Книга - The Italian Tycoon’s Mistress

The Italian Tycoon's Mistress
CATHY WILLIAMS


Top tycoon Rocco Losi is legendary for being arrogant and demanding!When he takes over Losi Construction, he confirms his reputation by trying to sack Amy Hogan! But Rocco's presumption that Amy will leave quietly is challenged–by Amy!Who is this little spitfire who thinks she can outargue him. . . and turn him on? Maybe he'll keep Amy on after all– as his employee and his mistress!










THE BOSS’S MISTRESS

Out of the office…and into his bed


These ruthless, powerful men are used to

having their own way at the office.

And with their mistresses,

they’re also boss in the bedroom!




Don’t miss any of our

fantastic stories this month:


The Italian Tycoon’s Mistress

by Cathy Williams #13

Ruthless Boss, Hired Wife

by Kate Hewitt #14

In the Tycoon’s Bed

by Kathryn Ross #15

The Rich Man’s Reluctant Mistress

by Margaret Mayo #16

Only in Harlequin Presents EXTRA!


CATHY WILLIAMS was born in the West Indies and has been writing Harlequin romances for some fifteen years. She is a great believer in the power of perseverance, as she had never written anything before (apart from school essays a lifetime ago!), and from the starting point of zero has now fulfilled her ambition to pursue this most enjoyable of careers. She would encourage any would-be writer to have faith and go for it! She lives in the beautiful Warwickshire countryside with her husband and three children, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma. When not writing she is hard-pressed to find a moment’s free time in between the millions of household chores, not to mention being a one-woman taxi service for her daughters’ never-ending social lives. She derives inspiration from the hot, lazy, tropical island of Trinidad (where she was born), from the peaceful countryside of middle England and, of course, from her many friends, who are a rich source of plots and are particularly garrulous when it comes to describing Harlequin heroes. It would seem from their complaints, that tall, dark and charismatic men are way too few and far between! Her hope is to continue writing romance fiction and providing those eternal tales of love for which, she feels, we all strive.




THE ITALIAN TYCOON’S MISTRESS

CATHY WILLIAMS







TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON

AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG

STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID

PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN



THE ITALIAN TYCOON’S MISTRESS




CHAPTER ONE


‘WHAT’S this?’

It wasn’t so much of a question as a demand for an immediate explanation. The past two days had been regularly punctuated by such demands, thinly veiled as polite enquiries. Rocco Losi had descended into the cosy feather bed of Losi Construction like a panther leaping into a gathering of easy prey, intent on a kill.

Richard Newton glanced worriedly to where one long brown finger was pointing at a small entry on the printout and sighed.

‘That’s one of the subsids,’ he explained, leaning forward to peer at the entry and then subsiding back into his chair with a feeling of doom.

‘One of the subsids. Where’s the paperwork relating to this particular subsid?’ Rocco pushed his chair back and coolly contemplated the fair-haired man who seemed to be caught in a state of nervous agitation.

This exercise was proving to be a nightmare from hell and, as far as Rocco was concerned, the level of the executives only helped to aid and abet the impression. It was a marvel that his father’s company managed to make the profits it did considering that a great majority of the chief executives were of the old-fashioned, jocular, verging-on-retirement type. Richard Newton, the accounts manager now perspiring in front of him, was one of the younger members of management and Rocco would hardly have called him cutting edge. In fact, the man wouldn’t have lasted more than five seconds in his own corporate giant where dead wood was shed and under-performers were left in no doubt of their eventual fate, should change not be forthcoming.

But then the cut and thrust of life in New York’s fast lane was considerably more savage than here, in Shakespeare’s County.

Rocco placed his hands flatly on the surface of his father’s desk and enunciated his next few words with grim, measured brutality.

‘Listen to me very carefully, Mr Newton. I don’t want to be here. I have been compelled to leave my offices in New York because of events which have left me no choice. However, I am here now and I don’t intend to give you all a perfunctory pat on the back and leave you to muddle along the way you appear to have always muddled along. I do not expect to have to ask any questions because I expect all the information I require on my father’s company to be right here. In this room. Sitting on this desk. Waiting for me to look at. Do I make myself absolutely clear?’

Rocco Losi watched the man sitting opposite him nod weakly and felt not a scrap of compassion. He wasn’t here to get a popularity award or to make friends. He was here to temporarily take charge of his father’s company so that public confidence in it could be maintained until such time as he could depart these shores back to the city that had been his home for over ten years.

Nor was he prepared to do a surface job. That wasn’t his style. He had come, albeit against his will, and he intended to turn over whatever stones were necessary to make sure that Losi Construction was performing to its highest possible level.

The file had been fetched and placed in front of him. Without bothering to look at him, Rocco informed Richard Newton that he was to remain precisely where he was until he had answered all questions to his personal satisfaction.

He took his time with the file, barely aware of the man patiently waiting for him to finish, then he sat back and looked at Richard Newton in silence for a few seconds.

‘Explain to me where this particular subsidiary fits in with the general profit-making scheme of the company.’ He linked his fingers casually together and waited. He had always felt that people, generally, underestimated the great virtue of silence. In his experience, there was nothing more persuasive when it came to getting a truthful answer than silence. It could be unnerving and quite deadly.

‘Ah. Yes, well…your father makes a healthy profit with his company. It’s one of the most respected building firms in the area, you know. And with the boom in housing over the years, with no end in sight, well, as you can see from the general spreadsheets, things are doing quite nicely. More than quite nicely.’

Rocco watched this inexpert evasion of his question with hooded eyes. Nor did he encourage the meandering by saying a word. Instead, he glanced at his watch, then returned his attention to Richard Newton’s flushed face.

‘As for where it fits in with the profit-making…well…it doesn’t. Not really. You probably don’t understand how things work out here, Mr Losi. I mean, you’re accustomed to a more aggressive type of environment, I guess…’

‘I’m looking for an answer in one sentence, Mr Newton. You are the chief accountant. Surely it cannot be that difficult.’

‘This particular subsidiary is the goodwill arm of the firm, so to speak. Amy Hogan looks after it. You could say that she handles the equivalent of legal pro bono work. Your father was, is, very keen on the idea of giving back. Of course, Amy does handle profit-making work as well…’

Rocco frowned. ‘I thought I had met all the relevant personnel. The name rings no bells.’

‘That’s because she doesn’t exactly work in this building. She has an office closer to Birmingham because she’s on the move a lot of the time, overseeing things in the city centre.’

‘What is her position in the company?’

‘She’s…well, one of the executives…’

‘I believe I asked to interview all the executives.’

‘Ah. Yes. You did. But she couldn’t make it in yesterday…’

‘Because…?’ Rocco’s voice was ominous in its smoothness. ‘Severe ill health, perhaps? Or was she out of the country?’

For a few seconds, Richard Newton seriously debated going for the severe ill health option. ‘She said she was busy.’

‘She. Said. She. Was. Busy.’ Rocco was finding it a little difficult to believe his ears. He had made his orders perfectly clear from the very first moment he had stepped foot in the company. He was so accustomed to having his orders obeyed without question, and usually at the speed of light, that the idea of someone casually ignoring them because she was busy was very nearly beyond the realm of his understanding.

