her, every part of her anatomy turning red.
I will teach you to be a woman again?
His meaning was clear. He knew she was a virgin.
Anna’s virginity was not something she’d ever discussed with anyone. Why would she? Twenty-three-year-old virgins were rarer than the lesser-spotted unicorn. For Stefano to know that...
Dear God, it was true.
All the denial she’d been storing up fell away.
She really had married him.
And if she’d married him, she must have slept with him. Which meant all her self-control, not just around him but in her life itself, had been blown away.
She’d taken such pride in her self-control after her mum had left. Events might fall out of her power but her own behaviour was something she controlled with iron will. All those teenage parties she’d been to when alcohol, cigarettes and more illicit substances were passed around and couples found empty spaces in which to make out... She’d been the one sitting there sipping on nothing stronger than a cola and taking great pride in the fact that she was in control of all her faculties. Her self-control was the only thing she’d had control of in a life where she’d been powerless to stop her father dying or her mother moving to the other side of the world and leaving her behind.
A different heat from the mortification ravaging her now bloomed as her mind suddenly pictured Stefano lying on top of her...
His eyes still holding hers as if he would devour her in one gulp, Stefano trailed his fingers down her neck and squeezed her shoulder. ‘Let’s get you inside. You must rest. You’re exhausted.’
Anna blew out a long breath and nodded. For once she was completely incapable of speech.
She’d shared a bed with him.
She’d shared more than a bed with him.
Trying desperately to affect nonchalance, she had no choice but to allow him to assist her through the grand atrium of his apartment building to his private elevator. It was either that or have her unsteady legs collapse beneath her again.
She’d always been physically aware of him before but with his arm slung protectively around her shoulders that awareness flew off the scale.
The dividing line she’d erected between them and worked so hard to maintain... Noting Stefano’s easy familiarity with her; the way he was so comfortable touching her now along with the flirting she’d long been used to... Yes, that dividing line had been demolished.
She just wished her body didn’t sing its delight at his new proprietorial manner with her.
It was such a relief to be led to a sofa to collapse onto that it took her a moment, catching her breath, to take stock of Stefano’s home.
Her home.
It was like stepping into another world.
She was sitting in a living room so vast and wide she felt like a toddler who’d stumbled into a ballroom, the room complete with a gold-leafed crystal chandelier gleaming magnificently above her.
Floor-to-ceiling windows covered the entire perimeter and from one aspect gave the most amazing view of the Thames—was that Westminster Bridge she could see in the near distance?
Not a single memory was jogged by any of it. She’d lived here for almost a year but she was seeing it for the first time.
She looked around wondering where everyone was. ‘No staff?’
‘I don’t have staff. The concierge service runs my housekeeping for me and I pay them a fortune for it.’
When Stefano had first made his fortune in his home town of Lazio, he’d employed live-in staff but had soon learned to dislike having other people in his space. Housekeeper, cleaners, butler, chef, gardener...the list had been endless. Being waited on hand and foot sounded fantastic in theory but in practice it was a drag and he’d put the staff on day-only duties within weeks.
He was a fully grown man who’d been caring for himself since he was fifteen. He didn’t need someone to dress him or run his baths. He saw his peers with their homes full of enough staff to fill a cinema and thought them fools for allowing themselves to revert to infancy.
It was all the fawning he couldn’t abide. That was one of the reasons he’d been so keen to employ Anna as his PA. She’d been completely unaffected by meeting him, a reaction he hadn’t received in years. In a business setting he was used to fear being the primary reaction; in his personal life he received desire from women and enthusiasm from men, both sexes looking at him with dollar signs flashing in their eyes. Anna had looked at him with disdain.
He’d strolled into the Levon Brothers offices when they’d been in early discussion about him buying the business from them and she’d been behind the desk in the office guarding theirs. He’d handed her his coat as he walked past for her to hang for him and heard a sarcastic ‘You’re welcome,’ in his wake. He’d paused at the door he’d been about to open and looked at her, standing with his coat in her arms, challenge set in her eyes, jutting chin and pursed lips.
‘What did you say?’ he’d asked.
‘I said that you’re welcome. I meant to say it in my head just as I’m sure your thanks for me taking your coat off your hands was said in your head, but it slipped out.’
It had been a sharp salutary reminder of the importance of manners, something no one had dared to pull him up on for many years and it had taken a scrap of a woman to do just that.
He’d put a hand to his chest, made a mocking bow and said, ‘Thank you.’
She’d nodded primly and crossed the room to hang his coat on the stand. Shorter than the women who usually caught his eye, she had the most exquisite figure, perfectly proportioned. He remembered exactly what she’d been wearing that day, a billowing checked skirt that had fallen below her knees, long tan boots with spiked heels, a tight black vest and a fitted khaki-coloured jacket, all pulled together with a thick belt with studs that looked sharp enough to have someone’s eye out.
‘Do I dare ask if you make coffee?’ he’d asked, fascinated by her.
‘You can ask but beware—refusal often offends.’
Roaring with laughter, he’d gone into his meeting. Within an hour, when the beautiful, sarcastic secretary had been brought in six times to explain the report she’d compiled for him but which the idiots running the company didn’t understand, he’d known he was going to buy the company and poach her to be his PA. It turned out Anna was the real brains behind Levon Brothers. Without her by their side and covering their messes, it would never have taken off. With her by Stefano’s side, Moretti’s could only strengthen further.
It had been the best business decision he’d ever made. He’d learned to trust her judgement completely.
He’d believed her to be as straight as a line. He’d thought that with Anna what you saw was what you got, when all along she’d been nothing but a grasping gold-digger.
Now the bravado that always shone in her eyes was muted by alarm. ‘It’s just you and me here?’
