by Rachel Lyndhurst; Carmen Falcone; Ros Clarke; Annie Seaton; Christine Bell
His black eyebrows rose. “I’d like an answer all the same.”
“As I said, I’m efficient, and I will get the work done. I’m fully committed to every job I do.” She pressed her lips together so hard they buzzed. “But in answer to your question, I’m not married, and I have no children.
She curled her toes tightly in her sensible shoes, trying not to think of how confused her mother had seemed recently and of how expensive the private nursing was.
“You’ve not been fully briefed about this role, have you?” His eyelids lowered and his fingers threaded into a tent shape, their tips touching his full bottom lip. “This isn’t a nine-to-five position.”
“Overtime is no problem.”
He cocked his head to one side and inhaled slowly. “And because of the nature of the assignment, living out will be impossible.”
Dread dripped slowly through her. “This sounds irregular—”
“Your agency has been highly compensated to accommodate irregular.” There was the beginning of a smile on his lips. “And your brother seems anxious not to annoy me.”
He knew Geoffrey was her brother? She had the distinct feeling she was the mouse being toyed with by a very big, powerful tomcat. There were big gaps here and questions that needed answering, but she didn’t know where to start. So she might as well get right to the heart of the matter.
“What job exactly am I being interviewed for?”
“You’ve passed the interview, Miss Pryce-Howard. I checked your nanny references out yesterday, but I needed to check personally that you didn’t have two heads and five children. The job is already yours.” He stood up, leaned across the table, and took her hand in his. His grip sent a shockwave of awareness shooting straight to her breastbone. Her breath caught, and she was immobilized by the change in his features. A smiling Ferrante was even more gorgeous than a stern, forbidding one. Fine wrinkles fanned from the corners of his eyes, making them sparkle an even brighter blue. Symmetrical furrows ran from his Roman nose to the outer curve of his parted lips, and his white teeth were perfect, apart from a slight overlap on the lower set. He wasn’t flawless, but he was beautiful. No wonder the glossy celebrity magazines were always chasing him. And she was now feeling very confused.
“Thank you,” she said and pulled her hand free. “But I would like to know what is expected of me over the next four weeks so there are no misunderstandings.”
He laughed and then rubbed his chin as she squirmed inwardly. “You are to act out the role of my fiancée and future stepmother of my children for one month or until the business deal I’m working on is finalized. This period is subject to a maximum time of six weeks to account for any legitimate delays. Any extension or reduction of the contract duration is negotiable, but I get the final say.”
She must have misheard him. The Italian accent, yes that must be it. “Did you say fiancée?”
He ignored the question and yawned. “All expenses will be paid. Gifts, clothes, jewelry, and accessories remain yours upon termination. Except for the actual engagement ring; you have to hand that back. It’s a family heirloom.”
“Just stop there.” This was turning into a nightmare. “I was told the role was that of nanny to small twin girls and some PA work, not an outrageous fake fiancée scam.”
“Then your dear brother has not been entirely honest with you.”
“I don’t believe this is happening.”
“Your CV isn’t entirely irrelevant. The fact you’ve been a PA before indicates you know how to behave appropriately in most circumstances. I don’t want a fiancée prone to emotional outbursts, and I need you to speak nicely. I also need to be confident you’re safe to be around my children, so your nanny qualifications tell me you’re not a danger—and you have been fully police checked.” He wiggled the knot of his tie from side to side to loosen it. “There’s a proper Norland College nanny to do the real work for the month. She’ll fade into the background when we’re in the public eye, part of my security team as far as anyone else is concerned.”
Insult overrode anxiety, and she couldn’t hold back. “What do you mean a ‘proper nanny’? I spent years looking after children and took all the relevant examinations. I am a proper nanny.”
His lips quirked, but the tight movement didn’t progress into anything that would qualify as a smile. “Of course you are. But, for the record, there’s one particular skill missing from your resume that gives the Norland nanny the edge over you.”
“And that is?”
“Evasive driving training. My children are precious, and I have many enemies.”
