Widow - Anne Stuart [43]
“Sure thing, sweetheart. As soon as I find the paintings. I told you, I don’t trust you. If you run across them when I’m not around you might just forget to mention them to me, and therefore to the tax bureau.”
“And I’ve told you, Maguire, that getting rid of you is worth far more to me than a few million dollars’ worth of paintings,” she said wearily.
“Flatterer. Are we going to force our way into Madame Antonella’s house or wait for another time?”
“You’ll wait for another time,” Lauretta informed them. “She’ll go to confession tomorrow—you can look then. Unless, of course, the two of you feel the need to purge your souls of sin.”
“I’m lapsed, bella,” Maguire drawled. “And it would take years for me to list all my transgressions to the good father. I’ll just stay in my sinful state. As for Charlie here, I don’t imagine she could drum up even five minutes’ worth of misdemeanors.”
“You underestimate the effect you have on me, Maguire,” she said in a cool voice.
“Turn you on that much, do I? Well, control yourself, babe. We’ve got more important things to take care of right now than our libidos.”
She stared at him in shock. He was being completely outrageous, with Lauretta as a witness, and he didn’t seem to care. “I’m going to hurt you,” she said in a dangerous voice.
“No, you’re not. Let’s go back to the house and…”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Hey, I promise. Hands off.” He held out his hands in a gesture of innocent surrender. The hands that had touched her. Held her.
“Go along, Charlie,” Lauretta said fondly, totally oblivious to how dangerous Maguire really was. “The signore will make sure you don’t stumble again. He’s all talk, aren’t you, signore? He flirts with everyone but he doesn’t mean a word of it. Just ignore him.”
“I’m trying,” she muttered.
Maguire, in true gentlemanly fashion, had already started down the narrow path, not even bothering to see whether she was coming. She considered hanging back, waiting on the terrace until he was back at the house, but Madame Antonella was moving around in the cluttered cottage, muttering angrily in a mixture of French and Italian, and in a few moments she was likely to erupt onto the terrace again. And who knew who she’d think Charlie was this time?
“Go with him, Charlie,” Lauretta said in a slightly urgent tone. “I’ll take care of the old lady. But go now.”
And she had no choice but to follow him down the narrow path, as the sound of Antonella’s voice trailed after her.
11
One thing was for certain, Maguire thought as he picked his way down the pathway. Charlie Thomas didn’t like kissing.
Or maybe it was more obvious than that. Maybe she just didn’t like him. But he didn’t think that was the problem.
Well, of course she didn’t like him—that went without saying. He’d gone out of his way to get under her skin—the fastest way he could think of to get information out of someone with defenses as strong as hers were. It was a delicate balance. He had to be just obnoxious enough to get her to react, but not so bad that she kicked him out of the house. He was walking a fine line, and he’d almost fallen over the edge today.
She was following behind him—he could hear the rattle of loose pebbles as she walked down the path. He made no effort to slow down, and she wasn’t about to catch up with him. They marched down the hillside to the villa, single file, and if he was half tempted to stop and turn, so that she’d have no choice but to barrel into him, he resisted the impulse. He’d pushed her enough for now.
No, she didn’t like him, and she didn’t like kissing. But there was definitely more to it than that. She was fascinated by him; he recognized that without any false modesty, though he wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t straightforward sexual interest—he doubted if Charlie even knew what that was like. If she did, she kept it for her fiancé.
Maybe she simply saw through him. Knew him for a liar and a cheat, no insurance bureaucrat at all. But she