Luca?’ Caitlyn asked. ‘All the best rooms are booked out for the wedding.’
‘He’ll be so wasted he won’t notice if I put him in the broom cupboard.’ Glynn rolled his eyes, then smiled. ‘Have you thought about what I said? About working here while you study? A lot of our chambermaids are students.’
Caitlyn nodded. ‘I’m going to put in my résumé on Monday.’
‘Well, you can put me down as a reference,’ Glynn said. ‘You’ve done really well—here.’ He handed her a cab voucher.
‘What’s this for? You don’t have to do that!’
‘Don’t worry—I haven’t gone soft. Lazzaro insists the hotel pays for a taxi if staff work after eleven—and given that you’re practically staff, he wouldn’t hear otherwise!’
‘So he can be nice, then?’ Caitlyn fished. ‘Despite what everyone says?’
‘Unfortunately, yes.’ Glynn sighed. ‘Which means one always ends up forgiving him when he’s being bloody! Night, Caitlyn.’
Chatting idly to the doorman, Caitlyn shivered—not with cold but with tiredness as she waited for ever for her taxi. But her weariness was quickly forgotten when Lazzaro’s rather ravishing date came out alone and boot-faced, and was gobbled up by his limousine.
‘Lovers’ tiff.’ Geoff winked, once she was safely off into the night. ‘You’d think he’d have had the sense to wait till morning to get rid of her!’
‘Have they been together long?’ Caitlyn attempted to be casual but her face was burning.
‘Never seen her till tonight,’ Geoff said cheerfully. ‘I’ll give your taxi another reminder—mind you, the tennis is on. Why don’t you wait inside and I’ll call you when it comes?’
And she would have—only Lazzaro Ranaldi himself was coming through the revolving glass doors. Lazzaro Ranaldi himself was smiling at her as he walked past.
‘You’re either very late leaving, or arriving incredibly early.’
‘I’m waiting for a taxi,’ Caitlyn mumbled.
‘You’ll be waiting a while—the night match at the tennis just wrapped up.’
‘I heard.’
‘Would you like a lift?’
Just like that he said it—just like any normal person would say it. Only he wasn’t just a normal person, and Caitlyn had difficulty coming up with a normal answer. She just stood there mute for a moment as a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of sleek silver sports car pulled up and the valet handed him the keys.
‘I was expecting the limousine!’ She put on a plummy voice and raised her nose in distaste at his stunning car—then panicked that he wouldn’t get her rather offbeat humour.
‘Sorry about that… You’ll just have to slum it in this…’ He didn’t just get it, he topped it! As Geoff opened the passenger door for her, Lazzaro peered inside at the immaculate leather upholstery. ‘I can look in the boot for a newspaper or something for you to sit on, so you don’t mess up your skirt.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ Caitlyn gave a martyred sigh and climbed into the seat, wriggling down in the baby-bottom-soft leather and returning his smile as he joined her, watching as he punched her address into the sat nav. And just like that she forgot to be nervous—just like that they purred off into the night, chatting about anything and everything—including her age.
‘How old are you, then?’ Lazzaro asked as she rattled on about her studies.
‘Twenty,’ Caitlyn lied. Then, realising he could look it up, she recanted. ‘Well, I will be on Thursday.’
He made a mental note to tell his PA to send flowers and book a table—Thursday suddenly seemed an impossibly long way off.
‘Turn left at the next roundabout and your destination is on the right,’ came the very calm voice of the sat nav.
‘The trouble with these things,’ Lazzaro said, smiling as he turned off the engine and faced her, ‘is that you can’t pretend you’re lost and prolong your journey.’
‘I know where I live,’ Caitlyn pointed out, but her heart was soaring at his blatant flirt.
‘Nice place.’ It was—amassiveold weatherboard in a very nice street, just a stone’s throw from the beach. Either there were a thousand students crammed in or, Lazzaro realised, she still lived at home. ‘Someone’s still up.’
‘My mum!’ Caitlyn frowned at the twitching curtain, wishing she’d just gone to bed, embarrassed all of a sudden and feeling about twelve years old. ‘Or my grandad.’
Only it didn’t bother him a bit—in fact, there was a certain novelty to it all. Lazzaro was used—too used—to sophisticates seductively inviting him up, having already gone down!
‘Then you’d better go in.’
He watched her face fall an inch, and, though he wanted nothing more than to reach over and kiss her, Lazzaro knew exactly how to keep a woman wanting more.
God, she was gorgeous, though, Lazzaro thought as she walked up her drive.
The front door was opening before she even got there.
Funny too, Lazzaro mused, smiling as he drove off into the night. He’d put her out of her misery and ring her on Monday—put himself out of his misery too, Lazzaro thought, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
Once he’d dealt with Luca he’d ring her.
Luca.
His face hardened when he thought of his twin brother—he was not relishing a bit the task that lay ahead.
Monday suddenly seemed impossibly close.
CHAPTER ONE
‘YOU bit him!’ Black eyes fixed her with a stern glare as she stood at his desk. This was the very last thing Lazzaro needed to be dealing with today, and a petty row among the domestic staff was something he didn’t usually have to.
‘I didn’t bite him,’ Caitlyn snapped, and Lazzaro actually blinked. Her denial was not what he had been expecting—especially given the evidence. But her irritation, her indignation, even, told him that this five-minute problem that had landed on his desk at five p.m. on a hellish Friday was actually a rather more serious one. Jenna, his PA, had tearfully resigned on Wednesday, and her assistant was off with the flu that had swept through half his admin staff, which meant that today Lazzaro was dealing with what was usually expertly delegated. Only maybe it was just as well he was dealing with this particular scenario. It would seem that Caitlyn—he glanced down at the file on his desk—Caitlyn Bell, had a side to her story that he needed to hear.
Even if he really didn’t want to.
‘It was just a little nip.’ China-blue eyes held his—eyes that were familiar somehow…eyes that were just as blue as Roxanne’s.
