Читать книгу Out of Hours...Cinderella Secretary - Кэтти Уильямс, Cathy Williams - Страница 9

FOR a moment Angie stared at Riccardo in disbelief, her lips parting as she stared at him. ‘You’re…you’re taking me home?’

His black eyes gleamed. ‘I am.’

‘You mean on the Tube?’ she questioned blankly, trying to imagine her billionaire boss accompanying her down the escalator.

‘No, not on the Tube.’ He repressed a shudder. ‘In my car.’

‘You can’t take me home in your car,’ she objected. ‘You’ve been drinking.’

‘I may have been drinking,’ he stated grimly, ‘but I can hold my drink—something I suspect you cannot. And believe me, there’s little that’s more unattractive than a woman who is exhibiting signs of being drunk.’

‘That’s a very chauvinist remark.’

His eyes gleamed. ‘But I am a very chauvinistic man, piccola—I thought we had already established that?’

Angie swallowed. There was something very exciting about him when he was speaking to her like that. In that kind of half-challenging, half-threatening way. But piccola meant small, didn’t it? Her mouth turned down at the corners. That was hardly compliment of the year, was it? ‘Are you saying I’m drunk?’

‘No, but I’m saying you’ve had enough alcohol to make you behave in a way which is…uninhibited. I don’t think you should travel home alone—it’s not safe—and I’m not driving, as it happens. That’s what I employ Marco to do. Now take your handbag and let’s get going.’

Suddenly, he sounded masterful. The way she’d heard him speak to the occasional model he’d dated and who had dropped in at the office on their way to dinner. Angie could see one of the women from the human resources department staring at them with a very peculiar expression on her face. ‘Won’t…won’t people talk—if we leave together?’

He shot her a cool look. ‘Why on earth should they?’ he questioned indifferently. ‘I’m simply giving my sec-retary a lift home.’

Well, that certainly put her in her place!

Marco had the car waiting with the engine running and Angie slid onto the back seat—completely forgetting that she was wearing a hemline about half as short as usual.

A glimpse of delicious thigh was revealed and Riccardo felt the sudden fizz to his blood. Quickly averting his gaze, he turned instead to stare out of the window as they drove westwards on a journey which seemed to take for ever. Lots and lots of tiny houses—all, it seemed, exactly the same, with cars parked nose to nose by the edges of all the narrow roads. The shops looked unexciting and some of them were boarded up for the night. A small gang of youths stood moodily on a street corner, smoking cigarettes.

Riccardo frowned. Surely he didn’t pay her so little that she had to live somewhere like this?

The car came to a smooth halt outside a tall house and he turned to see that she was reclining lazily against the seat. Was she asleep? Her head was leaning back against the soft leather head-rest and her lips were more relaxed than he’d ever seen them. As was the soft fall of hair which tumbled over her shoulders. Not quite the brisk and efficient secretary now, he thought, and gently shook her by the shoulder—suddenly aware of the softness of her flesh. And another tantalising glimpse of thigh as she uncrossed her legs.

Angie started into wakefulness from the half-dream she’d been having, lulled into a sleepy state by the warmth of the car and its smooth passage through the streets. Except when she opened her eyes she found that the dream hadn’t ended. For there was Riccardo leaning over her. Riccardo with his hard face and all its shifting planes and shadows. His gleaming black eyes and those hard-soft lips which could shift so easily between contempt and sensuality. For a moment she lost herself in that ebony gaze and a strange ache tugged at the pit of her stomach as she allowed herself the recurring fantasy that Riccardo was about to kiss her.

Except that there had been enough fantasies for one day. The dress. The chauffeur-driven car. But midnight was beckoning and the carriage was about to turn into a pumpkin.

She blinked, struggling to sit up from the seductive comfort of the squashy leather seat—aware of her dry throat as she groped around on the floor of the car for her handbag. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

But he made no move to get out, and with her head clearing by the second, Angie suddenly remembered her manners. He’d come miles out of his way to bring her here. And she noticed that he’d eaten barely anything at dinner. Offer him coffee, she thought. He’s bound to refuse. Because this felt odd. Disorientating. Riccardo outside her home!

‘Um, would you like a cup of coffee?’

Riccardo had been just about to tell Marco to let her out when something in her question made him pause and bite back his automatic refusal. What was it, he wondered—a desire to see how someone like Angie lived, in a world away from his own? Suddenly and inexplicably, he was intensely curious—like a tourist in a foreign city who had just found a dark and hidden labyrinth and wanted to discover where it led.

‘Why not?’ he questioned lazily, and leaned across to open the door for her.

