The Unlikely Mistress. Sharon Kendrick

Sabrina Cooper, and would never see her again after today, but what he did know was that she certainly hadn’t come to Venice with seduction in mind.

      Not unless she was intending to appeal to the type of man who got turned on by the frumpy gym-mistress look!

      Biting back a smile, he wandered over to the telephone and picked up the receiver.

      ‘Pronto!’ he drawled for courtesy’s sake, and then immediately switched to English, in which most of the staff were fluent. His Italian was passable—but in a case concerning a strange woman’s underwear he needed no misunderstandings! ‘How long will it take to get some clothes laundered?’

      There was a short pause. ‘Certainly within a couple of hours, sir.’

      Guy frowned. That long? And just what were they supposed to do while Sabrina’s jeans and T-shirt and bra and panties whizzed around in the washing machine? His time was precious, and his leisure time especially so. There were a million things he would rather be doing than being forced to sit and chat to someone with whom he had nothing in common other than that they both hailed from the same country.

      Damn!

      ‘Let’s try for half that time, shall we?’ he suggested softly. ‘And can you have some coffee brought up at the same time?’

      Bearing a tray of coffee, the valet came and collected the damp garments and Guy heard the sound of the shower being turned off. He walked over to the bathroom door.

      ‘I’m afraid your clothes won’t be back for an hour,’ he called.

      ‘An hour?’ Sabrina’s heart plummeted as she stood behind the locked door. What was she supposed to do in the meantime? Stay wrapped in a towel inside this steamy bathroom?

      He heard the annoyance in her voice and felt like telling her that the idea pleased him even less than it did her. But he hadn’t been forced to bring her back here, had he? No, he’d made that decision all on his own—so he could hardly complain about it now.

      ‘Why don’t you use that towelling robe hanging up on the back of the door?’ he suggested evenly. ‘And there’s some coffee out here when you’re ready.’

      Squinting at herself in the cloudy mirror, Sabrina shrugged on a towelling gown which was as luxuriously thick and fluffy as she would expect in a place like this. She slipped it over her bare, freckled shoulders, and as she did so she became aware of the faint trace of male scent which clung to it.

      Guy had been wearing this robe before her, she realised as an unwelcome burst of sexual hunger grew into life inside her. Guy’s body had been as naked beneath this as her own now was. She felt the sudden picking up of her heart as the evocative muskiness invaded her nostrils, and she wondered if she might be going slightly mad.

      How could a complete stranger—however attractive he undoubtedly was—manage to have such an incapacitating and powerful effect on her? Making her feel like some puppet jerked and manipulated by invisible strings. Was this what the death of her fiancé had turned her into—some kind of predator?

      Guy glanced up as she walked in and his grey eyes narrowed, a pulse hammering at his temple. Maybe the robe hadn’t been such a good idea after all, he conceded. Because wasn’t there something awfully erotic about a woman wearing an oversized masculine garment like that? On him it reached to just below his knees—but on this woman’s pale and slender frame it almost skimmed her ankles.

      ‘How about some coffee?’ he queried steadily.

      ‘C-coffee would be lovely,’ she stumbled, suddenly feeling acutely shy. She perched on the edge of a sofa on the opposite side of the room, telling herself that she had absolutely nothing to worry about. The circumstances might be bizarre, but for some reason she trusted this man. Men of Guy Masters’s calibre wouldn’t make a clumsy pass at a stranger, despite that brief, hungry darkening of his eyes.

      He poured them both coffee and thought that conversation might be safer than silence. ‘First time in Venice?’

      ‘First time abroad,’ she admitted.

      ‘You’re kidding!’

      She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not. I’ve never been out of England before.’ Michael hadn’t earned very much, and neither had she—and saving up to buy a house had seemed more important than trips abroad. Though a man like Guy Masters would probably not understand that.

      ‘And you came here on your own?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      He looked at her curiously. ‘Pretty daring thing to do,’ he observed, ‘first time in a foreign country on your own?’

      Sabrina stared down at the fingers which were laced around her coffee-cup. ‘I’ve never done anything remotely daring before…’

      ‘What, never?’ he teased softly.

      Sabrina didn’t smile back. Hadn’t she decided that life was too short to play safe all the time? ‘So I thought I’d give it a try,’ she said solemnly, and shifted her bottom back a little further on the seat.

      Guy sipped his coffee and wished that she would sit still, not keep shifting around on the sofa as if she had ants in her pants. And then he remembered.

      She wasn’t wearing any.

      Dear God. A shaft of desire shot through him, which was as unexpected as it was inappropriate, and he took a huge mouthful of coffee—almost glad when it scalded his lips. He risked a surreptitious glance at his watch. Only forty-five minutes to go. Less if he was lucky. Much more of this and he would be unable to move.

      ‘So why Venice?’ he queried, a slight edge of desperation to his voice.

      ‘Oh, it’s one of the world’s most beautiful cities, and I—I had to…to…’

      Something in the quality of her hesitation made him stir with interest. ‘Had to what?’

      She had been about to say ‘get away’, but that particular statement always provoked the questions to ask why, and once that question had been asked then the whole sad story would come out. A story she was weary of telling. Weary of living through. She had come to Italy to escape from death and its clutches.

      ‘I had to see St Mark’s Square.’ She smiled brightly. ‘It was something of a life’s ambition. So was riding in a gondola.’

      ‘But not taking a bath in the Grand Canal?’

      She actually laughed. ‘No. Not that. I hadn’t bargained on that!’

      He thought how the laugh lit up her face. Like sunshine glowing from within. ‘And how long are you staying?’

      ‘Only a couple more days. How about you?’

      He felt a pulse begin to beat insistently at his temple. Suddenly Venice was getting more attractive by the minute—rather uncomfortably attractive, actually. ‘Me, too,’ he said huskily, and risked another glance at his watch.

      The room seemed much too small. Much too intimate. Again Sabrina shifted self-consciously on the sofa.

      ‘How old are you?’ he demanded suddenly, as she crossed one pale, slender thigh over the other.

      Old enough to recognise that maybe Guy Masters wasn’t completely indifferent to her after all. The quiet, metallic gleam in the cool grey eyes told her that. But that wasn’t the kind of answer he was seeking.

      ‘I’m twenty-seven,’ she told him.

      ‘You look younger.’

      ‘So people say.’ She lifted her eyebrows. ‘And you?’

      ‘Thirty-two.’

      ‘You look older.’

      Their eyes connected as something primitive shuddered in the air around them.

      ‘I know I do,’ he murmured.