To Catch a Groom (3 page)

The bottom of this pool was tiled in a fabulous design. She swam lower to get a better look, but was halted in her quest when a strong pair of male hands found her hips and brought her swiftly to the surface.

She emerged with her neck-length hair plastered around her head, no longer the picture of classic royal grace. Unfortunately that wasn’t what disturbed her. It was the
fact that her dress had ridden up to her waist, which meant nothing was separating his hands from her skin except her underwear.

With his arresting face only centimeters from hers, she would have to put on the performance of her life not to let him know how alarmed she was by this shocking turn of events.

“We haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Greer Duchess.”

“Greer,” he repeated softly. The way he pronounced it made even the hard “G” sound beautiful. His slow white smile dazzled her. “Your name is as unique as you are. What brings a beautiful American woman like you to Italy?”

It was time to try out the story she’d rehearsed. “My sisters and I are here to visit relatives.”

“Ah, yes?”

“Yes. My ancestor was the Duchess of Colorno.”

His black eyes flared in recognition. “You’re referring to Maria-Luigia of Austria of the House of Parma-Bourbon?”

So he knew his Italian history well enough to recognize the Duchesse pendant! This was so easy it was scary!

She couldn’t wait to tell Olivia and Piper she’d caught a real playboy on her first night! Now all she had to do was play him for a while before she reeled him in and got him to propose marriage.

When she unmasked herself, he would slip off the hook and swim away. Then she would be able to enjoy the rest of this fabulous vacation knowing she’d followed her father’s stipulation about the Husband Fund to the letter.

“Yes. That’s right. My sisters and I are the American descendants from her Duchesse line.” No need to add “the illegitimate line” at this juncture. “Now that I’ve told you
something about myself, I’d like to know who
you
are,” she said in the most seductive tone she could produce.

“Why don’t you guess my name?” he came back in a deep voice that was equally tantalizing.

As if to emphasize his remark, she felt his thumbs making lazy circles against the nylon, increasing her awareness of him while they tread water. Her insides turned to liquid.

She gazed at his incredible male beauty through veiled eyes and said the first thing that popped into her head. “Luigio?”

His lips twitched, as if what she’d said had truly amused him. “No.”

Greer had never been this daring in her life. But something about the man was like an elixir in her veins, increasing her bravado. She flashed him a brilliant smile. “This might take a long time.”

He gave an elegant shrug of his broad Italian shoulders before drawing her closer. “I’ve been in London on business. Now I’m on vacation for the next week and would love nothing better than to spend every second of it with you,
bellissima.
”

Every second? That meant day
and
night. She just bet he would!

To her consternation she realized she would love the same thing. A shiver of delight ran through her body.

She’d always heard the expression “carnal thoughts,” but she’d never understood their true meaning until now…

Greer could find no fault in this Italian heartthrob who had it all down pat. Most likely he’d just left a woman in London and was now on the lookout for his next conquest.

As long as she was the bait with jewels and a title, why not tease him for a while longer first. She had an idea it would be a new experience for him.

“Unfortunately my sisters and I are leaving for Vernazza in the morning and won’t be back.”

“I know it well. Since you show no fear of the water, I would be happy to take you to a secret grotto which can only be reached by swimming a short distance beneath the sea.”

She flashed him an artless smile. “Like Edmond Dantes who found Abbe Faria’s treasure on Monte Cristo, will I discover gold and silver and precious pearls?”

His hard-muscled body stilled before he cocked his dark, handsome head. Even wet, his vibrant hair had a tendency to curl. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

Again she had the oddest sensation that she’d said something unexpected, something that puzzled him. “Isn’t everyone searching for treasure that will bring them ultimate happiness?”

“Ultimate happiness?” he murmured the words as if to himself, but his gaze was playing over her features, dwelling on each feminine attribute for heart-stopping seconds. “What is that I wonder?”

The philosopher emerging from the adventurer. He was a better actor than she’d first supposed.

“Thanks to Alexandre Dumas, we do know one thing…”

“That’s right,” he whispered. His lips were so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on hers. In reaction her toes curled against his hair-roughened legs as their limbs tangled beneath the water. “Though the Count of Monte Cristo had his revenge against his enemies, he didn’t find happiness after all.”

“Except that Dumas’s book was a tale of fiction,” she countered.

Again his eyes glimmered like black fires burning on a distant hill. “If you wish, I will take you to the island of Monte Cristo. It’s not far from Vernazza. Perhaps there you will find what you’re looking for.”

