The Ice Prince (4 page)

“Yes,” he said, “you should have.”

“Now, wait a minute …”

He laughed. “Just teasing. This was my fault, too. I overreacted when you first asked for the seat. How about we call it even? I’ll apologize if you will.”

Anna laughed, too. “You’re not a lawyer, are you?”

He gave a mock shudder. “
Dio,
no. Why do you ask?”

“Because you have a way with words.”

“It’s what I do,” he said, smiling. “I’m a negotiator.” What better way to describe fashioning deals that made him millions and millions of dollars and euros? “So, do we have a truce?”

He held out his hand. Anna took it—and jerked back. An electric current seemed to flow from his fingers to hers.

“Static electricity,” she said quickly. “Or something.”

“Or something,” he said, and all at once his voice was low and husky.

Their eyes met. His were dark, deep, fathomless. Anna felt her heartbeat stutter.
I’m tired,
she thought quickly.
I must be terribly tired or everything wouldn’t seem so—so—

“Would you like to see the wine list?”

It was the flight attendant, her smile perfect, her voice bright and bubbly, though Anna had to give her credit for not having reacted to the sight of a refugee from coach slipping into the cabin an hour or so before.

“Champagne,” said the man still holding her hand, his gaze never leaving hers. “Unless you’d rather have something else?”

“No,” Anna said quickly. “No, champagne would be lovely.”

“Lovely,” he said, and Anna wondered why she’d ever thought him cold or arrogant.

They drank champagne. In flutes. Glass flutes, not plastic. Switched to red wine, also in glasses, when dinner was
served—served on china, with real flatware and real linen napkins.

Being in first class wasn’t bad.

Neither was being with such a gorgeous stranger.

He ordered for them both. Normally Anna would have bristled at a man assuming he could order for her, but tonight it seemed right.

Everything seemed right, she thought as they ate and talked. Conversation flowed easily, not about anything important, just about the weather they’d left behind in New York, how it would compare to the weather they’d find in Rome, about where he lived—in San Francisco, overlooking the bay, he said. And where she lived—in Manhattan, on the lower east side.

For all of that, they didn’t exchange names.

That seemed right, too.

There was something exciting about hurtling through the night at six hundred plus miles an hour, laughing and talking and having dinner with a man she didn’t know and would never see again.

Anything was possible, Anna thought after their dishes had been whisked away and the cabin lights were dimmed. Absolutely anything, she thought, looking at him, and a faint tremor went through her.

“Are you cold?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I’m fine.”

“Tired, then.”

“No. Really …”

“Of course you’re tired. I’m sure your day has been as long as mine. In fact, I’m going to put my seat back. You’ll do the same.”

That tone of easy command made Anna laugh. “Do you ever ask a woman what she wants, or do you simply tell her?”

Their eyes met. Her heart did a little stutter step.

“There are times when there is no need to ask,” he said softly.

Heat swept through her.
Get up,
she thought.
Get up and go back to your own seat in the rear of the plane.

But she didn’t.

He reached out. Leaned across her. She caught her breath as he pressed the button that eased her seat all the way back.

“Close your eyes,
bellissima,
” he whispered. “Get some sleep.”

She nodded. Closing her eyes, pretending to sleep was probably a good plan. No reason to tell him that she never, ever was able to sleep on a plane ….

When she woke, the cabin was almost completely dark.

And she was cocooned in warmth.

Male warmth.

Somehow she was lying in the stranger’s arms, both of them covered by a soft blanket. Her head was on his shoulder, her face buried in the curve where his neck met his shoulder.

He was asleep. She could tell by the deep, slow exhalations of his breath.

Move,
she told herself.
Anna, for heaven’s sake, shift away from him.

Instead, she shifted closer. Closer. Drew his scent—masculine, musky, clean—deep into her lungs.

Her hand rose. By itself, surely. No way would she have deliberately lifted it, placed it against his jaw, rubbed her fingers lightly over the sexy stubble.

