The Italian's Secretary Bride by Kim Lawrence Page B

waist was profound. With a sigh she sagged against him. ‘Thank you. I’m very sorry to be a bother,’ she murmured, tucking her head against his shoulder.
    At the top of the sweep of elegant steps that led up to the entrance Luca gave up on the pretence he wasn’t actually carrying her and scooped her up into his arms.
    â€˜You’re shaking like a leaf,’ he discovered as her soft curves melded into his hard angles. ‘I knew I should have called that doctor.’ His eyes darkened with self-recrimination; he had allowed her irrational pleas to influence his better judgement.
    â€˜Please don’t do that, Luca.’ Luca looked from the wide blue eyes to the small hand that tightened on his sleeve and back again.
    Somewhere from the muddled mess of her thoughts a realisation that she was being carried for the second time in her life by Luca O’Hagan emerged.
    â€˜You’re always around when I need carrying. Only twice in my life…obviously I’m not counting when I was a baby…’ She just managed to bite off the flow of confidences before she revealed that he smelt extremely good.
    â€˜You’re not a baby now.’ The creature in his arms was all woman.
    â€˜Am I talking rubbish?’
    â€˜No more than usual.’
    â€˜Good.’
    â€˜I’m too heavy.’
    â€˜For what?’ Under normal circumstances Alice might have taken note and wondered at his oddly thickened tone.
    â€˜For you.’ Arms like steel bands effortlessly stilled her uncoordinated feeble struggles. ‘I can walk.’ It didn’t necessarily mean she wanted to.
    The lean brown fingers that framed her jaw left her no choice but to look up into the face of the man who held her.
    â€˜And even if you couldn’t you’d prefer to fall flat on your face than let me carry you.’ Eyes as keen as a laser and equally objective scanned her face. Whatever he saw must have satisfied him because he gave a grudging grunt and then set her down on the pavement.
    Alice stood there taking big greedy gulps of fresh air while he arranged his jacket around her smooth bare shoulders. She was outside in the street and had only the vaguest memory of the events that had got her there.
    â€˜Right, you’re not going to faint on me, are you?’ he asked suspiciously.
    â€˜No, of course not.’
    â€˜There’s no of course about it.’
    Her glance dropped evasively from his searching scrutiny. ‘I felt a little light-headed. I’m fine now,’ she said, injecting a strained note of false cheer into her voice. ‘You go back and have your dinner,’ she suggested. ‘I’ll take a little stroll.’ She had barely begun to shrug off his jacket when two heavy hands landed on her shoulders, effectively anchoring it there.
    â€˜You have taken stupid to an entirely new level.’ Luca, being Luca, didn’t see the need to lower his voice and several people looked at them; a few stopped and stared.
    â€˜Please,’ Alice hissed with an agonised look over her shoulder. ‘People are looking at us. Let’s walk.’ Walking at least they might blend in a little. When he didn’t respond she caught hold of his hand. ‘Come on,’ she urged.
    For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to co-operate, then suddenly his fingers closed around hers. Her eyes widening as a tingling sexual shock sizzled through her body, she almost missed a step, but somehow carried on walking as though nothing had happened.
    There was something quite surreal about it; she was walking hand in hand down the street with Luca O’Hagan. They were still hand in hand when the flashes started popping. Without thinking, Alice turned her head into Luca’s chest. He held her there until he said, in what seemed to her an amazingly disinterested fashion, ‘He’s gone.’ Her face was framed between big hands. ‘You all right?