The Italian Tycoon's Mistress

CATHY WILLIAMS was born in the West Indies and has been writing Harlequin romances for some fifteen years. She is a great believer in the power of perseverance, as she had never written anything before (apart from school essays a lifetime ago!), and from the starting point of zero has now fulfilled her ambition to pursue this most enjoyable of careers. She would encourage any would-be writer to have faith and go for it! She lives in the beautiful Warwickshire countryside with her husband and three children, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma. When not writing she is hard-pressed to find a moment’s free time in between the millions of household chores, not to mention being a one-woman taxi service for her daughters’ never-ending social lives. She derives inspiration from the hot, lazy, tropical island of Trinidad (where she was born), from the peaceful countryside of middle England and, of course, from her many friends, who are a rich source of plots and are particularly garrulous when it comes to describing Harlequin heroes. It would seem from their complaints, that tall, dark and charismatic men are way too few and far between! Her hope is to continue writing romance fiction and providing those eternal tales of love for which, she feels, we all strive.

THE ITALIAN TYCOON’S MISTRESS

CATHY WILLIAMS

TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

‘WHAT’S this?’

It wasn’t so much of a question as a demand for an immediate explanation. The past two days had been regularly punctuated by such demands, thinly veiled as polite enquiries. Rocco Losi had descended into the cosy feather bed of Losi Construction like a panther leaping into a gathering of easy prey, intent on a kill.

Richard Newton glanced worriedly to where one long brown finger was pointing at a small entry on the printout and sighed.

‘That’s one of the subsids,’ he explained, leaning forward to peer at the entry and then subsiding back into his chair with a feeling of doom.

‘One of the subsids. Where’s the paperwork relating to this particular subsid?’ Rocco pushed his chair back and coolly contemplated the fair-haired man who seemed to be caught in a state of nervous agitation.

This exercise was proving to be a nightmare from hell and, as far as Rocco was concerned, the level of the executives only helped to aid and abet the impression. It was a marvel that his father’s company managed to make the profits it did considering that a great majority of the chief executives were of the old-fashioned, jocular, verging-on-retirement type. Richard Newton, the accounts manager now perspiring in front of him, was one of the younger members of management and Rocco would hardly have called him cutting edge. In fact, the man wouldn’t have lasted more than five seconds in his own corporate giant where dead wood was shed and under-performers were left in no doubt of their eventual fate, should change not be forthcoming.

But then the cut and thrust of life in New York’s fast lane was considerably more savage than here, in Shakespeare’s County.

Rocco placed his hands flatly on the surface of his father’s desk and enunciated his next few words with grim, measured brutality.

‘Listen to me very carefully, Mr Newton. I don’t want to be here. I have been compelled to leave my offices in New York because of events which have left me no choice. However, I am here now and I don’t intend to give you all a perfunctory pat on the back and leave you to muddle along the way you appear to have always muddled along. I do not expect to have to ask any questions because I expect all the information I require on my father’s company to be right here. In this room. Sitting on this desk. Waiting for me to look at. Do I make myself absolutely clear?’

Rocco Losi watched the man sitting opposite him nod weakly and felt not a scrap of compassion. He wasn’t here to get a popularity award or to make friends. He was here to temporarily take charge of his father’s company so that public confidence in it could be maintained until such time as he could depart these shores back to the city that had been his home for over ten years.

Nor was he prepared to do a surface job. That wasn’t his style. He had come, albeit against his will, and he intended to turn over whatever stones were necessary to make sure that Losi Construction was performing to its highest possible level.

The file had been fetched and placed in front of him. Without bothering to look at him, Rocco informed Richard Newton that he was to remain precisely where he was until he had answered all questions to his personal satisfaction.

He took his time with the file, barely aware of the man patiently waiting for him to finish, then he sat back and looked at Richard Newton in silence for a few seconds.

‘Explain to me where this particular subsidiary fits in with the general profit-making scheme of the company.’ He linked his fingers casually together and waited. He had always felt that people, generally, underestimated the great virtue of silence. In his experience, there was nothing more persuasive when it came to getting a truthful answer than silence. It could be unnerving and quite deadly.

‘Ah. Yes, well…your father makes a healthy profit with his company. It’s one of the most respected building firms in the area, you know. And with the boom in housing over the years, with no end in sight, well, as you can see from the general spreadsheets, things are doing quite nicely. More than quite nicely.’

Rocco watched this inexpert evasion of his question with hooded eyes. Nor did he encourage the meandering by saying a word. Instead, he glanced at his watch, then returned his attention to Richard Newton’s flushed face.

