She shouldn’t say anything. She should do what he said and get out of here. Yet even now, even after he’d hurt her, for some reason she couldn’t bring herself to move away from him. He was so hard, so cold. Different from the intense, vital man she remembered, the one with the warmth of the sun in his smile. Her curious brain was fixating on him again, wanting to know why he’d changed, wanting to know what his secrets were. Wanting to see that smile again . . .
“Can I just say one thing?” she heard herself ask. “While we’re clearing the air?”
“No.” That lightning in his eyes was pure silver. A warning.
Which she ignored, because clearly she had a death wish and couldn’t seem to shut herself up. “I think you’re an arrogant, entitled asshole, and just because you knew what I was like as a kid doesn’t mean you know one single thing about me as an adult.”
He didn’t move, and the expression on his face didn’t change. “Have you finished?” he asked casually, looking almost relaxed leaning back in his chair.
Yet something was gathering in the air around him that was anything but relaxed. A kind of electricity that raised all the hairs on the back of her neck and prickled over her skin, making her breath catch and the wildness inside her want to chase after it.
He was dangerous and there was a part of her that liked that. Liked it a lot.
Fear joined the anger inside her, a delicious, trembling sort of fear that held elements of excitement in it.
“Yes,” she said thickly, lifting her chin.
“Good.” The word was coated in ice, and yet that electricity around him . . . was anything but cold. “You may go.”
She didn’t want to. She wanted to stay here, cross swords with him some more. She wanted to get to him the way he was getting to her. Maybe even hurt him like he’d hurt her.
You can’t. You’re not here for that.
Shit. She couldn’t forget what she’d promised to do for her father. She was supposed to be earning Lorenzo’s trust, not making an enemy of him. Not letting old obsessions get in the way.
She forced herself to unclench her hands and stand up. To turn around and starting heading for the door.
“Oh, and Kira?”
She stopped as if she’d been turned to stone, her hand on the door handle.
“Stay out of my sight for the next five days. If I see you, you’re out of here.”
She gave a short, sharp nod to show she understood, which was about all she could manage. Then opened the door and went out, resisting the urge to slam it behind her.
Stacey looked up from behind her desk, giving Kira a cool, assessing look that made her feel as if the other woman knew exactly what had gone on in Lorenzo’s office. But if she did, Stacey didn’t say anything. All she said was “Are you ready to get started then? I’ll show you to Clara’s office.”
Five minutes later, she found herself in a small room down the hallway from Lorenzo’s office. Unlike his space, there were pictures on the wall and knickknacks on the desk. Photos of people she didn’t know and a cheerful arrangement of little china cats.
And a list of mundane tasks a mile long.
Kira stared down at the list Stacey had given her, feeling a little sick and a lot miserable. Then, letting out a breath, she sat down on Clara’s chair.
Okay, so once again, because she’d nearly let her emotions get the better of her, she’d come close to screwing up and getting herself fired. Only close, though. The line hadn’t been crossed yet.
You’re going to have to try harder.
Kira clenched her teeth together, her jaw tight, and pulled over the list of tasks she had to do.
Five days. He didn’t want to see her for five days.
Her stomach lurched at the memory of the cold expression on his face and the ice in his eyes, at the way he’d looked at her, as if he despised her. It made the sick feeling in her gut get worse, and she hated herself that apparently she still cared about his opinion.
Still felt the fascination with him that lurked inside her, a hot coal, banked and glowing, only needing one small bit of fuel to ignite it.
The fuel being him.
She sucked in a ragged breath. Staying out of his way was going to make her mission take longer, but maybe that was a good thing. Clearly, she needed the time to get herself the fuck together.
After about ten minutes of looking at the list and figuring out what she had to do—it was a good list, with lots of clear instructions—Kira took a quick break to grab her phone from her purse. Then she sent her father a text: He’s handed me over to his secretary. What do I do?
A minute later, her father responded. Nothing. If I encourage him to get you to work personally with him, it’ll seem suspicious. Just do what we discussed. Earn your place there.
It wasn’t anything she hadn’t expected. That might take some time, she texted back. I don’t think he likes me.
After a beat, her father replied. Then make him like you.
Kira sighed and leaned back in the chair.
Easier said than done. Then again, if she wanted to make this work, she had no other choice.
She was going to have to make Lorenzo like her. The only question was how.
Chapter 5
Lorenzo paused in front of Stacey’s desk the next morning, and took a quick look around the waiting area. There was no flash of brilliant blonde hair or deep blue eyes in sight.
Thank fuck for that.
“She’s in Clara’s office,” Stacey said without looking up.
“Good.” Lorenzo turned in the direction of his own office. “Make sure she stays there.”
He did not want to see her. He did not want her anywhere near him. Not after yesterday.
Not after she’d sat in the chair opposite his desk, her long-fingered hands curled into little fists, and told him he was arrogant and an entitled asshole. And that, yes, she’d wanted to hit him.
He’d told himself that he was furious because no one talked to him like that, still less some blonde airhead he’d been forced to employ, and that he wasn’t going to put up with it.
