Italian Boss, Proud Miss Prim

A laugh rippled through the crowd as she locked gazes with him. Everyone was staring at her and she could feel their disappointment. She was not some famous beauty or a supermodel. She was about the furthest thing from that you could get. Steeling herself, she took the half-dozen steps required to close the distance between herself and the car. Signor Ruggiero had already stowed her bag, and so all she had to do was get in—but that meant she had to slot herself into an impossibly narrow-looking opening.

‘When you’re ready,’ he drawled.

She had already anticipated that folding her inelegant body into such an elegant car was a skill she didn’t possess. She was right and, to her horror, she got stuck.

What made it worse was that Signor Ruggiero came to help her, and all but lifted her into the formed seat, which she now discovered had been moulded around a fairy’s bottom.

But at least she was out of sight of the crowd, Katie reasoned as he slid into the driver’s seat beside her.

‘Comfortable?’ He glanced at her to check.

‘Perfectly.’ On edge.

Now she had to convince herself that you couldn’t die from the shock of meeting a man like this in person, and that the air in the confined cabin hadn’t changed with an overload of ions and his delicious scent. But it had. And it was charged with something else…sex, Katie realised, primly tugging down her skirt. Rigo Ruggiero radiated sex.

‘You can understand my impatience, I’m sure,’ he said.

She gripped the seat as the engine roared like a jet.

‘This bequest from such an unexpected quarter has intrigued me,’ he went on.

This was business, she told herself in a silent shout, but that reassurance was growing a little thin.

‘I ask myself,’ he said, ‘what can be so important that only a personal delivery of the documents would do?’

As he glanced at her, Katie thought: And by a girl like this? She shrank beneath a gaze that took in every stitch of manmade fibre until finally it came to rest on her sensible, lowheeled shoes. She quickly tucked her feet away, out of sight. ‘I’m sorry if I kept you waiting.’

He shrugged. ‘I must have missed you, somehow.’

Searching for that husky-voiced siren would do it every time.

‘But never mind,’ he added dryly, flashing that wolf smile of his. ‘I’ve got you now.’

‘Indeed you do.’

He shrugged as he released the brake and pulled away. The adventure begins, Katie thought, hoping she was up to it. She didn’t need Signor Ruggiero to spell it out. Katie Bannister was hardly the type of woman he would normally put himself out for.

She held on tightly to the seat as he steered smoothly away from the kerb. ‘Ten kilometres an hour OK for you?’ he murmured as they joined a crawling stream of traffic.

‘Sorry, I’m just not used to…’

How many people were used to driving in a sports car? Katie asked herself sensibly. She had entered a world that was completely alien to her, and it would take a while to adjust. Closing her eyes and wishing herself a million miles away wouldn’t work this time, because this time she really was living the fantasy.

She didn’t realise how tense she had become until she heard Signor Ruggiero say, ‘Don’t worry, Signorina Bannister. I shall strive to achieve a balance between my impatience and your obvious lack of confidence in my driving ability—’

‘Oh, I’m not—’ Her mouth slammed shut when she realised too late he was mocking her. And now the set of his jaw did nothing to encourage conversation.

He was hardly her typical client, but this sort of impatience was universal. The reading of a will was notoriously full of surprises and, whether those surprises turned out to be bad or good, human nature demanded answers fast.

Katie’s hand crept to the breast pocket of her suit, where she wished fervently for some last small legacy of love for him contained within the envelope she was carrying—though, if past experience was any guide, she was wasting her time.

OK, so meeting Katie Bannister had been a shock, but he was growing used to her unique vibe. She was as different from the women he was used to mixing with as it was possible to imagine, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, only different. He didn’t need false breasts and false smiles—but neither did he need complications. Signorina Bannister was a quiet little mouse and awkward, which meant he would have to spend more time with her than he had anticipated, but how could he throw her to the wolves in Rome? She was out of her comfort zone and had anticipated more time to prepare before meeting him. She found herself in a much bigger, faster world than her comfortable country cocoon and would have to adapt quickly. Meanwhile they had a forty-five minute journey ahead of them and he couldn’t stand this uncomfortable silence. ‘I’d like you to call me Rigo.’

She bit her lip. Her pale cheeks blazed. She said precisely nothing.

Ducking his head, he checked the road before steering north-east to Rome. It gave him an excuse to flash a glance at her. ‘Try it,’ he said, thinking she looked like a rabbit trapped in headlights. ‘Rrr…igo…’

She pressed back in her seat. He felt instinctively that this was someone to whom life had not always been kind. Did he have time to be a social worker? OK, so she brought out his protective instinct, but he was no bleeding heart. Perhaps it would help if he let her know he was no threat to her—absolutely no threat at all. ‘You don’t even have to say my name in Italian,’ he said dryly. ‘English will do.’

