by Penny Jordan
He sat at his desk, frowning as he re-read the e-mail he had found in his in-box earlier. His concierge service apologised, but the stylist they had found for him had cancelled, and they weren’t able to replace her with a substitute of equally high calibre. That left him with two options: to trust Leonora, or accompany her himself.
No man of his wealth and position could get to the age Alessandro had without the experience of being coaxed, coerced, sweet-talked and seduced into accompanying beautiful women to expensive and exclusive designer shops—especially if they were Italian. And besides, sometimes it was easier and speedier to end a relationship that had served its purpose with a goodbye gift of a few designer outfits as a sweetener.
Not that there had been anyone sharing his bed for the last year—or longer. Which was no doubt why Leonora Thaxton had had such an unexpected and powerful effect on his libido. His pride might not like the fact that she had aroused him but, looking at things from a more practical point of view, the fact that they had shared a handful of minutes of pre-coital sexual intimacy at least meant that there was a familiarity between them now, which could only work to his advantage in public. In private there would not be a repeat of that intimacy—that went without saying.
But back to the matter of providing her with a suitable wardrobe—and quickly... His frown deepened, and then eased as he searched though his e-mail addresses until he found the one he wanted. Cristina Rosetti was one of a certain top-flight designer’s right-hand women, and she owed him a favour, having had to ask him once or twice to arrange for models to be flown to New York when their original travel arrangements had fallen through at the last minute. Several designers used his airline to freight their priceless one-off pieces of clothing around the world to private and public showings, but he had known and liked Cristina for several years—on a strictly business basis.
CHAPTER FIVE
LEONORA WOKE UP slowly and reluctantly, trying to hang on to the protective ignorance of sleep whilst she fought against the growing feeling of panic and apprehension that waking up was bringing.
By the time she had opened her eyes she had total recall of the events of the previous day, and her heart had sunk to the depths of the hollowed-out, aching space that was her chest. She looked at her watch. Half past eight? She sat bolt-upright, pushing her tangled curls out of her eyes. How could it be that late? She was always up early. It must have been her dread at what lay ahead of her today that had kept her protectively asleep and oblivious.
She wasn’t either of those things any more, though. She wondered what time she was being collected to be taken shopping for clothes suitable for the weekend’s events—and, of course, suitable to meet the high sartorial standard he no doubt required of his female companions. Leonora pulled a face at herself. She hated the restrictions of ‘result’ clothes. She was strictly a casual-clothes woman.
She heard the outer door to the suite opening and tensed—but it was only Caterina, bringing in her breakfast.
‘Buon giorno, Caterina,’ Leonora offered with a warm smile, getting out of bed and looking appreciatively at the selection of food on the tray, which included what looked like home-made muesli as well as the ingredients of a more traditional continental breakfast and—most important of all—a jug of fragrant-smelling coffee.
Leonora contemplated the personal shopper who would be accompanying her as she tucked into her muesli. Stick-thin, probably, and dressed like someone out of Sex and the City—either that or one of those fearsomely elegant women who populated the designer outlets of the more upmarket parts of London. Leonora had seen them from outside the shops, on her way to give private Mandarin lessons to her wealthy clients.
Oh, yes, she was quite happy to think about what lay ahead of her—but what she was not happy to think about was what had happened last night. How could she have responded to Alessandro Leopardi in the way that she had? Wildly, passionately, and as though she had actually wanted him to kiss her. When the reality was that he was the kind of man—sexually experienced, predatory, too macho, too much of all things male—that she would normally have taken one look and fled.
When it came to sex they were not even in the same league table, never mind sexually matched. When she thought of how she had lived for so long with a dread of being publicly exposed and then ridiculed as an inexperienced virgin, neither wanted enough by a man to be swept off her feet and into his bed, nor having ever wanted any man enough to encourage him, she felt positively ill at the memory of what she had done last night. Just imagining the humiliation she would have suffered if Alessandro hadn’t stopped when he had, and had gone on to discover her shameful secret, was enough to make it impossible for her to eat another mouthful of food because of the sick churning in her stomach.
Why, why, why hadn’t she done what virtually every other girl she knew had done and unburdened herself of her wretched virginity at university? Because she had been too busy fighting to out-do her brothers, that was why. How much simpler her life would be now if she had focused instead on losing her virginity. Taking a rest between lovers because one was focused on forging one’s career was understood and accepted by others. But never ever having had sex was a social embarrassment of huge proportions, and something that rubbed painfully against Leonora’s always easily stung pride.
She had thought that the person she most dreaded finding out was probably Leo, but now she recognised that Alessandro had replaced Leo as the man she would least like to know of her embarrassing virginity. If Alessandro had continued to make love to her last night how long would it have been before he had guessed? Would something in her response have given her away, or would he have only realised later?
