At The Italian's Command

‘I admit my editor might have enjoyed some gossip,’ Sophie told him truthfully, ‘but it seems that you pay well and treat your employees fairly. Group meetings on a regular basis so that they can let off steam, pay reviews biannually, membership of a sports centre, bonus packages at the end of the year, the list goes on.’

‘What did you expect, Sophie? A tyrant who chained his workers to their desks and deprived them of everything but the basics?’

‘Of course not! But I’ve worked in an office. I know that there are always grumblings of discontent around if you look hard enough.’

‘Is that why you left your job? Because of the office politics?’ He realised that, although they had met socially off and on over the years, he knew very little about her. She had stuck in his head as someone who hovered on the sidelines, always standing out like a sore thumb but not for the right reasons. ‘You did a degree in Art,’ he remarked, remembering one piece of throwaway information his mother had given him at some point. He recalled thinking that that was exactly what he would have guessed she might have done, given her appearance.

‘How do you know that?’

‘My mother must have told me at some point. Why the jump from art to office work?’

‘Because finding a job that involved my art degree was impossible,’ Sophie informed him shortly. ‘Why do you think you weren’t content on simply taking over your father’s business? It was extremely profitable. Why did you feel compelled to expand it to the extent that you have?’

Rafe recognised the ploy. She was uncomfortable talking about herself and so made her answers as brief and monosyllabic as possible before changing the subject. He couldn’t blame her. When had he ever shown the slightest interest in her? But since they were cooped up with one another for two weeks, what normal human being wouldn’t show some level of interest?

‘Ah. The fascinating question of motivation,’ Rafe drawled. ‘What do you think?’

‘I can’t write an article on what I think about you. I have to write an article based on what I observe and what you tell me about yourself.’

‘No one likes to rest on inherited wealth. I branched out because I had to flex my own intellectual muscles.’

It was an answer within a non-answer. Yes, it provided facts in a nutshell, but that fascinating question of motivation that he had mentioned earlier remained unanswered. And Sophie got the feeling that he was all too aware of the fact and was not about to do anything about it. He was very private and any excavating of his character, which really was what her editor would want to see, would have to be done very carefully.

She would have to make him feel relaxed in her company and maybe then he might let slip the odd remark that would reveal something about himself.

It helped that he saw her as nothing more than an irritating kid who had grown up. Despite any surface interest he expressed in her and what she had been doing with her life, he honestly didn’t care.

She tried not to feel vaguely hurt and insulted by that. In a way, she almost preferred the dismissive hint of impatience, the glancing look that barely took her in, to the look he was giving her now. Green eyes coolly detached, as though she just happened to be something sexless and characterless that had happened to stray within his line of vision, thereby forcing him to react in one way or another.

In this case, pretending to show an interest in what she thought. Sophie decided that she didn’t much care. The object of the exercise was to get him to open up.

‘Well, it’s always good to set challenges for yourself,’ Sophie she said, hoping her voice had attained the right level of cosiness and warmth. ‘Actually, that’s what I told myself when I ended up working in an office.’

Rafe’s voice was polite and only mildly interested. ‘That your dreams of being the next Picasso were nothing compared to the challenges of mastering the filing system and coming to grips with PowerPoint?’

His wryly sarcastic response immediately had her hackles up. ‘Actually, I never had dreams of being the next Picasso. My degree wasn’t in fine art. I studied graphic design and illustration.’

‘And I take it the office where you worked had no available department that could make use of your skills?’

Sophie smiled reluctantly. ‘Not many legal offices do, although I did acquire a very sound knowledge of the basics of family law.’

Her face changed when she smiled. There was something graceful and cautious and very appealing about it.

‘We’ll be at my place in five minutes,’ he said abruptly. ‘I recommend you come inside and get into something dry. I don’t want the responsibility of sending you home in soaking wet clothes so that you can come down with pneumonia.’

‘In that case, I’ll take the responsibility away from you by telling you that I’m fine to make my way home and change when I get there. In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t usually walk around with a spare set of clothes in my handbag.’

Rafe wasn’t sure whether to be irritated or amused by her. She certainly wasn’t the silent little thing he had expected. On the other hand, he was in a hell of a rush and in no mood to listen to someone trying to have a meaningful conversation with him on the subject of life choices.

‘We’re here.’ The car had pulled up outside an exquisite mews town house, and Rafe was already pushing open his door. ‘I don’t intend to have a debate on the subject. I have spare clothes that my mother leaves from time to time when she visits. Granted, they may not be the height of youthful style, but I’d say you would be better off in them than enduring another forty minutes in soaking splendour. I’m due out this evening, and I’m running late. George can drop me off to the theatre and then take you home. Make your choice.’

