The Italian's One-Night Consequence

‘Interesting question,’ the man murmured, positioning himself directly in front of her.

The look in her eyes seemed to amuse him.

‘Are you looking for make-up?’ Maddie asked bluntly. ‘Because if so you’re in the wrong department. I could always point you in the right direction.’

In response, the man randomly picked up a jar from the precarious display she had been fiddling with earlier and twirled it in his hand.

‘What’s this if not make-up?’

Maddie removed it from him and swivelled it so that the label was facing him. ‘Regenerating night cream, targeting a woman in her sixties,’ she said crisply. ‘Are you interested in buying it?’

‘Oh, I’m interested,’ he said, in a tone laced with innuendo.

‘Well, that’s all I’m selling, so if it’s not what you’re interested in you should probably keep moving.’

Maddie folded her arms. She knew she was blushing. She also knew that her body was misbehaving. Once upon a time, it had misbehaved before, and she still had the scars to show for that. A repeat performance wasn’t on the cards—especially not with some arrogant guy too good-looking for his own good.

‘Are we cutting to the chase, here?’ Leo purred, rising to the challenge and liking it. ‘Who’s to say I’m not...interested...in that very expensive pot of cream for my mother?’

‘Oh!’ Maddie flushed. She’d misread the situation.

At this rate, sampling how things worked on the shop floor was going to get her precisely nowhere—because she clearly had no idea about effective salesmanship. But then she’d never stood behind a counter selling anything in her entire life.

Yet again she wondered whether she was doing the right thing. Was she? Three and a half weeks ago she’d received the startling news that she was the sole beneficiary of a bequest that included a department store, a house, and various assorted paraphernalia—courtesy of a grandfather she had never seen, nor met, and never really known existed.

Having been struggling to make ends meet, and living the sort of disastrous life she had never imagined possible, she had already been asking herself what direction she needed to take to wipe away the past couple of years of her life, or at least to put it all in perspective, and wham—just like that, she’d received her answer.

She’d arrived in Ireland still barely able to believe her good fortune, with big plans to sell the store, the house and whatever else there was to sell, so that she could buy herself the dream that had eluded her for so many years.

An education.

With money in the bank she would be able to get to university, an ambition she had had to abandon when her mother had become ill four years previously. She would be able to throw herself into the art course she had always wanted to do without fear of finding herself begging on street corners to pay for the privilege.

She would be able to make something of herself—and that meant a lot, because she felt that she’d spent much of her life being buffeted by the winds of fate, carried this way and that with no discernible goal propelling her forward.

But she’d taken one look at the store and one look at the house she had inherited—full of charm despite the fact that it was practically falling down—and she’d dumped all her plans to sell faster than a rocket leaving earth. Art school could wait—the store needed her love and her help now.

Anthony Grey, the lawyer who had arranged to see her so that he could go over every single disadvantage of hanging on to what, apparently, was a business on its last legs and a house that was being propped up only by the ivy growing around it, had talked to her for three hours. She had listened with her head tilted to one side, hands on her knees, and had then promptly informed him that she was going to try and make a go of it.

And that, first and foremost, entailed getting to know what it was she intended making a go of. Which, in turn, necessitated her working on the shop floor so that she could see where the cracks were and also hopefully pick up what was being said by the loyal staff who suspected that their jobs might be hanging in the balance.

A couple of weeks under cover and Maddie was sure she would be able to get a feel for things.

Optimism hadn’t been her companion for a very long time and she had been enjoying it.

Until now. She’d jumped to all sorts of conclusions and screwed up. She pinned a smile to her face, because the way too good-looking man staring down at her, with the most incredible navy blue eyes she had ever seen in her life, looked rich and influential, even though he was kitted out in a pair of faded black jeans and a polo shirt.

There was something about his lazy, loose-limbed stance, the way he oozed self-confidence, the latent strength of his body...

She felt it again—that treacherous quiver in the pit of her stomach and the tickling between her thighs—and she furiously stamped it down.

‘Your mother...’ She picked up the pot and squinted at it. ‘She’d love this. It’s thick, creamy, and excellent at smoothing out wrinkles.’

‘Are you just reading what’s written on the label?’

‘I’m afraid I’ve only been here a short while, so I’m just getting the hang of things.’

‘Shouldn’t you have a supervisor working with you in that case? Showing you the ropes?’

The man looked around, as though expecting said person to materialise in front of him. He was enjoying himself. It was clear this stranger was so accustomed to women fawning over him that the novel experience of a woman not caring who he was or how much he was worth was tickling him pink.

He rested flattened palms on the glass counter and Maddie shifted back just a little.

‘Dereliction of duty,’ he murmured.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You need to tell your boss that it gives the customer a poor impression if the people working on the sales floor don’t really know what they’re talking about.’

Maddie stiffened at the criticism. ‘You’ll find that everyone else on the shop floor has worked here for a very long time. If you like, I can fetch someone over here to help you in your...your quest for the perfect face cream for your mother.’

‘I’ll let you in on a little secret,’ the man said with a tinge of regret, his navy blue eyes never once leaving her face. ‘I lied about wanting the cream for my mother. My mother died when I was a boy.’ Sincere regret seeped into his voice. ‘Both my parents, in actual fact,’ he added in a roughened undertone.

‘I’m so sorry.’

Maddie still felt the loss of her own mother, but she had had her around for a great deal longer than the man standing in front of her had had his. Her father had never been in the picture. He’d done a runner before she was old enough to walk.

Maddie knew scraps of the story that had brought her mother from Italy to the other side of the world. There had been an argument between her mother and the grandfather Maddie hadn’t ever known which had never been resolved. Harsh words exchanged and then too much pride on both sides for any resolution until time took over, making reconciliation an impossibility.

Her mother had been a strong woman—someone who had planted both feet and stood her ground. Stubborn... But then she’d had to fight her way in Australia with a young baby to take care of. Maddie felt that her grandfather might have had the same traits—although she had no real idea because she’d never been told. Secretly she wondered if the grandfather she’d never met might have attempted to contact her mother, only to have his efforts spurned. Parents were often more forgiving with their children than the other way around.

Her eyes misted over and she reached out and impulsively circled the man’s wrist with her fingers—and then yanked her hand back because the charge of electricity that shot through her was downright frightening.

He raised his eyebrows, and for a second she felt that he could read every thought that had flashed through her head.

‘No need,’ he murmured. ‘Have dinner with me.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I’ll pass on the face cream. Frankly, all those wild claims can’t possibly be true. But have dinner with me. Name the place, name the time...’

‘You’re not interested in buying anything in this store, are you?’

Maddie’s voice cooled by several degrees, because he was just another example of a cocky guy who wanted to get her into bed. She’d been spot-on first time round.

‘And as for a dinner date... That’ll be a no.’

Dinner with this man? How arrogant was he?