CHAPTER FIVE
‘WHAT DO YOU WANT?’
‘Good morning to you too, cucciola mia,’ he replied with a flash of his straight white teeth. He was wearing a grey suit with a white shirt and a black cravat. Yes. A cravat. Pepe wore a cravat that should look ridiculous but instead...
He looked far too gorgeous for sensibility.
‘We need to leave shortly.’
Cara shrugged. ‘If you want me to come with you, then you’ll have to wait. I’m not ready.’
‘Monique told you to be ready in an hour. That was an hour ago.’
‘I don’t wear a watch and my phone’s out of battery, so I have no way of knowing what the time is. I would charge my phone but the charger’s in Dublin,’ she added pointedly.
‘Is no problem,’ he said, brushing his way past her and perching on her bed. ‘As you suggested, I will wait for you.’
‘Not in here, you won’t.’
‘And you are going to stop me how?’ he asked in a chiding fashion.
She speared him with the nastiest glare she could muster.
He laughed softly, which made her scowl all the more.
Still laughing, he rummaged through one of the boxes and held up a pair of skimpy black lace knickers. ‘Are you going to wear these?’
She snatched them from him, knowing her cheeks had turned a deep red to match her hair. ‘Get out and let me get changed.’
‘I would but I have a feeling you will get ready quicker if I’m in here with you.’
Calling him every nasty word she knew under her breath but loud enough for him to hear, Cara gathered her selected outfit and swept off back into the en suite, letting the door shut with a bang.
For a moment she was reluctant to take the towel off. She had no fear he would barge in on her—where that certainty came from, she could not say—but it wouldn’t surprise her in the least to learn he had X-ray vision.
The thought made her feel distinctly off-kilter, in a way that was completely inappropriate.
The thought of Pepe staring at her naked body while she was oblivious should not make her breasts feel heavy...
Swallowing away moisture that had suddenly filled her mouth, she pulled her knickers on, too late recalling them being the same pair Pepe had just fingered.
This was how he’d been able to seduce her so easily.
For some reason her testosterone-immune body reacted to Pepe and became pathetic and weak-willed around him.
By the end of their weekend together she had been like a lust-filled nympho.
What was it about him?
And what was so wrong with her that she still reacted to him, even after everything he had done? Not forgetting that she was pregnant—shouldn’t pregnancy act as a natural form of anti-aphrodisiac? If it didn’t, it jolly well should.
Pathetic. That’s what she was.
Dressed, she went back into the room. Pepe had moved to an armchair in the corner, his long legs stretched out, doing something on his phone.
His eyebrows rose when he saw her. ‘Are you going to be much longer?’
‘I’m good to go.’
‘Your hair’s still wet.’
‘It’s a bit damp, that’s all.’ She’d towel-dried it as well as she could.
‘It’s cold outside.’
‘My hairdryer’s in Dublin.’
Pepe was fast beginning to recognise the look Cara threw at him as her ‘if you’d let me get my stuff as I’ve asked you repeatedly, I wouldn’t have this problem, ergo, this problem is your fault’ look.
‘I will ensure a hairdryer is here for you when we return from the vineyard.’
‘I’m hoping my hair will be dry by then.’
‘Hmm.’ He gazed at her musingly. ‘I would say sarcasm doesn’t suit you but it actually does.’
She scowled. ‘Funnily enough, it’s only when I’m around you that my sarcastic gene comes out.’
‘I will have to work hard to eradicate it,’ he said, getting to his feet and leaning over to swipe her nose. She did have the cutest nose. ‘And I’ll work hard to eradicate the evil looks you keep throwing at me.’
‘The only way that’s going to happen is if you find your reasonable gene and let me return to Dublin.’
‘You’re welcome to return to Dublin any time you like,’ he said, smiling to disguise his irritation. ‘I have made it clear what the consequences will be if you do so.’
‘Like I said, you need to find your reasonable gene. Find it and I might lose my sarcastic gene.’
‘I have already found my reasonable gene. It is unfortunate it differs from your definition of reasonable but there you go—you can’t please everyone.’ He expanded his hands and mocked a bow. ‘Now, my fiery little geisha, it is time for us to leave.’
‘What did you call me?’ The look she gave him was no mere scowl. If looks could turn a man to stone he would now be made of granite.
‘So touchy.’
‘Calling me a geisha is pretty much on a par with calling me a concubine.’
‘Not at all—a concubine is a permanent fixture in a man’s life, there to give pleasure. A geisha is a hostess and an artiste. It is rare for a geisha to have sex with a male client.’
She didn’t look in the slightest bit mollified. If anything, her scowl deepened.
‘I can see I have my work cut out with you,’ he said with a theatrical sigh. ‘Maybe it is a good thing you will be with me for five months—I fear it will take me that long to get a smile out of you.’
* * *
Cara sat upright as they drove into a heliport, or whatever the name was for a field with a great big white helicopter with red Mastrangelo livery on it, and an enormous hangar right behind it.
