by Maggie Cox
‘Of what?’ Luca questioned.
‘Can’t you guess? Of making a fool of myself with a man all over again! I’m sorry—but I really need to get to the bathroom!’
Turning hurriedly away from Luca’s desk, Kate barely knew which direction her feet were taking her, and the sense of disorientation that washed over her made it hard for her to focus.
‘Katherine?’
The sharp concern in Luca’s voice surprised her, but Kate was too intent on getting to the bathroom before she disgraced herself more emphatically than she could bear to imagine to acknowledge it. Pushing open the sleek walnut twin doors of his office, she found herself in a thickly carpeted corridor. Without hesitation she headed straight for the women’s cloakroom right at the end.
Alarmed at how suddenly Katherine’s face had turned so ghostly white, Luca sprang up from the leather chair behind his desk and followed her to the ladies’ washroom. Pushing open the door to the scented interior, he heard with alarm the sound of retching coming from one of the cubicles.
‘Katherine!’ he called out, following the direction of the sound. ‘Are you ill? What is the matter? Tell me!’
‘Please,’ returned a wretched sounding voice, ‘just leave me alone. I’ll be all right in a minute.’
‘Do you need help? We have a resident medic in the building. I will go and fetch her.’
‘No! Please don’t do that! I told you. I’ll be okay in a minute. Just let me sort myself out, will you?’
Uncertain whether that was wise, nonetheless Luca realised he had no choice but to give her a few moments to recover from whatever had disturbed her and trust that it wasn’t something serious.
Returning reluctantly to his office, he paced the floor a little, his body thrumming with impatient restlessness at not knowing what was wrong with her. In the time that he waited for Katherine to return from the bathroom he reflected on what she’d told him about her ex-fiancé and the fact that she had discovered him in bed with his lover.
‘Innocent loveliness’—that was how his friend Hassan had described her at the hotel, and Luca silently agreed that that was certainly the impression her sweet face and quiet voice so beguilingly depicted. Yet Luca knew her to be a woman capable of the kind of passion that made a man’s heart beat so fast he barely knew his own name when he was in her arms! A heady, irresistible torrent of heat suffused him at the memory. Had she been telling him the truth when she’d told him the story of her ex and his mistress? If she had, and she had really loved this man, then he could see how she would have been badly hurt by such a betrayal. But Luca did not know Katherine well enough to judge if she was speaking the truth or not.
All he knew was that her unexpected and sudden departure before he woke had confused and disturbed him, as well as making him question his own judgement. If she had tried to contact him to explain or apologise shortly afterwards he might—just might—have forgiven her. But in three months there had been nothing but silence where she was concerned, and now Luca was just as much in the dark about her as ever.
Katherine was the first woman in over three years, since Sophia had died, who had captured his attention, and her behaviour following their night together had been more than regrettable. There had been a sense of the most astonishing connection between them. And not just on a physical level, he recalled. Something about her had revived feelings in him that he’d thought were lying permanently dormant—either that or he had simply lost the ability to experience them because of what had happened. He had been numb to sensation for so long and then he had seen Katherine across that crowded room. The mere sight of her had astoundingly made the blood pump almost violently in his veins! How did one explain those mysterious things? Perhaps the truth was that she had caught him at a weak and emotionally vulnerable moment, and he had fantasised that the connection between them was far more meaningful than it really was?
Underlying his unhappy speculation was a longing to dig a little deeper into his own wounded psyche and discover the truth, yet the prospect honestly terrified him. Sighing, Luca rubbed an agitated hand round his clenched jaw. But then again, he concluded, his thoughts driving him near crazy, he was not unfamiliar with the rush of affection that could suffuse a man after he had made satisfying love to a woman. Perhaps at the end of the day that was all it had been with Katherine?
