“I don’t speak Italian. I don’t speak anything but English, in fact.”
His smile did not dim. “And yet the international language is English. How do you suppose people in Italy converse with people in Germany? No, this is not an issue. Besides, you will learn Italian while you live there.”
“I—”
“Renzo, darling, there you are,” a cultured female voice called out, interrupting them. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”
Renzo stiffened as he turned toward the owner of the voice. The woman sauntering toward them was a stunning salon-blonde, dressed in a tight-fitting black sheath that showed a mile of tanned leg. Her hair hung long and straight down her back, and her makeup was absolutely perfect. She wore a fat diamond-drop necklace and matching earrings, and her shoes were gold.
“Lissa,” Renzo said. “How nice to see you again.”
Lissa’s gaze fell to Faith and slid over her with no small measure of contempt. The look very clearly said back away.
Oh puh-leeze. As if Faith were any competition. Still, she tilted her chin up and stood her ground.
Lissa turned her smile on Renzo. “Do I not get a kiss, darling? I had thought you Italians were all about the kiss when greeting friends.”
“Of course.” Renzo kissed her on both cheeks in the Italian manner and then turned and put an arm around Faith. Lissa’s eyes narrowed to slits while Faith’s entire body lit up like a firecracker as Renzo pulled her into the curve of his powerful frame.
This was not what she’d agreed to tonight, and yet in a way it had been. She was his date.
“Lissa, this is Faith.”
Faith held her hand out, surprised it didn’t shake when inside she was trembling so badly. Why, when she didn’t even like him all that much?
Lissa took it after a moment’s hesitation. “Very lovely to meet you,” Faith said.
“Yes, lovely.” Lissa’s tone said it was anything but. “Renzo, I had hoped to speak with you. Alone,” she added, her smile never wavering.
Renzo’s fingers skimmed over Faith’s bare arm, his touch setting off a chain of reactions inside her that ended with a sharp current of need settling between her thighs. She’d never felt anything quite like it. And she was furious it was happening now, here, with this man.
Her boss made Casanova look like an amateur, for pity’s sake. She knew it, and yet she responded anyway.
“You may say whatever you wish to say in front of Faith,” Renzo countered. “She is completely trustworthy.”
Lissa pushed her hair over one shoulder with an indolent gesture. Her eyes sparked. “It can wait,” she said tightly. And then she smiled. Faith had the impression of razor-sharp fangs lining the other woman’s mouth. “Perhaps a bit later, then.”
“Perhaps,” Renzo said.
Someone called to her, and Lissa turned and waved. “If you will excuse me, I must mingle.”
“Of course,” Renzo replied. “Do not let us keep you.”
Lissa insisted on kissing Renzo on both cheeks again and held her hand out to Faith, pressing it limply before gliding away in a cloud of malevolence that was quite possibly stronger than her perfume.
“Let me guess,” Faith said coolly, moving out of his grasp when the other woman had joined a group of people a few feet away. “She is the reason you needed a date tonight.”
“Si,” Renzo said.
Faith turned to look up at him, exasperated, and just a little hurt. “Honestly, I don’t know why you just don’t do what you always do and be done with it.”
His brows drew together. “What I always do?”
“Oh please, don’t act as if you don’t know. I’ve worked for you for six months, and I’ve yet to see a woman last more than a month with you. You wine them, dine them, give them presents and dump them.”
It was bold of her, but she’d had just enough wine to loosen her tongue. To be on the safe side, she deposited the half-finished glass on the terrace wall. If she drank the whole thing, heaven knows what she might say to him.
Renzo grinned. Not at all the effect she’d been going for. “You forgot one, Faith.” She frowned, but he leaned toward her and spoke before she could say anything. “Bed them.”
A flash of heat shot through her. Dammit! “Yes, of course. How could I forget that one? Silly me.”
She realized she was standing before him with her arms crossed defensively when he put his hands on her shoulders and skimmed them down her arms. “I had no idea you were so outraged by my behavior,” he teased.
Faith scoffed as she tried very hard not to react to his skin touching hers. Why didn’t she just shove him away? “Outraged? I have no say in anything you choose to do. I am not outraged. It was merely an observation.”
He put a finger under her jaw and tipped her chin up. His sharp eyes glittered with some hidden passion that hadn’t been there only a moment ago. It shocked her. And intrigued her.
He was so close. Too close, the heat emanating from him enveloping her, making her long to press into him and see just how hot she could feel. Would she burn up in his embrace?
No. No, no, no. She would not think of her Italian playboy boss in that way. It wasn’t safe. It was irresponsible. Reckless.
Faith did not do reckless. The one time she had, it had cost her far more than she could have ever dreamed. She was finished with reckless.
“But you disapprove,” Renzo said.
“Not this time.” And she almost meant it, except for the fact it would mean Renzo would actually sleep with that obnoxious woman. Though, on the other hand, the woman would pay for it in the end when Renzo dumped her. Faith might enjoy shopping for that parting gift. “Go for it.”
He laughed. “And what makes you think I have not already? That she just doesn’t understand I no longer want her?”
It was a valid point, but she knew better because she’d witnessed the fallout too many times. The tears, the desperate phone calls, the attempts to sneak past her and into his office in order to plead for another chance. Women could be, she’d decided, awfully pitiful sometimes. She wanted to tell them to get some dignity, to stop begging and go on with their lives. Men like Renzo were immune to histrionics.
“Because a woman who has been subjected to the D’Angeli treatment is usually angry with you. She wasn’t. She wants you, and pretty badly I’d say.”
The look in his eyes was sharp. He moved a step closer and she shuddered involuntarily. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, much too innocently. “I like the way you talk, Faith. It sounds like sweet syrup, all long and drawn out as if you had all day to speak. Not like the women in New York.”
“That’s because I’m from Georgia. It’s hot there. We talk slow and walk slow and, well, do a lot of things slow.” My God, she was babbling. To her urbane, gorgeous boss. Where was her dignity?
One of Renzo’s dark eyebrows arched. “Really? I can imagine that some things are done best when done slowly. How wise you people from Georgia are.”
Her heart was slamming into her ribs and a fine sheen of moisture was rising in the valley between her breasts. “I sound no different now than I have for the past six months. I can’t imagine how you haven’t noticed it before.”
He took another step and she backed up, found herself against the wall of the terrace where it curved inward. He put a hand on the wall beside her, trapping her