Sophie and the Scorching Sicilian (3 page)

S
OPHIE
had not left work until 8:00 p.m. Taking advantage of the growing realisation that Sophie's work ethic was a little overdeveloped, people were dumping on her…
And what are you going to do about that?
asked the voice in her head.

It was a good question but one she had so far avoided; it wasn't as if her evening had contained any contemplative moments for reflection. She had arrived home to find a large hole in the street outside her flat, and after she'd pretended not to hear the comments about her bottom made by the men inside the hole, she discovered no water or electricity inside her flat.

The electricity had finally come on at eleven; the water still hadn't. She stopped waiting at twelve, cleaned her teeth with bottled water, finally crawled into her bed and with a sigh of relief turned out the light—not just because every bone in her body ached with exhaustion, but because the bedroom looked better with the light out.

‘Basic, but I have everything I need,' she had told her mother on the phone, ‘and I'm very near work.'

The work part was playing out a lot better than she had anticipated.

Conversations no longer stopped when she walked into room. Now that had not been nice, but even when she was viewed with extreme suspicion Sophie had kept her head down,
concentrated on doing her best no matter how menial the task and smiled at everyone.

The hostility had faded once her co-workers had recognised she was not afraid of hard work—or, possibly, once they had recognised that there was someone who would willingly perform all the tasks nobody else wanted to do while smiling.

Sophie in her turn had discovered something too—she had a real talent for organisation; not quite the artistic spreading of wings her father had intended, but it was a start. She still felt homesick almost all the time but she didn't allow herself to think about going home.

She dreamt, though—she dreamt of her mum in the kitchen with flour in her nose, the smell of baking in the air… She was having that dream when the shrill sound of the phone cut through the cosy picture of domesticity.

Sophie surfaced and flicked on the lamp before reaching for the phone and snarling crankily, ‘Yes…?' into the receiver.

‘Sophie, thank God you're there!'

Sophie, who couldn't imagine where else she'd be at this time of night, which on reflection made her one of the most tragic twenty-three-year-olds on the planet, pushed her tangled hair from her eyes and frowned.

‘
Amber…?
Why are you calling me at…' She glanced at the clock, saw the time and sat up straight, her eyes wide with alarm. ‘What's wrong?'

‘Everything,' came the tragic response. ‘But we can do this.'

Sophie who was suspicious of the use of the word
we
asked, ‘What's happened?'

‘Just listen, don't talk. You have to be on the flight to Palermo at five-thirty.'

Pretty sure she was the victim of some elaborate hoax—either that or Amber had been drinking—Sophie leaned back, yawned and said, ‘Of course I do.'

Palermo was the clue; she had made the flight arrangements
for Amber herself, and the office had been buzzing for days with the news that they had been contacted by Marco Speranza—
the
Marco Speranza, people kept saying to Sophie, as though she thought she might be likely to mistake him for another Sicilian billionaire.

Obviously, they had not been personally contacted, but the fact that the invitation to tender for a contract to refurbish his ancestral home had been issued by Marco's own office had been enough to send the entire office into party mode.

Sophie privately called it mass hysteria, and also a little premature. ‘How many others are tendering?' Her tentative enquiry had been ignored.

‘Something this prestigious could
make
us,' Amber had said as she'd gathered her team together to plan a strategy and draw up plans for a refurb that would knock the utterly gorgeous man's socks off.

Sophie, who was listening, would have loved to dispute the reverential
gorgeous
and the
utterly
but she had seen the photo someone had pinned on the notice board and there was no doubt at all that Marco Speranza was almost too good-looking to be real, unless he had been airbrushed to perfection.

The possibility made her feel unaccountably more cheerful.

Having worked her team into a state of hysterical enthusiasm Amber then smiled and promised, ‘We are going to bury the opposition.'

Sophie's role in the team involved making tea but she had listened and frankly she had doubts, but aware that her place in the scheme of things did not involve giving an opinion she kept her mouth shut.

