by Liz Fielding
‘More than an image, Max. My job is to create a feeling, an “I want” response, to choreograph a reflection in words and pictures that reinforce the desire so that when anyone thinks of the ultimate in a rare, luxurious dining experience, anywhere in the world, the first name that comes to mind is Bella Lucia.’
‘Can you really do that?’
‘I’ll give it my best shot.’ Then, feeling a little self-conscious at having made a pitch to someone she’d known all her life, she turned away, indicated his laptop. ‘Can I borrow that to go online, do a little research?’
‘Now?’
She stopped, looked at him. ‘Is that your stock answer, Max?’ Then, quickly, ‘Yes, now.’
‘I thought…’
‘What? That we were just going to have another cosy supper?’ Hadn’t he learned from what had happened yesterday? ‘When I say I’m having a working supper, I mean working. Since you appear to be more interested in the supper, I’ll leave you to organise that.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, drily. ‘Actually, I have got a pile of work to catch up with so I’ll need the laptop, but you could use the machine in your father’s old office,’ he said, leading the way. ‘You’ll probably want to upgrade it. Have the whole office redecorated if you like. Buy some new furniture.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’ she asked, walking through the door, touching her father’s desk, slipping into his huge leather chair, remembering the times she’d begged to stay with him when her mother had dropped in after shopping, for coffee, lunch.
How she’d climbed onto his lap, drawing pictures while he’d worked, nibbling on the little savoury treats he’d had sent up for her from the kitchen. Both of them getting a ticking off from her mother for spoiling her appetite…
‘For three weeks,’ she added, pushing the memory away. Except, of course, they both knew he wanted more than that. ‘I’ve got state-of-the-art equipment in my own office,’ she said.
And suddenly she had his full attention.
‘I thought…’
She knew what he thought. That she’d move in here while she worked on the Bella Lucia account and in one bound he’d have her back in the family fold.
‘Just so you know, so that there are no misunderstandings, Max, what you’re getting from me is a marketing plan. An image. Some publicity. Some ideas. You’re not getting my business, my life or anything else.’
Not for a kiss.
Max watched as she switched on the computer, absently tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as the machine booted up, concentrating on the screen as she logged onto the internet. For a moment he thought that she’d forgotten him, but then she glanced up as if surprised to still see him there, before her attention was reclaimed by the computer and she turned back to the screen.
He returned to his own office, sat at his desk, trying to work out whether he’d got what he wanted, or whether it was Louise who was calling all the shots. True, she was working with him, but very much on her own terms, in her own office. That wasn’t what he’d envisaged. What he’d wanted.
What did he want?
His plans were huge and he’d never doubted his ability to put them into action; he’d got that drive from his father. He’d been less than thrilled with Jack when he’d suggested he needed Louise. But it had been impossible to avoid the fact that the world had felt a very lonely place as he’d stepped up to take sole responsibility for Bella Lucia, all the people who worked for him relying on him to make the money that paid their mortgages, for their children’s shoes.
Knowing that they were going to be in this together, made the whole thing so much more…What? He sifted through the words that offered themselves. Satisfying. Pleasing. Enjoyable…No, more than that. And as the right word dropped into his mind he grinned.
Fun.
It had stopped feeling like the weight of the world on his shoulders and had started to feel like an adventure.
And there was still the kiss to look forward to, he thought, smiling as he reached for the stack of paperwork.
He was deeply absorbed in the quotations for a redecoration of one of the Mayfair dining rooms when Martin, a waiter who’d been with them for years, arrived with a tray and began to lay the small dining table in the corner of his office. He glanced at his watch, saw that it was nearly nine.
‘I hadn’t realised it was so late.’
‘Miss Valentine rang through to the kitchen to see if you’d ordered anything. I offered to bring up a menu, but she just asked for the mushroom risotto.’
‘For both of us?’
‘I could ask Chef for something else if you’d prefer?’ Martin said, catching his initial irritation at not being consulted, but unable to feel the almost instant follow-up of something much nearer pleasure that she already felt sufficiently at ease, at home, to call down and order food.
Maybe, he thought, that was the way to do it. If he stopped pushing so hard, she’d relax, come back in from the cold without even noticing she was doing it.
‘The risotto will be fine, Martin. Did she choose a wine?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Ask Georges for a bottle of Krug, will you?’
‘Krug?’ the waiter repeated. It wasn’t something he’d want to make a mistake about.
‘A small celebration. Miss Valentine is going to be working with us for a few weeks.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it, sir.’
A few minutes later, having asked Martin to give him ten minutes before he brought up the food, he walked through to the other office, bearing two glasses of champagne.
‘Supper’s on its way up,’ he said. Absorbed in what she was doing, Louise raised a hand to indicate that she’d heard him and carried on working. He set down the glasses and joined her behind the desk interested to see what she was doing. ‘Is that Meridia?’ he asked, leaning over her shoulder to look at an aerial photograph of a small island, surmounted by an equally small castle.
‘I downloaded Google Earth so that I could take a close look at the capital, refresh my memory of the layout. And then I remembered this,’ she said, using the mouse to fly them in over the island, before moving lower, taking him on an aerial tour around the castle. ‘Do you see?’