Her stomach turned over at the sight of it. ‘Please tell me we are not travelling in that thing?’
‘It’s either an eight-hour round trip to the vineyard by car, or we can do it in a quarter of the time in this beauty.’
‘I vote for the car.’
‘Sorry, cucciola mia, but I vote for the chopper. An hour there, an hour back.’
‘It’s a split vote.’
‘It’s my time and money.’
‘Do I have to come? Can’t I just wait here?’
‘Yes, you do have to come.’ For the first time she detected an edge to his voice. ‘I’m not arguing with you again. I assure you, the ride will be perfectly safe and comfortable.’ To prove his non-arguing point, he opened his door and got out.
She stuck her tongue out at his retreating form, watching as he joined a trio of men standing by the helicopter, all wearing black overalls. She guessed they were the flight crew.
The interior of the helicopter settled her nerves a touch. It was much less tinny than she had thought a helicopter would be. If anything, it was rather plush. She climbed aboard and sat down on a reclining white leather seat. Pepe showed her where all the big-boy-with-too-much-money gadgets were located on the seat, including a foldaway laptop.
‘Aren’t you sitting with me?’ she asked, perturbed when he went to climb back out.
He grinned. ‘One of us has to fly the thing.’
Before she could react, he’d jumped out and slid the door closed. In less than a minute he had opened the door at the front and made himself at home with the controls.
‘Very funny, Mastrangelo,’ she said, speaking over the low partition dividing them. If she wanted she could lean over and prod him. Which she was seriously considering doing if he didn’t stop buggering about...
‘Where’s the pilot?’ she asked, desperation suddenly lacing her voice.
He didn’t look back, simply continued doing whatever he was doing with the range of knobs and buttons and thingies before him. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking,’ he said, amusement lacing his deep voice. ‘For your own safety, Air Mastrangelo asks that you keep your seat belt fastened at all times and refrain from smoking for the duration of the flight.’
‘You are having a laugh.’
He put some headphones on then turned his head back to look at her. ‘Put your belt on, Cara—I promise you are in safe hands.’
‘What about the men you were talking to? Aren’t they going to fly it?’
‘They were the maintenance crew.’
It was only when he turned the engine on that she truly believed Pepe was going to pilot it.
‘Please,’ she shouted over the noise of the propellers—who would have known it would be so loud?—‘tell me you’re only joking.’
‘Belt on.’ He started speaking into the mouthpiece of the headphone, talking in fluent French, his whole demeanour altering, adopting a serious hue.
‘You can really fly this thing?’ she asked when he’d stopped speaking and was doing stuff on the dashboard—was it even called a dashboard?
‘I really can.’
‘You’re really qualified?’
‘I really am. Have you got your seat belt on?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then we are good to go.’
And just like that, they were airborne.
And just like that, Cara’s stomach lurched. She actually felt her half-eaten croissant and decaf coffee move inside her.
Slowly, the helicopter rose. At least it seemed slow, their ascent high above the heliport gradual.
Nothing was rushed. Everything in the cockpit was calm. And, as she watched him concentrate, watched him fly the beast they were in, her fears and nerves began to subside.
She’d ridden on planes many times, was used to the smoothness and almost hypnotic hum of the engines. This was different on so many levels.
There were so many things she wanted to ask him, not least of which was how did playboy extraordinaire Pepe Mastrangelo have the discipline to get his pilot’s licence? His intelligence was not in doubt, but this was a man with the attention span of a goldfish—at least with women. She might know next to nothing about flying a helicopter but she knew for certain there was a lot more involved than learning to drive a car.
Surely it was something he would be proud to tell people? Never mind all the double dates they’d shared with Luca and Grace; they’d spent practically a whole weekend together, discussed all the vineyards he owned with his brother, discussed all the travelling he did between those vineyards as his brother liked to base himself on the family estate in Sicily, and not once had he mentioned flying his own helicopter. He hadn’t even hinted at it.
As she looked at him now, relaxed but alert, clearly in his element...it was as if he’d been born to fly.
She wanted to bombard him with questions but, despite the unexpected smoothness of the flight—a smoothness she knew without having to be told came from the skill of his piloting—the nausea in her stomach was spreading, reaching the stage where all her concentration had to be devoted purely to breathing and swallowing the saliva that had filled her mouth.
‘Everything okay in the back?’ he called out to her.
‘All dandy. Thank you.’ She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.
‘There are sick bags in the side pocket of your chair,’ he said after a few moments of silence had passed.
All she could manage was a grunt.
* * *
It was Cara’s thank you that alerted Pepe to something being wrong. He’d guessed on the jet to Paris from Sicily that she was suffering from motion sickness, had kept a close eye on her sleeping form in case she awoke and needed attention, but nothing had come of it.
He’d piloted enough people in the past decade to know when someone was suffering from it. Right then, he could hear in the deepness of her breathing that she was one of the unfortunate ones. He didn’t imagine she would extend politeness towards him under any other circumstance.
