The Italian's Secretary Bride (8 page)

‘I can't deny it…Alice, you know me so well.' On any other occasion Alice would have responded to the danger in his silky response, but the extraordinary events of this night had imbued her with a strange recklessness.

She shrugged. ‘You can be sarcastic, and I'm sure you
love
the idea of being enigmatic, but, let's face it, you're not exactly the most complicated of men ever to look in the mirror and like what he saw.' She saw the shock register in his electric-blue eyes and added innocently, ‘No offence intended.'

The silence that followed his soft,
‘Dio mio,'
lasted long enough for some doubts to creep in. He was everything she despised in a man, but was it such a good idea to tell him? Satisfying in the short term as it was, it was probably dangerous in the long term. Luca was not a man who let someone else have the last word!

He didn't.

‘It's curious but I've noticed people who are eager to point out the faults of others are less eager to hear about their own. Of course, this doesn't apply in Alice's case because
she's
perfect.' He raised his glass in a mocking salute. ‘Let's drink to perfect Alice.'

Alice was too angry to think straight. She was as close to
really
losing her temper as she had been in years.

‘I'm well aware I'm not perfect,' she grated with a toss of her head.

‘Such modesty.'

Her soft lips tightened at his mocking admiration. ‘If we're talking compared with you, the answer is yes.'

Luca gave a very Latin shrug. ‘So willing to flaunt it and almost perfect. Well, almost perfect is still much more than most of us can aspire to.'

Alice didn't know how she managed to smile through his satiric drawl when all she wanted to do was slap the smirk off his condescending face. ‘It's certainly more than you can aspire to,' she agreed with a sweet smile.

Against his will an appreciative growl of laughter was wrenched from Luca's throat. ‘I don't aspire to perfection; I always find paragons incredibly boring.'

She adopted an air of studied disinterest. ‘How lucky that you don't drop off in my company.'

‘There's always the possibility Roman was wrong about you. He's hardly what you'd call an objective observer, is he?'

‘Well, he knows me a damn sight better than you do,' she retorted angrily.

‘Granted. Or at least he
thinks
he does. Roman sees you as his indispensable PA and secretary.'

The dismissive note really got under her skin. In all modesty she was pretty indispensable. She hadn't appreciated until now that, despite all his egalitarian talk and washing dishes, Luca was actually a snob.

‘I'm more than that.'

Though his tone was totally devoid of expression, there was unmistakable contempt etched in his dark lean face as he responded. ‘I'm quite sure you're much,
much
more. Though maybe not quite as much as you'd like to be?'

The sly insinuation made her cheeks burn; anyone listening in would have automatically assumed that she was out to get her boss. Presumably that was the idea? Angrily she lifted her chin.

‘Short of having the man's child,' she said with a soft, provocative laugh, ‘I don't see how we could be any closer.'

Alice's provocative little smile faded, to be replaced by an expression of dawning horror. I as good as said I'm sleeping with my boss, and I said it to his brother…
oh, God
…!

She blinked as her eyes locked with Luca's. He really does have the bluest eyes I've ever seen. Blue and angry,
very
angry.

She gave her head a tiny shake; obviously she was not right in the head. It passed the bounds of ridiculous, considering the fact he was going out of his way to be even more insulting than usual, that she was wasting her time admiring the sheer unbelievable blueness of the man's eyes!

‘That is, I mean—'

‘I really don't need you to draw a diagram.'

Under his tan she saw that Luca had gone pale, and she realised that in her desire to score points she had gone too far. If she didn't want to have the unenviable task of explaining to her boss why she'd basically told his brother they were sleeping together, she had better set the record straight…and fast!

‘Look, I don't know why I said that,' she admitted, trying for frank and open and achieving panicky and defensive. ‘Any more than I know why you think I've got some sort of crush on your brother. But I'm not sleeping with him.'

To her dismay her earnest words appeared to make no impact on Luca. Her shoulders slumped as the nostrils of his narrow-bridged, masterful nose flared. He continued to act like a man who was having a tough time controlling his feelings.

‘Working for Roman is always interesting and stimulating,' she added in a voice tinged with desperation. ‘We have a very good working relationship…
professional
,' she emphasised. ‘I like and respect your brother.' She swallowed as her voice thickened emotionally. ‘But seducing him has never even crossed my mind.'

‘You can bet it has crossed his. But you're wasting your time. You know Roman isn't in love with you.'

Alice's jaw dropped; mouth unattractively ajar, she stared back at him with stunned incredulity. The man was quite obviously out of his mind.

