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Her boss made Casanova look like an amateur, for pity’s sake. She knew it, and yet she responded anyway.
“You may say whatever you wish to say in front of Faith,” Renzo countered. “She is completely trustworthy.”
Lissa pushed her hair over one shoulder with an indolent gesture. Her eyes sparked. “It can wait,” she said tightly. And then she smiled. Faith had the impression of razor-sharp fangs lining the other woman’s mouth. “Perhaps a bit later, then.”
“Perhaps,” Renzo said.
Someone called to her, and Lissa turned and waved. “If you will excuse me, I must mingle.”
“Of course,” Renzo replied. “Do not let us keep you.”
Lissa insisted on kissing Renzo on both cheeks again and held her hand out to Faith, pressing it limply before gliding away in a cloud of malevolence that was quite possibly stronger than her perfume.
“Let me guess,” Faith said coolly, moving out of his grasp when the other woman had joined a group of people a few feet away. “She is the reason you needed a date tonight.”
“Si,” Renzo said.
Faith turned to look up at him, exasperated, and just a little hurt. “Honestly, I don’t know why you just don’t do what you always do and be done with it.”
His brows drew together. “What I always do?”
“Oh please, don’t act as if you don’t know. I’ve worked for you for six months, and I’ve yet to see a woman last more than a month with you. You wine them, dine them, give them presents and dump them.”
It was bold of her, but she’d had just enough wine to loosen her tongue. To be on the safe side, she deposited the half-finished glass on the terrace wall. If she drank the whole thing, heaven knows what she might say to him.
Renzo grinned. Not at all the effect she’d been going for. “You forgot one, Faith.” She frowned, but he leaned toward her and spoke before she could say anything. “Bed them.”
A flash of heat shot through her. Dammit! “Yes, of course. How could I forget that one? Silly me.”
She realized she was standing before him with her arms crossed defensively when he put his hands on her shoulders and skimmed them down her arms. “I had no idea you were so outraged by my behavior,” he teased.
Faith scoffed as she tried very hard not to react to his skin touching hers. Why didn’t she just shove him away? “Outraged? I have no say in anything you choose to do. I am not outraged. It was merely an observation.”
He put a finger under her jaw and tipped her chin up. His sharp eyes glittered with some hidden passion that hadn’t been there only a moment ago. It shocked her. And intrigued her.
He was so close. Too close, the heat emanating from him enveloping her, making her long to press into him and see just how hot she could feel. Would she burn up in his embrace?
No. No, no, no. She would not think of her Italian playboy boss in that way. It wasn’t safe. It was irresponsible. Reckless.
Faith did not do reckless. The one time she had, it had cost her far more than she could have ever dreamed. She was finished with reckless.
“But you disapprove,” Renzo said.
“Not this time.” And she almost meant it, except for the fact it would mean Renzo would actually sleep with that obnoxious woman. Though, on the other hand, the woman would pay for it in the end when Renzo dumped her. Faith might enjoy shopping for that parting gift. “Go for it.”
He laughed. “And what makes you think I have not already? That she just doesn’t understand I no longer want her?”
It was a valid point, but she knew better because she’d witnessed the fallout too many times. The tears, the desperate phone calls, the attempts to sneak past her and into his office in order to plead for another chance. Women could be, she’d decided, awfully pitiful sometimes. She wanted to tell them to get some dignity, to stop begging and go on with their lives. Men like Renzo were immune to histrionics.
“Because a woman who has been subjected to the D’Angeli treatment is usually angry with you. She wasn’t. She wants you, and pretty badly I’d say.”
The look in his eyes was sharp. He moved a step closer and she shuddered involuntarily. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, much too innocently. “I like the way you talk, Faith. It sounds like sweet syrup, all long and drawn out as if you had all day to speak. Not like the women in New York.”
“That’s because I’m from Georgia. It’s hot there. We talk slow and walk slow and, well, do a lot of things slow.” My God, she was babbling. To her urbane, gorgeous boss. Where was her dignity?
One of Renzo’s dark eyebrows arched. “Really? I can imagine that some things are done best when done slowly. How wise you people from Georgia are.”
Her heart was slamming into her ribs and a fine sheen of moisture was rising in the valley between her breasts. “I sound no different now than I have for the past six months. I can’t imagine how you haven’t noticed it before.”
He took another step and she backed up, found herself against the wall of the terrace where it curved inward. He put a hand on the wall beside her, trapping her as his other hand came up and caressed her jaw.