The sound of his breathing changed. Quickened. Her heartbeat quickened, too.

“Hello,” he whispered.

Anna touched the tip of her tongue to her lips. “Hello,” she whispered back.

His arms tightened around her. He turned his face, brought his lips against her palm in a soft kiss.

She heard a sound. Low, urgent …

The sound had come from her.

“I dreamed I was holding you,” he said. His teeth fastened lightly in the tender flesh at the base of her thumb. “And then I awoke, and you were in my arms.”

A tremor went through her. Or perhaps through him. She couldn’t tell. And it didn’t matter. The excitement growing within her was growing within him, too. His heartbeat had quickened. And when she shifted her weight, when she shifted her weight …

Yes. Oh, yes.

He was hard. Fully aroused. And she—dear God, she was, too. She could feel her breasts lift, her nipples bud. And she was wet. So wet …

He kissed her mouth. Her lips parted against his. He groaned; his teeth fastened lightly in the tender flesh of her bottom lip, his tongue stroked across the tiny, exquisite wound and Anna gave a soft, pleading cry.

He murmured something in Italian. She didn’t understand the words but she’d have had to be a fool not to understand their meaning.

His fingers tangled in her hair. Drew her head back. She could barely see his face in the dim light, but what she could see thrilled her—those dark eyes, the bones etched hard and harsh beneath his skin.

“You are playing with fire,
cara,
” he said thickly.

Anna cupped her hand around the back of his head. “I like fire,” she whispered.

“So do I.” His voice was low, rough, as hot as his skin.

She brought his head down to hers, brushed her lips over his.

“I wanted you long before this,” he said. “I wanted you hours ago, back in that lounge.”

Anna trembled. Ran her fingers into his hair. It had been the same for her. That was why she’d argued with him. Fought with him. Because she had wanted him. Wanted this. His heat. His embrace. His strength …

She cried out as his hand slipped under her suit jacket. Under her blouse. Found her breast, cupped it over her silky bra, and she would have cried out again but he captured her lips with his, shaped her lips with his, slipped his tongue inside her mouth and claimed her with a slow, deep, kiss.

His thumb swept over her nipple.

She gasped, arched against him, felt her nipple bead and press blindly against his hand.

Please,
Anna thought,
please …

Draco gave a low growl.

He shifted the woman against him, raised her leg, brought it over his hip and pressed his aroused flesh against her.

Now, he thought, now …

The cabin lights winked on.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’ll be serving breakfast in just a few minutes ….”

The woman in his arms froze. Her eyes flew open, blurred with passion and then with shock.

Cristo,
he was having difficulty grasping the facts himself. What had happened—what had
almost
happened …

Impossible.

He’d had sex on planes before. That was one of the perks of owning a private jet, but sex, or the closest thing to it, in a plane filled with people?

It was crazy.

How could he have done such a thing? It was an unacceptable, inexplicable loss of control, and he was not a man
given to losses of control or, for that matter, to doing things that were either inexplicable or unacceptable.

“Let go of me,” the woman snapped.

Draco looked at her. She was as white as paper, and trembling.

“Easy,” he started to say, but she cut him short.

“Are you deaf? Let go!”

“Look,
bella,
I know you’re upset—”

“Damnit, let go!”

His mouth thinned. Was she going to try to label him the villain in this little drama?

“With pleasure, once I’m convinced you’re in control of your senses.” He waited, watched her face. “Are you?”

“You’d better believe I am.”

There was no panic in her voice now, only razor-sharp warning. A muscle knotted in Draco’s jaw. Then, with elaborate care, he took his hands from her.

In a flash she tossed off the blanket, pushed the button that brought her seat upright, shot to her feet. He did the same, if a split second later.

“Listen to me,” he said …

Too late.

She had already turned and fled.

D
RACO
exited Fiumicino Airport, his cell phone at his ear.

