“This is crazy! You’re my client!”

But can Ellie ignore Niccolo’s scandalous suggestion?

Straitlaced Ellie Wilson has eyes only for her job...until she meets outrageously gorgeous Niccolo Rossi, and is persuaded to step out of her comfort zone! When they jet off to his deluxe Caribbean resort, Ellie’s advertising pitch suddenly involves her playing girlfriend to his notorious playboy. But soon seduction may be the only item on Niccolo’s agenda...

CATHY WILLIAMS can remember reading Mills & Boon books as a teenager, and now that she is writing them she remains an avid fan. For her, there is nothing like creating romantic stories and engaging plots, and each and every book is a new adventure. Cathy lives in London. Her three daughters—Charlotte, Olivia and Emma—have always been, and continue to be, the greatest inspirations in her life.

Also by Cathy Williams

Seduced into Her Boss’s Service

A Virgin for Vasquez

Snowbound with His Innocent Temptation

Bought to Wear the Billionaire’s Ring

The Secret Sanchez Heir

Cipriani’s Innocent Captive

Legacy of His Revenge

The Italian Titans miniseries

Wearing the De Angelis Ring

The Surprise De Angelis Baby

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

A Deal for Her Innocence

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07181-9

A DEAL FOR HER INNOCENCE

© 2018 Cathy Williams

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my three wonderful and inspiring daughters.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Extract

CHAPTER ONE

‘MR ROSSI IS in the gym.’ The cool, blonde beauty manning the desk in the six-storeyed glass house that comprised the European headquarters of Niccolo Rossi’s sprawling empire glanced up from the computer in front of her. Her face didn’t crack a smile.

‘The gym?’ Had she got the day wrong? ‘But I have an appointment,’ Ellie said, hand tightening on the briefcase clamped to her side.

‘Lower level, and the lifts are to the left,’ the glacial beauty said, tapping one long, scarlet fingernail on the marble counter. ‘He’s expecting you. He has allotted you twenty minutes. He’s a very busy man.’

Ellie’s lips thinned. Reading between the lines, the message was loud and clear: Get a move on, because time is money for the billionaire Niccolo Rossi, and you should consider yourself lucky that he’s granted you an audience at all.

Ellie wondered if acting as a barrier between her billionaire boss and the outside world was part of the woman’s duties. Probably. Niccolo Rossi came with an extensive reputation as a ruthless playboy with a penchant for catwalk models and short-term relationships. The sort of man who had fun with women and, the second the fun was over, dropped them like a hot potato and moved on to the next one.

Only a month ago, she had been flicking through a weekly gossip rag, and there had been a telling picture of a stunning woman hiding behind a pair of over-sized sunglasses, the bold caption implying that she didn’t want the world to see her distraught, puffy eyes in the wake of a cruel break-up.

Niccolo Rossi probably needed a Rottweiler at the front desk making sure distraught, puffy-eyed exes didn’t get through to his inner sanctum.

Ellie had never met the man in the flesh but it didn’t take a genius to figure out the sort of person he was. Young, rich and powerful. Good-looking as well, if you went for the traditional Italian type. Heavy on phoney charm, light on sincerity.

The kind of guy who didn’t give a hoot about other people, which was why Ellie was now having to conduct her meeting with him in a gym, and with one eye on her watch, because time wasn’t going to be on her side.

Hardly ideal. But then conducting this meeting on her own was hardly ideal either, even though she had talked herself into handling the pitch. She had a great record for winning work, she had secured two record, large clients, which had been a real boost, and she’d wanted to prove her worth to herself and to the other two partners in the small start-up advertising agency, in which they were joint investors, by winning this solid-gold client. She had used every scrap of the small inheritance left to her by a grandparent she had never met and had borrowed to meet the remainder of her contribution. She was an equal partner with an equal voice, but she was younger and less experienced, and still felt that there was a ladder to climb before she was on a par with her two other partners.

This was to be the feather in her cap, but Stephen would still accompany her for gravitas, although his role would be to sit back and watch and field any awkward questions. His role, unfortunately, had bitten the dust when his mother had been rushed to hospital the evening before. Right now, Stephen Prost was on bedside vigil and Adam, the other partner in the agency, couldn’t possibly abandon ship to hold her hand.

‘I don’t need my hand to be held!’ Ellie had reassured him with glowing confidence.

However, that was before she had been faced with the change of venue and a stopwatch.

She thought of the painstaking work she had put in on the advertising campaign for Niccolo Rossi. She had worked even longer hours than she usually did because this job was beyond big. She had sourced every available scrap of information she could on his boutique resort in the Caribbean, which hardly needed any outside help when it came to getting noticed. She had spent endless hours, way into the night, thinking of creative ways to sell the resort to the mega-rich audience he wanted to attract.

And now she was being granted twenty minutes while the big man ran on a treadmill with one headphone in his ear, making a pretence of listening to what she had to say. She didn’t think that the other big players in advertising tendering for the job had pitched to him sitting on a yoga mat in a gym. No chance.

The heat of the gym hit her like a solid brick wall the second she pushed open the glass door. Her eyes skittered over the fearsome array of machines, the punch bags to one side, the unforgiving mirrored wall, and finally came to rest on the single sweating male in the room lifting a stack of weights that literally made her wince.

Niccolo Rossi.

He looked nothing like the grainy images she had occasionally glimpsed of him in the past. For a start, in all those grainy images he had been fully dressed. Here, in the gym, he was in a black tee shirt and a pair of shorts, standing with his back to her, his lean, bronzed body rippling with taut muscle as he slowly hefted the bar with its impossible load, from ground to waist, and from waist to shoulder, then up. His skin gleamed with sweat.

Mesmerised, Ellie could do little more than just hover in the doorway and stare.

Still in her coat, she could feel perspiration trickling down her back.

She was dressed for a cold winter day. Barely there black tights, black skirt, neat white blouse, not quite buttoned to the neck but almost, and black pumps. She was dressed for a meeting in a boardroom with men in suits and a whiteboard safely tucked away somewhere in the background. Here, in this testosterone-charged space, she felt ridiculous in her neat work outfit, clutching her briefcase.

Consummate professional that she was, Ellie was irritated with herself for the lapse in focus. She was here to do a job. True, she would have wanted more time than the scant twenty, probably now fifteen, minutes she had been allocated, but she was smart enough to filter out all unnecessary information and still work to her brief. She had no choice.

There were hard copies of everything anyway. She never pitched for any job without meticulous preparation and she never, ever relied on her clients remembering everything she said. It always paid dividends to make sure they had all the information to hand by way of something both tangible and in email format.

Hard copy anything felt superfluous here.

Straightening, she took a deep breath and walked towards Niccolo.

Her shoes clicked briskly on the hardwood floor and, if he hadn’t been aware of her existence before, he was now, because he dropped the weights on the mat with a resounding crash that made her jump.

