The Italian Tycoon's Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Well…there you go…’

  ‘I’m just not sure that he expected us to end up having dinner together.’

  ‘You make it sound as though we ended up in bed together…’ Rocco’s lazy blue eyes bored into her and he finally gave shape to the nebulous feeling that had been plaguing him. Bed. Him. Her. He had watched her as she’d performed with enthusiasm and conviction in that room this evening, had seen the way she interacted with all those people, dealing with them in just the right way, with respect and willingness to listen to what they had to say. And the sheer novelty of her had sent his imagination soaring.

  Maybe, he thought, his imagination had been soaring even before then. She certainly was nothing like any woman he had come into contact with before and didn’t most red-blooded males get excited at the thought of a challenge?

  He battened down his imagination and reminded himself that work and play didn’t mix. In fact, it was a rule of his never to get involved with someone from work, and this particular woman was virtually falling off the scale when it came to unsuitability, not least because he was her boss, so to speak, and a boss with a duty to get rid of her.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she snapped, bringing him right back down to earth with a vengeance. Lord knew how his imagination had managed to slip its reins, he thought irritably, when the woman was as appealing as barbed wire.

  ‘I’m not being ridiculous,’ Rocco grated, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, cradling the mug between his long fingers. ‘You’re behaving like someone who has been caught out. If the man trusted you, it wouldn’t occur to him that my answering the telephone implied anything suspicious.’

  ‘Of course Sam trusts me!’ She had a sinking feeling that whatever conversation she had with him the following day would be an uphill battle against his querulous petulance and questions bordering on accusations. All his self-righteous fervour would stampede to the fore at the thought of her entertaining a Man Like Him.

  ‘But how would you feel if you telephoned your girlfriend at this hour of the night and the phone was answered by a strange man?’

  ‘But I’m not a strange man.’

  ‘You know what I mean!’

  Rocco shrugged and continued to look at her, which was something she definitely didn’t want. He was too damned sexy and she knew that if he had been fat, bald, unappealing, she wouldn’t have felt a twinge of guilt at having him under her roof, drinking her coffee, at an hour when she should be curled up in bed fast asleep.

  ‘Okay. I get your point. I suppose if I had called a girlfriend at night and a man had picked up the phone, I might have been a little curious as to what he was doing there, but—’ at this point, Rocco shrugged with utter honesty ‘—all’s fair in love and war. If my woman was two-timing me then I would drop her faster than a hot potato.’

  ‘Just like that.’ Amy, distracted from the thought of a questioning, accusatory Sam, looked right back at Rocco. She could feel that curiosity again, the biting curiosity to know about him, a curiosity that had nothing to do with winning him over to her cause or making him see the importance of what she and her team did in the bigger picture.

  ‘Just like that,’ Rocco drawled, snapping his fingers to emphasise his point.

  ‘And you…you wouldn’t feel…well…bad?’

  ‘Bad? Why would I feel bad?’

  ‘Because relationships make you sensitive to the other person’s feelings? Because it would hurt to think that someone was behaving badly behind your back? Because you would have invested time and emotion in getting to know someone only to discover that you hadn’t really known them after all?’

  ‘No to all those things,’ he said. Another personal conversation. The woman had an unfortunate knack of dragging him into them without him even realising. When she didn’t answer, he shook his head and frowned accusingly at her. ‘And you can stop looking at me as if I were a pitiful wretch. I just don’t allow myself to get involved to such a point that I can’t walk away.’

  ‘That’s probably why you just don’t understand how emotionally involved I am with what I do,’ Amy pointed out. She was staring again. At least they were conversing so she had a reason to look at him, she thought. At least she wasn’t just staring witlessly as she had done at dinner, observing his face, the strength of his features, the sensuous curve of his mouth, the harsh beauty of his bone structure. Ruthless, cruel men should repel. They shouldn’t fascinate. Good, caring men like Sam should fascinate.

  ‘Oh, not here again.’

