One Night with her Italian Boss by Trish Morey

8

His coarse words slashed her like a knife, because he was so wrong. She wanted to save Ashton House—it was the reason she was here, the reason she’d agreed to this crazy deal in the first place.

Yet at the same time he was so right. Because she had been prepared to walk away—to flee—and to leave Ashton House to its fate when she hadn’t been able to take the pressure-cooker tension of waiting for him to make her his mistress any more. To make her feel as good again as he had that first night together.

‘You can believe whatever you like,’ she whispered. ‘But I tell you one thing—whatever I’m here for, it’s not to save your damned deal. If you’re so dead set on destroying any business that stands in your way, that you can’t see the potential good in collaborating with Quinn rather than wiping his business of the face of the earth, you don’t deserve to be in business.’

‘You don’t know the first thing about it.’

‘I know that someone should at least have costed the proposal. My gut feeling is that if you can come up with a waterfront proposal that features a new and improved

Quinn Boatbuilding organisation as an integral part of the harbour-front design and attach it to a marina, you’re going to have interest from every boatie in town—plus the endorsement of every regulatory body going, because you’ve taken care of one of their own.’

‘You’re guessing.’

‘Of course I’m guessing. I don’t have the numbers. But I suspect that if you play your cards right you’ll probably be able to ask double for your precious apartments, even if you do end up with planning permission for only half as many. Financially it may be a different kind of deal from what you originally envisaged, but there’s a chance with any future profits from Quinn Boatbuilding that you’ll come out way ahead. And, let’s face it, how else are you going to get around the zoning regulations? Quinn certainly seemed to think it might work.’

‘He was humouring you.’

‘Is that so? Well, at least he damned well listened and didn’t put me down in the process. But you’re probably right, and, let’s face it, Quinn’s probably much better off having nothing to do with you. And now, if you excuse me, it’s been a very long night. I’m going to bed.’

Dante made a move towards her, unbuttoning his collar and pulling his tie askew in the process. ‘That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night.’

Heat scorched her cheeks as he came closer. She reeled back, her senses on red alert. He had to be kidding! Despite the veracity in the accusations he’d earlier charged her with—the frustration she’d felt waiting for him to make a move, the utter desperation when he hadn’t—there was no way in the world he was coming anywhere near her tonight.

And it wasn’t just his total disregard for her ideas, it was the impression he gave her that she had no right to have any ideas, that her role began and ended in his bed. She jagged up her chin with a note of defiance. ‘I meant alone.'

‘So did I.’ He tossed back the rest of his whiskey and turned away, heading for the office. ‘Go put your flannelette defences up. And don’t wait up.’

She didn’t wait up. Not intentionally. She wasn’t waiting for anyone, she told herself as she tossed and turned in the wide, lonely bed. Especially not him.

Yet sleep still eluded her, her body too hot under too much cover, her mind in turmoil over a man who was such a contradiction. A man who went from ruthless tycoon to passionate lover and back again without giving her time to either catch her breath or guard her emotions. A man she didn’t want.

So why did it sting so much that he hadn’t wanted her?

Dante opened his laptop and dug out the files he had on the deal and the financials he had on Quinn’s operation. Mackenzi had no idea what she was talking about, and he’d damn well prove it to her. He had to, in case Quinn got it into his head that she’d been on to something and made it even harder for them to close the deal.

It was hard enough already, given Adrian’s disaster with the zoning regulations; he didn’t need any more complications. He spread the development plans out on the desk alongside him, weighting down the comers with paperweights as the files loaded—page upon page filled with numbers, calculations, projected costs and revenue streams—and got to work.

It was almost dawn by the time he pushed back his chair from the desk, his work done as the first hint of light formed a grey smudge around the blinds.

He sipped at the strong coffee room service had just delivered and pulled the curtain sash, revealing a city shrugging off the dark. It had rained some time during the night, the clouds hanging low over the city. Street cleaners patrolled the gutters many floors below, their yellow lights flashing. Beyond them he could see the motorways, now flowing freely, soon to become choked and snarled, and beyond them the harbour, the heart and soul of Auckland, a piece of Auckland he wanted a share in.

And today, come hell or high water, he’d make it happen. He snapped open his mobile phone and hit an oft-used code. It answered on the third ring.

‘Adrian, have you got what I wanted?’

‘I’m working on it,’ his second-in-charge said, with just a hint of tiredness in his voice. ‘There’s a politician I’m meeting with later today, to see if he’ll pull some strings on the re-zoning.’

