couldn’t believe it.
It was true that in the past few months, he’d thought once or twice about firing Emma rather than face her again. But he’d promised himself he wouldn’t fire her. As long as she didn’t get silly or ask for a relationship. After all they’d been through together, he didn’t want to lose her.
He’d never expected this. He was the one who left women. They didn’t leave him. Not since...
He cut off the thought.
Turning, he stalked back down the hall, passing a wealthy hotel guest, a heavily bejeweled white-haired lady dressed in vintage Chanel, holding a small Pomeranian in her arms. An entourage of three servants trailed behind her. She glared at him.
Ah. Cesare’s lip curled in a mixture of admiration and scorn. The wealthy. He hated them all sometimes. Even though he himself had somehow become one of them.
Returning to his suite, he realized he had no key. And he was still wearing only a towel. At any moment someone would snap an embarrassing photograph, to add to the rest of his indiscretions already permanently emblazoned all over the internet. Irritated, he pounded on his own door with the flat of his hand.
Olga opened the door, still in her lingerie, holding a lit cigarette.
“There’s no smoking in this hotel,” he snapped, walking past her. “Put that out.”
She took a long puff, then snuffed it out in the bottom of a water glass. “Problems with your housekeeping staff?” she asked sweetly.
“How did you get in here?”
“You sound as if you’re not glad to see me.” Pouting, Olga slinked forward, swaying her hips in a way that was no doubt supposed to be enticing. He almost wished it were. If he’d still been attracted to her, maybe he wouldn’t have made such a mess of things with Emma. Because he couldn’t go back to thinking of Emma Hayes just as an employee, no matter how he wished he could. Not when every time he closed his eyes, he remembered the way she’d felt beneath him in the hot breathless hush of night.
Don’t worry. I can’t get pregnant, she’d whispered, putting her hand over his as he’d reached for a condom in his bedside stand. It’s impossible. I promise you...
And he’d believed her. Emma Hayes was the first, and only, woman he’d ever slept with without a condom. In his whole life.
The way it had felt—the way she had felt...
Cesare ground his teeth. His plan of dealing with the aftermath had not gone well. After three months apart, he’d convinced himself that surely, cool, sensible, emotionless Emma had forgotten their night together.
But she hadn’t. And neither had he.
Damn it.
“You haven’t been photographed with any other women for ages,” Olga purred. “I knew that could only mean one thing. You’ve missed me, as I’ve missed you.”
Looking up, Cesare blinked. He’d forgotten she was there.
She gave him a sultry smile. “We were good together, weren’t we?”
“No.” Cesare stared at her. “We weren’t.” Picking up the designer clothes and expensive leather boots she’d left in a neat stack by the bed, he held them out to her. “Please get out.” In his current frame of mind, he was impressed with himself for managing the please.
Olga frowned, licking her red, bee-stung lips. “Are you kidding?”
“No.”
“But—you can’t send me away. I’m still in love with you!”
Cesare rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. You’re having some sort of crisis because your bookings are down. You’re ready to give up the difficulties of the modeling business and settle down, marry rich, have a child or two before you devote the rest of your life to shopping for jewels and furs.”
Her cheeks turned red, and he knew he was right. It would have been funny, but this had happened too often for him to find it amusing anymore.
Her long lashes fluttered. “No one understands you like I do, Cesare. No one will ever love you like I do!”
Crossing the suite, he opened the door, and tossed her clothes and boots into the hallway.
“Cara,” he drawled, “you’re breaking my heart.”
Olga’s eyes changed from pleading to anger in a moment, leaving him to feel reasonably assured that her so-called love was worth exactly what the sentiment usually was: nothing, a breath of wind, once spoken, instantly lost.
“You’ll be sorry!” She stomped past him, then stopped outside the doorway, wiggling her nearly-bare bottom at him. “You’ll never have all this ever again!”
“Tragic,” he said coldly, and closed the door.
His suite went quiet. Cesare stood for a moment, unmoving. He felt weary as the emotion of the past hour came crashing around him.
Emma. He’d lost her. She’d acted like all the other women, so he’d treated her like one.
The trouble was that she was different.
Maybe it’s for the best, he thought. Things had gone too far between them. It had become...dangerous. Scowling, he dropped his towel and pulled a black shirt and pants from his wardrobe. The pants were slightly wrinkled, and the shirt had been oddly ironed. They didn’t even have the right smell, because Emma hadn’t been the one to wash, dry and fold them.
But it wasn’t her laundry skills he missed most. He looked out the window. The lights of London’s theater district were already twinkling in the dusk.
Cesare had always liked the environment of hotels, the way the faces of the people changed, the sameness of the rooms, the way a man could easily move out of one hotel and change to the next without anyone questioning his constancy, or thinking there was a flaw in his soul.
He’d known Emma Hayes’s value since she’d first joined the housekeeping staff of his hotel on Park Avenue in New York. She’d been in charge of the penthouse floor, where he stayed while in the city, and he’d been so impressed by her work ethic and meticulous skills that she’d become assistant head housekeeper within the first year, and then head housekeeper when he’d opened the Falconeri in London. Now, she supervised the staff of his Kensington mansion. Taking care of him exclusively.
But she didn’t just keep Cesare in clean socks. She kept him in line. Unlike other employees, unlike even his friends, Emma wasn’t overly impressed by him. She’d become his sounding board. Almost like...family.
How could he have let himself seduce her? He needed her. He could always count on Emma. She always put his needs first. She never even asked for time off. Not until three months ago, when she’d abruptly left for a long weekend.
The Kensington house had felt strangely empty without her. He’d avoided coming home. On the third night, he’d returned from an unsatisfactory date at two in the morning, expecting to find a silent, dark house. Instead, he’d heard
