Mills & Boon Stars Collection: Sinful Proposals: Seduced into Her Boss's Service / Wearing the De Angelis Ring / The Surprise De Angelis Baby. CATHY WILLIAMS
she’ll find out and sack you?’
‘We’re not going to be sleeping together!’
But they were. Stefano could read the conflict inside her as if it had been written in neon lettering across her forehead and he felt a kick of pure masculine triumph.
Was this just about winning? He’d never thought of sex in those terms. But, then again, he’d never met a woman who hadn’t been eager and willing to fall into bed with him...
‘I won’t tell if you don’t...’ he murmured.
Sunny wondered whether he’d just heard what she’d said. His rampant self-confidence was a treacherous turn-on even though she should have found it repellent. She tilted her chin defiantly. ‘It’s not about whether Katherine finds out...it’s just that I wouldn’t want to step on any toes...’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The rumour mill has it that the only reason the company got your business was because of Katherine...’
‘Is that a fact...?’
‘I don’t suppose I should be telling you any of this, but I just want to make you see why this is crazy and why...well...why...’
‘Now you’ve started telling me...what it is that you shouldn’t be telling me...perhaps you should finish... What about Katherine? What’s that rumour mill been saying?’
Hoist by my own petard, was what sprang to Sunny’s mind. She hated gossip and yet here she was, repeating it. She couldn’t even pretend that it was illuminating work-related gossip, gossip that Stefano might find useful or that he needed to know.
It was cheap tabloid gossip and she cringed with shame but he was looking at her narrowly, waiting for her to carry on. She couldn’t suddenly change the subject and start talking about the weather or the state of the economy.
‘I don’t usually listen to gossip—I don’t—but it’s been impossible to get away from. The minute everyone found out that you were going to be using Marshall, Jones and Jones, the speculation began because...it’s new on the scene and it’s small. It’s not one of the top five...which is where...you know, one might assume...well...’ She heard herself tripping over her words and she took a deep breath because now that she’d started this stupid, idiotic story she was committed to finish it.
‘One might indeed...’ Stefano murmured. He had no time for gossip and even less time for people who had nothing better to do than to spread it but he found the agonising discomfort on her face made her seem impossibly young and vulnerable, especially because she was desperately trying to keep her cool.
He also believed her when she said that she didn’t usually listen to gossip. Where two or more people were gathered, gossip became an inevitability and, in a work environment, it was almost impossible to escape it.
Unless, of course, you happened to live in an ivory tower, which, as the head of his sprawling empire, he more or less did.
‘So the rumour started that...that...perhaps Katherine was at the heart of it...’
Stefano raised his eyebrows, amazed that wagging tongues could have struck jackpot with nothing to go on but pure speculation. ‘Explain,’ he said with undisguised curiosity.
Sunny allowed herself a little sigh of relief because at least he wasn’t storming around the kitchen, threatening to have her sacked because since when was it part of her job description to gossip to the guy who would be bringing tens of thousands of pounds’ worth of business to their company.
‘Katherine’s very beautiful and someone came to the conclusion that you might have handed some work to the company as a way of...of...of...’
‘Shall I help you along with this?’
Sunny stared at him miserably. She wanted to tell him that that someone who had come to conclusions hadn’t been her. She had no idea whether the conclusions were right or wrong, but she hated the thought that he might end up being contemptuous of her. Too much protesting of her innocence, however, would surely end up not ringing true.
‘You think,’ Stefano said helpfully, ‘that I wanted to climb into bed with the very beautiful Katherine and my method of getting her to go along with that was via bringing business to the company...’
‘Stupid,’ Sunny muttered, mortified.
‘A little insulting,’ Stefano mused. He thought his mother might have been highly entertained at what her machinations had instigated. ‘I mean,’ he said softly, ‘don’t you think that I might, just might, be perfectly capable of wooing the very beautiful Katherine without having to exert a bribe...?’
‘I have no idea how that rumour started.’ She tried not to fidget in her acute discomfort.
How on earth had they got to this point anyway? It wasn’t as though she was going to jump in the sack with him! And yet, if that were the case, shouldn’t she just have laughed off his crazy proposition and headed for the door?
It was what any normal, disinterested and frankly appalled person might have done...
Perhaps not appalled, she mentally amended. Who would be appalled at having a pass made at them by Stefano Gunn? He was sex on legs and probably the most eligible bachelor in the country, if not on the planet.
‘Although...’ he stood up, flexed his muscles and paced the kitchen, finally pouring them both another glass of wine ‘... I’ll admit there’s a certain amount of truth behind the rumour so whoever started it must have heard something...’
Sunny felt her insides plummet. She had been shocked when he had told her that he fancied her and she knew that she must have played with the idea of sleeping with him, must have entertained the wicked thought in some small corner of her mind, because to hear him now confirm that Katherine had been the draw for him made her feel slightly queasy.
Had she turned him down? And had his eyes wandered a little further afield until they had alighted on her?
‘It’s none of my business,’ she said crisply, standing up so that he got the message that she was leaving.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Home. It’s late.’
‘I don’t want you to go.’
‘Tough.’
‘Do you?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Want to go?’ He watched her as she hovered by the door, saw the flicker of indecision on her face, saw the way she took a deep breath, as though steeling herself to clear off. ‘I would never make a pass at a woman and then, if I happen to get rejected, scout around for someone else to pick up the slack. I’m not that superficial, Sunny. I don’t want Katherine, however beautiful and capable she might be. And I’ll tell you something for free...shall I?’
‘What?’ He didn’t want Katherine. He didn’t fancy her. Relief shot through her and in that moment she knew that she wanted him, that it didn’t make sense, not at all, but something in her wanted him and that something was far more powerful than the neat, tidy part of her brain that was telling her not to be a fool.
‘What I’m doing right now,’ Stefano drawled, his deep, velvety voice curling around her with the seductiveness of the richest, darkest, smoothest chocolate, ‘is not what I usually do. I don’t usually make passes at women. I don’t usually lay my cards on the table and try to persuade a woman to share my bed. But something about you...’
Sunny was beginning to feel faint. ‘If you don’t fancy Katherine, then what did you mean when you said that there was truth to the rumour...?’ She was struggling to think straight because all of a sudden her head was filled with the most erotic images, images that had never formed a part of her life at all. Images of her making love...giving in with wild abandon to a deep vein of passion she had never known existed in her.
Stefano