The Virgin's Sicilian Protector. Chantelle Shaw

ahead of him on the road. He saw the car’s brake lights flash on as Arianna’s progress was impeded by a bus trundling along in front of her.

      There was no possibility of overtaking on the narrow road and it was another five minutes before the bus pulled into a bus stop. After another mile or so Arianna turned up a narrow road and Santino followed her. Most of Positano was a pedestrian zone and tourists had to park in one of the garages on the edge of the town. But she drove down a back street where there was parking for local residents and swung her car into a vacant space.

      Santino parked behind the open-top sports car and jumped out of the four-by-four. He strode up to the car, leaned over and snatched the key out of the ignition before Arianna had a chance to stop him.

      ‘You really are the most tedious man,’ she said languidly, although he sensed the effort it took her to control her temper.

      ‘That’s not the impression you gave when you kissed me earlier.’ He felt a spurt of satisfaction when she bit her lip, and dismissed the odd idea that her air of vulnerability was not an act.

      Her eyes were hidden behind oversized designer sunglasses and he was frustrated that he had no idea what she was thinking. She looked expensively chic in tight white jeans and a blue-and-white-striped Breton top. A red silk scarf kept her long chestnut hair back from her face. Her lips were coated in scarlet gloss and he felt a crazy urge to kiss her until he had removed all traces of lipstick from her mouth.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming into town?’

      ‘Because I’m going to the beauty salon,’ she told him in a bored tone, nodding towards a shop with the name Lucia’s Salon over the door. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard while I’m having my nails done.’ She threw her hands up in the air. ‘Look around you. There are no paparazzi here to report on my wild behaviour that might embarrass my dear daddy.’

      She started to walk towards the salon and glared at him when he fell into step beside her. ‘You can’t come in. If you insist on staying, you can wait outside, but don’t blame me if you get bored, Mr Vasari.’

      ‘I doubt I could ever get bored around you,’ he said drily. ‘And I thought we had agreed to drop the formality, Arianna.’

      She spun round to face him and jabbed her finger into his chest. ‘I didn’t agree to anything, certainly not to my every move being watched by one of my father’s sycophants. I demand that you give me some space.’

      Despite his intention to try and win her trust, Santino felt riled by her withering tone. He was tempted to tell her that, far from being her father’s sycophant, Randolph had begged him to be her bodyguard.

      ‘You’re not really in a position to make demands, are you, Arianna? If I were you I would remember that your father promised to stop your allowance if you refuse my protection. How would you survive?’ he taunted. ‘It’s not as if you have a successful career to fund your extravagant lifestyle. You simply leech off your father.’

      ‘If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,’ she snapped, jabbing her finger into his chest a second time.

      ‘Do that again and I guarantee you won’t like the consequences.’

      ‘What will you do?’ Her husky voice was laced with amusement. ‘Will you put me across your knee and spank me?’

      Desire kicked hard in his groin at the erotic images her words evoked. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. ‘Would you like me to? Are those the kinds of games you like to play?’ he drawled, fighting an unbearable temptation to pull her into his arms and cover her sulky mouth with his. She was the most infuriating woman he had ever met, and he could not comprehend why she made him feel more alive than he had felt in years.

      He stretched out his hand and removed her sunglasses. She blinked in the bright sunshine and the flecks of gold in her brown eyes gleamed with temper.

      ‘Give those back immediately.’

      He made a tutting sound. ‘Try saying “please”. Didn’t your parents teach you better manners when you were a child?’

      Something flickered in her gaze that surely could not be sadness, Santino told himself. Arianna was a beautiful, rich heiress and she wanted for nothing.

      ‘My mother cleared off to the other side of the world with her lover when I was eleven,’ she told him in a hard voice. ‘My father didn’t know how to deal with my “difficult behaviour” when I cried every night. He was so desperate to send me back to boarding school that he drove me there himself—the first and last time he took any interest in my education. I didn’t see him again for months. Every school holiday, he used to send me out to Villa Cadenza with a nanny.’

      She snatched her sunglasses out of Santino’s fingers and replaced them on her nose. ‘The only thing I learned from my parents is to put me first, and look after myself, because no one else gives a damn.’

       CHAPTER THREE

      ARIANNA WISHED SHE could speak Italian better as she tried to explain to the receptionist in the beauty salon that, if the tall man who was standing in the street came into the salon and asked for her, she was to tell him that Miss Fitzgerald was having her legs waxed in one of the treatment rooms.

      ‘You have appuntamento?’ the girl asked, studying the appointments book on her desk.

      ‘No.’ Arianna opened her purse and took out a wad of notes. ‘I haven’t booked any treatments. I just want you to pretend to the man outside that I will be here in the salon for a few hours—per favore,’ she added, remembering Santino’s jibe about her manners.

      She handed the confused-looking receptionist the money before she walked to the back of the building and exited into a small courtyard that she had discovered by chance on a previous visit to the salon. A door at the rear of the building adjacent to the beauty salon led to a flight of stairs, and at the top she entered a large workroom. There were several tables with sewing machines and around the room were tailor’s dummies draped with material.

      ‘So you are here at last. But you are late.’ The woman who greeted Arianna was small and round, with jet-black hair swept into a severe bun and fierce black eyes. ‘If you want to learn to sew from the best seamstress on the Amalfi coast, I expect you to be here at the time we arranged.’

      ‘I’m sorry...mi dispiace,’ Arianna said meekly.

      Rosa handed her a length of muslin. ‘Probably you have forgotten everything I taught you last summer, but we will see. You can begin by showing me that you can construct a French seam.’

      Arianna nodded and immediately set to work. For years she had fought against the idea of becoming a fashion designer. She had been determined to distance herself from her father, not follow in his footsteps. But a year ago she had acknowledged that ignoring her creativity was making her unhappy. She had a natural flare for designing and sketching clothes, and she loved playing around with different materials, textures and colours. She knew instinctively when an outfit looked right or wrong, the importance of how a material draped and the need for precision tailoring to create a truly beautiful garment.

      Last summer while she’d been staying in Positano she had commissioned an evening gown from local designer and dressmaker Rosa Cucinotta. Rosa had shown her around her workroom and it had been a defining moment for Arianna, confirming her decision that she wanted a career in fashion design. But although she had good drawing skills she needed to learn how to sew, make patterns and know how to construct a garment.

      She had dismissed the idea of applying to study fashion design at a college in England for fear that the press would find out. It was important to keep her hope of one day owning her own fashion label a secret, especially from her father. If she did make a successful career, she wanted it to be on her own, without Randolph’s money or influence.

      She had persuaded Rosa to give