is one of Mills & Boon’s most popular and bestselling novelists. Her writing was an instant success with readers worldwide. Since her first book, Bittersweet Passion, was published in 1987, she has gone from strength to strength and now has over ninety titles, which have sold more than thirty-five million copies, to her name.

In this special collection, we offer readers a chance to revisit favourite books or enjoy that rare treasure—a book by a favourite writer—they may have missed. In every case, seduction and passion with a gorgeous, irresistible man are guaranteed!

LYNNE GRAHAM was born in Northern Ireland and has been a keen Mills & Boon® reader since her teens. She is very happily married, with an understanding husband who has learned to cook since she started to write! Her five children keep her on her toes. She has a very large dog, which knocks everything over, a very small terrier, which barks a lot, and two cats. When time allows, Lynne is a keen gardener.

The Italian Billionaire’s Pregnant Bride
Lynne Graham

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

SERGIO TORRENTE walked into the Palazzo Azzarini for the first time in ten years.

A magnificent mansion in the Tuscan hills, the palazzo was as famous for its grand Palladian architecture as for its legendary Azzarini wine label, which had spawned a massive empire with vineyards all over the world. Sadly, recent financial reverses had taken their toll: the breathtaking collection of treasures that had once filled the house was gone and the grandeur had become shabby. But it belonged to Sergio now. All of it. Every stone, every inch of rich productive earth, and he was rich enough to turn the clock back and remedy the neglect.

He had regained his birthright; it should have been a moment of supreme triumph. Yet Sergio felt nothing. He had stopped feeling a long time ago. At first it had been a defence mechanism but it had soon become an engrained habit he nourished. He liked the clean, efficient structure of his existence. He did not suffer from emotional highs and lows. When he wanted something more, when he felt the need for a certain buzz to bring him alive, he got it out of sex or physical challenge. He had climbed sheer rock faces in blizzards, trekked through jungles in appalling conditions and engaged in extreme sports. He had not found fear. But he had not found anything he really cared about, either, he acknowledged grimly.

Sergio strolled through the echoing empty entrance hall at an unhurried pace. Once the palazzo had been a happy place and he had been a loving son, who took family affection, wealth and security for granted. But the fond memories had long since been wiped out by the nightmare that had followed. He now knew more than he had ever wanted to know about the depths of human greed. His strong, handsome features set in forbidding lines, he strolled out onto the rear terrace, which overlooked the gardens. The sound of footsteps turned his head. A woman was walking towards him.

Platinum-blonde hair rippled back from Grazia’s perfect face. The white slip dress clinging to her pouting nipples and outlining the mound at the junction of her thighs left little to the imagination: she was naked beneath the silk. Grazia had always known what appealed most to a man and it wasn’t conversation. He got the message: it was basic and it was instant.

‘Don’t throw me out.’ Her languorous turquoise eyes proffered an invitation that both teased and begged. ‘There’s nothing I won’t do for a second chance with you.’

Sergio raised a derisive ebony brow. ‘I don’t do second chances.’

‘Even if this time I offer you a free trial? No strings attached? I can say sorry with style.’ With a provocative look, Grazia folded fluidly down on her knees in front of him and reached for the clasp on his belt.

For a split second, Sergio was taut and then he vented an appreciative laugh. A consummate survivor, Grazia had the morals of a whore but at least she was honest about it. To the winner went the spoils. And without a doubt she was a prize many men would kill to possess, for she was beautiful, sexually adventurous and an aristocrat born and bred. He knew exactly what Grazia was, as once she had been his. A heartbeat later, however, when his bright prospects were destroyed, she had been his brother’s. Love on a budget had had zero appeal for Grazia; she went where the money was. And time had wrought dramatic changes, since Sergio was now a billionaire and the Azzarini vineyards were just one small part of his enterprises.

‘You’re my brother’s wife,’ he reminded her softly, angling his lean hips back to lounge indolently against the wall a tantalising few inches out of her reach, ‘and I don’t do adultery, cara mia.’

His mobile phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ he murmured with perfect cool and he walked back indoors, just leaving her kneeling in sensual subservience on the tiles of the terrace.

The call was from his security chief, Renzo Catallone, in London. Sergio suppressed a sigh. Once a senior police officer, the older man took his job very seriously. Sergio had a valuable chess set on display in his London office and, a few weeks ago, he’d been startled to see that someone, in blatant disregard of the ‘Do Not Touch’ notice, had solved the most recent chess puzzle he had laid out on the board. Since then, every subsequent move Sergio had made had been matched.

‘Look, if it’s bothering you that much, hide a surveillance camera nearby,’ Sergio suggested.

‘This nonsense with the chessboard is bugging my whole team,’ Renzo confessed. ‘We’re determined to catch this joker out.’

‘What are we going to do with him when we catch him?’ Sergio enquired drily. ‘Charge him with challenging me to a game of chess?’

‘It’s more serious than you think,’ the older man countered. ‘That vestibule is in a private area right beside your office, yet someone is walking in and out of there whenever they like. It’s a dangerous breach of security. I checked the board this afternoon but I couldn’t tell if any of the pieces had been moved again.’

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Sergio told him gently. ‘I will know immediately.’

Not least because he was playing a highly innovative opponent, ready to use a game to attract his attention. The culprit could only be an ambitious member of his executive staff, keen to impress him with his strategic skills.

The young man was so busy staring at Kathy that he almost tripped over a chair on his way out of the café.

‘You’re seriously good for business.’ Bridget Kirk’s round, good-natured face shone with amusement. A bustling brunette of forty-one, she was the manager. ‘All the men want you to serve them. When are you going to pick one of them to go out with?’

Her green eyes veiled to conceal her awkwardness at the question, Kathy forced a laugh. ‘I haven’t got time for a boyfriend.’

Watching the youthful redhead pull on her jacket to go home, Bridget suppressed a sigh. Kathy Galvin was drop-dead gorgeous and only twenty-three years old, but she lived like a hermit. ‘You could always squeeze one in somewhere. You’re only young once. All you seem to do is work and study. I hope you’re not worrying about old history and how to explain it. That’s all behind you now.’

Kathy resisted the urge to respond that the past was still with her all the time, physically in the shape of a livid scar on her back, haunting her in nightmares and shadowing and threatening her even during daylight hours with a sense of insecurity. She knew now that if you were unlucky you didn’t even need to do anything bad to have everything taken away from you. Her life had gone badly wrong when she was nineteen years old. As far as she knew nothing she had done had contributed to that situation. Indeed, when she had been least expecting it, calamity had come out of nowhere and almost destroyed her. Although she had survived the experience it had changed her. Once she had been confident, outgoing and trusting. She had also had complete faith in the integrity of the justice system and an even deeper belief in the essential kindness of other human beings. Four years on, those convictions had taken a savage beating and now she preferred to keep herself to herself, rather than invite rejection and hurt.

Bridget squeezed the younger woman’s slight shoulder. It was a stretch for her because Kathy was a good bit taller than she was. ‘It is behind you now,’ the brunette murmured gently. ‘Stop brooding about it.’

