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‘It was a mistake buy.’
She was mortified to feel dampness seeping through her underwear and the tingle of her nipples, which had reacted to that lingering, unhurried inspection as though they were being played with.
What was going on? she wondered in confusion. She never reacted to guys like this. She was comfortable around them. Always had been. Yes, she had had two boyfriends, but neither of them had had this sort of effect on her.
Mistake buy? Sergio nearly burst out laughing. ‘Mistake buys’ weren’t small, red and sexy. Small, red and sexy were designed to do one thing and one thing only, and that was to attract a man. To attract, in this case, him. It had worked. He was attracted.
And the way she could barely meet his eyes... She was the very picture of flustered, pink-cheeked innocence. It might be great acting, but the flustered pink-cheeked innocence was as sexy as the dress.
Hats off to her for a new and interesting route to getting through to him. Had she just turned up at the bar wearing the sexy red dress he might have looked but he wouldn’t have gone there. But her storyline... She had enticed him with more than the dress and the body...she had enticed him with her personality—and, frankly, he was in the mood to be enticed.
She was a refreshing change. He needed a break from intellectual women who had opinions and could become borderline tedious on the subject of their high-powered careers. What could be more of a break than a frisky little number who didn’t have a job?
‘I’d dispute that,’ he told her, with that same curling smile that made her short of breath. ‘In fact, from where I’m sitting, it looks like anything but a mistake buy.’
He was hardly aware of their glasses being refilled by a waiter, or of menus being placed in front of them. In fact he was hardly aware of ordering food.
‘So, does the bartending and the occasional picture-painting pay the rent? In London?’ he asked.
‘Just about. I can’t say I have much left over at the end of the month...’
Her parents would have loved nothing more than to install her in their grand apartment in Kensington, which was only used when they occasionally decided to descend on the city for the theatre or the opera, but she had always stuck to her guns and refused the offer.
Pride, however, did entail roughing it in a not particularly great part of London and having to put up with a good-natured but lazy landlord who didn’t see a problem with eccentric central heating and appliances that only worked when they felt like it.
‘And yet you’re here...?’
‘Sometimes you’ve just got to live a little.’ Susie blushed and looked away. ‘I should have done what I always wanted to do,’ she said, staring off into the distance. ‘I mean, have you ever found yourself sucked into following a career path that just wasn’t for you?’
She had been eighteen...with no interest in going to university...and the family consensus had been that a secretarial career would at least provide a steady income, with the possibility of branching out at a future date. The unspoken conclusion had been that she was just not academic enough for much else.
‘No.’
‘You mean you’ve always known what you wanted to do with your life? Where you wanted to go and how to get there?’
‘Circumstances have a cunning way of steering us down an inevitable road,’ Sergio murmured, a little surprised to be participating in this abstract conversation.
‘What does that mean?’
‘So you were “sucked into” becoming a secretary...?’
Susie duly noted his avoidance of her question—and yet he had sounded, just then, as though he had been speaking from experience...what experience?
‘It seemed to make sense at the time.’ And anything that made sense had seemed so important at the time—more important than standing her ground and pursuing a career in fine art.
‘But in retrospect it was the biggest mistake of your life, because things that are done because they make sense are not always the things one ends up enjoying...?’
‘That’s so true!’ Susie leaned forward. She laughed, delighted that he had caught on so quickly, had almost read her mind and expressed her thoughts in a handful of words. ‘You’re very insightful,’ she murmured shyly.
Sergio raised his eyebrows. Insightful? One adjective that had never before been applied to him.
‘I wouldn’t get carried away,’ he murmured drily. ‘If I were you I’d remember what I told you before. I’m arrogant...you’d be far better off bearing that in mind...’
CHAPTER TWO (#uf82ada03-fb69-593d-b9a6-f074f7711658)
NATURALLY SUSIE OFFERED to pay her half.
‘I insist,’ she told him firmly. ‘I dumped myself on you. The last thing I want is for you to find yourself having to buy dinner for me. And a very expensive dinner as well.’
‘I don’t do anything in life because I have to,’ Sergio informed her. ‘At any rate, I don’t pay when I come here.’
