‘Haven’t you learned yet, Larissa?’ Alessandro spoke so forcefully the ghost of old Venice whispered through the polished patina of his perfect English. ‘In some matters it is of no use to be wise.’ He pounded the table with his fist, making the silver jump. ‘There are moments in your life that you need to seize with both your hands.’

Lara stared at him in shock, her heart thudding at some veiled comprehension she couldn’t quite read. ‘Well…well, how do I know this is one of them?’

He touched his linen napkin to his lips, then threw it down and sprang to his feet. Before she even had time to react he seized her and dragged her up out of her chair, thundering, ‘This is how.’

Praise for Anna Cleary:

‘Anna Cleary’s TAKEN BY THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE is a fast-paced story that begins with dislike at first sight and turns to unexpected passion. Trust and love have to play catch-up in this emotion-filled journey.’

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews

‘MY TALL DARK GREEK BOSS is a fresh, sassy and sizzling contemporary romance… Anna Cleary is a talented storyteller who combines richly drawn characters, explosive chemistry, red-hot sensuality and dramatic emotional intensity in an irresistible romance that is absolutely impossible to put down!’

—Cataromance

Look out for more fabulous stories from Anna, coming soon in Mills & Boon® Modern Heat™!

As a child, Anna Cleary loved reading so much that during the midnight hours she was forced to read with a torch under the bedcovers, to lull the suspicions of her sleep-obsessed parents. From an early age she dreamed of writing her own books. She saw herself in a stone cottage by the sea, wearing a velvet smoking jacket and sipping sherry, like Somerset Maugham.

In real life she became a schoolteacher, and her greatest pleasure was teaching children to write beautiful stories.

A little while ago, she and one of her friends made a pact to each write the first chapter of a romance novel in their holidays. From writing her very first line Anna was hooked, and she gave up teaching to become a full-time writer. She now lives in Queensland, with a deeply sensitive and intelligent cat. She prefers champagne to sherry, and loves music, books, four-legged people, trees, movies and restaurants.

Recent novels by this author:

UNTAMED BILLIONAIRE, UNDRESSED VIRGIN

TAKEN BY THE MAVERICK MILLIONAIRE

AT THE BOSS’S
BECK AND CALL

BY

ANNA CLEARY

For Sally, my inspiration

CHAPTER ONE

ONLY a few minutes late. No need to panic.

Alighting from an overheated bus into bustling George Street on a Sydney winter morn, waiting, shivering, at the crossing lights in her little charcoal suit and her suede knee boots, making the dash with the crowd across to the opposite pavement, Lara Meadows reminded herself she was strong.

She was brave, she was still beautiful—well, in an artistic sense. From a distance. If she dived into a fountain in her underwear she could come out looking as shapely as any goddess of the silver screen, if more generously covered than some. Though only where it counted. If her hair got wet it would go limp and lose the pale spun silk effect she still managed to achieve to confound her critics, but she could still look reasonable.

Her hand flew to the scar at the base of her nape.

Not that she was competitive, by any means, or that looks meant anything in the publishing world. No, it was far more important that she was smart and professional, she was good at her job, she could speak up for herself…

So why were her insides churning like a cement mixer?

Alessandro was only a man, after all. Six years ago he hadn’t been formidable. He’d been the ultimate in amusing, sophisticated and charming. Take him apart bit by bit—remove his thick black hair, his smiling dark eyes, his sensuous mouth, his voice, his long powerful limbs, his chest…and what would he be left with to make her knees knock together? She had done nothing to be ashamed of. He was the one who should be worried.

She pushed through the glass doors of the Stiletto building and sprinted across to the lift. No one else from her floor was around. They’d all be upstairs in the meeting room, eager to con the big bosses from across the globe into believing they were always punctual.

Eager to impress Alessandro.

She gulped in a breath. She’d meant to be early, but plaits took time, and Vivi liked them just right. Then there was the walk to school—it just didn’t seem fair to rush a five-year-old fascinated by every living creature along the way.

She reminded herself of how tolerant and easy-going Alessandro was. Surely he was the last person anyone needed to fear as a boss.

Unless… She experienced a definite stab of fear. Unless it was someone who hadn’t yet managed to inform him of something he might think concerned him quite dramatically.

Alessandro Vincenti accepted a file from the quavering secretary with grave thanks. The woman, bequeathed to him by the failed Managing Director of Stiletto Publishing, and possibly anxious about her future, backed towards the door, poised to scurry to safety. Alessandro sent her a reassuring smile. It had never been his pleasure to intimidate gentle creatures. Let the waters of the pond of life remain clear and unruffled.

With his habitual ease he tilted back in the leather chair and opened the folder. Australians could be an interesting people, he remembered, if a little bizarre. A nation that idolised bush-rangers and ridiculed its politicians was not as uncomplicated as it might appear on the surface. What was the affectionate term they used to describe their rebels? Larrikin, that was it. They smiled at their larrikins.

In an effort to familiarise himself with the staff, on paper at least, before he soothed them with his motivational spiel, he leafed through the sparse array of pages pertaining to the various departments, if they could be called that. Dio, had anyone ever checked the record-keeping in this place? What had the MD been doing before his meltdown?

He took a moment to peruse the personnel list.

Curious, the poetry contained within names.

Halfway through the editorial section, his gaze arrested and locked to one name. A name that sprang from the page and clicked on a part of him he’d long since believed inert. A name redolent of drowsy afternoons on sun-drenched beaches, blonde silken hair and the scent of summer grass. His blood quickened to the recollection of a dusk, fragrant with honeysuckle and the promise of love.

Could it be…? Could it really be…?

‘Er…Beryl.’ He glanced up at the secretary, arresting her doorwards creep and causing her to jump. ‘This L. Meadows now—who is he?’ He held the page a little away from him between long, fastidious fingers.

The secretary’s words fell over each other in her haste to please. ‘She. She’s a she. I mean a—a woman, Mr Vincenti. Lara Meadows. She’s been with Stiletto now for about six months. Bill—I mean Mr Carmichael, our MD, I mean ex-MD, liked her very much.’

A long-dormant visceral nerve made a raw pinch in Alessandro’s gut.

So. She was still in the world.

For the benefit of the secretary he allowed no facial muscle to register his shock, pretending interest in other names on the list of Scala Enterprises’ most recently acquired workforce.

‘And who is this?’ he continued smoothly down the list, as though Lara Meadows had never made a fool of him. Never caused him to feel—whatever it had been. Never brought him to his emotional knees like some love-crazed Don José bellowing from the opera stage about his Carmen. ‘And this one? Tell me about him.’

Amazing, to find Lara after all this time. What were the odds she’d be working for the very company they’d settled on as their foothold in the southern hemisphere? He narrowed his eyes. If this were the same Lara. His Larissa.

The nerve twisted. Though surely she’d be married by now, unless she’d kept her maiden name after her marriage?

To some poor fool, some sucker who didn’t mind being let down.

And of course Bill would have liked her very much. It was probably liking her that had brought the guy to his ruin. He glanced at the secretary’s eager face, weighing up whether to hazard a question, then discarded the notion. It was exactly what the woman was longing for. Any tiny morsel, no matter how trivial, to whisper about the visiting boss to the staff.

And he felt no interest in Lara Meadows. That moment in time when her capricious whims, her irrational Hollywood-inspired tests had burned deep into his essential being was past. A woman incapable of valuing the sincerity of an honest man was below the radar of his consciousness.

Still, he wouldn’t be human if he couldn’t appreciate the irony in the situation. Whether she’d known it or not, Ms Meadows had once held his fate in her hands. Now, he held her livelihood in his. If he were one of those mediaeval Vincentis given to vendettas…

Revenge, a dish best served cold, had often been his mother’s dry observation. Were six years long enough to cool a blaze that had consumed him and reduced his dignity to ashes? Or so he’d thought at the time.