‘Amy hardly ever stops!’ Richard elaborated in a desperate attempt to avert the equivalent of a missile homing in ruthlessly onto its target, judging from the expression on Rocco’s face. ‘And right now she’s working on a particularly big project…’

‘Would that be a particularly big non-profit-making project, by any chance?’

‘Community centre on a sink estate in the city centre,’ was the mumbled response.

Rocco felt his tightly reined-in patience begin to unravel. This was a highly unusual occurrence. In that rarefied place that he inhabited, where power and influence afforded him the luxury of utter self-assurance, stumbling blocks were things that he tackled with utmost cool. Hitches in multimillion-dollar deals did not rouse his impatience, merely his professional curiosity and intellectual interest. They cropped up occasionally and more often than not he simply sorted them out with his usual unerring precision.

The thought of some minor middle-management woman deliberately choosing to ignore his summons because she basically couldn’t be bothered made him grit his teeth together in rising rage.

He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. ‘Here is a little job for you, Mr Newton. You telephone Miss Hogan as soon as you walk out of this office and inform her that I will be paying her a little visit this afternoon. I will expect her to be waiting for me in her office, however busy she is, at precisely three o’clock. If she is not there, feel free to assure her that her head will most definitely be on the block.’

Richard Newton opened his mouth to state that dismissals of executives were taken to the board of directors, and closed his mouth before he could utter a word. This man did not play by the usual rules. He was a law unto himself and the gentlemanly codes of behaviour that had operated within the hallowed walls of Losi Construction would be brushed aside as minor irritations. He nodded and exited the room with a feeling of deep relief, leaving Rocco to broodingly ponder yet something else to deal with that he had not foreseen.

If he and his father had had any sort of ongoing communication between them, he would have arrived here with some expectation of what he was going to find. As it was, the feud that had driven him to make his fortune on the other side of the Atlantic meant that he had arrived in England with no knowledge of how his father’s company operated or even whether it was successful or not.

He raked his fingers through his hair and buzzed his secretary in to arrange a driver to take him to wherever the Hogan woman’s office was in the city centre. Then he proceeded to spend the remainder of the morning going through profit-and-loss columns, summoning up information on the computer, while maintaining contact with his own offices across the Atlantic via his own laptop computer.

He only broke off at two when he was interrupted by his secretary informing him that his driver was ready.

He didn’t know what he had expected to find. Losi Construction was located on the outskirts of Stratford and was housed in an old period building that reeked of Old World elegance. It was as far removed from his own super-modern, innovative glass building in the heart of New York as chalk was from cheese.

At the back of his mind, he expected to find an office on a similar but smaller scale. Something Victorian, perhaps, with the high ceilings and understated elegance that he remembered from way back.

He was slightly taken aback when, after a slow drive out of the country into the myriad cluttered streets of the city, the driver finally pulled up outside something small, concrete and tacked onto a newsagent’s in a parade of fairly disreputable-looking shops.

‘Are you sure you have got the right place?’ Rocco eyed the dodgy front with a frown. A little gang of youths was loitering in front of the off-licence, obviously having nothing better to do on a brilliant summer day than hang out in a threatening fashion.

‘Of course, sir. I have often come to fetch Miss Hogan when her car is out of action.’

‘A frequent occurrence, is it?’

‘She’s very fond of that little Mini,’ Edward said neutrally, ‘even though it plays up from time to time.’

Rocco grunted, barely hearing this piece of uninvited information. He pushed open the car door and slung his long, powerful body out, then he leant down to prop himself against the window. ‘I will call you when I’m ready to be collected.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Which, Rocco figured, would be in under an hour. He had no intention of going over any books with the woman. That could be done in the comfort of his father’s office. No. He would simply prepare her for the possibility that all this community housing rubbish would come to a swift end should his father be unable to return to active work, leaving Rocco to take over to his satisfaction before he departed for New York. If the company wanted to donate to charitable causes, there were ways and means of doing just that, which would additionally bring in tax relief on the donations. Time, energy and manpower were to be spent on the profitable side of the business. Losi Construction was not an unofficial branch of the Samaritans.

With that objective firmly in his mind, Rocco pushed open the door to the office and stepped into a world he had not visited for a very long time indeed. The world of cheap furniture, threadbare carpets and seeming chaos. There was no reception area. Five desks were crammed into a room roughly half the size of his own office in New York and one entire wall was dominated by an intricate map of a housing estate, from an aerial view. Grimy windows had been flung open to allow some fresh air in and an overhead fan threatened to wreak havoc on any paperwork that wasn’t securely weighted down.

In this alarmingly basic atmosphere work was, however, going on, although it immediately stopped the minute he walked in, with five pairs of eyes focusing on him with unconcealed interest. Three men and two women, all in their twenties. Two of the men wore their hair scraped back into ponytails and conversely the women had short cropped hairdos.

‘I am looking for an Amy Hogan,’ Rocco said, moving forward so that several more details in the room sprang into unfortunate prominence. Such as the notice-board propped against the wall at the back, with messages tacked over every square centimetre of its surface, the wire bins most of which were full, and a box of tools whose purpose he could only guess at.

‘In the back.’ One of the lads stepped forward and eyed Rocco suspiciously, putting out one hand when Rocco tried to head in the mentioned direction. ‘Whoa! Where do you think you’re going, mate?’

‘I am here to see Miss Hogan.’

‘And you are…?’

‘Rocco Losi.’

The hand dropped and there was a heightened sense of interest now.

‘I have an appointment with Miss Hogan, in case she hasn’t mentioned it.’

‘Nope. She hasn’t. How’s your dad doing? Name’s Freddy, by the way, mate. Soz about the lack of welcome mate, but you can’t be too careful in these parts.’ Freddy held out his hand, which was surprisingly firm when Rocco shook it.

‘Off-licence was broken into a fortnight ago,’ one of the cropped-haired women interjected. ‘Three men just broke through the plate glass and hauled as much as they could, as cool as you like, never mind the alarm bells.’

‘Took the coppers a good ten minutes to get here…’

‘By which time, they’d scarpered…’

‘Old Mr Singh was pretty shaken up about it…’

‘I see you’ve met my staff.’ The voice was low, husky and threaded with amusement. Rocco looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway, dressed in the same casual style as everyone else seemed to be: jeans and a stripy teeshirt, with a pair of trainers. ‘I’m Amy Hogan and you must be Antonio’s son.’

The softening in her voice when she mentioned his father’s name stirred something inside him and Rocco met her open smile with a gritted one of his own. Five feet four, if that, straight brown hair, wide-spaced brown eyes, sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of a short, straight nose.

What, he wondered, had possessed his father to employ someone who looked so young to handle sums of money that a good many would baulk at? To fling about at her own discretion? A community centre here, a refuge there, a park somewhere else…?

He hadn’t actually seen her CV, but now that he had laid eyes on her he decided that he’d better check her credentials.

‘Perhaps we could go somewhere private for a talk,’ Rocco said, moving towards her.

‘My office is just at the back.’ God, he was tall. Amy could feel herself craning up to look at him. Tall and so incredibly good-looking that she had to wrench her eyes away or risk staring shamelessly. He was olive-skinned, with black hair and eyes so piercingly blue that even when she had looked past him she could still feel them boring into her.

Richard hadn’t told her what he looked like. She wished she had asked, so that she wouldn’t now be standing here, gaping.

