Sophie and the Scorching Sicilian (4 page)

‘Not pretty…I'm intrigued,' Marco drawled, sounding in reality both bored and irritated. ‘Call her a cab.'

‘I'll take her back to her hotel,' Francesco said to Marco's retreating back.

Marco turned and stared at his protégé with a perplexed expression. ‘I suppose you gave her lunch too.'

‘Sandwiches.'

‘You're joking.'

In the office Marco saw that he had not been joking.

The crumbs on the plate testified to the meal.

M
ARCO'S
first view of his two-thirty was a hank of waving fairish hair hanging over the arm of a leather swivel chair that faced the window. Presumably the occupant was so busy looking at the view she had not heard him enter.

When he cleared his throat it did not cross his mind for an instant that his guest would not respond appropriately to the cue.

When she didn't, his aggravation levels climbed to a new high. His green eyes narrowed as he walked across the room; skirting the desk that stood between the chair and him he loosened his tie and said, ‘This is not a convenient time. I must ask—'

His hand fell away from his throat and his dark brows tugged into a dark interrogative line. While he did not expect or enjoy people jumping to attention when he walked into a room, he was not accustomed to being ignored.

The frown still in place he walked around the desk and it became clear that his words had fallen on deaf ears, literally.

His two-thirty, her knees drawn up to her chest, her face cushioned on her hands, was fast asleep.

He studied her, and realised Francesco had not lied; she was very young and she was not pretty.

She was small, especially to a man who dated women who did not give him a pain in the neck to kiss, not that he felt any inclination to kiss his sleeping visitor awake.

Maybe there were men around who might have felt inclined to play the prince to her Sleeping Beauty but he doubted it.

Any curves, feminine or otherwise, were hidden in the capacious folds of the shapeless outfit that covered her, though her ankles were slim and her calves slender and shapely.

His view of her face was occluded by the messy mass of pale toffee-coloured hair that lay across her cheek. Her skin, slightly flushed with sleep, had the peachy smooth texture of extreme youth.

However, he did not make the mistake of equating youth with innocence; Allegra had not been much older than this girl when they had met, and her innocent sweetness had hidden a heart of pure malice.

 

Sophie opened her eyes and blinked, reluctant to relinquish her dream; she had been back home at the gatehouse, in her own room, and an ache of homesickness swelled in her chest.

She wasn't in Balfour, she was in Sicily, and awake, but the strong sense of disorientation lingered. Everything that could go wrong had; her luggage was probably in Outer Mongolia and that was the least of her problems.

The ache stayed where it was like a lead weight in her chest as she struggled to shrug off the last tenacious strands of sleep…maybe just a dream but it had felt so real.

She could still smell the vanilla of her mother's scones.

She inhaled and thought…not vanilla, something more subtly spicy and rather delicious. Pressing a hand to the back of her head as she tried to relieve the crick in her neck. She carefully unfolded her legs, causing the voluminous folds of her sprigged-cotton ankle-length skirt to bunch around her waist as she wriggled her toes.

About to reveal his presence Marco paused. His visitor might not be pretty and she might have a very odd taste in clothes, but she did have surprisingly good legs; if the creamy
pallor of her flesh were any indication they had never seen the light of day.

He felt his curiosity stir—did that creamy pallor extend all over?

God, how long had she been asleep?

If Marco Speranza had walked in and found her snoring…that really would have made a great impression, she thought, cringing at the mental image. She stretched again, flexing the kinks out of her spine, then wincing as her elbow caught a jarring blow on the coffee pot on the table beside her.

‘Oh, no!' she exclaimed, as the contents of the half-full pot fell with a crash to the floor where it shattered.

‘Of c
ourse
, it shattered—this is the day from hell!' Gritting her teeth Sophie fell on her knees beside the broken glass and spilled liquid that was becoming a spreading stain on the thick white carpet.

Sitting back on her heels she closed her eyes.

Despite a lot of wishing when she opened them again she was still there. Why, she wondered, patting the coffee stain ineffectually with a tissue from her pocket, do these things happen to me?