For a moment, Angie stilled. In all their years of working together, they had been close—but never this close. So close that some tantalising trace of sandalwood and warm masculinity stole over her like an irresistible thief. Her hands were trembling as she got out of the car, her heart racing as she inserted her key in the lock, trying desperately to remember what kind of state she’d left the place in that morning. Because, yes, she was a naturally tidy person—but she was only human. What if he wanted to use the loo when she knew there were three pairs of panties drying on a line over the bathtub?

She showed him into her sitting room—trying her best to feel proud of her little home, but nothing could stop her from seeing it through his eyes. The tiny sitting room with the tired old furniture which she’d done her best to beautify by adding a few brightly coloured throws. But even though she’d applied several coats of paint to the walls nothing could disguise the ugly, embossed wallpaper underneath. Or the fact that the kitchen looked as if it had been frozen in time and transported there from the middle of the last century. Her only concession to the forthcoming holiday season was an armful of holly which she’d bought down at the market and then stuffed into an enamel jug. At least the dark green foliage and scarlet berries injected some living colour into the room.

‘I must, just—er—I’ll go and put the kettle on!’ she announced. She dashed off to do so and after that she performed a swift underwear sweep of the bathroom. Stuffing the clean panties into the airing cupboard, she was miserably aware of the tired bathtub and the ancient cistern. Please don’t let him want to use the bathroom, she prayed.

She returned to the sitting room with a tray of coffee to find Riccardo standing looking out of the window and as he turned round she could do nothing to prevent the great leap of her heart. He had taken off his jacket and hung it over the edge of the sofa and Angie found herself hoping that he wouldn’t snag it there. Never had his Italian elegance been more in evidence than here where it contrasted against the humble setting of her home.

Rather helplessly, she handed him a mug—aware that it was slightly faded and bore the legend of a long-ago national sporting triumph. Just as everything in her life was faded. Or was it just seeing Riccardo standing here—so vibrant and so full of colour and charisma—that made her self-doubt loom into the forefront of her consciousness, like a great dark spectre? She waited for him to make some polite comment about her home, but he didn’t. He still had that faint air of distraction he’d had for weeks, she realised—a tension and tightness which added up to more than his usual alpha-male alertness.

‘Is everything…okay, Riccardo?’ she asked him uncertainly.

He had been miles away and his eyes narrowed as his thoughts cleared and he found himself in her dingy little sitting room holding a large cup of coffee in his hand, which he didn’t particularly want.

‘What makes you ask that?’

‘Just that you seem a bit…oh, I don’t know. A bit uptight lately. More so than usual.’

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. Was she prying? Stepping into areas which were nothing to do with her? Yet her face was soft with concern, the way it always was. And couldn’t he talk to her in a way that he couldn’t talk to other women—because the relationship between boss and secretary was uniquely close without being in any way intimate? With Angie he could unburden himself—could she wash away all his worries with her sweet common sense? Putting the untouched mug down on a faded table, he shrugged.

‘Just problems at home,’ he bit out.

She knew that no matter how long he had lived in London—or anywhere else in the world for that matter—Italy would always be his home, and Tuscany in particular.

‘Something to do with your sister’s forthcoming wedding?’ she guessed.

His eyes narrowed as he shot her a suspicious look. ‘How did you know that?’

She ignored the accusatory tone. She knew how intensely private he was about family matters, but surely he realised that she was privy to many of his telephone conversations—especially when he lost his temper? Or did her general invisibility mean that he overlooked even that simple fact?

‘I’ve heard you…’ She hesitated.

Black eyes bored into her. ‘Heard me what, Angie?’

‘Having…’ she paused, delicately ‘…discussions.’

Angrily, he slammed the flat of his hand against the flank of his thigh. ‘You mean telling my sister how damned lucky she is to have landed herself an aristocrat for a fiancé? To have found a Duca who wishes to make her his wife? So that one day soon she will be a Duchessa!’

Angie stared at him in dismay. What a terrible snob he could be at times, she thought. She’d met his rebellious and bright-eyed sister a couple of times and really couldn’t imagine Floriana settling into life as a member of the Italian aristocracy. Looking into Riccardo’s suddenly cold mask of a face, she thought what a formidable brother he would be—forever laying down the law and demanding obedience. And she felt a little tug of sympathy for Floriana. A sympathy strong enough to make her defend his sister in her absence. ‘But surely this man’s position in society isn’t as important as her feelings for him. Does she…love him?’

