But if that was how it was going to be, she would keep everything on a business footing. Catching up with him at the door, she offered him her hand. ‘Eva Skavanga—’
He ignored the gesture.
Swallowing her pride, she tried again. ‘I didn’t expect for us to—’
‘Meet like this?’ he interrupted, hostility rippling off him in big, ugly waves. ‘Who would?’
Hostile was far too mild a word to describe the count. And, yes, she’d trespassed on his land, but was that a hanging offence? She’d taken a swim in his pool, but so what? What was the big deal? What was riding the count? What was his problem?
The count exuded power and menace and sex, in more or less equal quantities, and admittedly that was fascinating, but it was also intimidating and she had shivers running up and down her spine. But at least she had accomplished something, if only the fact that she had tracked him down.
‘Well, at least we’re standing face to face,’ she said as he opened the door to the palazzo.
‘Is that meant to be funny, Ms Skavanga?’
‘No. It’s merely a statement of fact.’
‘Well, here’s another fact. Your intrusion in my home is not welcome, and as soon as it can be arranged—’
She pre-empted him. ‘As soon as we’ve talked, I’ll go.’
‘Go where?’ he said, standing back to let her go through the doorway. ‘You really haven’t thought this through, have you? You rushed here to confront me, without any thought at all, because you’ll stop at nothing to get your own way at the mine.’
‘Do you blame me when you will never agree to see me? I had to come here. You might not care about Skavanga or the people who live there, but I do. All that’s at stake for you is your money.’
‘So pumping in my money to keep the town and mine alive, saving people’s jobs along the way, means nothing to you?’
‘You’ll just leave us with a desolate site when you’ve taken what you want.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ms Skavanga. Now are you coming inside or not?’
She couldn’t risk alienating him. Had she forgotten that?
He led the intruder across his spacious orangerie at a rate of knots. He didn’t welcome unexpected visitors to his sanctuary on the island, least of all trouble-making girls with an agenda.
‘I’m not a whinger or a troublemaker,’ she shouted after him. ‘I’m simply concerned about the speed of your drilling programme.’
He stopped dead. ‘Do you have an alternative suggestion, Ms Skavanga?’
She almost cannoned into him.
‘Maybe...’ Her cheeks flushed red when she realised how close she’d come to touching him. ‘I don’t have an engineering background like you,’ she admitted, surprising him with the speed of her recovery. He was also surprised she had done her research. ‘I don’t have as many academic qualifications, either,’ she added, ‘but I do have local knowledge.’
And a good degree, he remembered, wondering why she had never used it.
‘Let me reassure you, Ms Skavanga, that the finest minds have assembled to make this project a success.’
‘The finest minds, maybe,’ she agreed, growing heated. ‘But no one local is involved at a decision-making level, so you run the risk of applying the wrong criteria to your thinking.’
‘What about your sister, Britt?’
‘Britt is just a figurehead—a sop to keep the locals quiet.’
He drew back his head to stare at her. ‘How sad that you don’t know your own sister.’
‘I know enough,’ she blustered, but there was guilt in her eyes.
‘Your sister is an excellent businesswoman. Decisive and clear-thinking, Britt had led the family business in the absence of your parents and her brother, and now she runs the mine for the consortium—’
‘I know all that.’
And he knew Eva had lost the mother who might have softened her at a critical age. Reports said that she now liked to think of herself as a frontierswoman, happier under canvas than in a bed. Or, as others described her, the sister who was all balls and belligerence and a crack shot with a gun. Britt worked for the consortium on merit alone, while Eva had positioned herself against them. Eva didn’t want things to change, and had made it widely known that she believed the future of Skavanga lay in the type of tourism that would preserve and pay homage to her unique Arctic landscape, rather than mining, which could only scar the land. He believed the two could co-exist.
‘Your sister Britt is a lot more valuable to the future of this project than you seem to think. Perhaps you should speak to her.’
Now she looked thoroughly miserable. He’d found her Achilles heel. Eva cared passionately about her family and the mine, more than she cared about herself.
* * *
She was reeling, both at the shock meeting with the count and him inviting her into his fabulous home. They had crossed the gracious glass-walled building opening onto the pool, and had entered a grand, light-filled entrance hall, complete with a sweeping marble staircase that housed a grand piano beneath its curve.
The fabulous setting and the fact that she was wearing a towel had really thrown her. This wasn’t her debating outfit of choice, and she felt even worse about the fall out with Britt since the count had made a point of talking about her sister. She knew what Britt had achieved at the mine and couldn’t have admired her sister more. Why did everything always come out wrong? Why couldn’t she control her tongue for once? For the sake of the mine, she had to try to make amends. ‘All I’m asking for is the chance to talk to you, and then I’ll go.’
A flash of humour lit his eyes. ‘Do I have your word on that?’
‘The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned,’ she fired back, unsettled by his worldly, mocking stare.
‘And what am I supposed to do with you until then?’
‘Listen to me?’ she suggested, lashing out again before she could stop herself.
‘I set the terms, Ms Skavanga. I speak. You listen.’
As the count’s lazy gaze washed over her, every part of her warmed. However much she resented him and his autocratic ways, her body remained incredibly impressed.
‘And now, as much as I have enjoyed talking to you, I have a wedding to get back to. So if you will excuse me, Ms Skavanga?’ He moved towards the stairs.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll still be here when you get back.’
‘Oh? Will you?’
She watched in fascination as he ran strong, tanned fingers through his thick black hair. The count was fiercely masculine. He had just enough polish to keep him this side of barbarian, but it was a close run thing. All the designer clothes in the world couldn’t hide his warrior frame. He’d been born to fight, and it was hard to imagine him in some cosy aristocratic setting—
‘Done staring at me, Ms Skavanga?’
She gave a start. She hadn’t realised she was examining him quite so intently. And that smile was back on his mocking lips. Her throat dried. She was used to straightforward emotions: black and white. She was not accustomed to this level of sophisticated banter. ‘Please don’t let me keep you. I’m quite happy to stay here—’
‘In the hall?’ He gazed around with a sardonic expression curving his firm, sexy mouth. ‘I’m sure you are. But if you think for one minute that I’m happy to leave you unattended in my home? I don’t think so, Ms Skavanga. You’re coming with me.’
‘What?’ Shock raced through her body at the thought of an evening with the count.
‘You’re the last person I’d leave alone in my house. Your reputation precedes you, Ms Skavanga. How do I know you won’t change the locks while I’m away?’
Mock all you like, but I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. But...if she did go with him, someone might be able to give her a room for the night. ‘Fine,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll come down with you when you leave and wait for you in the village.’
‘My same concerns apply,’ he said. ‘I won’t risk you upsetting people. You’re here and I’m responsible for you, which means I’m not letting you loose on any unsuspecting villagers. You’re going to stay close by me where I can keep an eye on you. You’re coming with me to the wedding.’
‘A wedding?’ She laughed. ‘Impossible. I don’t have anything remotely suitable to wear.’
‘Then you will have to improvise. I’m not leaving you here on your own, and that’s final. And I will be leaving the palazzo in half an hour. You need to be ready by then.’
‘But if I could find a bed for the night in the village, surely you would prefer that?’
‘I wish you joy of your search. Every bed is taken for the wedding, and, as I have no intention of letting you out of my sight, you have no alternative but to stay here for the night.’
‘With you?’
‘Well, I’m not going anywhere. Of course, you could return home?’ The count glanced at his watch. ‘If you hurry, you might catch the last ferry.’
‘Do you have any idea how hard it has been to track you down so I can express my concerns to you face to face? Do you seriously think I’m going to leave without doing that?’
The count gave her a look. ‘That is one option to consider.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘In that case,’ he murmured in a mocking tone, ‘my home is your home for the next twenty-four hours, Ms Skavanga. But don’t get any ideas.’ His voice hardened. ‘You leave when I say you leave. And the next item in your diary is a wedding party, and I am never late.’
She flinched at the count’s tone. She wasn’t used to being talked to like that. She drove situations in Skavanga. She did not take instruction. The count’s stare was steady and appraising, and not the least bit amused, when she was more accustomed to good-humoured tolerance of her laddish ways.
‘Roman Quisvada.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ She gazed up, bewildered for a moment as he spoke.
‘Introductions,’ he said. ‘As you’re coming to stay in my home, I think we should at least be civil to each other.’ He took her hand in a firm grip.
The handshake might have lasted no more than a few seconds, but the effect lasted a lot longer.
‘Call me Roman,’ he murmured, staring down at her.
As in emperor? Conqueror?
The count’s stare suggested either description was apt. One thing was sure, Roman Quisvada only accepted one rank, and that was Commander-in-Chief. Where he led others followed. When he spoke others listened. And much as a wolf wouldn’t trouble himself about the ants he trod on, she barely registered a blip on his radar.
Were those black eyes laughing at her again? Arrogant man!
Infuriatingly, her body didn’t seem to care. There didn’t seem to be an insult he could deal her that could stop her wilful body craving him. Or her eyes devouring him, Eva reluctantly conceded. ‘Well, I’m glad I’ve got your interest at last,’ she said coolly, checking her towel was securely fixed.
‘Oh, you’ve got my interest,’ he confirmed as he started to mount the stairs. ‘Though there may come a day when you wish you hadn’t.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Her voice sounded much smaller than she had intended.
‘I’m just letting you know I’ll be watching you.’
Her pulse leapt at the thought, while her mind warned her frantically that this was not a good thing. ‘That’s fine by me,’ she said with a careless shrug. ‘You can waste your time watching me all you want. I don’t know what you think I’m going to do.’
‘Right now you’re going to take a shower and change your clothes, and then you’re going to meet me in the hall.’
She bridled at his orders. And wearing what? A tee bearing the name of an ancient rock band and a fresh pair of jeans? A wedding had been the very last thing on her mind when she left Skavanga, and it certainly wasn’t in her nature to insult the bride and groom by turning up wearing something like that. ‘I’d much rather wait on the sidelines for you.’
‘I’m sure you would. But that’s not how it’s going to be, Eva. We’re going down to the village together, and we’re going to attend the wedding together.’
‘Won’t people ask questions?’
‘And if they do?’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier for you to spare a few minutes to talk to me before you leave for the wedding?’ she suggested, trying hard not to register Roman’s intoxicating, warm and spicy scent.
