The Italian Boss's Secretary Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Brave lady,’ Gabriel murmured and Rose thought she could detect an edge of sarcasm in his voice.

  ‘Not every woman likes playing the damsel in distress.’

  ‘Most don’t have to,’ Gabriel commented wryly. ‘They naturally freak out at the thought of insects and thunder storms…Well…’ he pushed himself from the wall and strolled past her ‘…good night. If you need anything…you know where I am…in the room next door…’

  ‘Thanks, I won’t.’

  And she would make sure to lock the door, just in case he got it into his head that she was really a damsel in distress underneath it all, that she really needed him to check on her to make sure she wasn’t cowering under the sheet in fear of the mosquitoes. He felt guilty, she suspected, at dragging her here under false pretences, whatever he said about the fact that she should have known the situation, and guilt might well make a gentleman of him.

  She locked the door and then locked the bathroom door as well, although her shower was quick and cold. The plumbing might be up and running but it wasn’t a comfortable experience, although she did feel clean and refreshed afterwards.

  She had to stick her wet towel half out of the bathroom window to dry naturally, as towel rails had not yet been fitted, and the ground was wet due to the lack of a door on the cubicle. But the mattress, basic though it was, was comfortable and through the open window the sounds of night-life were oddly soporific.

  Rose fell asleep quickly. When she woke up, abruptly, with the prickling sensation that something wasn’t quite right, it took her a few seconds to orient herself and make sense of her surroundings, and then it occurred to her exactly what was wrong.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  WHAT woke Rose was the stillness. The night sounds, she realised after a few unsettling seconds, had disappeared. Living in London had acclimatised her to a certain amount of noise at night and its absence was eerie.

  She stood up. She felt remarkably okay, considering bed had been a mattress on the floor. No aches and pains anywhere.

  She drew back the shutters and opened the window. Now the silence was deafening. As was the lack of movement. No breeze. Nothing. Rose shivered and wondered uncertainly what she should do. Wake Gabriel? She knew nothing about hurricanes. She might be spooked but what if this was just a feature of the tropics? Lots of noise between six-thirty and midnight and then at—she picked up her watch which she had adjusted on the plane and stuck it on—it was a little after three in the morning—at a little after three in the morning the comforting noises gave way to complete silence.

  Without bothering to think about it, Rose stuck on a pair of jeans, one of two pairs she had packed, leaving on the baggy T-shirt she had brought to sleep in. Somehow it seemed urgent that she get to Gabriel, wake him up, even if his response might just be to laugh at her and tell her to go back to sleep.

  His door wasn’t locked. In fact, it was ajar and Rose pushed it open to see him sprawled in slumber on the mattress on the ground. This would be the only time she would ever get to catch him off guard and she couldn’t resist the opportunity. She forgot the elemental fear that had propelled her into his room and tiptoed to stand over him. Awake, he was compulsively fascinating, with his high octane energy and sinful good looks, and asleep he was no less so. The sheet covered most of him but he had obviously felt the heat during the night and worked his way free of some of the covering so that part of one leg was exposed and most of his upper body.

  Rose licked her lips nervously, unable to break the spell as she stared down at his, quite frankly, perfect body. He looked very brown against the white sheets. His chest was broad and muscular and the dark hair was almost a little too masculine for her curious eyes. She gulped and looked away, but all that did was bring her gaze into contact with one leg, also muscular, also with that disturbingly masculine dark hair. She decided right there and then that waking him up was out of the question. She would sidle off quietly and her fear would gradually ease off. She was about to turn away when he spoke. Just like that. His voice ever so slightly amused.

  ‘Are you finished staring or would you like a bit longer?’

  Rose nearly teetered backwards in shock.

  ‘I…I thought you were asleep!’ She managed to make it sound as though he had purposefully tricked her into staring at him.

  ‘I was. Until you came in. What’s the matter?’ He began sitting up, which was a bit of a disaster because more of his body was exposed to her carefully averted, yet still fully aware, gaze.