Whatever the answer to that was, she had no difficulty at all in imagining what his reaction would have been. Leonora guessed that as a middle child, a second son who had obviously been emotionally scarred by his father’s cruelty to him, his pride would have objected to the idea of bedding a woman no other man had wanted to bed. He would have seen her as a reject—even an oddity, perhaps—and he would have recoiled from her because of that. A man like Alessandro would always be driven to acquire and possess that which other alpha men either craved or already possessed. That went with the territory of having been the child he had and having become the man he was.
Just as she was trapped in her tomboy image, so he was equally trapped in his drive to be first, and to have the best. The difference between them, she suspected, was that whilst she as an adult very often disliked the persona she had created to protect the child she had been, finding it wearisome and immature, Alessandro liked his alter ego.
Leonora rarely allowed herself to dwell on such profound and personal thoughts. They cut too deep and exposed too much—especially at times like this. She didn’t want to be marooned in the tomboy girl she had taught herself to be in order to compete with and excel against her brothers. Her brothers had unwittingly reinforced that role, keeping her in it within their family make-up. Out of pride and stubbornness she had remained the eternal tomboy rather than admit to those who knew her best that she longed to be recognised as a woman; she was afraid to ask them for the help and acceptance she needed to retrace her steps to the point where the tomboy should have slipped naturally away and the woman should have taken her place in a natural girl-to-woman transformation.
There was no point in her wondering what she should wear, she acknowledged now, putting aside her unproductive and uncomfortable soul-searching, since it would have to be her jeans. Somehow she didn’t think that the stylist was going to be impressed by them.
* * *
Alessandro watched from the shadows of the hallway as Leonora came down the stairs, his body disobeying his head with its unwanted and irritatingly juvenile immediate response to her. Despite her ill-fitting jeans and loose top he was sharply aware that beneath them she possessed lushly sensual breasts and a waist so nar
row that any red-blooded man would instinctively want to span it with his hands. She was long-legged too—something that no doubt Falcon, whose women were always tall and leggy, would immediately notice.
This morning the tangled curls were constrained in a thick plait, which showed off her cheekbones and the fullness of her mouth. He hadn’t thought of her initially as a beauty, much less as a woman possessed of alluring sensuality with the power to arouse a man against his better judgement, but now his body was reacting to her as though she were all of those things, and in doing so it was forcing Alessandro to acknowledge a potential and very unwanted complication to his plans.
When he had blackmailed her into agreeing to his plans the thought that he might find her sexually attractive had been the last thing on his mind. Alessandro was scrupulous about not mixing business with pleasure. He had seen what happened to others when they did and he had no intention of allowing his own life to become inconvenienced by the toxic effect of extricating himself from a sexual relationship he no longer wanted with a woman with whom he was involved in another area of his life.
Not, of course, that he was saying he was in danger of becoming sexually involved with Leonora Thaxton. He was, after all, a man who prided himself on his control over himself. He was simply annoyed with himself for initially letting the fact that she had managed to win his approval for her flying whilst deceiving him as to her identity blind him to her sexuality.
Leonora came to a wary halt at the bottom of the stairs. When Caterina had informed her that she was to go down to the main entrance to the apartment once she had finished her breakfast, she had hoped that the only person she would meet there would be the stylist—not Alessandro Leopardi.
Stepping out of the shadows, Alessandro announced coolly, ‘There has been a change of plan. I shall now accompany you myself.’
Leonora knew that her indrawn breath was both audible and a betrayal of her feelings. An indignant flush of colour stained her face. She also knew that Alessandro wouldn’t care how much she objected to his change of plan. But maybe after he’d told the stylist about her she’d refused point-blank to take on such an unrewarding challenge, Leonora thought with black humour.
‘As most of the better-known designer stores are here on Tournabouni Street, we may as well walk rather than risk being stuck in the city’s traffic.’
Leonora was feeling too dispirited to respond as she compared the way she was going to be spending her precious time in Florence with the way she had planned to spend it—visiting museums, exploring the streets and enjoying the timeless ambience of the Medici city.
Even though it was only just gone nine o’clock in the morning there was already a warming strength in the sun, where it fell in slats of gold from the side streets. Tournabouni Street was a busy thoroughfare, bordered by imposing buildings, many of which had been converted into designer stores. Their doors were closed to shoppers at this early hour of the day—but not, apparently, to Alessandro, as Leonora discovered when he stopped outside one exclusive shop and then removed his cell phone from the inside pocket of the elegantly cut linen jacket he was wearing over a striped shirt and a pair of jeans far better cut than her own.
He texted something swiftly, speaking to her without looking up. ‘I have told Cristina, who will be here to take charge of you in a minute, that you are to accompany me to Sicily and that you have lost your luggage in transit—’
He broke off as the door opened and a stunningly elegant woman stepped out to embrace him with a warm, ‘Ciao, Alessandro.’
As he kissed her on both cheeks, he told her, ‘I shall forever be indebted to you, Tina.’
How many women must he have brought here in order to merit the store being opened early for him? What did it matter to her how many there had been—and what was the cause of that sudden fierce flash of painful anger? Not jealousy, Leonora assured herself.
‘Well, we owe you several favours, Sandro, for getting the models to New York for us in time for the last collection’s show.’
