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‘Friends of yours?’ Marco asked sardonically as he climbed in behind her and took a seat opposite.
‘No, of course not!’ The question startled her. ‘I have absolutely nothing to do with them! They’re like a pack of hyenas.’
‘Your point being…?’
She was starting to get used to that derisive dry edge to his voice. ‘My point being that is not my style of journalism.’
‘Ah, yes, I forgot—you are a serious reporter, only interested in business.’
She raised her chin slightly. ‘And I’m good at my job—well, I must be, mustn’t I? It’s the only reason you’ve agreed to give my paper an exclusive.’
‘I hate to burst your bubble,’ he drawled, ‘but the main reason I’ve decided to give the press an exclusive is because of incidents like the one you have just witnessed, where I’m constantly pestered by reporters who want to know everything about me down to what I’ve had for my breakfast.’
Isobel had to agree that the situation had been unpleasant. She glanced out of the window and noticed that even though the chauffeur had pulled the limousine out into traffic the paparazzi were following on motorbikes.
‘And then there are the important business deals that have been wholly jeopardised by unwarranted press attention and ill-timed sensationalistic reporting,’ Marco continued sardonically. ‘Ring any bells?’
She frowned. ‘I hope you’re not suggesting—’
‘I’m not suggesting anything.’ He cut across her firmly. ‘I’m telling you why I’ve taken the decision to give a one-off in-depth interview—I’m hoping it’s going to be an interview to end all interviews. And that I shall get some peace and quiet after it.’
‘And you just happened to offer this opportunity to the Daily Banner?’ she asked archly.
‘I did my homework. And surprisingly your name has cropped up quite a few times over the last say…eighteen months. There was your report about my deal with the Alexia retail group…a few less than flattering columns about my takeover of a supermarket chain, and a very scathing article about my—I quote—“domination of the Rolands Group”. Shall I go on?’
‘No, you have no need to go on, I get the picture,’ Isobel muttered hastily. OK, she had singled his business out for some in-depth coverage last year, but only because he had done a lot of buying and selling, and she had always done her research. ‘I never said you had done anything wrong or illegal. Nothing I’ve written has been untrue.’
‘But it has verged on scaremongering.’
‘I’m a business correspondent. It’s my job to report to the public about what is going on.’
He nodded. ‘And now it is your job to follow me around and report on that.’
She stared at him. ‘Like a kind of punishment?’ The words fell from her lips before she could stop them.
Marco stared at her, and then he laughed. ‘I feel I should remind you at this point that every journalist in the land would probably love to change places with you right now.’
His arrogance was extremely infuriating—and so was the fact that he was probably right. ‘Yes, I do realise that.’ She glared at him. ‘And I’m not complaining. I’m just saying—’
‘That you are a serious journalist who would rather write about my business ventures than my dietary requirements?’ he finished for her, his eyes glinting with amusement.
‘Yes, exactly. I mean, let’s face it, the world hardly needs another celeb interview, does it?’ She spoke impulsively. and then hastily tried to correct the mistake. ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t want to interview you—because of course I do!’
‘Relax—I know exactly what you mean. And I’m more than happy to talk about my businesses and my rise to the top of the financial markets. In fact, that is what I would like to focus on.’
Isobel was sure any business information he gave her would be very one-sided, and she wanted to say, Yeah, right in a very derogatory tone, but she didn’t dare.
‘Well, I wouldn’t worry about it,’ she said instead. ‘Because it turns out that most people are only interested in your lovelife.’
‘Is that so?’ His dark eyes held with hers.
‘Yes… Bizarre, but there it is.’
Marco smiled. He was starting to like Ms Isobel Keyes. Had he hit the jackpot and engaged the one journalist who wasn’t interested in digging the dirt on his marriage?
‘So what exactly is the story with your divorce?’ she asked suddenly, her green eyes narrowing. ‘Because everyone thought that you and Lucinda did seem like the perfect couple.’
No—he hadn’t hit the jackpot, he berated himself. Like every other journalist she was a breed apart—a sub-species for whom no subject was too personal to have a good dig around in.
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Ms Keyes,’ he said coolly.
Was it her imagination, or was his expression suddenly shuttered? Certainly the gleam of amusement in his voice had disappeared. Strange… She had expected that reaction when she talked about his business dealings, not his relationships.
Maybe he just didn’t like the fact that the press knew he was a womaniser? Maybe that was another reason he had agreed to this interview—to try and reinvent himself?
Well, if he thought she was going to fall for that he had a shock coming, she thought fiercely.
The limousine was slowing down. And as she looked out she realised they were pulling up outside her flat.
‘OK, I won’t be long,’ she murmured as the chauffeur got out and opened the passenger door for her.