Walking home, Kathy reflected how lucky she was to work for someone like Bridget, who accepted her in spite of her past. Unhappily, Kathy had discovered that if she wanted to work that kind of honesty was a rare luxury, and she had learnt to be inventive with her CV to explain the gap in her employment record. To survive she had two jobs: evenings as an office cleaner, day shifts as a waitress. She needed every penny to pay the bills and there was nothing left over at the end. Even so, long, frustrating months of soul-destroying unemployment had taught Kathy to be grateful for what she had. Few people were as generous and open-minded as Bridget. Although Kathy had qualifications, she’d still had to settle for unskilled and poorly paid work.

As always, it was a relief to get the door of her bedsit safely shut behind her. She loved her privacy and relished the fact that she had no noisy neighbours. She had painted the bedsit’s walls pale colours to reflect the light that flooded through the window. Tigger was curled up on the sill outside awaiting her return. She let the elderly tortoiseshell cat in and fed him. He was a stray and half-wild and it had taken months for her to win his trust. Even now he would panic if she closed the window, so no matter how cold it was it stayed open for the duration of his visits. She understood exactly how he felt and his health had improved greatly since she had begun caring for him. His coat had acquired a gloss and his thin lanky frame a decent covering of flesh.

Tigger reminded her of the pet cat that her family had once cherished. An only child, Kathy had had a chequered early history. Abandoned by her birth mother in a park when she was a year old, Kathy had been adopted as a toddler. But by the time she was ten tragedy had struck again when her adoptive mother had died in a train crash, and soon afterwards a debilitating illness had begun to claim her father’s health. Kathy had become a carer in her teens, struggling to cope with looking after the older man while at the same time running a home on a tight budget and keeping up with her schoolwork. Her love for her surviving parent had strengthened her and if she had any consolation now it was that her father had died before the bright academic future he had foreseen for his daughter had been destroyed.

A couple of hours later, Kathy entered the office block where she worked five nights a week. She had got to quite like cleaning. It was peaceful. As long as she got through her work on time, nobody bossed her about and there were very few men around to harass her. She had soon discovered that hardly anyone paid much heed to the maintenance staff: it was if their very lowliness made them invisible and unworthy of notice, which suited Kathy right down to the ground. She had never been comfortable with the way her looks tended to attract male attention.

As there were still some employees at work, she dealt with the public areas first. Even the stalwarts were packing up to go home when she began on the offices. She was emptying a bin when an impatient masculine voice hailed her from the far end of the corridor.

‘Are you the cleaner? Come into my office—I’ve had a spillage!’

Kathy spun round. The man in the smart business suit didn’t bother to look at her before he swung on his heel. As she hurried in his wake with her trolley he vanished through the doorway that led into the swanky private office suite where the pretentious chess set was on display. The ‘Do Not Touch’ notice was still in a prominent position. Her mouth quirked and her gaze skimmed the board as she moved past. Another move had been made by her unknown opponent. She would make hers during her break when she was the only person left on the floor.

The big office was huge and imposing and it had a fabulous view of the London City skyline. The man had his back turned to her while he talked on the phone in a foreign language. He was very tall with broad shoulders and black hair. Those observations concluded her interest, for she finally spotted the spillage he had mentioned: a porcelain coffee jug with a broken handle that had spread its contents over a wide area. She soaked up the dark liquid as best she could and then went to fill her bucket with fresh water.

Sergio ended his phone call and sat down at his glass desk. Only then did he notice the cleaner, who was down on her knees busily scrubbing the carpet on the other side of the office. The long hair clasped at her nape was an eye-catching metallic mix of copper, amber and auburn shades.

‘Thank you. I’m sure that’ll do,’ he told her dismissively.

Kathy glanced up. ‘It’ll stain if I leave it,’ she warned.

She settled huge green eyes on him. They were fringed with lashes like a cartoon fawn’s, Sergio found himself thinking abstractedly. Her face was heart-shaped and unusual and so spectacular in its beauty that he who never stared at a woman stared. Even a shapeless overall could not conceal the grace of her slender long-legged figure. Just as quickly he was convinced that she could not possibly be an authentic cleaner. She had to be an out-of-work actress or a model. Women that beautiful didn’t scrub floors for a living. How had she got past Security?

Had one of his friends set him up for a joke? Neither of his best friends was a likely candidate, Sergio acknowledged wryly. It would be too juvenile a trick for Leonidas, and Rashad had become alarmingly unadventurous since he had acquired a wife and children. Of course he had other friends. But it was equally likely that the lady was trying to set him up for her own reasons.

For a split second when she focused on the male behind the desk, Kathy had gawped like a startled schoolgirl because he was a dazzlingly handsome guy. He had gleaming cropped black hair, brilliant eyes like polished jet set below level brows, high sculpted cheekbones and a strong patrician nose. The whole was connected by smooth planes of olive skin that roughened and darkened around his hard jaw line. Her heart slowed to a dulled heavy thud that seemed to get in the way of her breathing normally.

‘The carpet?’ she framed unevenly, the effort of even remembering the task she had been doing a challenge as she scrambled to her feet, ready to leave.

Sergio was committing her flawless features to memory. Stunning women were not a novelty to him. So, he was still trying to work out what it was about her face that gave it such amazingly powerful appeal that it was a challenge to look away from her. He lounged back in his seat with deceptive indolence. ‘Go ahead and clean it,’ he urged huskily. ‘But before you do, answer one question. Which one of my friends sent you here?’

Her delicate brows pleated and she hovered with perceptible uneasiness. Pink tinting her pale ivory skin, she dragged her attention from him only to be shaken by the compulsion to look afresh. It was as though a piece of indiscernible elastic were tightening and trying to jerk her eyes back to him again by force. ‘I’m sorry—I don’t understand. Look, I’ll come back and finish this later.’

‘No, do it now.’ Sergio arrested her retreat in its tracks with the command. Her apparent bewilderment at his query was making him question his initial suspicions.

Arrogant, demanding, oversexed…Kathy gave him a rude label inside her head, a flush of angry embarrassment colouring her cheeks. She wanted out of his office: she wasn’t stupid. She knew why he had asked if one of his friends had sent her. On another occasion a male member of staff had asked her hopefully if she was a strippergram girl. It infuriated her that such insulting assumptions should be made purely on the basis of her appearance. She was doing her job and she had the same right as anyone else to be left in peace to get on with it! As she knelt back down again she accidentally collided with black eyes that flared as golden as flames and momentarily held her transfixed. For a timeless moment she was still, breathing held in suspension, mouth running dry. Then she blinked, tore her attention free again with difficulty and discovered that her mind was a total blank, for his sensationally attractive image was now stamped there in place of rational thought.

Sergio was watching her every move and she made no effort that he could see to put on a show designed to draw his notice to her. Her clothing was unremarkable, the overall all-concealing. She was not provocative and her movements were very quiet, so why was he still watching her? There was something different about her, an unknown element that stood out and grabbed his attention. The pale pink blush of awareness that had swept her ivory complexion had sent his healthy male hormones on a rampant surge. Her amazing eyes were as green as the bitter-sweet apples his English grandfather had once grown and there was a surprisingly direct look in them. A lingering appraisal of the lush pout of her crushed strawberry mouth was sufficient to arouse him to a serious level of discomfort.

