Invitation from the Venetian Billionaire by Lucy King
CHAPTER FOUR
HAH...
Carla sat back, not falling for the relaxed demeanour or the dazzling yet practised smiles for a moment. Rico was hiding something. She knew it. His tells were tiny and no doubt invisible to anyone whose job wasn’t all about perception and seeking out the truth behind the facade, but she’d caught the odd moment of tension that gripped his big, lean frame and the occasional flare of wariness in the depths of his eyes.
She hadn’t missed the way he’d brushed off his accident as if it had been nothing more than a mild inconvenience when it had to have been anything but. Or how when she’d suggested he ought to make time for family he’d neatly turned it back on her. And the fact that he’d left unanswered her question about exactly what had made him leave Finn’s study had not gone unnoticed.
He was no more an open book than she was and she may not understand why, but she did recognise what he was doing. Deflection and dissembling and carefully curating responses were tactics she deployed herself. She shared nothing of significance with the few men she dated. No details of her past, no hopes and dreams for the future and certainly no emotion. With information came power. With emotion came vulnerability, and the idea of giving a man that kind of control over her made her stomach roll. Could it be that Rico was protecting himself too?
It was none of her concern. What was of concern was that she badly needed to know what hidden depths lay beneath the charming exterior and the dry words, and it looked as though his armour might be harder to penetrate than she’d assumed.
But that didn’t mean she was going to give up. Oh, no. If she concentrated on what was at stake tonight—Finn and Georgie and their happiness—she would get what she wanted. She usually did in the end. She hadn’t been lying when she’d told Rico she believed it was all about manipulation. She knew first-hand how powerful a tactic that could be and how easy it was to shape and mould people’s beliefs and behaviours, and she wasn’t unaware of the irony of having made a career out of it.
However, turning a negative into a positive had been a major factor in getting over what had happened to her. She didn’t feel any pangs of guilt about what she did. Controlling the narrative was key, and all the weapons she had at her disposal to achieve this were entirely compatible with the openness, honesty and transparency that were so important to her.
But manipulation probably wasn’t going to work here, she reflected, picking up a menu of her own as her stomach gave a rumble and just about managing to decipher it, since pasta was pasta in almost any language. Rico was too sharp, too wary. So maybe she ought to switch tactics. She’d gone for the jugular, hoping to catch him off guard, but perhaps some of that subtlety she’d espoused a moment ago would be more successful.
As soon as they’d ordered, she’d start with some innocent questions. About his English, perhaps. Where he learned it and how it had got so good. About where he’d been raised and how he’d become involved in hedge funds. Surely he’d have no objection to providing that kind of basic information.
In the event, however, she didn’t get a chance to find out. Their order was taken and the food arrived with impressive efficiency, and that was pretty much it for conversation. If Rico had been lacking in expansive answers before, he turned positively tight-lipped now. Her questions met with monosyllabic responses that dwindled into mutters, and eventually she gave up in frustrated exasperation.
She’d never seen anyone so wholly focused on their food. Each bite seemed uniquely important, a moment to be relished and protected. His head-down, methodical approach to eating was intriguing. He was utterly absorbed in the process. He didn’t even notice when someone who’d clearly overdone the chianti bumped into her chair.
Although, to be fair, she barely did either.
For one thing her spaghetti alla puttanesca was exquisite, an all-encompassing experience of sublimely balanced flavours that exploded her taste buds and made her want to groan in pleasure. For another, with conversation non-existent, she’d found herself giving in to the temptation she’d been fighting all evening and studying him instead.
Up until now she’d had to keep her wits about her and her mind off his many attractions, but now, unobserved, she could indulge her senses. Just a little and just for a moment, because he really was unbelievably gorgeous. Beneath the white cotton of the shirt he’d changed into at some point his shoulders were wide and strong enough to carry the weight of the world. When she looked at his hands, she could envisage them on her body, sliding over her hot, bare skin and making her tremble with need. Her own hands itched with the urge to ruffle his thick, dark hair and she had to tighten her grip on her fork.
She badly wanted to know how he’d got the scar that cut a pale, jagged line at his temple and how he’d acquired the bump in his nose, the imperfections which only made him sexier. His easy, practised smile, which never quite made it to his eyes, and which she suspected was designed to both fool and conceal, was nevertheless still blinding enough to do strange things to her stomach, no matter how much she tried to resist.
