Between the billionaire’s sheets...

Bound by a shocking consequence!

Leo Conti is determined to secure a crucial business acquisition—until he meets Maddie Gallo. When their irresistible chemistry ignites, it’s unforgettable! Then Leo learns the truth: Maddie is heiress to the company he plans to take over—and she’s pregnant! Now it’s his heir that must be secured. Can Leo strike a deal to meet Maddie at the altar?

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

Also by Cathy Williams

Seduced into Her Boss’s Service

A Virgin for Vasquez

Snowbound with His Innocent Temptation

Bought to Wear the Billionaire’s Ring

The Secret Sanchez Heir

Cipriani’s Innocent Captive

Legacy of His Revenge

A Deal for Her Innocence

A Diamond Deal with Her Boss

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Italian’s One-Night Consequence

Cathy Williams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07237-3

THE ITALIAN’S ONE-NIGHT CONSEQUENCE

© 2018 Cathy Williams

Published in Great Britain 2018

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

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

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

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

FROM THE BACK seat of his chauffeur-driven car, which was parked a discreet distance away, Leo Conti took a few minutes to savour the edifice that dominated this tree-lined Dublin road. Prime location, perfect size, and with all the discernible signs of wear and tear that indicated a department store clinging to life by the skin of its teeth.

Frankly, things couldn’t have been better.

This was the store his grandfather had spent a lifetime trying to acquire. It was the store that had eluded the old man’s grasp for over fifty years, always just out of reach. Despite the vast property portfolio Benito Conti had built up over the decades, and the grand shopping complexes he had opened across the globe, this one department store had continued to hold sway over him.

Leo, raised by his grandparents from the age of eight, had never been able to understand why his grandfather couldn’t just let it go—but then, being outmanoeuvred by someone you’d once considered your closest friend would leave a sour taste in anybody’s mouth.

Which said something about the nature of trust.

Over the years Leo had witnessed his grandfather’s frustrated attempts to purchase the department store from Tommaso Gallo to no avail.

‘He would rather it crumble to the ground,’ Benito had grumbled, ‘than sell it to me. Too damn proud! Well, if it does crumble—and crumble it will, because Tommaso has been drinking and gambling his money away for decades—I will be the first in line to laugh! The man has no honour.’

Honour, Leo thought now, as his sharp eyes continued to take in the outward signs of decay, was an irrational emotion that always led to unnecessary complications.

‘Find yourself something to do, James,’ Leo said to his chauffeur, leaning forward, eyes still on the building. ‘Buy yourself a decent meal somewhere. Take a break from that fast food junk you insist on eating. I’ll call you when it’s time for you to swing by and collect me.’

‘You plan on buying the place today, boss?’

A shadow of a smile crossed Leo’s face. He caught his driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. James Cure—driver, dogsbody and rehabilitated petty thief—was one of the few people Leo would actually trust with his life.

‘I plan,’ Leo drawled, opening the passenger door and letting in a blast of summer heat, ‘on having a little incognito tour to find out just how low I can go when it comes to putting money on the table. From what I see, the old man has died leaving a nice, healthy liability behind, and from what I understand, the new owner—whoever he is—will want to sell before the dreaded words fire sale start circulating in the business community.’

Leo had no idea who the new owner was. In fact he wouldn’t have known that Tommaso Gallo had gone to meet his maker a mere month previously if his grandfather hadn’t summoned him back from Hong Kong to buy the store before it went to someone else.

‘Now,’ Leo said, briskly winding up the conversation, ‘off you go, James—and while you’re finding yourself a nice, healthy salad for lunch, try and locate the nearest pawn shop, so that you can offload that array of jewellery you insist on wearing.’ Leo grinned. ‘Hasn’t anyone told you that medallions, signet rings and thick gold chains are things of the past?’

James smiled and rolled his eyes before driving off.

Still grinning from the familiar exchange, Leo strolled towards the bank of revolving glass doors, joining the very small number of shoppers coming and going—which, on what should have been a busy Saturday morning in the height of summer, pretty much said it all about the state of the department store.

Four storeys of glass and concrete, heading for the knacker’s yard. Mentally he dropped the price he’d had in his head by a couple of hundred thousand.

His grandfather, he thought wryly, would be pleased as Punch. He would have found it galling to have paid top whack for a place he privately thought should have belonged to him fifty years ago, had Tommaso Gallo been prepared to honour the deal he had promised.

Strolling away from the revolving doors towards the store guide by the escalator, Leo gave some thought to the tales about the now legendary feud that had been part and parcel of life as he had grown up.

Two friends—both from Italy, both talented, both seeking to make their fortunes in Ireland. One small, dilapidated shop, up for sale at a knockdown price. But sitting on a slice of street that both Tommaso and Benito had fast recognised would be worth a lot in years to come. The drift of business hadn’t quite reached that part of the city then, but it would.

They could have done the sensible thing and gone into business together, but instead they had tossed a coin after way too many drinks. Winner to take all. A drunken handshake had sealed the bet that would prove the unravelling of their friendship—for Benito had won the toss, fair and square, only for his one-time friend to go behind his back and snap up the property before Benito had been able to get his finances together.

Bitter, Benito had retreated to London where, over time, he had made his own vast fortune—but he had never forgiven Tommaso for his treachery. Nor had he ever stopped wanting that one department store, which he really didn’t need because he had quite enough of his own.

Leo knew that he could have worked a little harder to dampen his grandfather’s desire to have something that no longer mattered, all things considered, but he loved his grandfather and, much as he didn’t believe in emotions overriding common sense, he had to admit that something in him could understand the need for some sort of retribution after such an act of betrayal.

And also, from a practical point of view, it would certainly work in Leo’s interests to have the place. Dublin would be an excellent addition to his own massive portfolio of companies. He had already agreed with his grandfather that once the store was back in Conti hands he, Leo, would do with it as he wished, with the proviso that the name Conti replaced Gallo.