Kathy kept on working at the patch of carpet that she knew needed more specialist attention than she could give it. She was really fighting to think straight but she was amazed by her response to him. No man had had that effect on her since Gareth—and Gareth had never left her so bemused that she scarcely knew what she was doing. But then she had been in love, a dreaming teenager drifting along on a raft of foolish romantic expectations. Her reaction to the guy in the business suit, she reasoned feverishly, was just a reminder that Mother Nature had blessed her with the same physical chemistry as every other human being and sexual attraction was just a part of that. Maybe she should be welcoming the discovery that a broken heart and disillusionment hadn’t entirely killed off her ability to feel like a normal woman.

‘Excuse me…’ she muttered with careful politeness, moving across the room to leave.

Instinct made Sergio spring upright. Near the doorway she lifted her bright head, her apple green eyes telegraphing her tension. The words of amused protest he had been about to voice to retain her presence went unspoken. Madonna diavolo, she was a cleaner and he a Torrente! His strong bone structure tautened, rigorous self-discipline reinstated. What was he thinking of? But he still could not accept that it was a coincidence that such a strikingly beautiful woman should be working so close to his office and conveniently available at his first call. It was even more unusual for him to work late without his customary support staff in attendance. It had to be some kind of a set-up!

Sergio was well aware that his fabulous wealth made him a constant target. Women frequently went to extreme lengths to catch his eye. Vital pieces of clothing slipped so that he could see what was on offer and how easily available it was. Any shade of gallantry in his character had turned to hardened cynicism while he was still a teenager. Too many maidens in distress had vied for his attention with fake incidents that ranged from cars that had broken down, doors that wouldn’t unlock and flights that had been mysteriously missed to last-minute accommodation problems and sudden attacks of illness. Innumerable women had used the tactics of guile and trickery just to get the chance to meet Sergio and spark his interest. A seemingly respectable and very bright PA had once stripped down to her saucy lingerie to bring him coffee, while several others had used late meetings and business trips to get naked and raunchy for his benefit. At the age of thirty-one, he had received countless sexual invitations, some subtle, most of them bold and a few downright strange.

The door safely shut behind her again, Kathy drank in a quivering breath of oxygen to replenish her starved lungs. She wondered who he was and then discarded the thought again. What did it matter to her who he was? On the way past the chessboard, with its pieces fashioned of polished metal and glittering stones, she hesitated, studied the state of play and swiftly sacrificed a pawn, hoping to tempt the other player into relaxing their guard. Was it him? She thought it highly improbable: there were two other large offices linked to that inner hallway and one of them contained half a dozen desks. A posh guy with gold cuff links and a cold upper-class accent that just shrieked an English public school education struck her as a very unlikely candidate for exchanging long-distance chess moves with a total stranger. She sped back down the corridor to continue the work he had interrupted.

Sergio was closing his laptop when the phone rang.

‘We’ve got the mysterious chess joker on camera, sir,’ Renzo revealed with satisfaction.

‘When did you manage that? This evening?’

‘The incident took place last night. I’ve had a man checking the surveillance footage for hours. I think you’ll be surprised by what I’ve found out.’

‘So, surprise me,’ Sergio urged, stifling his impatience.

‘It’s a young woman, one of the maintenance staff, who works nights—a cleaner called Kathy Galvin. She started here a month ago.’

Incredulity awakened in Sergio’s cool dark features and was swiftly followed by strong curiosity. ‘Send the relevant images to my computer.’

Sergio ran the footage on screen while keeping Renzo on the telephone, and there she was: the ravishing redhead. He watched her get up from the sofa in the vestibule where she had evidently been taking a nap and stretch. With a cursory glance down at the board she moved the white knight. Was it sexist to suspect that someone much cleverer was advising her by mobile phone on her skilful game? She then began to tidy her tousled hair, unclasping it and pulling out a comb. He was put in mind of a mermaid showing off her crowning glory to tempt sailors onto the rocks. He wondered if she knew the camera was there while he feasted his attention on her exquisite face and froze her image on screen.

‘It’s misconduct, sir,’ Renzo told him eagerly.

‘You think so?’ Sergio got up from his desk, taking the portable phone with him as he strolled out to take a look at the chessboard. Evidently she had abandoned caution and made another move directly after leaving his office. Why? No doubt she was keen to help him to speedily unveil her identity and take the bait. Illicit napping on the job aside, the humble toil of cleaning duties had to be a serious challenge for a woman only doing it in an effort to cross his path.

‘She’ll be disciplined, probably sacked by the contract company when we lodge a complaint—’

‘No. Leave this matter with me and be discreet about it,’ Sergio interposed softly. ‘I’ll handle it.’

‘You’ll handle it, sir?’ his security chief repeated in audible astonishment. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course. I also want that surveillance camera put out of commission right now.’ Sergio tossed the phone down. His astute dark eyes were shot through with derisive gold. So she wasn’t a genuine hard-working salt-of-the-earth cleaner worthy of his respect. Why had he been willing to believe she was for even five minutes? Put that glorious face and body in tandem with the creative chess game aimed at attracting his attention and he had yet another gold-digger in hot and original pursuit.

Open season for the hunt, Sergio mused with sardonic amusement. He was a hell of a good shot and he intended to have some fun. And sooner rather than later, because he was leaving London the next day to compete in a cross-country skiing marathon in Norway. After that he had business to attend to in New York. It would be ten days before he was back in the UK.

Rising to his full imposing height of six feet three inches, Sergio strode out of the office and down the corridor in search of his quarry. He found her dusting a desk. Her fabulous hair glittered in multi-shaded splendour below the ceiling lights. When she straightened and saw him in the doorway, an expression of surprise grew on her delicate features. Grudging amusement assailed Sergio: she knew how to stay in role all right. Looking at that frowning air of enquiry, nobody would have dreamt that she had been teasing and tantalising him with a game that he considered very much his own for almost three weeks.

‘Let’s play chess in the real world, bella mia,’ Sergio suggested with silken cool. ‘I challenge you to finish the game tonight. If you win, you get me. If you lose, you still get me. How can you lose?’

CHAPTER TWO

KATHY stared at Sergio Torrente for a good ten seconds. Her every expectation was shattered by that challenge coming at her out of the blue, and from such a source as the powerfully built male confronting her. For a long time now, she had protected herself by never taking a risk and never stepping out of line to be noticed. Sudden unexpected attention from a stranger and the belated realisation that she had foolishly invited it unnerved her.

Yet she was mortifyingly aware that it was his bold, dark masculine beauty that claimed her attention first. Win or lose, he was on offer? Was he serious? If he was, would she dare to take him up on it? While she’d worked she had told herself that he could not have been half as attractive as she had thought he was. Now here he was again in the flesh to blow that staid and sensible belief right out of the water. Just looking at the proud, chiselled planes of his darkly handsome features gave her the strangest sense of pleasure. A frisson of dangerous exhilaration gripped her while butterflies fluttered in her stomach. She parted her lips without even knowing what she intended to say. ‘I—er—’

Glittering black eyes centred on her with laser beam intensity. ‘Backing down from a face-to-face contest?’ he murmured with unconcealed scorn.

Anger shot through Kathy with a power and sharpness that she had forgotten she could feel and she lifted her chin in answer. ‘Are you kidding?’