‘Easy isn’t my way, Eva.’
‘Well, if a wedding’s more important to you—’
‘That’s enough,’ he rapped, shocking her into silence. ‘Shall we both examine our motives for being here, Miss Self-Righteous? I’m here on the island for my cousin’s wedding. What’s your excuse?’
CHAPTER FOUR
THIS MAN DIDN’T just bore out her eyes with his stare. He bore down on her. Physically. Until they were standing just inches apart. Eva tried not to flinch or step back. If she did she’d fall down the stairs. ‘You know why I’m here.’
‘Do I? Do I, really?’ Roman pressed, smiling in a way that chilled her.
‘You should do.’
‘Should I?’
His experience was so far in advance of hers, she didn’t stand a chance. He actually thought there was some other reason for her visit than concern for the mine.
And wasn’t there?
‘Nothing to say?’ he murmured, the light in his eyes making her feel more awkward than ever.
There was a lot she could say, but nothing she was going to share with him. She wasn’t used to being pinned down and made to answer. She wasn’t used to a man staring into her eyes as if he could read her private thoughts. ‘My only reason for being here is Skavanga. I would have thought that was obvious.’
‘To you, perhaps,’ he said with that same disquieting look. ‘Shall we go upstairs, Eva?’
She moved past him into this very different world, and was almost home free when he put out an arm to stop her. ‘You have done your research on the mine, haven’t you, Eva?’
That compelling gaze was far too close and far too dangerous. ‘Of course I have. I grew up with it.’
‘Things change over time.’ Roman shifted position slightly, making a little more space between them, but also reminding her of how intensely charismatic he was. ‘Iron ore and minerals run out, Eva, and without the diamonds the mine is worthless.’
‘Britt said the traditional minerals are close to running out. She didn’t say they had run out.’
‘It’s only a matter of time.’
She shook her head—not just to disagree with this, but to break the disturbing eye contact. ‘They’ve been running out for as long as I can remember.’
‘And this time it’s true.’ Roman stepped in front of her so she had to look at him. ‘The mine has only survived this long because Britt has been holding it together as well as she has. She kept the truth from you and your sister so you didn’t have to worry. But that’s not a situation you and I can allow to continue, is it, Eva?’
Oh, he was good. ‘Britt doesn’t have much choice but to follow the party line now you and the consortium are in control.’
‘Your sister is in full agreement with everything we do. Perhaps you should have asked her about that before you left Skavanga.’
Instead of arguing with Britt as she had. Another wave of guilt washed over her and for once she bit back all the angry words on the tip of her tongue. ‘But, honestly, diamonds? Expensive trinkets? Is it really worth ruining the polar landscape for that?’
‘You have a lot to learn about diamonds, Eva.’
She remained unconvinced. ‘There must be some other way to save the mine.’
‘When you find one, let me know. Meanwhile, you’re welcome to use one of the guest suites.’
‘But we haven’t finished talking yet.’
‘I have,’ Roman said flatly.
And she was in no position to attract a potential landlady while she was dripping wet with a towel wrapped around her.
‘You’ve got twenty minutes, Eva. And then I’m leaving,’ he warned as she jogged past him up the stairs
‘I’ll try not to keep you waiting.’
‘Please yourself. I won’t wait.’
‘Where is this guest suite?’ The palazzo was so huge. She turned back to look at him. ‘Where do you want me to go?’
Roman’s look suggested he’d like to tell her. ‘When you get to the top of the stairs, turn left, and take the last door on your right. You can’t miss it—it’s got a lion’s head handle. And hurry up, Eva, I don’t have all day.’
‘Thank you, Roman.’
Her attempt at meekness earned her a withering look. Lion’s head handle. No doubt the handle on his door was a fist.
Building bridges? Not blasting them sky high...
She felt his gaze following her as she ran up the stairs. Roman was so confident in his masculinity he made her feel awkward and inexperienced, as if all her past failed encounters with men were an open book to him. No doubt he was having a good laugh at her expense. She had left it too long to risk intimacy with a man. She didn’t like to do anything unless she did it well, and intimacy was one skill she didn’t possess.
‘Don’t look so worried, Eva.’
She gasped as he bounded in front of her, taking the stairs two at a time.
‘You couldn’t be safer than you are with me.’
His voice was deep and husky and vaguely amused. He did sense her embarrassment, and he was laughing at her.
So let him. She shrugged as she reached the landing. ‘I don’t know what makes you think I’m worried. I can handle myself.’
‘So I hear,’ he said dryly.
She hated herself for reacting so violently. All the tiny hairs on the back of her neck lifted, and heat pulsed insistently through her veins. The power emanating from him flowed around her, embracing her whether she liked it or not. Her sisters would be amazed to see her shaken like this—when they’d stopped laughing. What was so special about tall, dark and perfect, anyway? Why was her body insisting on behaving like this? Roman was so not her type. He was autocratic and overbearing. He was the most insufferable man she’d ever met.
And the most attractive.
He showed no interest in her as a woman, which was a relief. An absolute relief. But it wasn’t normal. He could at least pretend. That would be the polite thing to do. And weren’t aristocrats supposed to be courteous? Weren’t they all raised to behave differently from other people by ferocious nannies with thick rulebooks on how to behave?
‘Turn left, I said,’ he called out to her.
I knew that. She casually retraced her steps, vowing to keep her thoughts restricted to what she had to do—which did not include fixating on Roman Quisvada.
She checked each door down the long and airy corridor, longing to be safe behind one of them, and away from him, so she could calm down and cool off. Roman had disappeared somewhere in the opposite direction. Good. She’d had enough of Count Roman Quisvada and his sardonic face to last her a lifetime. But look at it this way: she only had to get through tonight at the wedding party. She would just have to bite her tongue.
So long as she didn’t bite anything else, that should work.
* * *
He groaned with pleasure beneath an ice-cold shower. To his overheated skin the freezing water felt like soothing balm. His senses were heated thanks to Eva. She infuriated him. She attracted him, and that was distracting. There was unfinished business between them. Strength and fire had been his first impression of her at her sister’s wedding. His impression of her hadn’t changed, but Eva was more complex than he had first thought. She was elusive and thoughtful, passionate, and doggedly determined. And he had always liked a challenge. Eva Skavanga needed taming or she would continue to plague his mind.
Quitting the shower, he grabbed a towel and rang one of his trusted aides in Skavanga. He needed more detail about her.
‘Mark? I need a briefing. Yes. Eva Skavanga. She’s here. What do you mean you knew that? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
He listened to some rambling excuse and quickly realised that young Mark had fallen under Eva’s spell. ‘Well, now we both know.’ He cut his aide off impatiently. ‘Yes, of course she’s all right. Which brings me to my next question. You seem to be an admirer of this woman. Why? She seems to me to be more trouble than she’s worth?’
‘Don’t write her off,’ Mark advised. ‘Eva’s a hothead and likes to think she’s one of the boys, but she’s got a heart of gold—too trusting, maybe.’
‘Not in my case.’
Mark ignored this. ‘She has her heart set on eco-tourism saving Skavanga. She’s terrified that our mining project will reduce the town to a smoking pile of steel, with panhandlers drinking in the streets and plastic tables and plastic food replacing the cultural traditions of her Arctic home.’ This much Roman already knew.
His young aide was besotted. The thought almost made him veer away from asking the question uppermost in his mind. ‘Didn’t you explain that our work will cause minimal upheaval, and that any damage done will be repaired?’ And that wasn’t all of it.
Mark laughed in an admiring way as his mind turned to a woman it was clear they were both interested in. ‘Have you tried reasoning with Eva?’
‘Enough.’ His voice came out a roar. So much for subtlety. ‘Tell me about her relationships.’
There was a silence as Mark considered this. ‘There are none,’ he said at last on what sounded like a very dry throat.
‘Why is that?’ He didn’t let up the pressure. His hand tightened on the phone. ‘She’s an attractive woman...’
‘Who has half the men of the Arctic Circle racing each other to the South Pole, rather than tangle with her.’
‘I thought they bred them tough at the North Pole.’
‘They do, but Eva Skavanga is a special case.’
‘She has a problem with men?’
‘She has an unfortunate attitude with men.’
Mark was being careful with his choice of words. ‘Explain,’ he insisted.
‘The older sister you know—Britt is confident and a great businesswoman. She’s self-confident, decisive and married now. The younger girl, Leila, is a bit of an unknown quantity, because she’s always been overshadowed by Britt and Eva—’
‘Eva’s reputation?’ he pressed. ‘I’m not interested in the other two. They’re not out here. She is.’
‘Eva’s a loner. Maybe she’s been hurt at some time.’
‘But not so hurt and broken she couldn’t turn up here, break into my house and swim in my pool—’
‘She broke into your house?’
Now Mark did sound shocked. ‘She terrorised me,’ Roman said dryly. ‘Until I agreed to speak to her about her beloved Skavanga.’
‘That sounds like Eva.’
Mark’s voice held the same note of admiration that had annoyed him the first time round and that now made him snarl, ‘That’s enough, Mark. She’s a nuisance at best. Forget I even rang you. I’ll sort her out. And I’ll get rid of her.’
There was a long pause, and then Mark said, ‘She’s staying with you?’
‘Don’t worry. She’s not my type. I’m taking her to the wedding, and that’s all.’
‘You’re taking her to the wedding?’
‘Did I employ a parrot? I’m taking her so I can keep an eye on her.’
As Mark gave a nervous laugh Roman guessed his young aide was in no way reassured as to the immediate fate of one Eva Skavanga. ‘Relax, Mark. I have no immediate plans for her.’ Later perhaps, he mused.
‘If you had allowed me to put her through to you when you were in Skavanga I guess she wouldn’t have made the trip.’
‘You sound worried, Mark. Whose side are you on?’
‘Yours, of course,’ Mark protested, ‘but—’
‘I didn’t avoid Eva’s earlier requests to see me. I ignored them. You should know by now that misguided pleas from emotional women cut no ice with me. Eva’s a small shareholder with no special privileges just because she happens to be a member of the family that gave its name to the mine. I’ll treat her the same as any other small investor, no better no worse.’
But on a personal front?
Taming Eva Skavanga held considerable appeal.
