The Italian's Secretary Bride (9 page)

To her surprise Luca didn't put up an argument. He made his farewells to Paolo, who became even more animated when Luca asked for the bill.

‘You offend me!' Paolo declared.

‘If it hadn't been for Luca here sorting out my accounts there would be no Paolo's.' He took Alice's hand and kissed it. ‘And you will bring your lovely lady to see us again very soon.'

Luca's heavy-lidded eyes drifted towards her tense face. ‘Very soon,' he promised in a voice that made her stomach flip.

Outside he put her in a cab, unfolded some notes from a wad in his wallet and gave the driver instructions. Without a word he walked away.

 

Alice was so wrapped up in her own thoughts that it was some time before it occurred to her the journey back to the hotel seemed to be taking an awfully long time.

‘Is this the quickest route?' she asked the driver. ‘It only took a few minutes to get here on foot.' All she wanted to do was get back to her room, lock the door, and indulge in a bout of unrestrained weeping.

‘This is the best way to avoid the roadworks, lady,' he replied and Alice didn't have much choice but to take his word for it. She comforted herself with the reflection that if he was ripping anyone off it was Luca. And to her way of thinking anything that caused Luca O'Hagan a moment's annoyance could only be a good thing.

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her seat. Damn Luca O'Hagan!

The relief she felt when they finally drew up outside the hotel was short-lived. It actually lasted until she stepped out of the glass-fronted lift and saw the tall figure of a man standing down the farthest end of the hallway. The man had sleek dark looks and the sort of inbuilt air of assurance that made him stand out from the crowd. Only there was no crowd, just the two of them.

Alice's heart climbed into her throat. Her firm light step faltered, but she carried on walking. What choice did she have? This couldn't be happening. But it was; there was no mistaking the arrogant angle of Luca's dark head.

As she approached Luca levered himself off the wall. His relaxed manner was a striking contrast to her dry-mouthed discomfort.

‘You're not here?' she protested in more hope than anticipation of him vanishing in a puff of smoke. ‘It's not possible. I left before you.'

‘The impossible is not so very difficult to achieve if you bribe the driver to take the scenic route.'

His casual confession made her stiffen with anger.
‘Why?'

‘Because you'd have kicked up a fuss if I'd tried to get in the cab with you.'

‘And you
so
hate to draw attention to yourself.'

‘You noticed that? Not everyone realises that I'm a shy and unassuming guy at heart.'

Anger flared in her eyes. ‘If you came here to be smart, Luca, go away.' She lifted a weary hand to her head. ‘Actually go away anyway, Luca.'

‘I'm not going anywhere. We've got some unfinished business.'

‘You mean you've thought of some other way you can insult me.' She vented a bitter laugh and swallowed, willing the tears she felt stinging her eyelids not to fall. ‘Surely not.'

The hard lines of Luca's bronzed face tightened at her sarcasm. ‘I think you gave as good as you got,' he retorted. ‘But enough of that…you were ill. For all I know you still are, and don't tell me it was having a few drinks that did that.'

‘I wasn't about to because, quite frankly, I don't owe you any explanations.' Her defiant eyes collided with his and as their glances locked and lingered an emotional thickness developed in her throat.

‘We'll have to agree to disagree on that one,' Luca said regretfully.

Expelling a long sigh, he rubbed a hand along his hard chiselled jaw. There was no trace of the regret he claimed in his face, just sheer bloody-minded determination as, hands thrust into the pockets of his tailored trousers, he sauntered forward.

Alice hardly registered his inflammatory comment. His jacket had swung open and her eyes were glued to his chest…the chest against which she had recently been closely held. Beads of perspiration broke out across her forehead as she recalled the sense of deprivation she had experienced when he had released her.

To walk into his arms…feel them close tight about her, lose herself in that male hardness…There was a rushing sound in her head as she tried to subdue the crazy compulsion to act out those forbidden cravings.
What would he do if she did?

The concern in Luca's eyes deepened as he followed the flicker of emotion on her face.

‘Are you feeling unwell again?'

As she lifted her eyes to his face the shatteringly erotic image of hands—her own hands—moving over the naked, gleaming flesh of his bare chest surfaced from some corner of her subconscious.

‘Ill!' She gave a strange, bitter laugh. ‘I wish I was.
Stupid
…stupid, stupid!' she gritted before turning stiffly away.

With any luck he'd assume the scornful slur had been directed at him, not herself. How crazy am I? The sexual stuff was bad enough but
this
!

‘There's something wrong with you and I think I know what it is.'