He turned round slowly and Ellie stopped. Her heart had vacated her chest and migrated to somewhere in her mouth, which had gone dry. The blood running through her veins had turned to molten lava. Her thoughts had suddenly become scrambled and a deep fog had settled over her brain. The man was beauty in motion, his body slick, his slightly long, dark hair damp with sweat.

Eyes as dark as night registered her as she stood in front of him, clutching her briefcase for dear life, and fit to explode from the heat in the sensible coat which she hadn’t thought to remove.

He had the lushest lashes she had ever seen on a man, long, thick and fringing eyes that were, just for a few seconds, veiled of all expression.

His features were chiselled to perfection. She knew that he was part-Italian but, unless one was standing right in front of him, it was hard to tell from a picture just how exotic that ancient thread of ancestry was. He wasn’t just your typical tall, dark and good-looking guy. He was a one-of-a-kind dangerously tall, dark and good-looking guy. He oozed the sort of blatant, uncompromising sex appeal that made women walk into lamp posts.

‘Eleanor Wilson.’ Ellie rushed into frantically confused speech, thoroughly disconcerted by the effect he was having on her and not caring for it at all. ‘Ms.’

The veiled expression cleared and his dark, dark eyes connected with hers with a hint of amusement.

‘Ms Eleanor Wilson,’ he drawled, reaching down for a towel she hadn’t noticed and wiping his face before slinging it over his shoulders. He looked at her from her head down, then back up again, then he made an elaborate show of peering around her. ‘Where are the rest of you?’

‘Just me, I’m afraid. Stephen Prost, my business partner, is dealing with a personal emergency at the moment. I hope you won’t mind me saying, but I wasn’t expecting to have to discuss my pitch in a gym. Would we be able to find a seat somewhere?’ She looked around her and failed to see anywhere that could remotely work for her to show him what she had brought with her unless she opted for doing her spiel on the treadmill.

Annoyance flared. How hard was it to stick to the rule book? He had made an appointment, and surely he could at the very least have the courtesy to honour the commitment he had made?

She pursed her lips, bristling. Rules and regulations were in place for a reason. The work place and life in general only operated smoothly if all parties concerned took time out to respect one another.

‘You should take the coat off,’ Niccolo said gently. ‘You must be very hot.’

‘I hadn’t expected to be in a gym,’ Ellie repeated with a tight smile.

‘And so now you are.’ Niccolo shrugged. ‘You have to roll with the punches. Follow me.’ He spun round and began walking towards the back of the gym.

Changing rooms. He was heading to the changing rooms. She could see a concealed door. Ellie cast a desperate glance behind her to the door through which she had come, while her legs propelled her behind him, towards a scenario that took her so far out of her comfort zone that she felt faint.

Ellie behaved by the rules and she believed in them. It was just the way she was. She liked them. She liked the sense of order they conferred. She had lived a peripatetic life with her wandering, nomadic, hippy parents. She had spent a childhood that had spanned the continents, from India as a toddler, through Australia with a brief stint in New Zealand, before returning to Europe via Ibiza, Greece and Spain. She had barely seen the inside of any schools because nothing as dull and as institutional as a school had been allowed to cloud the endlessly blue horizons of her free-spirited parents. Routine had been their enemy and she had become the unwitting victim of their scatty, idealised belief system.

For Ellie, being on the move had fostered a deeply ingrained desire for stability.

By the time her feet had hit the ground at fourteen, and her parents had ruefully accepted that their thirst to see every corner of the globe had been sufficiently quenched, Ellie had thrown herself into the joy of going nowhere with a passion that had almost been physical.

She was a stickler for detail but with a creative streak that had been passed down from her arty parents. That combination had won her her first job at a major advertising agency and, from there, she had been invited to take a chance and team up with Stephen and Adam, both ambitious CEOs at the same firm, to form their fledgling agency. It was the biggest risk she had ever taken, and she had taken it after careful consideration, because she had felt confident about their prospects at capturing a niche but significant market with a media-savvy audience. Everything she did was done with consideration, with nothing left to chance. Like the portfolio she was clutching. A portfolio that should have been displayed in the sanitised confines of a designated office space. With the whiteboard. And no treadmills or punch bags in sight.

She eyed Niccolo’s muscled torso as his T-shirt clung to it, the length of his legs, the strength of his arms, the powerful ripple of muscle and sinew, and she shivered. Here was a man who scorned rules and regulations, and now she wondered just how she was supposed to form any sort of rapport with a man who thought nothing of conducting a meeting in a gym. In the world of advertising, rapport was top dog.

Worse. He was now going to conduct his meeting in the changing rooms of a gym.

He opened the door and she shrieked to a stop, nerves all over the place, fingers grasping the briefcase until her knuckles were white.

Niccolo turned around, both hands on the ends of the towel looped over his shoulders.

Under normal circumstances, this was not the venue he would have chosen to conduct a meeting, but he had reached his office later than normal. Eight instead of his usual six.

He had also not been in the best of moods. His last lover had embarked on on a kiss-and-tell rampage in the press after he had broken off their relationship, and his mother and three sisters had seen fit to link arms in a united front, their mission being to subject him to full-frontal verbal assault on his colourful love life.

Where he had gone to see his mother for dinner at her exquisite cottage near Oxford, expecting some light chat and the usually excellent food her private chef was summoned to provide whenever there were guests, he had instead found himself in the company of not just his mother but his three sisters.

Each of whom had very strong opinions on the sort of women he dated.

He had consequently overslept, and the only thing he had wanted to do when he’d reached his office was to work off some of his stress in the company of a punch bag and a gruelling set of weights.

And, in fairness, he hadn’t expected a woman. And certainly not a woman who looked as though she sucked on lemons for fun.

Right now, she was staring at him with a mixture of disapproval and consternation.

Her coat was still on and her brown hair was neatly scraped back into a bun. A pair of heavy spectacles would have transformed her into the archetypal school mistress.

Although, he had to concede, her eyes were a rather interesting shade of hazel and her mouth, dragged into an unforgiving thin line at the moment, could be quite attractive, because her lips were full and pink.

‘You’ve stopped,’ he said politely. ‘Why have you stopped?’

‘I’m afraid I really don’t think it appropriate for me to have a business meeting with you in a changing room.’

‘Oh, dear. As you can see, I’m currently not in my suit, and after an hour and a half in this place I really need to get out of my sweaty gear.’

Two bright patches of hot colour had appeared in her cheeks. Her skin tingled as though she was standing too close to an open flame and, in response to those physical responses, she found herself clutching the briefcase ever harder.

He was lounging against the doorframe with the door only partially open behind him.

‘Perhaps I could wait for you in your office,’ Ellie suggested. She stared at his face, because it seemed the safest place to rest her eyes—the other option being his barely clothed body—but he was so stunningly beautiful that he brought her out in a cold sweat. She desperately wanted to ignore his superior height and the powerful perfection of his muscular frame but it was like trying to ignore a tsunami.

