She was an enigma, this new assistant.
Beautiful. Bright. Tough. Tender.
And kissable. Eminently kissable, which was certainly not anything that would look good on a résumé, he thought, his eyes narrowing even more until they were all but hidden under the sweep of his dark lashes.
“I don’t know exactly what you would do to your boss,” he said in a low voice. “Perhaps you would care to enlighten me.”
“Don’t,” she whispered.
He reached out. Ran his thumb over her mouth. She felt her lips part.
“Don’t what?” he said, just as softly.
“Don’t flirt with me. This is business. You said—”
“Sometimes,” he said, curving his hand around the nape of her neck, “sometimes I say the damned stupidest things.”
“Marco—”
“Emily,” he said, and then his mouth was on hers.
The kiss was long and deep. She heard herself make a little sound, felt his hands close on her shoulders. He drew her to him; her breasts pressed against the hard wall of his chest. He said something in Italian; one of his hands threaded into her hair. The other rose and cupped her breast.
Her nipples budded; he groaned as the one he was caressing stabbed into his palm.
A little burst of static filled the cabin.
“We’re next for takeoff,” the captain announced over the loudspeaker. “S
eat belts, please.”
Marco raised his head. Emily raised her lashes, opened her eyes, saw that his were wide and black with passion.
“Seatbelt,” he said gruffly.
He rose and walked away.
Three hours later, the flight attendant served lunch.
“Just coffee, thank you,” Emily said, and heard Marco, several seats behind her, say the same thing.
Except for passing him on her way to the bathroom, she didn’t see him again until the plane touched down at Charles de Gaulle Airport almost six hours later.
CHAPTER EIGHT
They went through Customs together, all of it very businesslike.
“My assistant,” Marco said briskly, when the customs officer looked at Emily and then at her passport.
Try to remember that, she almost told her new boss, but she smiled politely as the officer returned the passport to her.
Charles met them at the curb, seated behind the wheel of a shiny black Bentley.
Bentleys. Mercedeses. Her brothers used cars like these, too. Why did it bother her that Marco did?
She knew the reason.
He was Sir Arrogant. All those hours of the flight, thinking about how he’d kissed her, as if it were his right to change the rules because he was the person who’d established them—