But he knew that was a lie. It hadn’t been because he was furious that he’d told her to leave and to stay out of his sight for five days.
It had been because the dark, hungry part of him had wanted to reach across his desk, grab those slender shoulders, and haul her into his lap. Then maybe crush that smart, pouty red mouth of hers under his own.
An unacceptable urge to feed an unacceptable hunger, and he simply wasn’t going to give in to it. He couldn’t afford to. He knew where releasing that part of himself led and it wasn’t anywhere good.
Besides, he still couldn’t figure out what exactly it was about her that appealed to that hungry monster inside him. There had been something about her flushed face and the defiant glow in her blue eyes. About the tension in her slender body, how she’d been almost trembling with suppressed violence.
He’d felt it hit him, fast and hard. The need to pull away that prim black dress and white cardigan, let her hair down so the pale silky locks could spill all over his hands. Release all that violence, that repressed passion, watch her light up as he got her beneath him . . .
Jesus Christ. He should not be thinking about this.
Lorenzo nearly slammed his office door in an uncharacteristic show of temper, only just stopping himself. Then he threw his briefcase down on the coffee table near the sofa and headed straight to his desk, booting up his computer.
Then he plunged himself into work.
It had the desired effect, thoughts of Kira fading as the day’s usual parade of problems and issues and meetings began their onslaught.
He didn’t see her all day and by the time the end of it came around, he was pleased with himself that he hadn’t thought of her once, not since the morning.
The next day was the same, except he found himself distracted in a meeting with his legal team by a new staff member with platinum hair. As soon as the woman en
tered the room, Lorenzo felt every muscle in his body instinctively tense up. And not with fury. With anticipation. Then there was the strange lurch that he told himself wasn’t in any way disappointment when he discovered that of course it wasn’t Kira.
The experience shouldn’t have affected him, and yet he found himself in a foul mood for the rest of the day.
On the third day, Ivan came to see him and asked him how Kira was getting on. Lorenzo bared his teeth at his friend and told him everything was fine. He’d decided to wait before he put his plan to discover whether or not Kira was passing on information into action. He didn’t want to deal with her personally yet, not until he could be sure he wasn’t going to forget himself the way he nearly had a few days back in his office.
Ivan’s visit put him in yet another foul mood, making Stacey frown at him from her desk whenever he stalked past. She’d been trying to have a meeting with him to talk about Kira’s progress so far, but he’d told her in no uncertain terms that Kira was not a priority for him and that Stacey would have to deal with her herself.
Stacey was unimpressed and when Stacey was unimpressed, everybody knew about it.
That afternoon he went into his private kitchenette near Stacey’s office so he could get himself a coffee—Stacey was dealing with an IT issue—and came to a sudden stop as a faint whiff of an unfamiliar scent wrapped around him.
It wasn’t Stacey’s usual perfume, and since Clara wasn’t here there was only one other person’s it could be.
Kira. She must have missed him by mere moments.
The scent was warm and deeply sensual and with a heady sweetness to it, like magnolia or jasmine. Definitely not an innocent scent.
He tried to push it away as he went about the process of making coffee, but somehow the perfume got inside him. Reminding him of those pale downy curls at the nape of her neck and the stretch of cotton across her breasts. That rogue lock of hair that had grazed the delicate line of her jaw and her long slim fingers.
The burn of blue wildfire in her eyes as she’d stared at him. “Do you know how many people I’ve killed?”
He cursed under his breath as he reached for his freshly made coffee.
No, he was not interested in her. Not in any way.
That night, when he got home, he found himself reaching for his phone again to call Sian, and then, when he realized what he was doing, he put it away.
Calling Sian would be a failure, would be an acknowledgment that Kira had somehow gotten to him, and she hadn’t. He wasn’t going to let her. He would call Sian when he wanted to and because he wanted to spend some time with her, not to work out this inexplicable attraction to his new young intern. It wouldn’t do him or Sian any favors if he did.
Unfortunately, it ended up meaning another night working in his office at home, because he couldn’t get himself to sleep. A quick five minutes in the shower getting himself off would have helped, but again, in his head, that had now become a defeat, an admission that he couldn’t control his own needs and desires, and if there was one thing he wouldn’t allow, it was a loss of control.
Lack of sleep and the simmering hunger he couldn’t seem to ignore meant he went into work the next day in even more of a foul temper, not helped by the prospect of a board meeting that included his father and brother scheduled for that afternoon.
Christ, the last thing he wanted to deal with was his father talking confidently about the latest projections—which he’d no doubt doctored to hide the money he’d been funneling away for himself—and how pleased he was with DS Corp.’s current trajectory. Anything to allay the concerns of the board and make it look like everything was fine.
It wasn’t fine. Cesare thought he could manipulate anyone and anything. Use it for his own ends, the way he’d manipulated Lorenzo’s mother, the way he’d manipulated Lorenzo, too. It was why Lorenzo had never told his father about Katie, because she’d become another pawn in Cesare de Santis’s grand chess game.
A game that Lorenzo was going to make sure his father lost.
The meeting with the board was not, as Lorenzo had predicted, a comfortable one. At least for Lorenzo it wasn’t.