You mean
you,
of course.

She struggled not to laugh at the pure conceit of the man. “Perhaps.”

“Does that mean—”

“It means…perhaps,” she interrupted with a flirtatious smile. “Now I’m tired and must say good night.”

His hands remained fastened on her hips. “But it’s not late, and you’re too young to be tired.”

“True, but we just flew in today, and were detained by the police while we were going through customs. Three hours to be exact. It was very exhausting.”

“I’m sorry such a terrible thing happened to you in my country. Why would the police do this?”

“The head of security said there was a suspicious person on board our jet. He and his men took statements from the passengers who sat near this person.”

“Were you able to help?”

“I don’t know. We tried to remember the people seated around us, but no one looked suspicious to me. When we were finally let go, all we wanted was to reach our hotel and go to sleep.”

“Of course,” he whispered with compassion. His eyes wandered over her in intense appraisal before he said,
“Momento—”

With one hand still possessively molding the curve of her hip, he signaled a waiter, rapping out something in rapid Italian. The other man nodded and disappeared.

Reading the question in her eyes, her captor explained, “I asked him to bring you a robe to wear back to your room. Such a delectable sight should not be for everyone’s eyes.”

Only
yours,
and you’ve been drinking your fill with un-abashed enjoyment, she thought. He played it just right. The lothario with a streak of chivalry to keep him from being a complete cad.

“Thank you, Signore…Mysterioso,” she improvised in her best Italian which, sadly, left a lot to be desired.

A bark of laughter escaped his throat, the first unorchestrated response to come out of him. In that millisecond of time she was allowed a glimpse of what lay beneath the polished veneer and felt an emotional tug totally foreign to her.

Not wishing to delve any deeper into her suddenly confused emotions, she arched backward to escape his grasp and struck out for the shallow end. That way she could use the steps and retain some semblance of dignity.

However he managed to get there first. In a surprisingly protective gesture, he placed the extended white toweling robe around her shoulders. She was quite amazed at the speed with which the waiter had obeyed the stranger’s command without question.

She raised violet eyes to meet the smoldering depths of his. “Thank you. I was feeling a little vulnerable.”

“Like Venus rising from the sea?” he suggested.

The second the words came out of his mouth, Greer could picture the famous painting of the Roman goddess of beauty awakening from a seashell without any clothes on.

Greer blushed at the shocking analogy and turned her head away. But he made the situation even more explosive and intimate by lifting the pendant and lowering his head to kiss the tiny pulse fluttering madly beneath it.

“One day soon when we have no audience except the sun on our skin and the sand beneath our bodies, I hope to see you exactly as Botticelli created her,” he murmured against her scented throat.

Between the sensuality of his remark and the brush of his lips branding her heated flesh, she drew in an audible breath before wheeling away from his grasp.

Trembling, she plucked her watch and purse from the
table where she’d left them. Before she could decide whether to wear or carry her high heels, he’d looped his index finger through the gold straps.

“I’ll escort you to your room. Not even the Splendido can guarantee the safety of a woman on her own who looks like you. In your exhausted state you would be no match for someone who would like to spirit you away to some secret lagoon for the night…”

The image he’d created sent another shiver through her body, part ecstasy, part fright.

Before this trip, the playboys Greer had pictured in her mind were likable. Manageable. Easy come, easy go.

Maybe a little miffed to recognize they’d been conned, but gallant enough to salute the girls as worthy adversaries who’d pulled off a well-executed charade. No hard feelings as they made their charming retreat from the playing field.

Up until this moment she’d been enjoying a game that had its nascence back in Kingston two months earlier. But just now when he’d kissed her and whispered his daring remark, she’d sensed a power shift.

Now
he
was the one dangling her as surely as he dangled her shoes from his fingers.

Instinct told her this was a dangerous man, the kind you didn’t lure back to a youth hostel to tell him “sorry, wrong duchess.”
He
would be the one to decide when he was tired of playing, then he would move in for the kill. Until then he would keep her trapped in his sights, and there’d be no place for her to hide.

A thrill of alarm caused her to walk faster.

When they reached the elevator where other guests were coming and going, she was in a state of panic and used the brief interim to extricate the hotel room key from her purse.

However by the time they’d exited onto the third floor, reason had reasserted itself. She told herself it was lack of
sleep that had made her so uneasy. She would be leaving the hotel tomorrow and since she had no intention of ever seeing him again, she was even able to smile up at him with renewed confidence.