Fortunately, he had told her everything else about him, paying particular attention to his arrogance, not that she could have missed it. It was stamped all over him like a handprint.

She plastered her brightest smile on her face. ‘Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Actually, scrap the coffee. We ran out a couple of days ago and no one’s got around to replacing it. So that’s tea or water.’

‘I’m fine. I’m just here for a little…chat…and then I will be on my way.’

Amy shrugged and led the way to her office, which was just another room, smaller than the first but in a similarly worn state. However, it did contain a desk, behind which she moved to sit, and a couple of chairs, one of which she indicated to Rocco.

He seemed to dwarf the room. It was an illusion, of course, but it was still unsettling. Something about the unhurried way he looked around him before finally settling his attention on her rattled her. Surprising because, in the sort of work she did, she came into contact with men who were really a lot more unsettling than Rocco Losi.

‘What can I do for you?’ Amy asked, smilingly polite although the smile was in danger of wearing a bit thin.

‘I believe I asked to see you at my father’s offices yesterday?’

‘I know. Sorry about that but I was really very busy and I just couldn’t find the time to get away. How is your father doing? We were all really worried when he was taken ill with pneumonia. He told me that he was just a little run-down. It was a complete shock to learn that he’d been taken into hospital. I’ve tried to get in to see him every day, but he was still so weak that I don’t think my presence there did much good at all.’

‘Let us get one thing straight, Miss Hogan. I am here for absolutely the least amount of time possible. In the time that I am here, I expect cooperation from every member of my father’s staff. That includes yourself, however distant your outpost appears to be.’

Amy stopped smiling and met his stare with one of her own. ‘Please accept my apologies. Now, perhaps you would like to tell me what I can do for you.’ Richard had been vague but ominous on the matter of Rocco’s visit and she hadn’t pressed him, assuming that he just wanted a quick run-down of the projects they had recently worked on and were currently undertaking. She was becoming uneasily aware that her blithe optimism might have been a tad misplaced.

‘What you can do for me is to tell me what your credentials are.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Your credentials.’

‘Is that really necessary?’ she asked, flushing under the cold, unwavering stare. ‘Antonio has always trusted me…’

‘My father is not running this company at the moment. I am. As things stand, there is a chance he may not be sufficiently fit to return to work, in which case it is my duty to take the company in hand and get it running the way I see fit before I leave this country.’ Despite the whirring of a fan that was poised perilously on top of one of the gun-metal-grey filing cabinets, the room was like an oven and Rocco pushed up the sleeves of his shirt. How these people could work in here was beyond him. His first summer in New York, before he had begun his meteoric rise, had been spent in a box like this. One bedroom, a tiny bathroom, a kitchen and the heat pouring through inadequate windows like treacle. Ten years on, his memories of such discomfort were blessedly dim. Now, his apartment was plush, air-conditioned throughout to cope with the soaring temperatures in summer, and a testimony to what top designers could do when money was no object.

‘What does that have to do with my credentials, Mr Losi?’ Amy asked coolly.

On the verge of snapping, Rocco leaned forward and subjected her to the full force of his overpowering personality. ‘To be blunt, Miss Hogan, I’ll tell you what I have found since coming here. I have found a company that is successful more through default than strategy. The construction business is booming and my father happens to have cornered the market simply because Losi Construction has been around for a very long time and has consequently benefited from its reputation. The directors seem content to sit around and accept this happy state of affairs without questioning the possibility that other, more aggressive firms might creep up to challenge their monopoly of the market. It doesn’t take a financial wizard to spot the flaws in this way of thinking. Added to this, I find substantial sums of money being flung in the direction of a kid so that she can play at being a charity worker.’

‘A kid? Playing at being a charity worker? Would you be talking about me, Mr Losi?’

‘Very perceptive.’ Rocco lounged back in his chair and looked at her with cool indifference. Her brain seemed sharp enough but she was still a kid of, what…nineteen? Twenty? No make-up whatsoever. He was accustomed to dealing with women in business and was similarly accustomed to the power suits and the face paint.

‘I happen to be twenty-six years old, not that it’s any of your business…’

‘Oh, but that’s where you are wrong. It is my business. At least at this point in time. I am now your boss and, as your boss, I would be very interested in knowing what experience you have that qualifies you to deal with the sums of money you have been dealing with. Who is your immediate boss?’

‘My immediate boss has always been your father!’

‘So you’re telling me that you have free rein to do whatever you like, build whatever bijou shelters for the homeless that you want and what…? Casually mention it to my father? Run it by him at the odd meeting when you can find the time?’

Amy felt a rush of angry blood to her head. This was beyond arrogance, but she was caught between a rock and a hard place. There was no way that she could throw him out of her office because he was, as he had made sure to point out, her boss for the time being and, more chillingly, might well be her boss for rather longer if Antonio somehow found himself having to take early retirement. Antonio was now in his seventies and the doctor had told her that the pneumonia might be far more debilitating at his age than it would have been had he been younger, especially when his angina was taken into consideration.

‘I resent your implication that this outfit lacks professionalism!’

‘Now why on earth would I be tempted to imply that?’ Rocco looked around him pointedly. At the grimy walls of the office, the tattered carpet, the cheap bookshelves groaning under the weight of law and land management books.

‘You, Mr Losi, are an extremely offensive person,’ Amy said through gritted teeth and was rewarded with a thunderous frown.

‘I will choose to ignore that observation.’

‘And, furthermore, the state of my office has nothing to do with the quality of my work! Or maybe things work differently in New York?’

Rocco could hardly believe his ears. Just who did this pip-squeak think she was? The brown almond-shaped eyes were glittering with anger and it took some effort to call upon his formidable self-control. That, in itself, was a novel experience.

‘I think we’re getting off the point here, Miss Hogan.’ His voice was cold and measured. ‘In order of priority, I want to see your credentials, look in detail at this project you are working on and have a run-down of the cost. Additionally, I want to have a report from you on my desk by tomorrow morning, covering all the money that has been spent over the past two years on non-profit-making schemes and the few you have done that have actually benefited the company.’

Amy gaped and then laughed out loud. ‘I’m afraid that just won’t be possible.’

‘Sorry. I don’t believe I just heard that.’

‘There’s no way I can do all that in time for tomorrow morning. Richard should have all that information anyway. Now, was there anything else?’ Okay, so she was reacting, allowing the man to get to her, but she couldn’t help herself. She stood up and stretched out her hand in dismissal. Rocco looked at the outstretched hand coolly and didn’t budge.

‘Sit back down, Miss Hogan. I’m not nearly through with you.’

‘I could have that information to you by the end of the week,’ she said, resuming her seat and looking with deep loathing at the man calmly sitting opposite her.

‘You say you’re twenty-six.’ Rocco crossed his legs and ignored the olive branch she had extended. His allotted time to be spent here had come and gone and he realised that he was rather enjoying this clash of intellect and personality. To his mild surprise. ‘Which means you’ve been working for Losi Construction for what…? Four years…? You must have certainly made your presence felt quite strongly in a short space of time to have warranted the heady climb you’ve enjoyed.’

‘Ten years,’ Amy admitted grudgingly.

‘Ten years? That doesn’t add up.’

‘Doesn’t add up to what?’

‘To you leaving university.’

