The Count's Blackmail Bargain by Sara Craven

inspiration.
    Her mouth tightened. ‘No need to go to those lengths, perhaps. But at least it will give me a purpose for staying on.’
    ‘And you can go sightseeing, even if I am not with you,’ he went on. ‘I shall tell Mamma to put Giacomo and the car at your service at once.’ He coughed again. ‘But now I have talked enough, and my throat is hurting. I need to sleep to become well, you understand.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’ She moved to the door. ‘Well—I’ll see you tomorrow.’
    Outside, she leaned against the wall and drew a deep breath. The daily visits would be a rod for her back, but, to balance that, being able to use the car was an unexpected lifeline.
    It offered her a means of escape from the enclosed world of the villa, she thought, and, more vitally, meant that she would no longer be thrown into the company of Alessio Ramontella.
    And that was just what she wanted, she told herself. Wasn’t it?
    CHAPTER SIX
    EXCEPT, of course, it had all been too good to be true. As she should probably have known, Laura thought wryly.
    Several long days had passed since Paolo had airily promised her the use of the car, and yet she was still confined to the villa and its grounds, with no release in sight.
    Naturally, it was the Signora who had applied the veto. Paolo was still far from well, she’d pronounced ominously, and, if there was an emergency, then the car would be needed.
    ‘If you had wished to explore Umbria, signorina, then perhaps you should have accepted my nephew’s generous invitation,’ she’d added, making Laura wonder how she’d come by that particular snippet of information.
    But it was an invitation that, signally, had not been repeated, although she often heard the noise of the Jeep driving away.
    And far from them being thrown together, after that first day, the Count seemed to have chosen deliberately to remain aloof from her.
    He’d finished his breakfast and gone by the time she appeared each morning, but he continued to join her at dinner, although the conversation between them seemed polite and oddly formal compared with their earlier exchanges. And afterwards, he excused himself quickly and courteously, so that she was left strictly to her own devices.
    So perhaps he too had sensed the danger of being overfriendly.
    And, having brought about her reunion with Paolo in spite of his aunt’s disapproval, considered his duty done.
    She should have found the new regime far less disturbing, and easier to cope with, but somehow it wasn’t.
    Even in his absence, she was still conscious of him, as if his presence had invaded every stone of the villa’s walls. She found she was waiting for his return—listening for his footsteps, and the sound of his voice.
    And worst of all was seeing his face in the darkness as she fought restlessly for sleep each night.
    The evening meal, she acknowledged wretchedly, was now the highlight of her day, in spite of its new restrictions.
    It was an attitude she’d have condemned as ludicrous in anyone else, and she knew it.
    And if someone had warned her that she would feel like this, one day, about a man that she hardly even knew, she would not have believed them.
    Yet it was happening to her—twenty-first-century Laura. She was trapped, held helpless by the sheer force of her own untried emotions. By feelings that were as old as eternity.
    She’d soon discovered that he was not simply on vacation at the villa when she’d made herself take up his invitation to borrow something to read. His library, she saw, was not merely shelved out with books from floor to ceiling, but its vast antique desk was also home to a state-of-the-art computer system, which explained why he was closeted there for much of the time he spent at the villa.
    Though not, of course, when she’d paid her visit. It had been Emilia who had waited benignly while she’d made her selection.
    She had just been hesitating over a couple of modern thrillers, when, to her