knew those liquid Italian endearments that had melted her might have been intended for someone quite different, someone who really was his bella mia, his beautiful blonde ex-fiancée—except—now the ex part was in question.
‘Look, I’m sorry about Candice but she—’
‘There is no need to explain Candice to me, Tim—she is sensationally single minded when she decides on something. I take it the news of her presence here was leaked?’
The slighter man responded to this dry enquiry with a rueful grimace. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘She was never one to waste a good photo opportunity.’
‘About this girl, Cesare, she’s travelled to get here—couldn’t you just see her? You don’t have to actually give her the job.’
As Sam listened she finally understood the reason for the open doors that she had so far encountered—they thought she was an applicant for a job!
This realisation might have made her laugh if it had not been for the fact that the only thing Sam was really conscious of at that moment was the man who responded to this coaxing comment from Tim with a contemptuous snort.
Just her luck it turned out Cesare actually was a rampant sex god!
‘I was quite specific I do not want a female PA.’
‘Well, the agency couldn’t say that, could they? Not without being accused of sexual discrimination.’
‘So this is why a woman was included in the shortlist? To pay lip service to equality?’
She watched as Cesare Brunelli walked around the desk, his face set in lines of irritation, then without taking his eyes from the other man he picked up a smooth green rock shot through with iridescent streaks of gold and began to rub it between his palms.
Sam, her eyes glued to his long brown fingers, ran a tongue over her dry lips as her stomach filled with a flock of butterflies at the thought of those fingers on her skin, the skilful touch leaving trails of fire.
‘Is that the same stone you brought back from the peak when we did that Himalaya trek?’
‘Yes.’ As he let the stone settle in the palm of one hand Cesare’s expression was unreadable.
It was no struggle for Sam to see him clinging to some sheer cliff face. He looked like a man who liked to push the boundaries and himself.
‘That was some experience, wasn’t it?’ Tim enthused, a grin spreading across his face. ‘Even if I didn’t make it to the top,’ he added ruefully. ‘But next time I’m not going to chicken out. I’m going to keep up with the big boys. Then I’ll see the view for myself.’
The sound of the stone being set back down on the desk brought the sandy-haired Englishman’s eyes to the tall Italian’s face.
‘But I will not.’
The moment the words were out of his mouth Cesare regretted them. He disliked self-pity in others and even more so in himself.
Colour flooded Tim’s face. ‘I’m really sorry. I can’t seem to open my mouth without—’
‘Saying something to remind me that I’m blind? The fact you forget it is why I keep you around. That and the fact your schoolboyish looks lull the opposition into a false sense of security. You’re about the only person who doesn’t walk on eggshells around me.’
There had been one other.
Cesare closed his eyes, but it did not stop him hearing her voice in his head. Sometimes he thought she had been an erotic figment of his imagination, but his imagination would not have been capable of conjuring such vivid memories. He heard her voice saying things that nobody else had dared, but every word and every accusation had been true.
‘Gutless wonder’ had perhaps been a little harsh, but a flicker of a smile crossed his face at the recollection—his response at the time of her comments had not been such a tolerant or objective one.
She had become the innocent—though provocative—focus of all the inner rage and impotent fury that consumed him.
His nerve endings had been exposed and stripped bare—perhaps just by her voice. The husky quality certainly had the ability to dig its way under a man’s skin.
She had said things that nobody else would, things that had needed saying. She had ripped away his defences with a few observations and made him feel what he had been trying not to—pain!
She had tapped into the protective hollowness that he had been carrying around.
The sex had been something else—a mistake, but the sort that he would like to make again, he mused, a reflective smile playing around the corners of his lips.
‘People always walk on eggshells around you,’ Tim retorted, snapping Cesare out of his reverie, ‘because you intimidate the hell out of them.’ That much at least had not changed since the accident.
‘You’re suggesting I’m not a fair man? That I’m a bully?’ Cesare asked, sounding interested rather than offended by the possibility.
‘I’m suggesting you’re a man who sets himself high standards and expects others to live up to them, but not everyone has your—focus.’
It had taken more than mere focus for Cesare to overcome the personal demons that had arisen after he’d suffered losing his sight.
It had taken a will of steel.
‘About this girl…?’
Cesare’s fingers drilled an impatient tattoo on the desk. ‘You know my opinion of this sort of pointless political correctness, so why waste this woman’s time and mine?’
‘She was included by mistake, her name is Sam…’ Tim’s explanation trailed away as he added coaxingly, ‘Couldn’t you just see her?’ The moment the words left his lips a flush mounted his fair, freckled face and he broke off before saying awkwardly, ‘I mean…’
Cesare lifted a sardonic brow. ‘I know what you mean, Timothy,’ he said, amusement in his voice. ‘And I do wish you would stop trying so hard to spare my feelings. But, no, I will not…see her. I can hardly be accused of sexual discrimination towards women in the workplace. Is it not a fact that we employ more women in senior management positions than any other comparable company?’
‘Yes…’
‘I have no problem with women in the workplace—it is just a woman in my office I do not want.’ He found the idea of having unseen eyes filled with pity following him around the office intolerable.
‘This one might be different.’
‘You mean she might not be caring and compassionate and she might not be unable to perform incidental tasks like sorting my diary because she is so busy oozing empathy and protecting me. It didn’t matter how rude I was—’
‘And you were.’
‘It didn’t matter.’
