Here's Conte Matteo di Serrone from Liz Fielding's "Flirting with Italian"

This week's RIVA hero comes from the pen of the awesome Liz Fielding. I'm so thrilled to have Liz here on the blog--and even more excited to meet her hero, Matteo!

Name: Matteo di Serrone

Age: 34

Occupation: Botanist, Vigneron

Celebrity Look-a-like: I prefer my own imagination!

White Lie or Absolute Honesty: Absolute honesty under normal circumstances, but when he thinks heroine is a journalist trying to get at his sister’s secrets, the gloves are off.

Order In or Dine Out: Dine out or home cooking. He’s Italian!

Boxers or Briefs: Boxers. The soft, clingy kind.

Best known for: Playboy lifestyle, the fabulous wine he produces, his work with UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

We’d want to date him because…

One look from those eyes and you couldn’t help yourself. Dark as night but with the crackle of lightning in their depths and a smile that to steal your senses under the warm Italian sun. How easy it is to be seduced by laughter…

In his words…

AND so it begins, Matteo thought, as Sarah Gratton replaced her glasses. Hiding her eyes.

‘I can manage,’ she said, as he reached out to help her down.

‘I don’t think you should risk it in your enfeebled state.’

‘I’m not in the least bit feeble…’  He put his hands on her waist and her words died on a little gasp. Nicely done. ‘You might want to hold on,’ he encouraged.

She was lovely and trying so hard. It would be a shame not to make the most of the moment.

After the briefest pause she placed her palms on his shoulders. Her touch was light, her arms fully extended to keep a ladylike distance between them and yet the contact was like a lightning conductor, focussing everything primitive, ancient, instinctive into a single point of heat low in his belly.

And he was the one struggling for breath as he said, ‘Ready?’

‘Ready,’ she said, poised, as cucumber cool as if she was sitting on bench in her own garden. ‘Hang on,’ he said, and she clutched at him, her fingers digging into his shoulder as he lifted her clear of the wall and she slid down his body until her feet touched the ground.

He held onto her, making sure she was steady. Then just held on as he was immersed in her scent. Not the kind sprayed out of bottle, but something more personal. Warm skin, silky hair, the scent of a woman held in the arms of man she desires.

For a moment it was not Sarah clinging to him for support. He was the one hanging onto her, weak with longing to bury his face in her hair, her neck. In the creamy softness of the breasts he’d glimpsed as she’d leaned forward, bombarding his senses with everything female.

‘I’ve got it, thanks,’ she said, her hands sliding to his elbows, steadying him in return for just a moment before she stepped back to pick up her hat.

What colour were they?  Her eyes. He should have noticed…

FLIRTING WITH ITALIAN

Could stepping into the past make your future perfect? Sarah’s been dumped. Unceremoniously. Painfully. A romantic at heart and a historian by profession, Sarah has always wondered about her grandfather’s wartime romance in Italy. Who was that brave woman who cared for him during the war? Clearly this is the time to heal her wounds with the trip of a lifetime to Rome and maybe find a hot Italian lover to take her mind off the past. Armed only with a photo of the house her grandfather stayed in, the village, and the name Lucia, Sarah sets out to find her…and meets the beautiful Italian count Matteo di Serrone there. Now here’s a man who could move Sarah on from her broken heart! It’s a fairy-tale romance, until Sarah realises she’s made the most rookie mistake of all: falling in love with her holiday fling…

You can BUY the book right now from Mills and Boon UK and also Amazon UK. And you can go into the draw to win your own signed copy, plus a signed copy of Liz's next Harlequin Romance, THE LAST WOMAN HE'D EVER DATE by clicking on the Rafflecopter bit below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Liz Fielding, lives in the UK and has just moved to the mystical south-west, close to Stonehenge, Glastonbury and Avebury. 

She has written more than 60 books;  some of them have won awards. 

At present she’s reclaiming her new garden from years of neglect and also knits a bit. 

Find more from her website and blog. Follow her on Twitter and on Facebook and talk books with her on Goodreads!