The Italian's Secretary Bride (6 page)

‘I didn't have you down as a girl with a thing for cowboy boots.'

A hissing sound of annoyance escaped through Alice's clenched teeth.

‘It depends who's wearing them,' she rallied.

‘Should I take that remark personally?'

‘By all means,' she replied with a smile as insincere as his own. ‘What's wrong, Luca? Are you feeling bitter and twisted because the girls are interested in your bank balance and not the
real
you?
Poor Luca!'

Poor
Luca gave her a smile that was one hundred per cent cynical charisma. ‘You care—I'm touched, I really am.'

‘In the head,' she muttered.

His lips twitched. ‘Actually,' he explained, ‘I tend to find it's my body that interests them most.'

‘Just as I thought, you've started believing your own press releases,' she said. ‘I'd be surprised if any of the women in that terrible article could spell their own name.'

‘
Harsh!
How about sisterly solidarity? After all, you obviously read that
terrible
article too. Which terrible article was it we were talking about? There are so many,' he sighed.

The small gurgling sound of inarticulate disgust that emerged from her throat caused his wolflike grin to widen, revealing a perfect set of whiter-than-white teeth.

‘Being a sex object is a burden, but…' another of his inimitable Latin shrugs ‘…I can live with it.'

Alice didn't respond. It wasn't easy; her facial muscles ached, as did the scream of sheer aggravation locked in her throat. It came so easily to him, she thought with frustration, all the sexual stuff that had every woman within a five-mile radius panting.

But not me!

Desperation and defiance…roughly a sixty-forty split? the ironic voice in her head suggested.

‘Your fortitude and sense of duty does you credit, I'm sure.'

Infuriatingly he seemed to find her malice amusing.

‘And for the record if I had decided to
pick up
Seth or, for that matter, anyone else,' she continued indignantly, ‘I wouldn't care what you or Roman thought, because, strange as it might seem to you, working for an O'Hagan doesn't preclude having a personal life!' She lifted her hand to her mouth to cut off an unexpected yawn.

His all-encompassing gaze scanned her pale features. ‘Tired?'

Holding his eyes, she placed the napkin she had been systematically folding and unfolding in her lap on the table. ‘Extremely tired of this conversation.'

It wasn't until she actually got to her feet—thank God they didn't fold under her—that she knew what she was doing. She was doing something she ought to have done hours ago…getting the hell out of there! It wasn't in her nature to run from a fight. Her normal response to a difficult situation was to grit her teeth and tough it out, but this was one fight she couldn't win.

Luca's forceful personality she could deal with; it was his raw, rampant sexuality that she couldn't. Trying to maintain a semblance of normality when her imagination was busy spinning erotic fantasies was a humiliating experience. The unpalatable fact was she could fight Luca, but could no longer fight herself and the way he made her feel.

‘So if you'll excuse me…' The longer she stayed, the more she would have to regret tomorrow.

His lean face was a study of astonishment as she got to her feet. ‘What if I say I won't excuse you?'

‘It will make no difference whatever,' she informed him simply before walking away, head held high, back straight. She got as far as the foyer before he caught her up at the same time as the effects of the stress of the evening from hell. She was literally shaking with reaction.

‘I assumed I was meant to follow you.'

Alice stopped dead. It had been a terrible evening and this was the final straw. She hadn't retreated to get his attention, just to retain a little sanity. Dear God, Luca had a treble dose of male vanity.

Eyes narrowed, she swung to face the figure at her shoulder. Looking into his face meant she had to tilt her head back a long way. ‘No, you're not supposed to follow.'

‘Sorry, I'm a bit hazy on the rules governing women storming out.' The muscles along his taut jaw clenched. ‘Not many women have stormed out of a restaurant on me…actually, none have.'

So that was his problem—
pride
. His precious ego couldn't take a woman walking out on him. Anger sent a rush of adrenaline through her body.

‘Great, my place in history is assured. The woman who walked out on Luca O'Hagan. It doesn't get much better than that—except possibly being remembered as the woman who cured cancer, but still…' She lifted a hand to her aching throat as a shaky little laugh was drawn from it. ‘Do you think they'll write a book about me?'

‘I think they'll…' He drew in a shuddering breath through flared nostrils and glared down at her, his imperious features clenched into a tight mask of displeasure. ‘That smart mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble one of these days,' he predicted grimly.