  The groan that came from him was enough to make her smile. ‘Are you trying to tell me that I’m repetitive?’

  Rocco looked at the teasing lilt of her mouth. She had done clever things with the lighting, the sort of things he always did with his. Avoided the overhead light, relied instead on the dimmer, more mellow lighting given off from lamps, one of them a standing light that could be controlled. It gave the room a soft atmosphere conducive to relaxing and talking. And looking. He found his thoughts wandering off to the so-called boyfriend that had caused such a disturbance and found himself tensing.

  ‘Not to mention relentless,’ he said roughly. ‘Do you ever climb down from the soapbox?’

  ‘That’s not very nice.’

  ‘I am not a very nice person.’

  ‘I realise that.’ The smile became a grin. She realised that thoughts of a disgruntled Sam had vanished from her head like a puff of smoke.

  ‘Many thanks for that,’ Rocco said sarcastically but with good humour crinkling the corners of his eyes. The coffee was finished but still he delayed stirring himself and getting a move on. He also realised, with delayed surprise, that she had just insulted him. In a manner of speaking. And the feeling that had given him was nothing like the one he would have expected.

  ‘I have to go,’ he said abruptly, leaning so that he could deposit the empty mug on the table in front of him, a low, square smooth table like the one in the kitchen, budget but tasteful budget.

  ‘Of course.’ Amy stood up as well with a feeling of disappointment.

  ‘Good luck for tomorrow.’

  ‘For tomorrow? Why? What’s happening tomorrow?’

  ‘Your awkward conversation with your boyfriend.’ He moved towards the door of the sitting room, following her out into the hallway.

  ‘Oh, right. Yes. Thank you. You were right. I was getting a bit manic over nothing. Sam knows me well enough to know that I’d never do anything, especially with you.’

  ‘With me?’ Rocco, en route to the front door, stopped in his tracks to look down at her.

  Amy blushed. ‘Well. He knows that you want to get rid of us…’

  ‘I don’t want to get rid of you,’ Rocco said harshly. ‘I already told you that my father’s company could use people like you, like all of you. We’ve been through all of this…’

  ‘Anyway, he knows that I would never…never…’ The confident riposte died on her lips and she struggled to find the right words to express thoughts that would have been better kept in her head.

  ‘Never…what?’ As if to forestall the option of her flinging the door open and allowing the conversation to disappear into the night air, Rocco planted himself very firmly against it and folded his arms.

  A delicate, guilty flush had crept into her cheeks.

  ‘Never…you know…’

  ‘Nope. Haven’t got a clue.’

  ‘You know exactly what I mean, Rocco!’ When he continued to look at her with that patient, baffled expression, she sighed impatiently. ‘Sam knows that I would never do anything with you. He knows that you’re not the kind of man I could ever be interested in in that way. So thank you for your concern, but there won’t be any jealous scenes tomorrow, believe me.’

  ‘Beware the man who is never jealous,’ Rocco drawled. ‘It’s a primitive emotion but then so is possessiveness. A man in love is a jealous man. He is also a possessive man.’

  ‘In this day and age?’ Amy laughed nervously
. He dwarfed the small hall, just as he had dwarfed the small sitting room. Or maybe his personality was so strong that the minute he was in any room he gave the impression of taking over. ‘Women aren’t into jealousy and possessiveness.’ She imagined the big, powerful man in front of her following his woman’s movements with his eyes, staking his claim, and pushed the mad thought out of her head. Those were despicable characteristics and always ended in tears. Weren’t control freaks jealous, possessive types?

  ‘Besides, from what you’ve said you’ve never been jealous of anyone…’ She found that she was a little breathless and wished that she had never conceived the crazy idea of avoiding bright lights in the house, opting for dimmer switches that were permanently turned down low. True it went a long way to concealing anything unfortunate that might be happening to the wallpaper, but the downside was this. Standing here, with this man towering above her and the subdued, mellow lighting making her feel ridiculously light-headed and giddy. There was an awful lot to be said for fluorescent lighting.

