Kate Hardy - His Forbidden Conquest

‘No, I’m not. But I do like reading.’ She paused. ‘You?’

‘I read the business news. Usually online.’

She was still no closer to finding out how he let off steam. ‘OK, I give up. What do you do for fun?’

‘Sometimes I go out on the bike.’

‘And that’s it ?’

He leaned closer. ‘And sometimes I have sex with a gorgeous blonde. Fairly incredible sex, actually.’

She could feel her face going beetroot, and he spread his hands and laughed. ‘Hey. Don’t complain. You asked.’

‘So I’m your main leisure activity?’

‘At the moment, I guess so.’

She frowned. ‘You don’t ever go dancing?’

‘Do I look like a man who dances?’

He looked like the kind of man who’d dance an incredibly sexy tango, one that would leave her wet and panting for him. Not that she was going to tell him that. ‘Let’s give it a try. Will you go out with me on Saturday night?’

‘Dancing? Sorry, Princess, not my scene.’

‘How do you know? You’ve never been dancing with me. It’ll be fun.’ She tipped her head to one side and gave him her most winsome smile. ‘Come with me.’

‘I’d rather not.’ He pulled a face. ‘I hate dancing.’

She sighed. ‘You’re the one who says we don’t understand each other. If you come with me, see what I do for fun, then maybe you’ll understand a bit better what makes me tick.’

‘I understand you already.’

‘No, you don’t. You just think you do. The same as I know that whenever I think I’ve worked you out, I’m going to find out there’s yet another layer.’

‘Now you’re calling me an onion?’

‘No. Just complex.’ She kissed him lightly. ‘Come with me, Dante. We’ll have a good time. If you really hate it, we don’t have to stay.’ She gave him her sexiest pout. ‘Don’t you want to get hot and sweaty with me?’

‘I can think of better ways,’ he said.

‘Trust me, it’ll be a lot more fun than you think.’ She licked her lower lip. ‘I guarantee you’ll like my dress. And my shoes.’ She could see in his face that he was looking for excuses. ‘Saturday night is mentor night,’ she reminded him. ‘Only, this time, I’ll be mentoring you.’

He frowned. ‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m mentoring you in having fun. In understanding me. In what makes me tick.’

Dante thought about it. He didn’t need to know what made her tick. That was nothing to do with the mentoring arrangement—or the fact they still couldn’t be in the same room as each other for long without needing to rip each other’s clothes off. But he still didn’t want any emotional involvement. Still couldn’t handle it.

‘Please, Dante. I’ve been working really hard. I’d like an evening off.’ She paused. ‘And you work harder than I do.’

He shrugged at the implication. ‘I don’t need time off.’ ‘Just an hour. That’s all,’ she said. ‘Please?’ It was hard to resist the appeal in those blue, blue eyes. He sighed. ‘This is against my better judgement,’ he said, ‘but OK. Not this Saturday—next week.’

It was a compromise. And she’d take it. ‘Thank you.’ She slid her arms round him and held him close. ‘I promise you won’t regret it.’

‘So how did you get on with the figures?’ Dante asked on the Saturday night.

‘I’m still waiting for some of the quotes. But I did look at the variable costs.’ She paused. ‘And something’s wrong there.’

‘Come and sit down, and we’ll take a look at it.’ He drew another chair round to his side of the desk.

‘If I’m selling less ice cream, that means I don’t have to make so much of it in the first place, so I should be using fewer ingredients—right?’

‘That should be how it works, yes.’

‘But I’m not. If anything, according to the invoices, I’m using more.’

He frowned. ‘Are you sure?’

She nodded. ‘And I can’t see a reason for it. I don’t want to worry Nonno in case it sets off his angina. I guess I should ask Emilio Mancuso, seeing as he’s been manager for the last five years.’ She sighed. ‘The last time I asked him something, he told me not to worry my pretty little head about it.’

‘What an idiot.’ Dante gave her a wry smile. ‘Did you accidentally-on-purpose stand on his foot—in your sharpest heels?’

‘I wanted to,’ she admitted, ‘but I resisted the impulse. I can see why he doesn’t like me. He’s been running everything for five years, then I waltz in from London and take over, when I know next to nothing about the business. It’s kind of a slap in the face to him, and I need to take his feelings into consideration when I deal with him.’

‘Understanding your staff always helps.’ Dante raised an eyebrow. ‘But he doesn’t know you at all, does he?’

She frowned. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Because if he did, he’d realise you’re here to stay. So he should be working with you and making himself your right-hand man, instead of putting obstacles in your way. Mentoring you to make sure all the work he’s put in isn’t all undone.’

She grimaced. ‘I already told you, I couldn’t ask him to be my mentor.’

‘Because you don’t trust him?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about him. Whether it’s the fact he resents me for swanning in, or I resent him for being there for my grandparents when I should’ve been there … I don’t know. And I feel so bad saying that.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t know what to do, Dante. And I hate that.’

‘Bide your time,’ he said. ‘Don’t rush into anything. Gather all your facts, first, look at them, and then you can make an informed decision. But don’t rush it.’

ON TUESDAY morning, Carenza was working through a set of figures when an unexpected visitor arrived.

‘Nonno!’ She threw her arms round her grandfather. ‘Come and sit down.’

It felt slightly odd to be the one behind the desk she’d visited her grandfather sitting at during her childhood, but he didn’t seem to mind.

‘I see you’ve made changes to the artwork in the office,’ Gino said with a smile.

‘It’s one of the three pictures I brought back from Amy’s. The other two are upstairs in my flat.’

‘It’s …’ He was clearly searching for a diplomatic word. ‘Bright.’

Dante had been much less tactful in his reaction. Especially when she’d suggested using prints of the artist’s work in the shops and the ice cream caffè .

‘Sorry, Nonno. It’s your office. I shouldn’t be making changes.’ She bit her lip.

‘ Tesoro , it’s your office now. You arrange it however you like.’ Though there was a slight trace of worry in his voice when he asked, ‘Is that what you had in mind when you said you were changing the pictures on the walls in the shops?’

Not after Dante’s comments, it wasn’t. ‘No. But we’ve been here for over a hundred years. It’s our USP, really, that I’m the fifth generation of Toniellis to run the shops. So I thought it might be nice for our customers to see photographs of how things used to be when the business first started.’

Gino looked pleased. ‘That’s a good idea.’

‘So I thought maybe you, Nonna and I could look through all the old photos, some time soon, and pick the ones we like best. Starting with your great-grandfather.’ She paused. ‘And including Papa.’

‘Including Pietro.’ There was a suspicious sheen in his eyes. She knew exactly how he felt. Every time she thought of her parents, it made her catch her breath and her eyes feel moist, too. Ridiculous, after all this time. She’d spent much more of her life without them than with them. Three-quarters of it, if you were counting. But she still missed them.