‘You’re the one who wants to play the politician’s role. Fake it. You’ve read Alberto’s reports on Pieta’s old projects. Think what your brother would do and do that. You’re playing with the big boys now, Francesca. Or do I take you home?’
‘No,’ she rejected out of hand. ‘I can do this.’
‘You can fake respect?’
‘I will do whatever is needed.’
Breathing deeply, Francesca got out of the car and walked up the long marble steps to the front door with Felipe at her side, leaving Seb and the driver in the car.
‘Is there something wrong with your leg?’ she asked, noticing a slight limp.
‘Nothing serious,’ he dismissed, his attention on their surroundings. She had a feeling nothing escaped his scrutiny.
After being frisked and scanned with metal detectors, they were led into a large white reception room filled with huge vases of white flowers and lined with marble statues, and told to wait.
The sofa in the reception room was so pristinely white that Francesca wiped the back of her skirt before sitting.
When they were alone, she said in an undertone, ‘If this is the Governor’s home I dread to think how pretentious the President’s is.’
‘Be careful.’ Felipe leaned close to speak into her ear. ‘There are cameras everywhere recording everything we do and say.’
She didn’t know what unnerved her the most: knowing they were being spied on or Felipe’s breath warm against her ear. She caught his scent, which was as warm as his breath, an expensive spicy smell that filled her mouth with moisture and had her sitting rigidly beside him to stop herself leaning into him so she could sniff him properly.
Clasping her hands together, she focussed on a painting of a gleaming yacht on the wall opposite.
She could not let her body’s reactions to Felipe distract her from the job in hand. She’d spent her adult life rebuffing male advances. She’d turned down plenty of good-looking undergraduates at university, always with an appeasing smile and zero regret.
She hadn’t wanted the distraction of a romance—not that romance itself played much of a part in a student’s life—when she was determined to graduate with top honours. Sex and romance could wait until she was established in her career.
She sneaked a glance at the hands resting on the muscular lap beside hers. Like the rest of him they were big, the fingers long and calloused, the nails functionally short, nothing like the manicured digits the men at Pieta’s law firm sported. Felipe was all man. You only had to look at him to know a woman’s body was imprinted like a map in his memories.
A tall, lithe woman impeccably dressed in a white designer suit entered the room. The Governor was ready for them.
Pulling herself together, Francesca got to her feet, smoothed her jacket with hands that had suddenly gone clammy and picked up her laptop bag.
Her heart beat frantically, excitement and nerves fighting in her belly.
She could do this. She would do this. She would get the Governor’s agreement for the sale of the land. She would make Pieta proud and, in doing so, obtain his forgiveness.
* * *
Felipe felt undressed without his gun, which he’d left in the car with Seb. He didn’t expect any trouble in the Governor’s own home but could see the bulges in the suits of the guards who lined the walls of the ostentatious dining room they were taken to.
The Governor himself sat at the dining table alone, eating an orange that had been cut into segments for him. The tall woman who’d brought them in arranged herself a foot behind him.
He didn’t rise for his guests but gestured for them to sit.
Felipe hadn’t expected to like the man but neither had he expected the instant dislike that flashed through him.
‘My condolences about your brother,’ the Governor said in Spanish, addressing Francesca’s breasts. ‘I hear he was a great man.’
From the panicked look Francesca shot at him, Felipe guessed she didn’t speak his native tongue. Without missing a beat, he made the translation.
‘Thank you,’ she replied, smiling at the Governor as if having a lecherous sixty-year-old ogle her whilst speaking of her dead brother was perfectly acceptable. ‘Do you speak Italian or English?’
‘No,’ he replied in English, before switching back to Spanish to address Felipe. ‘You are her bodyguard?’
‘I’m here as Miss Pellegrini’s translator and advisor,’ he answered smoothly, avoiding giving a direct lie.
The Governor put a large segment of orange in his mouth. ‘I understand she wants to build a hospital in my city.’
Felipe smothered his distaste at being spoken to by someone chewing food. ‘She does, yes. I believe her brother had already been in contact with your office about the land it could be built on.’
He sensed Francesca’s agitation at being cut out of her own meeting. She had the air of a pet straining at its leash. He shot her a warning look. Calm down.
Another segment went into the wide mouth, the gaze fixing back on Francesca’s breasts as if he were trying to see through the respectable clothing she wore. From the gleam in his beady eyes he was mentally undressing her. From the angry colour staining her face she knew it too but the quick look she threw at him told him to say nothing.
‘Two hundred thousand dollars.’
‘Is that for the land?’
The mouth still full of orange smiled. ‘That is for me. The land itself is another two hundred thousand. All in cash.’
Felipe stared hard at Francesca as he made the translation, sending another warning to her with his eyes. He would have spoken his warnings but was damn sure the Governor spoke perfect English.
To his incredulity she agreed without a second’s thought or consideration.
‘Done.’
‘The hospital is to have my name.’
Here she hesitated. Felipe knew why—she wanted to name it after her brother.
The Governor saw the hesitation. ‘Either it has my name or permission is denied.’
Felipe translated again, adopting a harder edge to his voice in the vain hope she would pick up on it, slow down and negotiate properly.
But she was too keen to get the agreement made to see the danger she was walking into.
‘Tell the Governor we will be honoured to name it after him,’ she said in a tone so grateful Felipe braced himself for the Governor to pick up on it and demand even more from her.
A full mouth of pristine white teeth beamed. ‘Then it is a deal. I am having a party here next Saturday.’ That was a full week away. ‘Bring her to it. I’ll
