DEAR READER LETTER

By Sharon Kendrick

Dear Reader,

One hundred. Doesn’t matter how many times I say it, I still can’t believe that’s how many books I’ve written. It’s a fabulous feeling but more fabulous still is the news that Mills & Boon are issuing every single one of my backlist as digital titles. Wow. I can’t wait to share all my stories with you - which are as vivid to me now as when I wrote them.

There’s BOUGHT FOR HER HUSBAND, with its outrageously macho Greek hero and A SCANDAL, A SECRET AND A BABY featuring a very sexy Tuscan. THE SHEIKH’S HEIR proved so popular with readers that it spent two weeks on the USA Today charts and…well, I could go on, but I’ll leave you to discover them for yourselves.

I remember the first line of my very first book: “So you’ve come to Australia looking for a husband?” Actually, the heroine had gone to Australia escape men, but guess what? She found a husband all the same! The man who inspired that book rang me up recently and when I told him I was beginning my 100th story and couldn’t decide what to write, he said, “Why don’t you go back to where it all started?”

So I did. And that’s how A ROYAL VOW OF CONVENIENCE was born. It opens in beautiful Queensland and moves to England and New York. It’s about a runaway princess and the enigmatic billionaire who is infuriated by her, yet who winds up rescuing her. But then, she goes and rescues him… Wouldn’t you know it?

I’ll end by saying how very grateful I am to have a career I love, and to thank each and every one of you who has supported me along the way. You really are very dear readers.

Love,

Sharon xxx

‘How would you like to accompany me to that dinner I was telling you about?’

‘You mean as your guest?’ she queried, her voice quivering on the brink of astonishment. ‘But there must be a million women you could ask!’

‘Oh, at least a million,’ he answered, with cool and mocking humour. ‘But none of them suitable and for all kinds of reasons.’

‘But won’t…?’ Jessica bit her lip. Wasn’t it more than a bit humiliating to have to ask the next question? ‘Won’t it be slightly unbelievable…someone like me going out with someone like you?’

‘Possibly,’ Salvatore conceded, his eyes flicking disparagingly over her bulky waterproof. ‘If you were dressed like that.’

‘Oddly enough, it didn’t occur to me to put on my best party dress for work,’ she said, hurt.

‘You mean you might have something suitable tucked away?’

‘Of course,’ she said proudly, and then a sudden, heady sense of her own power swept over her in a way it had never done before. ‘But I haven’t said I’ll go yet, sir.’

Fractionally, he leaned forward, his face closer, his voice soft. ‘But I think you will—won’t you, Jessica?’

He was so close that she could see the moonlight glinting in his sapphire eyes and sense his animal warmth, the tangy scent of soap and raw masculinity. This close, he was… Jessica felt her heart give an irregular skip. He was irresistible.

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ she said, and then stumbled out of the car before either of them could change their minds.

Mills & Boon are proud to present a thrilling digital collection of all Sharon Kendrick’s novels and novellas for us to celebrate the publication of her amazing and awesome 100th book! Sharon is known worldwide for her likeable, spirited heroines and her gorgeous, utterly masculine heroes.

SHARON KENDRICK once won a national writing competition, describing her ideal date: being flown to an exotic island by a gorgeous and powerful man. Little did she realise that she’d just wandered into her dream job! Today she writes for Mills & Boon, featuring her often stubborn but always to-die-for heroes and the women who bring them to their knees. She believes that the best books are those you never want to end. Just like life…

Bought for the Sicilian Billionaire’s Bed

by

Sharon Kendrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Janet, Barbara and Allen, with love.

Contents

Cover Dear Reader Excerpt About the Author Title Page Dedication CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN CHAPTER TWELVE CHAPTER THIRTEEN CHAPTER FOURTEEN CHAPTER FIFTEEN EPILOGUE Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

‘MADONNA MIA!’

The words sounded as bitter as Sicilian lemons and as rich as its wine, but Jessica didn’t lift her head from her task. There was a whole floor to wash and the executive cloakroom still to clean before she could go home. And besides, looking at Salvatore was distracting. She swirled her mop over the floor. Much too distracting.

‘What is it with these women?’ Salvatore demanded heatedly, and his eyes narrowed when he saw he was getting no response from the shadowy figure in the corner. ‘Jessica?’

The question cracked out as sharply as if he had shot it from a gun—taut and harsh and unconditional—and Jessica raised her head to look at the man who had fired it at her, steeling herself against his undeniable attraction, though that was easier said than done.

Even she, with her scant experience of the opposite sex, recognised that men like this were few and far between, something which might account for his arrogance and his famous short temper. Salvatore Cardini— the figurehead of the powerful Cardini family. Dashing, dominant and the darling of just about every woman in London, if the gossip in the staff-room was to be believed.

‘Yes, sir?’ she said calmly, though it wasn’t easy when he had fixed her within the powerful and intimidating spotlight of his eyes.

‘Didn’t you realise I was talking to you?’

Jessica put her mop into the bucket of suds and swallowed. ‘Er, actually, no, I didn’t. I thought you were talking to yourself.’

He glowered at her. ‘I do not,’ he said icily, in his accented yet flawless English, ‘make a habit of talking to myself. I was expressing my anger—and if you had any degree of insight then you might have recognised that.’

And the subtext to that, Jessica supposed, was that if she possessed the kind of insight he was talking about, then she wouldn’t be doing such a lowly job as cleaning the floor of his office.

But in the past months since the influential owner of Cardini Industries had flown in from his native Sicily, Jessica had wisely learnt to adapt to the great man’s quirks of character. If Signor Cardini wished to talk to her, then she would let him talk away to his heart’s content. The floor would always get finished when he left for the night. You ignored the head of such a successful company at your peril!

