Cathy Williams - The Italian Tycoon's Mistress

‘You’ll walk for three miles in uncomfortable shoes out of pride?’

‘Got it in one.’

She looked away and heard him laugh, a rich, full sound that made the nerves in her body come alive, but then he started the engine and pulled away while she dealt with her hammering heart with a stern dose of frozen silence.

‘I think you might just do it as well…’ Rocco murmured lazily. ‘Men don’t like that, you know…’

‘Don’t like what? Women who are prepared to walk now and again if it’s necessary? Or women who actually have one or two principles that they’re prepared to stand up for?’

‘Oh, hard-nosed women who like to be in control. Women who are so busy shouting and venting their spleen about what they believe in that they never take time out to listen to what other people have to say…’

‘Thanks. Thank you very much for that piece of advice. Coming from a man who doesn’t seem to have time to listen to what other people have to say, I’ll make sure that I take what you say on board.’

‘Of course,’ Rocco drawled, noticing with a twinge of regret that they were approaching the theatre, ‘those types of women tend to attract the same kind of man…’

‘Any point in me telling you that I’m not really the slightest bit interested in what you have to say on the subject?’

‘Weak men. Men who enjoy being bullied about and bossed around. Men who don’t mind being stood up continually.’

Amy waited until he had pulled over to the pavement and then turned to him. ‘I’ll roughly translate that into men who listen to what people try to say to them. Unlike you. You’ve written off what I do and my contribution to the company without even bothering to go into too many details. You took one look at the balance sheet and then decided that we just weren’t profitable and so had to be eliminated. If that’s the mark of a strong man, then, frankly, I think I prefer the weak ones.’ Amy was quite proud of this heartfelt speech. Her voice had been calm and composed and he would have to have been a mind-reading genius to guess at how angry she was at his uninvited generalisations made at her expense. If this was his idea of polite, non-work-oriented conversation, then she was surprised that he had a social life at all.

‘What details did you have in mind? There’s just so much one can do with a list of figures, most of them in the outgoing column.’

‘Well, you could come and see for yourself what we do!’ Amy opened the car door, stepped out of the car, then said, leaning into it, ‘Or are you one of these strong men who refuse to budge once they’ve made their minds up?’

Rocco had to hand it to her—she wasn’t going to take her medicine lying down. Naturally, she wouldn’t win. There were too many hard facts stacked up against her, whether she liked to believe it or not, but he was nothing if not fair. He would go and have a look at her little pet project and then no one would be able to accuse him of being bull-headed when he was regrettably forced to shut the enterprise down.

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