Common sense won over pride. She felt hideously uncomfortable. Her clothes were sticking to her like a layer of ice-cold cling film and Lord only knew what was happening to her coat on the ground by her feet. Probably developing a nice coating of mildew even as he spoke.

‘Thank you very much,’ Sophie said, quickly shifting out of the car while he strode ahead of her. The driving rain had become a fine, sharp drizzle and she flung her coat loosely over her as she ran to keep pace with him.

George, with whom Rafe clearly had a close rapport, took himself off in the direction of what she supposed was the kitchen and she was left dripping in the hallway.

‘Follow me,’ Rafe commanded, barely bothering to look around.

It hardly gave Sophie a chance to appreciate her surroundings, but what she glimpsed as she raced behind him was impressive and a little surprising. She had expected chrome and wood and the expensive furnishings of a bachelor living in the fast lane. Lots of leather everywhere, perhaps, and abstract paintings on the walls. Instead, she was surprised to see that his house was warm and lived in, without a hint of chrome anywhere. The floor was wood, certainly, but deep, rich wood with the patina of time showing in it.

She would have liked to have had a look around some of the rooms, but he had already reached a bedroom that his mother obviously used when she visited.

‘Clothes,’ he said, opening a wardrobe. ‘More in the drawers. Bathroom just there.’ He nodded to an en suite bathroom. ‘You’ll need to be ready in half an hour if I’m to make this appointment in time. And leave your clothes. I’ll get Anya to take care of them tomorrow when she comes.’

‘Anya?’

‘My housekeeper.’ He paused and gave her a quick once-over. ‘You didn’t really think that I looked after this place without help, did you?’

‘I didn’t really give it much thought at all,’ Sophie returned without batting an eye. ‘I’ll be quick.’

She was. Hardly any time to luxuriate in the bath, and it was a bathroom made for luxuriating. The bath was deep and someone had stocked up on some delightful miniature soaps and bottles of fragrant bath foam. Claudia, she suspected. Those little touches spoke of a woman and if she spent time regularly in London with her son, then she would have provided that feminine attention to detail that he would never have considered.

Unless, of course, some other woman had seen fit to domesticate the house.

Sophie dried quickly, her mind playing on that possibility. Her editor wanted human interest and that would be very interesting indeed. He was photographed often enough with some woman adorning his arm, not one but a succession of them. Small soaps in a glass jar and that porcelain jar of pot pourri spoke of someone a little more permanent than a passing notch on the bedpost.

And he would have no problem finding any woman he wanted, she thought, dressing quickly in the first thing she could find. He had the sex-appeal syndrome in buckets.

She thought back to the times she had seen him at his mother’s house or wandering through the town on an exeat or during the holidays. Even from the innocent perspective of a young teenager, she had been struck by his popularity with the opposite sex. In fact, they had danced attendance upon him. And the years had been unnaturally kind to him. He still had the athletic build, but now there was something more powerful about it, and his aggressive personality showed on his face. She, personally, found it off-putting, but not many women would.

From the half a dozen or so outfits, she picked something the least formal. A straight brown skirt, a blouse, a camel-coloured cashmere jumper. Any attempt to do something neat with her hair, she abandoned completely, leaving it to curl disastrously around her face and down her back. The overall effect wasn’t too much of a catastrophe, and she was on time. In fact, early.

Rafe got to the top of the stairs and paused, a little startled by the transformation.

‘Early,’ he said, descending the staircase and knotting his bow-tie at the same time. ‘Not a trait I’ve often found in a woman.’

Sophie swung round at the sound of his voice and watched him as he walked slowly down towards her. She opened her mouth to say something and nothing came out. Her throat felt dry and her stomach was doing funny things too. Weird little somersaults.

The logical voice in her head was telling her that, yes, he did look stunningly handsome. White shirt, black trousers, black bow-tie, black jacket, which he was casually slinging on as he descended the staircase. Her body, on the other hand, was reacting as though she were seeing him for the first time.

‘I’ll go and get George,’ Rafe said. ‘Don’t move. I’ll be back in two minutes.’

Move? Sophie wondered whether her legs were capable of managing that perfectly normal function.

It was only as he disappeared from the hallway that her common sense finally kicked in, and with a vengeance. If she couldn’t control some pathetic response to his masculinity, then she would have no choice but to admit defeat and hand the job over to someone else. The thought was tempting, but running away from the challenge of her first assignment would be signing her own death warrant as far as Noma Publishing was concerned, and she wanted the job. Badly.

It wasn’t, she thought feverishly, as though she even liked the man. The visible package was good, but the contents left her cold.