Alessandro shrugged, amused at his momentary regression to youthful passion. On second thoughts, it would be interesting to see her again. See how she would look.

How she would face him.

* * *

Anyway, Lara reflected, scanning her face in the lift mirror, by this time he could be bald, or morbidly paunched. Her memories of him might have been distorted by time.

On the approach to the conference room, though, her legs grew wobbly and reluctant with dread. But face it. Despite everything, she was excited. The thought of seeing him again was rushing through her like a summer storm.

Although, could she really expect Alessandro to remember her with the same intensity as she remembered him? With what she knew about him now, he might not remember her at all. Six years was a long time for an international playboy to hold an idea.

She paused outside and made an effort to calm her breathing, but ever since the news had broken the old video show in her head wouldn’t stop spinning through the reels.

Six years ago. Her first and only international book conference. The publishing company she’d been with at the time wouldn’t have been able to afford to send her if it hadn’t been held here in Sydney. It had been her first conference. Her first…

Everything.

That initial, fantastic connection at the cocktail party. The amused glance he’d exchanged with her over the ridiculous sci-fi diva with the hair. The strawberry daiquiri he’d wangled for her. He’d screwed up his handsome face at her choice but she’d pretended to enjoy it. Then the charmed days that had followed. The long walks. The intense conversations about literature, music, Shakespeare—everything she was most passionate about.

Alessandro refused to describe himself as Italian, or Venetian. He was a citizen of the world, he’d told her with a laugh, yet he’d treated her ideas with such respect, as if they were as clever and original as his own. She’d never been so riveted by conversation with anyone. So excited, so—enchanted. Every word he’d uttered had held her on the most delicious hook.

And when she’d found out the origin of his family name…

She’d looked it up on the internet. No wonder she’d been starry-eyed. He’d been reluctant to answer her bombardment of questions at first, but he’d finally relented and told her a little about his branch of the Venetian Vincentis. His forefathers had been marquises since the earliest days of the Venetian Republic. Those early marquises had been among the noble families responsible for electing each Doge as head of the country, and had served on the Council that had assisted the Doge to govern Venice.

All the way back to the earliest records each of Alessandro’s forefathers had been designated Marchese d’Isole Veneziane Minori, which meant Marquis of the Minor Venetian Isles. So beautiful. So romantic.

He’d winced when she brought it up, but when she’d grilled him over it Alessandro had eventually admitted that in terms of family inheritance, he was the current marchese.

The Marchese d’Isole Veneziane Minori. After a bit of practice, the words had just rolled off her tongue. Marquis of the Minor Venetian Isles.

Oh, God, she’d been so impressed. She’d mocked him about it, teased him, but she’d been so utterly ravished Alessandro had laughed at her. It had been on that first golden afternoon at the beach.

She closed her eyes now to think of him stretched beside her, his lean, tanned body still glistening from the surf, his black hair gleaming, those deep, dark eyes, so sensual, so intent on her and her alone. That was when he’d kissed her for the first time. Afterwards, they’d had dinner, and then after that…

Even now, any mention of the Seasons hotel gave her a pang. If the walls of that suite had been able to talk…

His week had turned into two, then three, then stretched on through the summer until he could no longer put off going back for the start of his final semester at the Harvard Business School, where his firm was sending him. Her last glimpse of him before he boarded the plane had been so blurred with her tears she’d knocked over a small elderly woman, but the promise had kept her afloat.

The pact.

As always when she thought of it her stomach gave a churn. She’d have kept her side of it if she could, if only Fate hadn’t got in the way. Like a trusting fool, she’d have been there to meet him, just in case he had decided to come back. But there’d been the bushfires, her father, then her dreadful time in hospital. And afterwards…

Oh, God. Afterwards, a seismic shift in who and what she was.

But Alessandro didn’t know that. If she could just hang onto that fact…

She steeled her nerve, and gave the conference-room door a gentle inwards push.

The small room seemed crammed. Not that Stiletto had such a large staff, only six in editorial, plus two part-time assistants, but it was rare to see everyone assembled at the same time. With the publicity staff, and the sales and production people, the numbers swelled to the twenties. Grateful to see an empty chair not too far inside the door, Lara crept to it as noiselessly as she could.

All the organised people who’d managed to arrive on time were sitting silent and watchful, listening. In the absence of Bill, their dreamy, slightly slipshod ex-Managing Director, Cinta from Sales and Marketing had volunteered to stand up on behalf of the company. Looking as sinuous as ever in a dress that had been spray-painted to her bones, Cinta was delivering a flowery welcome speech for the takeover team in the sultry voice she assumed for really attractive men.

Alessandro.

Lara spotted him at once, her heart shaking like a quake zone. A glimpse only, a mere flash, but it was him all right, seated to one side of the lectern, right next to the terrifyingly groomed woman with the razor cut bob and the fantastic suit whom Cinta introduced as Donatuila Capelli, one of Scala’s top executives from the New York office. Lara could believe it. Every thread the woman wore screamed Fifth Avenue.

Lara sat down just as Donatuila got up to deliver a few bracing words in a fabulous deep, husky Manhattan accent, before embarking on a slick presentation of the latest on Scala’s product sales. Lara was thankful that, with so much going on, Alessandro wouldn’t have noticed her late arrival. She was so glad she’d decided to dress up, even if her boots were killers.

At the other end of the room, Alessandro sat frozen for seconds, then deliberately relaxed his muscles and concentrated on breathing until the roaring sensation in his blood eased. It was her. No doubt of it, that late arrival was Lara Meadows. The blonde hair he remembered, if quite a lot longer now, the distinctive tilt of her chin, her graceful, willowy form. No other woman entering a room had ever had that effect on him.

And neither would she, ever again. It had simply been the shock of the initial sighting. Understandable, considering he’d scanned the room and resigned himself to believing her absent. It had even occurred to him that she might have quit rather than face him. But no, she wasn’t lying low or fleeing for cover. Unlike the rest of her colleagues, she was merely late.

Late.

He had to hand it to her. That behaviour was nothing short of casual.

He made an infinitesimal lean to the right, and in a chink between the rows saw her cross her legs as she relaxed into her chair. The long, shapely legs he remembered were partially encased in long boots, drawing attention to silky, smooth knees. Sexy, but… Something like a hot needle pierced his professional composure and homed straight to that raw nerve. Insolente was the word that boiled up in him.

The sheer gall of her to be late. The gall. Of all the people in the room who should be anxious to demonstrate courtesy… Who should have left no stone unturned to ensure of meeting her obligation this morning.

Here was a woman who knew nothing of respect.

If Lara craned her neck she could just see one lean hand resting on a dark-clad knee. A further tilt and she could see his face. A study in bronze and ebony, he was frowning down at the floor, his black brows lowered, but even from this distance she could see he had the same thick, dark lashes, the classically sculpted cheekbones and chiselled jaw.

That handsome jaw was sternly set, in fact, making him look rather grimmer than she’d hoped, until something Donatuila Capelli said roused him from his reverie and he lifted his gaze to her with a polite, questioning smile.

Then the most ravishing thing about that lean, strong face came flooding back to Lara with such evocative power every muscle in her body made an involuntary clench.

That devil’s mockery in the tilt of his brows. The ability of his firm, sensuous mouth to remain grave, even solemn, when he was amused. And his eyes. Those brilliant dark eyes, so seductive, so expressive of fathomless depths of subtlety and sophistication.

