The Boss's Valentine

‘Who are you talking about?’ Santino asked with a magnificent disregard for the direction of his own gaze.

‘The little redhead with the pre-Raphaelite hair…the one whom you’ve been watching for at least three solid minutes,’ Jenna completed between gritted teeth.

‘I’m not watching her,’ Santino murmured with cool disdain.

‘But even though you employ hundreds of young women you know instantly who I’m referring to,’ Jenna noted with rapier-sharp feminine logic.

‘Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed this morning?’ Santino drawled with his sudden flashing smile. ‘Exactly why are you trying to wind me up?’

‘Before I tell you—’ Jenna gave him a grudging smile of approbation for finally registering that she had been set on evening the score for past injuries ‘—you tell me who the redhead is and I will give you ten very good reasons why one should never, ever date an employee.’

Santino drained his drink again and dealt her a mocking glance. ‘I don’t need them, Jenna. All ten of them are in my mind right now.’

Returning to her table after chatting to various friends, Poppy sat down again. Lesley and two other women were chatting about Santino’s date, who was evidently the daughter of the owner of Delsen Industries.

‘What do you think of Jenna?’ another, less welcome voice enquired.

Poppy’s head swivelled, her startled gaze only then registering that Craig Belston had joined their table during her absence. That question had been directed specifically at her and she was gripped by discomfiture. ‘Why would I think anything of her?’ she answered with a determined smile. ‘All the boss’s girlfriends are incredible beauties.’

‘Now why did I get the idea that you mightn’t have noticed that?’ Craig rested his pale blue probing eyes on Poppy and her mouth ran dry.

‘Santino’s leggy ladies are rather hard to miss.’ Lesley shot a frowning glance at Santino’s PA and added, ‘Come on. You’ve been keeping us all in suspense since we finished work. Who sent Santino the naff card?’

Poppy froze and then gulped down her drink as her colour heightened.

‘Did I mention that it was an inside job?’ Craig murmured with tormenting slowness and Poppy’s heart skipped an entire beat, her every tiny muscle pulling rigid.

‘No, you darned well didn’t!’ one of the other women piped up in exasperation. ‘Who on earth working for Santino would be daft enough to send him a valentine card swearing undying love? I mean, come on, yes, he’s hugely fanciable, but he’s the last guy around who would respond to that kind of blatant invitation from a member of staff.’

‘You said the card wasn’t signed,’ Lesley reminded Craig. ‘So how could you know it was sent by someone in Aragone Systems? It didn’t come through the internal mail, did it?’

‘Just assume that in this particular case we’re talking about someone who’s not very bright,’ Craig invited, and Poppy’s tummy began to churn where she sat. ‘Someone who assumed that only a name would expose her identity.’

‘You recognised the handwriting!’ someone exclaimed.

‘I really don’t think I like this conversation very much,’ Lesley remarked suddenly. ‘Valentine cards are just for fun.’

‘It wasn’t the handwriting. It was a combination of errors,’ Craig explained to the table at large. ‘A distinctive perfume, a predilection for a particular colour and a love of flowers.’

Poppy was now as pale as milk and feeling physically ill with humiliation. She could not bring herself to look at any of her companions and silence greeted Craig’s last explanation, an awful uneasy silence that left Poppy’s nerves screaming and her skin clammy.

‘Now who do we all know who wears jasmine scent?’ Craig murmured.

‘I don’t know anyone who wears that,’ Lesley chimed in, and the two other women followed her lead to say the exact same. Painfully conscious that her companions were trying to throw sand in Craig’s eyes and deflect him from his target, Poppy had to grit her teeth to prevent herself from lifting her drink and throwing it at her tormentor.

At the other side of the room, Jenna was still in full confiding mode, but Santino was having a hard time dragging his brooding scrutiny from his PA’s smug expression and Poppy’s pale, rigid face.

‘So, I hope you’ll forgive me for giving you a rough time tonight,’ Jenna murmured in dulcet continuation, ‘but I always promised myself that some day I would tell you the truth and make you sweat for a few minutes. Will you still come to my engagement party?’

Taken aback, Santino frowned. ‘Engagement party?’

‘I’m so grateful I’m not in love with you any more.’ Jenna sighed. ‘Didn’t you hear me telling you that I’m getting engaged to David Marsh and that he’s picking me up here in five minutes?’

It had been a long time since Santino had heard that much good news in one sentence; he was genuinely fond of Jenna and relief on his own behalf and pleasure on her behalf sliced through his growing tension. Realising that the blonde had merely been set on claiming a small slice of revenge for his past indifference to her, he flung back his handsome dark head and started to laugh with genuine appreciation.

The sight of Santino splitting his sides with laughter, and Jenna equally convulsed and holding onto him for support, filled Poppy with paranoia. Immediately, she assumed that Santino had told the blonde about her pathetic card and that they were laughing at her, for if Craig had guessed that she was the culprit he was certain to have told Santino. Feeling as if she had just had her heart ripped out while she was still breathing, Poppy nonetheless rose from her seat with as much dignity as she could muster, for she could not bear sitting there playing poor little victim for Craig’s benefit any longer.

