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Debbie swallowed the urge to giggle at his reaction. ‘An olde Englishe wench, I think,’ she said cheerfully.
‘I had my doubts about the costume suiting me too,’ she admitted with engaging honesty. His frostiness didn’t dissolve by one iota as she pressed on. ‘I must apologise for the late delivery...’ she began, hoping to placate him.
‘I said twelve-thirty.’
He radiated confidence and authority—in the way he sat, the way he commanded the room, the way he spoke, his voice very Sicilian in the way it dropped at the end of his sentences as if he’d said something that was not to be questioned. It made Debbie feel like a schoolgirl who’d been hauled in front of the headmaster for some grave misdemeanour. And she had a wicked urge to hang her head sullenly, swing her body from side to side and mutter, Yes sir, sorry sir; it won’t happen again, sir.
But she remembered that she had to be charming at all times and so she willed herself to approach the forbidding area between her noisily rustling skirt and the desk. She placed the box on his pristine blotter and kept the pleasant smile firmly in place.
‘Both of our delivery girls were pinched by a rival,’ she explained calmly.
His black brow had arced up sardonically because her cockney accent had become more pronounced—perhaps in contrast to his classy tones, she had decided it would be best to be herself. He’d see through any attempt she made to sound refined.
‘I’m not surprised, if they were wearing such revealing costumes.’
Debbie blinked, wondering if he’d made a joke, and decided he was far too po-faced to do any such thing. ‘By pinched I meant that our girls were lured away, given alternative employment,’ she explained, and checked herself to see if the broderie anglaise insert had come adrift from her bosom. All was in place. ‘It’s not revealing,’ she protested mildly.
‘It is from where I’m sitting.’
His eyes wandered critically down her body, inch by inch, and she felt the tightness of the material increase, proving his point.
She blushed and felt an urge to wrap her arms around herself defensively. ‘Well, it wasn’t made for me.’
‘I guessed.’
‘You’re lucky you got any food at all,’ she confided. ‘I’ve been breaking the world speed record to make sure you didn’t miss out.’ She beamed.
He didn’t look impressed or grateful. ‘The world speed record wasn’t fast enough for me,’ he drawled sarcastically.
‘Oh. Mr Porter wouldn’t have minded.’
‘I’m not Mr Porter.’
‘No. He was bald.’ She flashed him an innocent grin to dispel his perfectly reasonable suspicion that she was sending him up. ‘What’s happened to him?’ she asked in genuine concern. ‘He’s not been sacked by the board, has he?’
The man was clearly taken aback, as if people—especially Bo-Peeps in aprons—didn’t normally talk to him so frankly. ‘Golden handshake. I bought the bank,’ he said drily.
His eyes seemed to be everywhere, appraising her with the confidence of someone who expected to be found attractive. And his arrogant gaze lingered particularly on Debbie’s straining bosom. It felt hot and prickly. She was so uncomfortable that she decided she’d better leave.
‘I hope Mr Porter got a good solid handshake from you,’ she said, longing to find a human spark in the man. ‘He was a darling. I’d like to think of him on some desert island, swigging gin and swatting flies.’ The glittering black eyes hadn’t even flickered. She decided to give up on him. ‘Well, my feet are killing me, so I’ll be off.’
‘Wait.’ The word was softly spoken but carried so much authority that it halted her in mid-stride as she headed for the door. And although her back was turned to him she felt his eyes burning into her spine and doing funny things to her nerves. ‘I want to check the food first,’ he murmured.
Stifling a groan, she returned to his desk and, carefully moving aside a stack of mail and a half-opened parcel, patiently undid the string on the box to reveal the contents. ‘It’s all fresh,’ she said brightly. ‘I baked the bread this morning.’
‘You?’ he said in frank disbelief, fingering a fountain-pen thoughtfully.
‘At dawn,’ she retorted, widening innocent eyes.
‘While the mists were lifting from the Thames and the sky lightened from rose to saffron?’
Was that sarcasm? She wasn’t sure—the dark face was deadpan, the eyes so intense and magnetic that she had to make a real effort to drag her gaze away. ‘Not quite. While the dustmen banged about outside and next door’s cat yowled in the yard,’ she corrected him with a wry grin.