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ Jessica said serenely. ‘Is there something I can help with?’

‘I doubt it.’ Moodily, Salvatore surveyed the computer screen. ‘I am invited to a business dinner tomorrow night.’

‘That’s nice.’

Turning his dark head away from the screen, he threw her a cool stare. ‘No, it is not nice,’ he mocked. ‘Why do you English always describe things as nice? It is necessary. It makes good business sense to socialise with these people.’

Jessica looked at him a little helplessly. ‘Then I’m afraid I don’t really see what the problem is.’

‘The problem is—’ Salvatore read the email again and his lips curved with disdain ‘—that the man I’m doing business with has a wife—a rather pushy wife, it would seem. And the wife has friends. Many friends. And…’ the words danced on the screen in front of him ‘“Amy is longing to meet you,”’ he read. ‘“And so are her girlfriends—some of whom have to be seen to be believed! Don’t worry, Salvatore—we’ll have you engaged to an Englishwoman before the year is out!”’

‘Well, what’s wrong with that?’ asked Jessica shyly, even though a stupidly misplaced pang of jealousy ran through her.

Salvatore gave a snort of derision. ‘Why do people love to interfere?’ he demanded. ‘And why in Dio’s name do they think that I am in need of a wife?’

Jessica gave a helpless kind of shrug. She didn’t think he actually wanted an answer to this particular question and she rather hoped she didn’t have to give him one. Because what could she say? That she suspected people were trying to marry him off because he was rich and well connected as well as being outrageously good-looking.

And yet despite the head-turning quality of his looks she thought his face was rather ruthless and cold when you got up close. True, the full mouth was sensual, but it rarely smiled and there was something rather forbidding about the way he could fix you with a gaze which froze you to the spot. Yet somehow, looking the way Salvatore did, he could be forgiven almost anything. And he was.

She’d seen secretaries swoon and tea-ladies get flustered in his presence. She’d observed his powerful colleagues regard him with a certain kind of deferential awe and to allow him to call all the shots. And she’d watched simply because he was a joy to watch.

He was tall and lean and his body was honed and hard, with the white silk shirt he wore hinting at the tantalising shape of the torso beneath. Raven-dark hair contrasted with glowing olive skin and completed the dramatic colour pallet of his Mediterranean allure.

But it was his eyes which were so startling. Bright blue—like the bluest sky or the sea on the most summery day of the year. Jessica had never imagined an Italian having eyes which were any other colour than black. The intensity of their hue seemed to suck all the life from his surroundings and sometimes she felt quite dizzy when they were directed on her. Like now.

And from the faintly impatient crease between his dark brows it seemed that he was expecting some kind of answer to his question.

Distracted by his presence, she struggled to remember exactly what it was he’d asked her. ‘Perhaps they think you want a wife because you’re…er, well—you’re about the right kind of age to get married, sir.’

‘You think that?’ he demanded.

Jessica felt trapped. Backed into a corner. She shook her head. If he wasn’t planning to whisk her off her feet, then she thought he should remain a lifelong bachelor!

‘Actually, no. Your marital future is not something I’ve really considered,’ she hedged. ‘But you know what people are like. Once a man passes thirty—which I assume you have—then everyone starts to expect marriage.’

‘Sì,’ said Salvatore and he ran a slow and thoughtful thumb over the hard line of his jaw where the shadow of new growth had already begun to rasp even though he had shaved that very morning. ‘Exactly so. And in my own country it is the same!’

He shook his dark head impatiently. Had he really believed that things would be different here in England? Yes, of course he had. That had been one of his reasons for coming to London—to enjoy a little uncomplicated fun before it came to the inevitable duty of choosing a suitable bride in Sicily. For once in his life he had wanted to escape all the expectations which inevitably accompanied his powerful name—particularly at home.

Sicily was a small island where everyone knew everyone else and the subject of when and whom the oldest Cardini would marry had preoccupied too many, and for too long. On Sicily if he was seen speaking to a woman for more than a moment then her eager parents would be costing up her trousseau and casting covetous eyes over his many properties!

This was the first time he had lived somewhere other than his homeland for any length of time, and it had taken little more than a few weeks to discover that, even within the relative anonymity of England, expectation still ran high when it concerned a single, eligible man. Times changed less than you thought they did, he thought wryly.

Women plotted. And they behaved like vultures when they saw a virile man with a seemingly bottomless bank account. When was the last time he had asked a woman for her phone number? He couldn’t remember. These days, they all seemed to whip out their cell phones to ‘key you in’ before he’d even had time to discover their surname! Salvatore had fiercely traditional values about the roles of the sexes, and he made no secret of the fact. And the fact was that men should do the chasing.

‘The question is what I do about it,’ he mused softly.

Jessica was unsure whether or not to pick up her mop again. Probably not. He was looking at her as if he expected her to say something else and it wasn’t easy to know how to respond. She knew exactly what she’d say if it was a girlfriend who was asking her, but when it was your boss, how forthright could you afford to be? ‘Well, that depends what choices you have, sir,’ she said diplomatically.

Salvatore’s long fingers drummed against the polished surface of his desk, the sound mimicking the raindrops which were pattering against the giant windows of his top-floor office suite. ‘I always could turn the dinner invitation down,’ he said.

‘Yes, you could, but you’d need to give a reason,’ she said.

‘I could claim that I had a cold—how do you say, the “man-flu”?’

Jessica’s lips curved into a reluctant smile because the very idea of Salvatore Cardini being helpless and ill was impossible to imagine. She shook her head. ‘Then they’ll only ask you another time.’

