A Dangerous Infatuation Read Free

visit. The elderly lady clearly thought her grandson was Mr Wonderful, and from his arrogant air Rocco D’Angelo seemed to share that opinion.
    ‘If you took
any
interest in your grandmother you would know why I am here,’ she said sharply, feeling a small spurt of satisfaction when his eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t know if you’re aware that Cordelia fell and broke her hip a few months ago. She’s still recuperating from hip replacement surgery.’
    ‘Of course I know about that.’ Rocco disliked the nurse’s belligerent attitude, and the implicit criticism of him that was apparent in her tone. His voice iced over. ‘But I understood that she was recovering well.’
    ‘She’s over eighty, and she should not be living here in this remote house all alone. Her recent accident when she burned her hand is proof of that. It’s a great pity that you are too busy with your own life to pay Cordelia any attention.’ Emma gave him a scathing look. ‘From what I understand, you are her only living relative. You should be doing more to help your grandmother.’ She pushed past him. ‘Now, please excuse me. I need to see my patient.’
    The sitting room was like an oven. At least Cordelia did not stint on heating the house, Emma thought, watching Rocco—who had followed her into the room—immediately shrug off his coat. Her eyes seemed to havea magnetic attraction to him, and she felt a peculiar sensation in the pit of her stomach as her brain registered that he was utterly gorgeous. His black jeans and matching fine wool sweater moulded his lean, hard body. Raven-dark hair was swept back from his brow, emphasising the perfect symmetry of his chiselled features, his sharp cheekbones and square chin giving him a harsh, autocratic beauty that took her breath away.
    With his incredible looks he could be a film star, or a male model from one of those glossy magazines that were occasionally donated to the surgery’s waiting room and featured articles about the rich and famous aboard their yachts in Monaco, she brooded.
    He looked over at her, and she felt embarrassed that he had caught her staring at him. Her face grew hotter when he trailed his unusual amber-coloured eyes over her in brief assessment, before dismissing her with a sweep of his thick black lashes. Clearly he did not consider her worthy of a second glance. But why would he? she asked herself irritably. She was not a skinny, glamorous clothes horse like the stunning French model Juliette Pascal, who was reputed to be his current mistress. Emma had long ago accepted that even if she dieted permanently she would never be a fashionable and totally unachievable size zero, and she was painfully conscious that in her padded jacket she looked like a sumo wrestler.
    Rocco was seething. The gratitude he had felt towards the nurse for rescuing him from the roadside had rapidly disappeared when she had voiced her opinion that he did not care properly for his grandmother. She knew nothing about his relationship with Cordelia and had no right to pass judgement on him, he thought furiously.
    He adored his
nonna
, and the nurse’s assertion that he was too wrapped up in his own life to pay her any attentionwas ridiculous. However busy he was, he always phoned her once a week. It was true he hadn’t managed to come to England for quite a while—not since his brief visit at Christmas. He felt a pang of guilt when he realised that it was nearly three months since he had last been at Nunstead.
    But Cordelia did not live alone. The nurse—Emma, he recalled his grandmother had called her—was wrong about that. Before he had returned to Italy he had employed a housekeeper to take care of the house
and
Cordelia.
    Thoroughly riled, he glared at Emma, whose face was still half hidden beneath her scarf. Never in his life had he seen a woman wear such an unflattering hat, he mused, his eyes drawn with horrible fascination to the red woollen monstrosity on her head, which had slipped so