He ended the call, having found out what he wanted to know. Eva was unattached. And doubly intriguing. His thoughts turned to having her passion pinned beneath him. He shrugged and smiled faintly as he ditched the towel. There were sound business reasons for keeping her close. While she was here she couldn’t disrupt work at the mine. Any damage caused by the drilling would be made good, which Eva would have known if she had attended the meetings he’d held in Skavanga instead of picketing them. Now she was trapped on an island with a ferry that operated at his command and he’d send her home when it suited him.
Slinging on a pair of chinos and a clean shirt, he thought about shaving then parked the idea. As an image of Eva’s body flashed into his mind he reached into a cupboard to find a bottle of suncream. This was no godly act on his part. She lived in the Arctic and the sun was strong here. He didn’t want her too sore to have sex with. Giving his thick black hair one final run-through, he glanced in the mirror and imagined Eva’s defiant face glaring back at him. If there was anything he enjoyed more than a tussle with a hot-blooded woman, he couldn’t think what it was. Eva would be his guest at the wedding, and then, just as she had requested, he would give her his undivided attention.
* * *
She had found the door with the lion’s head handle. Thank goodness. This place was like a city. The door was heavy, silky cream, and as she closed her hand around the lion’s head it was a surprising degree of pleasure. Would everything be so tactile here? Including the count?
Stop with the fantasies. She had around fifteen minutes to shower, change and meet him downstairs. All of which might have been fine if she could only stop gazing round like a country yokel. She had opened a door onto a wonderland of art and luxury, functionality and extravagance combined. Like the rest of the palazzo, the decor was discreet yet obviously expensive. Taupe, ecru, ivory and chalky-white, with a couple of showpiece ornaments and a huge unframed painting, picked up the tints of the throw on the bed—
Okay...that unframed piece? The homage to Picasso? On closer inspection she discovered it was a Picasso. The last time she’d seen the painting it had been hanging in a gallery in Stockholm, labelled ‘on loan’ from an unnamed benefactor.
Roman Quisvada lived in quite some style. And grudgingly, she had to admit she liked it. It did surprise her that such a powerful brute of a man lived like this in the home of a discerning connoisseur. The count was an interesting man—in more ways than one.
Dropping her backpack on what was probably an extremely expensive rug, she tried not to draw unnecessary comparisons between the count’s seductive lifestyle and the seductive count. She scrunched her toes appreciatively in the soft wool as she crossed the room to inspect the balcony overlooking the placid azure sea. The scent of blossom was heavy and intoxicating, and she wished she could remain dreaming a little longer as she leaned over the stone balustrades, but the clock was ticking and she still had to shower and dress.
Four doors faced her in the room. The first turned out to be a dressing room, for the guest who had everything, and who was only used to the best. Not Eva Skavanga, that was for sure. The second door revealed a gym. The third, a marble-lined bathroom. Her jaw dropped. And stuck. With its sunken bath and shower big enough for two, the bathroom could best be described as sumptuous. There were enough white fluffy towels for an army, and the water pressure was fierce enough to fill a lake. She wandered back into the bedroom, where she couldn’t resist a few bounces on the mega-sized bed where inviting crisp white sheets still held the faint scent of sunshine, and the throw, with its tints echoing those of the fabulous painting on the wall, reminded her of a fading summer sky. How was she ever going to drag herself away from this?
A sharp rap on the door gave her that answer.
‘Eva?’
She hadn’t even showered yet! ‘Five minutes?’ she yelled back.
‘Not a minute more.’ Roman sounded less than amused.
How would he punish her if she was late?
She absolutely had to stop thinking like that. Even as a joke! She might forget herself and come on to him. She could act tough back in Skavanga, but she was playing well out of her league here.
Drying off after her shower, she twisted her hair into a messy up-do on top of her head, securing it with the single hairclip she had retrieved from the bottom of her pack. It was just a boring old plastic thing that came in a pack of six, but there was no time to dry her hair properly. And right on cue the hammering on the door started again. If she left Roman hanging much longer he’d crash the room.
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Susan Stephens
What a woman wants…Ultimate Italian playboy Count Roman Quisvada has more notches on his bedpost than…well, bedpost! So when no-nonsense Eva Skavanga arrives on his Mediterranean island with a business arrangement, Roman’s much more interested in the pleasure her smart mouth can bring him.He’s not the sort of man a tender virgin would seek out for her first time, but tomboy Eva is starting to enjoy his attention – it makes her feel like a real woman. Perhaps Roman can help her with more than just securing her family’s diamond mine…? But only if she can keep her heart off the table!‘No-one does feisty like Susan Stephens! Sizzling, sexy stories!’– Sue, 53, Solihullwww.susanstephens.net
‘What do you want most, Eva?’
She exhaled shakily at the sound of Roman’s voice and had to bring herself back to a reality that had expanded beyond her wildest imaginings.
‘I hardly know what I want,’ she admitted honestly. ‘I don’t even know what I can have.’
‘Try to tell me,’ Roman coaxed. ‘Search your deepest fantasies and tell me what you’d like me to do.’
They were standing by the bed. Roman was holding her with his chin resting lightly on her head.
‘You have to spell it out, Eva.’
‘You like to hear it?’ she guessed.
‘Maybe,’ he admitted.
‘Touch me,’ she whispered.
‘I am touching you, Eva.’
Yes, and her bones were melting. But it wasn’t enough. Roman knew that—just as she knew there was more … if she could only bring herself to ask. But for once in her headstrong, outspoken life she couldn’t find the words.
SUSAN STEPHENS was a professional singer before meeting her husband on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. In true Mills & Boon
Modern™ Romance style they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday, and were married three months after that. Almost thirty years and three children later, they are still in love. (Susan does not advise her children to return home one day with a similar story, as she may not take the news with the same fortitude as her own mother!)
Susan had written several non-fiction books when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an after-dinner auction. One of the lots, ‘Spend a Day with an Author’, had been donated by Mills & Boon
author Penny Jordan. Susan’s husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend but a wonderful mentor, who encouraged Susan to write romance.
Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel, and going to the theatre. She reads, cooks, and plays the piano to relax, and can occasionally be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside.
Visit Susan’s website at www.susanstephens.net—she loves to hear from her readers all around the world!
Recent titles by the same author:
DIAMOND IN THE DESERT* (#ulink_6dffe511-ce9d-5211-a62c-969448cc2a0b) TAMING THE LAST ACOSTA** (#ulink_6dffe511-ce9d-5211-a62c-969448cc2a0b) THE MAN FROM HER WAYWARD PAST** (#ulink_6dffe511-ce9d-5211-a62c-969448cc2a0b) A TASTE OF THE UNTAMED** (#ulink_6dffe511-ce9d-5211-a62c-969448cc2a0b)
* (#ulink_d3f6d477-4af8-5b1c-9297-d733b9d40caf)linked to the Skavanga family. Visit their website at: http://www.susanstephens.com/skavanga/index.html ** (#ulink_d3f6d477-4af8-5b1c-9297-d733b9d40caf) all linked to the Acosta family.
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
The Flaw in His Diamond
Susan Stephens
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To everyone in the wonderful team at Harlequin Mills and Boon who make writing so much fun
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#u1e0863d1-73e8-5ba0-b4d1-013c0317f095)
CHAPTER TWO (#udda6948a-4366-5580-9dd4-5a85ae545b1a)
CHAPTER THREE (#u60b601f5-9ed6-5c17-b467-1475e273b6ee)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u8ec97109-9be6-5716-ad5a-a409ef2a0d7a)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
EXCERPT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
‘SO. WHAT DO we know about him?’ Leaning her hands, palms flat, on her no-nonsense scrubbed pine table, Eva glared, first at her older, married sister, Britt, and then at her younger sister, Leila.
Leila’s cheeks flushed pink, though she was used to Eva ranting. Leila’s middle sister was strong. And that was a polite way of putting it. Eva was also one hell of a pain in the neck when she was in one of her campaigning moods as she was now. Leila adored both her sisters, though she sometimes wished Eva could find a man and move out of the family home, taking her emotional pyrotechnics with her. How tranquil would life be then? Leila could only dream. But would anyone take Eva on? Both Leila and Britt had tried to interest the available men in Skavanga in Eva by extolling the many virtues of their firebrand sister, but none of the men had been interested in taking Eva anywhere, unless it was for a game of pool or darts. They had countered Leila and Britt’s glowing recommendations by reminding them about Eva’s famous temper and how loud she could shout, before turning their attention to quieter, more amenable companions.
‘Come on!’ Eva rapped, standing straight and planting her hands on her hips. ‘I need answers here. It’s all right for you, Britt—married to the Black Sheikh, one of the leading lights in the consortium. I don’t expect you to compromise your loyalties by having an opinion. But you, Leila? Shame. On. You. I’m surprised you can’t see that, if we allow them to, the consortium will happily rampage over our polar landscape and then move on. And don’t tell me I’m overreacting. That’s what will happen if one of us doesn’t make a stand.’
That was the thing about Eva, Leila mused as she removed herself to a quiet place in her head. Eva could have an argument all by herself without anyone else even taking part.
‘I won’t let the consortium have everything its own way, even if you will,’ Eva continued heatedly, ‘and before you say a word, Britt, let me make this quite clear. I might have seen our family business stolen from under our noses by three unscrupulous men but, unlike you, I have no intention of sleeping with one of them to make me feel better—’
‘That’s enough,’ Leila cut in with unusual fire. ‘Have you forgotten your sister is married to Sheikh Sharif?’
Shaking her head, Leila smiled an apology on behalf of Eva to Britt, who shrugged. Both sisters were accustomed to Eva’s tirades. What Eva needed was a curb on that temper. Her heart was in the right place, but their sister rarely thought before she spoke—or acted. And that was far more worrying, as far as Leila was concerned.
‘Well, you two are utterly useless,’ Eva exploded as her sisters continued sipping their coffee and reading their newspapers, and generally concentrating on other things as they waited for Eva’s tirade to burn itself out.
Tossing back her flame-red explosion of waist-length curls, Eva picked up the newspaper, her frown deepening as she scanned the latest developments at the mine, spearheaded by the man she had had her knife into since her nemesis, Roman Quisvada, had first shocked her into silence at Britt’s wedding with his swarthy good looks and inflexible manner.
