At the Italian's Command

by Cathy Williams

  ‘You won’t understand my shorthand,’ Sophie told him. ‘But I’ll run through it with you.’ She opened up the file, all business now. ‘I intend to concentrate largely on what put you on the map, in other words a bit about your background and your university education. Also I’ll list all your corporate successes—’

  ‘What about my corporate failures?’

  ‘Have you had any of those?’ Her extensive research had not thrown up any.

  ‘No.’ He grinned at her. ‘None to date.’

  The change in atmosphere was so swift and so subtle that Sophie almost wondered whether she had imagined it, because when she glanced up at him his face was once more blandly interested.

  ‘Right…so if I read you what I have…’ She skimmed over the bones of the report, making sure that she had got the facts right. ‘Then, I shall devote a bit to making you more human. You crop up in gossip columns now and again with different women on your arm, but I intend to humanise you, portray you as someone who plays hard and works hard, but basically is still prey to the desires we all share.’

  ‘Which might be what?’

  ‘A desire to make sure that you do your best for your mother, that your work is at least partially motivated by the pride you take from furthering your father’s businesses, et cetera, et cetera. Obviously there are casualties on the way to the top.’ She looked at him seriously. ‘The little people who suffer as a result of some of your takeovers…’

  ‘Details of deals are unacceptable, Sophie. Those are private and confidential. If you want to run a report on the little people who have suffered, then you can do so separately, but bear in mind that most of those so-called little people have gained quite a bit in the process. I thought we had gone past my stereotype as the heartless monster.’

  ‘I’m not saying that you’re a heartless monster, Rafe. Simply that you are typical of someone who’s made it to the very top. You don’t achieve that by being kind and thoughtful. You achieve it by being ruthless and prepared to deal with anyone who threatens to scupper your plans as efficiently as possible.’

  ‘Not a very attractive trait,’ Rafe said coldly.

  ‘Perhaps you aren’t a very attractive person.’ Sophie felt her heart begin to race. It had been a crashingly provocative statement, but, in all events, he chose to ignore it, asking her to move on.

  ‘I also intend to refer in a bit more detail about your reputation with women.’ She waited for him to challenge her on that, but he didn’t. ‘People like reading about the rich and famous, about how they live and where they live and what they wear, and, in the case of someone like you, young, powerful, single, attractive, they like reading about your love life. It makes good copy.’

  ‘And what do you intend to write?’

  ‘You know what I intend to write, Rafe. It’s nothing you could possibly disagree with. Naturally, I won’t name names and I’ll do my utmost not to make you sound like a—a reprobate.’

  ‘Good of you.’

  His eyes were unreadable and Sophie faltered on for a few seconds before grinding to an awkward halt. ‘That’s about all,’ she said lamely. ‘I still have to fine-tune a couple of things, and then I’ll have it ready for you to read by the end of next week.’ She stood up. ‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll go and have a little walk now. Down to the harbour. Let you get on with your work.’

  She wished he would say something, but he just looked at her and nodded, and Sophie miserably went upstairs. He couldn’t wait to get rid of her, to the point where he no longer had the energy to argue with what she said. She rested the file on the dressing table and began rummaging in her suitcase for her scarf and gloves. It was a bright day, but freezing. Walking outside would do her good, because right now her head was spinning with a hornet’s nest of painful assumptions.

  She had followed him around, had seen all his downsides, and yet she had still let herself be seduced. He had kissed her and her world had fragmented into a thousand little pieces and she had only herself to blame.

  Now, he couldn’t wait to get rid of her fast enough. He had kissed her and, no doubt, he would have followed that up with the whole seduction process if the time and place had been any different, and if she had fallen into his arms and begged him to continue. But she had pulled away and, really, why should he bother with someone pulling away from him? Whatever he said? His ocean was full of fish. Why go for the one that didn’t immediately seize the bait?