The doors opened behind him and Katherine stepped back into the room. Her face, though still too pale, did not look as alarming as it had when she’d run out. A genuine sense of relief swept through Luca.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised, rubbing her hand up and down one slender arm as though cold. ‘I suddenly didn’t feel very well. I’m better now, but I really think I need to eat something. I’ll just pop across the road to the deli and get myself a sandwich.’
‘There is no need for that! What you should do now is just sit down and rest for a while. I will arrange for some food to be brought up to my office.’
‘It’s all right. You don’t have to do that.’
The telephone receiver already in his hand, Luca threw Katherine the steely look that he often utilised at business meetings when someone was being particularly obstructive. ‘Yes, I do! It is fairly obvious that you need sustenance and rest, so you will do as I say, Miss Richardson, and not argue! Capisce?’
The selection of refreshments and drinks the catering manager personally brought up to Luca’s office was more fitting for a visiting VIP than a temporary PA Katherine reflected in surprise when they were alone again. The food had been laid out on the highly polished table that was used for meetings, and tentatively they sat down opposite each other to eat it. After taking several small, hungry bites of a particularly delicious smoked ham and Dijon mustard sandwich on rye bread, Katherine felt the queasiness in her delicate stomach thankfully abate. But then she noticed that Luca was not eating at all. He seemed to be far more occupied with watching her instead.
Dabbing her linen napkin delicately at the corner of her mouth, she frowned. ‘What’s the matter? Aren’t you hungry?’
‘I will eat in a moment.’ He shrugged.
His tie was still pulled away from his unbuttoned shirt collar, giving her an unwitting glimpse of a few fine, curling, dark hairs beneath the strong column of his tanned throat. Raised flesh stood out on Kate’s bare arms in immediate response to that almost too tantalising detail.
‘I am glad to see that your earlier distress has not adversely affected your appetite,’ he commented.
‘Luckily I’m one of those people who usually has a cast-iron stomach!’ she joked. ‘Not much adversely affects my appetite, I’m afraid!’
‘Do not apologise for enjoying your food,’ Luca replied with a genuine smile. ‘It makes a pleasant change to meet a woman who does not regard food as the enemy!’
Kate’s smile was more tentative than Luca’s, and she had good reason. Quite aware that she had narrowly managed to avert disaster and keep him in the dark about her true condition in spite of her unexpected urgent dash to the washroom, she undeniably felt temporary relief at not having to explain things more fully. And she felt guilty about that. A big part of her was clamouring to just come out with it there and then, confess the real cause of her distress. However, somehow she didn’t feel either ready or brave enough. Besides, Kate asked herself, was it wrong of her to simply want to bask in the warmth and light of his gorgeous smile for just a little while longer rather than invite his disdain?
CHAPTER FOUR
AT FIVE forty-five, Kate knocked on Luca’s office door—the still ominously open office door—and braced herself to ask him if she had passed his one-day trial.
As far as the work went, she honestly thought things had gone without a hitch—but there was simply no guessing what Luca’s decision would be. No doubt he was still getting over the shock of seeing her again, having her turn up to work for him—as Kate was him. After his thoughtful act of providing her with some much needed sustenance after her emergency dash t
o the bathroom he had more or less withdrawn into his office, only speaking to her when he had to. And that had consisted of little more than a couple of distracted grazies when she took him a cup of coffee.
‘Come in!’ he called out.
Taken aback to find him putting his arms into the sleeves of the elegant suit jacket he had hung on the back of his chair, clearly making ready to leave, Kate felt her heartbeat race a little in alarm.
‘Are you leaving now?’ she asked.
‘Do you not think I have worked long enough today?’ he retorted, with the wryest of reluctant smiles.
Warm colour poured into Kate’s cheeks. ‘I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t be leaving,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I only wanted to ask if I had passed your trial.’
‘My what?’ Luca’s expression reflected definite puzzlement.
‘You said you were giving me a one day-trial…presumably to see if I came up to scratch for the job?’