Leo had argued with his grandfather, wanting him to allow him to pay for the purchase himself. Because there was no way he intended to leave it as a cumbersome department store, however iconic it had once been.

That sort of sentimentality wasn’t for him. No, Leo wanted the place because he liked the thought of finally getting his foot into Dublin—something long denied him because he had never found the perfect property to set down roots.

Along with his own start-up companies Leo had acquired a string of software and IT companies, which he had merged under one umbrella and continued to run while simultaneously overseeing Benito’s empire by proxy. He had only a handful of outlets for his highly specialised merchandise, where expert advice was on hand for the elite group of medical, architectural and engineering giants who used what he had to offer.

This site would be perfect for expanding his businesses into a new market.

His thoughts far away, he was already indulging in the pleasurable exercise of planning how he would use the space to its best advantage.

Naturally it would have to be gutted. Wood, carpet and dowdy furnishings might have worked back in the day—although to be fair Leo wasn’t sure when that day might have been—but as soon as he got his hands on the store they’d have to go. God knew, the place was probably riddled with rising damp, dry rot and termites. By the time he was through with it, and the ‘Gallo’ sign had been unceremoniously dumped, it would be unrecognisable.

He looked around, wondering which decrepit part of the store he should hit first—and there she was.

Standing behind one of the make-up counters, she looked as out of place as a fish in a bookstore. Despite the fact that she was surrounded by all manner of war paint, in expensive jars and shiny compact holders, she herself appeared to be devoid of any cosmetics. Frowning at an arrangement of dark burgundy pots on the glass counter, and needlessly repositioning them, she was the very picture of natural, stunningly beautiful freshness, and for a few seconds Leo actually held his breath as he stared at her.

His libido, which had been untested for the past three weeks, ever since he had broken up with his latest conquest after she’d started making unfortunate noises about permanence and commitment, sprang into enthusiastic life.

Leo was so surprised at his reaction that he was hardly aware that he was staring like a horny teenager. Not cool. Not him.

Especially when the leggy girl he was staring at was definitely not a Page Three girl and even more definitely not the sort of woman he was attracted to.

She was tall and willowy, from the little he could make out under the cheap store uniform, and she had the sort of wide-eyed innocence that was always accompanied in his head with the strident ringing of alarm bells. Her skin was smooth and satiny and the colour of pale caramel, as though she had been toasted in the sun. Her hair was tied back, but the bits escaping were a shade darker than her skin, toffee-coloured with strands of strawberry blonde running through it.

And her eyes...

She abruptly stopped what she was doing and looked up, gazing directly back at him.

Her eyes were green—as clear as glass washed up on a beach.

The kick of sexual attraction, a lust as raw as anything he’d ever felt before, shot through him like a bolt of adrenaline, and Leo felt himself harden in immediate response. It was fierce enough to take his mind off everything that had hitherto been occupying it.

His stiffened shaft was painful, and he had to adjust his position to release some of the pressure. As their eyes tangled he thought that if she kept looking at him like that, making him imagine what it would be like to have that succulent full mouth circling the throbbing, rigid length of him, he would soon be desperate for release.

He began walking towards her, every hunting instinct inside him honing in on his prey. He’d never wanted any woman with such urgent immediacy before and Leo wasn’t about to ignore the pull. When it came to sex, he was a man who had always got what he wanted—and he wanted this woman with every fibre in his body.

The closer he got to her, the more stupendously pretty she was. Her huge eyes were almond-shaped, fringed with very dark lashes that seemed to contradict the colour of her hair. Her lips, parted, were sensuous and full, even though their startled-in-the-headlights expression was teasingly innocent. And her body...

The unappealing, clinical white dress, belted at the waist, should have been enough to dampen any man’s ardour, but instead it sent his imagination into frantic overdrive and he caught himself wondering what her breasts would look like, what they would taste like...

* * *

‘Can I help you?’ Maddie’s heart was beating like a sledgehammer, but her expression was studiously polite as she met the stranger’s openly appreciative gaze.

Man sees girl. Man is attracted to girl. Man makes beeline for girl because he has one thing on his mind and that’s getting her into bed with him.

Maddie was used to that response from the opposite sex. She hated it.

What was even more galling was the fact that this particular man had, just for a second, aroused something in her other than her usual instinct to slam down the shutters hard the minute she saw a come-on situation on the horizon.

In fact, for a second, she had felt a stirring between her thighs—a tingling, tickly melting that had horrified her.

‘Interesting question,’ the man murmured, positioning himself directly in front of her.

The look in her eyes seemed to amuse him.

‘Are you looking for make-up?’ Maddie asked bluntly. ‘Because if so you’re in the wrong department. I could always point you in the right direction.’

In response, the man randomly picked up a jar from the precarious display she had been fiddling with earlier and twirled it in his hand.

‘What’s this if not make-up?’

Maddie removed it from him and swivelled it so that the label was facing him. ‘Regenerating night cream, targeting a woman in her sixties,’ she said crisply. ‘Are you interested in buying it?’

‘Oh, I’m interested,’ he said, in a tone laced with innuendo.

‘Well, that’s all I’m selling, so if it’s not what you’re interested in you should probably keep moving.’

Maddie folded her arms. She knew she was blushing. She also knew that her body was misbehaving. Once upon a time, it had misbehaved before, and she still had the scars to show for that. A repeat performance wasn’t on the cards—especially not with some arrogant guy too good-looking for his own good.

‘Are we cutting to the chase, here?’ Leo purred, rising to the challenge and liking it. ‘Who’s to say I’m not...interested...in that very expensive pot of cream for my mother?’

‘Oh!’ Maddie flushed. She’d misread the situation.

At this rate, sampling how things worked on the shop floor was going to get her precisely nowhere—because she clearly had no idea about effective salesmanship. But then she’d never stood behind a counter selling anything in her entire life.

Yet again she wondered whether she was doing the right thing. Was she? Three and a half weeks ago she’d received the startling news that she was the sole beneficiary of a bequest that included a department store, a house, and various assorted paraphernalia—courtesy of a grandfather she had never seen, nor met, and never really known existed.

