Picture of Innocence Read online

  ‘Not quite, but close,’ he said, his lips quirking at the corners in a self deprecating smile. ‘So how do you know the Countess della Scala? ‘ he asked.

  His smile—the first she had seen from him—made her heart turn over. But, remembering their last meeting and what he was really like, she stiffened. ‘Mind your own business,’ she said bluntly. ‘As I recall you told me quite succinctly yesterday you wanted nothing to do with mine.’ And, brushing past him, she walked to the elevator and stepped inside.

  The petite, elegant Countess was an absolute delight, Lucy thought ten minutes later, sitting in a comfortable chair and watching the elderly lady reclining on a sofa and examining the eighteen-by-twelve portrait of her husband that her manservant held a few feet away from her.

  ‘I love it—absolutely love it,’ she said, then instructed the manservant to place it on the table while she decided where to hang it. She turned back to Lucy. ‘You have captured my beloved husband perfectly. All my friends will be green with envy, and I can see a lot more commissions coming your way and a great future ahead of you.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Lucy grinned. ‘But thank you. I’m glad you like it, because it was a real pleasure to do—he was a very handsome man.’

  ‘Oh, he was—and so jolly. Nothing like Lorenzo Zanelli. The nerve of the man, trying to have you thrown out of the building. Are you sure you are all right.’

  ‘How on earth did you know about that?’ Lucy asked in surprise.

  ‘The concierge is a good friend of mine and keeps me informed of everything. Zanelli’s behaviour was disgraceful—I can’t imagine what he was thinking.’

  ‘I had a brief meeting with him yesterday over something his bank has an interest in, and he jumped to the conclusion I was following him,’ Lucy said with a grin. ‘He obviously has an overblown sense of his attraction to women, or he is just paranoid. I had no idea he lived here.’

  ‘Ah, my dear—Lorenzo Zanelli doesn’t live here, but friends of his, Fedrico and Olivia Paglia, have an apartment here. Unfortunately Federico was injured in a hunting accident in January and has been in a rehabilitation clinic ever since. There has been the occasional rumour circulating about Lorenzo Zanelli’s involvement with the poor man’s wife, because he has visited Olivia a few times, though I can’t see it myself. He is much more likely to be taking care of her husband’s business affairs than her.’ She chuckled. ‘Zanelli has the reputation of being a loner, a very private man and a workaholic. Olivia Paglia is a real social butterfly—which is why I can’t see the two of them together. They are like chalk and cheese.’

  ‘They say opposites attract,’ Lucy inserted, fascinated by the Contessa’s conversation.

  ‘Personally I don’t believe it. But enough gossip. When we first met I was struck by how bright you looked, wearing a brilliant blue top and white tailored trousers. Now, I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, my dear, but that black suit is ill fitting and absolutely dreadful.’

  Lucy burst out laughing. ‘I know—it’s terrible. I borrowed it from a friend because turning up in jeans and a top or a colourful kaftan, which is pretty much all I own, didn’t seem very businesslike. Plus, even though I had the portrait packaged I did not want to put it in the cargo hold. It took up most of my hand luggage, and I just managed to squeeze in a spare blouse and underwear.’

  An hour later, against all her attempts to refuse, Lucy left with a vintage designer dress courtesy of the Contessa, and shoes to match.

  She boarded the plane back to England with a spring in her step. She might not be able to save the family firm, but at least she had a nice cheque in her purse that would help, and a dress to wear for her friend Samantha’s hen party this weekend. The following weekend was the wedding, and Lucy was to be the chief and only bridesmaid.

  Lorenzo Zanelli viewed the procession down the aisle through cynical eyes. The bride, tall and attractive, looked virginal in white, with the extravagantly layered skirt of her gown cleverly concealing the fact she was pregnant. Another good man bites the dust! he thought, and wondered how James, an international lawyer and partner in his father’s London law firm, had allowed himself to be caught so easily.

