The Billion-Dollar Bride Hunt by Melanie Milburne

CHAPTER FOUR

MATTEOSUPPRESSEDYETanother yawn as Karena Thorsby told him her sad relationship history and why she was now thirty-four and desperate to settle down and make babies with the man of her dreams. But, while he conceded that she was attractive and intelligent, and had every right to want to fulfil her dream of happy-ever-after, he’d known from the moment he met her he wasn’t the one to give it to her. There was no chemistry, no electric spark, no longing on his part to see her again.

Unlike with Emmie Woodcroft.

Every time he thought of Emmie, he thought of her periwinkle-blue eyes and lush mouth. The sweet softness of her lips and how they had clung to his when he’d kissed her. He thought of her petite frame pressed closely to his as he’d attended to her cut finger. How soft her skin was, how small her hand in comparison to his. He recalled the fragrance of her, the geranium and bergamot scent that was as intoxicating as a drug.

From the moment he’d met her, he had been drawn to her in a way he had never experienced with anyone else. Of course, he had felt instant desire in the past, but somehow with Emmie it went further than primal urges. Way, way further. It was as if she had some other indefinable element to her personality that called out to his on a silent radar frequency that sent tingles dancing along his flesh.

Finally, his date with Karena finally ended, his only comfort being she didn’t seem all that disappointed, or even surprised, when he said he wasn’t interested in repeating it.

He drove home with his mind replaying his dinner date with Emmie—how he had been disappointed when the evening had finally come to an end. He let out a sigh and turned his car into his street. Was he strangely fixated on Emmie because she had made it clear she wasn’t interested in finding a partner? Did his male ego see her as some sort of fresh challenge? He usually had no trouble finding casual partners, but right now he wasn’t after a fling. He needed a wife in a hurry, and obsessing about a young woman who had no plans to marry any time soon, if ever, would only waste his valuable time.

And yet, that kiss between them had shown him she was as drawn to him as he was to her.

Could he get Emmie to change her mind?

Emmie caught up with Karena the following day when she popped into Emmie’s office on her lunch break.

‘So, how did your date with Matteo Vitale go?’

Karena plonked herself down in the chair opposite Emmie’s desk. ‘Don’t get me wrong, he was polite and easy on the eye, but I didn’t feel any connection with him at all. In fact, I found him a little intimidating—more than a little, if I’m honest. I kept babbling on to fill the awkward silences but I think he was bored the whole time we were together.’

Emmie should have felt disappointed it hadn’t worked out for Matteo with Karena but strangely she was not. Nor was she going to examine too closely why she wasn’t disappointed. ‘I’m sorry. I guess he can be a little intimidating when you first meet him. But I do have another client who might be better for you. I’ve only just finished entering his details into the system.’

She clicked on her computer screen and scrolled through the list till she came to a divorced man of a similar age to Karena. ‘Colin Appleby is looking for all the things you are. His wife left him a couple of years ago because he wanted children and she didn’t. I’ll organise a meeting for you both if you like?’

‘Please do. My biological clock is ticking so loudly, it keeps me awake at night.’

Emmie forced her lips into an empathetic smile, her heart twisting into a tight knot in her chest. ‘I can only imagine how awful that must be but let’s hope Colin is The One.’

Karena had only been gone half an hour when Paisley informed her she had another visitor. ‘It’s Mr Vitale,’ she said in a stage whisper. ‘He’s insisting on seeing you now. He’s making rather a habit of this, isn’t he? Shall I insist on him making an appointment or send him in?’

Emmie tried to ignore the soft flutter around her heart and rose from her chair. She suspected anyone insisting that Matteo Vitale do anything would be an impossible task. He had an iron will and a steely resolve that would daunt most people. But she was not most people and, besides, he was paying her a large sum of money, so she had to make his needs a priority. ‘Send him in.’ She smoothed her hands down the sides of her skirt, her pulse already picking up its pace.

Matteo came in looking as dashingly handsome as ever, especially with his windblown hair, and dressed in a dark suit the same colour as his eyes. He looked like a brooding hero from a Gothic romance, the landscape of his face drawn into harsh lines, his unusually blue eyes as dark as a midnight sky.

‘Really? Was that the best you could do?’ His blunt question was delivered with a cutting note of disdain.

Emmie refused to be intimidated by him, somehow understanding his natural inclination was to push people away rather than draw them near. ‘Look, these things take time and—’

‘I don’t have time. I’m paying you a truckload of money to find me a wife, but if you can’t find someone even remotely suitable then please tell me now so I can make other arrangements.’