‘So you’ve got nothing.’

There was a pause at the end of the line. ‘Like I said, I’m working on it. These things take time.’

‘We don’t have time. Cancel it.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Cancel the meeting,’ Dante told him. ‘I need you to do something else...’

She hadn’t slept well, he could tell from the way she’d launched the pillows all over the bed and tangled herself in both the sheets. And her hair—it half-covered her face now, coiling around her neck, its curled ends spiralling lower.

Tantalisingly lower.

He dragged in a lungful of air, clearing a head still too full of discounted cash-flows and projected rates of return, only to find her perfume curl inside him, warm and welcoming, beckoning him, and turning the figures into a blur. He looked down at her sleeping form as he unbuttoned his shirt, feeling himself stir, already anticipating that first unbeatable contact of skin against skin, a prelude to the delicious slide of flesh against flesh.

Or, he grimaced, flesh against flannelette. Wherever she’d found those crazy pyjamas they were little defence against him.

Would she still be angry with him when she woke up? Damn him to hell, but half of him hoped she was. There was something to be said for anger, especially when it turned a mere mistress into a tigress. And, whatever he’d been expecting from taking Mackenzi as his mistress, he hadn’t been expecting the tigress she’d proved herself to be.

He purred softly as he shucked off the rest of his clothes. She was beautiful, awake or asleep, from her slightly crooked nose to her painted toenails. Angry or not, she was still his mistress, and he intended to make the most of her.

He slid into the bed alongside her, propped up on one elbow, drinking in her sleeping body-heat and nestling close. He put a hand to her hip, unable to resist tracing the sensual curve to the sweet dip at her waist and back again. She stirred, untangling herself from her hair, her vivid green eyes blinking open, first slowly as sleep slid away and then widely with surprise.

She reared away from him, her eyes now flashing and wary, circled by shadows that confirmed her lack of sleep. But he held her in place, his hand anchoring her where she lay. And then he leaned over and lightly kissed her startled mouth.

She surveyed him suspiciously, her hands already working the bedclothes higher in defence. ‘What was that for?’

‘That’s to say thank you.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Why?’

‘Because I think you might just have saved this deal.’ It was her turn to prop herself up on her elbows, but her expression was guarded, her eyes still harbouring the remnants of last night’s hostility. She shook her head, brushing hair back from her face with one hand. ‘You’re kidding.’

He shook his head. ‘No. It could be tight, but it’s definitely workable. Adrian’s scheduling a meeting with Quinn later today.’

She said nothing for a while, just stared at him. Then, ‘That’s nice. I’m happy for Stuart Quinn and the people who work for him. I think.’

He hauled in a breath and forced it out again, his teeth gritted, but knowing he could expect little more after the browbeating he’d given her. ‘I should have listened to you,’ he admitted, letting his hand move rhythmically under her pyjamas and over that curve from her hip to her waist and back again. ‘I should at least have given you a fair hearing.’ ‘Yes.’

His hand swept up her side, his fingers brushing the underside of her breast, another seductive curve. Air hissed through her teeth but she didn’t pull away, so he ventured back, letting his fingertips trace the swell of her breast. Her breathing was quickening now, her green eyes showing the merest hint of desire.

‘And, I know you don’t have to make this easy for me, but what I’m trying to say is I’m sorry. I was wrong.’

‘You’re apologising? To me?’

He smiled. ‘Don’t spread it around.’ He cupped her breast in his hand, felt the tight nub of nipple pressing into his palm and wanted more. He shrugged down the covers, pushed up her top and dipped his mouth to one dusky nipple. ‘I wasn’t sure Mackenzi suited you,’ he said. ‘But Rose does. It suits these...’ And he turned his attentions to the other.

She gasped. ‘What time is it?’

‘Getting on for six,’ he whispered, his lips dancing over the tip while his hand toyed lazily with its neighbour, rolling it gently between finger and thumb.

He caught her fractured breath, the involuntary arch of her back that accompanied it as his tongue circled its prey. ‘And you’re just coming to bed?’

‘Yes.’

‘You worked through the night again?’

He filled his mouth with her, drawing her in, releasing her ever so slowly from the heated embrace of his mouth, his hand now venturing southwards towards another even greater goal. ‘Guilty.’

‘And you’re quite sure you’re not a bat?’

He laughed, a low and deep rumble against her breast, suckling at her flesh as her body moved seductively under his, then grazing her satiny skin with his teeth.

