A Deal For Her Innocence

Under normal circumstances, this was not the venue he would have chosen to conduct a meeting, but he had reached his office later than normal. Eight instead of his usual six.

He had also not been in the best of moods. His last lover had embarked on on a kiss-and-tell rampage in the press after he had broken off their relationship, and his mother and three sisters had seen fit to link arms in a united front, their mission being to subject him to full-frontal verbal assault on his colourful love life.

Where he had gone to see his mother for dinner at her exquisite cottage near Oxford, expecting some light chat and the usually excellent food her private chef was summoned to provide whenever there were guests, he had instead found himself in the company of not just his mother but his three sisters.

Each of whom had very strong opinions on the sort of women he dated.

He had consequently overslept, and the only thing he had wanted to do when he’d reached his office was to work off some of his stress in the company of a punch bag and a gruelling set of weights.

And, in fairness, he hadn’t expected a woman. And certainly not a woman who looked as though she sucked on lemons for fun.

Right now, she was staring at him with a mixture of disapproval and consternation.

Her coat was still on and her brown hair was neatly scraped back into a bun. A pair of heavy spectacles would have transformed her into the archetypal school mistress.

Although, he had to concede, her eyes were a rather interesting shade of hazel and her mouth, dragged into an unforgiving thin line at the moment, could be quite attractive, because her lips were full and pink.

‘You’ve stopped,’ he said politely. ‘Why have you stopped?’

‘I’m afraid I really don’t think it appropriate for me to have a business meeting with you in a changing room.’

‘Oh, dear. As you can see, I’m currently not in my suit, and after an hour and a half in this place I really need to get out of my sweaty gear.’

Two bright patches of hot colour had appeared in her cheeks. Her skin tingled as though she was standing too close to an open flame and, in response to those physical responses, she found herself clutching the briefcase ever harder.

He was lounging against the doorframe with the door only partially open behind him.

‘Perhaps I could wait for you in your office,’ Ellie suggested. She stared at his face, because it seemed the safest place to rest her eyes—the other option being his barely clothed body—but he was so stunningly beautiful that he brought her out in a cold sweat. She desperately wanted to ignore his superior height and the powerful perfection of his muscular frame but it was like trying to ignore a tsunami.

‘Perhaps you could...’ Niccolo mused, eyes firmly focused on her heart-shaped face, which was awash with uncomfortable colour. ‘But no. I’m afraid not. I haven’t got enough time to spare.’ He straightened. ‘If the account means anything to your agency, then regrettably you’re going to have to get past your discomfort with my inappropriate behaviour and follow me.’ He grinned and raised his eyebrows, waiting for her response.

‘This—this is highly unconventional,’ Ellie stuttered in a last-ditch attempt to stay on the safe side of the partially opened door.

‘Stickler for convention?’ Niccolo asked, tilting his head to one side and allowing the silence to trickle between them like an electric current.

‘Yes.’ Ellie didn’t hesitate to set him straight on that score. If there was one thing her eternally unconventional parents had taught her, it was the value of convention.

Niccolo laughed with genuine amusement. How old was she? Somewhere in her twenties, but she dressed like a woman in her fifties, and that prissy approach was more reminiscent of a granny laying down laws than a young woman working in the exciting, hot-shot world of advertising.

The other contenders he had interviewed briefly for this assignment had been trendy to the point of wearisome. Hats, beards and wire-rimmed spectacles on the men and painfully cutting-edge outfits on the women. He didn’t think any of them would have been fazed at having to conduct their interview in a gym. He suspected that the women would have actively enjoyed the experience.

This particular woman looked as though the experience was on a par with being locked in a room with a dangerous airborne virus.

In a world that was largely predictable, Niccolo found that he was beginning to enjoy himself.

‘Well, at least you’re honest,’ he observed. ‘Although, I confess I’m not at my best when I’m around people who tether themselves to rules and regulations. I like people who can think out of the box.’

‘I’m a great believer in rules and regulations.’ Ellie’s mouth tightened, nostrils flaring as she breathed in the heady musk of his masculine scent. Her eyes were drawn to the V of his black tee shirt and then lingered. The tee shirt was tight enough to accentuate the hard width of his chest and the tapering slimness of his waist. She could glimpse some dark hair just where the V of the tee shirt ended, and it was so strangely and intensely masculine a sight that her breath hitched in her throat for a few shocking seconds, then she hurriedly looked away, heart hammering like a sledge hammer inside her chest.

‘But...’ she breathed deeply, steadying the sudden race of her pulses ‘...that’s not to say that I don’t think out of the box.’ She visibly relaxed as some of her wildly scattered thoughts began to cohere into the little rehearsed speech she had mentally prepared on her way to his office. ‘I’m excellent when it comes to creating the sort of dynamic a client is looking for in their advertising campaigns. In case you’re not aware of it, we might be a small firm, and relative newcomers to the scene, but we’re incredibly dynamic and as such we know how to connect with a young market. Social media in all its various forms is the prime tool when it comes to a successful pitch, and we pride ourselves on being top of the game in that area.’