Riccardo’s lips curved. ‘Oh, please—let’s not play into that particular fantasy, Angie—especially when I thought I’d made clear my feelings on the subject of “love” in the restaurant earlier. Aldo adores her. He is a wealthy man with many centuries of breeding behind him—and he has provided Floriana with a stability in her life which was sorely lacking. It is an honour that he has selected my sister as his bride! He will provide for her an excellent home and lifestyle—while she will give him the heir he undoubtedly needs to continue the bloodline,’ he finished.

‘Bloodline?’ she echoed incredulously.

‘You have a problem with that, do you?’

‘It seems a curiously cold-blooded way to look at a marriage.’

‘It is not cold-blooded—it is simply practical,’ he snapped. ‘But I suppose you know better, do you, Angie—with your vast experience of matters matrimonial?’

The cruel remark hurt, as no doubt it was meant to—but it fired up Angie’s indignation, too. Why, he sounded as if he was marrying off his poor sister to the highest bidder!

‘Isn’t there something vital you’ve forgotten to mention?’ she demanded. ‘You’re dismissive of love—but what about passion? Is there any of that?’

Passion.

The word dropped into his consciousness like a rock hurled into a still pool and it set off a reaction just like the rippling of waves. A strange word for the mousey Angie to use and yet a word which seemed gloriously appropriate since she was wearing the very colour which denoted passion.

He felt the quickening of his pulse and the sudden pooling of heat at his groin—just as he had done in the restaurant earlier. Temptation mocked him—reminding him that the sweet pleasures of the body seemed nothing but a distant memory these days. With a start, he realised how long it had been since he had lain with a woman and, unthinkably, his gaze flicked over the creamy décolletage of the woman who stood in front of him. White skin against scarlet silk.

‘Passion?’ he echoed as a pulse began a stealthy beat at his temple. ‘What do you know about passion?’

‘I…I read books,’ she answered quickly, aware that she might really have overstepped the mark.

‘Only books?’ he taunted softly.

And all at once, Angie became aware of a different mood entering the atmosphere—a mood both darkly dangerous and yet intensely exciting. Was it her imag-ination or had Riccardo’s lean body tightened, so that suddenly he looked watchful and alert? Like an athlete in peak condition who was mentally preparing himself for the race ahead. His dark eyes were raking over her just as they had done when he’d first seen her in the dress he’d bought her—but now the look seemed underpinned with something else. Something which even she recognised was doing a very passable imitation of desire.

Her senses quickened and she felt the rise of colour to her cheeks. Suddenly, she felt out of her depth—the reality of her situation bizarre. It was all wrong him being here—with Marco waiting outside in the limousine. She felt like someone who was staring into dark and swirling waters—who had only just understood the dangers of jumping in.

‘Look, it’s getting late and I mustn’t keep you any more. Thanks…thanks very much for the lift, Riccardo,’ she said uncertainly. ‘And for the dress, of course. I love it.’ But even as she said it Angie knew that she would probably never wear that dress again. Where did she ever go which would warrant it—without standing out from the crowd, which she hated? And it wasn’t her. Why would a woman like her wear a dress which probably cost as much as her entire monthly mortgage repayment?

‘My pleasure,’ he said, trying to ignore the stabbing ache at his groin which was hardening by the second. But the suddenly wistful expression on her face made him feel even more uncomfortable. Should he tell her to stop making such a big deal out of the dress? Tell her that…

‘Angie,’ he said softly as he noticed the faint tremble of her lips.

She had never heard that note in his voice before. ‘What?’ she whispered as she lifted her face to look at him—at the hard, beautiful features she knew and loved so well.

The movement of her head made him acutely aware of her perfume and Riccardo found he could not prevent himself from breathing it in, just as he could not tear his eyes away from the sight of her loose hair, which swayed like an armful of ripe corn. Her eyes were darker tonight—not like Angie’s eyes at all—and her lips gleamed at him with a provocation he had never noticed in them before. He scented danger on so many levels—but he couldn’t seem to move away from it. Or maybe he was just rendered powerless by her sleek, scarlet-clad body, which was sending out a siren call to him which was as old as time itself.

And suddenly Riccardo felt himself overcome with a lust too strong to resist and he gave into the overwhelming desire to pull her into his arms—even while he was telling himself that this was wrong. Telling himself that this mustn’t happen. That she would stop it. Sensible Angie wouldn’t let this happen.

But Angie seemed to have taken the night off from being sensible. Because now her eyes were fixed on his face with a look of intensity which seemed to echo the way he was feeling inside—and she was biting her lip as if trying to suppress an urgent kind of hunger. A hunger he recognised instantly because it echoed his own. And suddenly he was lowering his head and was kissing her—and she was kissing him back as if her life depended on it.