Having been struggling to make ends meet, and living the sort of disastrous life she had never imagined possible, she had already been asking herself what direction she needed to take to wipe away the past couple of years of her life, or at least to put it all in perspective, and wham—just like that, she’d received her answer.

She’d arrived in Ireland still barely able to believe her good fortune, with big plans to sell the store, the house and whatever else there was to sell, so that she could buy herself the dream that had eluded her for so many years.

An education.

With money in the bank she would be able to get to university, an ambition she had had to abandon when her mother had become ill four years previously. She would be able to throw herself into the art course she had always wanted to do without fear of finding herself begging on street corners to pay for the privilege.

She would be able to make something of herself—and that meant a lot, because she felt that she’d spent much of her life being buffeted by the winds of fate, carried this way and that with no discernible goal propelling her forward.

But she’d taken one look at the store and one look at the house she had inherited—full of charm despite the fact that it was practically falling down—and she’d dumped all her plans to sell faster than a rocket leaving earth. Art school could wait—the store needed her love and her help now.

Anthony Grey, the lawyer who had arranged to see her so that he could go over every single disadvantage of hanging on to what, apparently, was a business on its last legs and a house that was being propped up only by the ivy growing around it, had talked to her for three hours. She had listened with her head tilted to one side, hands on her knees, and had then promptly informed him that she was going to try and make a go of it.

And that, first and foremost, entailed getting to know what it was she intended making a go of. Which, in turn, necessitated her working on the shop floor so that she could see where the cracks were and also hopefully pick up what was being said by the loyal staff who suspected that their jobs might be hanging in the balance.

A couple of weeks under cover and Maddie was sure she would be able to get a feel for things.

Optimism hadn’t been her companion for a very long time and she had been enjoying it.

Until now. She’d jumped to all sorts of conclusions and screwed up. She pinned a smile to her face, because the way too good-looking man staring down at her, with the most incredible navy blue eyes she had ever seen in her life, looked rich and influential, even though he was kitted out in a pair of faded black jeans and a polo shirt.

There was something about his lazy, loose-limbed stance, the way he oozed self-confidence, the latent strength of his body...

She felt it again—that treacherous quiver in the pit of her stomach and the tickling between her thighs—and she furiously stamped it down.

‘Your mother...’ She picked up the pot and squinted at it. ‘She’d love this. It’s thick, creamy, and excellent at smoothing out wrinkles.’

‘Are you just reading what’s written on the label?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve only been here a short while, so I’m just getting the hang of things.’

‘Shouldn’t you have a supervisor working with you in that case? Showing you the ropes?’

The man looked around, as though expecting said person to materialise in front of him. He was enjoying himself. It was clear this stranger was so accustomed to women fawning over him that the novel experience of a woman not caring who he was or how much he was worth was tickling him pink.

He rested flattened palms on the glass counter and Maddie shifted back just a little.

‘Dereliction of duty,’ he murmured.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You need to tell your boss that it gives the customer a poor impression if the people working on the sales floor don’t really know what they’re talking about.’

Maddie stiffened at the criticism. ‘You’ll find that everyone else on the shop floor has worked here for a very long time. If you like, I can fetch someone over here to help you in your...your quest for the perfect face cream for your mother.’

‘I’ll let you in on a little secret,’ the man said with a tinge of regret, his navy blue eyes never once leaving her face. ‘I lied about wanting the cream for my mother. My mother died when I was a boy.’ Sincere regret seeped into his voice. ‘Both my parents, in actual fact,’ he added in a roughened undertone.

‘I’m so sorry.’

Maddie still felt the loss of her own mother, but she had had her around for a great deal longer than the man standing in front of her had had his. Her father had never been in the picture. He’d done a runner before she was old enough to walk.

Maddie knew scraps of the story that had brought her mother from Italy to the other side of the world. There had been an argument between her mother and the grandfather Maddie hadn’t ever known which had never been resolved. Harsh words exchanged and then too much pride on both sides for any resolution until time took over, making reconciliation an impossibility.

Her mother had been a strong woman—someone who had planted both feet and stood her ground. Stubborn... But then she’d had to fight her way in Australia with a young baby to take care of. Maddie felt that her grandfather might have had the same traits—although she had no real idea because she’d never been told. Secretly she wondered if the grandfather she’d never met might have attempted to contact her mother, only to have his efforts spurned. Parents were often more forgiving with their children than the other way around.

Her eyes misted over and she reached out and impulsively circled the man’s wrist with her fingers—and then yanked her hand back because the charge of electricity that shot through her was downright frightening.

He raised his eyebrows, and for a second she felt that he could read every thought that had flashed through her head.

‘No need,’ he murmured. ‘Have dinner with me.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I’ll pass on the face cream. Frankly, all those wild claims can’t possibly be true. But have dinner with me. Name the place, name the time...’

‘You’re not interested in buying anything in this store, are you?’

Maddie’s voice cooled by several degrees, because he was just another example of a cocky guy who wanted to get her into bed. She’d been spot-on first time round.

‘And as for a dinner date... That’ll be a no.’

Dinner with this man? How arrogant was he?

Her eyes slid surreptitiously over him and she understood very well why he was as arrogant as he was. The guy was drop-dead gorgeous.

Lean, perfectly chiselled features, dark hair worn slightly too long, which emphasised his powerful masculinity rather than detracting from it, a tightly honed body that testified to time spent working out, even though he didn’t look like the sort of man who spent much time preening in front of mirrors and flexing his muscles. And those eyes... Sexy, bedroom eyes that made her skin burn and made her thoughts wander to what a dinner date with him might be like...

She forced herself to conjure up the hateful memory of her ex—Adam. He’d been good-looking too. Plus charming, charismatic, and from the sort of family that had spent generations looking down on people like her. Well, that whole experience had been a learning curve for Maddie, and she wasn’t about to put those valuable lessons to waste by succumbing to the phoney charm of the man in front of her with his sinful good looks and his I could make your body sing bedroom eyes.