The silence stretched interminably. ‘I didn’t go to university, Mr Losi. I joined your father’s firm straight from school.’

Rocco couldn’t have looked more stunned if she had announced that she had been raised by a pack of wolves in Africa.

‘Not everyone gets the chance to go to university!’ Amy snapped defensively. ‘It’s a privilege, not a right.’ She couldn’t withstand the direct look in those piercing blue eyes and she lowered hers so that she could stare at the tip of a letter propped up on the desk.

‘You mean your grades were insufficient to get you into sixth form?’

‘I mean, Mr Losi—’ she drew in a deep breath and shot him a quick glance from under her lashes ‘—that my mother died when I was young and I was brought up single-handedly by my father. He developed Alzheimer’s when I was fourteen, and by the time I was sixteen I had no choice but to let the social services find somewhere for him to live. I finished my exams but I couldn’t continue my studies. I got a job working with your father and was lucky enough to be able to stay with a foster family until I was old enough to move out and find somewhere to rent. I would have loved to have been able to continue on at school and to have gone to university, but I could barely manage with Dad at home. I didn’t have a choice.’ She fiddled with the pen on her desk, knowing that he was staring at her. This was his big chance now, she thought bitterly. She had no credentials, no degree in a useful subject.

‘Right. So your credentials rest entirely on experience.’

‘As a clerk. Then as your father’s assistant. We worked together to build up a scheme to help the community and eventually I was given responsibility for managing it on my own.’

‘I see.’ Rocco felt himself grapple in unfamiliar territory. ‘And where…is your father now?’

‘He died two years ago.’ It would never stop hurting to talk about it, which was why she never did. ‘It was a blessing. He was very confused towards the end. He couldn’t remember who I was, kept getting me mixed up with Mum. So. There you have it.’ He had dragged this out of her and she hated him for it. ‘Would you like me to have this all typed up and on your desk as well? My life history?’

Rocco flushed darkly. ‘There is no need for sarcasm.’

‘Oh, was I being sarcastic?’ She clung with relief to her need to attack. ‘I thought I was just obeying your instructions.’

‘My father trusted you and naturally I will give you credit for that trust.’ He shrugged and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. ‘However sympathetic I am towards the hardships that propelled you out of school prematurely and into the working environment, that does not mean that the sums of money being spent on charitable causes should remain unchecked. I am here to run a business and the first rule of business is that a company survives only if it makes money.’

‘I realise that,’ Amy said impatiently.

‘Do you?’ He sat back, once again comfortable with his persona. He had left England with nothing and climbed his way up solely on his own abilities. The value of making money had been embedded in him from the first moment he had begun working and living in New York.

‘Of course I do!’

‘In which case you will not mind me inspecting every penny that has been spent by your little outfit over the past two years.’

‘The information will be with you by the end of the week.’ And Lord only knew how he was going to react to the figures. He thought in black and white. No profit, no use. The concept of not making profit for the sake of returning to the community would be lost on him.

‘I don’t want it on my desk,’ Rocco said slowly.

‘But…’

‘I want you to bring it to me. Hand deliver the bad news, so to speak. That way we can go through it all together and you will be able to better understand why I intend to bring your cosy little office here to an end should I find myself having to linger here longer than I anticipate.’ He stood up, noticing that her face had drained of colour, and impatiently told himself that he was first and foremost a businessman. And not just any businessman. His shrewdness was legendary. How shrewd would he be if he allowed an unreasonable tug of compassion to undermine his ability to run a company?

‘Your father would never stand for it,’ Amy said confidently.

‘My father is in hospital, Miss Hogan, and the running of this company is entirely entrusted to me.’

‘Which is ludicrous, considering…’

‘Considering…what?’ Cold blue eyes narrowed threateningly. He stood up, all six feet two of dominant alpha male, and stared at her, waiting for an answer to a remark Amy knew she should never have made in the first place.

‘Considering…this is probably small potatoes to you,’ she improvised rapidly. ‘A bit dull, I imagine. You must do things differently over in New York and you might want to consider that when you start making your decisions.’ Considering, she thought to herself, that you’ve seen your father the grand total of four times in a decade. She knew that because Antonio had told her, because he had sheltered her under his wing and she had somehow become the child he had never really had.

‘Thank you so much for your advice,’ Rocco drawled, flicking on his mobile so that he could tell his driver to come for him. He tucked it into the pocket of his shirt and smiled coolly at her. ‘Though I rarely follow advice. I have usually found that it tends to be loaded and not necessarily in my favour.’ She looked down but he could feel her stewing, itching to fling him some caustic remark, and the enjoyment he had felt earlier kicked in him again.

‘Friday,’ he told her. ‘At my office. Bring the books and everything to do with whatever you’re working on at the moment and whatever you may happen to have in the pipeline. I’ll be waiting for you at three-thirty.’

Outside, the gang of teenage youths had dispersed, replaced by two girls with pushchairs who were chatting. They looked young enough to be at school. Around him, the scenery consisted of cluttered streets leading off the main road. Edward was there, waiting. He must have just gone around the corner for a cup of tea until Rocco called him.

Rocco didn’t immediately go to the car. He stood and carried on his leisurely inspection of the area, then he looked behind him to the office.

Nightmare though it was to be thrown into this situation, when he himself had his own extensive businesses to run, he had to admit that at least it wasn’t going to be boring.

They might all be scuttling around right now, whispering about him behind his back, but they would be very happy when he dragged the company into the twenty-first century and quadrupled the profits, which he was pretty certain he could do without a great deal of effort.

That was one of the most disillusioning things about life, he thought grimly. Money always ended up talking…




CHAPTER TWO


AMY made sure that she was at the headquarters well before the appointed time of three-thirty. She had had three days to consider the threat that Rocco’s presence posed and several missed hours of sleep to work out that the best way of dealing with the man was to creep around him as much as she was capable of doing. Shooting her mouth off and turning up late for their meeting through some misplaced urge to prove a point would bring his wrath hurtling down on her like a ton of bricks.

It didn’t help that she had been to see Antonio the day before, to find that the cocktail of antibiotics being fed into him was not working as efficiently as they had expected. He certainly couldn’t be asked pivotal questions regarding the company. In fact, he dozed on and off for the duration of her visit and she was rewarded, on the way out, by the depressing news from the consultant that Antonio would certainly remain in hospital for at least another three weeks, after which he would benefit from a recuperative break in Italy where his relatives could look after him and where the concerns of his business would not intrude on his recovery. Rocco had been making all the necessary phone calls to get things moving in that direction.

Which left a worst-case scenario, as far as Amy was concerned.

Rocco would take over and begin making his changes, and change one would be to exterminate her and her fellow members of staff.

Depressingly, the only person she felt she could possibly discuss this with was Antonio, who was not available for comment. Antonio had always been the first person she turned to with a problem, the only shoulder she had really ever cried on, and having him out of reach was a severe blow.

She half expected Rocco to keep her waiting, having read somewhere that this was an age-old ploy for establishing superiority, but she was shown directly into his office to find him sitting behind his father’s desk with a stack of files in front of him that looked depressingly familiar.