For several heady minutes while they ate in silence, Carla’s entire world, her focus and her attention, was reduced to the magnetising, enigmatic man sitting opposite her, so it was little wonder she’d been caught by surprise when that fellow diner had knocked into her chair.
Little wonder too that she jumped and blinked when Rico’s voice cut across her surprisingly lurid thoughts.
‘Are you done?’
‘What?’ she managed, her voice strangely husky. ‘Oh. Yes.’
‘Would you like anything else?’
‘No, thank you,’ she said, mustering up a smile of her own and fighting back a blush at having been caught staring. ‘That was amazing. I’m stuffed.’
‘Then I’ll get the bill.’
What? The bill? That was unexpected. He’d all but promised her a seduction. She’d been braced for it and equally prepared to use it as leverage. If she was being honest, she’d been looking forward to it. To the challenge, naturally. Instead, Rico was catching the eye of a waiter and calling him over with a quick scribble in the air, clearly keen to be rid of her.
‘Really?’ she said, unable to prevent the frown she could feel creasing her forehead.
‘It’s late.’
True, but still. ‘So that’s it?’
‘What else were you expecting?’
Good question. She was exhausted. She wasn’t here on a date. She should be glad that the chemistry between them had evaporated and he no longer wanted her in that way. It mattered not one jot why he’d changed his mind. She wasn’t interested in that in the slightest. Yet she was nowhere near achieving her mission. She’d barely even started. ‘You said dinner could prove interesting.’
‘I was wrong.’
‘I disagree.’
‘Too bad.’
Okay. So that was a bit rude, but he both sounded and looked resolute and she never begged for anything these days. Adaptability and flexibility were key in her line of work and she had both in spades. She also had his number. Her flight was scheduled for tomorrow evening, so she had all day to bombard him with phone calls until he realised that he felt the way about the Finn situation she wanted him to. Now that she’d established contact she wasn’t going to give it up without a fight. Finn and Georgie deserved more than that, and coming all this way was not going to have been for nothing.
‘I see,’ she said, pulling herself together and aiming for breezy. ‘Well, then. Thank you for dinner.’
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, his expression dark and unfathomable. ‘I’ll see you to your hotel.’
So she could be subjected to further insult along the way? She didn’t think so. ‘There’s no need.’
‘I’d like to.’
‘Why?’
‘You’re a tourist and an easy target.’
‘I may not have been to Venice,’ she said a tad archly, ‘but I have travelled extensively, often alone. I am perfectly capable of getting myself to a hotel in a strange city.’
‘Humour me. Where are you staying?’
‘The first hotel that came up with any availability.’
‘Which is?’
‘I don’t remember the name,’ she had to admit, never more regretting that she didn’t have the answer to hand. ‘Unsurprisingly, when I was making plans this afternoon everything was a bit of a rush. The details are on my phone. There wasn’t a lot to choose from. Most places seemed to be fully booked.’
‘It’s high season.’
‘So I gathered.’
While Rico paid the waiter, who then started whisking away their empty plates, Carla twisted to unhook her bag from the back of her chair. Her lovely, expensive designer bag that contained her passport, her cards, her cash, her keys and her phone—virtually her entire life.
Her bag that was no longer there.
It wasn’t under her chair, she realised, her blood running cold, her heart pounding and the food in her stomach turning to lead. It wasn’t beneath the table. It wasn’t anywhere.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Rico, who sounded as if he were six feet below the surface of a distant canal.
‘My bag,’ she said dazedly as her head began to buzz. ‘It’s gone.’
Once Rico settled on a course of action, nothing swayed him from it, and this evening was no different. He’d decided against seducing Carla and from that moment on he just wanted supper over and done with. Her effect on him was too hard to ignore and he was tired of fighting it.
With every mouthful he’d taken, the usually delicious food tasting strangely of nothing, he’d been aware of her eyes on him, burning right through the layers of clothing and searing his skin. He was so attuned to her frequency he’d even caught the tiny variations in her breathing while she’d been studying him, which was as extraordinary as it was baffling when he’d never before experienced such awareness. But at least he’d had the consolation of soon being able to escape.
Not so now.
Fate clearly had other ideas for this evening.
‘What do you mean, gone?’ he asked, the unease that had faded with every passing second now slamming back into him with a vengeance.