‘Should I be?’

Maddie frowned. ‘What do you mean? What are you talking about?’

‘Should I be interested in buying anything here? Look around you. This is a department store that’s gone to rack and ruin. I’m staggered that you would even have contemplated working here in the first place. The job situation in Dublin must be dire for you to have settled on this—and you’ve obviously had no on-the-job training because there isn’t enough money to go round for such essentials as training programmes. I’m pretty sure that if I looked I’d find an array of out-of-date merchandise and demotivated sales assistants.’

‘Who are you?’

Maddie looked at him narrowly. Was she missing something?

* * *

Leo met her stare and held it. He’d planned on a little incognito surveillance and he was going to stick to the plan—bar this little detour which, he thought, he could very well use to his advantage. She’d turned down his dinner date but he wasn’t fazed by that. Women never said no to him for very long.

Although...

He frowned, because this particular woman didn’t seem to fit the mould.

‘Just someone browsing,’ Leo said smoothly, and then he added, truthfully, ‘I don’t get to this part of the world very often and I wanted to see this store everyone seems to know about.’ He looked around him. ‘I’m less than impressed.’

The woman followed his gaze and said nothing, perhaps because she’d noticed those very same signs of disrepair. She seemed to suddenly realise that he was still watching her, his eyes narrowed.

‘I can see that you agree with me.’

‘Like I said, I haven’t been here for very long—but if you’re looking for something to buy as a souvenir of the store, there’s an excellent selection on the second floor. Mugs, tote bags, lots of stuff...’

Leo suppressed a shudder at the image of tackiness created in his head. Had the place moved with the times at all? Or had progress being quietly sidelined as Gallo’s money ran out?

He had a satisfying vision of what the place would look like under his dominion. High-tech, white glossy counters and open, uncluttered spaces, glass and mirrors, ranks of computers and accessories waiting to be explored—no irritating background elevator music and salespeople who actually knew what they were talking about.

‘If you have lots of money to spend, then we offer a range of leather handbags which we manufacture ourselves to the highest possible standard. They’re Italian, and really beautiful quality.’

‘Sadly,’ Leo said, easily giving voice to the lie, ‘my finances would struggle to stretch to one of your leather handbags.’

She nodded. He didn’t seem like the sort of broke, wrong-side-of-the-tracks kind of guy she had encountered during her life, but it was a fact that a good-looking man could look expensive in anything.

‘But I could probably stretch to one of those tote things you mentioned...’

‘Second floor.’

‘Take me.’

‘Come again?’

‘I want you to do your sales pitch on me.’

‘I’ll be honest with you,’ she said flatly, ‘if this is another way of trying to get me to have dinner with you, then you can forget it. I won’t be doing that.’

Leo wondered whether she would have had a change of heart had she known his true worth. Most definitely, he thought, with his usual healthy dose of cynicism. That said, he was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted—and the more he talked to her, looked at her, felt the pleasurable race of his pulses and the hard throb of his libido, the more he wanted to rise to the challenge of breaking down whatever walls she felt she had to erect.

For once, work and the reason he was in this sad excuse of a store had been put on the back burner.

‘You’re very arrogant, aren’t you?’ he murmured, watching her carefully as the slow burn of anger turned her cheeks a healthy pink. ‘Do you think that you have what it takes to make a man keep banging on a door that’s been firmly shut in his face?’

‘How dare you?’

‘You forget—I’m the customer and the customer is always right.’

His grin was meant to take the sting out of his words and make her realise that he’d been teasing her.

‘That’s better,’ Leo said as her anger appeared to fade, then glanced at his watch to find that time had flown by. ‘Now, why don’t you show me this souvenir section of yours?’ He raised both hands in mock surrender. ‘And you can breathe safe in the knowledge that there’ll be no more dinner invitations. You say you’re new here... You can practise your sales patter on me. I’m just passing through, so you won’t have to worry that I’ll be gossiping behind your back with the locals, telling them that the new girl at the big store doesn’t seem to know the ropes.’

* * *

Maddie looked down, but she wanted to smile.

So far she’d made no friends. It would take time for her to integrate. This interaction almost felt like a breath of fresh air. Naturally she wasn’t going to be an idiot and go on any dates with any strangers—especially good-looking ones who obviously knew how to say the right things to get a woman’s pulse racing. But he had valid criticisms of the store, and she would need those—would need to find out what customers thought when they entered. Customers would look at the place through different eyes from hers. It might actually be a good idea to encourage his opinions.

So he’d asked her out... Maddie didn’t spend time staring at her reflection in mirrors, but she knew that she was attractive. It was something that had dogged her, for better or for worse. Certainly for worse when it had come to Adam, but she couldn’t let the memory of that determine every single response to every single guy who happened to look in her direction. Could she?

Besides, setting aside the killer looks, the man still staring at her wasn’t a rich creep—like Adam had been, had she only had the wisdom to see that from the very start. This guy was more tote bags than soft Italian leather.

Maddie felt a thrilling little frisson as she breathed in deeply and said, ‘Well, I guess I could get someone to cover for me just for a little while.’

Brian Walsh was in charge of the store temporarily, and he was the only one who knew who she really was. He had worked there for over twenty years and was keen to see the store become again the place it had once been, so he was fully on board with her decision to evaluate the store undercover for a short period of time while she worked out a way forward.

‘My...er...my boss is just over there. I’ll ask his...er...permission...’

‘Your boss?’ he asked, his interest clearly pricked by the knowledge.

‘Mr Walsh. If you don’t mind waiting...?’

‘I have all the time in the world,’ he said expansively, deciding on the spot to tell James to head back to the hotel, just in case he found himself staying longer than anticipated. ‘I’ll be right here when you return.’