Marco, who had watched her waking moments up to this point in silence, decided it was necessary to intercede—before she sliced off a finger.

Stepping forward he took firm hold of the hand that held the shard of splintered glass.

‘What?' Sophie turned her head and watched with saucer-wide eyes as the glass was removed from her fingers. Shock made her compliant as she was then pulled unceremoniously to her feet.

Sophie's wide gaze stayed on the long brown extremely strong fingers circling her wrist and continued upwards, moving over a section of golden-skinned forearm, dark against the pale cuff complete with discreet but obviously expensive cufflinks.

She had to tilt her head back to see the man who wore them and then as she met his eyes she immediately wished she hadn't made the effort. His eyes were green, deep dark green flecked with tiny specks of gold, and they regarded her with an air of critical disdain.

The sort of critical disdain reserved for the use of someone who was perfect—and physically, he was—when looking at someone who wasn't.

She had already known that Marco Speranza was good-looking, but neither the grainy tabloid shots of him on the notice board or the more glossy images in celebrity magazines had been able to convey just how good-looking he actually was.

They had not conveyed the restless vitality, the overpowering aura of raw masculinity he exuded. She had never encountered a man who was so blatantly sexual; just looking at him put very uncharacteristic thoughts into her head. She had never in her life looked at a stranger's mouth and wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by him.

Sophie had spent a lot of time around beautiful people, but the man currently regarding her with an air of irritated disdain was something
very
special.

He was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.

‘You're late,' she blurted, the second thing that popped into her head; it could have been worse, as the first had been,
Are you a good kisser?

One dark brow sketched upwards as he released her hand. ‘I am so sorry to have kept you waiting.'

Sophie nursed her hand against her chest. The impression his fingers left on her skin was so real that she expected to see the imprint glowing like a brand.

The skin on her narrow wrist was pale and unblemished.

Some of Amber's advice came back to her. ‘You're a woman, Sophie…' Midway through, her boss had stopped
short, maybe reconsidering the statement before adding, ‘Men always respond well to subtle flattery. You have to stroke their egos.'

The woman had clearly never met Marco Speranza! His ego was probably so massive that she doubted she could reach it.

‘I'm sorry. I fell asleep.'

‘I noticed.' His sardonic tone made her flush in embarrassment and she bit her lip and wondered,
Was my mouth open? Have I been drooling?

She watched uncertainly as Marco Speranza lowered himself into the leather chair behind his big desk and opened his laptop, and decided upon reflection it was better she didn't know.

‘I'm sorry you had a wasted journey,' he said, not looking at her.

She regarded his dark head with dismay. ‘That's it…you're not interested in my ideas?'

He leaned back in his chair and, pushing it back from the desk, looked at her through hooded eyes. ‘I only deal with serious professionals.'

‘I'm…
we're
serious professionals,' she protested.

He gave a thin-lipped smile and shook his head. ‘I don't think so.'

‘But!'

‘Your firm sent
you
.' His green eyes swept upwards from her feet to her face. He gave a fluid shrug and turned his attention back to the computer screen. Then as if he changed his mind he lifted his head and added, ‘They sent a child. I'd say that that gives me a very good idea at how seriously your firm wants this job.'

‘I'm twenty-three and I assure you I'm qualified, Mr Speranza.'

He gave another languid shrug and drawled, ‘I will take your word on both counts.' Though the twenty-three part still seemed doubtful to him.

His attention refocused on the screen of the open laptop on his desk; he was not looking at her.

For Marco Speranza she no longer existed.

Keeping her head up Sophie took a step towards the door. She could retain what shred of dignity she had left and be graceful in defeat.

What was the point in fighting?

Marco Speranza had made up his mind the moment he laid eyes on her. She had taken two steps when she realised she was falling back into a pattern of behaviour—graceful defeat translated as failure.

Her father had faith in her; her sisters would not have wimped out this way but she wasn't even trying. They'd all be kind when she crawled back with her tail between her legs but she knew that privately they'd be disappointed.

