And there were plenty who would be willing.
But he couldn’t be bothered to talk.
Couldn’t be bothered tonight to even pretend to be interested.
His tie must have been soldered on, along with his cufflinks—because he had to put down his drink to deal with them.
And deal with Pepper.
He snarled at the ginger miniature poodle, who snarled back at him. He let him out on his vast balcony to do whatever dogs did.
His maid would see to it in the morning.
Martha, an ex-girlfriend, had, after a trip back to his home in Sicily, decided to move in uninvited, and had conveniently forgotten Pepper when Luca had asked her to move out—three years ago!
‘You,’ Luca said, wandering back to the fridge and selecting a few choice morsels, ‘are the most pathetic excuse for a dog I have ever seen.’
He ripped a chicken leg off and gnawed it as he stretched out on his sofa, with Pepper quivering on the floor beside him.
‘You’re on a diet.’ Luca reminded him. Half watching a detective show on the television, finally Luca relented and threw some titbits to the floor in reward for their new game—having recently found out that if he changed the word ‘Paw’ to ‘High five’ the outcome was the same, only much more satisfying.
It had been hellish breaking up with Martha—her tears and protests at the unexpected end had been unprecedented—as over and over she had asked how he could end something so good.
And she’d l
eft Pepper—just hadn’t taken him, sure that Luca would crack and ring, would make contact—but what she hadn’t truly realised was that when Luca ended things, he ended them.
That Luca would rather deal with a senile, smelly old dog than face her again.
The detective show actually wasn’t that boring…
Three minutes from the end of the final episode of the season, Luca decided it was something he might actually get into.
And then the credits rolled.
And he knew this was what Emma had been talking about.
Knew she was watching it too.
He just knew it. And he wished she’d said yes to Paris.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS a quarter to five on a Thursday afternoon and the entire staff of D’Amato Financiers, excluding Emma, seemed to be abuzz with excitement. As Emma walked back from a meeting with the manager of HR she could see make-up, slyly in some cases and blatantly in others, being applied at desks, and the general office area reeked of a clash of newly sprayed perfume. Even the guys were at it—appearing from the men’s room with a generous dash of newly applied hair product and a glint in their eyes as the end of the workday approached.
Thursday night in London, and it seemed everyone had plans.
Everyone except Emma.
She remembered with a pang when Thursday nights had heralded the start of the weekend. When Friday morning had been spent huddled around the coffee machine, dissecting the previous night.
She’d be lucky if she was out of here by seven and she had to visit her father and she had to be back here by six the next morning, to meet with Luca and then fly up for an eight-thirty a.m. meeting in Scotland.
Evelyn had had second thoughts—offering Emma the position the following day—and she had been in her dream job for six weeks now. And though it was still just that, a dream job, it was also extremely hard work—as Assistant Personal Assistant to Luca D’Amato, it wasn’t just her job title that took some explaining. Every minute of Luca’s time was valuable, Evelyn had explained on her first day. Beyond valuable, actually—which was why he had his own travel team, two assistants and looking for a third, four full-time drivers, in fact a whole fleet of staff that took care of the details and allowed Luca to get on with doing what he did best—rescuing struggling companies, turning them around and making an obscene amount of money in the process.
Emma’s job was varied, mostly exciting and yet also downright boring at times—dealing with his sister’s wedding, his dog, his housekeeper’s endless reams of days off. The list was endless.
Ducking into the ladies’ room, Emma knew she ought to attempt a quick repair job on her hair and face before she headed back to her office and to whatever mood Luca was in, but it took for ever to elbow her way to the mirror and her curly dark hair had spent too long in an air-conditioned building because it was looking decidedly frizzy. She borrowed a squirt of serum from a snooty-looking redhead, re-tied her hair back in a low ponytail and then, sick of the coffee on the top floor, she grabbed a hot chocolate and a bag of crisps from the vending machine then headed back up in the lift, knowing that in all likelihood this would double up as dinner.