  ‘I…I know this is going to sound stupid, but I…I couldn’t hear anything and I got a little nervous.’

  ‘What do you mean, you couldn’t hear anything?’

  ‘Outside. No noise. It’s spooky.’ Rose laughed nervously. ‘I know you’re just going to tell me to get back to sleep…’

  ‘What I am going to tell you is that you need to look away right about now if you don’t want to see more of me than you might have bargained for…’ He yanked back the sheet a fraction of a second before Rose could avert her startled eyes. It was long enough for her to realise that he wasn’t wearing the pair of polite boxer shorts she had expected. He wasn’t wearing a stitch. She gave a little yelp and stepped back just as he levered himself up.

  She knew that he was saying something to her, something about hurricanes and their behaviour patterns, but all her mind could focus on was the fact that less than five feet away her very sexy boss was dragging on some trousers while she stood with her back to him and tried hard not to imagine what she would see if she turned around.

  ‘…so we need to go outside and check everything,’ she heard him finish up. ‘Of course, you can stay put in here but two pairs of hands and eyes would be a damn sight more helpful than one…’

  Slowly her fuzzy brain clunked back into gear and she looked at him worriedly. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I thought I’d just made it clear.’ Gabriel paused to look at her as he pulled on a T-shirt. He was still getting over the pleasant sensation of knowing that she was staring at him. It had been crazily sexy. And now she was looking at him, all wide-eyed and feminine, after his quip the night before when she had told him in no uncertain terms that she didn’t enjoy playing the damsel in distress. He was very tempted to remind her of her statement but he thought that that might have been pushing his luck too far.

  Uppermost in his mind was the fact that they had to go and do the checks which he had anticipated doing during daylight hours. Nevertheless he couldn’t stop his eyes from straying just that little bit, noticing that her T-shirt, baggy though it was, still revealed the glaring fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  ‘The calm before the storm…’He headed for the door and she followed, even more spooked by the fact that he actually looked concerned. Gabriel was not a man to be easily rattled. But he was moving quickly now, switching on the lights in the house, warning her that the luxury of electricity might not be with them for too long.

  ‘We’ll circle the place together,’ he told her, pausing only once when they were outside so that he could look around him, as though judging the gravity of the situation from tell-tale signs she was not aware of. ‘There should be nothing to retrieve, but you can never tell.’

  Rose shivered at the tone of his voice and edged a little closer to him.

  With no cooling effect from the sea breeze, it was muggy outside and very dark. The lights inside the sprawling house illuminated a small patch just outside the double-fronted doors which led out to the gardens overlooking the sea, but beyond that was inky-black, scarily black. Rose had never seen anything quite like it. She was accustomed to a certain amount of light pollution that came from living in London. Just as she was accustomed to the constant low level noise.

  ‘It’s going to happen, isn’t it?’

  ‘You don’t have to whisper.’ He had brought two torches. She had no idea when he had grabbed those, but they were invaluable now as they fanned them along the walls of the villa,
both of them moving quickly and finding, to Gabriel’s satisfaction, that everything was as it should be.

  ‘Right. Now, inside.’ They had covered the outside in a little under forty minutes. ‘There’s no phone link here yet so I won’t be able to check on the Internet for any updates with the weather patterns, but we’ll fill some buckets with water and cover them. Come in handy for having a wash in the morning. We’ll also start lighting some oil lamps and candles, but no candles where they can be a fire hazard. Think you can manage?’

  Rose wondered what he would do if she said no. He hadn’t brought her over here to look after her. First and foremost, she was his practical secretary, after all!

  ‘Think so!’ she assured him briskly.

  ‘Good girl.’

  They hadn’t made it back to the front doors when the eerie stillness was broken dramatically by a flash of lightning that forked across the sky and was accompanied almost immediately by a clap of thunder that was loud enough to make her ears ring. And then an ominous sound that grew louder as they ran towards the house, hampered by the fact that they had to dodge the usual building debris that was neatly stacked but still an impediment to a clear path.