‘As for where it fits in with the profit-making…well…it doesn’t. Not really. You probably don’t understand how things work out here, Mr Losi. I mean, you’re accustomed to a more aggressive type of environment, I guess…’

‘I’m looking for an answer in one sentence, Mr Newton. You are the chief accountant. Surely it cannot be that difficult.’

‘This particular subsidiary is the goodwill arm of the firm, so to speak. Amy Hogan looks after it. You could say that she handles the equivalent of legal pro bono work. Your father was, is, very keen on the idea of giving back. Of course, Amy does handle profit-making work as well…’

Rocco frowned. ‘I thought I had met all the relevant personnel. The name rings no bells.’

‘That’s because she doesn’t exactly work in this building. She has an office closer to Birmingham because she’s on the move a lot of the time, overseeing things in the city centre.’

‘What is her position in the company?’

‘She’s…well, one of the executives…’

‘I believe I asked to interview all the executives.’

‘Ah. Yes. You did. But she couldn’t make it in yesterday…’

‘Because…?’ Rocco’s voice was ominous in its smoothness. ‘Severe ill health, perhaps? Or was she out of the country?’

For a few seconds, Richard Newton seriously debated going for the severe ill health option. ‘She said she was busy.’

‘She. Said. She. Was. Busy.’ Rocco was finding it a little difficult to believe his ears. He had made his orders perfectly clear from the very first moment he had stepped foot in the company. He was so accustomed to having his orders obeyed without question, and usually at the speed of light, that the idea of someone casually ignoring them because she was busy was very nearly beyond the realm of his understanding.

‘Amy hardly ever stops!’ Richard elaborated in a desperate attempt to avert the equivalent of a missile homing in ruthlessly onto its target, judging from the expression on Rocco’s face. ‘And right now she’s working on a particularly big project…’

‘Would that be a particularly big non-profit-making project, by any chance?’

‘Community centre on a sink estate in the city centre,’ was the mumbled response.

Rocco felt his tightly reined-in patience begin to unravel. This was a highly unusual occurrence. In that rarefied place that he inhabited, where power and influence afforded him the luxury of utter self-assurance, stumbling blocks were things that he tackled with utmost cool. Hitches in multimillion-dollar deals did not rouse his impatience, merely his professional curiosity and intellectual interest. They cropped up occasionally and more often than not he simply sorted them out with his usual unerring precision.

The thought of some minor middle-management woman deliberately choosing to ignore his summons because she basically couldn’t be bothered made him grit his teeth together in rising rage.

He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. ‘Here is a little job for you, Mr Newton. You telephone Miss Hogan as soon as you walk out of this office and inform her that I will be paying her a little visit this afternoon. I will expect her to be waiting for me in her office, however busy she is, at precisely three o’clock. If she is not there, feel free to assure her that her head will most definitely be on the block.’

Richard Newton opened his mouth to state that dismissals of executives were taken to the board of directors, and closed his mouth before he could utter a word. This man did not play by the usual rules. He was a law unto himself and the gentlemanly codes of behaviour that had operated within the hallowed walls of Losi Construction would be brushed aside as minor irritations. He nodded and exited the room with a feeling of deep relief, leaving Rocco to broodingly ponder yet something else to deal with that he had not foreseen.

If he and his father had had any sort of ongoing communication between them, he would have arrived here with some expectation of what he was going to find. As it was, the feud that had driven him to make his fortune on the other side of the Atlantic meant that he had arrived in England with no knowledge of how his father’s company operated or even whether it was successful or not.

He raked his fingers through his hair and buzzed his secretary in to arrange a driver to take him to wherever the Hogan woman’s office was in the city centre. Then he proceeded to spend the remainder of the morning going through profit-and-loss columns, summoning up information on the computer, while maintaining contact with his own offices across the Atlantic via his own laptop computer.

He only broke off at two when he was interrupted by his secretary informing him that his driver was ready.

He didn’t know what he had expected to find. Losi Construction was located on the outskirts of Stratford and was housed in an old period building that reeked of Old World elegance. It was as far removed from his own super-modern, innovative glass building in the heart of New York as chalk was from cheese.

At the back of his mind, he expected to find an office on a similar but smaller scale. Something Victorian, perhaps, with the high ceilings and understated elegance that he remembered from way back.

He was slightly taken aback when, after a slow drive out of the country into the myriad cluttered streets of the city, the driver finally pulled up outside something small, concrete and tacked onto a newsagent’s in a parade of fairly disreputable-looking shops.

‘Are you sure you have got the right place?’ Rocco eyed the dodgy front with a frown. A little gang of youths was loitering in front of the off-licence, obviously having nothing better to do on a brilliant summer day than hang out in a threatening fashion.

