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Thursday night in London, and it seemed everyone had plans.
Everyone except Emma.
She remembered with a pang when Thursday nights had heralded the start of the weekend. When Friday morning had been spent huddled around the coffee machine, dissecting the previous night.
She’d be lucky if she was out of here by seven and she had to visit her father and she had to be back here by six the next morning, to meet with Luca and then fly up for an eight-thirty a.m. meeting in Scotland.
Evelyn had had second thoughts—offering Emma the position the following day—and she had been in her dream job for six weeks now. And though it was still just that, a dream job, it was also extremely hard work—as Assistant Personal Assistant to Luca D’Amato, it wasn’t just her job title that took some explaining. Every minute of Luca’s time was valuable, Evelyn had explained on her first day. Beyond valuable, actually—which was why he had his own travel team, two assistants and looking for a third, four full-time drivers, in fact a whole fleet of staff that took care of the details and allowed Luca to get on with doing what he did best—rescuing struggling companies, turning them around and making an obscene amount of money in the process.
Emma’s job was varied, mostly exciting and yet also downright boring at times—dealing with his sister’s wedding, his dog, his housekeeper’s endless reams of days off. The list was endless.
Ducking into the ladies’ room, Emma knew she ought to attempt a quick repair job on her hair and face before she headed back to her office and to whatever mood Luca was in, but it took for ever to elbow her way to the mirror and her curly dark hair had spent too long in an air-conditioned building because it was looking decidedly frizzy. She borrowed a squirt of serum from a snooty-looking redhead, re-tied her hair back in a low ponytail and then, sick of the coffee on the top floor, she grabbed a hot chocolate and a bag of crisps from the vending machine then headed back up in the lift, knowing that in all likelihood this would double up as dinner.
‘Louse!’
As she walked out of the lift, Emma stepped back as a stunning, raven-haired woman stormed out of Luca’s office and into the lift, tears streaming down her face but watching his closed office door and just standing there, waiting for it to open, waiting for him to follow her out, to call her back, to no doubt tell her that it didn’t have to end like this, that he’d had a change of heart.
Of course he didn’t.
Of course he wouldn’t—no one delivered an ultimatum to Luca and came out smiling, not even this rare beauty, who, with a sob of frustration, finally pushed the lift button, her desperate eyes peeking out of the closing gap, still hoping that Luca would change his mind.
‘That,’ he said, first peering around the door and making sure it was safe to come out, ‘was not my fault.’ He put up his hands in bemusement and said it again. ‘Really, that time it wasn’t my fault.’ Still Emma said nothing, just watched with pursed lips as he helped himself to her hot chocolate, as he always did if she didn’t pour it into her mug before he saw it. ‘Honestly, it wasn’t!’
‘It never is.’ Sarcasm dripped from Emma’s lips, which might seem rude to some, and might be no way to talk to your boss—but it was because she did speak to him like that, because she did keep him at arm’s length and because she was very good at her job, that, despite his stunning initial offer, in the six weeks she had worked there, Luca hadn’t even attempted to flirt.
Well, the odd time perhaps!
But it was quickly, expertly, rebuffed.
‘Did you get my messages?’ Emma checked, because he never read them. ‘A Dr Calista called—he wants you to ring him.’
‘Fine.’
‘And your sister too—she wants to know if you’ve looked at the ties.’
‘Ties?’
‘She sent you an email of some photos of ties—for the groomsmen to wear at the wedding—and she wants to know if you’re staying. She’s rung a few times today.’
‘Remind her of my hourly rate,’ Luca drawled, ‘and if she keeps ringing, bill her.’
He didn’t mean it, Emma knew that, but he could be so scathing at times.
‘I do mean it,’ Luca said as if in response to her private thoughts.
‘You really want me to bill your sister for ringing you?’ She knew he didn’t mean it, knew he’d hit the roof if she actually did it, and just refused to play his games.
‘I want you,’ Luca said, very firmly, very clearly, ‘to practise some of the assertion this job demands—I am not to be bothered with these details, is that clear?’
‘Very.’
‘Good.’ Luca said. ‘You choose the ties, you sort things out and you have my full authority to tell her it was me.’
‘Fine.’
