Free Sicilian Nights Omnibus by Penny Jordan

control over himself. He was simply annoyed with himself for initially letting the fact that she had managed to win his approval for her flying whilst deceiving him as to her identity blind him to her sexuality.
    Leonora came to a wary halt at the bottom of the stairs. When Caterina had informed her that she was to go down to the main entrance to the apartment once she had finished her breakfast, she had hoped that the only person she would meet there would be the stylist—not Alessandro Leopardi.
    Stepping out of the shadows, Alessandro announced coolly, ‘There has been a change of plan. I shall now accompany you myself.’
    Leonora knew that her indrawn breath was both audible and a betrayal of her feelings. An indignant flush of colour stained her face. She also knew that Alessandro wouldn’t care how much she objected to his change of plan. But maybe after he’d told the stylist about her she’d refused point-blank to take on such an unrewarding challenge, Leonora thought with black humour.
    ‘As most of the better-known designer stores are here on Tournabouni Street, we may as well walk rather than risk being stuck in the city’s traffic.’
    Leonora was feeling too dispirited to respond as she compared the way she was going to be spending her precious time in Florence with the way she had planned to spend it—visiting museums, exploring the streets and enjoying the timeless ambience of the Medici city.
    Even though it was only just gone nine o’clock in the morning there was already a warming strength in the sun, where it fell in slats of gold from the side streets. Tournabouni Street was a busy thoroughfare, bordered by imposing buildings, many of which had been converted into designer stores. Their doors were closed to shoppers at this early hour of the day—but not, apparently, to Alessandro, as Leonora discovered when he stopped outside one exclusive shop and then removed his cell phone from the inside pocket of the elegantly cut linen jacket he was wearing over a striped shirt and a pair of jeans far better cut than her own.
    He texted something swiftly, speaking to her without looking up. ‘I have told Cristina, who will be here to take charge of you in a minute, that you are to accompany me to Sicily and that you have lost your luggage in transit—’
    He broke off as the door opened and a stunningly elegant woman stepped out to embrace him with a warm, ‘ Ciao ,Alessandro.’
    As he kissed her on both cheeks, he told her, ‘I shall forever be indebted to you, Tina.’
    How many women must he have brought here in order to merit the store being opened early for him? What did it matter to her how many there had been—and what was the cause of that sudden fierce flash of painful anger? Not jealousy, Leonora assured herself.
    ‘Well, we owe you several favours, Sandro, for getting the models to New York for us in time for the last collection’s show.’
    So perhaps it wasn’t because he bought clothes for his lovers here that the store had been opened. If that was relief Leonora was feeling it was only because she didn’t want anyone thinking that she was one of his women.
    ‘Here is Leonora, Tina,’ Alessandro was saying, ‘I shall leave her in your capable hands.’
    After another very Italian embrace between them he was gone, striding down the street, leaving her feeling curiously bereft when she ought to have felt relief, Leonora admitted, as Cristina beckoned her inside, and then relocked the door.
    ‘It is every woman’s dread that her clothes disappear, no?’ she sympathised with a swift shrug. ‘Before we started to use Alessandro’s cargo service every time we pack for one of the international clothes shows, I am—what do you say in England?—on needles until I see that all is well and everything has arrived.’
    ‘On pins,’ Leonora told her, with a smile that Cristina returned. She was older than Leonora, in her late thirties or maybe her early forties, Leonora guessed, but