no intention of ever getting in touch with me again!’
‘It wasn’t like that at all! And it was never my intention to treat you as some kind of casual sexual release, I assure you! There were reasons why I left the way I did.’
‘A plane to catch, you said?’
‘Not just that.’ Feeling as if she was on a rock face, scrabbling for purchase, Kate gave Luca a nervous smile in the hope that she might somehow get through to him. After all, hadn’t they shared something special that momentous night, when they had not been able to ignore the passion and urgency that had driven them into each other’s arms? Something that had fuelled Kate’s sense of something vital having been missing in her life as nothing else had ever done before?
But it took only an instant for her to realise that whatever faint hope she’d nurtured for Luca’s understanding was a waste of time. The look on his face already told her that sympathy from him was in frighteningly short supply.
‘Something had happened at home that I was desperately trying to deal with at the time,’ she started to explain, agitatedly linking and unlinking her hands together. ‘That’s why I’d gone to Italy…to try and sort myself out. I know you might find this hard to believe, but the way I behaved that night was so out of character that the following morning…waking up in your bed…I was— I couldn’t believe I had— I mean—’
‘It sounds like you are making excuses up as you go—and not even very good ones at that!’
Frustrated at her woeful inability to try and explain, and with her stomach cramping in distress, Kate shrugged disconsolately. ‘You’re obviously not going to forgive me, so perhaps it is best if you just ring the agency and get them to send somebody else in my place?’
‘No. I will give you one chance. What I propose to do is give you a one-day trial, and if you do not measure up to the high standards I expect then I will contact the agency for a replacement!’
‘I suppose I can’t argue with that.’
Even if she didn’t like the idea of failing Luca’s one-day trial, Kate breathed a silent prayer of thanks that he was at least going to give her a chance to prove herself, and not simply show her the door as she’d increasingly been expecting him to.
‘Now…I have already wasted enough time this morning and I must get on! We have a busy day ahead, and there are several things on the agenda that must be done. With your assistance I will try to accomplish as much as possible before I have to go to an important appointment at the Dorchester Hotel with a Saudi Arabian client who is also a good friend of mine. He is only in London for two days, and tonight I am throwing a small party for him and some colleagues he wants me to meet. In the meantime you can familiarise yourself with the notes my PA left for you. Her office is just through that door there, and unless I particularly have the need to be private the door between us stays open. Knowing your disconcerting habit for leaving without warning, Katherine, I think that is a sensible precaution under the circumstances—do you not agree?’
Staring at him, and realising that he clearly had very little respect for her because she’d left him the way she had that morning without explanation, Kate knew that she could not make matters even worse by walking out now. Something had happened between them that night they’d spent together in Italy—something that had had dramatic and far-reaching consequences—and Kate owed it to Luca to reveal it to him now that she’d been given the chance. No matter what his reaction to her news, there was simply no way she could or would duck out of telling him the truth. No matter how difficult the telling might be.
‘If that’s the way you want it, then that’s fine with me!’ Pushing to her feet and finding that her legs were still as insubstantial as tissue paper, Kate made her way towards the door Luca had indicated, into the office that would possibly be hers for the next fortnight. As she passed him, he struck out his hand and caught her by the elbow.
‘What?’ Her glance was alarmed.
For a moment the glittering intensity of his cerulean blue eyes seem to arrow right down into her soul, and the heat from his hand burned through her clothing, almost sapping her will and her strength with its power to unravel her.
‘Niente…nothing!’
He dropped her arm as though touching it somehow contaminated him and, feeling her stomach plummet like a stone, Kate moved through the opened door and into the stylish, perfectly neat office on the other side.
Driving his hands deep into his trouser pockets, Luca found he needed several moments to compose himself after the volatile encounter with the woman that it had been so hard for him to forget. Madre mia! He had thought he was seeing a ghost when she’d walked into his office! Such had been the dreamlike quality of their scorching but brief encounter in Milan that he could surely be forgiven for starting to believe he had conjured her up from his too-fevered imagination? Even now his heartbeat had still not resumed its regular normal cadence after he had seen her. His nostrils twitched at the evocative scent that lingered in her wake after he’d angrily let go of her arm. It called to mind a rain-washed English country garden, and was more provocative than any other sultry perfume he had ever encountered.
As if to echo his heated thoughts, a forceful, primal longing registered deep in his belly, and Luca pulled out the sumptuous leather chair behind his desk and dropped down into it, tunnelling his fingers with frustration through his thick, dark hair. Even his usually highly reliable photographic memory had not done Katherine justice, he concluded. She was even more bewitching than he recalled, with that soft mane of waving sable hair that no style could or should try to tame, and those glistening raven-dark eyes with their lustrous lashes that even the most artful make-up could not hope to enhance—for how did one enhance perfection? But along with her eyes and her alluring sexy body it was the memory of her passionate, sweetly giving mouth that had the power to keep Luca awake nights. Just one glance at close quarters—as he had experienced just now—was enough to make him want to crush it ravenously beneath his own and once again sample its ripe strawberry and vanilla sweetness with abandon.
Dio! What was he going to do now? Was he crazy even to entertain the idea of allowing Katherine to be his secretary for the next two weeks, given that his body still clearly desired her? And in spite of her casual treatment of their night together? Probably. But then he could be equally casual if he chose. He was certainly not looking for any kind of deep and meaningful relationship with the woman, so what had he to fear?
Sighing heavily, Luca recalled that night three months ago in Milan. There had been something about Katherine that had provoked the strongest reaction in him—and surprisingly it wasn’t all about sex. No…he had intuited an innate goodness about her that had made all his friends appear worryingly shallow in comparison. A man did not brush up against such innocence and goodness often, but when he did he never forgot it. Although right now Luca honestly could not attest to whether fate was on his side or not, delivering Katherine to his door as it apparently had. There was still her inexplicable departure the next morning to contend with, as well as the blow to his pride at hearing that she had not particularly wanted to get in touch with him again. Apart from his inconvenient desire, Luca was still too sceptical to believe unquestioningly that destiny was doing him a favour.
After losing Sophia three years ago in such a bitter and tragic way, he had all but relinquished any hope for future happiness anyway. When Katherine had left him that morning in Milan, after his initial confusion and frustration Luca had told himself to just put it down to experience and forget her. If he had wanted to locate her he could easily have asked friends at the party—the friends he had practically ignored all evening because