‘Perhaps you could...’ Niccolo mused, eyes firmly focused on her heart-shaped face, which was awash with uncomfortable colour. ‘But no. I’m afraid not. I haven’t got enough time to spare.’ He straightened. ‘If the account means anything to your agency, then regrettably you’re going to have to get past your discomfort with my inappropriate behaviour and follow me.’ He grinned and raised his eyebrows, waiting for her response.

‘This—this is highly unconventional,’ Ellie stuttered in a last-ditch attempt to stay on the safe side of the partially opened door.

‘Stickler for convention?’ Niccolo asked, tilting his head to one side and allowing the silence to trickle between them like an electric current.

‘Yes.’ Ellie didn’t hesitate to set him straight on that score. If there was one thing her eternally unconventional parents had taught her, it was the value of convention.

Niccolo laughed with genuine amusement. How old was she? Somewhere in her twenties, but she dressed like a woman in her fifties, and that prissy approach was more reminiscent of a granny laying down laws than a young woman working in the exciting, hot-shot world of advertising.

The other contenders he had interviewed briefly for this assignment had been trendy to the point of wearisome. Hats, beards and wire-rimmed spectacles on the men and painfully cutting-edge outfits on the women. He didn’t think any of them would have been fazed at having to conduct their interview in a gym. He suspected that the women would have actively enjoyed the experience.

This particular woman looked as though the experience was on a par with being locked in a room with a dangerous airborne virus.

In a world that was largely predictable, Niccolo found that he was beginning to enjoy himself.

‘Well, at least you’re honest,’ he observed. ‘Although, I confess I’m not at my best when I’m around people who tether themselves to rules and regulations. I like people who can think out of the box.’

‘I’m a great believer in rules and regulations.’ Ellie’s mouth tightened, nostrils flaring as she breathed in the heady musk of his masculine scent. Her eyes were drawn to the V of his black tee shirt and then lingered. The tee shirt was tight enough to accentuate the hard width of his chest and the tapering slimness of his waist. She could glimpse some dark hair just where the V of the tee shirt ended, and it was so strangely and intensely masculine a sight that her breath hitched in her throat for a few shocking seconds, then she hurriedly looked away, heart hammering like a sledge hammer inside her chest.

‘But...’ she breathed deeply, steadying the sudden race of her pulses ‘...that’s not to say that I don’t think out of the box.’ She visibly relaxed as some of her wildly scattered thoughts began to cohere into the little rehearsed speech she had mentally prepared on her way to his office. ‘I’m excellent when it comes to creating the sort of dynamic a client is looking for in their advertising campaigns. In case you’re not aware of it, we might be a small firm, and relative newcomers to the scene, but we’re incredibly dynamic and as such we know how to connect with a young market. Social media in all its various forms is the prime tool when it comes to a successful pitch, and we pride ourselves on being top of the game in that area.’

‘Thank you for the spiel,’ Niccolo said politely, pushing himself away from the door. ‘But I still need to change. You can carry on trying to win my business while I freshen up.’ He swung round and carried on talking over his shoulder while Ellie followed on wobbly legs, eyes pinned to his back as he led the way into a spacious room, tiled from floor to ceiling in white-and-grey marble with two of the walls mirrored so that unfortunately her reflection was thrown back at her from every angle.

Ellie did her best to ignore the sight of herself. She was five-foot-six but, even with her heels elevating her by a couple of inches, he still towered over her.

A fleeting glimpse of their reflections in the daunting mirrored walls as they walked through the outer room made her heart sink.

He’d said that he wasn’t at his best with people who ‘tether themselves to rules and regulations’. He’d made it sound as though anyone who wasn’t an out-and-out maverick was a crashing bore and of no interest.

What must he think of her, in that case? She’d already pinned her colours to the mast when it came to rule-breaking and, if she hadn’t, then one look at her would have convinced him that she was just the sort of dreary, conventional bore he would never be at his best with.

If he was the equivalent of a dangerous, wildly unpredictable and outrageously beautiful jungle cat, then she was the equivalent of the fearful sparrow sitting on the branch of a tree, making damned sure not to get too close.

Her clothes were neat and, she knew, uninspiring. Her figure was likewise neat and uninspiring. She possessed neither the curves of the sex bomb nor the androgynous skinny chic of the model. She was just...slender. Her breasts had never been big enough, as far as she was concerned. Her shoulder-length hair, scraped back into a utilitarian chignon at the nape of her neck, was shiny and glossy but...brown. She had her own niche market of clients who were reassured by her competence and straightforward, intelligent approach, impressed by her careful meticulousness and charmed by the flashes of wit and verve she brought to all her campaigns. Niccolo Rossi wasn’t going to be one of these reassured, impressed or charmed clients.

She was never going to win this contract. You really had to bond with the person on the opposite side of the fence when it came to winning a contract. You had to be singing from the same song sheet or else they would never trust that you would be able to perform in the manner they wanted. It was all a very subjective process.

An unpredictable jungle cat and a little brown sparrow did not make natural bed partners.

Already contemplating the prospect of failure, and trying to work out how it might impact on the fortunes of the agency, Ellie didn’t notice that they had exited the marble outer room and were now in the changing rooms, which were also tiled in marble, but unfortunately not quite so impersonal, because the bank of showers suggested, all too clearly, just how intimate the space was.

She froze.

The colour drained from her cheeks.

She was still in her coat, and practically passing out from the heat, but too embarrassed to remove it in a place like this, which was specifically designed for the removal of clothing.

Niccolo folded his arms and looked at her. Never had he seen a face so expressive of a rabbit suddenly staring into the harsh, bright glare of oncoming headlights.

He marvelled that she worked in the cut-throat world of advertising at all and, more than that, was an active partner in the small but, he knew, talented advertising agency which she represented.

‘I would not normally be conducting business here,’ he felt constrained to tell her, even though it wasn’t in his nature to explain himself to anyone. ‘Unfortunately, I got into work much later than I normally do.’ He grimaced as he thought of the four delightful harridans laying into him the evening before. ‘Not your fault, I do realise, but I decided, once I got here that I had to hit the gym. Unfortunately, it happened to coincide with your appointment, which I should, in retrospect, have cancelled.’

‘No!’ Ellie was quick to respond. ‘It’s perfectly fine. A little unusual, of course, but...’

‘But I’m a billionaire and your agency is desperate to get its hands on this assignment, so having to put up with inappropriate behaviour from the head of the company is a pill you’re willing to swallow for the greater good.’ He grinned, folded his arms and stared at her for a few moments, then he turned away and disappeared behind a wall. She could still hear him, though, just as she could hear the rush of water as the shower was turned on.

Her twenty minutes were surely up, and she had shown him nothing of what she had done. But then, he’d probably made up his mind anyway, so wasn’t particularly interested in seeing her work.

