In the Italian's Sights Read Free Page A

muscled body was big, he was wearing an aftershave which was sex in a bottle,the gold Rolex on one tanned wrist shouted wealth and authority, and she had never felt so out of her depth in all her life. It was an acutely uncomfortable sensation.
    ‘OK?’ He glanced at her as the car’s engine purred into life like a big cat, and then they were travelling backwards far too fast—in Cherry’s opinion, at least—there being no room to turn round in the narrow, dusty road.
    Her heart in her throat, she watched the drystone walls flash past and prayed she’d live to see another day. He was a madman. He had to be. Or a racing driver? No, a madman.
    It was another few minutes before a passing place in the road enabled Vittorio to turn the car round in the most perfectly executed three-point turn Cherry had ever seen, and by then she had realised Vittorio wasn’t a madman—just the best driver she had ever come across. It was as though he was part of the powerful machine as he handled the Ferrari with a skill which was breathtaking. But then if anyone should be at home in a Ferrari it was an Italian.
    ‘You—you like driving?’ she croaked out once they were facing the right way and she’d managed to unclench her hands.
    ‘Si,’ he agreed easily as the car leapt forward. ‘It is one of the pleasures of life that carries no sting in the tail.’
    She would have asked him what he meant by that, but she’d just caught sight of the incredible house in the distance, nestled within an expanse of century-old olive groves. She had found since being in the region that this land of olive groves and vineyards, surrounded on all sides by a balmy if slightly craggy coastline, held whitewashed buildings on the whole, which glistened in the sunshine. The house they were approaching was built ofa honey-colored stone, however, its pale walls glowing in the afternoon sun and its grey stone roof benign and tranquil. Balconies, bright with trailing bougainvillaea, surveyed the olive groves with sleepy ambience, and several large pine trees stood as sentinels either side of the sprawling building.
    ‘Casa Carella,’ Vittorio drawled lazily, noticing her rapt gaze. ‘One of my ancestors built the main house in the seventeenth century and subsequent Carellas have added to it.’
    ‘It’s beautiful,’ she breathed softly. As they came closer she could see just how beautiful. And how large and imposing.
    Vittorio brought the Ferrari to a stop and smiled as he turned to face her. She wondered if he knew how that smile affected the opposite sex and then decided that of course he did.
    ‘Grazie.’ His eyes moved from her face to the languid villa. ‘I, too, think my home is beautiful and have never wished to live anywhere else.’
    ‘Do you still farm the olives?’ she asked weakly, reeling from the way his smile had softened the handsome but somewhat stern features.
    ‘But of course. The production of olive oil is one of the oldest industries in Puglia, and the Carella estate is second to none. Because of the methods required to harvest and produce the oil it is impossible to turn the industry into a high-tech affair, however. Modern machinery may be used, but the industry here is still by and large a private one, with the families of farmers tending to their own trees and producing their own oil as opposed to giant conglomerates. I like this.’
    He turned to look at her again. ‘My great-grandfatherwas first and foremost a businessman, though, and invested much of the Carella wealth here and there, making sure we were not solely dependent on the olive trees. He was—how you say?—an entrepreneur. Is that correct?’
    Cherry nodded. So he was one of the filthy rich.
    ‘He was, I understand, a formidable man, but his ruthlessness guaranteed a privileged lifestyle for future generations.’
    She stared into the dark face. He sounded as though he approved of his great-grandfather’s hardness. ‘You think ruthlessness is a good