and co-ordinate all the furnishings, colours and textures for a special room inside this wonderful old house. What an opportunity!
Her hand was trembling with excitement as she pressed the gleaming brass doorbell. Her portfolio had obviously impressed someone so much that they had asked for her specifically, and if she could pull off this job to everyone’s satisfaction it could be the making of her career! No more struggling to make ends meet—to keep a very necessary roof over her head. And if she was valued enough to be given the chance to immerse herself in a project like this, perhaps one day her dreams of owning her own studio might turn into a reality, and all the anguish she’d endured over the past few years would be a thing of the past.
‘Madame Duval?’
The chic blonde in the charcoal-grey suit who opened the door to her was assessing Riva’s less conventional attire with a quizzical smile.
‘No. Madame’s not here, but you are expected. Miss Singleman, isn’t it?’
Riva nodded and followed in a slipstream of exotic perfume as she was guided up some stairs into the main body of the house. At only five feet three inches she felt dwarfed by the other girl’s height, and wondered whether she should have worn high heels, or even a jacket, but she hated conformity. Until the other woman had opened the door she had felt smart in the belted black and grey striped tunic she had teamed with a short black skirt, dark leggings and pumps.
‘If you’ll just wait here …’
Riva glanced around on finding herself alone in a large, sunny sitting room overlooking the courtyard. Whoever had furnished this heart of the house had taste and style, she decided, if the faultless décor and exemplary furnishings were anything to go by. There was a mix of fine prints—an aerial shot of some tropical islands, some brightly coloured fish, and the most spectacular palm-fringed beach imaginable—adorning the walls.
‘Well, well. If it isn’t Miss Riva Singleman.’
The deeply-accented voice, dark as velvet, enlivened every nerve with its dangerous familiarity.
She swung round so fast that the bag dangling from her hand struck the leg of a small Georgian table, almost toppling the delicate but vastly expensive-looking vase that was standing on top.
‘I do hope this isn’t an indication that you’re going to be accident-prone.’
Tall, olive-skinned, too strong-featured to be called conventionally handsome, the man in the dark suit standing in the doorway was everything she remembered: impeccably dressed, with sleek raven hair combed straight back. His face was a familiar maze of striking angles and exciting complexity, from his high forehead and sculpted cheekbones to the arrogant nose and the hard, wide mouth that was curling now in patent mockery of her clumsiness.
‘Damiano!’
If he was surprised to see her, he wasn’t showing it. Every inch of that lean and disciplined physique exuded command, self-confidence, poise, as did his easy stride as he came into the room, studying her with those penetrating dark eyes and those cunning wits that once had lured her into trusting him. Much to her cost, she reflected bitterly.
‘I thought …’ She was toying agitatedly with the black and grey beaded necklace which lay just above her small breasts. What was he doing here? From what she’d read about him nowadays his UK home was a bachelor apartment in the most fashionable suburb of London. Not this quiet, countrified retreat …
‘You thought what?’ He sent a cursory glance over his shoulder, following the direction of her gaze. ‘My secretary,’ he enlightened her, answering her unspoken question. ‘She was simply handling the appointment.’
And probably a lot more than that, Riva thought waspishly, thinking of the string of stunning high-profile women she had seen his name linked with in the gossip columns over the years. She remembered one article in particular in one of the tabloids recently, featuring society queen and grocery empire heiress Magenta Boweringham, who, being the latest lover to be discarded by this dynamic Italian, had gone to great lengths to report that, however brilliant and focused he might have proved himself to be in every other aspect of his life, where her own sex were concerned, Damiano D’Amico seemed to have a very low boredom threshold.
Ignoring a resurgence of the feelings she had had after reading that article, Riva uttered, baffled, ‘Madame Duval …’ Her tousled red hair caught the morning sunlight streaming in through the long sash window as she shook her head, trying to make sense of the situation.
‘My grandmother,’ he supplied, his easy tone only emphasising her confusion. ‘Obviously you weren’t told she was away.’
‘No, I wasn’t!’ Hot colour washed over her skin and she let her hand drop quickly when his gaze fell, picking up on the agitated way she was fingering her necklace. His grandmother was French? Her head was swimming. She wasn’t sure he had ever told her that. ‘Did you know?’ she demanded. ‘Did you know it was me Redwoods were sending?’ Her name must have aroused his interest, if nothing else.
A wide shoulder merely lifted beneath the fine cloth of his jacket. ‘It does leave me wondering how a girl who was little more than a market trader a few short years ago,’ he said, not answering her, ‘managed to reach the position she’s obviously enjoying now.’
‘She worked!’ Rose colour deepened along her cheekbones, vying with the fire of her hair. ‘She worked, Damiano! Which is more than she’s going to do for you!’
Angrily she brushed past him, her suspicions and disappointment over not being engaged solely on her merits overridden only by her staggering awareness of his masculinity as her arm collided with his.
Shaking from the contact, in a voice that reflected all the tension that was gripping her, she uttered, ‘I’ll tell Ms Redwood that it’s all been a mistake. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I can manage to see myself out!’
Disillusionment contested with a host of other, more complex emotions as she made her determined bid for the stairs. Only the deep, accented voice behind her stopped her precipitate flight along the corridor.
‘I really don’t think you should do that, Riva.’ Those dangerously soft words masked a barely concealed threat.
‘Wh-what do you mean?’ She turned around to see him dominating the narrow space outside the sitting room, and for all her twenty-four years she felt as out of her depth with him as she had as a hapless nineteen-year-old, smitten by that voice, by his earth-shattering looks, his intellect, and his irresistible Continental charm.
‘You’ve been sent here for a specific purpose, and I expect you to honour that purpose. Otherwise I shall have no hesitation in telling your very hard-nosed employer that I shall be taking my business elsewhere.’
A car engine starting up in the courtyard below the window broke the small shocked silence that stretched between them.
His secretary leaving. Leaving her alone with him, Riva decided, with an inexplicable little shudder.
Her blood started pounding, a thundering drum-roll in her ears. Of course. He was more valuable to Redwoods than she was, she realised. And if she refused to work with him, and he reported her lack of co-operation, then it would be her the firm would let go for losing such a prestigious client—not the other way around.
The green eyes looking up into the dark ebony of his