Her back stiffened. ‘Haven't you got anything better to do than follow me?'

‘Probably.'

‘I could call Security.' Now that should be interesting. What should she tell them? Take this man away he's making me fall in love with him.

‘True, you could.'

Colour heightened, Alice slung him a discouraging look over her shoulder. It didn't discourage.

Hand on her chin, he turned her face up to him. ‘You look terrible.'

She flashed him a tight, resentful smile and pulled away. ‘I really needed that.'

‘I'm just trying to show a bit of concern.'

Alice eased her shoulders against the wall and closed her eyes. ‘
Concern?
Well, you can see how that would throw me after tonight.'

‘Would you have preferred I had said you looked beautiful?' The dark fan of his incredible eyelashes cast a filigree of shadow along his prominent cheekbones as his glance dropped. ‘That's so like a woman.'

She bristled angrily at the amused note in his voice. She only just repressed an impulse to tell him that some men found her pretty.

‘You lie to women! Surely not?'

His eyes lifted and infuriatingly he looked appreciative of her acid jibe. God, why did he never react the way she expected?

‘Are you on some sort of medication?'

‘No, I am not on medication!' she retorted indignantly.

‘I wasn't accusing you of being a junkie. I meant prescription drugs.' Eyes that were far too penetrating for her liking swept across her face. ‘Have you seen a doctor recently?'

‘No, I have not seen a doctor.'

One dark brow lifted. ‘Will you?'

‘Yes,' she hissed from between clenched teeth.

He laughed. ‘You're a very bad liar.'

‘I'm also very fed up with ridiculous cross-examination. For the last time,' she yelled, ‘I am not ill, I'm just…'

He stilled, his vivid eyes narrowing suspiciously.
'Pregnant?'

There was a palpitating silence.

Alice's small hands clenched into fists at her sides. Of all the extraordinary explanations, Luca had to come up with one that made her look bad. She attempted to treat the accusation calmly. ‘No, I am
not
pregnant!'

‘Who is the father?' he asked, acting as if she hadn't spoken, which was Luca all over. He wasn't interested in anyone else's opinion…well, not mine anyhow, she thought. This quality might make him a force to be reckoned with in the business world, but when it came to a personal level it made him a total pain!

‘Didn't you hear me? Oh, silly me, I forgot, you're far too fond of the sound of your own voice to listen to what anyone else says!'

As someone who broke out in goose-bumps every time she heard that distinctive velvet drawl, she felt pretty uniquely qualified to discuss his voice.

Luca's attention, which had been fixed on his shoes, suddenly switched back to her face. ‘It would explain your over-emotional erratic behaviour,' he contended. ‘Your hormones are obviously all over the place.'

She exhaled and closed her eyes…wasted breath did not cover this! ‘For the last time I am not pregnant!' she repeated, her voice tight with frustration.

His sensual lips twisted in a cynical smile. ‘Would you tell me if you were?'

‘Only if you happened to be the father.'

S
OMETIMES
I don't believe the stuff that comes out of my mouth…!

Luca being the father of her baby would require that they had…Inhaling sharply, Alice bit her lip as she was helpless to control the tide of heat that washed over her fair skin.

‘That is of course good to know, but as I do not indulge in unprotected sex that would be unlikely.'

‘Neither do I!' No sex at all was about the safest you could get! ‘And,' she choked, ‘you're not going to indulge in any sort of sex with me!'

‘Imagine my devastation,' he said drily.

Alice's eyes glowed with dislike as she glared up at him. ‘You're the very last man in the world I would have sex with.'

‘Which is why you shake every time I touch you.'

Alice didn't even dignify this taunt with a response. ‘Let me say this slowly, so that even someone of your limited mental capacity can understand. I am not pregnant. I don't actually carry a medical certificate to that effect concealed about my person—'

‘I think it would be physically impossible, given what you're wearing, to actually conceal anything about your person.'

To her horror she felt her body react to his scrutiny. ‘Then you'll just have to take my word for it.'

Mortified, she quickly turned away; the darned dress left her precious few secrets, she thought as her nipples pressed stiffly against the silky fabric. The friction created as she moved to open the door was almost painful.

‘Permit me.'

‘You make it sound as if I have a choice,' she snarled sarcastically as she was forced to stand by and watch him smoothly open the door with the card he had appropriated from her shaking hand.

‘So if you're not pregnant, what are you?'

‘Very tired…goodnight.'

She was fast, but not fast enough. The door closed, only Luca contrived somehow not to be on the side she wanted him to be when it clicked shut.