‘You’re a real Sherlock Holmes, Craig,’ she said flatly. ‘I’m very impressed.’

Poppy walked away fast. Tears were stinging her eyes and blurring her vision, but she kept her head high and that was her final undoing. She didn’t see the small table laden with drinks in her path. She hit it with such force that the table tipped over with an enormous crash that seemed to turn every head in the room. For an instant, Poppy hovered, staring in horror at the smashed glass and liquid everywhere, not to mention the startled dancers leaping back from the mess she had created. Then her control just snapped and she fled.

‘Now,’ Lesley said icily to Craig, who was sniggering at Poppy’s noisy exit, ‘while you’re wondering why Poppy’s friends aren’t rushing after her to offer support, watch Santino and learn…’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Upsetting Poppy is not a career-enhancing move in Aragone Systems. You see, if you were a woman and in touch with the real newsbreaking gossip in this building, you would already know that Santino fancies the socks off Poppy, too—’

‘Rubbish!’ Craig snapped. ‘He binned the card!’

‘Did you check the bin at the end of the day?’ someone enquired drily.

‘Santino doesn’t know what’s hit him yet,’ one of the other women commented with immense superiority. ‘He’s more at home with his keyboard than his emotions.’

‘But when a bloke like Santino, who likes everything done by the book, starts telling poor Desmond that pink graphs are fresh and creative, he’s in very deep,’ Lesley completed.

In companionable and expectant silence, the three women then focused pointedly on Santino, who had stridden forward the instant that Poppy had sent the table flying. He swung round to speak to Jenna Delsen and not thirty seconds later left in the same direction as Poppy. Witnessing that demonstration, Craig turned the greyish colour of putty and groaned out loud.

CHAPTER THREE

WHEN Poppy emerged from the function room at full tilt, several women were entering the cloakroom across the foyer and she wheeled away in the opposite direction.

Finding herself by the lifts, she stabbed the call button with a frantic hand and gulped back a sob. She had to find a quiet corner to pull herself back together again. Selecting the marketing floor, she slumped back against the lift’s cold steel wall as the doors closed. Wrapping her arms round herself, she hugged herself tight. But it was no help, no comfort, because all she could think about was what a fool she had made of herself.

When she saw the dark reception area on the marketing floor, it looked eerie and she hit the door button again in a hurry and tried another floor. Her eyes flooded with burning tears. Of course, Santino Aragone would have laughed when he was told who had sent that card. Everybody would be laughing! After all, she was just a junior member of staff, the plump little redhead Craig had nastily labelled, ‘Tinkerbell’ and hardly competition for the gorgeous women Santino specialised in. Why on earth hadn’t common sense intervened before she’d posted that stupid card to Santino at the office? Didn’t she have sense like other people? Her throat aching, she could no longer hold back the tears and a sob escaped her. How could she have exposed herself to that extent?

In the foyer below, Santino was watching the lights that indicated which floor the lift was at. The light flicked through the levels in descent again, made several brief stops and then sank as low as the floor above before beginning to ascend again. When the lift finally reached the executive level, he waited in taut suspense to see if it moved on again.

When the doors opened on the top floor, Poppy blinked in confusion for she had lost track. But low lights were burning and the floor was not in darkness like the others. Dimly recalling that Santino’s secretary had a private washroom, Poppy stumbled out. She needed to tidy herself up and fix her face before she could go home.

But shock was still setting in hard on Poppy. Only when it was far too late to change things did she see her mistake. She should have toughed out Craig’s insinuations. Instead she had fallen right into his trap and confirmed his suspicions. He couldn’t have proved anything, yet she had virtually confessed by saying what she had and leaving the table.

Taunting, wounding images were now bombarding her mind, increasing her distress. She had left the party with all the cool of a baby elephant let loose in a drawing room. She saw Craig’s self-satisfied smile, Santino laughing, the stiff, disapproving faces of the other women. Craig might as well have stripped her naked in public. Her trembling hands braced on the edge of the washroom vanity unit and, letting her head hang for she couldn’t stand to look at herself in the mirror when she hated herself so much for her own stupidity, she began to sob.

Santino had never made it from the lift to his secretary’s office so fast. But then those heartbreaking sobs acted on him like a shriek alarm. He would usually have gone quite some distance to avoid a crying woman, but the curious automatic pilot now overruling his normal caution ensured that he strode right through the open door of the washroom and gathered Poppy straight into a comforting embrace.

The sheer shock value of a pair of masculine arms closing round her when she had believed that she was alone provoked a startled cry from Poppy. Then she looked up and focused on Santino and even more shock froze her from head to toe. Bronze-coloured eyes set below lush black lashes were trained to hers, the lean, dark contours of his handsome features taut with concern.

‘It’s OK,’ he soothed in his gorgeous accented drawl.