She may not feel like a complete professional, but at least she looked the part. Or she hoped.
The lock of hair tickled her nose and she blew it back.
Okay, she probably had time to go to the bathroom and get that mofo pinned back. Certainly if Lorenzo was going to keep her waiting here for the next millennium.
Something churned in her stomach at the thought of him, the same old churning feeling she always got when she thought of Lorenzo. The one that was excitement and nervousness and delicious fear all knotting and unknotting inside her. Tangling and pulling tight, then loosening, only to tangle and pull tight again.
He’d been a regular visitor to her parents’ house, though as a child she hadn’t paid him much attention since she hadn’t been interested in what the adults were doing.
It hadn’t been until she’d been ten years old and supposedly on her best behavior for her parents’ annual garden party, that he’d suddenly become a person of interest to her.
There had been speeches at the party, long ones for a kid like her with no attention span, and her mother had told her she wasn’t allowed to eat anything until the food had been served. Bored and restless and hungry, she knew her parents would hate it if she ruined their party, especially after her latest terrible report card, so she’d tried her best to sit still and keep quiet. But she just . . . forgot.
Her brain had wandered, and she’d gotten up out of her chair, playing a game of chase with herself through the crowds of guests who’d gathered to listen to her father’s speech. Unfortunately, one of the wait staff had tripped over her, sending a tray of champagne glasses crashing down and spilling wine everywhere. One of the wine glasses had hit her, cutting her, making her burst into tears, not so much in pain as with the shock at what she’d done. Tears she couldn’t stop, because once she was in the grip of an emotional storm she could never stop.
So she’d stood there in the middle of a crowd of important guests, wailing loudly, her parents trying to soothe the guests and make things right. Her they simply ignored since they believed very firmly that starving a tantrum of attention was the only way to end it, an approach that had never worked, no matter how often they employed it.
Then a man had approached her. He’d been so tall, impossibly broad, his face all planes and wicked angles, his eyes the dark gray of thunderclouds. And she’d been afraid, thinking he was going to go cold and tight lipped and silent, the way her father always did whenever she did something naughty.
But he didn’t. He’d smiled at her then took her by the hand and led her off the terrace, taking her into the bathroom to put a Band-Aid on her cut. He’d talked to her all the while, asking very matter-of-fact questions like what her favorite TV shows were and what books she’d read. What her friends were like and what her favorite subjects were in school.
His questions had calmed her, soothed the scary press of her emotions. Distracted, she’d stopped crying and asked him what his name was. Lorenzo, he’d said, and she’d laughed because it sounded funny.
He’d laughed, too, then he’d asked her to find him a piece of paper—any piece would do—and when she’d scrambled into the kitchen and found a stack of notepaper, he’d showed her how to fold the perfect paper crane.
It had been an amazing moment for Kira. She’d always been restless and fidgety, unable to sit still, her brain like a piece of thistledown in the wind, blown here and there by her thoughts. But sitting at the kitchen table with Lorenzo, trying hard to fold a piece of paper right, her hands busy, she’d found she was able to concentrate.
Lorenzo de Santis had given her something that day, something that no one else had, not simply kindness to a girl who hadn’t had much of it in her life, but a way to manage herself. A way to distract herself when she couldn’t keep still.
Afterward, whenever he visited her parents’ house, and as a friend of her father’s he did so frequently, Kira always made sure she was in the vicinity, a paper crane in her hand, wanting to show him so he could check she’d done it right.
He always told her she’d folded it perfectly. Always told her she’d done a great job. And she lapped up his praise like a thirsty plant water. There wasn’t much she did well, and his praise was the only praise she ever got.
As she’d gotten older, she’d stopped folding cranes, but her fascination with him didn’t stop with it. No, if anything it became more intense, gradually blossoming into a full-on teenage obsession.
Then one day she’d been on her way to the public library for a school thing with her class, and she’d caught a glimpse of him in Bryant Park. He’d been standing there, clearly waiting for someone, his expression distant. Then quite suddenly, a look of pure joy had unfurled over his face, and she’d been transfixed. By the happiness and warmth and love that had burned so nakedly in his eyes, and by the incandescent smile that had turned his mouth.
She’d wondered what he was looking at, and then a woman had approached him. And he’d taken the woman’s face between his hands, so tenderly, so carefully. Handling her as if she was the most precious thing in the world. Then he’d kissed her with such passion and focused intensity that teenaged Kira had gone red to the roots of her hair simply watching them.
That look on Lorenzo’s face, that kiss, had ignited something in her that day. Had made her understand with sudden, bitter clarity, what it was that she wanted from him.
She wanted that smile. She wanted that passion.
She wanted him to look at her not as a child, but as a woman.
Her obsession had become a crush and for years afterward, whenever Lorenzo came around to the Constantin’s for dinner, she’d try to get his attention. Try to turn herself into the woman he’d looked at with such utter joy.
But she’d only been fourteen. And he was twenty-seven. And eventually her father had packed her off to boarding school.
She hadn’t seen Lorenzo since.