‘Quite sure,’ he assured her as his fingers worked at edging her pyjamas lower, insinuating themselves between her thighs. ‘So, do you accept my apology?’

There was the slightest hint of resistance. ‘I don’t know.’ His mouth travelled a line from her breasts to her throat, finding a pulse point, feeling the frantic drumbeat of her heart under his mouth, and his tongue lapped it up. ‘Can I help make up your mind?’

She pushed her head back into the pillows as she parted her legs for him. ‘You can try...’

The phone woke her,Dante answering with a terse, ‘Yes?’ as he threw his legs over the side of the bed and sat up.

Bleary eyed, she glanced at the clock, finding it already after ten. She collapsed back into the pillows, tiredness from a restless night followed by a passionate awakening still dragging at her. But the memories of that awakening brought a satisfied smile to her face. How could it be possible that the sex could keep getting better when it had been so good to start with? But it was better, and he’d been so tender and sweet and genuinely remorseful, a different Dante Carrazzo from the one she thought she knew.

She escaped to the bathroom while he was busy, aghast at how wanton she looked, her hair wild and untamed, her lips rosy and plump, and her breasts still bearing the brand of his whiskered chin. She looked a thorough mess. She looked utterly seduced.

As she had been, she knew, turning on the shower. She’d been seduced by a master of seduction, a man who had seduced an acceptance of his apology out of her. And she’d told herself just last night she didn’t want him! Who was she trying to kid? She needed him for the power of life or death he held over Ashton House, but she wanted him for herself.

Mackenzi let the massaging thrum-beat of water cascade over her. Was that so wrong? Why couldn’t they both enjoy each other for as long as this arrangement lasted? All she had to do was keep her wits about her. And she was sensible. She always had been, and she certainly wasn’t about to fall in love with another totally wrong man. She’d made that mistake once already. At least this one wasn’t going to get away with telling her she was frigid.

The shower’s massage-setting wove its magic on her scalp and skin, and she emerged in a fluffy white robe ten minutes later feeling refreshed, her skin tingling. He was still on the phone; she could tell that this time he was talking to Quinn, and he looked up at her and smiled, holding up crossed fingers.

Her heart gave a funny little lurch that stopped her in her tracks and she turned, uncertain, fleeing straight back into the bathroom.

He found her there a few minutes later. ‘Are you all right? You looked like you’d seen a ghost.’

She offered him a quick smile and made a play of towel- drying her hair. ‘Perfectly,’ she lied, though at least her heart rate was something approximate to normal again. Which in this man’s proximity meant erratic at best. Especially when, like now, he was naked. How was a girl supposed to think when faced by that unashamed display of potent masculinity?

‘Good,’ he said, oblivious to her reaction, turning on the shower behind her. ‘Because Quinn wants to take us all out in his boat today. He’s excited about the new deal, but he’s insisting you’re there.’

She nodded, wondering both at his choice of words and at the words he hadn’t chosen, and wishing she wasn’t— because that would mean she cared, and she didn’t. She’d convinced herself of that while she’d deep-breathed her heart rate back to some kind of normality. Whatever she’d felt, whatever had struck her when Dante had smiled at her, had been an aberration. A mistake. ‘I like Stuart Quinn,’ she said on her way out of the bathroom. ‘I’d love to go.’

‘Oh,’ he called as she pulled the door closed behind her. ‘And I’ve ordered something for you from room service. It should be here soon.’

Just as well, she thought as she rifled through her thin wardrobe, because thanks to that morning’s activities she was starving. Meanwhile she settled on trousers again and another knit top. There was nothing else, and she wasn’t sure what one wore boating anyway. Before she’d finished dressing, their room service arrived, a trolley full of domed dishes, myriad bewitching scents wafting invitingly. Mackenzi’s stomach growled.

The waiter set the still-covered platters on the dining table, poured them both coffee and left them to it as Dante joined her, wrapped up in a matching white robe fresh from his shower, his dark hair tousled and still beaded with water at the ends. My God, she thought, once again feeling the effects of a rush of adrenaline to her heart as he came closer. The white of his robe was a stark contrast to his dark features and olive skin. He could have been the model in any number of advertisements, from shavers to toothpaste to aftershave, and he’d have had women lining up to buy the product. He looked so good, so real, one-hundred per cent pure, unadulterated male.

‘Hungry?’ he asked as he pulled up a chair.

‘Starving.’