‘Oh, that.’ He shrugged dismissively, as if he had forgotten all about it. Then he levelled his gaze at Kate more seriously. ‘Of course you must stay! It is not ideal, of course, but it is too late now for someone else to come in and learn the ropes. Besides…I need you to act as my hostess tonight, at the party I am throwing at my house.’
His calm assertion—as though he had already assumed that Kate would agree—slightly miffed her. As awkward as it might prove, she wanted to keep this job—of course she did. But she had been secretly looking forward to a long hot bath to help her wind down after the shocks and surprises of the day. Not to mention time to work out just when and how she was going to find the courage to tell Luca the astonishing secret she’d been nursing…
‘You didn’t say anything about that before!’
‘I have had a lot of things on my mind today, Katherine. Not least of all you!’
He’d been thinking about her? Adjusting the strap of her leather bag on her shoulder, Kate wondered just what shape his reflections had taken. If they were anything like the conflicting thoughts and longings she had endured about him, then no wonder he had been preoccupied!
‘Will you do it?’ Luca asked now, with a frown creasing his faintly lined, tanned forehead.
And if she refused, risk losing both this job and the chance to tell him her news? Kate didn’t reflect for long on her answer. ‘Yes, I’ll do it. But don’t you have anyone else who could help out?’
‘Janine would normally have stepped in, but as you know she is away on holiday and I am paying you to act as my personal assistant in her place—am I not?’
Detecting irritation in his voice, Kate did not want to antagonise Luca any further. But, although she was silently grateful that his need to have his personal assistant act as hostess suggested there wasn’t currently a woman in his life, she was also curious as to why he remained single. The thought raised a ridiculously foolish hope inside her—one that she quickly and painfully suppressed.
‘I’ll have to go home first, to freshen up and change. What time will you need me there?’
‘My chauffeur Brian will drive you home, wait for you, and then bring you back to the house. I will ride with you part-way and he can drop me off first. Come…let us go. Time is getting on.’
Regarding her expectantly, Luca put his hand behind Kate’s back as he reached her, and disconcertingly—as if to remind her she really was playing with fire—a small electrical current fizzed through her at his touch.
Throwing the party at his house for Hassan, his associates, and a few business colleagues of his own along with their wives was not the strain that Luca had first envisaged. With a relentless work schedule that often included taking plans home to study and perfect he had been needing a holiday for quite some time now, but was deliberately resisting the fact. Now, as his interested blue eyes followed Katherine as she moved round his elegant drawing room, talking to his guests, he saw how easy his new personal assistant was making it for him this evening.
In a black cocktail dress, with her dark hair tumbling over her pale shoulders, adorned with only a simple diamante clip, she looked utterly ravishing. Good enough to eat, in fact! And Hassan’s business associates had gravitated to her side time and time again after Luca had made the introductions, seeming reluctant to let her converse with anyone else, he noticed.
He knew his firm of architects were the elite of the elite, and that the businessmen would find it difficult to find another firm that could match the sheer innovation and high level of dedication to the client that his could, but he saw too that having Katherine as his hostess for the evening had gone a long way towards helping them make up their minds about giving him a commission. Having just had a conversation with them, sealing the deal with a handshake, and now alone again with his friend Hassan, Luca saw that he too was watching the lovely brunette across the room.
The older man smiled indulgently as she threw back her head and laughed at something amusing the wife of one of Luca’s colleagues was saying to her. ‘Do you know what an asset that beautiful woman is?’ he remarked, not without a touch of envy in his voice.
People had used to say the same thing about Sophia, and Luca had felt a not insignificant burst of masculine pride that he was married to such a beauty. The thought made his stomach cartwheel. But they had not been so complimentary towards the end, he remembered soberly…Not when she had deliberately distanced herself from both Luca and company in general…
‘I confess I did not realise how much until now,’ he answered truthfully, contemplating the champagne in his glass with a distracted air. ‘Certainly making everybody feel at home seems to come very naturally to her.’