After the long transatlantic flight followed by a grueling three hours detainment at the hands of the police, she hadn’t been herself at all. Otherwise she wouldn’t have given a perfect stranger the green light to pursue her.

For a woman to plunge into the pool with her clothes on in order to sink her hooks into him, what else was a man like him supposed to think?

Tonight had been an experiment. A dry run. Whoops. A wet one, she mused nervously to herself, realizing her emotions bordered on hysteria.

She’d blown it, but she’d learned from it. Tomorrow would be a new day filled with more playboys and fresh possibilities.

The hotel room door was in sight. With one fluid movement she unlocked it, but before she could slip inside, he left a kiss on the side of her neck that set her whole body on fire. “Until tomorrow.”

His promise sounded more like an avowal.

“Goodbye,” she announced through the crack in the door before shutting it hard and locking it.

Congratulating herself on making it safely to her room, she staggered over to the nearest chair and held on while she attempted to recover from her fright. Her clutch bag fell to the floor with a soft thud.

Too late she remembered he still had her shoes. No matter. She didn’t need them. In truth, she never wanted to see them again. She never wanted to see
him
again.

T
HE
lights went on.

“Greer?” The second her sisters saw the condition she was in, they scrambled out of their beds toward her.

“How come your dress is wet?”

“Where did you get that robe?

“Where are your shoes?”

The questions pelting her one after the other stripped her down to the bare bones. This was no laughing matter. The only reason she’d escaped at all was that
he’d
allowed it.

She could still see the mixture of triumph and mockery glinting from the black depths of his eyes before the door closed, keeping him momentarily at bay.

“Guys?” Never in her life had their faces been more dear to her. “I’m in big trouble. We’ve got to get out of here now! I’ll tell you about it when we’re in the taxi.” She removed the robe and wet sundress.

“They only have chauffeur driven cars here at the hotel.”

“Well
we’re
going to call for a taxi. Will one of you do it please?” she begged. “Tell them to be here in fifteen minutes.”

“Where are we going in such an all-fired hurry?”

“Across the border to France. We’ll drive to the nearest airport and take the first flight leaving for anywhere that puts as much distance as possible between us and hi—Italy,” she amended.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

She shook her damp head at Olivia.

“I’ve seen that look before. She’s not kidding,” Piper whispered. They followed her to the bathroom. “Does this have something to do with what happened today when the police kept us so long?”

“No.” She removed her watch, then her necklace, her skin still seemed to burn where he’d kissed her.

“I detect the scent of a man.”

At Olivia’s adroit surmise, a distinct blush covered every particle of Greer’s skin. She was thankful for the protection of the elaborate sculptured design on the glass shower door, although it reminded her of the one on the floor of the pool.

The floor she never got to inspect at close range because she was snatched away by a force that still caused her to tremble.

“I didn’t think there was a man alive who could make you run.”

“If you must know, I tangled with a shark.”

“In the pool?” Piper blurted incredulously.

“This one had arms and legs…” And a masculine appeal that ought to be banned from existence Greer groaned inwardly as she washed the suds out of her hair.

“Did he manhandle you?”

She reached for the tap to shut off the water. “Not exactly.”

“Then he threatened you.”

Greer shivered. “Not in so many words.”

“If you expect us to check out of the hotel tonight when we’ve only had a couple of hours sleep, then you’d better tell us everything first.”

Olivia was right.

After they left the bathroom, Greer grabbed two fluffy towels. With one encircling her head, the other fastened around her body, she padded in the other room after them.

Her sisters sat on their own beds cross-legged, waiting
for her. She sank down on the side of hers. “I—I have this horrible feeling I’m not only in over my head, but there could be serious consequences. It’s my own fault of course.”

She jumped to her feet, unable to relax. “In the beginning, the idea of turning the tables on an honest to goodness European playboy sounded very fun and challenging. That was until—”

“Until you met up with a real one tonight,” Piper supplied.

Greer nodded jerkily. “There was this black-haired Adonis in the pool who would put any Olympic swimmer to shame. When he got out—”

Images flashed before Greer’s eyes. She couldn’t believe such an attractive man existed.

“Since you can’t find the words, we get the picture.” Olivia steepled her fingers. “Did he throw you in the pool without your permission?”

Her face went scarlet. “No.”

Piper leaned forward. “Did you fall in by accident?”

