Happy Mother's Day!

‘Why not? Acquisitions excite me.’

Something about the way he said it unsettled her. All successful businessmen were constantly seeking out the new. Like sharks, they were never still—the very best of them always looking out to make a killing, because you never stayed at the top by remaining stagnant.

Maybe that attitude had spilled over into his private life, too. Was that why he had never settled down with one woman—because he conducted his private life on a similar scale? Had she just been another, rather unexpected ‘acquisition'?

Angrily, she straightened the pen, so that it lay at a perfect right angle to the blotter. This was why people didn’t have affairs at work—because you started to think about everything in how it related to you, instead of how it related to the business!

‘Is something wrong, Aisling?’ he murmured.

‘Wrong? No. Why should anything be wrong?’

He shrugged, but, oh, he was enjoying this—watching Little Miss Prim try not to react to him and failing hopelessly. ‘You were glaring.’

‘Was I?’ She shrugged right back and met his eyes defiantly. ‘Probably because I often glare when I concentrate.’

‘I see.’

Was he laughing at her? wondered Aisling furiously.

There was a knock on the door and Ginger brought in a tray of coffee. Aisling noted that, not only had she made a whole potful of the stuff, but she must have nipped out to the deli next door for some of their fancy biscuits.

‘What a lot of trouble you have gone to, Ginger,’ murmured Gianluca.

Had he deliberately exaggerated his accent to make the first syllable of her name rhyme with ‘jean'? wondered Aisling. And did Ginger really have to bat her eyelashes at him like some amateur vamp as she breathed out her breathless response?

‘Oh, it’s no trouble, Gianluca!’

Aisling wonder

ed how he would have reacted if he had been given a mugful of the rather mediocre instant coffee which was what they usually drank, but she didn’t say anything. She waited until the door had closed behind her before picking up the pot and forcing her mind back to his hotel. ‘The Vinoly,’ she mused. ‘Second biggest hotel in London after the Granchester, and an architectural gem. I guess congratulations must be in order.’

His dark eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘You sound doubtful,’ he observed.

‘Well, it’s a bit of a departure for you. You usually deal in smaller, boutique hotels.’ She poured him a cup of coffee and pushed it across the desk in front of him. ‘Biscuit?’

He shook his head.

Aisling poured her own. ‘Won’t this affect the industry’s view of you? Isn’t it a slightly risky strategy?’

Gianluca stared at her with something approaching admiration—at her icy blue eyes which gave away precisely nothing. Had he been expecting her to be cowed by his insistence on this meeting? Perhaps for her to display irritation towards the secretary who was so obviously flirting with him? Or maybe to gush just a little, recognising that a man who could afford to buy the Vinoly must be a very rich man indeed—and he knew only too well how most women responded to wealth.

And hadn’t there been a tiny part of his mind which had wondered whether she might behave as other women in her position might have done? That, having known the pleasures of his body, she might lock the office door and slide off her panties and come over here and sit on his lap.

But no—the expression she presented to him was completely professional and the objections she voiced were exactly as they should be. And the cool expression on her face was starting to make him wonder whether he’d actually dreamt the whole seduction.

As a client he applauded it, while as a man, it irritated the hell out of him. There had been not one intimation—not a single hint—that they had shared a night of passion in his bed, and in truth he found that deeply insulting. Did she have no feelings?

His mouth hardened. Perhaps she imagined that by remaining so composed in his presence she would make him want her even more.

And she was right, damn her!

He was the one who usually compartmentalised—and it was not a trait he particularly admired in the opposite sex. He liked his women warm and soft and available—ready to juggle their schedules to fit in with his busy life.

He sipped the coffee, which was surprisingly good, finding himself in the curious position of having to force his mind back to work instead of the memory of her pale, curving body revealed by his removal of that rather plain underwear.

‘You are doubting my ability to expand into this particular market?’ he demanded.

‘No, of course I’m not. And I can find whoever you need to staff it. I assume you’ll want a new general manager—someone who will put your own particular stamp on the place?’