‘There’s a neck pillow in the side pocket too,’ he called out over his shoulder, pressing the button to turn the air conditioning on. ‘If you put it on it’ll help keep your head stable. Find a fixed point in the horizon to focus on. I promise I will make the ride as smooth as I can. The conditions out there are good.’
He received another grunt in return.
If there was one thing he had learned it was that those afflicted by motion sickness were never in the mood for idle chit-chat. All he could do to help on any practical level was concentrate on the job in hand and do his best to keep the craft in as straight a motion as he could. He regretted not taking the ‘doors off’ approach, but at the time had thought it would probably terrify her if she was alone in the back.
Every now and then he would ask if she was okay and get a grunt in return. He didn’t hear any sound of retching or vomiting, so that was a plus.
By the time he landed on the field a few miles from the vineyard he was thinking of purchasing, all was silent.
When he climbed over the partition to help her out, he almost did a double take. He had never seen anyone turn that particular shade of green before. Except, maybe, the Incredible Hulk.
She’d taken his advice with the neck rest, but apart from that she’d clearly dealt with her malady in her own way, reclining her seat as far back as it would go and keeping her eyes scrunched closed. Her hands gripped an empty sick bag, her knuckles white.
He slid the door open to let the air in then went back to her. He crouched down and placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. ‘We’re here.’
Cara opened one eye and peered at him. Or was it a glare? He couldn’t quite tell. ‘I know. We’ve stopped moving.’
‘Can you stand?’
‘I’ll try in a minute.’ She snapped her eye shut again then sucked in a breath and swallowed loudly. ‘By the way, if you try and carry me out of here, I will sock you one.’
‘Just breathe.’
She filled her lungs.
‘That’s it. In through the nose and out through the mouth.’
‘I do know how to breathe. I’ve been doing it all my life.’ Her snappy retort was said with teeth that weren’t so much gritted as sucked.
‘That’s a very clever trait to have,’ he said gravely. He had to admit that, despite her green hue, there was something incredibly sexy about the way she sparred with him. ‘I will give you five minutes for your body to right itself and if you’re still not capable of walking I will carry you to the car.’
His threat did the trick as when he returned exactly five minutes later Cara was sitting upright with her eyes open.
She looked at him. ‘I think I need your help getting to my feet.’
‘You must be bad.’ If he hadn’t already seen with his eyes that she was unwell, her clammy skin would have definitely given the game away. Her hand gripped his wrist so tightly her neat but short nails dug into his flesh.
She leaned into him, allowing him to half drag her to the open door.
‘It’ll be easier for you to get out if you sit down—it’s a bit of a gap at the best of times.’ Not waiting for an argument, he helped her sit her shaky frame to the floor and dangle her legs out of the overhang.
Then he jumped down.
‘Can you get down or do you need my help?’ If it was anyone else he’d just pull them down the last few inches.
Her green eyes pierced into him. He could see how much it pained her to have to say, ‘I need your help.’
He placed his hands on her waist. ‘Put your arms around me.’
‘Do I have to?’
‘No. It’ll probably be safer for you though.’
This time she gritted her teeth for real.
Tilting her head to the side and away from his gaze, she looped her arms around his neck, taking care not to touch him in anything but the loosest of fashions.
Deliberately, he closed the small gap between them, felt her heavy breasts crush against his chest. Not for the first time that day he felt a flicker of excitement stir inside him. It was nice to know he wasn’t dead from the waist down as he’d been fearing in recent months.
As it was such a short distance for her feet to reach—although if she’d been a few inches taller she would probably have reached the ground from the sitting position—it was a simple matter of tugging her down onto terra firma.
She swayed into him, her cheek coming to rest against his chest, her arms dropping from his neck like deadened weights.
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered.
‘I’m not.’ He slipped his arms around her waist to support her limp form, and enjoyed the feel of her soft curves pressing against the contrasting hardness of his body. She really was incredibly cuddly. She was also clearly unwell. ‘Can you walk?’
‘Yes.’ There was a definite air of defiance in her affirmation, a defiance aimed at her own legs rather than him. ‘Do not carry me.’
‘Come. The car is waiting for us.’
Half dragging her, Pepe somehow managed to manoeuvre Cara the ten metres or so to the Land Rover.
Christophe Beauquet, the vineyard’s current owner, was behind the wheel waiting for them. He made no effort to get out and welcome them and made only the briefest of grunts when Pepe helped Cara sit down in the front.
Pepe leaned over to strap her seat belt on, trying to ignore, again, her gorgeous scent. He could hear her furious swallowing, knew she was doing her best to keep back what her body was so desperate to expel. Her hand still clutched the sick bag.
‘She needs to look forwards,’ he explained before jumping into the back of the four-wheel drive.
Christophe didn’t even try to hide his disgust. ‘All this fuss for a short air ride?’
The hairs on Pepe’s arms lifted. It took him a moment to realise it was his hackles rising. ‘She’s pregnant,’ he answered shortly, leaning back into his seat and clamping his mouth into a firm line. He did not like the Frenchman’s tone. He didn’t like it at all.