An Enticing Proposal. Meredith Webber

his emotions better than that. Tiredness? The long flight? Or the months of gut-wrenching, muscle-straining, heartbreaking worry over Lucia?

      He curbed the anger as wide spaced green eyes, flecked with the gold of the sunlight outside, stared warily into his.

      ‘Why didn’t you phone?’

      ‘I came instead.’

      ‘Why?’

      The question gave him momentary pause, then the anger churned again, rising, threatening to erupt.

      ‘To take Lucia home,’ he said bluntly.

      Paige had seen him stiffen earlier, guessed at anger, saw the tension in his body, controlled now but ready to explode. She wondered about violence. Was that why Lucia had fled? She had to forget her own reaction to the man—that strange and almost instant attraction. Right now she needed to stall, to buy time. With time maybe she could persuade Lucia to talk about her flight, before revealing her whereabouts to anyone. Or this man’s presence in town to Lucia!

      She tried for innocence in her expression—in her voice.

      ‘Lucia?’ she repeated in dulcet tones.

      Wrong move! His body language told her she’d unwittingly lit the fuse to set him off. He stepped closer, spoke more softly, but there was no escaping the rage emanating from his body and trembling in his words.

      ‘Yes, Lucia, Miss Morgan. And don’t act the innocent with me. You phoned my private work number, a new number only a handful of people know, you asked for Marco—a name only Lucia and my family use to address me. You left a message—said you wanted to speak to me. I haven’t come halfway around the world to play games with you, so speak to me, Miss Morgan. Or tell me where she is and let her explain her behaviour.’

      Paige shivered under the onslaught of his words—and the emotion accompanying them. No way could she inflict him on her ill and unhappy house guest. But how to tell an enraged husband—however handsome and sexy he might be—you won’t let him see his wife, without risking bodily harm to yourself? She gulped in some replenishing air, waited for the oxygen to fire into her blood, then squared up to him.

      ‘I will speak to her, ask her if she wishes to see you.’

      ‘You will…’

      Well, at least she’d rendered him speechless!

      She raised her hands as if to show helplessness. ‘I can’t do any more than that.’

      He glared at her, his eyes sparkling with the fierceness of his anger.

      ‘Then why did you contact me? To tease me? Torture me even more? Was it her idea? Did she say, “Let’s upset Marco in this new way”?’

      The agony in his voice pierced through to her heart and she found herself wanting to put her arms around him, comfort him—for all her doubts about his behaviour towards his wife.

      ‘She doesn’t know I contacted you,’ she said softly—feeling the guilt again. Wondering how to explain.

      He was waiting, the fire dying from his eyes, the grey colour taking over again.

      ‘Please, sit down. Do you want a drink—something hot—tea, coffee?’

      No reply, but he did slump into the chair. He ran the fingers of his right hand through his dark hair, then stared at her. Still waiting.

      ‘She came to me—off a backpackers’ coach. Do you know about backpackers?’

      He shrugged and managed to look both disbelieving and affronted at the same time. ‘Young tourists travelling on the cheap. But a coach? Lucia? Backpacking? And why would she come here?’

      Well, the last question was easy. If you took it literally.

      ‘The bus company has a number of coaches which follow the same route through the country towns of New South Wales. People buy a six-month ticket and can get on and off wherever they like—staying a few days in some places, longer in others. This is a very popular stopping-off place and the company recommends the health service as a number of the professionals here speak more than one language.’

      ‘Parla italiano?’

      The words sounded soft and mellifluous in Paige’s ears and again she felt a pang of sorrow—a sense of loss for something she’d never had.

      ‘If you’re asking if I speak Italian, the answer’s no. I used a phrase book to leave a message on your answer-phone. I studied Japanese and Indonesian and can get by in German. Many of the European tourists also speak or understand it, so I can communicate to a certain extent.’

      ‘Which is a credit to you but isn’t diverting me from the subject of Lucia, Miss Morgan.’

      Mellifluous? Steely, more like!

      ‘Or your phone call,’ he added, in a no-less-determined voice.

      ‘She wasn’t well, and I sensed…’

      How to explain her conviction that Lucia was in trouble—ill, lost and vulnerable—so alone that to take her in and care for her had been automatic.

      She looked at the man from whom the young woman had fled and wondered how to tell him why she’d been compelled to phone him.

      ‘She wasn’t like the usual backpackers I see. Mostly they’re competent young people, clued up, able to take care of themselves, if you know what I mean. Lucia struck me as someone so far out of her depth she was in danger of drowning.’ She met his eyes now, challenging him yet willing him to understand. ‘But I also felt she’d been very much loved and cherished all her life,’ she admitted, ‘and from the little she told me, I guessed someone, somewhere, would be frantically worried about her whereabouts.’

      He said nothing, simply stared at her as if weighing her words, wondering whether to believe them.

      ‘She doesn’t know I made that call,’ Paige admitted, feeling heat flood her cheeks again. ‘I looked through her passport one day and found the number pencilled in the back of it. I felt you—her family—someone somewhere—might need to know she was alive.’

      He bowed his head, letting his chin rest against his chest, and she saw his chest rise and fall as be breathed deeply.

      ‘Yes,’ he said, after a long pause. ‘I—we all—did need to know she was alive.’

      She studied him. Saw tiredness in the way his body was slumped in the chair. But when he raised his head and looked into her eyes there was no sign of fatigue—and the anger which she’d seen earlier still lit his from within.

      ‘Did she tell you why she ran away?’ he demanded.

      Paige shrugged.

      ‘She told me very little,’ she said bluntly. ‘All I’ve done is guess.’

      ‘Abominable girl!’ the man declared, straightening in his chair and flinging his arms into the air in a gesture of frustration. ‘She’s been spoiled all her life, that’s her trouble. Cherished is right! Of course she was cherished. And how does she repay that love and affection? How does she treat those who love her? By taking off! Running away! Leaving without a word to anyone, a note from Rome to her mother, saying she will be all right! Then nothing for months. We all assume she’s dead! Dio Madonna!’

      Perhaps it was as well she didn’t speak Italian. The intonation of the words told her it was a phrase unlikely to be repeatable in polite company. Not that the man didn’t look magnificent in his rage, on his feet now and prowling the room like a sleek black animal, still muttering foreign imprecations under his breath and moving his hands as if to conduct his voice. But watching him perform, that wasn’t getting them anywhere, and no matter how magnificent and full of sex appeal he was, he’d be out of her life by tomorrow so the sooner she got rid of him now, the sooner she could tackle Lucia.

      And the thought of her reaction to this latest development wasn’t all that