‘I’m working on it. Please, take a seat. Paisley has organised my travel arrangements and I can be in Umbria next week. Spending time with you will give me a clearer idea of—’

‘Next week?’ His eyes flashed with impatience and he remained standing, his imposing height never more apparent. ‘Why not this weekend?’

Emmie disguised a convulsive swallow. She needed time to prepare herself, to get her head round spending an extended period of time with him. That impulsive kiss between them at her house warned her of the danger in being alone with him. She took a calming breath and straightened her spine, eyeballing him as if she was a stern schoolmistress dressing down a recalcitrant student.

‘Mr Vitale, it no longer surprises me you’ve found it hard to find a suitable partner. I understand you like things done quickly, but I can’t just shuffle around my diary to suit you. I have other clients to see to.’

‘You have staff, don’t you? Get them to see to them.’

Emmie gave him a look so glacial she fully expected the glass of water on her desk to freeze on the spot. ‘You know, you might have had a chance with Karena if you hadn’t scared the hell out of her. You made her nervous.’

‘She should be an anaesthetist,’ he shot back, scraping a hand through his already tousled hair. ‘She would save the NHS a fortune on drugs. I swear to God, she almost put me to sleep by telling me about every man she’d ever dated and why they hadn’t worked out.’ He dropped his hand by his side and continued in a less harsh tone, ‘Not that she wasn’t a nice person, but she’s far from my type.’

‘Ah yes, your type,’ Emmie said with an arch look. ‘And that type would be...?’

He held her gaze for a throbbing moment, his eyes so dark and unreadable her heart skipped a beat. ‘The type of woman who would agree to marry me for a year or two, max, and provide me with an heir.’

‘But what sort of woman do you normally date?’

‘The no-strings type.’

‘It’s my experience there are a lot less of them around than most men think,’ Emmie said. ‘Relationships, even casual ones, rarely come without strings, or indeed consequences. Someone nearly always gets hurt.’

Matteo drew in a deep breath and turned away to go and stand in front of her window, looking at the sliver of a view she paid a fortune in rent to stand on tiptoe and crane her neck to see. One of his hands came up to rub at the back of his neck as if to loosen a knot of tension. He rolled his shoulders and released a long sigh, turning around to look at her. ‘It’s never been my intention to hurt anyone, but yes, it has happened in the past.’

‘Have you ever fallen in love?’

‘No.’

‘But someone did with you?’

A flicker of pain passed through his gaze. ‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘Unfortunately, because...?’

‘We were totally unsuitable for each other.’ His tone was flat, his expression bleak. ‘You have no idea of the pain I caused and there’s nothing I can do to change a damn thing about it. Not now.’

Emmie came round from behind her desk and laid a gentle hand on his forearm. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ She kept her voice soft, her gaze searching his pained one.

He blinked as if to recalibrate his mood and his expression became shuttered. ‘No. Talking about it won’t change a thing.’ His hand came down over the top of hers and a frisson passed through her body. At first, she thought he was going to remove her hand from his arm, but he seemed to change his mind and took her hand in his. His long, tanned fingers curled around hers and he began to stroke the fleshy part at the base of her thumb, his gaze locking on hers. ‘You’re good at this.’

‘At what?’

‘Finding out people’s darkest secrets.’

‘But you’re determined not to tell me yours.’

His eyes went to her mouth for a heart-stopping moment. Was he recalling their stolen kiss? The heat of it, the warm press of flesh on flesh, the erotic tangle their tongues? ‘Doesn’t everyone have something they would rather keep private?’ His gaze locked back on hers and a tiny shiver raced across her scalp.

Emmie looked down at their joined hands, her stomach swooping at the sight of his tanned skin against her lighter skin. ‘Maybe.’

Matteo turned over her hand and inspected the bandage on her finger. ‘How is it feeling?’

‘It’s fine. Oh, that reminds me...’ She pulled her hand out of his and went back to her desk and opened the top drawer on the left side. She took out the bottle of cologne she’d bought to replace the one she had broken at his house and came back to him with it. ‘For you.’

He took the cologne with a lopsided smile. ‘You didn’t need to do that.’

‘Yes, I did. I still feel embarrassed about that night.’ And not just about the broken bottle. The kiss. She had relived that kiss so many times since.

‘Don’t be. I can see you have an inquisitive nature.’

Emmie gave a rueful smile. ‘That’s a polite way of saying I’m a nosy busybody.’

He gave an answering smile that sent a warm flutter through her lower body. He passed the bottle of cologne from one hand to the other, his eyes still holding hers. ‘I’ll pay you double to come to Umbria this weekend.’