He was turning now, heading back to his office, tossing the empty chocolate cup in the bin. Then he turned around.
‘Are you doing anything tonight?’
‘Actually, yes,’ Emma said through gritted teeth, ‘I’ve got plans.’
‘Well, cancel them.’ Luca shrugged. ‘Ruby was supposed to be coming with me to some awful dinner dance at Hemming’s. It’s plus one, so I’m expected to bring someone.’
‘I really do have plans!’ Emma repeated, because she was beginning to get tired of this—she worked hard, more than hard, but this would be the fourth night in a row that she hadn’t got to visit her father and it simply wasn’t fair—surely she was allowed to have a semblance of a life? ‘I need to visit my father,’ she reluctantly explained, loath to let Luca in on her personal life. ‘I told him I’d be over tonight.’
‘So, tell him that you are working.’
‘I’ve been putting him off all week.’ She just couldn’t do it to him again. ‘I’d really like to finish on time tonight.’ When Luca just frowned, she pushed a touch further. ‘Look, I don’t usually say no, but surely there’s someone else you can ask?’
Which was a stupid thing to say. There were plenty of women Luca could ask, and there was one reason and one reason only that he was asking her! ‘I was hoping for an early night,’ Luca sighed. ‘At least with you it would be just dinner!’ Which was a rather strange compliment, but it bought a reluctant smile to her face. ‘I’ll ask Evelyn—where is she, by the way?’
‘No, don’t…’ Emma flustered, for Evelyn had sneaked off to the doctor’s to pick up her vials and needles for her final round of IVF, which she was starting in the morning. The last thing the poor woman needed was a night on the town with Luca. ‘I’ll just go. It’s fine.’
‘You’re sure?’ Luca frowned, just a touch guilty now that he had got his own way, as he knew full well where Evelyn was. ‘Tell you what—we can visit your father on the way.’
‘We can’t,’ Emma fretted. ‘I’ll be in evening dress!’
‘So?’ Luca grinned. ‘Go on, get ready and we’ll leave in an hour.’
It was testament to the nature of her job that she could get ready for a formal function within the hour. There was a bathroom on their floor and Emma stuffed her curls under a cap and quickly showered. She even had a wardrobe in her office—her day bag was already packed and ready for her jaunt to Scotland in the morning and Emma rummaged in it for her styling wand and spare make-up bag then set to work on her face, squirting drops in her eyes in the hope they’d sparkle and then working on her lips and cheeks.
With some difficulty she pulled stockings onto damp legs and then slipped on her fast-becoming-familiar little black dress and clipped on a string of black pearls, before coaxing tired feet into stilettos.
And then she tackled her hair. Spritzing her wayward, corkscrew curls around the wand and trying to coax them into shape.
It was a routine she was starting to perfect.
‘You need some more evening wear,’ was Luca’s only comment when he saw that she was in her black dress again.
‘Just as soon as I get a day off!’ Emma retorted. ‘Aren’t you ready?’
He didn’t answer but, then, Luca rarely answered pointless questions. Instead, he strode out to the lifts with Emma following behind, holding a small suitcase to take to her father and stuffing her evening bag with keys and lipstick and hair serum and sticking plasters as the lift plummeted down.
‘I forgot to put on perfume.’
He sniffed the air. ‘You smell fine.’
Men!
He glanced at the small case she was carrying, but didn’t comment and neither did Emma, not bothering with small talk. She just sat in the back of the car with Luca as they moved at a snail’s pace through the heavy peak-hour traffic, a knot of tension in her stomach, sure that at any moment he’d tell her it was too late to stop by her father’s nursing home. Glancing at her watch, she realised they weren’t going to be able to make it and it was actually a relief—she didn’t want to explain her life to Luca.
‘The old dog’s home first!” Luca drawled, not knowing the nerve he was pricking as he let them into his apartment. The television was blaring as usual and Emma paced as Luca chopped up some chicken breast and added a spoonful of rice to Pepper’s bowl.
‘He’s on a diet,’ Luca explained.
She didn’t quite get where Pepper fitted into the scheme of things. She’d been to Luca’s apartment on several occasions and still couldn’t work out what Luca was doing with a dog. Neither man nor beast seemed to particularly like each other and the last thing a person with Luca’s schedule needed was a dog—and a lapdog at that.
