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Sam, who would have quite liked to be somewhere else—anywhere else—walked to one of the chairs set against the wall and sat down.
After a tap on the dividing door Tim Andrews walked through.
From where she was sitting Sam could hear the sound of raised voices, or at least one anyway, and that was the only one she was hearing. It brought it all back with a rush, or would have if she had not sternly pushed it away, which wasn’t easy when the owner of the deep, gravelly, accented tone was standing on the other side of that wall.
Perhaps she’d been wrong to opt for the personal touch—a letter or an email, in fact anything that did not bring her into physical contact with this man, might have been better.
It wasn’t as if she had anything to prove to anyone else or herself.
Sam wasn’t conscious of getting to her feet or crossing the room, but she must have because the next thing she knew she was standing in the open doorway.
The room beyond was vast, but Sam was oblivious to the oak panelling and wall of glass that framed a view of the river. Her glance only skimmed the eclectic mix of modern designer and antique furniture before going straight to the tall, lean, broad-shouldered figure standing with his back to her.
He turned his head slightly, revealing the high, intelligent forehead, strong line of an aquiline nose and the slightly squared angle of a firm shaven jaw.
The man she had spent the night with had worn his hair collar-length and his jaw had been covered in stubble. He had been raw and earthy, as elemental as the storm that had raged outside as they had made love.
This man had a smooth jaw line and his hair was cut close to his head. Casual and crumpled jeans had been replaced by a beautifully tailored grey suit that shrieked designer. He looked the epitome of masculine elegance and sophistication.
Suddenly this didn’t feel like a polite formality—it felt like a major mistake. Sam was gripped by an urgent and primitive compulsion to turn and run, and she would have obeyed this instinct if her legs or for that matter any other parts of her body, had shown any inclination to follow instructions.
‘Shall I shut the door? She’s out there and—’
‘No, leave it open. Candice does not understand the concept of less is more when it comes to perfume.’
As Sam saw Cesare’s aristocratic nose wrinkle in distaste she wondered if this display was less to do with genuine repugnance to the exotic scent and more to do with the person it reminded him of.
Did it just bring memories of his time with Candice flooding back or fill him with helpless longing?
Neither possibility made Sam feel particularly cheerful. Ever since she’d read a newspaper article on Cesare’s relationship with Candice, Sam had been wondering if it had been the beautiful actress’s face he had been seeing in his head when he had made love to her. For all Sam knew those liquid Italian endearments that had melted her might have been intended for someone quite different, someone who really was his bella mia, his beautiful blonde ex-fiancée—except—now the ex part was in question.
‘Look, I’m sorry about Candice but she—’
‘There is no need to explain Candice to me, Tim—she is sensationally single minded when she decides on something. I take it the news of her presence here was leaked?’
The slighter man responded to this dry enquiry with a rueful grimace. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘She was never one to waste a good photo opportunity.’
‘About this girl, Cesare, she’s travelled to get here—couldn’t you just see her? You don’t have to actually give her the job.’
As Sam listened she finally understood the reason for the open doors that she had so far encountered—they thought she was an applicant for a job!
This realisation might have made her laugh if it had not been for the fact that the only thing Sam was really conscious of at that moment was the man who responded to this coaxing comment from Tim with a contemptuous snort.
Just her luck it turned out Cesare actually was a rampant sex god!
‘I was quite specific I do not want a female PA.’
‘Well, the agency couldn’t say that, could they? Not without being accused of sexual discrimination.’
‘So this is why a woman was included in the shortlist? To pay lip service to equality?’
She watched as Cesare Brunelli walked around the desk, his face set in lines of irritation, then without taking his eyes from the other man he picked up a smooth green rock shot through with iridescent streaks of gold and began to rub it between his palms.
Sam, her eyes glued to his long brown fingers, ran a tongue over her dry lips as her stomach filled with a flock of butterflies at the thought of those fingers on her skin, the skilful touch leaving trails of fire.
‘Is that the same stone you brought back from the peak when we did that Himalaya trek?’
‘Yes.’ As he let the stone settle in the palm of one hand Cesare’s expression was unreadable.
It was no struggle for Sam to see him clinging to some sheer cliff face. He looked like a man who liked to push the boundaries and himself.
