Seduced Into Her Boss's Service. Cathy Williams
been attracting their attention since the minute she had become a teenager and started to develop. When her mother had died from an overdose, leaving behind her eleven-year-old daughter, she had been fostered by a couple and had lived on her nerves, uncomfortable with her foster father’s leering eyes, terrified into locking her bedroom door every night although he’d stared but never touched.
At thirteen she had won a scholarship to an exclusive boarding school and, even there, she had been ostracised because of her remarkable looks. She was the cuckoo in the nest, out of her depth with girls who came from serious money, isolated because whenever boys happened to be around, they drooled over her.
She had hated every second of it all but the shell she had developed had protected her, had allowed her to ignore what couldn’t be changed.
Men were driven to look at her. She had learned to blank them out.
She had told herself that the guy for her would be one who would want her for her brain, for what she had to say, for her personality.
Except when, at university, that guy had come along, dear, sweet John, who had been kind and chivalrous and thoughtful; she just hadn’t been able to respond physically to him. That had been two years ago but it still hurt to think about it.
Had she, under the tough shell, been secretly searching for love? Had she longed for someone to ignite the sort of gentle romance she’d fantasised about in the deepest, darkest corners of her mind? Was that what had driven her to John, who had ticked all the right boxes as candidate for the Big Romance? If that had been the case, then she’d been way off mark and what she’d got hadn’t been a Big Romance, but yet another tough learning curve which had closed the doors, for good, on any stupid belief that she was destined for a happy-ever-after life with the perfect soulmate. John should have been the perfect soulmate and she should have wanted to touch him all the time. It hadn’t been that way at all. She’d concluded what she should have concluded a long time ago, which was that her background had irretrievably damaged her. She had moved on and accepted her lot.
So why was she all hot and bothered now? In the presence of a man like Stefano Gunn? Since when had she ever felt hot and bothered when some guy stared at her? Hadn’t she stopped being an idiot two years ago when she and John had ended their doomed relationship?
‘Flora didn’t want to play with...any of her expensive toys—’ she fought to remember that this was a very important client and swallowed down her natural instinct to be contemptuous ‘—so I gave her some work to do and she’s been doing it for the past three hours.’
‘Work?’ He drew her aside while Flora continued doing what she was doing with the highlighters and making a pointed show of disinterest in his arrival.
‘Not actual work,’ Sunny explained, shifting a few inches away from him in an attempt to ward off the disconcerting impact of his presence. ‘I photocopied some pages of one of my law books, Petersen versus Shaw, and asked her to read it and highlight the bits she thought were relevant to Petersen winning the case.’
‘You did...what?’
‘My apologies, Mr Gunn.’ She stiffened, automatically defensive. What else was she supposed to do? Magic up some Lego and play building games with her? Was that even what eight-year-old girls were interested in doing? ‘She said she was bored with whatever...games are on her iPad...or laptop...and I had a stack of work to get through...’
‘I’m not criticising you,’ Stefano said drily. ‘I’m expressing open-mouthed amazement that Flora was drawn into doing something like that.’
Sunny relaxed and stole a glance at his handsome face. His voice was deep and lazy, as velvety as the smoothest of chocolate and his bronzed colouring spoke of an exotically foreign gene pool. And she could breathe him in, a woody, clean, utterly masculine scent that made her senses swirl.
‘She’s more than welcome to take the little file back with her.’ She could feel the hot burn of an uncustomary blush. ‘It’s a historic case. I would never have given her anything that could have remotely been seen as sensitive information.’
‘What are you doing later?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ Her eyes flew to his face in consternation.
‘Later. What are you doing?’ The Savoy Grill would have to be put on hold. ‘I’d like to thank you for your impromptu babysitting by taking you out to dinner.’
‘There’s no need!’ Sunny was aghast at the thought of having dinner with him. She was aghast at the thought of doing anything with the man, aside from saying goodbye and never clapping eyes on him again. He did something to her that she didn’t like—something that made mincemeat of her nervous system—and for someone who valued her control that was tantamount to disastrous.
Stefano eyed her narrowly, taken aback by her horrified refusal.
‘I... I couldn’t.’ She backtracked from being outright rude. ‘I...happen to have a job that starts at six so I couldn’t possibly...and there’s really no need to thank me... All in a day’s work...’
‘A job?’ He frowned. ‘What job?’
‘I... I work four nights in a restaurant... Qualifying to be a lawyer costs money, Mr Gunn,’ she said bluntly. ‘I also have rent to pay and food to buy. What I earn here doesn’t quite stretch to cover it all.’
‘In which case,’ Stefano said smoothly, ‘have dinner with me. I have a proposition for you and I think you’ll find it...irresistible...’
SUNNY BARELY HAD time to make it home, change quickly and head out to the restaurant, which was just five minutes from where she lived and attracted an eclectic crowd of tourists and students because it was cheap, which appealed to the students, and trendy, which appealed to the tourists.
She had been lucky to get the job. The tips might not have been great because students were notoriously stingy when it came to that sort of thing, but the pay was better than average and the young couple who owned the place were generous, which meant that at the end of the week, if the takings had been particularly high, the staff were all given a small bonus over and above what they were paid.
Every penny went into Sunny’s savings.
She was out of breath by the time she flew into the kitchen to change at speed out of her jeans and T-shirt and into the uniform, which was a jazzy red number, trousers and a T-shirt with the restaurant logo printed in bold white across the front, and a cap. Sunny had no idea what the significance of the outfit was and neither did Tom and Claire. They had decided on it because, Claire had confided, giggling, it had been a cheap bulk buy and the punters had seemed to like it so they had stuck with it.
‘It’s going to be a busy one tonight...’ Claire was rushed off her feet. Tom was supervising in the kitchens, barking orders at the staff, and the other two waitresses were already zooming in and out, pinning orders to the cork board in the kitchen.
‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ Sunny apologised, stuffing her hair into the cap. ‘I got held up at work.’
‘No matter, darling. Go, go...go! Tom’s having a meltdown because the tuna delivery hasn’t arrived yet. You don’t want to get anywhere near him!’
The trickle of customers was fast becoming a flood and Sunny went into autodrive. She had been working at TWC Eaterie for eight months and she knew the ropes. Take orders, smile a lot, race between kitchen and tables, deliver the orders and as soon as one set of diners had finished eating, get the bill to them as fast as she could so that the table could be cleared, making way for another lot to sit down. Sometimes, if the customers seemed to be dawdling a little too much over their coffees, Claire would turn up the volume on the music, just a notch, and that always seemed to remind them that it was time to go.
Sunny had her patch and she could work the tables blindfold. She chatted without really