Sophie slid back under the covers as a sigh of relief echoed down the line. ‘You know, Sophie, when I first saw you I thought…' Clearly thinking better of being that frank, Amber allowed herself a generous, ‘You're an asset.'

‘Thank you.' Now go away; I want to go to sleep.

‘And I really admire your ability to multitask—maybe you could pack while we talk…?'

‘Look, Amber, I'm going back to sleep now. I'll laugh at the joke tomorrow, and good luck with the Speranza contract.'

‘No, Sophie, this isn't a joke. I can't go. This afternoon I—'

‘You had a dentist's appointment. I know—it's in the diary.'

‘No, I had some facial injections and a little liposuction on my thighs…at least, that was the idea, but it went wrong. I had a bad reaction to the anaesthetic and they won't let me go home—they took away my clothes!' she wailed.

Sophie's eyes widened at the confession. ‘Relax, Amber, I'll contact Vincent.' Amber's right hand was up to speed and, if you overlooked his penchant for pink shirts, charming.

‘Do you think I haven't already tried?' came the shrill response. ‘He's gone to York! His partner's mum has had a heart attack and he's being supportive.'

Sophie, who had been introduced to Vincent's partner, said, ‘Oh, how terrible. Colin must be—'

‘Forget about Colin,' Amber yelled, ‘and get packed.'

‘But Sukie or Emma…' Sophie could hear the doubt in her own voice. The two women she had heard that first day discussing her both looked the part but neither had had an original thought in their lives.

‘Emma is hopeless.'

You noticed! Sophie thought, surprised.

‘And Sukie got dumped by her boyfriend and downed a bottle of Chardonnay to drown her sorrows. She is hanging over the toilet as we speak,' Amber observed bitterly.

Sophie grimaced and thought, Thanks for the image.

‘And if you say “poor Sukie” I'll… My world is falling apart—my entire future depends on a girl who wears sensible shoes. No offence…' She sniffed between sobs.

The fact that Amber could weep made more of an impact on Sophie than either the insult or the apology.

‘You're serious.' The realisation sent a rush of fear through her body. ‘You want me to fly to Sicily and sell this to Marco Speranza's office?' This was what fairy tales were made of…or was that nightmares? Maybe she was still asleep and any minute she would wake up and laugh.

‘Not his office—him.'

No, she was definitely awake; even her subconscious was not that inventive!

‘I have a meeting with him personally which is why someone representing this firm
has
to be there. There is no option—we
need
this commission, Sophie. The credit crunch has been hard on everyone and I've had to write off a couple of big debts after the clients went under…'

About to cut her off and say there was just no way she could do this, something in the other woman's voice made Sophie pause… Oh, my God, she thought, as she realised what anyone who wasn't a spoilt, indulged rich kid who'd never had to think about money already would have.

This wasn't just about kudos. Amber was worried about her business's survival. Sophie was ashamed that she had been so wrapped up in her own concerns, so self-centred, that it hadn't even crossed her mind to wonder if maybe she wasn't the only one who had problems.

‘You can't ask to reschedule a personal meeting with Marco Speranza.'

Sophie, thinking of her father, admitted, ‘No, I can see that.' No man got to be that rich and powerful without taking a certain amount of deference for granted.

‘If he thinks we've insulted him he could ruin my business. I've heard he can be utterly ruthless.' The sound of a sternly muffled sob echoed down the line.

Sophie heard the sob and folded. ‘All right, I'll do it.'

Half an hour later she arrived at the office and collected the relevant papers and drawings from where Amber had said
they'd be. She tucked them into her overnight bag, planning to read them on the flight.

‘The idea will sell itself,' Amber had said.

God, I hope so, Sophie thought, because if they're relying on me we're stuffed!

 

‘Isabella, many women come back to work the week after they've given birth or when they've had a Caesarean.'

His PA forgot her stately calm enough to laugh. ‘Well, I'm not superwoman. I need six months and then I think we might discuss flexible hours.'