What did she have to lose?

The frustration welled up inside her and expanded, a solid presence in her chest, until she felt as though she couldn't breathe.

Jaw set she turned and walked back to the desk. ‘You haven't given me a chance!' she accused loudly.

Marco Speranza's eyes lifted from the laptop.

The astonishment in his face might on another occasion have made her laugh, but Sophie, who was hearing the disappointment in her father's voice when he realised his faith in her had been misplaced, planted her hands on her hips.

‘Well, did you?' she demanded belligerently. ‘You wrote me off the moment you walked in here.'

The hands-on-the-hip stance was not good when you did not want to draw attention to their unfortunate width, but Sophie was beyond caring if he thought she was chunky. Chances were he had not even noticed she was female, let alone that she had horribly generous curves.

He didn't bother denying it. ‘I do that when people are so committed they fall asleep. And can you really expect to be taken seriously, appearing in someone's office dressed as you are?' He stopped twirling the pen in his long fingers and laid
it on the table. ‘You know, I think you'll go farther if you invest in a comb…' he mused.

Her cobalt-blue eyes—the intense colour reminded him of the sea along the Ionian coast—slid from his and as he watched she bit into her trembling lower lip.

Marco suddenly felt less than thrilled with his clever comeback; the moment he had allowed things to become personal he had lost the moral and every other sort of high ground. This English girl was enough to try the patience of a saint, but nothing excused behaviour that had drifted worryingly close to bullying.

‘Look, if you have notes, sketches, leave them. I will look at them and get back to your boss.'

Anticipating a certain amount of tearful gratitude for his generous compromise he was taken aback when the eyes that lifted slowly to his were not misty with gratitude but sparking with anger.

‘How dare you patronise me!'

Sophie's first reaction to his scathing put-down had been to laugh, then with a sudden flash of insight she realised that this was yet another coping mechanism.

People had been making her a joke all her life, and she had been letting them. She had been telling herself she didn't care.

Sophie suddenly realised she did care—she cared a lot.

‘Patronise!' This woman gave
unreasonable
a whole new meaning.

‘All you've done is sneer and look down your nose at me. People like you make me sick—people who think they are entitled to what they want, when they want it, just because of what their name is. Well, I hate that world and I don't want to live in it.'

‘Where do you want to live?'

Sophie's blue eyes narrowed warily. ‘We are not talking about me.'

‘My mistake,' Marco drawled, thinking that even if she had a presentation that was mind-blowing he would be insane to take someone on his payroll who had such obvious issues. ‘Do you ever pause for breath when you speak?'

‘I only babble when I get nervous.'

‘And I make you nervous?'

She glared and thought, You'd like that, wouldn't you? ‘You make me…' She stopped, conscious of something that bore a worrying similarity to exhilaration circulating in her veins.

She was not enjoying this! He was a horrible man and she hated arguing. He was just so convinced he was right, when in reality he was so wide of the mark that he was not even on the right page. The man was infuriating.

‘You only value things that are beautiful.'

He blinked at the accusation.

‘You!' she declared, waving a condemnatory finger at him. ‘Judge by appearances…!' The last time she'd said this much was when she had drank too much—if two glasses of champagne deserved that title—after her nephew Oliver's christening.

She had fallen into the fountain; people were still teasing her about it.

The transformation from mouse-like timidity to bristling bosom-heaving antagonism interested Marco as much as the charge.

‘What else am I meant to judge you on?' he asked, watching the finger that was being waved in his direction and thinking appearances in this instance were definitely deceptive.

This reasonable question made Sophie pause. ‘You said my outfit meant you couldn't take me seriously.'

‘That was rude—I was out of order, but I've had a bad day.'

‘
You've
had a bad day!' she squeaked, throwing up her hands.
‘You,'
she told him with husky quivering emphasis, ‘know
nothing
about bad days, and for your information it's
nothing to do with my clothes. I have sisters, as I'm sure you know, who could make a bin sack look fashionable and sexy.'