Italian Boss, Proud Miss Prim

by Susan Stephens

  Because he liked her voice?

  It had certainly scored highly in several categories: it was female; it was young; it was husky; it was sexy. Very sexy. And intelligent. And…sexy. He already had an image of her in his mind.

  So, he reflected, returning to the purpose of Signorina Bannister’s call, his stepbrother had left him something in his will. A poisoned chalice? Shares in a crime syndicate? What? He stood up and started pacing. Why should the man who had shown him nothing but contempt and hatred since the day he had walked into his life leave him anything at all in his will? And what was it about these personal effects that made them so precious only a representative from a solicitor’s firm in England could hand-deliver them?

  He knew Carlo had been living in the north of England for some years, thanks to the headlines in the papers detailing his stepbrother’s countless misdemeanours, and could confidently predict that if these personal effects were gold bars they’d be stolen—likewise jewellery, antiques or art. What else would Carlo care enough about not to chance it going astray? It had to be something incriminating—something that gave Carlo one last stab at him before the gates of hell closed on his stepbrother for ever.

  Rigo had been just fourteen when his father married again and seventeen when he had left home for good. He had left home after a couple of years of Carlo’s vicious tricks, when home became a cruel misnomer for somewhere Rigo was no longer welcome. How he had longed for his father’s love, but that love had found another home. So he conquered his regret and left the countryside to pursue his dreams in Rome. He hadn’t heard from Carlo, his elder by eleven years, from that day to this.

  But he had a lot to thank Carlo for, Rigo reflected, standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows in his luxurious penthouse overlooking Rome. He lived in the most exclusive part of the city and this was only one of his many properties. Leaving the country all those years ago had led to success, wealth and, more important in his eyes, the chance to live life the way he believed it should be led.

  These thoughts brought him back full circle to the girl from England he must somehow fit into his busy schedule tomorrow. Crossing to his desk, he scanned his diary. He’d just sacked the latest in a long line of hopeless PAs. Finding a reliable replacement was proving harder than he had anticipated.

  Which left a vacancy on his staff…

  If she was half as intriguing as her husky voice suggested, he would gladly clear his diary for Signorina Bannister. He would make the whole of tomorrow free just for her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  KATIE was having second thoughts. Just packing a few essentials for the trip in her shabby bag proved she wasn’t the right person for this job. She might have the heart to handle Rigo Ruggiero, but she lacked the panache. The firm should be sending someone sharp and polished to Rome, someone sophisticated, who spoke the same sophisticated language as him. Two new packets of tights and a clean white blouse did not a sophisticate make, but it was the best she could do. There was nothing in her wardrobe suitable for spending time in Rome with a man renowned for his sartorial elegance.

  A few calming breaths later Katie had worked out that, as she couldn’t compete, she shouldn’t try. She should look at what she was—a competent young lawyer from a small firm in the north of England, which meant a brown suit and low-heeled brown court shoes were the perfect choice.

  This wasn’t a holiday, Katie reminded herself sternly, though as an afterthought she added a pair of comfortable trousers and a sweater. With the tight schedule she had planned it was unlikely there would be any off-duty time, but if there was she could dress for that too.

  But everything was brown, even her bag, Katie noticed as she prepared to close the door on her small terraced house. A life in the shadows was one thing, but she hadn’t noticed the colour seeping from it. Perhaps it had gone with the music…

  She shook herself round determinedly. She was going to Rome—not as a singer as she had always hoped, but as a representative of a respectable legal firm. How many people got a second chance like that?

  Locking the door, she tested the handle and picked up her bag. Tipping her chin at a confident angle, she walked briskly down the path. She was going to Italy to meet one of the most exciting men of his day. She didn’t expect to be part of Rigo Ruggiero’s life but, for a few short and hopefully thrilling hours, she would be an observer. At the very least she could report back to the girls in the office and brighten up their coffee breaks for the foreseeable future.