Salvatore nodded. ‘That is true,’ he conceded. ‘Well, then, I could rearrange the dinner so that it was on my territory and with my guest-list.’

‘But wouldn’t that be a little rude? To so obviously want to take control of the situation?’ she ventured cautiously.

He looked at her thoughtfully. Sometimes she seemed to forget herself—to tell him what she thought instead of what he wanted to hear! Was that because he had grown to confide in her—so that some of the normal rules of hierarchy were occasionally suspended?

He realised that he spoke to Jessica in a way he wouldn’t dream of speaking to one of his assistants, or their secretaries—for he had seen the inherent dangers in doing that before.

An assistant or secretary often misjudged a confidence—deciding that it meant he wanted to share a lifetime of confidences with them! Whereas the gulf between himself as chairman and Jessica as cleaner was much too wide for her ever to fall into the trap of thinking something as foolish as that. Yet she often quietly and unwittingly hit on the truth. Like now. He leaned back in his chair and thought about her words.

He had no desire to offend Garth Somerville—nor to appear to snub his wife or her eager friends. And what harm would it do to attend a dinner with such women present? It wouldn’t be the first time it had happened, or the last.

Yet he was in no mood for the idle sport of fending off predatory females. Like a child offered nothing but copious amounts of candy, his appetite had become jaded of late. And it didn’t seem to matter how beautiful the women in question were. Sex so freely and so openly offered carried with it none of the mystique which most excited him.

‘Sì,’ he agreed softly. ‘It would be rude.’

Almost without him noticing, Jessica plucked a cloth and a small plastic bottle from the pocket of her overall and began to polish his desk. ‘So it looks like you’re stuck with going after all,’ she observed, and gave the desk a squirt of lemon liquid.

Salvatore frowned. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering just how old she was—twenty-two? Twenty-three? Why on earth was she cleaning offices for a living? Was she really happy coming in here, night after night, wielding a mop and a bucket and busying herself around him as he finished off his paperwork and signed letters?

He watched her while she worked—not that there was a lot to see. She was a plain little thing and always covered her hair with a tight headscarf, which matched the rather ugly pink overall she wore. The outfit was loose and he had never looked at her as man would automatically look at a woman. Never considered that there might be a body underneath it all, but the movement of her arm rubbing vigorous circles on his desk suddenly drew attention to the fact that the material of her overall was pulling tight across her firm young breasts.

And that there was a body beneath it. Indeed, there was the hint of a rather shapely body. Salvatore swallowed. It was the unexpectedness of the observation which hit him and made him a sudden victim to a heavy kick of lust.

‘Will you make me some coffee?’ he questioned unevenly.

Jessica put her duster down and looked at him and wondered if it had ever occurred to the famously arrogant boss of Cardini Industries that his huge barn of an office didn’t just magically clean itself. That the small rings left by the numerous cups of espresso he drank throughout the day needed to be wiped away, and the pens which he always left lying haphazardly around the place had to be gathered up and put together neatly in the pot on his desk.

She met the sapphire ice of his piercing stare without reacting to it. She doubted it. Men like this were used to their lives running seamlessly. To have legions of people unobtrusively working for them, fading away into the background like invisible cogs powering a mighty piece of machinery.

She wondered what he would say if she told him that she was not there to make his coffee. That it wasn’t part of her job description. That it was a pretty sexist request and there was nothing stopping him from making his own.

But you didn’t tell the chairman of the company that, did you? And, even putting aside his position of power, there was something so arrogant and formidable about him that she didn’t quite dare. As if he were used to women running around doing things for him whenever he snapped his fingers and as if those women would rejoice in the opportunity to do so.

She walked over to the coffee machine, which looked as if a small spacecraft had landed in the office, made him a cup and carried it over to his desk.

‘Your coffee, sir,’ she said.

As she leaned forward he got the sudden drift of the lemon cleaning fluid mixed with some kind of cheap scent and it was an astonishingly potent blend. For a second Salvatore felt it wash unexpectedly over his senses. And suddenly an idea so audacious came to him that for a moment he allowed it to dance across his consciousness.

Imagine if he took someone with him to the dinner party. Someone who might deflect the attention of women on the make. Wouldn’t a woman on the arm of a known commitment-phobe send out a loud message to the world that Salvatore Cardini might be taken? Especially if that woman was so unlikely as to take their collective breath away and give them something to gossip about!

The sound of the rain continued to lash against the windows of the penthouse office and Salvatore watched as Jessica picked up her cloth and began to attack a smear of dust. It was as if up until that moment she had been nothing but a piece of paper onto which the outline of a woman had been drawn and only now had the fine detail begun to emerge. Salvatore had an accurate and swiftly assessing eye where women were concerned and for the first time he used it on the woman who was dusting behind a lamp.

Her bottom was curved and her hips were womanly, that was for sure. For the first time he allowed himself to notice the indentation of her waist—and a tiny little waist it was, too.

And yet, although he could be a maverick in business, he liked as many facts as possible at his disposal before he made a decision. He never acted on instinct alone. She might be unsuitable for the task, in so many ways.

‘How old are you?’ he questioned suddenly, and as she turned round he could see that her eyes were grey and amazingly calm—like the stones you sometimes found at the bottom of a waterfall.

Jessica tried not to show her surprise. It was a very personal question from a man who had always treated her as part of the furniture in the past. Her hand fell from the lamp and the cloth hung limply by her side as she looked at him.

‘Me? I’m…I’m twenty-three,’ she answered uncertainly.

He stared at her bare fingers. No ring, but these days you could never be sure. ‘And you are not married?’

‘Married? Me? Good heavens—no, sir.’

‘No jealous boyfriend waiting for you at home, then?’ he questioned lightly.

