Leah reeled in the vacuum cord with a sigh of relief. Her back was sore, her mouth dry, her tummy running on empty because she had not dared to stop to eat or drink. She was exhausted after working at top speed following a night during which she had only enjoyed snatches of sleep. The reward, however, was that she had pretty much completed the basic clean Pam had requested and now she could go home.
The door opened just as she lifted the vacuum cleaner and she froze, before noisily setting it down again, her oval face flushing from the intensity of Gio’s scrutiny. In casual cargo pants and an open-necked black shirt, he somehow contrived to look ridiculously sophisticated...and gorgeous. His lean bronzed features were classic from his high cheekbones, narrow masculine nose and sculpted mouth. He was undeniably sheer masculine perfection. And just that one look and she felt giddy.
‘I’ve fed Spike and made coffee,’ he informed her with a faint smile that turned his handsome mouth up at the corners and exuded an incredible amount of barefaced charm.
‘Thanks for Spike...but I’d already fed him. He’s a trickster. He always acts like he’s starving,’ she gabbled, her hand tightening on the cleaning box she still held. ‘Unfortunately, I was just about to go home—’
‘Give me ten minutes,’ Gio bargained. ‘There’s something I have to tell you.’
What on earth could he have to tell her? Oh, my goodness, was he about to confess that he had a girlfriend? Even worse, a wife? Her empty tummy hollowed out sickly. Was it weak of her to feel like telling him that she really didn’t want to know now that it was too late to change anything? Conscious of him on her heels, she stowed the cleaning box in the pantry and went back to retrieve the vacuum. She put away the vacuum, knowing that she just wanted to run but that that would be gauche, and she wasn’t still that immature, was she? Perspiration had broken out on her short upper lip as she returned to the kitchen, her car keys jangling in her pocket.
‘What’s the problem?’ Leah prompted stiffly.
Gio studied her, entranced by her beautiful eyes, the tumble of black curls surrounding her eloquent little face and the very bossy, purposeful bustle of her movements when she was working. Nothing was studied, nothing faked for glossy presentation or sex appeal. Everything about Leah was soreal, from the shadows below her eyes to her curvy, wondrous shape. There was nothing gym-honed about the softness of her against him either. A surge of intense lust hit him, disconcerting him with the speed of that renewal.
‘I don’t see why it should be a problem,’ Gio told her truthfully, for he had never heard a woman lament the discovery that her lover was a billionaire, ‘but, unfortunately, I wasn’t entirely frank with you when we first met last night.’
‘Frank?’Leah queried the word uncertainly.
‘I didn’t want things to be awkward, so I said that I worked for Gio Zanetti when, in fact, IamGiovanni Zanetti,’ Gio spelled out.
Leah’s tummy was churning, her skin turning clammy with shock. ‘You said your name was Gianni...’
‘That was true. Both Gio and Gianni are diminutives of Giovanni, although the latter name was only ever used by family,’ he conceded.
Leah had turned pale as death because she really couldn’t credit that this was happening to her again: a man lying to her about who and what he was. What was it about her? Did she have stupid, trusting fool stamped on her forehead?
‘You’re saying that you’re the... Gazillionaire?’ she almost whispered.
Gio was struggling to work out why Leah was looking at him in horror. It wasn’t embarrassment or annoyance. It was more like the response he might have expected had he announced that he was a serial killer. ‘Yes, but telling you that yesterday when I surprised you in the pool would have been more upsetting for you—’
‘No,’ Leah framed. ‘It would have been the truth.’
‘The truth isn’t always welcome,’ Gio countered without apology. ‘I would have had to read the Riot Act about you being in the pool.’
Leah parted bloodless lips. ‘Better that than lying to me. You let me think you were someone else and then you slept with me. That is unforgivable.’
‘I hope that you don’t mean that,’ Gio commented smoothly. ‘Once I had claimed to be an employee I was stuck with that story.’
‘Otherwise, I might not have slept with you,’ Leah suggested.
Pale eyes as bright as diamonds below a lush curtain of black lashes inspected her. ‘I don’t think that would have been an issue.’
‘I don’t like liars,’ Leah almost whispered, stepping past him to scoop up Spike from his position in the hallway. ‘I would never have spent the night with you if I had known you had lied to me.’
Gio frowned. ‘You’re making far too much of this. I saved us from an awkward moment with a harmless lie. At that stage I had no idea that we were going to end up in bed together and now I’ve come clean—’
Leah shot him a furious glance from her dark eyes. ‘It wasn’t harmless. You’re not the man I thought you were. There’s a huge chasm between who you are and who you pretended to be. I wouldn’t have got into bed with the Gazillionaire—’
‘I’m apologising!’ Gio broke in, his dark drawl raw-edged. ‘I am truly sorry that I misled you and I promise that I will not tell the smallest untruth from this minute forward.’
Spike tucked under her arm, her bag over her shoulder, Leah tugged open the back door. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. It was a one-night thing—’
‘I don’twantit to be.’
Leah spun back to him, volatile sparks in her angry gaze. ‘You accepted it last night...so youliedabout that as well?’
‘Most women aren’t offended when a man wants to spend more time in their company—’