‘Well, don’t bother on my account in future,’ he said, apparently not possessing a sense of humour. The hard male mouth hadn’t as much as quivered in amusement. He poked about in the box, a faint curl to his upper lip. Then he looked up and met her concerned gaze with a cold, hostile stare. ‘I’m re-assigning the catering to another firm.’
Debbie’s mouth dropped open in astonishment. ‘You’re what? Why?’ she asked in dismay. ‘The food’s terrific—’
‘I don’t have to give a reason,’ he snapped irritably.
‘I think you do!’ she cried in protest, deciding to stick her neck out and get to the bottom of Colleoni’s brushoff. ‘I need to know what we’ve done wrong—we could put it right.’
The black eyes flashed a warning. ‘I’m busy,’ he said curtly. ‘I don’t discuss decisions.’
The strong nose had lifted with the haughtiness of a Roman emperor and Debbie suddenly felt she’d been relegated to a servant level. ‘Particularly with delivery girls?’ she asked quietly.
His glacial stare never wavered but she felt the scorn pouring from him like an acid river. ‘Out,’ he grated through perfect white teeth.
He bent his glossy head and scowled at some papers in front of him, effectively dismissing her. She was stunned. They needed the business to pay the gas bill. Her body trembled at the prospect of more debts, more arrangements to pay instalments from a rapidly diminishing income. She thought of how the news would affect her mother and steeled herself to face him, since she had nothing to lose and a lot to win. She stood her ground.
‘If you’re not happy with Bo-beep invading your offices, we’ll deliver wearing anything you like,’ she said submissively, trying to keep her voice level and mask the betraying wobble. When he raised his eyes and shot her a baleful, end-of-my-tether look, she bit her lip. ‘A nice ladylike outfit.’ Twin set and pearls, she almost suggested in defiant hysteria, but didn’t dare.
‘The costume’s not the problem.’
‘Isn’t it?’ she cried hopefully. ‘Then you can’t fault the food. Please let us keep you on our books,’ she begged. ‘We have your directors’ lunch next week and food to do for the office outing next month—’
‘Not any longer, you don’t. Shut the door behind you: The papers were treated to his baleful scowl again. He started crossing out whole sections of some kind of agreement, his gold fountain-pen digging hard into the thick paper and making a loud scratching noise in the silence.
Debbie was appalled at the injustice. It was so unfair! Her mouth tightened ominously. It had been a hard day and he’d made it harder. ‘I won’t take up any more of your valuable time. I hope you enjoy your lunch and change your mind,’ she said politely, and made for the door before she lost her temper and taught him his manners.
Preoccupied with the loss of the business, she flung open the door and hurried out, her head down. There was a cry of warning from Annie and too late she saw an advancing redhead in the briefest of high-cut shorts and bra which had apparently been made from tiny scraps of the American flag. Her mind registered for a split-second that the redhead had a basket of sandwiches over her arm and then the two of them collided, collapsing on to the office floor.
‘Oh, Lord!’ groaned Debbie. She flicked away a mouthful of stiffly lacquered hair and made a face at the disgusting taste. ‘I wish I were rich. I’d never be here,’ she muttered fervently under her breath, cautiously working out which were her legs in the general jumble of limbs. ‘I think,’ she said tartly to the woman, ‘you’re trespassing on my patch.’
‘Basta! Get up, both of you!’ roared Colleoni’s voice from the doorway.
With another groan of dismay, Debbie reached back to steady herself, her hand coming into contact with the frills of her briefs which were lavishly exposed to public view. Scarlet with shame, she flipped down the hated petticoats and skirt as far as she could to restore her dignity and methodically set about undoing herself from the cursing redhead. Her eyes widened in shock at the breadth and coarseness of the woman’s vocabulary.
Two big male hands suddenly cupped beneath Debbie’s armpits and she felt herself lifted up into the air, a light scrap of thistledown instead of a well-built mother of a two-year-old. And then she was set down on her feet again.
Her head jerked around. Level with her eyes was the unmistakable spotless white shirt and the broad knot of Colleoni’s royal blue tie. Since she was above average height, she realised that he must be unusually tall but embarrassment stopped her from looking up at him.
‘I wish the floor would open up and swallow me,’ she muttered miserably to his tie.
“That can be arranged,’ he grated grimly stepping back as if she’d contaminate him with some foul disease.