Frankly, she could leave right now, but it somehow seemed rude to slink away while his back was turned.

While he was in the shower.

Naked.

Ellie suddenly found herself in the grip of a level of imagination she’d never known she possessed. She pictured him under the running water, lathering his big, powerful body with soap, face upturned. He wasn’t one of those metrosexual guys with spindly legs and hairless chests. He was aggressively, belligerently male and his dark, dangerous in-your-face sex appeal made her giddy and flustered.

‘You’ve gone silent on me,’ Niccolo drawled, emerging from the concealed cubicle, trousers on, lazily doing up the buttons on his shirt.

Ellie blinked and then reddened as she recalled the graphic images of him that had sent her blood pressure soaring.

He was decent, and for that she was immeasurably grateful. Grey trousers and a white shirt. Barefoot, though, and his hair was still damp from the shower.

‘Time’s not on your side, Ms Eleanor Wilson. In actual fact—’ he glanced at the expensive watch on his wrist ‘—your twenty minutes was up five minutes ago but, considering you didn’t cater for having to do your pitch in the company gym, I’m going to extend your time for a further half an hour. Think you’ll be able to do what you came here to do in that time? Provided you don’t spend any more of it staring at me. And, for God’s sake, take the coat off. The last thing I need is to waste my morning pandering to a damsel in distress who’s passed out because she’s overheated.’

Ellie didn’t have time to say anything in response to this because he was already walking out of the changing rooms towards yet another door which she hadn’t noticed before. It led directly out to a comfortable wooden-floored room equipped with everything anyone might want after a gruelling workout.

A refrigerated glass cooler held bottles of water and energy drinks, and fruit, energy bars and healthy protein snacks filled deep trays on a counter. No one was serving and it was obvious that the generous contents of the canteen were open to any employee choosing to use the gym.

Niccolo grabbed a bottle of mineral water and proceeded to drink it in one long swallow.

For a few seconds, Ellie was mesmerised by the brown column of his throat as he finished the water, then, galvanised into action, she whipped off the offending coat and quickly pulled out her tablet and all the documentation she had brought with her.

If all she had was half an hour, then she was determined to stuff it as full as she possibly could with the mock-ups she had brought with her.

‘There are hard copies of everything,’ she began, remaining on her feet while he sat on one chair and dragged another towards him so that he could use it as a makeshift foot-rest. He relaxed back, hands linked loosely behind his head, and watched as she fumbled with the mound of paperwork she had brought with her. Her tablet was already up and running.

She was the epitome of efficiency. The coat had been discarded to reveal an outfit as bland as he had expected. Now that she wasn’t having to try and evade the sight of him in a sweaty tee shirt and the loose jersey shorts he wore whenever he worked out in the gym, she had reverted to the brisk professional she undoubtedly was.

Niccolo harked back to the delicately blushing cheeks and the awkward discomfort and thought it was a shame that she was morphing into just the sort of career woman he was so accustomed to dealing with. He’d quite liked the delicately blushing cheeks and the awkward discomfort. Professional, efficient career women were a dime a dozen. As were practised, seductive temptresses, and he should know, because he’d dated enough of them in the past.

A woman who blushed, though, was as rare as hen’s teeth and Niccolo had enjoyed the sight.

On cue, she was delivering her talk about the hotel complex that was to be the subject of the advertising campaign. She’d done her research very thoroughly indeed, that much was obvious. She seemed to know more about his own hotel complex than he did, but then this foray into the world of leisure was a departure from his usual conquests.

His path to fame, glory and riches had started in the highly profitable maze of apps. He’d had a special talent for spotting the start-ups that were going to go stellar and he had known how and when to invest. He’d been a millionaire almost before leaving university with his first-class degree in computer engineering and maths. He’d turned that million into several more when he’d started acquiring ailing companies and spinning them into gold mines, and the millions had become billions as his reach had extended. But he’d never thought about the leisure industry until one of his sisters had mentioned something about how tough it could be finding the right life-partner.

Niccolo didn’t believe in partners, right or otherwise. He believed in the purity of work. But he’d had experience from way back when of a match-making app that had taken off and he had spotted the chance to combine known territory with the interesting and as yet unexplored avenue of high-end hotels, and thereby add to his already considerable fortune. Why not? The fantasy of love wasn’t for him, for a number of reasons, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t exist, and he was very happy to provide the wherewithal for all those hopefuls in search of their happy-ever-after dream.

Niccolo had had his future mapped out from the day his father had died. At the time, he had been only eight but, as his father had told him on his death bed, he was now the man of the house and would have to step up to the plate.

Niccolo could not remember a time when he hadn’t been aware of the importance of working to make sure his family were taken care of. By the time he hit twenty-one, fresh out of Cambridge University, the family company had been on its last legs.

The thorny business of wondering what direction to take with his life had never crossed his radar because he’d known from a kid where his destiny lay. Duty above all else. The mantra had lodged in his head in his dying father’s message. In one hand, he’d juggled with the demands of revamping his family business, while in the other he’d developed his breath-taking skills in the fast-moving world of technology, learning over time how to link the two. He’d grown up fast because he had moved straight from university life into the cut-throat world of the men in suits who ran the financial markets.

Niccolo assumed that he had known innocent young women who blushed but, if he had, then it had been a long time ago. Now, with billions at his disposal and a social circle that included some of the most powerful movers and shakers on the planet, the women he met had left their blushing days a long time ago.

He surfaced to find that he’d been staring at her from under lowered lashes. She’d reached the point of telling him the highlights of his hotel and he raised one hand to stop her in mid-flow.

‘But what about the sex angle?’

‘Sex angle?’

‘Don’t be coy, Ms Wilson. Tell me I haven’t wasted the past twenty-five minutes listening to you try and gear me up to an advertising campaign shot through a soft-focus lens?’ He stood up, and suddenly the vantage point she had had standing over him was lost. ‘Surely you must know what the purpose of my hotel complex is going to be?’

‘I thought it might work better to highlight the stupendous surroundings and the organic nature of the buildings. In this day and age, people are very much aware of the charm of a boutique resort that is in total harmony with nature.’

She scrolled to a shot of one of the two-bedroomed villas set a short distance from the beach, just part of the package that had been emailed to her the week before by the contact she had cultivated at the resort. ‘Hence the fact that all the wood used to build your hotel is locally sourced from the Caribbean.’

She flicked down to another series of artfully shot photos of the Michelin-starred cuisine that would be on offer, but she was acutely conscious of Niccolo’s fabulous dark eyes resting lazily on her, with just the faintest hint of amusement.

‘I’ve also made something of the food and the fact that much of the produce is grown on the island, with some cultivated actually in the hotel compound, and that the yoga centre is genius.’