The heat in her cheeks chilled. “You mean—”
“That’s all you need to know, but security is paramount, and you will have a bodyguard at all times.”
She shook her head vehemently. “No way am I doing this. Count me out.”
“I don’t have time for this.” His face twisted with distaste as she stood up and pushed back her chair. “If it’s more money you and your brother want, you can forget it. Nobody screws me over.”
“I have no intention of screwing you, Mr. Ferrante. In fact, I’m terminating this interview immediately.”
His steady gaze held her like a magnet. “You can’t.”
“Of course I can.” Her stomach churned. “I’m sorry to inconvenience you, Mr. Ferrante, but there’s been a dreadful misunderstanding, and I no longer wish to be considered.”
“But the job is already yours.”
She felt as if she was on the deck of the Titanic waiting for the inevitable to happen. “Let me spell this out: I’m not prepared to carry this thing forward a second longer.”
“Give me a reason why not.”
“Because it’s immoral!”
“For real?” He laughed harshly. “Your high principles impress me. I’m now convinced you’ll be the perfect fake fiancée.”
She could feel her hands shaking and fisted them behind her back so he couldn’t see how shocked she was. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m deeply flawed.”
His chin lifted. “Even better.”
“No, you don’t understand what I’m telling you. I’m not going to be your fake fiancée, nanny, PA, or anything.”
“Lora, you need to understand that this engagement is no longer optional. Not if you want your brother to live.”
Chapter Two
“I beg your pardon?” Lora couldn’t believe what Ferrante had said. “Are you threatening to kill my brother if I don’t do this?”
He looked taken aback, an affectation, she was sure of it. “Not me, Lora.” His deep voice dropped to a menacing rumble. “The people he owes.”
“What do you mean, the people he owes?”
“Your brother’s been playing with the big boys, and now he can’t pay back the debts he has with some very nasty people. Nasty people who happen to owe me rather a lot themselves. His debt is now a commodity, and its benefit has passed to me. Your brother is wiping the financial slate clean by giving me a fake fiancée for four weeks, and the fact that you’re his little sister, his flesh and blood, makes the whole transaction much more…reassuring.”
“Reassuring because you think I’ll simply roll over and do what you all say?” Lora threw up her hands. “And what if I just walk out of here and tell the police exactly what you’re up to?”
“That’s a risk I’ll have to take, but you won’t find a living soul who’ll back you up, including your brother, and the cops will think you’re completely mad. No evidence. And I have a lot of well-connected friends in this country.” He looked around him as if bored. “Besides, I wouldn’t harm a hair on your brother’s head. If he defaults on ‘payment’ this way, the debt will just revert to his unpleasant friends. They will deal with him, nothing to do with me.”
“You really are a bastard, aren’t you?”
“So that’s all settled,” he said, ignoring her insult. He slid a black folder across the table toward her. “To work. I need to arrange a mee
ting with the board of Pinerapid Aggregates for tomorrow afternoon, but I can’t decide where would be the nicest place to have it: Milan or Sorrento? What do you think?”
What did she think? She thought it bizarre that he was more interested in arranging an overseas meeting with a bunch of gravel executives than elaborating on why he needed a fake fiancée. And then there was the matter of the precious children she was to become “future stepmother” to. What about them? She had read that Ferrante had gained sole custody of his twin daughters, taken by the courts from their weeping mother, but he hadn’t even told her the basics himself. Perhaps he assumed Geoffrey had briefed her about all that when he was lying to her about being the children’s nanny. Maybe she shouldn’t ask any more questions at this point. Maybe she should pretend to go along with this dangerous scheme until she could escape from this boardroom and back to the agency office where she could throttle her brother and tell him to do his own dirty work.
Yes, she would pretend to go along with all this until she could escape; she was finding it almost impossible to think straight anyway with Ferrante looking at her like he was now. He knew he had her in a corner and was smiling, emitting an unsettling aura of power. She let out a long breath and stooped to pick up her handbag from the floor. “Whatever suits you best, Mr. Ferrante.”
“Then we’ll toss for it. Got a coin somewhere, Lora? I don’t carry cash.”
