The Count's Prize Read Online Free PDF Page B

a bottle of champagne waiting just outside.
    It must have been left over from Dario’s wild night out!
She smiled, putting it aside.
    Josie hadn’t spent a night out—wild or otherwise—for ages. With a twinge of faint embarrassment, she remembered how painful social events like that could be for her.
    She slipped out of the castle while the day was still dim and the air cool. For the next few hours she crisscrossed the di Sirena estate and was soon cursing herself for not bringing a hat. She used pools of shadow wherever she could, but the sun burned hotter by the second.
    At first she was so absorbed by her work she had notime to think about anything else. Then she became aware that she was not alone. Wherever she went, Count Dario di Sirena was never far away. She spotted his horse tethered beside the olive press just after she left, then later she saw him approaching the dairy as she was heading away into the hills.
    It’s nothing but coincidence
, she thought.
    Although coincidence couldn’t quite explain the sudden shiver she got every time their paths crossed.
    Dario thought that going out for a ride would give him some much needed space and time in his schedule to think. It worked—but not in the way he expected. The still, silent images of Josie observing him from her window, or waving to him as he left home the night before, kept creeping into his mind. He couldn’t puzzle out exactly what it was about her that attracted him, but it wasn’t for want of opportunity. It seemed that wherever he went today, there she was. She popped up in the most unlikely places, from the hay store to the olive press. After a while it began to make Dario feel slightly uncomfortable. He might have thought he was being stalked, but for one thing. Instead of following him, Josie always managed to be one step ahead. It was as though she was reading his mind and anticipating his movements. He snorted with derision. The idea was ridiculous—but it didn’t stop him thinking about it. Usually he was never in any doubt about anything, but Josie was definitely having an effect on him.
    From her tightly drawn ponytail right down to the steel toecaps of her sensible work boots, Dr JosieStreet meant business. That made her almost unique, in Dario’s experience. Her furious blush when he’d explained about the champagne was the closest he got to an unguarded moment, and she barely said a thing even then. It was such a refreshing change from the endless, meaningless chatter poured into his ears at parties every night. Unless something was worth saying Josie kept quiet. Everything about her felt so calm, so stable and so right. So why did she always manage to put him on edge? Dario shook such thoughts away and decided it was definitely time to take command of the situation.
    When Josie found herself drawn to a shady glade, she didn’t consider there was anything mysterious about it—to begin with. It was simply her desperate need to get out of the heat and dazzling sun. Spotting the glitter of water in a forested depression overlooking the
castello
, she headed straight for it. There wasn’t time to enjoy the view as she slithered down a steep rough bank, desperate to reach the cool green depths of the woodland below. Only when she plunged between the gnarled sweet chestnuts, ash trees and birches could she catch her breath and take stock of her surroundings.
    As her eyes became accustomed to the cool gloom, a voice drifted through the trees towards her.
    ‘Ciao, Josie.’
    Dario had looped the reins of his horse over the low branch of a tree and was crouched beside it. He looked like a magnificent animal poised to spring—but in his hand he held a delicate, wide-brimmed straw hat.
    ‘You made me jump!’
    ‘I intended to.’ He grinned. ‘You didn’t take any notice of my warning about sunstroke, so I’ve come to make you see sense.’
    ‘You seem to appear everywhere I go today,’ she said suspiciously.
    He stood up and