The Italian's Secretary Bride (4 page)

Something she wasn't.

Actually Alice doubted that any girlfriend of Luca O'Hagan's who did complain, or demand to know where he had been and with whom, would retain that honour for very long. There would always be someone to replace her; Luca believed firmly in the theory of safety in numbers!

Alice decided to tack on an addition that would establish her disinterest in the subject of his love life, but instead heard with a deepening sense of dismay,
‘Or didn't you ask?'
fall waspishly from her lips.

Oh, God…!
She removed her stare from his darkly handsome face and made a detailed study of the bottom of her glass.

A short static pause followed her sarcastic jab.

‘Actually I—'

‘Spare me the details!' she cut in, her stomach muscles shifting nauseously at the prospect of him filling in the blanks in her imagination.
Still
she couldn't stop her runaway tongue. ‘I suppose some men just never grow up.'

Luca looked at her with a worrying lack of expression. ‘Am I to assume that you number me amongst these cases of arrested development?' A muscle in his lean brown cheek visibly clenched as their glances locked. ‘Why is it you never lose an opportunity to look down that little nose of yours at me…?' He paused, a bemused frown drawing his brow into creases. Then unexpectedly he reached out to lightly graze the tip of the feature under discussion with his knuckle.

Alice, who literally jumped back in her seat, was too startled by the physical contact to register that the action had all the hallmarks of compulsion about it. She couldn't register much beyond the deafening thud of her heartbeat echoing dully in her ears.

Luca's sensually sculpted lips thinned into a cynical smile as his hand fell away.

‘Why did you do that?' she asked.

‘Damned if I know.' Not strictly true. He'd always wanted to touch her, to feel for himself if that alabaster-clear skin was actually as sensationally smooth as it looked; would his fingers glide over the silky surface?

Alice, who had been expecting some smart sarcastic response, found she couldn't meet his eyes. The direction of the conversation was seriously spooking her, as was the tension that weighed heavily in the air.

The uncomfortable silence seethed with things she didn't care to analyse until finally she could bear it no longer. ‘Oh, and there's no need to apologise for being late. I've really had a lovely time sitting here for nearly two hours.' Angry, very blue eyes lifted from the depths of her glass and behind the anger lurked an awareness that she was blowing her years of supernatural serenity well and truly out of the water.

‘I'm very sorry I'm late.'

She gave an unimpressed sniff. ‘No, you're not.'

‘
Per amor di Dio!
I think this is what you'd call a no-win situation.'

‘It wasn't spontaneous…'

The scraping sound as Luca shifted his chair to give himself some extra leg-room made her jump nervously. Holding her eyes, he slowly crossed one ankle over the other.

‘When I
spontaneously
admired your dress you didn't like it.' A slow, dangerous smile spread across his lean face. ‘Or maybe you did?' Her angry gasp made his smile widen.

‘It wasn't my dress you were looking at!' she countered huskily.

Luca's cerulean-blue eyes drifted downwards…

Alice bit her lip and endured the scrutiny even though she felt like crawling out of her skin. She lifted her chin up, angry stare fixed straight ahead; no amount of will-power could prevent the rosy wash of warm tell-tale colour inexorably rise up her neck.

Grow-up, Alice, she told herself angrily, it's not as if he's actually
looking
. He's just trying to wind you up. This is probably his idea of a joke. That resentful theory fell apart when his glance lifted. There was nothing that faintly resembled humour in his expression.

‘You're right, I wasn't,' he agreed sardonically.

Alice met his eyes and her breath snagged in her too-dry throat before she looked away again, deeply shaken by the predatory gleam in his fantastic eyes.

She pressed her hands against her thighs and took a deep restorative breath. Under the table her knees carried on shaking uncontrollably. If she had stood up at that moment she would have fallen flat on her face.

She knew that her reaction was way,
way
over the top. For starters she wasn't his type at all…heck, the man was probably
born
looking predatory. Far from finding her attractive, he probably wouldn't notice if she were sitting there stark naked.

A militant light sparked to life in her eyes. It wasn't that she wanted Luca to notice she was a woman, it was just the acknowledgement that she couldn't have made him notice even if she had wanted to that hurt her self-esteem.

My God, but there was no justice in the world, she thought, her temper uncharacteristically flaring. She hadn't actually expected the latest diet fad to turn her into a flat-chested clothes-horse, but after three weeks of self-deprivation it would have been nice to have lost a pound!

Not that anyone would have noticed, she thought with a self-pitying sniff.

‘Anyway, we're not talking about my clothes sense, we're talking about your total lack of consideration.'

‘
We
are? You should have said. Right, I'm
extremely
sorry I'm late.'

Luca's electric-blue eyes might not be what you expected of a Latin male, but everything else about him was—including his volatile temperament, off-the-scale insolence, and in-your-face sex appeal. It was pathetic really that he traded on his sexuality. Her deliberate attempt to view his tall, athletically lean six feet plus frame with amused condescension did not prevent the fluttery sensation in the pit of her stomach.

She cleared her throat; even so her voice held a husky rasp as she bowed her head slightly in grudging acknowledgement. ‘Apology accepted.'

The pout was something he had not seen before, Luca registered, removing his eyes from the heaving contours of her generous breasts, which he
had
been conscious of on other occasions.

Several occasions, actually.

