Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals: Seduced into Her Boss's Service / Wearing the De Angelis Ring / The Surprise De Angelis Baby. CATHY WILLIAMS
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There was a huge lake, acres of woodland and many, many people also out enjoying the area with their kids and their dogs.
Flora talked about New Zealand, about what she had done there and about the open spaces and natural beauty. Her mother rarely featured in these accounts, except in passing, and her father not at all. Had he been over to see her at all? Sunny wondered. Or had he washed his hands of his own child the second he had obtained a divorce? Strangely, although he was a workaholic and although, as far as Sunny was concerned, he needed to take way more interest in his daughter, she didn’t see him as the sort of guy who would ever walk away from responsibility.
Walking around the lake, she realised that speculating about Stefano Gunn was becoming a full-time occupation. When she wasn’t thinking about work she was thinking about him and having told herself that there was no way she would allow herself to be curious about him or his circumstances, she still was.
Eric, fortunately, was there to save them the huge walk back in blistering sunshine and it was a little after two by the time Sunny had stripped down to the modest black bikini she had brought with her.
She had always wanted to know how to swim. Indeed, she had started a few swimming lessons less than a year ago but time had been in short supply and she had stopped them. The fact was that her life had just been too disordered, too unpredictable for something as constant as swimming lessons and when she had earned her scholarship to the boarding school she had made sure to steer clear of the enormous swimming pool. With few close friends, no one had questioned her reluctance to go swimming and, as it was a voluntary after-school activity, there had been no awkward or embarrassing confessions about her lack of know-how.
But this glittering turquoise pool in the calm peace of the countryside was irresistible.
She stayed at the shallow end and watched a different Flora prance around, diving and flipping and swimming underwater like a little darting fish.
Instructions were given, with Flora stepping into the role of stern swimming teacher.
Little by little, Sunny relaxed and began enjoying the weightless feeling of being in the water. It was a very big pool and she tentatively edged away from the shallow end, growing in confidence as she remembered some of the instructions from her brief foray into swimming lessons months before.
Don’t panic and swallow lungfuls of water while trying to scrabble and touch ground...
Brilliant, sensible advice.
Except...
How was she to know that Stefano wouldn’t do as he had promised? Wouldn’t stay out of the house until at least nine in the evening? In other words, how could she have guessed that, daringly halfway across the pool, trying her luck with paddling from one side to the other, she would look up and see him? Standing right there? Looking right back down at her?
All the brilliant, sensible advice flew straight out of her head. She panicked. She gulped down water and panicked more, scrabbling to touch ground but, in her confusion, sinking and flailing.
Flora was the first to dive in, slicing through the water and grasping her under her arms.
Convinced that she was on the verge of drowning, Sunny still wanted to yell to her that she was way too young to be trying a rescue mission on an adult.
But she didn’t have to because Stefano wasn’t far behind his daughter and then bigger, stronger arms were around her, firmly gripping her ribcage and pulling her with consummate ease to the side of the pool, where he heaved her out with no trouble at all.
‘Good job, Flora,’ she heard him say, to which Flora muttered something in reply, but when Sunny opened her eyes and looked at her she was blushing as she turned away for a towel, which she brought to her.
Humiliation washed over her in waves. She could barely look at him and, when she did, he was leaning over her with a concerned expression.
He was soaking wet. He’d kicked his shoes off before diving into the pool but he was dripping.
Sunny squeezed her eyes tightly shut and prayed that she had somehow imagined the whole horrible episode but when she opened them he was even closer to her, kneeling with his big hand propping up her head.
The spluttering was thankfully done but shock was setting in.
‘We need to get you upstairs.’ He’d taken the towel from Flora and sat her up so that he could wrap the towel around her as best he could.
‘No,’ Sunny pleaded. ‘I’m fine.’ She was trembling violently even though she was doing her best not to.
‘Flora—’ he turned to his daughter ‘—do you want to start running a bath for Sunny? And make sure there’s a dry towel there. And Flora...you would make a fine lifeguard, once you’ve grown a little...’ He smiled crookedly and felt a burst of something he had never felt before—sheer pleasure and warmth when she half smiled back at him. ‘Change into some dry clothes before you run the bath,’ he instructed. ‘And then wait for us in the sitting room. We need to do something a little special after this...’
‘Okay. ’Cos she’ll probably be all shaken up.’
‘Exactly.’ He turned back to Sunny as Flora disappeared inside the house. ‘And you,’ he murmured, ‘I don’t want to hear a peep out of you...you’ve had a shock. Just relax and let your breathing return to normal.’
Relax?
When her practically naked body was pressed against him? When his arms were so close to her breasts that one inadvertent shift in position could have him touching her? When her head was against his chest and she could almost hear the beating of his heart under his wet suit?
After this, there was no way she could stay on here...
SUNNY HAD NOT explored this section of the house. She knew where Flora’s room was because she settled her to bed but all the other rooms were always closed off and somehow it would have felt nosy to open doors and peer inside.
So she had no idea where she was being taken and she was far too busy trying to deal with her mortification to give that much thought.
She heard the sound of a bath being run and when she opened her eyes she could instantly see that she was in Stefano’s room. It was massive, with a super-king-sized bed in solid dark wood dominating one side of the wall. Everything in the room was overwhelmingly male, from the dark wood of the bed and the chest of drawers, to the sleek lines of the built-in wardrobes and the lush fall of deep burgundy velvet curtains that had been pulled back to offer spectacular views of the rolling lawns at the back.
Including, she suspected, the treacherous swimming pool, which had glittered so temptingly before subjecting her to this horrendous attack of pure humiliation.
He kicked the door to the en-suite bathroom fully open and deposited her gently on the chair by the window.
Immediately, he began undoing the buttons of his shirt and Sunny nearly leaped out of the chair in horrified consternation.
‘What are you doing?’ she yelped and he shot her a dry look.
‘I’m getting out of my wet clothes to forestall an attack of pneumonia. Where are your dry clothes?’
‘I changed in the bathroom downstairs. They’re...they’re in my backpack. Please, there’s no need for all of this.’
He didn’t answer. Instead, he continued getting out of his clothes as he vanished out of the bathroom and she distantly heard him shouting to Flora to hunt down the backpack and bring it up. When he reappeared, he had changed and the bath was now completely run. Lots of bubbles. Sunny could barely bring herself to look at it.
‘You’re probably in a state of mild shock.’ He tested the water with one hand and just then Flora appeared with the backpack and hovered by the