‘Count Roman Quisvada?’ she intoned scathingly. ‘Well, that’s a ridiculous name to begin with.’
‘He’s Italian, Eva,’ Britt murmured patiently as she carried on reading her newspaper. ‘And he’s a bona fide count. It’s an ancient title—’
‘Count? My foot!’ Eva scoffed. ‘He can count how many pickets I’m going to assemble at the mine. That should keep him busy counting!’
‘And I believe he’s quite strong-minded,’ Britt observed mildly, flashing a glance at Leila.
‘He’s the same guy I slammed the door on at your wedding?’ Eva peered at Roman’s image in the press. ‘As I remember it, he didn’t take much scaring off on that occasion.’
‘You can stop rubbing your hands with glee at the thought of taking him on again,’ Leila warned. ‘When you met him at the wedding, it was the door to the bridal suite you shut in his face, so you could hardly expect him to stick his foot in and demand entry.’
‘Anyone would think he’d made an impression on you, Eva,’ Britt remarked as she laid down her newspaper. ‘We’re certainly wasting a lot of time and energy on him if he didn’t.’
Eva gave a scornful huff. ‘I just can’t bear being pushed around, that’s all.’
‘We need the money, Eva,’ Britt calmly pointed out. ‘We must keep the consortium on board. We cannot afford to upset this man. The mine would have gone down without the consortium’s investment, throwing hundreds of people out of work. Is that what you want?’
‘Of course not,’ Eva protested. ‘But there has to be another way—a slower way, a careful way. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve asked this wretched man to meet with me so we can discuss my concerns about the speed of his drilling programme?’
‘Discuss? Or lay down the law?’ Britt demanded, cocking her chin to give her sister a look. Neither Britt nor Leila was frightened of Eva’s outbursts, though, like Leila, Britt did dream of the day when Eva found a man who could provide an alternative channel for her passionate nature.
‘He has to hear the truth from someone,’ Eva stormed. ‘And I speak Italian. So he’d got no excuse not to meet with me.’
‘I believe the count speaks six languages,’ Britt murmured mildly, which resulted in a contemptuous huff from Eva.
‘Well, if you two won’t take a stand, I will.’
‘I knew we could rely on you,’ Britt murmured wryly.
‘Fresh coffee, anyone?’ Leila, who always played the peacemaker, offered. She skirted round her middle sister as if Eva were a stick of dynamite waiting to blow.
But Eva wasn’t finished yet. ‘Just look at this,’ she said, spreading out the local newspaper on the table. The centrefold featured a large photograph of Count Roman Quisvada, while the banner headline shrieked: COUNT RESCUES SKAVANGA in extra bold type. ‘It makes it sound as if he saved us from disaster single-handed.’
‘That’s pretty much what he did do,’ Britt observed, lifting her chin to shoot a stare that curbed her sister’s flow. ‘Quisvada, Sharif and the third man, Raffa Leon, have saved Skavanga. And if you can’t see that—’
‘You don’t even get a mention, Britt,’ Eva pointed out. ‘And you’re supposed to be running the mine.’
‘I am running the mine,’ Britt confirmed. ‘And the only reason they’re making a fuss of the count is because they interviewed him when he visited the mine to see for himself how his orders were being carried out—’
‘When he was too busy to see me, do you mean?’ Eva demanded.
‘He was obviously very busy seeing me,’ Britt confirmed with a shrug and a wry glance at Leila.
‘I’m sure the count was far too busy for distractions on that occasion,’ Leila added gently.
‘Oh, well, thanks a lot.’ Eva chewed her lip as she stared at the photograph of her nemesis in the newspaper. ‘Nice to know I qualify as a distraction. From what I can see in this article, the Skavanga family has been written out of the story altogether. All this female journalist wants to write about is Mr High and Mighty, Count Roman Quisvada.’
‘Maybe because she was interviewing him?’ Leila ventured.
‘Maybe because she was in bed with him,’ Eva countered sharply. ‘I really don’t care. To a man like that any woman is just another notch on his bedpost.’
‘You wish,’ Britt murmured.
‘What was that?’ Eva snapped, rounding on her older sister.
Shaking her head, Britt pressed her lips down, adopting an innocent expression as she exchanged a look with Leila, who was careful to show no emotion at all, in case it fuelled Eva’s fire.
‘He’s a dangerous-looking individual, if you ask me,’ Eva remarked, pushing the newspaper aside.
‘Fortunately, we didn’t ask you,’ Britt said mildly.
‘All hair grease and designer clothes, with a good helping of arrogance and entitlement,’ Eva muttered, sliding a disparaging look at the count’s photograph.
‘Definitely no hair grease,’ Britt argued. ‘I would have noticed that. And secondly, if Sharif trusts the count with his life, then so do I.’
Eva narrowed her eyes as she contemplated, the conflict ahead of her. ‘Well, I, for one, can’t wait to meet up with him again.’
‘I’m sure he feels exactly the same way about you,’ Britt commented, tongue in cheek.
‘I’m sure Eva will see sense, and reason with him,’ Leila put in, clearly eager to calm things down.
‘Reason?’ Britt pulled a wry face. ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it. But just before you apply your version of reason to your exchanges with Roman, Eva, may I remind you that without his money and the money from the other two men in the consortium both our mine and the town would have died by now?’
‘I haven’t forgotten anything,’ Eva assured her older sister. ‘I just can’t understand why he hasn’t stayed here to see things through. Oh, I forgot,’ she added acidly. ‘He prefers to swan around on his private island.’
‘He’s on the island for the wedding of his cousin,’ Britt pointed out.
‘He could still have seen me before he went when I asked him to,’ Eva insisted. ‘If he had explained things clearly, perhaps we could all understand what’s happening at the mine.’
‘Perhaps if you had listened instead of protesting,’ Britt suggested, but gently this time, because no one doubted Eva’s genuine concern for the pristine landscape the new drilling was putting under threat. ‘You can’t expect him to drop everything to attend a meeting with you. He has a life, as well as all his other business interests. There are huge sums of money involved—’
‘Oh, yes, it always boils down to money,’ Eva observed with a dismayed shake of her head.
‘I’m afraid it does,’ Britt agreed calmly. ‘We like to keep people in jobs around here.’
‘That’s all I care about,’ Eva assured her sister. ‘But I also care deeply about a land that has remained unchanged for millennia.’
‘Why don’t you talk to Roman face to face instead of discussing it with us?’ Leila suggested.
‘I’ve tried that.’ Eva pulled a face. ‘He won’t see me.’
‘For all the aforementioned reasons,’ Britt said. ‘But there’s nothing to stop you trying again,’ she pointed out, exchanging a hopeful look with Leila once she was sure Eva wasn’t looking. They had both noticed the chemistry between Roman and Eva at the wedding as they fired angry glances at each other from opposite sides of the aisle. ‘You never know, you might even get on better with him when you meet him again.’
‘That’s hardly likely,’ Eva scoffed, tugging angry fingers through her tangle of red-gold hair. ‘He’s about as ready to listen to a woman like me as he is to eat tacks for breakfast.’
‘You’ll never know unless you try,’ Leila pointed out as Britt got up to give Eva a reassuring hug.
‘Come on,’ Britt cajoled as she drew Eva into her arms. ‘Don’t get so upset about everything. Even you can’t save the world single-handed.’
‘But I can try.’
‘That’s right, you can—at least, your tiny bit of it,’ Britt agreed.
‘Then that’s what I’m going to do,’ Eva mumbled, her face buried in the shoulder of her older sister.
‘What are you going to do?’ Britt said suspiciously, holding Eva at arm’s length so she could stare into her sister’s eyes. ‘Should we discuss this first?’
‘No. I don’t think we should,’ Eva said, sniffing loudly as she took a pace back. ‘No more coffee for me, thank you, Leila. I’ve got a trip to make.’
* * *
He never drank. He chose not to lose control. Ever. He had seized the opportunity during the champagne reception following the wedding ceremony to slip away. Everyone would be getting ready for the party in the evening, which gave him a chance to shower and change, and maybe take a refreshing dip in his pool.
He stopped where he always stopped on the cliff path. It was a place of particular significance to him, for it was here on his fourteenth birthday he had contemplated throwing the gold chain he wore around his neck into the sea. And then maybe he would follow, his youthful infuriated self had seethed impotently.
Thankfully, he had proved stronger than that, and had resisted the teenage impulse to vent his grief in a way that would hurt others as much as himself.
It was a hot day for a wedding. Shrugging off his formal jacket, he opened the neck of his shirt. His hand stole to the slim gold chain. His adoptive mother had given him the necklace on his birthday. That was the same day she explained to him haltingly that his real mother had died, and had wanted Roman to have her only decent piece of jewellery.
That was the first time he heard he had a ‘real’ mother. What else was the woman sitting in front of him? He could still remember his shock and the pain. Discovering his father was not his father, any more than the woman he adored was his mother, had been life-changing. His adoptive father had been furious to discover Roman had learned the truth about his birth, but the damage was done by then. His adoptive father had believed Roman would crumble now he knew the facts. His adoptive mother had argued with this, knowing how strong he was. He was her son just as much as he was the son of his blood mother, and she knew him.
He had stood here on the cliff, fierce as a lion on that day, full of the passions of youth, and then he had stormed home and demanded they tell him the truth—all of it. And so he had learned about his blood father, the count, the drunken gambler who had sold his son to the childless wife of a mafia don in settlement of his gambling debts.
‘You’re not blood so you can’t take over the family business,’ his adoptive father had thought it timely to explain while Roman was still reeling from these facts. ‘But I couldn’t love you more if you were my blood and so you will inherit my island and all my property, while your cousin takes over the business after me. Your job is to protect him—’
It was only then Roman had realised how fast he could turn off his emotions. He couldn’t have cared less about owning an island, or inheriting a vast property portfolio. All he cared about was his life up to now having been a lie. He’d changed on that day. His adoptive mother accused him of becoming distant and aloof. Unreachable, his adoptive father had raged with frustration, hating to see his wife devastated by Roman’s treatment of her.
Roman still carried the guilt to this day and wondered if his behaviour had hastened her death. He would never know, but sometimes he could still hear her gentle voice in his head, insisting that his blood mother had no choice, and that in those days, in their society, women had no choice but to do what the men told them.
