Free The Devil to Pay by Rachel Lyndhurst Page B

tightest little smile as covert retaliation for the way he was making her squirm. “So the sooner I can get to my room, the quicker we can start on this project.”
    “Indeed,” he replied with a knowing smile. “The sooner the better.”
    Rianna could have kicked herself for using exactly the same phrase as Daniel had the night before outside her hotel room door. She had hoped he had completely forgotten about it. He clearly had not .
    Rianna’s “room” turned out to have the floor space of an entire apartment. It was a spacious living area which had stunning sea views, and a vast suite of lounge furniture, oozing luxury. A working area set to the side had a desk, phone and laptop, everything one could possibly need in an office and there were paintings and antiques scattered tastefully throughout. Rianna peered quickly into the lavish vault of a pristine white and blue bathroom as Daniel whisked her past. It was about the same size as the entire ground floor of her gran’s house!
    “I hope you will find everything in here to your liking,” Daniel said as she stood on the threshold of the bedroom.
    Her fingers brushed the honey-coloured wooden doorframe as she stepped inside and held her breath. The entire space was a confection of white, cream and gold, flashed with blood-red accessories. The heavy dark wooden furniture was polished to a mellow gleam, and a light breeze filtered through gauzy floor length white curtains.
    “It’s—it’s beautiful,” she breathed as she noticed her very own balcony beyond the curtain. “And more sea views. Wow!”
    “There’s only one side of the house without a sea view. As you may have noticed, we’re on top of a wedge shaped cliff so the back of the place is actually set into the rock. The lift shafts are at the rear and I use the rest of it for dark and dingy domestic purposes. There’s the wine cellar, cinema, store rooms, and a panic room.”
    “A panic room?”
    “Don’t worry. It’s never been used and I don’t expect it ever will be.” He smiled reassuringly. “The last set of developers thought it would be a good idea, increase the value of the property, bring it up to date.”
    “Oh, well, that’s a relief,” Rianna blustered. “I guess you can’t be too careful these days, not when you’re a billionaire. There must be threats everywhere you turn.”
    “Not really. I’m comfortably well off, but there are much easier targets than Italian miners these days. All of this belongs to the Bracchi Trust, along with the helicopter and the jet. I’m afraid my dad still doesn’t trust me with the family millions.” His eyes sparkled. “I’ve been a very bad boy in the past and I’m not a billionaire. I hope you’re not disappointed.”
    “Oh, no, of course not,” Rianna replied, wondering what had possessed her to make such an assumption in the first place. “I was just joking.” How embarrassing . With an unconvincing release of breath, her gaze was suddenly drawn to a completely out of place lump on the bed. Her battered suitcase sat awkwardly upon an expensive-looking counterpane—hand-embroidered by the look of it—and antique, which only served to highlight the shabbiness of her mail-order luggage.
    At what point precisely had she thought a neon smiley address label and an enormous Welsh dragon sticker would be a good idea? She groaned inwardly as she remembered it hadn’t had an airing since her teens. It hadn’t seemed quite so embarrassing at home. In fact, she hadn’t even noticed the state it was in. God, he must think she was a complete peasant!
    “Ah.” Rianna said, moving unsteadily toward the eyesore. “My case.”
    “ That ,” Daniel replied with undisguised amusement, “was delivered by Gianpiero. He didn’t take the scenic route. He took the fast one, the red company helicopter. It seemed a shame to leave it sitting in an airport hangar.”
    “You didn’t have to drive for my sake.”
    “I wanted to, remember? I