‘If I were you…’ lowering his voice conspiratorially, Hassan drew nearer to the younger man ‘…I would definitely not let this one go!’
Later that evening, when his guests had departed and Luca found himself alone with Katherine, he could not help remembering what his friend had said, and he felt a definite reluctance in him to bid her goodnight. No matter that she had not exactly been as keen to stay with him after their last meeting in Milan! He’d be a liar if he did not acknowledge to himself that that still had the power to sting. But now, as she stifled a yawn and smiled at him apologetically, Luca felt strangely predisposed to forgive her….
‘You did a magnificent job this evening,’ he heard himself say, his stomach muscles tightening as he picked up the bewitching scent of her heavenly perfume. His glance skimmed the alluring decollet-age of her dress, and he did not try to stem the heated desire that swept powerfully through him at the sight of that too tempting flesh. ‘You were the perfect hostess!’
‘Thank you.’ Her dark eyes shied away from looking back at his too closely, he noticed. ‘But it wasn’t that difficult—not when you had invited such charming guests! Usually I don’t find these kind of occasions easy at all!’
‘Like at the party in Milan?’ Luca suggested softly, reaching forward to wind a loose curl of her sable hair round his finger.
Katherine let out a surprised breath, and it skimmed over his skin like the gentlest of summer breezes.
‘I confess I felt a bit like a fish out of water that night,’ she admitted, a warm blush brightening her cheeks.
‘You looked like a lost little girl who needed rescuing,’ Luca concurred. ‘But I felt equally lost that night.’
‘At your own party?’
‘Sì. Then I saw you…and strangely I felt lost no longer.’
Registering the shock in her lovely eyes, Luca suddenly woke up to what he was saying, and the sense of vulnerability his confession had provoked inside him. Dio! The champagne was dangerously loosening his tongue! Better let her leave now, before he made matters worse. He might find temporary solace in Katherine’s arms again, but tomorrow he had to continue working with her—and sleeping with her, as much as he yearned to do just that, would only complicate things. Much better that he planned a sorely needed holiday than contemplate an affair with a woman who had already demonstrated
to him she wasn’t exactly trustworthy!
Releasing the delicate springy curl wound round his finger, Luca made a point of glancing down at his Rolex. ‘It is getting very late, and we both have an early start in the morning. Brian is waiting in the car to drive you home.’
Choosing not to address the confusion mirrored in her gaze, Luca walked Katherine out into the chequered-floored hallway. Handing her her midnight-blue velvet cape, he helped settle it round her shoulders, employing every bit of willpower he could summon not to settle his hands there instead, and turn her round to face him so that he might kiss her as thoroughly as he longed to…
‘Thank you again for your help this evening. I will see you at the office in the morning. Sleep well.’
‘Goodnight, then,’ she replied, her glance only briefly touching his, as though she had picked up his unspoken signal that it was better that they part and silently concurred with it.
Even as he opened the front door for her, Luca was mentally retreating. Watching Katherine walk down the concrete steps towards the silent gleaming Rolls Royce for only a moment, he closed the door behind her, as if to prevent himself from following her and fervently admitting that he would really like her to stay the night after all….
‘Oh, God! Not again!’
Kate was typing a letter at her desk the next morning when a sensation of nausea overtook her, bringing her out in a clammy, cold sweat. Frantically reaching for her bag, she dug inside it for the dry biscuits she’d remembered to bring with her that day. Just as she located them, Luca walked into the room.
‘I’d like you to ring this number in Paris for me. It is the office of a client of mine and I need to—’ He cut off what he was saying to frown down with concern at Kate’s ghostly pallor.
In her anxiety she’d accidentally swept the biscuits in their flimsy cling-film wrapping onto the floor, and as she reached out to retrieve them the heel of her shoe connected instead. Kate knew they were crushed even before she examined the evidence. At that moment her nausea was suddenly made worse by an overwhelming sense of despair. Rising up from her desk, she bolted from the room without pausing to explain to Luca where she was going.