“Just tell your boss that I am not, repeat,
not
going to meet his representative an hour from now. Two hours from now. That’s the best I’ll do. You don’t know if you can get in touch with his rep?” Draco took the phone from his ear and glared at it. “That is not my problem—it is yours.”

One good thing about old-fashioned desk phones, he thought grimly as he ended the call. In moments like this, you could slam the thing down and get some satisfaction out of it.

“Il mio principe!”

Heads swiveled. Glowering, Draco eyeballed his Maserati and his driver and strode toward them.

The man beamed.
“Buon giorno, il mio principe. Come è stato il vostro volo?”

“My flight was a nightmare,” Draco snarled, “and must you announce my title to the world?”

Merda.
The driver’s face fell. The man had been with him only a couple of weeks; he was just trying to be pleasant.

Draco took a deep breath, forced a smile he hoped was not a grimace to his lips.

“
Mi dispiace.
I’m sorry. I’m just jet-lagged.”

“You must not apologize to me, sir! It is my fault, surely.”

The driver clapped his heels together, lifted Draco’s carry-on, and reached for the handle of the rear door just as Draco did the same. Their hands and arms collided.

Cristo!
Could the man’s face get any longer?

“Scusi,”
the driver said in tones of hushed horror,
“Dio, signore, scusi …”

“Benno. That is your name, is it not?”

“
Sì.
It is, sir, and I offer my deepest—”

“No. No apologies.” Draco smiled again. At least, he pulled his lips back from his teeth. “Suppose we start over. You say ‘Hello, how was your flight?’ And I’ll say—”

“Scusi?”

“I’ll say,” Draco said quickly, “it was fine. How’s that?”

His driver looked bewildered. “As you wish, sir.”

“Excellent,” Draco replied, and he got into the backseat of the Maserati and sank into its leather embrace.

He was going to have to be careful.

He had put off the impending meeting with the Sicilian’s man. That would, at least, give him time to shower, change his clothes, make some small attempt at getting his head on straight, but he was tired, not just jet-lagged but jet-fatigued.

Only that could explain what had happened on the plane.

“
Il mio principe?
Do you wish to go to your office or to your home?”

“Home,
per favore,
as quickly as possible,
sì?
”

“Sì, il mio principe.”

Draco sat back as the Maserati eased from the curb.

How could jet fatigue possibly be the reason for the incident on the plane? And what a hell of a way to describe that thing with the woman. What was that all about?

Draco frowned.

Well, he knew what it was all about.

He’d made love to her. And she’d made love to him, until
those cursed lights went on, though he couldn’t call what they’d been doing “making love.”

It had been sex.

Mind-blowing, incredible sex.

Those few moments had been as exciting as any he’d ever spent with a woman.

He’d forgotten everything. Their surroundings, the fact that there were other people only a few feet away. All he’d known was her. Her taste. Her scent. Her heat.

There was a logical explanation, of course. There always was. For everything. In this case, the rush had come from having sex with a beautiful stranger in a place where anyone might have stumbled across them.

She’d been as out of control as he.

And then the lights had come on and she’d tried to lay it all on him.

No way,
Draco thought, folding his arms over his chest.

All he’d done was watch her fall asleep, then drawn the blanket over her. All right. It had been his blanket, not hers, but her blanket had been half-tucked under her.

It had been logical to use his.

How was he to know she would sigh and fling her arm across his chest? That she’d lay her head on his shoulder? He was a man, not a machine; she’d all but moved into his embrace. Was he supposed to push her away? And when she’d lifted her dark lashes and looked up at him, her eyes as blue as the sea, when she’d caressed his cheek …

Everything after that had been unplanned. Unstoppable. The kiss. The way she’d opened her mouth to his. The way she’d moaned when he cupped her breast, the way her heart had raced when he put his hand under her blouse …

Damnit, he was hard, just remembering.

Enough.

He’d made a mistake, and the sole value of a mistake was learning not to make it again.