Ignoring her mad pulse, Lara clung to her chair and held herself taut and resistant. She was over him. She’d been over him long since. He was the man who’d kissed her goodbye, then married someone else. But when he uncoiled his long, lean limbs with leisurely grace, rose, swept them all with a long, deep glance, then commenced his address in his beautiful, deep, faintly accented voice, she remembered why she’d gone overboard.

Fallen in love.

Gone truly, madly, deeply…insane.

She shrank into her chair, her heart racketing into a drum-roll. Had he seen her yet?

Alessandro sent a measuring glance over the small audience in their jeans and boots and arty jewellery, careful to avoid the back row and the blonde whose imprint was branded onto his soul.

Normally, he was a tolerant administrator. When Head Office sent him out after a takeover to settle the blood and dust, then restructure the new acquisition into an entity resembling a company, it was his practice to reassure the new workforce of their job security, offer them a pay-rise and improve their conditions.

Unfortunately, there were some situations when a man needed to make his authority clear and unequivocal. This irreverent attitude some Australians had, this casualness, needed to be checked. The arrogance displayed by some employees of this sad little company needed to be nipped in the bud. Let them quake a little while he showed them how tenuous their comfort zones really were.

There would be no larrikins working for Scala Enterprises.

Discarding the soothing tone it was his practice to open with, he postponed mention of the gifts he’d come bearing, and cut directly to business.

‘Prepare yourselves for some changes.’

At first Lara hardly heard the words that held her colleagues pinned to their chairs, delivered in Alessandro’s dark cioccolata tones. There was an electric tension in the room outside her own, but she was too absorbed in examining her ex-lover, drinking in every detail of him, to register immediately the full import of everything he said.

As she gazed at his beautiful, austere face a wave of poignant emotion welled up in her and she could barely hold back tears. So much was associated with him in her heart.

If this cool, authoritarian Alessandro wasn’t quite the man who’d flirted with and teased her and made her feel like the most desirable woman in the world, he was sexier, if possible. Still so lithe and athletic-looking in his dark, exquisitely cut suit, with his olive tan and five-o’clock shadow, it was clear he took rigorous care of that powerful six-three frame. She calculated that he must be nearly thirty-five, since she’d just turned twenty-seven. An experienced, man-of-the-world thirty-five. In six years the character lines in his lean, handsome face had deepened, and he looked more focused, the image of a successful, hard-headed businessman.

And a marchese.

One whose dulcet tones could point out some harsh realities. She stopped listening for that elusive accent, and started hearing the words. Apart from that paper he’d delivered at the book convention, she’d never really seen him before in his professional role. Who’d have imagined he’d be so autocratic? It was easy to believe he was a marchese. With his dark eyes so stern, even Cinta’s smile was beginning to develop a fixed plasticity.

As the words achieved more traction the alarm in the room became almost tangible. Lara noticed even the self-possessed Donatuila shoot him a couple of narrow glances.

‘You have failed as a company,’ he accused, steel in his deep, cool voice, ‘and I fully intend to rescue you, however painful that might be. At the end of next week Ms Capelli and I will be attending the International Book Convention in Bangkok as delegates. Before we leave, we will have finalised the new management and restructured Stiletto Publishing. You will be on the path to transforming from a small isolated company to being a vibrant part of a global organisation. Of course, you will all require some re-education. Some of you will find it necessary to invest your free time.’

There was an uneasy shuffling among the staff, but he continued on with inexorable calm. ‘Every publishing project, every job in every department will come under the microscope. And in return…’ He softened his tone, and not a muscle moved as the room held its breath. There was something so chilling in the pleasant cadences of his voice, with every consonant, every sibilant, so clear and distinct.

‘From those of you who keep your jobs I demand dedication. All employees of Scala Enterprises are expected to deliver a one-hundred-per-cent performance. This applies to the large things, as well as to the small. From achieving your project goals, to meeting your deadlines, to the scrupulous observance of punctuality. And I mean punctuality in all things. Your arrival at work, your return from your breaks, your attendance at meetings.’

Guilt jolted through Lara and she sank back into her chair as his unforgiving gaze roved from face to face. She felt the heat of it sear hers without noticing any change in his expression. No softening of recognition. It was as though he didn’t want to see her.

He added with lethal softness, ‘I think I should warn you, it is a very rare excuse I find myself able to accept.’

Her heart sank. The magic of a dew-spangled spider’s web hanging above the schoolyard fence hardly seemed likely to rate.

‘When you know me better,’ he continued smoothly, ‘you will discover that I do not like to be kept waiting. At Scala, there is no room for human frailty. We are uncompromising in regard to people meeting their obligations.’ He wound up with the grim warning, ‘Over the next couple of days Ms Capelli and I will be meeting with each and every one of you. Be prepared to defend your right to your job.’

A ripple of shock reverberated through the staff. Then, exactly as though his address had been a cosy chat, with polished courtesy Alessandro Vincenti thanked them all for their attention and dismissed them.

Lara rose with everyone else and joined the exodus from the room, but once beside her desk she halted. Shouldn’t she speak to him at once? Break the ice?

She shouldered her way back through the end stragglers and into the conference room, but Alessandro and his associate had already left, no doubt in a hurry to start the bloodletting. She hesitated a second. Would it be wise to interrupt him at this point? He seemed so efficient and remote, this might not be the best time to revive their old acquaintance. Although, it might be an advantage to at least inform him of her presence. The last thing she wanted was to give him the impression she had anything to be nervous about.

With that in mind she hurried along the corridor to Bill’s old office, her pulse pumping as fast as if she’d been a bad girl summoned to the headmaster.

The door was closed, probably for the first time in its history. She stood there a few seconds, breathing carefully to centre herself. She was brave, she was strong, she was a mother. She could deal with Alessandro Vincenti, woman to man, though she couldn’t help wondering if he’d still find her attractive.

Ignoring her galloping heartbeat, she raised her fist and knocked. She was just about to try again when Donatuila Capelli swept around the corner and, spotting her there, strode up on her four-inch stilettos.

Attractive in a corporate-Morticia-Addams kind of way, she delivered Lara a cool, sharp scrutiny from her long, cleverly made-up brown eyes. ‘Do you want something?’

‘I—came to see Alessandro.’

‘Mr Vincenti to you, honey. What’s your name?’

‘Lara.’ She indicated the door. ‘Is he…?’

Donatuila raised her thinly pencilled eyebrows. ‘No, he’s not. And I suggest you go back to your desk and wait your turn.’ She grasped the door handle and practically edged Lara aside with her bony hip. ‘You’ll get your chance with him, same as everyone else.’

Donatuila opened the door and went in.

The door closed in Lara’s face, and she felt some indignation. Whew. What a cold burr. Donatuila Capelli was brisk. It made her wonder if she’d been wise to draw attention to herself. Perhaps it had been a mistake to attempt to talk to Alessandro privately.

She was about to turn away when the door opened again. Alessandro’s tall frame filled the doorway, his dark eyes clashing with hers while the stars arrested in their orbits and hung suspended in space for breathless seconds.

Her senses burst open in a weakening rush like flowers to the sun. She’d forgotten how he smelled. Soap, leather shoes, aftershave, clothes freshly laundered in some lemony agent. And, beneath all that, some barely detectable scent to do with raw masculinity and sophistication that evoked all the old sensations. The thrill in her heart. The longing.

His deep, dark eyes made a slow flicker over her, then settled on her face.

‘Oh, Alessandro,’ she breathed. ‘I just thought I’d say—hello.’

Something flashed in the depths of his eyes, then his stirringly expressive mouth hardened the merest fraction. After a second he moved politely aside and motioned her in.

Another desk had been crammed in beside Bill’s big executive piece. Donatuila Capelli was seated there, studying a thick, ring-bound folder. Alessandro nodded at her and held the door wide.

‘Tuila, please excuse us. This will take less than a second.’