‘You don’t pay? What does that mean?’
‘I have an understanding here...’ So she knew he was rich? That wasn’t too difficult. He was well known—if not because he appeared so often in the financial pages, then because he appeared with equal regularity in the gossip columns of tabloids. Whether she knew what, precisely, he owned, he had no idea—and who cared?
He had already made his mind up.
Maybe he had made it up the second his libido had been galvanised into unexpected reaction.
She had come looking for fun and cash. She was heading in the right direction for fun...
And the cash? He was a generous lover, so who knew? If she was looking for something more significant...if she was in search of involvement on an emotional level...then of course she would be in for a rude awakening. But for the moment he liked the thought of taking her to his bed...removing that provocative little red number inch by gradual inch...and then exploring the body underneath also inch by gradual inch...
‘How can you have an “understanding” with a restaurant?’ Susie asked dubiously. ‘Unless... Are you related to the owner? Or does the owner owe you a favour...?’ She frowned and chewed her lip anxiously. ‘You’re not...not connected to the Mafia, are you?’
For a few seconds Sergio thought he had misheard her, but she was still staring at him, her almond-shaped brown eyes wary.
‘Have you actually just asked me whether I was connected to the Mafia...?’ Incredulity almost deprived him of the power of speech. No one, but no one, had ever dared go this far...
In fact no one, and certainly no woman, had ever dared challenge him in any way.
Maybe because they knew instinctively that he wasn’t into verbal challenges. Some women might think it a turn-on to needle him. The few who had thought so had learned pretty damn quickly that it wasn’t.
He was almost more incredulous that the woman appeared actually to be waiting for an answer!
‘Well?’ she asked, proving him right. ‘You haven’t answered.’
‘No! I am categorically not related to the Mafia!’
‘That’s good.’
‘Because...?’
‘No reason.’ Susie shrugged and realised with a little jolt of horror that she had actually begun to hope that she’d see him again. Begun to hope all sorts of things!
‘Come on...’
Sergio stood up and she instantly followed suit, glaringly conscious of what she was wearing now that she was no longer sitting down.
She slipped the black cape on and when she reached to tighten it around her he rested his hand briefly over hers.
That electric charge again—that hot, fierce current running through her that made her heart skip a beat and the breath catch painfully in her throat.
‘Come on...?’ she parroted weakly. ‘Come on...where?’
Sergio stood next to her, looking down at her upturned heart-shaped face. So many times she should have turned him off completely—starting with her crazy urge to confide and ending with her even crazier notion that he was some kind of gangster...
Yet was he turned off? No. He was a born predator, and he was a little relieved to find all those instincts alive and kicking, having been dormant for way too long for a man like him.
‘A number of choices here...’ Sergio murmured, enjoying the hectic colour in her cheeks and marvelling that she could marshal her expression into exactly the one she wanted to have on show.
‘Really?’ Susie squeaked, obediently falling in line with him as he headed out, oblivious to the covert stares following him and certainly oblivious to whoever was responsible for supplying him with free food—whoever he had his so-called ‘understanding’ with... Maybe the maître d’, who had not reappeared but who had been visible out of the corner of her eye, keeping a watchful nervous eye on their table.
Just in case, Susie thought, she outstayed her welcome and needed to be flung out urgently and without delay.
‘Option one...’ He pulled out his mobile, quickly texted, flipped it shut. On cue, a long, sleek black car appeared out of nowhere. He held open the passenger door for her and she hesitated—because he was, after all, a complete stranger.
Maybe not a member of the Mafia, but still a stranger! She wouldn’t have dreamt of getting in a car with anyone she’d met online dating, so why was she now contemplating it?
‘Option one is that we move on from here to somewhere else. I’m a member of an exclusive club in Knightsbridge. They do an excellent selection of after-dinner liqueurs.’
‘I can’t get into this car with you...’ She eyed the luxurious interior with unhealthy longing.
He had a chauffeur. There was someone at the wheel. It wouldn’t actually be just the two of them...
‘Option two is that we just head back to my place and cut through the middleman. A twenty-minute drive at this time of night. The views from my apartment would astound you.’
