Powerful Italian, Penniless Housekeeper. India Grey
of her too-tight jeans. Perhaps if she’d actually stuck to her New Year diet she’d be out there now, laughing, tossing back cocktails and shiny hair and collecting eligible bachelors with the best of them. Hell, if she was a stone lighter perhaps she wouldn’t even need an eligible bachelor because maybe then Rupert wouldn’t have felt the need to get engaged to a glacial blonde Systems Analyst called Julia. But too many nights spent on the sofa while Lottie was asleep, with nothing but a bottle of cheap wine and the biscuit tin for company, had meant she’d failed to lose even a couple of pounds.
She’d definitely try extra-hard between now and the wedding, she vowed silently, trying to make her way to the bar. It was taking place in the ruined farmhouse Angelica and Hugh had bought in Tuscany and were currently having lavishly done up, and Sarah had a sudden mental image of Angelica’s friends floating around the newly landscaped garden in their delicious little silken dresses, while she lurked in the kitchen, covering her bulk with an apron.
Fenella passed her now, on the way back from the bar with a handful of multicoloured drinks sprouting umbrellas and cherries. She eyed Sarah with cool amusement. ‘There you are! We’d almost given up on you. What are you drinking?’
‘Oh—er—I’m just going to have a dry white wine,’ said Sarah. She should really opt for a slimline tonic, but hell, she needed something to get her through the rest of the evening.
Fenella laughed—throwing her head back and producing a rich, throaty sound that had every man in the vicinity craning round to look. ‘Nice try, but I don’t think so. Look in your envelope—it’s the next challenge,’ she smirked, sliding through the crowd towards the door.
With her heart sinking faster than the Titanic, Sarah slid the envelope from her pocket and pulled out the next instruction.
She gave a moan of dismay.
The beautiful, lithe youth behind the bar flickered a glance in her direction and gave a barely perceptible jerk of his head, which she took as a grudging invitation to order. Her heart was hammering uncomfortably against her ribs and she could feel the heat begin to rise to her cheeks as she opened her mouth.
‘I’d like a Screaming Orgasm, please.’
The voice that came from her dry throat was low and cracked, but sadly not in a good way. The youth lifted a scornful eyebrow.
‘A what?’
‘A Screaming Orgasm,’ Sarah repeated miserably. She could feel the press of bodies behind her as other people jostled for a place at the bar. Her cheeks were burning now, and there was an uncomfortable prickling sensation rippling down the back of her neck, as if she was being watched. Which, of course, she was, she thought despairingly. Every one of Angelica’s friends had temporarily suspended their own professional flirtation operations and was peering in through the open doors, suppressing their collective mirth.
Well, at least they were finding this amusing. The youth flicked back his blond fringe and regarded her with dead eyes. ‘What’s one of those?’ he said tonelessly.
‘I don’t know.’ Sarah raised her chin and smiled sweetly, masking her growing desperation. ‘I’ve never had one.’
‘Never had a Screaming Orgasm? Then please, allow me…’
The voice came from just behind her, close to her ear, and was a million miles from the hearty, public-school bray of The Rose and Crown’s usual clientele. As deep and rich as oak-aged cognac, it was infused with an accent Sarah couldn’t immediately place, and the slightest tang of dry amusement.
Her head whipped round. In the crush at the bar it was impossible to get a proper look at the man who had spoken. He was standing close behind her and was so tall that her eyes were on a level with the open neck of his shirt, the triangle of olive skin at his throat.
She felt an unfamiliar lurch in the pit of her stomach as he leaned forward in one fluid movement, towering over her as he spoke to the youth behind the bar.
‘One shot each of vodka, Kahlua, Amaretto…’
His voice really was something else. Italian. She could tell by the way he said ‘Amaretto’, as if it were an intimate promise. Her nipples sprang to life beneath the tiny T-shirt.
God, what was she doing? Sarah Halliday didn’t let strange men buy her cocktails in pubs. She was a grown woman with a five-year-old daughter and the stretch marks to prove it. She’d been madly in love with the same man for nearly seven years. Lusting after strangers in bars wasn’t her style.
‘Thanks for your help,’ she mumbled, ‘but I can get this myself.’
She glanced up at him again and felt her chest tighten. The evening sun was coming from behind him but Sarah had an impression of dark hair, angular features, a strong jaw shadowed with several days of stubble. The exact opposite of Rupert’s English, golden-boy good looks, she thought with a shiver. Compelling rather than handsome.
And then he turned and looked back at her.
It felt as if he’d reached out and pulled her into the warmth of his body. His narrowed eyes were so dark that even this close she couldn’t see where the irises ended and the pupils began, and they travelled over her face lazily for a second before slipping downwards.
‘I’d like to get it for you.’
He said it simply, emotionlessly, as a statement of fact, but there was something about his voice that made the blood throb in her ears, her chest, her too-tight jeans.
‘No, really, I can…’
With shaking hands she opened her purse and peered inside, but the chemical reaction that had just taken place in the region of her knickers was making it difficult to see clearly or think straight.
Apart from a handful of small change her purse was virtually empty, and with a rush of dismay she remembered handing over her last five-pound note to Lottie for the swear box. Lottie’s policy on swearing was draconian and—since she’d introduced a system of fines—extremely lucrative. Clearly her killer business instinct had come from Rupert. The frustrations of the scavenger hunt this afternoon had cost Sarah dearly.
Now she looked up in panic and met the deadpan stare of the barman.
‘Nine pounds fifty,’ he said flatly.
Nine pounds fifty? She’d ordered a drink, not a three-course mealshe and Lottie could live for a week on that. Faint with horror, she looked down into her purse again while her numb brain raced. When she raised her head again it was to see the stranger hand a note over to the blond youth and pick up the ridiculous drink.
He moved away from the bar, and the crowd through which she’d had to fight a passage fell away for him, like the Red Sea before Moses. Unthinkingly she found herself following him, and couldn’t help her gaze from lingering on the breadth of his shoulders beneath the faded blue shirt he wore. He seemed to dwarf every other man in the packed room.
He stopped in the doorway to the terrace and held out the drink to her. It was white and frothy, like a milkshake. A very expensive milkshake.
‘Your first Screaming Orgasm. I hope you enjoy it.’
His face was expressionless, his tone dutifully courteous, but as she took the glass from him their fingers touched and Sarah felt electricity crackle up her arm.
She snatched her hand away so sharply that some of the cocktail splashed onto her wrist. ‘I doubt it,’ she snapped.
The stranger’s dark eyebrows rose in sardonic enquiry.
‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry,’ Sarah said, horrified by her own crassness. ‘That sounds so ungrateful after you paid for it. It’s just that it’s not a drink I’d usually choose, but I’m sure it’ll be delicious.’ And account for about three days’ calorie allowance, she thought, taking a large gulp and forcing herself to look appreciative. ‘Mmm…lovely.’
His eyes held her, dark and steady. ‘Why