‘No, sir.’ Now why on earth had he wanted to know that?

He nodded. It was as he had thought. He gestured to her bucket. ‘And you are contented with this kind of work, are you?’

Jessica looked at him from between narrowed eyes. ‘Contented? I’m afraid I don’t really understand the question, sir.’

He shrugged, gesturing towards her mop and her bucket. ‘Don’t you? You seem intelligent enough,’ he mused. ‘I would have thought that a young woman would have had horizons which lay beyond the confines of office cleaning.’

It hurt. Of course it hurt. Apart from being completely patronising he made her sound like some kind of mindless robot in a pinny! Yet surely his damning judgement showed just how arrogant and completely lacking in imagination he was.

Silently, Jessica counted to ten, knowing that several options lay before her. She could pick up her bucket and upend it over that dark head and handsome, mocking face, imagining the water soaking through that fine silk shirt—and his look of dismay and of shock. That would surely be the most satisfying reaction of all. Except, of course, she wouldn’t dream of doing it—because that really would be professional suicide.

Or she could answer calmly, intelligently and maybe, just maybe, make him eat his judgemental words.

‘I’m not a full-time cleaner,’ she said.

‘You’re not?’

‘No. Not that there’s anything wrong with cleaning,’ she defended fiercely as she thought of all her fellow workers at the Top Kleen agency, some of whom squeezed in as many hours as they could while juggling life and work and babies in the most adverse conditions imaginable. ‘As it happens, I actually have a day-job. I work for a big sales company and I’m training to be an office manager, but…’ Her words tailed off.

‘But?’ His voice was silken as he prompted her.

She forced herself to confront the dazzling sapphire blaze of his eyes. ‘My job isn’t particularly well paid. And living in London is expensive. So I top up my salary with a little cleaning work on the side.’ Jessica shrugged. ‘Lots of people do it.’

Not in his world, they didn’t—but didn’t her relatively impoverished state make his idea a little less audacious? Maybe they could both do each other a favour.

His eyes flickered over to the rain-splattered window which overlooked the glittering lights of London as he began to wonder what her hair was like underneath that hideous scarf. It might, he thought, be shorn close to her head and coloured in a variety of shades. In which case his suggestion would never be made—for it was inconceivable that Salvatore Cardini would ever be seen out in public with a woman like that!

‘How do you get home from here?’ he questioned idly.

How did he think she got home? By helicopter? ‘By bus.’

‘You’ll get wet.’

She followed the direction of his gaze. Droplets were scudding down the window and the rain was so thick that you could barely make out the distant buildings beyond. It really was the foulest of nights. ‘Looks that way. But that’s okay—I’m used to it. Don’t they say that rainwater is good for the skin—counteracts all the bad effects of central heating?’

Salvatore ignored the attempt at small talk. ‘I’ll get my driver to drop you off home. He’s waiting outside for me to finish.’

Jessica found herself flushing. ‘No, honestly, sir—that’s fine. I’ve got my brolly and a waterproof—’

‘Just accept it,’ he clipped out. ‘What time do you finish?’

‘Usually around eight—depends how quickly I work.’

‘Make it seven-thirty,’ he instructed.

‘But—’

‘No arguments.’ Salvatore glanced at the expensive gold timepiece which gleamed against his wrist and his mouth hardened into an odd kind of smile. ‘Consider it done,’ he drawled.

And punching out a number on his telephone, he began to speak rapidly in Italian before turning his back on her—as if she was of no real consequence at all.

CHAPTER TWO

JESSICA carried on working at an increased pace in order to get everything done in time, but something had changed and it wasn’t just because she was alone in the office with Salvatore. Reserve and shyness had entered her body along with the rapid thunder of her heart as it suddenly occurred to her what she had agreed to. It was like every wistful daydream come true—her gorgeous boss was insisting on giving her a lift home in his chauffeur-driven limo!

And what, Jessica?

You think this is the powerful Sicilian’s not-so-subtle attempt to get you, his office cleaner, alone away from the office? Maybe so that he can try to seduce you? Yes, sure he is—and he won’t really be collecting you in a car at all, but in a glass carriage!

Just accept his generosity with good grace, she told herself as she removed a smear from the coffee machine with a fierce wipe. Enjoy the novelty of a trip home in a luxurious car—it’ll make up for all the patronising remarks he made earlier.

At seven thirty on the dot, she picked up her bucket and cleared her throat. ‘I’ll go and get changed then, sir,’ she said, feeling faintly foolish. ‘Er, shall I meet you downstairs?’

‘Mmm?’ Salvatore glanced up at her, his eyes narrowing as if he’d forgotten she was there. ‘Yes, sure. Where?’

‘Do you know where the back entrance is? It’s a bit tricky to find.’

There wasn’t a flicker of reaction on his rugged features. ‘Not really, but no doubt I can manage without a map,’ he said drily. ‘The car will be waiting and I don’t like to wait. So don’t be long.’

‘I won’t,’ said Jessica, and sped off.

But her heart was thundering as she pulled off her pink overall and untied the scarf, wishing that she were wearing something other than a plain skirt and jumper with a great big waterproof coat to put on top.

Yet why should she? This wasn’t the kind of job that you dressed up for—dressed down for, more like. She took off her flat black shoes and put them in the locker along with her overall and scarf, then set about brushing her hair—which was her one redeeming feature. It fell to her shoulders and, although it was a rather boring shade of brown, it was good and thick and nearly always shiny.

Jessica squinted into the mirror. Her face looked pale and drained without make-up but she found the end of a tube of lip gloss at the bottom of her handbag and her fingers hovered over it with hesitation.