  ‘Rain!’ Gabriel shouted just as it came, in one gusty, raging downpour that was accompanied by the howl of winds gathering speed.

  Rose had never experienced anything like it. In under thirty seconds she was drenched. When she looked to her left, she could see the palm trees bending as though some powerful force was trying hard to suck them out of the ground. She had to battle not to be blown backwards.

  They slammed shut the door behind them as soon as they were in the safety of the house, and then Gabriel was moving quickly and purposefully, knowing exactly where to go to find the oil lamps. He had obviously given very detailed instructions to the foreman before they’d travelled over and that didn’t surprise Rose. He would have considered everything.

  ‘I know you’re probably uncomfortable in those wet things, but let’s sort out the lamps here and then we can both go and change.’

  Even though his attention was elsewhere, Rose was still horribly aware of the T-shirt clinging to her body, outlining her breasts and leaving nothing to the imagination. She surreptitiously tried to flap it into good behaviour but no chance and she couldn’t possibly skulk off to change, not when they were clearly facing an emergency situation that needed all hands on deck.

  So she did as she was instructed and tried not to stare down at her soaked body and the way her breasts were visible and bouncing under the fine cotton.

  From outside came the terrifying sound of strong winds battering at the walls and the distant noises of objects being hurled around outside, obviously things they had missed in their inspection of the grounds.

  She was beginning to feel cold in the wet clothes and she had to make a big effort not to let her teeth chatter. Visions of the sea rising up the incline in one ferocious tidal wave did nothing to calm her jittery nerves.

  In a God-given stroke of luck, they had finished lighting the last of four oil lamps when the electricity went, leaving them in total darkness save for the watery light from the lamps.

  ‘Right.’ Gabriel handed her two of the oil lamps. ‘At least these are lit and there are candles in the bedrooms, although these should do for the moment. You okay?’

  No. ‘Fine. I’m a dab hand at crisis situations like this!’

  In the darkness, she was aware of Gabriel grinning at her. ‘When all else fails, a sense of humour is all a person needs to keep going. Keep it up!’

  ‘I’ll try but I was never good at being a mascot.’

  They had found themselves back in the bedroom. Hers.

  ‘You’ll need to change and then we should bunk down in one room. Just in case.’

  ‘Just in case what?’

  ‘Just in case this bad weather really kicks in. A strong hurricane can take the roof off a building, although we shouldn’t be in too much danger here. But better safe than sorry. If the situation deteriorates, I don’t want to have to come looking for you.’

  Rose acquiesced quickly. She certainly didn’t want to be on her own just now.

  ‘I’ll be in with you in a minute. As soon as I’ve changed.’

  She did. Quickly. Into her other remaining pair of jeans and a cotton T-shirt, with her bra safely underneath. Her wet clothes she laid carefully out on the floor although she didn’t rate the chances of them drying in a hurry.

  The wind was managing to find all sorts of cracks and crevices and the noise was incredible. She almost expected it to sweep through the walls and lift her off her feet, but of course she was safe from that. Even so, it was a relief when she was standing outside Gabriel’s room, banging on the door to warn him that she was coming in, relieved to find that he, too, had changed, although into boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

  ‘You’re going to be comfortable trying to sleep in that getup?’

  ‘I’ll be fine! Shall we get my mattress in?’

  ‘Give me a minute.’

  Literally a minute and back he was, having hauled her single mattress into his room and plopped it alongside his.

  Now, suddenly, the comforting presence of another body next to hers when the whole world outside seemed to be going mad, didn’t seem like quite such a brilliant idea.

  ‘You look green,’ Gabriel said. ‘Don’t worry. The building won’t collapse around our ears. You forget that I’ve overseen everything from the foundations to where the walls go, and that I know quite a bit about the structure of buildings and what makes them solid.’