Leaving her to squirm, he reached down and courteously helped the redhead to her feet, and was rewarded by a breathtaking display of femininity as the woman nervously clutched at the shelf that was Colleoni’s broad, pin-striped shoulder. Debbie, however, wasn’t mollified by the pathetic whimpering emerging from the pouting red lips.
‘I want a word with her,’ she said menacingly.
‘Save me!’ The woman cringed and clung, but didn’t forget to thrust out her ample chest in a way that threatened to split the stars and stripes forever. ‘Protect me,’ she implored. “That woman’s mad!’
Debbie noticed that Colleoni was ignoring the redhead completely and became aware that his frowning gaze had focused with a deep concentration somewhere around her breastbone. For a moment she was riveted by the raw sexual curl of his suddenly expressive mouth and then she realised why he seemed to be breathing so heavily.
Hastily she shot a quick look down at herself and groaned at the startling amount of her own bosom that had become exposed—almost, but mercifully not quite, to the tight, hard peaks thrusting out at the sprigged material. Appalled at the way the treacherous neckline had let her down, she wriggled the modesty piece back in place again, feeling hotter and hotter as the disapproving silence deepened.
She knew she’d never get the business back now. She felt her stomach somersault with the awful realisation that her late delivery and the mortifying scene had counted against her.
Most men would have found the situation amusing—especially the ratio of flesh per metre of fabric. This guy evidently had firm ideas about women and, although he’d been red-blooded enough to spend a little while staring at her half-exposed breasts, his ideas of womanhood didn’t include females who rolled around the floor dressed in fancy costumes.
‘I’m not mad; I’ve just had enough of being sabotaged!’ she said irritably, adjusting the puff sleeves and restoring some of her dignity. But not much. ‘Look,’ she continued sharply to Miss Stars and Stripes, ‘I know it’s not your fault you’re working my area, but—’
‘Shove off!’ said the woman rudely, bending down to pick up the scattered cling-filmed sandwiches and return them to her basket. ‘I’m delivering samples. Ask him. It’s his sister who’s got the franchise. Pia Colleoni. She’s the boss of City Lights,’ she sneered.
‘City Lights! His sister?’ Debbie’s husky voice ran out on her.
‘Sister-in-law,’ corrected Colleoni. ‘Leave the sandwiches,’ he said disdainfully to Miss Stars and Stripes. ‘I’ll let you know.’
Lithe and supple, as if his muscles had been liquefied, he strolled back into his office, confident that the matter was closed. But for Debbie it wasn’t; it had been City Lights which had made sneaky deliveries to some of their customers. After a moment of shocked astonishment, she sped inside after Colleoni and slammed and boldly locked the door behind her.
He froze on the way to his desk and then whirled around, his black eyes glittering with exasperation. ‘Unlock that door at once and get the other side of it!’ he roared. ‘You’re infringing my space—’
‘And you’re infringing my rights!’ she said hotly.
He raised eloquent eyes to the ceiling. ‘A woman with rights!’ he said in exasperation. ‘OK, now what?’ he barked.
Her eyes blazed with anger. ‘I think City Lights has been acting unfairly,’ she said vigorously, tossing a wedge of ruffled blonde hair out of her eyes and earning herself a cynically curled lip in response.
‘What are you after?’ His eyebrow was making a lot of suggestions, all of them sexual.
‘Justice,’ she said huskily, and could have kicked herself for the breathless way that word had been delivered. She might as well have said ‘sex’, judging by Colleoni’s expression.
He pushed back his jacket and lazily studied her while she tried to pretend that she hadn’t noticed his flat stomach and the slender hips. Her brain was in a tangle and he knew that, and his menacing sexuality unnerved her utterly.
‘And... how may I provide this... justice?’ he asked sardonically.
She felt the wash of heat burning her face again but forged on, dragging her brain to attention. ‘My mother and I are trying to run an honest business,’ she said shortly. ‘We provide good food at competitive prices. City Lights isn’t playing fair—’
‘So? That’s business,’ he interrupted coldly.
Exasperated, she went closer, anger and desperation overcoming her sense of intimidation.
