Meg wasn’t remotely reassured.
‘Is that supposed to cheer me up?’ she asked faintly.
‘Of course. Now—to business. How are you getting on here, Megan? I’ve been meaning to check up on you for the past few days, but no sooner do I spot you in the garden than you vanish. That’s why I’ve called you in here. I want to talk to you properly.’
‘And I wanted to do the same, Gianni,’ Meg said before she could stop herself. He was interested straight away.
‘That sounds promising. Take a seat.’ He indicated a deeply buttoned visitor’s chair drawn up before his workstation.
To reach it she would have to step off the carpet protector. He saw her glance from one to the other and back again, and laughed.
‘Don’t bother about the floor. I never normally give my cleaning staff anything to do. Your little footprints won’t kill them.’
She walked over and sat down in the chair. Elbows on his desk, Gianni leaned forward, his grin growing predatory. After all her fantasies, all the hours spent wondering what to say and how to act the next time they met, Meg froze again. Her wild confession might turn out to have been a fatal mistake. If he tried anything now, she could put up no resistance. Trembling, she waited for his next move. Forcing herself to sit back in her chair, she looked down at her hands. They were twisting nervously in her lap.
‘While I’ve got the opportunity, Gianni, I’d like to ask if you could possibly—that is, if you don’t mind—if there’s some way…if perhaps you could be a bit quieter when you return from your nights out?’ She finished in a rush, crimson with embarrassment. Cringing at the way she had told Gianni everything about her night-time vigils, she waited for him to laugh.
All she heard was the sound of him sitting back in his chair. There was an agonisingly long pause. And then he said distantly, ‘I’ve been thinking about that since the moment you mentioned it. You’re the first person to say I’ve woken them up. Nobody else has ever complained.’
Meg tried to make a joke of it. ‘Perhaps they’re afraid of you!’
‘And you aren’t?’ He sounded curious, rather than cross. Meg risked glancing up. He looked calm enough, and his beautiful eyes were dark with questions.
‘I-I’ll have to think about that,’ Meg said eventually. It was true. Gianni Bellini could be terrifying. He could also be warm and funny, but Meg wasn’t sure how deep or genuine any of his emotions were.
‘Don’t take too long making up your mind, will you?’
She heard the laughter in his voice and couldn’t resist looking up again. Gianni smiled at her over his clasped hands.
‘So I’ve been costing you your beauty sleep, have I? If it’s any consolation, it’s impossible to tell. Nobody would ever know. Have you thought that, while you’re watching me, you could be in bed, getting more rest?’
‘There’s no point at that time in the morning. I don’t bother. I might as well get up, do some paperwork and then go out to work.’
‘I know,’ he said, quite unrepentant. ‘By the time I’m stripped and ready for bed, you’re out and about, heading for the gardens.’
She frowned at him quizzically. ‘How do you know that?’
All he did was smile as he waited for Meg to work out what he meant. It didn’t take long. The footpath from her cottage to the old kitchen gardens passed straight along one side of the villa. His suite must overlook her route. Meg had a sudden, delicious vision of him standing stark naked on the balcony of his bedroom, watching her. At any time over the past days she might have glanced up and caught sight of him in all his glory. But she hadn’t. Her shift from puzzlement to disappointment must have been obvious. Gianni responded with a slow, teasing smile that filled her mind with all sorts of possibilities.
‘Don’t worry. Now I am Count, I shall be partying less and entertaining here at the villa a lot more. You won’t be troubled by me during the night too often in the future,’ he said with sly humour, as though he knew she always would be. ‘I’ll be too busy working—and your job is another reason I’ve asked you here. Something you said on the day you arrived stuck in my mind. I got my staff to check you out, Miss Megan Imsey. Did you ever tell my father you were so grand and so well qualified you turned down a job with the English royal family?’
‘No! I’d never say a thing like that, even if it was true!’ Meg flapped her hands in embarrassment. ‘I didn’t turn them down—I couldn’t take the job. There’s a difference. My father had his heart attack the day after I was offered the position. I’d already accepted, but couldn’t take it up. My parents needed me, and all the help I could give them. I knew there would always be another job beyond the palace gardens, but my mum and dad are the only family I’ve got. People are more important than careers.’
He ignored her. ‘I’ve decided you’re wasted here, Megan.’
The breath caught in her throat. What could he mean?
‘That title, Curator of Exotic Plants, confines you in those glass prisons behind the ten-foot-high walls of my kitchen garden. I want to set you free, Megan. You’re going to take on the role of my Head Gardener, here at the Villa Castelfino. If you live up to my very high expectations, there could well be a promotion to Coordinator of Horticulture for all my properties—Barbados, Diamond Isle, Manhattan, and the rest.’
Meg could hardly take it in. Gianni was speaking so casually, and yet the job he was talking about would mean the world to her.
He stood up and pushed back his chair. Strolling around his desk, he perched on the corner, one leg swinging. The toe of his handmade leather shoe was only inches from her knee. Looking down on her from his vantage point, he tried to reassure her. It had exactly the opposite effect.
‘There will, of course, be all sorts of fringe benefits.’ His beautiful face was slowly lit by a meaningful smile.
Meg gazed up at him. Her future career lay in the hands of this bewitching, desirable man. From the look in those haunting dark eyes, she was only a heartbeat away from a still more torrid destiny.
‘First on the list is a dress allowance,’ he announced.
Meg looked down at what she was wearing. Her simple white T-shirt showed off her new tan beautifully, but neither it nor her jeans were new. On the other hand, they were comfortable.
‘But these clothes are best for my job,’ she murmured.
Gianni grimaced. ‘They may be in England, but here you are part of my new Villa Castelfino Project. I have decided my vineyard and my father’s plans for increased tourism will complement each other. Instead of appealing only to wine connoisseurs, a visitor centre that leads people on from my vineyard to other attractions will bring in a wider, though still discerning audience. I intend all my staff to be my ambassadors, and that means they must look the part. When I host my first banquet here as Count, the head of every one of my departments will attend. It’s going to be a prestigious evening, so you will all be expected to look as good as these surroundings.’ He looked around his stylish office with satisfaction. ‘Particularly you, Meg, as you will be showing my guests that tropical wonderland you’re developing.’
Meg began to relax. If all his staff were to be treated alike, she could accept something as simple as a dress allowance with no qualms.
‘I got the idea from some background research I did, after my people handed me the file they’d opened on you,’ Gianni went on. ‘A hundred years ago, English aristocrats used to give their grandest guests a tour of the kitchen garden. Did you know that?’
‘Yes…’ Meg said uncertainly, not sure where this was leading. ‘But this is modern Italy,’