One of her neighbours was walking past, and the woman almost fell over in surprise when she saw Isobel getting out of a limousine, closely followed by Marco Lombardi.
‘Don’t you think it might be better if you waited in the limousine?’ Isobel said nervously as he walked with her towards the front door.
‘No, I don’t. What’s the matter? Are you frightened there might be gossip about us?’
‘Of course not!’ She slanted a look up at him and noticed that the amusement was back in the darkness of his gaze. Yes, he probably thought that was oh-so-funny. As if anyone would seriously think that he would be interested in her when he had his pick of the world’s most glamorous women.
The paparazzi had roared into the road now, and the usually quiet cul-de-sac was suddenly chaotic as once again they started to take photographs, shouting for Marco to look over.
Isobel was so flustered that she could hardly get her key in the lock fast enough, and calmly Marco reached to take it from her. The touch of his hand against hers was a shock to the system, and she jerked away from him abruptly.
‘There you go.’ He pushed the door open for her and looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. ‘Are the press rattling you?’
‘No, of course not.’ The truth of the matter was that the paparazzi weren’t bothering her half as much as he was.
‘After you, then.’
‘Thanks.’ What on earth was wrong with her? Isobel wondered angrily as she stepped past him into the hallway. It was as if her senses were all on heightened alert around him.
And she had never felt more nervous in all her life as he followed her up the stairs to her first-floor flat.
She supposed it was just the strangeness of the situation. She’d disliked this man for so long from a distance, and now here he was stepping into her sitting room, acting as if he had every right to be here. In fact, his presence seemed to dominate the small flat.
Isobel watched as his gaze moved slowly over his surroundings, and for some reason she found herself looking at the place through his eyes.
The rooms weren’t what you would call spacious, and her second-hand furniture looked shabby in the cold grey light of the afternoon. She was willing to bet that Marco’s designer Italian suit had cost more money than all her possessions lumped together.
The thought brought her back to reality. OK, she didn’t have a lot of money, but that was no reason to feel embarrassed or ashamed. She’d had no helping hand in life—she’d come from a poverty-stricken background and worked hard to get to where she was now. What was more, she had always treated people fairly along the way—which was more than Marco could say.
He’d practically bankrupted her grandfather’s business, until the old man had been forced to sell out to him because he just couldn’t afford to compete with him. And then as soon as Marco had taken over the firm he’d lost no time in restructuring—which had basically meant firing most of the staff. Isobel’s father had been amongst the people in the first wave of redundancies.
She could still remember the shock in her father’s eyes when he’d come home to tell them. She remembered how he’d sat at the kitchen table and buried his head in his hands. He’d kept saying that there had been no need to make people redundant—that the company was very profitable. And her grandfather had said the same.
‘It’s greed, Isobel,’ he had said. ‘Some people aren’t content with making a healthy profit. They’re only happy when they are making an obscene profit.’
Isobel remembered those words as she looked over at Marco. He’d been a couple of years older than she was now—about twenty-four—when he’d bought her grandfather’s firm and sacked half the workforce. And then he’d gone on to sell the business twelve months later for a very obscene profit, as far as Isobel was concerned.
And it seemed Marco had repeated this move in other businesses time and time again, making him a multi-millionaire before the age of thirty.
She wondered if he ever had pangs of conscience about the way he made his money.
As soon as the thought crossed her mind she dismissed it as absurd. Marco wasn’t the type to think deeply about other people’s feelings. As demonstrated by the way he’d walked out on his wife after just eighteen months of marriage, and the way he changed the women in his life faster than some people changed the sheets on the bed.
Something he had in common with her father, as it turned out.
She turned away from him. ‘I’ll just throw a few things in a bag, I won’t be long.’
‘See that you’re not,’ he said laconically. ‘I meant it when I said you’d got five minutes.’
Hurriedly she moved through to her bedroom and opened the wardrobe. What on earth should she pack for a night in the South of France? she wondered. She didn’t have a lot of summer gear, but then it probably wouldn’t be that hot as it was only May.
She glanced around as there was a knock on the door and it opened behind her. ‘Four minutes and counting,’ Marco told her as he leaned against the doorframe.
‘For heaven’s sake, I’m going as fast as I can.’ She flung a pair of jeans and a T-shirt into an overnight case, and then moved to rifle through her nightwear and her underwear drawer. ‘Do you think you could give me a moment’s privacy?’ she asked through gritted teeth as she looked around at him.
‘Don’t mind me.’ He smiled, but instead of moving out of her room he came further in, and walked over towards the window to look out.
At least he had his back to her, but the guy had an unmitigated gall, she thought furiously. She selected a nightshirt and some underwear and threw it in the case.
‘Don’t forget your passport,’ he reminded her nonchalantly. ‘That’s all that really matters.’