Now he thought of those two women, his mother and his adoptive mother, as sisters beneath the skin, looking down on him. His only desire was to make them happy and proud of him.
An alarm on his phone jolted him back to the present. Scanning the screen, he pressed a key. Watching for a moment, he felt a surge of anger. It would take him half an hour to reach the palazzo from here if he stuck to the path, but not if he took a short cut.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE HAD NEARLY reached her destination and paused for a moment to catch her breath. She could see the count’s magnificent home on the top of the cliff, a citadel of power glittering white and menacing in the heat haze. The steep path she was climbing snaked up a white cliff overlooking an azure sea. It might be someone’s idea of a heavenly walk, but she was hot and sweaty and had to keep her mind firmly fixed on her goal and her reasons for coming here so that anger powered her steps.
Having researched the fastest route from Arctic Skavanga to the count’s island, she had unfortunately given rather less thought to local topography, let alone the climate. And a hill was a hill was a hill, anywhere but here, it seemed, where the path to the count’s eyrie was treacherous and packed with slippery shale.
Throwing herself down on a prickly bank, she threw her arm over her face. The sun was like a flaming torch and she hadn’t even thought to bring a bottle of water with her from the plane. There had been very little forward planning. She had rushed into the trip after a furious row with Britt, during which she told her caring older sister to butt out and mind her own business—something she now felt sick and wretched about. Why did she always shoot off her mouth and then spend the rest of her time regretting it?
She had left without apologising, jumping on the first flight out of Skavanga. She caught a connecting flight to the Italian mainland, and from there a ferry to the count’s private island. It was a ferry packed with exuberant wedding guests, all of whom were in a very different mood from her, though they’d got round her in the end. They were all so happy as they headed for what they described as the wedding of the year. She had ended up playing a round of darts with a group of older men, and had scored the winning double. She was one of the boys, they had assured her, patting her on the back as she glowed with pride.
Now she just glowed. All over.
Getting up, she brushed herself down and started determinedly up the cliff again. The closer she got to the palazzo, the faster her heart was beating. She wasn’t frightened of anything or anyone, but just to herself she would admit she was a little bit scared of the count—mainly because she had never met anyone like him before. He’d towered over her at Britt’s wedding, his face tough and battle-hardened. He was older than she was, and Roman centurion rather than Roman effete. She remembered the lips of a sensualist. She’d thought of little else since. His hair was glorious—too long, too thick, too black. Perfect. And his eyes were keen, dark and dangerous. He had a ridiculous amount of stubble on his swarthy cheeks, considering it couldn’t have been long since he shaved when she met him. But it was that something behind his watchful eyes that had intrigued her, because that had hinted at something hidden and dangerous in his past.
She had to stop this. Was she trying to psyche herself out before she had even confronted him? Think fail and you would fail. That was Eva’s motto. Think success, and at least you stood a chance.
He was strong. She was too. She did stand a chance of convincing him to slow down the drilling programme. Quisvada was also obscenely rich, and, though she disapproved of ostentatious displays of wealth, she couldn’t deny a certain curiosity in seeing how the other half lived. All in all, safe had never been an option for her. She needed a challenge like this. She needed to leave the Arctic Circle and test herself in the wider world, and she cared so passionately about the mine this was her chance to prove it. There was no doubt in her mind. She would make Quisvada listen.
Shifting her backpack into a more comfortable position, she continued on up the path, wondering about the fluttering in her chest. What did she have to worry about? She was in no danger from the count. He was hardly her type—
No man is your type.
Having run out of things to argue with herself for the moment, she stopped again. It didn’t help that she was overdressed. Her hectic decision to come here had ruled out sensible planning, so she was pretty much wearing what she had in Arctic Skavanga: boots, jeans, and the thermal vest she had stripped down to. There was even a heavy parka strapped to her backpack. Great, when what she needed here was a pair of shorts, a flimsy top, and an extra large tub of sunblock.
She wouldn’t have had to come if the count had been more reasonable. And was that the real reason, or was this the last-chance saloon for Eva Skavanga as far as men were concerned?
‘Meaning?’ she flashed out loud, then glanced around guiltily to make sure no one had heard her talking to herself. She really was wound up. Meaning, she reasoned as she plodded on, Count Roman Quisvada threw off the sort of confidence that said he would be very good in in bed... Now she had to take a moment to think about that.
Planting her hands in the small of her back, she was forced to accept that she wouldn’t know too much about being good in bed. She wasn’t completely innocent. She wasn’t exactly experienced, either. She’d had a few fumbles, none of which had encouraged her to try the experience again. She frightened men off. If they weren’t limp to begin with, they certainly were by the time she’d finished with them. And then somehow the time for experimenting passed her by. She got too old for it. She missed the boat. She told herself it didn’t matter. She just wasn’t interested in sex.
Until she met the count.
Allowing her backpack to slide to the ground, she rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Lifting her head, she weighed up the gates guarding his lair. They were big, but not so big she couldn’t climb over them. Chucking her backpack over first, she followed, scrambling up the ornamental ironwork like a monkey. They’d told her in the village that with the big wedding on it was unlikely that anyone would be home, which was great for her purposes. It gave her a chance to have a snoop around before the count returned.
She quickly spotted some cameras, but no alarms went off. Lots of people had cameras, but very few were switched on, she’d heard. Undeterred, she started to march up the broad, impressive drive. Bottle-green cypress trees stood on parade on either side, providing some welcome shade, while the neatly groomed gravel crunched beneath her feet. The palazzo was framed against a brilliant blue sky, and with its towers and crenellations, the count’s island home looked like something from a fairy tale. It certainly wasn’t what she had expected. Festoons of purple bougainvillea softened the walls and hung in swags around the windows, while more fringed the top of the impressive front doors. Colour was mostly grey in Skavanga, but here the blaze of colour was a huge assault on her senses—not unpleasant, though the count’s home was certainly a confident reflection of his power and wealth.
Even she had to admit his gardens were exquisite. Colour blazed at her from every side, and there was such an amazing variety of planting. How many people must he employ? she wondered as she ran her fingertips across the immaculate white wall. The count probably had homes like this across the world, she concluded, and none of them could mean as much to him as the simple log cabin she shared with her sisters on the shore of a frozen lake. That was where they had taken their holidays for as long as she could remember. There weren’t many luxuries, but she didn’t care. Thinking about the symbols that defined her, and those that defined the count, she realised they couldn’t be more different.
Having reached the entrance, she raised the heavy knocker and rapped forcefully on the door.
Silence.
Shading her eyes, she peered through the window. They hadn’t been exaggerating in the village when they said everyone would be at the wedding. The palazzo appeared to be deserted. Untying her neck scarf, she mopped the grit and sweat from her face as she decided what to do next. Maybe there’d be someone round the back...
There wasn’t a soul to be seen, but there was a fabulous pool...
‘Hello?’
‘Hello? Is anyone there?’
The rhythmical chirruping of the cicadas was her only answer. Her gaze returned longingly to the limpid stretch of cool, clear water. She was melting and dead on her feet. Surely, a quick dip in the pool wouldn’t hurt anyone?
Dumping her backpack, she stripped off down to her underwear and padding to the edge of the pool, she performed a perfect swallow dive.
Oh...the sensation...the indescribable bliss...
She stayed underwater for a whole length, and then, because the feeling was just so wonderful, she relaxed into an easy freestyle stroke.
‘What the hell?’
The roar hit her out of nowhere. Barely recovered from inhaling half the pool, she somehow made it to the side, where she pressed herself against the blue tiles, horribly aware that she was almost naked.
‘Eva Skavanga?’ the same angry male voice roared.
It was Roman Quisvada! After months of her doing battle with a name, he was standing at the edge of the pool glaring down at her.
‘Yes?’ she called back, putting some force behind her voice. Clinging to what little dignity remained to her as she choked on a mouthful of chlorinated water, she shot a combative look up.
Dear God, his shirt was open to the waist. She had never seen so many muscles. Her body responded instantly, and without the slightest regard for Eva’s feelings. Her nipples tightened. A pulse beat insistently between her legs. Pool water that had only been cool and refreshing was suddenly titillating against her heated skin. The sun beating down on her shoulders was a warm caress instead of a punishment, and the count looked even better than she remembered.
Holding a jacket, slung over his shoulder with his forefinger thrust through the loop, his sharply cut formal trousers clung lovingly to a tight butt and hard-muscled thighs. His shirt was crisp and brilliant white, and he was very big. He was also ridiculously good-looking—if you went for the rugged type. He was ripped. He was tan—
He was madder than hell. She could feel his fury washing over her. And why wouldn’t it, when she’d been a thorn in his side for long enough, and now here she was, swimming in his pool? How the hell was she going to get out of this one?
* * *
The girl in his pool was the troublemaker, Eva Skavanga? Incredible! The alarm at the palazzo was connected to his phone and had warned him of an intruder. The cameras had shown the shadowy figure of a girl climbing over his gates. Reason had discounted the possibility that it could be anyone he knew, let alone Eva. Thank God his instinct had got him back here fast. ‘Get out of my pool now!’
Positioning himself between the slight, pale figure in the pool and the towels left for him to use, he was determined to make her suffer for this intrusion.
‘Could you pass me a towel, please?’ she asked as if he were the pool boy at a hotel.
‘I said get out!’ His voice would have sent grown men scuttling for cover.
Eva just stared at him. ‘I heard you the first time,’ she flared, ‘but I can’t—’
‘Can’t what?’ he rapped. ‘Can’t move? Can’t face me? Can’t think up an excuse for why you’re here?’
Putting her small palms flat on the tiles at the side of the pool, she sprang out lithely. He took in the vibrant, waist-length mermaid hair, the fabulous breasts, the trim figure, long, long legs, and tiny feet.
She stared at him in silence for a moment and then tried to reach past him for a towel.
He stood in her way. ‘When I said I didn’t have time to meet with you, I meant it, Ms Skavanga. What the hell are you doing on my island uninvited? We have nothing to discuss.’
‘That’s your opinion. I’ve come here to change your mind.’