‘Yes, I’ve seen all the arty shots, but you’re not going to win the race by showing me pictures of sunsets and palm trees. I’m not planning on enticing poets to come to my resort, to spend their time staring off into the distance admiring the scenery and then writing sonnets about it.’ He raised both eyebrows sardonically and grinned. ‘So, once again...is this all you’ve got?’

CHAPTER TWO

THE ALLOTTED HALF-HOUR timespan, which under any other circumstances Niccolo would have rigidly adhered to, was galloping fast towards its end. With his bottle of water replenished, and protein bar only just managing to take the edge off his hunger pangs, he looked at Ellie, appreciating the slow crawl of colour tingeing her cheeks.

Maybe he would be lenient and extend the stay of execution because he liked the way those big, hazel eyes were staring at him, sheepishly, faltering, yet with just an interesting hint of defiance. Also, her pitch might be ridiculously fuzzy round the edges, but the other pitches he’d seen had been way too suggestive in comparison. It wouldn’t hurt to hear her out.

And she did have those big, hazel eyes.

This was the first time Niccolo had ever taken any interest in any of the advertising campaigns for his companies. Normally, that was left to the experts in his Sales and Marketing department.

This hotel, however, was quite separate from his business interests. This venture was solely funded from his own personal fortune. It was his baby and his alone. The excitement of running an empire was beginning to pall. Life was beginning to pall. He had kept his promise to his father. His duty to make sure his family was taken care of had been done, so what now? It sometimes felt as though duty was all he had been programmed to do. This hotel, and the subsequent chain of similar hotels he had in mind, had revived his jaded palate. Overseeing its development, with the select little team he had personally hand-picked, half of whom were having the time of their lives working in situ on the island, was proving to be just the tonic he needed.

And the woman sitting opposite him was having a similar effect. Very energizing.

‘Of course...’ Ellie broke a silence that had reached screaming point. ‘I do realise that your hotel will be catering for a young, singles market...’

‘Not necessarily young. In fact, I would say that young people will be in the minority. Most of them wouldn’t be able to afford the prices I’m asking. But you’ve got the single part right. Single people looking for love on a holiday of a lifetime. Exquisite location, exquisite scenery—it’s the ultimate place for a romantic connection to develop.

‘Except all I’m seeing here is the exquisite scenery. Anyone looking at what you’ve put together would think that you’re advertising somewhere for stars-in-their-eyes honeymooners. So, repeat, tell me what else you’ve got, because your competitors have all managed to hit the nail on the head with their offerings.’ They hadn’t, he thought, but you never showed your hand and lost the advantage. It wouldn’t hurt for her to think that the competition was galloping towards the finishing line.

‘I thought that it might be more tempting if guests weren’t made to feel that they were there to...to...make romantic connections.’

Niccolo’s eyebrows shot up. ‘You mean, delude them into thinking that they’re really there just for the blue skies and the turquoise sea—the peace and tranquillity? Ms Wilson, my guests will be actively seeking partners, and focusing on the scenery isn’t going to tempt them, it’s going to put them off.’

‘If you don’t like what I’ve done, Mr Rossi, then perhaps we shouldn’t waste one another’s time any longer.’ But to return empty-handed was going to hurt their business. Of course, it couldn’t be helped, but the agency, her career...those were the things that grounded her, that enabled her to put down roots. It represented all those steps on the ladder that would mean that she would never have to endure the insecurities she’d had to endure as a child. Her parents’ wanderings had been self-imposed but Ellie knew well enough that, even if you took that out of the equation, the only way anyone could be guaranteed that their house remained their castle was to have the wherewithal to pay the mortgage.

‘You’re not much of a trier, are you, Ms Wilson?’ Niccolo remarked dryly. ‘Giving up already? Aren’t you going to try to get me to see your point of view? I’m shocked that you can survive longer than two minutes in the cut-throat world of advertising where sex sells—and, the more explicit the sex, the higher the turnover of sales.’ Niccolo watched the stubborn tilt of her chin with interest. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never gone down the tawdry route of selling something stunningly dull and virtually unsaleable with the help of a few sexy images...?’

‘I haven’t, as it happens,’ Ellie returned stiffly. She looked at his devastatingly handsome face and thought that there was little chance he would ever be able to get where she was coming from, because when you oozed sex appeal like he did it was unlikely you could ever appreciate that it wasn’t just about the physical. ‘The accounts I have worked on have had great success on an approach based on nostalgia, whimsy and a reminder that the good things in life don’t necessarily have anything to do with sex.’

‘Ah. I’m getting the picture. You’re the “bread, cheese and milk” person. You leave the cars, perfume and alcohol to your more racy co-workers.’ He gazed at her thoughtfully and then stood up, waiting while she scrambled hastily to her feet.

‘You’ve already had more of my time than I’d banked on,’ he told her bluntly. ‘And you should have already done yourself out of a job by your charming but misdirected pitch. But here’s what I’m thinking, Ms Eleanor Wilson. Maybe it would be unwise to fall into the trap of the obvious appeal. Needless to say, your campaign is way too hazy for my venture, but on the other hand it’s not sleazy. There isn’t a single saucy image, and you’ve managed to show me an entire pitch in which no mention is made of the fact that everyone on the complex will be looking for a connection. Somewhere between the “sex sells” and the romantic sunsets is what I’m looking for. So, why don’t you follow me to my office and you can have the full brunt of my attention?’

He was already walking towards the door and Ellie tripped behind him, stuffing her files into the briefcase and balancing the tablet and her coat in her free hand.

Unsurprisingly, she thought sourly, the man had not offered to carry anything for her. She was grateful that she was being given a second chance to prove herself but, if he wanted to bring her round to promoting the concept of a resort where people were invited to pay a fortune so that they could hook up with similarly rich people for meaningless sex, then he was barking up the wrong tree.

Meaningless sex wasn’t her thing. She could still remember the swinging parties her parents had had, the concept of free love which they had never hidden from her. Once, when she’d been eight or nine, she had burst into the kitchen for a glass of water only to find her mother wrapped round a fellow hippy houseguest. After that, she had had the talk about the birds and the bees—except, unlike most ‘birds and bees’ talks delivered by well-intentioned, responsible parents, hers had been liberally promoting the joys of experimental sex and the positives of being adventurous.

There was a lift that went directly from the gym, straight up to Niccolo’s suite of offices on the top floor of the building. She could have been a piece of office furniture for all the attention he paid to her on the way. He worked on his phone, indolently leaning against the brushed metal panel, one hundred percent focused on whatever he was doing.

Even when the lift doors purred open, he barely raised his eyes from whatever was garnering his attention. His hair had more or less dried and he had raked his fingers through it, giving it an approximation of neatness. Gone was the raw, primal male heaving his impossible load of weights and in its place was the urbane and sophisticated billionaire who could have whatever he wanted at the click of his imperious fingers, although...