Kira stared at her hands, all those old feelings churning around and making her feel sick. It was stupid to feel this way about him now, especially since it had been years since she’d seen him. Besides, she would have thought that since the accident, she wouldn’t feel such things anymore, or at least not let herself feel them, not when she knew what the consequences of giving into her emotions were.
She was going to have to pretend she didn’t feel any of the things she always associated with Lorenzo de Santis and concentrate hard on making a good impression.
Concentrate, period.
A lot depended on this. If she did a good job here, her father had promised her the money for the little business she wanted to get off the ground. It wasn’t anything major—arts-and-crafts therapy classes to help kids with ADHD and learning difficulties—but it was important to her.
Mainly because she’d been one of those kids.
“Miss Constantin?”
She jerked her head up to find the secretary was looking in her direction. “Yes?”
“Mr. de Santis will see you now.”
Damn. No time to fix her hair, which was a nuisance. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped.
Kira rose to her feet, sliding the offending lock of hair behind her ear as she held tight to the folder in her hand. “Thank you,” she said faintly and turned toward the big double doors of Lorenzo’s office.
Here went nothing.
She approached the doors then paused, angsting about whether she should knock or go right in. Another ridiculous thing to worry about when six months ago she wouldn’t have bothered thinking about it at all. She’d simply have pushed those bastard doors open and barged on through.
But she wasn’t that person anymore, right? She was different now.
Deciding that knocking would be stupid when she’d already been told to go on in, she pushed open one of the doors and stepped into the office.
It was a massive space, the sun from the hot summer day outside shining in through the plate-glass of the huge windows. The office was sleekly minimalist in steel and bl
ack: a long desk with nothing on it but a large, exceedingly thin computer screen and an equally thin keyboard and mouse. A black leather executive chair was behind it, a couple of black leather armchairs in front of it. Steel bookshelves laden with books and files stood against one wall, while near the desk was a low, black slab of a table with a simple long leather chair that looked a bit like a sofa with no back.
There was nothing else in the room, no bits of paper anywhere, no bits of clutter. No knickknacks or photographs. In fact, the only object that could be termed art was a vintage looking shotgun mounted on the wall behind his desk and subtly lit like a painting.
But that was it. The room was as stripped back and cold-seeming as the man who stood in front of the windows with his arms folded, facing her.
Her heartbeat thumped in her head, so loud it felt as if she’d gone deaf.
Lorenzo de Santis hadn’t changed a bit. He was still as tall and as wide-shouldered as she remembered. Still wore his perfectly tailored dark suit as if he was a king wearing robes of state, as if he were emperor of the entire universe waiting for the world to bow in homage before him.
His features were still that fierce, compelling arrangement of planes and angles for which handsome was too bland a word; the blade of his nose, his hard, strong jaw with its inky shadow of beard, sharp cheekbones, his eyes a dark, deep charcoal gray. Like thunderclouds. And his mouth, finely carved and somehow both sensual and cruel at the same time.
When she’d been a child, she’d had a book of Greek myths, and even though Zeus in her book had been white haired, with a long white beard, she could imagine Lorenzo as the god of thunder now. He radiated power and a kind of dark charisma, and as she stared at him, listening to that thunder in her own head, she was seized by the weirdest impulse to both get closer and run away in terror at the same time.
“Hello Kira,” Lorenzo said, his voice deep and cold as a lake full of snowmelt.
His gaze met hers and it struck her, with a sudden jolt, that she was wrong. He had changed.
He’d changed utterly.
That gray stare had once had heat to it, like a beam of sunlight she’d wanted to bask in, yet there was nothing warm in it now. His features, too, hadn’t used to be that hard or his mouth so cruel, as if smiling had become a completely foreign concept.
He had become utterly cold, his gaze like a spear of ice. Freezing hearts and icing the blood . . .
What had happened to him? What had gone wrong? Because something had. Something terrible, she was sure.
He’s not your business anymore. Not that he ever was in the first place. You’re here for a job interview, that’s all.
Shivering, Kira sucked in a breath, and tried to pull herself together. Of course, he wasn’t her business anymore. And yes, this was nothing more than a job interview. She wasn’t going to get sucked into her old obsession with him; she couldn’t afford to. It messed with her emotions, made her feel too unstable, and that was not good for her.
That made her feel too much like the old Kira and she couldn’t be the old Kira, not ever again.
She had to stay in control of herself, that was the bottom line.
Steeling herself, she met that icy, thunderous gaze head-on.
Oh Jesus, what the hell did she call him? When she’d been ten, she’d laughed at his name, but calling him Lorenzo now felt . . . disrespectful. So . . . what was appropriate?
Better to be on her best behavior and go for the conservative choice.
She swallowed. “Hello, Mr. de Santis.”
Chapter 2
She was not what Lorenzo was expecting, though quite what he had been expecting, he couldn’t have said. He only knew that the young woman who’d stepped into his office, closing the doors carefully behind her, was not it.
He couldn’t remember exactly the last time he’d seen Kira Constantin. Certainly, he’d seen her as a young teenager, but that had been around the time when he’d first met Katie and he hadn’t paid much attention to anyone when that had been happening.