‘Very pretty. So?’
‘It’s a fishing lodge that belongs to some distant cousin of Sebastian’s. Emma told me about it. He’s a bit of a black sheep, apparently; persona non grata in the country. It’s got a natural harbour, a small beach…’
‘So?’
She turned and looked up at him, clearly expecting a response. ‘So, it would make a perfect setting for a Bella Lucia restaurant,’ she said, her eyes sparkling with an infectious enthusiasm that sent a charge of recognition skipping through him. She was, he thought, as excited by all this as he was.
‘I can certainly see the attraction, but unless the man is looking for a tenant…’
‘Well, he can’t use it himself. I called Emma to run the idea past her and ask if there was any possibility of us looking at the place when we’re there on Monday. It’s all fixed.’
He frowned. ‘Oh, come on, it can’t be that easy…’ Then, ‘You’re serious?’
‘Of course. I don’t have time to mess about. Oh, and I’ve arranged for us to meet with the director of the State Tourism Office, too.’
‘You seem to have organised everything.’ He straightened, no longer smiling. ‘Are you sure you need me to come with you?’
‘I’m sorry, Max?’ she said, instantly catching the change in his mood.
She said it not as if she were truly sorry, or actually thought she might have overstepped some unseen line, but as if he were the one in the wrong.
‘The words “bull” and “china shop” leap to mind. There’s a fine difference between being keen,’ he said, ‘and rushing in without taking time to consider all the options.’
‘I’ve suggested a location that I’ve already seen, I’ve arranged a viewing-using my personal contact with a
queen, no less,’ she pointed out, ‘and I’ve organised a meeting with a man who would be useful in setting up a joint venture with a local hotelier, since-and correct me if I’m wrong-I assume you don’t have any plans to move into the hotel business, too.’ She paused for half a beat, then said, ‘What have you done in the last couple of hours?’
‘Cleared a mountain of paperwork I should have been attending to this afternoon instead of hanging around the Portrait Gallery waiting for you,’ he said. ‘This company doesn’t run itself, you know.’
‘Nobody asked you,’ she reminded him. ‘I didn’t need you. You were the one who insisted, wanted to show how much you care about me-’
‘I do, Louise. We all do.’
‘Please! What you want is for me to play happy families, come and work for you, and now you think you’ve got all that, it’s as you were. Well, if this is going to be the kind of “working together”…’ and she did that really irritating quotes thing again, presumably with the precise intention of irritating him ‘…where I’m supposed to stand on the sidelines making suggestions while you make all the decisions, sorry, but I’m not interested.’
‘This is going to be a working relationship, Lou,’ he said, holding onto his own temper by the skin of his teeth, ‘where we discuss things, then we decide what to do, then we take action.’
‘If I’d waited for you to order supper, we’d have starved,’ she said, already beyond reason, but then her reaction to criticism had always been to overreact. The simplest thing had sent her overboard. A suggestion that her skirt was too short. A reprimand for flirting with the customers…
She was incapable of backing down, admitting a mistake.
‘Dammit, Louise,’ he said, ‘you haven’t changed one bit-’
‘Dammit, Max, neither have you!’ She was on her feet, in his face. ‘You’re still the same arrogant, overbearing, despotic, pigheaded idiot you always were!’
CHAPTER FIVE
LOUISE was outraged. He’d said this was what he’d wanted her for, but when she used her initiative, got on with the job, he couldn’t handle it.
‘Forget it, Max,’ she said, reaching for her bag. ‘This is never-’
‘Don’t!’ He grabbed her by the shoulders before she could pick it up, spinning her around to face him. ‘Don’t say another word!’
‘Never,’ she repeated, blazing her defiance at him. ‘Going-’
‘Lou!’ he warned.
‘To-’
His mouth descended on hers with the impact of fire on ice, stopping her words, stopping her breath, stopping her heart.
For an instant the world was an explosion of hissing, sizzling reaction on the surface while inside she remained frozen with shock. Then his arms were around her, pulling her close and she was clinging to him as her lips, her bones, her brain were overwhelmed by the heat and began, very slowly, to melt.
This was it.
This was the moment she’d yearned for, struggled against all her adult life. To know this, feel this.
To taste Max on her lips, feel the silk of his tongue stopping her angry words, showing her that she wasn’t alone. That he was suffering too…
Her arms wound themselves around his neck, her fingers made free with hair that she’d longed to touch, knowing in some dark corner of her mind that she’d wantonly engineered this, forced this moment.
She’d wanted this ever since that moment at the Valentine’s Day party when, sixteen years old and full of herself, she’d grabbed his hand, insisting on teaching him the steps of the newest dance. And then, as the music had changed to something slower, she’d seen something shift in the way he was looking at her, seen his eyes darken and felt something new, something dangerous stir, respond, deep inside her, wanting a lot more.
She’d known, as he pulled away, that everything had changed between them. That a touch was no longer innocent. That even to look was an invitation that damned them both.
Young, angry, stupid, she’d pushed him and pushed him to take what she could see he wanted, what she wanted, even while she’d known it was forbidden, could never happen, until that final eruption when he’d sacked her, humiliated her, driven her so far away that there had been no way back.
