ball in a glass carriage, didn’t she? While I’ve been slumming it in a chauffeur-driven limo,’she said with irony.
He laughed. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said softly.
‘Isn’t it?’ Her own voice was equally soft, as if they were sharing some kind of secret. Stop it, she thought. Stop constructing fantasy around an unrealistic desire. Stop flirting.
There was a heartbeat of a pause.
‘Looks good, doesn’t she?’ asked Jason chattily, and to Aisling’s horror she realised that he might as well have been invisible for all the notice they’d been taking of him.
‘Good?’ Black eyes were slanted in Jason’s direction and Gianluca’s mouth hardened. Why didn’t this underling disappear instead of making pronouncements on his boss which were inappropriate given his youth and status?
‘How you Englishmen are given to understatement!’ he said damningly. ‘Tonight, Aisling looks nothing less than spectacular. Now come inside and have a drink.’
Aisling felt disoriented—as if she’d just woken up from a long sleep—and it was nothing to do with the car-ride or the warm and balmy evening. Because her host also seemed to have undergone a transformation, she thought—and this was Gianluca looking more approachable than she could have ever imagined.
He, too, was wearing jeans. Faded blue denim which clung lovingly to the hard muscular shafts of his legs in a way that his elegant suits never did. His shirt was made of some fine, silky material and several buttons were open at the neck, so that a dark sprinkle of hair was visible as it tapered downwards. The city-slicker had given way to elemental and earthy man and it was taking some getting used to.
There was something about the way he was looking at her which was different, too—and a million miles away from how he had been in the office earlier. Then he had seemed as if he was trying to tease her into some kind of reaction, but tonight it was as if he wanted…
What?
What do you think he wants, Aisling? she asked herself. A stupidly vulnerable woman all too ready to read something into his actions which he had not intended? What do you think that this stud of an Italian heart-breaker wants from little old you?
In the warm Italian night air, she shook her head and felt the shimmer of hair over her bare shoulders as she reasoned with herself. You are going to stop this right now. You are going to take control of yourself and your emotions the way you always do. After all, it wasn’t really such a big deal to socialise with someone who employed you. Unless you let it be.
‘Come now, you must taste my wine,’ said Gianluca with a glittering smile.
Aisling began to despair. Did that question sound deliberately erotic, or had her senses just gone haywire in the warm, scented air of the evening? ‘That would be wonderful,’ she agreed neutrally, as if he had just suggested reading through a stack of dry legal documents.
‘And, Jason—it is Jason, isn’t it?’ continued Gianluca softly, with a faint frown. ‘You must let me introduce you to some people.’
They walked out to a big, old barn, which seemed to be full of guests—a high, galleried building with tall ceilings and whitewashed walls, oak mangers and stone-paved floors. There was a split-second pause as the three of them walked in. The small band stopped playing and everyone began clapping as Aisling heard Gianluca’s name being shouted.
She saw him shake his dark head and say something expressive in Italian and then there was cheering—and the violin player burst into a little jig as he guided them through the hoards who stood to one side to let him pass. Men’s hands slapped him on the shoulder—which, to Aisling’s surprise, he didn’t seem to mind at all.
She could hear grazie being said over and over again. ‘Thank you?’she translated, on a question.
‘They are thanking me for the good harvest!’ he laughed. ‘As though I am personally responsible for the lack of frost and rain and the long, hot summer in between which has meant that our grapes were as succulent as they could be!’
How relaxed he was, she thought as she looked on the unfamiliar gleam of laughter on his mouth. As if someone had peeled away an urban layer of sophistication to find an earthy man of the land beneath.
Somewhere along the way, he delivered Jason into a group of young people and handed her a glass of wine before introducing her to a dizzying array of people including the estate manager, his old nanny, two godsons and even the local mayor!
It was not what she had been expecting and more than a little intoxicating. The genuine affection with which he was greeted by his estate workers didn’t fit with her hard and driven image of him, and Aisling was slightly relieved when someone came to claim him. Much more of this and she would be signing up to his fan-club!
He gave her an expansive shrug before being borne away, leaving her with Fedele, a charming man in his fifties, who was Gianluca’s lawyer.
‘Well, I am his local lawyer,’ he emphasised slowly, in perfect though heavily accented English. ‘He uses a different one in the city. A specialist for every need at Il Tigre’s fingertips.’ The lawyer’s eyes were curious. ‘And you? You are his latest woman, sì?’
Aisling found herself blushing. ‘Oh, good heavens, no—it’s nothing like that!’
Fedele laughed. ‘Most women would not find that such a horrifying proposition!’
‘I work for him, that’s all.’
‘Ah! And what do you do?’
‘I’m a head-hunter.’
‘Cacciatore di teste?’ Fedele translated.
Aisling had heard the phrase before and she smiled. ‘That’s right—somehow it sounds much better in Italian.’
‘That is because everything sounds better in Italian!’ came a soft, arrogant boast from behind her, and Aisling turned to find Gianluca’s mocking black eyes on her. ‘And do you know why that is, cara?’
Like a snake hypnotised by the charmer’s pipe, Aisling found herself shaking her head. ‘No. Why?’
‘Because we Italians are better at everything.’
‘That’s…outrageous,’ she protested.
He shrugged. ‘Ah, but it is also true!’
And try as she might—Aisling couldn’t do anything to stop smiling or prevent the slow, unfurling of desire in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, she felt like a non-swimmer who was out of her depth—and that was a very precarious place to be.
‘Your glass is empty,’ he observed. ‘Come, let us find you another drink.’
Had she really drunk a whole glass without noticing?
Gianluca took her to the far end of the room where wine was being served and poured them both a couple of glasses, watching her as he raised his glass. This morning he had idly been wondering whether a real woman lay beneath the outer armour of her unimaginative suit—but the
