Hired For Romano's Pleasure

He had admitted to himself that he had been mildly curious to see her again after so many years. But when he had found her standing next to his car he’d been unprepared for the fierce hunger that had clawed like a wild beast inside him as she’d turned around, a slender figure in a muted green dress made of a silky material that had caressed her small, high breasts and the soft curves of her hips. Her wide-brimmed hat had shaded her face, and her eyes had been hidden behind her sunglasses. The overall effect had been one of understated elegance, and in the sultry heat of an Italian summer’s day she had looked as deliciously cool and refined as gin and tonic with ice, and as fragrant as an English rose.

Torre’s breath had been knocked from his body by the force of his heart slamming against his ribs. In that instant he had forgotten who she was, or rather what she was. But in reality he knew that Orla had had her own agenda when she’d slept with him years ago and he was certain that she had traded her virginity in the expectation that he had been as gullible as his father, who had married her parasite of a mother.

It was fortunate that Jules had walked down the drive. His timely appearance had saved Torre from repeating the mistake he’d made in the past, when passion had overruled his good sense. He frowned as he thought of his stepbrother. He liked Jules, even though their personalities were diametrically opposite. Jules was far kinder than Torre would ever be and had inherited his unassuming nature from his mother.

Sandrine had become Torre’s stepmother when he was ten, and she had to a large degree filled the gaping void inside him left by his mother’s death when he was six years old. He had been unable to comprehend why his father had replaced gentle and gracious Sandrine with the avaricious trollop that was Kimberly Connaught. So, when Orla had revealed after he had spent the night with her that she was Kimberly’s daughter, he had angrily accused her of duping him. He had been even more furious with himself because he’d fallen into the same honey trap as his father and allowed himself to be seduced by feminine wiles. Worst of all, Torre had felt a sense of guilt that he had in some way betrayed his stepmother’s kindness by sleeping in the enemy’s camp.

‘Torre.’

He jerked his mind back to the present. Orla had obviously grown tired of waiting for him to notice her and he heard a faint click as she closed the library door. Her voice was clear and soft like a mountain stream and Torre felt as though a velvet-gloved hand had wrapped around his body. All through that damned lunch he had been unable to take his eyes off her and his stomach had rebelled at the idea of food when he’d wanted to assuage a different kind of hunger.

But he was not a callow youth riding high on a surfeit of hormones, he reminded himself. He did not allow anyone to threaten his self-control, especially not a woman who, according to press reports, was as mercenary as her mother. Torre breathed deeply before he swung round from the window to face Orla and scowled. Her cool composure infuriated him and made him want to disturb her the way she disturbed him.

How did she manage to look so goddamned innocent when he had definitive proof that she was not? he thought bitterly. He was halfway across the room before he could help himself, and it occurred to him that it was unwise to get close to her when he felt crazily out of control. But now it was too late and he halted in front of her, close enough that he saw a flicker of wariness, and something else—a startled awareness—in her eyes before her long lashes swept down and hid her expression.

He remembered how in the throes of passion the green flecks in her hazel eyes had darkened to olive. Her long, straight hair streamed down her back like a curtain of silk. Torre knew he should not feel inordinately pleased that she hadn’t gone platinum blonde and her hair was its natural shade of rose-gold—the same colour as the sprinkling of tiny freckles on nose and cheeks that were noticeable against her porcelain skin. Quite simply he had never seen anything so lovely. She was a work of art, as fragile as a rare orchid and as exquisite as a precious jewel.

Thick, black anger clogged his throat as he acknowledged that he had never wanted any other woman as much as he wanted Orla. He hated himself for his inherent weakness that caused his blood to thunder through his veins and made him so hard it hurt.

‘Why are you here?’ he said harshly.

She looked genuinely puzzled. ‘You told me to meet you in the library to discuss my CV.’

‘I meant why have you come to Villa Romano?’

‘You know why. Giuseppe invited me to his birthday celebrations.’

‘He invited you to his last three birthdays. What made you accept an invitation to this one?’

‘Seventy is a landmark birthday.’ She shrugged. ‘When Jules suggested that we could travel to Amalfi together it seemed like a good idea.’

‘I bet it did.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean? Why did you say it in that sarcastic way? I don’t understand.’ Frustration edged into her voice and her eyes flashed with angry fire. Good, Torre thought. He wanted to ruffle her. Eight years ago she had been refreshingly unsophisticated—in fact, she’d been several years younger than he’d assumed, and he had been shocked when he’d learned that she had been eighteen. He had only discovered how inexperienced she’d been when she’d gasped and her body had gone rigid beneath him, but by then it had been too late for him to refuse the unasked-for gift of her virginity.

She must be twenty-six or -seven now, and he was surprised that appearance-wise she had not developed the sharp features and calculating expression of her mother. But she had lost her joyful spontaneity that had made her eyes sparkle, he thought with an irrational sense of loss. The grown-up Orla was reserved and aloof, a beautiful ice maiden with an untouchable air that could easily drive a man to distraction.