Sergio stepped back to allow her to precede him from the room. ‘Then let’s go and play.’

‘But I’m working,’ Kathy pointed out with a slow bemused shake of her head. ‘For goodness’ sake, who are you?’

A mocking ebony brow quirked. ‘Is that a serious question?’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘I am Sergio Torrente and I own the Torrenco Group,’ Sergio delivered drily, wondering whether she thought it was clever to make what he considered to be an outrageous claim of ignorance. ‘Every company in this block belongs to me. I find it hard to believe that you’re not aware of those facts.’

Kathy was paralysed to the spot by that revelation. It had not even occurred to her that he might be that important. But, even so, she had never heard of him before. She had never been on any floor other than the one she was on now and she had had no interest whatsoever in the business world or the personalities that powered the huge building during the hours of daylight.

‘So will you play?’ Sergio prompted with impatience.

An adrenalin rush was firing self-preservation skills in Kathy. It was clear to her that she had picked the wrong chessboard to get familiar with and the wrong guy. Why had she not even suspected that he might be her opponent? His smooth urbane façade had deceived her, she conceded tautly. He radiated an aura of sophisticated ease and cool. But the breathtaking elegance of his designer suit concealed a purebred predator, for he was a highly aggressive and clever player who took advantage of every tactical opportunity to attack. In short, he was very much an Alpha male incapable of ignoring any perceived challenge to prove his strength. Not a guy to tangle with, not a guy to offend.

‘I could take my break now,’ Kathy told him, ready to get her punishment over with, as instead of beating him in two moves as she had previously planned she decided that it would be wiser to let him win.

Sergio nodded, hooded dark golden eyes nailed to her because he had yet to work out what script she was trying to follow. Was he really supposed to credit that she didn’t know who he was?

‘I’ve had the board moved into my office so that we can play undisturbed.’

Her heart was now beating very fast with nervous tension. He thrust open the door of his office, then stood back. Momentarily she was close enough to catch the faint evocative scent of some expensive male cologne. She snatched in a charged breath. ‘How did you know it was me? How did you find out?’

‘That’s not important.’

‘It’s important to me,’ she dared.

‘Surveillance camera,’ he supplied.

Kathy lost colour. There was a security camera in that hallway? She was appalled by that news. She took her breaks there and, once or twice, when she had been very tired, she had set the alarm on her watch and taken a nap on that sofa. Proof of those facts would be sufficient to put her out of a job.

‘Would you like a drink?’

Her slender figure now tense as a bowstring, Kathy hovered in the centre of the carpet. A pool of light shone across the board and the sofas in one corner. It was a very intimate backdrop. If the supervisor came looking for her and found her in such a situation she would get totally the wrong idea and alcohol was a sackable offence. ‘Are you trying to get me fired?’

‘If you don’t talk, I won’t,’ Sergio countered with lazy indifference.

An automatic negative was on Kathy’s lips, but suddenly a spirit of rebellion sparked inside her. With the proof he already had of her stealing a nap during her break, there was little point splitting hairs. ‘You’re only young once,’ Bridget had scolded that same day. But Kathy had never really known what it was to be young and carefree. Since she had regained her freedom she had followed every rule she met everywhere to the letter, no matter how small the rule, no matter how petty. The habit had become engrained in her, the new secure framework by which she lived. The chess game had been the only deviation and only because she couldn’t resist the temptation of reliving the challenges her late father had once set her. In truth she could not even recall when she had last tasted alcohol and that made her feel pathetic, sad and defiant. She named a fashionable drink that she had seen advertised on a billboard.

‘You seem very tense.’ Sergio passed her a glass. Translucent green eyes rested on him, providing an alluring contrast to her alabaster skin and copper and red streaked hair. Predictably, he went straight for it. ‘Don’t stress, bella mia. I find you incredibly attractive.’

The annoyance and embarrassment that Kathy usually felt at such moments was entirely absent. So, he had been serious. She felt as if her heart were pounding right at the foot of her throat. She was shaken by the discovery that she was thrilled by his approach. Her fingers tightened round the glass, her hand shook a little. She sipped and swallowed, sipped and swallowed again, to conceal the reality of her physical weakness. It was so uncool to be so excited. Locked into his stunning dark golden gaze when she finally raised the courage to look up, she could not have breathed to save her life.

Unhurriedly, Sergio angled his lustrous dark head down. He was testing the boundaries, amusing himself. The delicate fresh scent of her skin made his strong, hard body tauten. Arousal slivered through him with a force that surprised him and speedily tipped him out of teasing mode. He claimed her luscious pink lips with hungry urgency and that first taste only whet his appetite for more.

Kathy couldn’t credit what she was doing, but she wouldn’t have shifted an inch to prevent it happening, either. A storm tide of feeling engulfed her and she couldn’t get enough of it. It was as energising as hitching a ride on a rocket and it left her equally dizzy and disorientated. He kissed her and fireworks of sensation shot through her and she pulsed and tingled with response. Honeyed warmth pooled in her tummy, a tightness forming at her pelvis. She shivered violently when the sensual glide of his tongue probed the tender cave of her mouth. The throb of desire that flashed and stabbed through her slim length was almost too much to bear and she moaned in protest.

‘You are so hot, you burn,’ Sergio framed and, as his deep, dark drawl roughened, a faint Italian accent broke through to mellow the syllables with a lyrical edge. ‘But we have a game to finish.’

Kathy wasn’t quite sure her legs would keep her upright long enough to reach the sofa at her side of the board. She would have found it easier to fall back into his arms than walk away, an acknowledgement that shook her up even more. Her body felt tight, overheated and unfamiliar. She was aware of it in ways that were new to her. All the time her brain was set on enumerating her mistakes. She shouldn’t be in a room alone with him, shouldn’t have allowed him to kiss her, and certainly shouldn’t have encouraged him by responding. But while her intelligence knew each and every one of those things, the hunger he had awakened and the dissatisfaction he had left behind had an even stronger hold on her.

Two moves later, the chess game was over.

When Sergio won, his black brows drew together and then anger illuminated his narrowed gaze to gilded bronze. ‘Either someone else has been telling you how to play for the past three weeks, or you just deliberately threw the game to let me win!’

Kathy was dismayed by his discernment but determined to tough it out. ‘You won…okay?’

‘No, it is not okay. Which was it?’ Sergio countered icily.

The silence felt suffocating. Tension made it hard for her to swallow. She scrambled up. ‘I should get back to work.’

Hauteur stamped on his lean hard features, Sergio vaulted upright, well over six feet of lean, muscular male. ‘You will go nowhere until you give me an answer.’

Kathy dealt him a troubled glance and screened her green eyes. His cold anger took her aback. ‘My goodness, it’s only a game,’ she mumbled.

‘Answer me,’ Sergio commanded.

Kathy heaved a sigh and shifted her hands in a dismissive gesture. ‘I let you win…all right?’

Sergio could not recall when he had last been so outraged by a woman. ‘Is that what you believe I wanted or expected from you? Do you think I am so vain that I need a fake victory to bolster my ego?’ he shot at her with stinging contempt. ‘I don’t need that kind of sacrifice and I don’t like flattery. This is not the way to please me.’

