for the children’s charity that would benefit tonight—but he knew Lilley would never manage. Ignoring the shouted questions and frustrated groans, he kept walking, leading her up the sweeping stairs to the shadowy columns of the portico.
Once they were inside the mansion’s double doors, past security and into the golden, glittering foyer, Lilley exhaled. Her luminous eyes looked up at him with gratitude. “Thanks.” She swallowed. “That was … not fun.”
“No?” he said lightly. “Most women think otherwise. Most see it as a perk of dating me.”
“Well, I don’t.” Lilley shuddered. She licked her lips, fidgeting with the low neckline of her tight red gown. “I feel like a dork.”
Heat flashed through Alessandro. He wanted to touch everywhere her fingers were tugging, to rip the fabric off her body and cover those amazing breasts with his hands, to nibble and stroke and lick every inch of her.
No, he told himself angrily. He had three rules. No employees, no wives, no virgins. There were too many women in the world, all too easily possessed, to break those cardinal rules. Lilley was an employee. She was also brokenhearted and on the rebound. Too many complications. Too many risks. Lilley was off limits.
But then again …
Alessandro looked at the red fabric barely clinging to her breasts. Looked at the graceful curve of her neck, at the roses in her cheeks and her pale skin beneath thick waves of soft brown hair. He felt a rush of forbidden desire.
Maybe it was a stupid rule, he thought. Maybe taking an employee as his mistress was a great idea. Wasn’t his HR department always telling him to promote from within?
Lilley’s beautiful eyes looked miserable and vulnerable. “I look like an idiot, don’t I?”
Didn’t she realize her beauty? Why did she hide it? Why didn’t she use it to gain attention in the workplace to get ahead, as other women would have done?
Was it possible that she really didn’t know how lovely she was? He narrowed his eyes. “You are beautiful, Lilley.”
Looking up at him, she suddenly scowled, her lovely expression peeved. “I told you never to call me that—”
“You are beautiful,” he said harshly, cupping his hand against her soft cheek. He searched her gaze. “Listen to me. You know the kind of man I am. The kind, you said, who would never take a girl on a charity date. So why would I lie? You are beautiful.”
The anger slid from her face. She suddenly looked bewildered and innocent and painfully shy. He could read her feelings in her face, something else he found shocking. It was an act—right? It had to be. She couldn’t be that young.
He’d been open-hearted and reckless too, long ago. He remembered it like some long-forgotten dream. Perhaps that was why he felt strangely, unexpectedly protective.
He didn’t like it.
“You really—” Lilley stopped herself, then bit her lip. “You really think I’m pretty?”
“Pretty?” he demanded, amazed. Lifting her chin, he tilted her head up towards the light shining from the foyer’s glittering chandelier. “You are a beauty, little mouse.”
She stared up at him, then her lips suddenly quirked. “You keep calling me that. Can’t you just call me Lilley?”
“Sorry.” His lips curved. “It’s a habit. It was my name for you, when I was blind.”
Lilley’s brown eyes sparkled as a smile lit up her face. “So in one breath you tell me I’m beautiful, and in the next you tell me you’re blind?”
Her smile was so breathtaking that it caught at his heart.
“Your beauty would make any man blind, cara,” he said huskily. “I told you that you’d be envied if you came with me to the ball. I was wrong. I will be the one envied tonight.”
Her eyes grew big, her dark eyelashes sweeping wide against her pale skin. “Huh. You’re not so bad at this complimenting stuff.” Her smile lifted into a wicked grin. “Has anyone ever told you that?”
Against his will, Alessandro grinned back at her, and as their eyes locked a seismic tremble raced through his body. How was it possible that he’d ever thought of Lilley as an invisible brown sparrow?
From the instant he’d seen her pushing her little filing cart down the hall, why hadn’t he immediately seen her beauty? Lilley’s combination of sweetness and tartness, her innocent eyes and lush, sexy curves, caused a spasm of need deeper than his body, down to some fundamental part of his soul.
Soul? The word made his lip curl. Soul. What a ridiculous idea. Funny the tricks lust could play on a man’s mind.
And he wanted her. Oh yes.
But he wouldn’t let himself act on it. He was not a slave to lust. He was a grown man, the head of a worldwide company, and it was past time that he stopped chasing one-night stands and settled down. Olivia Bianchi would make a perfect princess, and when she inherited her father’s designer-clothing business, Caetani Worldwide’s reach would double in Europe. He did not love her, any more than Olivia loved him, but their union made sense. He’d nearly talked himself into proposing until she’d pulled that little stunt.
He should have expected Olivia’s ultimatum. He’d been on the phone in his limo, en route to the office for his forgotten cufflinks, and he’d felt her simmering beside him in her black fur coat. The instant he’d ended the business call, Olivia had turned on him in angry, rapid-fire Italian.
“When are you going to propose, Alessandro? When?
I’m sick of waiting for you to decide. Make our engagement official, or find someone else to be your hostess at the charity ball!”
Five minutes later, he’d dropped Olivia off at her ritzy hotel. No woman, not even one as powerful and perfect as Olivia, would ever give him an ultimatum.
Now, as Alessandro led Lilley towards the ballroom of the Harts Mansion, he felt a rush of relief that he was still a free man. This was already proving to be the most enjoyable, surprising night he’d had in a long time.
Keeping Lilley close beside him, he paused at the landing on the top of the stairs, looking down into the ballroom. A hush fell beneath the soaring painted ceilings and enormous crystal chandeliers as hundreds of guests turned to stare up at them. Alessandro felt Lilley stiffen. She wasn’t accustomed to being the center of attention, that was certain. She seemed to expect criticism, which he could not remotely understand.
“I can’t tell you you’re beautiful, because you’ll hit me,” he murmured. “But I know every man would kill to be in my place.”
Her eyes flashed up at him, and he saw her lips quirk into a nervous smile. “Okay,” she said in a low voice, bracing herself. “Let’s go.”
Alessandro led her down the stairs, where his board members, stockholders and friends waited. He spoke to each of them in turn, then moved across the ballroom, greeting the mayor, the governor, movie stars and visiting royalty by name. The men grinned and asked him for stock tips. The women flirted with him and tossed their hair. And