‘That was some experience, wasn’t it?’ Tim enthused, a grin spreading across his face. ‘Even if I didn’t make it to the top,’ he added ruefully. ‘But next time I’m not going to chicken out. I’m going to keep up with the big boys. Then I’ll see the view for myself.’
The sound of the stone being set back down on the desk brought the sandy-haired Englishman’s eyes to the tall Italian’s face.
‘But I will not.’
The moment the words were out of his mouth Cesare regretted them. He disliked self-pity in others and even more so in himself.
Colour flooded Tim’s face. ‘I’m really sorry. I can’t seem to open my mouth without—’
‘Saying something to remind me that I’m blind? The fact you forget it is why I keep you around. That and the fact your schoolboyish looks lull the opposition into a false sense of security. You’re about the only person who doesn’t walk on eggshells around me.’
There had been one other.
Cesare closed his eyes, but it did not stop him hearing her voice in his head. Sometimes he thought she had been an erotic figment of his imagination, but his imagination would not have been capable of conjuring such vivid memories. He heard her voice saying things that nobody else had dared, but every word and every accusation had been true.
‘Gutless wonder’ had perhaps been a little harsh, but a flicker of a smile crossed his face at the recollection—his response at the time of her comments had not been such a tolerant or objective one.
She had become the innocent—though provocative—focus of all the inner rage and impotent fury that consumed him.
His nerve endings had been exposed and stripped bare—perhaps just by her voice. The husky quality certainly had the ability to dig its way under a man’s skin.
She had said things that nobody else would, things that had needed saying. She had ripped away his defences with a few observations and made him feel what he had been trying not to—pain!
She had tapped into the protective hollowness that he had been carrying around.
The sex had been something else—a mistake, but the sort that he would like to make again, he mused, a reflective smile playing around the corners of his lips.
‘People always walk on eggshells around you,’ Tim retorted, snapping Cesare out of his reverie, ‘because you intimidate the hell out of them.’ That much at least had not changed since the accident.
‘You’re suggesting I’m not a fair man? That I’m a bully?’ Cesare asked, sounding interested rather than offended by the possibility.
‘I’m suggesting you’re a man who sets himself high standards and expects others to live up to them, but not everyone has your—focus.’
It had taken more than mere focus for Cesare to overcome the personal demons that had arisen after he’d suffered losing his sight.
It had taken a will of steel.
‘About this girl…?’
Cesare’s fingers drilled an impatient tattoo on the desk. ‘You know my opinion of this sort of pointless political correctness, so why waste this woman’s time and mine?’
‘She was included by mistake, her name is Sam…’ Tim’s explanation trailed away as he added coaxingly, ‘Couldn’t you just see her?’ The moment the words left his lips a flush mounted his fair, freckled face and he broke off before saying awkwardly, ‘I mean…’
Cesare lifted a sardonic brow. ‘I know what you mean, Timothy,’ he said, amusement in his voice. ‘And I do wish you would stop trying so hard to spare my feelings. But, no, I will not…see her. I can hardly be accused of sexual discrimination towards women in the workplace. Is it not a fact that we employ more women in senior management positions than any other comparable company?’
‘Yes…’
‘I have no problem with women in the workplace—it is just a woman in my office I do not want.’ He found the idea of having unseen eyes filled with pity following him around the office intolerable.
‘This one might be different.’
‘You mean she might not be caring and compassionate and she might not be unable to perform incidental tasks like sorting my diary because she is so busy oozing empathy and protecting me. It didn’t matter how rude I was—’
‘And you were.’
‘It didn’t matter.’
‘She still fell in love with you! I should have your problem,’ Tim muttered.
A spasm of distaste contorted Cesare’s dark lean features as he snorted. ‘Please do not confuse that sort of soppy sentimentality with love.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘I WON’T fall in love with you.’ Sam felt pretty safe in making this statement, though obviously she wouldn’t have felt as comfortable if she had been discussing falling in lust.
She had fallen deep and desperately in lust with this man about ten seconds after she’d set eyes on him. Lust had made her principles and self-respect vanish in a hot flash of indiscriminating hormones…
But love was a very different kind of beast; love bore no resemblance to a bolt of lightning that robbed you of your ability to think; love wasn’t about chemicals; it happened gradually, it grew in strength and it endured.