‘Maybe. Then again, maybe it could also get me out of trouble. But then I forget—you prefer brute force, don't you?'

‘I have not been fighting.'

‘Whatever. I really couldn't care. Before I go to bed I'd like to get a couple of things straight. Three things, actually. Firstly, that wasn't storming, that was a dignified exit.'

‘I stand corrected,' he conceded with a stiff bow of his dark head.

‘Secondly, they may not have stormed out but—trust me—some must have wanted to, and thirdly…' She stopped. ‘Actually there is no thirdly,' she admitted lamely.

She was too startled to resist when Luca suddenly caught her arm and drew her towards him. She opened her mouth to protest when she saw why he'd grabbed her. Though God knew how she hadn't noticed until now the laughing party of hotel guests in celebratory mood heading for the bar—they were making enough noise.

Luca, who muttered something harsh in Italian under his breath, made no attempt to move out of their path as they surged forward, but then she reflected he didn't need to. Luca was not the sort of person that anyone who wasn't insane or stupid jostled.
Or walked away from?
He had looked very angry.

Actually he still did.

As she looked at his fingers curled around her wrist she felt an enervating wave wash over her. The temptation not to fight it but to go with the flow was immense.

‘I don't appreciate being…'A small grunt of pain escaped her lips as she received a glancing blow from an elbow in the ribs.

‘Are you all right?' She angrily brushed away Luca's hand.

‘I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there.' The woman she stepped back into looked concerned.

‘I'm fine. It was my fault, I wasn't looking. Don't worry about it.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Absolutely.' The fixed smile was still on her lips when the woman moved away.

Luca stood motionless while a shocking realisation swept over him.

He had chased after a woman.

Never in his life had he chased after a woman, but if he had done he didn't think it was too off the wall, too unrealistic to think that she might have been flattered! Any other woman but this one.

Luca waited until the middle-aged woman had moved out of earshot, waited until he could trust himself to speak calmly before he spoke.

‘Well, far be it from me to inflict myself on you.' With a curt nod he turned back towards the dining room.

‘Luca, I need to get outside—
now
!'

I
T WAS
the hoarse, haunted note in Alice's barely audible voice that made Luca turn back.

‘What's wrong? Are you ill?' He watched as she moistened her pallid lips with the tip of her tongue. The cold impatience in his eyes morphed into concern when he realised that every vestige of colour had gone from her face and her skin was covered in a thin film of moisture.

Alice shook her head. It required every ounce of her will-power to make her numb lips work. ‘I just need some fresh air…now…
please
…'

She was looking straight at him but there was no recognition in her wide eyes. Just stark, chilling horror.

‘Are you hurt? Alice, say something.'

Alice could hear her name and she tried desperately to respond. ‘I think I'll just…' She began to lift one foot at a time but they felt as if they were nailed to the ground. Her knees shook with the effort to support her weight.

She could see Luca's lips moving but the words coming from his mouth made no sense. She had no ability to control the relentless kaleidoscope of images that flashed across her vision. Fear was a metallic taste in her mouth. She lifted a hand to her head and felt the clammy wetness of cold sweat.

It was happening again.

The doctor had given
it
a name. He had diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder.

‘But I haven't had a trauma,' she had replied, confident he must have the wrong notes laid out on the desk in front of him. This was the sort of thing that happened when you couldn't get an appointment with your usual doctor.

The doctor had looked quizzically at her over the top of his trendy designer spectacles. ‘You were the victim of a knife attack, I understand? And you were also widowed…how long…?'

‘My husband died some years ago,' she told him quietly. ‘And the attack was a long time ago.' In the time since she had never awoken in the night in a blind panic. She had not suffered any flashbacks. She shook her head. ‘Why should this be happening now?'

‘Who knows?'

‘Well, I rather hoped you would,' she returned drily.

The medic grinned. ‘Good to see you've still got a sense of humour,' he commended heartily. ‘I'm not an expert, but,' he added, handing her a card, ‘I know someone who is. It's not unusual for this to happen some time after the event, years sometimes…a trigger, stress perhaps?'

‘I'm not stressed—at least I wasn't until this started happening. I'm not sleeping.' She swallowed; the truth was she was afraid to sleep. ‘It has happened twice now when I'm at work. I'm not sure how long I can hide it,' she admitted worriedly.

