Once A Playboy...: Resisting the Sicilian Playboy / Her Playboy's Proposal / The Playboy's Proposal
DARA STOOD ON the lower floor of the club and made a final sweep of her surroundings. Leo’s team had been very responsive to her advice—in fact they’d seemed almost relieved to have the responsibility taken from their shoulders. None of them had seemed particularly overjoyed to be planning such a high-profile event. Maybe Leo was right: they were jaded by success and lacked any motivation to strive further.
Well, that suited her just fine. Being in close proximity to such high-profile guests was a networking dream come true. She would make a few new contacts, get her own event contract signed, and then fly straight home to set about planning the wedding of her career. Finally her strict business plan was yielding the kind of results she had dreamed of when she’d left her life in Dublin behind.
Unconsciously she chewed on her bottom lip, trying to supress the memories that her mind conjured up every time she thought of her past life. The well-meaning glances filled with pity...the hushed conversations. She would forever be known as poor Dara Devlin back home—it had been the main reason she left it all behind. It would have been impossible to forge a new life in a place filled with such painful memories.
She remembered sitting in the hospital, her dream of ever having a child having just been taken away from her. Only to find herself watching her fiancé coldly walk away from her for the last time.
No. She shook off the thoughts before they could take hold. She had done enough wallowing in the weeks before she had decided to move to Italy. Her life was good now. She should thank Daniel, really. He had set her free to focus on what she really loved. Her career gave her more satisfaction than family life ever could have. She was happy now—she truly was—and now she had the chance to really make a name for herself.
Portia Palmer was the biggest movie star Ireland had produced in the past ten years, and she had chosen Dara to plan her huge weekend wedding. She liked to think that the actress had somehow heard a glowing report from one of her happy clients. But sadly it most likely had more to do with Dara being the only Irish planner on the island. Miss Palmer was all about patriotism and her Celtic heritage.
But that was fine with Dara. Publicity was publicity, and if she hoped for her name to gain status it couldn’t hurt to have a world-famous Hollywood star in her little black book.
Now, after seeing tonight’s guest list, she felt butterflies flapping around in her stomach with nerves and anticipation. Leo hadn’t been lying when he’d said he had high-profile guests. One quick flip through the hostess’s list had revealed several notable European politicians, at least three racing drivers, a world-renowned fashion designer and the entire cast of the Luscious Lingerie catalogue. People like that could open more than doors for her in her career. They could knock down walls.
The snooty hostess from the night before suddenly appeared by her side. Dara closed the list with a snap, trying not to look guilty.
‘Signor Valente has instructed me to give you this.’ The woman sniffed, holding out a small business card. She seemed quite unimpressed to be running such lowly errands for her employer.
Dara took the card with muttered thanks. It was plain black, with the single line of an address printed on the front. Nothing to indicate what kind of business it was.
‘Am I supposed to go there?’ she asked quickly as the hostess began to walk away. ‘Did he not tell you anything else?’
The woman turned back and shrugged one shoulder, thoroughly bored with the conversation. ‘I am told to give you this and make sure you go to the address.’
The event was less than two hours away, so Dara wasted no time in grabbing her things and taking the sleek chauffeur-driven town car that Leo had provided. Whatever this errand was, she needed to get back to her hotel soon if she stood a chance of looking half decent.
The car came to a smooth stop on one of the most upmarket streets in Milan. Giants of Italian fashion stood shoulder to shoulder here, with shopfronts that screamed luxury. But the address on the black card led her down a narrow alleyway to a door of exactly the same deep, nondescript black.
Her hand was hovering uncertainly over the knocker when the door swung open to reveal a tall fair-haired man in a sleek pinstriped suit.
‘Mademoiselle, we’ve been waiting for you,’ he said, taking her by the hand and leading her inside.
‘Excuse me? I don’t even know—’
He continued to lead her along by the hand, ‘Just follow me.’
He was definitely French, she thought as they made their way up a short staircase to a large open-plan loft with carpet so white it hurt her eyes. The walls were mirrored on one side, and a few long purple drapes lined the wall on the other. Dara took a moment to look around, feeling hopelessly confused by the situation. Was she here to collect something?
‘I was sent here by Leo Valente...’ she began uncertainly. ‘He didn’t mention why—’
The blond man hushed her with a sudden snap of his fingers.
‘We don’t have time to chat. My team and I need to begin.’
As if on cue, a small army of women in black smocks appeared from behind one of the purple curtains. Dara caught a glimpse of row upon row of clothing racks before the curtain swung back into place, blocking her view.
‘Hold on a minute—what is all of this?’
She raised a hand to stop the pinstripe-wearing bully as he loomed near, measuring tape in hand. A tight knot of tension formed in her stomach as one of the women hung a silky red dress on a hook beside the mirror.
The Frenchman gave an impatient sigh. ‘We are here to style you, darling. Everything from hairpins to nail polish.’ He glanced down at her short practical nails and frowned.
Dara clenched her fists, a mixture of embarrassment and anger forcing her to bite her lip. How dared that arrogant Sicilian brute organise this little stunt? As though she was some sort of pauper, here to be dressed up like one of the beautiful people for the night.
Indignation bubbled in her chest and she grabbed her phone from her handbag, ready to launch into a verbal attack on a certain nightclub mogul, only to realize that she didn’t even have his phone number.
The memory of his face at lunchtime swam into her mind—that devilish smirk when she had shivered under his touch. He’d said he wasn’t playing games any more, but that had been a lie. This little manoeuvre was designed to throw her off balance, to put him back in control. He clearly didn’t like it that she was proving of practical use in tonight’s event.
Willing herself to calm down, she took a deep breath and looked back at the sultry red number mocking her from the corner of the room.
‘Did Signor Valente choose this gown for me?’ she asked in a deathly quiet whisper, watching with narrowed eyes as the blond man’s bravado faltered.
‘He picked it out himself this afternoon, mademoiselle.’ He stood up straight to emphasise his point. ‘It is one of a kind.’
Just like the man himself, she thought snidely. This was the same kind of stunt as the cocktail last night. No other man would be so obnoxious as to choose a gown for a woman he barely knew.
She walked across the room and ran her hand down the jewelled fabric. If Leo had sent her here to unsettle her...well, he had succeeded. The thought of wearing something so blatantly sexual was akin to tearing out her own fingernails. Dara did not do sexual—she didn’t even do sex any more.
For the first time in five years she felt once again as if she wasn’t good enough. As if she needed to change herself to fit the items on someone’s list. And that just wouldn’t do.
The blond man and his team of beauty assassins stood silently, watching her, hairbrushes and make-up wands like weapons in their utility belts.
She