Italian Boss, Proud Miss Prim

‘Antonia,’ Rigo protested in a weary voice, ‘please try to remember that Signorina Bannister is here in Rome on business.’

Rigo was defending her? She had gone up in the world, Katie thought wryly, trying not to mind when Rigo settled his young companion into the chair next to her own.

‘Don’t worry, I know when I’m not wanted,’ Antonia responded sulkily, refusing to sit down now she had deposited her bags. ‘I don’t want to be here while you’re talking business—’

‘Oh, please, don’t go on account of me…’ Katie seized the opportunity to stand up. ‘I was just going anyway—’

‘No, you weren’t,’ Rigo argued. ‘You’ve barely started your coffee.’

Katie’s instinctive reaction was to look down at Rigo’s hand on her arm. Could he feel her trembling beneath his touch?

‘And you sit down too,’ he instructed Antonia, lifting his hand away from Katie. ‘What’s wrong with you both?’

Where to begin? Katie thought, feeling like the poor relation. But Rigo had made it impossible for her to leave without appearing rude, and so reluctantly she sat down again.

Only Rigo appeared relaxed as silence stretched between them. With Antonia sulking and Rigo paying neither of them much attention, this was uncomfortable. ‘So…you found me?’ Katie mumbled self-consciously. She wasn’t the best conversationalist at the best of times—and this was hardly that. As Rigo turned to her she was vaguely aware that the waiter was serving more coffee, as well as a soda and a piece of delicious ice-cream cake known as semifredo for Antonia.

‘Found you?’ Rigo’s sexy lips pressed down. ‘It appears so,’ he agreed, lowering a fringe of jet-black lashes over his emerald eyes. ‘I guess it must be fate.’

His direct stare made her hand shake and she quickly replaced her coffee-cup in the saucer before she spilled it.

‘Of course,’ he added, ‘if you will choose to walk down the most popular shopping street in Rome…’

His wry look plus Antonia’s raspberry and vanilla scent was a lethal combination, Katie realised, finding her gaze drawn to his sexy mouth. ‘Er—yes…’

‘And here was I, thinking you were back at the penthouse answering my calls—’ his lips pressed down ‘—while all the time you were out shopping.’

By now her cheeks must be luminous crimson, Katie realised, glancing at Antonia, who, having decided to stay, was wolfing down cake as if calories never stuck to her thighs. ‘I awarded myself a break—’

‘I applaud your initiative, Signorina Bannister.’

A bone-melting stare over the rim of his coffee-cup accompanied this assurance.

Play with fire and you are likely to get burned, Katie reminded herself, managing to slop her own coffee over the table.

She reached for a wad of paper napkins, but Signor Ruggiero got there first.

‘Allow me,’ he insisted. ‘Tell me, Signorina Bannister,’ he said, angling his stubble-shaded chin to slant a stare directly into her eyes, ‘should I want to employ you, do you think I could trust you to resist the lure of shopping in Rome?’

Was he serious? Did he think she could endure this level of tension every day? ‘If you wanted to employ me, Signor Ruggiero, I should have to warn you, I’m not free—’

‘Rigo,’ he reminded her. ‘Ah, well,’ he murmured, lips pressing down in mock-regret, ‘I shall just have to find a way to live with the disappointment.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘We should be getting back to finish our business. What have you done about your flight?’

‘I’ve bought an open ticket.’

‘Ah, good,’ he said, relaxing back. ‘In that case we’re in no hurry, and you have no excuse not to join me and Antonia for dinner tonight.’

Dinner? Tonight? With Antonia and Rigo? It would take too long to list all her objections. To give herself time to come up with a watertight excuse, she smiled as she pretended to consider the offer. While she was doing that, and with exquisitely bad timing, the same testosterone-fuelled waiter placed an enormous dish of ice cream in front of her.

‘Or perhaps you would prefer to eat something less wholesome tonight?’ Rigo challenged, flashing a vicious stare on the hapless man. ‘Ice cream, for instance?’