  Signor Ruggiero had lied. Clutching her sensible bag like a comfort blanket, Katie stood bewildered amongst the crowds on the pavement outside Fiumicino Airport in Rome. The sun was beating down like an unrelenting spotlight and the heat was overpowering. She stared this way and that, but it only confirmed what she already knew, which was, no one had come to meet her. Plus everyone else seemed to know where they were going. She was the only country bumpkin who appeared to be cast adrift in the big city.

  And was fervently wishing she’d handled her own transport arrangements into Rome.

  What was wrong with her? She had the address…

  Having found it in her bag, she looked for a taxi. Was she going to be defeated before she even started this adventure? But each time she stepped forward to claim an empty cab, someone taller, slicker and more confident than Katie stepped in front of her—

  ‘Signorina Bannister?’

  The voice reached into her chest and squeezed her heart tight before she even had chance to look around, and when she did she almost stumbled into the arms of a man who put his photographs to shame. Her heart drummed an immediate tattoo. Rigo Ruggiero in the hard, tanned flesh was infinitely better-looking than his air-brushed images—so hot you wouldn’t touch him without protective clothing. He was the type of man Katie had spent her whole life dreaming about and wishing would notice her, but who, of course, never would—other than today, when he had no alternative.

  ‘Sorry…sorry.’ She righted herself quickly before he was brought into contact with her cheap polyester suit. ‘Signorina Bannister? That’s me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Her cheeks flamed. ‘Of course I’m sure…’

  Thrusting her serviceable bag beneath her arm, she held out her free hand in greeting. ‘This is very good of you, sir—’ She braced herself for contact.

  Contact there was none.

  Startlingly green and uncomfortably shrewd eyes refused to share Signor Ruggiero’s practised smile. He was not the man in the magazine photograph. That man was a playboy with pleasure on his mind. The man in front of her was a realist, a thinker, a business tycoon, and he took no prisoners. The hand she had extended dropped back to her side. ‘I didn’t think you would come to meet me in person—’

  ‘It is my pleasure to do so.’

  He even bowed slightly, but his tone suggested it was anything but a pleasure for him.

  Katie’s worst fears were confirmed. Rigo Ruggiero was hiding disappointment. Having heard her husky voice over the phone, he had imagined he had come to the airport to meet a siren. They had both been misled, Katie reflected wryly. Now this was not business for her; it had become personal. Rigo Ruggiero had shadows behind his eyes she couldn’t resist and wanted to understand, and he was so handsome he made her heart ache.

  ‘You had a good journey, I hope.’

  ‘Very good, thank you.’ She registered the fact that he had spoken to her in a tone of voice she imagined he might use with a maiden aunt. He was so much taller, bigger and had a more powerful aura than her imagination had allowed and was far more rugged. He was the type of man who could look dangerous even in tailored clothes. The dark trousers complemented his athletic figure and the crisp blue shirt was open a couple of buttons at the neck, revealing a hard, tanned chest, shaded with black hair. The sight of this gave parts of her that were largely unused a vigorous workout. If this wasn’t lust at first sight, it was the closest Katie Bannister had ever come to it.

  But what she nee
ded now, Katie reasoned with her sensible head on, was some form of identification to prove to Rigo Ruggiero she was who she said she was. On plundering her bag she managed to spill the contents all over his designer-clad feet.

  ‘Allow me, Signorina Bannister…’

  To his credit, he immediately dipped to rescue her passport, tickets, toffees, tissues and all the other embarrassing detritus she had accumulated during the flight.

  ‘Why don’t I take your bag?’ he suggested, staring her straight in the eyes as he straightened up.

  My shabby, disreputable-looking bag? ‘That’s very kind of you. And here’s my passport for purposes of identification.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll need that,’ he said, lips pressing down in an unfeasibly attractive way. And then, in a final cataclysmic put-down, he suggested, ‘Why don’t you put your passport somewhere safe before you lose it?’

  So she wasn’t a maiden aunt, she was a child.

