A Deal For The Di Sione Ring. Дженнифер Хейворд
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where bad things could and did happen on a regular basis.
Installing his mother in a luxury apartment with 24/7 security and ensuring she never had to work again should have provided him with some level of peace. Instead, his wary nature persisted. When you’d run errands for a neighborhood enforcer for a couple of years in your misguided youth before your mother straightened you out, you knew danger lurked everywhere, particularly for someone with his money and reputation. A smart man kept his eyes open.
His humanity suitably revived, he stepped out of the shower, sluiced the water from his face and grabbed a towel to dry off. Intent on answering a few urgent emails before a catnap and his meeting, he headed down to the lounge. His brain busy running the numbers the lawyers had given him for the hotel’s value, he didn’t notice the chambermaid bent over the cherrywood bar until he’d taken a couple of steps into the room.
His first impression was that she had the sweetest behind he’d ever seen. Round, firm, shapely buttocks stretched the material of her pewter-colored uniform tight across her hips. Spectacular legs completed the picture. His imagination effortlessly supplemented the rest of the tempting scenario: her face and remaining assets would be equally as luscious.
But what the hell was she doing in his suite?
“Would you mind,” he requested deliberately, taking the final two steps into the lounge, “telling me what you are doing here when I left explicit instructions with the butler not to be disturbed?”
She straightened and turned, all in one wary slow-motion move. His gaze slid over her. Her waist in the dress, which was stylish for a chambermaid, was tiny, cinched in just above those delectable hips. Her ample cleavage strained the buttons of the modest, short-sleeved style, as if she was too abundant to be contained in it. Her glossy dark brown hair was caught up in a tight ponytail, her cheekbones high and defined under the most stunning pair of espresso-brown eyes he’d ever seen.
He’d been wrong in his estimation. She wasn’t just temptingly attractive—she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever laid eyes on. Exotic in that olive-skinned, perfectly curved Sicilian sense of the word.
His body tightened as biology demanded in the face of such perfection. He imagined one sultry look from those eyes and most men would be on their knees.
Except right now, he noted, those eyes were aimed at him in a wary perusal, tracing their way down to where the towel was slung around his hips. They widened, darkened into giant espresso orbs. His towel had worked its way lower during his trip down the stairs, sitting now on his hip bones. He was giving her an eyeful. A gentleman would remedy that. But he had never been, nor would he ever be, a gentleman.
This was a six-star hotel he was considering purchasing. He had told his private butler he was not to be disturbed. He wasn’t letting it go.
He lifted an eyebrow. “So?”
* * *
Dio mio, but he was beautiful. Mina dragged her gaze up to the American’s face, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip. He was all defined, perfectly symmetrical muscle, as ideally proportioned as the models in the pictures their teachers had shown them in the anatomy lessons they’d given them in finishing school to prepare the girls to interact, as they’d called it, with the opposite sex. As if her classmates hadn’t known what the internet was. As if some of them hadn’t had their own personal anatomy lesson already...
His dark, brooding gaze slid over her, sending a pulse up her spine. If she had looked up the meaning of intenso in the dictionary, his picture would have been right there beside it. Although the glare he wore suggested he had limited patience to go with the definition.
“The butler informed me you were at a meeting.” She lifted her chin, pasting a composed look on her face while she searched desperately for the confidence she’d been taught to effortlessly exude. “I knocked before I came in, Signor Brunswick.”
“My meeting is this afternoon.” His gaze sharpened as it pinned her to the spot. “Isn’t that the point of a six-star hotel? To be six steps ahead of my schedule, anticipating my every wish?”
Mina’s brain went straight to the bedroom on the second level and what this arrogant man would demand of a woman in bed. Her nonexistent experience deferred to her imagination to fill in the blanks. She bet it would be worth every second of her enforced capitulation.
Heat flooded her cheeks. Her fingers tightened around the bar of chocolate she held. His gaze flickered, narrowed, as if he’d read her thoughts down to her final, helpless surrender.
She shifted her weight to both feet, her stomach tying itself in knots. What was she thinking? She was engaged. And furthermore, she didn’t have naughty thoughts like this.
She cleared her throat and held up the chocolate bar. “It is my job to anticipate your every need. I was stocking the bar with our fine Sicilian hazelnut chocolate.”
The beautiful American strode toward her and took the chocolate out of her hand. A whiff of citrus mixed with spice filled her head. She breathed in deeply as she drank him in. He was even more devastating close up, his thick dark hair spiky and wet from the shower, designer stubble covering the square set of his jaw.
“We make it our policy to know everything about our guests based on past visits,” she sputtered nervously. “I brought hazelnut and brazil nut.”
He crossed his corded, very fine arms. “Mistake number one...Lina,” he said, peering at her name tag, which did not use her real name but the name she’d given her manager when she’d taken the job. “I prefer milk chocolate.”
“Oh.” That threw her for a loop. They were never wrong here at Hotel Giarruso. Ever. “Well...” she stumbled. “Sì. We must have made a mistake. It happens very rarely. I’ll fix it.”
“What else?” he asked.
“Scusi?”
“What else do you know about me, then?”
Other than the fact that he was known to fraternize with tall, beautiful blondes and that she was not to bat an eye if she came across one in his room who was not registered here, despite their strict security policy?
The heat in her cheeks deepened. His gaze narrowed. She desperately filed through the intelligence she’d been given. “We know that you tend to forget to pack the charger for your laptop. I have brought you a universal one.”
He walked over to the coffee table. The towel slipped further, giving her an eyeful of chiseled hip bone. Maledizione. She needed to get out of here.
He picked up a cord, a charging pack attached. “Not so much of a perk for me this visit.”
Her nails dug into her palms as her even-keeled disposition started to slip. He was something else. She nodded toward the bar. “We have stocked your favorite single-malt Scotch.”
“Predictable.”
Her blood started to boil. Being inquisitioned by an arrogant male in a towel that might fall off at any moment was above and beyond the call of duty. Way above her pay grade.
She squared her shoulders. “I understand all of this might not be revolutionary, Signor Brunswick, but it’s what is expected of us. To surround you with the comforts of home. Although I do agree, we could do better.”
Curiosity flashed in those beautiful dark eyes. “Such as?” he purred. “I am all ears.”
She took a step back. An amused glitter filled his eyes as he tracked the movement. “I would go beyond cataloging a guest’s preferences and start anticipating them. For instance, you are known to be a morning runner. If it were me arranging things, I would have had a list of suitable routes through some of Palermo’s most beautiful neighborhoods sitting on your coffee table for you to follow. Another route to spend much of your run in our most beautiful park. Perhaps one to visit our many famous monuments.”
The cynical twist to his mouth smoothed out. “What else?”
“You