So now here she was—alone. She wouldn’t have wanted to be with Sam still. No, in retrospect, he hadn’t been the man for her, even though he had ticked a lot of the right boxes. But shouldn’t she have moved on? Be having a good time finding his replacement? Somewhere?
She lived in London, for heaven’s sake!
Frustrated with the direction of her thoughts, she slammed shut the French doors at the back so that she couldn’t be reminded of what she was missing by the smell of barbecue wafting into her house.
Then she had a shower.
Then, in a pair of tiny shorts and a cropped top, she prepared to wait out the annoying train of thoughts that were suddenly bothering her.
For which she blamed her wretched boss, who had somehow managed to get under her skin, to make her feel somehow inadequate...
And as soon as she started thinking about Alessandro she found that she couldn’t stop.
He was just so alive and vital and brimming over with restless energy. Next to him, she felt like a pale, listless shadow, going through the motions of having a fulfilling life when she wasn’t.
Absorbed in pointless speculation, she was only aware of the doorbell when it was depressed with such insistency that she was forced to dash and pull open the door or else risk her neighbours complaining about noise pollution.
Alessandro Preda was the last person she’d expected to see standing on her doorstep. In fact she blinked rapidly, trying to clear her vision and turn him into someone else. But, no, he was still there. Tall, dynamic, broad-shouldered, and way too exotically good-looking for London suburbia.
He didn’t say a word. Just looked at her. He had obviously come straight from work because he was still in his work trousers—charcoal grey, super conventional, and yet on him somehow not quite. But there was no jacket, and he had shoved the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows, revealing muscled forearms liberally sprinkled with dark hair.
She seemed to have forgotten how to speak.
‘Are you going to ask me in?’
Alessandro eventually broke the silence. It took some effort. He had wanted to catch her by surprise, had been driven by sheer curiosity to see her somewhere—anywhere—that wasn’t to do with the office.
But he hadn’t expected this.
This wasn’t the starchy woman who occupied her own office three floors down in his building. Removed from the files, the computers, the telephones and the uninspiring range of suits in various shades of grey, this was a different woman altogether.
This was the woman he had glimpsed at the restaurant.
She was in a pair of shorts and a small top, and her hair was long and tied back in a ponytail that swung down her back.
Where had that body come from? She was long and slender, her stomach flat, her breasts...
He broke out in a fine film of perspiration. It was the sort of reaction he never experienced, and his awareness of her, his physical awareness of her, was intense, immediate—a rush of blood invading his body in a tidal surge.
She wasn’t wearing a bra.
‘What are you doing here?’
It was a breathless, angry question. She could barely deal with him at the office—was at war with herself and her puzzling reaction to him. How dared he now take himself out of that environment, which didn’t even feel safe any more, and superimpose himself here? On her doorstep? In her apartment?
Suddenly excruciatingly aware of just how much of her body was exposed, she hugged her arms around herself and remained rooted to the spot. She hadn’t shut the door in his face, but she wasn’t inviting him in either.
‘I’ve been busy this week,’ Alessandro imparted roughly, raking fingers through his dark hair and staring away to one side while he tried to do the unimaginable and compose himself. ‘I had every intention of going through this business with you, but I haven’t had time. Like you said, Cape deserves more than five minutes of my attention when I can grab a moment.’
‘You managed to grab lots of moments when you were in my office—piling work on me before George has even been given a decent burial...’
‘Hell, why do you have to be so dramatic? And are you going to ask me in? Or am I going to have to stand outside and have this conversation with you? The neighbours might begin to wonder what’s going on.’
Kate spun round on her heels, agonisingly conscious of her small shorts. She realized in a flash how important her formal work attire was. All those bland, off-the-peg suits in drab colours had been her way of keeping the rest of the world at bay. Even at the restaurant with him, when she had dropped her mask and actually spoken her mind, that suit of hers had still been a reminder of their respective roles.
But shorts and a cropped top? Since when could anyone call that armour?
Alessandro watched her extremely pert bottom as she stalked away from him. His erection was so ramrod hard that it was painful—and more than likely visible.
He wanted to ask her whether she made it a habit to open the door to anybody who might ring the bell dressed in next to nothing, because this wasn’t Cornwall. He shoved both hands into his trouser pockets in an attempt to do some damage limitation with the serious bulge of his arousal.
‘I’m going to change,’ she told him ungraciously as she stood aside and indicated that he could wait for her in the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry, Alessandro. I realize that you’re the boss, and you probably think that you can do whatever you please, but I really don’t think it’s on for you to just call by unannounced.’
Her arms were still folded as she swung to look at him. Her heart picked up pace as their eyes tangled and held. Her skin felt too tight for her body. His eyes on her made her nipples tingle, made her want to rub her legs together to ease the ache between them.
‘Why?’
He was now sitting at the kitchen table. Thank God. What the hell was going on here? He’d had his fill of stunning women, and none had had such an instantaneous effect on his libido. Was it because of the dichotomy between the consummate professional and the rangy, leggy, sexy woman she was under the uniform she chose to wear? Maybe it had been too long since he had had sex... He was a man with a high sex drive, and using his hand to do the job was far from satisfactory, given the choice of a woman’s mouth doing the job for him.
He thought of Kate’s mouth there, her pink tongue delicately flicking over his arousal, and he sucked in a sharp breath.
‘Yes...’ He cleared his throat. ‘Go and change if it would make you feel better to slip into your suit because I’m here and you find it impossible to be anything in my company aside from an employee.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Kate enquired tightly.
Alessandro sighed and sat back. ‘It doesn’t mean anything, Kate.’
It means you should leave now and return decently clothed. Sackcloth might do the trick.
‘And you’re right. I had no business showing up here on your doorstep without calling you in advance.’
‘How did you know where I lived anyway?’
‘Jackson was kind enough to provide me with the information.’
‘And that’s another thing,’ she retorted, bristling as she thought back to her colleagues at work and their reactions to Alessandro descending from Mount Olympus to grace them with his presence. ‘People have been talking...’
She reddened, but now that it was out what choice did she have but to stand her ground and say what was on her mind? Besides, he was in her territory now. If she couldn’t speak freely in her own house, then where could she? He might be the ruler of all he surveyed in his towering glass house in the City, but he wasn’t out here.
She quailed. Did he have to look so...so ruler-like even when he wasn’t in his domain? She wished he would just look a little more normal, a little less...intimidating. Or sexy. Take your pick.
She suddenly felt her youth, her lack of experience.
‘Talking?’ Alessandro tilted his head to one side and looked at her intently. ‘Talking about what? And who are these “people” who have been talking?’
‘I maybe shouldn’t have brought this up...’ she began, chickening out.
‘But you did, and now that you have you might as well finish. And for God’s sake don’t launch into any full-blown apologies when you’ve said what you want to say.’
‘You seldom come down to our floor. In fact, I can only think of one time when you actually came to see me in my office, and George was there as well. Suddenly you’ve been appearing out of the blue and people...well, people have been wondering what’s going on. They think... I don’t know what they think... But I don’t want them to think it. Whatever it is.’
‘So these people think something...you’re not sure what...and you don’t want them to think it...?’
‘I’m a very private person. Always have been.’
Except for one night in a restaurant, when I spilled my guts about my background to you...
‘I’m at a loss as to what I can do to resolve this issue...’
He spread his arms wide in a typical gesture that was at once rueful and ridiculously phoney, because there was just a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth that made her feel like an idiot. His brows knitted in a frown which was also phoney.
‘I guess you must think that Jackson thinks something too...although who knows for sure...?’