  She located the errant scarf and wrapped it around her, still squatting in front of her open bag and letting her thoughts run wild. Perversely enjoying it, too. What was the point of making a complete fool of yourself if you didn’t do it in grand style? she thought bitterly. It made her teenage infatuation look like a walk in the park. She slammed shut the bag and was straightening up, her joints creaking from sitting back on her heels for too long, when he spoke from the doorway behind her.

  ‘Bit rich, isn’t it? Turning me into a predator?’

  Her head swung round and she saw him leaning against the doorframe, face grimly unsmiling. ‘When you of all people should know that I would never pursue a woman and make her do anything against her will…or are you too cowardly to face that simple truth?’

  ‘You should be working.’ Sophie gasped, staring up at him from the floor.

  He took a couple of steps into the room and shut the door behind him. ‘Time for me to compile my report on you, Sophie Frey. And you’ll listen, whether you like it or not…’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  ‘I DON’T have to listen to anything you have to say!’ Sophie told him quickly.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ Rafe agreed. ‘But you will. Because you won’t have a choice.’ With that he turned around, locked the bedroom door and pocketed the key while Sophie watched in disbelieving silence.

  ‘You can’t do that!’

  ‘Just did.’ He strolled across to the window and peered out for a few seconds, his eyes registering the attractive, picture-postcard scenery while his mind sifted through what he was going to say. He turned to face her, propping himself up on the ledge of the bay window, folding his arms. She had, he noticed, managed to scuttle across to the door, not that it would do her much good considering she couldn’t open it. Nothing like an old house for a good, old-fashioned sturdy door with lock and key.

  ‘I want you to tell me why you find every way to blacken my character.’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘Isn’t it? I’m a workaholic with a pathological contempt for the opposite sex. I use them and then I discard them before moving on to yet another notch on the bedpost.’

  Sophie stuck her chin up and looked him squarely in the face. ‘I can only go on what I see.’

  ‘Which is…?’

  ‘Angela. One minute she’s a fixture in your life and the next minute she’s disappeared out of the little black book.’

  ‘And that makes me a…?’

  ‘Very unreliable lover.’ The word lover dropped into the silence between them, strangely hot and intimate and provocative. Belatedly, she realised that she should have chose a more innocuous word, maybe person, because now her head was full of images of Rafe and Angela together, rolling around on his king-sized bed, bodies glistening with sweat. She felt sick, like a rag doll propped up against the door.

  ‘And what about my point of view?’ Rafe demanded cuttingly. ‘Or do your personal prejudices forbid me from having a point of view?’

  ‘I don’t have personal prejudices…’ Sophie said faintly.

  ‘Oh, we’ll come to those later. For the moment, let’s talk about my point of view, shall we?’

  She knew that she should have been appalled at his accusation of partiality. It was the very worst thing he could level about her considering she was supposed to be doing a piece about him, but for the moment she was too busy contemplating his promise to resume the topic of those personal prejudices. Rather, his threat. It raised the frightening possibility of him chipping away
at her defences to expose…what? That she was violently attracted to him? Or worse? That she was falling in love with him?

  She drew her breath in sharply and watched him the way a mouse watched a cat sharpening its claws a few feet away, getting ready to make its move.

  ‘You seem to think that I use women as playthings…’

  ‘And you don’t?’

  ‘Because I don’t go out with a woman for the sole purpose of sizing her up as a future life mate, that doesn’t mean that I use them as playthings.’ Rafe was finding it hard to hang onto his patience. ‘Look, my relationships might not lead to the aisle, but I enjoy them and, more importantly, so do the women.’

  ‘It’s not that enjoyable when you think a relationship’s going to go somewhere and it doesn’t.’