Torre strode back across the room and indicated to Orla to sit down on the chair in front of the desk. The obvious thing for him to do was to walk round and sit in the big leather chair facing her, but instead he leaned his hip against the desk and loomed over her so that she had to tilt her head to look up at him. ‘I’ve read you CV,’ he said, picking up the document lying on the desk. ‘You seem to have the relevant secretarial qualifications but I cannot see any evidence that you have experience of working in an accounts department.’

‘That’s because I haven’t worked in an accounts office before.’

‘Then why did you apply to be a PA to the audit manager at ARC UK?’

‘Secretarial duties are pretty much the same in any department,’ she said stiffly. ‘Jules told me about the vacancy in the accounts office where he works and suggested I apply for the job.’

It did not surprise Torre to hear that his stepbrother had tried to facilitate Orla being employed in the same department as him at ARC UK so that he could see her every day. ‘You assumed that Jules would be able to influence the MD at the London office and persuade him to offer you the job.’ Torre’s tone was deceptively mild and he was fascinated by the rosy colour that ran up under her skin.

‘I didn’t assume anything,’ she threw at him. But she quickly controlled her anger and the gleam of temper in her eyes dulled. Torre felt an urge to shake her, or kiss her; anything to shatter her serene expression, which irritated the hell out of him.

‘Two things puzzle me. Firstly, I’m wondering why you are looking for a job when it was widely reported in the English press that you received a substantial divorce settlement from your ex-husband.’

She flinched and once again hectic colour ran along her delicate cheekbones. But she did not rise to his baiting and said flatly, ‘A few totally untrue stories about my marriage break-up were printed in the tabloids. It’s your problem if you choose to believe the lies written about me.’

‘If the reports were untrue, why didn’t you seek a retraction or sue the publications for libel?’

Her bitter laugh tugged on something raw inside Torre. ‘I didn’t receive any money from David. I didn’t want anything from him. But ironically it meant that I couldn’t afford the legal costs of taking action against the newspapers.’

He must be a gullible fool because he found himself wanting to believe her. ‘So you applied for a job at ARC UK,’ he said curtly. ‘But the managing director turned you down. Does Jules know that you were sacked from your previous job at a company called Mayall’s because of the amount of time you took off as sick leave? I phoned Richard Fraser to ask him why he rejected your application,’ he said when she looked startled. ‘He told me that he had spoken to the manager at Mayall’s and discovered that you had been fired because of your appalling absence record.’

Orla stared resolutely down at her lap, and he felt a strong urge to capture her chin between his fingers and force her to look at him. ‘I was going through a difficult time and I was unable to work because of...’ her voice faltered—a clever piece of theatre, Torre thought cynically ‘...personal reasons that I’d rather not go into.’

‘I’m sure Jules was very sympathetic when you told him your sob story. It must be useful for you to have a faithful lap dog constantly at your beck and call.’

She jerked her gaze up to his face, temper making those green flecks in her hazel eyes gleam. Torre felt a surge of satisfaction that he had finally jolted Orla back to life and got a reaction from her. A voice inside him mocked that his behaviour was like that of a small child seeking attention. He wanted Orla to notice him.

‘That’s not a nice way to speak about Jules,’ she said huskily. ‘He and I are friends...’

‘He’s in love with you. Any fool can see that.’ Torre rested his eyes on her flushed face. ‘And you might be a lot of things, Orla, but you are not a fool.’

‘Jules is not in love with me. You are so wrong.’ She leapt to her feet, her breasts rising and falling jerkily. Now that she was standing, she was closer to Torre and trapped by the chair behind her knees. He watched the pulse hammering at the base of her throat and wanted to press his mouth to it, lick his way along her collarbone and taste her silken skin.

‘Jules and I are friends. He’s sweet and kind, but I don’t suppose you can understand that it is perfectly possible for a man and woman to have a platonic relationship. You’re so...macho.’ She made it sound like an insult, like she was too refined to bear the idea of hard, raw masculinity. ‘Not everything is about sex.’

‘My stepbrother is a man, like any other man,’ Torre said flatly. ‘He wants to have sex with you and it’s not hard to see why.’

He roamed his eyes over her, noting how her silk dress moulded the small, perfect mounds of her breasts with their jutting nipples. He could hear the harsh sound of his own breaths and the quickening of hers, and he saw the expression in her eyes change from anger to awareness that darkened those green flecks in her gaze to olive.

‘At lunch I watched Jules panting over you like a dog when it catches the scent of a bitch on heat. He’s besotted with you, and you give him just enough encouragement to keep him sniffing around you like a devoted puppy.’

The colour fled from her face, leaving her skin so pale it was almost translucent, and the fine blue lines of her veins were visible beneath the surface. ‘You’re disgusting.’ Her voice shook slightly. ‘What the hell gives you the right to talk to me like that?’

‘I like and respect my stepbrother and I’m not going to sit back and watch him make a fool of himself over you when it’s obvious what your game is.’

‘And what is my game?’ she snapped.

‘The same game that you tried with me eight years ago. But even though you played your trump card and lost your virginity to me—presumably in the hope that I would marry you—I recognised that you had the same mercenary tendencies as your mother when I found you trying to steal some jewellery that had belonged to my mother.’