This was ridiculous, Katie concluded. Men were ridiculous. The waiter was still pulling those funny faces at her, while Rigo was taking the man’s interest in her for real. And now both men were glaring at each other.

Because of her?

How preposterous!

CHAPTER FIVE

THIS could only happen in Rome, Katie concluded. She knew the waiter would run a mile if she so much as showed the slightest interest in him. As far as Rigo was concerned, it was slightly different. He was the leader of the pack and brooked no competition, whether false or genuine. No one looked at a woman when Rigo Ruggiero was with her; that was Rigo’s law. But he had to understand she wasn’t his possession. She was an independent woman of independent means—even if those means were somewhat slim compared to his—and she was trying to enjoy her short time in Rome…or she had been up to a few minutes ago. ‘Thank you for the offer of dinner,’ she said, standing up, ‘but I have decided to have a lazy evening by myself at the hotel—’

‘The Russie?’ Rigo frowned as he mentioned arguably the most exclusive hotel in Rome and probably the only one that registered on his radar.

Katie had to curb her smile when she mentioned the name of the hotel where she was actually staying. ‘I can assure you, it’s perfectly respectable,’ she said, seeing Rigo’s and Antonia’s reaction to the name.

‘I have no doubt,’ Rigo said, looking less than convinced.

When Antonia yawned and said she might as well go home if Rigo was going to ignore her Katie seized the opportunity to suggest they reschedule their meeting for the following morning at nine. There was still plenty of sightseeing she wanted to do. ‘If nine isn’t too early for you?’ She tried very hard not to look at Antonia.

‘Nine o’clock is perfect for me,’ Rigo assured her, ‘but at my penthouse, not your hotel.’

As he stared at her she found the way he had seized back control arousing. But as she had never experienced this sort of power play before…

Slipping on the designer shades, he stood up so that now he was towering over her. ‘And this time you shall have my undivided attention.’

Why did that sound like such a threat?

It took her entirely by surprise when he brought her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it. The touch of those

warm, firm lips was an incendiary device sending streams of sensation to invade her body and blank her mind.

‘Before you go, Signorina Bannister—’

She snatched her hand away. ‘Yes?’ She tried prim. She tried haughty. And failed miserably with both. Haughty was so foreign to her and, with those wicked eyes staring deep into her own eyes, how on earth was she supposed to fake prim?

‘This is most remiss of me,’ Rigo said, turning to Antonia and indicating that she should stand up too.

‘What is?’ Katie tensed, immediately on guard.

‘I should have introduced you two to each other—’

‘Which I made impossible,’ Antonia cut across him to Katie’s surprise, ‘because I had to guzzle that delicious cake before I did another thing.’

Cake she could understand, but introductions?

‘Indeed,’ Rigo agreed patiently, brushing a strand of errant blonde hair out of Antonia’s eyes. ‘Signorina Bannister, I would like to introduce you to my spoiled little sister, Antonia…’

Losing her pout, the girl bounded round the table to give Katie a hug. ‘Welcome to Rome, Signorina Bannister.’ And then she found her pout again. ‘Rigo never lets me meet anyone interesting.’

Interesting? Katie was so shocked she remained unresponsive for a moment. Well, this was something to report back to the girls in the office, as was the hug, and the kiss on both cheeks from Antonia. Having hugged the young girl back, she thought this had to be the perfect example of the attraction of opposites. Katie couldn’t imagine there were many quiet, country secretaries in the world Antonia inhabited, and there certainly weren’t any vivacious little pop-star lookalikes in hers.

Now that the barrier of believing Antonia was Rigo’s girlfriend had been removed, Katie was surprised to find that conversation between them flowed easily and Antonia soon persuaded her to sit down again. Being a willowy blonde, Antonia didn’t look a bit like her tough, dark-haired brother, which meant she must be the child born when Rigo’s father had married Carlo’s mother. He had no trouble with this relationship, so why did he hate his stepbrother? She really should pay more attention to the editorial in gossip magazines.