Temper like a red-hot flame was darting through Kathy’s willowy form. ‘Well, then, you should stop throwing your weight around and behaving like a bully!’ she launched back at him half an octave higher. ‘How do you expect me to behave? How am I supposed to cope with you? Let’s not pretend that this is a level playing field or that you gave me a choice—’

‘Don’t shout at me,’ Sergio breathed glacially while inside he reeled in stunned disbelief from that condemnation.

‘You wouldn’t be listening otherwise. I’m sorry I touched your stupid chess set, but it was only meant to be a harmless piece of fun. I’m sorry I let you win and offended you. But I wasn’t trying to please you—I couldn’t care less about pleasing you!’ Kathy flung back at him in disgust. ‘I was trying to placate you…I’m supposed to be working. I don’t want to lose my job. Can I get back to work now?’

Her attitude shone a bright revisionist light on the confrontation for Sergio. He had a brilliant penetrating mind and an unequalled talent for strategy. In business he was invincible, for he united the survival skills and killing instincts of a shark with a similar lack of emotion. He had learned early not to accept people at face value. But would a woman out to impress him shout at him? He had no evidence of anything calculated in Kathy Galvin’s behaviour. Why should she have known who he was?

Sergio reached a decision on the basis of the facts. ‘You really are just the cleaner.’

An affronted flush coloured Kathy’s face as she wondered what on earth that comment was supposed to mean. Had he perhaps thought she was an undercover spy? Or a hooker moonlighting with a mop? ‘Yes,’ she said tightly. ‘Just the cleaner—excuse me.’

As the door flipped shut on her quick exit Sergio swore softly in Italian, because he had not intended to humiliate her. The phone rang.

It was Renzo again. ‘I’ve been running a check on the cleaning lady with the chess fetish—’

‘Unnecessary,’ Sergio interposed.

The older man cleared his throat. ‘Galvin has a dodgy CV, sir. I don’t think she’s what she says she is. Although she’s a very bright girl with a fistful of top grades from school, her employment record only contains some very recent restaurant work. It doesn’t add up. There’s a gap of three years and no adequate explanation for it. According to the résumé she was travelling all that time, but I don’t buy it.’

‘Neither do I.’ His lean, strong face hard, Sergio considered the fact that for the first time in a decade he had almost been conned by a woman.

‘I think she’s probably another bimbo on the make, or even a paparazzo. I’ll ask the cleaning company to remove her from the rota. Thankfully, she’s their problem, not ours.’

But Sergio was unwilling to let Kathy Galvin off so easily. When had he ever walked away from a challenge?

Kathy worked at speed in an attempt to lose her troubled thoughts in energetic activity. The treatment she had received had left her angry and bewildered. Sergio Torrente was a gorgeous guy with an attitude problem. A rampant snob and very proud. Cool at best, he was colder than ice when he was crossed. But when he had kissed her, pure naked excitement had made mincemeat of all his faults. Had he momentarily contrived to forget that she was just the cleaner? He must have done. He was probably at least thirty years old and way too mature for her. She rammed the mop into the bucket with noisy unnecessary force. She had nothing in common with some super-rich older guy who owned a building and made a big fuss when some lesser mortal dared to muck around with his chessboard!

She began to wonder if she was fated to die a virgin. Year after year, life was steadily passing her by. Sergio Torrente was the first bloke she had fancied since Gareth had dumped her. How clever was that? Sexual chemistry was very strange, she mused ruefully. Why hadn’t she warmed to one of the many men who had tried to chat her up at the café? Obviously she was being rather too fussy. Even so, she was convinced that nine out of ten women would find Sergio Torrente pretty much irresistible. She had never gone for boyish men or the type who might almost be described as pretty. His lean dark features contrived to unite classic good looks with a raw and compelling masculinity that was seriously sexy, Kathy ruminated dreamily, wielding her mop with less and less vigour.

‘Kathy…?’

Her head flew up, light green eyes preoccupied. When she saw the subject of her most intimate thoughts standing just ten feet from her she did a double take. As she felt her wretched skin colouring up in a wave of guilty heat she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her alive. ‘Yes?’

‘I owe you an apology.’

Kathy nodded in firm agreement.

Sergio, who had been awaiting a flattering protest at that statement, laughed with reluctant appreciation. She was turning in a prize-winning performance in the sincerity stakes. Was her candour supposed to strike him as a refreshing quality? Appeal to his jaded billionaire palate and need for novelty? He didn’t know and he didn’t care. The fawn-like lashes swept down on her amazing eyes and desire dug talon claws of need into his groin. What did it matter if she sold her story afterwards to some tacky tabloid? One glimpse of her exquisite face and the most basic of male instincts took over. His reaction to her was atavistic and stronger than anything he had felt in a long time. To look at her without touching her almost hurt. He knew that the only thing that would satisfy him now was bedding her. He had never been into self-denial.

‘Will you play another game with me when your shift ends?’ Sergio asked silkily.

Kathy was astonished by the apology and the renewed invitation. In a wary and fleeting collision with brilliant dark eyes as crystal-clear and cold as an underground lake, she sensed the danger of him: the powerful personality reined in below the surface. Clever, ruthless, definitely not the sort of male anyone would want as an enemy. It dismayed her that even sensing those hard-nosed qualities she should still find him incredibly attractive. She swallowed hard, struggling to pay heed to her misgivings. ‘I’m afraid I don’t finish until eleven o’clock.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

‘No?’ Temptation was tugging at her with relentless force.

‘No. I haven’t eaten yet. I’ll send a car to pick you up when you’re finished.’

‘Can’t we just play here?’ Kathy gave way but only on terms that she felt would be comfortable for her. She didn’t want to risk being seen with him. Nor did she want to climb into some strange car to be taken heaven knew where and possibly left to find her own way home again in the early hours of the morning.

His surprise was patent. ‘If that’s what you want.’

‘It is.’

Kathy watched his long fluid stride carry him out of her sight. She was in a daze, not quite able to accept that he had talked her round with very little effort. It was only a game of chess, she told herself in sudden exasperation. He was still set on winning. If he kissed her again, she would…well, she would just make sure that they didn’t get that close. It would be pointless, him with his business empire and her with her history. And she didn’t want to be kicked in the teeth again, did she? There was no point literally queuing up to get hurt. But nor was there any harm in pitting her wits against his.

Five minutes before eleven, Kathy freshened up in the cloakroom. She folded up her overall and dug it into her bag. Her turquoise cotton T-shirt clung to her minimal curves. She turned sideways, breathed in deep and arched her spine. Her bosom remained disappointingly slight from every angle. Meeting her own eyes in the mirror, she flushed in embarrassment and concentrated on brushing her hair instead.

Kathy was twenty-three years old but, just then, she felt more like a nervous teenager. That lowering feeling of ignorance and insecurity annoyed her. The years between nineteen and twenty-two, when she might have acquired a little more experience, had been stolen from her. As soon as that bitter thought occurred to her, she buried it again, for she tried never to look back in that spirit; it did her no good to dwell on what could not be changed. She had spent three years in prison for a crime she had not committed and still bore the scars, mentally and physically. But few had been willing to believe in her innocence and indeed had often judged her more harshly for daring to make such a claim. Get over it, she told herself firmly; leave it in the past, move on.

