One Christmas Night In...: A Night in the Palace / A Christmas Night to Remember / Texas Tycoon's Christmas Fiancée. HELEN BROOKS
Читать онлайн книгу.
give me the right to do?’
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing,’ she repeated firmly, angry colour high in her cheeks. ‘Now perhaps we could change the subject and you could tell me whether or not you’ve managed to make any progress with your telephone calls?’
He recognised her method of averting the argument by changing the subject back to Claudia and Felix. Sensible, perhaps; it had been a senseless argument in any case—one he had allowed himself to be provoked into inciting because of his curiosity about the man who had telephoned Lily so inconveniently the night before. If they had not been interrupted then Dmitri knew that he would have taken Lily on top of this table without a second thought. Without a first one, in fact.
Which perhaps explained why he was now taking his physical frustration out on her …
Perhaps. But it was not the cool, logical behaviour he usually expected of himself …
‘Dmitri?’
His attention returned to Lily where she sat across the table, looking at him curiously. ‘I managed to find out that Claudia hired a car at Milano airport. After that nothing has been seen of either her or your brother,’ he added grimly.
Lily sighed as she slowly leant back in her chair. ‘Which means they could still be in Milan.’
‘Or not.’
Or not …
Lily was going to personally throttle her little brother when they finally caught up with him! If Dmitri didn’t beat her to it …
CHAPTER NINE
‘I CAN’T possibly afford to stay here!’ Lily squeaked, looking up, aghast, at the obviously exclusive and hideously expensive building outside where Dmitri had parked his sleek black sports car.
The hotel was only a mile or so from his home, but the journey had been long enough to show her that he drove like all the other Italians she had observed—basically without any sense or regard for traffic signals or other drivers, let alone the dozens of people who risked life and limb by travelling about on bikes and motorcycles!
Nevertheless, it was finding herself seated beside him in his expensive-smelling car, outside a hotel where she could see a doorman and several porters dealing with the luggage of chicly dressed guests going in and out of the glass front doors, which now caused the nauseous churning in her stomach—forget butterflies, they had been replaced by giant bats!
‘You don’t need to be able to afford to stay here,’ Dmitri assured her coolly as he opened his door and got out of the car before coming round to Lily’s side and opening the passenger door for her. ‘Obviously you will be staying here as my guest,’ he said as she made no move to get out of the car.
‘There’s no “obviously” about it.’ She gave a stubborn shake of her head. ‘Because I’m not staying here or anywhere else as the guest of Count Scarletti. I pay my own way, thank you very much.’
Dmitri felt some of his irritation drain out of him as he looked down at her stubbornly rebellious face. He was almost tempted to smile at her obvious indignation—if he had not known that any amusement at her expense would only make her more stubborn! ‘At least come inside and look at the room, Lily,’ he cajoled.
‘There’s no point in doing that when I’m not staying.’ She gave another firm shake of her head as she continued to stare at the elegant façade of the hotel. ‘Good Lord, Dmitri, when you said you would drive me to a hotel I didn’t mean for you to take me to Rome’s version of the Ritz!’ She glared up at him.
This time Dmitri was unable to stop himself laughing. Lily looked so much like an indignant little bantam hen at this moment that it was impossible for him not to smile. ‘Let me do this for you, Lily.’ He went down on his haunches beside the open door to take one of her hands in his. ‘As an apology for my boorish behaviour to date,’ he explained.
Lily eyed him frustratedly. It wasn’t fair that he should look so appealing boyish as he gazed at her with those warm green eyes and smiled at her so wistfully. As for that tingling sensation in her fingers and up her arm from the touch of his hands on hers …
‘A verbal apology would have sufficed,’ she muttered.
‘This is my apology,’ he insisted.
‘It’s rather an expensive one.’
‘Just take a look inside, hmm?’
Could any woman resist this man when he looked so appealing? Not her, that was for certain!
She pulled her hand free of his as he stood up and stepped back to allow her to get out of the car. ‘Looking doesn’t mean I’m staying,’ she warned as he moved to take her suitcase from the boot of the car. ‘I just know I wouldn’t be comfortable here.’
‘Comfort is what this particular hotel is known for,’ he assured her as he allowed the porter to take her suitcase from him before disappearing inside the hotel with it, thereby allowing Dmitri to take a firm grasp of her arm.
Lily didn’t doubt that for a moment as she entered the hotel lobby at Dmitri’s side. The marble floors and pillars were very much like those at the Palazzo Scarletti, and there was that same feeling of disembodiment from the rush and bustle of the city of Rome they had left outside.
There were a dozen or so people in the lobby—some at the discreet reception desk, others sitting in comfortable armchairs reading newspapers or looking at maps—but all turned to look as Dmitri strode through their midst, wickedly handsome, very tall for an Italian, and with his air of arrogance—
No, Lily realised slowly as she glanced up at him. Arrogance was, and always had been, the wrong word to use in association with Dmitri; arrogance implied conceit and a scorn for others that she had discovered this past day or so he simply did not possess. He was powerful, yes, and with an air of self-confidence in his own capabilities, but he wasn’t in the least arrogant. Even his aloofness, his holding himself apart from others, no longer seemed to apply in regard to her …
She was becoming far too personally interested in what did and did not make Dmitri Scarletti tick, Lily realised with a feeling of dismay.
Interested enough to resent the covetous glances he was receiving from the half dozen or so women in the lobby—old as well as young.
Far, far too interested!
He was as beyond Lily’s reach as the moon, and if she had been disappointed in Danny when he’d chosen his mother over her then it was going to be nothing compared to how she was going to feel once this man had walked out of her life. Which, as they reached the reception desk, Lily knew was going to happen much sooner than she might have wished.
Beyond the, ‘Buongiorno, signor!’ with which the brightly smiling—and very beautiful—receptionist greeted Dmitri, Lily understood none of the conversation that followed, instead turning away to allow her attention to wander around the lobby.
There was the familiar nativity scene in one corner of the spacious area—Lily had seen several others during their drive from the palazzo—and an eight foot tall Christmas tree in another. Its gold-and-silver decorations and harsh white lights, and several gifts neatly wrapped in silver foil beneath, made Lily long wistfully for the trees she remembered from her own and Felix’s childhood.
They had usually been misshapen trees that had begun to shed their needles within days of being brought into the house by their father, with twinkling lights of different colours, and most of the decorations made during Lily and Felix’s childhood, and of sentimental value only, along with the gingerbread angels and stars that they baked with their mother. The presents beneath had been wrapped untidily in gaudy paper depicting Father Christmases and snowmen, but all had somehow given the trees a much more homely appearance than the cold perfection of the tree that adorned this hotel lobby.
To Lily’s consternation she felt the sharp prick of tears in her eyes just at the thought