‘Exactly that,’ she said, her face white, the green eyes that met his wide and troubled. ‘My passport, my keys, my money, my phone. Everything. Practically my whole life. Gone.’
‘How?’ he said sharply. ‘When?’
‘I don’t know.’ She ran her hands through her hair, a deep frown creasing her forehead. ‘But someone bumped into my chair earlier, while we were eating. I thought they were drunk. It could have happened then.’
Rico inwardly tensed, stunned disbelief ricocheting through him as the impact of her words registered. Someone had knocked into her? How the hell had he not noticed that? He, who’d once lived on the streets and still slept with one eye open. Who had razor-sharp instincts and missed nothing. He shouldn’t have allowed himself to be distracted by her focus on him, dannazione. He shouldn’t have been so determined to get through the evening as quickly as possible, to the extent that nothing else mattered.
‘Do you remember what they looked like?’ he asked, not liking one little bit the apparent dulling of the wits he’d relied on from the age of twelve.
‘Not really. I barely caught a glimpse of him. Or her.’
‘No CCTV out here.’
‘No... Damn...’ She took a deep breath and grimaced. ‘Look, I really hate having to ask, but could I use your phone? I need to find somewhere else to stay.’
The reality of her situation—and his—hit him then and his jaw tightened minutely. The only hotels available were no doubt less than salubrious and who knew how long it would take to find a vacancy? He knew what it was like to spend the night on the streets, cold and alone and afraid, and he wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Venice was labyrinthine and not all of it was pretty enough to end up on a postcard.
He couldn’t abandon her, no matter how much he might wish to. Carla was here because of the challenge he’d issued and she was stuck because he’d allowed himself to be distracted and had lowered his guard. There was only one solution, and it didn’t appeal in the slightest, but this was the price he had to pay for both his impulsivity and his carelessness.
‘You’d better come home with me.’
Carla went very still, her gaze jerking to his, the horror he saw there and on her face suggesting she was as keen on the idea as he was. ‘Oh, no, I really don’t think that’s necessary.’
‘You’ll be perfectly safe.’
She shook her head, her blonde hair shimmering beneath the twinkling lights distracting him for a moment. ‘That’s not it.’
‘Then what is it?’
‘I don’t much like being dependent on anyone,’ she said with a slight jut of her chin.
No, well, he could identify with that. ‘I don’t much like having anyone dependent on me, but we don’t have a choice.’
She stiffened and something flashed in the depths of her eyes. ‘I always have a choice.’
‘As I said, it’s high season. Everywhere decent will be full. There are areas of Venice you do not want to find yourself in, however briefly. It’s nearly midnight and you must be wiped out. I know I am.’ The exertions of today were taking their toll and his muscles were beginning to ache, so perhaps it was just as well he’d decided against seducing her, not that that was remotely relevant right now. ‘But you’re right. It is your choice. Here.’
Fishing his phone out of his jacket pocket, he put it on the table and pushed it towards her. For several long moments Carla just stared at it warily, as if it might be about to bite, and then she sighed and nudged it back towards him, her shoulders falling as she gave a brief nod.
‘All right,’ she said, looking impossibly weary and dejected, the smile she was trying to muster up weak. ‘Thank you.’
‘Things will look better in the morning,’ he said, not having a clue why he felt the need to reassure her but for some reason really disliking the way the fight had drained from her.
‘Of course they will.’
‘Do you have a suitcase?’
‘In the cloakroom.’
‘Andiamo.’
While from the centre of his boat Rico navigated the canals that were a lot less busy than they’d been earlier, Carla sat at the back and used his phone to cancel her bank cards and her passport. Her phone had face recognition but she cancelled that too, just in case.
She was too preoccupied to take any notice of the tall, dark buildings as they slid quietly past, thinning out until they were far behind them. She wasn’t in the mood to luxuriate in the inky depths of the night that enveloped her as they crossed the lagoon and the cool, fresh breeze that caressed her face, or admire Rico’s skill and ease at the tiller of a vintage boat that was all beautiful varnished wood and sleek lines. She lacked the energy and enthusiasm to request a tour of his home, which she was sure would be huge and airy, based on the little of it she did see. She certainly didn’t have time to contemplate the implications of having her most important material possessions stolen, practically from beneath her nose.
That, thanks to jet lag, came at three a.m.
