behind them before letting them into his flat and leading her into his kitchen.
‘Close your eyes, Princess,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m asking you to.’ He gave her a lazy smile. ‘This is going to be fun. I promise. Trust me.’
Did she trust him? Well—yes. Otherwise that encounter in his office just now wouldn’t have happened. She knew he wasn’t going to gossip about her or make her feel bad. When she was with him, she didn’t have to worry about anything.
She closed her eyes; a moment later, she could feel something brushing against her lower lip.
‘Keep your eyes closed,’ he whispered. ‘Open your mouth.’
She couldn’t help doing what he asked.
‘Now bite.’
Her mouth was flooded with the taste of gianduja, the rich mixture of ground hazelnuts and cocoa butter that she’d loved since childhood.
‘Good?’ he asked, his voice husky.
‘Very.’
‘Better than sex, you said.’
She opened her eyes and looked at him.
‘I think I’m going to enjoy making you take that back.’ This time, his smile was positively wolfish.
It took him less than ten minutes to have her babbling that yes—oh, God, yes—sex with him was better than chocolate. And then he made her admit it all over again.
‘Good. Just so we’re clear on that,’ he said, when her third climax of the evening had died away.
He disappeared, then returned with two mugs of coffee. ‘Right. Time to tackle the SWOT analysis.’
‘Uh.’ She swallowed hard. ‘How the hell do you expect me to concentrate on business, when you just wiped every single thought out of my head?’
‘That’s what the coffee’s for, Princess.’
She blew out a breath. ‘You amaze me.’
He kissed her swiftly. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Even though I think it was a backhanded one. Now, focus. I want to see those notes.’
As before, Dante took Carenza home on the bike and refused to come in for coffee, saying that he had things to sort out.
But, the next day, she was gratified to discover an email from him in her inbox.
How about a mentoring session on Wednesdays as well?
He didn’t mean just mentoring, she knew that. Not after what had happened between them last night. And the fact that he wanted to see her, too … Dante had made his position clear enough, the previous night. I still can’t offer you a relationship. But Carenza had a feeling that he was definitely protesting too much. His head might be able to come up with a dozen or more reasons why he shouldn’t have a relationship with her, but his body told her another story. And maybe she could teach him that you didn’t always have to listen to your head. That there was nothing wrong with letting yourself get close to someone—that it was OK to be attracted to someone and to act on that attraction. And it was OK to lose control. Twice, now, she’d stripped for him while he’d been fully clothed and in full control throughout. It was time she evened up the balance.
Maybe, she thought, she could mentor him. Teach him to let go and have some fun.
Maybe.
BY WEDNESDAY, Carenza wasn’t any further forward with the sales figures. ‘I can’t get them to work,’ she told Dante over a pizza that evening. ‘Though I’m not stupid.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course you’re not.’
‘I really can’t understand why they’re down. All I can tell you is that they’re slowing, year on year. Signor Mancuso says it’s because we’re in a recession.’
‘Right. And the definition of profit is?’
‘Sales minus costs.’
‘Exactly. So if you can’t increase your sales to increase your profits, then you need to cut your costs,’ he said.
‘Are you suggesting I should get rid of some of the staff?’ She sucked in a breath. ‘I can’t do that, Dante. How are they going to pay their bills if they don’t have their job any more?’
‘Staff aren’t your only costs,’ he pointed out. ‘And remember that your staff are assets, too. You need to look at your variable costs.’
‘The ones that change with the volume of sales,’ she said.
He smiled. ‘You’ve been paying attention. Good. So what can you tell me about your raw materials?’
‘We’ve been making ice cream in Naples for more than a hundred years—and we’ve always used organic produce.
Only the best. We’ve used the same suppliers for years and years and years,’ Carenza said. ‘Nonno says if you don’t use the best, you can’t produce the best.’
‘Years and years and years, hmm? That sounds like a rut to me. You always need to audit your suppliers every so often and check that they’re still giving you the best value for money,’ Dante said. ‘Just because they’ve been the best in the past, it doesn’t mean they’re the best now. New people come along with new ideas and new technologies, and things change.’
‘So I sack my suppliers, even though we go way back?’ She bit her lip. ‘That feels a bit—well, ruthless.’
‘I’m not saying you have to replace them. I’m saying you need to audit them and find out if they can do you a better deal than they’re offering now. It’s standard business practice. The way your figures are going,’ he said softly, ‘you’ll be out of business within a year. And that means you’ll have to let all your staff go.’
‘But surely it’s just the recession, and everything will be OK once the economy’s back to normal?’
‘You’re in the same market as I am. Not a competitor, because you’re in a different segment,’ he reminded her, ‘but my restaurants aren’t facing the same problems you are, so it’s not just the recession. Look at your costs, Princess. Are there other organic suppliers that can give you better deals?’
‘So I just ring them up and say, hi, I’m Carenza Tonielli, give me a quote?’
‘Yup.’ He looked at her. ‘Tell me who you use now. I’ll ask them for a quote—and then you can compare that to what they offer you. That and the competitor quotes will help you drive their price down to a more reasonable level, if you want to keep using them.’
‘But they have