When she walked into his office, her lissom figure and endless long coltish legs merely enhanced by a T-shirt and jeans, Sergio was startled by her impact. The exotic slant of her cheekbones was more obvious with her glorious hair tumbling in loose waves round her narrow shoulders—hair the colour of tangerine marmalade in sunlight, glinting with amber and ochre shades that acted as a superb showcase for her white skin and apple-green eyes.

‘Have you ever been a model?’ he asked while he poured her another drink.

‘No. I don’t fancy walking half naked down a catwalk. I like food too much, as well. Could you spare a packet of crisps?’ Her tummy grumbling with hunger, Kathy had noticed the snacks in the snazzy drinks cabinet that stood open.

‘Help yourself. You seem more relaxed than you were earlier,’ Sergio remarked.

‘I’m on my own free time.’ Kathy curled up on the sofa and munched crisps while she played. The salty snack made her thirsty and she had to keep on sipping her drink. She only allowed herself to study him closely several moves into the game when he seemed unaware of her attention.

But no matter how much she looked at him, Sergio Torrente still took her breath away. He was drop-dead beautiful. Hair and lashes with the sheen of black silk, mesmeric dark eyes, a strong sensual mouth. He had shaved since she had last seen him—the faint bluish shadow of stubble had vanished. She wondered if that meant he planned to kiss her again. Heat pooled in her tummy and warmed more intimate places with a physical awareness that took her aback. She reminded herself that she had come to play chess, not to flirt.

Sergio glanced up. ‘Your move.’

Her lashes dropping in a protective screen over her eyes, she studied the board.

Sergio watched her demonstrate a skill, speed and assurance that made it clear that she was well able to hold her own. ‘Who taught you to play?’

‘My father.’

‘So did mine.’ His lean strong face shadowed. Silence lay before he matched her on the board and then, noticing her empty glass, he rose to refill it.

Her light green eyes rested on him throughout the exercise. Everything about him fascinated her: the classy cut of his hair, the designer élan of his suit, the discreet gleam of gold at his wrist and cuff, the fluid way he moved his lean brown hands when he spoke. He was very elegant and very controlled.

‘If you keep on looking at me like that, we’ll never finish the game, bella mia.’

Kathy reddened and took the glass he extended with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. He had read her so easily it embarrassed her. It also reminded her of how little she knew about him. As she thought of what she should have asked at the outset she tensed. ‘Are you married?’

Surprise made Sergio quirk an ebony brow. ‘Why are you asking?’

‘Is that a yes or a no?’

‘I’m single.’

Although her head was swimming a little, Kathy sidestepped the trap he had set for her on the board and shot him a victorious smile.

‘You’re good,’ Sergio conceded, amused by the suspicion that she too might have set out to play a very fast game. ‘We have a tie. Tact or fact?’

‘Fact.’

Her cheeky grin of challenge brought out the caveman in him.

He leant down, closed a hand into her tumbling copper-streaked tresses to raise her face to his and drove her delectable pink lips hungrily apart, making love to her mouth with devastating expertise.

That sudden taste of him took Kathy by storm. Desire exploded through her slender length like a depth charge that ignited on impact. Shards of sensation rippled through her. He kissed with an eroticism that was spellbinding. As he pulled her up against him her arms went round him to steady herself because she was dizzy. The alcohol? She shut down that suspicion, suddenly determined not to succumb to her need to play safe again. She was breathless with excitement, her heart pounding like mad. For the first time that she could remember she felt young and fearless and alive.

‘I can’t keep my hands off you,’ Sergio told her softly.

‘We were playing chess,’ Kathy reminded him in a breathless whisper.

‘I want to play with you instead, delizia mia.’

That was a touch too blunt for her. Her cheeks flamed, her confusion patent. With a sardonic laugh, he raked smouldering golden eyes over her exquisite face. He lowered his handsome dark head again. The invasive stab of his tongue inside her mouth was deliciously sensual and she pressed helplessly closer to his hard masculine frame for more. Against her lower stomach she could feel the hard, intimate proof of his arousal and she shivered. Her hands fixed to the wide, steely strength of his shoulders. Her response overwhelmed and ensnared her. A tight little knot of desire was unfurling low in her pelvis, filling her with yearning and impatience. Even her senses seemed to have gone into hyperactive mode: her fingers filtered through his springy black hair and rejoiced in the silken texture while the already familiar scent of his skin acted on her like an aphrodisiac.

Sergio had planned to finish the game first and it had finished on schedule. Sergio always planned everything. But desire was a raging fire in his blood and that driving intensity was novel to him. Her slim body slotted into his lean powerful frame as though she had been born to make that connection. What he was feeling was addictive and he wanted more of it and all of her. He lowered her down on the sofa and discarded his jacket and tie.

That temporary separation made Kathy tense and question what she was doing. Even though her mind was fuzzy, she told herself to get up. Hair spread in a burnished mass of Titian splendour round her head, she looked up at him, eyes glazed with passion and uncertainty, her generous mouth rosy red from the attention of his. He chose that particular moment to smile down at her. ‘You are gorgeous,’ he told her and it was a smile of such charismatic power that she felt as though her heart were bouncing like a rubber ball inside her chest.

A tiny pulse was going crazy at her collar-bone. Sergio put his mouth to the delicate blue-veined skin and she gasped and arrowed up to him. Her body was thrumming like an engine that was raring to go and she didn’t know how to handle the stress of it. He found the bare skin below her T-shirt and closed his hand to a tiny, sweet pouting mound. For an instant she went stiff because she had forgotten that she had no bra on and there was no warning before he found the part of her body that she was least confident about. He pushed the turquoise fabric out of his path and exposed her small breasts to his appreciative scrutiny.

‘Ravishing,’ Sergio pronounced with satisfaction, catching a pouting nipple the colour of a tea rose between thumb and finger and chafing the delicate bud until a smothered sound of response was wrenched from her. He used his tongue to moisten the distended crest and it was only the beginning of a slow process of sensual torment. Her hips jerked and shifted with increasing frequency, her thighs pressing together on the ache of emptiness that was stirring between them. Her breath rasped in her throat as he toyed with the sensitised nubs until they were stiff and taut and wildly responsive to his every caress.

Reaction was piling onto reaction too fast for her to bear. She was on the heights of a frantic anticipation that utterly controlled her. He coiled back from her to peel off her jeans. For an instant awareness returned to her when she rocked back up into sitting position to blink in vague surprise at the sight of her bare legs. Tiny tremors of frantic desire were quivering through her. She met hot golden eyes and burned inside and out, sensible thought sizzling into nothingness.

‘Sergio,’ she whispered wonderingly.

That fast he recaptured her attention. He meshed long brown fingers into the vibrant fall of her hair and kissed her with devouring passion. She resented the distraction when something caught in her hair and pulled it hard enough to make her mutter in complaint.

‘Be still. Your hair’s caught,’ he groaned, unclasping his designer watch to disentangle her from the bracelet and removing the timepiece to toss it aside.

Kathy struggled with the buttons on his shirt until he leant back and wrenched it off for her. ‘You need practice,’ he told her thickly. ‘I’ll give you all you can handle, delizia mia.’