No danger of that, he thought grimly. He would never see the woman again.

Besides, it was time to turn his mind elsewhere, to the meeting that would take place in just a couple of hours with the sleazy representative of a sleazy hoodlum. An hour wasted was what it would be, but at least he’d have the satisfaction of knowing he’d sent the Orsini stooge home to the States with his tail between his legs.

His phone rang.

Draco took it from his pocket.
“Pronto,”
he said brusquely. He listened, listened some more and then he snarled a word princes surely did not use and jammed the phone back into his pocket.

His attorney couldn’t make the meeting. “Forgive me, sir,” the man had said. “Reschedule it for whenever you like …”

Draco scowled.

The hell he would.

He had not flown all this distance to reschedule a meeting. It would go on as planned.

The day he couldn’t handle a Sicilian’s errand boy had not yet dawned.

His home was a villa in the parkland that surrounded the Via Appia Antica, ocher in color in keeping with its ancient Roman roots, set far back from the road and protected by massive iron gates.

He’d been drawn to the place the first time he saw it, though what the draw had been was anybody’s guess. The villa had been a disaster, part of it in total disrepair, the rest of it in desperate need of work.

Still, something about it had appealed to him. The history,
he’d thought, the realization of what the house must have seen over the centuries.

Foolish, of course; a man with demanding responsibilities did not give in to sentimental drivel. He’d taken an acquaintance to see it. An architect. His report was not encouraging.

Draco,
he’d said,
you want to do this, we’ll do it. But the place is an ugly pile of rubble. Why spend millions on it when you already own a magnificent palazzo on the Tiber?

It was an amazingly honest assessment. Draco told himself the man was right. Why not rebuild the Valenti palace? Once, a long time ago, he had promised himself that he would. His ancestors, his father, even his mother had stripped it of almost everything that could bring in cash and then neglected it to a state of near collapse, but he had the money to change all that.

So he had done it. Restored the palazzo to medieval grandeur. Everyone had pronounced it exquisite. Draco’s choice of adjectives was far less flattering, though he kept his thoughts to himself.

You could breathe new life into a building, but you could not rewrite the memories it held.

He had gone back to the realtor who’d shown him the villa. He bought it that same day, restored it and moved in. There was an honesty to its rooms and gardens. Best of all, its ghosts wore togas.

The memories the villa held had nothing to do with him.

The Maserati came to a purring stop at the top of the driveway. The driver sprang from behind the wheel, but Draco was already out of the car and striding up the curved marble steps that led to the villa’s massive wooden doors, which opened before he could touch them.

“Buon giorno, signore,”
his smiling housekeeper said, welcoming
him home. Did he want something to eat? Breakfast? Some fruit and cheese, perhaps?

Coffee, Draco said. Not morning coffee. Espresso. A large pot,
per favore,
and he would have it in the sitting room in the master suite.

His rooms were warm; he suspected the windows had not been opened since he’d left for his San Francisco office three weeks ago. Now he flung them open, toed off his mocs, stripped off shirt, jeans, all his clothes, left them as part of a long trail that led to his bathroom.

He could hardly wait to shower away the endless hours of travel.

One of the first things he’d seen to when he’d arranged for the restoration of the villa was the master bath. He wanted a deep marble Jacuzzi, marble vanities and the room’s centerpiece: a huge, glass-enclosed steam shower with multiple sprays.

His architect had raised an eyebrow. Draco had grinned. Life in America, he’d said, with all those oversize bathrooms, had spoiled him.

Perhaps it had.

His California duplex had a huge bathroom with a shower stall the size of a small bedroom. There were times, at the end of a long day, that he stood inside that stall and could almost feel the downpouring water easing the tension from him.

Now, standing in the shower at Villa Appia, Draco waited for that to happen.

Instead, an image suddenly filled his mind.

The blonde, here with him. Her hair undone, streaming like sunlight over her creamy shoulders, over her breasts, the pale apricot nipples uptilted, awaiting him.