Would it look a little obvious, as if she might be expecting something, if she applied some make-up? But suddenly, Jessica didn’t care. A woman had her pride, and even if she happened to be wearing cheap clothes then surely it wasn’t a crime to want to make the best of a very bad job.

Fortunately, because she had knocked off slightly early, there was no one else around. None of the other cleaners offering to walk to the bus-stop with her—or, worse, witness her sliding into the back seat of a fancy car.

Why, to any other member of staff it would look… Jessica went pink around the ears. It would look highly suspicious and throw a not very flattering light on her character.

But there was no time for any further doubts. He had specifically told her not to be late, so she grabbed her bag and hurried out. And sure enough there sat a long, low limousine purring like a mighty cat by the back entrance.

Jessica gulped down the dryness in the back of her throat. It was odd to think of someone regarding this kind of car as normal—when in her world it was the type of vehicle which was usually used for weddings.

Convulsively, her fingers clenched around the strap of her handbag. Weddings? Weddings? Now what on earth had made that thought pop into her head? Probably because Salvatore had rather surprisingly asked her whether she was married. And why had he wanted to know that?

But there was no time for further thought because a uniformed chauffeur was actually opening the door of the luxury car—for her!

‘Thanks very much,’ she said hurriedly, trying to slide into the back of the car as decorously as possible—something which wasn’t especially easy since Salvatore was sitting on the other end of the soft leather seat, his long legs sprawled out in front of him. His arms were crossed and she couldn’t make out the expression on his face because the interior of the car was shadowed, but she saw the glint in his narrowed eyes as he watched her.

‘So here you are,’ he murmured, though his initial thought was one of disappointment. His crazy scheme was just that, he realised. Crazy. With her cheap and bulky coat concealing her slight frame and her pale face she looked just what she was. Ordinary. There was no way that this young woman could accompany him to anything, other than perhaps to help carry his shopping in to the apartment. Who would believe that a man like him was dating a woman like her? Nobody with more than one brain cell, that was for sure. ‘Where do you live?’

Jessica sat bolt upright. ‘Shepherd’s Bush.’ She gave the name of the road to the driver, who then closed the interconnecting glass so that she was left alone with Salvatore. The last time she had felt as out of place as this was her last day at school, when she’d forgotten that it was a ‘no uniform’ day.

Salvatore’s mouth curved with wry amusement as he registered her stiff frame and uptight body-language. She was nervous, he realised. Did she think that he was about to leap on her? If so, then she clearly had an overinflated view of her own appeal! ‘Relax,’ he said softly.

Jessica leant back in the seat—though the leather was so soft and squishy that it was hard to believe that she was actually sitting in a car.

‘This is really very kind of you,’ she said.

‘Not a problem.’

‘Where…where do you live?’ It seemed like a very personal question to ask—but what were the rules for a situation like this? She couldn’t spend an entire journey asking him if he was satisfied with the level of cleanliness in his office!

‘Chelsea.’

Of course he did. Rich, glamorous Chelsea with its glorious white villas and springtime trees daubed with cherry blossom.

‘I don’t want to take you out of your way, sir.’

The ‘sir’ seemed oddly inappropriate under the circumstances, but she was a thoughtful little thing, he realised. Salvatore smiled as he leaned back and glanced out of the window.

‘I can easily have the driver drop me off first if I choose,’ he said coolly. ‘But there are parts of your city with which I am unfamiliar—and so I shall see this place Shepherd’s Bush for myself.’

Don’t hold your breath, Jessica wanted to say, but instead she smiled back. She half wondered if she should chat and ask him about whether he was enjoying his time in England, but he seemed to have an aversion to small talk. And besides, he was the kind of man who liked to lead a conversation—not to follow it.

Salvatore felt oddly soothed by the silence which filled the car and which—surprisingly—she didn’t try to fill with inane chatter. Why could women never see the value in peace and always insist on shattering it with unnecessary words?

They drove through a rainy city and for once he felt completely cocooned within the purring warmth of the car. It was all too easy to take luxury for granted, he found himself thinking as the limousine slowed to turn into a road featuring a row of terraced houses.

‘It’s that one on the end,’ said Jessica, glad that the journey had passed without anything going wrong. But she also felt strangely reluctant to leave the sumptuous cosiness in exchange for the cold reality outside. ‘Just here.’

‘You own this, do you?’ questioned Salvatore as the car came to a halt in front of a small house.

Jessica turned to him. Was he crazy? No, he was just rich and the rich were different—everyone knew that. It wasn’t his fault that he had no comprehension of how people like her lived their lives. She shook her head. ‘Property’s hugely expensive in London. I rent—in fact, I share this house with two other girls. Willow works in the fashion business and Freya is an air stewardess—though she’s away a lot.’

But Salvatore wasn’t really listening. Maybe it was because the rain had finally stopped. Or maybe it was because the moon had appeared from behind the dark curtain of a cloud. It was amazing what a little light could do.

He found himself looking down at her face, at skin which looked impossibly pure and clean. Her grey eyes were illuminated by that same light and so was the subtle gleam of her mouth. Unexpectedly, she looked all eyes and lips and her pauper-like appearance suddenly crumbled to dust in his memory.

‘Are you busy tomorrow night?’ he questioned suddenly.

Jessica blinked. ‘No. Why?’

‘How would you like to accompany me to that dinner I was telling you about?’

‘You mean, as your guest?’ she queried, her voice quivering on the brink of astonishment.

What did she imagine he wanted—that he was taking his own personal cleaner? But at least with Jessica, Salvatore knew that he could be upfront. A girl like her was unlikely to read anything into the situation, but he’d better make it clear.

