She glanced at him, wondering why he sounded so uninterested. Perhaps he thought his grandmother’s need for a sewing room trivial and frivolous, she considered waspishly, deciding that she would do her best to please the old lady, even if it bored the socks off her superior grandson!
‘Those patio doors supply adequate light … but it still needs brightening up.’ She was assessing the space behind her. ‘It’s long enough and wide enough. Perhaps something on that wall … something bold and dramatic …’ She was getting carried away, but stopped suddenly, her arm suspended in mid-air. ‘Do you find something amusing?’ she challenged pointedly.
Arms folded, leaning back against the bookcase, the man was watching her with mocking insolence. ‘On the contrary.’ His mouth pulled down at one side. ‘I’m rather impressed.’
‘What did you expect?’ she retorted, in no mood to be gracious. ‘That I’d be out of my depth?’
‘Like you were before?’ Letting his arms fall, he moved away from the bookcase, a figure of such predatory watchfulness and cool intimidation that Riva brought her tongue nervously across her top lip.
Refusing, though, to be drawn into any further discussion with him on that subject, or anything else but the reason why she was there, she said pithily, ‘That was then, Damiano—this is now. And if you don’t mind I’d like to get on with the job the studio are paying me to do!’
She pivoted away from him, but, her temper still roused, she turned back and flung at him, ‘Why me? In view of what you think you know about me, aren’t you worried that I might decide the job isn’t really worth all the hassle? That I might decide it would simply benefit me more just to take off with a few of your—of your grandmother’s—priceless antiques?’
His mouth twisted speculatively as he weighed up that last comment.
‘One.’ He started counting out points. “Regardless of what you say to the contrary, I’m sure you value your job far too much. Two. There isn’t anything in this house worth more than having my curiosity satisfied. And three …’ His voice had grown dangerously soft. ‘Don’t fool yourself into thinking you’d find me a very lenient master if I had to come after you, Riva. You seem to be forgetting that I’ve dealt with you before, and I’d certainly have no qualms about dealing with you again.’
She wasn’t sure what he meant by dealing with her, but she certainly wasn’t going to take a chance on finding out. He was a ruthless adversary—as she knew all too well from the unscrupulous methods he had used to bring her to her knees before.
Her cheeks burned from the memory as she fought a whole heap of repressed anger and frustration.
Damiano. She’d looked it up once. The definition had said ‘one who subdues and tames'.
Well, you won’t tame me, Mr High-and-Mighty D’Amico! her brain screamed silently. But from the smile that played around his lips she knew that her body language alone had conveyed the rebellion in her.
‘You asked why you?’ Slipping a hand into the pocket of superbly tailored trousers, he perched on the edge of the table, one long leg at full stretch, the other hanging free. ‘Apart from the obvious, when my secretary rang the studio to book a consultant she was offered a very glowing report on your capabilities. In fact she was supplied with some very interesting facts about you.’
No, please!
Her heart had started racing and her stomach muscles clenched almost sickeningly. What had the studio let slip?
She saw the furrow pleating the tanned masculine forehead and wondered if the overriding feeling of panic she was experiencing was stamped all over her face.
‘I understand you’ve been there less than a year. You did a design course at home, and have more talent and flair with your limited experience than all the team at Redwoods had had at your level put together.’
Letting her breath out very slowly, Riva prompted, ‘Anything else?’ She felt—and sounded even to her own ears—as though she’d been running hard.
‘Well, that you excelled at art—’ his smile was feral ‘—but then I knew that already, didn’t I?’
Because they had talked for all those weeks when she’d felt herself blossoming in his company, opening up to him, imagining that she could trust him. While all the time she had been unintentionally helping to condemn herself in his eyes—along with her mother.
‘Anything else?’ Fear and her hatred of him laced her voice with sarcasm. ‘Like my favourite colour? What DVDs I watch? My favoured breakfast cereal?’
‘None of those things,’ he assured her with mocking amusement. ‘Particularly the breakfast menu. But as we’re to be working together perhaps we can reacquaint ourselves with the … finer facets of each other’s natures over the next few weeks.’
His scarcely veiled meaning made her tense. He might have other ideas, but there was no way, she assured herself, she would be allowing him into her private life.
‘Don’t hold your breath on that, Damiano. As far as I’m concerned you’re the lowest of the low. You might not be giving me any choice about working for you, but I do still have some say over the company I keep outside of working hours—and as far as including you in that company is concerned, I’d rather shack up with a rat!’
‘A very interesting notion.’ Surprisingly, he was still looking amused—as though her heated outburst had left him totally unmoved. ‘Well, as I said …’ He stood up now, the power and grace of his body causing Riva’s throat to go dry as the smile slid from his face, assuring her of how dangerous it would be ever to underestimate him, as he advised. ‘Shall we get on?’
And that was it? No more questions? No more startling revelations that the studio had carelessly disclosed about her?
‘That’s why I’m here.’ Her own imitation of a smile felt painfully stretched.
He didn’t know! Why should he? she reasoned hectically, her shoulders slumping with a relief that left her weak. All she had to do now was offer her advice and her skills in the way she was being paid to do, get the job done, and get out. The fact that the frighteningly potent sexuality she’d been powerless to resist before seemed to have strengthened a thousandfold since she had seen him last was something she was going to have to put up with. She only knew she would have to guard herself against it—against him—and not let her defences down for a second. After all, she wasn’t the infatuated nineteen-year-old who had fallen for him hook, line and sinker. She was a woman now, with a home and a career and the sense and wisdom to resist men like Damiano D’Amico.
The only thing that mattered was that by some miracle he didn’t know the most important thing about her, and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that he never did.
CHAPTER TWO
‘WHO’S a lucky girl, then? Working for Damiano D’Amico?’ one of Redwood’s more experienced female designers declared enviously to Riva, who had just rushed into the office.
‘What?’ Flushed, feeling as though she’d been juggling twenty balls in the air to get to the studio this morning, Riva frowned. How could anyone
