seem very tense.’ Sergio passed her a glass. Translucent green eyes rested on him, providing an alluring contrast to her alabaster skin and copper and red streaked hair. Predictably, he went straight for it. ‘Don’t stress, bella mia. I find you incredibly attractive.’
The annoyance and embarrassment that Kathy usually felt at such moments was entirely absent. So, he had been serious. She felt as if her heart were pounding right at the foot of her throat. She was shaken by the discovery that she was thrilled by his approach. Her fingers tightened round the glass, her hand shook a little. She sipped and swallowed, sipped and swallowed again, to conceal the reality of her physical weakness. It was so uncool to be so excited. Locked into his stunning dark golden gaze when she finally raised the courage to look up, she could not have breathed to save her life.
Unhurriedly, Sergio angled his lustrous dark head down. He was testing the boundaries, amusing himself. The delicate fresh scent of her skin made his strong, hard body tauten. Arousal slivered through him with a force that surprised him and speedily tipped him out of teasing mode. He claimed her luscious pink lips with hungry urgency and that first taste only whet his appetite for more.
Kathy couldn’t credit what she was doing, but she wouldn’t have shifted an inch to prevent it happening, either. A storm tide of feeling engulfed her and she couldn’t get enough of it. It was as energising as hitching a ride on a rocket and it left her equally dizzy and disorientated. He kissed her and fireworks of sensation shot through her and she pulsed and tingled with response. Honeyed warmth pooled in her tummy, a tightness forming at her pelvis. She shivered violently when the sensual glide of his tongue probed the tender cave of her mouth. The throb of desire that flashed and stabbed through her slim length was almost too much to bear and she moaned in protest.
‘You are so hot, you burn,’ Sergio framed and, as his deep, dark drawl roughened, a faint Italian accent broke through to mellow the syllables with a lyrical edge. ‘But we have a game to finish.’
Kathy wasn’t quite sure her legs would keep her upright long enough to reach the sofa at her side of the board. She would have found it easier to fall back into his arms than walk away, an acknowledgement that shook her up even more. Her body felt tight, overheated and unfamiliar. She was aware of it in ways that were new to her. All the time her brain was set on enumerating her mistakes. She shouldn’t be in a room alone with him, shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her, and certainly shouldn’t have encouraged him by responding. But while her intelligence knew each and every one of those things, the hunger he had awakened and the dissatisfaction he had left behind had an even stronger hold on her.
Two moves later, the chess game was over.
When Sergio won, his black brows drew together and then anger illuminated his narrowed gaze to gilded bronze. ‘Either someone else has been telling you how to play for the past three weeks, or you just deliberately threw the game to let me win!’
Kathy was dismayed by his discernment but determined to tough it out. ‘You won…okay?’
‘No, it is not okay. Which was it?’ Sergio countered icily.
The silence felt suffocating. Tension made it hard for her to swallow. She scrambled up. ‘I should get back to work.’
Hauteur stamped on his lean hard features, Sergio vaulted upright, well over six feet of lean, muscular male. ‘You will go nowhere until you give me an answer.’
Kathy dealt him a troubled glance and screened her green eyes. His cold anger took her aback. ‘My goodness, it’s only a game,’ she mumbled.
‘Answer me,’ Sergio commanded.
Kathy heaved a sigh and shifted her hands in a dismissive gesture. ‘I let you win…all right?’
Sergio could not recall when he had last been so outraged by a woman. ‘Is that what you believe I wanted or expected from you? Do you think I am so vain that I need a fake victory to bolster my ego?’ he shot at her with stinging contempt. ‘I don’t need that kind of sacrifice and I don’t like flattery. This is not the way to please me.’
Temper like a red-hot flame was darting through Kathy’s willowy form. ‘Well, then, you should stop throwing your weight around and behaving like a bully!’ she launched back at him half an octave higher. ‘How do you expect me to behave? How am I supposed to cope with you? Let’s not pretend that this is a level playing field or that you gave me a choice—’
‘Don’t shout at me,’ Sergio breathed glacially while inside he reeled in stunned disbelief from that condemnation.
‘You wouldn’t be listening otherwise. I’m sorry I touched your stupid chess set, but it was only meant to be a harmless piece of fun. I’m sorry I let you win and offended you. But I wasn’t trying to please you—I couldn’t care less about pleasing you!’ Kathy flung back at him in disgust. ‘I was trying to placate you…I’m supposed to be working. I don’t want to lose my job. Can I get back to work now?’
Her attitude shone a bright revisionist light on the confrontation for Sergio. He had a brilliant penetrating mind and an unequalled talent for strategy. In business he was invincible, for he united the survival skills and killing instincts of a shark with a similar lack of emotion. He had learned early not to accept people at face value. But would a woman out to impress him shout at him? He had no evidence of anything calculated in Kathy Galvin’s behaviour. Why should she have known who he was?
Sergio reached a decision on the basis of the facts. ‘You really are just the cleaner.’
An affronted flush coloured Kathy’s face as she wondered what on earth that comment was supposed to mean. Had he perhaps thought she was an undercover spy? Or a hooker moonlighting with a mop? ‘Yes,’ she said tightly. ‘Just the cleaner—excuse me.’
As the door flipped shut on her quick exit Sergio swore softly in Italian, because he had not intended to humiliate her. The phone rang.
It was Renzo again. ‘I’ve been running a check on the cleaning lady with the chess fetish—’
‘Unnecessary,’ Sergio interposed.
The older man cleared his throat. ‘Galvin has a dodgy CV, sir. I don’t think she’s what she says she is. Although she’s a very bright girl with a fistful of top grades from school, her employment record only contains some very recent restaurant work. It doesn’t add up. There’s a gap of three years and no adequate explanation for it. According to the résumé she was travelling all that time, but I don’t buy it.’
‘Neither do I.’ His lean, strong face hard, Sergio considered the fact that for the first time in a decade he had almost been conned by a woman.
‘I think she’s probably another bimbo on the make, or even a paparazzo. I’ll ask the cleaning company to remove her from the rota. Thankfully, she’s their problem, not ours.’
But Sergio was unwilling to let Kathy Galvin off so easily. When had he ever walked away from a challenge?
Kathy worked at speed in an attempt to lose her troubled thoughts in energetic activity. The treatment she had received had left her angry and bewildered. Sergio Torrente was a gorgeous guy with an attitude problem. A rampant snob and very proud. Cool at best, he was colder than ice when he was crossed. But when he had kissed her, pure naked excitement had made mincemeat of all his faults. Had he momentarily contrived to forget that she was just the cleaner? He must have done. He was probably at least thirty years old and way too mature for her. She rammed the mop into the