  ‘Like I said, jealousy is a natural, healthy by-product of being in love. Something I have avoided to date…’

  Shouldn’t they be discussing pressing business?

  She heard herself saying, defensively, ‘Well, Sam…loves me…and he’s not the jealous type…’

  Rocco’s eyebrows raised in amused disbelief. Well, Amy thought with sudden anger, he had been pretty surprised to hear that she could manage to find a boyfriend, no wonder he was incredulous at the thought that said boyfriend might actually love her.

  ‘In fact, he’s asked me to marry him!’

  This was greeted by stupendous silence. Rocco, staring down at the hot and bothered face with its so there expression, felt suddenly winded. As if he had been punched unexpectedly in the gut when he hadn’t been looking. It was such a shocking reaction for him that it took a few seconds to recover.

  ‘Should I be offering my congratulations?’ he asked lazily.

  Amy didn’t say anything, eager to terminate the conversation at this point before further delving into this area of her personal life began.

  ‘Because,’ he continued remorselessly, ‘you haven’t mentioned whether you have accepted or not.’

  ‘Naturally, marriage is a huge deal. A girl needs to consider lots of…angles…before reaching any kind of decision.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Rocco murmured.

  ‘Which Sam fully understands.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ He lounged against the closed door and folded his arms.

  ‘Gosh!’ Registering this slight alteration in his stance, which seemed to indicate no hurry to leave, Amy gave a high laugh and smiled brightly. ‘How boring for you, listening to all this private nonsense from me!’ She peered to see whether the handle of the door was available so that she could add further pointed emphasis to her dismissive, cheerful exclamation by meaningfully putting her hand on it. No such luck. He was resolutely barricading the exit. The only way to get past him would be to shove him forcibly out of the way and there was no chance of that happening considering he was over six foot and in possession of an off-puttingly muscular body.

  ‘As I have told you before, hearing about the personal lives of my employees makes them three—’

  ‘Dimensional…yes, you have told me before.’

  ‘Might solve your dilemma, though,’ Rocco mused thoughtfully, stroking his chin with one finger as if giving his thoughts a great deal of consideration.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘A married woman is a woman who begins nest-building, and nest-building doesn’t usually go hand in hand with a demanding career.’

  The sheer masculine, outdated arrogance of that statement brought a high gasp of outraged protest to her lips.

  ‘Unless, of course, your Sam is one of those forward-thinking men who encourage their women to carry on working after the “I do’s” have been uttered…?’ Rocco offered into the momentarily stunned silence.

  Amy had a swift and unpleasant reminder of what she had felt when Sam had made his proposition. His vague assurances that she could give up her job and take up something a lot less stressful, thereby saving herself for his needs.

  ‘Sam isn’t my man,’ was all she could find to say to his sweeping observation. ‘And your problems aren’t going to be solved by me conveniently getting married and settling down to wash clothes and iron until the pitter patter of tiny feet arrive! Anyway, you’ve forgotten that it isn’t just my job hanging in the balance. There are also five other hard-working people involved!’

  ‘With whom I would like to have a meeting some time soon, now that you mention it.’

  ‘Why?’ Amy threw at him, still uncomfortable at the image that Rocco had managed to portray of Sam without actually meaning to. ‘Will what you have to say to them be any different than what you have to say to me? They already know what your long-range plans are. That appealing to your heart as opposed to your head doesn’t stand a chance of working because you have no emotions and you have no heart.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’

  The low, amused voice brought her thundering heart to a sudden standstill before sending it soaring to a faster beat.

  ‘Yes,’ she virtually squeaked. ‘You know it is! You said it yourself so you can’t turn around and accuse me of nosing into your precious private life! You don’t get emotionally involved with women and you refuse to get emotionally involved with what we do! You see everything in black and white and you just dismiss all the grey areas in between!’