‘And it's necessary for you to hide it? Your employer would not be sympathetic?' he probed.

‘I don't want his sympathy…' Or, and which was more to the point, his guilt! It had been bad enough before. The way Roman had gone on after she'd come out of hospital, you'd have thought he had wielded the knife himself.

If her boss, with his overdeveloped sense of responsibility, ever got a sniff of her new problem he'd go off on another mammoth guilt trip and that was something Alice wanted to avoid at all costs. The hair-shirt period, while it lasted, had been pretty wearing, being considerate and reasonable just wasn't in Roman's nature!

‘And I really don't want to involve anyone else,' she announced firmly.

‘You might have no choice,' the doctor replied bluntly. ‘This could get worse before it gets better,' he explained cheerily. He saw her expression. ‘Then again…'

‘It might not,' she finished heavily.

He shrugged.

‘So actually you have no idea.'

The doctor continued to be frustratingly vague. ‘It's not an exact science. The human mind is complex.'

‘That doesn't help me much.'

‘I could arrange that referral for you now if you like?' he suggested.

Alice got to her feet. ‘Actually it might be better if I got back to you on that. I'll be out of the country for the next few weeks and—'

‘There is no stigma attached to having therapy, Miss Trevelyan.'

Alice smiled. She had seen the address on the card; Harley Street did not come cheap. ‘Don't worry, I'll get back to you after I've checked my diary.'

She didn't. Even if she could have afforded it the idea of a stranger poking around in her subconscious did not appeal to Alice. Weren't therapists for people who didn't have friends to talk to?

Alice had friends, but she didn't burden them with her problem; instead she looked up post-traumatic stress on the internet. Armed with as much information as any ‘expert', she felt sure she could cope without resorting to therapists.

The turning point had been discovering what the trigger was. Sounds or even smells had been known to trigger attacks, this particular article had explained. In her case it had been an expensive bottle of perfume that she had received for her birthday…the same perfume Roman's stalker had been doused in! The woman whom she had just collided with also wore it.

If she had caught on sooner she could have saved herself weeks of the flashbacks and awful episodes of inescapable blind, brain-numbing panic when her heart pounded as though it would implode and her body was bathed in a cold sweat. But who could know that a bottle of perfume of all things could be the culprit?

‘Can you walk?'

She turned her head towards the voice; it came from some distant point above her head. ‘Maybe.'

‘
Madre di Dio.
I'm getting a doctor.'

‘No…don't.' She took a deep breath. ‘Sorry. Yes…yes, I can walk. It's passing.'

Luca's dark features clenched as he looked into the stricken, waxily pale face of the woman who stood swaying before him. She looked as though she was going to collapse.

He shook his head. ‘I'm getting that doctor.'

‘I don't need a doctor.' She gripped his arm tightly as the room tilted. ‘Please, Luca,' she pleaded. ‘I just need some fresh air and I'll be fine.'

Her relief when he slipped an arm around her waist was profound. With a sigh she sagged against him. ‘Thank you. I'm very sorry to be a bother,' she murmured, tucking her head against his shoulder.

At the top of the sweep of elegant steps that led up to the entrance Luca gave up on the pretence he
wasn't
actually carrying her and scooped her up into his arms.

‘You're shaking like a leaf,' he discovered as her soft curves melded into his hard angles. ‘I knew I should have called that doctor.' His eyes darkened with self-recrimination; he had allowed her irrational pleas to influence his better judgement.

‘Please don't do that, Luca.' Luca looked from the wide blue eyes to the small hand that tightened on his sleeve and back again.

Somewhere from the muddled mess of her thoughts a realisation that she was being carried for the second time in her life by Luca O'Hagan emerged.

‘You're always around when I need carrying. Only twice in my life…obviously I'm not counting when I was a baby…' She just managed to bite off the flow of confidences before she revealed that he smelt extremely good.

‘You're not a baby now.' The creature in his arms was all woman.

‘Am I talking rubbish?'

‘No more than usual.'

‘Good.'

‘I'm too heavy.'

‘For what?' Under normal circumstances Alice might have taken note and wondered at his oddly thickened tone.

‘For you.' Arms like steel bands effortlessly stilled her uncoordinated feeble struggles. ‘I can walk.' It didn't necessarily mean she wanted to.

