Unwordly Secretary, Gorgeous Boss: Secretary Mistress, Convenient Wife / The Boss's Unconventional Assistant / The Boss's Forbidden Secretary

‘He physically hurt you?’ ‘Sometimes … yes.’

He bit out something that was clearly a savage expression of disgust. ‘I am very sorry to hear you say that. But I am not sorry to hear that such a man is no longer in your life! Accident or not, you are clearly much better off without him!’

Her throat starting to ache, Laura sensed the encroaching tide of anguished memory skirt too close for comfort, and mentally willed it to back off. It was a technique she’d learned to save her sanity. It was rare that she spoke about Mark and his treatment of her—to anyone. Not even her parents. Keeping the wounding memories at bay sometimes felt like a fulltime job, but she had no desire to wallow in pain and regret or even self-pity. Time and time again she told herself it was the future she should concentrate on … not the past.

‘Anyway … it’s a part of my life I try not to think about too often. I’m sure you can understand that? These things can either shape you or break you, and I’d take drastic steps before I let that happen!’ A small heartfelt sigh escaped into the fragrant air. ‘And what about you, Fabian?’ All Laura’s muscles clenched hard as she succumbed to her own curiosity about him … In the deepening dusk, his arrestingly sculpted face was thrown partly into shadow. Yet still the wariness that he wore like a shield was startlingly evident. ‘Presumably … with this estate to run and everything … you would like children too?’ she continued.

‘I have made you sad, reminding you of the past.’ Abruptly getting to his feet, it was clear that Fabian had no intention of answering Laura right then. ‘Let us continue our walk, and I promise not to upset you with any more difficult questions … si?’

As she stood up, her mind busy with pondering why he could ask her about her desire for children but she could not do the same to him, he put his hand against her back, and once again her skin registered his touch like a ray of heat that scorched right through her clothing to leave her tingling. ‘Okay …’

They walked on in silence for a while, and gradually Laura’s tension around Fabian began to ebb a little.

‘I’m trying to imagine what it must have been like, growing up in a place like this,’ she announced suddenly, drinking in the stunning vista all around her. ‘Your own enchanted forest!’

‘Enchanted?’ His voice was devoid of the pleasure she had half expected to hear in it. ‘I suppose to someone viewing it from the outside it might look like that.’

His tone hinted at bitterness and regret, and it made Laura wonder about the extent of his father’s cruelty. Her chest tightened in sympathy. Instead of pursuing her curiosity about his past, she decided to contain it for another day.

Turning his back, Fabian led her down a narrow winding pathway edged with a riot of colourful exotic blooms, and through an arbour of roses that led into yet another exquisite garden, bursting with colour and scent.

Laura drank it all in—the beauty, the night and the man—and the startling realisation came to her that she longed for these stunning moments never to come to an end.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT MADE sense that she was a widow. What else but a tragedy could have put that distant yet undeniable hurt in her pale grey eyes?

The following afternoon, watching Laura from the long windows of the office as she conversed on the lawn with the catering supervisor of the company they’d hired to provide the food and drink for the concert attendees, Fabian reflected on why he had held back on the proposition he had been going to put to her. Was two years long enough to get over the death of her husband and the cruel legacy of memory he must have left her with? Had she loved him, despite his cruelty? And had her experience coloured her view of all future possibilities of another relationship?

Last night had not been the time to quiz her on any of this. But, despite all his unanswered questions, it came to him that under the circumstances she might well welcome a partnership where there was no emotional expectation involved or required other than that she be a devoted mother and the kind of respectful wife whom not a breath of scandal would ever touch to shame him. In return Fabian could give Laura many things that would help make life good for her … a sense of security and stability, for one thing, and a guarantee that both she and their offspring would never want for anything. Would that be enough to persuade her to become his wife?

‘I can’t believe the concert is tomorrow night! It feels like everything is coming together at last—fingers crossed! And I’ve a feeling it’s going to be just wonderful!’

She breezed into the room, a clutch of papers in a see-through folder against her chest, her hair slightly tousled from the welcome breeze that had sprung up that morning. Fabian glanced up from the list of phone calls he had yet to make and spied a speck of white at the corner of her mouth. Getting to his feet, he wandered across to where she stood and inspected the mark more closely.

‘You appear to have some cream at the side of your mouth,’ he told her, and before Laura could do anything about it he reached towards her and smoothed it away with his fingers. Her eyes went round as dinner plates.

‘Maria gave me some cake a while ago. I should have checked in a mirror. I’ve been standing there talking to Signor Minetti from the catering company for the past twenty minutes!’

‘It was barely noticeable.’ Smiling, Fabian reflected that he liked her confusion, and the way she blushed so readily. But right then he had other, more important considerations to contemplate. His face turned suddenly serious. ‘We will take some time out,’ he announced, catching her by the elbow and guiding her back to where he’d been working. He nodded towards the padded seat on the other side of the desk that had been left there for visitors. ‘Sit down, Laura.’

‘Did I tell you that some of the stars from the opera are coming over this evening to rehearse?’ she asked him, still clutching the sheaf of papers against her emerald-green dress and clearly nervous.