  He had known James for years. His father was English and his mother Italian—her family home was on the shores of Lake Garda, near the Zanelli family home. He had met James as a teenager in the summer holidays at a local sailing club, and they had been friends ever since.

  Usually Lorenzo avoided weddings like the plague, but now he was grateful he had accepted James’s invitation—it could not have come at a better time. The past two weeks had seen his perfectly contented and well-ordered life severely disrupted.

  First the photographs from Manuel had disturbed him so much he’d been angry on meeting Lucy Steadman, and behaved with less than his usual iron control. And then her expectation that he would agree to help her keep a business she had no interest in and that made little money had infuriated him still further. Kissing her had been a bad mistake, but how like a woman to expect a man to bail her out …

  Then there was the complete and utter fool he had made of himself the next day. Instantly assuming the green-eyed little witch was following him. He still could not believe he had actually tried to have her thrown out of the building. For some reason her laughing eyes had featured in his dreams ever since, and why a plump little woman dressed not much better than a bag lady was disturbing his sleep he had no idea.

  Maybe he was having a midlife crisis … His usual taste in women veered towards tall elegant brunettes, well groomed, immaculately dressed, and preferably with a brain.

  The dinner party last Saturday with a few friends should have put him back on an even keel, but it had turned out to be a surprise birthday party arranged by Olivia Paglia—as if he needed reminding he was thirty-eight. His luck had continued its downward spiral when on Monday a photograph of him, with Olivia wrapped around him as they exited the supper club at two on Sunday morning, had appeared in the press, with an article full of innuendo.

  The following day had brought a summons from his mother—the one woman in the world whose opinion actually mattered to him. His father had died when he was twenty-six, and he had been head of the family ever since—though he only occasionally stayed at the family home. He had various properties of his own that he used. Seeing the disappointment and anger in her eyes when she’d demanded an explanation for his behaviour with a married woman had bothered him.

  Astonishingly, his mother had confided in him that she had always known her husband had kept a mistress. She had not liked it, but had accepted it. But even his father, for all his faults, would never have taken a married woman to his bed—and certainly not his best friend’s wife.

  Lorenzo could have told her his father had not had one mistress but two when he died. He knew because he had paid them off—plus he had known since he was a teenager of others, which had caused a rift between him and his father and was the reason he had gone to America to make his own way in the world. On his return he had discovered three more were on the books—his father had actually pensioned them off! Instead he’d bitten his tongue and listened as she berated him.

  A Zanelli had never before been the subject of the tabloid press—he had disgraced the name. And then she’d got on to her favourite subject: it was past time he found a wife and settled down to produce a grandchild—an heir to the Zanelli name. Then, with tears in her eyes, she reminded him he was the only son left.

  He had consoled himself that with luck, by the time he returned to Italy, the gossip started by the newspaper report would have blown over, and hopefully his mother would have forgotten as well. On flying into Exeter airport he had rented a car, and had driven down to Cornwall last night. He had booked into a country house hotel for the weekend, and would be flying out of London on Monday to New York for a week or two.

  Much as he loved his own country, given the traditional position he had to uphold in Verona, he preferred the vitality of New
York, where he usually had a lover. The women tended to be career-orientated, smart and sexy, and while his business affairs often appeared in the financial press his private affairs rarely registered on the press radar there. Whereas, given the status of the Zanelli name, in Verona, his every move was scrutinised by the gossip columns.

  The bride passed by, and he caught sight of the single bridesmaid. For a moment he thought he was hallucinating.

  Lucy Steadman … It couldn’t be?

  Her mousy hair was not mousy at all, but a kaleidoscope of colour, with hints of red and gold, swept up at the sides and held with a garland of rosebuds on the crown of her head, revealing her delicate features and then falling in soft silken waves down her back.

  His dark eyes moved slowly in stunned amazement over her shapely body. The strapless sea-green dress she wore enhanced the creamy smoothness of her skin and clung lovingly to her full firm breasts, a handspan waist and slim hips. How had he ever imagined she was fat? he asked himself, and could not take his eyes off her.