  She’d made a great first impression. He even held the bag steady for her as she stuffed her possessions back inside. She glanced at him apologetically. He had no need to flag it up. Her clothes, her gaucheness, her red cheeks and clumsiness, all told a story Rigo Ruggiero had no interest in reading.

  ‘And my stepbrother’s personal effects?’ he pressed, gazing past her.

  She wondered if he expected a packing case to be following on. ‘Your stepbrother’s effects are right here.’ She patted the breast pocket of her jacket to reassure him.

  ‘That doesn’t look like very much.’

  ‘Well, it is a very small package.’ She blushed violently to see him conceal a smile.

  ‘OK,’ he said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, ‘I’ll get the car.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m quite happy to take a cab—’

  ‘So we arrive at my penthouse in convoy?’ he suggested, shooting her a look.

  How much better could this get? ‘See your point,’ she murmured with a nervous laugh.

  How much better? A lot better, Katie realised as a blood-red sports car drew up at the kerb. She didn’t need to remember the blonde in the magazine to know she was hardly in this class. A sick, heavy feeling was building in her stomach as an admiring crowd gathered around the high-performance vehicle and its elegant driver. They had recognised Rigo, of course, and now they were eager to find out who he was meeting at the airport.

  That was what she had to walk through to get to the car.

  ‘I don’t bite, Signorina Bannister.’

  The throaty drawl drew her attention to the man leaning over the roof of the low-slung sex-machine.

  A laugh rippled through the crowd as she locked gazes with him. Everyone was staring at her and she could feel their disappointment. She was not some famous beauty or a supermodel. She was about the furthest thing from that you could get. Steeling herself, she took the half-dozen steps required to close the distance between herself and the car. Signor Ruggiero had already stowed her bag, and so all she had to do was get in—but that meant she had to slot herself into an impossibly narrow-looking opening.

  ‘When you’re ready,’ he drawled.

  She had already anticipated that folding her inelegant body into such an elegant car was a skill she didn’t possess. She was right and, to her horror, she got stuck.

  What made it worse was that Signor Ruggiero came to help her, and all but lifted her into the formed seat, which she now discovered had been moulded around a fairy’s bottom.

  But at least she was out of sight of the crowd, Katie reasoned as he slid into the driver’s seat beside her.

  ‘Comfortable?’ He glanced at her to check.

  ‘Perfectly.’ On edge.

  Now she had to convince herself that you couldn’t die from the shock of meeting a man like this in person, and that the air in the confined cabin hadn’t changed with an overload of ions and his delicious scent. But it had. And it was charged with something else…sex, Katie realised, primly tugging down her skirt. Rigo Ruggiero radiated sex.

  ‘You can understand my impatience, I’m sure,’ he said.

  She gripped the seat as the engine roared like a jet.

  ‘This bequest from such an unexpected quarter has intrigued me,’ he went on.

  This was business, she told herself in a silent shout, but that reassurance was growing a little thin.

  ‘I ask myself,’ he said, ‘what can be so important that only a personal delivery of the documents would do?’

  As he glanced at her, Katie thought: And by a girl like this? She shrank beneath a gaze that took in every stitch of manmade fibre until finally it came to rest on her sensible, low-heeled shoes. She quickly tucked her feet away, out of sight. ‘I’m sorry if I kept you waiting.’

  He shrugged. ‘I must have missed you, somehow.’

  Searching for that husky-voiced siren would do it every time.

  ‘But never mind,’ he added dryly, flashing that wolf smile of his. ‘I’ve got you now.’

  ‘Indeed you do.’

  He shrugged as he released the brake and pulled away. The adventure begins, Katie thought, hoping she was up to it. She didn’t need Signor Ruggiero to spell it out. Katie Bannister was hardly the type of woman he would normally put himself out for.

  She held on tightly to the seat as he steered smoothly away from the kerb. ‘Ten kilometres an hour OK for you?’ he murmured as they joined a crawling stream of traffic.