The hair-roughened contours of his warm muscular torso felt amazing beneath her palms. She wanted to explore further, but he pushed her back against the arm of the sofa to take her mouth with ravenous need. At the same instant that he discovered the moist, swollen heart of her, conscious choices evaporated for her. She had never been touched there before and never dreamt that she could be quite so sensitive. But he had the erotic skill to show her. Exquisite sensation engulfed her in mindless pleasure and she shivered and writhed and whimpered.

Sergio had never been so aroused by a woman. There was no thought now of who she was or what she might be. Her passionate out-of-control response exploded his customary cool like dynamite. Once his powerful sensuality was unleashed, he was all decisive action. He came over her in one slick movement. She trembled, suddenly aware of the feel of his hot, probing intrusion in that most tender place. Her eyes widened and she tensed in disquiet at virtually the same moment as he entered her with an earthy groan of satisfaction. She was unprepared for the sharp stab of pure piercing pain that provoked a cry of dismay from her lips before she could bite it back.

Ebony brows pleating, Sergio stared down at her with frowning golden eyes of enquiry. ‘Per meraviglia…I am the first?’

‘Don’t stop.’ Kathy shut her eyes tight. It was like being in the grip of a whirlwind, for even as the pangs of pain receded her body still signalled a powerful craving for the urgency of his.

He sank his hands below her hips to ease his passage with a slow sexual skill that was breathtakingly erotic. Her heart hammered as he taught her his sensual masculine rhythm with a boldness that delighted her senses. The excitement flooded back even stronger than before. Ripples of pleasure began to build, gripping her tighter and tighter in a torment of need she could not withstand. She reached for the ultimate and shattered in a climax that consumed her at hurricane force and plunged her into a free fall of delight.

The delight was short-lived.

Sergio held her close. ‘It’s a long time since any woman made me feel so good, bellezza mia,’ he murmured raggedly.

Kathy was still shell-shocked by the entire experience and revelling in a sense of physical connection that was seductively new to her. ‘I’ve never felt like this…ever,’ she added helplessly.

‘I have one vital question.’ Sergio stared down at her with disturbingly cool and assessing dark eyes. ‘Why did you give me your virginity?’

Kathy was dismayed by that direct question, particularly as he was suggesting that she had made some kind of a decision while she was all too uneasily aware that she had been considerably less mature in the nature of her giving.

Taut with suspicion of her motives, Sergio shook his handsome dark head. ‘It was a very gratifying experience and not one I ever expected to have,’ he confided flatly. ‘But I know and I accept that any special pleasure always comes at a cost and I would really prefer to know right now up front what you want in return.’

Her smooth brow furrowed. ‘Why should it cost you anything?’

‘I’m a very rich man. I can’t recall when I last enjoyed a freebie,’ Sergio countered with sibilant derision.

When Kathy finally grasped his meaning she was appalled. She snaked her slim body free of his weight in an irate gesture of repudiation. How could she have shared her body with a guy who seemed to think that she would want to reap a financial reward from the activity? She could not have felt more ashamed had she been forced to walk down a street naked with the word whore written on a placard and hung round her neck.

Forced back from her by her sudden unanticipated retreat, Sergio had discovered another even more immediate source for concern. He cursed under his breath in Italian. ‘Are you using birth control? In any form?’

Kathy was feeling dizzy and sick and distraught. She could not credit what she had done. She could not credit how stupid she had been. But while she was still in his presence she would not allow herself to think about those realities. All her energy was now concentrated on beating a very fast retreat from the scene of her worst ever mistake. She reached for her clothing. ‘No—but you used contraception.’

Lean dark features uniformly grim, Sergio was getting dressed. ‘The condom tore.’

Kathy flinched and turned paler than ever but she said nothing in response. Indeed she refused even to look at him. This is what it’s like when you get intimate with someone you don’t know—awkward, humiliating, shaming, she reflected painfully. She fought her way into her panties with trembling hands, hauled on her T-shirt and wrenched on her jeans with so much force that she scratched the skin on her thighs.

‘Obviously that doesn’t bother you too much,’ Sergio growled, outraged that she was simply ignoring him.

‘What bothers me most at this moment is that I had sex with a truly horrible guy. I know I’m going to live with this mistake for a long, long time,’ Kathy shared in a low-pitched tone of fierce regret. ‘Getting pregnant by you would add a whole new dimension to this nightmare and I can’t believe that even I could be that unlucky.’

‘I doubt if that will be your reaction if it happens. Having my child could be a very lucrative lifestyle choice,’ Sergio drawled with icy bite.

‘Why do you think everyone’s out to rip you off?’ Kathy demanded in the rage that was steadily banishing any desire she might have had to take refuge in a small dark corner. ‘Or is it just me you reserve the offensive accusations for? You really shouldn’t mess around with the cleaning staff, Mr Torrente. Your nerves aren’t cut out for it!’

‘You need to calm down so that we can discuss this like adults.’ Sergio breathed, glittering dark eyes locking to her with determined force, his expectations once again turned upside down by her behaviour. ‘Sit down, please.’

‘No.’ Kathy shook her head vehemently, her wildly tousled copper-streaked hair flying back from her flushed cheekbones in vibrant splendour. ‘I don’t want to discuss anything with you. I had too much to drink. I did something I wish I hadn’t done. You have been very, very rude to me.’

‘That was not my intention.’ Sergio aimed at striking a peaceful note, while he continued to watch her with shrewd concentration. Her heated distress was convincingly real and she was definitely slurring her words a little. She looked very young and quite magnificent.

Kathy loosed an unimpressed laugh, for she was not taken in by that smooth inflection. ‘No, you couldn’t care less if you were rude or not! You think you can get away with it.’

‘You could well be right,’ Sergio drawled in the same even tone. ‘It’s an unfortunate fact that gold-diggers target me—’

‘You deserve a gold-digger!’ Kathy snapped with furious conviction. ‘If you think for one minute that that explanation excuses you for talking to me as if I was a prostitute, you’re seriously out of line!’

‘I wasn’t aware that I made an excuse.’

Scornful dismissal flamed in Kathy’s shimmering gaze. ‘You haven’t even got the manners for that, have you?’

‘If you could rise above my failings in that department, I believe we have more important things to consider—’

‘I doubt if I’ll be pregnant, but if the worst was to happen, you don’t need to worry,’ Kathy tossed at him glibly as she walked to the door. ‘I wouldn’t even consider going for the “lucrative lifestyle choice” option!’

‘That’s not funny,’ Sergio intoned grimly.

‘Neither are your assumptions about me.’ Kathy marched down the corridor, and when she registered that he was following her she hastened into the lift at speed. There she stabbed repeatedly at the button that closed the doors but he still made it past them to join her. The enclosed space felt unbearably claustrophobic. Hostility radiating from her in waves, her willowy figure rigid, she ignored him. She could not understand why he refused to get the message and leave her alone.

Sergio glanced down at his watch only to discover that he was no longer wearing it: he had left his sleek timepiece behind in his office. ‘It’s late. I’ll take you home.’

‘No, thanks.’

As the lift came to a halt Sergio imposed his lean powerful frame between her and the doors opening. ‘I’ll take you home,’ he told her steadily.