Emmie spluttered out a shocked laugh. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You don’t have to bribe me. I’ll come. But I insist on making my own way there.’

‘Fine.’ He held the cologne bottle in his right hand and, taking a piece of paper off a sticky note pad on her desk, took a pen out of his jacket pocket, wrote down an address and handed it to her. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you there.’

So will I, Emmie thought. Way more than she had any right to.

Emmie drove the hire car through the stone and wrought-iron entrance to Matteo’s Umbrian estate. She had insisted on making her own way to Italy, wanting to maintain some independence rather than relying totally on him. The long driveway was lined on either side by rows and rows of lush grape vines, and on the slopes in the distance was an expansive olive grove. There were woods on another side of the property, and a lake, as well as a small river, with a stone bridge across it that led to the villa at the top of a steep hill.

Emmie could immediately see why Matteo was so keen to keep possession of the estate. The villa was centuries old but in wonderful condition with beautiful gardens, both formal and informal. The stunning view from the top of the hill where the villa was situated was enough to steal anyone’s breath away, and she was no exception. Emmie turned off the engine and got out of the car and stood for a long moment, looking out over acres and acres of verdant land, imagining Matteo’s ancestors tilling the soil. The sun shone down on her with delicious warmth, birds tweeting in the nearby shrubbery, the leaves of the trees rustling in the light summer breeze.

She shaded her eyes from the bright sun with one hand, then turned and caught a glimpse of Matteo coming towards her dressed in nothing but dark blue denim jeans and brown leather work boots. His hair was tousled by the breeze, and his broad, tanned chest shone with perspiration, and Emmie had never seen him look more heart-stoppingly attractive.

‘You’re early,’ Matteo said, roughly finger-combing his hair.

‘I—I was bumped forward to an earlier flight.’ Emmie felt strangely shy and tongue-tied. ‘And it didn’t take me as long as I thought to find my way here.’

‘I’ll get one of the staff to get your luggage. Come inside out of the sun. You already look flushed from the heat.’

Emmie was flushed because seeing his toned chest and abdomen was doing serious damage to her heart rate. Coils of tight muscles rippled from his chest to the waist band of his jeans and her imagination did the rest as to what was below. ‘It is a lot hotter than I expected.’ And so was he. She had already suspected he had a good body underneath the designer suits he wore but not as breath-catching as this. Her fingers twitched, tempted to reach out and stroke his abdomen to see if it was as rock-hard as it looked.

‘If you have staff, why are you working in the fields?’ Emmie asked on their way to the villa’s entrance.

‘My job as a forensic accountant is a desk job with long periods of sitting. I like the exercise working on the estate, not to mention the fresh air.’

Emmie turned and looked at the view again before he caught her staring at his toned body. ‘It’s beautiful, Matteo. I can see why you love it so much and want to keep it in your possession. If I lived here, I would never want to leave.’

There was a funny little silence only broken by the whistling of the breeze and the twittering birds.

Emmie turned to look at him to find him looking at her with a frown. ‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

Matteo gave a movement of his lips that was just shy of a smile. ‘I need to take a shower before I give you the grand tour. I’ll get my housekeeper, Valentina, to take you to your room and give you some refreshments.’

‘Oh, lovely, I could do with a nice cup of tea.’

A short time later, Emmie was led upstairs to a beautifully decorated guest room on the second storey by the housekeeper, who unfortunately didn’t speak much English. Emmie had to resort to sign language, as her smattering of Italian didn’t extend much besides greetings and ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ It was frustrating, because she had hoped to find out what she could about Matteo via his staff. How someone behaved as an employer was often a clue to how they behaved in other contexts. But, even without the benefit of talking to Valentina, Emmie could see the older woman adored him. Her black-button eyes all but sparkled whenever she mentioned his name.

Once Valentina had left, Emmie finished her refreshing cup of tea and then freshened up. The view from the window in her room drew her back yet again to gaze at the rolling fields and dense woods in the background. She was not a city girl at heart, and had spent most of her childhood in Devon three and a half hours from London in a small village. But her cancer diagnosis and subsequent treatment—not to mention travelling back and forth, overnight accommodation and other expenses—had made it impossible for her parents to keep up with the mortgage payments, so their lovely little country property had had to be sold.

It had been yet another casualty of her illness, one she found hard to forgive herself for, even though she knew on an intellectual level the cancer hadn’t been her fault. But in her heart, she still ached for what her illness had done to her family. No one had escaped the fallout and each in their own way was still paying the price.