Her gaze skittered surreptitiously to him and she shivered because, suit or no suit, there was still something darkly, dangerously and thrillingly intimidating about him. She stiffened at the fanciful turn of her thoughts. She wasn’t a Victorian maiden and he wasn’t a swash-buckling male. She was an efficient and ambitious partner in an up-and-coming advertising agency and he was a potential client who had the capacity to put their business on the map. She’d worked hard for this opportunity and she wasn’t going to squander it.

Ellie barely noticed the plush surroundings as they disembarked on the top floor. There was a hush in the huge open space, where smoked-glass partitions and cleverly positioned plants formed barriers between some of the walnut-and-chrome desks. It was the hush of people working hard to make the billions that kept Niccolo’s sprawling company at the top of the pecking order.

His offices were at the end of a thickly carpeted corridor and he only paused when he entered an outer room where a middle-aged woman was busily doing something on her computer.

‘No interruptions for the next hour,’ Niccolo said, sweeping past to push open his office door, then standing aside for Ellie to brush past him. ‘I’ll be busy.’ He turned to his secretary and Ellie could detect the wicked grin in his voice. ‘Ms Wilson, who’s going to try and convince me that sex doesn’t sell.’

Ellie knew when she was being goaded and, much as she didn’t like it, discretion was the better part of valour. And who knew? Maybe she would be able to make him see that sex wasn’t the be all and end all when it came to selling an image of fun.

‘So.’ Niccolo waved to one of chairs clustered around a low wooden table. His office wasn’t so much one room as several rooms laid out in the manner of a very expensive, very open-plan studio apartment. There was a sitting area, a dining area and a bar area. All that was missing was a bedroom, although the deep three-seater sofa against the grey wall...

Ellie sat. The chairs were low and deep. They were designed to encourage relaxation but, since the last thing she felt was relaxed, she perched uncomfortably on the edge of one and placed her tablet on the table in front of her.

Niccolo sprawled in the chair facing her.

‘You were going to try and win this contract,’ he drawled, settling into the chair and loosely linking his fingers on his washboard-hard stomach. ‘By showing me what you can do when sex on the beach meets sunsets in paradise.’ He grinned. ‘So, lose the landscaped garden appeal, and the locally sourced fruit-and-veg slideshow, and show me how you can get on board with love at first sight and adventures between the sheets.’

In that very instant, Ellie knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that there was almost no chance Niccolo was going to use her agency to promote his venture.

Her time should have been up but he found her entertaining. She could hear the thread of amusement in his voice and she could see it reflected in the lazy speculation behind his dark eyes.

He owned the company and he could do exactly what he wanted and, if he wanted to toy with her, then there was no one to stop him.

She wasn’t the sort of woman he was accustomed to meeting and that was the long and short of it. He might genuinely be interested in her input, because it would be so contrary to the rest of the pitches he had heard, but in the end the job would go to the agency that fell in line with his fun-in-the-sun, hit-and-run version of love.

‘I don’t think I’m the right person for the job, Mr Rossi,’ Ellie said politely. ‘I’ve had a very high success rate with all the other contracts I’ve been given. I did truly believe that the best approach when it came to advertising your hotel would be to promote it as something classy and unique, with much more on offer than any more downmarket resorts that specifically appeal to singles, but I can see that you’re not really on board with that concept.’

‘How old are you?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I’m curious because—and correct me if I’m wrong here—you’re in the service industry and yet you’re allowing your own personal prejudices to get in the way. I’m finding it hard to believe that a woman in her twenties, which is what I’m assuming you are, can be so morally upright that she digs her heels in at the thought of promoting a hotel where single people can have a bit of fun in agreeable surroundings.’

Ellie met his eyes without flinching. ‘I do think that romance can blossom in the sort of setting your hotel will provide, and I really do feel that that’s an important aspect that should be promoted, but I just don’t think I would be very good at producing an advertising campaign that focuses on people bed-hopping for two weeks.’

‘You make it sound as though sex is something distasteful.’ Niccolo was intrigued. She was so different from any other woman he had ever met that she could have come from another planet.

She was leaning towards him, hands gripping the sides of the chair. She had removed the frightful coat, although the jacket underneath was still firmly in place. Even so, he could still make out the white blouse and under it the shadowy silhouette of her jutting breasts.

His breathing slowed. His long lashes veiled his expression but there was a sudden stillness about him that betrayed a momentary lapse of control. The throb in his loins heralded a desire that was rock-hard and shocking because it was the last thing he’d expected. He shifted, sitting upright to try and release some of the painful pressure.

Any other woman might have tuned in to the shift in atmosphere, the crackle of electricity in the air, the tension that had settled between them, as taut as a piece of elastic pulled to breaking point.

Ms Eleanor Wilson didn’t. She was staring at him with wide-eyed earnestness. She leaned forward a little further and he glimpsed the tantalising valley of her cleavage.

Niccolo abruptly reared up, his whole body on fire as be began to pace his office in an attempt to get his runaway libido back under control.

‘I never said that sex was distasteful.’ Ellie breathed, disconcerted by the way the conversation had veered off course and all at sea as to how she could return it to safe moorings. ‘I do, however, think that a fortnight of sex isn’t a recipe for sad single people finding love.’

‘Why are my single guests sad?’ Niccolo wondered what her body looked like under the granny get-up. He had always been a big fan of the woman with obvious sex appeal. He liked to see what was on offer and, more than that, he liked knowing that the women he dated were savvy enough to know what was on the table and what wasn’t. Sex was on the table and commitment wasn’t.

Niccolo had made one wrong turn in his love life and, from that day on, he’d determined never to make another. Fresh out of university, and with a terminally ill family business that needed to be cobbled back together, he had looked to the girl he’d been dating for support. She’d only been on the scene for a handful of months, but she had been everything he had wanted in a woman, at that point in time.

Once the firm hand of his father had been lost, the family business had declined gracefully, like an elegant, well-bred woman ageing until she sadly became bedridden, waiting for the Grim Reaper to escort her away. It had been a gradual process that had seen the decline of their fortunes but Niccolo, even through the gradual decline, had still been privately educated and had still enjoyed the privileges of the upper-middle-class background which had given him the usual holidays abroad and, of course, the cultivated accent that Susie had claimed to adore. Darkly, sexily Italian but with the low, husky drawl of someone straight out of the upper drawer. The combination had fascinated her—had been so different from her own working-class background, which was something Niccolo had paid scant attention to.

But things had changed the minute he had divulged that the family inheritance was about to gasp its last breath. With money off the table, Susie had begun to change. It turned out that she was a lot less impressed by him than he had thought. It turned out that she had wanted the rich, young boy with a country pile and a flash apartment in Belgravia. As it turned out she very quickly found someone else who fitted the bill, someone who’d just so happened to be one of his closest friends.

Niccolo had forgiven his friend because he’d been spared a wolf in lamb’s clothing.