  He must be getting used to her unique way of addressing him without any thought of the consequences, he realised grimly, just as she didn’t give any passing notice to trying to make an impression, because he didn’t bat an eyelid at her outburst.

  In fact, he didn’t give much thought to anything. He reacted purely on gut response, which was why he reached out one hand, cupped the nape of her neck and pulled her towards him.

  She hadn’t been expecting that, Rocco thought with a surge of pure, red-blooded, male satisfaction. Her eyes widened and up close now he could even see her pupils dilate, but before her brain could make the necessary connections, and with a groan of having finally got his hands on something he had been wanting for a while, he lowered his head so that he could prove to her just how wrong she was about him being cold and unfeeling.

  In the split second before his mouth hit hers she knew what he was going to do, and then for a brief, terrifying while she was lost and drowning as his warm lips found her parted, startled ones and his tongue probed against hers. His hand moved sensuously against her neck and she unconsciously curved towards him, liking this drowning feeling, wanting more of it.

  Pressed up against him, her breasts were crushed against the hard breadth of his chest and her nipples stiffened and ached at the contact. She could lose herself in this. It was bigger and more overwhelming than anything she had ever experienced in her life before. As if floodgates had suddenly been flung open, allowing a tidal rush of sensation she had never known existed before to pelt through her system.

  It was wonderful, it was utterly consuming and it was…wrong.

  Reality suddenly doused her and she pushed herself away from him, finding herself released immediately.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Her voice was unsteady and her hands were trembling. In fact, she seemed to be trembling all over, like someone in the grip of fever-induced ague.

  The reaction did not escape Rocco’s notice and he derived savage pleasure from it. Indeed, he was tempted to throw the question right back at her, but he allowed her her moral outrage while a million questions zinged in his head. Such as how she could be contemplating marrying someone when her response to him was as dramatic as that, short-lived though it had been.

  The raging feminist, he thought to himself, was brimming over with fire and that brief glimpse of the fire had left him with a painfully stiff arousal, which he concealed by pushing himself away from the door and then opening it so
that the cool night air could do something helpful.

  ‘I thought that was obvious.’ His mouth was oddly dry and he couldn’t quite meet her eyes, unusual for him, because he knew that if he did the surge of response would do nothing to release his aching groin.

  Mortification raged through her like a forest fire. Proving a point. That was what he had been doing and, as far as he was concerned, it should have been as obvious to her as it was to him. She had called him cold, unfeeling, incapable of emotion and he had responded brutally to prove her wrong. What was mortifying was that she had enjoyed it. Instead of shoving him off her the minute he’d touched her, she had idiotically gone into a kind of weird state of suspended animation that had allowed her to respond. And there was no justifying that.

  ‘You don’t like argument, do you?’ she seethed, giving full vent to her self-disgust by attacking. ‘You don’t like being criticised and that was your way of dealing with it!’

  This time he did meet her eyes, on the way out of the house, one foot already on the doorstep. A sharp gust of wind blew his hair and he impatiently raked his fingers through it. ‘Maybe. But what was your reason for kissing me back?’

  ‘I think it’s time you left.’

  ‘Consider this: how strong is the relationship with your fiancé-to-be if another man can fire you up the way I just did?’

  ‘You…you took me by surprise, that’s all,’ she spluttered, red-faced.

  ‘Fine.’ Rocco shrugged, annoyed because, when he thought about it, she had taken him by surprise as well. And he had surprised himself just by how gratifying that kiss had been. If she hadn’t come to her senses and pushed him away, he would have carried right on kissing her and then more. His response had been a hell of a lot more than just teaching her a lesson in curbing her sharp tongue.

  He almost laughed as he strode towards his car. Rocco Losi, the biggest cat in the New York jungle, a man legendary for his liaisons with women who could grace the cover of Vogue any time they chose, and some of them had, sharing a three-second kiss with a stubborn, opinionated slip of a girl and feeling like an adolescent whose closest brush with a naked woman was in the centre pages of a girlie magazine.