the scenes and were often forgotten. Having started that way herself, she identified with them more than anyone—but it was also a good advertisement for her business. She knew that if any of those workers came to
England looking for work, then hers would be the name they would remember…
But there was no escaping him today—nowhere to look other than into the ruggedly handsome face and the gleaming ebony eyes which seemed to be silently laughing at her. Sliding into the chair opposite him, she took her coffee and sipped it, remembering the day she’d landed Gianluca’s account as if it were yesterday.
Nearly two years ago now—where did the time go? It had been her twenty-eighth birthday, which had seemed frighteningly close to the milestone of thirty.And wasn’t there something about birthdays which made you look back as well as forward, and regret all the missed opportunities and different doors closed to you for ever?
She had been trying not to think about the fact that she would be celebrating that night with friends who were all in various stages of emotional commitment, and that she had been too busy building up her business to have anything in the way of a love-life. It had come as a shock to her to realise that there was no one in her life who really mattered. Oh, she had plenty of friends, work colleagues and neighbours she knew quite well. But that was it. There was no special someone.
She remembered staring at her face in the mirror, searching for imaginary lines and wondering whether she was going to end up as a singleton career-woman—and whether that might not be the best thing. She could think of a lot worse ways to spend your life—and the women she knew who were unencumbered by demanding husbands and equally demanding babies certainly seemed serene enough.
And then she had arrived at the office and there had been a telephone call from one of Gianluca’s assistants. It seemed that an existing client had recommended her to the Italian billionaire and he had a proposal for her—though not the variety which had been so preoccupying her!
Would Aisling like to work for Signor Palladio? To find him a general manager for his brand-new boutique hotel in London? At first she had thought it some elaborate kind of joke because it was the kind of job she’d dreamed of.
The chance of such a lucrative contract would have made the head of any other small firm turn bright green with envy. But she had worked hard for an opportunity like this. Sometimes she never seemed to do anything but work, and the Palladio contract had made it all seem worthwhile.
She had told herself she was the luckiest person in the world, but then she had met Gianluca and something inexplicable and unwanted had happened. Her heart had performed a kind of complicated somersault and her legs had turned to cotton wool. Symptoms of love or lust—whichever you wanted to call it—that she’d heard about, but had never experienced before during her erratic history of dating.
And at the same time instinct told her to beware. That the head of the Palladio Corporation spelt trouble of a kind which wasn’t straightforward. Not simply because Gianluca was impossibly rich and ravishingly good-looking and scarily well-connected and because no sane person ever mixed business with pleasure. But there was something about him which made Aisling feel almost…was frightened too strong a word?
It was the way he had of looking at you. Those slanting black eyes lazily scanning every inch of your body as if they had the arrogant right to do so. Putting her in touch with a sensuality she had spent her life repressing—because she knew only too well the risks which sexual hunger represented. Hadn’t she seen it firsthand in her mother—the havoc it could wreak?
Aisling knew that Italian men had been brought up to be openly appreciative of women, but when Gianluca did it, he made you feel as if he were stripping you bare with that intense ebony scrutiny.
He was sexy and dangerous. The type of man who collected women like trophies, who enjoyed showing them off and then, when they had lost a little of their shiny-bright newness, discarded them for the next best thing. A wealthier version of the kind of man her mother had been drawn to, and discarded by, over and over again.
And what does his tally of lovers have to do with you? mocked a little voice in her head. He certainly isn’t known for dating women whose experience with the opposite sex could be written on the back of a postage stamp!
Aisling pinned a polite smile to her lips and tried not to react to the way Gianluca was currently studying her.
‘So, Aisling.’ He curled the name around his lips as if he were playing with a cherry, prior to biting into it. ‘I am pleased. More than pleased. Once again, you have found just what I was looking for.’
‘That’s the aim.’
‘Your initial choice of candidates was a surprise, I admit it,’ he conceded, and he raked careless fingers through his thick black hair. ‘But, as usual, your favoured applicant was perfetto.’
She inclined her head. ‘Thank you.’
He frowned. Even in her thanks she was lukewarm! ‘You enjoyed the party last night?’ he demanded.
‘Very much, thank you.’
‘I didn’t see you leave.’
‘I slipped away.You looked like you had your hands full.’
‘You should have stayed. There were a few people you could have met. We went out for dinner afterwards—you could have come.’
‘That’s very sweet of you, Gianluca—but I had some paperwork I needed to do.’
Gianluca’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like being described as sweet! Sweet was for those men who had manicures and were in touch with their feelings. He thought, not for the first time, how you would never know what was going on her in head—not from that unruffled face she always presented. Was she deliberately mysterious, he wondered, or was that simply a mask she wore for work? And what happened when the mask was removed? ‘And business is good?’ he enquired softly.
Should she tell him that business was booming? That his name had brought in a whole stack of new contracts? ‘Oh, I can’t complain. I have plenty to keep me busy,’ she said softly, automatically tugging at the dark hem of her neatly tailored skirt, so that it covered the inch of knee it had been revealing.
Gianluca watched the unnecessary movement. The skirt was hardly indecent—didn’t she realise that a man liked to look at a woman’s legs? She was always like the schoolmarm, he thought impatiently. Even last night she had been wearing some stiff-looking gown—appropriate and yet glaringly dull.
Gianluca had never met a woman like Aisling Armstrong before. Was that why he found her strangely fascinating?
Women rarely intrigued him; their reaction to him was predictable. They wanted him. They wanted his wealth and his lips and his lean, hard body. They wanted a shiny gold band on their finger and they wanted his babies. When Gianluca was around, they pulled out all the stops to make him aware of them, with their tight skirts and their low-cut tops and hair tumbling down over bare shoulders while their lips pouted in provocative invitation. But not this one, it seemed.
‘And that is what pleases you?’ he mused, meeting her brisk reply with a lazy question in his eyes. ‘Mmm? To keep busy all the time? How is it you say—like the hamster on the wheel?’
She wondered if he realised the effect he was having on her—how being in the crossfire
