Free The Count's Blackmail Bargain by Sara Craven Page B

further into the soft cushions of the lounger. Whatever will be, will be. Isn’t that what they say? So I may as well go with the flow. Especially as I don’t seem to have much of a choice.
    She closed her eyes. Oh, Paolo. She sent the silent plea winging passionately to the villa. For heaven’s sake get well quickly, and get me out of here.

    Alessio parked the Jeep in front of the house, and swung himself out of the driving seat. He needed, he thought as he strode indoors, a long cold drink, and a swim.
    What he did not require was the sudden appearance of his aunt, as if she’d been lying in wait for him.
    ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded, and he checked
    resignedly.
    ‘Down to the village. Luca Donini asked me to talk to his father—
    persuade him not to spend another winter in that hut of his.’
    ‘He asked you?’ Her brows lifted haughtily. ‘But how can this concern you? Sometimes, Alessio, I think you forget your position.’
    He gave her a long, hard look. ‘Yes, Zia Lucrezia,’ he drawled.
    ‘Sometimes, I do, as the events of the past few weeks have unhappily proved. But Besavoro is my village, and the concerns of my friends there are mine too.’
    She snorted impatiently. ‘You did not take the girl with you?’
    He shrugged. ‘I invited her, but she refused me.’
    She glared at him. ‘That is bad. You cannot be trying.’
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘It is better than I expected after such a short time.’
    His smile was cold. ‘But do not ask me to explain.’
    She changed tack. ‘You should have told me you were going to the village. You could have gone to the pharmacy for my poor boy.
    Last night he was delirious—talking nonsense in his sleep.’
    ‘It is probably a habit of his,’ Alessio commented curtly. ‘Why not ask his innamorata?’
    She gave him a furious look, and swept back to her nursing duties.
    Alessio proceeded moodily to his room. The jibe had been almost irresistible, but he regretted it. There’d been no need to remind himself that Laura and Paolo had been enjoying an intimate relationship prior to their arrival in Italy. Because he knew it only too well already.
    But what he could not explain was why he found it so galling.
    After all, he thought, he had never felt jealous or possessive about any of his previous involvements. For him, sex was usually just another appetite to be enjoyably and mutually satisfied. And there was nothing to be gained by jealousy or speculation over other lovers.
    He’d awaited Laura’s arrival at the villa with a sense of blazing resentment, even though he knew he had only himself to blame for his predicament, and, instead, found himself instantly intrigued by her. From that, it had only been a brief step to desire. And he strongly suspected this would have happened if he’d met her somewhere far from his aunt’s interference.
    He remembered, with distaste, icily promising to send her home with a beautiful memory. Now he wasn’t sure he’d send her back at all. Certainly not immediately, he thought, frowning as he stripped and found a pair of brief black swimming trunks.
    Maybe he’d whisk her away somewhere—the Seychelles or the Maldives, perhaps, or the Bahamas—for a few weeks of exotic pampering, with a quick trip to Milan first, of course, to reinvent her wardrobe. Buy her the kind of clothes he would enjoy removing.
    And on that enticing thought he collected a towel and his sunglasses, and went down to the pool to find her.
    He found her peacefully asleep, the long lashes curling on her cheek, her head turned slightly to one side. The sun had moved round, leaving one ankle and foot out in the open, vulnerable to its direct rays, and he reached up to make a slight adjustment to the parasol.
    Having done so, he did not move away immediately, but stood for a moment, looking down at her. In the simple dark green one-piece swimsuit, her slender body looked like the stem of a flower, her hair crowning it like an exotic corolla of