He looked around the room. It had no distinguishing features that made it different from any other bedroom in a five-star hotel. ‘Nice room.' One brow lifted. ‘Nice knickers,' he added admiringly.

Alice took a wrathful gasp and grabbed the pile of clean undies that had been lying on the bed and dropped them into her open case. Straightening up, her face flushed, she closed the lid with her foot.

‘What do you think you're doing?'

‘I'm still waiting…' he explained with infuriating calm.

She shrugged. ‘For some reason you're acting as though I owe you some sort of explanation.' She disguised her discomfort with the fact that he was in her bedroom with a disdainful toss of her head.

‘And you don't think you do? I'm the one about to have my face splashed across the tabloids because I came over with a fit of gallantry.'

The reminder made her tummy squirm queasily. ‘It's my face too and there's no great secret. I felt slightly faint…' He looked openly sceptical. ‘The room was hot and…I had too much wine.' She couldn't tell him the truth.

‘I don't believe a word you're saying,' he divulged, folding his arms across his chest.

Alice's frustrated eyes clashed with deep shimmering blue. ‘Don't turn your back on me!' she said, catching his arm as he turned towards the phone, which had begun to ring.

A flicker of shock appeared in her eyes as her fingers closed over the expensive fabric of his jacket. If she had been the sort of person who was impressed by a set of iron-hard perfectly developed biceps she would have been
very
impressed; she had felt steel bars with more give than his upper arm.

Luca's brilliant azure eyes travelled from the small shapely hand on his arm to her angry, agitated face. It wasn't until her dazed eyes meshed with his that Alice realised that, not only had she not let go, her fingers were exploring the hard contours of his upper arm.

She gave a shaken gasp and tucked her hands behind her back.

His darkly handsome head tilted slightly to one side as he looked at her. ‘Are you going to pick that up?'

Alice blinked like someone waking from a dream, then, mortified, sent him an angry look and moved towards the phone. As she extended her hand it stopped ringing.

‘Frustrating.'

Alice ignored the mock sympathy. ‘Will you please just leave?' she begged. ‘It's late and I have to work in the morning.'

‘Ever the efficient assistant,' he mocked. ‘As a matter of fact, you could give Roman a message if you see him before me.'

‘Of course.' Alice couldn't believe her luck—he was actually going to go.

‘Ask him if he knows why I had to carry his assistant out of the dining room.'

A horror-struck expression spread across Alice's face. ‘You can't tell Roman what happened!' she protested shrilly. ‘You
mustn't
tell him.' It was only when her own eyes automatically followed the direction of his gaze that she realised that in her desire to communicate the urgency of what she was saying she had grabbed hold of his arm again.

She heard herself stupidly mutter,
'Sorry,'
as she rubbed her palms in a circular motion against her legs. The action caused a static build-up that made the dull, satiny fabric cling to the firm lines of her thighs.

‘Why must I not tell him?'

‘Don't sit there!' she exclaimed in horror as he made himself comfortable on her bed.

He ignored her…
he was good at that
. ‘Why must I not tell Roman that you are ill?'

There was no diverting the man once he got his teeth into something.

And if that something was you…your neck…stomach…? Alice felt a rash of prickly heat break out over the exposed sensitive skin of her throat. Maybe he's right, maybe I am ill, she thought. Only a seriously deranged mind could come up with a thought like that.

‘I'm not ill. Or,' she added with a grim smile, ‘pregnant.' She heaved a heavy sigh. ‘I'm…' Her eyes dropped and she shook her head mutely. Opening up about something that was so personal to Luca of all people…she just couldn't do it.

‘You're what?' he prompted impatiently.

The crest of dark lashes lifted from her cheeks as she turned her frustrated glare on him and shook her head. ‘I'm nothing.'

Something clenched hard in her belly as she watched him uncoil on the bed. She thrilled to the sheer male vitality he projected.

Iridescent eyes sealed to hers, he gave a smile that left his incredible eyes determined. ‘You will tell me,' he promised.

‘There's nothing to tell.' She pushed her fingers into her hair, unwittingly drawing his attention to the upward tilt of her breasts outlined in the strapless bodice of her evening gown. As the silky blonde threads of hair slipped through her fingers Alice lowered her arms and fixed her unfriendly eyes on his face.

‘What are you going to do?' she enquired sarcastically. ‘Bring out the thumbscrews? Send me to my room without supper?' Her mocking laugh had a strained sound.

His lashes lifted; the thin line of colour along each cheekbone accentuated the sharp, sculpted contours. ‘You're already in your room, and so am I.'

