He pulled off the cap and resisted the urge to fling it at the wall and walk away from this ridiculous situation and the memories it stirred. Such thoughts were of no use to him now and he savagely discarded them.
He had two weeks of living as a different person to get through and he’d show Sebastien he could rise to this and any challenge he threw his way. Determination fizzed inside him as he left Antonio Di Marcello in the small apartment and became Toni Adessi. He crossed the street, shaded from the morning sun by the height of the buildings, and headed to the garage where he was to work. At least it was a job he could convincingly do. His love of cars and engines had been with him since he was a young boy, thanks to an unlikely friendship with the estate’s gardener, who’d had a passion for motor racing.
* * *
He hadn’t been working more than two hours when he saw exactly why Sebastien had sent him not just to Milan but to this garage. He glanced up to the upper level, to what was obviously the office window, and at first he thought he was seeing things, that just being in this area again had brought Sadie Parker to the front of his mind. Like a ghost of what could have been, tormenting him for the ill-fated decision he’d made to put family honour and duty above his wants and desires.
Sadie Parker was the only woman who’d made him want things he couldn’t have. The only woman he’d walked away from before he was ready to do so. Unsure how to deal with this unexpected twist to his challenge, he turned his attention back to the customer, hiding his shock behind his usual charm.
He glanced up again to see Sadie had turned and was talking to someone else in the office. He took advantage of her distraction to study her, to remember the softness of her hair and the eagerness of her lips.
The customer spoke to him, dragging his mind back to the present and the fact that he was undercover. If Sadie recognised him, he was done for. His challenge would be over before it had even begun and there was no way he was going to let a pretty face from the past do that. He refused to contemplate losing. There was no way he would be the one to fail at something which didn’t involve hurtling off the side of a snow-covered mountain or surfing the Pipeline in Hawaii.
* * *
Sadie watched the new mechanic from the small office window which looked down on the workshop. She’d never seen him before, but there was an air of familiarity about him. As he set about his first job of a tyre change on a woman’s car her curiosity deepened and the way he moved untangled memories she’d rather not have disturbed.
Even from this distance he had an uncanny resemblance to Antonio Di Marcello, the man who four years ago had stolen her heart in just two days, making loving any other man impossible. She’d never forgotten him, no matter how hard she’d tried. Not when each day she looked into the dark eyes of her young son, the child Antonio had turned his back on.
‘That is Toni Adessi,’ her colleague Daniela said as she joined her at the window. ‘Very attractive—and hot.’
‘Possibly.’ Sadie couldn’t stop watching, even though he stoked the memories of a wonderfully romantic weekend, bringing them to life. She slammed the door shut on them. She couldn’t allow herself to be dragged back into the past by a bearded stranger who bore a passing resemblance to Leo’s father. ‘But dangerous.’
Daniela laughed. ‘What do you mean, dangerous?’
‘Look at him. Charm is oozing from him, as if he thinks he is so much better than he is, as if every woman will rush to be on his arm.’ She knew she was guilty of projecting Antonio Di Marcello’s flaws onto the new mechanic, but it was hard not to when he had the same mannerisms as the man who had not only abandoned her to marry another woman, one far more suitable for his position in life, but had ignored the fact that their weekend affair had made him a father.
No, it couldn’t be Antonio, she reassured herself as she watched the mechanic work. He would never lower himself to the standard of an ordinary working man, just as he would never marry an ordinary girl. A fact his mother had made painfully clear.
‘Whatever it was that Leo’s father did to you, you have to forget it and move on. Otherwise you will never find love and romance.’ Daniela’s warning echoed her mother’s and she knew they were both right. She’d even thought she might be able to do that, thought she was beginning to move on from the one weekend which had forced her life down an unexpected path. She’d thought she was finally ready to give up hoping Antonio Di Marcello would want to know his son—until the new mechanic had shown up, reminding her, tearing open old wounds once more.
‘Leo and I are fine as we are.’ Sadie couldn’t keep the impatient snap from her voice. She didn’t appreciate being made to remember what it had been like to carry Antonio’s child knowing he’d left her and married another woman. She’d tried to let him know he was to be a father, had sent messages to the big imposing house she’d discovered belonged to his family. She’d taken the dressing-down from his mother, who had looked at her with nothing but stony silence, but had heard nothing from Antonio.
‘Well, it won’t hurt to have a bit of fun,’ Daniela goaded her. ‘Flirt a little, enjoy yourself. You’re only twenty-three and far too young to give up on fun—or men.’
‘I’ll do no such thing.’
‘You will and here’s your perfect chance. He’s coming up.’ Daniela giggled mischievously.
To Sadie’s horror, Daniela turned and left just as the door to the workshop floor opened. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at the new mechanic, trying to remember what Daniela had said his name was.
The way he’d tied the top half of his overalls at his waist with the sleeves, leaving him in only a white vest T-shirt, showcasing amazingly toned and tanned arms, was so distracting she blushed. Or was it the memories of two hot sultry nights this man had dragged from her past—a past which belonged to a very different Sadie?
‘What can I do for you?’ she said officiously, forgetting her beginner’s Italian and reverting to her native English. Since when had a man muddled her so much she couldn’t think straight? The reply which resounded round her head was instant. Not since Antonio Di Marcello.
‘You are English?’ The heavily accented voice was so gruff and completely unlike Antonio’s she relaxed—just a little. This man might look similar to the father of her child and had certainly stirred the past, bringing it back to the surface, but, with an unshaven face and unkempt hair breaking out beneath his cap, he could never be Antonio.
Antonio had always been immaculate. Even in that short weekend, she’d witnessed his attention to detail crossing from business into his personal life and she knew without a doubt that Antonio would never consider a beard, especially one so scruffy.
‘Do you have a problem with that?’ Irritation at the way his gaze roved blatantly over her made each word sharp. He didn’t have the manners and grace Antonio had possessed. Something which made him stand out from any other man she’d met before or since those two nights of bliss.
As she stood behind her desk she took the opportunity to study this strong male specimen who was as rough round the edges as Antonio had been refined. This man’s hair was unruly and his beard wild and untamed. His white T-shirt was far from clean and his arms were smeared with grime. He might resemble the man who’d stolen her heart, the father of her three-year-old son, but that was as far as the similarities went. He was most definitely not the kind of man she wanted a bit of fun with, no matter what Daniela thought.
‘No, cara,’ he said and casually dropped the worksheet onto her desk and then stepped away. When he got to the door, he turned again and smiled, or at least she thought he did, but his unruly beard was making that difficult to decipher. ‘I enjoy the challenge of any woman, no matter her nationality.’
Sadie dragged in a sharp breath, hardly able to believe the audacity of the man. If he thought she