  ‘Aren’t you viewing that from your point of view?’ Rafe asked bluntly. ‘You happen to think that a relationship is meaningless unless there’s marriage at the end of it, and you’re assuming the rest of the female population is in agreement with you. Believe it or not, there are a great many women who just want to have a good time, and I show them a good time. They enjoy me as much as I enjoy them and we both recognise that the enjoyment is temporary.’ As far as he was concerned, his arguments were perfectly reasonable, so why was he making such a bungled effort at explaining that? He shook his head impatiently and narrowed his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me that each and every boyfriend you’ve ever had has been viewed as a possible husband?’

  ‘Of course not!’ Each and every boyfriend? Sophie could count on the fingers of one hand how many boyfriends she had had, and she had never gone out with any of them on the mutual understanding that it was all about the physical.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ The air between them thickened.

  ‘Actually, I don’t care what you believe,’ Sophie threw back at him and he smiled, raising his eyebrows with such arrogant disbelief that she wanted to hit him. Particularly as he was right. She did care. A lot. Why else would she have been so inordinately hurt by his past assumptions that she was dull? Inexperienced? A suitable candidate to be looked after? She could feel herself perspiring and knew that if that damned door hadn’t been locked she would have taken flight.

  ‘Don’t you?’ He walked very slowly towards her, enjoying the fact that she had nowhere to run. ‘If you’re so indifferent to me, how is it that every time I get too close to you you act like a rabbit caught in the glare of approaching headlights, and run for it?’

  ‘Get too close?’

  ‘Metaphorically speaking,’ Rafe modified. ‘Ask too many personal questions. Raise too many uncomfortable subjects.’ He was standing right in front of her now and relishing the delicate bloom of colour that had spread across her cheekbones. He could feel the silent, throbbing charge between them and, from the raggedness of her breathing and the panicked expression in her eyes, he knew that she could feel it too. She might not admit it, but awareness was written all over her.

  He felt a peculiar excitement stir inside him.

  ‘I don’t answer questions…that is, I try and avoid personal topics because…because…’ Her nostrils flared as she breathed him in, that sharp, clean, male scent, undisguised by any synthetic colognes or aftershave. It was like breathing in powerful, mind-altering incense. It made her feel dizzy, did something to her brain so that her thoughts couldn’t seem to connect with her vocal cords.

  ‘Because I confuse you?’

  ‘No!’ Thank God her vocal cords at least managed that denial!

  ‘Shame.’ Rafe shook his head ruefully but his eyes didn’t leave her face. ‘Because I’d quite like to think that I confuse you…’

  Sophie drew in one shaky breath and held it for a few seconds, giving herself time to recover from the effect those casually spoken words were having on her, not to mention his proximity.

  ‘I’ve avoided personal…conversations with you because…’ because every time you get personal, I walk a couple of metres further along the path of getting emotionally involved with you…because you make my heart race ‘…because it’s not my job to share my personal life with you. It’s all about you, finding out about you, about what makes you tick…’

  ‘Shall I tell you what makes me tick?’ He leant into her, palms flat on the door, a living, breathing, potently sexual cage from which she had no chance of escape. ‘Curiosity. It’s what makes every top businessman tick. Curiosity to push the limits, to find benchmarks that are further and further away, to break new ground…’

  Sophie tried hard to focus on the normality of what he was saying, but was ambushed by the roller-coaster rush of her emotions. If only he was would step away, move back to the opposite side of the room, then she would be able to get a grip on herself. With him planted like an immovable object inches away from her, just breathing was an effort, never mind controlling her wildly spinning emotions.

  ‘Are you curious?’ he asked.

  ‘O-of course I’m curious,’ Sophie stammered. ‘Aren’t we all? Isn’t that part of human nature?’

  ‘What are you curious about?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What fires up your curiosity?’

  ‘We’re supposed to be talking about you.’ Sophie tried to drag the conversation back to the prosaic. ‘That’s my job—’

  ‘Hang the job. The door’s locked and I want to know about you. So answer me. What makes Sophie Frey curious?’

  ‘Oh, the usual things.’ Her voice sounded faint. A very good representation of how she was feeling, she thought. ‘I’d like to travel, see the world, experience different cultures, that sort of thing.’