CHAPTER TWO

LEO COULD HAVE taken the opportunity to probe her about her boss—the man Leo would soon be putting through the wringer—but that, he decided as he watched her heading back towards him, could wait. His grandfather wanted the store yesterday, but tomorrow or the day after was just fine with Leo. There was no doubt in his mind that he would secure the store—so what was the harm in letting himself be temporarily distracted?

She moved like a dancer, her body erect, looking neither right nor left as she walked gracefully across the department store floor. He suddenly realised he didn’t even know her name, and he put that right the minute she was standing in front of him again, her fresh, floral scent filling his nostrils and turning him on.

‘Shouldn’t you be wearing a name tag? Something discreetly pinned to your nice white outfit so that I know exactly who to complain about if you sell me overpriced face cream that makes my girlfriend’s skin break out in spots?’

‘You have a girlfriend?’

The interest in her voice pleased him.

‘Because,’ she went on quickly, the flush on her cheeks betraying the fact that she’d realised her slip, ‘if you do, then you should have said. I could have pointed you in the direction of a whole different selection of face products.’

Leo glanced down at her. She was tall. Much taller than the women he was fond of dating. ‘Alas, that’s a position that’s waiting to be filled,’ he murmured. ‘And it has to be said that, as presents go, anti-wrinkle, anti-ageing face cream wouldn’t make a good one for any of the women I’ve ever dated in the past. So, what is your name?’

‘Madison.’ She kept her eyes professionally forward as the escalator took them up one floor and then the next, up to the second floor, where any visible effort at revitalisation had been abandoned. Here, the décor begged to be revamped and the displays craved some sort of creative, modern overhaul.

‘Madison...?’

‘But everyone calls me Maddie. We’re here.’

She began walking towards the back of the floor while Leo took his time strolling slightly behind her, taking in the store’s rundown appearance. He was surprised spiders weren’t weaving cobwebs between the dated merchandise—although he had to concede the sales assistants they passed were all wearing cheerful smiles.

Attention distracted, he glanced at the arrangement of souvenirs, all bearing the Gallo logo. Absently he toyed with a canvas bag, and then he looked at her seriously.

‘You’re not Irish.’ He dropped the bag and it dangled forlornly on its rack.

‘No. Well, not exactly.’

Maddie looked at him and felt her insides swoop. Even standing at a respectable distance away from her, he still seemed to invade her personal space. He was so...big...and his presence was so...suffocatingly powerful. Curiosity gripped her, and she wondered who exactly he was and what he did.

Where did he live? Why would a man like this be dawdling on a Saturday morning in this particular department store?

Alarmed, she cleared her throat, but for some reason found herself unable to drag her eyes away from his stunningly beautiful face. ‘Australia. I’m Australian.’

‘You’ve come from the other side of the world to work here?’

‘Are you always so...so rude... Mr...? I don’t even know your name!’

‘You mean just in case you want to complain about me to your boss? My name is Leo. Shall we shake hands and make the introductions formal?’

Maddie stuck her hands firmly behind her back and glowered. ‘I feel I can speak on behalf of my boss when I say that it’s always useful to hear constructive criticism about the store, but your criticism isn’t at all constructive, Mr... Mr...’

‘Leo.’

She glanced around her and winced slightly at what she saw. ‘I believe,’ she said carefully, ‘that the owner of the store passed away a short time ago. I don’t think much has been done in terms of modernisation in recent years.’

‘I have some experience of the retail market,’ Leo said absently, his eyes still wandering over the shelves and wares around them.

Suddenly those eyes were back on hers and a smile tugged at his lips.

‘This isn’t a dinner invitation, but I see that there’s a coffee shop on this floor. If you’d find it helpful, I could give you a few pearls of wisdom...’

‘You’ve run a department store in the past?’

Leo grinned, his deep blue eyes lazy and amused. ‘I wouldn’t quite put it like that...’

‘I get it.’

Maddie knew all about doing menial jobs to earn a living. She also knew all about the way people could look at someone attractive and misconstrue their place in the great pecking order. She didn’t look like someone who should be mopping floors in a hospital on the outskirts of Sydney. If she had, her life would never have ended up taking the unfortunate twists and turns that it had.

She met his direct gaze and smiled.

That smile knocked Leo sideways. Just like that he wanted to drag her away from the tasteless display of goods, pull her into the nearest cupboard and get underneath that prim and proper clinical white get-up that wouldn’t have gone amiss on a dental assistant. He wanted to kiss her raspberry-pink lips, crush them under his mouth, feel her tongue lashing against his, and then slowly, bit by bit, he wanted to get up close and personal with her body.

He suppressed a groan. She was still smiling, and his erection was getting more rigid by the second. He had to look away to catch his breath and focus on something innocuous. A stack of Gallo-label tea towels did the trick.

‘You do?’

‘I can understand. I’ve had lots of menial jobs in the past. Trust me—it’s heavenly being here.’ Maddie said it with the utmost sincerity.

Somehow they were walking away from the souvenir section towards the café.

Leo turned to her, his fingers hooking in the waistband of his low slung faded jeans.

‘I’m thinking you’ll probably get in trouble with the boss if you take time out to have a coffee with me.’

‘I expect I might.’

The fierce antagonism that had filled her when she’d thought he was after her seemed to have evaporated. Somehow he’d managed to put her at ease. And Maddie wasn’t sure whether to be alarmed at that development or happy about it.

Ever since Adam she’d made a habit of practically crossing the road to the other side of the street every time she spotted a man heading in her direction. Events had conspired to turn her social life, sparse as it had been, into a no-go zone. Men had been the first casualty of her experience with Adam and friends had fast followed, because her trust had been broken down to the point where it had all but disappeared.

But should she allow those experiences to follow her all the way to the other side of the world?

This was going to be her new home, and the last thing she wanted to do was to commence life in her new home as a crazy lady recluse.

Yes, warning bells had sounded when she’d first met Leo. But he wasn’t rich, and as soon as she’d told him to back off he’d backed off. He wasn’t from the area. He wasn’t going to be around. He was also happy to talk to her about the store, and she could use a little impartial advice—even though he wouldn’t know the reasons behind her wanting to hear what he had to say.

