Free Back in the Lion's Den by Elizabeth Power Page B

are we going?’ she asked, her fingers still in his as he brought her out across the front portico with its marble columns to the bright red convertible Ferrari standing on the drive.
    ‘You’ll see.’
    ‘What about Daisy?’ she asked, concerned, as he opened the passenger door for her.
    ‘Daisy’s asleep,’ he assured her, surprising her with the knowledge that he must have checked up on his niece before joining her and Avril on the terrace. ‘She’s all right, I promise you.’
    It came as quite a shock to realise that he was the only person whom she would have accepted that from without needing to check it out for herself. But why? she wondered, puzzled. When she didn’t even like him? When he was the last man she would choose to be with? If she’d had a choice!
    ‘I have to pick up some documents in Cannes,’ he enlightened her as the Ferrari growled away. ‘We won’t be gone long, but I thought you might appreciate getting away from the house for an hour or so.’
    Had he really thought that? she wondered, with an insidiouswarmth stealing through her—until she became aware of just how she was behaving.
    Careful, she warned herself, realising that she was in grave danger of weakening towards him. As most women would, she accepted without any reservation, drawn as they were to those darkly aloof features and that uncompromising air of command mixed with that smoky sexuality of his that put every other man in the shade. But then they didn’t know how unpitying he was, did they? she decided bitterly.
    The air was pure and sweet as they drove through the forested hills, passing swathes of olive and citrus groves, and villages perched high above the sun-streaked sea.
    ‘Do you come here very often?’ she enquired, needing to say something because he wasn’t.
    ‘As often as I can. Long weekends. Bank holidays. But almost always for the summer.’
    Breathing in the aromatic scents of wild herbs and lavender, Sienna returned, ‘I can see why.’ With its craggy coast, its mountains, and its interminable cypress trees piercing the dramatic blue of the sky, this landscape fitted him as if he was part of it. Unyielding. Implacable. Untamed. ‘My parents always liked Spain, so we went there virtually every year,’ she told him. ‘Self-catering—that sort of thing. Cheap and cheerful, as Mum called it, but we had some great family holidays together.’
    ‘That sounds good,’ he remarked distractedly, making her wonder if he was just saying that. After all, what was camping on the Costa Brava compared with a billionaire’s security-guarded villa in the South of France?
    ‘What about you?’ she murmured a little hesitantly, eager to know more about her late husband’s brother. After all, he hadn’t always been rich.
    She knew he’d left home while still remarkably young, and according to Niall had had a variety of mundane and often laborious jobs until some lucky break and the right contacts had tested his entrepreneurial skills and set him on the road towhere he was today. He’d made his fortune in telecommunications, she remembered, although his enterprises these days ranged from anything from technology to high finance. As a man, however, he was an enigma—he always had been—and he and Niall had been as different as wind and fire.
    ‘What
about
me?’ He was changing into a lower gear to take a winding road up the steep hillside, the action drawing Sienna’s attention to his lean dark hand.
    ‘Did you have family holidays?’ she enquired, slamming down the lid on her speculation over how those strong skilled hands would know their way around a woman’s body.
    ‘Well, not quite as adventurous as yours sound,’ he admitted dryly.
    ‘Niall said you never knew your own father?’ she ventured, aware that he’d been born illegitimate and that he might not want to talk about it.
    ‘No,’ he said uncommunicatively, seeming, from his curious glance in her direction, to have picked up on that