Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals: Seduced into Her Boss's Service / Wearing the De Angelis Ring / The Surprise De Angelis Baby

‘But not many of them have the sort of knockout figure to do justice to it...’

Sunny blinked and then, as the full meaning of his words sank in, she felt her whole body react with just the slightest of trembles. Because those words, huskily spoken, seemed to target every single inappropriate thought she had had about him, ripping them free of the innocent labels she had done her best to attach to them.

He wasn’t making a pass at her, she told herself firmly. Maybe he was flirting but, if he was, then he was on a road to nowhere because she didn’t do flirting! Especially with someone like Stefano Gunn!

But he’d thrown her off course and she was having trouble marshalling her thoughts.

Stefano watched the way she stiffened, straightening her narrow shoulders. She wasn’t quite meeting his eyes, but her mouth had tightened and her expression was shuttered and she was perched on the edge of her chair as though making sure she could leap out of it as fast as possible, should the situation demand.

‘I apologise if you found my comment about your outfit...offensive,’ he offered gruffly. ‘And you’re absolutely right, of course. You aren’t wearing anything that any other girl your age wouldn’t wear. In fact, I know a few who would cheerfully wear half as much and they’re twice your age...’

Sunny relaxed a little. She stared at the glass of wine, as if only noticing it for the first time, and took a tentative sip.

Now she felt as if she might have overreacted. He’d hit a nerve, but how was he supposed to have known that? She was struck by another thought...

Had he made that remark, spontaneously and without thinking, because he had felt that she would not have blended in with the crowd in the posh restaurant he had taken them to? Had he thought that she would stick out like a sore thumb amongst the upper-middle-class suburban crowd with their cardigans and pearls? When he’d told her that he’d only been thinking about her and the unwarranted attention she might have been exposed to, had he really been saying that he’d been thinking about himself and his embarrassment at being seen with someone who clearly didn’t know the dress code for the expensive restaurant he had taken them to...?

In truth, she’d barely noticed who was there at all. She’d been too busy feeling self-conscious. But of course it would have been a wealthy crowd.

A fresh wave of insecurity washed over her, ebbing to leave a sour taste at the back of her mouth.

Now he was being kind and she hated that.

‘I only reacted because...’

‘Because...?’

‘My mother used to dress in skimpy clothes,’ Sunny burst out, inwardly groaning at the lack of control that seemed to sweep over her whenever he was around. It was as if he could somehow get her to say stuff she wouldn’t normally say and he could get her to do that without even trying. She feverishly played with the stem of her wine glass with frowning concentration. ‘I always swore that I would never dress in anything that wasn’t...wasn’t...’

‘Buttoned up to the neck? That didn’t cover as much as possible without inviting heatstroke...?’

‘She had no control,’ Sunny said helplessly. ‘In and out of drink and drugs and guys...’ She felt tears of self-pity sting the back of her eyes and she wanted the ground to open and swallow her up. ‘You have no idea...’ she said in a muffled voice.

She was hardly aware of him leaving his seat so that he could drag a chair close to her. She was grateful for her hair, which hung across her cheeks, shielding her expression.

‘I’m sorry,’ Stefano said with urgent sincerity. He reached out to stroke the side of her face and then gently tilted it so that she was looking at him. This was so inappropriate and yet it felt so right. He thought about all the reasons why he shouldn’t be touching her at all, not even the most innocent of touches, of which this definitely wasn’t one, and all that emerged was the stark ferocity of his physical response. It seemed to batter through everything to emerge the victor.

‘These aren’t even my clothes,’ Sunny whispered, even though she had told herself that there was no way she would admit to that because she had been so keen to prove to him that she was capable of having fun just like any other girl her age.

‘No?’ Stefano wondered why he was so relieved to hear that. Her skin, under the roughened pad of his thumb, was velvety-smooth and her eyes, up close like this, were the clearest green he had ever seen, the colour of sea-washed glass.

‘They belong to the girl I share the flat with,’ Sunny confessed, resisting the urge to lean into the gentle absent-minded strokes of his finger on her cheek. Her heart was racing. This felt very, very dangerous but she told herself that that was purely in her imagination because he was just being kind.

And she didn’t want him to be kind... She wanted him to be...a man...

Her breathing became shallow and her eyelids fluttered as the realisation settled like a leaden weight in the pit of her stomach. Finding him attractive had been inexplicable enough but at least that had been a passive situation, something she could deal with, even if it was inconvenient.

But wanting him to carry on touching her all over, wanting him to look at her with the hunger of a man looking at a woman he wanted...

She eased back and immediately missed the headiness of being close to him and feeling his skin against hers.

‘Amy lent them to me,’ she said in a more matter-of-fact voice. ‘She thought they might look a bit better than the usual stuff I wear when I go out...’

After that brief moment of intimacy, Stefano could feel her pulling away from him and the need to recapture the lost connection slammed into him with the force of a freight train.

‘But I didn’t feel comfortable in them, if you want to know the truth.’ She gave a careless shrug, hoping to dispel the electric charge between them.

A girl could lose herself in his eyes, she thought a little wildly. So it was no wonder that she was falling victim to all sorts of wobbly legs type feelings!

‘Why the name?’ Stefano murmured before she could slip away into polite conversation, before she could distance herself from him.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Your name. Is it a nickname? Because, from what you’ve told me about yourself...about your mother...’

‘You’re not really interested in that!’ Sunny laughed weakly. ‘And I’m sorry for being such a wimp and spilling my guts out! I’m sure that’s not the sort of thing you bargained for when you asked me to come along with you and Flora tonight...’ Hot and bothered by the way he was looking at her, she tried to find something sensible to say about Flora, some observation that would turn the intimacy of this conversation around because her bones were melting, especially because, instead of taking the hint and pulling away from her after she had tactfully drawn back, he had sat forward, once again closing the distance between them.

Nothing sensible came to mind and she licked her lips nervously.

‘I’m interested,’ Stefano murmured.

Sunny sighed. No big deal. Was it...?

‘She was in one of her optimistic windows,’ she said sadly. ‘That’s what she told me many times over the years. She’d come off the drugs and the drink as soon as she found out that she was pregnant with me...’

‘And your father?’

Sunny lowered her eyes and felt her breath catch. ‘No idea. Probably just another drifter...’

‘I’m sorry.’

And he sounded as though he genuinely meant that, which brought a lump to her throat. Her eyes tangled with his and clung. He had, she thought distractedly, the most wickedly long eyelashes...

‘You were saying...’ Stefano reminded her.

‘So I was. I was saying that Mum was off the bad stuff and she just plucked the most hopeful name she could think of...’ Sunny smiled wryly ‘...and I’ve been stuck with it ever since. I haven’t even got a useful middle name I could have reverted to...’

‘Your outfit,’ Stefano murmured.

Sunny tensed. ‘I can’t wait to get it off...’

‘I didn’t say...what I said to be insulting...’

‘Maybe you thought I wouldn’t fit in with that crowd.’ She forestalled any truths that she knew would cut to the quick.

He looked at her with open puzzlement and she laughed, knowing that she’d at least got that bit wrong. He wasn’t the sort to care what other people thought.

‘I said what I said because...’ he sat back and folded his arms, his eyes not wavering ‘...the thought of other men looking at you...’ He shouldn’t be doing this but knowing that didn’t help and didn’t change anything. He was experiencing that very, very rare feeling of being at the mercy of something bigger and more powerful than his own iron willpower. He allowed his words to sink in, not knowing whether she would respond at all but driven to find out because he just had to. ‘Well, put it this way... I didn’t like the idea and I couldn’t see how they could fail to stare in that outfit of yours...’