‘Why do you imagine I'd
want
Roman to be in love with me?' she demanded. The idea was so ridiculous that she began to grin. ‘So what am I—some love-struck schoolgirl?'

There was obviously absolutely no point being sincere. He had made up his mind and nothing she said or did was going to change it. ‘But you know, now that you've put it in my head I've got to thinking it might be interesting…mmm…' She pressed one finger to the slight cleft in her softly rounded chin and pursed her lips thoughtfully.

‘It might be fun. After all, how many secretaries marry their boss? It's an acknowledged career path,' she reminded him. ‘I think,' she mused, ‘I'll go for something large and flash, ring-wise, that is. I mean, if you've got it, flaunt it, that's what I always say.'

‘I'd noticed.' With an insolent half-smile on his mobile lips he perused the voluptuous curves of her upper body. ‘So, I expect, has every other man in the place.'

Alice felt her nipples harden into burning life. She had no idea from where she found the strength to remain outwardly oblivious to his stare. Even the creamy contours of the cleavage he was crudely ogling flushed.

Alice's eyes narrowed angrily. ‘Are there any family heir-looms locked in a vault somewhere? I've always seen myself in rubies.'

He looked at her for a long simmering moment. ‘You're not, are you?'

Alice's eyes lifted from her bare left hand and swallowed. She and Mark had decided that a deposit on a house was more important than an engagement ring. But the night they had become officially engaged Mark had slid a plastic ring from a Christmas cracker on her finger.

‘Not…?' she echoed blankly.

‘You're not sleeping with Roman.'

She rubbed her bare left hand against her cheek. ‘Of course I'm not,' she said, suddenly too weary to argue.

‘I always thought…'

‘You always thought what?'

He shrugged. ‘Forget it,' he advised, gazing abstractly into the distance. He had spent so long wondering if his brother was bedding the most desirable woman he'd ever seen and all he'd had to do was ask.

‘You realise that you're no longer off limits.'

Alice, who had been looking around to locate the ladies' room where she intended to lock herself in a cubicle and cry, focused on his face. ‘Off limits to what?'

His nostrils quivered and his jaw clenched, drawing evenly toned skin that had a delicious golden sheen tight and revealing achingly perfect bone structure. ‘Off limits to me,' he elucidated throatily.

Alice blinked. A flash-flood of heat passed through her body. ‘This conversation is getting surreal.'

‘You're not sleeping with my brother. Sleep with me.'

‘Naturally such an offer is incredibly tempting,' she croaked hoarsely. She watched, her temper simmering gently as he ran a hand over his jaw where a dark fuzz of stubble cast a shadow.

‘I assumed it would be.'

‘I had no idea that it was an either-or option. If you're not sleeping with one brother you have to sleep with the other.' She pressed her face into her palms and shook her head. ‘You really are unbelievable,' she breathed.

He inclined his dark head and smiled. ‘Thank you.'

‘It wasn't a compliment,' she said, pressing her palms tight together. ‘What have I ever done to make you think for one second that I'd want to sleep with you?' she demanded scornfully. His mouth opened and suddenly she knew she didn't want to hear the answer to that question. ‘And what,' she added hastily, ‘did I ever do to make you think that I'm in love with Roman?'

‘You took a knife meant for him. You don't risk your life for someone unless they're something special to you.'

T
HE
knife had been in her hand when Luca had walked into the room. A knife, a beautiful blonde, and his injured—for all he knew at the time
fatally
injured—brother!

His mind had made the obvious connection.

‘Luca, you're late,' Roman hailed him before closing his eyes. He was a deeply alarming shade of grey, but breathing, because Luca could see the rise and fall of his chest.

‘Too late for the fun, it would seem,' Luca replied, approaching the beautiful blonde with caution, with several theories, most involving a lover's tiff that had gone
seriously
wrong, running through his mind.

After the initial shock when it didn't function at all, your mind, he discovered, worked very fast. A useful piece of information for anyone who walked into their brother's office looking to take him to the pub for a promised pint and finding a blood bath instead!

Before he could wrestle the nasty-looking weapon from her hand the blonde put it down on the desk with a small grimace. Scarcely acknowledging him, she moved towards Roman, who was standing with his shoulders braced against the wall. He had one gory hand pressed to his face, while blood was seeping through his fingers and dripping down onto his pale shirt.

Luca could see his brother's face remained scarily pale and his attitude dazed, but the fact his brother was standing was something that he took comfort from.

Luca faced a dilemma: take the knife or protect his brother from a possible second attack. His brother, dazed or not, was a good muscular twelve inches taller than the blonde so he went for the knife. Before he touched it the blonde gave an urgent cry of warning.

