out.
* * *
‘We’re busy wrapping up some other projects but anything you need on the legal side, let me know.’ Consuela Flores gave a brisk nod and smile from the end of the conference table and Lily felt herself sink back in her seat, a grateful answering smile on her face.
Among the group she’d be working with, the middle-aged lawyer had proved the easiest to deal with. Her severe demeanour, magenta power suit, expensive pearls and stiffly lacquered hair had made Lily wary. Here was an imposing woman for whom appearance as well as performance was important. Yet after a millisecond of silence when they met and that brief, predictable widening of the eyes, Ms Flores had treated Lily like everyone else around the table.
Lily had wanted to hug her for that.
This morning had been tough, every bit as difficult as she’d feared. Her hands were clammy, her chest weighted and her pulse still too fast. Forcing herself into the office had been a major test of nerves already strung out from the stress of travelling.
‘Thanks, I appreciate that. For now, though, I suspect it won’t be legal expertise I need. There’ll be a lot of digging first.’
Consuela nodded. ‘I’m glad it’s you doing the digging. Your reports for the Turkish deal made our work much easier. There’s nothing like heading into negotiations well-prepared, with no lurking pitfalls. Now you’re onsite we can touch base as anything arises.’
Lily’s smile grew, the clamp on her chest easing a little.
Only the knowledge she was up to this job, more than up to it, had got her across the Pacific, across the United States and into this building, when all she wanted was to lock herself inside her home and not budge.
She could do this, no matter how horribly far out of her comfort zone she felt.
No, she wouldn’t just do the job. She’d excel! Her work meant everything. It was the one part of her world where she had complete control, complete confidence.
Which made it all the more infuriating that she’d been nauseous with nerves today. Fronting up at the office was the most difficult thing she’d done in years.
See what happens when you lock yourself away all the time?
Now it’s you with the problem, not them.
Lily banished the voice in her head. She didn’t have time for self-doubt.
‘I’m looking forward to working with you too, Consuela.’
She darted a glance around the table. The woman from finance in retro-trendy glasses quickly turned her head as if she’d been watching the lawyer, not Lily. But she was too slow. Besides, the distressed twist of her lips, as if she felt ill, betrayed her.
Further down the table the guy from acquisitions flushed as Lily turned to him. Like Pete, Raffaele Petri’s PA, he found looking at her embarrassing. Beside him the older man from systems management didn’t even try, instead staring past her shoulder.
Lily sat straighter, determined not to be daunted.
Yet that didn’t stop the sick feeling in her stomach, or the churning memories of her previous forays into office work. Each one a disaster. Eventually she’d given up trying and decided to work from the seclusion of home.
The fingers of her right hand twitched but she repressed the urge to raise her hand to her face. It had taken years to cure herself of the habit and she wasn’t starting again now. No matter how exposed she felt before these strangers.
‘I appreciate you all making time to meet me on my first day. I’ll look forward to working with you.’
Liar!
‘I have a question, though.’ Lily looked to Consuela. ‘We all have different areas of responsibility, but is there a team leader? Without coordination we’ll have problems.’
‘That would be me.’ The masculine voice curled around her like warm smoke.
Her heart jolted and a prickling spread across her skin.
She’d only heard that voice once but its echo had lurked in her subconscious since, visiting in those moments between waking and sleep when she was most vulnerable.
Was that heat flushing her cheeks?
It couldn’t be. She’d spent half her life being gawked at. She’d lost the ability to blush in her teens.
Reluctantly she turned her head.
It was a good thing she was sitting.
Raffaele Petri’s face was known around the globe. Yet the photos hadn’t prepared her. Tall, taller than she’d expected with his Italian heritage. Wide shoulders, slim hips, long legs—the epitome of masculinity in its prime. Oddly his casual jacket and open-necked shirt emphasised rather than detracted from the power she sensed in him. He didn’t need a three-piece suit to stamp his authority.
Chiselled features that looked too close to perfection to be true. She’d assumed those photos had been airbrushed. Yes, there were crinkles around his eyes, as if from time in the sun, but perversely that only made him more attractive. Hair the colour of dark old gold, tidy but hinting at tousled. Enough to make her fingers twitch at the thought of touching. The hooded cast of his eyes looked languorous until you met that piercing blue stare.
Lily swallowed over a ball of sandpaper in her throat. Meeting his gaze was a palpable experience, as if he’d reached out and taken her hand. Sizzling heat ran through her as those eyes held hers—compelling, electric.
It wasn’t just that he was ridiculously handsome, she realised as she forced a slow breath out. He was...more. Even from the other side of the conference table she felt the crackle of energy, the sense he was a man who made things happen.
Unhurriedly he surveyed her, cataloguing everything from the hair brushing her cheeks to her face, her throat and down as far as was visible above the table.
The old resentment rose, that he should scrutinise her like some animal in a cage. Till she realised she’d done the same—taking in his appearance in minute detail.
The knowledge sapped her anger, leaving her winded as his gaze lifted.
‘At last we meet, Ms Nolan.’
* * *
So that explained it.
Realisation slammed into Raffa like a fist to the chest, so strong it felt like recognition. An unexpected hit of adrenaline.
But recognition implied a link with the woman on the far side of the table. That was nonsense, even if the memory of her husky voice and feisty attitude had intruded at the oddest times these past weeks. The pulse of energy he felt could only be satisfaction at getting to the bottom of his PA’s discomfort.
Lily Nolan’s long hair framed an oval face that should have been, at best, ordinary. Brown eyes, a mouth neither thin-lipped nor lush, an unremarkable nose. Beautiful she wasn’t, but she might have been pretty if it weren’t for the wide swathe of tight, shiny skin that ran from her temple down one cheek to her jaw.