Even when she was in the less-revealing sexily discreet silk blouses she habitually wore during working hours a male's eyes were inevitably drawn to the full, feminine contours—even his, and Luca considered himself a pretty controlled sort of guy. If he weren't he would have told his brother the screamingly obvious fact that it was always a bad idea to have a personal relationship with someone who worked for you.

The line between Alice's feathery brows deepened as Luca leaned back in his chair with indolent grace. Her eyes were drawn to his hands as he laid them on the table; his long, tapering fingers were brown and shapely.

‘Very gracious of you. Tell me, so that I know next time…do you always make the rules up as you go along?' he asked.

‘At least I know that rules exist.' If ever a man had been born to push the constraints of society to the limit, it was Luca. He was a born risk-taker. As she turned her head to avoid contact with his compelling eyes she caught sight of something that made her eyes widen. ‘Have you been fighting?'

Luca tilted his head and ran a hand lightly along the hard curve of his jaw. Almost imperceptibly he winced. ‘You should see the other guy.'

Earlier in the subdued light Alice had missed the discoloured area extending from one sharp-edged cheekbone to his chiselled jaw. Now that she looked she could see there were also signs of faint puffiness in the skin around his sculpted lips.

‘You think this is funny?' She didn't bother to hide her disapproval of his attitude. Violence was a subject upon which she held strong views.

In her opinion, no matter what the situation, an intelligent person—and there was no denying that Luca, for all his faults, had a mind like a steel trap—could
always
come up with a better solution than physical violence.

She was not even aware that her hand had come to rest on her midriff. The doctors had done a pretty neat job, but she would always bear the permanent reminder of the day that she had been the victim of an act of violence—the first day, coincidentally, that she had ever laid eyes on her employer's younger brother.

Memory triggered, she recalled the night he had carried her in his arms. Now it seemed like something that had happened to someone else…actually it always had. Her memories of the occasion were hazy, restricted to Luca cursing fluently in musical Italian when all she'd done was ask how Roman was. That and a series of impressions left in her head…warmth, lean hardness, strength, the male scent of his skin overlaid lightly with the subtle fragrance he had been wearing.

Perhaps it had been the relief, the instinctive knowledge at some deep level that here had been someone who would shoulder the burden of responsibility. She'd been able to let go, she hadn't had to be in control and strong. Maybe that was why these details remained so clear in her mind.

His prompt action had saved her life, they had said. Even if this statement had been a little over-the-top she would undoubtedly have been in trouble if he hadn't been there.

Though you could hardly compare the trauma of the two incidents, they were intrinsically linked in her mind. The day she had got in the way of a stalker's knife, not even her own stalker, and the day she'd first seen Luca O'Hagan.

‘Have you seen a doctor?'

Luca, his eyes trained unblinkingly on her face, didn't respond to the querulous abrupt enquiry. Their eyes connected and she knew that in that uncomfortable way Luca had he knew exactly where her thoughts had been. Belatedly aware of the hand pressed to her middle, she let it fall self-consciously away.

His mouth softened slightly as he studied her downcast features. ‘It was a minor accident, that's all, Alice.' Actually he had got the bruise from saving the child earlier.

Her gaze lifted. It wasn't very often he used her name, but when he did she always felt an odd insidious weakness work its way through her body. She worked very hard not to let him see that it was happening right now. ‘Roman got called away.'

‘So you said.'

‘I did…?' she echoed vaguely.

‘I suppose Roman standing you up explains the mood.'

‘The mood? I don't have a mood.' Her frown deepened. ‘Why,' she demanded, ‘are you looking at me like that?'

‘How many of those have you had?' His eyes touched the glass in her hand.

‘Not nearly enough,' she told him sincerely.

His lips twitched. ‘When was the last time you ate?'

Alice released a long, shuddering sigh as her eyes followed a splendid creamy confection topped by a lattice of calorific spun sugar being delivered to a nearby table. ‘Three weeks ago,' she confessed.

Luca blinked.
'Three weeks ago…?'

Alice nodded. ‘Real food. I've been on a diet.' In her book powdered stuff that tasted of nothing when you mixed it with milk and as many grapefruit as you could stomach did not constitute food in the real sense of the word. ‘Crazy, isn't it? Half the world are starving and the other half are trying to slim.'

‘Diet? What on earth are you dieting for?'

Alice delivered a look of killing contempt. Only someone who wasn't carrying an ounce of surplus flesh on his hard-muscled frame could say something so spectacularly stupid. ‘I'd have thought that was abundantly obvious,' she gritted. ‘Especially,' she added gloomily, ‘in this dress.'

She was viewing the despised curves of her body when it occurred to her that her comment had virtually invited his scrutiny. She closed her eyes tight as horror washed over her. Why do I keep mentioning this darned dress?

She hardly dared look up, but when she gathered the courage she discovered that he had not refused her invitation! She tried to act as if it didn't bother her that his eyes were superglued to her body, but by the time he got back to her face her breath had increased to a degree she couldn't disguise. From where he was looking he must have been aware of the fact.

‘It's
abundantly
obvious in that dress that most women would kill for the figure you've got. You have a body that would feature in nine out of ten men's fantasies,' he pronounced.

Alice gave a nervous laugh.
'Sure!'
she said.

‘You don't think I'm serious?' He seemed perplexed by her attitude.

‘People do not design clothes for women my shape.'

‘That's because people wouldn't be looking at the clothes,' he immediately rebutted.

‘Then what would they…?' She stopped and blushed darkly.

Luca grinned. ‘Exactly,' he confirmed, looking amused by her embarrassment. ‘Now, how about if we order?'