Marco put down the phone—the woman had him wound round her finger and she knew it, damn her!

Scowling to himself he left his car and walked into the lift. His temporary PA was scared of him, which might not have been a bad thing if this fear made her efficient, but it didn't. She gibbered and looked at him as though he was going to eat her and spoke so quietly he couldn't hear her.

And to make the situation worse he suspected his protégé was falling in love with her.

Love!
Marco could not even think the word without a contemptuous sneer forming on his broad brow. Love did not mix well with the smooth running of his office. When he had spent the time and effort to groom Francesco he had taken an ability to keep his personal life separate from the demands of work as a given.

He did not seek to impose his views on his employees—what they did in their free time, including falling in love, did not concern him—but when love affairs crossed the line into the work place it became his concern.

When Marco walked into the office, Francesco broke off his conversation with the young woman whose fingers were flying across the keyboard.

Marco glanced their way but did not speak as he stalked towards the wall lined with files, impatience etched not just in
every line of his startlingly good-looking face but in every tense muscle and sinew of his lean, athletic body.

He angled a sardonic brow. ‘Did you want to see me, Francesco?' he asked, locating the file he was seeking and withdrawing it.

‘No.'

Marco maintained a speaking silence, but though the younger man looked uncomfortable he did not look away. Marco gave a reluctant smile; his protégé was a fool but he was a fool who stood his ground, which was good. There was no place at a senior level for a man he could intimidate.

His smile faded when he turned his attention to the blushing young woman; incompetence always irritated him. ‘I do not wish to be disturbed for the next two hours.'

‘Oh, dear!'

Marco took his hand off the door handle of his office, stopped and swung back.
‘Oh, dear?'
He angled a questioning brow and waited.

Francesco cleared his throat. ‘Slight problem there. Your two-thirty has been here since, well…' He glanced at his wristwatch which now read six-thirty. ‘Well, two-thirty.'

Marco's brows drew into a disapproving straight line above the hawkish nose that bisected his chiselled features.

‘I asked for you to reschedule.'

Again it was Francesco who spoke up. ‘We tried, but we couldn't contact her in time. Miss Balfour had apparently lost her phone.'

Marco's expression accurately reflected his opinion of people who lost phones. ‘My appointment was not with anyone called Balfour.'

‘Well, that's who came.'

‘And you put her in my office?' Marco's incredulous interrogative glare was directed towards his temporary secretary. ‘You let a total stranger into my office?'

‘That was my idea, Marco, when she wouldn't go away.'

‘Wouldn't go away?'
Marco echoed, his glance drifting towards the protective hand that Francesco had placed on the shoulder of his temporary secretary.

The expression in the girl's eyes seemed to confirm his worst suspicions. Great, he thought, just what I need—an office romance. Which means I either turn a blind eye or come the heavy and be about as popular as the plague.

Fortunately he did not need people to love him.

‘When you say…
wouldn't go away
…'

The sardonic inflection in his boss's voice brought a flush to the younger man's face but he defended his decision and nodded.

‘And frankly, I didn't have the heart to throw her out. The kid looked ready to cry when Analise—' he flashed a warm look at the seated woman and she blushed prettily ‘—suggested she could come back another day.'

‘Kid?'

His secretary finally spoke up. ‘My sister Toni is eighteen and she looks older than her.'

Marco, whose interest in her sister Toni was not immense, struggled to contain his growing impatience while Francesco added the weight of his opinion.

‘She does look very young, Marco. She arrived direct from the airport and she'd lost her bags and she looked—'

‘Pretty?' It was the other man's problem if he had a weakness for a pretty face, but when he allowed the Achilles heel to encroach into office hours it became a problem.

‘No, not pretty,' Francesco said, struggling and failing to recall the features of the young English girl who had arrived looking scared stiff. ‘She wasn't ugly or anything… Her eyes were blue,' he added, recalling the electric-blue eyes that had peeked out from under a long floppy fringe.