With all he had going for him—his looks, his wealth, his beautiful home—he no doubt had women lining up to become the next Mrs Pirelli. With a small baby to look after, he’d be utterly irresistible.
If you were into the kind of man who judged a woman by her looks and where she came from.
And then Rosa led them beyond the manicured gardens and into the house proper and Angie momentarily forgot about the man beside her. For if the outside of the house was palatial, the inside beggared belief. To the right of the entrance hallway one massive room ran along the length of the house, arched windows over the French windows leading onto a terrace overlooking the sea with glittering chandeliers hanging from the impossibly high ceiling. She gaped. This was like something from a fairy tale. Cinderella had probably danced here.
‘I’ve prepared the guest suite for you,’ Rosa said, jerking her attention back. ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable there.’
Angie couldn’t respond. She was still having trouble believing this palace was someone’s home. Maybe even hers for the next six months.
Her suite turned out to be in its own wing. Rosa beamed as she led the way into rooms decorated in tones of lemon and white with blue accents. Late afternoon sunshine slanted through curtains fluttering in the sea breeze. It was too much for Angie to take in. Beyond the sitting room there was a massive bedroom, the bed a king-sized masterpiece with its own dressing room and a window that looked out over the cliffs and the sea. The en suite bathroom beyond was unbelievably decadent in white marble with a sunken spa and double-sized shower.
For something referred to casually as a suite, she realised, it was bigger than her entire house in Sherwill. And one hell of a lot more luxurious.
‘Will it do?’ Dominic asked after the tour had concluded, depositing her bag on the blanket box at the end of the bed. ‘Do you think you’ll be comfortable here?’ And for the first time she sensed a hint of insecurity. Was he so worried she’d take his baby away? But his Will it do?—who was he trying to kid?
‘You’ve seen where I come from. What do you think?’
‘Then I’ll take that as a yes,’ he said. ‘I have work to catch up on. The rest of your things will be here tomorrow. Let Rosa know if you need anything else in the meantime and she’ll take care of it. I’ll see you at dinner.’
‘Thank you. I appreciate it,’ she said, meaning every word, looking around at the plush fittings and decor and secretly relishing the idea of this suite being hers for the next six months. Hardly some kind of jail sentence. Unless she thought about who she was being locked up with. Thank God he had an office to go to. With any luck, he’d work long hours and she’d never see him.
And then she sensed movement and turned and found he’d gone, with just a hint of his tantalising woody masculine scent remaining on the air.
Across the room, Rosa smiled softly at her. ‘It is good you are here,’ she said. ‘For too long he has been alone. And now to have a baby…’ she put her hands over her mouth but Angie had already seen the tremors even as she’d pressed her lips together, had already seen the moisture sheening her eyes ‘… a baby is like a gift from the heavens. You must be a very special woman, to do this thing for Dominic.’
And Angie felt her own tears well up again, shaking her head in a futile effort to make them go away. She wasn’t special or noble or unselfish. Her reasons were far more personal. ‘It had nothing to do with Dominic,’ she insisted. ‘I’m just pleased this baby has found its home. A place where it is wanted.’
The light glinted off Rosa’s tear-laden eyes as she nodded, blinking and blotting her cheeks dry with a handkerchief. ‘And I am forgetting myself. What would you like? Can I get you something to eat, or perhaps I could run you a bath? It will relax you. Or maybe you’d like a swim in the pool?’
So many choices and all of them so inviting! But she wasn’t hungry yet after that huge lunch and she hadn’t packed bathers. She looked longingly in the direction of the bathroom. That marble-tiled, gold-tapped submerged bath looked like temptation itself. So much decadence should be illegal or at the very least immoral, but the concept of submerging herself within its watery depths was like a lure to the senses. ‘The bath sounds wonderful.’