Gianni's Pride. KIM LAWRENCE

if the general clutter on the normally pristine work surfaces was any indication. He patted the dogs and made his way back to bed, checking on the sleeping child on his way there.

      Ten seconds after Gianni’s head hit the feather pillow he was asleep. It was the sunlight shining through the window that awoke him.

       Where am I?

      The feeling of disorientation lasted only a moment; it was then followed by another—not so momentary.

      This was a first.

      He was thirty-two and though there had been some moments in his life he would prefer to forget, none up to this point had involved waking up with a total stranger in his bed.

      And she was a stranger because that hair would not be easily forgotten, he decided, momentarily distracted by the remarkable shade of the thick mesh of curls, Titian interwoven with copper threads, spread out on the pillow beside him.

      Raising himself on one elbow, he studied the slender back of the sleeping woman, who lay with one arm curled under her head, the other draped over the patchwork quilt. His glance travelled from the unvarnished neat nails up the curve of her arm. She had a redhead’s skin, pale and milky, lightly dusted with freckles along the curve of her shoulder and the nape of her neck where there had been sun exposure.

      As far as he could tell she was naked. If anyone had walked in now they would assume … Was that what this was about—some sort of elaborate scam …?

      The cynical furrow between his dark brows smoothed as he rejected the half-formed theory. Getting paranoid, Gianni, he told himself.

      His eyes narrowed in effort as he kick-started his brain into sluggish life. Think, Gianni … focus … first, ditch conspiracy. This couldn’t be a set-up—nobody knew where he was. This he had made damned sure of. Gianni had tracked down enough people who had wanted to disappear to know that a secret stopped being a secret the moment you shared it.

      That left …?

      That left a big fat zero. Who was the naked woman with the silky-looking skin? His dark gaze caressed the smooth curve of her shoulder. Really silky … focus, Gianni! More important than identity was why was she here and in his bed?

      Except it wasn’t his bed, was it? And it wasn’t his house.

      His deep-set almond-shaped eyes framed by long thick black lashes widened as an explanation occurred to him. Was it possible the girl had been in the bed when he had climbed in too tired to register the warm body lying beside him?

       Not only possible, you idiot—probable!

      Presumably waking and finding a stranger in her bed would not be a good way for her to meet Lucy’s house guest. Gianni felt a stab of irritation. Obviously he was glad that Lucy had decided to take his advice and stop being a total recluse—he just wished that she hadn’t got sociable just yet.

      He reached carefully for the quilt, curling his long brown fingers around the edge as he kept a cautious eye on the sleeping woman. Removing himself from the bed before she woke up was definitely desirable. His narrowed gaze left her briefly to make an impatient sweep of the room. Where had he left his clothes last night …?

      Caught half naked in a woman’s bed. Gianni could see the tabloid headlines now and none of them said innocent mistake!

      He spotted his clothes, but too late—at the same moment the sleeping figure yawned and stretched luxuriously, the sinuous catlike movement sending the sheet slithering lower to reveal the dip of her slender waist and feminine flare of her hips below.

      Gianni winced, then, about to slide out from under the quilt, paused, fatally distracted as his eyes were drawn against his better judgement to the smooth, slender, womanly curves, lingering on the suggestion of a dimple above the swell of taut, peachy buttocks. Then the moment was gone—she murmured something and began to roll over, tugging the quilt up to her chin and snuggling down.

      Gianni inhaled and prepared himself for the worst. Always, in his opinion, a good idea—a man could always be pleasantly surprised.

       Let’s just hope she has a sense of humour!

      In the event she didn’t scream. After blinking like a sleepy kitten, she smiled in warm, sleepy invitation—or maybe she was just short-sighted. Either way, lust bypassed the logic channels in his brain and Gianni caught his breath and lost his sense of urgency.

      She was beautiful.

      As usual Miranda woke sixty seconds before the alarm was set to go off. This morning it had been set to go off early. Her house-sitting duties involved more than the feeding of the family pets she had imagined and, having a strongly developed work ethic, she was determined to fulfil every task that her new employer had outlined so meticulously in one of her lists—there were a lot of lists.

      The menagerie all had names that were not quite sorted in Miranda’s head yet: the ancient horse, the Shetland pony and the donkey, even the ducks and hens. Her employer had jotted down the list in her own neat hand. She had jotted a lot down, including a cleaning schedule that to Miranda, who didn’t mind a bit of clutter, seemed a little excessive, but she was being paid, and paid quite well, for having what her dad had called a holiday. That was before she had admitted that actually she wasn’t going back at the start of the new term; she had handed in her notice. Her paid holiday had then become a demeaning job for someone with her skills and qualifications.

      Miranda sighed and wriggled a little deeper into the soft mattress, refusing to replay the argument in her head. She was escaping, not running away. The distinction was important and her actions long overdue … Think positive.

      Although she hadn’t welcomed it at the time … Oh, all right, she had pretty much felt as though the sky had fallen in on her head and she still couldn’t bring herself to say it was a good thing, but if it hadn’t been for her sister Tam sweeping the man Miranda had wanted to grow old with off his feet things could have gone on as they were indefinitely, with her cutting a pathetic figure hoping that one day Oliver would notice she was something other than a dependable teacher of domestic science.

      No, not dependable, exceptional, Miranda silently corrected in line with her new philosophy of ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’. If she’d flaunted her not at all bad figure in the sort of designer clothes that Tam wore it was possible that Oliver would have noticed more than her raspberry muffins.

      Heartbreak aside, Miranda realised she actually felt good. She normally had a problem sleeping in a strange bed but last night she had gone out like a light and, apart from some strangely realistic dreams that were already slipping away, she had slept through the night. Perhaps it was a good omen.

      Eyes still closed, she rolled over towards the window set in the uneven wall where the age-blackened exposed oak beams stood out dark against the bright blue paint. There were a lot of bright colours in the cottage. It had been a combination of the view across the rolling countryside from the window and those beams that had made Miranda select this room when Lucy Fitzgerald had said she could choose any one she liked—that and the enormous, hedonistically soft bed with the carved wooden headboard.

      ‘Lush,’ she murmured sleepily under her breath as she snuggled into the layers of feather mattress. Her right hand brushed the headboard, her left touched warmth and hardness … Still half asleep, she slowly turned her head.

      The initial stabbing jolt of fear lasted a half beat before she relaxed and smiled. Obviously this was a dream because no man had a face like that.

      It was a masterclass in perfection, Miranda decided as she studied the shade and shadow of dark fallen-angel features, fascinated by the sharp angles and strong curves that made this a face that went beyond mere symmetrical prettiness. This face represented a perfect combination of planes and hollows, the masterful nose aquiline, the razor-sharp cheekbones high and slanting, the forehead broad and intelligent. Miranda stared, feeling an almost physical tug as she looked into velvety dark heavy-lidded eyes fringed by long spiky lashes and set beneath strongly delineated