for her—though not the variety which had been so preoccupying her!
Would Aisling like to work for Signor Palladio? To find him a general manager for his brand-new boutique hotel in London? At first she had thought it some elaborate kind of joke because it was the kind of job she’d dreamed of.
The chance of such a lucrative contract would have made the head of any other small firm turn bright green with envy. But she had worked hard for an opportunity like this. Sometimes she never seemed to do anything but work, and the Palladio contract had made it all seem worthwhile.
She had told herself she was the luckiest person in the world, but then she had met Gianluca and something inexplicable and unwanted had happened. Her heart had performed a kind of complicated somersault and her legs had turned to cotton wool. Symptoms of love or lust—whichever you wanted to call it—that she’d heard about, but had never experienced before during her erratic history of dating.
And at the same time instinct told her to beware. That the head of the Palladio Corporation spelt trouble of a kind which wasn’t straightforward. Not simply because Gianluca was impossibly rich and ravishingly good-looking and scarily well-connected and because no sane person ever mixed business with pleasure. But there was something about him which made Aisling feel almost…was frightened too strong a word?
It was the way he had of looking at you. Those slanting black eyes lazily scanning every inch of your body as if they had the arrogant right to do so. Putting her in touch with a sensuality she had spent her life repressing—because she knew only too well the risks which sexual hunger represented. Hadn’t she seen it firsthand in her mother—the havoc it could wreak?
Aisling knew that Italian men had been brought up to be openly appreciative of women, but when Gianluca did it, he made you feel as if he were stripping you bare with that intense ebony scrutiny.
He was sexy and dangerous. The type of man who collected women like trophies, who enjoyed showing them off and then, when they had lost a little of their shiny-bright newness, discarded them for the next best thing. A wealthier version of the kind of man her mother had been drawn to, and discarded by, over and over again.
And what does his tally of lovers have to do with you? mocked a little voice in her head. He certainly isn’t known for dating women whose experience with the opposite sex could be written on the back of a postage stamp!
Aisling pinned a polite smile to her lips and tried not to react to the way Gianluca was currently studying her.
‘So, Aisling.’ He curled the name around his lips as if he were playing with a cherry, prior to biting into it. ‘I am pleased. More than pleased. Once again, you have found just what I was looking for.’
‘That’s the aim.’
‘Your initial choice of candidates was a surprise, I admit it,’ he conceded, and he raked careless fingers through his thick black hair. ‘But, as usual, your favoured applicant was perfetto.’
She inclined her head. ‘Thank you.’
He frowned. Even in her thanks she was lukewarm! ‘You enjoyed the party last night?’ he demanded.
‘Very much, thank you.’
‘I didn’t see you leave.’
‘I slipped away.You looked like you had your hands full.’
‘You should have stayed. There were a few people you could have met. We went out for dinner afterwards—you could have come.’
‘That’s very sweet of you, Gianluca—but I had some paperwork I needed to do.’
Gianluca’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t like being described as sweet! Sweet was for those men who had manicures and were in touch with their feelings. He thought, not for the first time, how you would never know what was going on her in head—not from that unruffled face she always presented. Was she deliberately mysterious, he wondered, or was that simply a mask she wore for work? And what happened when the mask was removed? ‘And business is good?’ he enquired softly.
Should she tell him that business was booming? That his name had brought in a whole stack of new contracts? ‘Oh, I can’t complain. I have plenty to keep me busy,’ she said softly, automatically tugging at the dark hem of her neatly tailored skirt, so that it covered the inch of knee it had been revealing.
Gianluca watched the unnecessary movement. The skirt was hardly indecent—didn’t she realise that a man liked to look at a woman’s legs? She was always like the schoolmarm, he thought impatiently. Even last night she had been wearing some stiff-looking gown—appropriate and yet glaringly dull.
Gianluca had never met a woman like Aisling Armstrong before. Was that why he found her strangely fascinating?
Women rarely intrigued him; their reaction to him was predictable. They wanted him. They wanted his wealth and his lips and his lean, hard body. They wanted a shiny gold band on their finger and they wanted his babies. When Gianluca was around, they pulled out all the stops to make him aware of them, with their tight skirts and their low-cut tops and hair tumbling down over bare shoulders while their lips pouted in provocative invitation. But not this one, it seemed.
‘And that is what pleases you?’ he mused, meeting her brisk reply with a lazy question in his eyes. ‘Mmm? To keep busy all the time? How is it you say—like the hamster on the wheel?’
She wondered if he realised the effect he was having on her—how being in the crossfire of that stare was making her feel as weak as a hamster! Aisling gave him a tight smile. ‘It’s a question of necessity, Gianluca. I’m sure you know more than anyone that success doesn’t come without a price-tag of hard work.’
‘Ah, but the trick is in recognising when to take time off, surely?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Tell me, when did you last take some time off?’
‘I don’t really think that’s—’
‘When?’ he persisted.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘You don’t remember? Then it has been too long.’ Gianluca turned his head to glance out of the floor-to-ceiling windows which filled one end of the large, contemporary office at the top of the magnificent building which was situated right in the heart of the Rome. ‘It is such a beautiful day,’ he mused, and waved his hand with careless pride. ‘See how magnificent the city looks when she is bathed in sunshine. Alive and carefree—like a young girl in love.’
Aisling’s expression didn’t change. ‘Yes. I suppose that’s one way of describing it.’
Black brows were elevated. ‘You are planning to stay on, perhaps?’
‘No. Just until tomorrow. We’re flying out first thing.’ She wished he would stop looking at her that way—as if she were a specimen in a laboratory that he was just about to dissect.
‘Really? That’s a pity.’ He ran a thoughtful finger over the hard line of his jaw, which already held just a trace of new growth, and stared at her pale face and her set features with something approaching frustration. ‘Doesn’t Italy tempt you, Aisling?’ he demanded. ‘Doesn’t the successful conclusion of a lucrative contract make you want to take a holiday once in a while—to throw caution to the winds and to drink in the beauty of this country? To celebrate.’
‘But I have a business to run. Other clients like you, Gianluca—who’ll be wanting my attention.’
‘Surely none quite like me, cara?’he mocked.
To her mortification, his teasing made her composure slip and Aisling felt the hint of colour creep into her cheeks. Some rebel part of her wanted to stand up and say: There, you’ve made me blush like a schoolgirl—are you satisfied now? Except she was certain that she wouldn’t be able to cope with his answer.
‘No,’ she agreed, deadpan. ‘Perhaps none quite like you.’
His