‘I wish you luck with that.’ The water had made her underwear translucent. It left nothing to his imagination where her naked body was concerned. And as she stood confronting him pool water cascaded down her body, highlighting every line and curve. It was even trickling down the crack in her butt, he noticed as she turned away to grind her jaw and tap her foot. Maybe she’d think twice about wearing such a tiny thong next time she planned to invade a stranger’s pool.
‘Please pass me a towel,’ she ground out, turning back to him. ‘They’re just behind you,’ she informed him, tilting her chin at a combative angle.
She could wait. He knew the expression in his eyes offered no reprieve. Eva stared back at him without blinking. Somehow she managed not to fold her arms across her chest during this standoff, though he suspected she dearly wanted to. She needn’t have worried. He wasn’t interested.
Seriously?
As he held her gaze with what was supposed to be disinterest, something unique happened inside him: a slight relaxation of his muscles and a fleeting warmth in his empty heart. He pushed the sensation away, but then the desire to laugh, and not in a cruel way, overcame him. She was just so damn cute.
Until she reminded him icily, ‘A towel? When you’re ready, Count Quisvada.’
‘Certainly, Ms Skavanga.’ He reached for one without breaking eye contact.
Eva Skavanga didn’t have the slightest idea of the effect she was having on him, and long might it remain that way. She was defensive because she thought herself unattractive to men, he concluded. That was why she tried to frighten them off rather than wait for them to push her away. She was a refreshing change. He was used to glamorous, confident women whose sole aim was to insinuate themselves into his life. There was only one thing worse in his opinion, and that was the ambitious parents with a daughter to trade. He was interested in neither option. He would rather live and die a single man than endure some fake arrangement.
‘Thank you,’ she said grudgingly when he finally gave her a towel.
Failure was not an option for Eva Skavanga, and neither was caution, apparently. He had to admit, he liked her style. Maybe he wouldn’t despatch her on the next ferry home, but would keep her here while it suited him. At least while she was here she couldn’t cause trouble at the mine, and by the time he did send her home the work that needed to be done would have been completed.
* * *
This was not what she had planned. This was not what she had planned at all. Being caught red-handed by the count—swimming in his pool, trespassing on his grounds—confronting the man himself, when she might as well have been naked and he was elegantly clothed. It was hardly the surprise encounter she had envisaged when she set off from Skavanga, but of course that was the one where she seized the initiative, while the count was still reeling from his surprise at seeing her. There wasn’t much reeling going on right now.
‘So, Ms Skavanga?’ he demanded. ‘Do you intend to launch a protest at the side of my pool? Or may I continue on into the palazzo, where I can make arrangements for your immediate removal from the island?’
Not reeling. And definitely not in the mood for negotiations. The count was hostile, and embarrassingly unmoved by her all-but-naked body.
‘You can’t have me removed.’
‘I assure you, Ms Skavanga, I can do anything I want to do.’
‘But I’ve come all this way to see you.’ And, damn it, her voice was trembling. She hadn’t expected him to be so aggressive. She had imagined a man with an aristocratic pedigree would soften for a woman. How wrong could she be? ‘Please—’
‘Please, would you forgive me breaking in to your home? Or, please don’t deport me from the island?’ His voice was wholly mocking.
‘Both,’ she managed, angry at his tone.
‘Begging now, Ms Skavanga?’
‘Hardly. I’m merely appealing to your better nature.’ She raised a brow as she spoke, as if to say she realised now how unlikely it would be that he had one.
He might have expected a trespasser to be mortified to have been caught out, or to beseech him with pleading in her voice, and maybe even a few crocodile tears thrown in, all that was reflected in Eva’s face was challenge. So much hung on this meeting with him, according to her, so couldn’t she even manage a climb down this time? Of course she couldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature. And that was half her appeal, he realised. ‘You have a very high opinion of yourself, Ms Skavanga.’
For the first time her gaze flickered. It reinforced his opinion that beneath the braggadocio she was insecure.
* * *
Eva shifted uneasily from foot to foot. In her world she was confident, because people knew her and knew what to expect. She was never intentionally rude to anyone. She was just forceful. At least, that was how she liked to think of it.
Guilt flashed into her mind as she remembered the much-regretted argument with her sister.
And sometimes she was just plain rude, she accepted, but now she must keep the count listening long enough to convince him that the reason she was here overrode anything she might have done to see him. Extracting diamonds from the Skavanga mine at any cost couldn’t be right. But his expression suggested she would have to eat some humble pie, or there’d be no discussion.
‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to grind out. ‘I realise we’ve made a bad start.’
‘You have,’ he agreed.
CHAPTER THREE
DID THIS MAN get some sort of kick out of humiliating her? Eva wondered as she stood tense and angry by the side of the count’s fabulous pool. She might have learned a lesson in where being reckless led, but she wasn’t about to back down. ‘If it hadn’t been for you accelerating work at the mine, I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Is that what you call recovering the situation, Ms Skavanga? I think you’d better follow me into the house. I’ll decide what to do with you when you’ve had a chance to shower and change into some fresh clothes.’
The last thing she had expected was that he would invite her into his home. ‘Thank you,’ she managed awkwardly.
‘Don’t thank me, Ms Skavanga. Just think of yourself as an inconvenience I don’t intend to suffer much longer. And when I march you out of here, you stay off my property for good. Is that understood?’
Anger flashed through her as the count turned away and started to walk towards the house. She had to stop herself saying something she’d regret. If her concerns for the drilling hadn’t been hanging over her— If the survival of the mine hadn’t been largely dependent on this man—
‘Do you understand?’ he called out.
‘Yes,’ she fired back, scowling.
‘And while you are a guest in my house there will be no door slamming—no temper tantrums of any kind. Do I make myself clear, Ms Skavanga?’
‘Perfectly.’ He was remembering that time at Britt’s wedding when her body had reacted just as violently to him as it was doing now, and because she was so shocked by her response to him she had slammed the door in his face. She’d felt feminine at Britt’s wedding for about five minutes, but the count had changed all that. Fairy-tale bridesmaid into dowdy country bumpkin in no time flat.
‘Please follow me into the house, Ms Skavanga.’
She could play it tough with the guys back home, because they knew her and she knew them, but the count didn’t have the slightest interest in her as a woman, or as a companion. She should be pleased. No. She should be relieved. But being rejected as unfit for purpose wasn’t great.
But if that was how it was going to be, she would keep everything on a business footing. Catching up with him at the door, she offered him her hand. ‘Eva Skavanga—’
He ignored the gesture.
Swallowing her pride, she tried again. ‘I didn’t expect for us to—’
‘Meet like this?’ he interrupted, hostility rippling off him in big, ugly waves. ‘Who would?’
Hostile was far too mild a word to describe the count. And, yes, she’d trespassed on his land, but was that a hanging offence? She’d taken a swim in his pool, but so what? What was the big deal? What was riding the count? What was his problem?
The count exuded power and menace and sex, in more or less equal quantities, and admittedly that was fascinating, but it was also intimidating and she had shivers running up and down her spine. But at least she had accomplished something, if only the fact that she had tracked him down.
‘Well, at least we’re standing face to face,’ she said as he opened the door to the palazzo.
‘Is that meant to be funny, Ms Skavanga?’
‘No. It’s merely a statement of fact.’
‘Well, here’s another fact. Your intrusion in my home is not welcome, and as soon as it can be arranged—’
She pre-empted him. ‘As soon as we’ve talked, I’ll go.’
‘Go where?’ he said, standing back to let her go through the doorway. ‘You really haven’t thought this through, have you? You rushed here to confront me, without any thought at all, because you’ll stop at nothing to get your own way at the mine.’
‘Do you blame me when you will never agree to see me? I had to come here. You might not care about Skavanga or the people who live there, but I do. All that’s at stake for you is your money.’
‘So pumping in my money to keep the town and mine alive, saving people’s jobs along the way, means nothing to you?’
‘You’ll just leave us with a desolate site when you’ve taken what you want.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ms Skavanga. Now are you coming inside or not?’
She couldn’t risk alienating him. Had she forgotten that?
He led the intruder across his spacious orangerie at a rate of knots. He didn’t welcome unexpected visitors to his sanctuary on the island, least of all trouble-making girls with an agenda.
‘I’m not a whinger or a troublemaker,’ she shouted after him. ‘I’m simply concerned about the speed of your drilling programme.’
He stopped dead. ‘Do you have an alternative suggestion, Ms Skavanga?’
She almost cannoned into him.
‘Maybe...’ Her cheeks flushed red when she realised how close she’d come to touching him. ‘I don’t have an engineering background like you,’ she admitted, surprising him with the speed of her recovery. He was also surprised she had done her research. ‘I don’t have as many academic qualifications, either,’ she added, ‘but I do have local knowledge.’
And a good degree, he remembered, wondering why she had never used it.
‘Let me reassure you, Ms Skavanga, that the finest minds have assembled to make this project a success.’
‘The finest minds, maybe,’ she agreed, growing heated. ‘But no one local is involved at a decision-making level, so you run the risk of applying the wrong criteria to your thinking.’
‘What about your sister, Britt?’
‘Britt is just a figurehead—a sop to keep the locals quiet.’
He drew back his head to stare at her. ‘How sad that you don’t know your own sister.’
‘I know enough,’ she blustered, but there was guilt in her eyes.
‘Your sister is an excellent businesswoman. Decisive and clear-thinking, Britt had led the family business in the absence of your parents and her brother, and now she runs the mine for the consortium—’
‘I know all that.’
And he knew Eva had lost the mother who might have softened her at a critical age. Reports said that she now liked to think of herself as a frontierswoman, happier under canvas than in a bed. Or, as others described her, the sister who was all balls and belligerence and a crack shot with a gun. Britt worked for the consortium on merit alone, while Eva had positioned herself against them. Eva didn’t want things to change, and had made it widely known that she believed the future of Skavanga lay in the type of tourism that would preserve and pay homage to her unique Arctic landscape, rather than mining, which could only scar the land. He believed the two could co-exist.
‘Your sister Britt is a lot more valuable to the future of this project than you seem to think. Perhaps you should speak to her.’
Now she looked thoroughly miserable. He’d found her Achilles heel. Eva cared passionately about her family and the mine, more than she cared about herself.