She understood now that he’d been protecting himself, protecting both of them, in the only way he knew how.
But the day her father had told her she was adopted, all that had changed.
We don’t have a problem…
He’d said it, but even then he’d held back, as if unable to overcome years of keeping the dark, unspoken need under tight control. Now, though, with his body hard against hers there could be no more pretence, no ignoring the truth between them. That she felt alive, wicked but alive as she never had before; knew that this was what she wanted, this was the token she’d demanded in return for coming back. Not just a kiss but his total surrender so that she could finally be free of the crippling desire for Max Valentine that had ruined every relationship she’d ever had.
Even as she clung to him he pulled back a little to look at her, his eyes dark, intense, yet giving nothing away, the habit of concealment too strong…
‘You were saying?’ he murmured, cool, self-possessed.
‘I was?’ Her body might be in flames, but she would match his cool…‘I don’t recall,’ she said, reclaiming her arms, understanding that, for now at least, the kiss was over.
Her composure would follow in its own good time.
His response was a slow, wide, seductive smile. ‘Then I believe, we have a contract, Louise,’ he said.
‘You think?’ she asked as he stepped back, picked up the glasses he’d brought with him. ‘I don’t believe I mentioned where exactly I wanted it. The kiss.’
She took the glass he was offering her before he actually spilled the contents, then continued, quite casually, ‘You do know you’re taking quite a risk giving me this? Track record would suggest that I’m as likely to toss it over you as drink it.’
‘Maybe if I told you that it’s Krug?’ he offered.
‘You think that would stop me?’
He managed a wry smile. ‘On the contrary. I imagine it would add to your pleasure.’
Pleasure? There was no pleasure in it. In the past, when she’d thrown things, all she’d wanted was for him to stop saying things that made her angry, stop him criticising her, making her hate him.
‘On the other hand, you do tend to respond in the heat of the moment. If you were going to throw it, you’d have done it already instead of talking about it.’
‘True.’ And besides, his way of putting a stop to a fight was so much more…interesting. ‘If I’ve leapt in with both feet, Max, I’m sorry. I’m used to working on my own, not having to answer to anyone except the client.’
‘I am the client.’
‘So you are. My mistake.’ She looked up, met his gaze directly then, with the smallest of shrugs, ‘I may have got a little carried away in my excitement.’ And he could take that any way he liked. ‘Tomorrow I’ll print out a note to stick on my computer-” TALK TO MAX”.’
‘Whilst I treasure the rarity of an apology from you, I suspect I’m the one who should be grovelling. This is what Jack wanted you on board for. Your quickness. Your vision. You weren’t stepping on my toes, Louise. On the contrary, you were giving me a lift.’ Then, ‘Not that I’m trying to dissuade you from talking to me.’
Anything but, Max thought.
He’d kissed her because it had seemed the only way to stop her saying words that would have ended everything, to exert the control that was slipping away from him. He’d lost that the moment she’d begun to kiss him back. He was still numb with the shock of it; the only thing on his mind her scent, faint, seductive, making him want to pull her back into his arms, bury his face in her skin…
He was walking and talking as if nothing had happened, but inside he was in turmoil, only able to think of kissing her again, this time not for himself but for her.
Kissi
ng her throat, her breasts, every inch of her until she was whimpering with pleasure, with need, so that they could finish what he’d started. Begin anew…
But he could never do that again. Next time it really would have to be her call, and she’d made it clear enough that she would call, that they had unfinished business. He could only hope that she wouldn’t wait too long.
Even while he was sending urgent signals to his feet to step back, put a safe distance between them, she flipped her hair behind her ear out of the way in a give-away gesture that suddenly seemed as familiar to him as drawing breath.
She’d always done that, he realised, even when she was a little kid. When she was unsure of herself, out of her depth. Then, when she’d done it, she’d always looked at him for reassurance. Now she looked away.
‘It might be a good idea to schedule a regular daily meeting,’ she said, ‘just to keep one another in the picture about what we’re doing?’
Poised, composed, but now he knew it was all just an act. A very good one, to be sure, but it was no more than an ice glaze that hid a totally vulnerable core.
Beneath that apparent self-assurance her heart would be pounding, her mouth dry, her knees weak. He knew because that was the way he was feeling…
‘What time would suit you best-morning or evening?’ she prompted.
‘The evening,’ he said, without having to think about it. The evening offered all kinds of possibilities. A chat could become a drink, could become dinner, and after that anything was possible. ‘Seven?’ he suggested.
‘Six-thirty would be better.’ She waited, he had no choice but to nod. ‘I’ll slot half an hour into my diary.’
Not what he’d had in mind at all. But it was a start.
Her mouth lifted in a wry smile. ‘Just listen to us, Max. Being so-o-o polite to each other. Who would have believed it possible?’
He forced a grin in response. ‘Better make the most of it, Lou-it can’t possibly last.’
‘No.’ For a moment they just looked at one another. ‘But then who would want it to?’ And he knew without doubt that she would call him on that kiss and when she did he’d better be ready to deliver everything she wanted.