The Italian's Secretary Bride (2 page)

Luca couldn't help appreciating his brother's tactics. ‘You knew she was gay, of course.'

A chuckle reverberated down the line. ‘Did she sound you out on donating sperm at some future date too?'

‘Yes,' Luca gritted with a shudder. ‘Although she made it clear that would depend on me passing stringent medical screening.'

‘And I thought I was special…' His brother sighed soulfully. ‘About tonight, no problem, Alice and I are running late too. See you lat…by the way, I probably should warn you it's possible that Alice believes the tabloid version of you and Ingrid.'

Luca could hear the grin in his brother's voice. ‘And you saw no reason to straighten her out?'

‘Strangely enough that didn't occur to me. She thinks I'm being quite extraordinarily brave,' he confided.

‘You're warped, you know that.'

‘She thinks you're a heartless love rat,' Roman explained, not bothering to hide his amusement.

So no change there. ‘Will Alice be there tonight, then?' he asked casually.

‘Of course she will. Alice is almost family.'

Almost…?
Luca slid the phone back into his pocket, a thoughtful expression on his face…
Am I being paranoid?

 

Don't lose sight of the fact that, even if asked, Alice might say no to Roman, Luca told himself.

Sure, that's
really
going to happen. We are talking the woman who without a second thought took a knife wielded by a raving lunatic to save her boss, he reminded himself.

So look at this another way. Would having Alice Trevelyan as his new sister really be so bad?

A spasm of distaste crossed his face.
Yes, it definitely would!
Well, if I can't find another bride for Roman, I might just have to marry the woman myself!

 

‘Can I get you an aperitif?' the solicitous waiter asked.

Alice wasn't normally a drinker, but she felt that under the circumstances a little Dutch courage might not be such a bad idea.

All I had to say was no. Why was that so hard? She comforted herself slightly as she sipped slowly on her glass of white wine with the recognition that she wasn't the only person who found it hard to say no to her boss. Her employer had the enviable knack of getting people to do what he wanted.

Slow or not, in an hour and a half you could sip quite a lot, and there wasn't much else to do
but
sip as she sat conspicuously alone amongst the other people, or rather
couples
, dining in the exclusive New York hotel. It was at times like this a girl could be excused for thinking she were the only person left who wasn't part of a pair. She felt a flicker of pain as she reached unconsciously for the gold ring that she had worn on a chain around her neck since the day her worried mother had confided she was afraid her daughter wasn't letting go of the past.

You're young, Alice, and you know as well as I do that Mark would want you to get on with your life.

Discovering its absence made her feel more undressed than the low-cut dress that had forced her to remove it tonight.

With a pang Alice turned her head as the couple seated to her left touched fingers across the table. Not being a girl to dwell on the gloomy aspects of life, she reminded herself of the many benefits of not having a significant other.

If she had a lover she would have to worry about the hedgehog style her hair adopted when she woke up in the morning. She could sleep on whatever side of the bed she wanted—and right now the bed she occupied was a rather spectacular queen-size.

Roman was many things, she mused, but a stingy employer was not one of them. When she travelled with him it was always first class. She occupied a gorgeous room right next to his on the top floor.

Alice looked at her empty glass and hazily considered the possibility that she had had too much to drink. But didn't people who were drunk feel happy and carefree, prone to dancing on tables and breaking into song at the least provocation?

Alice felt no inclination to do either.

She had no illusions about it. At best the evening was going to be an endurance test of her self-control. The thought of spending a painful hour, or even
two
, trying to make polite conversation with someone who had enough ego in his little finger to sustain a small planet was something she was not looking forward to.

And when it came to filling the inevitable awkward silences she knew better than to look to her dining companion for help. He'd just sit there looking bored in that aggravatingly languid way he had with those eerily penetrating blue eyes of his giving the unnerving impression he could read her thoughts.

The irony of the situation didn't escape her. An intimate dinner with a single man who was universally acknowledged as being not only wealthy and smart but also unbelievably good-looking would have had most women turning cartwheels and here was she acting as if Judgement Day had arrived.

Of course most women, unlike Alice, didn't know what a pain in the rear Luca O'Hagan actually was. Given the choice between root-canal work and dining by candlelight with her boss's younger brother, Alice would have headed for the dentist's chair every time.

The problem was he was spoilt. Things came too easily to the man, she decided, staring broodingly into her empty glass, including female company, she thought disapprovingly. Perhaps, she mused, he might have been more tolerable if someone had actually ever said
no
to him. Having seen him in action personally, she wasn't holding her breath! The title ‘babe magnet' had never been more aptly bestowed.

Her soft but determined chin rose to a decisive angle. She'd give him ten more minutes and then she was going to go back to her room to order a sandwich. Feeling a lot better for having made the decision, she caught a waiter's eye and ordered another drink.

At the same moment the voice of the
maître d'
drifted across the room. ‘Your favourite table…'

Alice's fingers tightened around the stem of her glass and her slender back stiffened. Having worked for her millionaire boss for the past five years, she immediately recognised the warm ‘very special person' welcoming tone.

What was it about some people that made other people fall over themselves to be attentive? Alice would have liked to be able to attribute the deference to money and power, but she knew that even if you had robbed her boss and his brother of those advantages they would still have been able to effortlessly command attention in any environment.