His father, chairing the meeting, was his usual autocratic self, rolling over the figures Lorenzo presented with a wave of his hand, turning the conversation around to the government contract Xavier had landed before he’d disappeared back to Wyoming. He placated the board the way he normally did, with charisma, down-home Western practicality, and the ability to intimidate when the need arose.
Sitting beside the old man was Lorenzo’s middle brother Rafael. Who said nothing the entire meeting, his silver-blue eyes studying Lorenzo as if Lorenzo was a difficult equation he was trying to work out.
Perhaps Rafe suspected Lorenzo had discovered their father’s illegal activities and was even now thinking of ways to cover it up, the way he always did when it came to protecting the old man.
If so, he was going to be shit out of luck. Lorenzo was going to make sure of that personally.
He stared back at his brother, giving him nothing.
Halfway through the meeting, the door opened for coffee to be bought in.
At first Lorenzo, expecting Stacey, didn’t take much notice, only belatedly realizing as the person began arranging the cups and fiddling with the coffee pots that it wasn’t Stacey in her impeccably tailored Chanel suit after all.
The woman had her back to the room, bending over the table where the afternoon tea was being arranged, and was doing a very good job of being unobtrusive. She wore a loose black blouse tucked into a light gray pencil skirt, the shape of the skirt highlighting her trim waist, beautifully rounded ass, and a pair of long, slender legs.
He didn’t normally allow himself to get distracted by women, no matter how shapely their asses were, and maybe that lingering sexual fascination with Kira had something to do with it, because he couldn’t seem to stop himself from looking right now.
The woman straightened and all thought vanished from Lorenzo’s head as he caught a glimpse of the woman’s rigidly pulled-back hair.
It was platinum blonde.
A bolt of something white hot and intense hit him, the hunger that had been simmering in his gut for the past three days, the hunger he’d been trying to tell himself he didn’t feel, suddenly flaring into life.
He froze in his chair, watching her, unable to tear his gaze from her as she added a dash of cream and two sugars to the coffee she’d poured, then moved quietly over to where his father sat and left it at his elbow.
Anger began to lick up inside him, threading through the hunger, his sleepless night, and his already toxic mood, making him even angrier than he was already.
What the hell was she doing here? He’d warned her to stay out of his sight for at least five days and yet here she was, day four, serving coffee to a board meeting she must have known he’d be at. Where the hell was Stacey? She was usually the one who did the coffee for the board meetings, because she was a control freak who didn’t like handing over tasks to others who might screw it up. And if she wasn’t here, it was probably because something important had come up.
Lorenzo stared hard at Kira as she began to head back to the doors, the blood pounding loudly in his head. Her attention was on the doors ahead of her, and yet as he watched, he saw a brilliant stain of color creep slowly over her cheeks.
She knew he was there. She knew he was looking at her.
The dark, intense hunger gathered tighter inside him, along with a concentrated fury, both at himself for the way this seemingly inexplicable attraction to her had gotten under his skin and at her because for all that she looked so pale and fragile, there was that heat to her. That energy. That smoldering flame. It warmed her skin, made her eyes glow. Made her push at him, call him arrogant and an asshole, made her want to hit him.
And you want her to try. Don’t you?
His breathing had gotten uneven, and he couldn’t hear a single fucking thing under the roar of the bloo
d in his veins.
Then just before Kira disappeared through the doors, her head turned, and she looked at him. And it was like lightning striking him, a burst of hot electricity crackling along every nerve-ending he had.
Her eyes widened as if she’d felt it, too, the blue of her iris flaring then turning dark. And as he watched, she stumbled, managing to check herself before she lost her balance completely.
Fuck, that was him. That was all him.
Something right down low inside him, something that he’d been starving in the hope that it would die, growled in intense satisfaction.
“Lorenzo,” someone barked. “What the hell are you doing?”
Kira disappeared out of the room, the doors closing quietly behind her, and as she did so Lorenzo became aware of the sudden silence. He turned his head and found the entire board staring back at him. And not only that, he was half out of his chair, as if he’d been preparing to leave the room.
Shock gripped him. Goddammit. What the fuck was wrong with him?
Slowly, he lowered himself down into the chair, trying to get himself the hell together.
His father, sitting at the other end of the meeting table, glowered at him. “Am I going to have to tell Ivan about this? That you were too busy staring at his daughter’s ass to pay attention?”
Fuck.
Someone down at his father’s end of the table snorted.
Lorenzo swept an icy gaze over the board members before letting it come to rest on his father. “When you have something to say worth paying attention to,” he said coldly. “I’ll stop looking at her ass.”
There were no snorts now, the atmosphere in the room tense.
His father scowled and opened his mouth, only for Rafael to interject mildly, “I don’t want to derail this obviously fascinating topic, but perhaps we can leave the subject of asses out of this?” Despite his casual tone, a warning glowed in Rafael’s eyes. “I believe all Dad was asking for are the latest figures from the testing facility in Nevada.”
Lorenzo knew he should get ahold of himself. He should start the presentation he and Stacey had put together for the meeting. And most important of all, he should calm the fuck down.
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