The Italian Inheritance Read Online Free PDF Page B

despite my answering all your questions, you still didn’t tell me where Giovanni was. So I came to see for myself. I didn’t know what else to do. ”
    “ I wasn’t lying,” he said curt ly, feeling her move beneath him and trying to prevent inappropriate thoughts from entering his head. Her body was so soft, so pliable. “Giovanni doesn’t live here. I live here and you are trespassing.”
    “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking,” she breathed. “You have to believe me. I’ve never don e anything like this before in my life .”
    How could someone who looked so innocent be lying? Her blonde hair spread out around her like a golden halo, mingling with the dark grass. She looked deceptively angelic lying defenceless beneath him. Yet here she was, dressed as a cat burglar, caught red-handed on his property.
    Just goes to show... appearances can be so deceiving. You can’t trust anybody.
    “Why should I believe you?”
    “...Because I’m not spontaneous at all ,” she explained earnestly . “ You can ask anyone who knows me . I plan everything to the last detail. Climbing over that wall was a ludicrous idea. In fact , I can’t believe I even thought of it. ”
    “ Neither can I ,” he muttered.
    “In fact, coming t o Italy was probably a bad idea,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard him . “ I don’t know what I was hoping to find. Certainly not you .” She sniffed, glaring at him. “T he lawyer from hell. ”
    Lawyer from hell. That was a new one...
    Then she was off again . “Lara was right. This trip has been a disaster since the get-go . I should have known better than to come dashing over here on a whim. ” She shook her head as if in a daze. “What was I hoping to find anyway? My father waiting with open arms?” She laughed bitterly.
    “What are you talking about?” Rafael stared at her, confounded . Nothing she said made any sense to him. Who was Lara?
    Her black top had bunched around her waist in the struggle and Rafael could see a smidgen of skin, pale and te in the moonlight. He got an irresistible urge to touch it, to trace the contours of her body with his fingers.
    “I think you’d better come inside so we can talk,” he suggested . Maybe that way he would get some sense out of her. She was babbling now, obviously stressed.
    He rolled off her and stood up in one smooth movement . Cool air flooded the space between them giving him goose bumps. He saw her shiver, also feeling the loss of his body heat.
    Rafael offered her a ha nd which she pointedly ignored, getting easily to her feet. She dusted herself off. “Now that’s the best idea I’ ve heard all day.”
    “Come with me.” Rafael turned towards the house.
    Anna followed the lawyer wordlessly across the lawn. They passed dimly lit statues staring vacantly into space, witnes ses to her foolish a ntic s. S he was acutely aware of her narrow escape. She was trespassing and Vialli would have been well within his rights to call the police. Luckily for her he’d decided not to. The concept of spending time in a foreign jail did not appeal to her at all. She could just imagine having to call Lara to come and get her out with the bail money .
    What the hell was she thinking? This sort of erratic behaviour was very unlike her. It must be the tension of the trip and the frustration yesterday that was causing her to act so out of character .
    She stared at Vialli’s smooth bare back as he walked up the meandering path in front of her to the house. It was all his fault for giving her the run-around . If he hadn’t made her so angry, she probably wouldn’t have resorted to such drastic measures.
    Vialli opened the enormous wooden front door and stood back to let her enter. Then he locked it deliberately behind them . Anna obviously wasn’t in the clear , yet. She’d better be careful.
    They walked across a tiled entrance hall, through a big arch typical of Mediterranean style properties and into a dark