Now why didn’t that surprise her?
She fetched a two-pound coin from her bag and offered it to him, annoyed with herself at how meek and defeated she felt. “I always keep some for parking.”
“No, you do it,” he said and waved her hand away. “Heads it’s Milan, tails Sorrento.”
It was crazy, and she felt sick, but she flipped the coin. “Tails. Sorrento.”
“Good. I’ll use my usual conference suite at the Hotel Montallegro and…” His eyes slithered over her from head to toe. “And you’ll need to bring along something more feminine to wear.”
“Pardon?”
“I need you to look the part, a little less like an accountant.”
Did she look like an accountant? Well, that was good, because that was exactly the look she’d been trying to achieve. And he didn’t approve. Difficult, miserable, controlling sod. She took a deep breath “You’re expecting me to accompany you?”
“Of course. As far as everyone else is concerned, you’re my fiancée, remember?”
“Right.” Her hands were cold and clammy. “I’ll do my best, but my wardrobe veers toward the practical.”
His brow furrowed. “Stupid of me, of course. You deal with messy children and print toner most of the time.”
She bit down hard on her bottom lip to stop herself telling him how patronizing his last remark was and counted to three. “You’ve caught me unawares. I wasn’t expecting—”
“You can expect five-star luxury, private jets, and a generous wardrobe allowance from now on. Sound good?”
She swallowed hard and did her best to ignore the panic rising inside her. “Yes, yes, of course.”
“I’ll get my secretary Irene to organize everything for the meeting, but you won’t have time for clothes shopping between now and early tomorrow morning. Give Madame Farage a ring with your sizes and measurements; she’s on the contact list in that folder.” He nodded at the black file that lay on the table in front of her. “She’ll have a range of suitable clothes, makeup, jewelry, etc. waiting for you when we land in Italy.” He tipped his head sideways and glanced at her feet. “And shoes. She’s very good with shoes.”
This man was so rude. “And what if I object to giving this woman that information?”
He sighed and looked impatient. “Do you object?”
She straightened her shoulders defiantly. “Yes, actually, I do object.”
“Right.”
Before she knew what was happening, he was on her side of the desk and standing so close she could feel the heat of his body on her face. “Jacket. Off.”
Lora was speechless as he took hold of the shoulders of her jacket and effortlessly tugged it straight down over her arms before throwing it on her chair.
“How dare you!” She gasped with indignation when his large hands spanned her waist, but she was stunned into inertia by the fleeting brush of his hard fingers on her skin through the thin material of her top.
“Waist twenty-eight inches.” Her breath caught as his hands slid upward, without actually touching. “Chest thirty-eight inches.” His strong hands dropped, spreading his palms millimeters above her bottom, and she could taste his breath on her tongue, he was so close: aniseed and honey.
“Hips…I’d say about forty delicious, curvy inches, am I right?”
She swallowed and made a conscious effort to breathe deeply and slowly. In any other circumstances, she would be angry, very angry, but there was something about Lorenzo Ferrante that set her blood on fire in a completely different way.
“I don’t think—” she whispered and felt dizzy as his palms slid up her back and lifted her arms up and out into a T shape before she could finish her sentence. “I don’t think this is appropriate…” Her eyes closed involuntarily as his fingers lingered for a second on her sides, just missing the outside edge of each breast, and then she was free. Cold air enveloped her, feeling strange after the heat of a tall, muscular, red-blooded Sicilian, and she immediately grew livid with herself for melting into a hormonal puddle under his touch.
“Cup size DD.” His voice was low and gravelly, and, when she opened her eyes, he was already back behind the fortress of the boardroom table.
Who the hell did he think he was? “I can’t believe I just let you do that.”
“Don’t beat yourself up. I gave you no choice. I now suggest you tell me your shoe size because if I’m forced to tip you over and take off your shoes, things might get out of hand.”
Blood pounded through her veins as images of him bending her backward over that shiny, wide desk flashed through her mind. A few seconds of uninvited physical contact with Lorenzo Ferrante had stoked a furnace she never knew existed. Christ, he was more than just dangerous where women were concerned; he was lethal.