But it wasn’t her place to question. It was her job to just book the vet in for home visits, or make sure that the dog sitter knew when Luca was suddenly called away.
‘Look in the bathroom,’ Luca called from the bedroom. ‘There is probably some perfume there that has been left behind—help yourself.’
It was like the beauty section in a chemist’s shop— perfumes, lipsticks, body lotions, all left behind by their previous owners—but it wasn’t them that caught her attention. In the mirror she could see Luca’s reflection—dressed in black hipster underwear, he was selecting an evening shirt, and though she was getting used to Luca, she wasn’t used to seeing quite so much of him.
He was stunning.
He was so pompous and arrogant that for the most part Emma was able to switch off from the fact he was, quite simply, the most beautiful man she had ever seen—only now she was seeing him.
He had long muscular legs that even managed to look sexy in socks. As he pulled on his shirt, she caught more than a glimpse of his chest, a smattering of black hair that made Emma’s toes curl in her already too tight shoes. Dragging her eyes away, she selected some perfume and squirted it on, but her eyes wandered back to the stunning view of him, to those long lean legs as he sat on the bed and pulled on his trousers.
And then he caught her looking.
His eyes held hers in the mirror for an indecently long time, a ghost of a smile spreading on his lips, and then she snapped her eyes away.
‘Ready?’ So flustered was Emma that his voice in the doorway made her jump. ‘If we want to stop at your father’s, we’d better leave.’
He knew.
Cheeks burning, her back and thighs pressed into the leather seat of Luca’s car, Emma knew that he knew.
That despite the banter, despite the rebuffs, despite her thoroughly cool demeanour around him—Luca D’Amato knew that he moved her.
And suddenly, for the first time in six weeks, Emma felt vulnerable.
CHAPTER THREE
‘SO WHERE does he live?’
Emma gave the driver the address and sat back in her seat, her tension mounting as the car neared the leafy street, lined with huge impressive homes.
‘It’s nice here…’ Luca glanced out of the window. ‘So, is this where you grew up?’
He had no idea, must just assume that her father could afford a house in this area, but instead of answering she just shook her head, tempted to tell the driver to forget it and take them straight to the Hemmings’ dinner dance, except her father would be devastated if she rang and cancelled again.
‘After that red car on the left…’ Emma instructed the driver. ‘Just here will do.’ Only he went past the red car and pulled up at the gates, pressing the button in the intercom. Emma could feel her cheeks burning as Luca took in the nursing home sign. ‘Could you tell them Mr Stephenson’s daughter is here for a visit?’
‘I’ll wait in the car.’ She could feel Luca’s eyes on her as he spoke, but couldn’t look at him, just climbed out as the driver handed her the small suitcase.
‘I shouldn’t be long.’
‘Hi, Dad!’
The way his face lit up when she walked into his room only made her feel worse. He looked forward so much to her visits, but lately they had been becoming fewer and further between.
‘You look like your mum…’ Frank beamed ‘…when we used to go out dancing.’ And on and on he chatted as Emma put away his laundered pyjamas and replaced his deodorant and talc and filled up his little dish with money for a newspaper in the morning. And it seemed like a nice visit because her father was chatty and for once there wasn’t a hint of malice about her mother, but it hurt more than she could explain.
His face had never used to light up when Emma had walked in the room—that had only started to happen in these past few months. Growing up, he’d practically ignored her, or when he did talk to her, it was to badmouth her mother, as if it had been her fault she’d died. So in all it had been a pretty wretched excuse of a childhood and Emma knew she had every reason to walk away, to leave it to the system to look after him. Only now, since his stroke, it was as if her horrible childhood had somehow been erased. For the first time they had a fatherdaughter relationship, for the first time she was hearing little bits about her mother, about her history, and despite it all, he was her dad—and even if they’d left it rather late they did have a relationship and she could never, like her brothers had, bring herself to just walk away from him.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t been in more recently.’ She broke his favourite chocolate she had brought him into pieces and put some on a plate in front of him. ‘Work’s so busy…but I’ll be in properly at the weekend.’