Donatuila’s head jerked up and she made a faint, incredulous tsk with her tongue, then put down the folder, rose and crossed to the door, casting Lara a blistering look that Lara felt rather than saw, overwhelmed as she was by the presence of her lover. Ex-lover, she reminded herself.

Alessandro closed the door, and Lara was alone with him. Again.

She’d forgotten how intensely magnetic he was. It went deeper than his brilliant dark eyes and hard masculine beauty. Something in him pulled her at a deep, visceral level that made her want to press her body into his lean, powerful frame and hold him to her with all her might.

For goodness sake, her brain tried to bellow, the man was married. Kill that thought.

It was her body that didn’t understand. Her senses, and her instincts. Her affections, and her primal feminine responses to the raw, primitive male beneath the crisp, elegant clothes. Of course she knew she couldn’t expect him to kiss her, after so long, and with a wife and all, but every one of her skin cells tingled with a yearning to walk straight into his arms.

As though he was unaware of her internal confusion, his manner was cool and courteous. Like that of a top executive. Or a marchese who knew his minions would jump to his command without him ever having to raise his voice.

‘Yes?’ he asked, scouring her face with a dark, searching gaze. ‘Is there something you need?’

She felt a pang of anxiety, and made an involuntary move to touch him. To her dismay, he moved his hand away. Discreetly, but nonetheless firmly.

Her throat dried. ‘You—you do remember me, don’t you? Lara…?’

His eyes glinted and it took him a moment to reply. Then he said, ‘Vaguely. The Sydney International Book Convention, wasn’t it?’ His cool, inscrutable gaze lasered into hers, then he lowered his black lashes and, with a sardonic twitch of his brows, glanced at his watch. ‘Can I help you? Is there something in particular?’

Stunned, she stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. ‘Well, no. I only wanted to…say hi.’

His brows drew together and he let out a faint, exasperated breath. ‘I don’t really have time for reminiscing. I’m sure you understand—we are on a tight schedule. So…unless there’s something specific?’

Cold shock slammed through her, but pride and the automatic social response held her together.

‘Well, no, no, nothing specific,’ she said, flushing, her pulse pounding in her ears. ‘Nothing all that worth mentioning, in fact. I’m—so sorry to have interrupted your work.’

She swept from the room with a cool, proud smile, though her eyes, like her sensibilities, were smarting. She’d never felt more of a fool.

She went to the Ladies and sat in a cubicle for a few minutes, her hot face in her trembling hands until her cheeks cooled a little, while her brain seethed with some of the specific things she could have said. Things like… What took you so long? Or… Hi, Dad. There’s someone I want you to meet.

In the office he’d commandeered, Alessandro strolled to the desk and picked up a page of candidates that had already been shortlisted for the managing director’s position. He stared at it, unseeing, for seconds, a rapid thumping in his chest.

The nerve of her, to sashay up to his office and claim him as a friend. She’d deserved that rebuff, but why did she have to look so…?

His gut clenched. She was just another blonde. The world abounded in pretty blondes. If only…

If only he hadn’t seen into her eyes.

He dropped the crushed list of candidates just as the phone rang. He wasn’t a violent man, but he raised his hand to sweep the phone off the desk. Restraining himself just in time, he lifted the receiver and dropped it gently back onto its cradle.

Sacramento. She deserved everything he gave her. Everything.

CHAPTER TWO

IN LARA’S office, people were venting their feelings.

‘No room for human frailty! Did you hear that? What a crock.’

‘Did you see his eyes? How can anyone be so hot and icy cold at the same time?’

‘Hot, cruel and ruthless. You only have to look at his mouth. Oh-h-h…’ Lara’s neighbour closed her eyes and breathed ‘…that mouth.’

Lara sat silent at her desk while the comments washed around her, trying to come to terms with this other Alessandro, this cold, efficient Alessandro who felt nothing for her now, not even friendship. How could a snub be so polite and feel so savage at the same time? Regardless though, she still couldn’t help feeling ridiculously sensitive to everything they said about him.

Kirsten, their senior, took a relaxed view. ‘I suppose we could have expected something like this. Scala isn’t exactly a charity. With them it’s about the bottom line. We might even enjoy a little bit of organisation around here. And I guess we can all defend our own corners, can’t we?’ She winked. ‘Anyway, that guy won’t want to be hanging about in this outpost of civilisation for long, so he won’t waste time appointing the new MD. He won’t even be here long enough to discover our charms before he’ll be gone like that.’ She clicked her fingers.

Lara tried to keep her face from revealing anything. What would they say if they knew he’d already discovered hers? That suite at the Seasons had been enshrined in her heart as one of the sacred spots in Sydney.

She’d never forget their last afternoon.

Before Alessandro, she’d never been in a really expensive hotel. He’d commandeered a suite for his stay, with a little sitting room opening from the bedroom. The windows were wide, with spectacular views of the harbour and the Opera House.

She’d dreaded that last day’s dawning with every fibre of her being. It had been their most beautiful, and the hardest. Every second had been precious, every moment bittersweet, with goodbye looming over them like Armageddon.

She’d done her best to conceal her heartache. Alessandro had teased her about being quiet at first, then had himself become unusually quiet and grave. After lunch he’d taken her up to his room. To mull things over, he’d said.

He’d poured the champagne. Clinked glasses with her. Toasted her.

Before she’d even had time to sip hers, he’d gently taken the glass from her hand and set it down, then, with his dark eyes so fierce and intense that she’d actually trembled with excitement, he’d swiftly and expertly stripped off her clothes and flattened her to the bed.

And it had been fantastic. So heartfelt and emotional. It must have been one of their most impassioned feats of lovemaking.

Afterwards, lying beside him, tracing the lean, hard contours of his bronzed body with her fingers, she’d winched up all her courage.

She’d begun, as casually as possible, ‘You know, Alessandro, I’ll—miss you.’ She’d given a small laugh, for fear he’d guess the frightening force of her feelings. ‘I really do wish—you weren’t going.’

There’d been a tiny tremor in her voice. Had she gone too far?

He’d been silent for such an eternity, his elbow crooked over his eyes while her heart trembled in terror. Just when she’d been ready to hit the self-destruct button, his voice had come from so deep within him it had been like a groan.

‘I have to go.’ Then he’d turned on his side towards her. It had been an electric moment. Instead of their usual cool amusement, his dark eyes were glowing, their gaze warm and compelling.

‘So, tesoro. I’ve been thinking too. Why don’t you come?’

She’d stared at him in shock. ‘What? You mean…to America?’

‘Sure, America. Why not? You’ll love it. It’s only for a few months. When the semester finishes I go back to Italia.’ Then he’d added lightly, as if dropping the words into a pool to see what ripples formed, ‘You can come home with me.’

Home. When she didn’t answer at once, too many wild pictures flashing through her head—her job, her parents, plunging into the unknown with him when she hardly knew him. Overseas, when she’d hardly even been out of New South Wales.

Venice.

The Marquis of the Minor Venetian Isles. So thrilling. So—scary.

He’d added, ‘We would be—a couple.’

This was it, she’d thought in the first wild lurching moments of shooting stars and ecstasy. Unbelievably, she’d found her man, and such a beautiful, fantastic man. A cultured, civilised, gentle man. A man she could talk to. A man with whom she could share the secrets of her soul.

But, some rational part of her had squeaked, how much of a commitment was he actually offering? How well did she know him, really?

What did couple mean? Lovers? Partners?

And what about her job? Her family?

‘Wow,’ she’d said, scrabbling for the words while her brain reeled from the possibilities like a woman with vertigo on the roof edge of a fifty-storey tower block. ‘That would be—fantastic. I’m—overwhelmed, honestly, Alessandro. Honoured.’ Perhaps some part of her uncertainty had shown on her face, because he’d made a small grimace.