‘Of course I won’t.’
‘Good.’ He adjusted the blinds a little, so that he could look down to the road. And she realised that he had only come in here because it was the one room with a clear view out over the front of the property.
‘Are the paparazzi still there?’ she asked curiously.
‘Unfortunately, yes.’ He snapped the blinds closed and turned to look at her again. ‘So you’d better get a move on—because otherwise you could be splashed all over the front page tomorrow and dubbed my new lover,’ he added lazily.
He watched with amusement as her cheeks flushed bright red.
‘I very much doubt that, Mr Lombardi,’ she told him stiffly, wondering if this was his feeble attempt at trying to dissociate himself from the many women he’d been pictured with since his divorce.
‘Do you? Why is that?’
‘Because…’ What kind of question was that to ask her? she wondered in annoyance. ‘Well…because I am very obviously not your type.’
‘Aren’t you?’ He looked across at her teasingly.
‘No, I’m not!’ She was starting to think he enjoyed winding her up. ‘Everyone knows that you go for very glamorous blondes,’ she added snappily, and tried to return her attention to her suitcase. But she was finding it really hard to concentrate on packing now; she was far too distracted by the way he was watching her. ‘And just for the record you’re not my type either,’ she added for good measure as she glanced up at him.
He didn’t look in the least bit bothered. In fact one dark eyebrow was raised mockingly, as if he didn’t believe that for one moment. The guy was far too sure of himself, she thought heatedly. Probably because no woman had ever said no to him.
‘And do you think that it matters for one moment that you are not my usual type?’ he asked.
‘Matters—in what way?’ She was confused for a moment.
‘Well, the press sensationalise everything. You could be my maiden aunt and they would still think there was something going on between us.’
‘That is not true!’
His dark eyes gleamed. ‘Spoken like a loyal member of the press.’
‘Well, maybe I am.’ She shrugged. ‘But I know we are not that easily bamboozled.’
‘Bamboozled enough to think I only go for blondes,’ he said with a smile. ‘When in actual fact I have a penchant for the odd brunette.’
She felt her body burn as his dark gaze swept slowly over her. She knew he was only joking, but she found the intensity of his gaze wholly unnerving,
He was a total wind-up merchant, she thought uncomfortably as she turned away. There was no way on God’s earth that he would ever be interested in her—nor her in him, she reminded herself fiercely. She knew it—he knew it—and pretending anything else even for a bit of fun was just hideously embarrassing. They were at different ends of a very wide spectrum.
She closed her case with a thud. ‘I’ll just go and get my toiletries, and then I’m ready.’
Marco watched as she hurried away from him. He didn’t think he had ever met a woman so determined not to flirt with him, he thought with a smile. The strange thing was that the more she backed away from him the more intrigued he became.
He glanced idly around at her possessions. From what he could judge she seemed to live here alone. The place was almost minimalist in design, plainly furnished and yet striking. A bit like its owner, he thought with amusement. His gaze moved over to her workstation in the corner. The desk was tidy, but a huge stack of paper and notebooks led him to believe she probably did a lot of work from home. There were a few reference books—huge, serious tomes on economics. Was that her bedtime reading? he wondered with a grin.
There were also a couple of photographs in frames, and he glanced at them. One was of a woman in her fifties and the other was of an older guy of about seventy. Were they her parents? Her father looked much older than her mother. Marco looked more closely. Actually, the guy looked familiar.
Isobel came back into the room, and Marco turned his attention to more important things. He had a lot of paperwork to do, and a flight to catch. ‘Time is marching on,’ he reminded her, glancing at his watch.
‘Yes, I do realise that—and I’m ready when you are.’ She put the cosmetics bag into her case and zipped it up.
‘Really? Well, I’m impressed,’ he said with a smile. ‘You have half a minute to spare and…’ his gaze moved to the case in her hand ‘…probably the smallest amount of luggage of any woman I’ve ever taken away for the weekend.’
Did he have to make everything sound so damn intimate? she wondered uncomfortably. ‘Well, that’s because you’re not taking me away for the weekend.’
‘I think you’ll find that I am,’ he countered with a smile.
‘We are going away on a business trip for one night,’ she maintained firmly. ‘And as today is only Thursday, that hardly qualifies even marginally as going away for the weekend.’
She really was an enigma, Marco thought with amusement. Most women fell over themselves to spend time with him, and yet she seemed almost horrorstruck by the thought.
‘You can make your own way home tomorrow, if you wish,’ he said easily. ‘But I doubt your in-depth interview will be complete.’
As she looked over at him her eyes seemed to be impossibly wide and too large for her face. ‘Well, we shall just have to try and move things along faster,’ she said with determination.
