At the Ruthless Billionaire's Command

‘Say hello to Cathy for me,’ he tested lightly.

Lia’s smile was enigmatic. ‘I’m not meeting Cathy for lunch, but I’ll be sure to pass your message along the next time I speak to her.’

Gregorio stood, feeling too restless to remain seated at his desk. ‘Are you going anywhere nice?’

She shrugged. ‘Just a little Italian bistro quite close to here.’

Gregorio thought he knew the place she meant. It was tucked away in a side street a couple of blocks from here, and run by a middle-aged Italian couple. The food was both good and inexpensive. Something Lia no doubt now took into consideration with her changed circumstances.

‘I could order some chocolate cake from Mancini’s to be delivered here,’ he tempted.

Her smile was rueful as she shook her head. ‘I’m happy with the selection of cheesecakes at the bistro.’

Gregorio’s eyes narrowed. ‘Do you go there often?’

‘I used to in the past, yes,’ she answered cautiously.

‘With David Richardson?’ The offices of Richardson, Richardson and Pope weren’t too far from here, so it seemed logical to assume that Lia might have met her fiancé for lunch at the bistro for the sake of convenience.

Lia frowned. ‘You may be my employer, but I don’t believe that where I have lunch and who with, in my own time, is any of your business.’

Of course it wasn’t. And Gregorio was well aware that his questions were intrusive. It wouldn’t even have occurred to him to ask another employee about their lunch plans. Tim had worked for him for two years now, and the two men worked well together, but he had zero interest in Tim’s private life.

But Lia wasn’t only his employee.

She was also the woman Gregorio wanted, and he wanted her more the more time he spent in her company.

Which meant it was time—past time—to call one of the women he’d occasionally had lunch with in the past. An afternoon in bed with another woman would certainly ease his physical frustration.

Having made that decision, Gregorio found himself still in his office fifteen minutes later, waiting for the call from one of his security team to tell him exactly who Lia was meeting for lunch.

* * *

Lia hadn’t known how she would feel when she saw David again—the first time they had met since the evening he’d broken their engagement. David had been in Scotland—conveniently?—when she’d buried her father, and his own father had represented Richardson, Richardson and Pope. It had been an awkward situation for both of them, and they hadn’t spoken apart from Alec Richardson’s murmured condolences as he moved along with the procession of other people offering their sympathies for her loss.

Her first thought, when David entered the bistro where they had agreed to meet for lunch, was that he looked different from how she remembered him.

Or maybe she was just looking at him from another perspective? Through lenses that were less rose-coloured? After all, she had once thought herself in love with this man.

What a difference three months could make. What a difference one evening had made: David had shattered every one of her illusions about him when he’d walked out of her life and left her to the mercy of the media wolves.

He was still male-model-handsome. His hair was the colour of ripened corn, his eyes as blue as the sky on a summer’s day. His body looked lithe and fit in his tailored dark suit, and he wore a blue shirt that was perfectly matched in colour for his eyes, and a meticulously knotted navy blue tie.

Yes, on the surface David still gave the appearance of being a confidently handsome lawyer. But Lia was able to look past that veneer today. To see the lines of dissipation beside his eyes and mouth. The slight laxness to the skin about his jaw. To note that his strides through the bistro seemed less purposeful and more full of nervous energy.

Was that an indication that David was far from comfortable with this meeting that Lia had requested when she’d rung him earlier that morning?

It was a meeting he had tried to avoid, and only acquiesced to once Lia had explained that she had found some papers amongst her father’s things she thought David might be interested in seeing. It wasn’t true, of course, but the fact that he had changed his mind about the meeting based on that comment had filled Lia with misgivings. Perhaps the things Gregorio had told her about David were the truth, after all.

David was a thief and a liar...

‘You’re looking well,’ David commented, but he made no move to touch her or to kiss her in greeting before sliding into the seat opposite hers in this relatively private booth at the back of the bistro.

Lia didn’t return the compliment. Mainly because it wasn’t true. ‘I’m very well, thank you,’ she answered with cool formality.

He waited until they had placed their drinks order with the waitress and she had left them menus before asking, ‘Are you still living with the Mortons?’

‘I have an apartment of my own in town now. And a job,’ Lia added.