Her footsteps sank into the thick Persian carpets as she hurried across the wide hallway. The house was a designer’s dream, decorated in restful shades of butter-gold and cream, and furnished with stylish antiques to exactly fit the period property. But today there was no time to admire her surroundings and she went straight up the stairs to the office.
‘Morning, Marco,’ she said breezily as she stepped through the door and tossed her bag down on her desk. ‘Beautiful day, isn’t it?’
He was standing with his back towards her, looking out of the window.
‘Yes, beautiful.’ He turned and looked over at her, and as usual she felt a frisson of awareness as she met his intensely sexy dark eyes.
OK, she was relaxed around him, but not enough to stop noticing how wildly attractive he was. Marco was Italian with broodingly intense looks. His thick dark hair just brushed the collar of his blue shirt and his face was autocratically strong and handsome. The first time she had seen him was on TV and she remembered being totally taken aback by his appearance. She hadn’t expected a doctor of psychology to look like him. For a start he was too young. She had pictured someone older, someone staid. The reality was a man of thirty-seven, tall, dark and powerfully built, wearing chinos and an open-necked shirt. In all honesty he had the kind of looks that a movie star would die for. Not that Marco seemed concerned about his appearance.
As soon as Charlie had started to work for him she realised that the only thing that really mattered to Marco was his work.
He had girlfriends, of course…all extremely beautiful and all crazy about him. In the short time she had worked for him she had watched them come and go, had observed how oblivious he was to their adoring looks. He really didn’t have a clue how many hearts he had broken with his casual, laid-back indifference.
Marco smiled at her and a shiver of pleasure ran up her spine.
‘So how was your date last night?’
His sudden question caught her off guard. She’d forgotten she’d told him about her date. He’d casually asked about her plans last night as she put her coat on to leave…He’d only been making polite conversation and she could have said what she usually said—‘Nothing much’—or she could have invented some parent meeting at Jack’s school, but oh, no, she had opened her mouth and before she knew it the truth had popped out.
‘It was OK,’ she answered airily now, but couldn’t quite meet his eye. She hated lying but the truth was far too embarrassing. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready to leave for the radio station?’ Swiftly she changed the subject and glanced at her watch. Marco was due to give an interview at the BBC to promote his new book, an analytical study into why love shouldn’t be the number-one reason for a partnership. ‘If you don’t set off soon you’ll be late—the traffic going into London will be horrendous. It’s Friday morning, remember.’
‘Yes, I do realise that, Charlie. I’m waiting for Sarah; she wants to accompany me in and go over a few of the questions she thought they might ask.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Charlie switched on her computer. Sarah Heart was Marco’s agent and publicist, an extremely pushy woman with an excess of confidence. Charlie found her grating. But she was good at her job and that was all that counted, she supposed.
‘I don’t know where she’s got to but if she isn’t here within the next five minutes I’ll have to leave without her,’ Marco muttered. He turned his back towards her again and looked out of the window, down towards the courtyard.
‘Do you want me to phone her on her mobile?’
‘I’ve already tried that. I just got her messaging service.’
‘She’s probably stuck in traffic somewhere.’
‘Probably.’
Charlie wondered if it was her imagination or if Marco really was unusually edgy this morning. Maybe he was just concerned about being late for this interview, although he certainly wouldn’t be worried about it. Marco was very good at dealing with the media; he was always laid-back and extremely amusing and entertaining.
In fact he was much in demand on radio and TV these days and was fast becoming quite a celebrity. Academically he was brilliant and his books were always well-received, but Charlie suspected that his heightened profile and recent success was more to do with the fact that he was so captivating he even made the subject of psychology seem sexy.
There was a moment’s silence as Charlie sat down at her desk and took her reading glasses out of her handbag.
‘So Mr “Dreamboat” lived up to expectations, then?’ Marco asked suddenly.
The question seemed outrageously personal and out of place in the scholarly surroundings of the book-lined office, a place where emotions were only ever discussed in the most analytical and diagnostic of terms.
‘Well…’ Charlie could feel her skin heating up with embarrassment as he turned and looked at her again. If it had been a mistake telling Marco about her date it had been an even bigger one telling him she’d met the man on the internet. As soon as the words were out she had imagined a hint of derision in his eyes that had made her go on to tell him that internet dating was very ‘in’, everyone was doing it, and the man she’d arranged to meet seemed very nice…in fact, more than nice—a bit of a dreamboat actually.
She should never have said that, she thought now with annoyance. She felt really foolish.
‘Well?’ Marco prompted her.
‘He was OK…’
‘That’s good.’ He inclined his head. ‘I was a bit concerned.’
‘You were?’ She looked over at him in surprise.
‘Yes. Meeting up with a total stranger can be risky.’
‘I suppose so.’ She was filled with a warm feeling inside. It was a long time since anyone had shown concern about her welfare. ‘But I was careful; we met in a crowded restaurant and I didn’t give him any of my personal details.’
‘Well, I’m glad it worked out for you.’
‘Actually it was a bit of a disaster,’ she admitted a little awkwardly. ‘We had nothing in common.’
‘Oh!’ Marco looked at her with a raised eyebrow. ‘Not a recipe for a second date, then?’
Charlie shook her head. ‘It was a struggle getting through one date, never mind two. I couldn’t wait to say goodbye to him outside the restaurant.’
Marco looked amused now. ‘You didn’t give him much of a chance, did you?’
‘I didn’t need to give him any longer,’ Charlie said briskly.
‘I suppose not, and it’s better to find out you are not compatible sooner rather than later.’
She nodded. ‘Trouble was, I knew we weren’t compatible within the first fifteen minutes.’
‘No, you knew that the chemistry wasn’t instantly there,’ he corrected her. ‘That’s something entirely different.’
‘Not to me it’s not! I know your professional views on this, Marco, and I agree with them to a certain extent. Maybe love can grow if you work at a relationship, but the chemistry has to be there to start with.’
‘The chemistry can be a double-edged sword,’ Marco said carefully. ‘Sometimes it gets in the way of the truth; blinds you to the fact that you are not at all compatible.’
‘It still needs to be there to begin with.’
‘Not necessarily.’
‘Of course it does…I mean, you just know when you meet someone if it’s going to be right…don’t