He had mentioned what she had been trying very hard not to think too much about. Alice gulped as her stomach went into a crash dive. Arms crossed over her chest, oblivious to the uplifting effect this had on her full breasts, she rubbed her damp palms nervously over her upper arms. The smooth flesh was covered in goose-bumps.

‘Yes, and I've already had my supper, so I don't suppose it was a terribly apt analogy,' she admitted prosaically.

‘I find I can usually fit in a midnight snack.'

Alice pretended not to hear the suggestive purr in his voice and responded to his comment at face value. ‘I'm sure you can, but is it a good idea?' she asked with a little shake of her head.

‘You don't think it is?'

‘Well, you know best, but I've heard that after a certain age those midnight snacks have a habit of catching up with men in the waistline department.' She patted her own stomach and looked sympathetic.

‘Thanks for the advice,' he said, looking amused as only someone who didn't carry on ounce of surplus flesh could afford to as he placed his hand flat against his washboard-flat belly.

Her eyes followed his complacent action and her pulse rate kicked up several notches.

His voice dropped to a low, disturbingly intimate level as he throatily added, ‘You're the big believer in fate. Could be that this is something that is fated.'

Their combative eyes connected and locked, sexual inertia slammed through her body. Alice was nailed to the spot. She had never in her life experienced the sort of blind lust that could literally paralyse; she couldn't even blink. Her mental faculties were equally traumatised.

The last time I saw that colour, she thought, I was lying on my back on the sugary soft sand of a Mediterranean beach. On that occasion she had needed to shade her eyes to cut down the dazzle from the cerulean sky. Luca was advancing inexorably towards her when she rediscovered her power of speech.

‘I think you should leave now.' She almost winced to hear the thread of hysteria in her voice.

Luca winced. ‘There's no need to yell, woman.' Along with the irritation that gleamed in his eyes there was another, less easily identifiable emotion, something darker, something infinitely more dangerous. It was the other thing that was responsible for the spill of liquid heat low in her belly.

She looked into his beautiful face and her breath snagged painfully in her throat. It frightened her to realise how powerless she was to control her response to him.

Alice felt a sharp flare of panic; Luca knew about women. She could just about live with him realising she was sexually attracted to him…she didn't think she could bear it if he realised that her feelings went deeper…a lot deeper. Pride became very important when you didn't have much else left.

She was going to have to be very careful about what she said and did. ‘Ouch!' She hadn't even been aware of backing away until the back of her knee made painful contact with the corner of a table.

‘Are you hurt?' His voice was rough with concern as he caught her arm to steady her.

‘Like you'd care!' she retorted childishly.

A hissing sound of exasperation escaped from between his clenched teeth. ‘Before tonight I always thought you were the most practical person I had ever encountered.'

‘Is that why you generally treat me like part of the office furniture?'

‘I have never treated you like a piece of furniture.'

‘No, you treat furniture better,' she heard herself accuse ridiculously. ‘I suppose you prefer women who are decorative, but can't change a plug.'

‘The relevance of that statement passes me by,' he admitted. ‘Right now I'd settle for boring.
Dio
, woman…you're not fit to let out without a keeper.
Can
you change a plug?'

‘Of course I can.' She saw his expression and flushed. ‘Don't be ridiculous!'

‘
Me
ridiculous? You're the one who picked up the first guy who smiled at you regardless of the fact he could have been a mad axe murderer.'

Alice's eyes grew indignantly round at this gross distortion of the facts. ‘Which would have been one up from you! Will you let go of my arm, please!'

With a muttered imprecation he released her. He watched as she rubbed the area.

‘Sorry.'

‘You should be.'

His response made it obvious her attempt to make him feel guilty was wasted.

‘So sue me,' he suggested callously.

Tears sprang to her eyes, her lower lip quivered…she
never
cried. ‘I hate you.'

‘They do say that hate and love are closely related.'

For a split second she froze, then loosed a peal of caustic laughter. ‘In this case
they
would be wrong,' she promised, seeing him through a mist of tears.

‘Personally I think hate and lust are much closer related,' he revealed.

Alice's heart started beating like a wild bird in her chest. She bent forward to pick up a cushion that had been knocked to the floor, glad of the opportunity it gave her to school her features.

‘If it makes you happier to think I am fighting a base urge to rip off your clothes, go ahead,' she offered, clasping the cushion protectively against her stomach.

‘I like it when you talk dirty.'

From somewhere she discovered hidden reserves and didn't react. ‘If you think that's dirty you really have led a very sheltered life.'