Upon disembarkation at the jetty to which he’d tied the boat, Rico had grabbed her overnight bag and then alighted. He’d held out his hand to help her off, releasing her as soon as she’d done so, and headed up a path with an instruction to follow him tossed over his shoulder. Too battered by shock and weariness and the sizzling effect of his brief yet electrifying touch to do anything else, Carla had complied.
Once inside the house, he’d led her through a dimly lit but spacious hall, up a set of wide stone stairs and shown her to a guest suite that was probably the size of her entire flat. He’d then bade her a curt goodnight before turning on his heel and disappearing. She’d instantly flopped onto the bed and crashed out almost the minute her head hit the pillow.
Now, two hours later, she was wide awake, hot and sweaty, the sheets twisted around her from all the tossing and turning she’d been doing in a futile attempt to get back to sleep.
With a sigh of frustration, Carla disentangled herself and got up. She crossed the room, opened the doors that gave onto one of two balconies and stepped out into the darkness in the hope that cool night air might blast away the thumping of her head and quell the sick feeling that had started in the restaurant and had now spread into every cell of her body.
But the breeze that carried a welcome freshness and a hint of salt was no panacea for the churning of her stomach. The distant cries of seagulls couldn’t drown out the rapid drum of her heartbeat. No distantly beautiful view of perhaps the world’s most romantic city could sugar-coat the reality of her situation.
She was stranded, her plans derailed and her certainty about what she’d been doing shaken, her freedom and independence snatched away along with everything else. She was trapped, firstly by her arrogant assumption that the plan which seemed like such a good idea at lunchtime would work and secondly by her own stupidity.
How could she have let it happen? she wondered, swallowing down the wave of nausea rolling up her throat as she gazed across the lagoon at the odd sparkling light of the city far away. She knew how important her phone and her passport were and she knew the risks associated with leaving a handbag hanging on the back of a chair in a public space. As she’d so blithely and loftily told him, she’d travelled a lot.
Yet she’d been so thrown by Rico’s effect on her, she’d failed to deploy her common sense. She hadn’t given the security of her things a moment’s thought at any point during dinner. She’d been reckless and unthinking and, worst of all, breathtakingly stupid, and as a result she was now entirely at the mercy of a man once again.
This time, the situation might be wholly her fault and not at all like the one in which she’d found herself as a teenager, but the emotions were all too familiar—the helplessness and the confusion, the vulnerability and the stripping away of her agency and her identity.
It had taken her months to rid herself of the chill that was rippling through her now, the self-doubt she could feel beginning to creep in and the tightness in her chest. She didn’t like feeling this way when it wasn’t who she was any more, and she hated even more the disturbing memories it invoked of a time when she’d been so naïve, so foolish.
Nor did she like being here, wherever here actually was, but Rico had been right—there hadn’t been an alternative. It had occurred to her as she’d sat there staring at his phone, and burning up with regret and anger that she hadn’t taken better care of hers, that she couldn’t strike out on her own. She had no money and no ID. No hotel would take her in, even if she had managed to locate the details of the one she’d booked. She’d had to accept his offer, however nasty the taste it left in her mouth, however sick it made her feel.
But her enforced dependence on him wouldn’t be for long, she assured herself, determinedly pushing the feelings and the memories away and pulling herself together. In the morning—well, later on, seeing as how it was already morning—she’d file a police report and investigate getting a new passport. She’d look at moving her flight and contact Georgie to ask her to get her locks changed, just to be on the safe side. She’d email her boss and let her know she wouldn’t be in on Monday. Once she’d figured out how to get hold of some money she’d buy a phone and a few more clothes and then she’d find herself a hotel to stay in. Despite it being high season, surely the city would be less busy during the week than at the weekend.
She might be stranded but she would not be a victim, she told herself firmly as she gave her upper arms a quick rub before turning and heading back inside. Not again. Never again. She had resources. Somehow she would get herself out of this mess.
She needn’t be troubled by her host. He’d hardly know she was here. She had plenty of things to be getting on with and presumably he did too. In the unlikely event their paths did cross, however, she’d be on her guard. She’d be polite but distant and think of some other way to encourage contact with Finn. She had no intention of giving up. Just because this plan had backfired badly didn’t mean another would.
The one thing she definitely wouldn’t be doing, she thought, climbing into bed and punching her pillow into shape, was indulging the attraction she felt for Rico, which just wouldn’t seem to go away. She’d made that mistake with him once already and look what had become of it. Whatever else happened, she would not be making it again.