‘It’s not the dress and you know it,’ she snapped, and surprisingly, he let out a laugh.
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘It’s your entire manner,’ she emphasised, and he nodded.
‘Yes, I realise,’ he said dryly. ‘So at least we’re in agreement about something.’
For the next few hours he found he could not concentrate on the business at hand, a fact which annoyed him as much as everything else about Mia James had done. What was it about the woman that got under his skin, burrowed deep inside? Was it simply her attractiveness, which was undeniable, or something else? The hint of defiance in the set of her shoulders, the surprising vulnerability he sensed beneath the surface? Why on earth did he care?
It was annoying. It was alarming. And it had to stop.
‘Mr Costa?’ The stylist’s fluttering voice interrupted his unruly thoughts; he’d been staring at his laptop screen for who knew how long? ‘Miss James has selected her dress and is ready for you to see it.’
‘Thank you.’ He rose and walked quickly to the office, steeling himself for whatever he was to see. Despite his best intention to remain utterly unmoved, he was still shocked by the sight of her, her slender body swathed in an ice-blue gown of ruched silk that hugged her figure before flaring out around her ankles in a decadent display of iridescent, shimmering material. Instead of back in a sedate clip, her hair was twisted into an elegant chignon. Diamonds sparkled at her ears and throat. She looked like a Norse goddess, an ice queen, everything about her coolly beautiful, icily intoxicating.
Desire crashed over him in an overwhelming wave, unexpected even now in its intensity and force. He wanted to pluck the diamond-tipped pins from her hair. He wanted to tug on the discreet zip in the back of her dress, and count the sharp knobs of her vertebrae, taste the smooth silkiness of her skin.
He wanted. And he never let himself want.
‘Well?’ Mia asked, her voice taut. ‘Will I pass?’
‘Yes,’ he answered after another beat of tense silence, barely managing to get the word out. ‘You’ll pass.’
She let out a huff of sound, turning away from him, and the stylist’s face fell a little bit at his damningly faint praise. Alessandro didn’t care. Already he was regretting his command to have Mia accompany him tonight. Already he was looking forward to it far more than he should.
‘I’ll go and change myself,’ he said when a few seconds had ticked by without anyone saying a word. ‘Be ready to leave in ten minutes.’
Mia nodded, not quite looking at him, and again Alessandro was captivated by the curve of her jaw, the hollow of her throat, the dip of her waist, each one begging to be explored and savoured. He turned away quickly, striding out of the office without another word.
The sooner this evening was over, the better. This desire he felt was inconvenient and overwhelming and very much unwanted. But, like everything else in his life, he would control it. It would just take a little more effort than he’d anticipated.
MIA FELT AS if she’d fallen down a rabbit hole into some strange, charmed alternative reality…a reality where she rode in limousines, and drank champagne, and walked into a glittering ballroom on the arm of the most handsome man there.
Of course, as PA to Henry Dillard she’d ridden in plenty of limousines. She’d drunk more than enough champagne. But it had always been as an employee, someone to serve and be invisible while she was at it. Someone to make sure the champagne was flowing, and that the limousine arrived on time. Someone who didn’t stride into parties, but sidled along the sidelines, checking that everything was going according to plan and keeping out of the way.
Tonight was entirely different. Tonight, much to her own amazement, she felt like the belle of the ball. It was beyond bizarre. It was also intoxicating, far more than any champagne she might quaff.
It had started with the stylist bringing out several exquisite dresses for Mia to choose from, and then doing her hair and make-up as well, before finishing off her incredible ensemble with the most beautiful diamond earrings and necklace Mia had ever seen.
As someone who had prided herself on always being smart and sensible, no-nonsense and pragmatic, it had felt to her as decadent as an endless dark chocolate sundae to be so pampered and primped. She hadn’t expected to enjoy it; she’d been fully intent on chafing at every opportunity, resenting Alessandro’s needless autocratic intervention, but then…she hadn’t.
She’d submitted to the stylist’s every instruction, and then she’d started to enjoy it. To relish it. Part of her was horrified by her own acquiescence, and what it might mean. And yet…it was one night. One magical night after a lifetime of having her head down, working hard. Why shouldn’t she enjoy it?
At some point she’d let her mind slide into a comforting sort of blurry nothingness, floating on a sea of ease and comfort. As she usually tried to anticipate every possibility, consider every choice, it felt wonderfully relaxing not to overthink this. She wasn’t going to wonder what Alessandro Costa wanted with her, or with Dillard Investments, or whether her job, not to mention any of her friends’, was secure. She was just going to enjoy a night like no other, because she doubted she’d see another one like it, and that was fine.
And then the moment when Alessandro had come into the room and looked her over…that moment had felt as if the world was tilting on its axis, as if everything was sliding away from the comforting security of its anchor even as it came into glittering focus.
For that one second Mia had seen a flash of masculine approval blaze in his eyes like golden fire and it had ignited her right through, as her blood heated and fizzed and her mind spun out possibilities she’d never dared to dream of.
Then he’d told her she’d pass, his voice as laconic as ever, and she’d wondered if she’d imagined it. She must have. This was Alessandro Costa, after all. The ruthless, arrogant CEO she was a little bit scared of. Not a man interested in her. Not her date.
It just felt as if he were. And, more alarmingly, she liked that feeling. She, who had steered clear of love and romance and even anything close to a flirtation, because she did not want someone to have that kind of power over her. Because her mother had fallen in love with her father all those years ago, and look how that had gone.
‘He loves me, Mia. Really. He just has trouble showing it.’
Mia had listened to far too many of her mother’s excuses before she’d died of cancer when Mia was fourteen, too broken and despairing to hold on any longer. Mia had had to wait four more years before she was finally free of her father’s sneering control. And since then she’d made it her life’s mission to stay strong, independent and alone. Safe.
But tonight she let her rules bend and even break. Tonight she let herself forget they existed. It was just a night, after all. Just one wonderful night where she could pretend, for a few hours, that she was a young woman with a gorgeous man, Cinderella with her prince before the clock inevitably struck midnight.
They’d ridden in a limousine to the Ritz, and Alessandro, devastating in black tie, his hair midnight-dark and his hard jaw freshly shaven, had barely said a word, which was fine by Mia because she could barely think. Dressed to the nines and even the tens in a gorgeous gown, on the arm of a beautiful man…going to the kind of party where she’d normally be holding doors or serving champagne…together, all of it, was utterly overwhelming. Intoxicating. Wonderful.
A valet had opened the door of the limousine as they’d pulled up to the front entrance of the hotel, and flashbulbs had popped and sparked as