The wide glass reception desk was unoccupied and she looked through the open door beyond and saw Luca Corretti at the same moment he saw her.
Their eyes locked.
Just for a moment she was back in the maze with his hand pressed to her bare thigh but then she remembered that was the reason she was here and her temper spurted.
‘Well, well—’ his sarcastic drawl carried across the open space between them ‘—it’s my fiancée. What an unexpected pleasure, angelo mia.’
‘In the circumstances, how could I stay away?’ Head held high, in full battle mode, Taylor stalked across the marble floor and into his office wondering how on earth they were going to unpick this mess.
She was going to kill him and how was she going to explain that to the press?
‘Leave us, Jeannie,’ Luca ordered in a silky tone. ‘It’s not every day a man gets engaged. I need to savour the moment. I might even indulge in desk sex so better not come in without knocking.’
The woman sent him a troubled look and then retreated from the office and closed the door behind her.
Taylor went straight into attack mode. ‘How dare you? How dare you play with my life just because you don’t care about yours! You should have paid that woman.’
‘If I paid every woman who threatened to take stories of me to the press I’d be broke.’
‘Maybe you should stop seducing women and then the problem would go away!’ She paced the length of his office, her attention caught by yet more black-and-white photographs on the walls. ‘You have photographs of women everywhere. You just can’t help yourself, can you?’
‘I run a fashion house. What do you expect?’ He looked effortlessly sophisticated in a suit designed to accentuate his physique and dark good looks. ‘Is that jealousy I hear in your voice?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t care less whose picture you have on your wall or who you kiss.’
‘Really? Isn’t that rather a liberal attitude for someone who only recently decided I was the only man in the world for her?’
Livid by his flippant response, she glared at him. ‘Right now the only thing standing between you and death is the fact that I don’t want more negative headlines.’
Dark brows rose above eyes that glinted with mockery. ‘So much passion so early in our relationship. Not that I’m complaining. I love a woman who isn’t afraid to show emotion.’
‘Damn you, Luca, are you ever serious? Do you know how hard I’ve worked over the past few years to get people to take me seriously? This was a fresh start and then you—you…’ Her hands curled into fists and she turned away from him, hating the loss of control. Hating the attraction she felt towards him. Hating him.
‘And then I—what?’
‘You know what! You—you kissed me. You had your hand on my—’ Just thinking of the photograph made her close her eyes in horror. ‘It looked as if we’d—’
‘Do you ever finish your sentences? You’re like a walking crossword and I’m too lazy to fill in the blanks.’
‘I’m—I’m just so mad with you.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it will be good for you to express honest emotion once in a while.’
‘Don’t mess with me, Luca.’ Furious, she stabbed her finger into his chest and then wished she hadn’t because all she felt was muscle. ‘Be careful. I haven’t eaten carbs for three months and I’m always dangerous when I’m hungry.’
‘For what it’s worth, I’m mad with you too, and my diet is fine. My taste has never run to women who suppress their real selves. And now let’s get to the point.’ The snap of his voice raised the tension in the room several more notches. ‘Why the hell did you announce that we’re engaged?’
‘Because, thanks to you, I was about to be fired from the job I haven’t even started yet!’
That drew a frown from him. ‘Why would you be fired?’
‘Because the director refused to work with someone with my reputation.’
He looked bemused. ‘That’s crazy. So you like sex and you’re not afraid to show it. What’s wrong with that?’
Her cheeks burned. ‘What’s wrong is that I want the focus to be on my skills as an actress, not on my ability to make a fool of myself with a man.’
She’d done that before and she’d lived with the mistake ever since.
He’d left another message on her phone but this time she hadn’t even opened it.
It was a relief to be in Sicily, far from California.
Far from him.
Luca was watching her curiously. ‘So you are afraid to show it. You really need to get over that. Who you choose to kiss in your own time is no one’s business but your own.’
She felt like telling him it wasn’t that simple. That a kiss could be used and used again. ‘I didn’t choose to kiss you. You grabbed me.’
‘I don’t remember you struggling.’ He was maddeningly cool. ‘It takes two people to make a kiss look like that, tesoro.’
‘I never would have started it.’
‘But you finished it.’ His voice was low and threaded through with a sensuality she found off-the-scale disturbing. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. It was an understandable slip.’
‘You’re so full of—’
‘Now, now, Miss Carmichael—’ he placed his fingers over her lips ‘—you don’t want to give the press another quote, do you? I’m sure they have a lens trained at this office even as you shriek.’
‘You’re finding this funny. I don’t even know why you did it—why did You do it? Why the hell did you kiss me?’
He gave a careless shrug. ‘You were there.’
‘That’s all it takes for you to kiss a woman? She just has to be there?’
‘Unlike you, I don’t try and deny my true nature.’
‘Nice to know you’re discriminating.’
‘Have you played Katerina?’ One dark eyebrow lifted. ‘Taming of the Shrew? Because you’d be a natural. Do I need to remind you that you kissed me back?’
‘I was stressed out. I hadn’t eaten for two days.’
He smiled. ‘So that was why you were so hungry for me.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
‘Why not? A moment ago you were telling the world you intend to spend the rest of your life with me.’
‘I didn’t know what else to say.’ Taylor paced over to the window of his office, her heels tapping on the floor. ‘I don’t need all the adverse publicity right now. It was a spur of the moment thing. I didn’t even think people would believe me, but they did. Apparently people are captivated by the thought of us together.’
‘Of course they are. I’m the man who has publicly said on numerous occasions that he never intends to settle down and you’re the wild child with a bad attitude. It’s a match made in hell. How can the public not be fascinated? If you’d kept quiet the story would have died by tomorrow. As it is, you’ve ensured it’s kept alive.’
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