‘Honoured,’ he’d echoed, lilting his brows in some bemusement. Then she’d seen a flicker in his eyes she hadn’t seen there before, and it wrung her heart to think she might have hurt him.

He’d said very quietly, such gentle dignity in his deep, masculine tones, ‘Is this your way of saying no, tesoro?’

‘No, no,’ she’d hastened to reassure him. ‘Not at all. It’s just that… Well, you know it’s so—so sudden…I might just need a minute to draw breath.’ She’d beamed at him, though her heart was pounding like mad, and everything in her was screaming to her to slam on the brakes. ‘Wait, though, hang on. I’ve had a thought. I don’t have a passport.’

She’d been so relieved to have that perfectly good reason to put forward, but he’d frowned and shaken his head, as if, in the civilised world he came from, minor obstacles like that could be brushed away.

‘I can change my flight again,’ he said. ‘Added to all the others, what’s another day? Twenty-four hours should be long enough for us to organise your passport.’

There’d been a further desperate moment while the offer still hung in the balance, and that was when she’d had the inspiration of the pact. The love test.

‘All right. No, wait, look, I know. I have an idea—Alessandro, darling…’ She’d never dared call him that before, and she could see it registered with him. It had given her the courage to go on. ‘It’s all been so fast. Maybe—maybe we should give ourselves a chance to be certain we’re doing the right thing.’

For a second his thick black lashes had swept down to screen his eyes. ‘You’re not sure you want to be with me?’

She’d drawn a sharp breath, then said quickly, ‘I do. Of course I do. But I’d just like some time to get organised. You know, I’ll have to say goodbye to Mum and Dad—and give notice at work. And you might need to think about it too. If we—just give ourselves a little bit of time to think. We could do something like they did in that movie. Did you ever see An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr?’

He hadn’t seen the old movie classic, and, in truth, he hadn’t been so keen on her idea of delaying a few weeks. He’d gone rather scarily still and inscrutable, like a marchese whose pride had taken a hit. As if she should have been able to make up her mind to go with him on the spot. As if she should have just left her life behind her, not taken a moment to think and give her parents a chance to get used to the idea, to weigh up all the pros and cons.

He had agreed at last, although with reservations.

She’d been so young, she’d truly believed it was the right thing to do. The wise thing. Alessandro had swept her along with him on a giddy, emotional ride and she’d barely had time to snatch a breath. And while the top of the Centrepoint Tower in Sydney didn’t have quite the same romantic cachet as the Empire State building in New York, if he had met her there again in six weeks’ time, to her it would have been close enough to heaven.

Sadly, as it had turned out, her instinct had been the right one.

Even if she had been able to make it to the Centrepoint Tower at four p.m. that fateful Wednesday, Alessandro wouldn’t have met her there. She knew now that he wouldn’t, because all the time he’d been wining and dining and seducing her in Sydney, his fiancée had been back home in Italy preparing for the wedding.

She’d found that all out later. And when she’d discovered the devastating truth, she’d come to the miserable realisation that, like the practised seduction artist he was, he’d probably pretended to agree to the pact so he could leave her on an up-note.

Occasionally, though rarely now, she’d suffered a cold twinge of fear that he might actually have flown all the way back from Harvard Business School only to find that she’d failed to show up, but she always rationalised that worry away. Of course he wouldn’t have. His mid-semester break had only been a few days long. Even if he hadn’t had a fiancée he was keeping under wraps, from her at least, what man would have flown all the way back from the other side of the world?

That was what she’d consoled her grieving heart with, anyway. Afterwards, after all the nights of weeping, when she’d recovered her equilibrium and had time to see it all in perspective. After the magazine article she’d stumbled upon in the doctor’s waiting room about the wedding, when she realised what a fool she’d been, how much he’d deceived her. He probably agreed to trysts to meet women on towers all over the world.

Though at the time, on the day, she’d been green enough to believe that he’d keep the rendezvous. She certainly would have if she could. She’d been mad keen to go, clinging to the forlorn hope that he’d turn up like her own Cary Grant. If Fate hadn’t intervened in that cruel way she’d probably still be there, texting the number that never answered, looking at her watch, wishing and hoping.

‘Hey, darl, wake up.’

The voice of Josh, her colleague who occupied the desk opposite hers, snapped her back to the present. He leaned over and flicked her arm. ‘What do you think he meant about us having to invest our free time?’

‘There’s no way I’ll be doing that,’ she said swiftly. ‘What about Vivi?’

Josh tilted back in his chair. ‘You won’t have to worry. You’ll be safe. Tell him you have a little mouth to feed and he’ll take one look at your big blue eyes and crumble. Italians are crazy about kids.’

Something like a major earthquake redistributed her insides. ‘Yeah?’ she said faintly. ‘Where’d you hear that? Surely every nationality is crazy about their kids.’

Josh’s eyes, as blue as her own, were earnest. ‘No, honestly. It’s true. Genuine Italians—the real Italians from Italy—are particularly family oriented. I know, because there was an article about it in last month’s Alpha.’

Amidst the laughter that followed, no one would have noticed that hers had a false ring. She’d read those things about Italians too. Their horror of broken families and children brought up without both parents. The sacrifices even the poorest of families were prepared to make to clothe and educate their children with the finest money could buy, as a matter of family honour. And what if they were a proud, aristocratic family? Would a marchese be happy to leave his child on the other side of the world?

Now that crunch time had arrived, would she be telling him about Vivi, and what exactly? The scenarios that opened before her if she did were frightening to contemplate. Six years were a long time. The things she’d understood about Alessandro then with such certainty were now all adrift. It was clear she’d never known him at all.

He had a right, of course, to know about his child. But what if he were one of those men who snatched their children and whisked them out of the country? Vivi wasn’t a little tree who could be uprooted and transplanted across the world in London, or Venice. She was five, for heaven’s sake. A baby. She only knew Newtown and her grandma, her school, the park… The King Street shops and the library, her little friends…

After Alessandro’s reaction to her this morning, Lara needed to decide what to tell him, and how. Calm, brisk and unemotional would be best, of course, if she could be like that. The interviews could start at any minute. If she could just work out something she could say—maybe write it down and rehearse it…

Er… By the way, Alessandro, I think you should know… Incidentally, Alessandro, have I mentioned…?

The interviews started after morning tea. People either came back with worried expressions, or exclaiming over things Donatuila had said. How sinister Alessandro was. How scary, how gorgeous.

They found themselves speaking in whispers. ‘Oh, my God. Did you see his eyes? Those lashes are an inch long, I’ll bet.’

‘And his voice. That accent. What is it, London mixed with Italian?’

‘That’s not ordinary Italian. That’s Sicilian. Betcha.’

A frightening rumour did the rounds that David from Finance had been told to empty his desk and given his marching orders.

The usual small congregation around the photocopier failed to materialise, and for once everyone resisted getting coffee from the machine between breaks to take back to their desks. Lara waited for her turn, struggling to work while she contemplated the things she would say to the stranger who was the father of her child.

She declined going out for lunch with the others. Her boots pinched her feet, and, anyway, who could eat?

Beryl’s head jerked around Alessandro’s door. ‘Excuse me, Mr Vincenti, the builders are here.’

Alessandro thanked her, gave Tuila leave to break for lunch, then rose and stretched his long limbs before walking outside to meet the architect. He shook hands with the man, then they strolled along, discussing the layout of the rooms while the workmen wandered ahead, pencils tucked behind their ears, pointing out things about the wainscoting, measuring up floor space and window spans.

With the present layout, the rooms were too cramped, Alessandro explained, pausing outside the editorial office to indicate through the glass partition the number of desks crammed into the narrow space.

