‘We haven’t been introduced.’ Full, sensual lips curved into a smile as he turned come-to-bed eyes on her, his deep, accented voice for her ears now. ‘This is…?’
Emma was struggling to find her voice, but Evelyn did it for her. ‘Emma Stephenson.’ Evelyn looked as if she were sucking lemons, and it dawned on Emma then that the real reason she hadn’t got the job was perhaps that Evelyn had been hoping for someone plainer, dowdier, older, bigger…in fact, someone who would withstand Luca’s charm. Well, she needn’t have worried. Emma could handle Luca’s sort with her hands tied behind her back—she’d grown up surrounded by them! ‘We were just concluding the interview.’
‘For the assistant PA job?’ Luca checked, holding his hand out, and, because it was the polite thing to do, Emma shook it, feeling his warm fingers close around hers. Then she looked up as he voiced what she was thinking. ‘But I’ve got a cold heart!’ He winked at her.
‘I’m sure you do!’ Emma retorted. He was shameless, utterly shameless, and Evelyn was welcome to him. ‘Well, again,’ Emma said, coolly walking to the door, absolutely refusing to be rattled, ‘thank you for your time.’
She walked out into the foyer, took the lift and only as she went to sign out did she realise that she’d forgotten her bag. That, despite appearances, despite appearing utterly and completely unruffled by his stunning presence, one glimpse of Luca D’Amato and her stomach was in knots. He was devastatingly handsome, with eyes that stripped, undressed and bedded you in a matter of seconds, and she had deliberately not returned the favour.
Emma headed back up in the elevator, moving to step out, only he was stepping in…
‘I wasn’t expecting to see you again.’ He didn’t move to let her pass him, his broad frame barring the exit, just slightly, and there was this offer of conversation that Emma didn’t want to take up. ‘I hear the interview didn’t go too well.’
‘It didn’t.’
‘Shame.’
How loaded with meaning was that single word, and Emma swallowed hard before speaking. ‘I forgot my bag, I’m just going to get it,’ she offered by way of explanation and as the lift door started to close she pressed the button to open it. There was this pang, this twinge, this snapping almost, this ending that she didn’t want to happen, because he really was divine, and she wished for just a fleeting second that she had the looks, the confidence, the experience to allow him to pursue her.
But she didn’t.
‘Going down?’ She pressed the ‘hold’ button for him, and he stood back as she stepped out and she caught the heavy scent of him, just the brush of his expensive suit as she passed by.
‘No, up.’ He grinned. ‘To the roof.’
‘Things that bad, then?’ Emma called over her shoulder, safer now that the doors were closing, but he halted them with his hands.
‘Do you want to join me?’
‘I’m sure another job will come along,’ she replied, watching a slow smile spread on his face as he got her dry humour. ‘Things really are never that bad.’
‘I’m actually going to Paris.’
‘Lovely.’
‘Helipad’s on the roof.’
‘They usually are.’
‘Formal dinner, very boring, but maybe after…What are your plans?’
‘TV dinner, a rerun of my favourite murder mystery.’ Emma gave a sweet smile. ‘So there’s really no contest!’
He really was smiling now, thinking he’d got his easy way, holding the lift and waiting for her to step inside. So, so arrogant, so, so assuming, he really thought he could just snap his manicured fingers and summon her—he only seemed to get the message when she opened the doors to his office suite, his rich, assured voice just a touch perplexed.
‘If you’re worried that you’ve nothing to wear…’
‘I’m not worried at all!’ Emma laughed, and she could be as rude as she liked, could tell him exactly where to go with his smutty offer because, after all, he wasn’t going to be her boss. ‘As I said, there’s really no contest!”
As the lift doors closed on him and she walked over to Evelyn’s office, she was too irked to think before she knocked. Her hand rose, the door flung open and Emma stood there stunned as she took in the sight of Evelyn. The assured, pompous woman, who had dashed her hopes just a few moments before, was sobbing her heart out, first jumping up and shooing her out, appalled at being caught, then too upset to care.
‘Negative!’ she wept as Emma just stood there. ‘I was so, so sure that I was.’
‘I’m so sorry!’ Well, what else could she say? ‘I’m very sorry.’
And what could she do other than lead the sodden bundle to the nearest chair and peel off tissues as Evelyn gulped out her sorry tale?
Married five years.
Trying for a baby for four and a half of those.
IVF and injections and nasal sprays and tests and scans and egg retrieval.
And now she had to ring Paul and tell him, Evelyn had sobbed, had to ring her lovely, lovely husband, who wanted a baby as much as she did, and say that they’d failed to conceive through IVF for a second time.
Emma really didn’t have to worry about saying the right thing, she couldn’t get a word in. Instead, she just sat there and listened and poured water and offered tissues, and finally, when Evelyn had cried a river, she seemed to remember where she was and who she was talking to.
‘You’ve been so nice—I mean, after I was so cool with you.’
‘It’s not a problem. If I’m not the right person…’
‘No, you see…’ Evelyn was wringing the tissue in her hands ‘…it has nothing to do with your experience or that you don’t speak Japanese…’
‘I know that now.’
‘No, I mean—’
‘I get it, okay? I admit, I assumed you must like him yourself, but…’
Emma giggled as Evelyn gave a watery smile and rolled her eyes. ‘Not at all—I’m just sick of training new assistants, only to have them leave once he’s bedded them. He’s incorrigible, you know.’
‘I know!’ Emma groaned. ‘He just asked me if I wanted to join him for dinner in Paris.’ Emma smiled. ‘Maybe you should look for a male PA.’
‘They’d fall in love with him too,’ Evelyn sighed, then she blinked. ‘You said no to Paris?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘You don’t find him attractive?’ she gasped.
‘He’s divine,’ Emma corrected her. ‘He’s side splittingly beautiful and any woman who says otherwise is a liar.’
‘So why did you say no?’ Evelyn wanted to know.
‘Because I know him,’ Emma explained. ‘Not Luca personally, but I grew up amongst his type—I’ve read their rule book from cover to cover. I grew up in an all male household—an exceptionally good-looking