Kira had been a delicate, porcelain doll as a child, with the kind of white skin that looked as if a strong wind would bruise it and long, silky, platinum blonde hair that most adult women paid hundreds of dollars for in hair salons all over the world. She’d had eyes the deep, intense blue of delphiniums, her stare wide-eyed and innocent. Guileless.
She’d been a fidgety kid, prone to emotional outbursts and temper tantrums that her parents completely ignored, an approach that only seemed to make them worse. He’d had to step in to distract her on a number of occasions, much to his irritation, but since the Constantins didn’t appear to notice that ignoring her only exacerbated her behavior, he’d had to in order to get any peace.
Lorenzo had asked Ivan once, after one of her outbursts, if there was anything the matter with her, because her behavior reminded him of his brother Rafe. But Ivan had simply told him that Kira had been spoiled rotten by her mother, and that giving her attention only fed into it.
Something had never quite rung true about that explanation to Lorenzo, but back then, in love for the first time in his life, he’d decided it wasn’t his problem. He had other, more important things to worry about than the correct discipline for someone else’s child.
Pity it had taken the loss of Katie to show him what a selfish little prick he’d once been. A man who hadn’t thought that controlling his own needs and desires was necessary.
A man who’d been just as unmanageable and headstrong as Kira Constantin had been.
Christ, he had no patience for people like that. Not anymore.
He eyed Kira from his position by the windows.
She wasn’t at all like the pretty, volatile teenage girl that he vaguely remembered. Tall and slender—maybe too slender—and dressed in a navy pencil skirt and a very plain, white button blouse, her platinum hair had been raked back and coiled in a prim little bun on the back of her head. One lock had somehow escaped and was now hanging by her ear.
Her face was almost the same color as her hair, white and with a strained look to it. She looked washed out, the delphinium blue of her eyes like a piece of blue fabric put through the laundry too many times, becoming faded and near to a dirty gray. The lipstick she wore didn’t help, its orangey tint doing her no favors whatsoever.
Even her voice sounded colorless, all faint and uncertain. Hello, Mr. de Santis.
He couldn’t have imagined a more unlikely looking spy.
Yet . . . there was something about her that held his attention. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. As a kid, she’d been in constant movement, a livewire of energy, and it was like that energy was still there. He could almost sense it. An electricity that vibrated through her, that her stiff posture and washed-out appearance couldn’t quite hide.
Letting the silence in the room stretch, he studied her.
When he’d told Ivan the previous day that he wanted to meet with her before she took up her position as an intern, Ivan had readily agreed. Lorenzo had been careful to make it sound like he’d simply wanted an informal, getting-to-know-you chat, but in reality, he’d wanted the meeting to check her out, see if he could confirm his suspicions.
If his father was trying to find out what Lorenzo knew, he’d have better luck asking him straight up than sending in this girl. And if Cesare had been hoping for the honey trap angle, he was going to be sadly disappointed.
Kira Constantin was hardly Mata Hari.
Lorenzo wouldn’t have been interested in any case. He had a lover he called when he needed one—an artist friend called Sian—who was happy to provide a couple of hours of physical pleasure, no strings. He didn’t need this poor, washed-out dishrag.
The silence was getting uncomfortable now—for her.
He didn’t mind it. Silence was useful. It made people say things they ordinarily wouldn’t just to break the awkwardness.
A stain of color appeared on Kira’s high, pale cheekbones.
“S-So,”
she said hesitantly. “Do you want me to sit down?”
“Do you want to sit down?”
She stared at him, obviously flustered. “I guess. I mean, yes. I would.”
Strange. Where had this hesitancy come from? Was she nervous? He certainly couldn’t recall her being either. She’d been full of opinions and thoughts, not hesitant in the least about sharing them with anyone who’d listen. Even if the listener hadn’t wanted to hear them.
Not that it mattered to him whether she was nervous or not. He wasn’t here to make her comfortable.
He gestured toward the desk and she moved carefully over to one of the leather armchairs opposite it, wobbling on the black kitten heels she wore. She kept her head down, a black leather folder clutched tightly in one long-fingered hand.
He couldn’t imagine what was in that folder. He already had her whole resume since Ivan had forwarded it to him in another pointless gesture toward the charade. There had been no reason to look at it, so he hadn’t.
Kira sat, smoothing her skirt down and laying the folder carefully in her lap. That loose, pale lock of hair grazed the side of her cheek, nearly touching the line of her delicate jaw
Something kicked inside him, a jolt of sensation he couldn’t quite identify.
Irritated, he ignored it.
“Tell me why you’re here.” He didn’t bother to make it sound anything less like the order it was.
She gave a little shiver, as if the sound of his voice had given her a tiny shock. “Didn’t Dad mention it?”
“Your own words, please.”
“Oh . . . sure.” Her delicate fingers had started tapping in a fast rhythm on her folder, an unconscious movement he thought, because as she looked down at her hands, the tapping stopped abruptly. “I’m here to take up an internship in your department that Dad organized for me.” Her voice was soft, measured. “But Dad said you wanted to interview me first, so here I am.” As she spoke, those delicate fingers quivered, as if they wanted to move again and she was holding them back.
He found that fascinating, though why he couldn’t have said.
The Billionaire's Intern Page 2