Sometimes nomads and wanderers—people who fell in and out of jobs—picked up life lessons along the way, and the very fact that they were streetwise gave them an added insight into life. Taking the path of adventure, untethered by the ropes that held most people down, brought its own rewards.

And, my word, was the man sexy...

She looked at him, every nerve-ending in her body tingling as he settled his fabulous eyes on her and allowed the silence between them to stretch to breaking point.

‘How long are you going to be in this lovely city?’ Maddie asked a little breathlessly, and Leo shrugged.

‘Perhaps not even overnight,’ he mused, harking back to his original plan and marvelling at the speed with which it had changed course along the way. Just as well as he was a man who could think on his feet and adapt.

At any rate, he’d probably seen everything there was to see with regard to the condition of the store, short of tapping on walls and peering into cupboards. He knew enough to settle the thorny matter of how much he should offer for the place and how fast he should move. He presumed the boss was ready to throw the towel in.

But that wasn’t what was putting a smile on his face at the moment.

‘It might be nice to...er...to have dinner with you.’ Maddie blushed and glanced away.

‘May I ask what’s prompted the change of heart?’ Leo asked wryly. ‘Five minutes ago I was the devil incarnate for suggesting any such thing.’

‘I...’ Maddie took a deep breath. ‘I haven’t been in Ireland long, and it would be...nice to have some company for a couple of hours. I’ve more or less stayed in on my own for the past few weeks.’

With her looks, Leo mused, solitude would have to be her chosen option—because she’d only have to step foot out of her front door and company would be available in any direction she chose to look.

But then that probably wasn’t the sort of company she had in mind. The sort of company that came with strings attached. The sort of company she had assumed he’d been offering—and, frankly, her assumptions had been dead-on.

Leo wasn’t surprised that her looks had made her wary of the attention she got—had made her guarded and cynical about what men wanted from her. It wasn’t that different from the way his vast wealth had made him guarded and cynical when it came to the opposite sex.

He wasn’t looking for commitment and he didn’t do declarations of love. He enjoyed impermanence when it came to women.

Leo didn’t know whether he might have gone down the normal route of marriage, two point two kids and a house in the country—or in his case several houses in several countries—if bitter experience hadn’t taught him the value of steering clear of relationships.

His grandparents had been very happily married. His parents, he had been told, had likewise been very happily married—indeed, had been on something of a second honeymoon when a lorry, going too fast in bad weather, had slammed into their little Fiat and crushed it.

He had not been blighted by poor childhood memories or affected by warring parents or evil stepmothers. Alcohol, drug abuse and infidelity had been conspicuously and thankfully absent from his life. His cautionary tales stemmed from an altogether different source.

He shrugged aside this lapse in concentration as well as any niggling of his conscience, by reminding himself that he was as honourable as they came, because he was always, always upfront in his relationships. He told it like it was.

Sex and fun, but no cosy nights in front of the telly, no meeting the parents.

That said, he was a one-woman man, and any woman he dated would have all of him—if only for a limited amount of time. Largely, he was the one who usually called it a day, but he was perfectly happy if it were the other way around. He was the least possessive man he knew and he liked it that way.

He looked at Maddie in silence for a little while. She’d rebuffed him first time around, and he was sharp enough to pick up that little comment about how it would ‘be nice to have company for a couple of hours’.

‘Tell me where you live,’ he drawled. ‘I’ll pick you up.’

‘You have a car?’

‘I have a fleet of them,’ he said, which was the absolute truth. ‘Of course they’re garaged in London—which is where, incidentally, I have my penthouse apartment—but if you tell me which make you’d prefer, I’ll make sure it’s delivered to me in time to collect you later. So, what’s it to be? Ferrari? Range Rover? BMW? Or maybe something classic like an Aston Martin...?’

Maddie burst out laughing. The guy had a sense of humour and she liked that. She hadn’t laughed for a long time, but now she was laughing so hard that tears came to her eyes.

Finally, sobering up, she said, still smiling, ‘I’ll meet you somewhere. I think there are some cheap and cheerful restaurants we could go to...’

‘I’ll give you my number. Text me. I’ll meet you there at...what? Seven? What time does this place close?’

‘Seven would be great. Now, really, I have to go...’

‘One last thing...’ Leo looked at her seriously. ‘You need not fear that I’ll make a pest of myself. I won’t.’

Maddie reddened and an errant thought flashed through her head,

What would it be like if you were to make a pest of yourself...?

‘Good,’ she said nonchalantly. ‘Because I’ve a lot going on in my life at the moment and the last thing I need is...is...’

‘Fending off a nuisance?’

‘I was going to say that the last thing I need is a relationship.’

At which Leo was the one to burst out laughing. He looked at her with his midnight-blue eyes, ‘Trust me—relationships don’t ever feature on my agenda. See you later, Maddie.’

And he was gone, leaving her standing as still as a statue, even though inside her everything was weirdly mushy, as though she’d just stepped off a death-defying rollercoaster ride and was struggling to get her bearings.

She spent the remainder of the day in a state of low-level excitement. She told herself that this wasn’t a date. Not really. This was dinner with someone who’d made her laugh—because the alternative was yet another night in, going through the mountains of paperwork her solicitor had left for her, trying to work out the best approach to take when she went to see the bank manager for a loan the following week.

She was twenty-four years old! Where was the harm in acting her age? She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt young, and the tall, dark, handsome stranger had made her feel young.

And he wasn’t going to be sticking around.

By seven that evening, as she stood outside the cheap Italian restaurant where they’d arranged to meet, the nerves which had abated at some point during the day were back in full swing.

She smoothed down the front of her shirt. No one could accuse her of dressing to impress. She was in a pair of ripped jeans, some flat navy ballet pumps and a tee shirt that was a little tighter than she liked and a little shorter than she might have wanted, exposing a sliver of flat brown skin. It, like the jeans, was faded and worn.