The room was empty of staff. Appeared to be, that was. Until, while the architect was examining the walls and suggesting ways of dealing with the problem, Alessandro caught sight of a blonde head bent over the coffee machine in the corner of the room.

That sensation again, as if something were crushing the air from his lungs.

He saw Lara Meadows turn to make some smiling response to one of the workmen, and for the second time that day the immediacy of her struck the chords of his memory like an assault. The pale fresh skin of her cheek. The grace of her hands…

That way she had of teasing a man with her laugh without any attempt to flirt. Dio, love the woman or hate her, her honesty and openness were still so appealing.

Despite the firewalls erected around his heart, desire, quick and hot, licked along his veins and stirred his loins with the old treacherous urgency.

To quell the bittersweet surge, he moved away from the partition. The architect talked and Alessandro listened, nodded, made the appropriate responses, all the while wrestling with devil fire. A temptation burned in him to take one more look at her, but he fought it. Steeling himself to ignore the craving, he concentrated on the conversation.

Discipline was what was needed. There was no denying her presence was a lighted fuse in his imagination. Now that he’d talked to her, seen her such a short distance from his office, he would have to think of a way to neutralise her effect. Regardless of his brain, his will, his body was plainly still in a time warp.

It didn’t have to be difficult, he mused on the walk back to his office after he’d finished with the architect. The way was clear. Keep her at a distance until he was used to the idea of her again. Avoid hearing her voice, smelling her perfume…

Don’t allow that laugh of hers to affect him. Don’t give her the chance to beguile him with her wiles until he was ready for her.

Ready for her? an evil little unbidden voice chimed in. He was ready now.

Ridiculous, his reason stormed to defend the barricades. He was a civilised man. He’d never been a guy driven by his lusts.

Unless it was lust for Lara Meadows, the voice fired back with sly persistence.

Alessandro ran a finger around the inside of his collar. Dio mio, why had he come up with the interview scheme? Already she was invading his thoughts again, distracting him, infecting his bloodstream like a poisonous narcotic. The only way to ensure against her insidious way of creeping through the steel walls of his determination was to hold her at arm’s length.

In fact, he should cancel her interview altogether. He had no desire to risk being alone with her again, had he?

As the afternoon wore on Lara’s suspense grew. Everyone from Editorial had been invited except for her, and now people from other sections were being called in. Was Alessandro making her wait on purpose?

What if he expected her to stay after five to make up for her late arrival? Her mother would be waiting with Vivi, anxious to be released for her oboe lesson.

It was all very well for Signor Vincenti to insist on rules and punctuality. He wasn’t a mother, with an eager five-year-old waiting for her dinner and bursting to share the excitements of her big day at school. Certainly he might, unknown to him by some quirk of fate, be a father, but in the current situation that was a mere technicality. In fact, from certain angles his ignorance of that small detail could be viewed as a plus.

For one thing it gave her a breathing space. Instead of her leaping to inform him at once, like a trusting fool, the responsible thing would be to suss out the lay of the land.

Weigh up his attitudes. See if he even liked children. After all, could she seriously contemplate inviting him into Vivi’s life if he was likely to be a negative influence? And what about his wife? Vivi’s stepmother?

She couldn’t repress the cold sinking horror thoughts of the stepmother always invoked. What chance was there that a wealthy socialite would embrace her husband’s love child with joy?

She’d had no way of keeping up with the state of their marriage. For all she knew, they might have other children now, children who would resent a surprise sister.

Perhaps Alessandro would feel the same way. After all, the world was thronging with men who had children from previous relationships and felt completely uninterested in them.

Out of sight, out of mind.

A situation like that could even be the most satisfactory solution for her and Vivi. Cause least disruption. No conflict, no expectations and no recriminations.

At thirteen minutes to five she gave up expecting to be called that day, and peeled off her boots to rest her aching feet for a few minutes before the walk to the bus-stop. It was eleven minutes to knock-off when a tall, dark form appeared in their doorway. All talk and action around her ground to a halt as everyone in the office froze to attention. Lara looked up and her eyes collided with Alessandro’s.

From across the room a golden spark flared deep in his dark gaze and Lara felt an electric current frizzle the space between them and send a bolt of adrenaline zinging through her system.

‘Lara,’ Alessandro said. ‘Can you come?’

For a second she sat paralysed by his brilliant, black-lashed gaze, then, like a being under the power of an irresistible force, she rose. Somehow disentangling herself from her chair and desk, she felt his glance slide down her legs to her feet.

Ridiculously, heat rushed to her cheeks as she realised she was still in her stockings.

‘Oops,’ she muttered, hastily grabbing for her boots. Sitting down to drag them on, she noticed Alessandro stare, then make an austere attempt to avert his eyes as if the sight were somehow indecent.

For some reason, she felt a surge of sheer exhilaration.

Let the married man flinch from the sight of her naked feet. It was the closest he’d ever get to any part of her ever again, naked or otherwise.

CHAPTER THREE

FOR the second time that day, Alessandro opened his door and gestured her in. Lara passed through, careful not to brush him, although all the fine hairs on her body stood up as if she’d passed by the open door of a furnace.

She felt relieved to see that Donatuila was absent.

The office wasn’t very large, but for consultations with senior staff a space had been made over by the window for a cluster of armchairs.

After this morning’s episode, she waited to be invited to sit, but Alessandro stood still for a moment, studying her with a veiled gaze, his mouth stern. Despite her taut resolve, when his eyes flickered from her mouth to her breasts her flesh responded with a willingness that was shamefully sexual, considering he was now off-limits.

This time she restrained her instinctive need to touch him, understanding at last that the old feeling of intimacy was a fraud. Gone now, just a ghost, though his once beloved face was still so familiar, confusing her emotions and whizzing excitement around her veins in the old chaotic way.

The silence lengthened, and with it her suspense. Forced somehow to break it, she started in proudly, ‘Alessandro—’

He said quietly, ‘You’ve grown your hair. Otherwise you haven’t changed.’

Her hand made the involuntary flight to her nape. ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

He smiled for the first time, and it warmed his deep, dark eyes with the old devastating charm. ‘You’ll have to forgive me. I’m still a little jet-lagged. Of course, we have both changed. Please…’ He indicated a chair.

She sat down, so relieved he seemed to remember her now, and was still the gentle, courteous man she knew. She resolved to respond in the same manner. Perhaps his coolness earlier had just been the result of surprise.

He took the chair opposite and opened a Manilla folder with her name on it. Her heart was thudding in a ridiculous rhythm, and to subdue the faint trembling of her hands she had to curl them in her lap. His lean, beautiful hands, though, were cool and steady, their supple strength reminiscent of the pleasure they’d once delivered. Such pleasures.

She dragged her eyes away. ‘I couldn’t believe it when they told us it would be you.’

‘Couldn’t you? Were you disappointed?’

‘Disappointed? Well, of course not. I was just…just…’

‘Nervous?’ He gave an easy shrug. ‘Don’t worry. No need to defend yourself. This will be strictly business.’

The words struck a jarring note. She felt a rush of need to say something warm, to cut through the strangeness, but though he seemed relaxed, his movements smooth, something in his manner was controlled, as if a steel barrier resided beneath the polished surface.

She moistened her lips and glanced at her watch. ‘I can’t stay long. I have someone waiting.’

‘Ah.’ Though his voice was richly smooth, his eyes met hers with a penetration that cut through to her spinal cord. ‘We mustn’t let you keep anyone waiting.’

The corner of his mouth made a sardonic quirk, and she felt a stir of unease. Had there been a note of sarcasm there?

