frowned, because this particular woman didn’t seem to fit the mould.
‘Just someone browsing,’ Leo said smoothly, and then he added, truthfully, ‘I don’t get to this part of the world very often and I wanted to see this store everyone seems to know about.’ He looked around him. ‘I’m less than impressed.’
The woman followed his gaze and said nothing, perhaps because she’d noticed those very same signs of disrepair. She seemed to suddenly realise that he was still watching her, his eyes narrowed.
‘I can see that you agree with me.’
‘Like I said, I haven’t been here for very long—but if you’re looking for something to buy as a souvenir of the store, there’s an excellent selection on the second floor. Mugs, tote bags, lots of stuff...’
Leo suppressed a shudder at the image of tackiness created in his head. Had the place moved with the times at all? Or had progress being quietly sidelined as Gallo’s money ran out?
He had a satisfying vision of what the place would look like under his dominion. High-tech, white glossy counters and open, uncluttered spaces, glass and mirrors, ranks of computers and accessories waiting to be explored—no irritating background elevator music and salespeople who actually knew what they were talking about.
‘If you have lots of money to spend, then we offer a range of leather handbags which we manufacture ourselves to the highest possible standard. They’re Italian, and really beautiful quality.’
‘Sadly,’ Leo said, easily giving voice to the lie, ‘my finances would struggle to stretch to one of your leather handbags.’
She nodded. He didn’t seem like the sort of broke, wrong-side-of-the-tracks kind of guy she had encountered during her life, but it was a fact that a good-looking man could look expensive in anything.
‘But I could probably stretch to one of those tote things you mentioned...’
‘Second floor.’
‘Take me.’
‘Come again?’
‘I want you to do your sales pitch on me.’
‘I’ll be honest with you,’ she said flatly, ‘if this is another way of trying to get me to have dinner with you, then you can forget it. I won’t be doing that.’
Leo wondered whether she would have had a change of heart had she known his true worth. Most definitely, he thought, with his usual healthy dose of cynicism. That said, he was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted—and the more he talked to her, looked at her, felt the pleasurable race of his pulses and the hard throb of his libido, the more he wanted to rise to the challenge of breaking down whatever walls she felt she had to erect.
For once, work and the reason he was in this sad excuse of a store had been put on the back burner.
‘You’re very arrogant, aren’t you?’ he murmured, watching her carefully as the slow burn of anger turned her cheeks a healthy pink. ‘Do you think that you have what it takes to make a man keep banging on a door that’s been firmly shut in his face?’
‘How dare you?’
‘You forget—I’m the customer and the customer is always right.’
His grin was meant to take the sting out of his words and make her realise that he’d been teasing her.
‘That’s better,’ Leo said as her anger appeared to fade, then glanced at his watch to find that time had flown by. ‘Now, why don’t you show me this souvenir section of yours?’ He raised both hands in mock surrender. ‘And you can breathe safe in the knowledge that there’ll be no more dinner invitations. You say you’re new here... You can practise your sales patter on me. I’m just passing through, so you won’t have to worry that I’ll be gossiping behind your back with the locals, telling them that the new girl at the big store doesn’t seem to know the ropes.’
* * *
Maddie looked down, but she wanted to smile.
So far she’d made no friends. It would take time for her to integrate. This interaction almost felt like a breath of fresh air. Naturally she wasn’t going to be an idiot and go on any dates with any strangers—especially good-looking ones who obviously knew how to say the right things to get a woman’s pulse racing. But he had valid criticisms of the store, and she would need those—would need to find out what customers thought when they entered. Customers would look at the place through different eyes from hers. It might actually be a good idea to encourage his opinions.
So he’d asked her out... Maddie didn’t spend time staring at her reflection in mirrors, but she knew that she was attractive. It was something that had dogged her, for better or for worse. Certainly for worse when it had come to Adam, but she couldn’t let the memory of that determine every single response to every single guy who happened to look in her direction. Could she?
Besides, setting aside the killer looks, the man still staring at her wasn’t a rich creep—like Adam had been, had she only had the wisdom to see that from the very start. This guy was more tote bags than soft Italian leather.
Maddie felt a thrilling little frisson as she breathed in deeply and said, ‘Well, I guess I could get someone to cover for me just for a little while.’
Brian Walsh was in charge of the store temporarily, and he was the only one who knew who she really was. He had worked there for over twenty years and was keen to see the store become again the place it had once been, so he was fully on board with her decision to evaluate the store undercover for a short period of time while she worked out a way forward.
‘My...er...my boss is just over there. I’ll ask his...er...permission...’
‘Your boss?’ he asked, his interest clearly pricked by the knowledge.
‘Mr Walsh. If you don’t mind waiting...?’
‘I have all the time in the world,’ he said expansively, deciding on the spot to tell James to head back to the hotel, just in case he found himself staying longer than anticipated. ‘I’ll be right here when you return.’
LEO COULD HAVE taken the opportunity to probe her about her boss—the man Leo would soon be putting through the wringer—but that, he decided as he watched her heading back towards him, could wait. His grandfather wanted the store yesterday, but tomorrow or the day after was just fine with Leo. There was no doubt in his mind that he would secure the store—so what was the harm in letting himself be temporarily distracted?
She moved like a dancer, her body erect, looking neither right nor left as she walked gracefully across the department store floor. He suddenly realised he didn’t even know her name, and he put that right the minute she was standing in front of him again, her fresh, floral scent filling his nostrils and turning him on.
‘Shouldn’t you be wearing a name tag? Something discreetly pinned to your nice white outfit so that I know exactly who to complain about if you sell me overpriced face cream that makes my girlfriend’s skin break out in spots?’