His face was unsmiling and as coldly handsome as she remembered. A face that would drive any portrait painter into the throes of excitement, with its perfect bone structure and harshly beautiful lines, but one that just filled her with dislike. She found his stunning eyes hard and forbidding and his emotional detachment radiated around him like a dangerous force field. It was difficult to maintain her self-composure when faced with this and when he nodded to the chair facing him, she sunk into it with relief.

‘You’re on time,’ he drawled, leaning back in the chair. ‘Amazing. I gather from your colleagues here that your timetables don’t often dovetail with everyone else’s.’

Amy ventured a polite smile. ‘It’s difficult when you’re working out in the field, Mr Losi. Sometimes, things have a tendency to overrun and, with the long drive out to Stratford, I can get behind schedule with meetings. I’ve brought the files you wanted.’ She reached down to her briefcase, snapped it open and extracted a clear window envelope bulging with various project notes.

Instead of reaching over for them, Rocco didn’t move a muscle.

‘Bad news for you, I’m afraid, Miss Hogan.’ He tapped softly on the arm of his chair with one finger and continued looking at her with those incredible, shuttered blue eyes. ‘Although I suspect you already know what’s coming if you have been to visit my father.’

‘I think it’s excellent news if you’re talking about the doctor’s suggestion that he go to Italy to recuperate.’ Keep it upbeat, she thought. Don’t let him register any trepidation because Rocco Losi would be onto it like a shark scenting blood. Of course, he could do as he liked and no doubt would, but she wouldn’t give up without a fight and she certainly wouldn’t abandon her dignity in the process. ‘You have no idea how hard he’s been working over the past couple of years. He’s due for a rest, even if it’s not exactly in circumstances he could have foreseen.’

‘There was no necessity for him to be working flat out,’ Rocco said, not bothering to pull any punches. ‘Not if he had had members of staff on whom he could rely.’

‘I’m not about to be drawn on criticising anyone in this company,’ Amy told him. ‘Perhaps we should get down to the business of going through my files?’ Belatedly, she wondered whether she should have been a little less terse. Rocco Losi would have spent most of his adult life in a position of rising power, being fawned upon by people in the expectation that they might get something out of him. Men like him would be used to displays of subservience and would be conditioned to expect it. Putting him in his place wasn’t going to get her far, but then there was just so much ingratiating she was prepared to do. Criticising people who had supported her in the past was out of the question.

‘Oh, I have already had a preliminary look at some of the figures,’ Rocco said lazily. He sat forward and placed both elbows on the desk. ‘The last little project you did was cheap at a little over fifty thousand pounds, compared to the rest of your schemes…’

‘But only a small percentage of the total earnings of Losi Construction,’ Amy pointed out, stilling the nervous pounding inside her. ‘It was always agreed…’

‘I am so glad you used the past tense. Let me put you in the picture, Miss Hogan. I will be here for the next six months. Even when my father has fully recovered, it’s been recommended that he does not return to work full time. He will, naturally, remain in overall charge, but in name only. I will ensure that the company is running the way I want it to be before I go, in the capable hands of whomever I judge to be up to the job.’

‘Six months?’ Amy said weakly.

‘At least.’

‘Don’t you have other things to do? What about your company in New York? Shouldn’t you be rushing back there?’

‘Unlike this organisation, I can easily maintain links with my business concerns in America. I have people in place who are geared to assume responsibility in my absence. And there are such things as airplanes that can deliver me to America within hours if I need to be there.’

‘How very efficient.’

Rocco’s dark brows met in a frown. ‘Efficiency is the basis of a successful operation. Which brings me neatly to you.’ He relaxed back in his chair and proceeded to look at her very carefully.

‘I am extremely efficient at what I do.’

‘That’s as may be, but your level of efficiency isn’t really the crux of the matter here, is it? You’re supremely efficient at what you do. It’s simply that what you do brings no money into the company.’

‘There’s more to life than just making money.’ Two bright patches of angry colour had appeared on her cheeks and she found that she was leaning forward, her hands balled into fists. ‘I personally find it very sad when someone’s only focus in life is creating wealth. What do you do with all your money, Mr Losi? Stick it into bank accounts and then spend jolly evenings poring over your statements and patting yourself on the back at what a clever boy you’ve been?’

Rocco looked at the earnest face glaring stubbornly at him and felt it again. That sudden rush of invigoration. It was like tasting something powerfully addictive that he hadn’t tasted in a long time, not since he’d been building up his career, when the doubts had been balanced equally with the self-assurance. Success had become an assumption for him and successful men, he had discovered, invariably became surrounded by like-minded individuals, people whose sights were firmly set in the same direction. No one contradicted him because his vast power and influence rendered him virtually untouchable.

‘Oh, I can think of infinitely more interesting ways of spending an evening,’ he drawled, perversely enjoying the delicate flush that invaded her face as she cottoned on to the exact meaning of what he had said.

The sexual innuendo, leaping out of nowhere, crashed into Amy like a runaway freight train. For a few seconds her imagination took dangerous flight and painted pictures that she had to force herself to push away. He really was a stunningly attractive male, she conceded shakily. That black hair and those thick, luxuriant dark lashes that could droop to conceal his fabulous eyes, that wide, sexy mouth. She blinked and sat up a little straighter.

‘What do you intend to do, Mr Losi?’ She firmly brought the conversation back to business. ‘I have a staff of five very dedicated people, all of whom are one hundred per cent committed to what we do. Two of them are married and need the salary they earn. Well, we all do, come to that. I’m also in mid-project at the moment. It’s not just a question of me.’

‘Therefore…what?’

‘This is hopeless. I can’t see the point of being here.’ Amy stood up but then found that she was hovering.

‘Rule one in business is to never let your emotions control your responses. Sit back down.’ Rocco stood up and began prowling through the office, hands firmly stuck in his trouser pockets, forcing Amy to twist around to follow his progress. He paused in front of the generous, old-fashioned bookshelf and perched on the protruding ledge that housed two orchids and a selection of exquisite artefacts that Antonio had collected over his years of travel. Amy swivelled her chair around so that she was facing him. The neat little navy-blue skirt she was wearing felt peculiar and she was vaguely aware that it rode up her thighs just a little too much for her liking.

‘I have studied the figures and have reached the obvious conclusion that your reckless indulging in altruistic projects will have to come to an end.’

‘There’s nothing reckless about—’

Rocco held up one imperious hand. ‘Which is not to say that I am a monster who does not appreciate the necessity to have a social conscience. However, I think you will agree that there is a far simpler way of helping.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I am prepared to agree to a set sum that will be given to charities of your choice.’

Amy looked at him with her mouth half open in stunned surprise, then she drew in a deep, steadying breath and said slowly, ‘It’s so easy for you, isn’t it? Need to prove you have a social conscience? Why, then, just fling a bit of money at a charity and you can sleep peacefully at nights. After all, where’s the point in actually taking any kind of interest in the community around you? That’s just tiresome, unproductive hard work, isn’t it? No precious money to be made there, so why waste time investing human resources in it? It doesn’t occur to you that there might be some kind of emotional fulfilment to be had from physically helping other people!’

Rocco clicked his tongue with impatience and irritation and pushed himself away from the ledge, moving towards her until he was towering over her. Then he leant over with his hands on either side of her chair, caging her in.

