Bound To The Billionaire. Christina Hollis
Shaken, she looked away from him and snatched a breath.
‘Of course I’ll come to the hospital,’ she repeated. ‘I’ll just get some clothes on.’
As the words left her mouth she became acutely conscious that she was naked beneath her bathrobe. She stiffened as Drago Cassari subjected her to an intent scrutiny. She had the feeling that he was mentally stripping her, and she clutched the edges of the robe together, hoping he could not guess how fast her heart was beating.
The glitter in his dark eyes warned her that he was fully aware of his effect on her. She felt herself blush and wondered why she was behaving so strangely. She worked in an all-male environment and was regarded as ‘one of the lads’ by her team of workmen. Only once in her life had she been sexually attracted to a man, and the experience had left her with emotional scars that would never completely heal. Since then she had been too busy with her job to have time for relationships—and maybe too scared, she acknowledged honestly. She did not respond to men on a sexual level, and she was shocked by her reaction to a stranger—even if he was the sexiest man she had ever laid eyes on.
Drago Cassari wasn’t a stranger; he was Angelo’s cousin, she reminded herself. She felt ashamed for indulging in inappropriate thoughts about him when Angelo was in a critical condition. Taking a deep breath, she ignored the unsettling thought that she did not want to be alone with a man who exuded such raw sexual magnetism and pulled the door open fully to allow him to enter her flat.
‘Do you want to come in and wait? It’ll only take me a minute to change.’
‘Thank you.’ He stepped through the doorway and instantly seemed to dominate the narrow hall. He must be several inches over six feet tall, Jess estimated. The fact that he was dressed entirely in black—jeans, shirt and leather jacket—accentuated his height and powerful physique. Standing so close to him, she caught the sensual musk of his aftershave, and she felt a tingling sensation in her nipples as they hardened and rubbed against the towelling robe.
Horrified that she seemed powerless to control her reaction to him, she led the way down the hall and ushered him into the sitting room. ‘If you would like to wait in here, I won’t be long.’
‘While you are getting ready I’ll call the hospital for an update on Angelo’s condition.’ He glanced up from his phone. ‘I hope your passport is valid.’
Halfway out of the room, Jess paused and gave him a bemused look. ‘Why do I need my passport to visit a hospital? Where is Angelo, anyway? The Royal Free Hospital is the closest to here.’ She hesitated. ‘But I don’t know where the accident happened. Was it locally?’
Drago had walked across the spacious sitting room to stand by the window. The view of the leafy suburb of Hampstead was charming. Glancing around the room, he was impressed with the excellent quality of the décor and furnishings, which reinforced his opinion that Jess Harper must have a lucrative career to be able to afford this stylish apartment.
He turned his head and it seemed to Jess his black eyes bored into her very soul. ‘It happened in Italy,’ he said flatly. ‘On the highway between the airport and Venice. I assume Angelo was coming home, but he never made it. He’s being cared for at a hospital in Mestre, which is on the mainland of Venice.’
His phone buzzed and he looked down at the screen. ‘I’ve had a message to say that my plane has been refuelled. Can you be ready to leave for the airport in five minutes?’
‘AIRPORT!’ AS THE meaning of Drago Cassari’s words slowly sank in Jess shook her head. ‘I can’t go to Venice!’
In a minute she would wake up and find she’d been having a crazy dream, she thought dazedly. Maybe the six double-shot espressos she’d drunk during the day instead of eating a proper lunch were causing her to have strange hallucinations—because this could not be happening.
‘Don’t you care about Angelo? I thought you had a close relationship with him.’
Drago’s harsh voice broke the silence, forcing Jess to accept that he was not a figment of her imagination.
‘Of course I care that he’s hurt,’ she said quickly. ‘But I wouldn’t say that we have a close relationship, exactly. I’ve only known him since he started working for me about two months ago.’
‘He worked for you?’ It was Drago’s turn to look puzzled. ‘What kind of work? I was informed that you are a painter.’ Into his mind flashed a startling image of his cousin posing for her. ‘Did Angelo model for you?’
‘Hardly,’ Jess said drily. Crossing the room, she took a business card from the desk and handed it to him. ‘I paint houses, Mr Cassari, not masterpieces.’
The card read ‘T&J Decorators’ and gave a phone number and a website address. Drago glanced at it and then looked back Jess, struck once again by her petite stature and fragile build. The notion that she was a manual labourer was ridiculous.
‘Do you mean you are an interior designer for this decorating company? Or do you deal with office administration? I find it hard to believe that you actually paint walls for a living.’
Jess was irritated by the note of disdain she was sure she heard in his voice. ‘I do some general decorating, but as a matter of fact I’m a trained chippie—a carpenter,’ she explained when he frowned. ‘I also act as site foreman and make sure that my workmen finish their contracts on time and follow safety procedures.’
His black brows lifted. ‘It seems an unusual career choice for a woman.’
She was tempted to tell him that very few careers were available to someone who had flunked school and failed to gain any academic qualifications. She would have loved to train to be an interior designer, but most people working in the industry had an art degree, and she had more chance of flying to the moon than going to university.
‘And you’re saying that you employed Angelo as a decorator?’ Now Drago’s tone was sceptical. ‘Why would he choose to work as a labourer when he belongs to one of the wealthiest families in Italy?’
‘You tell me.’ The situation was growing more bizarre by the minute, Jess thought. ‘I took him on because I was short of staff. To be honest he was pretty hopeless at decorating, but he said he had no money and nowhere to live and I felt sorry for him. I told him he could stay with me until he could afford to rent his own place.’
Drago’s expression became blatantly cynical. ‘Why would you do that for someone you barely knew?’
‘Because I know what it’s like to reach rock-bottom.’ Unbeknown to Jess her eyes darkened to deep jade as she recalled the despair she had once felt. There had been a time when she had felt she had nothing to live for—until her wonderful foster-parents had given her a home and a future.
She had sensed despair in Angelo and had wanted to help him as she had been helped by Margaret and Ted Robbins. But now she felt a fool. Why had he made up all that stuff about being poor and homeless when, according to Drago Cassari, Angelo came from a wealthy family?
She stared at Angelo’s cousin, her mind reeling. ‘How do you know about me?’ she demanded, unsettled by his statement that he had been given information about her. It almost sounded as though he had asked someone to investigate her. The situation was so unreal that anything seemed possible.
He gave a noncommittal shrug. ‘Angelo spoke about you to his mother, and obviously he gave her the address of where he was living in London.
‘Oh…yes, I suppose he would have done.’
Drago studied Jess Harper speculatively for a few moments. He had no intention of revealing that he knew Angelo had given her money. He did not understand what was going on, and until he had more facts he did not want to give away too much. He checked