It was electrifying.
“I have been wondering this myself,” he said. “You have hidden yourself well, Faith.”
Her body hummed with electricity that she feared would scorch her if it continued for much longer. “I’ve hidden nothing. I’ve come to work every day and sat at a desk not ten feet from your office door. I’ve brought you coffee, papers. I’ve fielded phone calls and given you reports. And I’ve gone shopping for those goodbye presents for your women—”
“Ah,” he said softly, “you are offended.”
“No,” she replied. But then, because she couldn’t help it, she added, “Though I think you should shop for your own presents.”
Renzo laughed. “Perhaps you are correct, and yet you always choose the nicest things. How can I compete?”
“By employing a full-time personal shopper?”
His gaze dropped to her mouth for a moment and she sucked in a breath, trying to calm her racing heart. He hadn’t backed away, hadn’t taken his hand from her cheek in all this time they’d been talking. The sharp ache throbbing inside her was nearly unbearable.
And unfathomable.
“You have lovely eyes,” he said. “Why do you hide them behind those hideous glasses all day long?”
She stiffened. “They’re reading glasses. I need them to do my job.” A different kind of heat scorched her now.
Someone laughed nearby, and then Lissa’s voice drifted over the others. “So plain and unattractive. Honestly, I can’t see what he sees in her. Must be an Italian thing.”
Time seemed to stand still for a moment, hovering in the air above Faith’s head, threatening her with old humiliations and hurts. And then it drifted down over her, covering her in feelings she would rather forget.
She told herself not to care, but she did anyway. It hurt, being the center of negative attention. Though nothing Lissa said could come close to what Faith had gone through in the past when Jason had betrayed her trust, she was surprised to realize that it still had the power to hurt her.
For a moment, she was back in high school. Hearing the taunts, the snickers, the innuendos. Feeling the anger, the urge to lash out, the urge to escape.
Renzo’s jaw tightened. “I’m sorry, Faith.”
“It’s nothing,” she said lightly, drawing on hard-won reserves of strength. “She’s just jealous.” But moisture swam in her eyes and her throat ached with the effort not to let any tears fall. She thought that she’d learned how to deal with this eight years ago, but she’d been wrong. You never got over people pointing their fingers and laughing at you.
“We will go now,” Renzo said, his hands on her shoulders once more, this time imparting comfort rather than setting her on edge.
“No!” Faith swallowed the lump in her throat. She would not run. Not this time. “No, that’s exactly what she wants. Besides, have you got what you came here for tonight?”
He’d spent a few minutes with Robert Stein, but it had been in the company of others. And she was fairly certain he’d not talked business upon first arriving. No doubt he’d been hoping to broach that subject a bit later.
He frowned. “That is unimportant.”
Impulsively, she put a hand on his chest. The fabric of his tuxedo was smooth, cool, but beneath it his body was hard and hot. She knew he was in excellent shape considering that he was a top Grand Prix rider—not to mention she’d saved the heat-inducing magazine ad where he’d posed in his leathers with the zipper opened to his navel. She’d been unable to deny how sexy he was in that ad, even if she did think him heartless when it came to women. The magazine had gone into her keeper pile, much to her dismay.
Still, after all that, she was unprepared for how his body felt beneath her hand.
Power and leashed strength waiting for the right instant to explode into action. At the moment, however, he seemed very still beneath her touch, nothing but the beat of his heart vibrating against her palm. It was almost as if he was purposely holding himself still.
Faith forced herself to focus. “Please, Renzo, the Viper is important to you. Talk with Mr. Stein. Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself.”
She’d learned how after a trial by fire she would never forget.
His fingers wrapped around hers where they rested on his tuxedo. He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss there that sent a shudder rocketing down her spine.
“You are quite remarkable, Faith,” he said softly.
“Hardly,” she replied. She needed to put distance between them, now more than ever. She didn’t like this hot, achy feeling he called up inside her. It could come to no good for her. Even if he were interested in a plain girl like her, she had a lot more to lose than his usual women. Unlike the others, she’d find herself brokenhearted and jobless once he decided to dump her, were she foolish enough to give in to this silliness inside. “I’m thinking of my bottom line. If the Viper succeeds, then I can ask for an even bigger raise.”
Renzo threw back his head and laughed. “Indeed. Then come with me, cara.”
And, twining his fingers in hers, he led her into the center of the garden party.
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