‘Yes, of course,’ he said impatiently. ‘But what I really want is for you to act like my girlfriend—’

‘Your girlfriend?’ she interrupted, even though everyone knew you should never interrupt your boss but this was so bizarre that the normal rules had gone flying out of the window.

‘It’s just a little role play,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing too demanding. Gaze into my eyes a little. Look at me adoringly once in a while. Think you could manage that without too much trouble?’ His eyes mocked her with the question because Salvatore knew that there wasn’t a woman alive who would find that an impossible task. ‘Get the predators off my back once and for all, and let them know that if I want a woman, then I’ll do the choosing myself.’

‘But there must be a million women you could ask!’ exclaimed Jessica.

‘Oh, at least a million,’ he answered, with cool and mocking humour. ‘But none of them suitable for all kinds of reasons.’ The main one being that they saw him as husband-material, something which this little thing would never be guilty of.

‘But won’t…?’ Jessica bit her lip. Wasn’t it more than a bit humiliating to have to ask the next question? But ask it she needed to. ‘Won’t it be slightly unbelievable…someone like me going out with someone like you?’

‘Possibly,’ Salvatore conceded, his eye flicking disparagingly over her bulky waterproof. ‘If you were dressed like that it might be very difficult indeed.’

‘Oddly enough, it didn’t occur to me to put on my best party dress for work,’ she said, hurt.

‘You mean you might have something suitable tucked away?’

For a moment she felt like saying no, she didn’t, because surely that would get her off the hook? But somehow she didn’t think that Salvatore would let it rest now that he’d made up his mind about this strange assignment. If she said that she didn’t have anything to wear, then mightn’t that look as if she was angling to be given something? Just because she cleaned his office didn’t mean that she couldn’t scrub up well!

And besides, there was an undeniable part of her which was thrilled at the thought of accompanying Salvatore Cardini to a party. Didn’t life sometimes throw opportunities at you which would be a crime to turn down?

‘Of course I’ve something suitable to wear,’ she said proudly, and then a sudden, heady sense of her own power swept over her in a way it had never done before. ‘But I haven’t said I’ll go yet, sir.’

The preposterous statement made him smile, but it made a pulse begin to beat heavily at his temple, too. She would be very foolish indeed if she began to tease him—she was dealing with a man and not a boy. He could bend her to his will with the mere whisper of his fingertip.

Fractionally, he leaned forward, his face closer, his voice soft. ‘But I think you will, won’t you, Jessica? And while we’re at it, I think you should lose the “sir”, don’t you? In the circumstances it might be a bit of a giveaway.’

He was so close that she could see the moonlight glinting in his sapphire eyes and sense his animal warmth, the tangy scent of soap and raw masculinity. This close he was…Jessica felt her heart give an irregular skip. He was irresistible.

Was she playing with fire?

‘Yes, I’ll come,’ she said, and then stumbled out of the car before either of them could change their minds.

CHAPTER THREE

‘YOU’RE going where tomorrow night?’ demanded Willow in a voice of sheer disbelief.

‘Out to dinner,’ said Jessica faintly as she took off her bulky jacket. The limousine had just driven away and it was almost as if she needed to repeat the words to herself to believe that they were true. ‘With Salvatore Cardini.’

Willow’s eyes widened. ‘That’s the Salvatore Cardini? The Italian billionaire playboy who owns that company where you play Mrs Mop in the evenings?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Let’s make sure we’re talking about the same man here, Jessica. Black-haired, blue-eyed, sex-on-legs but with a mean, dangerous look about him?’

‘Well, yes—that just about sums him up.’

Willow brushed a lock of dead-straight blonde hair out of her eye. ‘You do realise that he’s an international playboy with a reputation as a heartbreaker?’

‘I sort of guessed that for myself.’

‘And that every glossy magazine worth its salt has been trying to gain access to do a feature on him? Jessica, what are you like?’

Jessica shook his head. ‘I didn’t know that—and I don’t care and it’s no good you looking at me that way, Willow. I know you work for one of those glossies and I know you’d love an exclusive, but you’re not getting it via me. Salvatore is my boss—one of the reasons I have that job is because I’m discreet.’

‘But it’s a rubbish job!’

‘Which means I can pay my bills here!’ Jessica retorted, thinking of the steep sum she had to shell out for the tiny boxroom of the three-bedroomed house. But then, unlike Willow and Freya, she wasn’t cushioned by the comfort of family money if her finances ran into real trouble.

‘Perhaps some time you could tell him that your friend would love to do a sympathetic interview and he could even have say on the final copy? I’d be eternally grateful.’ Willow shook her elegant head. ‘And he’s taking you out,’ she said. ‘Unbelievable!’

Jessica could understand her incredulity only too well. Her housemate lived up to her name—she was tall, blonde and stylish and legions of men were always attempting to beat their way to her door. Yet not even Willow had managed to attract a man of Salvatore’s calibre—and here was mousy little Jessica doing just that.

‘It is a bit incredible,’ she admitted.

‘So why has he done it, Jessica?’

Jessica dipped a teabag into a mug of boiling water so that her face was partially hidden. Wouldn’t it be humiliating to have to tell the whole truth—that essentially she was being taken out as some kind of deterrent to other women? Wouldn’t it be acceptable to allow herself the fantasy, just this once—especially as it was just going to be once?

‘I think he just wants company,’ she prevaricated.

‘Yes, but—’

Jessica turned round as suddenly the reality made her heart sting. ‘But what, Willow? You mean what’s a rich bloke like him doing with a poor, plain girl like me?’

‘No, I didn’t—’

‘Yes, you did,’ interrupted Jessica gloomily. ‘And what’s more—you’re right. Don’t you think it was the first thing which occurred to me?’ She walked back into the sitting room and sat down on the battered sofa, her fingers clutching at her steaming mug of tea. How could she have been naïve enough to think about maintaining a fantasy like this for more than a second? Who would ever believe it?