There was a firm knock on the door and Emmie turned from the window. ‘Come in.’

Matteo entered the room and her heart stumbled. He was freshly showered, his hair still damp and curling where it brushed the collar of his casual, open-necked white shirt. He had changed into navy chinos and black leather boots and, even though he was a couple of metres from her, she could pick up the citrus notes of his aftershave. Seriously, she was becoming addicted to that smell. She’d been tempted to buy two bottles when she’d bought the replacement bottle for him. One for him and one for her to sniff in private like a forbidden drug.

‘All settled in?’ Matteo asked.

‘Yes, thank you. But I’m not sure I was able to communicate how happy I was with the room to Valentina. I’m afraid my Italian is a bit patchy.’

‘I’ll pass on your appreciation.’

‘How long has she worked for you?’

‘Fifteen years.’

‘That’s nice.’ Emmie moved from the window to tidy the tea things on the tray the housekeeper had left, more to do something with her hands. Being in a bedroom with Matteo Vitale was having a potent effect on her, one she had to do her best to control. ‘It shows you’re a good employer.’

‘But it also could be the money I pay her, si?’

Emmie shifted her lips from side to side, her arms crossed against her body, and studied his cynical expression for a moment. ‘You don’t think much of my powers of observation, do you?’

He came closer to stand within touching distance and she had to work hard to keep her breathing under control. ‘Body language is not fool proof, and people’s motivations can be easily disguised.’ His voice was deep and rough and sent a shiver cascading down her spine. ‘Like yours, for instance.’

‘M-mine?’ Her voice barely got above a cracked whisper and her pulse began to race. She was conscious of how close he was, the heat of his body stirring hers into a frenzy of want. She had to crane her neck to maintain eye contact but every now and again, as if of their own volition, her eyes flicked to his mouth. And, before she could stop the impulse, the point of her tongue came out and licked across her lips.

Matteo placed a gentle hand beneath her chin, his touch light but electric. Lightning bolts of awareness shot through her entire body and a liquid pool of longing stirred deep and low in her core. His eyes were as dark as midnight, moving between hers in a back and forth motion before becoming hooded and lowering to her mouth. ‘Why are you so keen on finding a happy-ever-after for other people but not for yourself?’

Emmie called on every bit of willpower she possessed to step out of his light hold. She wrapped her arms even tighter around her body and moved so the bed was between then. Oh, dear Lord, the bed. It seemed to dominate the room. It seemed to be all she thought about—a bed with he and her in it, making mad, passionate love. ‘I could ask why you find it so satisfying being a forensic accountant,’ she threw back.

‘I like righting wrongs.’

‘And I like making people happy.’

He gave a slanted smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘But, sadly, that is not always possible. Some people can never be made happy.’

Emmie moved away from the bed and back to the window, adopting a casual pose against the windowsill she was far from feeling. ‘Perhaps they feel they don’t deserve to be happy.’

He gave a loose-shouldered shrug, his expression equally noncommittal. ‘You’re an idealist, I’m a realist. We don’t speak the same language.’

‘I’m an optimist and you’re cynical, but that’s understandable given how your mother left so early in your life,’ Emmie said. ‘You have attachment issues. You will never be happy with anyone until you address your fear of intimacy.’

Matteo came to join her at the window, standing so close to her she could see the dark points of stubble along his jaw. He lifted his hand to her face, trailing an idle finger down the curve of her cheek, from her ear to her chin, and every nerve in her face rioted in tingling pleasure. ‘Ah, but is it me with the fear of intimacy or you, hmm?’ His tone was gently teasing, his touch spine-loosening, his proximity spellbinding.

Emmie sucked in a breath, her heart threatening to beat its way out of her chest. She couldn’t stop staring at his mouth, drawn to its sensual contours by a force as old as time. Her lower body began to throb with a primal beat of blood, swelling sensitive tissues, sending tingles and darts and arrows of greedy want through her flesh.

‘I—It depends what you mean by intimacy.’ She was annoyed her voice wasn’t as steady as she would have liked. ‘Anyone can jump into bed and have sex, even perfect strangers. True intimacy is much more than that.’

His thumb began a rhythmical stroke of her cheek, like a metronome arm set on the slowest possible time signature. ‘Who is the person you are closest to?’ His hand paused its stroking, as if waiting for her to answer.

Emmie looked at him blankly for a moment, her brain in a scramble to come up with someone. She hadn’t felt close to anyone for years, not since her illness. Her best friend had moved on, her sister was a stranger to her, her parents were so at war with each other that even after all this time becoming close to either of them was out of the question. Each would see it as betrayal of the other. Those in her current friendship circle knew about her brush with cancer but not about her infertility. No one knew how much her heart ached for what she had lost.