‘Of course, sir. I have often come to fetch Miss Hogan when her car is out of action.’

‘A frequent occurrence, is it?’

‘She’s very fond of that little Mini,’ Edward said neutrally, ‘even though it plays up from time to time.’

Rocco grunted, barely hearing this piece of uninvited information. He pushed open the car door and slung his long, powerful body out, then he leant down to prop himself against the window. ‘I will call you when I’m ready to be collected.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Which, Rocco figured, would be in under an hour. He had no intention of going over any books with the woman. That could be done in the comfort of his father’s office. No. He would simply prepare her for the possibility that all this community housing rubbish would come to a swift end should his father be unable to return to active work, leaving Rocco to take over to his satisfaction before he departed for New York. If the company wanted to donate to charitable causes, there were ways and means of doing just that, which would additionally bring in tax relief on the donations. Time, energy and manpower were to be spent on the profitable side of the business. Losi Construction was not an unofficial branch of the Samaritans.

With that objective firmly in his mind, Rocco pushed open the door to the office and stepped into a world he had not visited for a very long time indeed. The world of cheap furniture, threadbare carpets and seeming chaos. There was no reception area. Five desks were crammed into a room roughly half the size of his own office in New York and one entire wall was dominated by an intricate map of a housing estate, from an aerial view. Grimy windows had been flung open to allow some fresh air in and an overhead fan threatened to wreak havoc on any paperwork that wasn’t securely weighted down.

In this alarmingly basic atmosphere work was, however, going on, although it immediately stopped the minute he walked in, with five pairs of eyes focusing on him with unconcealed interest. Three men and two women, all in their twenties. Two of the men wore their hair scraped back into ponytails and conversely the women had short cropped hairdos.

‘I am looking for an Amy Hogan,’ Rocco said, moving forward so that several more details in the room sprang into unfortunate prominence. Such as the notice-board propped against the wall at the back, with messages tacked over every square centimetre of its surface, the wire bins most of which were full, and a box of tools whose purpose he could only guess at.

‘In the back.’ One of the lads stepped forward and eyed Rocco suspiciously, putting out one hand when Rocco tried to head in the mentioned direction. ‘Whoa! Where do you think you’re going, mate?’

‘I am here to see Miss Hogan.’

‘And you are…?’

‘Rocco Losi.’

The hand dropped and there was a heightened sense of interest now.

‘I have an appointment with Miss Hogan, in case she hasn’t mentioned it.’

‘Nope. She hasn’t. How’s your dad doing? Name’s Freddy, by the way, mate. Soz about the lack of welcome mate, but you can’t be too careful in these parts.’ Freddy held out his hand, which was surprisingly firm when Rocco shook it.

‘Off-licence was broken into a fortnight ago,’ one of the cropped-haired women interjected. ‘Three men just broke through the plate glass and hauled as much as they could, as cool as you like, never mind the alarm bells.’

‘Took the coppers a good ten minutes to get here…’

‘By which time, they’d scarpered…’

‘Old Mr Singh was pretty shaken up about it…’

‘I see you’ve met my staff.’ The voice was low, husky and threaded with amusement. Rocco looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway, dressed in the same casual style as everyone else seemed to be: jeans and a stripy teeshirt, with a pair of trainers. ‘I’m Amy Hogan and you must be Antonio’s son.’

The softening in her voice when she mentioned his father’s name stirred something inside him and Rocco met her open smile with a gritted one of his own. Five feet four, if that, straight brown hair, wide-spaced brown eyes, sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of a short, straight nose.

What, he wondered, had possessed his father to employ someone who looked so young to handle sums of money that a good many would baulk at? To fling about at her own discretion? A community centre here, a refuge there, a park somewhere else…?

He hadn’t actually seen her CV, but now that he had laid eyes on her he decided that he’d better check her credentials.

‘Perhaps we could go somewhere private for a talk,’ Rocco said, moving towards her.

‘My office is just at the back.’ God, he was tall. Amy could feel herself craning up to look at him. Tall and so incredibly good-looking that she had to wrench her eyes away or risk staring shamelessly. He was olive-skinned, with black hair and eyes so piercingly blue that even when she had looked past him she could still feel them boring into her.

Richard hadn’t told her what he looked like. She wished she had asked, so that she wouldn’t now be standing here, gaping.

Fortunately, he had told her everything else about him, paying particular attention to his arrogance, not that she could have missed it. It was stamped all over him like a handprint.

She plastered her brightest smile on her face. ‘Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Actually, scrap the coffee. We ran out a couple of days ago and no one’s got around to replacing it. So that’s tea or water.’

‘I’m fine. I’m just here for a little…chat…and then I will be on my way.’