Alessandro lowered his gaze to her file, a tightening in his gut. Naturally, she would have someone waiting. Some unsuspecting clown. When hadn’t she? He could hardly ask her who the lucky guy was this time.

He scanned the meagre notes, the arid lack of information. There was nothing of interest in her file, beyond a Newtown address and a phone number.

Her address was 37 Roseleigh Avenue. What could that tell a man? No clues as to what she’d been doing in the last six years. And with whom. Whoever had been in charge of Human Resources in this tinpot little company deserved to be sacked.

He stared at the page, willing himself not to look at her, though her image blazed through his eyelids. Her face had the same delicacy, that deceptively fragile beauty. There would be fools unable to help themselves from drowning in those deep-blue-sea eyes. Salivating for a taste of her ripe, deliciously resilient lips. She’d never be without a man. He should know how easy it was to be sucked into her fantasy world. To plunge into it.

Into her.

It was a risk, perhaps he felt as affected by her presence as he had earlier, but he allowed himself to skim a glance over her, feeling his blood-beat quicken despite his iron control. Whether he wanted it or not, that chemical connection was still dangerously potent, and he was as sure as he was of his name that she felt it too.

Though apparently relaxed, there was a tautness in her posture that suggested she was alert to the vibrations. Whenever she looked at him, her eyes were aware, the pupils just a little dilated, a sparkle in the irises. Surely they were bluer?

He forced himself back to the page. ‘I see you started your job here in February.’

No doubt formality was the wisest approach, Lara thought, straining to interpret the signals. How could she have expected to fall into the same old easy-going way with him, after all that happened? Pity her body still didn’t seem to get it.

‘Yes, yes. That’s right.’

She fielded the enquiries about her projects, increasingly conscious of the super-charged electric current connecting her to him at that visceral level. It had been too long for her. She must try not to stare, not to obsess on his gorgeous bones as if he were still hers, although she couldn’t help noticing that his fingers were free of rings. Why? What had become of his wife? Or did he remove his wedding ring when he travelled?

She winced at the thought, then glanced at his face. Though his expression was shuttered, the grim line from cheekbone to shadow-roughened jaw discouraging, every instinct in her rose up against that possibility. Surely her perceptions of him six years ago couldn’t have been so far off-target. Seeing him now in the flesh, so stern and hard and true, it was hard to believe he was anything but the decent and honourable man she’d believed in.

There had to be an explanation about the ring. Perhaps he and his wife hadn’t exchanged them, though how likely was that? Giulia Morello was a socialite from a wealthy family, according to the magazine she’d read. It would surely be unusual for an Italian wife not to expect her husband to wear a ring.

As he questioned her about her work she examined him, drinking in the planes and hollows of his face, his cheekbones and strong black brows. She knew what it was like to kiss that mouth. Still so stirring to her starved imagination, the straight upper lip and slightly fuller lower lip were severely cut, and sensuous in a way that reminded her too well of times they had reduced her to quivering ecstasy.

She wondered if he felt the same hungry sense of possession she felt, as if her lips, her body should still belong to him, then felt ashamed of her wanton thoughts. Neither of them had a right to feel that way now.

Now that he had a wife.

‘You have no former editorial positions listed. What other work have you done to qualify you for your present job?’

There was sensuality in the brilliant dark eyes devouring her face. At one time she’d have found that so invigorating. Maybe she still did, though—could she be imagining it, or was there an edge of underlying turbulence? But what was it? Violence? Anger? And whose anger? Hers, or his?

‘Well, part-time work mainly, as an editorial assistant. Bill thought I had some rather good references from the publishing house where I started off. And I have done quite a lot of studies in literature. As you…as you might remember.’

She appealed to him with a smile, but he evaded it, lowering his gaze to hold her at a distance, as though any further mention of their former relationship was now forbidden. She supposed she should respect that, although he didn’t have to be so cold.

Even—hostile.

She hastened to fill the silence. ‘Bill seemed to think I was worth a chance with the children’s book list. He…’

He looked up, irony in his intelligent dark eyes. ‘He liked you.’ That sexy mouth hardened. His gaze flickered to her throat.

‘Well, yes.’ She found herself sounding almost defiant, as if there had been an accusation wrapped in the words. ‘I suppose he did.’

‘Of course. He would.’

Though politely said, it didn’t sound like a compliment. There was an uncomfortable pause, while she struggled to understand the implications. Was he suggesting that in some way she had cheated her way into Bill’s good graces?

She felt as if the Alessandro she’d known was behind a barrier, as smooth and hard and slippery as glass. In an effort to reach him, she leaned forward a little, smiling and opening her hands in appeal. ‘Look, Alessandro… It feels so strange, talking to you like this when we know—knew each other so well. How—how have you been?’

He raised his glittering black gaze to her. ‘I think it would be best if you could forget our brief personal acquaintance. It’s ancient history now. My task is to reform your company into a viable asset for Scala Enterprises. I prefer to focus on that.’

She recoiled as if from a slap. She bit her lip, and the blood came rushing up to her cheeks. ‘Oh, right. Of course. Absolutely. If—that’s what you want.’

Ancient history. Was that all she was to him? Why was he being so cold? Had he heard something about her? Or…was it something from the past? The remote possibility she’d occasionally entertained sprang into her mind, though surely not. He wouldn’t have. Over and over she’d rationalised that likelihood out of contention.

He wouldn’t have flown back because he’d never been serious about her. Five minutes after saying goodbye he’d married someone else.

She tried to read his face. ‘Alessandro, is there something I’m not getting? I mean, I know it’s a bit awkward us working temporarily in the same place, but it doesn’t have to be a problem, does it? Surely we can…put aside…’

His black gaze flicked up to laser into hers for a long suspenseful second, then his mouth edged into an enigmatic smile. ‘Our old liaison? Sure we can.’ He made a lazy gesture with one lean, bronzed hand. ‘Consider it never happened.’ The dark eyes dwelling on her face were veiled, their lids heavy. ‘As far as I am concerned, there was no summer idyll between lovers. No long afternoons of passion.’ His glance drifted to her mouth. ‘No lingering kisses, seducing our senses until we were drunk with each other. Forget that your lips ever touched mine.’ He grimaced. ‘Frankly, it’s a relief to hear you take such a sensible attitude. Viewed in hindsight, these things often appear to have had a magic that is, in fact, deceiving. The most intelligent course for us now is to regard each other as strangers.’

‘Strangers!’ She flushed, warmed by the involuntary stirring of her body at his reference to those long afternoons, the kisses, at the same time hurt by the casual dismissal of the most passionate, the most heartfelt love she’d ever experienced with a man.

To be honest, the only love.

‘I’m not sure I’ll ever be that sophisticated. I don’t think I can regard you as a stranger.’ She added very sweetly, ‘Though, of course, I’m not the one who got married.’

His thick black lashes swept down. There was a small, smouldering silence, as if a volcano brooded in some subterranean vault. As she waited for him to respond she observed his sexy mouth harden.

When he looked at her his black eyes were hard as jet.

‘I think you are understating your ability to move on, Lara,’ he said, his accent all at once very evident in his quiet, icy voice. ‘However, much as I would love to dwell on the enchantments of undressing you in some long-ago hotel room, I have a mountain of work to get through.’ As though unaware of her sharp intake of breath, he gave the file a little shake. ‘So?’ He lifted an aristocratic eyebrow to chivvy her along. ‘Can we leave our personal issues aside? Shall we continue?’

His imperious tone set her hackles bristling. Was this the man she’d fallen in love with? She sat stiffly, her muscles clenched, and smouldered with resentment.

He cast her a veiled glance, then carried smoothly on.

‘There’s one thing that strikes me. I am curious. You have been with this company a short time, yet when last we met you were well on your way to an illustrious career in publishing. What have you been doing with your—impressive talents, apart from this part-time work as an assistant?’