‘These people he’s having dinner with are trying to set him up and he’s fed up with people trying to marry him off,’ she explained. ‘So he’s taking me as a defiant gesture, in the hope that word gets out and they’ll stop trying.’ She saw Willow’s face and knew that further explanation was indeed necessary. ‘And presumably he’d picked me and not someone else more glam because I won’t get any false hopes in my head. Because I know my place and I’ll just accept the evening for what it is.’

‘Is he paying you?’ asked Willow sharply.

Jessica put her mug down with a shaking hand, her cheeks flushing. ‘You’re making me sound like some kind of…of…hooker!’

Willow shook her head. ‘That’s not what I meant at all. But it seems to me that you’re doing him a pretty big favour—so what’s in it for you?’

Jessica bit her lip. Honesty not only made you vulnerable, it also made you weak and in a modern world you needed all the bolstering defences you could get. But suddenly she didn’t care. ‘I just fancy a glimpse into a different kind of life for a change. I’ve certainly been on the outside looking in for long enough. The only trouble is whether I can fit in and what I’m going to wear.’ She looked up at Willow hopefully. ‘I was hoping you might be able to help.’

Willow, who was at least four inches taller and several pounds lighter, smiled. ‘Oh, I think I can help. Don’t worry, Jessica Martin—we’re going to make sure you knock his sizzling Sicilian socks off!’

The next day Jessica skipped lunch so she could leave the office early and spent far too long in the bathroom. She nicked her ankle when she was shaving her legs and her nerves built up as the bathwater grew cold and the sky outside the window darkened.

Under Willow’s critical eye, she must have tried on twenty different outfits before finding one that she felt comfortable enough to wear, automatically rejecting anything too tight or too low because she thought that would make her look cheap.

By the time eight o’clock arrived her hands were shaking with nerves and when the doorbell rang it didn’t surprise her when she heard Willow yelling: ‘I’ll go!’

She sprayed on some perfume, took one final glance in the mirror and went to find her boss, who was standing by their rather tatty velvet sofa talking to Willow. And the moment Jessica looked into the narrowed sapphire eyes she knew that her nerves had been justified. In the office he was distracting enough—but tonight he looked as if he should be carrying a government health warning.

His immaculately cut dinner suit emphasised the long legs and the narrow, sexy hips. He looked expensive, urbane, and so totally out of her league that Jessica’s heart began to race and she felt the hot pin-pricking of nerves at her forehead. Suddenly she felt daunted. What the hell was she going to talk to him about?

‘Hello, Jessica,’ he said softly.

‘H-hello.’

‘You look very…different,’ he said slowly.

‘Well, that’s a relief!’ she said quickly and caught Willow’s warning glance. If she spent the whole night emphasising the differences between them, then the evening was going to be a disaster. ‘Er, thank you,’ she amended.

Salvatore watched while she picked up her coat. The fitted black silk dress was a little conservative, it was true, but he liked that—and it accentuated a figure which was really very good. His eyes narrowed. Very good indeed. Her hair was thick and shiny and it swung in a healthy bell around her neck. She looked better than he had anticipated—though she was still light years away from his normal type.

But wasn’t it strange how your whole opinion of someone could alter in a single moment? Suddenly he was seeing more than the clear grey eyes and the pure skin—now he found his gaze drawn irresistibly to the way the black silk skated so tantalisingly over her pert bottom. His breath was a little unsteady as he took the coat from her and held it open. ‘Here, let me.’

Jessica had grown up in a world where men and women considered themselves equals. No man she knew would ever dream of holding open a door or a coat for her, and as she slid her arms into the garment she thought how stupid it was that such a simple little gesture should be so disarming. Was she imagining the lingering brush of his hands and the corresponding quickening of her heart? Had he meant to touch her like that?

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘My car is outside.’

‘Bye, Salvatore—nice to meet you,’ said Willow, with a megawatt smile. ‘Hope to see you again.’

They walked out to the waiting limousine, but as the driver opened the door Jessica looked up at the Sicilian and his face looked shadowed in the moonlight.

‘Did you…did you tell them you were bringing someone?’

‘I did.’

‘And what did they say?’

Shaking his head, he placed his hand at the small of her back and propelled her into the car, suddenly wondering if this was such a good idea after all. Was she too unsophisticated to cope with the evening ahead?

‘It doesn’t matter what they said,’ he said softly as the car pulled away into the traffic. But then she crossed one leg over another and all he could think about was whether the sheer, dark silk which covered her slender legs was tights, or stockings.

Maybe you’ll find out later, taunted a voice inside his head as they drove through the darkened streets, and Salvatore cursed silently and shifted in his seat as unexpected and unwanted desire again began to tug at his senses.

It was just at that point that his phone rang and he pulled it out with a feeling of relief and began to speak.

Jessica stared out of the window as Salvatore spent the entire journey conducting a telephone conversation in rapid Italian, which seemed to magnify her feeling of not belonging. And that feeling only intensified when the car drew up outside an enormous house in Knightsbridge, which looked like something you might see in a film.

‘Oh, my goodness—it’s huge,’ she breathed.

He glanced at her. ‘It’s just a house.’

To him it might be just a house—but to Jessica it was the kind of place for which you’d normally have to pay an admission fee. Inside were uniformed staff who whisked her coat away and someone else who guided them through to the murmuring guests, who all looked up as she followed Salvatore into the glittering room.

She was aware of a blur of names and faces as they were introduced, but Jessica’s overwhelming feeling was that the women looked like birds of paradise in their jewels and bright dresses and that she had been a fool to come in black—because wasn’t that what all the waitresses were wearing?

