the same name. Now, come on.’
‘What about the co-pilot?’
‘What about him? It’s Paul Watson, isn’t it? The one who breaks Alessandro Leopardi’s rule about his pilots not partying with the stewardesses? I’m sure I shall be able to persuade him that it wouldn’t be a good idea for him to say anything.’
‘I knew I should never have told you about Paul. He’s going to kill me.’
Ignoring him, Leonora demanded, ‘Come on. I need you to drive me to the airport and get me through all the security stuff.’
‘I do not know why you’re doing this.’ Leo groaned again, and then corrected himself. ‘That’s not true, of course. I do know why you’re doing it. You are doing it because you are the most stubborn and determined female ever.’
‘That’s right,’ Leonora agreed breezily. But inwardly she was thinking, I’m doing it because I hate, hate, hate not getting what I want, and I want that job with Avanti Airlines more than I want anything else in the world.
Yes, all of that was true—and when she was working full-pelt in her ‘I’m up for anything’ tomboy mode in front of an audience it was easy to pretend that the other Leonora— the one who longed for love and commitment, and to be allowed to be that other self she dreamed of—simply did not exist. At least for the length of her ‘performance’.
She did want her dream job, of course, and she certainly wanted the opportunity to challenge Alessandro Leopardi, to demand that he explain to her just why her sex weighed so heavily against her when she had such excellent qualifications. It was, after all, against the law to disqualify an applicant for a job on the grounds of their sex. There was no point in telling Leo about her plans, though. He would only worry. Better to let him think she was trying to make a point to him rather than planning to make Alessandro Leopardi agree that she was a good pilot and worthy of being given the job she craved so much.
CHAPTER TWO
IT HAD been a good flight, but then Alessandro had not expected it would be anything other than good. He had, after all, flown the new jet himself shortly after they had first taken delivery of it six months earlier, and had been very impressed with the way it handled.
Alessandro did not have his own pilot. Instead he preferred to use one of the pilots who flew his executive jets for the first-class-only service, because that way he got to ensure that they were maintaining the high standard he set for all those who worked for him.
Leo Thaxton was his youngest pilot, and today’s flight had shown how well he was maturing into the job. Alessandro had particularly liked the way he had handled the small amount of turbulent weather they had run into halfway through the flight, smoothing the plane through it by taking it a little higher. Thaxton had shown good judgement there.
Nodding to the steward who was holding out his coat and his laptop for him, Alessandro left the aircraft. His car was already waiting for him on the tarmac, and he didn’t so much as give the plane a backwards glance as his chauffeur opened the passenger door for him.
* * *
She had done it! Alessandro Leopardi couldn’t say now that she wasn’t good enough to fly his planes any more. Leonora felt almost ready to burst with triumph and excitement—only there was no one there for her to share her triumph with. Paul and the rest of the crew had left the minute Alessandro Leopardi had disappeared in his car.
She had booked herself into a small hotel in Florence and onto a returning commercial flight to London in a couple of days’ time. Now that phase one of her plan had been completed she needed to move on to phase two, which was to confront Alessandro Leopardi in his office and persuade him to give her a job. It shouldn’t be difficult now. She had the qualifications, and now she had proved that she had the skill as well. Plus, there was such a thing as legal equal opportunities, as she was perfectly willing to remind him should she need to do so.
They had only just reached the barrier to the private car park when Alessandro realised that he had left his mobile on the plane. Leaning forward, he instructed the driver to turn round and drive back.
Lost in her excited dreams, Leonora hadn’t seen the car come back, or the door open, or Alessandro Leopardi get out as she left the plane, pulling off her cap as she did so to let her hair cascade down her back.
She saw him when she had reached the bottom of the gangway, though. Because he was standing there waiting for her, blocking her exit from it.
For a moment they looked at one another in silence. She was tall, but even standing on the steps she was still not quite at eye level with him and had to tilt her head back slightly to look up at him properly.
His question— ‘What is the meaning of this? Where is the pilot?’—was so icily cold that for once Leonora struggled to manage her normal flip tone.
‘You’re looking at her,’ she told him.
He knew who she was immediately. After all he had looked at her many job applications often enough, and the photographs accompanying them. She looked far more sensually attractive in the flesh, with her hair worn loose. To his own disbelief, given the situation and his own normally unbreakable control over every aspect of himself and most especially his sexuality, he could feel his body responding to her proximity and that sensuality. Had he somehow known that she would affect him like this? Was that why he was so resolutely opposed to employing her? Of course not. He did not employ female pilots on principle— equal opportunities rules or not. Besides, he was Sicilian—and generally speaking everyone knew that Sicilian men had their own code of contact.
His eyes were so dark it was impossible to see their colour, and they were unreadable. But the slight flaring of his nostrils had already given away his rage. Leonora tried to clamp down on her sudden feeling that just maybe she had flown higher than she had planned. Her lungs certainly felt that the air was short of oxygen—or was that just her own apprehension?
‘If that’s true then you are in one hell of a lot of trouble—and so is Leo Thaxton.’
Alessandro Leopardi’s harsh words confirmed that he wasn’t about to treat her behaviour lightly.
‘You can’t blame Leo.’ She immediately defended her brother. ‘I made him do it. I wanted to prove to you that I can fly just as well as any man, and that I deserve a job.’
‘What you and your brother both deserve is a prison sentence,’ he told her mercilessly. ‘And what you certainly will be doing is looking for a job together.’
Leonora’s eyes rounded. This wasn’t going the way she had planned at all.
‘You can’t sack Leo. It wasn’t his fault.’
‘Then whose fault was it?’
‘Yours—for not giving me a chance to try out for a job,’ she told him promptly.
Alessandro had never met anyone so infuriating or so reckless in ignoring the realities of the situation. By rights she ought to be treating him with kid gloves, not challenging him and arguing with him. He moved irritably from one foot to the other, reminded of the presence of the invitation in his pocket as its sharpness dug into his flesh.
The invitation. He looked at Leonora, and a plan began to form inside his head. She was attractive,