‘Don't touch—the police will want it for forensics!'

His fingers poised above the blood-stained blade, Luca stopped.
‘What?'

‘The police…I've phoned, they're on their way.' She began to fold the cardigan she had removed into a tight wad. Underneath she wore a snug-fitting sleeveless top. It passed through his mind that to notice a woman's body at a moment like this could indicate he was seriously disturbed.

The woman with the incredible figure scanned his face suspiciously. ‘Look, if you've got a thing about blood maybe you should wait outside,' she suggested kindly.

‘Wait outside?' he echoed.

‘The last thing we need is you fainting.'

Luca, who had never been treated as though he was not just incompetent and irrelevant, but actually a bit of a nuisance too, was at a loss to know how to respond to this brutally frank observation.

‘I won't faint.'

She looked mollified but not convinced. ‘I'm glad to hear it.'

‘Look, just who the hell…what the hell?' So she might not have attacked his brother, but someone had and he wanted to know who and why!

Her head turned, causing her silvery blonde curls to bounce attractively around her slender shoulders. There was a definite edge of irritation in her voice as she replied.

‘Not
now
. And it's probably not a good idea for us to touch anything at all if we can help it.'

From this comment he deduced that she had decided that he looked stupid enough to go around contaminating the crime scene. Before he had thought of a response her attention had moved on. To his injured brother.

‘Roman, let me look at it. Sitting down is good,' she added as he slid gracefully down the wall. She knelt beside him. ‘That's it, great,' she approved encouragingly as his hand lifted.

‘Bad?' Roman asked.

At that moment Luca saw for the first time where most of the blood was coming from.

‘
Dio
…your face, Roman!' he exclaimed, shocked by the sight of the deep cut that stretched from just below his brother's eye and extended halfway along his cheekbone.

‘It's not nearly as bad as it looks.' The blonde had tilted her head to look at the gaping wound from several angles and said with an approving nod, ‘No, not too bad at all.'

‘Not too bad!'
His brother was going to be scarred for life.

A look from those clear blue eyes silenced him. ‘It's a good clean cut, which shouldn't leave much of a scar once it heals,' she announced in a tone that didn't invite debate.

At the time Luca hadn't believed her though for Roman's sake he hadn't said so, but in fact time had proved her prediction correct. His brother had been left with an interesting though not disfiguring scar, which the ladies found attractive.

‘I'm going to press this against it, Roman, to stop the blood. I'm sorry if it hurts.'

‘Go ahead,
cara
.' Roman smiled weakly. ‘You all right?'

‘I think so.' Her face creased in concentration as she applied the makeshift dressing to his cheek. ‘It's not sterile but it is clean.' From her tone and attitude you'd have been forgiven for assuming she was engaged in selling jam at a village fête, not knee-deep in blood and knives!

‘Luca, did you see her?'

Luca tore his gaze from the spookily composed blonde. ‘See who, her?' he asked ungrammatically.

‘My stalker.'

‘You have a stalker?'

‘Doesn't everyone? You could say she cut and ran. Ouch!' he protested as the blonde applied some extra pressure to his bleeding wound.

‘You shouldn't talk so much,' she reproached, huskily stern.

The huskiness and tiny catch were the only indications Luca had picked up so far that suggested maybe she wasn't as cool, calm and collected as she appeared.

‘Luca, this is Alice, my assistant. Alice, this is my brother, Luca. You've not met, have you?'

‘No.'

‘Yes.'

They both spoke in unison.

‘That is no,' Luca corrected himself.

What else could he say? You couldn't expect to be taken seriously if you said that you had recognised a person from a lavishly illustrated book your mother had read bedtime stories to you from when you were a child.

But he had.

The blonde curls, the heart-shaped face, the big blue eyes and rosebud lips…she
was
the princess in the tower, only in the flesh she didn't look as if she would hang around waiting for a passing prince to rescue her.

It had been his favourite story.

Luca had recognised straight off that this princess was a different proposition entirely. He was looking at a princess who would not only organise her own escape plan, but put together the most competitively priced package and bring in the project on time!

‘What shall I do?' It went against the grain not to take charge, but when all was said and done Roman's bolshy princess secretary seemed to have things in hand.

Actually he didn't get to do anything because just then the police, closely followed by a team of paramedics, arrived. They were quick and efficient.

They looked disappointed when he admitted he'd not witnessed anything, but perked up considerably when Roman's princess, in that same calm and unhurried voice, supplied a detailed description of the attacker and the clothes she had been wearing.

She knew exactly what time the woman had arrived and left the building. Luca could see that she was a sort of witness superstar as far as the police were concerned.