Impatient with the trepidation she was experiencing, she turned her head and gave a smile befitting the efficient ‘PA cum secretary deputising for her boss's face.

There was a man standing there, but not the one she was waiting for. Anticlimax sent the tense muscles of her stomach into a lurching dive. She sighed, rubbed her nervously damp palms against one another and, because she'd looked at most everything else in the room and the newcomer was worth a second glance, she carried on studying him.

This one looked far more like the sort of man she would
prefer
to be waiting for, she mused wistfully. Tall but not
too
tall and well dressed. Youngish-looking, too, despite his distinctive head of silver hair. As her eyes connected with his the man gave a quizzical smile. Alice returned a lopsided embarrassed smile and looked away in case he got the wrong idea.

Her gloom intensified as she returned her attention to the wine list and pretended to study it, as if she couldn't already have written a dissertation on the hideously expensive bottles on offer! The man, like the entire room, including the overly solicitous staff, obviously thought she had been stood up. They weren't wrong.

Just as well this wasn't a real date.

The idea of her having a real date with Luca O'Hagan made her smile thinly. World peace by the weekend was a much more likely scenario!

She was making inroads into her fresh glass of wine when the discreet
maître d'
quietly informed her that Mr O'Hagan had left a message that he would be there presently.

‘I can hardly wait.' Her dry rejoinder made the bearer of the glad tidings look slightly disconcerted. ‘Thank you,' she added with a smile, trying hard to display a little of the gratitude the man obviously expected her to exhibit.

In reality the news had not made Alice feel exceptionally grateful, just exceptionally mad.

To be stood up by, not one, but
two
O'Hagans on one evening was enough to make anyone a little cranky.

‘You stay, smooth things over with Luca for me,' her boss had cajoled persuasively before abandoning her. ‘A night out will do you good. You deserve a treat.'

‘Well, actually, I could do with an early night…' And you could do with therapy if you imagine even for a tiny second that I'd class a night out with your brother as a treat.

‘Pity. I cancelled our meeting last month and I wouldn't like Luca to think I'm a sore loser.'

Alice was instantly sympathetic. ‘Well, I suppose I could…'

‘Excellent.'

What Roman had lost and Luca had picked up had been six feet one and blonde. The Swedish model in question graced the front covers of just about every glossy magazine Alice picked up at the moment. The elder O'Hagan brother had returned from a business trip to Prague to find that his girlfriend had left for the States with his brother.

Roman hadn't seem gutted; he had greeted the news with a philosophical shrug. Alice, indignant on his behalf, knew he was bravely hiding his true feelings. Bad enough to have your brother run off with your girlfriend, but for the story then to be splashed across the tabloids must have been truly shocking.

She really hoped her boss's feelings for the gorgeous lady hadn't run deep, but even if they hadn't it wouldn't have let the lecherous Luca off the hook in her eyes. For all he knew Roman might have been head over heels in love…no, Alice thought, he had behaved despicably!

Some things
nice
people didn't do, and pinching your brother's girl was one of them.

But then nobody had ever called Luca nice. Instead, they'd called him other things, including sinfully sexy!

While there was no denying he had something special in the looks department, Alice's personal taste ran to something far less in your face and obvious.

Her eyes wandered across the room to the quiet alcove the newcomer had been escorted to and found that coincidentally he was looking her way. She nodded slightly in acknowledgement and looked away. Maybe he'd been stood up too? Although he didn't look like the sort of man that would happen to.

God, why did I let Roman talk me into this? Maybe Luca was right, maybe I am
Roman's doormat
. Even now, a long time after overhearing the contemptuous remark Luca had made, it still had the power to make her blood boil.

The notion that she was some sort of slave without a mind or will of her own was totally unfair. Luca's assessment of her relationship with her boss had been so far off the mark to be laughable.

For some reason Luca O'Hagan couldn't stand her and he didn't make any effort to hide the fact. The tight feeling in her chest got tighter as she contemplated the sneers and snubs, besides the despised ‘doormat' jibe, she had been on the receiving end of courtesy of Luca O'Hagan. What had she ever done to him except bleed a bit on the upholstery of his car? Hardly a crime to justify a vendetta.

Her method of dealing with his sneers and him was polite indifference. You couldn't really start a slanging match with the brother of your boss, especially when he ran part of the family company. So Alice maintained a supernaturally serene front in face of his frequently provocative behaviour, a fact of which she was extremely proud. Fortunately their paths didn't cross too frequently as he spent most of his time this side of the Atlantic and her time was split between Dublin and London.

‘Excuse me…?'

The Texan drawl startled Alice from her own thoughts. Her eyes widened when she lifted her head and saw the silver-haired new arrival standing at her elbow.

‘I'm dining alone and I was wondering…?'

Alice, aware that his remark could be heard by fellow diners, felt her face flush. ‘I'm waiting for someone.'

There was no question of her encouraging him, but the attention of an attractive man did make her feel a little less like a total loser sitting amongst the romantically inclined couples surrounding her.

He gave a rueful grimace. ‘I never thought otherwise…but until then, would you like some company? I promise you I'm perfectly harmless.' His smile was as charming as the line was clichéd.

This claim wrenched an unwilling laugh from Alice. ‘That I doubt. Actually I was just leaving.'