So perhaps it wasn’t because he bought clothes for his lovers here that the store had been opened. If that was relief Leonora was feeling it was only because she didn’t want anyone thinking that she was one of his women.
‘Here is Leonora, Tina,’ Alessandro was saying, ‘I shall leave her in your capable hands.’
After another very Italian embrace between them he was gone, striding down the street, leaving her feeling curiously bereft when she ought to have felt relief, Leonora admitted, as Cristina beckoned her inside, and then relocked the door.
‘It is every woman’s dread that her clothes disappear, no?’ she sympathised with a swift shrug. ‘Before we started to use Alessandro’s cargo service every time we pack for one of the international clothes shows, I am—what do you say in England?—on needles until I see that all is well and everything has arrived.’
‘On pins,’ Leonora told her, with a smile that Cristina returned. She was older than Leonora, in her late thirties or maybe her early forties, Leonora guessed, but so elegant that it was hard to put an exact age on her.
‘I have brought with me some of the stock from Milan, as we have things there that we do not have here in Florence, and also a hairdresser and a make-up artist, since Alessandro tells me your work has meant that you have not been able to visit a proper hairdresser for some months.’
If by a ‘proper hairdresser’ Cristina meant the kind of hairdresser who charged a fortune and with whom it was impossible to get an appointment, then her ‘some months’ should have been ‘ever,’ Leonora admitted ruefully. It would take more than designer clothes and an expensive haircut to transform her into the kind of woman Alessandro normally dated.
But then he wasn’t dating her, was he? she reminded herself as she followed Cristina down a long white-walled corridor that curved and then straightened before opening out into a white space furnished with low black chairs and a black table.
As though by magic two black-suited young women suddenly appeared, folding back a section of the white ‘wall’ to reveal neatly hanging and folded clothes.
‘We will start, I think, with the basics. Jeans—which you will need for Sicily, especially if you plan to do any sightseeing around the Etna area—worn with perhaps a blazer and a silk shirt, and some fine knits as an alternative.’
As Cristina spoke the two girls were removing clothes from the rails and placing them on one of the chairs.
‘You will, of course, want to create the right impression when you arrive—you are tall, and so can get away with trousers. I think this pair in neutral cream will be perfect. Here is this cardigan to go with them, and this silver necklace with the matching cuff—very smart. And for the cocktail party I have brought this from Milan.’
Leonora’s eyes widened as she gazed at the lilac and grey layers of silk chiffon that made up a short dress with a bubble hem and a fitted strapless bodice, and at the neat fitted jacket that was worn over it. It was beautiful—but not for her. She never wore clothes like that. She didn’t have what it took to carry it off.
Shaking her head, she told Cristina regretfully, ‘It’s lovely, but I don’t think it’s really me.’
‘We will try it and see,’ Cristina said, overruling her.
* * *
Two hours later, exhausted and bemused, Leonora stood in front of a mirror and caught her breath in disbelief at her own reflection. Her hair was newly cut, in a style that seemed to consist of a mass of shiny sensual layers where once had been a tangle of too-thick curls, and it seemed somehow to emphasise her cheekbones and make her eyes look bigger. Her bare shoulders rose from the silk chiffon cocktail dress, whilst her eyes—thanks to the clever application of make-up—seemed to glow a smoky violet colour. The dress made her look fragile and feminine in a way she had never imagined she could look.
‘It is perfect for you
,’ Cristina pronounced, looking pleased. ‘I knew it would be when Alessandro described to me your colouring. This gown, and the cream silk satin full-length gown you must also have—you have the perfect figure for them. The jeans also, and the trousers. You have the long legs that look so good in them.’
Leonora wasn’t going to argue with her. She had never imagined that she could look so good. She even felt confident about wearing the bright acid-yellow cotton sundress that Cristina had insisted was a ‘must’ for sightseeing daywear, along with the pair of skinny-legged jeans which could be rolled up to Capri length. There were also a couple of outrageously expensive T-shirts, along with a gorgeous silk parka in pewter-grey, to tone in with the whites, silvers and greys of her other new ‘casual’ clothes.
Both evening dresses had their own matching shoes and clutch bags, and she’d been given a make-up lesson to go with the designer cosmetics that were to replace those she had ‘lost in transit.’ She also had a large, soft and squishy ‘daytime’ bag, that worked with both the trousers and the jeans.
After instructing one of the girls to unzip the cocktail dress for Leonora, Christina had left her alone in the fitting room. Leonora couldn’t help delaying the moment when she removed the dress, as she stood in front of the mirror and marvelled again at the transformation it had effected. For the first time she saw an image of what she could be—all that she had secretly longed to be since she had left her university years behind. Now she saw in the mirror a woman who was hardly daring to hope, as yet not entirely comfortable with her new image, looking back at her. The beginning of the woman that she could become—a woman at ease with herself, confident about her ability and her right to be both vulnerable and strong, to be both feminine and capable of holding down a demanding job in what was still in many ways a man’s world without having to compromise herself.