none quite like you.’
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he saw the brief rose-pink tinge to her cheeks but he made no comment on it. So she could react to a little flirting. Maybe the uptight Aisling Armstrong wasn’t simply the robotic, efficient working machine she appeared to be. ‘I can’t decide whether or not that’s a compliment.’
‘Can’t you? Well, I know how much you enjoy problem-solving, Gianluca—so I’ll leave you to work it out for yourself.’
Gianluca’s responding smile was glittering. Ah, sì, she was clever—it was why he had employed her in the first place and why her business was doing so well. But wasn’t she aware that her frosty attitude was challenging, and that a man with success exuding from every pore of his being found the idea of such a challenge irresistible?
Didn’t she realise that if a woman put a wall up, then a man would just want to tear it down with his bare hands? Did he want to do that? He felt the beat of desire as he pushed a plate of tiny amaretti di saronno biscuits towards her, but she shook her head. ‘What are you doing later?’ he asked.
Warning bells rang loud in her ears and, coffee-cup in hand, Aisling stilled. ‘Later?’
‘Yes, later,’ he echoed sardonically. ‘Tonight. When you’ve finished working,’ he added sarcastically.
‘I thought I’d take Jason out for dinner.’
Jason? For a moment, he frowned—until he remembered the gangling male assistant she had brought with her, and made a dismissive little gesture with his hand. ‘Why not come to a party with me instead?’
Aisling frowned. ‘But we went to a party last night.’
Her obvious disquiet might have amused him for novelty value alone, if the accompanying look of horror on her face hadn’t been so insulting! ‘That was work,’ he murmured. ‘Tonight is not. Tonight is for us to be—carefree…to let your hair down a little.’ His glance strayed to the severe hairstyle. ‘Literally, perhaps?’
It was an unexpected invitation and for one unscheduled moment Aisling allowed herself the briefest glimpse of a romantic fantasy of imagining just where he might take her and all the delicious possibilities of where such an evening could lead.
Until reality intruded like a cold shower and she put the delicate coffee-cup down with a clatter. ‘I can’t,’ she said unconvincingly. ‘This is Jason’s first foreign job and I can’t leave him on his own.’
‘But Jason is a big boy now, cara.’ His voice became edged with sarcasm, black eyes narrowing like a cat’s. ‘You can’t carry on holding his hand for him for ever.’
‘I don’t leave my staff out on a limb in a strange city, particularly when they’re new,’ she said flatly.
‘Then bring him along. Come to my vineyard instead.’ His mouth relaxed into a hard smile, which didn’t quite reach his eyes. A smile which told her that he didn’t do persuasion. ‘It has been the best harvest in a decade and we’re going to celebrate.’
For a moment, Aisling couldn’t quite take in what he meant. Oh, she knew that he owned a vineyard—he owned two, in fact. But vineyards were rural, and they were slap-bang in the middle of the city. Outside was the busy and bustling Centro Storico, and the very nerve-centre of Rome itself.
‘I don’t think—’
‘It will do you good to get out of the city and my country place is only an hour and a half’s drive away,’ he cut in impatiently. Enough was enough! He was paying her a huge salary and she would damn well do as he wished! Unknotting his gold silk tie, he let it tumble onto the desk where it lay coiled and gleaming like a snake, and his eyes were cold and dark and steady as he fixed her in their gaze. ‘I will send one of my drivers to the hotel to collect you,’ he stated. ‘I would offer to take you myself, but I have business to attend to in Perugia first.’
‘I don’t have anything to wear,’ she said, half to herself. ‘Nothing suitable, I mean—and certainly not for a party in a vineyard! I came equipped for business, not parties in vineyards.’
The black eyes flicked over her. Sì. He could see that. And suddenly it became an imperative for him to see her dressed up—or, rather, to see her dressed down—to discover whether a real woman existed beneath this cool robot who wheeled and dealed for him. ‘You didn’t bring any jeans?’
For a business trip? Was he out of his mind? To Aisling, jeans reminded her too much of childhood. They symbolised cheap and scruffy, with a lack of formality, which the lonely little girl had longed for. ‘No, I didn’t bring jeans.’
‘Then go shopping. We have some of the best shops in the world right on the doorstep. Buy a pair! Madonna mia, Aisling—why do you hesitate? This is an opportunity most women would jump at.’
She opened her mouth to say that she was trying not to behave like most women—especially around him. That going to his vineyard was the last thing she wanted.
And yet…
Why had the heavy beat of anticipation begun to slam at her heart? Because this was the stuff of forbidden fantasies she normally only allowed herself on restless nights when sleep refused to come?
It’s only a party, she told herself as she nodded, aware of his gaze burning into her as she rose to her feet. But then he turned away and punched out a number on his telephone and began to talk in rapid Italian and she realised he had already forgotten all about her.
And Aisling’s fingers were trembling as she opened the office door, wondering why he had issued such an unexpected invitation. To her.
An invitation she couldn’t refuse.
‘YOU look wonderful, Aisling.’
Aisling forced a smile. ‘You don’t have to say that, Jason.’
‘No, I know I don’t—but you do! Honestly—you look completely, well…different!’
Understatement of the year, thought Aisling as she sat upright against the soft-leather comfort of the car and watched as the lush green hills of Tuscany sped by. She felt different, too—and it wasn’t just the unaccustomed weight of her heavy dark hair falling about her shoulders or the large silver hoops which dangled from her ears. Nor even the sooty sweep of mascara which made her blue eyes look so enormous.
Where was the cool and calm Aisling she normally liked to present to the world? Gone. That was where. Left behind in some crazy little shop off the Via del Corso!
She turned to look at her strapping assistant who was lolling on the back seat of the fancy car, his legs sprawled out in front of him, as if to the manner born. ‘I hope you didn’t mind coming all the way out here, Jason—I know I said we’d eat in the city tonight.’
‘Mind?’ Jason pulled a comical face and gestured to the picture-postcard countryside which was zooming past the window. ‘Are you kidding? I have friends who would die to go to Umbria! To visit a real-live vineyard at the invitation of its world-famous owner!’
In spite of her reservations about the evening ahead, Aisling laughed. As well as tip-top college grades, Jason’s enthusiasm was one of the reasons she’d employed him straight after graduating—even though it was sometimes a bit over-the-top. Still, she guessed that was youth for you—and surely it wasn’t so long that she’d forgotten her own? ‘It’s a long way to go for one evening,’ she observed.
‘In an air-conditioned chauffeur-driven car? Bring it on! Anyway, we’ve just left the main road, so we must be nearly there.’
Aisling peered out of the window and her heart began to thud. ‘So we are.’
It