Falling for Her Billionaire Boss

He nodded. Perhaps it was kinder to let her go angry. Maybe it would make it easier for her to move on. His stomach burned at the thought, but he carried on. “Yes. I assured my father I’d be in Paris as soon as I could. I’m leaving with Charlie within the hour.”

She held out her hand. “Goodbye, Luca. It’s been a pleasure working with you.”

He took her hand and felt the trembling there.

“Goodbye, Mariella.”

She pulled her hand away and retrieved her purse. She walked down the hall and out the doors, through the parking garage to her car.

And once she was inside, she finally let it all go in a rash of weeping. She’d risked it all. And lost.

Chapter 12

Dawn wasn’t gray, it was pure white.

Mari looked out the window and shook her head. Last night she hadn’t given a thought to a storm, but at this time of year anything could happen in the mountains. Should she go to work, or take a day off? It was a short drive, but her road hadn’t been cleared and she wasn’t sure her little car could handle the curves. Not to mention the return drive, up the hill. Flakes were still falling in thick flakes, obscuring the view of even the parking area above the cottage.

Tommy came back in from his trip to the yard, shaking the snow from his golden coat with great enthusiasm. Mari gave him an absent pat and went to the bathroom. Seeing her puffy eyes in the mirror, she decided that there were advantages to being the boss. She made the necessary call—they’d be running on essential staff today anyway—and decided she could work from home this once. She would log in to the server at the hotel and access all her files, and if anything was pressing Becky could phone.

She put on the coffee pot and calculated the time difference in Paris. It was afternoon there already. What was he doing?

Before long, he’d be in Italy, with his father and Gina and her children. All she’d wanted when he’d walked in that first morning was to get rid of him and retain her manager’s job. And now she’d done it. And knew that the sad reality was that yesterday she’d been prepared to give it all up if only he would have said he loved her back.

She was starting on her second cup of coffee when a knock sounded at the door. She opened it to find Luca there, bundled in a heavy parka with “Bow Valley Inn” embroidered on the front. It was obvious he’d raided the old boutique storage for suitable outerwear.

“Luca!”

“Can I come in?”

She had been so shocked to see him that she’d been standing in the doorway like a dolt. “Of course! How did you…when are…I mean, what happened to your flight?”

He stepped inside, his already tall figure made even larger by the addition of winter books and the jacket. “I didn’t take it,” he replied, pulling a black toque off his head and shoving it into a pocket. His normally precisely gelled hair was in disarray from the hat. To Mari, he’d never looked better.

And she was suddenly acutely aware that she stood before him, barefoot and braless in a pair of pink candy-striped flannel pajamas.

“Oh lord, excuse me a moment!” Her cheeks went hot as his gaze remained pinned to her flannel jammies.

“Mariella,” he said, and her feet refused to move.

Just yesterday he’d said goodbye. He’d taken her protestation of love and had politely, but quite definitively, rejected it. Why was he here now?

“I couldn’t get on that plane.”

“You couldn’t?”

He shook his head. And she frantically tried to beat down the hope that fluttered in her heart. There was no sense getting her hopes up. They’d said all there was to say. He’d been crystal clear.

He unzipped his coat, shrugging out of it. When he stood there with it in his hands, it came to her that she should hang it up for him.

“I’m glad you didn’t go into the office today. The roads are horrid.”

“Yet you came here.” She turned from the closet, amazed at herself for voicing the thought so easily. A month ago she would never have done such a thing. It was more proof just how much she’d changed since Luca had come to The Cascade. She owed him more than he knew, for shaking her out of her life that had been nothing more than self-preservation.

“I have the four-wheel drive. You only have your little car.”

“I called in to say I was doing paperwork from home. I should get dressed…”

“Mari, wait.” The urgency in those two words stopped her.