* * *
She was reeling, both at the shock meeting with the count and him inviting her into his fabulous home. They had crossed the gracious glass-walled building opening onto the pool, and had entered a grand, light-filled entrance hall, complete with a sweeping marble staircase that housed a grand piano beneath its curve.
The fabulous setting and the fact that she was wearing a towel had really thrown her. This wasn’t her debating outfit of choice, and she felt even worse about the fall out with Britt since the count had made a point of talking about her sister. She knew what Britt had achieved at the mine and couldn’t have admired her sister more. Why did everything always come out wrong? Why couldn’t she control her tongue for once? For the sake of the mine, she had to try to make amends. ‘All I’m asking for is the chance to talk to you, and then I’ll go.’
A flash of humour lit his eyes. ‘Do I have your word on that?’
‘The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned,’ she fired back, unsettled by his worldly, mocking stare.
‘And what am I supposed to do with you until then?’
‘Listen to me?’ she suggested, lashing out again before she could stop herself.
‘I set the terms, Ms Skavanga. I speak. You listen.’
As the count’s lazy gaze washed over her, every part of her warmed. However much she resented him and his autocratic ways, her body remained incredibly impressed.
‘And now, as much as I have enjoyed talking to you, I have a wedding to get back to. So if you will excuse me, Ms Skavanga?’ He moved towards the stairs.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll still be here when you get back.’
‘Oh? Will you?’
She watched in fascination as he ran strong, tanned fingers through his thick black hair. The count was fiercely masculine. He had just enough polish to keep him this side of barbarian, but it was a close run thing. All the designer clothes in the world couldn’t hide his warrior frame. He’d been born to fight, and it was hard to imagine him in some cosy aristocratic setting—
‘Done staring at me, Ms Skavanga?’
She gave a start. She hadn’t realised she was examining him quite so intently. And that smile was back on his mocking lips. Her throat dried. She was used to straightforward emotions: black and white. She was not accustomed to this level of sophisticated banter. ‘Please don’t let me keep you. I’m quite happy to stay here—’
‘In the hall?’ He gazed around with a sardonic expression curving his firm, sexy mouth. ‘I’m sure you are. But if you think for one minute that I’m happy to leave you unattended in my home? I don’t think so, Ms Skavanga. You’re coming with me.’
‘What?’ Shock raced through her body at the thought of an evening with the count.
‘You’re the last person I’d leave alone in my house. Your reputation precedes you, Ms Skavanga. How do I know you won’t change the locks while I’m away?’
Mock all you like, but I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. But...if she did go with him, someone might be able to give her a room for the night. ‘Fine,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll come down with you when you leave and wait for you in the village.’
‘My same concerns apply,’ he said. ‘I won’t risk you upsetting people. You’re here and I’m responsible for you, which means I’m not letting you loose on any unsuspecting villagers. You’re going to stay close by me where I can keep an eye on you. You’re coming with me to the wedding.’
‘A wedding?’ She laughed. ‘Impossible. I don’t have anything remotely suitable to wear.’
‘Then you will have to improvise. I’m not leaving you here on your own, and that’s final. And I will be leaving the palazzo in half an hour. You need to be ready by then.’
‘But if I could find a bed for the night in the village, surely you would prefer that?’
‘I wish you joy of your search. Every bed is taken for the wedding, and, as I have no intention of letting you out of my sight, you have no alternative but to stay here for the night.’
‘With you?’
‘Well, I’m not going anywhere. Of course, you could return home?’ The count glanced at his watch. ‘If you hurry, you might catch the last ferry.’
‘Do you have any idea how hard it has been to track you down so I can express my concerns to you face to face? Do you seriously think I’m going to leave without doing that?’
The count gave her a look. ‘That is one option to consider.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘In that case,’ he murmured in a mocking tone, ‘my home is your home for the next twenty-four hours, Ms Skavanga. But don’t get any ideas.’ His voice hardened. ‘You leave when I say you leave. And the next item in your diary is a wedding party, and I am never late.’
She flinched at the count’s tone. She wasn’t used to being talked to like that. She drove situations in Skavanga. She did not take instruction. The count’s stare was steady and appraising, and not the least bit amused, when she was more accustomed to good-humoured tolerance of her laddish ways.
‘Roman Quisvada.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ She gazed up, bewildered for a moment as he spoke.
‘Introductions,’ he said. ‘As you’re coming to stay in my home, I think we should at least be civil to each other.’ He took her hand in a firm grip.
The handshake might have lasted no more than a few seconds, but the effect lasted a lot longer.
‘Call me Roman,’ he murmured, staring down at her.
As in emperor? Conqueror?
The count’s stare suggested either description was apt. One thing was sure, Roman Quisvada only accepted one rank, and that was Commander-in-Chief. Where he led others followed. When he spoke others listened. And much as a wolf wouldn’t trouble himself about the ants he trod on, she barely registered a blip on his radar.
Were those black eyes laughing at her again? Arrogant man!
Infuriatingly, her body didn’t seem to care. There didn’t seem to be an insult he could deal her that could stop her wilful body craving him. Or her eyes devouring him, Eva reluctantly conceded. ‘Well, I’m glad I’ve got your interest at last,’ she said coolly, checking her towel was securely fixed.
‘Oh, you’ve got my interest,’ he confirmed as he started to mount the stairs. ‘Though there may come a day when you wish you hadn’t.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Her voice sounded much smaller than she had intended.
‘I’m just letting you know I’ll be watching you.’
Her pulse leapt at the thought, while her mind warned her frantically that this was not a good thing. ‘That’s fine by me,’ she said with a careless shrug. ‘You can waste your time watching me all you want. I don’t know what you think I’m going to do.’
‘Right now you’re going to take a shower and change your clothes, and then you’re going to meet me in the hall.’
She bridled at his orders. And wearing what? A tee bearing the name of an ancient rock band and a fresh pair of jeans? A wedding had been the very last thing on her mind when she left Skavanga, and it certainly wasn’t in her nature to insult the bride and groom by turning up wearing something like that. ‘I’d much rather wait on the sidelines for you.’
‘I’m sure you would. But that’s not how it’s going to be, Eva. We’re going down to the village together, and we’re going to attend the wedding together.’
‘Won’t people ask questions?’
‘And if they do?’
‘Wouldn’t it be easier for you to spare a few minutes to talk to me before you leave for the wedding?’ she suggested, trying hard not to register Roman’s intoxicating, warm and spicy scent.
‘Easy isn’t my way, Eva.’
‘Well, if a wedding’s more important to you—’
‘That’s enough,’ he rapped, shocking her into silence. ‘Shall we both examine our motives for being here, Miss Self-Righteous? I’m here on the island for my cousin’s wedding. What’s your excuse?’
CHAPTER FOUR
THIS MAN DIDN’T just bore out her eyes with his stare. He bore down on her. Physically. Until they were standing just inches apart. Eva tried not to flinch or step back. If she did she’d fall down the stairs. ‘You know why I’m here.’
‘Do I? Do I, really?’ Roman pressed, smiling in a way that chilled her.
‘You should do.’
‘Should I?’
His experience was so far in advance of hers, she didn’t stand a chance. He actually thought there was some other reason for her visit than concern for the mine.
And wasn’t there?
‘Nothing to say?’ he murmured, the light in his eyes making her feel more awkward than ever.
There was a lot she could say, but nothing she was going to share with him. She wasn’t used to being pinned down and made to answer. She wasn’t used to a man staring into her eyes as if he could read her private thoughts. ‘My only reason for being here is Skavanga. I would have thought that was obvious.’
‘To you, perhaps,’ he said with that same disquieting look. ‘Shall we go upstairs, Eva?’
She moved past him into this very different world, and was almost home free when he put out an arm to stop her. ‘You have done your research on the mine, haven’t you, Eva?’
That compelling gaze was far too close and far too dangerous. ‘Of course I have. I grew up with it.’
‘Things change over time.’ Roman shifted position slightly, making a little more space between them, but also reminding her of how intensely charismatic he was. ‘Iron ore and minerals run out, Eva, and without the diamonds the mine is worthless.’
‘Britt said the traditional minerals are close to running out. She didn’t say they had run out.’
‘It’s only a matter of time.’
She shook her head—not just to disagree with this, but to break the disturbing eye contact. ‘They’ve been running out for as long as I can remember.’
‘And this time it’s true.’ Roman stepped in front of her so she had to look at him. ‘The mine has only survived this long because Britt has been holding it together as well as she has. She kept the truth from you and your sister so you didn’t have to worry. But that’s not a situation you and I can allow to continue, is it, Eva?’
Oh, he was good. ‘Britt doesn’t have much choice but to follow the party line now you and the consortium are in control.’
‘Your sister is in full agreement with everything we do. Perhaps you should have asked her about that before you left Skavanga.’
Instead of arguing with Britt as she had. Another wave of guilt washed over her and for once she bit back all the angry words on the tip of her tongue. ‘But, honestly, diamonds? Expensive trinkets? Is it really worth ruining the polar landscape for that?’
‘You have a lot to learn about diamonds, Eva.’
She remained unconvinced. ‘There must be some other way to save the mine.’
‘When you find one, let me know. Meanwhile, you’re welcome to use one of the guest suites.’
‘But we haven’t finished talking yet.’
‘I have,’ Roman said flatly.
And she was in no position to attract a potential landlady while she was dripping wet with a towel wrapped around her.
‘You’ve got twenty minutes, Eva. And then I’m leaving,’ he warned as she jogged past him up the stairs
‘I’ll try not to keep you waiting.’
‘Please yourself. I won’t wait.’
‘Where is this guest suite?’ The palazzo was so huge. She turned back to look at him. ‘Where do you want me to go?’
Roman’s look suggested he’d like to tell her. ‘When you get to the top of the stairs, turn left, and take the last door on your right. You can’t miss it—it’s got a lion’s head handle. And hurry up, Eva, I don’t have all day.’
‘Thank you, Roman.’
Her attempt at meekness earned her a withering look. Lion’s head handle. No doubt the handle on his door was a fist.
Building bridges? Not blasting them sky high...
She felt his gaze following her as she ran up the stairs. Roman was so confident in his masculinity he made her feel awkward and inexperienced, as if all her past failed encounters with men were an open book to him. No doubt he was having a good laugh at her expense. She had left it too long to risk intimacy with a man. She didn’t like to do anything unless she did it well, and intimacy was one skill she didn’t possess.
