was his bold, dark masculine beauty that claimed her attention first. Win or lose, he was on offer? Was he serious? If he was, would she dare to take him up on it? While she’d worked she had told herself that he could not have been half as attractive as she had thought he was. Now here he was again in the flesh to blow that staid and sensible belief right out of the water. Just looking at the proud, chiselled planes of his darkly handsome features gave her the strangest sense of pleasure. A frisson of dangerous exhilaration gripped her while butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She parted her lips without even knowing what she intended to say. ‘I—er—’
Glittering black eyes centred on her with laser beam intensity. ‘Backing down from a face-to-face contest?’ he murmured with unconcealed scorn.
Anger shot through Kathy with a power and sharpness that she had forgotten she could feel and she lifted her chin in answer. ‘Are you kidding?’
Sergio stepped back to allow her to precede him from the room. ‘Then let’s go and play.’
‘But I’m working,’ Kathy pointed out with a slow bemused shake of her head. ‘For goodness’ sake, who are you?’
A mocking ebony brow quirked. ‘Is that a serious question?’
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘I am Sergio Torrente and I own the Torrenco Group,’ Sergio delivered drily, wondering whether she thought it was clever to make what he considered to be an outrageous claim of ignorance. ‘Every company in this block belongs to me. I find it hard to believe that you’re not aware of those facts.’
Kathy was paralysed to the spot by that revelation. It had not even occurred to her that he might be that important. But, even so, she had never heard of him before. She had never been on any floor other than the one she was on now and she had had no interest whatsoever in the business world or the personalities that powered the huge building during the hours of daylight.
‘So will you play?’ Sergio prompted with impatience.
An adrenalin rush was firing self-preservation skills in Kathy. It was clear to her that she had picked the wrong chessboard to get familiar with and the wrong guy. Why had she not even suspected that he might be her opponent? His smooth urbane façade had deceived her, she conceded tautly. He radiated an aura of sophisticated ease and cool. But the breathtaking elegance of his designer suit concealed a purebred predator, for he was a highly aggressive and clever player who took advantage of every tactical opportunity to attack. In short, he was very much an Alpha male incapable of ignoring any perceived challenge to prove his strength. Not a guy to tangle with, not a guy to offend.
‘I could take my break now,’ Kathy told him, ready to get her punishment over with, as instead of beating him in two moves as she had previously planned she decided that it would be wiser to let him win.
Sergio nodded, hooded dark golden eyes nailed to her because he had yet to work out what script she was trying to follow. Was he really supposed to credit that she didn’t know who he was?
‘I’ve had the board moved into my office so that we can play undisturbed.’
Her heart was now beating very fast with nervous tension. He thrust open the door of his office, then stood back. Momentarily she was close enough to catch the faint evocative scent of some expensive male cologne. She snatched in a charged breath. ‘How did you know it was me? How did you find out?’
‘That’s not important.’
‘It’s important to me,’ she dared.
‘Surveillance camera,’ he supplied.
Kathy lost colour. There was a security camera in that hallway? She was appalled by that news. She took her breaks there and, once or twice, when she had been very tired, she had set the alarm on her watch and taken a nap on that sofa. Proof of those facts would be sufficient to put her out of a job.
‘Would you like a drink?’
Her slender figure now tense as a bowstring, Kathy hovered in the centre of the carpet. A pool of light shone across the board and the sofas in one corner. It was a very intimate backdrop. If the supervisor came looking for her and found her in such a situation she would get totally the wrong idea and alcohol was a sackable offence. ‘Are you trying to get me fired?’
‘If you don’t talk, I won’t,’ Sergio countered with lazy indifference.
An automatic negative was on Kathy’s lips, but suddenly a spirit of rebellion sparked inside her. With the proof he already had of her stealing a nap during her break, there was little point splitting hairs. ‘You’re only young once,’ Bridget had scolded that same day. But Kathy had never really known what it was to be young and carefree. Since she had regained her freedom she had followed every rule she met everywhere to the letter, no matter how small the rule, no matter how petty. The habit had become engrained in her, the new secure framework by which she lived. The chess game had been the only deviation and only because she couldn’t resist the temptation of reliving the challenges her late father had once set her. In truth she could not even recall when she had last tasted alcohol and that made her feel pathetic, sad and defiant. She named a fashionable drink that she had seen advertised on a billboard.
‘You seem very tense.’ Sergio passed her a glass. Translucent green eyes rested on him, providing an alluring contrast to her alabaster skin and copper and red streaked hair. Predictably, he went straight for it. ‘Don’t stress, bella mia. I find you incredibly attractive.’
The annoyance and embarrassment that Kathy usually felt at such moments was entirely absent. So, he had been serious. She felt as if her heart were pounding right at the foot of her throat. She was shaken by the discovery that she was thrilled by his approach. Her fingers tightened round the glass, her hand shook a little. She sipped and swallowed, sipped and swallowed again, to conceal the reality of her physical weakness. It was so uncool to be so excited. Locked into his stunning dark golden gaze when she finally raised the courage to look up, she could not have breathed to save her life.
Unhurriedly, Sergio angled his lustrous dark head down. He was testing the boundaries, amusing himself. The delicate fresh scent of her skin made his strong, hard body tauten. Arousal slivered through him with a force that surprised him and speedily tipped him out of teasing mode. He claimed her luscious pink lips with hungry urgency and that first taste only whet his appetite for more.
Kathy couldn’t credit what she was doing, but she wouldn’t have shifted an inch to prevent it happening, either. A storm tide of feeling engulfed her and she couldn’t get enough of it. It was as energising as hitching a ride on a rocket and it left her equally dizzy and disorientated. He kissed her and fireworks of sensation shot through her and she pulsed and tingled with response. Honeyed warmth pooled in her tummy, a tightness forming at her pelvis. She shivered violently when the sensual glide of his tongue probed the tender cave of her mouth. The throb of desire that flashed and stabbed through her slim length was almost too much to bear and she moaned in protest.
‘You are so hot, you burn,’ Sergio framed and, as his deep, dark drawl roughened, a faint Italian accent broke through to mellow the syllables with a lyrical edge. ‘But we have a game to finish.’
Kathy wasn’t quite sure her legs would keep her upright long enough to reach the sofa at her side of the board. She would have found it easier to fall back into his arms than walk away, an acknowledgement that shook her up even more. Her body felt tight, overheated and unfamiliar. She was aware of it in ways that were new to her. All the time her brain was set on enumerating her mistakes. She shouldn’t be in a room alone with him, shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her, and certainly shouldn’t have encouraged him by responding. But while her intelligence knew each and every one of those things, the hunger he had awakened and the dissatisfaction he had left behind had an even stronger hold on her.
Two moves later, the chess game was over.
When Sergio won, his black brows drew together and then anger illuminated his narrowed gaze to gilded bronze. ‘Either someone else has been telling you how to play for the past three weeks, or you just