  She had the most supple, sexiest body he had ever seen, and he felt an instant stirring in his own as she glided down the aisle. The natural sway of her pert derrière forced him to adjust his pants. And this was the woman he had told he never wanted to see again.

  Though on the plus side he suddenly realised his sexual antennae hadn’t been at fault after all, but working perfectly when he had kissed her—which put paid to his mid-life crisis theory.

  He had parted with his last lover Madeleine, a New York accountant, at New Year, because unfortunately she had begun to hint at commitment … something he was averse to.

  But he definitely did need a woman—and a weekend affair with the luscious Lucy would suit him perfectly on so many levels. She lived in England—he divided his time mostly between Italy and New York. He could sate himself in her sexy little body with no danger of ever having to see her again. Unworthy of him, he knew, but he couldn’t help thinking there would be a satisfying kind of justice in bedding Damien Steadman’s sister and walking away …

  Seated on the bride’s side of the church, a misty-eyed Lucy watched as her friend Samantha and James Morgan, with eyes only for each other, took their wedding vows. No one could doubt the deep love they shared, and if ever a girl deserved happiness it was Sam, she thought.

  Lucy had arrived at Samantha’s parents’ house, set on the cliffs above Looe, at eight that morning. They had all had breakfast together, and the rest of the time Lucy had spent in a kind of controlled chaos, getting dressed with the hairdresser and make-up artist fussing around her, while trying to keep Samantha calm and getting her ready for the service at two-thirty.

  An hour ago Lucy had left for the church with the pageboy in a limousine, and—apart from having to take the little boy around the back of the old church for a pee—so far everything was going like a dream for her best friend.

  Lucy had first met Samantha as a child, when she had spent every summer with her parents at their holiday home in Looe. They had both attended the children’s Holiday Club and become friends. But after her mother died her father had refused to holiday in Cornwall any more, and consequently Lucy had lost touch with Samantha. It had only been after she had finished art college and inherited the family holiday home in Looe, setting up house and her own business there, that they had renewed their friendship.

  Samantha had been one of the first customers in her art and craft gallery, and they had instantly recognised each other. They had both had troubled teen years—Lucy had lost both her parents, and Samantha had been diagnosed with leukaemia at the age of thirteen and fought a five-year-long battle to full recovery. Lucy knew that was the reason Samantha had got pregnant within two months of meeting James. Convinced her leukaemia treatment had left her infertile, she had never considered contraception necessary.

  Lucy sighed. She was a romantic at heart. After all, Samantha had suffered before meeting James and falling in love. Getting married with a baby on the way was the perfect happy ending.

  ‘Lucy, time to sign the register.’ The best man, Tom, took her arm.

  Ten minutes later the church bells began to peal, and the bride and groom walked back down the aisle as man and wife.

  Lucy followed behind with Tom. She had met him at the rehearsal on Thursday night—he was James’s best friend and a banker in the City. But nothing like the hateful, hard-faced banker she had met in Verona: Lorenzo Zanelli. Tom was fun.

  The ceremony over, feeling totally relaxed, she glanced around the colourful congregation.

  ‘You look beautiful, Lucy,’ a deep, slightly accented voice drawled, and she almost dropped her posy of roses at the sight of the man sitting in the pew, his dark head tilted back, watching her.

  She looked down into a pair of mocking eyes, her mouth hanging open in shock. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was invited.’

  ‘Move, Lucy—we are holding up the traffic.’ She shut her mouth and was grateful for Tom’s hand at her back, urging her on down the aisle.

  Lorenzo Zanelli at Samantha’s wedding—it wasn’t possible.

  Unfortunately it was, she realised as she spent the next half-hour at the bidding of the photographer as the wedding photos were taken. Somehow every time she looked up Zanelli seemed to be in her line of vision. Not surprising, she told herself. At over six feet, with broad shoulders and bold features, he had a presence about him that made him stand out in any crowd, and the superbly tailored silver-grey suit he wore with easy elegance simply enhanced his magnificent physique.