‘If you’re looking for emotional fulfilment, Miss Hogan, then might I suggest that you are in the wrong job. The figures you have been spending lavishly over the years simply do not add up.’ He stood up abruptly but continued to look down at her, his intimidating blue eyes narrowed. ‘Now let me see exactly what you are working on at the moment. Obviously I will extend some leeway to projects that are currently in the pipeline.’ He strode swiftly back to his desk and Amy reluctantly stood up to follow in his wake, clutching her batch of papers.

She had never met a man quite like him. He was as unfeeling and unmoveable as a rock. It came as no great surprise, when she thought about it. After all, what kind of man could mercilessly cut off all ties with his one surviving parent, whatever the reasons?

She edged round the desk and extracted the complex layout for what she was working on.

‘This is one of the more run-down council estates in the city centre,’ she explained tersely, shoving up the sleeves of her cotton top and propping herself up on both hands. ‘There’s a high level of single-parent families living here and consequently a lot of disaffected teenagers with nothing to do. It’s been a hard slog but we’ve managed to obtain planning permission to build a youth centre right here…’ She pointed to a highlighted dot on the map with one finger and felt all the enthusiasm and energy flowing into her as she contemplated her newest venture.

The residents were all in favour of this project. The tired, despairing mothers saw it as a way of cutting down on the petty crime continually being committed by bored adolescents, and even the kids she had talked to were keen in their own noncommittal, semi-sneering way.

She pulled out more plans of what they had in mind to build. Dee was a qualified architect and had done detailed drawings of what they could achieve given the restrictions of space. She lost sight of the fact that Rocco was an arch enemy to every word she was saying until she had finally finished talking a long while later, at which point cold reality washed back over her and she straightened up.

‘This is nothing like flinging money at a charity and leaving them to get on with it,’ she said heatedly.

‘No. Flinging money at a charity takes an hour or so while this takes several valuable months of time and effort.’

Rocco pushed back his chair and turned to look at her, clasping his hands behind his head.

‘But I have to admit you are very…passionate about what you do…’

‘We all are.’ Had it been necessary to use that particular description for her? she wondered.

‘And when it comes to work, passion, in the right place, can be a very good thing. Where do the rest of those people working with you fit in?’

’ Those people?’

Rocco recalled the long-haired men and the cropped-haired women and raised his eyebrows to suggest what he thought of them.

Amy read the message and bristled. ‘Freddy’s a chartered surveyor, Tim and Andy handle all the dealings with the people who need organising to work on turning our projects into reality, Dee’s the architect and Marcy’s our administrator.’

‘And where do you fit in?’

‘I oversee everything,’ Amy said coldly, sensing implied criticism. ‘Make sure deadlines are kept, liaise with various councillors, meet with the residents to make sure that their suggestions are being taken on board.’ She edged back, watching as he silently tapped his fingers on the desk.

‘And this is the only thing you’re working on at the moment? Where are the costings?’ Amy stepped forward to rifle through the papers, glanced at her watch and caught her breath.

‘In there.’ She pointed vaguely at the bundle of papers. ‘They’re mostly estimates, but I’m quite familiar with all the suppliers we now use and we get pretty good deals from them.’

‘Run it by me.’

‘I can’t.’ Amy flushed and looked away, before circling round the desk to fetch her bag from the chair. Where had the time gone? She couldn’t have been talking for over two hours? It was now after five-thirty and of all the days to lose track of time, this had to be right up there as one of the worst.

‘You have already shown your lack of professionalism in failing to come and see me on the pretext that you were too busy and now it appears that you are happy to cut short what could be a very pivotal meeting for you and your staff because…what?’

‘I just have to go. I’m sorry.’ Amy slung her bag over her shoulder. ‘I didn’t realise how long I’d been here.’

‘Go where?’

‘I’m prepared to discuss whatever you want to discuss as far as work goes, Mr Losi, but I’m certainly not prepared to discuss my personal life with you. That’s none of your business.’ Those cool blue eyes were unnerving though, and Amy knew how things must look from his point of view. Here she was, ready to defend her position with all the ammunition at her disposal just so long as it didn’t clash with her personal life. She sighed and dropped her bag onto the chair.

‘I…I have a date, actually, and I can’t possibly cancel it because I’ve already cancelled the last three. Sam’s got tickets for us to go to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the theatre and I just don’t want to let him down. Again.’

Rocco looked at the flushed, embarrassed face and felt a spurt of intense, unfamiliar interest kick-start inside him.

‘Also,’ she mumbled uncomfortably into the engulfing silence, which she read as yet more mounting, unspoken criticism, ‘my car’s in for service and Edward can’t take me to the theatre. I’m going to have to get a cab and it’s always difficult getting one to come this far out of the town centre in summer. Too many tourists around competing for too few taxi drivers.’ She contemplated the convoluted journey, which would not really leave her sufficient time to go back to her house and change, and gloomily tried to imagine Sam’s expression as he paced the foyer waiting for her. He wouldn’t be overjoyed. He had already told her that her workaholic tendencies were beginning to try his patience.

‘Okay.’ Rocco shrugged and stood up. ‘We’ll continue this on Monday.’

Amy breathed a sigh of relief and stole a surreptitious look at him. For a big man, he moved with surprising grace and she wondered whether he played a lot of sport. Didn’t they all do that in New York? Join gyms so that they could frantically work out? If he played any sport, she imagined that it would be of the confrontational kind, something like squash that was fast and vigorous and would allow him to thrash his opponent to a pulp.

As far as Amy was concerned, the gym was something that she had spent the past five years meaning to get around to but never quite managing.

She hardly noticed that he was standing beside her, opening the door for her to leave, and she said, in some surprise, ‘You’re not leaving work already, are you? Don’t you burn the midnight oil?’

‘What makes you think that I’m not leaving here so that I can carry on burning it somewhere else?’ he asked with a crooked smile. The first smile she had seen and her heartbeat quickened treacherously. Bastard the man might be, but a very sexy one.

‘In which case, have fun.’ She shrugged, heading for the stairs, and was taken aback to find that he was keeping step with her, tailoring his long strides to match her smaller ones.

There were still a number of people in the old building, but most of the secretarial staff had already left. Unofficially, they were allowed to head home earlier than usual on a Friday, and most of the junior members of staff took advantage of the fact. Busy doing the things she had never really seemed to do, she supposed. Partying, flitting from boyfriend to boyfriend, drinking until the early hours of the morning and then waking up with hangovers.

Her father’s deteriorating and agonising illness had taken a huge dent out of her youth and she had emerged with all the carefree joys of being young seemingly lost to her for ever. Not that she had once regretted the reasons she had grown into adulthood before her time. She didn’t. But she knew that things might have been different if she had not had to cope with the strains of looking after her father when she had barely been able to look after herself. She had thrown herself into her work, knowing that she had had a lot to prove with her age being against her.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked casually as they walked down the staircase, for the sake of saying something. ‘Anywhere interesting?’

‘To the theatre,’ he said, as casually. ‘To drop you off for your hot date.’

Amy stopped dead in her tracks and looked at him with nervous dismay. ‘Thank you. Very much, but I’d really rather you didn’t.’

‘Why not?’

A thousand and one reasons fluttered inside her head but she was hard pressed to name one and, in the ensuing silence, he said reasonably, ‘We spent longer than we thought going over the files. That was my fault. Hence I intend to help you make up for lost time by driving you to wherever you are going. Unless you have time to go back to your place and dress first, in which case I’ll take the necessary detour, but I should think you probably wouldn’t.’