Their host and hostess were Garth and Amy and there were two other women called Suzy and Clare—neither of whom seemed to be attached to a rather bloodless-looking man named Steve and a wiry individual with light brown hair who introduced himself as Jeremy. And that was it.

So it really had been a set-up, thought Jessica as the redhead named Suzy shimmied over to stand directly in front of Salvatore.

‘Hi, Salvatore—do you remember me?’ she was asking him, with a coy smile. ‘We met in Monte Carlo and I told you that Sicily was my favourite place in the whole world.’

Although she was straining to hear while trying to look as if she weren’t, Jessica didn’t quite catch Salvatore’s response, but she turned away with a sudden pang, telling herself that feeling jealous about her partner certainly wasn’t on tonight’s agenda.

‘Champagne?’ questioned Garth, offering her an engraved flute with pale liquid foaming up the sides. ‘It’s rather a good vintage.’

‘Yes, please.’ Jessica smiled as if she drank vintage champagne every day of her life. She took a sip and began to chat to Jeremy, who—despite his unlikely appearance—turned out to be something very powerful in the City.

‘And what about you?’ he questioned. ‘Do you work?’

Jessica supposed that this was a world where women didn’t have to work. ‘Oh, yes, I’m…I’m…’ Oh, why hadn’t she prepared something? Jessica looked up to find Salvatore watching her.

‘Jessica is training to be an office manager,’ said the Sicilian smoothly and she blinked at him in surprise. Had he really remembered that?

‘Oh, is that how you two met?’ butted in Clare. ‘In the office?’

Jessica’s gaze locked with his. Say what you want to say, those blue eyes seemed to tell her.

‘Kind of,’ said Jessica, and blushed.

Salvatore hid a smile. Oh, but she was perfect for the role! Perfetto. The way the blush of rose crept into her cheeks made her look coy and sweet—as if she were embarrassed about a supposed office romance. So that no one, not even the woman Clare with her heavy eye make-up and brazen cleavage—would have had the guts to interrogate her any further.

‘Let’s go in to dinner, shall we?’ said Amy sharply.

A table was laid up with gleaming crystal and silver and studded with tightly bunched white roses in small vases. As she unshook a giant napkin over her knees Jessica found herself wondering whether she was going to be presented with any unfamiliar foodstuffs which she wouldn’t have a clue how to eat, even though Willow had given her a crash course in posh dining while she’d been getting dressed. Oysters and artichokes were apparently the biggest hurdles to clear, but thankfully neither of them made an appearance and so she was able to concentrate on what was being said around the table.

Which was easier said than done. Most of the conversation went right over her head and she noticed that most of the food remained uneaten—though everyone seemed to drink plenty of wine.

She forced herself not to feast her eyes on Salvatore—whose black hair and blue eyes and formidable physique seemed to dominate the entire table. Maybe everyone else was aware of him, too, Jessica thought—because the women certainly didn’t seem to be intimidated by the fact that he had brought a partner with him. They flirted with him as if flirting had just been invented.

Did he ever get bored with such a gushing reaction? she wondered suddenly as she turned to talk to the man beside her.

What she knew about banking and takeovers could be written on the back of a postage stamp, but she gently quizzed Jeremy about what he did to relax. It turned out that he was mad about fishing and real enthusiasm entered his voice as he told her about digging for bait.

‘Rag worms or lug worms?’ she enquired and a silence fell over the table.

Jessica looked up to find Salvatore’s gaze on her, the bright blue eyes narrowed in mocking query.

‘They’re talking about worms—ugh!’ shuddered Clare theatrically, her breasts pushing against the fine silk of her pink dress as if they were fighting to get out.

‘You like to fish, do you, Jessica?’ questioned Salvatore softly.

For some stupid reason, colour stole into Jessica’s cheeks and she shrugged her shoulders a little awkwardly as she answered him. ‘Oh, I did a bit, when I was a child.’ In that faraway time when her parents had still been alive and the days had always seemed full of sunshine and games. Her mother would take her down to the riverbank and Jessica would sit solemnly with a hook and line dangling from an old gardening cane.

‘Presumably you must have been a tomboy,’ observed Suzy.

It was like being in one of those awful nightmares where everyone was staring at you waiting for an answer and you couldn’t speak. Except that this wasn’t a nightmare and she could speak. So stand up for yourself, Jessica, she thought. Don’t let this woman intimidate you just because she’s crazy about Salvatore.

‘I liked climbing trees and fishing and swimming in the river, yes,’ she said. ‘But I never considered them pastimes which were exclusively for boys—why should they be when they’re such fun?’

‘Bravo!’ said Jeremy softly, and laughed.

She felt on a bit of a high for the rest of the meal, especially when Jeremy offered to take her fishing in Hampshire, where apparently he owned a stretch of the river—and he pressed his card into her hand as she was leaving.

But her exhilaration evaporated the moment the car door closed on her and Salvatore and they were enclosed in their own small, private world.

Slowly, he let his eyes drift over her as if reassessing her potential. ‘So I have seen the little English mouse in action,’ he murmured.

‘What…what’s that supposed to mean?’

In the darkness his eyes gleamed. ‘Quiet. Unassuming. Then she throws off her overall and becomes the unlikely temptress—’

‘Temptress?’ echoed Jessica. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Ah, but you tempted Jeremy—that much was plain,’ mused Salvatore silkily. There was a pause. ‘And you’re tempting me. Right now.’

Too late she sensed the danger in the air and too late she read the sexual intent in his eyes.

It was too late for everything, because Salvatore Cardini had pulled her into his arms and started to kiss her with a passion which took her breath away.

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