She swallowed tightly and removed his hand from where it was cupping her face, annoyed she hadn’t done so as soon as he’d touched her. ‘This is highly irregular...you mustn’t touch me...like that...not again...’

‘Because you like it too much?’ His gaze was pointed, his tone mocking.

Emmie raised her chin. ‘It would be completely unprofessional of me to encourage your advances.’

He gave an indolent smile that sent another wave of liquid heat to her core. ‘Forgive me for misreading the signals.’

Emmie bridled in affront. ‘I gave you no signals.’ She mentally crossed her fingers over her white lie.

His eyes twinkled knowingly and he gave a mock-bow. ‘Come. Let’s not quibble over it. I will keep my distance unless you expressly tell me not to.’

‘I can assure you that will never happen.’ Emmie’s confident tone didn’t quite match how she was feeling on the inside. Matteo Vitale was the most tempting man she had ever met. If he put his mind to seducing her, she wouldn’t stand a chance of resisting him.

And she had a horrible feeling he knew it.

Matteo gave Emmie a tour of the estate but stayed well away from the private garden he had made for Abriana and Gabriel. It was in a secluded part of the estate, in an area where his late wife used to spend a lot of time on her own. The reason for that was she had been deeply unhappy, and that had been entirely his fault.

Emmie leaned down to smell one of the old-world roses in the garden closest to the villa. ‘Wow, what a heavenly scent.’ She straightened and smiled wryly at him. ‘I can never decide if roses or sweet peas are my favourite flowers. Or freesias, or lily of the valley... So many to choose from.’

‘You can have more than one favourite, surely?’

Her smile faded slightly and her gaze fell away from his. She trailed her fingers across the shell-pink bloom of the full-blown rose in a reflective manner. ‘When I was a child, I used to have my own garden where we lived in the country. My parents gave me one plot and my sister the other.’ Her hand came back to her side and she let out a long sigh. ‘Pot plants aren’t quite the same thing, are they?’

‘No, not quite.’ Matteo walked in step with her along the gravel path, conscious of keeping space between them. He sensed her attraction to him but wondered why she was so adamant not to pursue it. Maintaining a professional distance was advisable, but he had seen the way her gaze kept drifting to his mouth, and had felt the crackling energy that zapped between them from the moment they met. But indulging in a fling with professional match-maker Emmie Woodcroft was not going to achieve his goal of finding a wife. Not unless she herself volunteered for the position. But that was hardly likely—she had already insisted she was a card-carrying member of the single-and-loving-it club.

The question that bugged him was, why? He found it hard to imagine her spending the rest of her life alone. She didn’t seem the loner type. Running a professional match-making service seemed an odd choice of career for a loner.

‘Is your sister older or younger than you?’ Matteo asked in the silence.

‘Younger.’

‘What does she do for a living?’

Emmie bit her lip and turned to look at the fields in the distance. ‘Natalie isn’t working at the moment. She’s been...unwell for a long time.’

Matteo frowned, wondering if he should press her for more details. He didn’t appreciate people prying into his background, but he found he really wanted to know more about Emmie and what had made her the person she was today. She had mentioned during the evening they’d had dinner together that she’d spent some time in hospital as a teenager. Did her sister suffer from the same unspecified illness? ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ He figured if she wanted to tell him more, she would do so.

Emmie turned and gave him a stiff smile that wasn’t really a smile. ‘She has an eating disorder. Anorexia. We’ve almost lost her several times. It’s been such a rollercoaster, trying to keep her from going over the edge.’

Matteo reached for her hand and gently squeezed it in his. ‘I’m sorry. That must be terrifying for you and your parents.’

She looked down at their joined hands. He was relieved and secretly delighted she didn’t pull away. ‘Yes, well, we manage each in our own way...some of us better than others.’

He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. ‘It’s a wonder your parents are still together. The stress of an ill child can—’

‘They’re not.’ Emmie’s tone was blunt but with a lower note of pain. She slipped her hand out of his and picked another nearby bloom, holding it up to her nose before adding, ‘They divorced years ago.’

Matteo was starting to understand Emmie’s need to make people happy. She hadn’t been able to solve the problems of her sister and parents, so sought to do it for her clients. ‘You mentioned when we first met that you’d spent time in and out of hospital. Did you have an eating disorder too?’

She looked at him for a moment before shifting her gaze back to the garden bed. ‘No.’ She paused for a beat and added, ‘I had cancer.’