‘Sliced factory bread and soggy, chemical-injected ham don’t win orders!’ she said heatedly. ‘They have to resort to dirty tricks: telephoning customers and saying that deliveries can’t be made, undercutting with ridiculous prices and pinching staff from small businesses who are running on a shoe-string like us. It’s not decent and it’s not fair competition,’ she stormed. ‘If you won’t tell your sister-in-law she’s heading for trouble, then I will!’
‘Don’t threaten me,’ he said in a deceptively soft growl that reminded her of distant thunder. ‘I don’t want to get involved in your nasty little squabbles. You might think it’s acceptable to throw yourself at your rival delivery girls and tussle on my office floor, but I find it highly distasteful.’
She took a long, slow breath and a long, slow look at him. She sensed his claws were about to be unsheathed. Though sleek and urbane, there was something about the way he glowered at her from under his brows, the way his eyes blazed into hers, that spoke of danger. He was staring at her, unblinking, unsmiling, unmoved by her plight.
She recognised that he was more stubborn, more pigheaded than she was—with infinitely more power to hold his ground. The taut and muscled body exuded a great strength—not only a physical energy, but the sublime directness of purpose of a man who expected—no, demanded—respect and obedience. Her lashes flickered with the surprise of that discovery. She lowered her gaze in weary defeat—and found herself staring at a photograph on his desk, half concealed in some bubble-wrap as if it had just arrived in the post. It was a picture of Gio!
Startled, she rushed forward, and he flung out an arm to stop her so quickly that she lost her balance, grabbing at the nearest thing: Colleoni himself.
She was in his arms, trembling at the hardness of his jaw against her cheek and the instinctive male tightening of powerful sinew around her. Alarmed, too, by the slide of his hands up her back and the sudden warmth and silken slither of his chest against hers.
Then he was detaching himself calmly and looking down at her, his expression inscrutable. With great care, he checked his jacket for damage, shot his cuffs with a flash of gold and amber cuff-links and said tightly; ‘I don’t like the way you seek justice. I dislike women who use their bodies like a weapon.’
‘I didn’t!’ she objected indignantly.
‘You’ll get out,’ he continued, overriding her protest. ‘Now! I see you’re married. What in God’s name do you think you’re doing, propositioning customers when they curtail contracts?’
Sick with shame, her head whirling with confusion, she ignored what he’d said and stared at the photograph in the solid silver frame, Luciano and Gio, side by side. Gio grinning, Luciano scowling. No mistake. Something lurched in her heart; Gio had said he had no family. But the photo had been taken recently—after Gio had altered his hairstyle.
She took a deep, steadying breath, her grey eyes dark with shock. Gio knew Luciano Colleoni. He’d lied to her about having no relatives. She felt her lip tremble as she wondered whether Gio had been deceiving her about anything else, and, if so, why...
CHAPTER TWO
DEBBIE felt the room whirling around. She clung to the desk, fighting for breath, and then Colleoni was forcing her head down with a none too gentle hand on her neck till she was bent over double and breathing stentoriously.
Conscious of the fact that she must present a rather provocative picture to the red-blooded Sicilian, she struggled to free herself and came up panting, her face puce with embarrassment and the effects of gravity.
‘That’s...’
She gulped, not from dizziness caused at the shock of discovering that her husband was linked with a wealthy financier, but from that same financier’s touch. The strong hand drifted over her shoulder as it withdrew, leaving her skin alive with the sensation. Struck dumb, she struggled for a reason and decided she must be suffering from confusion. No one had ever had that effect on her—not that strong, that intense.
‘Sit down.’ When she was slow to respond, still trying to work out her extraordinary reaction, Colleoni said irritably, Tor God’s sake, sit down, woman!’
‘Bully,’ she muttered, resentful of more than the command.
With a glint in his dark eyes, he put his firm hand on the centre of her back, unaware that he was sending more frantic signals to her brain. And, because she was dealing with the sexual messages and trying to deflect them, she offered no resistance.
So she found herself by one of the deep armchairs which faced the picture windows looking out to Tower Bridge and the River Thames. One of the most expensive views in London, she thought hazily. And this man had bought the bank as if he’d been buying a bar of chocolate.
‘Sit down,’ he repeated, a little more gently. ‘I’d prefer you not to faint if you can possibly avoid it,’ he added drily.
She sat. And felt a lot better. ‘I’ll do my best,’ she promised spiritedly, trying to gather her wits.