He imagined his lips closed on those silken pearls, drawing them deep into his mouth.

His hand between her thighs.

Her hand on his erection.

Draco groaned.

He would back her against the glass, lift her in his arms, take her mouth as he brought her down, down, down on his hard, eager length ….

Another groan, more guttural than the first, burst from his throat. His body shuddered, did what it had not done since he’d had his first woman at the age of seventeen.

Her fault, he thought in sudden fury. The blonde. She had made a fool of him yet another time.

He wished he could see her again, and make her pay.

Draco shut his eyes. Raised his face to the spray. Let the water wash everything from his body and his mind. He had to be alert for the meeting that loomed ahead.

The land in Sicily was his. He’d been in Palermo on business, gone for a drive to relax and passed through the town of Taormina, where something had drawn him to a narrow road, a hairpin curve, a heart-quickening view of the sea …

And a stretch of land that seemed unaccountably familiar.

He had taken the necessary steps to ensure his possession of it, brought in an architect … And suddenly received a letter from a man he’d never heard of, Cesare Orsini, who had made claims that were not only nonsense, they were lies.

The land was his. And it would remain his, despite the best efforts of a thug to claim it.

Draco had learned a very long time ago never to give in to bullies.

It was a lesson that had changed his life, one he would never, ever forget.

Anna’s hotel was old.

Under some circumstances, that would have been fine. After all, Rome was old. And magnificent.

The same could not be said about her hotel.

She’d made the reservation herself, online at something called BidCheap.com. Bidding cheap was where it was at; if only she’d had the common sense to demand her father hand over a credit card …

Never mind.

She’d traveled on the cheap before, after university and during spring breaks in law school. How bad could a place be?

Bad, she thought as she followed a shriveled bellman into a room the size of a postage stamp.

Water stains on the ceiling, heaven only knew what kinds of stains on the carpet, a sagging club chair in front of a window with a rousing view of …

An airshaft.

All the way to Rome so she could overlook an airshaft.

Well, so what?

She wouldn’t be here long enough for it to matter. Besides, right now she felt as if she were walking in her sleep. She’d done that a couple of times, when she was little. Once she’d awakened in the kitchen, standing in front of the open fridge.

The next time, she’d been halfway out the conservatory door into the garden when she’d walked into one of her brothers. Falco, or maybe Rafe. Whichever, he’d startled her into wakefulness; she’d shocked him into a muffled oath.

“What are you—” they’d both said, and then they’d shushed each other and laughed, and agreed to keep quiet about the whole thing, because he’d obviously been sneaking back into the sleeping house and she’d just as obviously been sneaking out of it.

Anyway, she still remembered the feeling when her eyes had blinked open. She’d been awake, but not really. Her feet had seemed to be inches off the floor, her eyes had felt
gritty, her body had felt … the only word that described it was
floaty
.

That was exactly how she felt now as she waited patiently for the bellman to finish showing her how to adjust the thermostat, how to open and close the drapes, how to use the minibar.

She yawned. Maybe he’d take the hint.

No way.

Now he was at the desk, opening drawers, snapping them shut, moving to the TV, turning it on and off, and, oh my God, now he was showing her how to set the clock radio …

Anna gave herself a mental slap on the forehead. Duh. He was waiting for a tip.

She opened her purse, dug inside, took out a couple of euros and, less than graciously, shoved them at him.

“Thank you,” she said. “
Grazie.
You’ve been very helpful.”

Her form would probably have earned demerits from Sister Margaret, who’d taught tenth grade deportment, but it satisfied the bellman, who smiled broadly, wished her a good day and exited, stage left.

“Thank God,” Anna said, and fell facedown on the bed.

Everything ached.

Her arms from keeping her elbows tucked to her sides the last couple of hours of the flight. Her shoulders from hunching them. Her butt from pretty much doing the same kind of thing to keep her thighs and hips from coming into contact with Hannibal and the Hummer.