‘Yes, you did … twice, as a matter of fact.’

‘Oh …’ She pursed her lips, then blew out a long breath. It made a silky strand of yellow hair dance across her cheek. ‘Maria is organising some refreshments afterwards, and they’d like you to join them. Did I tell you that?’

‘I believe I am fully up to date with what is happening this evening, so you do not need to worry.’

‘Good … I mean bene.’

‘Why don’t you just try and relax? You seem a little agitated today.’

‘I’m not agitated! Just excited, I suppose … about the concert tomorrow, I mean.’

Resting his elbows on the desk with a sigh, Fabian linked his hands together and studied Laura for several seconds before continuing. He told himself he could wait for the right time for ever, so what he had to say might as well be now.

‘So … there is another matter I wanted to discuss with you. But first let me ask you how you like the Villa de Rosa and being here in Tuscany?’

‘I like it very much. How could anyone not like such a place? It’s as close to paradise as I can think of!’

It threw Fabian for a minute, the sheer pleasure that her ready, artless smile conveyed. Of course her affirmation was somewhat at odds with his own feelings about the place he’d grown up in—the place that his father had turned into one of the most enviable houses in Italy and been so fiercely possessive of. So much so that he had actively resented passing it on to his son—but Laura did not know that.

‘Then it would not be in the realms of impossibility to imagine yourself living here?’

‘Are you offering me a permanent position working for you?’

The idea aroused mixed feelings in Laura, although the most prevalent one that she held deep inside her heart was elation. She’d so wanted to write a new, positive chapter to her life, and maybe this was the chance she’d been praying for? Fabian’s touch still lingered at the side of her mouth, where he’d wiped away the whipped cream Maria’s cake had left behind, and an awareness had slowly but surely taken root inside her that she more than liked this man. And that was where her doubts crept in about working for him …

‘No. That is not what I am offering you at all!’

His reply was surprisingly terse. Crushing disappointment poured ice water over the joy she’d felt.

‘I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to assume—’

‘There is no need to apologise. Let me not waste any more time getting to the point. I am suggesting a proposition that I would very much like you to give your serious consideration.’ He drew his hand across the black open-necked shirt he wore, briefly distracting her. ‘You asked me last night whether I wanted children. The answer is yes … of course. I need an heir, just like any other man in my position.’

Rubbing the furrow between his brows, he sighed as if he carried the cares of the world on his shoulders.

‘Perhaps now would be an appropriate time to tell you that I was also married when I was very young—to a girl I discovered after I had wed her did not confine her favours to her husband alone. Her behaviour brought shame on me, and made me realise that I had let my lust for her blind me to other less than desirable qualities of hers. Such a woman was not fit to be a mother, in my opinion, and I had no choice but to divorce her. Since then I have been too preoccupied with work and running this estate to enter into another serious relationship. But in order to have the heir that I wish for I obviously need a wife too. What I am proposing, Laura, is that you enter into a strictly business arrangement with me to achieve both those ends. In return you will lead a comfortable, prosperous life as the mistress of the Villa de Rosa and the mother of my child. You need not ever work again, if you do not wish to—although of course I will honour whatever decision you make in that area, as long as they reasonably fit in with my own.

‘You do not have to answer me straight away … you will no doubt wish to take the proper time to think things over before telling me what you have decided. I realise we have only known each other for just a short time, but in that time you have made quite an impression on me. I have learned that you are hard-working and talented, and clearly not motivated by money or fame. You have a quiet, relaxing presence and my staff—especially Maria—are already clearly fond of you. Add to that your obvious regard for children, and Carmela’s assurance that you are completely reliable … all these things together are enough to convince me that you and I would work very well together as a couple and make a success of such a marriage.’

It was as though a cyclone had swept through the room and left her stunned and dazed. It had appeared out of nowhere without warning … After such a shocking visit, the room and herself would never be the same again. In contrast, Fabian radiated extreme calm—the absolute antithesis of her own wild tumult.

‘I can hardly take it in … Are you being serious?’

The plastic wallet of papers slid out of her grip and onto her lap. She grabbed it just in time before it fell onto the floor.

‘Do you think I am making a joke?’ He scowled. ‘I know my proposition may come as something of a surprise, even a shock, but trust me … I do not come to such decisions lightly or without giving them the proper consideration and thought.’

‘But if you are in earnest about such a proposal … why pick me?’

The tanned skin between Fabian’s golden brows tightened perceptibly. ‘I have just told you why.’

‘Have you? All I heard was a list of my supposed attributes, as though I was some useful household object you were thinking of acquiring! You haven’t begun to explain your reasons as to why you would want such a strange arrangement!’

‘It may seem strange to you, but it is entirely practical in my view. I have told you that I want a family, like any other man in my position, but what I do not want or need is emotional entanglement. I have no illusions about love affairs … none at all! And something as important as marriage should be entered into with a clear head, in my view. Letting emotions dictate your future life with someone, when those very same emotions are merely transient states, only ensures that the outcome will probably be the divorce court! That is why I have proposed what I have proposed.’