  ‘What noble intentions,’ Rafe murmured. ‘A sensible answer.’

  ‘Because I’m a sensible person.’

  ‘Which leads me to wonder whether you’ve never been curious about what it would be like to shed that sensible self of yours…let yourself go without any thought for the consequences…’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because it might be fun?’ He was shrewd enough to appreciate the astounding irony of what he was saying. Doing anything without thought of the consequences was not something he had ever tried. He made money, bought and sold companies, ruled his empire and bedded his woman with one eye always on the consequences, always maintaining control. The tantalising prospect of having this woman in front of him, of not knowing where it would lead because she was an unknown quantity, made every part of him stir with dark excitement. His eyes dropped downwards, leaving her softly parted lips and straying towards her breasts, which were moving in rhythm with her rapid breathing. He knew what those breasts looked like. He just didn’t know how they felt, how they tasted.

  The thought almost made him groan.

  ‘Fun comes at a price,’ Sophie whispered and he nodded, understanding exactly what she was saying, not that he was about to let that dissuade him.

  ‘And sometimes the price is worth paying, wouldn’t you agree?’

  It was a question to which she was not afforded the opportunity of answering because he dipped his head and then his mouth was covering hers, warm, vital, persuasive.

  The battle between common sense and sheer madness lasted a matter of seconds, and then she gave up, handed herself over completely to the dangerous, wonderful immediacy of sensation, pure sensation that stripped her of everything but a powerful yearning that came from deep inside her and spread outwards, devouring everything in its path. She was in love with this man and why shouldn’t she have her little window of pleasure? Her heart and her conscience were as one and she returned his kiss, reaching up to link her fingers behind his neck, then through his hair, delighting in the feel of it.

  When he lifted her off her feet to carry her to the bed, there was no word of protest. And no word of maidenly shock when he stood back so that he could remove his clothing until he was standing in front of her, one hundred per cent naked, aroused male.

  Her eyes feasted on him. It was purely, unashamedly sexua
l and Rafe had never felt his body respond so dramatically before. He walked towards the side of the bed, watching her watching him, and took her hand in his, guiding it to his magnificent erection, flinging his head back with a groan as she touched it, shyly at first, then with growing confidence.

  It took every ounce of will-power not to prematurely end the proceedings when her mouth took over from her hand, licking, exploring, savouring.

  He had challenged her to try jumping on the train, destination unknown, to throw caution to the winds and try excitement out for size. He felt as though he were the one jumping on the train now. He curled his fingers into her hair and sucked in his breath as he looked down at her, doing such a damn good job of tipping him over the edge.

  ‘No more,’ he commanded thickly. Their eyes met, a question in hers, a question laced with amusement. He smiled slowly at her, acknowledging that, right at that very moment, they both knew who was at the controls. ‘I’m too close,’ he murmured.

  Her eyes were filled with smoky promise, which was almost as much of a turn-on as her mouth had been.

  ‘You little minx,’ he growled and, with one swift movement, he was over her, straddling her, helping her frantically tug the tee shirt over her head.

  His eyes flared in hungry appreciation of what he saw. Those perfect breasts, nipples standing to attention, just begging to be licked. But first he stripped her of the rest of her clothes, tossing the trousers to join his heap on the floor, followed by her underwear. Even with the weak winter sun breaking through the partially drawn-back curtains, her body was flawless. Pale, ivory smooth, the fine hair between her legs proving that she was a genuine redhead.

  When he bent to lick one of those rosy peaks, he felt like someone kneeling to pay homage to a goddess. There was no way he was going to rush the experience.

  His mission was to taste every inch of her and he was going to do a very thorough job of it. Starting with her breasts, which he kissed, loving the softness of her skin, before indulging in the heady delights of her nipples, suckling on them, drawing them into his mouth until she was squirming under him.