She said his name—a little reluctantly, he thought. ‘Bene,’ he said. ‘That was very good.’

‘And you can call me Signorina Bannister,’ she said.

He laughed. And for the first time that day, he relaxed. ‘Very well, Signorina Bannister,’ he agreed. ‘Your wish is my command…’ At least on the subject of names.

CHAPTER THREE

MAYBE the client was always right, but she was going to keep this formal. She would never get used to a man like Rigo Ruggiero in the short time available as he seemed to think she could, and so it was better not to try.

But that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy this quietly. This tasty slice of la dolce vita was her first real adventure. Rigo Ruggiero—Roma, Italia—a real-life Italian playboy driving a blood-red sports car with Katie Bannister sitting next to him. The closest she had ever come to this before was in her fantasy world.

The view from the tinted window was extraordinary. They had cleared the boring industrial places and were driving into Rome. It was like entering the pages of a living history book—if one with a serious traffic problem, traffic Rigo Ruggiero had no problem negotiating. Her confidence had grown, Katie realised, noting how relaxed she had become. She could get used to this—the Colosseum here…Trajan’s Market there. The only place she dared not look was to her left, in case Signor Ruggiero thought she was staring at him. But she didn’t need to stare to know he was built like a gladiator and had the commanding face of a Roman general. She could feel that in every part of her.

‘Trajan’s Market has recently been reopened to the public.’

She refocused as he spoke. This conversational tone was not what she expected from the gladiator in her head, but then she hadn’t expected him to speak at all. Signor Ruggiero was being kind by entering into conversation with her—and at least it gave her an excuse to stare at him. ‘Really?’

She knew her eager gaze was gauche, but he was perfection, which made it hard not to stare. If she could have designed a man, this would be him. Even her imagination couldn’t have mapped a face so perfect or a body made for uninterrupted sin—

‘Even in AD 113,’ he went on, ‘these large shopping malls were in demand.’

As he smiled, a flash of strong white teeth against his tan made her think even more wicked thoughts. She could think of a better use for those firm, mobile lips and those wolf teeth, and when he angled that rough, stubble-shaded chin towards the remarkably well-preserved Roman buildings she felt a pulse begin to throb where it had absolutely no business doing so. Did he know the effect he was having on her? Katie wondered, blushing when he looked at her for her opinion. Hopefully not.

‘I read somewhere that Trajan’s Market was the experiment in bringing shops together under one roof,’ she said, trying to seem gripped by Roman history when the only thing she wanted to be gripped by was him.

His face creased in an attractive smile. ‘It was the first—unless you know of one dating from earlier times, of course?’

She shook her head. Obviously he knew more than she did about his own city, but she remained silent, because she thought it was safer to keep things formal rather than to chat. And she had only visited one shopping mall in her whole life. The girls from the office had persuaded her to accompany them and she had vowed, never again! The lights, the crowds jostling her, the shops full of things she didn’t need or want. Give her the wide open spaces in the country any day…

‘I think Rome is going to be quite an eye-opener for you.’

You could say that again, Katie thought as Rigo steered the sports car down a fashionable shopping street with more glitz and glamour than her poor fantasies could hope to conjure up.

Katie’s head was still spinning with all the lavish things she’d seen when she sat down in Rigo’s vast, ultra-modern study. Light flooded in, revealing every flaw—or would have done had there been any, but, as she might have imagined, Rigo lived in unimaginable luxury. His penthouse was immaculate, and his study boasted every conceivable high-tech man-toy. She found it starkly beautiful, with its colour scheme of steel and white. There was glass everywhere and vibrant modern art on the walls. Incredibly, the roof could be open to the sky, which it was. Her jaw dropped as she stared up to watch birds wheeling overhead in a flawless cobalt sky. So this was how the rich lived. After the chaos and bustle of the city streets, Rigo’s eyrie at the very top of an ancient palazzo was a haven of quiet. She could even hear the birds singing if she held her breath.

Katie forced her attention away from the aerial display as Rigo came to sit across the desk from her. He sprawled in such a relaxed fashion, while she was anxiously perching on the very edge of one of his divine cream leather chairs. It was showroom-new, like the huge glass desk in front of her—and that was another concern. What if she left a smudge on its pristine surface?

‘Do you like the view?’ he prompted.