‘Thank you for the spiel,’ Niccolo said politely, pushing himself away from the door. ‘But I still need to change. You can carry on trying to win my business while I freshen up.’ He swung round and carried on talking over his shoulder while Ellie followed on wobbly legs, eyes pinned to his back as he led the way into a spacious room, tiled from floor to ceiling in white-and-grey marble with two of the walls mirrored so that unfortunately her reflection was thrown back at her from every angle.

Ellie did her best to ignore the sight of herself. She was five-foot-six but, even with her heels elevating her by a couple of inches, he still towered over her.

A fleeting glimpse of their reflections in the daunting mirrored walls as they walked through the outer room made her heart sink.

He’d said that he wasn’t at his best with people who ‘tether themselves to rules and regulations’. He’d made it sound as though anyone who wasn’t an out-and-out maverick was a crashing bore and of no interest.

What must he think of her, in that case? She’d already pinned her colours to the mast when it came to rule-breaking and, if she hadn’t, then one look at her would have convinced him that she was just the sort of dreary, conventional bore he would never be at his best with.

If he was the equivalent of a dangerous, wildly unpredictable and outrageously beautiful jungle cat, then she was the equivalent of the fearful sparrow sitting on the branch of a tree, making damned sure not to get too close.

Her clothes were neat and, she knew, uninspiring. Her figure was likewise neat and uninspiring. She possessed neither the curves of the sex bomb nor the androgynous skinny chic of the model. She was just...slender. Her breasts had never been big enough, as far as she was concerned. Her shoulder-length hair, scraped back into a utilitarian chignon at the nape of her neck, was shiny and glossy but...brown. She had her own niche market of clients who were reassured by her competence and straightforward, intelligent approach, impressed by her careful meticulousness and charmed by the flashes of wit and verve she brought to all her campaigns. Niccolo Rossi wasn’t going to be one of these reassured, impressed or charmed clients.

She was never going to win this contract. You really had to bond with the person on the opposite side of the fence when it came to winning a contract. You had to be singing from the same song sheet or else they would never trust that you would be able to perform in the manner they wanted. It was all a very subjective process.

An unpredictable jungle cat and a little brown sparrow did not make natural bed partners.

Already contemplating the prospect of failure, and trying to work out how it might impact on the fortunes of the agency, Ellie didn’t notice that they had exited the marble outer room and were now in the changing rooms, which were also tiled in marble, but unfortunately not quite so impersonal, because the bank of showers suggested, all too clearly, just how intimate the space was.

She froze.

The colour drained from her cheeks.

She was still in her coat, and practically passing out from the heat, but too embarrassed to remove it in a place like this, which was specifically designed for the removal of clothing.

Niccolo folded his arms and looked at her. Never had he seen a face so expressive of a rabbit suddenly staring into the harsh, bright glare of oncoming headlights.

He marvelled that she worked in the cut-throat world of advertising at all and, more than that, was an active partner in the small but, he knew, talented advertising agency which she represented.

‘I would not normally be conducting business here,’ he felt constrained to tell her, even though it wasn’t in his nature to explain himself to anyone. ‘Unfortunately, I got into work much later than I normally do.’ He grimaced as he thought of the four delightful harridans laying into him the evening before. ‘Not your fault, I do realise, but I decided, once I got here that I had to hit the gym. Unfortunately, it happened to coincide with your appointment, which I should, in retrospect, have cancelled.’

‘No!’ Ellie was quick to respond. ‘It’s perfectly fine. A little unusual, of course, but...’

‘But I’m a billionaire and your agency is desperate to get its hands on this assignment, so having to put up with inappropriate behaviour from the head of the company is a pill you’re willing to swallow for the greater good.’ He grinned, folded his arms and stared at her for a few moments, then he turned away and disappeared behind a wall. She could still hear him, though, just as she could hear the rush of water as the shower was turned on.

Her twenty minutes were surely up, and she had shown him nothing of what she had done. But then, he’d probably made up his mind anyway, so wasn’t particularly interested in seeing her work.

Frankly, she could leave right now, but it somehow seemed rude to slink away while his back was turned.

While he was in the shower.

Naked.

Ellie suddenly found herself in the grip of a level of imagination she’d never known she possessed. She pictured him under the running water, lathering his big, powerful body with soap, face upturned. He wasn’t one of those metrosexual guys with spindly legs and hairless chests. He was aggressively, belligerently male and his dark, dangerous in-your-face sex appeal made her giddy and flustered.

‘You’ve gone silent on me,’ Niccolo drawled, emerging from the concealed cubicle, trousers on, lazily doing up the buttons on his shirt.