  Rose was quietly relieved that he had misinterpreted her sick look. She was also heartily relieved that the only lighting in the room was from two oil lamps, the other two having been dimmed to their lowest level and placed in the bathroom.

  ‘Do you want anything to eat?’ he asked, interrupting the disastrous train of her thoughts and she shook her head.

  ‘Okay. In that case, you definitely need something to drink. Wait here.’

  He didn’t give her time to argue, not that she was going to. She could feel exhaustion creeping over her, but the sickening anticipation of lying down next to him was a more powerful force and promised to keep her eyes wide open for what remained of the night. She didn’t make a habit of drinking but she sure as hell figured that there couldn’t be a better time for a glass or two of whatever he managed to rustle up.

  It was dark rum. And soda water, both of which were in plentiful supply. The workmen weren’t allowed to drink on the premises, he told her, but he doubted that held true when they slept there most nights. He had brought the bottle in along with six plastic bottles of soda water and two glasses.

  It tasted great. She drank the first one quickly and the effects were pleasantly immediate. Her nerves were beginning to do a disappearing act. In fact, after her second drink, it felt fine to be sitting cross-legged on the mattress, facing him, chatting about their experiences of being caught up in bad weather. Since Rose had precious little, most of the chat came from him and she was more than happy to listen to him as he talked to her. The deluge clattering down against the walls and on the roof and the angry roar of the wind as it gusted along the coastline were a lot easier to bear after some alcohol.

  Eventually, Rose yawned.

  ‘Sleepy?’

  ‘Suddenly.’

  ‘You’ll never get to sleep in those jeans, you know, and as soon as you do, you’ll wake up because you’ll be too hot.’ He fiddled with the base of the oil lamp and dimmed it so that the room was plunged into near darkness. He had slipped under the sheet, his own sheet, and Rose felt safely tucked away from him.

  ‘And as soon as you realise you’re hot, you’ll also realise that they’re not quite loose enough to allow you to breathe easily and then you’ll spend tomorrow feeling like hell because you’ve had a sleepless night.’ He yawned widely and rolled over on to his side with his back to her, leaving her to ponder, in a very unfocused manner, his wo
rds of advice.

  She waited a while, thinking that, yes, the jeans did feel very tight, now that he had mentioned it. It also felt ridiculous to be trying to sleep fully clothed. It was a psychological thing, of course, but once she got it into her head that she was uncomfortable, she couldn’t rid herself of the notion that she wouldn’t get a wink of sleep unless she took the damned trousers off.

  So she did, as unobtrusively as she could. And, while she was at it, she also removed her bra and breathed a little sigh of relief. Both items she placed very carefully next to the mattress, within easy reach for when she got up to stick them back on.

  Gabriel, she could tell, was already asleep. She could see it in the rhythmic rise and fall of his shoulders, and her own eyelids were beginning to droop.

  The alcohol was working on her like an anaesthetic. She could almost physically feel it drugging her into slumber and then she was gone.

  Peace lasted all of an hour and a half. Then came her need to go to the bathroom, something she had failed to take into consideration when she had been happily allowing the rum and sodas to relax her.

  The wind was still howling. Rose was tempted to grope her way to the window and peep outside, just to see what was going on, but that would risk waking Gabriel, which was something she intended to avoid.

  So she made do with going to the toilet then, with just the flickering light from the oil lamp, her wandering eyes fastened on the one thing she didn’t want to see. Right there above the door was something the size of a small saucer, and it was alive. Motionless but alive. And hairy. The sound of the storm outside was nothing compared to the pounding of her heart. Could spiders smell fear? she wondered. Like sharks?

  She washed her hands. Then, and she didn’t know how she managed to achieve this, she tiptoed across to the door, one eye on the spider, the other on her flight path, yanked it open and literally leapt on to the mattress, colliding with Gabriel, who awoke with the sudden alertness of a cat.

  ‘What the hell is going on?’