  Seated at the top table at the wedding reception, Lucy tried to dismiss Zanelli’s presence from her mind and give all her attention to Tom. He was easy to talk to, and when the meal was over and the speeches began his was one of the best.

  The bride and groom opened the dancing, and then everyone else joined in. Tom turned out to be a good dancer and he made her laugh. When the music ended he led her to the side of the dance floor and said, ‘Do you mind if I rescue my girlfriend now? She’s bound to be feeling lonely, seated with strangers. I’ll take you back to the table first.’

  ‘Not necessary.’ She smiled. ‘I am going to find the powder room.’

  ‘Okay!’

  But Tom had barely been gone two seconds before Lorenzo Zanelli appeared at her side.

  ‘Lucy, this is a pleasant surprise—can I have this dance?’

  She tilted her head back to look a long way up into his harshly attractive face. ‘I seem to recall you never wanted to see me again,’ she said bluntly. ‘So why bother?’

  ‘Ah! Because I have never really seen you until now … ‘ He stepped back and deliberately let his dark gaze roam over her, from head to toe and back up, to linger for a moment on the soft curve of her breasts revealed by the strapless dress, before his dark eyes lifted to capture hers with an unmistakable sensual gleam in their black depths.

  Lucy fought down the blush that rose up her throat, but she could do nothing about the sudden hardening of her nipples against the soft silk of her gown.

  ‘What is your English saying, Lucy? To hide one’s light under a bushel?’ His deep, melodious voice made his accent more pronounced. ‘I never knew what a bushel was, but now thanks to you I do—a big, black shapeless garment.’ One black brow rose enquiringly. ‘I am right, yes?’

  ‘No.’ But she could not help her lips twitching. Even the Contessa had remarked on the ill-fitting suit.

  ‘So I ask again—dance with me?’ And before she knew it he had caught her hand in his.

  The same tingling feeling affected her arm, and she burst into speech. ‘How do you know James Morgan?’ she demanded, slightly breathless, Lorenzo was not as staid as she had thought—he could turn on the charm like a tap—but she did not want to dance with him. She didn’t like the man, and he had made it plain what he thought of her: nothing … But her own innate honesty forced her to admit she didn’t trust herself up close to him. Tentatively she tried to ease her hand from h
is, but with no success. His long fingers tightened around hers.

  ‘His mother is Italian and her parents’ home is on the shores of Lake Garda. James and I met as teenagers when he visited with his family in the summer, and now whenever I need an international lawyer James is the man I call.’ Reaching out, he slid his arm around her waist and drew her towards him.

  Suddenly Lucy was aware of the warmth of his long body, the slight scent of his cologne, the masculine strength of him, in a purely carnal way that stunned her. She could not tear her eyes away from the mobile mouth, suddenly recalling the heart-stopping feel of lips that had once kissed hers as he continued speaking.

  ‘I’ve never actually met the bride before, but that is not surprising. James has only known her eight months, and it is out of necessity a bit of a rushed affair, I believe?’

  Charming, but definitely arrogant and opinionated, Lucy thought, no longer having any trouble raising her fascinated gaze from his mouth to look up into his dark eyes. Her own sparked with anger at his slur on Samantha.

  ‘That is an unkind comment to make on what is a very happy day. Samantha is my friend, and for your information I happen to know it was love at first sight for both of them. Plus, James asked her to marry him before she knew she was pregnant.’

  ‘You are a loyal little thing—and, I think, a hopeless romantic. But I bow to your superior knowledge and apologise for my thoughtless comment. Now, let’s dance,’ he ended with a grin.

  His rueful grin and the proximity of his big body were having a disastrous effect on her thought process. Biting back the yes that sprang to her lips, she stiffened in his hold. ‘Why would I want to dance with a man who has sold my family business out from under me?’

  The only place Lorenzo wanted the delectable Lucy was under him, and he saw his opportunity. ‘There you are mistaken. The deadline is next week and I have not given the final go-ahead yet. It has occurred to me that if the land is valuable in the middle of a recession it will be a lot more valuable in the future.’