Amy shrugged and led the way to her office, which was just another room, smaller than the first but in a similarly worn state. However, it did contain a desk, behind which she moved to sit, and a couple of chairs, one of which she indicated to Rocco.

He seemed to dwarf the room. It was an illusion, of course, but it was still unsettling. Something about the unhurried way he looked around him before finally settling his attention on her rattled her. Surprising because, in the sort of work she did, she came into contact with men who were really a lot more unsettling than Rocco Losi.

‘What can I do for you?’ Amy asked, smilingly polite although the smile was in danger of wearing a bit thin.

‘I believe I asked to see you at my father’s offices yesterday?’

‘I know. Sorry about that but I was really very busy and I just couldn’t find the time to get away. How is your father doing? We were all really worried when he was taken ill with pneumonia. He told me that he was just a little run-down. It was a complete shock to learn that he’d been taken into hospital. I’ve tried to get in to see him every day, but he was still so weak that I don’t think my presence there did much good at all.’

‘Let us get one thing straight, Miss Hogan. I am here for absolutely the least amount of time possible. In the time that I am here, I expect cooperation from every member of my father’s staff. That includes yourself, however distant your outpost appears to be.’

Amy stopped smiling and met his stare with one of her own. ‘Please accept my apologies. Now, perhaps you would like to tell me what I can do for you.’ Richard had been vague but ominous on the matter of Rocco’s visit and she hadn’t pressed him, assuming that he just wanted a quick run-down of the projects they had recently worked on and were currently undertaking. She was becoming uneasily aware that her blithe optimism might have been a tad misplaced.

‘What you can do for me is to tell me what your credentials are.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Your credentials.’

‘Is that really necessary?’ she asked, flushing under the cold, unwavering stare. ‘Antonio has always trusted me…’

‘My father is not running this company at the moment. I am. As things stand, there is a chance he may not be sufficiently fit to return to work, in which case it is my duty to take the company in hand and get it running the way I see fit before I leave this country.’ Despite the whirring of a fan that was poised perilously on top of one of the gun-metal-grey filing cabinets, the room was like an oven and Rocco pushed up the sleeves of his shirt. How these people could work in here was beyond him. His first summer in New York, before he had begun his meteoric rise, had been spent in a box like this. One bedroom, a tiny bathroom, a kitchen and the heat pouring through inadequate windows like treacle. Ten years on, his memories of such discomfort were blessedly dim. Now, his apartment was plush, air-conditioned throughout to cope with the soaring temperatures in summer, and a testimony to what top designers could do when money was no object.

‘What does that have to do with my credentials, Mr Losi?’ Amy asked coolly.

On the verge of snapping, Rocco leaned forward and subjected her to the full force of his overpowering personality. ‘To be blunt, Miss Hogan, I’ll tell you what I have found since coming here. I have found a company that is successful more through default than strategy. The construction business is booming and my father happens to have cornered the market simply because Losi Construction has been around for a very long time and has consequently benefited from its reputation. The directors seem content to sit around and accept this happy state of affairs without questioning the possibility that other, more aggressive firms might creep up to challenge their monopoly of the market. It doesn’t take a financial wizard to spot the flaws in this way of thinking. Added to this, I find substantial sums of money being flung in the direction of a kid so that she can play at being a charity worker.’

‘A kid? Playing at being a charity worker? Would you be talking about me, Mr Losi?’

‘Very perceptive.’ Rocco lounged back in his chair and looked at her with cool indifference. Her brain seemed sharp enough but she was still a kid of, what…nineteen? Twenty? No make-up whatsoever. He was accustomed to dealing with women in business and was similarly accustomed to the power suits and the face paint.

‘I happen to be twenty-six years old, not that it’s any of your business…’

‘Oh, but that’s where you are wrong. It is my business. At least at this point in time. I am now your boss and, as your boss, I would be very interested in knowing what experience you have that qualifies you to deal with the sums of money you have been dealing with. Who is your immediate boss?’

‘My immediate boss has always been your father!’

‘So you’re telling me that you have free rein to do whatever you like, build whatever bijou shelters for the homeless that you want and what…? Casually mention it to my father? Run it by him at the odd meeting when you can find the time?’

Amy felt a rush of angry blood to her head. This was beyond arrogance, but she was caught between a rock and a hard place. There was no way that she could throw him out of her office because he was, as he had made sure to point out, her boss for the time being and, more chillingly, might well be her boss for rather longer if Antonio somehow found himself having to take early retirement. Antonio was now in his seventies and the doctor had told her that the pneumonia might be far more debilitating at his age than it would have been had he been younger, especially when his angina was taken into consideration.