Susie had been sexy as hell and she had known exactly what to do with her plentiful assets.

But he had never forgiven her. Indeed, she had come crawling to him years later, when his face was all over the press as the young lion beginning to lead the pack, and he had derived a great deal of pleasure in dispatching her—although, in truth, he could have just as easily thanked her for the lesson she had taught him. She’d focused him. She’d reminded him that love was a distraction from the obligations he had sworn to fulfil. Sex wasn’t a distraction, sex was a physical release, and if he had a voracious appetite for it then he had no qualms about sating it with those willing women who weren’t ashamed to pursue him. They knew the score. He always made sure of that after that youthful hiccup. His personal life was controlled as efficiently as his public one.

When it came to women, Niccolo always knew what he was getting into.

‘I never said that your guests were sad,’ Ellie said, fervent and sincere. ‘But I do think that love isn’t something that can be manufactured by throwing people together for a couple of weeks. Love is something that takes time. You’re selling no-strings-attached sex and I... I...’

‘Don’t approve?’ Niccolo interjected helpfully. ‘Some might say that I’m doing a service for a certain sector of society who find it difficult to join the dating pool. No, wait, that’s not quite right—they find it very easy to join the dating pool. The only problem is that the pool is often full of sharks and piranha. My clients are in search of more tranquil waters.’

‘I’m not following you.’

‘The other agencies I interviewed—and you were lucky to be considered because I only interviewed a total of three—offered me precisely what they imagined was written on the can. A singles resort for people to meet one another. Sex on the beach, but in a more glamorous than average setting, and with the protagonists wearing expensive swim wear and designer sunglasses. I got the impression that they were advertising the sort of place they would personally find appealing themselves.’

‘I thought you wanted the obvious approach.’

‘I said I didn’t want a selection of tasteful shots of the seasonal menus on offer.’ He looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Tell me what landing this job would mean to you,’ he murmured. ‘You clearly have talent, likewise ambition, and you’re good at what you do. I’ve done my homework. It’s a small job, but it’s for me, and that in itself makes it a small but extremely worthwhile job. Am I right?’

Ellie looked down at her linked fingers. What he had just said was boldly, offensively arrogant but it had been said with such nonchalant self-assurance that she could only find herself meekly agreeing with his summary of the situation.

It was a small job in terms of exposure but huge in terms of possibilities. Which was why it had been so fabulous that their agency had been invited to pitch for it.

‘I see you get where I’m going with his. So tell me what it would mean to you, personally, if this job were to go to your agency. And I don’t want to hear any company spiel about your small but upwardly mobile business and how well you connect with the youth of today.’

‘Why does it matter what it would mean to me?’

Niccolo took his time in answering. She was in an office, he was in his suit. He could tell that thankfully the natural order of things had been restored. This was her comfort zone and she was in charge of the brief she was sworn to deliver.

‘Let’s just say that I’m curious and, since I’m the one with the chequebook, why don’t you humour me?’

‘For obvious reasons,’ Ellie said stiffly, ‘This would be a wonderful feather in my cap, and certainly cement my place as on a par with my partners who have both had more experience than myself. As you rightly said, it may not be the biggest of commissions, but you’re a big cheese, so there’s always the hope that other significant commissions might follow. It would be a brilliant CV builder for the agency and an even greater one for me.’

Niccolo’s eyebrows winged up. ‘The way you said big cheese doesn’t make it sound like a compliment. So, you get this job and you further prove yourself...’

‘Yes,’ Ellie told him flatly.

‘And your career means a great deal to you.’

‘It means everything to me.’ She met his dark gaze and held it. ‘Financial independence means everything to me. This job offers me a door through which the agency can enter and I want to see what’s on the other side of that door. So, that’s how much it means to me.’

Niccolo frowned, momentarily distracted. ‘What about all the usual things women your age busy themselves thinking about?’ He was astonished at how sexist he sounded, because he prided himself on providing equal opportunities for women, and was known for parity on every level when it came to hiring within his own companies. For heaven’s sake, he’d gone into this venture on the back of what one of his sisters had said in passing because he’d respected her opinion even though it didn’t happen to coincide with his.

‘I’m not following you, Mr Rossi.’

‘Marriage and children? You’re clearly ultra-conservative, but that doesn’t seem to tie in with the I’ll do anything for my career angle.’

‘I’m very focused on my career right now, Mr Rossi. I don’t have time for the sort of relationship that would lead to marriage and children.’

‘Interesting approach.’

‘Why interesting?’

‘You meet someone.’ Niccolo was fascinated by her approach, which roughly mirrored his. ‘And you discover you want a relationship because something is ignited. I didn’t think women spent much time working out how they could fit it into their work schedule but, forgive me, I’m digressing.’

When was the last time he’d done that?

‘What I am really interested in is finding out how flexible your schedule is and whether there is anyone on the scene who might impact on your flexibility or any urgent work commitments that cannot be temporarily diverted.’

‘I just don’t understand what you’re asking, Mr Rossi...’

‘I like what you’ve done, Ms Wilson. It may need a little tweaking, but the more I think about it the more I accept that there’s something to be said for the fading sunset shots. They’re tasteful. I can understand why you’re probably the queen of whimsy in your company. Unfortunately, you’ve brought personal issues to the table, and I’m getting the impression that because you disapprove of the concept of my hotel you would find it difficult to work in any changes that might be necessary.’

‘It’s my job to adapt to and interpret what the client wants,’ Ellie said, brain going overtime to work out where this was going.

‘Splendid reply!’

‘But what does that have to do with whether there’s anyone in my life who can impact on my job or whether I have other jobs on the go?’ Ellie looked at him with a perplexed frown.

‘I’m prepared to give your company a shot at this,’ Niccolo told her.

‘That’s wonderful! Although...’ She frowned. ‘You still haven’t answered my question.’ She hesitated, wishing she could read what was going through his head behind those deep, dark, shuttered eyes that were looking at her with the sort of lazy assessment that could make a person feel drugged and heavy-limbed. ‘And...’ She inhaled deeply. ‘I’m curious as to why you’ve decided to give us the job.’

‘Because you have backbone,’ Niccolo observed, enjoying the transparency of her face. ‘You happen to be off-target about my resort—and I can personally guarantee that all of my guests would be very much affronted at being written off as sad—but you didn’t allow me to cow you into saying what you thought I might want to hear.’

Ellie flushed with pleasure even though there was a lot to sift through in what he just said before she could reach the compliment. ‘I expect,’ she conceded, ‘That you must have that effect on people. They put themselves out to please you.’

Niccolo didn’t bother denying it.

‘The reason I asked you whether there was anyone in your life and whether you could be spared at work is because I feel that you might need convincing, first hand, of the product you’ll be commissioned to advertise. Put it this way—it’s no good trying to sell a bar of chocolate if you don’t like the stuff. How could the message possibly be sincere?’