“Size seven,” she muttered and picked up her crumpled jacket with trembling fingers. “EU size forty.”
“US size nine and a half.” He thumbed through a pile of paper, avoiding eye contact. “Actually, let me deal with Madame Farage as well as Irene. A car will come for you early tomorrow morning. Expect a text telling you exactly when.”
She guessed that meant she was dismissed for now. “Early tomorrow morning.”
“Correct. We won’t make it in time for the meeting otherwise.”
“But—”
“Listen.” He picked up his cell phone and slid it inside his jacket. “This is how I operate. You’ll get used to it. Now, I have a whole room full of boring executive imbeciles to interview, so you’d better get home and dig out your passport. Got one of those?”
“Yes, of course I have,” she snapped back. Pinned down and helpless as Lorenzo Ferrante’s quarry, she felt doomed.
…
Lora Pryce-Howard was certainly nothing like he’d expected her to be. She was almost tall enough to look him in the eye in her sensible flat shoes, which was very unusual, almost as unusual as the bright aluminum gray of her eyes. With her brown hair scraped ruthlessly back into a tight bun and sporting the dress sense of a Von Trapp child in something made out of blackout curtains, she was the antithesis of everything he had ever required of a woman. On a professional front, he expected his staff to look smart but also contemporary. On a personal front, the women in his life had always been highly polished and expensive to maintain; his mother had at least three full-time staff dedicated to emolliating every inch of her body, and his ex-wife had been a model. His union with Ivanka had been terribly convenient and, in public, perfectly civilized, but now, thank God, it was over.
His marriage to the errant daughter of a diplomat
had guaranteed advantages. Being elevated in society and moving in the correct circles meant a blind eye was turned by all concerned to the issuing of lucrative state contracts to his alcoholic father’s companies. His father made good use of the invisible get-out-of-jail-free card, too.
The last decade of his life had been toxic. Deals, dark corners, watching his back… But, in the next few weeks, it would be all over. One last deal, and that phase of his life would end. He didn’t want to be doing all this when he was thirty-three. He wanted to be… He dared not even dream that far ahead. He could be dead before his next birthday, with a bullet in his brain like Uncle Bortolo.
No. The last property deal, the one scheduled to take place in Cyprus, would be it. His life as a ruthless Sicilian tycoon would be over, and he could start afresh with the proceeds. He only needed those signatures on the dotted line. Thank God he’d sourced a woman suitable to play a part in the charade, a woman who had too much at stake to betray him. Even if she didn’t value her brother’s life, there was apparently a safe deposit box containing enough dirt on her to ruin the rest of her life if Geoffrey Pryce-Howard had a fatal “accident” at any point. She had no idea about that particular piece of leverage, either; charming guy, her brother. He’d have made a passable gangster if he hadn’t been so stupid getting into debt in the first place.
It saddened him, but money really could buy you everything you wanted, even a sham fiancée to seal a contract with a highly principled Russian who would only deal with respectable family men. The fact that Lora was so different from the arm candy he was normally seen with would ensure he’d pull off the deception easily. She intrigued him, and he knew the Russian oligarch, Pontecorvo, well enough to be confident she’d charm him as well if she behaved and did as she was told. And she would do as she was told, because he held all the power in their relationship. All the cards. All the plastic chips her brother and his dead uncle loved so much.
Lora Pryce-Howard, though… There was something about her, something that didn’t add up. She seemed out of place with her impeccable elocution and poise, as if she wasn’t used to being told what to do. He couldn’t imagine her standing like an automaton by a photocopier day after day, and there was a vibrant quality he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Her small hands were as soft as kitten fur, and the lush feminine curves he’d discovered beneath her scary black suit caught him off guard. He hadn’t expected a woman he would find so instantly attractive he wanted to spread her wide over the boardroom table and… Damn the CCTV that recorded every move in there. And she’d smelled so unusual…like pomegranates and dew. He wanted to bury his face in her hair and inhale that scent until he was dizzy and then lose himself between her perfect breasts.
