shocking in there. But it wasn’t the length of time she’d spent locked in the loo that was making them stare at her, she admitted heavily. It was instant recognition and the curiosity value of being the woman their new boss had set upon in the foyer.
‘Do you know him, is that it?’ someone asked as she went to wash her hands.
‘No,’ she answered, and wished it were true.
‘Does he fancy you, then?’ someone else quizzed. ‘Did the utterly gorgeous Enrico Ranieri hit on you in the foyer, and you did your usual thing and told him to get lost? Is that why he was so angry after you rushed off?’
Had he been angry?
‘Eyes like icecaps on a volcano,’ someone described.
Freya dried her hands and imagined Enrico in one of his cold rages. She’d experienced enough of them in their time together to know how they looked.
The problem with Enrico was that he was an exciting mix of hot-blooded Italian and cool sophisticate. Put him in a temper and he could go either way—ice-cold or so blisteringly hot you could fear for your skin…or other parts.
Those other parts quivered so badly Freya had to squeeze her thighs together. Stop thinking about him like that! she told herself.
‘It wasn’t seeing your little boy that annoyed him, was it?’ The anxious question came from one of the other mothers with a child in the crèche. ‘I mean, if he doesn’t like children and decides to close down day care, I don’t know how I…’
‘Trust me, he isn’t quite that archaic,’ Freya heard herself say with enough tight sarcasm to make her wish she’d kept her impulsive mouth shut.
They pounced on that statement. ‘You do know him!’
‘No, I don’t.’ But her cheeks went hot.
‘He stopped dead when he saw you. I was there. I saw it happen. I thought he was going to grab hold of you by the neck and strangle you.’
So did I, Freya thought with a small inner shiver. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered, ‘but my break is over.’ And she fled before they could grill her to the point that she really tripped herself up.
Damn you, Enrico, she thought as she hurried towards the bank of lifts. I hope you’re pleased with yourself for stirring this up!
Enrico wasn’t pleased at all. He was sprawled in a chair behind his desk, elbow resting on its arm, a long finger stroking the firm line of his mouth, eyes narrowed and glinting dangerously as he played out the image Freya had kindly placed in his head.
It wasn’t as if he hadn’t seen her in that position before, so it was easy for him to imagine it—though she’d usually been naked and almost always sitting there while he stood over her, enjoying the feel of her mouth around—
His groin released a spasm that funnelled right down the length of him in response to the warm, wet memory of her tasting tongue. He shot to his feet, angry—disgusted—that he could still respond so quickly to a woman who turned him so cold now.
Well, not right now, he conceded as he spun to stare out of the window while he tried to bring his libido in check.
She’d come to him so crazily innocent, she’d been shocked the first time he’d encouraged her to do that for him. By the end of their relationship she’d been so good with that sexy mouth that he had not been able to tolerate another woman doing it for him since.
‘Dio,’ he muttered. By the end, she’d been so good at a lot of things that he had barely been able to look at her without wanting her to try her newly acquired whiles out on him some more.
What he had not envisaged was her wanting to try those whiles out elsewhere—and especially not on his own cousin.
One-time cousin, Enrico grimly amended. The day he had kicked Freya out of his life, he’d kicked Luca out of it, too.
Luca, with the same dark good looks that the Ranieri family were known for, he thought cynically. He had not needed to hit on Freya when he could have had any other woman he desired.
Or was it Freya who’d hit on him?
Enrico didn’t know, had refused to discuss it with either of them. All he did know was that he’d gone away on business vaguely aware that she’d not been happy about something and had promised himself he would find out what was bothering her when he got home again. What he’d found when he’d got home had finished him as a loyal cousin and as a loyal lover.
And if you want to replay old memories, he told himself cynically, then replay the one where you walked in on the two of them sprawled half-naked on your own damn bed, with her legs splayed wide and his tight, tanned backside about to make its urgent thrust home.
It was a good point in his thoughts for Freya’s knock to sound at the door, he mused grimly as he turned around.
Moving back to his chair, he sat down in it before calling a cold, ‘Come in.’
Freya took a deep breath before reaching for the door handle, all too aware that Enrico’s PA was watching her and that he, like everyone else in this building, was wondering what was going on between her and his boss.
Her face was flushed due to her mad rush up here, eyes actually sparking with a mixture of fired-up aggression and fear. Stroking a hand over her hair in a nervous gesture at the same time as she turned the handle, she pressed her trembling lips together and stepped through the door.
The first thing to hit her was the bright light flooding into the room from all angles. The next thing to hit her was the sight of Enrico himself. He was seated behind a desk and looking exactly the same as he had done four years ago, when she’d first met him on the day he’d taken over the company she’d been working for then.
All sleek, smooth elegance and stunning good looks, wrapped around a truly rampant sex appeal. Memories flooded her of the way she’d tried so hard to appear professional and efficient back then, smiling nervously while blushing shyly and feeling generally like an awkward child in the presence of some great, awesome power.
That great, awesome power had been her first encounter with her own sexual stirrings. Until that moment she’d always laughed at friends who went all fluttery when they talked about new boyfriends and said silly things like, ‘Oh, you should see him! He made me so hot I wanted to drag off my clothes!’
Well, Enrico had made her feel like that. She’d been ready to drag off her clothes for this too-gorgeous-to-be-real new boss she’d been handed like one of those gifts you did not know what to do with or how to deal with.
The same crazy sensations washed right over her now as she stood there just inside the closed door and stared down the room at his seated, undeniably sexy but intimidating bulk, and she felt hot feelings spark into life, though they had no right—not for this man, who might be an amazing lover but had proved beyond a doubt that he was good for nothing else.
Her chin went up on that final denunciation. Enrico’s insides knotted as he watched it happen, felt the challenge in the gesture hit low in his gut and remain there taunting him, as he watched her toss fear and defiance at him in equal doses like some unruly employee dragged before the big boss because her work attitude was unsatisfactory.