‘Need convincing?’ Ellie wondered how Niccolo Rossi imagined that he could try and talk her into dumping her moral code. Did he think that people’s ingrained beliefs were interchangeable depending on the time of day? Or maybe he thought that he was so persuasive that it didn’t matter what someone believed in—if it didn’t happen to coincide with his beliefs, then he would be able to win them over because he was a smooth talker. Or just too plain sexy for his own good.

Her eyes drifted to the sensual curve of his mouth and she hurriedly looked away and mentally gathered her wits.

‘I don’t have to be convinced of anything to do a good job. I’m grateful for the opportunity to prove to you just what I can come up with. I think I’m getting an idea of what you want, and I want to reassure you that I will be able to deliver. I’m assuming that you have a deadline? I gather that the resort is due to open imminently. I assure you I will have no problem working to any deadline you care to set.’

‘I’m thrilled to hear that,’ Niccolo said dryly. ‘But, before you get too excited talking deadlines and delivery schedules, I feel we should sort out any potential crossed wires here.’ His dark eyes rested on her face with just a whisper of sardonic amusement. ‘I’m not asking you to make another appointment with my secretary for a follow-up meeting in a week’s time. I’m asking you to pay a little visit to my resort, see for yourself what it’s all about.’ Niccolo seldom did anything purely on impulse. This was impulsive.

He took a few seconds to savour the rare sensation of a woman clearly appalled at the prospect of having to endure time out in a six-star luxury resort, all expenses paid.

‘So, do you want the job? Then pack your bags, Ms Wilson.’ He smiled lazily, ‘I’ve been told that nothing beats a spot of winter sun...’

CHAPTER THREE

NICCOLO HADN’T KNOWN, until a handful of hours before his private jet was due to take off, whether he would give in to yet more impulsive behaviour and take time out to go to the Caribbean.

His timetable was locked down tighter than a bank vault. He had meetings upon meetings, all meticulously planned weeks in advance. He had conference calls scheduled for ungodly hours of the morning, because it was imperative to be able to connect with clients on the other side of the world. His social life had been reduced to three business events, none of which could be avoided.

There was no way he could play truant because a random woman had shown up in his gym a week ago and done something to his rigid self-control.

Yes, he’d told her that going to his resort would be part of the job. So far, so good, because that made perfect sense. He’d liked the fact that she hadn’t been intimidated by him into agreeing to submit what the other advertising companies had submitted. He’d admired the way she’d dug her heels in, even though he had disagreed with pretty much everything she had had to say about relationships.

And yes, he had, sitting opposite her, been tempted by a number of what if? scenarios.

But even as he’d been tempted, even as he’d acknowledged the weird, disconcerting impact she seemed to have on his nether regions, a part of him had remained contained, controlled and logical.

He wasn’t going to go there because it didn’t make sense. He’d enjoyed the brief lapse of control, and had had fun playing around with images in his head, but deep down he had fully expected to relegate her to the back of his mind the second she left his office.

Face it, he was used to dating queens of the catwalk and, even though Ms Eleanor Wilson had a certain undeniable something that made him frown and want to take a second look, she was no queen of the catwalk. No jutting cheekbones, no sinewy arms, no legs up to armpits. Average, really, and with a dress sense that would have had fashionistas screaming in horror and running for the hills.

But, for some ungodly reason, the woman had lodged in his head like a burr and he couldn’t understand it.

He did, however, know himself and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he needed to see her again because he wasn’t prepared for the tedium of having her in his system.

His relationship with the opposite sex bordered on the ridiculously predictable. He either had a business relationship with them, in which case they had about as much sex appeal as a potted plant in a suit, or else he had a sexual relationship with them, in which case they played the usual games of seduction before the whole thing became stale and he moved on.

He knew where he stood with women and he liked it that way. Despite his mother’s disapproval, and his sisters’ tiresome nagging, he was very happy indeed with his love life because it held no unfortunate surprises.

He’d endured one of those and, as far as he was concerned, one learning curve was enough for a lifetime.

Ms Eleanor Wilson, however, had managed uncomfortably to straddle both areas, which was why he’d found himself thinking about her way too often for his liking.

Which was why he knew that he had to see her again, if only to prove to himself that whatever appeal she had exercised was all in his mind.

Niccolo told himself that his baffling attraction to the woman was not, however, sufficient draw to take him away from his duties back in London. Truthfully, he knew that he could do with seeing where his money was going, and touching base with the people out there spending it on his behalf. He had paid a flying visit to the place months before, at which point he had put in place everything he wanted, and thereafter the whole show had been left in the capable hands of the small team of people who were employed by him exclusively to handle the project.

He had been updated daily with progress reports. He knew exactly what was going on but emails and conference calls were a poor substitute for face-to-face inspection. If Ms Eleanor Wilson was out there as well, then her presence would certainly add a tantalising piquancy to the trip. But first and foremost, he reasoned, this was about business, and if it was a little unexpected it was no more than a trip he would have done anyway, if at a slightly later date. At any rate, money was money, and he would be interested to see what she made of the resort because that would determine how genuine her ad campaign would eventually be and, if she wasn’t up to scratch, then regrettably she would have to go. Nothing was signed and he was well aware that she knew the implications of that. She had drawn even with the field but hadn’t yet cleared the finishing line.

He was musing over this when he spotted her approaching, dragging a small case behind her and with a capacious bag that could have housed a kitchen sink slung over her shoulder.

Immediately, he stilled and, eyes narrowed, he watched as she walked towards him.

‘Is that it?’ he asked, eyeing the tiny suitcase, which was hardly bigger than a rucksack. ‘You were allowed as much luggage as you wanted.’

Hot and bothered and feeling out of her depth, Ellie wondered whether that question required a reply. She’d had no idea who would be accompanying her on the flight over to the island and had, at first, assumed that there might also be other candidates being taken there on probation. She had been contacted by his secretary and informed of all the necessary details for a seven-day stay on the island. She had come close to looking forward to the working break until, in the chauffeur-driven car that had been dispatched for her, she’d received a call from Niccolo’s very nice secretary who had cheerfully informed her that Niccolo himself would be meeting her at the airport.

‘But he can’t be!’ Ellie had had to stop herself from wailing in despair. ‘How can he spare the time? He could barely spare the time to keep his appointment with me!’

‘Mr Rossi can do as he likes,’ his secretary had said gently. ‘He’s a law unto himself.’

Horror had kicked in fast and the remainder of the drive had been spent in a state of nervous tension because, ever since her unconventional meeting with the man who was a law unto himself, Ellie had had to fight giving in to the insidious temptation to waste time thinking about him. He had quizzed her, and questioned her, and challenged her, and since when was all that part of the job? He was rich and good-looking, so felt that he could do as he pleased even though he had known well enough that she had been unsettled by the way he had overstepped her boundaries.

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