He never thought of a woman once their affair was over, and the redhead encounter had been two months ago. Well and truly over.
He clenched his hands into tight fists at his sides. Now was not the time to become embroiled in memories of one meaningless night. He had to remain in control—focus on the matter in hand. He couldn’t allow that piece of gossip in Celebrity Spy! to jeopardise one of the biggest deals he’d ever gone after, or to tarnish the work of the charity he helped to fund. But neither was he about to be dictated to by Benjamin Carter. He had absolutely no desire to settle down in that very elusive state of marital bliss just to salvage his reputation. There had to be another way and he’d find it—of that he was sure.
Not a moment too soon the elevator doors opened and he left the memory-evoking scent of perfume and marched into his office. His head thumped mercilessly from last night’s excess of whisky and his temper was frayed from the latest developments on the deal.
His secretary jumped up eagerly as he stormed in but he refused to indulge in his usual morning pleasantries. He didn’t have the stamina for niceties right now. All he wanted was total silence and coffee—strong and black.
‘I don’t want to be disturbed.’ He snapped the instruction at her as he strode past her desk, desperate for the solitude of his office with its sought-after views over the old quarter of Rome.
‘Signor Mancini...’ she began, overriding his instruction, and he stopped and looked at her, about to open his office door, glad of the sunglasses he still wore.
The last thing he wanted his secretary to know was that he was suffering from an uncharacteristic over-indulgence of alcohol. After his meeting with Ben and the others he’d managed to catch an hour or two of sleep during the overnight flight back to Rome on his private jet, but that hadn’t helped dull the effects of the whisky. All he needed was to be left alone.
‘No calls. No meetings. Nothing.’ He threw the words at her and as she took a breath to protest turned from her and burst into his office. He slammed the door and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The world had gone mad. Everything he’d worked so hard to achieve seemed in danger of falling to pieces around him.
He muttered a curse and strode across his large office, pressed the button on his coffee machine, then stood at the windows looking out over the city that had at first been a hard and demanding mistress but was now one of only two places in the world where he felt completely at ease.
As the welcome aroma of coffee filled his office he heard movement behind him and tensed. He turned slowly to see just who it was in his office, aware now that his secretary’s unusual insistence on speaking to him must have been to warn him that he had someone waiting for him.
What he didn’t expect to see was the flame-haired siren who’d haunted him since that night two months ago, when she’d slipped from his bed in the early hours, long before he’d woken. Not something he was accustomed to.
‘I hope you don’t mind that I waited in here for you...’ The redhead’s soft voice wavered with uncertainty and, dressed in jeans and a navy knitted poncho, she certainly didn’t resemble the glamorous self-assured beauty he’d bedded that night. But then she hadn’t been all she’d pretended to be that night, had she? She hadn’t been an experienced seductress. She’d been a virgin. A fact she’d kept from him until it had been too late.
He pulled off his sunglasses and looked at her. How had she found him? How did she know who he was? Those few hours in his hotel room had been so passionate, so filled with lustful need that they hadn’t even exchanged names, let alone phone numbers.
Icy-cold fingers of dread clutched at him. Was she here to use that story in Celebrity Spy! for some kind of blackmail? Did she want to sell a kiss-and-tell story? Was that why she’d come to Rome unannounced? To demand money from him for her silence?
‘As a matter of fact I do.’ The angry bitterness in his voice barely concealed his disappointment at this realisation. He’d placed her on some kind of pedestal since that night, his thoughts constantly returning to her like a lovesick teenager. She’d got to him in a way no other woman had come close to doing. Even now his blood heated at the knowledge that she was so close, just as it had when he’d smelt the lingering trace of what he now knew to be her perfume in the elevator moments ago.
She stood up and he let his gaze travel quickly down her jean-clad legs, remembering how they’d felt as she’d wrapped them around him. Savagely he dragged his mind back to the present. Dwelling on one night of sex was not in his nature.
‘What do you want?’ He fired the question at her.
‘I just have one thing I need to say and then I will go.’
Her voice still held uncertainty and her face looked pale. Was that just because she wore hardly any make-up?
She looked totally different from the seductress who’d tempted him from the party that night, and she stood before him now looking every bit the innocent and inexperienced virgin she had been when he’d taken her to his hotel room. But she wasn’t a virgin any longer. He had been her first lover and he wanted to know why she had kept that from him. The question wouldn’t come. As she looked at him he sensed something much bigger, much more threatening.
‘How much?’ he demanded, narrowing his eyes as he tried to gauge her reaction, angry that he’d put himself in this position, that he hadn’t exercised his usual caution where women were concerned.
Her delicate brows flew together. ‘How much what?’
He stepped closer and the scent of her perfume teased at his memory again. He closed his mind to the images which threatened to engulf him. The woman who stood before him now was very different from the woman who’d teased him until he’d all but lost his mind as well as his control.
He sighed and walked towards his desk, tossing his sunglasses down before leaning on its solid wood, fixing her with a hard glare. ‘How much do you want? For your silence?’
‘I’m not about to tell the world,’ she snapped back at him, her voice full of injustice.
He only just managed to stifle a smile. The fiery redhead had briefly surfaced from behind the façade of unassuming inexperience she had adopted.
‘Then why are you here, cara? And, more to the point, how did you find me?’ Already he was bored with this conversation. His head thumped cruelly and he wanted nothing more than to sit down in silence. He had a deal to salvage and he didn’t need Little Miss Shy adding to the mix of hurdles he had to power over.
‘There was an article...’ she said softly as he walked back towards the windows.
He turned to face her and noticed how she followed his every move, turning herself slightly to maintain eye contact with him. It made him suspicious.
‘I’m more than aware that there was an article,’ he growled back at her, the tension in his head reaching almost breaking point. This tedious conversation should have ended when she’d named her price—right before he threw her out. So why hadn’t she? More to the point, why hadn’t he thrown her out?
‘That is how I got your name.’ He raised his brows as she blushed before continuing. ‘We didn’t exactly have time to exchange details.’
Exchanging details had been the last thing on his mind. All he’d wanted was her naked and beneath