Susie gulped. ‘And—and option three...?’ she stammered, no closer to sliding into the back seat of the car and yet no nearer to fleeing the scene either.
‘The third option is that you scamper away and you never see me again.’
He leaned indolently against the open door, everything about his body language unhurried.
He wouldn’t try to stop her if she bolted for the nearest bus. In fact she could almost hear him chuckling under his breath if she chose option three—just as she could still hear him telling her that the things you did because they made sense weren’t always the things you ended up enjoying.
This dark, impossibly sexy, impossibly articulate, impossibly self-assured man was out of her league. She wasn’t the sort of sophisticated, self-confident academic like her sister, who could attract men like him. It just didn’t make any sense.
But neither had that fine art course she had wanted to do... The secretarial course had made sense, and a fat lot of good that had done her in the long run. She had still ended up digging her heels in and doing what she should have done in the first place—except she was now older as she started the climb up the career ladder.
She tightened her coat around her, her heart beating madly. It was cold out here—one of those freezing, sleety January evenings that put a depressing spin on everything. People swarmed around them, some turning to glance back over their shoulders.
‘We could talk...I guess...’
Sergio smiled. Had he doubted that she would take him up on his offer? Not really. He had sensed that charge between them, invisible but so tangible he could almost have reached out and clasped it in the palm of his hand.
‘We could—although I’ve often found that there are far more interesting things to do with a woman than talk. Now, are you going to get in?’
Susie hopped in, breathing in the smell of expensive leather and feeling the warmth of the car wrap around her. She shifted over to the window, still not entirely sure what had propelled her into doing something as extraordinary as climbing into a car with a guy she’d known for all of five minutes.
‘Club or my place?’
Sergio turned to her and all at once she felt the intimacy between them like a force.
His beautiful face was all shadows and dark, brooding angles. God, she could stare at this man and keep staring. The cute guys she had met in the past seemed like inept little boys in comparison. Actually, they probably were. This was a powerful alpha male, the leader of the pack, the king of the jungle, and a shiver of unbridled excitement rippled through her.
‘Well...’
She let that one syllable drag out and for Sergio that was answer in itself. He leaned forward and told his driver to head home, and then he relaxed back, sprawled against the car door and looked at her.
He liked this game she was playing. How many men had she approached in the past? he wondered. How many stories did she have up her sleeve? That hesitant, glorious air of innocence could go a long way...
‘So if you didn’t like secretarial work,’ he said obligingly, very happy to chat to her about the past she probably altered according to her audience, ‘why did you go in for it in the first place?’
‘What do you do?’ Susie asked curiously, as always reluctant to point out all her deficiencies—at least as compared to her gifted family members. Especially to this man who, for reasons unknown, she was driven to try and impress.
Sergio threw her an amused, vaguely disbelieving look and she stared back at him and laughed.
It was an infectious laugh. It was the laugh of someone who enjoyed laughing. His own lips twitched.
‘Share the joke?’ he drawled drily.
‘You think I know who you are, don’t you? I bet you still think I’m after whatever money you have —even though I’ve told you that I’m not.’
‘You surely must have heard of me?’ Sergio heard himself say.
Her laughter subsided into a grin. ‘Why?’
‘Because my name crops up regularly. I’m either making money or giving it away.’
‘What does that mean?’
The undercurrent threading through their conversation felt dangerous, heady and compelling. The way those deep, penetrating eyes roved over her made her feel hot and breathless, and she had never enjoyed a sensation more in her life.
‘It means I make money—and lots of it.’
‘Doing what?’
‘All sorts of things,’ Sergio said with a shrug. ‘I buy things, take things over, invest in things, build things... I own the restaurant, as a matter of fact. It’s one of five scattered across the country that specialise in superb food and an edgy atmosphere.’
‘You own that restaurant?’
Her mouth fell open and Sergio couldn’t help himself. He laughed.
‘Are you telling me you weren’t aware of that?’
‘Why should I be?’ She looked at him, bemused. ‘I honestly had no idea,’ she told him. ‘And if you really and truly believe that I only went there to try and get your attention because you’re rich, then you can ask your driver to stop and I’ll get out and find my own way back home.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