‘You have to go?’ Frank’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You’ve only just got here.’
‘Dad, I have to work.’
She felt awful leaving him so soon—except she had no choice. Until the house sold, it was her work that was paying for the home.
She knew what the nurses must think of her as she clipped past the desk in high heels, and she was so close to crying it hurt—she was tired, so tired of juggling things, of scrambling to get everything half done. At work she was calm and efficient, yet on the inside she was a festering mess.
‘Miss Stephenson.’ As the cool night air hit her she gulped it in, turning to see who was following her. Aware Luca must be watching, she died inside as the supervisor waved an all too familiar manila envelope. ‘We’ve been trying to contact you about the account.’
‘I spoke with Accounts yesterday…’ Emma tried to keep her voice even, tried to lower her shoulders and pretend, for Luca if he was watching, that there was nothing wrong. ‘I explained that I have a new job, that I’m catching up on the outstanding balance—they’re putting a new payment plan in place.’
‘I’m aware of that—it’s here for you in writing.’
She took the envelope. ‘Thank you.’
‘Any default on this plan and I’m afraid…’
‘There won’t be.’ Emma swallowed. ‘You know Dad’s house is on the market.’
‘We have a long waiting list,’ the supervisor answered. ‘We’re trying to help, Miss Stephenson, but we’re not a charity.’
The car was full of music when she entered, and Luca was sending emails on his phone. She breathed out a sigh of relief that he surely hadn’t noticed the uncomfortable exchange with the supervisor.
‘How was he?’ Luca checked.
‘A bit teary,’ Emma admitted. ‘Still, I’ll see him properly at the weekend.’
‘Does he get other visitors…?’ His voice trailed off. Evelyn had told him about her mother’s death and, seeing Emma’s tight lips, he changed tack. ‘It looks like a nice place,’ Luca commented, glancing up at the impressive building as the car crunched out of the driveway. ‘Expensive?’
‘A bit.’ Emma shrugged. ‘You do what you can.’
Unexpectedly, Emma found herself enjoying the Hemmings’ dinner dance.
It wasn’t an exceptionally lavish function they attended—that was the type of thing that had got the company into a mess in the first place—but it was a genuine, feel-good party and Luca was the man everyone wanted to greet. His prowess had salvaged a sinking ship and in the process had saved hundreds of jobs.
And Luca was a very nice date.
He turned off his phone the moment they arrived and he remembered to introduce her to enough people so that when he was circulating she didn’t feel like a complete spare part. He even swapped his white chocolate and nougat mousse with her when she got landed with the almond torte, and when the dancing started he didn’t ditch her just because she was a work date, even though on many occasions he could have. In fact, apart from one duty dance with the CEO’s wife and a long conversation with some potential investors, Luca for once appeared off duty.
‘Thank you…’ He held her loosely in his arms as they danced. ‘I know you had other things to do tonight.’
‘It’s actually been nice.’
‘It has,’ Luca agreed. ‘I was worried, I admit.’
‘I’m sure you’d have found someone else to join you.’
‘I meant, I was worried whether I could salvage them from bankruptcy,’ he explained, and he laughed at her blush. ‘I do think about work sometimes.’
‘Sometimes!’ Emma laughed. ‘I don’t know how you fit it all in.’
‘I just do.’ He stared down at her. ‘And so do you.’ He looked down at her for a long moment. ‘How long has he been there?’ All evening he had made no comment about her father, yet the question had hung between them.
‘Six months.’
‘You are very young for him to be…’
‘Dad was quite a bit older than Mum.’
‘Oh.’
‘He had a stroke at the beginning of the year…’ Her voice trailed off, she didn’t want to talk about it, she really, really didn’t. Yes, tonight was work, but in his arms, swaying to the music, when Luca didn’t push or press the point, really it was just a relief to be here, to be away from it all, even for just a little while.
‘I am glad it is you tonight,’ Luca said. And close to midnight, with champagne inside her, it would have been very easy to lean closer, very, worryingly easy to rest her head on that chest that was just inches from her, terribly, terribly easy to wonder at his words. So to stop herself, she reminded herself of the real reason that she was here, and couldn’t help herself from asking.
