But it hadn’t stopped her thinking about him. In the four weeks since the fashion show she hadn’t been able to forget him. During tedious shoots, holding her poses while photographers argued with stylists, his image—those amazing Latin looks, his dark, long-lashed eyes, his sculpted mouth—had constantly made its way into her head as she’d replayed her encounter with him. Replays laced, she knew, with something she had to admit was very much like regret...
Well, it was too late if so—he’d made no attempt to contact her again. Although he knew where she lived, and it would be easy enough for him to find out her name from her agency via the fashion house he was an investor in. But he hadn’t.
A man that gorgeous—and that rich!—won’t have to hang around waiting for a woman to say yes to him...
No, she’d missed her chance with him—and maybe that was just as well, given her unrelenting workload.
Wearily, Lana got out her phone and checked her appointments for the next day. Work: that was her priority—her sole agenda.
Nothing else.
And certainly not some drop-dead gorgeous Italian whom she would never see again...
Salvatore paced to the window of his serviced office suite in the City, from where he conducted his London business. He frowned. What he was contemplating right now was not business—
More like insanity!
He shook his head. No, it was not insanity! It was very real, very practical, and the more he went through the advantages, the more sense it made. Since making that impulsive, even desperate announcement to Roberto, to stop the damn man in his tracks—which it had, totally effectively—he’d gone through all the arguments, pros and cons, exhaustively, in a ruthlessly rational fashion. And he had come to one conclusion only. The cons could be limited—and managed—while the pros...
He felt a kick to his system. There was one very definite pro. And it had nothing to do with getting Giavanna and her father off his case and everything to do with the woman he had quite simply been unable to get out of his system. Just why, he still could not account for. It had been over a month since the fashion show, and surely that was time enough to forget all about her? Yet he hadn’t.
And now—
The phone on his desk rang and he snatched it up.
She was here.
Lana followed the svelte secretary from the outer office of this very upmarket office suite in the City, still with no idea what she was turning up for. The brass plate at the entrance had simply said Luchesi SpA.Was it some Italian fashion house she’d never heard of?
As the secretary shut the door behind her, she took in a large space with a lush dove-grey carpet, a pair of grey leather sofas and a huge mahogany desk—behind which someone was sitting.
She stopped dead, an audible exclamation breaking from her.
It was the drop-dead, lethal-looking Italian money man. The man she’d turned down for dinner—and anything else! The man whose image she had not been able to get out of her head—now here, right here in front of her.
He was getting to his feet. ‘Thank you for coming. Won’t you sit down?’
He indicated a leather and chrome chair in front of his desk, then resumed his own. Dark eyes rested on her, as unreadable as his expression, but still she was all too aware of their magnetic effect on her. She hadn’t set eyes on him for weeks, but he still had an instant impact on her that she had never experienced before. She could feel her heart-rate increase, but managed, through long schooling, to keep her expression composed and inexpressive, saying nothing yet.
For a moment he just rested his gaze on her, giving nothing away but, she thought, both assessing her and taking stock. His manner, it dawned on her, was quite different from his relaxed demeanour at their first encounter. Now it was formal—businesslike.
Thoughts, confused and hectic, flashed through her mind.
Just what is going on?Because whatever it is, this isn’t a casting!
‘Before we proceed,’ he was saying now, his English accented, as she remembered it, and the low timbre of his voice having the same effect on her now as it had that evening after the fashion show, ‘I must ask you to sign this.’
He withdrew a piece of A4 paper from a leather folder on his desk, placed it in front of her. Lana’s eyes dropped to it.
‘It’s an NDA—a non-disclosure agreement,’ she was informed. ‘What I am about to say to you must remain between ourselves only.’
Her eyes went from the paper to him, but his expression was still unreadable. She leant forward to skim-read the document—which did, indeed, seem to be nothing more drastic than an undertaking, legally binding, by her to make no reference in any way to any person or organisation or representative thereof, to any part or the whole of the content of the discourse about to take place, today or subsequently at any time, via any media, whether voice, written or electronic, et cetera, et cetera.
Her gaze went back to him. This was so different from their first encounter she could not make sense of it.
‘Look, signor—’ She halted, realising, with a start, that she had no idea who he was.
‘Luchesi,’ he supplied. ‘Salvatore Luchesi.’