Lust, on the other hand, was made of much more flimsy material. It had no staying power…which was why Sam could look at Cesare now and feel nothing but…oh, God, looking at him was not a good idea!
The sound of her voice made both men turn their heads in her direction and Sam was forced to rapidly re-evaluate the staying power of her lust.
The hormones were still there and active!
She knew Cesare couldn’t see her but it felt as though he were staring right at her.
Sam’s heart was pumping so fast she could hardly drag air into her lungs.
Cesare looked so different. Would he shrug off the veneer of cultured sophistication as easily as he might shrug that impeccably tailored jacket over his broad shoulders…?
Well, she wasn’t going to hang around to find out, Sam reminded herself as the image of Cesare in her head began to shed more than his jacket!
‘I’m not here about the job, Mr Brunelli.’ And she wasn’t here to lust after his body. Lusting was what had got her in this mess to begin with!
His incredible eyes, sloe-dark and framed by preposterously long, curling ebony lashes, were trained directly on her face. Sam felt as if that piercing stare were seeing, not just her face, but the thoughts in her head, and as these thoughts involved him wearing very little it was a deeply disturbing feeling.
Cesare stilled, his hands clenching into fists at his sides as the deep little voice with the unique husky resonance hit him like a slap in the face.
He’d searched for her and been unable to find her, the woman who had appeared in his life then quietly vanished leaving only the scent of her body on his bed sheets to show she had not been a dream.
She was here. She had found him. A slow smile curved his lips as anticipation uncurled in his belly. After the accident his sexual appetite had gone into hibernation, but had been re-awoken with a vengeance by the owner of this voice. When she had vanished so, inexplicably, had his desire.
It was back!
Cesare’s deep voice cut through the stretching silence. ‘Leave us, Tim.’
Tim, who was walking across the room to Sam, stopped in his tracks at the curt request. Cesare could feel the other man’s astonished stare, but ignored it.
‘Leave you?’ Tim echoed as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. His glance slid to Sam. ‘With her?’
‘Yes.’ One corner of Cesare’s mouth lifted and he sketched a sardonic smile.
Sam’s sense of insecurity deepened. She had mentally prepared herself to expect one thing, but this wasn’t it! Not only had Cesare’s appearance undergone a transformation, so had his manner.
The Cesare Brunelli in Scotland had been struggling with demons of self-doubt as he came to terms with what had happened to him. He had been angry and frustrated, his manner abrasive and belligerent.
This man, with his air of unstudied authority, looked as if he’d never experienced a moment of self-doubt in his life!
‘I’ll call if I feel in danger, Tim.’
And what will I do if I feel in danger? Sam thought as she drew a deep breath. She already felt in danger—of losing her mind if nothing else.
This is what I wanted, she reminded herself. But suddenly being alone with Cesare Brunelli no longer seemed so desirable.
‘Hold on, Tim,’ Cesare ordered, and Tim paused. ‘What does she look like?’
‘Pardon?’
‘Is she a blue-eyed blonde, a brown-eyed brunette…?’
Cesare already knew that her face was level with his heart, he knew that her figure was correspondingly petite and the skin that covered those delicious slight curves was smooth and silky. It was a shock for him to recognise how often during the intervening weeks he had thought of the face he had traced with his fingers, the face with the small, determined chin, tip-tilted nose and wide, lush mouth. His musing had been frustrated by the inability to put a colour to her eyes or to know the shade of the long silky tresses he had speared his fingers into and smoothed from her brow.
‘She has deep blue eyes—very blue—and auburn hair,’ Tim said, without looking to check the details. He then looked embarrassed and threw Sam a self-conscious and apologetic look. ‘Sorry.’
Sam shook her head. ‘It isn’t you who has no manners.’ Neither did he have an aura of raw sexuality that made it impossible for a person to relax in his company.
The pointed comment drew a hastily cut-off chuckle from Tim, who then quickly vanished.
The door closed with a click and she took a deep breath. ‘I’m…’
Cesare tilted his head to one side. Red hair explained the temper and meshed perfectly with his mental image. ‘I know who you are, cara. You seem to have made quite an impression on Timothy,’ he stated, not looking entirely pleased by this observation. ‘So a blue-eyed redhead…?’
‘I hardly think the colour of my eyes is relevant.’
