His Forbidden Conquest: A Moment on the Lips / The Best Mistake of Her Life / Not Just Friends

‘I’m your eight o’clock appointment,’ she said, surprising him.

Since when? It was the first he’d heard of it.

‘And I know it’s not eight o’clock yet, but we need to go now,’ she added, before he could ask.

He looked at her, bemused. ‘Go where?’

‘You’ll see when you get there. Come on, the taxi’s waiting.’

‘Taxi?’ What was she on about? He blew out a breath. ‘Princess, I hate to break this to you, but I have a pile of meetings this morning.’

‘I know. They’re with me. I’m also your nine o’clock appointment. And—’ she said with a smile ‘—just so you know, I’m your appointment for every single slot for the next two days.’

‘What?’ He wasn’t quite following this. Was he having some sort of weird, über-realistic dream? ‘How?’

‘Mariella moved all your meetings,’ she explained.

He felt his eyes widening. ‘She did what?’

‘Don’t worry,’ she said softly as she rummaged under Mariella’s desk and retrieved a small suitcase. ‘You’re not going to be the hot topic on the staff grapevine or anything. I happen to know what today is, and this is my way of saying thank you for helping me with all the mentoring stuff. Mariella approves. She says you work too hard.’

He blew out a breath. ‘If you know what today is, then you also know that I have plans for tonight.’

‘Ah. They’ve also moved by two days. Your mum says you work too hard, too.’

He stared at her. ‘You spoke to my mother?’

‘We had coffee. And pastries. Um, and we had lunch, the other day.’ She retrieved an envelope from the top drawer of Mariella’s desk and checked inside. ‘Good: your passport. I like your mum, by the way.’

And he’d just bet that his mother liked her, too.

Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. It felt as if someone had just dropped him into the gladiator’s den at the amphitheatre in Pompeii and told him he was going to fight a whole pack of lions, single-handed and with no kind of armour whatsoever.

Female lions. Scary ones. His mother, his secretary, and … Carenza. He’d had no idea that they’d been plotting together.

‘Relax. You’re going to enjoy this. Trust me.’ She stroked his face. ‘Don’t go all closed on me and shut me out, Dante. I want to spoil you a bit. What’s so wrong about wanting to make a fuss of someone on their birthday?’

He couldn’t even begin to tell her that.

‘And you’re so difficult to buy for. That’s why I wanted to give you—well, you’ll see.’

‘So where are we going?’

‘My favourite city in the world.’

Which told him absolutely nothing. Though there was one thing he did know. ‘Princess, you don’t have the money to take me away anywhere.’

‘Yes, I do.’

He remembered what she’d said about paying him for mentoring her; she’d planned to sell her jewellery. Given the way she’d crumbled over the cine film of her parents, he knew that she’d regret selling whatever it was. ‘What did you hock?’ he asked.

She lifted her chin. ‘That’s for me to know and you not to ask.’ Then she softened. ‘If you really want to know, I sold some of my shoes online.’

Her expensive designer shoes. Her big weakness. And she’d given them up for him.

As if the flood of guilt showed on his face, she said, ‘They weren’t my absolute favourites, I didn’t wear them that much and …’ She folded her arms. ‘Look, some things are just worth it, OK? I wanted to spoil you, Dante. I wanted to do something nice for you.’

And he really, really wasn’t used to this. Sure, his mother liked making a fuss of him, but Dante had trained her into keeping everything low-key nowadays. Ditto his sister. In his childhood, most of the time they hadn’t had enough money to spoil him—and the one occasion he could remember, when his mother had bought him a brand-new bike, had ended up in tears and mangled spokes. And not because he’d fallen off it. Since then, he’d hated the idea of having a big present and, even though money wasn’t anywhere near so tight now for his mother and sister, he insisted on nothing more than a card from them at birthdays and Christmas. Or a token gift. A framed photograph of his niece. Something small. Not a big fuss.

Carenza wasn’t playing by the rules. And he had a feeling that, even if she did know his rules, she still wouldn’t play by them. She was going to do this her way.

‘What was that you were saying about “my way or the highway”?’ he asked.

‘You’re so damn difficult.’ She thrust the case at him. ‘Grab this and lock up behind you, otherwise we’re going to get stuck in traffic and miss our flight.’

The taxi took them to the airport, and when Carenza took her case from the back of the taxi he was surprised to see that it wasn’t any bigger than his own.

‘I’m a seasoned traveller,’ she said, following his look and interpreting it correctly. ‘I learned the hard way when I was eighteen that it’s much better to travel light.’

He followed her to the check-in desk. ‘We’re going to Paris?’

‘Yep.’ She smiled at him. ‘Happy birthday, Dante.’

‘I’ve never been to Paris before.’ The words slipped out, unguarded.

‘But you’ve been abroad?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course I have. I’m not that much of a country boy.’

‘Apart from on business, I mean.’

He didn’t have an answer to that. ‘Paris,’ he mused. ‘It might be useful for the second phase of my franchise. Once Dante’s is established in all the major Italian cities, I can move on to the rest of Europe. London, Paris, Vienna …’

‘Oh, no. You are not using this as a business trip, doing a recce on where you can expand your empire. We’re not working,’ she said firmly. ‘This is fun, frivolity and—’ she laughed ‘—probably a bit of excess. Especially when it comes to crêpes. I love crêpes.’

Gone was the needy woman who’d clung to him last week. Carenza Tonielli was all princess, completely sure of herself and comfortable in her own skin. And there was a sunniness and a sparkle about her that he just couldn’t resist.

‘So. No business. Pleasure only. Got it?’ she asked.

‘Got it.’

‘Good.’ She kissed him swiftly. ‘So tell me, why don’t you celebrate your birthday?’

‘I do celebrate it,’ he protested. ‘I have dinner with my family.’

‘But you spend the day working. Don’t you ever want to do something different, spoil yourself a bit? Even if it’s—I dunno—just taking the morning off and walking round the harbour, or window-shopping, or going to a gallery or a museum? Something to feed the soul?’

‘No. Though I’m not a miser. I do arrange a meal and drinks for all my staff.’