“No! It was nothing like that,” she confessed in a quieter tone.

“Then what
was
it like?”

“If you must know, he took one look at the pendant and asked me to swim with him. Everything happened just as we planned it back in Kingston. There was this gorgeous playboy who knew who the Duchess of Colorno was. He came on to me because of the pendant.”

“So you just jumped in the pool with him?” By now their eyes had rounded.

“The Duchess girls don’t jump, remember?”

Olivia’s mouth broke into a grin. “Of course not. Still wearing your clothes, you executed one of your graceful dives to make certain you captured his attention.”

“I guess,” came her muffled admission.

Laughter filled the room, but Greer didn’t join in. It was something they noticed.

“So what happened next?” Piper urged her to keep talking.

Greer kneaded her hands convulsively. “That’s when everything went wrong.”

“What did he do? Come on,” Olivia prodded. “Let’s hear it all, no matter how embarrassing it might be. Otherwise we won’t know how much trouble you’re really in.”

“It’s bad,” she whispered. “Trust me.”

That wiped the smiles off their lovely faces. “He didn’t—”

“No—” Greer blurted. “But he
could
have done anything. My dress was floating around my waist and he was so powerful and so…so—” Heat suffused her face.

Piper slid off the bed. “And you think that if you’d been alone with him, he would have taken advantage of you whether you told him no or not?”

She drew in a sharp breath. “What I think is, that man goes
where
he wants,
when
he wants, and does
whatever
he wants. Period. The pendant seemed to have particular significance for him.”

In the next breath she told them about the conversation in the pool, leaving out the parts about both kisses which were too personal. They’d shaken her so badly she couldn’t discuss it, not even with her sisters.

“What’s his name?”

“I have no idea.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. “Greer—”

“I know,” she muttered in self-deprecation, rubbing her arms nervously. “It gets worse. I tried to outbluff him by pretending that I wasn’t in the most compromising position of my life. I flirted a little before telling him I wouldn’t
be in Genoa after tomorrow because we were going to Vernazza.”

“You
told
him we were going there?”

“I’m a fool, Piper, and I know it, b-but that was before I realized how dangerous he was. And after what he said about a secret grotto and the sun and the sand and me rising
au naturel
from a seashell, my gut instinct says he’ll follow me there with the excuse he wanted to give me back my shoes.”

After his words to her at the door, Greer just
knew
he was the type of man that would turn up again.

“It sounds thrilling to me,” Piper murmured.

Olivia nodded. “Me, too.”

“Guys—” Greer cried in sheer panic, “this man
invented
the double-entendre. He’s…dangerous.”

“You’re saying that because you’ve never met anyone so gorgeous in your life, and you don’t know how to handle your attraction to him.”

“I’m not attracted, Piper!”

“Yes, you are,” Olivia contradicted her.

“All right. But even if I am, he’s the kind of man who’s off-limits!” her voice shook. “When we decided to spend the Husband Fund, we should have stuck to the movie version we saw in Mr. Carlson’s office and targeted sensible men. It would have been a lot safer than making ourselves the targets to wealthy playboys.”

Olivia frowned. “Our plan worked in theory. You’re just not used to Italian men. It’s perfectly natural for him to have been forward with you. It’s the way they’re made.”

“Olivia’s right,” Piper backed her sister up. “After all, you are very beautiful, Greer. Don can’t ever take his eyes off you, but he’s American, and American males aren’t as obvious. Look how long it took him to make his first move toward you.”

“Try six months,” Olivia drawled. “Greer—maybe this stranger
is
totally unscrupulous. Then again, maybe he isn’t. You haven’t given him enough of a chance yet to find out.”

“You had to be there, Olivia!” Greer snapped.

“Not necessarily. You said he has black hair. With you being so blond, and having the most unusual violet eyes, it’s no surprise he was drawn to you. I noticed a ton of men staring at you all day today. He couldn’t help himself any more than they could. You
did
say he restrained himself.”

Heat crept over Greer’s body. “Not completely,” she finally admitted. “He kissed me in the pool, a-and at the door.”

“I thought so,” Olivia murmured.

“Did you kiss him back?” Piper prodded.

“Of course not! H-he didn’t kiss my lips.”

Her sisters eyed each other before Piper said, “That explains everything.”

“What do you mean?” Greer fired back.

“You’re a take-charge kind of woman. He knew that and found his way around you. Sounds like you’ll be getting a marriage proposal out of him before long.”

