At The Italian's Command

With that lodged firmly at the forefront of her mind, she was functioning a bit more normally when he appeared with George in tow.

Her voice sounded steady as she slipped into the passenger seat and asked him normal, polite questions about what he was going to see and whether, for him, the outing would be rated as business or pleasure. All the time, she had to stop herself from staring. In the dark back seat of the car, his lean face was all shadows and angles. She managed to contort herself so that she was physically as far away from him as possible, but she was still aware of the tiny distance that separated their knees from touching. If it weren’t so pathetic, she knew it would have been laughable.

‘Sometimes the lines between business and pleasure overlap,’ he was saying, his deep, velvety voice perfectly cool and controlled. ‘The play will be good, I’m sure, and the networking will be invaluable.’

‘And, of course, that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’ Sophie remarked more acidly than she had meant. He was quick to pick up on the intonation in her voice.

‘It’s how big business works, Sophie. Does that surprise you? Maybe you disapprove of the fact that client dinners and trips to the theatre are all methods of oiling the wheels. When I’m being entertained by people, I’m almost always aware that there’s a subtext, that the expensive restaurants are ways of making sure that I keep them in mind should I ever find myself in a position where I can do them a favour.’

‘And that doesn’t bother you?’

‘Why should it? On a smaller scale, it happens every day to all of us.’

‘I don’t make it a habit of buttering people up just in case I might find them useful at a later date.’

‘How heroic of you.’

‘There’s nothing heroic about it. I just don’t like the thought of using people.’

‘You mean,’ Rafe said thoughtfully, ‘you’re yourself whatever the situation…’ He looked at her earnest face and the cloud of wildly spiralling hair framing it and felt a surprising kick of interest. Her soft lips were drawn together in a tight line and disapproval radiated from her in waves. Not many women disapproved of him, he realised suddenly. In fact, most tripped over themselves to make sure that he noticed them in all the right ways. It made a change to be confronted with someone who didn’t slot easily into the box. Especially, he thought, since it was a temporary situation.

‘I like to think so.’

‘And if I told you that I don’t like women arguing with me, unless it’s in the boardroom, you wouldn’t edit your reactions at all? Not even if your assignment hung in the balance…?’

‘Are you saying that I have to agree with everything you say or else you refuse to let me shadow you?’ Anger bubbled in her and spilled over. ‘Is that some kind of threat? I think it’s very sad if you feel that you have to surround yourself with yes-people! Or maybe you’re just talking about the opposite sex! Is that it? You like women to be seen and not heard and if they’re heard, it’s only on the condition that they saying something to flatter you!’ She found that she was leaning towards him, trembling.

Looking at her, Rafe was torn between bursting out laughing and carrying on with his infuriating line of chauvinistic arrogance just to see how far he could go. There was something infinitely invigorating about her reaction. Whether she realised it or not, it was, in fact, proof that she refused to toe the line.

She also looked quite pretty, all worked up like that. Her cheeks were flushed and that riotous hair gave her the look of an angry child.

‘It was a hypothetical question,’ Rafe said, raising his eyebrows in amusement. ‘Of course I don’t surround myself with yes-people.’

‘But I bet you don’t have too many women disagree with what you say,’ Sophie shrewdly flung back at him. ‘Forgetting the ones you meet in the boardroom.’ She sat back, a delayed reaction to the fact that she was much too close to him for comfort. He had been winding her up, she could see that now. It was infuriating. How could she do her job properly if he didn’t even take her seriously? What Claudia and her mother had seen as an advantage, the fact that he wasn’t a stranger to her, was conversely actually working against her.

‘I’m not generally disagreeable when I’m in the company of a woman,’ Rafe drawled. His eyes followed the movements of her hands as they gathered her hair behind her, twisting it into a makeshift pony-tail. No good. As soon as she released the tousled mass, it tumbled back around her. For someone who had not a streak of vanity in her, or so it seemed, he wondered why she hadn’t long ago had the lot chopped off. But maybe—he toyed with the tantalising idea—his one-dimensional idea of her wasn’t quite as accurate as he had imagined.

‘But then again,’ he mused, his eyes still lingering on her face, ‘they don’t usually set out to have arguments.’

‘I wasn’t arguing with you,’ Sophie said stubbornly. ‘I was voicing my opinions.’

‘Ah, yes. Fine distinction.’ With regret, he saw the theatre lit up ahead of them. ‘An argumentative woman is only one step away from being a shrew and not many men like a shrew.’

Sophie’s mouth fell open. She decided that she wasn’t going to be caught again by him having a laugh at her expense. ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said tartly. ‘Now, about tomorrow. What time would you like me to be there? Patricia’s printed off a list of your meetings over the next few days and I see that you have your first meeting in High Wycombe at nine-thirty. Shall I meet you there or would you like me to come to the office first?’