She’d had a brief flirtation with designer dressing. Adam had liked to see her in expensive gear and, much against her will, he had encouraged her into wearing clothes that he’d bought for her—expensive, slinky silk outfits and high, high designer heels.

He’d enjoyed the way everyone’s heads had turned whenever she’d stalked into a room and Maddie had gone along with it, albeit reluctantly, because she’d loved him and had wanted to please him.

She’d sent the entire lot back to his flash apartment when their relationship had crashed and burned, and had promptly returned to the sorts of clothes she’d always felt comfortable in.

Leo, at least, would appreciate her choice of clothing, since they came from the same side of the tracks.

Feeling more buoyant, she pushed open the door to the trattoria and looked around, hoping she’d arrived before he had because then she could have a drink to steady her nerves, and also hoping that she hadn’t, because to arrive early might suggest that she was desperate for male company. More than that—desperate for his company.

Nursing a drink at the very back of the restaurant, Leo had spotted her immediately. How could he not? The entire restaurant had spotted her at roughly the same time. Every male head swung round. Mouths fell open. In fairness to her, she didn’t seem to notice any of this as she peered around her, squinting into the semi-lit depths of the trattoria, which was noisy, packed and uncomfortable.

In a room full of pale faces her honeyed tan stood out, as did her hair, flowing in a wavy mane over narrow shoulders almost down to her waist. Leo half stood and she walked towards him, weaving a path through the crowds until she was right in front of him.

‘Been here before?’ he asked, and when she shook her head he nodded and scanned the room. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to have a conversation or should we resign ourselves to shouting?’

‘It’s cheap and cheerful. And I hear that the food’s good.’

She slipped into a chair and tried not to drink in his masculine beauty. She’d just about managed to convince herself that he couldn’t possibly be as striking as she remembered, but he was even more so. He radiated a dynamism that made her shiver with awareness, and his exotic colouring only added to the potent appeal of his good looks.

Very quickly Maddie had a glass of wine to calm her nerves, even though common sense told her there was nothing to be nervous about.

Certainly he was sticking to the script. If his original dinner invitation had set her antennae onto red alert, actually being here with him was doing the opposite, dispelling any misgivings she might have been harbouring about his intentions.

He was charm itself. He chatted about the many countries he had visited—which made sense because he was obviously a guy who lived for the present and absorbed whatever adventures life had to offer. It was something she really admired. He was witty and insightful, and she found herself laughing out loud at some of his anecdotes, barely noticing the antipasti he had ordered for them to share.

‘I envy you,’ she said truthfully as plates were cleared, glasses refilled and bowls of pasta placed in front of them. ‘I’ve never got to travel. I would have loved to, but my mum and I barely had enough to make ends meet and we would never have been able to afford it. I guess it’s a lot easier when you only have yourself to consider, and I suppose you could always pick up jobs here and there to pay your way...’

‘I do try and get myself an honest day’s work when I’m abroad,’ he said, almost uncomfortably. ‘Tell me why you’ve run away from Australia.’

The abrupt change in the conversation caught Maddie off-guard and she stiffened—her natural response whenever she thought about her past. What would this complete stranger think were she to tell him the truth? He might be an adventurer, living off the land and shunning responsibility, but that didn’t mean that he wouldn’t be judgemental if she were to share her story with him.

The whole of her story.

Maddie found that she didn’t want him to think badly of her. ‘Whoever said anything about running away?’ she hedged lightly, winding long strands of spaghetti around her fork and avoiding eye contact.

Leo raised his eyebrows wryly. He sat back and gave her the benefit of his full attention, which was enough to make her blush furiously.

Her glass-green eyes drifted to his forearms, strong and muscled and sprinkled with dark hair, and she wondered what it would be like to be touched by them, to have his hands roam and explore her body. Her heart picked up speed and she licked her lips, panicked by the way her body was insisting on slipping its leash and running wild.

‘Well,’ Leo drawled, his voice a low murmur that made the hairs on the nape of her neck stand on end, ‘looking at the facts: you’re on the other side of the world, without a network of fellow travelling friends, and working in a job that can’t really be classed as career-building. You haven’t mentioned anything about studying, so I’m thinking that’s not relevant. Which leads me to think that you’re running away from something. Or someone. Or both.’

Maddie laughed, but the tide of colour in her cheeks was more vibrant now. ‘My mum died,’ she said, twirling the stem of her wine glass and then pausing as he filled it with more wine. ‘I’d spent some time looking after her. It was very unexpected. Bad luck, really. She broke her leg, and it was a very complex break, but it should have been okay.’ She blinked furiously. ‘Unfortunately the operation turned out to be a fiasco. She was confined to hospital for much longer than anticipated and then she needed a great deal of further surgery. Every time she felt she was back on her feet something would go wrong and back she would have to go.’

‘How old were you when all this happened?’

‘Just before my twentieth birthday,’ Maddie admitted.

‘Must have been tough.’

‘Everyone goes through tough times.’ She brushed off any show of sympathy because she was close enough to tears already. But she could see sympathy in the deep navy eyes resting on her and that was weird, because her very first impression of him had been of a guy who was as hard as nails.

Something about the predatory way he moved, the cool, lazy self-assurance in his eyes, the arrogant set of his features... But then being wary of the opposite sex, suspecting the worst before the worst could happen, had become a way of life for her.

‘You must have,’ she said lightly, blushing. ‘Gone through rough times, I mean? Or at least had one or two hairy encounters! Isn’t that part and parcel of being a nomad? A side effect of living life as an adventurer?’

Leo was enjoying the tinge of colour staining her cheeks. Australia. Hence the golden hue of her skin. Next to her, the other women in the restaurant seemed pale and anaemic.

He shrugged, adept as always at evading any sort of real sharing. ‘Sisters? Brothers?’ he asked. ‘Anyone out there for you when your mother was ill?’

