He didn’t smile. She did. She was so glad to see him. She was so glad to be here. She was so grateful to him for this opportunity. She did her best to not make the smile too broad, though. She did her best to make it professional and polite. ‘Good morning, Papa. If I am late, then I am most sincerely sorry.’
He blinked and for a moment she thought he might apologise for his gruffness, perhaps even admit that she hadn’t been late. He didn’t. He folded his arms and glared. ‘My secretary rang your mobile phone and left a message informing you that the meeting was to be brought forward fifteen minutes.’
She was late! And all because she’d turned off her phone so it couldn’t distract her from the most important meeting of her life.
She gripped her folders so tightly she broke a nail. ‘I’m sorry. I turned it off so it wouldn’t disturb my preparations for our meeting.’
Her father huffed out something she didn’t quite catch and turned away. All her old fears surfaced: Failure. Stupid. Fool. She did her best to beat them back.
‘Dominic, I would like you to meet my daughter, Bella Maldini. Bella, this is Dominic Wright.’
As the man turned towards her, she opened her mouth to say, ‘Pleased to meet you,’ but the moment her eyes collided with the Mediterranean blue of his, the words evaporated.
Dear Lord. Blue eyes shouldn’t make a girl speechless.
Nor should red hair.
But the combination …
She tried to expel the air held prisoner in her lungs. She hadn’t believed Catriona and Cecily when they’d said he was gorgeous and that he had red hair—tawny, red-gold, like a lion’s mane.
Don’t gape. Don’t gape. Professional!
She cleared her throat. ‘I’m, um … Pleased to meet you, Mr Wright.’ Her voice emerged high and strained, breathy. She bit back a groan. Where was professional?
‘Dominic,’ he corrected.
This was the man who held her entire future in his hands? Her white business shirt tightened around her ribs, constricting her breathing further. According to her cousins, Dominic—with his looks and his charm—was the most dangerous man in Sydney. Break-your-heart dangerous. They’d said he’d eat a little virgin like her for breakfast.
All silly, teasing nonsense, of course.
To be honest, he looked more like ‘scary boss’ material than the playboy Cat and Cecily had reported, and he was eyeing her up and down right now with those mesmerising eyes as if he could sum her up in all of ten seconds. As if she only had ten-second’s worth of value to sum up.
He didn’t say he was pleased to meet her. He didn’t smile.
With a super-human effort, she kept her smile in place. ‘For form’s sake, you’re supposed to say that you’re pleased to meet me, too, Dominic.’
His grin when it came was slow and crooked. It hitched up the right side of his mouth. The creases around his eyes deepened. The blue of his eyes intensified. ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Bella.’
Just for a moment the room receded, and then with a roar it came rushing back. Uh-huh. So her cousins had been right, then.
Playboy—tick.
Heavenly, golden, gorgeous—tick, tick, tick.
Temptation personified—tick.
When Dominic held out his hand, she took it automatically. She couldn’t manage a single solitary syllable. His hand curved around hers and he simply held it.
Her pulse throbbed.
‘Delighted,’ he murmured.
She found her voice. ‘Absolutely.’
She tugged her hand free and went back to clutching her folders, did what she could to ignore the tingling that the palm-on-palm contact had triggered against her bare skin. For all his tawny goldenness and the warmth of his smile, he was known as The Iceman. And don’t you forget it!
It didn’t change the fact that he was the one man who could sway her father’s opinion. She would have to tread carefully.
‘If you’ve finished sizing each other up,’ her father said brusquely, ‘can we sit and get this meeting underway? Come—sit, sit.’ He shooed them to their seats.
From beside her, Dominic’s heat beat at her. She kept her eyes on her father. Professional.
Marco steepled his hands on his desk. ‘Dominic, I want you and Bella to work on the Newcastle Maldini,’ he said without further ado. ‘I want the pair of you to have it ready for the grand opening in eight weeks’ time.’
Triumph surged through Dominic. Years of training, though, ensured he didn’t betray that triumph by so much as a flicker of an eyelid. Taking charge of Marco’s flagship hotel was the first step in taking over sole management of the Maldini Corporation’s fledgling tourism arm. If the Newcastle Maldini proved a success, then plans for expansion would forge ahead—a chain of five-star Maldini hotels in all the major cities in Australia. After that, the international market—New York, London and Rome. The possibilities multiplied with exciting potential.
He’d wanted a change, needed it. Two and a half months ago he’d made his position clear to Marco—either a sideways move within the Maldini Corporation or he’d look elsewhere. Heading up the corporation’s tourism operations fitted the bill exactly. Marco had delivered on his promise and Dominic had every intention of ensuring the Newcastle Maldini not only met but exceeded Marco’s expectations.
He hadn’t counted on getting foisted with the boss’s daughter, though.
He glanced across at her and his gut tightened. She looked nothing like the plump, dark-haired child from the photograph that sat in pride of place on Marco’s desk. She looked nothing like the woman he’d imagined as he’d sat across from Marco at this very desk countless times in the past six years and listened as the older man had despaired of her. ‘You want Bella to work on the hotel?’ He didn’t try to hide his disbelief and scepticism.
Bella stiffened. Then she leaned towards her father. ‘You haven’t told Dominic about your plans for us to work together before today?’ Her mouth opened and then closed. She swallowed. ‘But you made that decision last week.’
Marco slapped a hand down on his desk. ‘I do things my way, young lady. This is my office and in my office my word is law.’ He stabbed a finger at her. ‘I’ll run my company the way I see fit!’
She sat back. ‘You didn’t tell him because you thought he’d refuse to work with me.’
Marco’s jaw worked but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. To himself, Dominic acknowledged the truth of her accusation. If he’d known about this a week ago, even two days ago, he’d have constructed every argument available against it. And Marco would’ve given way. Marco didn’t want to lose him.
He cleared his throat. ‘Marco, exactly what role do you envisage for Bella at the hotel?’
His employer heaved out a sigh, lifted a hand and let it drop. ‘Bella tells me she can create the restaurant of my dreams. Her expertise will be confined to the kitchens and dining rooms. You, of course, will be in charge of operations.’
He nodded. He hadn’t expected anything less.
‘And you, my girl—’ he turned to Bella ‘—will consult Dominic about everything.’
‘Of course.’
Dominic wasn’t fooled for a moment. Behind that lush mouth and those caramel melt-a-man-to-his-seat eyes, Bella was fickle, capricious and unreliable. Marco had given her countless opportunities to establish herself in a profession, but she had squandered all of them. Her seeming