‘That’s a sensitive meeting.’ Rafe frowned. It occurred to him that he hadn’t given old Mr Beardsman a thought for some time.

‘What do you mean by sensitive?’

‘It means that I don’t want you around.’ The car pulled up gently to the kerb, which was teeming with people. The rain had subsided, but even so most of them carried umbrellas just in case, or else were wearing coats with hoods.

He began opening the door and she reached out and laid her hand on his arm. ‘Why not?’

‘Because…’ Rafe shook his head in exasperation. ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Sophie. Why don’t you do something useful? Have tea with my mother and the pair of you can talk about me till the cows come home.’

‘Why don’t you want me at this meeting? Is there something illegal going on?’

Rafe’s mouth twitched with unconcealed amusement. ‘Yes,’ he said gravely, ‘it’s all highly illegal goings-on and I don’t want you there in case you blow my cover.’

‘Very funny, Rafe. Why can’t you try and treat me like an adult?’

‘Okay. Meet me there at nine-fifteen. I’ll make my own way there and get George to collect you from your house. Satisfied?’

‘Very. Thank you.’ She sat back and gave him a smug smile. ‘Have a nice evening.’

She felt curiously alive for the remainder of the evening. The project was going well, she told herself, hence her high spirits. The image of Rafe, dressed to kill, floated in her head and she squashed the picture hurriedly. He wasn’t a man to her, he was an object of an exercise.

Still, she took care dressing the following morning. Instead of her normal attire of flowing skirt and jumper, she wore a pair of grey trousers and a slim-fitting woollen grey top with little pearl buttons halfway down the front, something she had worn a couple of times to functions at her previous office. As an afterthought, she did away with the assortment of useless clips and instead braided her hair into a French plait. Not quite as neat, but less severe than scraping the lot back and at least escaping tendrils wouldn’t look so inappropriate.

With her briefcase and her now dry coat, she arrived at the small, shabby building feeling the epitome of the career girl.

Her mother, she thought, would be startled and a little taken aback at the image. Grace had always wanted her daughter to work, somehow, in the field of art. Granted, the publishing job met with slightly more favour than the office one had, but anything that essentially lacked creativity would be a disappointing waste of her daughter’s talent as far as she was concerned.

Sophie resolved to live up to her image and make sure that there were no emotional outbursts of any kind. Hence the brisk smile on her face as she greeted Rafe, who nodded curtly at her. Next to him was an elderly man, short, plump, with anxious, kindly eyes and a shiny grey suit that looked clean but old. The small front room was empty and, with the exception of a young girl behind a desk manning two phones, there was no sign of activity anywhere. Not a place she would have associated with the thrusting Rafael Loro, although he looked not in the slightest ill at ease with his surroundings. If anything, he seemed impatient to be off, quickly introducing her and then cutting short pleasantries by glancing at his watch.

‘I want to get this wrapped up as soon as possible, Bob,’ he said, practically herding them towards a door at the side of the room. ‘We’ve chatted enough times and now I want your answer.’

Sophie trailed behind them, watching their body language from behind. The old man’s somehow defeated, Rafe’s eloquent of that restless energy that could be so unnerving.

‘It’s a big decision, Mr Loro,’ Bob said as soon as the door was closed behind them. He wiped his forehead with his handkerchief and rested both arms on the table separating them. Sitting just behind him, she couldn’t see the expression on his face, but from his voice she could tell that whatever transaction was being completed was not to the old man’s liking.

‘It’s not really that big, Bob.’ Rafe’s voice implied that he had gone over this ground many times before. ‘Your company is on the rocks without hope of salvation. You owe people left, right and centre. You have had to lay off the majority of your staff and those who remain do so without any certainty of payment. I am offering to take all those cares off your hands.’

‘It’s a family company, Mr Loro! My grandfather built this up from scratch.’

‘And would hate to have seen it in the hands of receivers, who can be very impersonal when they do their job.’

And so it went on over a painful hour and a half. Rafe, brutally realistic and determined, the old man looking for ways of making the sale less unpalatable.

Eventually, Rafe looked at his watch and stood up. No handshake this time. He merely looked dispassionately at Bob and said in a low, level voice, ‘We’ve run out of talk now. You either sell or you don’t, and I’m giving you precisely one week to put my offer to your family. If you agree, then I will fix up all the necessary meetings with lawyers. If you don’t…’ He shrugged, heading for the door. ‘The world is full of sharks and if you think that I am one of them, then let me tell you that there are many with far sharper teeth.’

‘How could you?’ Sophie accused as soon as they were once more in the car. George had stayed on the premises, obviously warned in advance that their meeting would not be an all-day event.

‘How could I what?’ Rafe’s voice was cold and silky.

‘That poor old man. He was utterly intimidated by you!’

‘You’re shadowing me, Sophie, not offering comments on how I run my business. My advice to you is to stick to what you know.’