Happy Mother's Day! - By Sharon Kendrick Page 0,69
London when he’d landed than it had been in Rome when he had left. He shrugged off his jacket and wound down the window of the car. It was the first spot of fresh air he’d got since disembarking from his private jet.
Flexing his broad shoulders to relieve the tension that had crept into the muscles, he ran a hand down the curve of his angular jaw, frowning as he felt the dark growth that already cast a visible dusky shadow over his lower face.
As his long brown fingers tugged at the knot of his silk tie he withdrew the phone from his pocket, but before he had flicked it open his attention was captured by raucous cries outside.
He turned his head automatically in the direction of the noise; his dark, curling lashes brushed against perfectly sculpted cheekbones against which his olive-toned skin pulled taut.
His dark glance was disinterested as he looked across to the bus shelter, where a trio of youths were gathered around a girl.
From where he sat Francesco could not see her face, but he could see that she had red hair, the fiery copper-type red that looked like burnished gold in sunlight.
He inhaled sharply, his nostrils flaring in self-derision as he recognised his total inability to control the flood of images that invaded his head. Vivid images that drew his thoughts inexorably backwards until the world around him became less real than that searing kiss. His breath deepened and slowed as the memories took hold.
Erin’s soft body was in his arms again, warm, pliant and supple. It was so real he could smell her hair and feel the thud of her heart through the hand he cupped over one small but perfect breast.
Her half-closed passion-glazed eyes, drowning blue and filled with total surrender as she looked up at him, her parted lips a seductive invitation as, warm and sweet-smelling, her breath fluttered against his mouth.
Their date was not going well. During the preceding hours he had thought about kissing her, but not like this! This unpremeditated kiss had been generated partly from sheer frustration. His plan, if such a crazy idea could be couched in those terms, was unravelling before him and, instead of reacting like nine out of ten women, Erin had laughed and acted as though the whole situation were some kind of joke.
Hysteria he could have risen above, but not the infectious giggles that had emerged from her lovely lips as she’d watched him resort to kicking the tyres of the truck.
He had wrenched open the door, furious beyond reason. ‘You’re a jinx!’ he accused, thinking longingly of the Mercedes he had driven out of the city only the previous week.
Francesco was seriously beginning to regret suggesting the temporary exchange with Ramon, who would be enjoying the benefits of the air-conditioned luxury of that top-of-therange model.
Considering the situation he now found himself in, Francesco was forced to ask himself if the man who cared for his string of thoroughbred Arabian horses had not had a point when he had questioned his employer’s sanity … He could think of several people in the financial circles he moved in who, if they’d been able to see him now, would have had no doubts about it.
Francesco Romanelli, they would have declared, has finally lost it! The only person he could imagine applauding his crazy actions was Rafe, his twin, who, had he still been alive, would have said—About time! Though even he might have raised an eyebrow at the extent to which his twin had embraced his new image.
His harsh accusation made Erin stop laughing. ‘And you’re about as much fun as earache,’ she told him frankly.
It took a few moments before he recovered from the shock of being spoken to this way, with none of the respect he automatically took as his due, before he responded.
And that was when he kissed her.
He slid into the driver’s seat, leaned across and took her face between his hands. ‘You want fun? Fine!’ And he lowered his mouth to hers.
The moment their lips touched he lost all control. Nothing that had gone before had prepared him for the searing heat that exploded inside him like a fireball, spreading and consuming him, wiping away every vestige of rational thought and leaving only primal need and hunger.
Nothing that had gone before had prepared him for Erin Foyle!
He could hear her voice in his head, huskily erotic. She said his name as it was wrenched from deep in the heart of