  ‘Sorry, I’m just not used to…’

  How many people were used to driving in a sports car? Katie asked herself sensibly. She had entered a world that was completely alien to her, and it would take a while to adjust. Closing her eyes and wishing herself a million miles away wouldn’t work this time, because this time she really was living the fantasy.

  She didn’t realise how tense she had become until she heard Signor Ruggiero say, ‘Don’t worry, Signorina Bannister. I shall strive to achieve a balance between my impatience and your obvious lack of confidence in my driving ability—’

  ‘Oh, I’m not—’ Her mouth slammed shut when she realised too late he was mocking her. And now the set of his jaw did nothing to encourage conversation.

  He was hardly her typical client, but this sort of impatience was universal. The reading of a will was notoriously full of surprises and, whether those surprises turned out to be bad or good, human nature demanded answers fast.

  Katie’s hand crept to the breast pocket of her suit, where she wished fervently for some last small legacy of love for him contained within the envelope she was carrying—though, if past experience was any guide, she was wasting her time.

  OK, so meeting Katie Bannister had been a shock, but he was growing used to her unique vibe. She was as different from the women he was used to mixing with as it was possible to imagine, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, only different. He didn’t need false breasts and false smiles—but neither did he need complications. Signorina Bannister was a quiet little mouse and awkward, which meant he would have to spend more time with her than he had anticipated, but how could he throw her to the wolves in Rome? She was out of her comfort zone and had anticipated more time to prepare before meeting him. She found herself in a much bigger, faster world than her comfortable country cocoon and would have to adapt quickly. Meanwhile they had a forty-five minute journey ahead of them and he couldn’t stand this uncomfortable silence. ‘I’d like you to call me Rigo.’

  She bit her lip. Her pale cheeks blazed. She said precisely nothing.

  Ducking his head, he checked the road before steering north-east to Rome. It gave him an excuse to flash a glance at her. ‘Try it,’ he said, thinking she looked like a rabbit trapped in headlights. ‘Rrr…igo…’

  She pressed back in her seat. He felt instinctively that this was someone to whom life had not always been kind. Did he have time to be a social worker? OK, so she brought out his protective instinct, but he was no bleeding heart. Perhaps it would help if he let her know he was no threat to her—absolutely no thr
eat at all. ‘You don’t even have to say my name in Italian,’ he said dryly. ‘English will do.’

  She said his name—a little reluctantly, he thought. ‘Bene,’ he said. ‘That was very good.’

  ‘And you can call me Signorina Bannister,’ she said.

  He laughed. And for the first time that day, he relaxed. ‘Very well, Signorina Bannister,’ he agreed. ‘Your wish is my command…’ At least on the subject of names.

  CHAPTER THREE

  MAYBE the client was always right, but she was going to keep this formal. She would never get used to a man like Rigo Ruggiero in the short time available as he seemed to think she could, and so it was better not to try.

  But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy this quietly. This tasty slice of la dolce vita was her first real adventure. Rigo Ruggiero—Roma, Italia—a real-life Italian playboy driving a blood-red sports car with Katie Bannister sitting next to him. The closest she had ever come to this before was in her fantasy world.

  The view from the tinted window was extraordinary. They had cleared the boring industrial places and were driving into Rome. It was like entering the pages of a living history book—if one with a serious traffic problem, traffic Rigo Ruggiero had no problem negotiating. Her confidence had grown, Katie realised, noting how relaxed she had become. She could get used to this—the Colosseum here…Trajan’s Market there. The only place she dared not look was to her left, in case Signor Ruggiero thought she was staring at him. But she didn’t need to stare to know he was built like a gladiator and had the commanding face of a Roman general. She could feel that in every part of her.

  ‘Trajan’s Market has recently been reopened to the public.’

  She refocused as he spoke. This conversational tone was not what she expected from the gladiator in her head, but then she hadn’t expected him to speak at all. Signor Ruggiero was being kind by entering into conversation with her—and at least it gave her an excuse to stare at him. ‘Really?’