That infinitesimal pause. The way he’d flicked down his eyelids on the word impressive. There had definitely been sarcasm there. She felt a surge of anger as an exquisite small face with big dark eyes, long luxuriant lashes and a halo of dusky curls rose before her.

Here it was. The moment of truth. The point to which all the tortuous pathways of her life had so far conspired to bring her.

Unfortunately, the moment hardly felt ripe.

She sat back and examined him. The Marquis of the Minor Venetian Isles was not the charming man she remembered. He was an icy, mocking, work-obsessed autocrat. Did he even deserve to hear what she could tell him, if she had a mind to?

She folded her arms under her breasts and smiled coldly. ‘I don’t want to bore you with the details of my little life, Alessandro. The truth is, I suspect that what I’ve been doing is probably too personal an issue to interest you. Suffice it to say I’ve done other things besides work in publishing.’

He narrowed his gaze to study her through his long lashes. ‘There’s no need to be defensive, Larissa.’

‘Isn’t there?’ She wiped her smile, leaned forward and said in a low, trembling voice, ‘You know, you aren’t the man I remember.’

His brows shot up. ‘No? Who do you remember?’

‘Someone else. Someone—kind.’

His eyes glinted, but his expression remained hard and implacable, though she noticed a tiny vein jump in his temple. ‘Whereas you, on the other hand, are exactly as I remember.’ He added softly, ‘To my regret.’

She gasped. ‘Fine.’ She gathered her bag, and, drawing her dignity around her, rose to her feet. ‘In that case, I won’t waste any more of your time.’

He sprang up as well, and to forestall him from opening the door for her and ruining her grand exit she turned quickly towards it. He must have lunged at the same time, for somehow his ankle hooked around hers, and their bodies entangled in an electrifying physical collision. It was like flint striking flint. At the points of contact at hip and thigh a high-voltage shock sped through her flesh, while the sudden blaze that flared in his dark eyes gave her a sensation of being showered in hot sparks.

Intensely aware of his arms whipping around to steady her, her deprived senses surged to the friction of his long, muscular thighs grazing hers, his evocative masculine scent and the strength of his big, iron-hard frame.

His hands slid to her upper arms, and he held her against him for a breathtaking moment that stretched into infinity.

‘Careful, now.’ His deep voice was a growl.

She was almost preternaturally conscious of the raw proximity of the hard body beneath the clothes brushing hers. Her mouth dried as her glance slid to his lips, and somehow those fire sparks in his eyes and voice must have crept under her skin, because she felt shaken all over.

Shaken and stirred.

Then abruptly, almost as if at some urgent signal, at the exact same instant they thrust each other away. She was left feeling giddy and disturbed, with a wild tingling in her breasts as though all her aroused blood cells were unwilling to lie down again.

‘So sorry,’ he said, a rasp in his voice. ‘I don’t know how that happened.’ For a second his eyes were agleam as though he was about to say something more, but the nuance quickly vanished.

She pulled herself together and made for the door, then hesitated with her hand on the handle. His attitude about their past relationship had been so—negative, so repressive. But did she have to allow him the last word?

She turned proudly to face him.

He was back at his desk, tidying files and placing them in his briefcase.

‘Alessandro?’ That brush with him had given her voice an unwelcome huskiness.

He paused to glance up at her, one querying brow raised.

‘There is something I need—to ask you. Something I need to get straight.’

‘Si?’ His eyes sharpened.

‘Do you remember the pact?’

He stilled. For a full second it was as though his big frame had been snap frozen, and she had the scary sensation of having blundered onto a live mine. For a second his lean, handsome face might have been carved from ice.

Her heart began to tremble as his eyes narrowed on her face with a hard intensity.

‘Pact?’

‘The pact we made.’

His expression didn’t change, but she was so sorry she’d mentioned it. How could she have offered it up for re-inspection in this hostile climate? But he was waiting now, and she felt condemned to plough on.

‘You know,’ she persevered in a breathless voice. ‘When you had to go back to finish your studies at Harvard. The deal—that if we still felt the same way…’ It was so embarrassing now, having to refer to their former feelings. ‘If we thought there was a chance of us still—wanting to—be together, we’d meet in six weeks at the top of the Centrepoint Tower.’

He glanced down at the floor, a sardonic quirk to his mouth as if there were something nasty on the rug, then he looked up, his glittering eyes narrowed. ‘Remind me. What was my part in this deal?’

‘You—you agreed to fly back from Harvard in your mid-semester break.’

He considered her in silence, his eyes veiled, then his lashes drifted down. ‘And your part was…?’

‘Oh, well…’ In truth, from a travel perspective she had always been shamefaced about the lightness of her end of the pact. From a certain angle, it could have looked to outsiders as though her sincerity was above reproach, whereas his…

Her lips dried with discomfort. ‘I—I was to meet you there. Travel down from Bindinong.’

He strolled around to the front of the desk and leaned his big frame on the edge, his arms folded across his powerful chest, brows lifted.

‘All the way from Bindinong?’ he drawled softly, with a mockery that made her insides squirm. ‘Sacramento, I think it’s clear who had the easier end of this deal.’ There was a flash of something she couldn’t interpret in the depths of those black eyes.

She wished she’d never brought it up. Certainly, Bindinong in the Blue Mountains wasn’t that far from Sydney. When she’d lived there with her parents it had only been a ninety-minute train trip. Not quite as far as Harvard. Viewed now from the vantage point of maturity, the whole thing made the younger Lara Meadows look like some dewy-eyed tyrant, willing to put a man through hell to prove himself.

She made a small gesture of appeal. ‘I know, I know it sounds unlikely from this distance, but at the time we both believed… We sincerely felt… Don’t you remember?’ As she tried to interpret his expression she felt herself growing hot. ‘There were good reasons to make sure. You wanted me to go away with you—well, that’s what you said—and I was young. I’d never travelled overseas, away from my parents. I was unsure, understandably, of risking everything for…’

‘For me, apparently,’ he said with a derisive lilt of his eyebrows.

It shook her, that he’d think of it, of her, in that hard way, then she started to see how the pact might have looked through his eyes, and felt all her doubts rise to the surface.

‘And tell me…whose idea was it?’ he continued the ruthless pressure. ‘This—pact?’

He nearly spat the word. His uncharacteristic cynicism gave her a shock. Anyone would think she’d behaved badly. She had a flash of herself as acting like some capricious princess in a mediaeval fairy tale, setting endurance tests for her suitors.

So all right, he had been reluctant at first to agree, but he’d come to appreciate her reservations, and he had agreed. Heavens, who could expect a woman to just toss everything up and plunge into life with a man on just three weeks’ acquaintance, without taking some time to think?

In the end, he’d seen the wisdom of her small delay, and his acceptance of the pact had been as wholehearted and sincere as her own. Well, it had seemed so at the time. She had to keep reminding herself that it had all been a sham on his part. To look at him now, though, you would hardly think so, his expression was so hard and unforgiving.

‘Well?’ he queried.

‘Oh, well…’ What was this, the Spanish Inquisition? She could see by his stern mouth and the set of his handsome jaw that he wasn’t about to admit to remembering it. ‘Look, forget it. Just forget it. This clearly isn’t the time.’

She made a move towards the door, but rocked to a halt when he said, ‘So tell me, Lara Meadows. Did you? Keep your end of the deal?’

There was mockery in his voice and it caught her on the raw. She swung round to face him. His dark eyes were shimmering with a sardonic, enigmatic light.

‘No. No, I didn’t,’ she said, anger welling in her at being mocked for what was, in fact, the tragedy of her life. ‘And neither did you, or you’d have known

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