‘There’s no need to put yourself out…’

‘Why don’t you accept the offer of a lift in the spirit in which it was intended?’

Amy accepted faintly, faced with zero choice, but the thought of being in a small, enclosed space with this man, her enemy, she reminded herself, made her feel unaccountably uneasy.

‘I rarely pay attention to the time,’ Rocco said, zapping open the doors of his rented Jaguar with his remote. He opened the passenger door for her and she shot inside like a bolt.

He picked up the easy conversation once he was inside, turning to her with an unreadable expression. ‘I usually expect everyone else to abide by the same rules.’

‘I don’t normally clock-watch, Mr Losi…’ Amy’s voice trailed off and she was held reluctant captive to his dark, averted profile as he manoeuvred the car out of the courtyard and through the stone columns that fronted the building.

‘Hence the three cancelled dates…? And by the way, I think we can do away with the formality of surnames. I always try and encourage a certain amount of informality in my staff. That way, they can feel more relaxed about approaching me.’

Amy tried to equate relaxation with Rocco Losi. The two didn’t go together at all. He was just too forbidding. Even now, when he had taken off his intimidating hat, she still couldn’t begin to relax in his company. Did he really expect her to? she wondered. After he had told her in no uncertain terms what he intended to do with her precious subsidiary? Trample it into the ground like a cockroach under his foot?

‘What changes do you have in mind for the company? Will there be redundancies?’

‘What time do you have to be at the theatre?’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘Nor should I.’ He glanced swiftly across at her. ‘It would be highly unprofessional to discuss something like that with one person. Tell me about your boyfriend. I didn’t expect you to have one.’

Amy was distracted enough by the bald rudeness of that to forget all about work, possible redundancies including her own and the collapse of the career she had spent the past decade building up.

‘I don’t believe you just said that.’

‘Why?’ Rocco shrugged.

‘Because…because it’s rude!’ Rude and insulting and hurtful. ‘But why should I be surprised?’ she lashed out, still stinging from the bare-faced effrontery. ‘You’re the most obnoxious, arrogant, rude individual I’ve ever come across!’

‘Funny. That’s not an accusation any woman has ever levelled at me in the past…’ The air between them throbbed with a violent, hidden charge. He could almost taste her breathless anger raging beneath the prim little outfit that she was obviously uncomfortable wearing.

‘Which says a lot about the kind of women you surround yourself with!’ The conversation had become disastrously unfocused, but Amy found that it was almost impossible to gather herself together and revert to talking about work. She wanted to wipe that calm, smug, amused expression off his face. ‘I’m twenty-six! Believe it or not, most twenty-six-year-old women do not live in a physical vacuum!’ For a second, she wondered who she was trying to convince, him or herself. She had had boyfriends, well, three of them, but none had ever come close to distracting her from her work. She had certainly never been the sort of girl who had led a wild, abandoned sexual life, but to be casually dismissed by this man as a nonentity who had surprised him by having a boyfriend was hateful and wounding.

‘No,’ he agreed, in an aggravatingly reasonable voice. ‘I just assumed that you were one of these women who puts her career first.’

‘I don’t just think about work!’ But she did, she acknowledged silently. She had been forced to become too self-sufficient from too young an age, and she had transferred all the needs that most normal people expended on relationships into her work. In some weird way, she was as emotionally detached as Rocco Losi.

‘So what’s he like, this man?’

‘Do you know how to get to the theatre? You’re so busy nosing into my private life that you might just end up missing the turnings.’

‘I’m not nosing into your private life, Amy. I’m conversing with you on a subject that has nothing to do with work.’

The way he said her name sent a little shiver racing down her spine, but when she looked at him it was with resentment and apprehension.

‘You want to take my job away from me. You want to make me and my team unemployed. How can you calmly sit there and pretend to be interested in having a normal conversation?’

‘I want to do what benefits the company in the long run,’ Rocco said tersely.

‘Why?’

‘Why what?’

Still smarting from the unpleasant way he had of thoroughly unsettling her, Amy forgot about the little fact that he was her boss and she was simply an inconvenient employee on her way out. Her normal reasonable, pragmatic character that made her so good at what she did seemed to have given way to a driving need to say something or do something that would get under his skin the way he managed to get under hers.

‘Why do you care one way or another what happens to Losi Construction?’ she blurted out. ‘It’s not as though you’ve ever taken the slightest bit of interest in it!’

The silence stretched like taut wire and Amy wrestled with the desire to apologise for overstepping the boundaries and a feeling that she could say just as she damn well pleased. He, obviously, felt that he could make whatever remarks he wanted to about things that didn’t concern him and, anyway, it was hardly as though she had very much to lose.

She still felt horribly nervous in the wake of her outburst, though, and even more nervous when he pulled the car over to the side and killed the engine.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked, biting her lower lip and watching him warily, the way one might watch a tiger that had been recently fed but might still fancy a bit more.

‘Developing this conversation,’ Rocco told her, angling his big body so that he was facing her.

Supplies of oxygen suddenly seemed to plummet. ‘Sorry if I spoke out of place,’ Amy said grudgingly, ‘but you did say that you liked your employees to be on a first-name basis with you so that they could feel free to air any grievances…’

‘And your grievance is…?’

‘That you’ve got your own life in New York. That you’ve never troubled yourself with your father or with his company and yet you think that you can just storm in now, take control, change people’s lives for ever and then sweep back out leaving everyone to pick up the pieces and carry on!’

‘You’re over-dramatising.’

‘Am I?’ Amy snorted in disbelief and was more rattled by his lack of fight than if he had picked up the heated gauntlet she had thrown down and engaged in his usual warfare.

‘I have no intention of chucking every member of staff out on their ears,’ he objected mildly. ‘Just tidying things up a bit and the reason why is because that’s just the way I’m built. We do have a bit in common, come to think of it. We both had to climb the ladder step by painful step, without help from anyone.’

‘I had to,’ Amy said, tilting her chin. ‘You chose to. And besides, you had the help of a university education! I had GCSE qualifications and desperation!’

Desperate was exactly how she was feeling now, skewered to the car door by those hooded blue eyes. Every breath she took was laborious.

‘You’ve invested everything into your job, haven’t you?’ he asked softly and Amy stubbornly refused to answer. She was trying hard to bring herself back down to earth and establish the dislike and animosity that had fuelled her emotions towards the silver-tongued devil staring at her with those amazing eyes, but it was a bit like trying to remain upright on a bed of quicksand.

‘That’s why, at twenty-six, you’re not in any solid relationship—’

‘I told you—’

‘That you have a boyfriend. One you’re seeing tonight out of guilt because you’ve broken the last three engagements on the pretext of work.’

‘I’m not seeing Sam out of guilt!’ Her cheeks reddened as she uncomfortably wondered whether his random stab had hit closer to the target than she would have expected. ‘And anyway, are you going to drop me at the theatre? Because if not, then please tell me and I’ll just get out and walk the rest of the way.’

‘You’ll walk for three miles in uncomfortable shoes out of pride?’

‘Got it in one.’

She looked away and heard him laugh, a rich, full sound that made the nerves in her body come alive, but then he started the engine and pulled away while she dealt with her hammering heart with a stern dose of frozen silence.