‘Don’t look so worried, Eva.’
She gasped as he bounded in front of her, taking the stairs two at a time.
‘You couldn’t be safer than you are with me.’
His voice was deep and husky and vaguely amused. He did sense her embarrassment, and he was laughing at her.
So let him. She shrugged as she reached the landing. ‘I don’t know what makes you think I’m worried. I can handle myself.’
‘So I hear,’ he said dryly.
She hated herself for reacting so violently. All the tiny hairs on the back of her neck lifted, and heat pulsed insistently through her veins. The power emanating from him flowed around her, embracing her whether she liked it or not. Her sisters would be amazed to see her shaken like this—when they’d stopped laughing. What was so special about tall, dark and perfect, anyway? Why was her body insisting on behaving like this? Roman was so not her type. He was autocratic and overbearing. He was the most insufferable man she’d ever met.
And the most attractive.
He showed no interest in her as a woman, which was a relief. An absolute relief. But it wasn’t normal. He could at least pretend. That would be the polite thing to do. And weren’t aristocrats supposed to be courteous? Weren’t they all raised to behave differently from other people by ferocious nannies with thick rulebooks on how to behave?
‘Turn left, I said,’ he called out to her.
I knew that. She casually retraced her steps, vowing to keep her thoughts restricted to what she had to do—which did not include fixating on Roman Quisvada.
She checked each door down the long and airy corridor, longing to be safe behind one of them, and away from him, so she could calm down and cool off. Roman had disappeared somewhere in the opposite direction. Good. She’d had enough of Count Roman Quisvada and his sardonic face to last her a lifetime. But look at it this way: she only had to get through tonight at the wedding party. She would just have to bite her tongue.
So long as she didn’t bite anything else, that should work.
* * *
He groaned with pleasure beneath an ice-cold shower. To his overheated skin the freezing water felt like soothing balm. His senses were heated thanks to Eva. She infuriated him. She attracted him, and that was distracting. There was unfinished business between them. Strength and fire had been his first impression of her at her sister’s wedding. His impression of her hadn’t changed, but Eva was more complex than he had first thought. She was elusive and thoughtful, passionate, and doggedly determined. And he had always liked a challenge. Eva Skavanga needed taming or she would continue to plague his mind.
Quitting the shower, he grabbed a towel and rang one of his trusted aides in Skavanga. He needed more detail about her.
‘Mark? I need a briefing. Yes. Eva Skavanga. She’s here. What do you mean you knew that? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’
He listened to some rambling excuse and quickly realised that young Mark had fallen under Eva’s spell. ‘Well, now we both know.’ He cut his aide off impatiently. ‘Yes, of course she’s all right. Which brings me to my next question. You seem to be an admirer of this woman. Why? She seems to me to be more trouble than she’s worth?’
‘Don’t write her off,’ Mark advised. ‘Eva’s a hothead and likes to think she’s one of the boys, but she’s got a heart of gold—too trusting, maybe.’
‘Not in my case.’
Mark ignored this. ‘She has her heart set on eco-tourism saving Skavanga. She’s terrified that our mining project will reduce the town to a smoking pile of steel, with panhandlers drinking in the streets and plastic tables and plastic food replacing the cultural traditions of her Arctic home.’ This much Roman already knew.
His young aide was besotted. The thought almost made him veer away from asking the question uppermost in his mind. ‘Didn’t you explain that our work will cause minimal upheaval, and that any damage done will be repaired?’ And that wasn’t all of it.
Mark laughed in an admiring way as his mind turned to a woman it was clear they were both interested in. ‘Have you tried reasoning with Eva?’
‘Enough.’ His voice came out a roar. So much for subtlety. ‘Tell me about her relationships.’
There was a silence as Mark considered this. ‘There are none,’ he said at last on what sounded like a very dry throat.
‘Why is that?’ He didn’t let up the pressure. His hand tightened on the phone. ‘She’s an attractive woman...’
‘Who has half the men of the Arctic Circle racing each other to the South Pole, rather than tangle with her.’
‘I thought they bred them tough at the North Pole.’
‘They do, but Eva Skavanga is a special case.’
‘She has a problem with men?’
‘She has an unfortunate attitude with men.’
Mark was being careful with his choice of words. ‘Explain,’ he insisted.
‘The older sister you know—Britt is confident and a great businesswoman. She’s self-confident, decisive and married now. The younger girl, Leila, is a bit of an unknown quantity, because she’s always been overshadowed by Britt and Eva—’
‘Eva’s reputation?’ he pressed. ‘I’m not interested in the other two. They’re not out here. She is.’
‘Eva’s a loner. Maybe she’s been hurt at some time.’
‘But not so hurt and broken she couldn’t turn up here, break into my house and swim in my pool—’
‘She broke into your house?’
Now Mark did sound shocked. ‘She terrorised me,’ Roman said dryly. ‘Until I agreed to speak to her about her beloved Skavanga.’
‘That sounds like Eva.’
Mark’s voice held the same note of admiration that had annoyed him the first time round and that now made him snarl, ‘That’s enough, Mark. She’s a nuisance at best. Forget I even rang you. I’ll sort her out. And I’ll get rid of her.’
There was a long pause, and then Mark said, ‘She’s staying with you?’
‘Don’t worry. She’s not my type. I’m taking her to the wedding, and that’s all.’
‘You’re taking her to the wedding?’
‘Did I employ a parrot? I’m taking her so I can keep an eye on her.’
As Mark gave a nervous laugh Roman guessed his young aide was in no way reassured as to the immediate fate of one Eva Skavanga. ‘Relax, Mark. I have no immediate plans for her.’ Later perhaps, he mused.
‘If you had allowed me to put her through to you when you were in Skavanga I guess she wouldn’t have made the trip.’
‘You sound worried, Mark. Whose side are you on?’
‘Yours, of course,’ Mark protested, ‘but—’
‘I didn’t avoid Eva’s earlier requests to see me. I ignored them. You should know by now that misguided pleas from emotional women cut no ice with me. Eva’s a small shareholder with no special privileges just because she happens to be a member of the family that gave its name to the mine. I’ll treat her the same as any other small investor, no better no worse.’
But on a personal front?
Taming Eva Skavanga held considerable appeal.
He ended the call, having found out what he wanted to know. Eva was unattached. And doubly intriguing. His thoughts turned to having her passion pinned beneath him. He shrugged and smiled faintly as he ditched the towel. There were sound business reasons for keeping her close. While she was here she couldn’t disrupt work at the mine. Any damage caused by the drilling would be made good, which Eva would have known if she had attended the meetings he’d held in Skavanga instead of picketing them. Now she was trapped on an island with a ferry that operated at his command and he’d send her home when it suited him.
Slinging on a pair of chinos and a clean shirt, he thought about shaving then parked the idea. As an image of Eva’s body flashed into his mind he reached into a cupboard to find a bottle of suncream. This was no godly act on his part. She lived in the Arctic and the sun was strong here. He didn’t want her too sore to have sex with. Giving his thick black hair one final run-through, he glanced in the mirror and imagined Eva’s defiant face glaring back at him. If there was anything he enjoyed more than a tussle with a hot-blooded woman, he couldn’t think what it was. Eva would be his guest at the wedding, and then, just as she had requested, he would give her his undivided attention.
* * *
She had found the door with the lion’s head handle. Thank goodness. This place was like a city. The door was heavy, silky cream, and as she closed her hand around the lion’s head it was a surprising degree of pleasure. Would everything be so tactile here? Including the count?
Stop with the fantasies. She had around fifteen minutes to shower, change and meet him downstairs. All of which might have been fine if she could only stop gazing round like a country yokel. She had opened a door onto a wonderland of art and luxury, functionality and extravagance combined. Like the rest of the palazzo, the decor was discreet yet obviously expensive. Taupe, ecru, ivory and chalky-white, with a couple of showpiece ornaments and a huge unframed painting, picked up the tints of the throw on the bed—
Okay...that unframed piece? The homage to Picasso? On closer inspection she discovered it was a Picasso. The last time she’d seen the painting it had been hanging in a gallery in Stockholm, labelled ‘on loan’ from an unnamed benefactor.
Roman Quisvada lived in quite some style. And grudgingly, she had to admit she liked it. It did surprise her that such a powerful brute of a man lived like this in the home of a discerning connoisseur. The count was an interesting man—in more ways than one.
Dropping her backpack on what was probably an extremely expensive rug, she tried not to draw unnecessary comparisons between the count’s seductive lifestyle and the seductive count. She scrunched her toes appreciatively in the soft wool as she crossed the room to inspect the balcony overlooking the placid azure sea. The scent of blossom was heavy and intoxicating, and she wished she could remain dreaming a little longer as she leaned over the stone balustrades, but the clock was ticking and she still had to shower and dress.
Four doors faced her in the room. The first turned out to be a dressing room, for the guest who had everything, and who was only used to the best. Not Eva Skavanga, that was for sure. The second door revealed a gym. The third, a marble-lined bathroom. Her jaw dropped. And stuck. With its sunken bath and shower big enough for two, the bathroom could best be described as sumptuous. There were enough white fluffy towels for an army, and the water pressure was fierce enough to fill a lake. She wandered back into the bedroom, where she couldn’t resist a few bounces on the mega-sized bed where inviting crisp white sheets still held the faint scent of sunshine, and the throw, with its tints echoing those of the fabulous painting on the wall, reminded her of a fading summer sky. How was she ever going to drag herself away from this?
A sharp rap on the door gave her that answer.
‘Eva?’
She hadn’t even showered yet! ‘Five minutes?’ she yelled back.
‘Not a minute more.’ Roman sounded less than amused.
How would he punish her if she was late?
She absolutely had to stop thinking like that. Even as a joke! She might forget herself and come on to him. She could act tough back in Skavanga, but she was playing well out of her league here.
Drying off after her shower, she twisted her hair into a messy up-do on top of her head, securing it with the single hairclip she had retrieved from the bottom of her pack. It was just a boring old plastic thing that came in a pack of six, but there was no time to dry her hair properly. And right on cue the hammering on the door started again. If she left Roman hanging much longer he’d crash the room.
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