Gianluca got out of the car slowly, as if expecting the bright apparition to disappear—like a butterfly suddenly taking flight. He had told her to go shopping and buy herself a pair of jeans, sì—but he had not been expecting such a … transformation in the process.
Gone was the boring suit and instead she was wearing denim—cut close to the leg and low on the hip and caressing a remarkably pert bottom. Who would have ever believed that her legs would look like that? As if they could go on and on … he swallowed … for ever?
With the jeans she wore some sort of filmy blouse, in swirls of bright, deep colours—hinting at a pair of lush and beautiful breasts beneath. And her hair was down—he’d never seen her wear it like that before. Nor realised it was so thick, or long, or dark.
The tight chignon which usually constrained it was actually hiding a midnight fall of glossy hair which shimmered all the way down to a surprisingly tiny waist. She looked, not exactly beautiful, no, but like someone you would want to explore with your lips and your hands.
‘Madonna mia,’ he murmured, an unfamiliar note of bemusement creeping into his voice. It was like finding that the onion you were holding in the palm of your hand had suddenly become the most succulent pomegranate. She was, he realised with a jerk of desire heavy enough to startle even him, the gleaming pearl within the oyster shell.
And despite every instinct in her body telling her not to, Aisling found herself responding to that unmistakable approval on his face, found her body glowing as if it were heated from the hot black fire which was blazing so unexpectedly from his eyes.
Quickly, she glanced over in the direction of the sports car to distract herself. ‘That was some entrance you made.’
He studied her, his eyes narrowed. ‘Parimenti. I could say the same about you,’ he said drily. ‘This is what I believe they call the Cinderella effect, sì?’
‘Well, hardly. She arrived at the ball in a glass carriage, didn’t she? While I’ve been slumming it in a chauffeurdriven limo,’ she said with irony.
He laughed. ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he said softly.
‘Isn’t it?’ Her own voice was equally soft, as if they were sharing some kind of secret. Stop it, she thought. Stop constructing fantasy around an unrealistic desire. Stop flirting.
There was a heartbeat of a pause.
‘Looks good, doesn’t she?’ asked Jason chattily, and to Aisling’s horror she realised that he might as well have been invisible for all the notice they’d been taking of him.
‘Good?’ Black eyes were slanted in Jason’s direction and Gianluca’s mouth hardened. Why didn’t this underling disappear instead of making pronouncements on his boss which were inappropriate given his youth and status?
‘How you Englishmen are given to understatement!’ he said damningly. ‘Tonight, Aisling looks nothing less than spectacular. Now come inside and have a drink.’
Aisling felt disoriented—as if she’d just woken up from a long sleep—and it was nothing to do with the car-ride or the warm and balmy evening. Because her host also seemed to have undergone a transformation, she thought—and this was Gianluca looking more approachable than she could have ever imagined.
He, too, was wearing jeans. Faded blue denim which clung lovingly to the hard muscular shafts of his legs in a way that his elegant suits never did. His shirt was made of some fine, silky material and several buttons were open at the neck, so that a dark sprinkle of hair was visible as it tapered downwards. The city-slicker had given way to elemental and earthy man and it was taking some getting used to.
There was something about the way he was looking at her which was different, too—and a million miles away from how he had been in the office earlier. Then he had seemed as if he was trying to tease her into some kind of reaction, but tonight it was as if he wanted …
What?
What do you think he wants, Aisling? she asked herself. A stupidly vulnerable woman all too ready to read something into his actions which he had not intended? What do you thin
k that this stud of an Italian heart-breaker wants from little old you?
In the warm Italian night air, she shook her head and felt the shimmer of hair over her bare shoulders as she reasoned with herself. You are going to stop this right now. You are going to take control of yourself and your emotions the way you always do. After all, it wasn’t really such a big deal to socialise with someone who employed you. Unless you let it be.
‘Come now, you must taste my wine,’ said Gianluca with a glittering smile.
Aisling began to despair. Did that question sound deliberately erotic, or had her senses just gone haywire in the warm, scented air of the evening? ‘That would be wonderful,’ she agreed neutrally, as if he had just suggested reading through a stack of dry legal documents.
‘And, Jason—it is Jason, isn’t it?’ continued Gianluca softly, with a faint frown. ‘You must let me introduce you to some people.’
They walked out to a big, old barn, which seemed to be full of guests—a high, galleried building with tall ceilings and whitewashed walls, oak mangers and stonepaved floors. There was a split-second pause as the three of them walked in. The small band stopped playing and everyone began clapping as Aisling heard Gianluca’s name being shouted.
She saw him shake his dark head and say something expressive in Italian and then there was cheering—and the violin player burst into a little jig as he guided them through the hoards who stood to one side to let him pass. Men’s hands slapped him on the shoulder—which, to Aisling’s surprise, he didn’t seem to mind at all.
She could hear grazie being said over and over again. ‘Thank you?’ she translated, on a question.
‘They are thanking me for the good harvest!’ he laughed. ‘As though I am personally responsible for the lack of frost and rain and the long, hot summer in between which has meant that our grapes were as succulent as they could be!’
How relaxed he was, she thought as she looked on the unfamiliar gleam of laughter on his mouth. As if someone had peeled away an urban layer of sophistication to find an earthy man of the land beneath.