‘What happened with Ruby?’ She spoke to his lips, the same way that he was speaking to hers, and suddenly it wasn’t working. Reminding herself of his appalling reputation wasn’t keeping her safe—she was having to forcibly resist the urge to move closer to him.
‘She said those four little words.’
‘Three little words!’ Emma corrected, because occasionally his excellent English slipped.
‘No, four…’ She could see the shadow of growth on his chin, his full mouth moving as he spoke, feel his breath and wished suddenly he’d just kiss her. ‘Where is this leading?’
She could only smile at her own stupidity as realisation hit, and was so, so glad she hadn’t quickly answered what she had briefly assumed was a question, because it took a second to work out he wasn’t talking about them—he was answering her question about Ruby.
‘So I told her—nowhere!
‘Come on,’ he said as the music ended and he broke away, ‘let’s go. I’m staying at the office. We have a helicopter to catch…’ he squinted at his watch ‘…in five hours.’ Which translated to about three hours’ sleep if she went home. ‘What about you?
That extra hour actually counted when you were operating on Luca time.
Ever the gentleman, he pulled out the sofa bed in her office then retired to his luxury suite. Emma lay staring at the ceiling, thinking about him. Not once had he pounced on her, had never made her feel uncomfortable, and apart from that blistering first invitation, there had been nothing else.
Except he’d caught her looking at him earlier.
Emma squirmed in embarrassment and then consoled herself that if she’d been standing in her bra and panties, he’d have had a quick peek too.
It offered no consolation.
‘What’s the point of it all, Em?’
His voice over the intercom penetrated the darkness and made her smile. He did this every now and then.
‘So you can make pots of money,’ she responded.
‘I’ve made pots of money.’
‘So you can have any woman you want.’
There was a pensive pause.
‘I have any woman I want.’
‘I don’t know, then.’
‘So why are you here?’ Luca asked. ‘Working yourself into the ground, that cruel boss never giving you a night off?’
‘Because I love my work!’ she duly answered.
‘Rubbish!’ came the voice over the intercom, and Emma smiled. ‘Why are you here Em?’
She paused for the longest time—almost expecting the door to open and Luca to walk in. This conversation, despite taking place over an intercom, was surprisingly intimate. And lying in dark, she was almost tempted to tell him, about the bills and the house, about her dream of going to art school. About how this job was her lifeline, about how, one day, she hoped it might set her up to pursue her goals…
Which was hardly the conversation to have with your boss.
‘’Night, Luca!’
She could never have guessed but save for those two words her office door would have opened.
He liked her.
Luca stared up at the familiar ceiling, at the dimmed lights that never actually went off—and it was a measure of how much he liked her that he didn’t go to her.
It had nothing to do with Evelyn’s stern warnings— well, maybe a bit, as Evelyn was too good to lose, and her husband was getting less and less impressed with the hours his wife put in.
But it was more than that.
He didn’t want to lose Emma.
He liked her.
Not just liked her, but actually liked her.
Liked having her in his day.
She was nothing like anyone he’d met before. She brightened up the office with her chatter and her fizz and she answered him back and made him smile.
And she liked him too. In that way.
He’d actually been beginning to wonder—he’d been a bit taken aback when she’d so coolly turned him down at their first meeting. Working with him, she was so on guard, so scathing of his ways, that he’d wondered if the reason he liked her was that she was the one woman who didn’t fancy him.
Then tonight he’d seen her expression in the mirror, and in that second before she’d realised he’d caught her, he had seen the want in her eyes.
He lay racked with rare indecision.
His instinct was to let nature take its course.
With women, Luca always followed instinct—and instinct told him to go out there to where she lay, in those ugly pyjamas she wore. Luca became instantly hard at the thought of those curls on the pillow, and her soft skin.
So why the reticence?
Because it would last a couple of weeks, a couple of months perhaps—and then she’d want more from him, like they all did, like Martha had…
He closed his eyes on that sudden thought, but circles of light still danced before his eyes.
Martha had been the only one it had really hurt to let go.
It was a thought that till now had comforted him—that he had said goodbye to the one, that the hardest part of the deal he had made all those years ago was over.
So why, when he hadn’t so much as kissed Emma, was he comparing her to Martha?