‘I hesitate to suggest that your dress ought to be eased. I don’t think either of us could cope with that, could we?’ he drawled.
‘No,’ she answered hoarsely; the thought of loosening anything in Colleoni’s presence was quite illogically unnerving. ‘Oh, my feet,’ she moaned, feeling them throb now that she’d sat down.
‘You ought to take those shoes off. They look tight too.’
More touching! Her eyes became huge grey pools of anxiety. ‘No! I’ll keep them on, thanks.’
‘Yes.’ And he confounded her by kneeling at her feet and carefully beginning to untie the ribbon, his head close to her bare shins. ‘For the sake of your comfort and your quick recovery—which I’m sure we both want,’ he murmured.
In the light from the window his hair gleamed with a depth of colour like those wonderful dark plums with that faint blue tinge—the kind of invitingly glossy, smooth texture that made you reach out and... She checked her fidgeting hand quickly.
What was it about this situation that was making her feel so vulnerable? Was it the powerful and charismatic man at her feet, gently—and surely rather slowly—removing something she was wearing?
She gasped. Colleoni’s fingers were lightly touching her ankle, nothing more, but a shudder had rippled through her body and he’d looked up, his eyes suddenly glowing with an indolent warmth.
‘Something wrong?’ he enquired silkily.
‘I’m ticklish,’ she croaked, and blushed because of the lie.
For a couple of seconds he studied her soberly while she wondered if he was reading the truth: that she found him intensely compelling; that she felt horrified that her long-denied sexual hunger was spilling out to a complete stranger.
‘Really?’ he drawled softly.
Miserably she watched him bend his head again and attend to the ribbons, knowing he’d recognised the signals being sent out by her body. Impatiently she waited, wondering why he was finding the laces so difficult to undo. But it gave her a chance to chill down her feelings.
She was married. Unhappily, perhaps, certainly close to divorce. But, for the moment, she was legally tied and therefore unavailable. Her body must know that, surely?
Curls of wicked, delicious pleasure wound up from her feet to her brain, touching every erogenous zone in between, and she realised that her body knew nothing of the sort and was telling her so in no uncertain fashion.
‘Please...’ she demurred huskily, finding it difficult to breathe.
In protest, she reached down to stop him. Their hands met, their fingers entwined. For a brief second or two they both stilled—she because of the extraordinary sensation that had shot into her chest and stomach and was now warming her thoroughly, crawling through her veins like an electric charge. It appalled her. And he—well, she didn’t know why he had paused, because when his long, dark lashes lifted his eyes were big and glistening and molten but quite without expression.
He seemed filled with a vital force and his energy had flowed into her like a bursting dam filling a channel. She’d heard the expression ‘a coiled spring’ before but had never understood it. Now she did. It was that—the tangible force—which had disturbed her and jolted her with a few hundred volts of electric power. Nothing sexual at all, she told herself, willing it to be true.
‘I’d be hard put to it to translate that plea,’ he drawled, and her lips parted in dismay because she couldn’t speak for the choking sensation in her throat.
His mocking, contemptuous eyes never left hers. He continued to untie the ribbons; she continued to feel disorientated and uncomfortable under the intense, mesmeric stare. With tantalising gentleness, he lifted her feet from the shoes just as her hair fell forward, brushing his face, and she felt its silken strands drifting across the flawless darkness of his skin.
And then, in a flash, he’d straightened and was standing again, leaving her flexing her released feet in relief. But she felt miserable and bemused and warily peered at his shadowed face and his husky body, which was outlined sharp and black against the glare of the sky.
But in the darkness of his face his eyes burned feverishly, causing floodgates to open within her, a terrible rush of flowing heat pouring through her veins. His energy was invading her and she was being drawn to him like a magnet and she was praying for him to have a power failure.
She had to get out. He was evil—one of those Svengali types. But she felt weak and confused, hardly able to understand what was happening to her. Because she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind, that it was nothing to do with a mere sexual vacuum that had existed within her for longer than she could remember. This was something different. Something so threatening to her vaguely ordered life and her respect for herself that she must escape.
And yet ... there was the mystery of the photograph. Torn between flight and curiosity, she looked up at him helplessly, her enormous, soft eyes unknowingly begging him for help. And seeing his tense stillness, his potent and sinister stare, she grasped frantically for the banal.