Shaking his head, he placed his hand at the small of her back and propelled her into the car, suddenly wondering if this was such a good idea after all. Was she too unsophisticated to cope with the evening ahead?
‘It doesn’t matter what they said,’ he said softly as the car pulled away into the traffic. But then she crossed one leg over another and all he could think about was whether the sheer, dark silk which covered her slender legs was tights, or stockings.
Maybe you’ll find out later, taunted a voice inside his head as they drove through the darkened streets, and Salvatore cursed silently and shifted in his seat as unexpected and unwanted desire again began to tug at his senses.
It was just at that point that his phone rang and he pulled it out with a feeling of relief and began to speak.
Jessica stared out of the window as Salvatore spent the entire journey conducting a telephone conversation in rapid Italian, which seemed to magnify her feeling of not belonging. And that feeling only intensified when the car drew up outside an enormous house in Knightsbridge, which looked like something you might see in a film.
‘Oh, my goodness—it’s huge,’ she breathed.
He glanced at her. ‘It’s just a house.’
To him it might be just a house—but to Jessica it was the kind of place for which you’d normally have to pay an admission fee. Inside were uniformed staff who whisked her coat away and someone else who guided them through to the murmuring guests, who all looked up as she followed Salvatore into the glittering room.
She was aware of a blur of names and faces as they were introduced, but Jessica’s overwhelming feeling was that the women looked like birds of paradise in their jewels and bright dresses and that she had been a fool to come in black—because wasn’t that what all the waitresses were wearing?
Their host and hostess were Garth and Amy and there were two other women called Suzy and Clare—neither of whom seemed to be attached to a rather bloodless-looking man named Steve and a wiry individual with light brown hair who introduced himself as Jeremy. And that was it.
So it really had been a set-up, thought Jessica as the redhead named Suzy shimmied over to stand directly in front of Salvatore.
‘Hi, Salvatore—do you remember me?’ she was asking him, with a coy smile. ‘We met in Monte Carlo and I told you that Sicily was my favourite place in the whole world.’
Although she was straining to hear while trying to look as if she weren’t, Jessica didn’t quite catch Salvatore’s response, but she turned away with a sudden pang, telling herself that feeling jealous about her partner certainly wasn’t on tonight’s agenda.
‘Champagne?’ questioned Garth, offering her an engraved flute with pale liquid foaming up the sides. ‘It’s rather a good vintage.’
‘Yes, please.’ Jessica smiled as if she drank vintage champagne every day of her life. She took a sip and began to chat to Jeremy, who—despite his unlikely appearance—turned out to be something very powerful in the City.
‘And what about you?’ he questioned. ‘Do you work?’
Jessica supposed that this was a world where women didn’t have to work. ‘Oh, yes, I’m…I’m…’ Oh, why hadn’t she prepared something? Jessica looked up to find Salvatore watching her.
‘Jessica is training to be an office manager,’ said the Sicilian smoothly and she blinked at him in surprise. Had he really remembered that?
‘Oh, is that how you two met?’ butted in Clare. ‘In the office?’
Jessica’s gaze locked with his. Say what you want to say, those blue eyes seemed to tell her.
‘Kind of,’ said Jessica, and blushed.
Salvatore hid a smile. Oh, but she was perfect for the role! Perfetto. The way the blush of rose crept into her cheeks made her look coy and sweet—as if she were embarrassed about a supposed office romance. So that no one, not even the woman Clare with her heavy eye make-up and brazen cleavage—would have had the guts to interrogate her any further.
‘Let’s go in to dinner, shall we?’ said Amy sharply.
A table was laid up with gleaming crystal and silver and studded with tightly bunched white roses in small vases. As she unshook a giant napkin over her knees Jessica found herself wondering whether she was going to be presented with any unfamiliar foodstuffs which she wouldn’t have a clue how to eat, even though Willow had given her a crash course in posh dining while she’d been getting dressed. Oysters and artichokes were apparently the biggest hurdles to clear, but thankfully neither of them made an appearance and so she was able to concentrate on what was being said around the table.
Which was easier said than done. Most of the conversation went right over her head and she noticed that most of the food remained uneaten—though everyone seemed to drink plenty of wine.
She forced herself not to feast her eyes on Salvatore—whose black hair and blue eyes and formidable physique seemed to dominate the entire table. Maybe everyone else was aware of him, too, Jessica thought—because the women certainly didn’t seem to be intimidated by the fact that he had brought a partner with him. They flirted with him as if flirting had just been invented.
Did he ever get bored with such a gushing reaction? she wondered suddenly as she turned to talk to the man beside her.
What she knew about banking and takeovers could be written on the back of a postage stamp, but she gently quizzed Jeremy about what he did to relax. It turned out that he was mad about fishing and real enthusiasm entered his voice as he told her about digging for bait.
‘Rag worms or lug worms?’ she enquired and a silence fell over the table.
Jessica looked up to find Salvatore’s gaze on her, the bright blue eyes narrowed in mocking query.
‘They’re talking about worms—ugh!’ shuddered Clare theatrically, her breasts pushing against the fine silk of her pink dress as if they were fighting to get out.
‘You like to fish, do you, Jessica?’ questioned Salvatore softly.
For some stupid reason, colour stole into Jessica’s cheeks and she shrugged her shoulders a little awkwardly as she answered him. ‘Oh, I did a bit, when I was a child.’ In that faraway time when her parents had still been alive and the days had always seemed full of sunshine and games. Her mother would take her down to the riverbank and Jessica would sit solemnly with a hook and line dangling from an old gardening cane.
‘Presumably you must have been a tomboy,’ observed Suzy.
It was like being in one of those awful nightmares where everyone was staring at you waiting for an answer and you couldn’t speak. Except that this wasn’t a nightmare and she could speak. So stand up for yourself, Jessica, she thought. Don’t let this woman intimidate you just because she’s crazy about Salvatore.
‘I liked climbing trees and fishing and swimming in the river, yes,’ she said. ‘But I never considered them pastimes which were exclusively for boys—why should they be when they’re such fun?’
‘Bravo!’ said Jeremy softly, and laughed.
She felt on a bit of a high for the rest of the meal, especially when Jeremy offered to take her fishing in Hampshire, where apparently he owned a stretch of the river—and he pressed his card into her hand as she was leaving.
But her exhilaration evaporated the moment the car door closed on her and Salvatore and they were enclosed in their own small, private world.
Slowly, he let his eyes drift over her as if reassessing her potential. ‘So I have seen the little English mouse in action,’ he murmured.
‘What…what’s that supposed to mean?’
In the darkness his eyes