‘Then perhaps,’ he said, gesturing towards the half- dozen domed lids, ‘you might like to do the honours?’ Clearly she was supposed to be impressed by the feast he’d ordered, but she really didn’t give a toss, given how hungry she was. Still, she’d play the game, if only it meant she could eat. She removed the first lid and found a plate of scrambled eggs with salmon, and under the second a heaped high stack of crispy bacon and mushrooms. There were pancakes under the third, with a bowl of rich red strawberries and ajar of syrup, and it was all so special she was practically drooling by the time she lifted the fourth. But this time it was nothing she’d ever seen on a room- service tray.

‘What’s this?’ she asked tightly as she put the lid aside, her concentration focused on the flat box sitting on the silver tray, a new fear unfurling in her gut. ‘Dante?’

‘A surprise,’ he said. ‘Open it.’

She shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Just open it.’

With shaky fingers she picked it up, her mouth dry, her hunger pangs forgotten as she eased the hinged top up. Only to meet the most perfect emerald pendant she had ever seen, large and emerald-cut, surrounded by what looked like diamonds and suspended from a thin golden band. Matching earrings nestled either side.

She shook her head, frowning. ‘I don’t understand. Where did it come from?’

‘A simple matter to have it delivered from the jewellery store downstairs. Take it,’ he urged. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘It’s hardly nothing! It’s magnificent. Tell me they’re not real?’

He was at her side, taking the necklace from the box and leaning down to fix it at her throat. She tingled all over as his warm fingers brushed against her hair and throat, while the gem fell, heavy and cool, against her skin. She traced the stone’s generous outline with her fingertips as he gently slid each earring home, transforming her earlobes into erogenous zones. Then he took her hand, pulling her from her chair and across the room to the large gilt-framed mirror on the wall, where he stood with his hands on his hips just behind her, looking over her shoulder at her reflection. ‘I wanted something that matches your eyes,’ he said, pulling her hair out of the way. ‘Do you like them?’

The jewels winked and glittered back at her, any movement reflecting yet another dazzling facet of the stones, their colour indeed complementing the colour of her eyes, heightening it. How much would such a collection be worth? Too much, she knew. And accepting it would cost her even more.

‘They’re lovely,’ she admitted. ‘But it’s hardly the point.’ ‘That’s entirely the point,’ he said, running his hands up her arms to her shoulders, and dipping his head down to kiss her throat. ‘You’re my mistress. Why shouldn’t I spoil you? Especially when you’ve just resuscitated a deal in imminent danger of collapse.’

His hands felt warm on her shoulders, her skin still tingled from the caress of his lips, and yet his words washed through her like iced water. So the jewels were her fee for services rendered?

It was so wrong. A gift this precious deserved to be given in love. Otherwise it was hollow, its worth devalued. Her worth devalued.

She might have agreed to be his mistress, but she didn’t want or need the trimmings. It wasn’t the payback she was looking for.

‘Dante, they’re beautiful,’ she admitted, and for a moment she saw victory reflected on his features. ‘But I really can’t take it. I didn’t agree to this deal so you could shower me with gifts, and if you’re suddenly feeling generous there’s something I’d much rather have.’ She moved away from him, unhooking the necklace and replacing it back in the box along with the earrings.

He watched her in the mirror, his eyes growing colder, his jaw setting firmer. ‘And that is?’

She looked at him standing there, his back still to her, his stance tense and unmoving, the calm before the storm. ‘You know why I’m here. You promised me you’d rethink your decision about Ashton House’s future.’

He swung around, gesturing towards the box she still held in her hands. ‘And that precludes me from giving you anything else?’

‘It means I won’t be bought off with any consolation prizes.’

‘You think I’m buying you off?’

‘Aren’t you? Look, Dante, it’s saving Ashton House that’s important to me, not some meaningless trinket I get for sleeping with you.’

‘Meaningless trinket.’His voice was flatter than the box he removed from her hands, ditching it back onto its platter with a total disregard for its worth that had her shuddering.

‘So maybe you could let me know if you’re any closer to making a decision,’ she ventured cautiously.

He slammed himself back in his chair. ‘No.’

‘You won’t tell me, or you’re no closer?’

‘I’ll let you know when I’ve made my decision. Now, eat your breakfast. It’s getting cold.’

Nowhere near as cold as Dante, that was a fact. She nibbled around the edges of food that tasted of nothing, her appetite banished, while he sat there looking for all the world as if he’d been chiselled from a rock. It had been his deal, yet he was acting like she had a nerve to remind him of it.

Too bad. She wasn’t likely to stop reminding him of it, now or any time soon.