The lean brown fingers that framed her jaw left her no choice but to look up into the face of the man who held her.

‘And even if you couldn't you'd prefer to fall flat on your face than let me carry you.' Eyes as keen as a laser and equally objective scanned her face. Whatever he saw must have satisfied him because he gave a grudging grunt and then set her down on the pavement.

Alice stood there taking big greedy gulps of fresh air while he arranged his jacket around her smooth bare shoulders. She was outside in the street and had only the vaguest memory of the events that had got her there.

‘Right, you're not going to faint on me, are you?' he asked suspiciously.

‘No, of course not.'

‘There's no of course about it.'

Her glance dropped evasively from his searching scrutiny. ‘I felt a little light-headed. I'm fine now,' she said, injecting a strained note of false cheer into her voice. ‘You go back and have your dinner,' she suggested. ‘I'll take a little stroll.' She had barely begun to shrug off his jacket when two heavy hands landed on her shoulders, effectively anchoring it there.

‘You have taken
stupid
to an entirely new level.' Luca, being Luca, didn't see the need to lower his voice and several people looked at them; a few stopped and stared.

‘Please,' Alice hissed with an agonised look over her shoulder. ‘People are looking at us. Let's walk.' Walking at least they might blend in a little. When he didn't respond she caught hold of his hand. ‘Come on,' she urged.

For a moment she thought he wasn't going to co-operate, then suddenly his fingers closed around hers. Her eyes widening as a tingling sexual shock sizzled through her body, she almost missed a step, but somehow carried on walking as though nothing had happened.

There was something quite surreal about it; she was walking hand in hand down the street with Luca O'Hagan. They were still hand in hand when the flashes started popping. Without thinking, Alice turned her head into Luca's chest. He held her there until he said, in what seemed to her an amazingly disinterested fashion, ‘He's gone.' Her face was framed between big hands. ‘You all right? You've got a bit more colour in your face.'

‘I'm fine. What was that?'

‘A photographer.'

‘Why was he taking our photo?'

‘I would imagine that it was to go with the one of me carrying you out of the hotel he took.'

‘Oh, my God!' She angled a worried look at his profile. ‘Will it be in a newspaper?' She hated the idea, but took comfort from the fact that at least there was very little chance of anyone she knew seeing it.

‘Almost certainly.'

‘I suppose you could explain to them that I was ill?'

Luca slid her an incredulous look. ‘They'll assume you were drunk.'

On this occasion she couldn't work up enough indignation to complain that he was talking to her as if she were a child.

‘That's the worst-case scenario…right?'

‘No, them suggesting you were under the influence of illegal substances is the worst-case scenario.'

Alice would have fallen had his arm not shot out to steady her. ‘But I wasn't. I'd had just a few drinks…and I've never…I don't do stuff like that.'

‘You think the fact that it's not true will stop them printing it?
Dio mio
, what planet have you been living on,
cara
?'

‘This is terrible. I'm so…so sorry. This is all my fault,' she said, chewing fretfully on her lower lip.

‘Don't be stupid, it's nobody's fault. Unless you tipped him off that I'd be carrying a woman out of that particular hotel this evening?'

‘Why would I do that?'

His sensual mouth twisted as he recognised the genuine bewilderment in her wide blue eyes. ‘You'd be surprised,' he returned cryptically. ‘It was just a lucky break for him. Don't stress.'

Easy for him to say, she thought. He was used to seeing his face plastered across newspapers.

He led her across the street. ‘In case you were wondering, that was me being sympathetic and soothing.' He smiled into her startled eyes and urged her forward. ‘Come on, it's at the next intersection.'

‘What is?'

‘Where we're heading.'

‘Are we heading somewhere?' Silly question. Luca didn't aimlessly wander, he always had an aim and objective. And with his single-minded focus and determination he inevitably achieved it, she reflected.

‘I didn't get my dinner and you haven't eaten for three weeks,' he reminded her wryly. ‘I know this great little Italian.'

‘I can't let you buy me dinner,' she protested immediately.

‘Saying no to anything I suggest is like a reflex with you, isn't it?' The corners of Luca's wide, mobile mouth lifted as he watched her open her mouth and close it again with a grimace. ‘And anyway,' he added, ‘who says I'm buying?'

Her lashes came down in a screen. ‘But that's not what I meant…'