Unforgettable

LYDIA GLANCED OVER HER SHOULDER and realized that the young Italian man who’d accosted her in Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci International Airport VIP lounge was still following her. She wondered if she should say something to the one of carabinieres patrolling the airport. But she would have felt silly complaining that a well-dressed young man had told her how beautiful she was.

Yesterday, she would have smiled and accepted the compliment. Today, knowing that someone had drugged her last night and stolen a priceless pearl necklace she was wearing, called the Ghost, right off her neck, she didn’t trust the young man’s intentions. She’d told him she preferred to be alone, but he’d sat down in a chair near her anyway. He was polished and charming and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She’d always been able to handle the most aggressive males with aplomb. For some reason, this morning she couldn’t find the right mix of courtesy and coldness to discourage him.

Finally, she’d given up and left the lounge. She was anxious to meet Sam Warren, the private investigator from Dallas she’d hired, and get started looking for the Ghost. The bold Italian, with his exquisitely tailored suit and gold ring bearing a family crest, seemed to think she was playing some game with him.

Lydia wanted to lash out at him to leave her alone, but she’d been taught from birth that a lady never lost her temper. And she was a British lady from the top of the French twist in her silky black hair to the tips of her red, four-inch-high Jimmy Choo heels.

She determinedly ignored the suave Italian, which only seemed to encourage him.

“Tu sei bella,” he said, taking a step closer.

He’d merely told her she was beautiful—again—but she felt a frisson of unaccountable fear. She told herself her would-be suitor was merely a handsome man, like many others who’d sought her attention, but the events of the previous day had changed everything. She was suddenly terrified of the unknown.

Before she could turn to her tormentor, she heard a gruff male voice demand, “Are you Lydia Benedict?”

Lydia gaped at the tall, dangerous-looking hoodlum with sunken eyes, a dark beard, and shaggy black hair who’d stopped a foot in front of her. She blurted, “How do you know my name?”

He pointed to a sign she held down at her side—similar to those used by chauffeurs to locate their clients—which read SAM WARREN. She’d forgotten she was holding it.

“I was told to meet Lydia Benedict,” he said. “I figured from the sign that you were waiting for me.”

She was both confused and upset to find herself suddenly sandwiched between the two strangers. She wasn’t sure which man provided the greater threat, the one dressed in an expensive Italian suit or the one staggering drunkenly before her in military desert camouflage.

“I’m Warren,” the unshaven man said.

Lydia was appalled as she stared into his inscrutable ice-blue—and bloodshot—eyes. This was her help to locate the Ghost? This was the great Sam Warren? She’d been expecting someone much older. And more sober.

“I’m Lydia Benedict,” she said at last. “You’re my mother’s private investigator?” She made it a question, still not quite believing this barbarian worked for her mother, the Duchess of Blackthorne..

His mouth turned down, almost in disgust, as he repeated, “I’m Warren.”

“I was expecting someone older.”

“You got me.”

Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “I don’t think you—”

At that moment, the Italian laid a possessive hand on her shoulder. Before she could protest, Sam Warren grabbed the Italian’s wrist, jerked him forward, and back-heeled his feet out from under him. As the Italian landed hard on the marble floor, Warren stumbled and almost fell.

Lydia automatically reached out to steady him and felt a large male hand graze her right breast and brush across the nipple. She gasped at the intimate touch, but the huge hand had already found its way to her shoulder.

“Lost my balance,” he said. “War wound.”

Lydia took another—astonished—look at the man before her. What she saw was a drunken male in army fatigues but with hidden strengths like power and agility and quickness. Was it possible this ruffian was good at solving crimes, like the theft of the Ghost? Even if he was, what about that “accidental” touch? Was she going to have to fight off the American’s unwanted attentions while they searched for the missing necklace?

Lydia eyed Sam Warren askance, trying to judge whether he’d merely stumbled or whether he’d actually had the nerve to feel her up in public. One look at his scarred face told her he’d been in battle. He’d certainly put that Italian in his place. When Warren took a step back, she realized he had a limp and bore most of his weight on one leg.

So perhaps the invasive touch had not been planned.

Nevertheless, she flushed. The rough-looking Texan’s unexpected caress had managed to arouse her more than her would-be fiancé’s ever had. She stared at the infamous Sam Warren, wondering if the Duchess had ever seen him in this condition.

His breath, when he’d fallen against her, had smelled of whiskey. His hair was unkempt, his cheeks and chin shadowed by dark beard, his clothes rumpled. He looked disreputable.

On the other hand, the military shirt and camouflage trousers did nothing to conceal a body that was broad in the shoulder, lean in the hip, and unbelievably strong.

That last part she knew not only from how easily he’d put the Italian on the ground but from having put her hands on him to keep him from falling. Her palm had landed on a belly that was rippled with taut muscle, and her hand had gripped a bicep that felt more like stone than human flesh. And yet, he had trouble standing on his own. She wondered if that was more a result of the war wounds or the whiskey.

The Italian chose that moment to sit up.

“Stay down,” the hoodlum, who apparently, unbelievably, was her mother’s private investigator, said in a harsh voice.

The man on the ground took one look at the primitive warrior standing over him and did as he was told.

“You have a car?” the drunken man asked her.

“Of course.”

He started walking toward the doors that led to the street.

Lydia hesitated only an instant before she hurried after him, her Jimmy Choos tapping on the marble floor. “Wait!”

He didn’t slow down, but his limp made it possible for her to catch up. “I need the best help I can get, Mr. Warren. You can barely keep yourself upright.”

He stopped abruptly but near enough to a glass wall of windows to put a hand out to hold himself upright. He turned to her like a dog-baited bear and said, “I’m what you’ve got, lady. Take it or leave it.”