“I don’t want a marriage proposal. I just want to get away from him. Maybe we should just go home.”

“We will,
after
our vacation is over,” Olivia placated her. “Since we’ve already paid the money for the boat and can’t get it back, I say we put the pendants away, drop the Duchess act and enjoy the rest of our trip like any normal tourists.”

“I second the motion,” Piper concurred.

“But I already told the stranger I was related to the Duchess of Colorno.”

“It’s too late to worry about the fact that we made reservations for the boat in the name of the Duchess of
Kingston,” Olivia advised. “We just won’t pull it on anyone else we meet.”

“You’re overreacting. However if or when Signore Mysterioso does show up,” she mimicked Greer’s pronunciation, “and you still want protection, he’ll have to deal with all three of us.”

“That’s right,” Piper chimed in. “Should he come around, we won’t let you out of our sight for a single second. How does that sound?”

“In theory, it sounds fine.”

“Good. Now that we’ve got everything settled, let’s go to bed and sleep in until they throw us out. Okay?”

“Okay…” Greer’s voice trailed, not nearly as confident.

Within a few minutes the lights had been extinguished and everyone had crawled under their covers. Soon Greer could tell her sisters were dead to the world.

It took a lot longer for her to succumb to the fatigue draining her body. That was because neither Olivia nor Piper had ever been stalked by a shark.

She kept feeling the spots where his mouth had scorched her throat and neck, imagining he’d actually taken little bites out of her.

“Nic? It’s Max. I’ve got Luc on the line with me so we can have a three-way conference call.”

“Luc?”

“I’m here, Nic. Good to hear your voice.”

“It’s like old times.”

Max’s two cousins, Nic and Luc, the son’s of his father’s sisters, were as close to him as brothers.

One aunt had married Carlos de Pastrana from Marbella, Spain. The other was married to Jean-Louis de Falcon from Monaco. All three parents were the direct descendants of the House of Parma-Bourbon and had married
royalty. Max felt as at home at their residences as they felt at the Varano villa in Colorno.

Being between the ages of thirty-three and thirty-four, the Varano cousins had spent every possible moment together growing up, be it at school or on vacation. But five months ago tragedy struck, killing Nic’s fiancée and almost causing Luc to lose his leg.

The accident had robbed both cousins of the joie de vivre Max had thought inherent in their natures. Much as he hated to admit it, he, too, had been in a state of despondency even before the ghastly accident. As far as he was concerned, if the three of them weren’t careful, depression would turn them into old men before their time.

He could use their company right now and was glad for any excuse to bring them together.

“Forgive me for calling both of you at one in the morning, but this is important.”

“What do you mean forgive?” Nic fired back. “As I recall, I kept you up half the night for weeks after the accident.”

“And you spent the other half in my hospital room,” Luc reminded him. “Hearing your voice is like a much-longed-for blast of fresh air. Especially when all I do lately is go from bed to work, to physical therapy, and then back to bed again.”

“I couldn’t agree more with Luc,” Nic assured Max. “Thank God you’ve called. Tell us what you need and you’ve got it!”

Max was going to hold Nic to that. “Do you two think you could give me about ten days of your time?”

“Starting when?” they both demanded with such telltale eagerness, Max had his answer. Gripping the phone tighter he said, “In about six hours from now. It’ll be a reunion
I’ve
needed.”

Hard to believe there was a time when the three of them
had been young, inseparable
and
immortal. They hadn’t believed the problems of ordinary men would ever touch their lives.

“You want us to join you in Colorno?”

Encouraged by Nic’s question he said, “No. Vernazza, aboard the
Piccione.
I need you to help me crew.”

Luc made a gruntlike sound. “With this damn cane, I’m afraid cooking is the only thing I’m good for at the moment.”

“You’re reading my mind, Luc. Since you’re still out of commission, that’s the job I’m assigning you. As we’ve learned from past experience, if preparing meals was left to me or Nic, we’d all starve to death. Nic can play captain.”

“How come the
Piccione
?” Nic wanted to know. “You gave your boat to Fabio Moretti a couple of years ago.”

“That’s true, and it’s his by right. I received the last payment on it several months ago.”

“Good for him.” A pregnant silence ensued. “So, I used to be fairly adept at reading your mind, but this time I have to admit you’ve got me baffled. What’s going on?”

“Where are the Morettis going to be?” Luc asked.

“On an unexpected paid vacation.”

“I take it this is some kind of emergency.”