With a reflexive shudder at the amount of strength it demanded from him and rigid with fierce desire, Andreo yanked himself back from her. Heavily lidded golden eyes swept her bemused face and lingered on the soft, swollen red of her ripe mouth. ‘Ten minutes…and you stay within view the whole time,’ he warned thickly. ‘Then we leave together.’
Blinking like a woman emerging from a dark spell of enchantment, Pippa let herself be walked back across the foyer and finally into the busy hall. The clumps of chattering people seemed to evaporate from their path at magical speed and Andreo only came to a halt when they reached a vacant corner table. There he snapped his fingers to hail a passing waiter and order her a drink. Momentarily, his imperious show of command took her aback.
‘Now don’t move from here until I come back, cara mia, ’ Andreo instructed in a low-pitched drawl. ‘It would be so easy for us to lose each other in this crush.’
‘Are you worth waiting for?’ Pippa heard herself enquire in a teasing undertone for she could only be amused at being spoken to as though she were a feckless child likely to wander off and get lost without his guidance.
‘Don’t laugh. This is not funny.’ Andreo was angry that she could seem unconcerned at the same risk and equally infuriated by his own lack of cool. He wanted her. But the level of that wanting was already more than he felt comfortable with. As his mobile phone broke into Marco’s colourful signature tune again, he worked out how best to pin her down in the short term.
‘Do you think you could help my little brother with his homework again?’ he asked. ‘He speaks excellent English.’
Touched by that request, Pippa grinned and extended her hand for his phone. Sipping at her drink, she talked Marco through what remained of his assignment while she watched Andreo on the other side of the room watch her in turn. Every time she saw that proud dark head angle in her direction, scorching dark golden eyes burning up the distance between them, her mouth ran dry and her heart raced. Venstar bigwigs surrounded him and the portly little man she had earlier identified as D’Alessio, but in that almost anonymous sea of people she was conscious of only one very individual male: Andreo.
Everything she was feeling was so outrageously new to her. Nothing had ever seemed so wonderful and miraculous as the simple fact that Andreo appeared to be as impressed by her as she was by him. No matter how hard she tried to reclaim her usual sterling common sense, it was overwhelmed by the outrageously girlish giddy excitement leaping and dancing through her bloodstream.
She had not known a guy could kiss like that. She had not known that a guy could actually make her feel like that. Oh, yes, she had heard women describe certain men as irresistible, but she had scorned the belief that any male could have such an extreme effect on her. But even while she had disbelieved those claims, she had always secretly longed to be proven wrong, she acknowledged dizzily. And when Andreo had kissed her every skin cell in her body had responded with breathtaking enthusiasm. All that had kept her upright was the reality that she had had her arms wrapped round him and he was strong enough to bear her weight.
While she studied Andreo from afar her blue eyes sparkled with wondering satisfaction when he immediately directed his gaze to her as though some sixth sense had warned him of her appraisal. His charismatic smile set fireworks off inside her tummy and made her heart thump as frantically fast as though she had run a marathon.
‘Will you give me your phone number?’ Marco prompted in a wheedling tone. ‘You’re much better at explaining this stuff than Andreo is.’
Lounging back against the edge of the table, her burnished fall of hair fiery as flames against her fair, delicate skin, the vibrant blue dress a simple understated frame for her superb long-legged figure, Pippa was attracting a great deal of both male and female attention. But not one of the star-struck men admiring her would have dared to approach her while Andreo D’Alessio watched her with such blatant possessiveness in his arrogant gaze and a flashing intimate smile on his firm, hard mouth.
Pippa had just finished talking to Marco when Andreo rejoined her. Drawing level with her, he barely broke his stride as he closed a lean brown hand over hers to urge her towards the exit. She heard the buzz of speculative voices break out as they passed by together. But then he was incredibly handsome and, as nobody had approached her while she’d been alone at the table, it seemed fair to assume that none of her colleagues had recognised her without her curls, her spectacles and her serviceable suits.
When the lift doors closed on them, she leant back against the cool metal wall because the fresh air-conditioned atmosphere was making her head swim to a dismaying degree.
‘You still haven’t told me why you suspect Andreo D’Alessio of being prejudiced against women in the workplace…’
In disconcertion, Pippa blinked. ‘I thought you’d have forgotten about that by now—’
‘I never forget anything,’ Andreo confided.
‘Well, do your best to forget that,’ Pippa mumbled ruefully. ‘I was indiscreet—’
‘You can trust me,’ Andreo purred.
‘A little bird told me your namesake—’
‘My namesake? The little guy who reminded you of a leprechaun?’
Reassured by that light-hearted sally, Pippa nodded and tried with some difficulty to concentrate. ‘The word is that the big boss only likes pretty women to make it up the promotion ladder—’
‘That’s a four-letter word, cara !’ Andreo incised in bold disagreement.
When it came to their mutual employer, he was evidently very strong on the loyalty front. As that was an old-fashioned quality that she admired, she could not think less of him for it. Lashes carefully lowered, for she wanted the topic closed, she murmured soothingly, ‘I’m sure you’re right.’
‘I know I’m right.’ Andreo continued with conviction.
Pippa almost smiled at his absolute certainty.
Andreo reached out and used her own hands to draw her close to him again. ‘I like the way you feel against me, carissima …’
Powerfully aware of his abrasive masculinity and the hard muscular strength of him, she rested against him, suddenly weak with wanting. ‘Me too…I mean, I like being close to you too.’
He laughed with husky appreciation, slid long fingers into the thick fall of her hair to tug her head back and look at her again. Beneath the harsh lights in the lift, the clarity of her blue eyes mesmerised him for he could read every passing thought: the shy uncertainty laced with the stubborn bravado of her pride and deeper still…the feverish hunger for him that she could not hide.
He devoured her mouth with an urgency that left her reeling. She could not spare the time or the energy to breathe and she lost herself in the earthy taste of him, revelling in the eagerness of her own desire. When he straightened to walk her out of the lift again, she let her head rest against his broad shoulder while she drank in air to aid her starved lungs.
Her mind was in turmoil. She could barely believe that what she was feeling was real but was at the same time impossibly greedy for that no-longer-connected-to-planet-earth sensation to continue. He employed a card to open a door that led into a very luxurious suite.
Not having until that moment taken the time to consider where he was taking her, Pippa was aghast to appreciate that he had accommodation in the hotel itself and that she had unthinkingly allowed him to bring her back up there with him.
‘Are you expecting me to stay the night with you?’ Pippa demanded in dismay.
CHAPTER THREE
ANDREO dealt Pippa a level challenging appraisal. ‘That’s entirely your decision.’
Colour swept Pippa’s face and she could have bitten her tongue out in embarrassment. Of course that was her decision! It was a good half-century since women had been raised