‘I think you might just do it as well…’ Rocco murmured lazily. ‘Men don’t like that, you know…’

‘Don’t like what? Women who are prepared to walk now and again if it’s necessary? Or women who actually have one or two principles that they’re prepared to stand up for?’

‘Oh, hard-nosed women who like to be in control. Women who are so busy shouting and venting their spleen about what they believe in that they never take time out to listen to what other people have to say…’

‘Thanks. Thank you very much for that piece of advice. Coming from a man who doesn’t seem to have time to listen to what other people have to say, I’ll make sure that I take what you say on board.’

‘Of course,’ Rocco drawled, noticing with a twinge of regret that they were approaching the theatre, ‘those types of women tend to attract the same kind of man…’

‘Any point in me telling you that I’m not really the slightest bit interested in what you have to say on the subject?’

‘Weak men. Men who enjoy being bullied about and bossed around. Men who don’t mind being stood up continually.’

Amy waited until he had pulled over to the pavement and then turned to him. ‘I’ll roughly translate that into men who listen to what people try to say to them. Unlike you. You’ve written off what I do and my contribution to the company without even bothering to go into too many details. You took one look at the balance sheet and then decided that we just weren’t profitable and so had to be eliminated. If that’s the mark of a strong man, then, frankly, I think I prefer the weak ones.’ Amy was quite proud of this heartfelt speech. Her voice had been calm and composed and he would have to have been a mind-reading genius to guess at how angry she was at his uninvited generalisations made at her expense. If this was his idea of polite, non-work-oriented conversation, then she was surprised that he had a social life at all.

‘What details did you have in mind? There’s just so much one can do with a list of figures, most of them in the outgoing column.’

‘Well, you could come and see for yourself what we do!’ Amy opened the car door, stepped out of the car, then said, leaning into it, ‘Or are you one of these strong men who refuse to budge once they’ve made their minds up?’

Rocco had to hand it to her—she wasn’t going to take her medicine lying down. Naturally, she wouldn’t win. There were too many hard facts stacked up against her, whether she liked to believe it or not, but he was nothing if not fair. He would go and have a look at her little pet project and then no one would be able to accuse him of being bull-headed when he was regrettably forced to shut the enterprise down.




CHAPTER THREE


THE play was good. Dinner, afterwards with Sam, somewhat less so. Amy made the mistake of confiding in him about the newest addition to the company and what it meant in terms of her work being summarily terminated, and was regaled with his self-righteous outrage for most of the pizza meal.

The altruistic fervour that had drawn her to him three months previously left her feeling flat and confused.

‘I don’t think he’s too bothered by the concept of helping the community,’ Amy explained, pushing away her plate. Now stone-cold, her pizza resembled something that had been fashioned out of Play-Doh.

‘Typical mogul,’ Sam snorted. ‘Met a lot of those myself. Only interested in making money. Would drop a bomb over a council estate if they thought they could rebuild it into five-bedroom executive homes that they could sell at inflated prices to a gullible public.’

‘Well, maybe not quite as dramatic as that…’ Amy smiled and tried to defuse some of the unpleasant feeling.

She had met Sam quite accidentally while working on her previous project. He worked in an organisation specialising in care in the community and they had clicked immediately, finding that they had quite a bit in common when it came to their natural empathy towards good causes. Almost without realising it, their friendship had developed into something more, though what, precisely, she wasn’t altogether sure. But she was happy enough to go along for the ride. He might not be the most striking person she had ever encountered in the looks department, with his thinning sandy hair and pale blue eyes, but he was comfortable and thoughtful and genuinely interested in all the things she was genuinely interested in.

She looked at his kind, earnest face and a darker, far more dangerous one superimposed itself on her retina.

Sam was now expounding on the many different businessmen he had met over the years and the superhuman efforts it took to get them interested in the community that was as important to them as they were to it. Money, he was fervently saying, while making sure to finish his pizza that looked every bit as off-putting as her own half-finished one, was the root of all evil.

‘I’m too tired to think about this,’ Amy said, stifling a yawn. ‘Anyway, he’s agreed to come along with me to have a look at what we’re working on at the moment. Maybe I can change his mind.’

‘And if you can’t?’

‘Then I shall be out of a job, along with my staff.’

‘What would you do?’

‘Find another.’

‘They’re pretty thin on the ground, Amy, jobs like that. In fact, yours is unique. You can do what you enjoy doing and you’re funded for it. What could be better?’ He ordered two coffees without asking her whether she wanted one and sat back as they were brought to the table.

The weight of her pressurised day was getting to her. She could easily have rested her head in her hands and nodded off to sleep.

Sam was busily expounding on the huge benefits of doing what she did while Amy half listened and found herself thinking of how Rocco would react when he found himself traipsing around sites with her. Would he be bored? Indifferent? Would he feign interest? He was an immensely successful businessman. He would have feigning interest down to an art form. Then she thought that he certainly hadn’t feigned any interest in her plight. No need to. So she was back to imagining him with a bored, irritable expression and only half caught the tail-end of Sam’s remark.

‘I mean,’ he obligingly repeated for her benefit, ‘there would be no need then for you to get something as demanding as what you’re doing now. You could work part-time, perhaps. Maybe even in the capacity of a volunteer…’

‘Sam. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Sorry. I’m just so tired. My thoughts were a million miles away.’

He looked annoyed and it flashed through her mind that that was one of his less endearing traits. He never actually blew his top but he could be sulky and petulant when things didn’t go his way, as he would have been if she had cancelled on him again.

‘I was saying,’ he stressed, ‘that we could take things a step further.’

‘A step further?’ The coffee that had been ordered on her behalf, which she hadn’t wanted, now seemed a brilliant focus for her distraction.

‘I think we should get engaged.’

‘You think we should get engaged? After three months?’

‘Knowing someone for years doesn’t necessarily mean a good marriage,’ Sam said testily. ‘I’m thirty-eight. I want to settle down, Amy, and I think I’ve found the right girl to settle down with. Someone who shares my interests, enjoys the simple pleasures in life.’ He reached over and enfolded her hand in his. ‘We do get along, don’t we?’

‘Yes, we do,’ Amy agreed, struggling to give his suggestion houseroom and feeling hunted in the process. ‘But I don’t want to rush into anything.’ She squeezed his hand and then tactfully withdrew hers.

‘Promise me you’ll think about it.’

‘Of course.’ She tried to picture being Sam’s wife. He would be a good husband, steady, reliable and would, one day, be a very good father. And they had a lot in common. ‘But I’m only twenty-six…’

‘Time waits for no man.’ He fell back on a cliché, and then was happy to change the conversation, to chat about the play and compare it to the other Shakespeare production they had seen two months previously.

Amy didn’t think, however, that his proposal would go away, that she could put it to the back of a cupboard and carry on with their undemanding, soothing relationship, even when two days later she told him that she really couldn’t commit to an answer, not just yet, not when there was so much stress in her life at the moment.

Rocco, unsurprisingly, hadn’t beaten a path to her door to be shown around her project in progress. She wondered whether he figured she and her project would just conveniently vanish into thin air. Or, more likely, his silence was a pointed way of informing her that, whatever she did, she would not be able to face him down, so what was the point in him bothering to look around anything with her?





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