Page 15 of Innocent in the Sicilian’s Palazzo

‘This is a nightmare, but I’ll be home soon.’ She soothed herself with the facts and refused to think about the kiss.

‘Ah...that might not be such a good idea—’

Her green eyes flew wide in panicked protest. ‘But—!’

‘The press are staked out outside your flat, unless you fancy running the gauntlet?’

He watched her shudder again and deflate and let his sympathy stir.

‘Don’t worry, alternative arrangements have been made.’

And my compliance is taken for granted.Her eyes narrowed. ‘They have?’

He heard the cool in her voice and ignored it; it was less easy to ignore the female scent of her warm skin. ‘Yes, it’s all in hand, and long-distance walking is not involved.’

She watched as his eyes slid down her slim calves to her narrow ankles and neatly crossed feet.

‘What are you staring at?’

Unwilling to admit even to himself that he had lost control of the direction of his gaze, he came back with an exasperated, ‘Women and shoes... Why on earth did you put them on if they are crippling you?’

‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe because the police were waiting for me and I didn’t have time to select an outfit that would win your approval.’

At least the cut-off pale blue jeans were comfortable, but she had always felt that the snug fit across her hips only accentuated the boyish narrowness she despised. Normally she would disguise this lack of feminine inches with an oversized shirt or thigh-length tunic, but when the phone had rung she’d been wearing a dip-dye blue sleeveless vest that had shrunk in the wash and revealed slivers of her midriff, a fact she was only just discovering as she now registered a draught around her middle.

She tugged at the hem, but didn’t glance down; she knew what she saw would not be confidence-boosting. ‘Stop the car!’ The decision was so fast she didn’t see it coming herself.

‘What?’

‘I’m not beingarrangedby some random man who says he knows my grandfather.’

He studied her face with an assessing look and folded his hands across his chest. ‘Fine, but first things first. Ask away.’

She shook her head. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You want my credentials, simply ask. I am,’ he claimed, spreading his hands in an expansive gesture, ‘an open book. Let me start. Well, you already know my name. I am Soren Steinsson Vitale, head of the Vitale Group, which is, as of last year, the largest media company in Europe. We retain an interest in the engineering company my grandfather started up and in specialist steel manufacturing. Shall we leave it at our interests are diverse? You probably have an electrical item in your kitchen that one of our factories made, and the specialised steel in your—’

‘I get the idea—you are rich and were born with a golden spoon in your mouth.’

‘Not born—the golden spoon was acquired a little later in life and I earned it. I also speak several languages, and I have my own teeth.’ He flashed her a mocking, very white smile. ‘But I think perhaps you already know this because you must have put my name into a search engine?’

‘Because you’re so fascinating?’ This seemed like an occasion when the truth was the least humiliating option. ‘I might have,’ she conceded. ‘But after you left, my grandfather had an...episode. People in the later stages of dementia often suffer seizures.’

Without warning the tears welled in her eyes and she brushed them angrily away and then gave the same treatment to the hand that was extended towards her. ‘I’m fine,’ she snarled.

He concealed his concern with a casual shrug; feeling protective towards an attractive woman was something he did not want to get accustomed to. The women in his life all had one thing in common: self-sufficiency. Maybe two: they all shared his pragmatic attitude to sex. Maybe three: they did not expect him to pretend to feel something he did not.

‘He’s totally innocent, you know. Youdoknow that, don’t you? The things they are saying. If you knew him like I do... He’s always been there for me. When Mum went on one of her adventures he was there. Social services would have issued a care order after I broke my arm when Mum left me with Maggie, but he stepped...’ She paused as her voice thickened with emotion. ‘It’s all a terrible mistake!’

He looked into her earnest emerald eyes and saw a shadow of the little girl who had been passed around because her mother was a selfish bitch. Maybe Tor had done one good thing in his life but that was never going to compensate for the bad things he had done.

‘You’d do anything for him, wouldn’t you?’ he said, wondering what she had done even if she didn’t realise it.

‘Of course.’ She sounded offended that he could ask. ‘Ask your father. He knew... Oh, sorry...’

‘Your grandfather changed my father’s life.’

Oblivious to the undertones, she smiled. ‘After the way those policemen were looking at me, you don’t know how good it is to actually talk to someone who knows the truth,’ she said, feeling her antagonism lowering. It would have been an exaggeration to say she was relaxed. He was not a man she could ever imagine being relaxed around...any man who kissed as he did. She clenched her jaw and firmly closed down the pathway her thoughts were leading her to.

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