‘Just me.’ Maddie realised that somewhere along the line food had been eaten and plates cleared away. She couldn’t remember when exactly that had happened. ‘My mother was from here, actually...’

‘Ireland?’ Startled, Leo caught her eyes.

‘As a matter of fact, she was.’

Maddie wondered what he would think if she told him that she was the owner of the very store he had been busy criticising only hours before. He didn’t look the type to scare easily, but men could be funny when it came to women being higher up the financial pecking order than they were.

‘Hence you’re returning to your motherland...?’

‘I thought it made sense. I wanted to get out of Australia after...after everything...’

Leo didn’t say anything, but his gaze was penetrating.

The waiter had approached, asking them what they’d thought of their meal, pressing them to sample some dessert but they both politely declined, asking only for the bill.

Maddie reached into her rucksack, withdrawing a wallet and extracting notes.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked with a frown.

‘Paying my way.’ Maddie looked at him, surprised at his reaction to what she thought was perfectly obvious.

‘When I go out with a woman I foot the bill,’ Leo asserted.

She stiffened. ‘Not this woman. I pay my half. That way I’m in no one’s debt.’

‘The price of a cheap Italian meal doesn’t put you in my debt.’ Leo tossed a handful of euros onto the silver platter—enough to cover the meal with an overly generous tip.

‘Have you never met a man who knows how to treat a woman?’ he asked, rising to his feet.

Maddie thought of her ex-boyfriend. Adam had loved paying for things for her. Flowers, chocolates, expensive meals out—but with the lavishing of gifts had come the manacles of control, the compulsion to turn her into something he wanted. And underneath all that had been his superiority—thinking that by making her into his doll he was asserting ascendancy over her, owning her.

But she’d remained the girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and sure enough that was something that couldn’t be buried under gifts and presents. Inevitably she’d learned a valuable lesson in the perils of ever thinking that someone rich and well-connected could ever be anything but condescending and manipulative.

Anyway, all those wildly expensive gifts had made her feel horribly uncomfortable, and she certainly didn’t like the idea of Leo or anyone else paying for her. As she had found to her cost, there was no such thing as a free lunch.

‘Are you asking me if I’ve ever met a man who knows how to reach for his wallet and buy me pretty baubles?’ She slapped a few euros on the table. The waiter was going to be very happy indeed with the extravagant tip coming his way. ‘Because if that’s what you’re asking then, yes, I have. And it didn’t work out for me. Which is why I prefer to keep things simple and pay my way.’

She stood up, and Leo shrugged, but his deep, dark eyes were assessing and thoughtful.

‘Far be it from me to tear someone away from her closely held principles,’ he murmured.

They headed outside, walking in the balmy summer air in no particular direction.

Except with some surprise Maddie realised that her legs were somehow moving towards the honeycomb of streets where her grandfather’s house was. It was on the outskirts of the city centre and, whilst the location was to die for, the house was not nearly as grand as some of the others and was in a state of disrepair.

The old man, so she had been told by her solicitor, had gradually downsized over the years, more and more as his healthy income had been whittled away to next to nothing, lost in gambling dens and crates of whiskey.

Maddie had wondered whether the absence of his only child had perhaps fuelled that spiral of despair, which had made her even more motivated to accept the challenge that had been bequeathed to her.

She stole a sneaky glance at the towering, over-the-top, sex-on-legs guy next to her and suddenly felt ashamed that she had snapped at him for trying to be a gentleman when in all likelihood he couldn’t afford it any more than she could.

‘Sorry,’ she apologised sheepishly. ‘You hit a sore spot there.’

Leo paused and looked down at her, holding her eyes with his, his expression speculative.

Her body trembled as she gazed back up at him, her eyes undoubtedly betraying her want.

‘I’ll be on my way,’ Leo murmured, breaking eye contact to stare up the road which was still as busy now as it had been hours previously. New York was not the only city, it would seem, that never slept.

‘Leo...’ Maddie breathed.

She wanted him. She didn’t know whether it was because she was lonely or because the unexpected stirring of attraction had reminded her that she was still young after all. Maybe he had unlocked some realisation that she couldn’t remain a prisoner of her past for the rest of her life.

Or maybe he was just so damned sexy that she simply couldn’t resist the pull of raw, primal lust.

Two ships passing in the night, she thought...

‘Do you want me to kiss you?’ Leo asked on a husky murmur, still not touching her.

‘No!’ Thank goodness they had managed to find themselves in a quiet corner of the otherwise busy street.

‘Then you need to stop looking at me like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like you want to eat me up...like you’d like me to eat you up.’

‘Leo...’

‘We’re both adults,’ Leo delivered on a rough undertone, ‘so I’ll be honest. You’re spectacular-looking and I want you more than I can remember wanting any woman for a long time. I want to touch you. I want to taste you...everywhere. But I don’t do long-term and in this instance we’re talking a one-night stand. A one-night stand to remember, but still a one-night stand. If you don’t like that, then walk away, Maddie.’

‘I always promised myself that I would never have a one-night stand,’ Maddie said, by rote, but her body was certainly not walking away. Indeed, it was staying very firmly put.

Leo shrugged, holding her gaze.

Confusion tore through Maddie, because she wasn’t lying. She’d never been a one-night stand kind of girl. From a young age her looks had attracted attention, and she had learned very fast that attention from the opposite sex more often than not bypassed the important stuff—like getting to know her, giving her credit for having a brain and seeing beyond the fact that she was, in Leo’s words, ‘spectacular-looking’. Adam had only served to cement those lessons in her head.

But...

But, but, but...

‘Would you like to come in for a cup of coffee?’ she hazarded.

Leo’s eyebrows shot up. He refused to let her hide behind the cup of coffee scenario. ‘You want me. And I want you. I’ll accept the offer of coffee, but I’m not interested in a push-pull game of one step forward followed by two back.’

‘Nor am I.’ She tiptoed forward, filled with a sense of heady daring, and brushed his perfect mouth with hers.

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.