‘She thought Alice was my girlfriend,' Roman explained, pulling off the oxygen mask they had fitted to his face. ‘She had a knife at Alice's throat and I tried to take it off her.'

‘That was very unwise of you, sir,' the policeman observed. To Alice he explained they would need a full statement from her, but the morning would do if she didn't feel up to it tonight.

Somebody else said something about delayed shock and asked if there would be someone at home when she got there. Alice responded to all the questions and showed no signs of breaking down.

Stress!
He'd seen people missing a bus display more stress! And Luca couldn't credit that she had actually had a knife held to that lovely throat, though there was a blood-stained nick at the base of her pale, graceful throat that said otherwise!

‘Can I come along?' he asked the ambulance crew as they prepared to leave.

‘No, Luca.'

‘Please, sir, will you keep the mask on?' the sorely tried paramedic asked.

‘In a minute…and I really could walk…' The professionals looked amused and Roman didn't push it. ‘Luca, you stay. Tell Mum and Dad—I don't want them hearing about this secondhand. Tell them I'm fine.'

‘I'll lie through my teeth,' he promised. ‘Hang in there.'

‘You shouldn't talk, Roman,' his brother's ministering angel quietly cautioned.

‘The lady's right, sir. You shouldn't exert yourself,' the paramedic agreed.

Once his brother had been stretchered out Luca slipped into the outer office to ring his parents. He was glad it was his mother who picked up. His father had a volatile temperament and he didn't want to be responsible for him having a second heart attack.

His mother was upset but he managed to soothe her worst fears and promised to ring from the hospital with further news when he got there. He was half out of the door when he remembered the woman in the other room…
actually she wasn't easy to forget
.

He poked his head around the door; the promised forensic team hadn't arrived but everyone else had left. She was alone.

‘Can I give you a lift anywhere? I'm on my way to the hospital.'

‘The hospital,' she repeated vaguely.

Luca wondered if that delayed shock they had spoken of was setting in.

‘Yes.' Her smooth brow creased in concentration as her eyes lifted to his face. ‘Yes, that might be a good idea.'

He hovered impatiently at the door, but she made no attempt to follow him. ‘I'm going now…if you're ready?'

‘Right, I just…the thing is I don't think…'

In the split second before her knees folded he registered that blood that didn't belong to his brother was seeping through the fingers she had pressed to her abdomen.

‘I think she must have nicked me,' she roused herself enough to say faintly as he fell on his knees beside her.

‘God! Why the hell didn't you say something?'

‘Didn't feel a thing.' She winced as he hefted her into his arms. ‘Until now. I didn't even know she'd got me. Isn't that amazing?'

He figured if he was fast, he might catch the ambulance before it left. He didn't. There was a solitary uniformed bobby, no more than a kid really, standing beside the pavement that the ambulance had just pulled away from. His eyes widened when he saw Alice.

‘Another casualty. Have you got a car?'

The young man shook his head. ‘There was no room for me. I'll call an ambulance. I really don't think you should do that, sir,' he said as Luca slid the half-conscious woman in the back seat of his Mercedes.

‘Maybe I shouldn't, but we've not got time to debate it. Can you drive?'

The young man nodded.

‘Good.' Luca tossed the keys to him. ‘Then drive…drive fast,' he added as he slid in the back and put the fair head in his lap.

Just before she lost consciousness she opened her eyes and murmured anxiously, ‘Roman will be all right, won't he?'

 

It transpired that Luca's decision not to wait for an ambulance had been correct. Another few minutes and it could have been too late. Alice had lost part of her damaged liver, but not her spirit—that had remained firmly intact.

Luca was beginning to think that he had not escaped that evening totally unscathed himself.

‘The knife thing was instinct or accident or most likely a bit of both. I would have done that for anyone…even
you
!' Alice said. ‘Though I'm willing to bet there are a lot of people who would have paid me not to.'

As an image of Luca injured consolidated in her head, so did the bleak empty feeling. A world that didn't have Luca—infuriating, maddening and arrogant Luca—was shockingly unimaginable. But she had lost her husband and loss didn't get worse than that. So why did the idea of losing a man she didn't even like fill her with a dread that lodged like a solid object behind her breastbone?

The feeble voice from that night was now robust and angry, the scared blue eyes now spitting fury. If Luca had been able to think humour when he recalled that night the contrast could have been comical, but it wasn't and he couldn't.

She got to her feet. ‘Don't worry, I'm not going to faint this time, but I am going to leave and you're going to pay for a taxi to take me back to the hotel. I think that I deserve a free ride after putting up with your obnoxious company.'