‘What is it about the word no that you don’t understand?’

Sergio shifted closer. His intent dark gaze flared gold over her mutinous face. Her continuing defiance and refusal to be reasonable was so far outside his usual experience with women that he was astonished.

‘You’re in my way. I’m getting annoyed with you,’ Kathy warned him, an unevenly drawn breath rasping in her throat as she fired an unwilling glance at him. His dark gaze flashed down into hers like a livewire connection. Excitement came at her out of nowhere. Her heartbeat broke into a sprint, her mouth ran dry.

‘But you feel the burn between us the same way I do, bella mia,’ Sergio husked, reaching out to frame her cheekbones between shapely brown hands, his thumbs delicately smoothing over her fine creamy skin.

For the merest instant she was frozen there, tantalised by his approach and teased by his touch. She was extraordinarily aware of the intimate ache between her thighs and his intense sexual magnetism. Her brain had no control over her body. It terrified her that he could still win that response from her and angry defensiveness overcame her paralysis and forced her into urgent denial. ‘I don’t feel anything!’

Sidestepping him in an impulsive move that took him by surprise, Kathy stalked across the brightly lit empty space of the vast foyer and headed straight for the exit doors. She was in total turmoil, deeply disturbed by what she had allowed to happen between them.

‘Kathy,’ Sergio grated, his patience on the ebb since he had not believed that she would actually walk away from him.

‘Get lost!’ Kathy told him roundly, impervious to the fact that they had an audience. One of the two night security guards on duty, both of whom had been studiously staring into space, abruptly unfroze to hurry forward and thrust a door wide for her. She walked out onto the street.

Renzo Catallone moved forward from his discreet position in the shadow of a pillar to intercept his employer. A stocky man in his forties, he looked unusually ill at ease. ‘I—’

‘While I appreciate that it is your job to take care of my security, your zeal is occasionally more than I require,’ Sergio informed his security chief drily. ‘No more enquiries or checks on Kathy Galvin. She’s off limits.’

‘But—sir—’ Renzo began with a frown of dismay.

‘I don’t want to hear another word about her,’ Sergio instructed in a flat tone of finality. ‘With the exception of one piece of information: the lady’s address.’

CHAPTER THREE

KATHY LAY IN BED sleepless far into the night.

She tossed and turned, her emotions reeling between anger, hurt, shame and resentment. Above all she was disappointed in herself. Why hadn’t she paid heed to her misgivings? Bored of the dullness of her life, she had rebelled like a headstrong teenager. She had lived too quietly, played too safe and Sergio Torrente had been more temptation than she could withstand. But she blamed the alcohol for making her reckless. Why had she pretended that the only attraction on offer was a game of chess?

She splayed apprehensive fingers across her concave tummy. The very idea of falling pregnant terrified her: taking care of her own needs was enough of a challenge. She told herself off for panicking. What was that going to achieve? Why did she always expect the worst? It was true that she had suffered some serious bad luck in recent years, but then, she reasoned doggedly, everybody had to live through bad times at some stage.

The next morning she fed Tigger and tried to think only resolutely upbeat thoughts. It was her day off and she could not afford to waste it. She needed to do research at the library for an essay. For the past year she had been studying for a degree with the Open University. On the way to the library, however, she called into a pharmacy and read the small print on the back of a pregnancy test to work out how soon she could use one.

She was queuing for the bus when her mobile phone rang. The cleaning company had received a complaint about her performance at the Torrenco building and, as a result, her services were no longer required.

Being sacked hit Kathy like a bolt from the blue. Sergio Torrente had had her fired! How could any guy sink that low? But, then, was such callous behaviour really that unusual? She suffered an unwelcome recollection of being dumped—not by Gareth but by his mother—and her tummy lurched in humiliated remembrance. Her childhood sweetheart had not even had the courage to tell her himself. He had abandoned her at a time when his support had felt like her only hope. His lack of faith in her had made her imprisonment for a crime she had not committed all the harder to bear.

Her memory dragged her back to the summer she had finished school. Her plans to study law at university had been on hold because her father was dying. After he had passed away, she’d had six months to fill before she could take up her deferred university place. She had accepted a live-in job as a career for Agnes Taplow, an elderly woman whom Kathy had been told was suffering from dementia.

When the old lady complained to Kathy that pieces of her antique silver collection were going missing, Agnes Taplow’s niece had assured Kathy that her aunt was imagining things. But items had continued to disappear without trace. The police had been called in to investigate and a small but rare early Georgian jug had been found in Kathy’s handbag. That same day Kathy had been charged with theft. Initially she had been confident that the true culprit, who could only have hidden the jug in her bag to implicate her, would soon be exposed. Caught up in a web of deceit and lies, and with no family of her own to fight her corner, Kathy had been unable to prove her innocence. The court had found her guilty of theft and she’d had to serve her prison sentence.

But those events had taken place at a time when she was too immature and powerless to act in her own defence, Kathy reminded herself urgently. Since then she had learned how to look after herself. Why should she allow Sergio Torrente to get away with putting her out of work? It was hard to see how she could prevent him. He had wealth, status and power and she had none of those things. But even if she couldn’t change anything she had the right to tell him what she thought of him. Indeed standing up for the sake of her self-esteem felt like the only strength she had left.

‘I’m afraid there’s no sign of your watch, Mr Torrente. I’ve searched every inch of your office,’ the security man reported ruefully.

With a faint frown marking his sleek ebony brows, Sergio rose from behind his desk because he had a flight to Norway to catch. Of course there would be a simple explanation. When he had discarded his watch the night before, it must have fallen somewhere beneath the furniture. Searches were rarely as thorough as people liked to think they were. The watch was mislaid, rather than missing, and theft was an unlikely possibility. He did not suffer from Renzo’s paranoia about strangers. It would, however, Sergio felt, be naïve to overlook the fact that his platinum watch was extremely valuable.

His entire personal staff was engaged in an urgent whispered consultation by the door. He was exasperated by the cloud of stress and indecision that hung over them. His efficient senior executive assistant was on vacation and her subordinates seemed lost without her. Finally, one broke away from the group and approached him in an apologetic manner. ‘A woman called Kathy Galvin is out in Reception, sir. She’s not on the approved list but she seems convinced that you will want to see her.’

Cool, hard satisfaction stamped Sergio’s darkly handsome face. As he had suspected, Kathy’s big walk-out had been an empty gesture. He was relieved that he had not sent her flowers, for conciliatory gestures were not his style. ‘I do. She can travel to the airport with me.’

The PA could not conceal his surprise, since Sergio never saw anyone without an appointment and the women in his life invariably knew better than to interrupt his working day. A pleasurable sense of sexual anticipation building, Sergio began to plan his return to London in a fortnight’s time. He strolled out to the private lift that would whisk him down to the car park.

Her vibrant head held high, soft colour defining her slanting cheekbones and bright green eyes, Kathy stepped through the door that had been opened for her. Her heart was beating very fast. Having assumed she was being granted a private meeting with Sergio, she was dismayed when she saw him standing with other men in the corridor. Tall, broad shouldered and dark, he dominated the group in more than the physical sense as he had the potent presence of a powerful man.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.